Will I be a song?

  And stay with you

  A breeze

  The hum of bees

  The morning bird?

  I’ll be a song

  And kiss your skin

  And fill you

  And flow with you

  For always.

  Collected Unpublished Lyrics

  - Sibsil Creed, Stories of Shurwinn, (2790)

  Dream Journal

  There was thunder. It was rumbling. Rumbling. Everything was shaking. And moving. And I was running. I had to get away! There was a door. I saw the doorknob. It was my house— no, not my house, my mother’s house. I reached for the doorknob. No! Not that house! Not that way!

  Run. I turned to run. There was a terrace. There was snow. I ran through snow. My barefeet were sliding. I slipped. The terrace crumbled. There was an avalanche. I was falling. I would be buried. I had to get away!

  I reached. I reached for something. I had to grab hold.

  An arm caught mine. He pulled me to him. Everything was still. And warm. I was okay. He held me. There were words. I didn’t know them. Words. Comforting words.

  “Melthena.”

  I woke up.

  Journal

  “Melthena.” He said “Melthena.” I can’t find the meaning of the word. I can’t find a language where it is a word or a name. It doesn’t translate. No where in the 9 Galaxies is this word! Did I mis-hear? Am I just making it up? It felt so real.

  I can’t remember his voice. It was just a feeling rolling through me. Longing. Longing. Belonging.

  I felt like I belonged with him, the presence who comes to me in dreams. Like we’re always reaching out, and just barely grabbing hold.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Now I have a word, and I can’t find it anywhere. There were other words too, but they slipped away, like a whisper just out of earshot.

  The Normal Monk

  An animated version of me—no an animated video game version of me—looked out from my screen. I was in 3/4 length black tights covering my too thin waist and too wide hips with a black tight tank stretched over my overly busty chest, accented by dark emerald diamond-shaped stripes.

  I pulled my hair up into a bushy pile on the top of my head. It looked like I had desert pampas grass sprouting out of my cranium!

  And that was normal, right? I had to be so normal, so unremarkable that no one would notice me. No one would notice the off sphere.

  I was so normal that I was practically invisible and no one would ask why I was there. No one would say, “Is she an off-world spy? Thief? What nefarious plots caused her to secret herself away in a desert monastery?”

  I went about the monastery being totally normal. Boring. Unnoticeable. It was normal to pile a lunch plate with only raw broccoli. That was normal, right? I was practically invisible.

  It was normal to avoid the dining hall and eat a whole plate of broccoli outside in the baking hot desert sun alone, right? I was the wind. No one could see me.

  Normal people prance about the library, needing to pee but not asking anyone where the bathroom is. That was normal, right? No one even knew I was there, clutching myself, sweating, desperate for a pee.

  And there it was, the real reason I'd snuck into the monastery!

  All my secret hopes and dreams. All my plans and scheming! Chaludra! Chaludra, my queen! My everything! Her special edition print graphic. The only one in Shurwinn! Chaludra!

  I stuffed the graphic down the back of my tights. That’s what everyone does with library books, right? No one could see me. I was invisible. It was all very normal.

  I fell asleep on my bed reading Chaludra, and she came to me in dreams. My queen! Chaludra!

  Only she was a broccoli-shaped crazed version of Chaludra. A mad warrior-broccoli goddess hell-bent on avenging the vegetable kingdom for my offenses! “Pay, you monk! Pay! Know the fury of the broccoli!”

  Animated me woke, sweating, panting. This was all normal, wasn’t it?

  Side-splitting laughter. Tears in my eyes—soooo funny! Stars, I had to stop laughing, or I really would wet myself. Gold. Peydran had been right—it was GOLD!

  My curry video was also fine, so I approved the Living Foods from Shurwinn site exactly as Peydran had prepared it.

  And that was it! I was launched! Citizenship, and a new business. And friends. Family. I felt positively giddy! I wanted to celebrate and go out or do something normal—ha! Not hide away in the desert surviving on raw broccoli and doing unspeakable things to library books. Haaa. I cracked myself up.

  I had to do something to thank Jasen and Alen. I started wondering what I could get to thank a couple of guys in Uni. My thoughts took a decidedly weird turn. Oh stars, would I really do that?

  Hell, yes! I was ready to break out and break free!

  “Peydran, I have an idea for a thank-you-gift for Jasen and Alen,” I said into the video. “But we don’t have much time. It’ll be some work, and travel. But I think it’s just insane enough to rock their boats and shock the two comedians who called me The Normal Monk.” I explained my idea.

  “Haaaaaaa. SANDS! Ohhh. You will break them, Ryst Nova, and I’ll be there to catch it on video. You get the outfit. I have plans to make. Actors to hire. Invoices and airships and itineraries forthcoming.”

  I had a tailor to see.

  “I’m planning to shock the stars out of two young, single, heterosexual male comedians,” I explained to Mauren, my tailor, as I rushed through her shop door.

  She grinned wickedly, “You are a wildfire, and they will burn.”

  Play “The Normal Monk"

  

  ??? GOBLIN SMASHING ???

  by CSN Publishing

  GOBLIN SMASHING

  Tokyo, 2045. For most, a future costs more than they’ll ever earn. For Rin Kazehaya, it costs everything his family’s home, his mom’s life in a hospital, and debt collectors closing in on his siblings. The only thing that pays is hustle and hope.

  When Hero’s Glory Online launches its Crystal League expansion, a single tagline is everywhere: “Bring your business here.” One week. Discounted entry. Real cash for every match, every territory won. Anyone can play but not everyone survives.

  Rin gambles the last of his savings on a shot he can’t afford to lose, logging in from a battered first-gen pod built by his father. But a glitch locks him in as a Goblin the weakest, most-mocked race in the game. No reset. No second chance.

  Now, every victory means cash, every loss risks everything, and every move is broadcast to millions while Tokyo’s most ruthless family closes in on his real life. If he fails, he loses more than a game.

  But Goblins don’t know when to quit. With nothing left but his wits, a gambler’s instinct, and a dream nobody believes in, Rin’s about to find out what happens when the underdog brings his business and his fight to the world’s biggest stage.

  New chapters every Friday at 8pm Central Time.

  Goblin Smashing comes from someone who’s lived the grind as an esports organization owner and competitive MOBA player. If you love siege games, high-stakes MMOs, and underdog stories, you’re in the right place.

  This story is only published on Royal Road.

  If you spot it anywhere else, it’s fake, please flag and report.

  ?? Listen to the Official Goblin Smashing OST ??

  

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