Light was sitting in a tree in a park just relaxing. With his fire feathers cooled, he looked like a regular eagle with a gold tint to his feathers. He was nearly asleep when he heard somebody walking below him opening his eyes he was surprised to see an attractive man just below him. Well hello there. He thinks to himself.
Moving to get a better view he slips and in the process of getting back on the branch his wing feathers become hot nearly to the point of visible fire, a few of which fall off him and land on the man. Quickly shifting to his human form he jumps down from the tree and tries failing miserably to collect the hot feathers before they can burn the stranger.
“I am so so so sorry.” He was blushing so badly his entire face had a red tint.
When I started getting into reading romance and fantasy books on Kindle Unlimited, I generally avoided reverse harem stories because it’s just not my thing.
That’s starting to change. While they may not be epic love stories, they’re a lot funnier and more light hearted, and sometimes that’s what you need.
The book series that changed my mind is called “Klutz” by Sedona Ashe, also known as “But Did You Die?” which is the only title I will refer to it by.
A clumsy girl named Amaryllis is on a plane when it crashes, and her strange inability to die would have left her the sole survivor if she hadn’t rescued the five sexy guys who were onboard. She’s always thought she was cursed, but when she discovers the men she’s following through the jungle are actually shifters, she finds out there is magic in the world, and magic in her.
Not only does she find out she’s a rare phoenix shifter, she has five fated mates. However, she’s not sure they want anything to do with her.
This book had me laughing out loud at every turn. “You’re a gray cupcake on a rainbow sprinkle cupcake!” is officially my new favorite insult.
I am putting this short story under a Read More. It is a story I wrote for a contest, and it did not win. But, I love it, and will probably end up making it into a full novel one day. The main character is one of my favorites, and I hope people like them. Also, in case anyone is curious, I will put what they are at the end.
I sat in the classroom, listening as the teacher droned on and on about the proper way to….do something. I had long since tuned out today. I usually could tolerate Methods of Reviewing Literature, but today I was just feel unbalanced. And, I could not stop wanting to continue reading my book, an oldie but a goodie by Terry Pratchett. I finally gave in, and pulled it out, and started reading more. I didn’t even really need to pay attention in this class, since it didn’t really matter in the long run.
The class soon ended, and I packed up my stuff and walked out of the class, glad to be done for the day, and walked back to my single, to unload and get some good old TV watching, well DVD watching, done before dinner started. I had to catch up on the good Doctor before then, and before my friends could ask me if I had watched such-and-such episode, which I knew I would by that time.
I got up to my room, threw my bag on the bed, and sat down into my chair, and turned on the TV, waiting the menu screen for the fifth series of Who to come up so that I could finish it. The screen came up, and as I propped my feet up on my ottoman, I started the 12th episode up.
Two hours later, and the last two episodes of the latest series done, and dinner was about to start soon. So I got my ID, and walked down to the elevator to go down to the dining hall. My friends met me at the end of the queue, and we went in to get our food. We split up, which was always good, since I always found it awkward to get my first meal when my friends were around. I loved them, but I could not survive on a vegetarian diet, and they wouldn’t talk to me, or sit with me, if I ate meat in front of them. So, I had to get my normal first meal before getting my “friend accepted” dinner. The lady at the grill saw me, and remembering me, took a steak off the grill and gave it to me, and I ate it while waiting for the fries, which were the least acceptable but still acceptable food by my friends’ standards.
I walked back to our table a couple minutes later, a bowl of salad and some fries on my plate, and sat down with them, and listened into what they were talking about. They were discussing which Doctor they would most like to “get with”, in the biblical sense that is. I just ate my food, and let them talk, since they would never ask me, since they only ever saw the outer me. They had never asked me all that much about me after they decided that I made a good “shield” from guys hitting on them. They didn’t care that I wasn’t like them, that I wasn’t straight or cis like them. I guess I would get new and better friends next year, when they would all be graduating. And, maybe these friends would be good queer friends, for a nice transgirl like myself. They prattled on about how cute this guy was and how sexy this other one was. I didn’t really wish to join in, but then again, I didn’t really like guys that much, in that way. And I certainly did not fancy any of them.
Dinner went like it normally did, long and with a lot of talking from them. But, once it was over, I split off from them, and went back to my room to do my homework before the moon rose. When I got there, I sat down, turning on my iPod stereo to play some good Trock, and did my homework for the next day, which was basically just reviewing material for tests in English classes which were on books I had read over the summer.
I could tell when the moon had risen, since a strange but familiar tingling went up and down my spine, so I closed my textbook and walked out, and went towards the arboretum. I walked in, loving the closeness of the trees and the darkness they cast, and blinking my eyes, brought them around to their other purpose: night vision. I got safely to my normal spot, and removing all of my clothing and putting them into the chest in the ground, I breathed in the cool fresh night air, and felt the shift come over me, starting first at my toes, their lengthening and losing two, and then went up my legs, making them longer and leaner, and then up the rest of my body, turning my arms to wings, covering my body in the fiery plumage that was my birthright and the shift ending with my head, which finished the transformation into the phoenix that I knew I truly was. I took off into the air, flying between the trees and cawing my regal call, scaring any animals in my way out of it, until I got to the other end of the trail, where it lead openly back to the campus and where it secretly lead off into the deep woods that were the only border around here between our state and the next one over.
I flew through the trees for a while, enjoying the feeling immensely, until I came to the normal meeting spot, and found my real friends there. I saw Vivian the fox, Wulfric the tortoise, Frigga the hare, and Maxwell the wolf just arriving as I had. I never understood exactly how Wulfric always got here at the same time as us, but I guessed that he just didn’t shift until he was at the treeline. No one had ever asked him. I landed among them, on the stump we had included in our circle since we had found each other. I was the first to talk, saying hi to all of them, and asking how they had been. Maxwell told us about how he had passed his math test, and we all congratulated him. Frigga mentioned winning a race, Wulfric talked about winning a match, and Vivian talked about the new guys she was talking to. I told them about finishing Doctor Who, and we talked about that for a while.
A couple hours later, we separated, after talking about how our transitioning was going. Us girls were jealous of the guys, since they were changing so quickly, and I told them all about how I had had to bind lately to keep up the ruse. They asked me why I did, and I told them that I had to. They accepted it and we all left in our own directions. I flew quickly back to my spot, putting my clothes on, and ran back to my room. Once I got there, I sat back in my chair and dreamed of the next year, when my real friends would finally be coming to my school.
The main character is a transgirl phoenix shifter.
