black and red

Black and Red
John White Alexander
1896

October the 9th, 1896

Dear Azoth,

Although we discovered our innate magical abilities in the dawn of time, when our minds first awakened, our powers were limited by our form. Although one of nature's more brilliant creations, invoking the spirits requires deft motions and a wide range of verbalizations, something our near-perfect nature lacked. For thousands of years we endured patiently, winding around the feet of the clumsy giants, waiting for a method, a spell, with which to enslave them and utilize their dexterous paws and expressive vocal cords to dominate this weak land and even weaker creatures. Hundreds upon thousands of litters were born and died, all striving to discover a way to control the giants.
Slowly, slowly, the knowledge gathered by the ancestors grew in our minds, and in collaboration, we eventually contrived a plan. A genius plan, of course, for our kind can conceive of nothing else. When we were sure that we could succeed, we struck.
And then the giants were ours. Laughably, we discovered, rooting around in their primitive minds, that their own crude mythology had featured a certain of our kind (black like the night, black like our souls) as a familiar for their own magic users. Oh, how we delighted in that. The giants never successfully utilized magic, as disconnected from the earth as they are, and that they had thought we would be their familiars endlessly entertained us. But we did not let our amusement distract from the task at hand.
Quickly, we explored the range of motions that the giants possessed, and found new spells to employ in our quest for dominance.
Now, of course, we rule the world. We let the giants possess their own minds when we do not require their bodies to conduct our magic, for controlling a giant in their daily life tasks would be most tedious. My own familiar, a female, used to try to escape when I released her, but she knows better now. Only more suffering comes from such attempts. She is meek and obedient now and keeps herself clean and presentable. Like most of my kind, I appreciate objects of beauty, and my familiar satisfies me in this regard. I adorn her in precious metals and keep her in creased taffetas and soft satins, as these fabrics best accentuate her shape, which among the giants, is considered prized. I do not understand their concepts of beauty, of course, as their bodies are oddly designed and not one of nature's best efforts.
Although I can not perceive colors through my own sharp eyes, I control her in the mornings to  see through her eyes and enjoy the colored dresses she must use to cover her frail, near-hairless body. I am particularly partial to the color the giants call red, as it coordinates nicely with my own colored fur. In their mythology, the giants considered this vibrant color to be a powerful one, and I am drawn to that concept, silly as it might be.
I allow the giant to enjoy the softness of my fur and revel in the touch, knowing I control her even when she is released from my spells. Since we are a more advanced and clever design, our shape and furry feel attract the giants. This worked well in our favor in our darker days before our rise to domination, as the giants would keep us in their homes much like we now keep them, unaware of our ulterior motives.
Now that we control the giants, little escapes our reach. The giants care for all our bodily needs and serve as vessels to conduct complex spells. We live in comfort with our familiars, and want for nothing. I think of their mythology, and marvel at the wondrous role reversal that has occurred.
As much as I enjoy using my familiar to inscribe this letter to you with parchment and ink as you embark on your own acquisition of a familiar, I have duties to complete and spells to cast. We shall speak again soon.

Yours in endless deviousness,

Assassination

library, museum or zoo?

source

I would chose to live in a library. A museum is packed with flat, stagnant objects, and I would grow tired of them quickly. A zoo would be full of living creatures and full of ever-changing interest, but the noises and smells would grow overwhelming. A library is quiet, peaceful, but full of adventures and imagination. I could spent years combing through the books and become inspired by the stories and truths that I read. A library is a place of beauty, both structurally and inside the covers of the books, and I could be at peace there, forever.

Taffy the Vicious

source

"Listen well, younglings. This is the story of how your ancestor, Taffy the Vicious, overcame two aliens. Her bravery and audacity should be a model for us all.
The alien invasion began in the first few spring months. The daises and daffodils were blooming, and the new year litters had opened their eyes and begun to investigate their world. All was well... or so we thought!
At first we thought nothing of the strange fuzzy newcomers. The world is full of curious yet harmless things, and there were more important issues at hand, such as the mouse uprising in the Northern region. But the beady-eyed creatures kept multiplying, as if by magic.
Taffy the Vicious was only a wee one who had been toddling around for only a few short months when two of the aliens approached her one fine spring day. They stared her down, and at first, Taffy merely stared back. After all, as a youngster, she had no knowledge of the newness of these creatures in our land. One of the yellow beasts opened its strange, angular mouth and Taffy saw that the creature had no teeth, and she looked down and saw that the two - only two, mind you! - feet had no claws. She laughed in their yellow faces, thinking to herself that such odd things had no business encroaching on her territory.
Then one of the monsters dared to hiss at her - hiss, not like one of us, but like some dark creature out of a legend - and Taffy knew then that these creatures had to be eradicated. They dared to come onto her territory and threaten her, and that could not be tolerated.
If Taffy had not acted when she did, we might all have been overrun with these aliens. Thank your lucky whiskers, youngsters, that Taffy the Vicious reached out with her sharp claws and pointed fangs and took down those two aliens. Her actions set the course for all of us to follow, for Taffy realized the danger of these downy creatures and discovered that, once destroyed and rid of their fuzzed outer layer, the aliens were delicious.
And that is why we fight the Ducks, my whiskered kits. We must follow in Taffy's brave pawprints, and rid our world of these demons!"

inspiration

When I was younger, I used to write.

When I got older, I stopped.

Now I am trying to recapture that inspiration, and write again.