Short Stories
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Of Depth and Deception (Chapter 1)
Skehl fixed his eyes on those two distant glows, fleeing into the ocean’s black night. His heart fluttered. At last, this sham of a “hunt” was nearing its end.
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Of Depth and Deception (Chapter 2)
A few hours later, Skehl trailed after his sister as they descended into the Belly, the trench’s deepest, narrowest depth. And a graveyard.
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Of Depth and Deception (Chapter 3)
After two long weeks riding various westerly currents through uninspiring stretches of open ocean, Rader arrived at last before the Aghata Trench — not to the usual glamor and pomp that greeted him, but to the quiet puzzlement of two mere Skaltressian Trenchguards, utterly dumbstruck by his arrival.
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The Lies We Tell (An Elspar Story)
Sodden with rain and swinging a basket stuffed with wet-shrooms, you return to me. Long ears twitching in a whispering wind. “Such a mad storm,” I tease, my feathers rustling as I rise from beside the fire.
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When One Loves the Fae
Theodore loved faeries, and so I loved him. Not because he loved faeries—obviously, they weren’t real—but because of what loving something meant to him: devotion, adventure, borderline obsession. To the rest of the world, he was a typical college dropout: academically unmotivated, easily distracted. A never-man.
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When Gods Feel (An Elspar Story)
It was a vicious summer-storm night when he swam from home. Not alone. He carried the voices with him, prowling through his mind like an invasive species — wild and sharp of bite. Soon to overwhelm him… Had overwhelmed him…
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No More Running
Mom said we weren’t running away—that was a lie. She drove, the car devouring the winding grey river pavement stretching out before us. The surrounding mountains swelled wider and higher as we went, sheltering peaks blanketed by a vast quilt, tattered and aflame with all the colors of early autumn.
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Your Call
Your call surprised me. Your proposal to meet again after these three long years apart. A rendezvous at my old high school, a place so memory-stained from our time together that while pacing and anxious, awaiting your arrival, I trip over more ghosts of our youth than I can count.
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The Weight of Expectations (An Elspar Story)
White orbs, oblong—and not an option. Yet their soft shimmer calls to me. Captivates. I lean closer, my nose nearly brushing their seafoam-fragile shells. And for a breath, I am weightless…
Joshua Stavick 