The Admiral

Ah, welcome to my study. Please excuse me for not rising to greet you, old wounds you see, though on second hand perhaps you do not, at least not all of them. No matter. Please, have a seat and do not be shy about the brandy. The Frank ambassador likes to send me a barrel every year in thanks for my actions at the Battle of Cardonnes. In some ways, the bottle you see before you is simply another of the trophies to decorate this room.

Your reputation precedes you and I have heard your skill with pen may match mine with sword. I have sampled several of your previous works and can conclude that the praise awarded you is not undue. As such, I would make a request of you. My time is nearing its end and I believe it proper that I leave behind something to mark my thoughts on my life. I am aware that you have been working on a biography of me to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Vernica, often considered by others as the singular event that catapulted me to fame and glory. In addition to that, I would request your assistance in producing my own personal memoir. No, I do not jest. I have the utmost confidence in your ability to rise to the task and I offer you my time and what is left of my memories to assist.

You accept? Ah, most excellent. Then how shall we proceed? Stories? Of my past? You mean you do not mind an old man rambling on and on about bygone days? Lovely, I think this will be a most enjoyable liaison. Is there anything in particular you wish to hear about or shall I simply ramble on? The horns sitting next to me? Ah, an interesting first choice. Few have actually asked about them though I know many have been very curious about their presence. Very well, it all started when I was a young leftenant in the Corps....

Zachary Gorden is a guest author for Screwdle. You can read more by him... eventually...

The Fairy Queen

In case you can't tell from pretty much every other Screwdle ever, I come from the lineart school of art. Painting is something I never really went in for and it's haunted me ever since I realized I don't have the artistic breadth to do anything useful or interesting with art unless I learned how. Sort of like "drawing with colors until 2006" or "drawing things from photo references until 2010" or "hey, maybe get something more powerful than MS Paint until 2012".


So here is me, experimenting with another new technique. Well, we all have to learn sometime.

Locust

They were locked away in the Earth. It is impossible to say how many there were. No manner of reckoning their number had yet been invented when they sank through mud and gravel. Their bodies were pushed into the deep places beneath the Earth. For a millenia the world stank of their ruined corpses and the whole of it was their sepulcher.

But memories pile on memories, and dust on dust.  Glaciers rose and sank. Seas parted. Forests bloomed and burned and from the ashes, bloomed anew. In the middle of one forest, a particular tree found purchase in loamy soil. Its canopy dwarfed all others, and its roots plumbed impossible depths.

It was the deepest taproot that pierced the cold carapace of the horrible thing. Woodflesh mingled with chitin. Conveyed upward, the vanguard of Things climbed root to trunk, trunk to branch, branch to leaf and for the first time in unknowable millenia shared the sky with the sun and the stars.

From inside to out the thing--all other names long since battered to sand on the tide of ages--choked the life from its benefactor. Leaves fell and branches withered.  The trees saw the greatest of their number weaken, slacken, and decay, and they girded themselves for a time when her mighty corpse could no longer contain the horror waiting to escape.