xWritersUtopiax

It starts, as many things do metaphorically and very few things do literally, with an avalanche. This is both. * * * * * * * * * * * * * Lin Long Dau is born with the last star on the coldest night of the coldest winter in Undisian living memory. The fire flickers, on the verge of death, as a chill wind blows through walls of aged stone. Inside, the people shiver, and Lin begins to cry with weak, peculiar sounds, his skin cast with unnatural pallor, tinged with blue. The baby’s discomfort alarms the attendants, and the family exchanges nervous looks. Only the mother speaks. “Give him to me,” she says to the father, in wh

There were certain dates and anniversaries that he couldn’t forget; days that were too deeply marred by regret to be forgotten. The mind behind every different face still seemed to fall back upon the dark memories of a certain time. He could even still remember his childhood, those days of growing up on Gallifrey, despite how long ago it had been. With those memories carried too close, he started to sift through the information from the final census ever taken on a certain planet. He still had access to a massive amount of data from the archives of Gallifrey. His expression was blank as he started to scroll through the interminable lis

Life is brief. Fall in love, maidens, before the crimson bloom fades from your lips, before the tides of passion cool within you, for those of you who know no tomorrow. My earliest memory is listening to my mother sing this song. My mother was a woman who was not beautiful except for when she sang, so she was always singing. I remember sitting at our kitchen table drawing childish pictures, enjoying her sweet soprano thrum through the walls of the house, glass shaking in the cabinet doors with her powerful vibrato. I remember hating this song. She always laughed when I told her. “I used to hate it too,” she said, which was real

Transmissions Whenever they were close to Altairan space, he wouldn’t sleep at night. The passengers would retire to their rooms, often early in the evening, though there were times when they would be restless from the small quarters. Occasionally, if the passengers were halfway considerate of others, they’d peer into the bridge of the small ship to see if their pilot intended to sleep at all that night. Locus would usually smile and say that he took extra time to make sure everything on course was perfect before leaving the ship on autopilot. Usually, they didn’t care; he’d spend the nights alone in the bridge, sur

It starts when the man with a thousand bodies takes her from the tournament grounds, takes her from Micah, takes her from safety, and vaults her up so high into the sky that the Fae princess is afraid. She fights at first – fights, screams, kicks, and maybe she cries. But as warm tears course down her cheeks and Roo’s rough hands wipe them away, concern and care gleaming from eyes that are not his own, Souri realizes some things she’s never wanted to know. One, that this man smells really good for a murderer on the run, how is that even possible The world is beautiful. It’s a ridiculous observation to make at any poi

“The book didn’t choose me,” Jolyon had once told the children, a long time ago. “It nearly destroyed the one it did.” It’s all Blake thinks about these days. He stares at the damaged gables of his childhood home, and thinks of the magic that is Endymion Spring. That magic had been powerful enough to destroy Diana Bentley, but it had ruined Psalmanazar too. Now, Blake acknowledges, it will claim him as well. Because all the magic of the world had not been enough for him, and the children are adults now, and they don’t believe in magic anymore. ~**~ Blake tries to visit London as much as he can. Th

1. Up “What’s your favorite color?” Next to him, Locus smiles, slight and gentle. Blue eyes flash, and Korona has to remind himself to breathe. “Locus.” Meca’s slim fingers stop mid-flight over the keyboard; behind her, crew members exchange curious glances. She seems to be concentrating on something, but when she speaks, her voice is casual. “That’s not a color, sir.” Isn’t it? Locus shifts at his side, and Korona distractedly puts out a hand to stop him. “It’s okay,” he says, and nobody is sure whom he is speaking to. 2. Down The subject of their childhoods

“What happened?” When she asks me that, I honestly don’t know what to say. I suppose it all started fifteen years ago, back when I’d first been hired for the VESNA project and met my four teammates. Our first day, we’d been so awkward around each other that Angeal took us to a bar and spent a quarter of the initial grant money taking us back through our college years. Or their college years, at any rate; I was forty-six years old then, and when I’d been in college, the closest I’d ever gotten to drunk was the night I consumed a liter of my best friend’s “Death Wish” coffee and didn&