Aspen hadn’t realized just how many decisions had to be made in planning a funeral. They’d been in their last year of high school when their father had died after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer, and their only memory of the funeral planning was of their mother refusing to let anyone help, to the point that she nearly worked herself into a state of nervous collapse.

CHAPTER 84
Bobby was down at our place two hours before the start time we had suggested, ostensibly to check on the barbie but very clearly as an opportunity to answer a very simple question from Maz as he slumped on our sofa, Ish out in the pool.

“What on Earth was all that about?”

“Snirgeing, Maz”

A college cheerleader realizes that her femininity, good looks and sensuality are commodities that she can trade to improve her grades. With the help of her sister, she transforms from pretty boy to pretty girl and soon discovers that boys like her more than they should.

Aspen Fahey is a non-binary aspiring community witch and failed witchfluencer living in downtown Toronto. When their aunt dies and leaves them her house and witching practice on beautiful, idyllic Vancouver Island, their life unexpectedly turns into a Lifetime movie: early thirties enby leaves the big city (including their toxic partner and the job they hate) to move to a beautiful small town, has meet cute with beautiful stranger before running into The One That Got Away.

- - - -

Part 1: Inheritance
Chapter 1

A week after the incident there were still repercussions popping up in the executive level of management at where I work. My immediate boss had written a memo and sent it to all of his fellow male executives. What was said in the memo you never say in public, much less put it in an email and send it out, even if it was only sent to a few fellow male employees. He addressed the coming secretaries day in his email, an unofficial event that our company had honored and participated in for several years.

A young New Yorker finds himself in over his head after finding a symbiote that changes him in unexpected ways.

Early access to new chapters, stories, and more plus exclusive votes and non canon XXX chapters here https://www.patreon.com/LightBringerStories?utm_campaign=cre...

Chapter 8 The First Family
8

[At a Hotel in Wensleydale, mid-July]

“Good afternoon, can I help you?” said the man at the reception desk.

“Yes, I have a room booked for the night in the name of Michaels,” said Melissa.

“So… exactly how many high school fantasies are we fulfilling right now?” Paul asks as I tune my bass guitar, and I can’t help but smirk as I can already guess how the impending argument will go.

“Bit inappropriate to ask about MY high school fantasies, but I’ll let it slide,” Stuart replies, and I sense my opportunity to chip in.

“If it helps, Paul, I’m wondering the same thing,” I say, chuckling at the mock-offended look on my mentor’s face.

“…Okay, yes, every music student dreams of playing in a garage band in an actual garage,” Stuart concedes.

“Some members of the family, maybe, might be sad to see me go. But the family as a unit? As some sort of community?” I shook my head. “It’s like I’ve knocked over a beehive or something.”

Her dark eyes were thoughtful, weighing my words. “Maybe it needed to be knocked over.”

I would like to share one of the rabbit holes my mind goes down:

See, I was watching this documentary on the formation of the moon, and for some reason I started thinking "what if we had ended up with 2 moons, instead of 1?"

Now there is a bunch of physics that would be in play in this situation, but since I don't understand it, I am going to skip it, and just talk about the effect on humans (assuming we evolved on this alternate Earth).

©2025 SammyC

CHAPTER 83
The settling-in period went far too quickly, as did our boy’s enrolment in the International School. That second part was actually eased by my wife’s presentation of some old photos of the place, because it had actually been her former father-in-law’s school in the ‘East of Suez’ days.

I had to force myself away from worry, because the school were offering a minibus service for pupils, recognising how those needing an ‘international’ school were rather likely to be ‘international’ in their own right, and possibly rather busy. So we made his packed lunch each evening, left it with a cold drink in the fridge for him, and one of us walked him down to that familiar bus stop, as Maz and I worked swap shifts until we were sure he could handle coming home to an empty house.

He was a Big Boy, but always our baby.