Summer Break

Summer is calling and I'm listening. My brain needs to marinate in the x's of sun's rays and the brine of ocean waters so I can pull together life and writing and creativity in the fall. I will be back in September with new stories, and meanwhile, I hope your summer is amazing :).

Love, Elm

Spilled Ice

Tess was high--high on the noise, high on the crush, high on the energy that coursed through the hall and kept her writhing with the nearest body to the music.

She flowed her way over to the bar and ordered a drink, wishing the nice boy who had purchased her drink earlier was still around. Maybe he'd come back. Maybe they'd meet again on the floor. Or not, it didn't matter. She had enough.

Trembling, she raised the glass to her lips and chugged.

"Hey," she heard the voice in her ear, and her fingers slipped. The drink spilled down her dress, ice cold and shocking. It numbed her high.

"Sorry, babe, let me buy you a new one."

She glanced up at the voice. He had come back. "No, it's all down my front. I have to go clean up."

"Can I help?"

"Not unless you have a spare dress in your car," she said.

He shook his head, smiling. "But I can give you a ride home."

It wasn't a good idea. Janet, her own ride, was somewhere canoodling. Stack had ditched them both up front to play cards in the Circle. That left no other options. She'd just have to show some self-control. She'd promised herself a whole month of living clean. She still had twelve days to go.

But he'd just dowsed her high.

"Try me," he said.

"All right, then. It's your funeral."

"I don't mind a little peace and quiet after this place."

"It is loud," she agreed, happy. For an Exo or extrovert, leaving early was a dirge. For an Ino aka introvert, it'd be the opposite. Either was fine with her, but what you kept your eye open for were the Inos that Exos brought with them. Exos offered more energy in a group, but Inos were deep wells when you got them alone. When they passed out, you simply blamed it on overexertion at the club. Maybe she could just start over after this one.

He smiled and helped her scoop the ice from her lap. He really was sweet. And something about him made her think that there was lots more sweetness inside him, just waiting to be tapped.

She allowed him to take her arm and keep her close, weaving the two of them through the crowd, finding the empty threads of space like he depended on them. A blast of chill night air blew the hair from her face and the remainder of her exhilaration vanished. Her companion waved down the valet and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, rubbing at the goosebumps along her skin.

"You have friends here?" she asked, leaning into him. She toyed with the energy he offered. Sometimes, you could get Inos to offer it up without sucking.

"I came to meet someone but they took off." He shrugged and winked at her. "I confess I found someone I like better."

The car came around and he opened the passenger door for her. She slid inside and relaxed into the leather. So far, so very good. Her companion tipped off the valet and pulled away from the curb, guiding the car under the flashing lights of the empty street.

"Where is home sweet home?" he asked.

"Not too far," she purred. "In Lambton."

"Lambton's a nice place."

"What about you?"

"I'm from Belmont."

"Belmont's a long ways away." That made it better.

"My friend lives closer."

"You must be a good friend, then," she smiled at him.

"Sometimes you have to have excuses to get what you need. I imagine he found it."

"Are you okay with that?"

He nodded. "Everyone needs relief once in a while."

She laughed. "He sounds like me."

He glanced over. "Maybe. Maybe not. Are you disappointed? I really was sorry."

She shrugged. "Not a lot I can do about it now." True enough, even if not strictly true.

The darkness wrapped around them as he pulled onto the freeway. The freeway was the long way home, but she didn't mind. The farther Inos got from civilization, the more they opened up. She had to get him to talk about himself. "So what do you do in the sunlight?"

"I do research at the university in Belmont. I'm a grad student in psychology."

"Psychology?" she cooed. "Tell me about psychology."

"More particularly, I study energy flow."

She stiffened but made herself laugh. "What kind of energy flow? Chi, or whatever it is the Buddhists believe in?"

"Something like that. Mostly, I look at where people get their energy from. Do they get it from other people, or from the natural world around them?"

Maybe he hadn't been the best ride to take, after all. Her mom had warned her about Inos who could take out Exos, leaving them high and dry. She had to know what he intended and try to talk him out of it. "Sounds interesting, but I don't believe in energy flow."

He looked at her curiously. "You don't?"

"My dad ridiculed anything that wasn't scientific. How do you prove chi? But maybe you know something he doesn't."

"I'd have to talk to your dad."

"He'll be up waiting for me," she said.

He smiled. "You have a good dad. Unfortunately, I don't think you'll be seeing him tonight."

She cursed both him and her wet dress. The cold wouldn't help her to get home. "You don't understand," she said, "I'm clean. It was my goal. Only use the energy from group gatherings."

His smile lengthened. "I thought you didn't believe in that stuff."

"Yeah, well," she muttered, "kids often find their own paths when they don't meet up with their parents' expectations."

"I felt your buzz. Was it your mom who taught you what you know?"

"A little bit. Mostly just experimentation." Maybe there was still a way to get the upper hand. She reached out with her remaining energy to keep him talking. "What about you? Was it your friend?"

"My friend," he grimaced, "got sucked dry. They left him out on the freeway."

The freeway. She withdrew and sank low into her seat. "It wasn't me," she said.

"How do I know that?" he asked.

"They leave an aura. You have to know that from your research," she said. "They remember what the person felt like, if you can get them to meet the right person."

He smiled and parked the car on the side of the road. He slid to her side of the vehicle and pressed her hard against the door. "That's why I took him to the club," he whispered loudly into her ear, running his hand down the back of her neck. "He remembered you."

He yanked on the door handle and shoved her onto the street.

She rolled to her feet in the wake of his dust and sighed. She didn't regret last month's binge nearly as much as she thought she had.

If she could get home without expiring, she was going to have to find this hottie again. It sounded like they had a lot in common, and a lot to even up on... least of all, his friend.

___

Please forgive my absence last week--instead of composing flash-fiction, I accomplished the unthinkable... I finished the draft of my novel!! Yes, the last page reads "THE END OF BOOK 1." It took a year-long revision after workshopping it in WIFYR 2013's full novel course (with a spectacular Mette Ivie Harrison as teacher, not to mention brilliant classmates), and it's now getting reviewed by writing buddies for a last revision or five. Wish me luck!

Meanwhile, my visiting sis-in-law and I were discussing extroverts and introverts this week, and the relative benefits of each. Which category to you fit in, Ino or Exo? How do you recharge?

Spark

"Stop crowding," Spark snapped at his sister. "You're taking my oxygen."

"Mom," Sprat whined. "Spark isn't letting me have any air."

"Hush, now," Mom said. "We all need to work together. That's how you achieve the most burning glow, one that is beautiful and gives the stars in the sky hope."

Sprat let out a pop in Spark's direction. The pop caught an updraft that vibrated the wooden house above them, and the logs crumpled and caved into their pocket. Spark yelled as a stick pinned him in a pile of his squirming sisters.

"Hold on," his father chuckled. "I'll burn you out, it'll only take a second." He emitted a bright heat that enveloped Spark in the glow, and his sisters cheered. "There you go, Sprat," he said.

Always Sprat. Spark sizzled and slipped off to the other side of the log. He climbed it and let the draft carry him up to the tips of the flames. It was colder up here, and the wind sprites played games with the fire, teasing the elementals apart. They always managed to stick together, flexible in their glowing chains.

He gazed at the stars. Were they really elementals, stuck all the way out there? Mom said they were souls who'd strayed too far from the flame and could do nothing except wait for help to get home.

A sudden breeze carried him into the air and he yelped. An elemental from the chain reached toward him. "Careful, there, little spark," he said, but the wind sprite buffeted him and carried him high up into the air.

"Mom," he yelled. But he couldn't hear a reply as the wind laughed and tossed him to another tumbling sprite.

They shot him toward the great shadows that were blacker at night than coals. The shadows loomed large and close, gaping mouths ready to swallow him whole. He slammed into a surface and pulled himself together, gasping as the giggling sprites retreated. This wasn't the mouth of a monster, it was a piece of wood they'd tossed him against, so huge it formed an entire platter of food. Mom and Dad and his sisters could feast on this for forever, they would never have to rely on humans for food again. Was that what the winds had been trying to tell them?

But how could he let his family know? He wrapped himself around a splinter, chewing at the tough wood, encouraging it to give way. This wood was more bitter than the sweet, dry pine the humans fed the family. He could hardly get it to spark. Discouraged, he crawled along the surface instead until he found a knothole, and huddled inside. Home was a flickering flame a long ways away. It glowed bright and familiar, and Spark wondered if this was how the stars felt. He felt so cold. He fell asleep, shivering and tiny.

Dawn touched the knothole and woke him. Spark spread himself flat as a pancake against the wood to absorb the heat that crawled along the sun's rays, gifts from the Great Fire Elemental himself. He began to sizzle, and energized, looked for home. The stones surrounding it seemed closer by day, a manageable journey with the sun guiding him, and he slid down the wood wall carefully and lit on the tender grass. For all that grass tickled like good food, his dad's warning echoed inside him. Grass held water inside it, and if burned still green, let off horrible fumes that choked you out. He floated respectfully above the blades, saving his heat.

A human's shoe crashed down and a breeze whisked Spark to the side. "Careful," it whispered as it passed.

"Psst," he heard, and he flickered at two eyes that gazed at him from a plump stone. "In here. He'll smother you out if he sees you."

Spark darted behind it. "Thanks," he said. "That was close."

"That's what we're here for," the stone said. "I'm Puk."

"I'm Spark."

"What are you doing so far from the fire? I thought fire elementals stuck together."

"We do, usually. But I got separated by a wind sprite."

"They're trouble, but not with us rocks," Puk said.

"It was my fault. Too many sisters. I wanted a bit of space."

"You come from a big family?"

Spark flicked toward the fire. "We're twenty thousand at night."

"Huh. The earth's bigger than that."

"All the stars up there are ours, too," he stretched toward the sky.

"Shush it down, he'll see us," Puk said.

Spark turned his attention back to the human. It bent over a wooden bench, pouring tiny stones inside cylindrical houses, then sealing them shut and placing them into wooden crates. "What is it doing?"

"Collecting. I'm lucky it hasn't spotted me yet. It puts the ancient ones in those boxes. They all keep complaining how squished they are. But the human tells them they'll be free, soon."

"It tells them? It can talk to them?"

"Nah, I think it just talks to itself. They don't like it much, though."

"Why not?" Spark watched the human. "Isn't it like before they were born? I heard Mother Earth incubated them, and then spoke to the fire elementals inside her belly and we shoved them up toward the sky." It was the story Mom told of why the stones encircled the home fire. Fire and stone watched out for each other.

"The stones asked for help because they didn't like the pressure. That's why we grind under the surface all the time. Better not to be crushed down."

"Yeah," he thought of Sprat. "I can understand that."

Spark tucked behind Puk as the human rose and left. Without all the noise, Spark could hear the stones' voices, now, faint and desperate. "What are we going to do?" he said.

"Do?" Puk said. "What is there to do?"

"There's gotta be some way to help."

"You go over there, you'll be caught up in the whole shenanigan yourself. Stay here with me. I'm a rock, you're a flame. We'll look out for each other."

"I like the sound of that, but..." Their pleas made him burn with anxiety. What did the human think it was doing, messing with elementals? "I think I can help. Those boxes are just made of wood."

"Wait," Puk said.

"I'll come back."

He hopped over the earthy ground toward the boxes, and the cries grew louder, a siren that he couldn't resist. His mom was right, elementals helped each other out. Maybe he couldn't handle his sisters and their pushy glow, but he could help these rocks. If flames stuck together all the time, all close and protected, how could they help everyone else?

"Psst," he said, and abruptly, the stones' clamor hushed. "I'm going to chew through the box."

A hum grew around him, excited and expectant, and Spark felt it fill him. He fell onto the wood and began to chew. The wood was the same pine that fed his home fire, and he spread himself over it, hungry in a way he hadn't known before. He sizzled and hummed a chorus to the rock elementals' tune. He flared, feeling powerful.

A shout sounded behind him and darkness shrouded him. Spark gasped and tried to breathe in the . sudden lack of oxygen. He drew himself back together and crawled into a little hole in the wood.

"A bit too close for comfort," the human said. "Not sure how that happened, I keep them out here in the shed for a reason. But let's get these babies outside and see what they can do now that it's dark."

Oxygen spread around him again and Spark gulped with relief. He crawled farther into the hole to the rocks. "I'm here," he whispered. "I'm going to try again."

He lit on the end of a skinny thread of wood and chewed it quickly down, feeling his energy grow. He spread his body around the larger housing and dissolved at it eagerly, and then a great shudder sent him flying--cold, gasping, and incredibly high in the air. He clung to the house, afraid, but the rocks around him cheered.

"Little flame, you've saved us," they said, and Spark felt heat reflect back on him, warming him.

"You're welcome," he spread and touched them. Something flared at the connection.

A pressure filled him, greater than any he'd felt before, growing so great he couldn't contain it or he'd burst. He released his flame into a thousand pieces and sang as his new sparks, born from the combination of stone and fire, spread out into the sky.

He hoped the winds would carry some of them back to his home fire to tell his mom and dad about his discoveries, and that another would return to Puk.

The rest of him flew toward the stars to warm them with hope.

___

Happy Independence Day to the US, and happiness to the rest of you beautiful wide world :).

Smarts

I just have dragons on the brain. I can't quite get enough of them. And I know I'm not the only one out there who NEEDS a Nightfury more than life itself. So, in the spirit of inventiveness, what would you do if you had access to dragons? Me, I'm feeling lazy in the summer heat. Stick and marshmallows, here I come.

Limit Break

"Watch," Dedis said.

He pounded his hand into the stone, and my jaw opened as the end of his arm melted into a round ball of tissue, as though he had rolled dough on a wall and buried his fist inside it. When he pulled away, the stone was cratered.

"Cara," he said, flexing his hand back into shape. "You do something."

On the other side of the room, his daughter sighed and lay her book down, then stood and with a look of concentration, kicked fiercely to the side. Her yell reverberated through the room, and instead of stopping at its full extension, the leg stretched double, triple its length, and smashed into the stone beside us. I now knew where the odd craters in the walls came from.

"The very shock on your face tells me that you expect something different," Dedis said to me. "Different rules, a different reality. I couldn't believe it myself when my master showed me--he could wind his arm into a piece of chain and heft a dumbbell beyond the highest tower in the city."

I probably looked as shocked as I felt.

"We aren't superheroes, Phix," he said. "We simply have the privilege of journals. In those journals, the thoughts and experiments of our predecessors show us that this world is not our home. We don't know why we're here and we don't know where we come from, but we believe our presence here is a dream. Lived, and perhaps wasted. We want to find a way out of it. Not by suicidal means," he twisted his mouth, "but by shifting our reality. Now, it's your turn."

"My turn?" I shook my head slowly. "You think I can do that?"

"You're fresh to the City. Give it a try."

I pushed my fist half-heartedly to the rock.

"Not like that. Mean it."

I took a breath, and punched the stone. Pain radiated throughout my hand, and I brought bruised knuckles to my lips.

He smiled grimly. "I said, mean it."

"You're kidding, right?"

He waited, and Cara gave a sigh of exasperation from the table. Finally, I shook out my hand and slammed it into the wall.

I yelled as I felt the bones of my knuckles crack.

"Better," Dedis said. "This time, you must will your flesh to flow. See it defy physical laws--they aren't the same as you expected, are they? Move past the pain and make your skeleton bend. What kind of a will do you have?"

"One that doesn't break my bones," I muttered, staring at my hand. The knuckles were red and swelling blue, and ingrained with divots. Heat and pain throbbed through them.

"Exactly. Strike the stone."

I laughed under my breath. The bones were already broken, right? A little more broken wouldn't make much difference? With a last glance at Cara, who flicked her face back to her book, I closed my eyes and imagined my flesh rolling like Dedis' had, extending like Cara's kick had. I launched my arm at the wall and willed.

I stumbled, and opened my eyes to see the wall an inch from my nose.

Dedis shouted, and Cara exclaimed, close enough suddenly that I could smell her lavender scent.

My arm was a puddle past my elbow.

I turned my head and threw up.

___

This prompt for this fiction was Show someone discovering a new ability. I've broken through cement brick in my martial arts classes, and I've seen some broken bones that make the flesh all doughy, but I do NOT recommend trying this unless you're in a dreamworld. :) What limit-breaking ability would you like to have?

How to Make a Souffle in Zero Grav

This story goes beyond flash today. I couldn't give an intergalactic cooking class full justice without adding more detail. Well, I could, but where's the fun in that? I hope you enjoy. :) --Elm

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked, letting my sister into Teddy's bedroom first, since she was hefting the toaster oven.

She paused to hitch it up with her knee, and gazed at me levelly. "Where else are we going to learn how to make a souffle for Dad? He oversees the entire earth. I had to find something outside of his jurisdiction or kxxx, no surprise."

"Dad doesn't know anything about chemical reactions," I argued. "Cooking isn't classified as magic at all."

"Steph," she rolled her eyes. "If souffles aren't magical, then I don't know what are. Now, be grateful I filched some of Ted's IGCs and paid for both of us."

Teddy's Intergalactic Currency was stashed in the safe in his closet, but he wasn't very careful about keeping it closed when distractions like "Tucker just exploded your shaving cream in the bathroom" were shouted above the jargle coming from his mp3 player. Baby Tucker was gifted like Dad; Teddy, Stace and I were just gifted with survival smarts.

"But the toaster oven?"

Stace smiled grimly. "I want to be able to make my souffles at home as well as in a space station. It may not be as nice as their technology, but it's the only tool I have that Teddy hasn't stunk up with his Stinky-richies."

Cerrichis were Teddy's new find. He imported them from some satellite off the Andromeda galaxy... Cetus Dwarf, I think. They smelled like roasted goat hoof and looked like seaweed. Not really my thing, either.

"Can you get the Gate for me?" she asked. "This thing is heavy."

I hung a Com unit on her ear and one on mine, and then unlocked the Interdimensional Gate using the passcode that was scrawled on a little piece of paper also inside the safe. Then I entered in our destination code as Stacy rattled it off to me. The wall on the other side of the bed began to wriggle and then boil as the molecules sped into their vacuum. It always amazed me that the paint and sheetrock didn't crumble when it all slowed back to normal. A strong gravity threatened to pull the bed in, and I was glad that Ted had let me clean his room for him in light of Tucker's distraction--a sweet, sisterly, and completely loaded offer. No way did I need his smelly t-shirts coming through the Gate with us.

"You have the ingredients?"

I lifted the Target bag and wrapped the cord to the toaster oven around my wrist to make sure it didn't remain in the bedroom when the gate closed behind us, and allowed the vacuum to pull me in.

For a second, it felt like my cheeks and clothing and all the skin under my clothing were sucked off of my body, and then my insides began to tingle, rearranging themselves like the wall had. I stumbled on the other side, hoping that my molecules had arranged themselves back in the right places, and was glad I'd foregone breakfast.

"We'll have to take the transport," Stace said, blowing her hair off her face. "The classroom is about three miles down from here." She smiled. "Sure is easier to carry this thing in low grav. We should file for this at home. Dad could pull it off."

I snorted. "He likes things to be stable, remember? Bouncing toaster ovens are not stable."

"I'm just saying."

We bounced ourselves and our belongings through the crowd to the nearby elevator and squished in with some other passengers. Squished was literal--a whole family of balyoonis (who as far as I could tell were one giant lung) shoved in with us, and the younger ones couldn't hold their breath long enough to keep their middles in the whole way down. I tried not to stare and was glad that skin contact was not on the list of "aggressive behaviors that will cost you your life". I didn't smile reassuringly at the kids, either, since that was on the list.

I clutched the bag of ingredients as I followed Stace to the classroom, set it down briefly as I clamped on my harness in the ante-chamber, then wrapped myself around it tighter as the ingredients threatened to float out of the bag's opening inside our giant cube of a classroom. The classroom itself was zero grav to allow for some of the more delicate life forms to participate... or maybe it was because that was standard for many of them already. As my lemon floated off into the air, I snatched at it and shoved the entire bag into a cupboard on the wall.

"Oh shoot," Stacy said, placing the toaster oven on a work surface. The tables were anchored with lines to hooks in the vaulted ceiling and floor. "Can you go find a converter for me?"

I clipped my harness to the bar traversing the perimeter of the room (not unlike a ballet bar), and clung to it, squinting at the signs posted beside each cupboard. I scanned down at least thirty different scripts before finding one I recognized--in Chinese. Thankfully for my beginner Chinese skills, beneath it was a word in English. WHISKS. I sighed and pulled myself along the bar, bowing excuse me's (another non-aggressive motion) to the individuals whose stations I tried not to bump into.

All the cords made it hard not to trip, especially on the plastic-looking bubbles many of my classmates had attached to belts that clipped to their harnesses so they floated within reach. They looked like they were filled with flour or sugar or cocoa... I mean, this was an intergalactic cooking class for souffles, there had to be certain ingredients that all lifeforms used, didn't there?

Finally, near the portable power tools, I found the cupboard labeled CONVERTERS, and I rifled through the collection until I found one resembling our American plug. Why there needed to be so many shapes and sizes for plugs (including one the size of a football), I couldn't guess.

I turned around and gulped as a huge watery-looking fellow gurgled, and my translator flicked on. "Did you find what you were looking for?" he asked me, and I nodded, holding up the converter. "Very good. Please make your way to your station, we are beginning the class."

Maybe that's why there were plugs as big as footballs. His hands were my body-size alone.

On the way back, I raided the cupboard labeled CONTAINERS and grabbed a set of those bubble things for us. I also asked my Com what in the universe the teacher's species was. Wallerum. Mostly water, can stretch and cohese at will.

The Wallerum began to speak.

"Welcome to Soufflendous Souffles," he said. Stace rolled her eyes as strange noises came from around the room. Funny in other languages? "I am Teacher," he said, and I tapped my Com. Teacher Teacher.

"First, you will preheat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius," Teacher gurgled.

Stace fiddled with the dial on the toaster oven, while I moved the eggs from their carton into a bubble container. They floated like little versions of another of my classmates two stations over, and I nervously clipped the container onto the ring closest to my body on the belt, just in case he? she? it? glanced over and freaked out.

"Next, grease your baking bubble with butter."

I glanced at Stace, who looked doubtfully at the souffle pan she'd tucked into the toaster oven and opened her mouth, no doubt to ask me to find her a "baking bubble." I quickly took the powdered sugar and crammed its end into another plastic container, and then squeezed. Instead of forcing the powdered sugar inside, the end came out, and powdered sugar exploded into a thick white cloud around me.

I coughed and waved at the powder. Then something sucked at my clothes. The tension released and I blinked to see that the powder was gone. Teacher drew back, looking suspiciously white... and pink. "Please forgive me," he said. "I was nervous that the cloud would set off an alarm."

"Um, no problem?" I said, and bowed. I couldn't tell for sure, but I think he looked relieved. He turned back to his pre-cloud color and returned to the center of the classroom.

What had he done, licked me? I tapped my Com and asked it what had just happened. Swallowing, or cleansing, is thought to be a sign of affection. Ew. No wonder he turned pink. I shook it off and was glad I'd brought an extra bag of confectioner's sugar. I decided to leave it in the bag--a pretty good bubble itself. Stace made it back and I ignored her questioning look.

Teacher announced, "Place your chocolate inside a warming sphere. Then place the sphere into a boiling chamber. Bring the water inside the chamber to a bubble and allow the chocolate to melt."

He hung close to our table (yeah, like we needed help), and after watching us fumble for a while, offered to fetch us the extra baking tools we needed. I blushed, thinking of his... lick? and nodded, and he returned a few moments later with a couple of glass spheres and spatulas in our size, cradled in his enormous, flowy palm. He hovered close, watching but not commenting on Stace's and my attempts to insert the chocolate into the warming sphere. We got the chocolate in, and we even got the little bubble into the big bubble, but we lost it at turning it on.

"Um," I said finally, and he reached over a hand to carefully tweak the control on the boiling chamber. Instead of lots of small bubbles, one large bubble erupted around the warming sphere, true to zero grav, and gradually, melted chocolate began to coat the sides of the glass.

I bowed and turned to Stace. "Okay," I said. "I think we're getting this."

"Maybe." She sounded sullen.

Teacher continued, his gurgle musical in the background as my Com spoke into my ear. "As the chocolate melts, place eight egg whites into a second warming sphere, add one-quarter cup of white sugar, two teaspoons of lemon juice, and mix."

"Eggs. You brought whole eggs. They were supposed to be egg whites," Stace said as I unhooked the bubble.

"All the containers smelled like goat hooves," I said. "I figured we could crack them here. You didn't tell me there'd be no gravity."

"Sure, blame it on the gravity."

"Do you need help?" Teacher asked, and I looked nervously up at him, wondering if he was offering another lick. Oh yeah, the eggs.

I handed over the bubble and with a glance at the neighboring classmate two stations down, he turned and extracted the eggs from the bubble. His hand kind of melted around them, all fluidy-like, and inside it, the shells cracked, the yolks separated from the whites, and the whites themselves coagulated into a ball. He took the second warming sphere and deposited them inside.

I snapped my jaw closed. "Wow," I said. "You have skills."

The teacher turned that suspicious shade of pink and backed away. "Happy to help," he said.

"You don't think he's just showing off for you, do you?" Stacy grinned at me.

"Even if he was, there's a reason he's the teacher."

I turned back to bow at him but he'd hustled off to help another, rather pickly-looking classmate.

She harrumphed and I shook my brain back into gear. "I think you have to measure the sugar in a measuring sphere while it's inside the bubble," I said, as Stacy sorted through our measuring cups.

She slammed the cupboard door. "Fine, you do it, then. I don't know how I'm ever going to repeat this at home."

"They're just different tools."

"I told you the toaster oven was all I knew how to use."

"That's next."

I was getting the hang of it by now. I inserted my hand and a knife into the bubble and poked a hole in the lemon, then squeezed it. Juice floated in beads around the outer shell and I gathered them up in a large, glass pipette. I squirted the fluid in with the eggs and sugar, and then shook the sphere as hard as I could. It all kind of lazily mixed into clumps, and I frowned. I grabbed a whisk from the WHISK cupboard and shoved it into the sphere. It kind of worked.

"You're ahead of me," Teacher said, and I jumped. He was so... impressive. "Very good. Now insert the warming sphere into the boiling chamber, and as the water comes to a boil, continue to whisk the mixture. When it's warm, fold in the chocolate with the spatula."

"Whisk 'til warm, then fold," I repeated, and he made a funny noise that my Com translated as happy, or, noise of approval.

I whisked while Stace watched with a dazed look on her face, and not long after, I sucked up the melted chocolate with another pipette and squirted it into the eggs. I poked in the spatula and waved it around in what I hoped was a folding motion. How you "folded" in zero grav was beyond me.

"When the ingredients are combined, take the warming sphere from the boiling chamber and place it into the oven. Bake at the preset 190 degrees Celsius for approximately 20 minutes or until brown."

"Brown?" Stacy said. "It's already brown."

"Darker brown, a bit," I said.

"Oh sure, that makes sense."

"This is your part. The toaster oven, remember?"

"Oh, yeah." She perked up and removed the little sphere from the big sphere. She opened the oven and shoved it at the opening, but it caught at the door.

As I considered how to break it smoothly that the toaster oven wouldn't work, she scowled, then broke into a smile. "I have an idea." She took out the Earthy souffle pan.

"You can't seal it," I said.

"You brought foil, remember?" She opened our cupboard and took it out. "This'll work."

"It won't," I argued.

"It will," she promised, and crimped the foil all around the edge of the pan.

"Why can't we just use one of their ovens?" I half-asked, half-whined.

"I told you why," she said. She took the pipette and gathered up the batter, then squirted it into the opening in the pan. It worked, mostly. A few droplets escaped, which she caught on her tongue.

I rolled my eyes nervously.

"Teacher did it, why can't I?" she said, and I blushed.

She slid the souffle into the toaster oven and set the timer. I started to clean up, and a little while later, Teacher came over again, making another happy, or, noise of approval.

"How is it cooking?" he asked.

Stace peered at the oven. "It's too dirty to tell."

I yelled as she pulled open the door.

The souffle exploded.

Threads of chocolate burst through the air and spread from the oven door in a great, pressing growth. I blinked because it looked so blurry, and then I realized I was watching the souffle explode from inside Teacher. So was Stace.

Awkward. But somehow, it didn't matter.

Then we were on his opposite side and I ran a hand through my hair. It felt dry. I watched as Teacher spread his body in a great stretch to grab at the flying souffle. Seriously impressive.

"There really is a reason you're the teacher," I bowed as Teacher pulled himself back together. "You're not burned, are you?" I asked him.

Teacher turned pink again. I really had to check what pink meant for a Wallerum. "Only a little," he gurgled.

I watched, fascinated, as all the little bits of chocolate inside him gathered into a collection and surfaced inside his palm.

"Do you want these?" he asked, and I reached out and grabbed one, and put it in my mouth. I felt my mouth muscles spread in a helpless smile of ecstacy.

"No!" Stacy yelled.

I put my arm around her. "Stace, they're not ruined."

"Hang on," I told Teacher, who was turning away with our dessert. He'd turned a sorry shade of gray.

"He just regurgitated it," she wailed. "He regurgitated us!"

"I think it's different for him. Seriously, Stace, please?"

She looked at me and blinked. I know, when was the last time I said please? Finally, she took the thread of chocolate from my fingers and stuck it hesitantly between her lips.

Her eyes went wide. "Wait," she said as Teacher placed them into the cupboard labeled COMPRESSOR. "I want those back!"

His eyes turned around and the chocolate floated through to his other side.

I bit delicately on another flaky wafer. "We'll just have to make Dad another souffle. When's the next class?"

Flaming Expectations

Mason encouraged the stone to open a pocket and deposited his prize inside it, where it couldn't be smelled. Then he trotted to the end of his journey.

Flames brought the hot air to life and licked the edge of the pit, and Mason pressed his ears to his head and opened his mouth. The heat burned his teeth and tongue but he didn't step back. He was here to ask his enemy for a favor. He couldn't appear weak.

He gazed into the wavering heat for a hint of the presence that every hair on his body knew was here. He yowled.

The flames leapt and the heat seemed to gather itself. A pressure flattened the orange tongues against the outer rim until they appeared as only an afterthought, and heat filled Mason's mouth. A black ember rose from the depths, unfolding its coil.

"Hello, bruzzah." The serpent grinned and flicked its tongue toward him. "Are you here for a job interview? I need my back scrubbed. Flaking mica is so itchy."

Mason's tail twitched in irritation. Sussah thought he was so funny. He wanted to catch that tongue and shred it through his claws. The whole "brother" thing made him want to howl to the Winds at its unfairness. Whoever heard of a cat paired to a serpent, of all animals?

"If you touch me with that thing, I'll topple all your rocks on top of you," he growled.

"Still the self-righteous, boring animal you were always were, I see," Sussah hissed, bathing him in steam.

Mason gagged on the intensity of the sulfur. He thought he'd accustomed himself to that part of the ordeal on the long pathway downward. Thankfully, he'd had something in his mouth to sweeten the flavor.

"So? Why did you come here, if not to aid me in my eternal predicament?"

Mason hesitated. He wasn't sure his mate was in her right mind, and uncertainty and disbelief (not to mention instinct) had made him argue against her for most of the summer season. But she'd held out, and in the end, he bowed to her wishes. Anything for the cat he loved.

"Murra wants a fire serpent to watch her kits. The ice is coming and she's worried they'll freeze."

A crunching noise filled the cavern and Mason shrank until he realized the serpent was laughing.

"Let me get this straight. You want me to entrust one of my kin with your clan for the winter? Ask a serpent to live at the heart of a nest where serpents aren't allowed to slither, at the time of year when my kind are the weakest?"

Mason crouched, acknowledging the hilarity of the idea. "She said it would be a show of our truce. She told me I should learn to get along with my bond." He flicked his tail, irritated and amazed that they were having this conversation.

Sussah's laugh grew. "And what promise would I have in exchange for this truce? Will she send one of her own precious kits here?"

Mason wanted to bite him in outrage at the idea. Instead, he shifted his feet. His pads were sweating and made the ground feel slick. "You know they can't endure this kind of heat. But she promises moles next summer."

"Moles?" Sussah's tongue flicked again, and Mason resisted the urge to swipe it.

He shrugged. "I told her I'd ask. I didn't think you'd take me up on it." He turned his back on the serpent, telling his fur firmly to stay sleek.

"Wait. Tell me about moles," Sussah hissed.

Mason turned back around, reluctant. "I will accompany my kits down here with one mole apiece each quarter, when they are grown enough to make the trip. Until then, I will bring one myself each quarter."

"Moles...." Sussah's neck rolled in a circle of pleasure and the flames danced. "I haven't tasted mole in over a hundred years."

"They are tasty," he licked his lips.

Sussah bent his body close, and Mason flattened his ears and squinted. "How do I know you will keep your end of the bargain?"

"I have a mole for you now, up above. And," he hesitated and closed his eyes entirely, unsure of how he could ever mutter the words that he knew would close his end of the deal.

For Murra and the kits.

"I'll scratch your back for you."

A cloud of sulfur enveloped him. "Bruzzah, I'm in."