Marchverse Side Stories

This is a collection of bonus side, background and stand-alone stories posted for my website and Tumblr followers. None of these are required reading for any of my existing series; they’re just extras!

Azhra: Friendship

Cover image for Hallo, Aro: Allosexual Aromantic Flash Fiction by K. A. Cook. Cover features dark pink handwritten type on a mottled green background with a large line-drawn peacock feather, several sketch-style leaves and swirly text dividers. Green arrows sit underneath each line of text.A sapphic aromantic wishes to partner a dragon’s handmaiden without the complications of a romantic relationship, but finds comfort in her friendship with her own dragon.

Setting: Centuries prior to Kin of Mind.

Links: PDF (read in browser) | Patreon | WordPress | Tumblr

PDF, EPUB and MOBI editions are available for download from Patreon.

Length: 993 words / 4 PDF pages.

Azhra: Attraction

Cover image for Hallo, Aro: Allosexual Aromantic Flash Fiction by K. A. Cook. Cover features dark pink handwritten type on a mottled green background with a large line-drawn peacock feather, several sketch-style leaves and swirly text dividers. Green arrows sit underneath each line of text.A sapphic aromantic fears that her interest in another girl may be best explained by a word she doesn’t wish applied to her–romance.

Setting: Centuries prior to Kin of Mind, following Friendship.

Links: PDF (read in browser) | Patreon | WordPress | Tumblr

PDF, EPUB and MOBI editions are available for download from Patreon.

Length: 989 words / 4 PDF pages.

Stand Alone: A Gift of Naming

Cover of A Gift of Naming by K. A. Cook. Cover shows cartoon-style tall-trunked trees growing on a green mountain slope with a high green canopy before a blue and grey clouded sky. Brushes and small green shrubs grow at the base of the trees in the foreground. Text is written in a white, handdrawn, fantasy-style type.If one’s parents provide a shirt that tears when tugged over their child’s shoulders, isn’t it cruelty to force the wearing of it, however well-intended the gift?

Even in the best of circumstances, it’s no easy thing to tell the parent who named you that your name no longer fits.

Links: PDF (read in browser) | Patreon | WordPress

PDF, EPUB and MOBI editions are available for download from Patreon.

Length: 1200 words / 4 PDF pages.

Mara and Esher Hill: Love Spells, Rainbows and Rosie

Cover of Love Spells, Rainbows and Rosie: A Marchverse Short Story by K. A. Cook. Cover shows a wooden door set into a wooden wall with a paper sign on the front reading Mara Hill, Witch. Stones, bones and feathers tied to string dangle over the top of the door, along with a creeping vine, and two potted plants sit on either side of a wooden doorstep--white daisies in a bag and orange roses in a brown pot. A straw broom rests propped against one side of the door and a piece of torn paper reading Absolutely No Love Spells sits on the step. Text is written in a white, handdrawn, fantasy-style type.Lovers’ Day is good trading for a witch who deals in enchantments, ribbons and dyed flowers. For Mara Hill, it’s long been a holiday of tedious assumptions and painful conversations—once best handled by casting petty curses on annoying customers. This year, when a girl asks about love spells, it may be time to instead channel a little Aunt Rosie.

Setting: Between What Makes Us Human / Those With More and Love is the Reckoning.

Links: PDF (read in browser) | Patreon | WordPress

PDF, EPUB and MOBI editions are available for download from Patreon.

Length: 3, 429 words / 10 PDF pages.

The Eagle Court: Maybe When the Bones Crumble

Cover image of Maybe When the Bones Crumble by K. A. Cook. Cover has a waterstained paper background with grey line drawings of a textured feather, a dandelion head, a spilled ink bottle, a broken pen and an arrow, with the title written in alternating serif and handdrawn type. The effect is something like a sketch in an antique journal.And how is your hand today?

His hand broken, his father dead, his brother rebelling and his mother dancing the bones, Einas ein Iteme has nobody at the Eyrie but his uncle and one cursed question he can’t escape.

Setting: Before, during and after Their Courts of Crows.

Links: PDF (read in browser) | Patreon | WordPress

PDF, EPUB and MOBI editions are available for download from Patreon.

Length: 4, 945 words / 14 PDF pages.

The Eagle Court: Loveless

Cover image for Hallo, Aro: Allosexual Aromantic Flash Fiction by K. A. Cook. Cover features dark pink handwritten type on a mottled green background with a large line-drawn peacock feather, several sketch-style leaves and swirly text dividers. Green arrows sit underneath each line of text.When Paide ein Iteme says the words “I don’t love”, he doesn’t just refer to romantic relationships.

Setting: Between A Prince of the Dead and The King of Gears and Bone.

Links: PDF (read in browser) | WordPress | Patreon | Tumblr

PDF, EPUB and MOBI editions are available for download from Patreon.

Length: 1, 000 words / 4 PDF pages.

The Eagle Court: Catch a Man (Have the Girl)

Yuissa is the only partner Adelin wants, but survival in Ihrne requires both girls to keep secret their truth. No matter: they’re only a year away from having coin enough to escape to a cottage in Greenstone, a paradise of vegetable gardens, rescued cats and unrestrained affection. They can survive anything until then, right? Yet when Adelin’s worried mother and grandmother plot to solve Adelin’s unwed state by forcing her to court a male acquaintance, Yuissa thinks a beard the only answer.

A queer-seeming bookseller called Nevolin ein Yinne may do, but the process of asking isn’t quite so simple…

Setting: During Different in Other Ways.

Links: Part One | Part Two

Length: 4, 021 words (thus far).

Fletcher Ace: Magic and Mermaids

An expensive education and a growing eldritch library hasn’t helped Fletcher Ace, local witch, end the drought gripping the town of Shadowdale. The town council may have a better solution than waiting on hir magic, one that involves the selling of romance to people “out there”, but Fletch isn’t prepared for just how it will involve hir…

Setting: A hundred years after The King of Gears and Bone.

Links: WordPress

Length: 7, 549 words.