Tag: stinger

Hormones and Harmony

Glad you could join us for the next hormonal episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo/Image credit: dreamstime.com / S.T. Ranscht

Cassandra hadn’t been able to fall back to sleep after Miranda suggested she might be pregnant. Sunrise shone on her Elegance as she sat above the Lilian Pond, chasing her swirling thoughts in circles.

What if it’s true? she asked herself. What if I am expecting? How could anyone be so fortunate? Marry the love of my life and have a child come from the only night we’ve had together before Elliot had to leave? It just isn’t possible, is it? It would be like a fairy tale.

The sky was clear, but a shadow passed over her happiness, plunging her heart into despair. But in fairy tales, the Prince always dies never knowing he’s going to be a father, and the Princess has to raise their child alone.

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Forced Retirement

Glad you could join us for the next inevitable episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo credit: D.Parer & E. Parer-Cook

Anthony must have told him what really happened in the Freelands. Lucy’s options were few. Tensed for flight, she continued to watch alongside the General as the stingers in the hollow cleared away rubble. She took the only chance she saw. “What happened here?” she ventured.

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A Way Forward

Glad you could join us for the next redeeming episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo credit: Igor Siwanowicz

In the dark of night, two of Bog’s border guards escorted Randall and Teddy to King Arnie as soon as they entered the Kingdom.

“I’m pleased to see you have your son,” the King greeted him. “Are you all right, young man?”

Teddy stared at the King’s feet and nodded while clinging to his father’s leg.

King Arnie knelt and looked into the little frog’s eyes. “If someone had taken me away from my father when I was your age, I would have been really scared. I’m sure I would have cried.”

Teddy looked at the ground and shook his head. “They would get angry if you cried and they would put you in a black room with no lights all by yourself and they would tell you you had to stay there forever because your daddy was never coming back.”

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When the Smoke Cleared

Glad you could join us for the next smoky episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo/Image credit: 4ever.eu/S.T. Ranscht

The baked ground gave up its heat to The Arids’ twilight. Lucy, stretching her wings and easing the kinks from her neck with a slow head roll, righted herself atop the termite mound, and prepared to take off on the last leg of her journey.

“I’ll grab breakfast on the way,” she promised herself checking the sky for likely targets.

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Teddy

Glad you could join us for the next heart-pounding episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo credit: Roberto Brenes

The activity in the hollow below became a still life for three beats of dead air. The messenger shaded his eyes and laughed.

“Randall! It’s good to see you,” he called, his voice slick as lava glass. “Come in, come in!”

Slowly, Randall picked his way down the wall, slipping on loose gravel that rattled to the ground.

“Easy there, friend, or you’ll bury us all,” the Stinger joked. “It’s been so long since we last met I was afraid some misfortune had found you.”

“I’m here now, and I want to see the General,” Randall responded as he jumped the last foot and a half releasing another trickle of rocks and landing well outside the circle of Stingers.

“Of course you do. As it happens, he’s in. Follow me.” His fellow Stingers closed in behind Randall.

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No More Running

Glad you could join us for the next brave episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo caption: Rolf Nussbaumer

Randall winced as he sucked as much as he could from the shallow puddle. Is all the water in The Arids this brackish? To distract himself from imagining what his son might be drinking, he asked, “Didn’t the General promise to send your child home when you did what he wanted you to do?”

“Children,” Gert corrected him as they left the muddy watering hole. “He took both of our boys.”

Bernie reached for Gert’s hand before he answered. “The General never asked us to do anything. We’ve never even met him.”

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Girdliz

Glad you could join us for the next circular episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

Photo credit: Chris89

Randall returned to the rock chamber where he’d first met General Hai and agreed to free Duggla the Crone from King Arnie’s jail in Bog, so the General would give his son back. An old Stinger blocked the opening and snapped his pinchers at Randall. “Whatchoo want?” he grumped.

“I’m looking for General Hai,” Randall twittered from a distance.

The Stinger arched his tail. “That lot’s gone back to The Arids.”

So to the Arids Randall trekked.

Leaving his dappled green homeland, he crossed into the dusty sunshine’s unrelenting, barren brown burn. His head ached from the glare. Each step sizzled his tender soles. Only his resolve to save his son kept him moving.

As he passed a jagged boulder, it opened its eyes.

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Sheela

Glad you could join us for the next undercover episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo credit: Brinda Suresh

Sunrise tinted The Arids with gold. Night’s deep purple shadows slunk back under the rocks and mounds and snarly growths from which they’d spread.

Only Lady Lucy’s shadow crept across the sparkling sand as she sailed overhead looking for shelter from the rising heat. The General expected her to return to his main base, but sleeping there, vulnerable and undercover, would be worse than foolish.

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Wishes and Dreams

Glad you could join us for the next safe episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo credit: Willi Rolfes

Finding Vernon, Queen Lilian’s Liaison, still awake, Lady Lucy delivered her passengers to him just outside Princess Cassandra’s bower.

“Can I have a word, Vernon?” the elderly bat asked.

“Certainly,” he answered. Addressing the refugees, he asked, ”Would you please excuse us for a moment?”

Vernon and Lucy moved away from Cassandra’s door.

“The Prince’s Knights captured General Hai’s messenger in the Freelands.” Lucy’s whisper carried as far as a fully hearing person’s normal speaking voice. “I think he followed the Prince there, but he saw me, so I have to get back to the Arids before the General finds out. I’m sure there were more spies than just that slimy Stinger.”

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Julius and Miranda

Glad you could join us for the next creepy episode of Elliot’s Adventures. If you’re new here, you can catch up by returning to the beginning, and reading really fast…

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Photo credit: Tom Vezo

Late for her rendezvous in The Arids, Lady Lucy left the Freelands immediately after turning the Stinger prisoner over to Prince Elliot.

Julius and his family waited in the moonlight at the base of the tallest agave, just as they’d planned. “I was afraid you weren’t coming,” he whispered as she extended her left wing for them to climb onto her back.

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