A Chair Named Balthazar...

"You may not want to sit in Balthazar, dear," Aunt Beatrice said. "He doesn't like strangers."
Milly stopped and stared at the chair.
"You named it?" she asked incredulously.
"Him, dear," Aunt Beatrice corrected. "And of course I named him. You named your dog Goldie, didn't you?"
"But Goldie's alive," Milly argued.
"So is Balthazar."
As if in agreement, the old armchair gave a soft, creaking mutter, and flexed its curled armrests like hands. The claw-carved feet underneath it bent in a way that wood shouldn't have been able to, and the entire chair shuffled sideways a little so that it was clear to Milly that it wasn't going to let her sit in it. Balthazar sidled across the woven carpet to the other side of the room, and eventually settled near the edge of the couch, where Aunt Beatrice could reach it from where she was sitting. She smiled and gave it an absent pat on the armrest without looking up from her book.
Milly sighed and sat down in a metal folding chair.


I admit it--I was bored when I wrote this. At least I wasn't trying to sleep, and it wasn't 2:00 in the morning when I got the idea.

New Drawing

My apologies for the late posting. I spent the weekend in Milwaukee with the school ocean science club, silently going insane while attempting to wrap my head around the questions being asked at the state competition (our team won, by the way). The trip lasted all weekend, and even though I wasn't actually competing myself, I was beat by the time I got back.

In the meantime, I offer up for your consideration the diopteron:

 

"The diopterons were not a species to be taken lightly. Many people had an innate fear of the mammoth, bearlike creatures, and as well they did. The breed was only slightly removed from their wild cousins, the tanterons--the wild cat-beasts of the forest. A lot of the natural instincts involving ripping the limbs off anything that threatened them were left in the domesticated species. That was part of the reason the troupe had chosen one to pull their wagon instead of horses."

The diopterons will be pack animals in a new world that I'm in the process of creating. They're huge, temperamental and highly intelligent animals that have evolved without eyes. The circus troupe upon which the story will focus will use one as a draft animal to pull their cart, mostly to fend off thieves and offer protection when sheltering in the wilds. There will be a lot of other huge creatures in this world--mostly mammals, after the Pleistocene era--along with other interesting phenomena such as seasonal fire storms and immortal prophets. I don't have all the details down quite yet, so I won't spoil too much more. 

Otherwise, the next chapter of Centaur Ranch is up. Diddle's off to rescue his friend from the clutches of the Shreeks, a band of huge, white, blind lizard creatures that raided the ranch. If you haven't read the first chapters of the book, the e-book is on sale at lulu.com. Search keywords are "Centaur, Centaur Ranch, and Diddle."