I'm organizing a fundraiser to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank and looking for anyone who would like to participate (as a fundraiser, not as a donor--that comes later LOL). Details here: www.rhondaparrish.com/home/giftmas... Signal boosts of this post greatly appreciated :) #Giftmas2025

I'm organizing a fundraiser to benefit the Edmonton Food Bank and looking for anyone who would like to participate (as a fundraiser, not as a donor--that comes later LOL). Details here: www.rhondaparrish.com/home/giftmas... Signal boosts of this post greatly appreciated :) #Giftmas2025

My latest (and best) novel, Silversong, officially released today. I'm VERY pleased with this one. Not just for what it is but also for what it feels like the start of. www.rhondaparrish.com/home/publica... If you like (melancholy) fantasy with heart you might just like it too.

When I left Twitter because, as a friend of mine frequently says, “I don’t drink at Nazi bars.” I wasn’t sure if I had the spoons to start over at a new platform. Still, I did want to save my name here, just in case.

But I didn’t want to just be a blank account sitting here so I decided to start posting a story, one paragraph(ish) a day, beginning at the end and working my way forward. That way it could be read in the correct order by anyone who stumbled across my page.

So, without further ado, allow me to introduce The Tangle. It’s an icy Faerie nighttime homage to Labyrinth, which includes one of my favourite recurring characters, Aleria.

(More about Aleria here -> www.patreon.com/collection/1... )

The Tangle by Rhonda Parrish

Aleria was soft and warm in my arms, and the clouds of our breath intermingled as we kissed, then parted, only to kiss again. Twilight painted the sky the same shade of lilac as her eyes and the snow which bedecked the surrounding trees caught that light and held it. Glowing like faerie fire.

As she pulled from my embrace, her colourful hair streamed out behind her, a rainbow that wrapped around the trunk of a tree as she disappeared behind it. Her challenging laughter rang in the cold air and I ducked as a snowball flew over me–right where my face had

been moments before–and splatted on the trunk of a spruce. I gathered a handful of snow, formed it into a tight snowball and danced around to the far side of the tree Aleria had gone behind. With a victorious battle cry I loosed the snowball, only to have it smash ineffectively into a nearby shrub.

“Where are–?” I began, and then she was there–a flash of colour, a cheeky grin. She winked at me, pelted me with a snowball that exploded into flakes against my shoulder, and then vanished once more.

“Using magic is cheating!” I said, dusting my shoulder off.

“You’re only saying that because you haven’t figured yours out yet,” she said, from somewhere above me. I darted out of the way just as the snow she’d shaken off the branches began to cascade down–a beautiful

flaky waterfall. I rolled to a stop and packed another snowball. The next time she appeared beside me I was ready, and my snowball exploded across her spring green jacket. Even as her giggly gasp of surprise clouded the air, I circled around the tree and readied myself for her counter attack.

“I have a gift for you,” she said, her voice originating from the same place she’d been when I’d pelted her.

“Is it a snowball?” I asked.

She laughed, a sound like cracking ice, “No. It’s not a snowball,” she said. “Let’s declare a truce.”

Cautiously I peered around the tree trunk. She was standing where I’d left her, grinning like a cat who’d just caught a sprite, with her hands behind her back.

“Show me your hands,” I said.

“I can’t,” she laughed again. “It would ruin the surprise.”

I was curious but suspicious. For the thousandth time I wished I could magic myself from one place to another like she could. If I could Step like that I’d be able to appear behind her, to see what was in her hands, but

I still hadn’t figured out how to do it. “It’ll come in time,” mother said, which was absolutely no consolation at all. Usually I could take some solace in the fact I could wield a sword better than anyone our age, but that wouldn’t help me right now. Alas.

“But... truce, right?” I clarified.

She just laughed. I came around the tree, half expecting to receive a ball of snow to the face, but she bent in a half-bow with her arm extended toward me. She was holding a flower.

It was beautiful–shimmery as fresh fallen snow, but silver as the stars which were beginning to dot the sky above us. It had petals like a rose, rounded and curled up into a cup shape which contained a silvery liquid. I’d never seen anything like it before. “For you,” she said.

I closed the distance between us in two great non-magical steps but, just as I reached for the flower, a scream like a calving glacier tore through the forest. “Wha–?” Aleria and I said at the same time.

And then a creature stood between us.

It was half as tall as we were and formed of ice. It had a little round pot-belly, a nose as sharp as an eagle’s, and a spiky crown, like icicles, which stood up from

its bald head. A long, draping robe covered its torso and blended in with the snow at its feet so I couldn’t tell where it ended and the landscape began. Though I’d never seen one before, I immediately knew it to be a snoblin. Possibly even their king.

“Thief!” he shrieked, and again snow fell from the trees to dust us. Though some flakes slipped between my collar and my neck the shiver that went down my spine was not entirely physical.

“Who are–” Aleria began, but the creature spoke a word of command and snapped his fingers.

As quick as that, he was holding the flower and Aleria was gone. In her place was a barn owl. Most of its body was white as the snow, but there were lilac-coloured flecks on the tips of its feathers, and it had big purple eyes. Familiar eyes.

“How dare you?” I demanded, and reached for my sword. But of course it wasn’t there. Why would I bring my sword to dally in the woods?

“How dare I?” the snoblin screamed, and I saw a thin trickle of water run from the top of his crown, down his body, and freeze into ice once it reached the ground. “How dare I?”

He stepped toward me, trembling with rage, and leaving icy footprints in his wake. Behind him, the owl that had been Aleria fluffed out her feathers and turned her head nearly all the way around, purple eyes taking in the forest all around us.

“Yes! How dare you!” I said, hoping the anger in my voice would disguise my fear. “You turned my friend into an owl!”

“Yer friend stole one of my gelid roses!” he shook the blossom at me, and despite the violence of the action the liquid inside did not spill over the edges.

“I’m sure she didn’t know it was–”

“Ye think that’s an excuse, do ye?”

“Well, yes? If you’d talked to–”

“Will talkin’ put my flower back on the stem, Girlie?”

“It might? I’ve seen magic that can make plants grow? Maybe–”

“Oh, ye’ve seen magic make plants grow, have you? Guess you know everything

then, eh?” He jumped up so his eyes were level with mine and stayed at that height, held up by his robe, which curled like a snowy wave with him at its peak. “Well, Miss Smartypants Know-It-All, it just so happens magic won’t make this grow again! I’m gonna have ta plant a whole new one.”

“I’m sure she didn’t mean–”

“Oh,” he said, turning his voice saccharine sweet and slow as the trickle of water down his body. “Oh, she didn’t know? She didn’t know. I guess I’d better change her back then. Since she didn’t know.”

I narrowed my eyes. I hated when people adopted that tone with me, but I held my tongue. Shouting would not help get Aleria back, and I

needed to get Aleria back. A heartbeat passed, and then another, while he looked at me with a fake conciliatory expression on his face, and anger in his eyes. Behind him, Aleria stretched out one wing and looked at it, then stretched out the other and gave an experimental-looking flap.

“Is there something I could–”