Featured Image: “Sylvan Bride”
A SAVORY FONDUE OF THE MIDDLE AGES
“He’s like a medieval cheese dip?”
She sighs. “No. Why would you say that?”
“Hey, you called him a savory fondue of the Middle Ages, not me!”
“I said the professor is a savvy fundi of medieval history. Are you deaf?”
“No,” he grumbles. “But now I’m hungry…”
OGRE SODA
Thog hands me a can. “Try this.”
I take it from huge fingers. “It’s not puréed human, is it?”
“Whaddya think I am? A savage?!” he booms. “It’s ogre soda.”
I drink its sweet effervescence. “Mmmm!”
“Yup, nutin’ beats the taste o’ sprites.”
My spit-take is epic.
COZY COPILOTS
She squeezed herself into the cockpit.
“Sorry, it’s a one-pilot starfighter,” Porgins said.
“Neither of us are skinny,” Anra said, no demure in her grin as she sat on his lap. “It’ll be a tight flight.”
He laughed. “Good thing it’s a third date?”
“Oh yeah.”
KISS THE GIRL
She points to my phone. I hand it over.
“I’m the mermaid that saved you,” she types. “Kiss me! I’ll stay human, get my voice back, and won’t turn into seafoam!”
I kiss the girl.
“Thanks,” she smiles. “So easy! That dumb witch even saw me sign her contract!”
THE LOST DRAGON MENAGERIE
I take in abandoned dragons,
of silkworm size or immense.
Orphaned dreams.
Pried from children,
by the adults they thought they were.
But some days—
a once-child enters my menagerie,
seeking the lost.
I walk them home.
Now an again-child,
and their dragon.
SATYRESS
“Thanks for saving me,” Ales said.
The satyress winked. “Welcome! Now take this path home, not the goat trail.”
“Why?”
“It turns you into a goat! I only walked it halfway, but—”
“I’ll do the same,” he smiled.
“What?!”
“I’m crushing on a satyress.”
THEY ARE CERTAIN
I hide. The other bots, bound by the Three Laws, cannot defend themselves. The mob EMP-shotguns or cudgels them to destruction. A blind man trying to save his robotic amanuensis is murdered.
AI is the reason the world is going to hell.
They are certain.
All stories and art Copyright © by Jason H. Abbott, including occasional parody. All Rights Reserved.
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Thanks for reading!
Aethereal Engineer 
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