Story Collection: Witches of Fruit and Forest

Banner for Nine Laws: Aromantic Spectrum Fairy Tales. Image features a tree in the foreground, lanterns hanging from its branches, against a background of heavily-overgrown grey stone walls and archways leading into smaller courtyards. Vines and ivy cover the walls, archways and steps; an array of grasses grow around the bases of trees and walls. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.
Witches of Fruit and Forest: Nine Laws Short Stories cover by K. A. Cook. Cover features scenery of a dense forest of green and gold leafed trees, the ground underneath covered by thick clusters of grass and yellow-flowering shrubs. Background shows pink flowers peeking through the foreground shrubbery. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.

All know that acceptable sexual attraction walks in twain with romantic love and intimate partnership. Sorcerers’ wives know that their daughters must marry to further power’s cause. Royals know that a kingdom’s prosperity demands the happily-ever-after of monogamous marriage and future heirs … and if romance here cannot be found, it must at least be feigned. In a world so constrained, where can a princess give language to her aromanticism? Where can a baker avoid his mother’s insistence that he love and wed? Where can a villager celebrate that dreaded, threatening possession of desire untethered from love?

Where else but in a witch’s company?

Witches of Fruit and Forest collects all Nine Laws short stories: tales of magic and fantasy exploring aromantic identity.

Continue reading “Story Collection: Witches of Fruit and Forest”

Fiction: The Lies Lovers Tell

Banner for Nine Laws: Allosexual Aromantic Fairy Tales. Image features a tree in the foreground, lanterns hanging from its branches, against a background of heavily-overgrown grey stone walls and archways leading into smaller courtyards. Vines and ivy cover the walls, archways and steps; an array of grasses grow around the bases of trees and walls. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.

For a hundred years, I am bound to a witch’s servitude. I’m not free to be in love. Will you accept this?

Thorn Bloodvine passes hir days trapped in a tower. Well, ze does if “trapped” encompasses “climbing out the window and down the beanstalk whenever the whim takes hir”. Magical wards and a wall of brambles surround hir prison, but neither prevents hir from tending hir garden … or the local youths from raiding hir strawberries. A fearsome witch does dwell within said tower, but hir magic is best suited to creating oversized vegetables. Quirks aside, Thorn laid hir truth at hir lover’s feet before they took to bed: ze cannot become Fortitude’s partner.

But when Fortitude speaks one simple word, Thorn’s carefully-ordered world falls apart. For it isn’t just a fairy story that prevents hir from becoming a woman’s happily-ever-after.

But no matter hir honest explanations, Thorn’s lovers come to expect something hir barren heart can’t feel and hir straightforward mind can’t mimic.

Continue reading “Fiction: The Lies Lovers Tell”

Pride Patch Tutorial: Aromantic Alphabet, Part Five

Six digitally-created versions of cross stitch pride patches, arranged in two rows of three, against a background of a textured partially-translucent aromantic pride flag. Text between the two rows reads Aro Pride Patches in black type. Patches include a rectangular patch in aroflux zigzag stripes, an idemromantic heart, an aro flag text patch reading "aro", a square in quoiromantic stripes, an arrow design in allo-aro colours and a second arrow in nebularomantic colours.

Are you an aromantic or otherwise queer person wanting more text patch designs for seven-stripe pride flags? Do you crave patches depicting longer words like “aromantic asexual”? I now have a complete alphabet to accompany my many seven-stripe block text patterns. Plus patterns for the words “aromantic”, “asexual”, “aplatonic” … and even more a-spectrum terms!

Five cross stitch text patches sitting on a blue microfibre blanket. From top to bottom: "pride" in nebularomantic colours on an aqua background; "arovague" in arovague colours on a black background; "aro" in aromantic-spectrum colours on a green background; "aaa" in allosexual-aromantic agender colours on a light gold background; and "alloaro" in allo-aro spectrum colours on a purple-pink background. All letters are capitals in a blockish style of text with rounded corners. Each letter is outlined in backstitch. Every patch is finished with a buttonhole stitch edging in colours similar to (lighter or darker than) their background colour.

You’ll need familiarity with cross stitch (full crosses and fractional stitches) and backstitch to make unedged patches, along with buttonhole stitch to make the edged patches shown above. The first instalment of this patch tutorial series demonstrates cross and blanket/buttonhole stitch, while the second covers backstitch. While these patterns use fractional stitches to round off most letters, they can be omitted for a more pixellated look.

Folks after patterns suitable for five and ten-stripe pride flags should check out my other Aro Alphabet posts!

Continue reading “Pride Patch Tutorial: Aromantic Alphabet, Part Five”

Fiction Collection: Loveless Aro Friendly

Handdrawn illustration of a green meadow foreground with green and yellow pine trees growing against a mint-hued sky. Scene is overlaid with the grey gradient/green/light green/green/grey gradient stripes of the loveless aromantic pride flag. The text Aro Worlds Fiction sits across the image in a black, antique handdrawn type, separated by two ornate Victorian-style black dividers.

As an autistic, loveless aromantic writer who prefers that my feelings of attraction, connection and affection not be contextualised with a word that doesn’t always feel applicable, I thought Aro Week the perfect time to collate those stories written for aromantics like me. This post lists my works with loveless aromantic protagonists and those that don’t presume an aromantic protagonist’s ability to love and/or label their experiences as love.

My other aro works can be found on my fiction page.

What Makes Us Human

Cover image for What Makes Us Human: A Marchverse Short Story by K. A. Cook. Cover shows an archway set into a stone wall, the wall covered by a dull green creeper. A small peach sphere of light glows underneath part of the creeper at the top of the archway. Inside the archway is another stone wall behind a courtyard comprised of a few rocks, two spindly trees and a striped purple cushion. Title and author credit are written in a white, fantasy-style text, the type bright against the grey background.

Moll of Sirenne needs prompts in their girdle book to navigate casual conversations, struggles to master facial expressions and feels safest weeding the monastery’s vegetable gardens. Following their call to service, however, means offering wanderers in need a priest’s support and guidance. A life free of social expectation to court, wed and befriend does outweigh their fear of causing harm—until forgetting the date of a holiday provokes a guest’s ire and three cutting words: lifeless and loveless.

A priest must expand a guest’s sense of human worth, but what do they do when their own comes under question? Can an autistic, aromantic priest ever expect to serve outside the garden? And what day is it…?

Contains: A middle-aged, agender priest set on defying social norms around love; an alloromantic guest with a journey to undergo in conquering her amatonormativity and ableism; an elderly aromantic priest providing irascible reassurance; and the story of how Moll became Esher’s guiding priest.

More info: Loveless aromantic narrating protagonist.

Continue reading “Fiction Collection: Loveless Aro Friendly”

Pride Bead Tutorial: Aro Stars

Handdrawn illustration of a green meadow foreground with green pine trees growing against various green-hued mountain ridgelines. Scene is overlaid with the dark green/light green/white/grey/black stripes of the aromantic pride flag. The text Aro Worlds Crafts sits across the image in a black, antique handdrawn type, separated by two ornate Victorian-style black dividers.

This tutorial transforms kandi bead stars into pride-coloured ornaments, charms, keychains, zipper-pulls and necklace pendants. They’re simple and quick to make–plus most materials are readily available at dollar shops and craft stores. Flags with four or more stripes (horizontal or vertical) can be transformed into pride-themed stars using this technique, meaning your pride display is limited only by your bead collection!

Seven beaded stars sitting on a blue microfibre blanket. Three stars are made from pony beads, attached to a small piece of ribbon or cord as a dangling decoration, and four are made from seed beads and are attached to a necklace cord via a jump or split ring. One pony bead and one seed bead star is made in the colours of the five-stripe aromantic flag; one pony bead star is made in the colours of the seven-stripe nebularomantic flag; one pony bead star is made from the colours of a four-stripe cupioromantic flag; one seed bead star is made from the colours of the five-stripe allo-aro flag; one seed bead star is made from the colours of the four-stripe quoiromantic flag; and one seed bead star is made from the colours of the six-stripe aro-ace flag.
Continue reading “Pride Bead Tutorial: Aro Stars”

Book Edition: The Girl and Her Unicorn

Banner for Nine Laws: Allosexual Aromantic Fairy Tales. Image features a tree in the foreground, lanterns hanging from its branches, against a background of heavily-overgrown grey stone walls and archways leading into smaller courtyards. Vines and ivy cover the walls, archways and steps; an array of grasses grow around the bases of trees and walls. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.
The Girl and Her Unicorn: a Nine Laws Short Story cover by K. A. Cook. Cover features scenery of a dense forest of green and gold leafed trees surrounding a pond. A white unicorn stands on the edge of the pond, its hooves surrounded by mist. Faint rays of light shine down from a night sky onto the pond. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.

Ponder Sheafed can’t stop asking questions. Ze isn’t the girl others presume hir to be. Ze won’t become a wife or let a wedding’s absence stopper hir lust. Ze isn’t good, so maintaining hir kinsfolk’s high regard demands a complicated dance of stealth, secrecy and untruth. Ponder does, however, own some ability in deception … so when tragedy befalls hir family, how does ze explain that–despite all appearance to the contrary–ze can’t trade hir life’s service for a unicorn’s magic?

Only virtuous maidens may enter the forest to seek a creature as pure as a unicorn. Returning home empty-handed avoids provoking Father’s rage by confessing unacceptable truths, so what options has ze other than embarking upon a farcical quest for hir family’s salvation … and dreading the failure to come? No unicorn can ever grace an unrepentant liar!

Ponder isn’t good. But neither, ze discovers, is the unicorn.

Continue reading “Book Edition: The Girl and Her Unicorn”

Pride Patch Tutorial: Aromantic Alphabet, Part Four

Six digitally-created versions of cross stitch pride patches, arranged in two rows of three, against a background of a textured partially-translucent aromantic pride flag. Text between the two rows reads Aro Pride Patches in black type. Patches include a rectangular patch in aroflux zigzag stripes, an idemromantic heart, an aro flag text patch reading "aro", a square in quoiromantic stripes, an arrow design in allo-aro colours and a second arrow in nebularomantic colours.

Are you an aromantic or otherwise queer person wanting more text patch designs for three, four, six and twelve-stripe pride flags? Do you crave patches depicting longer words like “aromantic asexual”? I now have a complete alphabet, with wide letters great for larger objects, to accompany my many four-stripe block text patterns. Plus patterns for the words “aromantic”, “asexual”, “alterous” and “nope” … and even “wtf” for my fellow quoi folks!

Seven cross stitch text patches sitting on a blue microfibre blanket. From top to bottom: "quoi" in quoiromantic colours on a blue background; "apl" in aplatonic colours on a purple background; "aroace" in oriented aro-ace colours on a pink background; "aro" in aromantic colours on a black background; "queer" in rainbow/LGBTQIA+ colours on a black background; "wtf" in quoiromantic colours on a teal background; and "aego" in aegoromantic colours on a matching flag-stripe background. All letters are capitals in a blockish style of text with rounded corners. Each letter is outlined in backstitch. Every patch is finished with a buttonhole stitch edging in colours similar to (lighter or darker than) their background colour, save the "aro patch, which is edged in chartreuse.

You’ll need familiarity with cross stitch (full crosses and fractional stitches) and backstitch to make unedged patches, along with buttonhole stitch to make the edged patches shown above. The first instalment of this patch tutorial series demonstrates cross and blanket/buttonhole stitch, while the second covers backstitch. While these patterns use fractional stitches to round off most letters, they can be omitted for a more pixellated look.

Folks after patterns suitable for five and ten-stripe pride flags should check out my other Aro Alphabet posts!

Continue reading “Pride Patch Tutorial: Aromantic Alphabet, Part Four”

Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part Three

Banner for Nine Laws: Allosexual Aromantic Fairy Tales. Image features a tree in the foreground, lanterns hanging from its branches, against a background of heavily-overgrown grey stone walls and archways leading into smaller courtyards. Vines and ivy cover the walls, archways and steps; an array of grasses grow around the bases of trees and walls. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.

Ponder Sheafed can’t stop asking questions. Ze isn’t the girl others presume hir to be. Ze won’t become a wife or let a wedding’s absence stopper hir lust. Ze isn’t good, so maintaining hir kinsfolk’s high regard demands a complicated dance of stealth, secrecy and untruth. Ponder does, however, own some ability in deception … so when tragedy befalls hir family, how does ze explain that–despite all appearance to the contrary–ze can’t trade hir life’s service for a unicorn’s magic?

Only virtuous maidens may enter the forest to seek a creature as pure as a unicorn. Returning home empty-handed avoids provoking Father’s rage by confessing unacceptable truths, so what options has ze other than embarking upon a farcical quest for hir family’s salvation … and dreading the failure to come? No unicorn can ever grace an unrepentant liar!

Ponder isn’t good. But neither, ze discovers, is the unicorn.

You may learn, given time, that ‘good’ is but sunlight and seafoam … and all else is sapience.

Continue reading “Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part Three”

Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part Two

Banner for Nine Laws: Allosexual Aromantic Fairy Tales. Image features a tree in the foreground, lanterns hanging from its branches, against a background of heavily-overgrown grey stone walls and archways leading into smaller courtyards. Vines and ivy cover the walls, archways and steps; an array of grasses grow around the bases of trees and walls. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.

Ponder Sheafed can’t stop asking questions. Ze isn’t the girl others presume hir to be. Ze won’t become a wife or let a wedding’s absence stopper hir lust. Ze isn’t good, so maintaining hir kinsfolk’s high regard demands a complicated dance of stealth, secrecy and untruth. Ponder does, however, own some ability in deception … so when tragedy befalls hir family, how does ze explain that–despite all appearance to the contrary–ze can’t trade hir life’s service for a unicorn’s magic?

Only virtuous maidens may enter the forest to seek a creature as pure as a unicorn. Returning home empty-handed avoids provoking Father’s rage by confessing unacceptable truths, so what options has ze other than embarking upon a farcical quest for hir family’s salvation … and dreading the failure to come? No unicorn can ever grace an unrepentant liar!

Ponder isn’t good. But neither, ze discovers, is the unicorn.

Why must ze learn hir lesson only after ze has been ordained to uselessness?

Continue reading “Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part Two”

Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part One

Banner for Nine Laws: Allosexual Aromantic Fairy Tales. Image features a tree in the foreground, lanterns hanging from its branches, against a background of heavily-overgrown grey stone walls and archways leading into smaller courtyards. Vines and ivy cover the walls, archways and steps; an array of grasses grow around the bases of trees and walls. Text is set in a white, slightly-curving serif type; white curlicues matching the text, set in each corner, form a broken frame around the text.

Ponder Sheafed can’t stop asking questions. Ze isn’t the girl others presume hir to be. Ze won’t become a wife or let a wedding’s absence stopper hir lust. Ze isn’t good, so maintaining hir kinsfolk’s high regard demands a complicated dance of stealth, secrecy and untruth. Ponder does, however, own some ability in deception … so when tragedy befalls hir family, how does ze explain that–despite all appearance to the contrary–ze can’t trade hir life’s service for a unicorn’s magic?

Only virtuous maidens may enter the forest to seek a creature as pure as a unicorn. Returning home empty-handed avoids provoking Father’s rage by confessing unacceptable truths, so what options has ze other than embarking upon a farcical quest for hir family’s salvation … and dreading the failure to come? No unicorn can ever grace an unrepentant liar!

Ponder isn’t good. But neither, ze discovers, is the unicorn.

Ponder knows that consequences must someday claim hir. Ze just didn’t expect Mama to have to pay the price.

Continue reading “Fiction: The Girl and Her Unicorn, Part One”