More Short Stories

After spending an inordinate amount of time fiddling with the details, including small adjustments to CSS files to allow for the posting of properly-formatted prose on my website, I've posted a pair of my old short stories from the days when I put my work up on Wattpad.

The first of these is Community Service Fairy Godmother and the second is Sweet Surrender, which will become the next two entries in my Short of Tyme series. You can find links to their pages there or click on the titles, below.

Neither has cover art at the moment, because I don't wish to re-use their old AI-generated cover art. They'll get another pass of editing sometime before they get new covers illustrated by Ryan Johnson, the artist I work with. As soon as both tasks are done, they'll be published in the usual fashion.

I should soon be posting more stories, because I have more to share, but for now, I hope you'll enjoy these little gems.

Community Service Fairy Godmother

Seeing systemic injustice in the laws established by the Queen of the Fairies, may she reign forever, Sophorica breaks them to draw attention to their absurdity, literally painting New York City red. After all, if the only crime is to be caught and any offense can be forgiven simply by being sneaky, then the law itself can only be considered a cruel joke.

Her crime is expunged from history and the human race is none the wiser, but the Queen, may she reign forever, sentences Sophorica to perform one act of community service in the human realm for each human witness. This service takes the form of granting wishes to human children as their fairy godmother, until they're happy.

However, the awful truth is that granting wishes rarely brings happiness, forcing Sophorica to learn as much as she can about her charges, that she might get them to wish for what they really need, rather than what they want.

Will Sophorica find a way to free herself from the twisted, unjust punishment wrought by the Queen, may she reign forever, successfully demonstrating the flaws in fairy law or will she be forever banished to the human world as a Fairy Godmother?

Sweet Surrender

In this trio of linked tales, learn what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object.

In the first tale, a priestess to the god of empathy never wanted to involve herself in politics, but when her king seeks riches from the kingdom at the expense of the common man, she's forced to put herself directly in the path of the King's armies, who are under strict orders to turn her away, even if it means killing her. Unfortunately for them, they didn't count on the pain they inflict on her reflecting back!

In the second tale, nobles discuss Aaron Kozinski, an amazing guard that never fails in his duty, no matter how bleak the situation, all in exchange for a little money, that he might eat and pay rent. He stands guard in horrendous weather and even repels assassins, preventing them from coming anywhere near his employer, all without complaint.

In the concluding tale, the two are manipulated into conflict by a mysterious man that hopes they'll destroy each other.

Will the priestess learn enough about Aaron to ease his pain or will she be overwhelmed by his hopelessly broken heart?

Tags: short-story, writing, publishing