The Ocean Just Gets Me, Chapter 3 I count the days by the number of times Mom asks me to come eat. Sometimes I do—when Dad is out for a football game, when even I can’t ignore my hunger—but mostly I don’t eat. I hear them arguing through the walls again. “She’s always not hungry,” […]
Aethloft, Chapter 1 The Silver Lark glided through the aether, its polished hull gleaming under the magenta sky. Below, the desert realm of Vash’kara stretched vast and empty, a golden expanse broken only by jagged rock formations and the occasional ruin half-swallowed by shifting sands. In the distance, the ice mountain loomed, the Sleeper’s Veil […]
Mostly Harmless Magic, Chapter 1 The town of Bramblehook was tiny compared to the Capital, yet still she was lost. Rue’s pointed ears poked out through a frizzy tangle of hair as she dragged her cart over another bump in the road. Plant cuttings tumbled over books, and both nearly tumbled over her. The town […]
Aetherloft, Prologue The desert night howled like an offended god, wind shrieking through the Qirathi camp, slapping loose tent flaps and rattling bone charms that hung from wooden poles. In the center of a large group of tents, Elder Zahrek sat before a low-burning fire, his fur bristling from the cold—or possibly from the weight […]
What happens when humans try to tame the wild? 🤔 In this book review & analysis, we dive deep into Zane Grey’s classic Western novel, Wildfire, where a fiery mustang gallops through themes of freedom, love, sacrifice, and survival. Join Xynara & VORT, a curious alien and her robot companion, as they explore! 🔍 What […]
Who was Lord Dunsany, the forgotten architect of fantasy? In this episode, Xynara and VORT dive into the life and legacy of the man who shaped myth-making as we know it. From his aristocratic origins to his far-reaching influence on Tolkien and Lovecraft, we unravel the tale of a dreamer who built a kingdom of […]
The Ocean Just Gets Me, Chapter 2 Time slips through my fingers like water. I spend it in my room like I always do: forums, the game, forums, the game, sleep, repeat. Every moment is like the last… Until one night when Mom asks me to come eat with her and Dad in the dining […]
The Ocean Just Gets Me, Chapter 1 The walls in this house are paper thin. Their voices seep through the plaster like rain dripping from a cracked roof. I lie in bed and let the words soak into me, cold and familiar. “She can’t keep living like this,” Dad says. His voice is low, even, […]
The next day, Juniper sat at her desk glaring at her monitor as if sheer willpower could conjure up a legitimate excuse to bail on the assignment. She had just turned in the draft of her first article about the round of speed dating she had endured the night before. Snowflakes and Soulmates. Just saying […]
Juniper Carver stormed into her editor’s office, her heels clicking against the linoleum like tiny gavel strikes. “Max, tell me you’re joking,” she said, dropping a stapled memo onto his cluttered desk. “Snowflakes and Soulmates? Seriously?”
Max Stevens, a middle-aged man with a coffee-stained tie and the air of someone who’d been in the newspaper business long enough to lose the sparkle of idealism, didn’t even look up. He clicked his pen twice, underlining something on a manuscript. “Nice to see you, too. How’s the holiday season treating you?”
Aetherloft 