http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/white-rhino-africa/

Normally, troops were mustered inside or right in front of the barracks. So the cavalry men were surprised to hear the orders to meet half a mile outside the fort itself. But a few of them knew what that meant. They hustled out, and the others caught up. Despite the distance to the muster point, not a man among them was late to the call.

Fences, wooden pickets that had no hope of preventing ingress or egress, surrounded the main steed pens. In most of the pens, horses and oxen grazed under the watchful eye of those on guard duty. The muster point was not by these pens. It was by the pen at the far edge. The pen that did not hold hooved animals.

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http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/men-walking-jamaica/

Old Amazon Mariner’s Tale

In the early days of seafaring, after the Amazon warrior women sailed out of their river empire and into the cold depths of the Atlantic, they encountered many new things. Dolphins. Sharks. Whales, which they considered living demigods for nearly a century before they eventually encountered a dead one.

They managed to stay close enough to the coasts of their lands to avoid the sea serpents in the open ocean. So too did they fail to run afoul of the southern waters’ flying fish with their dual-attack strategy, dozens coming from water and air on those strange, leathery wings. But they did not, those early mariners, avoid all the dangers the open ocean has to offer.

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http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/man-boat-china/

It was late afternoon, but the sun still hung on beyond the stone spires that surrounded the bay. Soon, the sky would lose its battle with the night. It would rage in rebellion, screaming its discontent in yellows and oranges and blood reds. But it would fail as it always had. Day would inevitably become night.

“Come on, put that out,” Kor said, motioning to the lantern with a wing. “You’re scaring the fish away.”

Shag snorted from her stern perch. “Your breath is scaring the fish away.”

“I don’t think fish can smell.”

Yu chuckled, and the lantern light danced. “Fish can definitely smell.”

“The science is probably still out on that,” Kor said with feigned authority.

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http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/religious-festival-philippines/

Grey swarmed around the Priestess. Her elaborate yellow-and-red vestments were swallowed whole. Heads tilted down in proper servitude, the vestels hurried into position. In moments, they’d surrounded the crowned woman, filled every inch of the stage. The crowd bellowed approval.

“Symbolism’s a powerful thing,” Margen said.

Elyx shrugged. “It can be. Sometimes, it’s just a pointless way of dealing with the world.”

“So it’s not so cut and dry?”

“I don’t think so.”

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http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/india-boy-calf/

Whispers and hushes rustled through the small auditorium like a wind washing over a field of golden crops. Slowly, in a simple pattern, the university students turned their attention forward and down. On the big wall at the front of the room, an image of a child holding a black goat had clicked onto the screen. Standing before it, the professor waited patiently for the pattern of quiet to run to its conclusion. Soon, calm settled over the classroom.

“Beauregarde Goats. Any of you that have taken other agribusiness classes will have heard of them. Early Mesopotamian cultures husbanded goats at the dawn of civilization, and it’s believed the earliest forms of the Beauregarde Goat were developed there. The French name is tied to their eventual popularity in the south of France where the endless lavender fields provided the catalyst to their growth as a worldwide cash crop, as it were.

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This story is a continuation of the January 9th story, An Experiment in Green & Grey. Click to read that first story, then read on below.

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/meerkats-morning-upclose/

A small group of police officers sat in a small conference room. The lights were turned off. One white wall had been commandeered as a video screen. The projector itself was on a central table, propped up on a pair of books. On the wall, images of the desert appeared.

“This video was taken five days ago,” said a man in a polo and grey pants. The other three people in the room were all uniformed police officers.

“This video of meerkats,” the least patient of them said.

“Correct.”

“Why do we care?”

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http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/laborers-bricks-india/

EYES ONLY
UC Agent Kate Upton Sinclair
Decoded Message – Received 5.24 at 2134
#6 since embedding 2.5.15

Work continues as normal. Hours are not unreasonable, but the labor is exhausting. The brick yard offers almost no shade, and frequent water breaks are all that keeps most of us from keeling over.

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http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/frozen-lake-ice-crack/

Nothing broke the Blank Flats. Since the third Operator General purchased the massive swath of land between the Bas and the Dost rivers, nothing had been found. No one knew what ancient geological event had formed the vastness of almost-flat, almost-reflective stone. Everyone knew that it stretched for hundreds of miles between the rivers.

Everyone knew the Blank Flats were a homogenous, stony wasteland because Operator Surveyors were assigned tours of duty to map it. And they dutifully had, one pair after another, for decades. The official map was thought to be about two-thirds of the way up, having started at the delta where the Bas spilled into the Southern Sea. All that time and surveyors had found, every day, every month, every year, the same thing. Stone, unbroken in every direction.

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http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/kids-reflection-puddle/

All three of them stood stock still at the curb. Each leaned over to get a good view of their reflection. Jess, moving her lips as little as possible, counted down.

“Ok, here goes. Three… Two… One!”

At once, all three hopped to their right. Noticeably late, a good two full seconds, their reflections in the water mirrored the move.

“Well it’s not too far behind,” Matt noted.

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http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/girl-baobab-trees/

Morning had so far failed to burn off the thick mist that frequented the Shallows. In every direction, as far as he could see, there was no break in the scenery. Shallow water reflected the sun in the spaces between thick green vegetation. Fish and turtles broke the surface with regularity, and he wondered if it was with curiosity at his canoe easing through their home.

The Messenger paddled slowly, in no particular hurry. He had been charged to make the trip with all due haste and return promptly with the Green Lord’s reply. But he was pretty sure he knew what reply the Green Lord would send back, and no one at court would blame him if a two week trip took three. Mostly because no one else would want to make the trip in his place.

Eventually, the predictability of the surroundings failed. Dark figures loomed in the distance to his left. The Messenger turned the canoe and swished his way toward them. It wasn’t long before they revealed themselves as the great Baobob trees. They marked the edge of the human realm and the start of the Green Lord’s.

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