Original Fiction Recommendations

[classicdrogn]

RavensDagger's story Heart of Dorkness (SB Threadmarks link) is... Okay, I'mm'a be honest, it's really obviously a Worm/RWBY fanfic that got the serial numbers filed off and the characters dropped into a generic fantasy world to become "original" fiction, but it's good fun anyway. Tarpit-reborn Not-Taylor is adopted by Not-Salem on a whim and a few years(?) later makes friends on contact with a (blind, orphaned, and a street beggar for as long as she can remember) Not-Ruby when she's sent to track down what happened to Mom's latest order of books from the human town a couple hours on wyvern-back away, and have various adventures with her Not-Grimm minions. Also on Royal Road and (I think a chapter or so ahead?) on Patreon, but I don't have links for those.

Excerpt

“Carefully,” Luciana murmured.

I felt a familiar soul snake around my own, like a favourite pet circling to keep me safe and warm. It banished some of the queasy feelings that sending my soul into the murk had created.

I nodded, and focused on the image even harder. I could do it! Mom was helping me, after all. Like a normal mom teaching her daughter how to bake cookies, but a little different.

The black waters gurgled and bubbled, and for a moment, I felt a feeling of... completion.

I opened my eyes. “Was that it?”

“It has been hours,” Luciana said.

I blinked a few times, my hand carefully coming out of the black tar. I looked at it, all wrinkled as if I’d been reading in the bath again. “Oh.” I stood, knees aching from being on them for too long. “Did it work?

“Indeed,” Luciana said.

The tar gurgled and bubbled, and from its surface... a cat. Black and lithe, with eyes that looked around sharply with a feral intelligence.

“Interesting,” Luciana muttered.

I grinned. It worked! The cat was... strange. The more I looked at it, the more the proportions seemed wrong, like when I tried to draw things. Its head was a bit big, and its tail too long, and its front legs weren’t as long as its back legs. And maybe those back legs were bending the wrong way? But it was definitely a cat.

“I made it so you have something to keep you warm when you’re reading,” I said. “You know, when you’re sitting on your big chair. You need a cat to pet. It makes the reading better.”

“I... see,” Luciana replied. She eyed the cat for a moment, then returned to gazing at me. “Well, this was productive. Though you have a long way to go before you can attempt this unassisted.”

“I’ll get better,” I said. I bent down and scooped up the cat. “So, what are we gonna name her?”

“We are not keeping the cat.”

“But Mom!”