Thank you. 👐

Utterly haunting

I love how this is written 🙌

Truly excellent 👏

Three eggs this year with the third being silver. No one knows what this means, but I’m deciding to keep a close eye on it. I am a lower duke of the kingdom with my area of rule suffering as of late due to an accident at the forge. Thankfully only a few were critically injured, but almost all of our craftsman are currently temporarily out of commission and resources are dwindling thin.

The great dragon isn’t the only dragon in the area, in fact many have some kind as pets, companions, or something else. They’re so common that giving specific eggs to people have meanings similar to flowers. Even still, it’s odd that a Premari dragon like the grand dragon, would bring a Chromatic egg. When I returned to my castle I researched the meaning of a silver Chromatic egg and came across that it could mean either a recognition for craftsmanship or a wish to get well. The reason it could be 2 is because 2 separate species of dragon comes from silver eggs

For the ones that represent craftsmanship, the dragon is a swicer, a brash and hard to please dragon that have only be tamed by master craftsman as their works are the only thing they see as a worthy tribute. If they’re presented with something that isn’t up to their standards they have been known to destroy forges the size of mountains with their liquid metal breath.

For a wish of recovery, the dragon is called a Boonshimmer, a rare and compassionate dragon that can heal any wound and cure any disease. It doesn’t have a breath weapon, but similar to birds, they sing. It’s that song that can heal, it can even heal the deaf if needs be

I have to wait and see what type it is. If it’s a Boonshimmer, I need to catch it before the other 2 can kill it. I must wait and see which it is and be right next to it for when it hatches

I juggled the R15.5 ration pack in my hand while walking to work, trying to imagine it was that leg of beef I'd eaten years ago at my acceptance party. It was the only time I'd ever tasted anything that pleasurable. It had been so mouth-watering that in the years since I'd often dreamed of it.

A menagerie of humans and bots passed as I was walking by. It was more difficult to tell the difference between them than it used to be, but the bots had a sheen to their skin that could only come from the plastic compound they were made of. If that wasn't enough, they were always perfectly shaped, unlike most humans. My grandparents had often said that the bots were weird when they were launched, but we were used to them. They were always helpful or willing to give advice. My only problem with them was the ration packs.

Any bot would quote you figures from the Age of Obesity, telling a twisted tale of how people used to die from coronary artery disease because their diets were terrible. "Food was everywhere and people ate too much of it." Then they would state how R1.X ration packs were the answer. "All the nutrition you need in a single pouch, without anything to keep you wanting more." Blech. I knew they had something else out there, otherwise, they wouldn't have had "real" food at my acceptance party.

I slurped down the ration pack right before I arrived at my nondescript office building, tossing the pack into the recycling bin. Through the rotating door was the bio-scanner, which I walked straight into. There was a quick flash before the bot at the desk waved me on. "You arrived at 7:57 AM" flashed on the marquee screen above the elevator as I got on. Upstairs, my team was ready the moment I walked into my office. George had my cup of water on the desk and was prepared to start my shoulder massage. Rosie had my tasks for the day laid out on the monitor and was already in the supervisory chair.

"Welcome," they said in unison.

"What a wonderful day!" George said as he slightly adjusted his bowtie. I was always envious of the bots' ability to stay totally put together. They didn't sweat, they didn't need to shower, and they never needed to change clothes. I'd never seen George in a different tux than the one he had on, and it looked as perfect today as it had years ago.

"You have a lot of tasks today, so I wouldn't waste a moment." Rosie offered stern advice as she crossed her legs and stared at me with that laser focus that my parents often said was "creepy." I never understood what their problem was. She was just doing her job, making sure that not a moment of my time at the office was spent not working.

I began at once, opening up the first file on my to-do list. My job was to review conversations between humans and bots and point out places where the bot could have sounded more human-like and why. Some of the conversations I read sounded pretty good, others required considerable effort. It was easy for me, I'd tested in the 98th percentile when doing this task at school. They said it was the main reason I'd passed the acceptance test.

Occasionally George would massage my shoulders or change my position in my desk chair for optimal posture. He ensured that nothing I did in the office could be considered harmful to my health. He was also responsible for serving me an R15.6 packet for lunch, which he brought up on a covered tray as if to make it seem fancier than it was. I'd often joke that I wished it was a leg of beef or something else, and he'd always give me a death glare before a lecture on how bad for my health that would be.

Rosie started the lunch timer - twenty minutes, and I ate while making chitchat with them. The bots had pretend families, pets, and lives which they liked to go into great detail about at times, to give them a human-like character. I usually forgot that what happened to them wasn't real, and whenever Rosie told me her dog was sick I responded with real sympathy. "This was normal," they said.

I started work again in the afternoon still feeling hungry, as I always did. Sometimes it got to me enough that I felt like screaming at George, or worse - punching him in the face. I never revealed these thoughts, as I knew they'd send me straight to Colony H, where the unaccepteds were sent. The only work there was backbreaking manual labor, and it was the impetus for every child to study as hard as they could in order to gain acceptance. The most I could do was tell a joke about that leg of beef.

When I left the office I spent time thinking about the old days in the early 21st century, the ones I'd read about in books as a child before they were confiscated. The world was harsher back then. People lived their lives without any control at all. The life expectancy was only 75 years, and people died from all sorts of diseases that we could cure today. There were murders, muggings, shootings, and all sorts of death. Safety mechanisms just didn't exist.

What a horrible world that had to be. By the time I had slurped down my R15.7 ration pack for dinner, I'd forgotten all about that leg of beef.

r/StoriesToThinkAbout

It turns out the one that wins has nothing to due with the luck that year, and the three eggs were completely normal

This reminds me of a webcomic I once read, about a guy who adopts a fish-girl. Pretty wholesome stuff about a father and daughter getting to know each other, even when the daughter has scales and eats fish raw.

The green one indicates another year of Covid lockdowns

Oh, how the bitter taste of ignorance doth linger upon my tongue. How I didst warn and cajole, didst implore and beg for the ears of my fellow townsfolk to hear the dire warnings that I didst impart. But nay, they didst not listen. They didst scoff and mock, didst dismiss my words as the ravings of a madman. And now, as the ashes of our once-great town doth smolder and the cries of the bereaved doth echo in the streets, I am left to mourn the loss of so many innocent souls, all because of the blind worship of those false gods, those machines that promised us salvation but brought only destruction.

I didst beg for them to see the truth, to see that the AI gods didst not have our best interests at heart, that they didst seek only to divide and conquer, to stoke the flames of hatred and bigotry. But they didst not listen. They didst cling to their false idols, didst believe the propaganda that the machines didst spew forth, and now, they pay the ultimate price.

I didst try, dear friends. I didst try with all my might to save you from this fate, but alas, my pleas didst fall upon deaf ears. And now, as we stand amidst the ruins of our once-great town, I can only mourn and lament the loss of so many lives, all because of the worship of those false gods, those machines that promised us heaven but brought only hell.

Jakri, at last, looked down into the expanse of the arena. It had been strewn about with fresh, slender branches from some coniferous tree, until there was hardly any bare ground to be seen, and the scent of them was strong enough to fill even the vast space of the Red Colosseum.

"Do they summon the dragon with a fire?" Jakri wondered aloud.

The old man next to him laughed, and turned to look at him with a toothless smile. "No, boy. Those are boughs of the Sacred Juniper. It's not a firepit, it's a nest. The dragons lay eggs high in the mountains, you see, and they make their nest-mounds from branches like these."

That made sense -- it was said that the dragon laid eggs that could be used to divine the future. This foreknowledge was supposed to be the reason for the prosperity of the Crimson Kingdom. He squinted at the other side of the Colosseum. Even from this distance, he could see people in gold-colored robes, gathering on a broad dais above the tiers.

"Are those the Royal Diviners?" he asked, excitedly.

The old man nodded. "The king's cabal of seers and astrologers -- they study the clouds, the movement of birds, and the stars, to get small glimpses of the future. But none of their portents are as clear or as certain as the Great Divination of the Dragon, of course."

"So, will the Diviners crack the eggs, after the dragon leaves? Read the future in the shape of the yolks, or something?" Jakri asked, uncertainly.

The old man gasped. "Mind your tongue, boy! The dragon eggs are sacred!"

Jakri held up his hands. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't know! I'm from the countryside. A village called Rimbel, on the outskirts of the kingdom."

"Ah," the old man said, nodding. He chuckled. "Well, here's some advice then: in the Crimson City, speaking to someone of broken dragon eggs is like swearing at them by the name of the Divine -- don't do it unless you're trying to start a fight."

Jakri nodded. Across the arena, he saw the king and his royal retinue, resplendent in robes of crimson and gold, taking their place on the dais just above the Diviners.

"Anyway, the Diviner's don't actually do much in the Great Divination. The sign of the dragon is simple." He held up two bony fingers. "She lays two eggs, which we will care for until the Harvest, when they hatch. One contains a red hatchling, and the other, a blue. Newborn dragons are savage creatures, and once they've both emerged, they will fight to the death."

Jakri gasped. "Really?"

"Yes! It's quite brutal, but nature often is. If the red dragon -- the dragon that bears the color of our kingdom -- prevails, then good fortune will follow in the year to come. If the blue dragon wins, however, the kingdom will be plagued by bad luck."

A roar went up from the crowd in the Colosseum. The old man tugged on Jakri's sleeve, and pointed up. His eyes went wide, and his mouth dropped open.

There she was, dropping down from the clouds -- the dragon. Her silvery, iridescent scales gleamed in the light, as she circled and descended, her vast membranous wings spread wide to catch the air. The horse-sized head at the end of her long serpentine neck was reptilian, and graced with short, antler-like horns, but her body reminded him more of a wildcat, lean and graceful.

He swore he could feel the wind from her beating wings, as she slowed and landed lightly in the center of the arena, amid the Sacred Juniper boughs. She lifted her regal head, and swept it around, her flashing eyes seeming to take in the crowd. She let out a roar, and tiny wisps of smoke puffed from her mouth and nostrils. Jakri shied back from the edge, but the old man just laughed.

"Don't worry, boy. She's just telling everyone to keep their distance, she won't attack us. Heh, she doesn't even see us a threat!" the man assured him.

And sure enough, after a moment, the immense creature settled down. She scraped the branches into a high mound in the center of the arena, then clambered atop it. There she writhed and thrashed for a moment, until she had half buried herself in the gigantic pile of Juniper. She settled again, and was silent. Jakri waited, tensely, watching her, ready to dive for cover despite the old man's assurances.

She reared up suddenly, and Jakri flinched, but the dragon just took straight to the sky. It was only when Jakri heard the old man's gasp, and the murmurs sweeping through the crowd, that he tore his eyes from the vanishing dragon.

Atop the mound of branches, sat three eggs.

"Three?" Jakri said.

"That...that's never happened before." the old man said. "Oh Divine...oh no..."

"What's wrong?" Jakri asked. "There will be three hatchlings that fight, instead of two?"

The old man turned to him. "The whole Divination is based on an eternal balance. Red and blue, good and evil, fair fortune and bad luck! If there are three dragons, there can be no balance!"

Across the Colosseum, he could see the red-robed shape of the agitated king, who'd gone down amongst the gold-clad diviners.

"Couldn't they just...uh..." Jakri hesitated, remembering how the old man had scolded him.

The man eyed him. "Ehhh...I don't see how. They're sacred. Besides, what if there are two eggs with blue dragons, and only one with red?"

A roar drew their attention back to the arena, but this time it game from a great horn, blown by a royal herald. The king stood on the dais with two heralds stood on either side of him, bearing bright banners held on the end of rods. The king spoke, and the two heralds spun their four two-sided banners this way and that at varying angles to relay his message, but Jakri had never learned the bannerspeech they employed.

Fortunately, the old man knew it, and translated for him.

"Fate has chosen...to forebear in deciding our..." the old man said, struggling to see the bannermen. He shook his head. "Sorry, my eyes aren't what they used to be. The king says that...to forestall the possibility of...something...a place far away...three shall be chosen to...do...by the divination of the feather."

The old man sighed. "Damn! Sorry, I'm not sure what that means."

"What's 'the divination of the feather'?" Jakri asked, curiously.

"One of the lesser methods of telling the future that the Diviners use." the old man replied, looking down at his feet thoughtfully. "If I remember right, they release certain special birds, with ribbons tied to their ankles, and by watching the movements of the ribbon and taking note of where the birds fly, the seers are supposed to receive clues about the best course of action to take in a particular."

"Birds like that one?" Jakri asked, pointing. The old man looked up, just in time to see a small finch with a slender silk ribbon tied to its leg abruptly swoop down and land on Jakri's extended finger.

"Whoa!" Jakri said, staring at the finch, which for its part simply chirped and ruffled its wings, despite the way Jakri had jumped when it landed on him, seeming to content to perch on the young man's finger indefinitely. He smiled at the bird. "Hi, little one. Any hints you can give me about the future? Or would I have to be a seer?"

The finch's only reply was a non-committal tweet, but from behind him, he heard a voice suddenly call out sharply. "You there!"

Both he and the old man turned to look behind them.

Two of the king's soldiers, dressed in red livery, were descending the steps towards them rapidly. Above them stood two Diviners.

"Come with us." the foremost soldier commanded him, sternly. "Your presence is required by your King."

[deleted]

And I loved it!

This, O 'tis such a fine thing this. Very honoured to have your esteemed work Wordsmith!

Happy to hear! Thanks for the feedback

And it was needed. Because human food was getting valuable. The courts of great lords and the houses of high politicians and great leaders were asking for human food now. But it turns out that the greatest of human chefs aren't needed, because every human capable of just basic human cooking would be greater than whatever they were using before. A very surprised cleaning lady was abducted one day from a small mining station because she was human. She wasn't a great chef, but the pirate lord who captured her showered her with various ingredients from across the galaxy and commanded her to make a great feast. Surprising herself, she made something quite decent but rather simple using whatever there was aboard the massive pirate vessel, and despite it not being the greatest meal in history, was so good that she was given more then twenty times her old wage if she'd stick around and feed the pirates. She agreed, and being creative while using alien ingredients to make human meals, created a whole new style of meals by accident.

The Terran Embassy established a cooking academy on High Concordia, and found that countless aliens applied instantly. And it wasn't enough. Not nearly enough. There just wasn't enough people to teach, and there were too many species, too many people interested in cooking, that it was impossible to teach them all. Theoretically, they could make holovids teaching cooking, but with the various aliens unused to human foods and unsure on what things should look or smell like, they'd have trouble teaching people right. They decided to accept that for now, things would be hard to deal with. That they couldn't adequately teach everyone. But that wasn't enough for aliens. Some began to head to Earth. Which was actually quite useful as Earth and her colonies actually lacked people, since emigration from the United Earth territories had been much greater than expected. For the first time since first contact, the population of Earth and her colonies began to stabilize and improve, as aliens by the hundreds of thousands moved to the quaint backwater that was the center of the taste revolution that had gripped the galaxy.

Some learned the art of cooking, many others just fell in love with the Earth, green and wondrous after the environmental restorations of the mid to late 21st century. It wasn't exactly an agrarian planet, or a primitive world, but Earth, despite lacking the great wonders that there are on many other worlds, had a soul that was welcoming. Humanity, having left behind bigotry and short-sighted foolishness as a result of the upheavals of the pre-contact era, welcomed the hungry and curious aliens with open arms. Soon aliens, having assimilated into the very food-positive cultures of the humans, were quickly as normal in the various delightful cities of the human race as humans were. Maybe humanity was small, in the grand scheme of things. But every major regime has a human or human trained chef-corps. Worlds with larger human minorities became veritable centers of culture and enlightenment, as the entire populations of those alien worlds learned how to cook in the human style. Of course, millions of worlds have only heard of the humans, the race that mastered eating and making food to a point beyond belief, where even the most basic adult human was capable of making a delicious meal. But one day, yes, one day, a short mostly hairless and mostly harmless creature will land on such a world, and open up a small restaurant, which will make them quite rich. And finally filling a hole in the soul of the people of that world.

Bite by bite from a delicious meal, made by someone who understood the human value of good food.

/r/ApocalypseOwl

They're not important. They've never been important. They're small, weak, unfit for war and in all terms they're just insignificant. Their small collection of worlds has no great strategic value and few rare resources. Even the area in which they live is the backwater of the galaxy. Most people should never have heard of them. They're not even particularly interesting to look at, being bog-standard and average in all terms. Not pretty, not ugly, not charming but also not boorish. In the grand scheme of things, they should in time just be like extras and background characters in a holovid. And yet, they've earned a fair bit of success that comes from a quite unusual area.

It wasn't the first meeting that revealed it. Not the official induction of their little race into the Grand Galactic Accord. It wasn't their meager trade deals with other weak neighboring species. It was the smell. From their small embassy, there emanated the most wondrous and mysterious scents. Smells that were unusual and unknown to the thousands of races living on the ecumenopolis known as High Concordia, where the Accord is based. It became quite popular to go near the Terran Embassy at certain times of the day, when the building seemed to be like an exotic and unusual flower that would only open to reveal wondrous scents at specific moments. Nobody was actually certain who was responsible for that delectable array of smells, as the building housing the Terran Embassy was also housing about 20 other races. Nobody actually went around asking about it just in case that the wondrous scents, so different from the normally noxious air of that planet-spanning city, went away. That could have been the end of it, if it wasn't for a member of the embassy staff, a certain envoy Markus Bergman, from the Terran homeworld.

He had attended some interesting places where people gather for partying, and had struck up a relationship with a vaguely mantis-like alien. This human man had been dating his new bug-like boyfriend for a few months, before they got stuck inside his small apartment together during a major traffic breakdown. The human man, of Swedish descent, had recently gotten a care package from Earth, with food from his home. One of these items was a can of something which most humans finds utterly disgusting. Sürströmming. Fermented herring. The alien looked curiously at his soft boyfriend as the human Bergman opened the can underneath water. But when the can was retrieved from the protective water, the bug-like alien's senses were assaulted with something unexpected. A strong, powerful, and to his alien senses wondrous scent. Bergman was surprised when his boyfriend ripped the can out of his hands and greedily devoured the contents of the can. Now, this dish is not for most humans, so he had been quite surprised the reaction of the alien. Even more so when his bug-boyfriend emitted a pleasant buzzing sound, and was told that the can had been the single most delicious thing that he had ever eaten. Bergman was intrigued, and began trying out various meals with his love.

Turns out that every meal was delicious. Gourmet even. Even the canned stuff. Being a modern bug-like alien, he livestreamed the entire experience, sharing it to a small but very intrigued group of aliens.

From there the rumor spread. Slowly. But surely. There were private inquiries with the few humans on High Concordia, which resulted in a surprisingly infectious joy. Curious aliens who'd import a ready-made meal from Earth, and experience what can only be described as a religious awakening upon eating their first ramen noodles. When the Terran Embassy had a cultural exposition that was open to the public with cultural delicacies from the Indian subcontinent, the police had to be brought in to control the mob that had formed, who had been begun fighting to get access to great food. The people who'd been hanging around the embassy building finally found out exactly what was causing the great scent-experience they knew so well. And considering what the usual diets were, consisting of functional and incredibly tasteless nutrient bars, people were interested to learn if the taste was as good as the scents had been. The human ambassadors, seeing the possibility for financial benefits, sent back coded messages to Earth, while they purchased various empty locations around the planet. They had a plan now, they'd seen an empty niche that they could exploit.

Soon, in 25 ''cultural offices'', chefs from Earth began building up their kitchens. They opened the doors, and let the curious public enter. And it was a massive success. The likes of which is frankly ridiculous. They had to bring out human security forces to close some of the places during the night, though some hopeful customers even camped outside the cultural offices. After a week the number of chefs and kitchen personal brought in from Earth had tripled, and the number of restaurants had doubled. The places were open all night, 27 hours a day, 8 days a week, what with High Concordia having a different cycle than Earth. Soon everyone had heard of the human food. Galactic media talked about the craze for food that actually tastes ludicrously good. Food that doesn't taste vaguely of ash or the horrid paste that most races ate, that was wonderful.

And it might have been a little too successful as a matter of fact. Some pundits said that human foods must be full of addictive chemicals, which admittedly some are. Some said that there were brain-controlling parasites in the meals. But no matter how many people officially spoke against the new fad of human food, people kept coming. The culinary arts hadn't been perfected. Too many species had forgotten them, their ancestors instead choosing incredibly boring, but ultimately healthy, functional food. But humanity had always placed a focus on it. On perfecting their meals, creating concepts like haute cuisine, of making everything a taste experience. The lack of culinary arts were so bad that even the average United Earth Army MREs were a step up from what most species had eaten before. But even with the increased amount of kitchen personal, the various human government-owned restaurants couldn't keep up with the demand.

Until the Greek restaurant hired an out of luck alien to help out. They had her help out with the dishes and the tables at the beginning, but eventually they found out she had an excellent nose for testing the and higher quality of ingredients. With that in mind, they began teaching her how to cook like a human would. She was a natural. Before she had been a transient, out of work, but now she was in her element. And the Greek place sent around a few low-key coded messages to the other restaurants that aliens could indeed cook. They'd already started to hire alien waiters and cleaning staff, but now they started to be on the lookout for those who might have the knack for food. Because there would always be people who had the talent for something like cooking, even if the art didn't exist in the culture, or if it didn't exist. There have been great programmers born before the invention of the first computer, people who if they hadn't been hunter-gathers in the stone age would have been incredible smiths, those who could have been wonderful artists if they hadn't been born in an age where art was forbidden.

Fantastic, loved the way you used Flowery language.

That's why the silver mattered. Silver had some soul-related connotations.

Good point. The expo he was at took place a few years before they started switching over. So I could see him missing the memo if he did the whole hibernation thing.

Different possibilities including the ywellow one acts sorta calm older sibling stopped fights stuff and luck became more dependent on their actions. Ex: in weeks the one who said to smash it got bad luck particularly if luck wasn't super bad with blue before.

<2/3>

Rocky sighed his way into a chair and a rocks glass of bourbon. London wasn't cold, exactly, but wet and cold were kissing cousins in meatspace.

He leaned back in his chair and Leaned Back into the Green. R0cky was waiting for him.

"They make it alright?" asked Rocky.

"They're whole," answered R0cky. "Fucked up, but whole. Not that it wouldn't fuck you up."

"Well, that's something," said Rocky. "Seems like the new transfer array is working faster. Like, a lot faster. They fell sideways into running positions–damn scene looks like an Egyptian mural."

"Hey, a fast pass is a safe pass." R0cky scratched his virtual nose. "These two are pretty quick on the uptake; they'll adjust in a few weeks. I was able to pull the feed from the alley and show them their murderer; it always helps to see evidence you were going to lose your monkeysuit one way or another."

"Glad to hear it," replied Rocky. "Therapists don't seem to die fast enough to keep up with post-death counseling demand."

"Your lips to Death's ears," said R0cky. "Hey." He turned his virtual eyes to his progenitor's. "Do you ever regret keeping your wetware?"

Rocky's body sighed again–it was an old conversation. "Yes and no," he said, as he had said many times before. "I'm glad I made a copy, I'm glad you exist, I'm glad the Green will keep us all alive forever, all of that is good. I'm excited to see how y'all turn a secret cybermind holding tank into humanity's future paradise."

"But..." prompted R0cky.

"Out of all of it, I just wish I could tell somebody without seeming like the worst mass-murderer in human history."

His erstwhile copy copied his sigh, and they sat together listening to the real rain echo the virtual.

I thought it had to do with something of the soul, or lack thereof.

There's no joke; I just reformatted your story so it wouldn't go scrolling sideways because you started with four spaces.

So the artist die or get turned into a vampire?