#para 360

Scrutiny

- written by Minerva Cerridwen; photo by Ava Kelly

For ten years the humans had schemed, constructed, and carefully coaxed, and now they’d achieved their goal. Under the guise of a furniture-building company, they were finally invited in the realm of the gods to deliver the new cabinet they had designed: fit to hold divine ideas and otherworldly suggestions in a neat system of transparent folders. What was much more important, at least to the humans behind this great plan, were the loads of cameras, microphones, and wiretap installations integrated everywhere in, on, and around the cabinet.

They had spent so much time praying for a sign. If the gods weren’t going to send any clear answers on what the Right Way was for them to live, the humans would simply force them to reveal their secrets.

The employees who made the delivery didn’t get to spend much time in the godly realm, as the filing cabinet had been meticulously prepared and was easy to assemble—but that didn’t matter, because they would soon learn much more about that mysterious place anyway. The recording came through, clear and uninterrupted, and at first it was just a series of exclamations from the gods about how beautiful the cabinet was, how much easier the new filing system would make their work.

But then one of the gods introduced the first suggestion that would be placed into the folders: “You know how humans think we can constantly see everything they are doing? Maybe it’d be a good idea to actually start spying on them, if they’re coming up with such wonderful inventions. I’m sure we could learn a lot!”

—

[Image description: On a background of slightly wrinkled white sheets of paper, there is a smattering of long, silvery steel nails and very-dark-red glass spheres; white light falls onto the objects in such a way that bright red shadows from the spheres contrast with the black shadows of the nails and paper wrinkles.]

—

Refuge

- written by Ava Kelly; photo by Fie

“Wha—how many did you steal?” Yv asks as Enk rushes to arrange the orbs in a neat layer for safe transport, all four upper limbs trembling with exhaustion and fear and critical urgency.

“As many as I could carry,” Enk says just as one slides off the tray, taking with it all six of xir hearts, but only for a fraction of a moment because Yv’s deft tendrils catch it and return it to its place. Yv’s amorphous shapes support Enk as well, as xir bones mush into cartilage, a vestigial response to sudden fright. “Most are intact, some got damaged, but they’ll heal by the time we get there,” Enk reports, just to focus on something else for a moment, on their mission.

“And where exactly is… there?” Yv asks, but nonetheless plunges a tentacle into the piloting port above their heads—well, above Enk’s head, because Yv doesn’t have one, not exactly—and the ship immediately rumbles as they push through the atmosphere, against wind and heavy air and the oppressive radiation of the planetary shield.

“I found a suitable place,” Enk says while punching the coordinates into the navigation terminal, “a planet where the hatched do not exist solely to serve the birthed, as if coming out of a warm body is somehow superior to emerging from a shell.”

~

They’re deep into open space, a vast distance between them and their pursuers, when Enk, pliant and warm in Yv’s grasp as they keep watch over the red glimmering ovules, whispers, “Do you ever fear me?”

“I used to, back when we were children and I was given to you,” Yv admits, because they’ve promised to be truthful with each other, “but not for a long time since. My most precious memory is of you hiding me beneath your clothes when the conservators came to take me away because I was too old to serve as a toy, and after, of you letting me live as your skin for years, keeping me safe from reassignment.”

Yv solidifies enough to return Enk’s embrace, and adds a reassurance and an oath: “Never doubt, you are my refuge, just as we’ll both be for them.”

—

[Image description: A layer of redcurrant berries, resting on a dark surface, fills out the entire field of the picture and goes on beyond.]

—

Paranatellonta is 10 years old!

10! Can you believe it?

To celebrate, we have invited guest author and photographer Ava Kelly again, as we loved this same collaboration for our fifth anniversary.

Ava Kelly is a nonbinary speculative writer and engineer. Secretly a pile of cats in a trenchcoat, Ava’s goal is to bring into the world more tales of friendship and compassion, dedicated to trope subversion, stories that give the void a voice. Romanian living in Norway, Ava is an avid explorer of culture and its reflection upon life and creativity, both in art and in tech design. Among their works are the award-winning novel Havesskadi, the short story A Sudden Displacement of Matter (part of the Lambda-nominated anthology Trans-Galactic Bike Ride: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction Stories of Transgender and Nonbinary Adventurers), and the illustrated dual language book of nonbinary fairy tales Alia Terra – Stories from the Dragon Realm.

This is what the celebratory edition will look like: in our next post, there will be one photo taken by Fie, for which Ava has written a ten-sentence story—the usual size for a Paranatellonta story. Ava has also taken a photo which will be shown in a second post, accompanied by a ten-sentence story by Minerva. So you’ll be getting two Paranatellonta combinations at once. A third star rises with us today!

We hope you’ll enjoy this special anniversary edition. As always, feel free to leave us a comment through asks, reblogs or any other way you like!

The banners for this post were also designed by Ava. Thank you for joining us again, @avakellyfiction!

More about Ava Kelly: [website] – [tumblr] – [instagram] – [twitter] – [mastodon]

More about Minerva Cerridwen: [website] – [tumblr] – [instagram] – [twitter] – [mastodon]