Those birds were the only splash of color in the landscape of white that surrounded them. White lake, white mountains, white sand. I felt a little clutch of fear for them when we released them into that emptiness, as if it would devour them. It couldn't, of course. That was ridiculous. There was no other life that might devour them, and we had tested the soil and the water and the air and the fish and the few lacy white weeds that grew in the sand or clung to the rocks of the mountains. It had all come back clear. Our flamingos would survive and prosper, so long as there was fish to eat and a safe place to sleep and the right temperature, and they had all those things. We'd even implanted little time-delay release capsules with supplementing vitamins and minerals under their skin, though from the results we'd gotten from the fish and the plants, they shouldn't be needed. No accounting for flamingo taste, though, and so we had done this just to give them a little extra to tide them over. We would come back in a year and see how they were doing, that was the plan. There were other places with niches that seemed to fit some of the earth-specific species we'd carried with us in the library through the long dark years--centuries, really, though it was still hard to conceptualize that!--that we traveled to this place. It felt wrong knowing that the first wave of settlers would probably be able to hop through as easy as a trip to the moon, once we put up the wormhole terminus.


Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/enniovanzan/9158179304/
Story potential: Medium.
Notes: More setting than anything else. But they come back, and the flamingos that are newborn have no color, but the fish that ate the dead ones have gained some. (Much like flamingos' color depends on diet in the first place.) And that is a Weirdness.

The guide was not as informative as he had hoped. It only had a brief section on Paraway Station, and mostly that concentrated on the trade in exotic birds, which seemed to be the main reason that people visited the station. Except him, he thought glumly, looking at the blinking neon sign that welcomed travelers. It was missing a letter. No, he had to come here on what his sister would have called "one of his quixotic quests." Not that it was a pretty girl that he was trying to save this time--or, not exactly. No, he was here to save her treasured pet, whom her *tyrant* of a father had sold. She'd begged him, tears in her eyes, hands clasped to heaving bosom, to retrieve it for her, saying that she would be--

Inspiration: Looking up the TV Guide.
Story Potential: High.
Notes: Mostly because I find the idea entertaining. Naturally, the maiden is not worthy of his devotion--perhaps she only manufactured the reason to get him to leave her alone? Or is merely fickle? Or it was all a prank because this place is supposed to be the most boring thing on the face of the galaxy? Regardless, lessons are learned, dignity is won (and maybe an interesting pet?), and something good results for him which embarrasses her entirely.