First Contact of the Merafel; Part three (finale)




“This will not stand” the first queen hissed, her antennae twitching in agitation as she considered the round room the queens settled in. Simple perhaps, but a place of practicality… Seven seats, built to blueprint by their mera in the deepest cavern of the colony. Two seats were empty. “This has ceased to be a matter of efficiency and best use… th

First contact of the Merafel Part 2

The fourth queen, Eradel moved with practiced caution around her laboratory, clawed forelimbs touching at the machines, tweaking settings, checking the readings, humming a little to herself as her antennae idly twitched to the faint traces of chemical chatter in the air. Not for the first time she looked back to her abdomen, checking she wouldn’t knock anything over as she turned to move to a new section of the underground worksh

First Contact of the Merafel




The crackle of gunfire lit the night, a flurry of the small scaled winged things that colonised the planet’s trees taking wing and scattering. But then the night was still again.

“Geez… gave me a heart attack” One shadow in the darkened trees murmured, eyes cast to the direction of his companion’s fire “eww…”

Grackle; Ralin’s Final Stand




“Damn it!” Ralin couldn’t help but waste breath on the curse as he felt the change of air pressure… a moment before he wove to the side, dragon jaws snapping shut where he had been. Still… as the head retreated, he caught the faintest sound of a rumble… Grackle was playing with his food… the dragon was confident this time… not without reason.

One wild field trip




“I thought you’d be more excited, Blue”

The sorority girl turned her bored eyes from the flicking scenery outside their bus to shoot her, current boyfriend a look. He just shrugged and resumed chatting with his friends across the aisle. Blue sighed, bored, and looked back outside. The trip his fraternity and her sorority were taking had sounded exciting, at first. Ta

Ralin stirred the stew on his pot with a certain intensity. It took all his effort to think about the food. Certainly, he was concerned with it burning, the hearty stew was a relative luxury, but that wasn’t the main reason. He was trying not to think about Grackle.

Since the day he had escaped the dragon by throwing an itching powder he’d ground together from the irritating feathery barbs of a particular seed pod over its muzzle, Grackle had been pursuing hi

He was cursed. It was as simple as
that. He knew it; his family had known it, as had his village. He
didn’t know what he’d done to whom to earn his curse, but it was
upon him all the same. He had a name for his curse, he called it
Grackle.
The day began all too familiarly.
Ralin shot from his tent, into the wider camp as all hell was
breaking loose. In the chaos tents had been trampled, the embers of a
fire pit were beginning to play along the strewn fabric, fellow
travellers and wanderers w

Good Draggy! By DrakeZephyr
(with a fair bit of dialogue done by
Sprout!)
It was a hot sun that beat down upon
the lone human as he made his way along the faintly beaten track. It
was a track beaten only by his feet, a short distance from the local
woods, and a couple of days on foot from the nearest settlement. A
solitary life, but a free one.
The young man was Ochys, and though
sometimes his lonely existence did wear on that flickering instinct
to socialise the lack of the stresses and strains

There were many lands humans feared
to tread, most with good reason. Of course, such fear was often found
in age alongside wisdom. The young did not always find this wisdom
soon enough, and though almost all did feel fear of course, the
magnitude was key. Even those blessed with a talent for magic were
hardly save to venture far, into lands where dragons lived, or worse,
creatures with whom there was no chance of survival. Dragons were
distinct, in that on rare occasion, perhaps every few centu

Within ancient forests, with trees
so high and unswayed by time, storm and hand of people, that high
dominating boughs seal the light away, leaving nothing to grow in
their deathly halls, nothing but the spiring pillars of the trees
holding the immovable ceiling. In those deepest depths, rested a
distant denizen as untouched by the light as the ground that held his
burrow.
In the centre of those woods, rested
the corpse of a once great tree, like those that remained, but had
grown too large, and

The rays of the early morning fell
over the marketplace, as the first stirrings of the day began. Stores
were opening their doors to the few overeager customers that awaited
them. By the large doors of the city’s grandest emporium of
furniture, the new day’s merchandise was being carried inside, the
workers largely grumbling about the unwieldy packages they had to
lift when it was this shop that needed filling, but, there was one
whose mind was elsewhere, so enthralled that he didn’t even

In a small vale, below rolling
mountains, the morning light spread over small nest of homes, a
little village, with a population largely untouched by time. A simple
community, with their set ways, and contentment with that. Such was
the mind of all, but one.
Amanda gazed off to the clear skies
of the day, tucked away in the highest place in the village with only
gentle thoughts for company. Her perch was the loft of a small
storehouse the village used over the winter, a hole in the roof
giving h

Along a dusty, barely trodden path
that rose up the mountains, faint winds blew their lonesome whistles
through the rocky passages, sweeping over a lone moving shape that
progressed slowly up towards the top of the crag. The light of the
setting sun gave the already reddened stone a fiery glow, and
certainly, the unusual creature that climbed each weary step felt a
heat underpaw, the rocky path he walked reaching the highest reaches,
where he knew the sunlight struck in the peak of the day. That

Wake of the Golden Moon: for
dragon_lady
Eyes reflecting the vibrant sheen of
the moonlight, the couple darted through the thick brush just above
the vast beachfront, the many small branches of the thick, gnarly
bushes scraped along them as they went, but neither dwelled on that,
for on this eve such menial things were of no consequence to them, a
host of cuts could heal, but the activities of the night may never
happen again. For, high above, radiating over the sands and the pair,
was a golden

The almost sickly sweet scents of
pine wafted gently over a secluded little clearing. Tender chirpings
of courting birds as several spun in the skies, chasing. On the rocky
outcropping responsible for the break in the trees, resting against
the luxuriously heated stone, was the local lord of the woodland. The
ebony tinted dragon purred gently, sprawled on a sated belly, with
stones roasted to perfection by the midday sun. The dark scaled
dragon’s deep black scales absorbed the lowering sun, wi

Leaves and delicate branches swept
through Emily’s wild hair, throwing it further into disarray, but
she didn’t care, only one thing had her attention, her love, his
hand clutching hers eagerly, but with a subtle tenderness, one only
she could feel in his grip, that touch was hers alone. The village
disappeared further and further behind them, its prying eyes unable
to see them now, so far away from all they knew. A small clearing
beckoned, and they stopped, both panting, chests heaving from

Leaves and delicate branches swept
through Emily’s wild hair, throwing it further into disarray, but
she didn’t care, only one thing had her attention, her love, his
hand clutching hers eagerly, but with a subtle tenderness, one only
she could feel in his grip, that touch was hers alone. The village
disappeared further and further behind them, its prying eyes unable
to see them now, so far away from all they knew. A small clearing
beckoned, and they stopped, both panting, chests heaving from

The sun was setting
as Kenneth made his way home, shifting a bag from hand to hand as the
weight began to bother him. He had stopped off at the pet shop on his
way home from work, he knew he had to get home quickly; his dog
needed feeding, after all. He grumbled slightly as he paused, leaning
on a nearby wall, on the edge of the town park. It was sobering to
heft dog food about, it reminded him just how much his dog got
through, and Xavier wasn’t even a particularly large dog.
The bag sagged a