The Oldest One

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, September 2018

“Anno wondered what it would be like to live in a family where everyone was the same species…”

Anno watched her mother tuck in each of her siblings to their differently shaped beds.  Lut folded his feathered wings into his nest-bed; T’reska stretched out her scaly-green back on her heated bed of rocks; and Iko cradled her primatoid body, swinging lightly, in her hammock.  And that was just in this room.  The younger ones had been put to bed in their own room an hour ago. Continue reading “The Oldest One”

One Alien’s Wreckage

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, June 2017

“She cradled the caterpillar-like creature in her arms, rocking it and making low cooing sounds to it.”

Chorif’s round feathered face stared down at the contents of the cryo-pod, and her wide copper eyes narrowed.  She had been expecting to find valuable cargo for salvage; instead, all she saw was a squirmy green-fleshed larva, about the length of Chorif’s upper wing.

“Anything in there?” Amy called out.  She was another space-wreck scavenger. Continue reading “One Alien’s Wreckage”

The Fog Comes On Little Cat Feet

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, April 2020

“See, he loved turning into a shadow and a storm cloud and being filled with lightning. But he hadn’t always been able to.”

Edgar Allen was a grumpy cat.  He had the sleek black fur you’d expect from a cat named Edgar Allen, but his whiskers shone like slivers of moonlight.

He wasn’t grumpy about his black fur or his shining whiskers.  When he thought about them, he was rightly proud to be such a fine feline specimen.  Humans who saw him lounging on the warm pavement on the street in front of the house where he lived invariably called out to him, begging for a chance to pet him.  He rarely obliged.  Though he would sometimes flirt with younger children, trying to lure them into dashing off of the sidewalk in hopes of reaching him.  He never let them reach him.  But he did enjoy listening to them get scolded by their parents.  “Stay out of the street!  It’s dangerous!” Continue reading “The Fog Comes On Little Cat Feet”

Clever Hansel 2000

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Daily Science Fiction, July 2019

“Engleine knew in her heart that the robotic equine dance partner she’d commissioned for herself must be sentient. He was so much more than the robotic mirror she’d expected him to be…”

Engleine paced nervously, her hooved hind feet echoing on the metal floor.  Usually, the sound soothed her — it made her feel light and cosmic, reminding her that she lived on Crossroads Station and no longer a backwards dirtball of a world.  There were stars beneath the metal under her hooves.  And there were stars above the metal over her pointed ears.  There were stars all around, and when she danced here, she was dancing in the cosmos.
Continue reading “Clever Hansel 2000”

True Feast

by Mary E. Lowd

Originally published in Typewriter Emergencies: A Journal of Furry Lit, May 2017

“She shouldn’t stop here; it would only slow her down, and she’d fallen far enough behind the migration.”

Argelnox hunched her shoulders inside her mechanical shell.  The metal casing chafed against her soft, wrinkly green skin.  She’d been traveling for months, solo-zipping from one planet to the next, skimming only deep enough into each planet’s atmosphere to replenish her oxygen and basic nutrients, soaking them into her suit’s mechanical gills before sling-shotting towards the next.
Continue reading “True Feast”