Story Search

For Daniel it was a stressful trip, teeth gritting as he tries his hardest not to speak. Every attempt at even the slightest comment, from pointing out a clear path to asking about the types of flowers just came out as another riddle. Infuriating, unfathomable, and made even worse by the fact he cou

6:160 They offer to lend a ride by Arbon

It was a quiet day as the sun rose higher, too hot to risk taking off. Daniel managed to scarf down three more sticks full of steak before the campers had to declare he’d pretty much cleared away their supply of fresh meat. While the sphinx was still hungry, there wasn’t really room to complain.

6:159 No one believes it. by Arbon

“Ah, I see.” Charley strokes his chin, looking like someone pretending to be thoughtful without actually putting effort into thinking.

“Not a very long story then.” Angel seems almost disappointed.

“I told you it wasn’t. Most of my life was spent as a human, see?

6:158 A different way to get iron. by Arbon

A different scent wafts into the air now, causing Daniel’s head to turn at the familiar aroma. Angel had a rather large slab of steak in her hands now, abruptly speared onto the metal stick. Then she reaches for a second, and a third, and yet more until it was a ridiculously sized kebab with more

6:157 Conversation by Arbon

“How many other days have you seen one?” the question sparked into Daniel’s mind.

“Never, duh.” Angel replied with a roll of her eyes.

“Well, as interesting a hypothesis as it might be to contemplate I assume if there were a great number of your kind roaming the

6:156 Meet the campers by Arbon

Another loop, having made up his mind Daniel chooses to come in for a landing. Wings flutter harshly despite the strain, his speed comes to a dead stall. By the time he’s reached the group for this third run he’s approaching from the opposite direction. The girl has moved away from the bags and

1:1107 Change your shape. by ouroboros666

Becoming the Sphinx is harder than your body recalls it- the muscle remembering, the mind hesitating, and both of you fearing to take up again a shape that was lost. But the change is a song- a high octave of release- as it shudders through you.

Your spine shivers as if brushed without w

1:1110 Turn left by ouroboros666

You turn left, driving a silver-spiked palm into the rough wall for purchase, leaning and lurching like a sleepwalker- one leg grotesquely swollen, as if silver is the gout in it, angular grains and crystalline shards silting the heavy joints, the other withered on its bone, tender. You fumble upwar

1:1111 Turn Right by ouroboros666

You turn right, all the silver you own flicking out in a liquid pocketknife that curls slow around your neck and only dimples the skin with the soft pressure of a child’s breath. The song of silver, rushing in your head, only picks up new notes as you reach a guardroom, kill two of your jailors wi

1:1105 You don by ouroboros666

You know this man for your jailer, and a hatred as wild as howling spills through you as you recall some of what was. Yes- you, imprisoned for steering dappled yearling goats and soft-headed sheep from the fringes of their pasture as wolf, sometimes cattle as bear or lioness- burnt from your manse i

1:1106 A passphrase comes to mind. by ouroboros666

The memory strikes you: the first scalding breath of air to revive a drowning man.

“Men grip a snake’s tail,” you say, still feeling the words stamp over and over your tongue.

“A changer has none,” comes the reply, the past echoing through it in harmony with its own

6:155 Spotted a campfire by Arbon

Whoosh! Zhoom! Faster and faster until the ground appeared before him and all was green and brown and blue, save this time with a speck of orange and a trailing smoke from somewhere to the far left. Daniel couldn’t see anything resembling a city but he did spot a road a bit to the right, looping

1:1108 You recognise him. by ouroboros666

The dull strands of his hair part a little as the two of you breathe the same air, revealing the fringes of white puckers, symmetrical across both cheeks. If you were to touch those cheeks and push back the locks that capture them, you know you would see pale craters of scar tissue where some long b

1:1109 Go insane. by ouroboros666

You let the silver take you. Borne high and rising on the hurting tide of it, you slip the shackles of your mind at least, though some dim awareness, some silver-locked little prism of thought that does not go, sings out to the surging silver seas that the body they claim is manacled. Pinioned. Even

1:1104 Make a racket. You need to find out your circumstances, and perhaps someone will hear. by ouroboros666

You thrash every part of you that will bend and snap, crying out without words and hurling your body back against the wall, using the give of your spine. The pain is nothing to what haloes the silver plate in your forehead.

There are footsteps, just audible beyond the roaring of blood an

1:1103 Change shape by ouroboros666

Your spine cramps and a feeling of tearing fires along it, like stitches being ripped from thin fabric: it jerks back on itself with a sudden give, dog-legging, and you fall to the flagstones. Thin spears of sensation pierce you above your pelvis as the bones compress, and the long lines of your leg

1:1102 Seize a cleaver by ouroboros666

You feel for the knife block on the counter to your left, closing your fingers around a thick handle and pulling. How much can the Canny see? You jolt just slightly when the weight of the cleaver settles to the end of your arm.

In a split second, you have thrown yourself over the counter

1:1101 Turn Left by ouroboros666

You turn left, the ice in your bones keeping you steady and numbing your feet enough that you can walk. You let the knowing muscles bunch in your thighs and calves, carrying you from shadow to shade as if you were a dancer in another life. But dancers have the luck of the devil, and perhaps a dancer

6:154 Lost among the clouds by Arbon

Where was it? He couldn’t see the road anymore, it was just trees and grass and clouds all around. His head swiveling back and forth while his movement was smooth and strait. In theory it was just a matter of gliding forward until he spotted something, but looking far ahead in the dir

1:1100 Turn Right by ouroboros666

You turn right and limp down the corridor, on two feet at first but then on four, giving the beast its head as the human turns in on itself and shudders. Your man’s nature recoils as you pull yourself forward on your bleeding elbows and knees, head low as if you beg an omnipresent spirit to heal y