Droughts never bothered to settle in Aegis, the nexus of the Holy. Withering corn stalks contemplated life, bloomed between the violent kneading of reshaping gales. Floods traced the slimy limestone grottoes of the Craigs and only succumbed to sedition by licking at the diamond rim of the Edge. Billowing flocks of robes gathered on the bridgeweaves suspended a quarter league above the Planar Rasa with no supports in sight. Shimmers hung around the shoulders of the proudest Holy: the tallest in ultramarine capes trimmed with infrared lace. Their whispers stitched the stalks in the meadows, caressed the soil to birth bounties, convinced the wi

Paragons by DodgingTheBeat, literature

The Simplicity Fracture by DodgingTheBeat, literature

Literature

The Simplicity Fracture

Se'o began living after the apex-floater skull stopped tugging at the skeins. It had spent three spins skulking among a warren-cracking spine of ammonia ice seeking a nest, one of millions hissing and cracking and melting along the nitrate reefs pole-side of the Great Cleft. Waiting, as work-claws chafed into cracked exoskeleton sheathing. Torn by the calamity. Ozone flooded his glands during the waiting. Designs traced themselves through its brief reflection-cycles, half-formed and abstract; mad. The signal of the warren enveloped any within in a simpatico unmatched from pole to pole. Tools, meat, homage-seed--designs became commoditi

Drift by DodgingTheBeat, literature

Audiocide by DodgingTheBeat, literature

Literature

Audiocide

It isn't how I remembered it. The waiting. The hard return--the strike of something alive, twitching under a stratosphere at the bare edges of flickering displays and drifting starcharts. Days of First Contact drills in the ethereal holographic range of Sim-Deck Two. Three mission briefings, a twinge as my scouting unit is tapped for deployment. The hiss and rasp of rebreathers in the eternal dawn of Jump Airlock One. I know it isn't right. The drop. The plunge, ripping at the Helldiver's midsection. The tearing, it burns. Throws the shrieking of the stratosphere and the whining of stabilization jets and the ringing of alarms into a

Prerogatives by DodgingTheBeat, literature

Literature

Prerogatives

The morning has begun with the great beams ripping the clouds apart, brilliant and bold and harsh against the smoky vista of the skyline. Explosions rumble; the distant tumble of buildings folding inward on their own foundations rattles the mirror on my vanity. The reverberation of the ceaseless bombardment has been our church bell for some time now. My hair is a mess. Soot and the bitter tang of ionized flagstones drifts through the open-hatched windows of my morning room like martial perfume. Correspondence is spread across the desk, caught in the hellish winds that buffer the high and lofty walls of my husband’s twelve-storey to

Her Catalyst by DodgingTheBeat, literature

Literature

Her Catalyst

As she walks through the maelstrom, the words trace upon the tips of her fingers and press into the stone. Every brick, every crack in the concrete, every crossed and angular stroke in reds and blacks and oranges. The drips of the gasoline pool around the base of her boots, slosh as she steps over the burst pipes and the rubble. So much rubble. So little outcry. The silence of the city grates on her eardrums and the mantras she'd been forced to memorize. The Seers demanded they observe thirteen years of recitation before they attempt to weave their first World together. But who other than the Seers can claim the incantations that knot

2 3

8 Next