Member-only story
The Cactus Queen
Once upon a time, there was a bank teller named Alli Beth who decided to leave California when the bank she worked for closed its doors.
She barely made it out of LA when her electric car shit the bed.
She wandered around the desert, looking for a place to charge her car. There were cacti everywhere she looked. It didn’t take her long to realize that they were much more alive than any plants she had ever encountered.
Toby Escobaria is covered in tattoos and doesn’t even try to hide from humans who wander off the road. He told her of a land not far in the distance where a mighty King lived.
King Spike could help her find a charging station. Toby covered her head in aloe stems secured in place with a kid’s meal crown he found tangled in a tumbleweed.
“This will protect you from the sun, keep the ridge on your right and you’ll be there soon.”
It wasn’t long before Alli Beth spotted Spike Castle in the distance. King Spike was an imposing cactus with exacting standards and a fierce facade, but inside he was really just a mush.
