She awoke in a strange place, a deep, black cavern where a pulsing sound was heard in the distance. Her sight slowly came, she began to see more and more of the cavern. The doe began to walk in this musty place, occasional drips of water were heard as they splat on the rocky floor. She could not see stalactites lining the top of the place, like sharp needles ready to fall on her, and passed the occasional stalagmite that protected her. The sound was louder now, a pulsing sound much like a fast heartbeat.

She now walked into a much more well lit place, and before her was a barren black tree. The light shone on it, the tree slick and black, dripping ooze, the loud pulse now coming from the tree.

"What...is this...?", Zerg questioned.

A voice spoke to her. She never knew who it was or where it came from, but it was like a whisper on the wind, perhaps even the tree itself speaking:

"Before you is the World Tree. It has grown here in the center of all things for a long time, but now it is dying. It cannot handle the evils of the world any longer, and is nearing it's last moments...once the World Tree dies, life on Earth will cease."

"What? No! This--", Zerg began, hesitating, "This can't be the end of it all." She approached the big pulsing tree, but the black ooze lashed out at her, and she was shoved away.

"What can I do? How can I stop this?", she begged for an answer.

The voice spoke once more:

"Only the purest light from the purest heart can destroy all evil."

She didn't understand at first, but then saw a bright beam of light from a hole in the ceiling. It shone in a small spot, and once Zerg stood in the light, it reflected off of her and struck the tree. The beam was strong, and the ooze began to fizzle, but the evil fought back, now reforming to reflect the light off of it.

I started reading Nelson Mandela's Favorite African Folktales today, and was inspired to write my own folktale. I loved how the folktales explain how things are the way they are, and after a drive today I came up with this. I hope you guys enjoy a modern folktale.


----------------------------------------------------------------

Sycamore Wings

A Doe was walking through the forest one day when she heard quite a commotion. As she rounded a hill, she noticed several sycamore trees arguing with one another. The Doe tilted her head and asked, "What is the matter?"

The oldest of the Sycamores was the first to speak, "All I have ever wanted was some space, but my sons and daughters chose to grow too close to me. Now they take all the water and nutrients from the soil and leave me none!"

One of the younger Sycamores spoke here, "It wasn't our fault! When we dropped from our mother we had no where else to go but right here. There was no wind to carry us farther away, nor were there birds or animals to bury us far from here."

The Doe thought about this, and then said, "I will help, but I do not want any more arguing from you!", and she left for a moment. The doe went deep into the forest where she found an old pond. Here lived Dragonfly, who was buzzing and skirting the pond happily. "Hello there, Dragonfly, may I speak with you?"

The Dragonfly flew to her and landed on her nose. "Hello there Doe! It has been years since we've spoken. How have you been?", Dragonfly asked. The Doe sighed, "I am fine, but I feel bad for the Sycamore trees. They cannot fly far and fast as you do, and argue with one another all their lives."

Dragonfly thought about this, "I see, I see. Let me come with you to see these Sycamore trees.

So I'm planning on having a memorial/tribute to any deceased TEF characters in my story, Fall From Grace. I originally was going to make the tribute only relate to heroic TEF characters, but it can also feature those on the darker side.

The tribute will be related to a new alien species that brings the bodies of dead or dying heroes from each world and keeps them on a 'life support' system, though each hero is symbiotically attached to one member of the alien species. They are laying on the chest and belly of the alien, with several veins/branches attached to their body, arms, and face. The hero is sleeping and given their own unique dream world to enjoy while the alien keeps watch over them.

In the case of TEF characters that aren't necessarily heroic, the alien species may have them there for a specific purpose. You never know, they would be important enough to keep alive.

So anyway, if you have a deceased TEF character that you would like featured in the story, please let me know here. All I really need is their name and a short title or description, for example:

Caw, the banished island deer who regained his faith in the Twin Gods.

Feel free to comment below with anyone you would like included in the story, and I will be glad to add them in.

Thanks guys

This is a story I have been working on for a while, in which many of the events are inspired by music. In fact every chapter in the story is named and based off of a song. The story will not only feature the Supreme Talux, which I thank Terabetha for the design help, but also will introduce a new alien species called the Quoklians, which I have had lots of help with as well, especially from Aivilo and Trigger_Mortis. I'm still working out ideas and designs for the aliens if anyone would like to add to what we've come up with.


Also, for those who may be unfamiliar with my characters, here are the links to their biographies if you need them:

Quad - Hex - Zephyr
Iugulare, Anirapio, and Nekumbra - Noctuis





It all began with stars. The cloudless night sky was shimmering with starlight. Hex was watching these stars, unaware that anything would happen tonight. Her blind eyes could take in the light and interpret the future for those around her. She would never have expected what happened this night.

A large flash of light streaked across the sky, illuminating the Forest in a ghostly blue hue.

So I've been planning a new story soon (you can read the preview here), and decided I wanted to introduce a new species of alien. I have the basic idea for the aliens down, but as far as a design I'm pretty stumped. I wanted to ask the artists here if they wanted to give it a shot designing this new species. But also I can use some help with naming them and their homeworld as well, so even if you're not an artist you can definitely help me out.

Also anyone who makes a design will get some form of writing in return, either a short story or a poem

Here are the ideas I have for the species:

- Friendly species that live on their own world in a distant star system, yet are connected with all living species in the galaxy. There is at least one living person on each world that knows about them, in Earth's case, the Twin Gods know about them.

- The alien species brings the bodies of dead or dying heroes from each world and keeps them on a 'life support' system, though each hero is symbiotically attached to one member of the alien species. They are laying on the chest and belly of the alien, with several veins/branches attached to their body, arms, and face. The hero is sleeping and given their own unique dream world to enjoy while the alien keeps watch over them.

- The purpose of this is much like a galactic failsafe - the aliens keep all these heroes available should they ever be needed to fight a threat to the galaxy.

So I found a nice page on Facebook called Wild for Wildlife and Nature, and they have a lot of amazing photos...including a buuuuunch of deer photos. I had to share them for you guys, so here they are.

I came up with one of those Facebook meme things - You have your very own TV station where you get to pick the shows that are aired, regardless of what network or channel they are shown on. If you had up to 10 shows to pick, what shows would definitely be on your TV station? You can pick anywhere from 1 show to 10 shows, and it can be anything from reality TV, cartoons, anime, documentaries, and so on.

Here are my picks, not necessarily in any order:

1 - The Steve Wilkos Show (UTV)
2 - MAURY (WGN)
3 - Ghost Adventures (Travel Channel)
4 - Ancient Aliens (History 2)
5 - South Park (Comedy Central)
6 - Beyond Scared Straight (A&E)
7 - Hell's Kitchen (FOX)
8 - Kitchen Nightmares (FOX)
9 - Survivor (CBS)
10 - The Walking Dead (AMC)

Notable runner ups for my list - Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern; Gangland; Hoarders; Intervention; Lockup; Dateline NBC's 'To Catch A Predator'


Feel free to post your picks below.

I put some deer corn out this morning and about an hour ago there was one young buck that came up to eat. Next thing we know there were more, up to six that came. So I grabbed my camera and took these pictures for you guys. Enjoy

I've been rattling this idea in my head for a while, and wanted to combine some ideas from previous stories into a new one.

The story would be a remake of my idea of Quad transforming into the Supreme Talux (Thanks again to Terabetha for the artwork), and now unable to control himself, he creates havoc in the Endless Forest. It is up to the Endless Forest deer and a few unlikely heroes to come up with a plan to subdue the raging Supreme Talux.

I will most likely need volunteers for the story, but I will get to those when I have everything decided. Also there will be 7 chapters to the story, each inspired by 7 songs in which the title of each chapter is named after. I also will have a surprise ending


I need to decide if Noctuis will be in owl or boar form too. The last story I wrote with him, he had changed to boar form, but who knows...I know you guys kind of like him as an owl, so I may just stick with owl.

Anyway, I did want to share a few tidbits of the story. These are tentative and may not appear exactly in the story as I write them, but it will express a few parts of the story. Enjoy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------


"Oh my Twin Gods, the prophecy! The comet has come! We are doomed! Doomed!!", the blind seer was crying. Pema ran to her side, holding Hex as she continued to stare at the sky, and continued to cry out, "It's the end of the world! The comet has come! We are doomed!!" In the sky was a bright blue comet, streaking slowly and letting off a blue glow in the place.

--------------

"Quad! It's Zephyr, shes--", someone said, and Quad ran in the direction they came from. He slid to a halt, staring and couldn't believe what he was seeing.

There, laying by the Pond, was Zephyr.

If you guys didn't hear, Tale of Tales is 9 years old today.

They posted on their Facebook today that the company is 9 years old.

I thought it would be great for all of us to wish them a happy birthday, so...



Happy Birthday, ToT!!