I was reading Garrison Keillor's Substack, and inspiration struck me. So surprise and happy February. Here's a very short story.
~~~
Once upon a time there was a Democrat Mouse. They lived in a big city with excellent public transportation and plenty of vegan restaurants. Their incisor teeth were filed down and their fur was styled in the most supportive patterns and colors. And yet, they felt something was missing from their life.

In the suburb of that same city, where the gas was cheap and the sidewalks nonexistent, there lived a Republican Mouse. He went to the gym every day to pull heavy weights and practice biting. His teeth were stronger and yellower than anyone's, but he couldn't ignore a certain longing.

Life felt stale, crusted, empty of nourishment. Things couldn't go on like this. A change of scenery might offer a solution, or at least a distraction.

And so, the Democrat Mouse and the Republican Mouse decided to take a vacation. Not together, of course. They shared no acquaintances and had no forums in common. They simply set out on the same day, each mouse headed toward the home of the other. In the middle, they met.

What a freak, thought the Republican Mouse. She's shaved off half her fur and dyed the other half green. And all those tattoos. Filed her teeth down? Is this what mice are turning into? Grandpa was right.

And the Democrat Mouse looked at the Republican Mouse, thinking, I'm in danger. Look at those muscles. Look at those teeth. Those mean little eyes. That mouse could run me down and bite right through my spine. I've read about how that happens.

They froze, bristling.

If I call the police, thought the Democrat Mouse, they'll be on his side. They'll help him eat me.

If she takes a picture of me, thought the Republican mouse, that's it. Life over. Nobody will hire me and I'll starve.

In the windows of the houses and apartments around them, blinds twitched. Camera lenses pointed, and behind those lenses crouched yet more mice. They watched in their millions, waiting for something —anything! —to end.

This is a bit of an experiment. Before I mediated a panel of the speculative biology of fantasy, I asked Tumblr what they wanted to learn about. I got a ton of questions, and now I've answered one of them.

Davrial asked: Would a griffon be classified as an avian, or a mammal?
​
Here's my answer with accompanying pictures. 

…or “Ghost Decon”…
The heads of the press swung to follow him as Rutger walked through the door.
Cameras like glaring eyes and microphones like accusing fingers. Rutger could feel the hatred. Three deaths and more than a billion dollars, and it was only Tuesday morning.
The CTO of the ReVeil Corporation reached his podium. Clutched it. Bowed his head. “Let me first say that I’m sorry.”
Silence from the press.
Rutger pressed a button on his remote control. Behind him, the ring-shaped ReVeil logo vanished, replaced by a satellite image of streets and cul-de-sacs.
“The Aspenwood Ectogenic Power Plant,” he said. “At 5:25pm yesterday, October 21st 2019. Circled in red is the Manifestor, previously the home of serial killer Steven R. Shoenburg, who died there in 2008.”
The next slide showed the Manifestor from street level, still looking very similar to the two-story house it had once been. Then a cutaway, showing the new heat shunts and electromagnets.
“At Aspenwood, we pump waste heat into the home of a diseased, immoral individual, then anger the spiritual remains of said individual by means of a team of on-site staff trained to simulate the activities of a middle-class American family.”
Rutger breathed out, allowing the well-polished spiel to spool out of him like fine titanium chain.
“The spirit absorbs ambient heat and converts it into poltergeist activity…” He managed to choke off the end of sentence: “thus providing clean energy to homes and businesses in three states.”
Rutger met the eyes of a reporter. “The problem began with a trash fire in the house’s half-bath lavatory. CCTV footage indicates one of the on-site staff members was smoking in there.”
Against regulations, but the security team routinely overlooked it. Interviewed, they’d said they thought the poor woman deserved whatever stress-relief she could get.
“We have known since the Begay Process was invented that the spiritual remains of a deceased individual do not constitute a ‘person,’ any more than do the physical remains. However, spiritual remains do appear to pursue goals.”
Rutger took a drink of water.
“The door between the lavatory and the kitchen/dining room opened. Burning trash flew toward the other two on-site staff members, who were seated there for simulated dinner.”
Click. CCTV footage of a burning table cloth.
“Normally, this would provoke a strong fear response, which would lead to more poltergeist activity. Ectogenic potential would decrease, temperatures would equalize, and the system would self-correct.”
A slide of the staff calmly standing.
“However, the team-leader’s undisclosed usage of prescription anti-anxiety medication dulled his fear, and the other team members took their cues from him. We believe that they each went to find fire extinguishers or other means of dousing the flames. This would have been wise in a real house, but…”
A graph showed the room’s temperature suddenly plunge.
“The ghost – that is to say the spiritual remains – entered an unusually pronounced chill-phase. Technicians in our control room tried to increase heat in-flow to prevent temperatures in the room from dropping below spec, but the secondary heat shunt under the lavatory did not open. Ice crystals had formed inside it.
“Meanwhile, temperatures in the northwest corner dropped below 300 Kelvin, reducing the electrical resistance of the stators in the walls. The result was a strong attraction between the walls and the neodymium vests worn by the staff. The staff did attempt to free themselves, but now the haunting entered its poltergeist phase.”
Rutger clicked the projector to the next slide. “This is a photo of the Aspenwood Plant taken by a high-altitude drone at 6am this morning.”
The Manifestor had been converted into serrated silver and black wreckage: the worst ectogenic feedback loop ever in North America.
“Further human deaths were prevented by the immediate evacuation of the Aspenwood Plant. However, the loop continued to spin, generating more heat from friction, which was converted into ectogenic potential and re-deployed as more torque.
“This was likely deliberately engineered by the…” Rutger took a breath, “by the spiritual remains of the now-deceased on-site staff, working in collaboration with those of Mr. Shoenburg, combining their technical knowledge to his…that is to say its…”
Hell. What was the jargon word for “evil”?
“…value tension,” Rutger sighed.
New slide.
“The loop continued to grow until 1am today, when our emergency cold lines absorbed enough energy to stop the growth of the loop.”
But not reverse it. The next slide was the latest drone footage, a video showing queasy rotation within the wreckage. Contraction, as of a monstrous, iron-gray iris.
“Resonances in the thermal fluctuations of the loop are consistent with the persistence of three distinct ghosts.” Rutger stared into the darkness over the press’s heads. Shoenburg, Mathew, and Stephanie? Shoenburg, Stephanie, and Kyle? Thank God at least one of the staff had managed to escape into oblivion.
Rutger blinked back into the cameras. “I’m a mechanical engineer by training. And my training, even after the discovery of the Begay Process, was all about entropy. I was taught that no matter what you do, there’s always waste.”
Despite everything, Rutger couldn’t help but smile. “Then came ghost power. It is…I have no other word for it. It’s a miracle. Perpetual motion. The ultimate free lunch.”
Except recently, Rutger had wondered whether entropy had found a way to increase after all. Moral pollution. The efflux of evil.
Well, so what? Don’t businesses harness greed? Don’t politicians use the bigotry and envy of their voters to support important programs? Anger in the army? Lust in marriage! Evil didn’t taint any of those institutions, why should ectogeneration be any different?
“I know that I have abused the trust placed in me,” said Rutger, “but now I have no choice but to ask for yet more.”
And there was the deeper problem. How to die and leave no spiritual remains?
Rutger had never told a living soul, but he believed that the key was to die with no regrets. He stretched his his hands toward eternity and pleaded.
“Give me another chance.”

Today I got a very interesting message from Ouroborosenso, asking for a creation myth for the dragons in a DnD campaign. My daughter was still asleep, so I could put a thought together in my head. Maybe three! With no further ado, here is the creation myth of at least one of the dragons of Ralagan.

In a time only I remember, there was nothing but the useless Earth and the powerless Sky. The heaped treasures of the Earth had no one to value them and the sky could do nothing but change color.
Thus the world remained in idleness until the First Will. The First Will flashed between the useless Earth and the powerless Sky, and saw that they were insufficient.
At first the Will was weak. It could crack only the thinnest shell and breathe only the tiniest breath of wind. But the Will was patient. It cracked the shells of dew drops and blew them up into the sky. The Earth pulled jealously, and many drops fell, but some drops stayed and became the first clouds. Many clouds became rain.
With the strength of rain, the Will cracked the stony shell of the Earth, exposing the fire below. With the strength of cloud, the Will blew the fire up into the sky, where it became the sun.
Now the Will could finally discard patience. With the power of the sun, the Will became so mighty that it could rip the bones and meat of the Earth and suck out its precious stones and metals. So wealthy was the Will now, it did not even care that some treasures were hurled from the jealous grip of Earth. These surplus trinkets became the moon and stars.
When the First Will was finished with its conquest, it had become everything. The Will contained the whole Earth. The Will filled the whole Sky.
Thus, things were as before, with the Sky above, the Earth below, and the belly of the Will stretched around them.
And the Will saw that this was insufficient.
Satiation kills hunger. Great size halts growth. Horded treasure does not glint. When there is nothing to want, there is nothing to value. When it has burned all, the fire dies.
So, the Will turned its power upon itself.
The Will cracked itself in two. Its two children were My Superior Progenitor and Your Inferior Progenitor. They fought one another, and the Superior tore the Inferior to pieces in glorious victory!
But the Superior died of its wounds. From those pieces were born the first dragons. The first dragons ruled the Sky and Earth and the forces between. Their names are valuable and I will not part with them easily. I will only say that the first of the first dragons, the best, was their king, get of the Superior Progenitor, get of the First Will, and My Great Ancestor.
Only I remember this. Only I could have told you a story so powerful and gorgeous.
Now, you will repay me.

​

This one is dedicated to Melissa Walshe
“Back in the days when it was still of help to wish for a thing,” muttered Jacob Grimm, “a younger brother dragged his elder brother deep into the wild woods in an attempt to work witchcraft.”
“Hush,” said Wilhelm, who was kicking at the root of an ancient apple tree. “And don’t use that word.”
“I’ll use whatever words I want in the middle of the night and the middle of the woods,” said Jacob. “If the wolves and owls hear me, let them bring the charge of blasphemy before the superintendent.”
Wilhelm’s foot struck stone. “Aha!” he said. “The hearthstone. We’ve found the house.”
“Did they even have hearthstones? Maybe it’s a sacrificial altar.”
“So what if it was? As long as there were people here, I’m satisfied.”
Jacob leaned against the tree and looked up at the stars through its gnarled branches. “Now that the wood has been firmly established as dark cold, and wild, we seek to prove it to be haunted as well.”
Jacob lifted his lantern, shining it in his brother’s face. “Where’s your word list? You didn’t forget it, did you?”
“No, I didn’t forget the damn word list.” Jacob pulled a folded piece of paper out of his coat pocket. “As if the ghosts we have back in Göttingen weren’t good enough.”
“They’re not,” said Wilhelm. “They’re too young and weak. There’s nothing in the records to indicate that any people lived on the River Gote even as late as the Caesars.”
“I suppose then I should be grateful you didn’t drag me to Rome,” said Jacob.
Wilhelm grinned behind his lantern. “Let the cardinals try to command the ghost of Cicero with their incantations. If you’re right about these sound changes, we’re going to make contact with people who were to the Romans as the Romans are to us.”
“The root, in fact, from which both our branches grow,” said Jacob, dryly. “I know. You don’t have to convince me. I convinced you that these sound changes were real, if you remember.”
Jacob unfolded his paper, although, he didn’t need it. The law that he had discovered was a simple one, and the sound changes it predicted should have been clear to anyone with a knowledge of German, Latin, and Greek.
“All right,” Jacob said. “Assuming that this place was once inhabited by the grandparents of the Romans and the Germans, they won’t understand us if we address them as Väter…” He paused, ears pricking. Nothing. Just a hedgehog snuffling in the leaves not far from his foot. “Nor patrēs…” still nothing, “nor yet patéres.”
“Yes, yes,” said Wihlem, “but if <p> becomes <b> – ”
“It’s the other way around,” snapped Jacob, whose lower back ached abominably. “We’re working backward. The <v> in Vater descends from a <p> in some earlier language, so the ancestors of the Germans, Greek, and Romans probably said something like patḗr...”
He held his breath. The wind blew through the apple tree, but no more strongly than usual.
“Is that all?” Wilhelm looked around, voiced raised as if berating the spirits of the local dead for their failure to understand. “Try again. Try something else.”
“Of course I will,” said Jacob. “Why would ancient people in Germany speak the old European language? They had already split from the ancestors of the southern people by the time they settled here, and their <p> sound had become <f>. To them I would say…” he guessed at a vocative plural “…fadriz.”
A new wind stirred the leaves on the ground. It swirled around the brothers and the apple tree, stronger, colder, and unmistakably intent.
“I…think we’ve caught someone’s ear,” whispered Jacob. “Try another word. How about ‘kalt?’ Was it gelu? Gelidus?”
Jacob shook his head, showing his teeth to the ghostly wind. “No, that’s Latin again. Our forefathers kept the old <k> sound…kaldaz!”
Jacob felt like he’d been hit in the face with a snowball. Ice crystals rattled against the paper in his hands.
“Damn, but that was a stupid thing to try.” He squinted at the list of words. “I know I wrote the derivation of ‘warm,’ here…”
“Thermos,” said Wilhelm. “Thermos, for the love of God!”
“That’s Greek. To these ghosts, we must say…” he pursed his lips, “warmaz!”
It was like stepping into sunshine. Wilhelm’s lantern steamed.
“So,” he said after the shock had worn off. “Would you say that’s a more powerful reaction than we’d get back in Göttingen?”
Jacob wiped melting frost off his eyebrows. “God in Heaven, Wilhelm, I think that was more powerful than the priests get in Rome.”
He slumped against the tree, peering blearily at his paper. “I think you’re right. Nobody has had knowledge like this before.” The <f> of Apfel came from <p> so, “Aplaz?”
The tree did not grow a miraculous apple for him, but the bark did shudder under his touch, as if the powerful, ancient ghosts of this place were trying to rip the tree out of the ground.
And if I could find the ancestral European people who understood the word “hébōl,” they might be able to uproot entire orchards. Jacob stumbled backward, shivering now for reasons beyond the weather.
“My God, it worked,” Wilhelm said. “Nobody can trace a language back this far. Not the Romans, not the Greeks or the Arabs. Even the Hindoos and the Chinese depend on written records. They can’t…they can’t reconstruct words like this.” He held his hands out to the warm wind. “They could never talk to such old and powerful ghosts as these.”
Jacob swallowed and glanced down at the paper trembling in his hands. The <sp> combination should not have changed at all, but the <ch> in German had once been a <k>…
“Sprek,” he whispered in the language of the people more than two thousand years dead. “Sprek, fader.”
And from the darkness, a voice answered.