Professor Ornery Dragon

Looming silently over the landscape for thousands of years, the standing stones had puzzled scholars and archaeologists, both amateur and professional, for as long as anyone in Plainstone could remember. It was clear the town had been named for the stones, but how they got there, who put them there, and what they meant was a puzzle. The circle stood about five miles outside of town and was a popular spot among local teenagers to get away from their parents. As was common among teenagers, it never occurred to them that their parents had done the same thing.

Continue reading “MOTE Prompt: Rings of Stone”

Jason pulled the collar of his jacket up and hunched his shoulders in a vain attempt to keep his ears warm. He should have brought a hat, but if he ran home to get it now, he’d miss his train and be late for work. The day was grey and cloudy, but he didn’t remember the weather report saying anything about it being this cold. He glanced around at the crowd streaming down the sidewalk. Nobody else seemed bothered by the wind and the cold. Jason shook his head. He thought he was pretty well acclimated but maybe not.

Continue reading “MOTE Prompt: Tea and a Proposal”

Bettina stared at the cat sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. She shifted right and the cat followed. Shifted left, same result. Frustrated, Bettina put her hands on her hips and stared at the stoic feline. She flexed her knees and jumped left before stepping to the right. The cat stayed with her.

Continue reading “MOTE Prompt: Finding a Home”

I stood on the river’s edge and stared at the roiling water. Clearly, I was not going to swim across this. I was a good swimmer, but a flood-swollen river was more than I could handle. I guess I was making the trek downriver to the ferry I knew was a half mile away. I’d hoped to avoid the ferry and the contact with someone who could possibly report seeing me to the Guardians, but there was no help for it.

Continue reading “River Crossing”

She stared at the screen and sighed. She’d expected this, but having it in writing, staring at her, the blinking cursor waiting for her response, made it all come crashing down around her. It was an impossible dilemma… what one of the old women back home had called being “between a rock and a hard place.”

Continue reading “Between a Rock and a Hard Place”

What the hell was going on? We had landed with no problems. The previous host had easily sent us on our way and the group commander was aware of our intended target. But now that we’d landed, it was almost impossible to move away from the landing sight. Under ordinary – well, for some values of ordinary – circumstances we should have been able to set up a base camp at the landing site and then almost immediately move out to explore the near in area before sending out larger groups of colonists into the further reaches of the new host.

Continue reading “A Living Prison”