#bcsof2025 — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #bcsof2025, aggregated by home.social.
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As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"A Good Brother" by Anne Wilkins, BCS #447.
"As we get closer, the land turns dark, the shadows grow longer, and the wind picks up in a ghostly howl. A thick grey fog hugs the castle’s stone, and blackened trees climb its walls trying to escape. Dead twigs poke from arrow slits, and one of the walls is starting to crumble into an oily moat. “Not long now,” I say."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/a-good-brother/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
A look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"Vanya and the Dog Witch" by Walter J. Wiese, BCS #447.
"“My father forbid me to come to you, either with mushrooms or with the dog's collar,” Vanya told the dog witch. It had been early in spring when his father killed Mishka the three-legged dog. For savaging one of their few hens, he said. Yet the hen had boiled up just fine, and Vanya had seen toothmarks on neither flesh nor bone."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/vanya-and-the-dog-witch/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Loaf in the Woods" by David Marino, BCS #445.
"Olaf likes bread fine. No, loves bread, loves a good butter loaf or a fruit tart or a lovely strawberry rhubarb pie from home. But this bread, he doesn’t understand. If the God Above, the God Below, and the God Afar are testing him, what for? He left, damn it, he left! Is he just doomed, and they sent a loaf of bread to put him out of his misery somehow?"
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-loaf-in-the-woods/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"Little Thief and the Martyr’s Head" by J.A. Prentice, BCS #446.
"She found herself thinking of the head, of how lonely and cold and wet he must be. Why she should think of him—of it—when she herself was shivering and drenched through, she did not know. Just a quick visit, she decided. Just to see if he was all right, other than being dead and beheaded and rotten. She wouldn’t linger."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/little-thief-and-the-martyrs-head/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
BCS of 2025!
"The Unmasking Of Fioha Dubhan" by Samuel Chapman, BCS #446.
"Ironically, their vigil has drawn a crowd to wait just behind the line—enough people that others are having to shove their way through. Fioha doesn't like starting with an audience. It highlights the artifice in just the way she's trying to avoid."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-unmasking-of-fioha-dubhan/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"The Crow's Second Tale" by @MarissaLingen , BCS #445 and podcast BCS 354.
"So Kiris knew, even at the age of five: no one should only know one story. Not even a crow, like in the song. And if she was the only one who had spotted the problem, she felt down to her five-year-old bones that she would have to be the one to fix it."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-crows-second-tale/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory #podcastfiction -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"The Crow's Second Tale" by @MarissaLingen , BCS #445 and podcast BCS 354.
"So Kiris knew, even at the age of five: no one should only know one story. Not even a crow, like in the song. And if she was the only one who had spotted the problem, she felt down to her five-year-old bones that she would have to be the one to fix it."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-crows-second-tale/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory #podcastfiction -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"The Crow's Second Tale" by @MarissaLingen , BCS #445 and podcast BCS 354.
"So Kiris knew, even at the age of five: no one should only know one story. Not even a crow, like in the song. And if she was the only one who had spotted the problem, she felt down to her five-year-old bones that she would have to be the one to fix it."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-crows-second-tale/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory #podcastfiction -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"The Crow's Second Tale" by @MarissaLingen , BCS #445 and podcast BCS 354.
"So Kiris knew, even at the age of five: no one should only know one story. Not even a crow, like in the song. And if she was the only one who had spotted the problem, she felt down to her five-year-old bones that she would have to be the one to fix it."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-crows-second-tale/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory #podcastfiction -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"The Crow's Second Tale" by @MarissaLingen , BCS #445 and podcast BCS 354.
"So Kiris knew, even at the age of five: no one should only know one story. Not even a crow, like in the song. And if she was the only one who had spotted the problem, she felt down to her five-year-old bones that she would have to be the one to fix it."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-crows-second-tale/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory #podcastfiction -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Angel Azrael Visits the Trading Post at the End of the World a Final Time" by Peter Darbyshire, BCS #444.
"Whatever was going on here, Azrael had no choice but to walk into it. Nakir had to be still inside, after all. She never left the trading post, although it wasn’t for lack of wanting. He made sure his guns were loose in their holsters, then went through the front door."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-angel-azrael-visits-the-trading-post-at-the-end-of-the-world-a-final-time/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #weirdwestern #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Angel Azrael Visits the Trading Post at the End of the World a Final Time" by Peter Darbyshire, BCS #444.
"Whatever was going on here, Azrael had no choice but to walk into it. Nakir had to be still inside, after all. She never left the trading post, although it wasn’t for lack of wanting. He made sure his guns were loose in their holsters, then went through the front door."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-angel-azrael-visits-the-trading-post-at-the-end-of-the-world-a-final-time/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #weirdwestern #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Angel Azrael Visits the Trading Post at the End of the World a Final Time" by Peter Darbyshire, BCS #444.
"Whatever was going on here, Azrael had no choice but to walk into it. Nakir had to be still inside, after all. She never left the trading post, although it wasn’t for lack of wanting. He made sure his guns were loose in their holsters, then went through the front door."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-angel-azrael-visits-the-trading-post-at-the-end-of-the-world-a-final-time/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #weirdwestern #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Angel Azrael Visits the Trading Post at the End of the World a Final Time" by Peter Darbyshire, BCS #444.
"Whatever was going on here, Azrael had no choice but to walk into it. Nakir had to be still inside, after all. She never left the trading post, although it wasn’t for lack of wanting. He made sure his guns were loose in their holsters, then went through the front door."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-angel-azrael-visits-the-trading-post-at-the-end-of-the-world-a-final-time/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #weirdwestern #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Angel Azrael Visits the Trading Post at the End of the World a Final Time" by Peter Darbyshire, BCS #444.
"Whatever was going on here, Azrael had no choice but to walk into it. Nakir had to be still inside, after all. She never left the trading post, although it wasn’t for lack of wanting. He made sure his guns were loose in their holsters, then went through the front door."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-angel-azrael-visits-the-trading-post-at-the-end-of-the-world-a-final-time/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #weirdwestern #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"A Librarian's Resolution In The Land Of Demons" by @oluwatomiwa , BCS #444.
"a seven-foot-tall demon emerges. It growls and looks at the wall that divides the city. Before it can take another step, one of the roots crawling through the city rises up with unnatural speed and wraps itself around the demon's waist. The root lifts it off its feet and tosses it towards the forest. In seconds, it is gone"
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/a-librarians-resolution-in-the-land-of-demons/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"My Sincere Apologies For the Demon" by Adrian Ward, BCS #443.
"Regarding the banishing of Erimodius, you shall, I expect, be most pleased to hear that he has been returned to the Realm of Flame. With the aid of the Parthiet Warlock Gentlemen’s Circle, additional seals have been placed on the Realm in its entirety until such a time as Erimodius ceases banging on the gate."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/my-sincere-apologies-for-the-demon/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"A Random Walk Through the Goblin Library" by Chris Willrich, BCS #443.
“Oh, no, not at all. I have not retired, and neither have my informants. My informants are dead. I am a necromancer, grandchild. The pool of possible spies is far larger among the dead than the living. That is simple mathematics—another topic I hope you’ll pursue”
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/a-random-walk-through-the-goblin-library/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Third Movement of Time" by RJ Taylor, BCS #442, Seventeenth Anniversary Double-Issue.
"Winter heard nothing unusual, but she listens harder and there is indeed a sound different than twittering. It is the song of pipes on the wind. It is no tune she recognizes, but she observes in her chest the stirrings of nostalgia, the memory of a song not yet heard."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-third-movement-of-time/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"The Last of Atlantis" by James Morrow, BCS #442.
"the sunsphere led me away, bringing me back to where I’d begun, the garden of Platonic solids. Once again cubeness beguiled me, and once again I lifted its shining, chirping, three-dimensional shadow from the crater floor. I asked the sunsphere if I was permitted to bear the omnicube away. The sphere bobbed in assent."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-last-of-atlantis/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Thirteenth Time" by @patricksamphire , BCS #442.
"You know how sometimes there are things that happen that you never want to think about again? Not because they’re terrible but because that’s the moment you made a choice, and you know you made the wrong one. You know if you think about it, you’re going to start thinking about what could have been, the years that are gone and that you can’t get back."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-thirteenth-time/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
A look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"Pools of Light at the Center of the World" by Will McMahon, BCS #442.
"...and he now wandered through the green and bright land of his desire, its air thick with the heady buzz of life, of unseen life, and he paused again and crouched, the joints of his body creaking and popping in a pain that was also relief, so that he could stare at a bright yellow flower, the center of which he now realized..."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/pools-of-light-at-the-center-of-the-world/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Nature of Spells, the Nature of Children" by @aimeeogden , BCS #441.
""The girl would have had a decent life, before the curse damned them all. A roof over her head, enough food to eat—more than most people could ask. Very little, perhaps, compared to what the young master would have enjoyed. But what good was that sort of thinking? Jeanne-Marie may as well envy the angels their wings and the stars their shine."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-nature-of-spells-the-nature-of-children/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Good Life and the Gaze of Staivash" by @jonolfert.bsky.social BCS #440.
"She'd just tucked three of the gold slips into the hem of her robe, and one into each cheek high behind the teeth, and the last into a crack in the stool as a cache, and the blacksmith was offering some nephew's help in shopping, for a good price, when the door opened and two tall, smiling, sunburned men ducked inside."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-good-life-and-the-gaze-of-staivash/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"Bloody Muddy Water" by Jonathan Louis Duckworth, BCS #439.
"Rugg read her. Not just her face but the veil in front of it. The knit was funny to his eye, not the usual fine hatching but a more elaborate twisted warp and weft, and the fiber looked to be made from the goldenvine flax. It was a conjanet—a special weave made to protect against conja. "
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/bloody-muddy-water/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
A look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"Compass Rose, Running" by Julie Reeser, BCS #440.
"That house was home, and I cried to go, but I couldn’t stay. Too big to fit in my pocket. Almost too big to fit in my memories. Nights now, when Matron and her card players at the Eight Den get tense and tight, and I can’t sleep for worry, I run that house in my mind the way some people run hands over lovers. Mama Patch had to know, right?"
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/compass-rose-running/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"Postman, Soldier, Traitor" by Vijayalaxmi Samal, BCS #439.
"Sometimes the letter wants to go over bridges already burned. The bridge must have been here when the boy passed. The journey becomes a battle then, of convincing and calming the letter. Every time, Akshar stills it by pressing a hand to it, telling it that they will reach their destination soon"
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/postman-soldier-traitor/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Brittle Terrain" by Stephen Case, BCS #438.
"Grey had felt a drift of air against the back of her legs when she had stepped behind the earl’s table. She knew she would find a slit in the tent fabric. She guessed that no one could see it. And because no one saw it, no one else knew it was there. It was the story of her life: not seeing what everyone else saw clearly and instead feeling what everyone else was blind to."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-brittle-terrain/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"The Forgotten" by Trae Hawkins, BCS #438.
"And though you are aware of your mind’s steady emptying, you recognize that you have come this far, to this land so cold and unforgiving, to support a life you detest. You recognize that, like the Forgotten, you could make the Unnamed Lands your home, could one day look into a cloudy sky and wonder what war is."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-forgotten/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"Songs for Obsidian" by Rosemary Claire Smith, BCS #437.
"Jammed into the great wall, Tripodea sees nothing to suggest that the city's residents possess any knowledge of, much less sympathy for, all she and her siblings must endure. One day, she summons her courage to ask Vento why they sing to the useless city dwellers. This is as close as she dares come to asking why they sing for her."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/songs-for-obsidian/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy -
BCS stories of 2025!
"The Feather Tree" by KJ Kabza, BCS #435.
"Loory thought about this. It was not the same, exactly, as giving up hope because hope was not a single, stone-fired thing (when once broken, never the same) but a thing like a marshland, made of uncountable pieces of intertwined yet separate life that could live or die or struggle along somewhere in between"
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-feather-tree/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"Out of Draconia" by Alma Alexander, BCS #436.
"she came back into the village, at dawn, staggering, thin to the point of being gaunt, her hair hacked by her own hand so that it hung in lank strands to just below her shoulders, her eyes hollowed out... but blazing. And cradled across her body in a makeshift sling... was a dragon egg."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/out-of-draconia/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"Beyond the Fold" by @oldheneel BCS #436.
"The power to fold life carries great responsibility, so we must fold a thousand cranes before we can touch a sheet of living paper. We fold them with writing paper, with newspaper obituaries, with playbills, with rice-candy wrappers, with yellowed pages of old almanacs, and even pancakes ...our teacher inspects them for damage."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/beyond-the-fold/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"Let the Gods Drown With Us" by R.K. Duncan, BCS #434.
"Tyffan sees now that she could never have saved Gwyn then. The gods would not release him until he was used up as their instrument. Even if Carag had cared for him enough to try, they would have found some way to keep Gwyn on the narrow shore until the end. So that his death could be another spur to make her carry the gods and their vengeance."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/let-the-gods-drown-with-us/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025! "The Messengers of Despair" by Jordan Kurella, BCS #431.
"an impossible house that had odd angles and wrong doors. It had neither foundation nor stairs. Instead it had roots, growing out of the earth like a tree, and had knots and bark instead of shingles or thatch. Knots and bark I recognized as the firewood that crackled and burned so bright as a beacon—which my father set in our hearth and promised I would see its source one day."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/the-messengers-of-despair/
#BCSof2025 -
As we near year's end, a look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"Unbeaten" @GraceSeybold , Seybold, BCS #432.
"“Let me teach you revolution,” I begged them, each new boy or girl who plied the ox-goad as we drew our furrows in the field. They listened eagerly enough to my stories, then grew into adults who cowered and simpered in public, and complained in private, and did nothing."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/unbeaten/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff #shortstory -
BCS stories of 2025!
"A Crow on the Corpse Road" by @betsyaoki, BCS #435.
"I need Tabetha’s ghost in this game, clarifying her last wishes. If only to ensure that the Crow Queen understood how much or how little Tabetha wanted to protect Lucas. “Show them the comb,” I say quietly to Lucas. “You don’t have to hand it to anyone, just show that you have it.” Lucas looks at me, searches my face. But it’s in his best interest he do what I say."
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/a-crow-on-the-corpse-road/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #sff -
A look back at BCS stories of 2025!
"Cry, the Carob King" by @ThomasHa, BCS #430.
"I took those to be something of a young family, or their shades at least. The glob’s eyes fixed on them there, and I detected a forlorn trace of something I knew well: this still and quiet loneliness. Somehow I could sense that the glob was like me. Because, looking at the apparitions, I thought of my own mother and father who I’d lost"
https://www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/cry-the-carob-king/
#BCSof2025 #fantasy #shortstory