Any magic worth doing is worth doing in jealously-guarded secrecy. "Why did it have to be snakes?!" -Indiana Jones, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (1981) A dream about being a person. "Hi! It looks like you're collecting pins." -Pinny the Pin Assistant, Wondermark Good thing we all thought to bring out protective headgear. Just me? That's fine, I should be the one in charge after all. What we gotta do, you see, is build them too big to succeed! From kinky timber no chaste thing was ever made. Come on in! The water's cold and under enormous pressure! Feel like a winner; where air is thinner; take it from me. They want you to know what's in the books; they do not want you to take them. If you don't watch out, there's gonna tamagetcha! Once you get to know the Big Guys, they're easy enough to get along with. This little cloud of mine, I'm going to make it thine. Devastating momentum! (Mediocre turning radii) Watch party at our place! We're going to binge Candle Cove! Those copper-bottoms are no match for our shell-tops. When all you have is a skull, every problem starts to look like a fortress gate. It was in the Vosges Mountains, they're famous for it. Don't count this silly little mouse out just yet! Even so, it's going to be *quite* a climb, with some gnarly battles along the way. A businessman is beset by sexy wingsuited beachgoers with knives! This is making everyone else nervous. Despite early accusations that the hare had thrown the race, a deeper investigation revealed a more complicated web of culpability. What a mysterious collection of bones, behaving in most unexpected ways! United, she sits. Divided, we fall. LOL, owned. A serpent of a thousand miles begins with a single mis-step. Come to the fortified city of Provins, guaranteed to be safe from armies with small-to-moderate siege capabilities! "Sinuously erect?" Looks, *New Aeon*, you said it not me. The streets of the old city are teeming with schemers, miscreants, and those just trying to get through the day. "I'm addicted to shiny things," they said, as they both reached for the lizard. A lizard prince sits in a library, reading, wide-eyed. SNAKE FARM SNAKE FARM SNAKE FARM From blunt force all sharp things are made. You know what would look great in this untamed landscape? A housing development. Sure, these reptiles can get flat, but they're flexible. What other other shapes would you like them to make? A squeezebox, two flutes, and *three* stringed instruments?! Now that's what I call a party! A salamander fires an alcohol-based superhero out of a cannon at William Shakespeare. You know, like you do. "The axolotls were like witnesses of something, and at times like horrible judges. I felt ignoble in front of them; there was such a terrifying purity in those transparent eyes." -"Axolotl" (Julio Cortazar, 1956). The Zee shines with all the colors of the Neathbow. Was she rescued from the water, or is she merely humoring her gormless suitor? Rock lobsters, scissor lizards, and paper tigers cannot attack or block. Auber on fiddle, K. K. Slider on guitar, Snake on flute, Turtle on drums, Oryx on lyre, Prizmatik on pipes, with vocals by Cool Cow. Three eggs. Or is it four? Three amniotes are enthusiastically ready for things to get weird. 
