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    The Day of the Nuptial Flight
    The Day of the Nuptial Flight
    The Day of the Nuptial Flight
    Ebook40 pages37 minutes

    The Day of the Nuptial Flight

    By Sarina Dorie

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    On an alien world of giant insects, Rover strives to be like every other drone and mate with the queen. When he isn’t able to perform his drone duties, he struggles for acceptance and finds friendship and love in an unlikely place—among humans. Along Rover’s journey he finds he holds a key to helping humans overcome their infertility on his planet and offers a solution for uniting his people with the newcomers to his world.

    “The Day of the Nuptial Flight” is a 10,000 word science fiction novelette originally published in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSarina Dorie
    Release dateJan 31, 2015
    ISBN9781311535061
    The Day of the Nuptial Flight
    Author

    Sarina Dorie

    As a child, Sarina Dorie dreamed of being an astronaut/archeologist/fashion designer/illustrator/writer. Later in life, after realizing this might be an unrealistic goal, Sarina went to the Pacific NW College of Art where she earned a degree in illustration. After realizing this might also be an unrealistic goal, she went to Portland State University for a master’s in education to pursue the equally cut-throat career of teaching art in the public school system. After years of dedication to art and writing, most of Sarina’s dreams have come true; in addition to teaching, she is a writer/artist/ fashion designer/ belly dancer. She has shown her art internationally, sold art to Shimmer Magazine for an interior illustration, and another piece is on the April 2011 cover of Bards and Sages. Sarina’s novel, Silent Moon, won second place in the Duel on the Delta Contest, hosted by River City RWA and the Golden Rose contest hosted by Rose City Romance Writers. Silent Moon won third place in the Winter Rose Contest hosted by the Yellow Rose RWA and third place in Ignite the Flame Contest hosted by Central Ohio Fiction Writers. Now, if only Jack Sparrow asks her to marry him, all her dreams will come true. www.sarinadorie.com You can find more of Sarina Dorie’s work online at the following webzines: “Zombie Psychology,” Untied Shoelaces of the Mind http://www.untiedshoelacesofthemind.com/Issue5/psych.php “Losing One’s Appetite,” Daily Science Fiction http://dailysciencefiction.com/fantasy/Monsters/sarina-dorie/losing-ones-appetite “Worse Than a Devil,” Crossed Genres http://crossedgenres.com/archives/035-dark-comedy/worse-than-a-devil-by-sarina-dorie/ “A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting Humans,” Whidbey Student Choice award http://whidbeystudents.com/2011/03/01/new-for-march/ The following stories are soon to be released, “That Stupid Dragon Rider” to the ROAR 5 Anthology, “Greener on the Other Side” to Allasso and Blackboard Galaxy to Untied Shoelaces of the Mind.

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    • 5/5
      This is the fourth small work by Sarina Dorie that I’ve read, and I’m so hooked on her off-beat quirky settings that I’ve added more to my To-Read list. The Day of the Nuptial Flight is hard to describe but if you can imagine a tragi-comic nectar-in-cheek story about a drone who doesn’t fit in with his hive, interwoven with threads of a sci-fi short story of humans stranded on a world where they are small enough to ride caterpillars, you might have a sense of the setting. But that may not give you a full appreciation for the engaging writing style that spurs both smiles and sympathy for an unrequited devotion that not only dare not speak its name, it physically cannot.

    Book preview

    The Day of the Nuptial Flight - Sarina Dorie

    Copyright 2014 Sarina Dorie

    Smashwords Edition

    Cover Art by Sarina Dorie

    Originally Published in Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction

    Discover other titles by Sarina Dorie at:

    http://www.sarinadorie.com

    and

    https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/sarinadorie

    Smashwords Edition, License Notes

    This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

    The Day of the Nuptial Flight

    By Sarina Dorie

    I will try to use the words a human might understand, for that is what you are and what you will grow up to be, as much as you may be part of my world, too. . . .

    The day of the nuptial flight, the sweet, heady pheromones of the mating season filled the tunnels of our underground hive. The queen’s perfume grew stronger, causing me to tremble with longing as I neared the entrance to the above world. I shot out of the tunnel at the base of our tree and into the air, the light blinding. I collided with someone mid-flight, veered off, and smacked into someone else. A thousand scents crashed down upon me: the queen’s trail lingering in the air, the musky odor of drones following her and trying to conceal where she had gone, the undiluted nectar of the flowers, and the powdery poison of mothraflies amidst our flight. My eyes adjusted to the black swarm all around me. It wasn’t just the queen and drones from my hive in this nuptial flight, but all the queens and drones from every hive. I had my pickings of queens, if I could only find one.

    The spray of a queen drifted my way in the wind. I set off in a new direction, my wings humming as fast as they would go. Honey sloshed in my gut tube and my thorax cramped with the exertion of flight. My eyes adjusted to the brightness. Below, I spotted the blue iridescence of a queen. Her abdomen was swollen with unfertilized eggs. A male an eighth her size was busily mating with her. I drifted lower, ready to join him. From the shadowy cover of a tri-leaf, an arachnipede barbarian jumped out and caught them both in its mouth. I flitted off, nearly losing my honey at witnessing the disturbing sight.

    I ventured farther from my hive, darting about, hoping to catch another queen’s scent. Any queen would do. My body trembled with need, overwhelmed by the sexual charge in the air. I was out of the thick of the swarm, the drones around me growing scarcer, yet the trail of a queen grew stronger. An opalescent purple-blue

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