Friday, September 12, 2025

This is the eighty-fourth installment of West Wind, your weekly drop of thoughts, ideas, and info for this Season. As Summer draws to a close, I’ll be showcasing one of my published stories each day, because there are getting to be quite a few! This is the fifth installment, check out yesterday’s if you missed it.

Happy Friday, everyone! And Frontier Friday, on top of that. Instead of revealing a new Florabeast, I’m letting the garden rest for a little while and continuing the theme of existing stories. There’s a place for new and fresh, and a place for remembering what’s come before.

As I mentioned on Wednesday, the first story in the Frontier Flora series was heavily modified from the climactic scene of the earliest version of Paper & Feathers. The excitement of a train robbery, flavored with exciting fantasy elements, was something I wanted to preserve and continue on. So here we are! The Dragonfruit Express was released way back in May of 2024, as part of a dragon-themed anthology. I had been actively brainstorming Florabeasts and the Pityvern was a family favorite, so I thought what better way to get it out there in the world?

It may be pretty short, but it has some pretty good jokes. You can listen to the narrated version also, which I plan on enhancing with music and sounds at a later date.

And that’s really all I have for today! Have you read or listened to the story? What did you think? What are your thoughts on Frontier Flora in general? Reply or comment and let me know!