Y is for Yem-Thress

         (My A to Z Blog Challenge theme this year is Bittersweetness & Light, my new collection of hope-filled, joy-inducing fantasy and sci fi short stories, poems, and art.)

        Here’s an excerpt from somewhere in the middle of the short story “A Missionary to the Yem-Thress Zone of Contention.”

        The Facilitator came up behind Mary Fisher and guided her out of the Great Hall, backwards so as not to have to turn around in one direction or the other and thus seem to favor one potentate over the other.  They led her back to her room, and as soon as they were inside with the portal closed, their limbs went slack.

        “You must be trying to get me executed!” they groaned, but the UniTrans marked the tone with a “wry humor” tag.

        “I did warn you.”  She raised both arms in the waving gesture that the UniTrans suggested would indicate friendly affection.  “I’m very grateful for your help.  But now I’ve done my piece and I’ll go home and leave you, hopefully in peace.  I certainly hope you won’t suffer for listening to the message and helping me share it.”

        A buzz on the portal startled them both, making the Facilitator contract so suddenly their elaborate collar slid down over their shoulders.  “You are a wreck!” Mary said, her own tone marked with wry humor as the Facilitator relaxed to normal dimensions and rearranged their collar.  They opened the door and a being entered, wearing the livery of the Thress Emperor and bearing a round box intricately carved from some reddish substance that looked to Mary like coral.

        “For the Ambassador from the Divine Spirit,” they said.  Mary tried to read the Thress courtier’s expression, but the UniTrans marked it only “formal.”  The being opened the box and presented it to Mary.  Inside, nestled on a soft blue cushion, was an object about as large as her open hand and shaped like a rounded star.  It was made of some sort of polished stone with waving gold striations, studded with blue glass bubbles.

        “A shkreth!” the Facilitator breathed in a voice filled with awe.

        The courtier blinked graciously.

        This story pulls on a lot of threads that interest me.  It’s a Quaker story in disguise (actually based on a true story from 1658, reimagined as some kind of far-future sci fi).  It’s full of linguistic explorations, as the characters attempt to communicate difficult philosophical concepts across widely alien cultures, relying on some sort of universal translator.  It’s imagining some of the different ways the universe could be viewed by creatures with very different biology (including pentaradial symmetry).  It’s about the possibility of connection and cooperation.

        Today’s illustrations are two shkreth and a very rough sketch of what I imagine the Yem-Thress might look like.

        Marketing Moral: My marketing “morals” have all been about things you could do for me, so how about for once I offer you some free stuff?  Some of the offers are tit-for-tat:

• Sign up for my newsletter and I’ll send you a pdf sampler of some of my art and poetry concerning dragons.

• If you own or have read my book On the Virtues of Beasts of the Realms of Imagination, leave a review somewhere (and let me know where) and I’ll send you a pdf of a bonus page for the book that includes new creatures.

• There’s a giveaway right now on Bookfunnel where you can get lots of free ebooks, including a collection of Round Robin Stories (Volume Three), one of which I collaborated on.

        Plus a few other things are straight-up, no-strings-attached free:

• If you go to my Books and Writing page, you’ll find links to 7 of my stories and poems that are published on-line and available to read any time.  (Some of them were already linked during the alphabet, but there are also a few others that aren’t from this book.)

• Do you like coloring pages?  You can download several here.  Plus, in the same folder there's also a memory game you can print out.

        Proper Moral: Fortune favors the bold – but perhaps even more, karma favors those with integrity.

        Have you ever been able to reach across a cultural divide and make a connection with someone you expected to be very different?

[Pictures, Shkreth, rubber block prints with digital manipulation;

The Facilitator, pen on paper by AEGNydam from Bittersweetness & Light, 2025 (See NydamPrints.com).]