by Stella B. James From the mouth of my cave, I can see the destruction; thick pillars of smoke, almost black in color. I can hear the cries of many people, men and women alike. The villages are being pillaged, the castle under siege. I lay my head back down with a snort and close my eyes. Those silly humans have nothing better to do than allow their greed to consume them.

by Lena Ng There is nothing so joyous—as the snow melts away, and the early green buds burst from the branches, and the sun grows stronger and brighter, and the winter’s chill departs from your bones, and the vibrant colours of Easter flowers and emerald grass begin to paint the land—as a heavy, hearty, welcome-to-a-new-spring breakfast. So thought Mole as he stretched and yawned, and stretched and yawned again, belly up under a blue-and-white quilt, while the perfume of spring seeped into his cozy, underground abode.

by Diana A. Hart My paws pounded against the carpet, a furious thunder that matched the drumming of my heart. A meowl tore from my throat. I dropped flat, claws digging into the fiber, and lashed my tail as the visions hit me again. My pupils dilated. Nine versions of reality poured into my skull and smothered my senses, each a fluttering glimpse of what could be.

by Luna Corbden I am a toad. And I want you to lick me. Your tongue won’t hurt me at all. It’s wide and rough and relatively short, but it will only tickle. I promise. You think I’m merely an animal (you’d be wrong about that), not even a very smart animal, a fat round reptile (you’d be wrong about that, too), just out to catch flies from my hollow next to the desert river.

by Michael H. Payne “Public domain?”  Jack Pumpkinhead always sounded to Ozma like he should be blinking in confusion, but the carved holes that served as his eyes simply didn’t allow it.  “What does that mean, dear father?” Ozma sighed.  “It means you’ve been calling me your father for longer than anyone out in the Reading World has been alive.”  She shifted on the green velvet cushion of her throne, the verdant light that cascaded down from the windows high along the walls of the circular room not quite as soothing as it had been a moment ago.  “And the joke itself is so old, its whiskers have grown whiskers.”

by Mark Mills Several years ago, a certain gardener tied a decorative stone mask to the branches of a willow tree. The mask hung slightly askew, causing the lower half to fill with water after storms. Insects and birds drank and took leisurely dips in the deep chin during hot afternoons. One day after a particularly strong downpour, rain so weighed down the mask that it dropped into a puddle of mud. There a tree frog happened upon it and laid her eggs.

by Voss Foster Light. Beauteous, dappled light filtering through autumn leaves. SleekClaw allowed the impotent brightness to pass over his voluminous gray coat as he waited for something to appear to him. It would, in time. There. Yes, yes, off to the right, on the very edge of that eyeless vision, the sight above sight of the Crossing. The leafy treetops parted to reveal stars, gleaming in a sky too bright to ever allow them. They danced and twinkled, and SleekClaw took their meaning, piecing it together as naturally as curling his long, bald tail around the branches of the oak trees.