Jenny O Does Maui

Okay, right off the bat I need to admit that I am not going to do a post for every day I was gone; I am going to cluster them all into one loooong post.  Which is to say, this post.  Because Momma's gotta sleep, ya'll.  Plus I still need to do updates for "post-Hawaii"...  those might happen tomorrow... anyway...

01.21.18:

It was a 12+ hour travel day.  I did a very quick ink sketch on the plane.  It's not worth sharing, so I won't (no wait I lied: you can see a bit of it in the corner of the photo below).

01.22.18:

The view from our lanai

I don't normally enjoy landscapes, but this one?  This was an absolute delight to paint: sitting in the warm air, smelling the plumeria, listening to a variety of birds chatter, and watching whales spout their little hearts out.  And the nice thing about painting a scene rather than photographing it is that you can automatically edit out things like telephone wires and cars.  Winning.

01.23.18:

A quickly sketched impression.

Did I say a variety of birds?  I should have used a capital V: Variety.  Hell, maybe even all-caps VARIETY.  So many beautiful birds.  Pretty sure that if I spent more time in Hawaii I'd turn into a bird-watcher, I was that charmed.  I splashed down the color for this little guy, and then added some questionable line work later:

The surrounding splotches were me demonstrating things for the niblings.

01.24.18

Love that color combo.

I managed to make it into the ocean every day except the last day (more on that later), so it shouldn't really be surprising that I also spent some time trying to capture it with my brush.

01.25.18

There's even more experimentation over the rest of the page.

I tried to capture some of the brilliant sunset effect, with considerably less luck.  I need to circle back around to this eventually, but it's really had to capture both vivid color and the bleeding effect.  Challenge!

01.26.18

This is the day we drove the Road to Hana.  It was amazing.  I swam in so many bodies of water!  Hah!

The first place we stopped at was Twin Falls, and I snapped a photo of Malachi that I then sketch-painted once we were back at the condo:

I mean it's not bad, per se, but I craved more definition.

It just wasn't doing it for me, tho', so I added in some line work to the foreground, and now I like it much better.

Those roots were too cool not to define.

01.27.18

SUPER king-ish!

I had a story seed plant itself in my brain this day, but I wasn't in a position to write, so I painted one of the characters, instead.  He's the High King.  And he's totes gonna' die.  Sorry High King.  Don't worry: your baby sister will avenge you.  Probably.

01.28.18

The day started out promising, with Nathan and I heading down to the beach at 0700 for our snorkeling date while his sister watched TLG.  But instead we had a date that consisted of me spraining my right ankle on an ocean-hidden rock and ripping open my left shin (on the same rock!  Talent!) and then driving to get pain killers, hydrogen peroxide, and so many bandages.  ::sigh::  I spent the rest of the day with it propped up, reading my book.  I did not sketch, I did not paint.  I feel zero guilt over this.

01.29.18

I had hoped to swim the morning before we left, but the previous day's adventures ruled that right the hell out.  Damn it.  Anyway, Sunday was another 12+ hour travel day, made extra miserable by my inability to carry things or really walk at all (thank goodness for airport wheelchairs!)  I didn't even manage a sketch.  Again: zero guilt felt.

I do, however, have paintings for the past three days, but they're going to have to wait until tomorrow, because Bedtimes, she is a'callin'.

Only In Dreams

More Story Seeds from Dreams:

I get a big, glossy, double-sided flyer/poster in the mail, advertising an escort service. The male on the back is an old friend, and it's his ex-wife (whom I've only ever met once in passing, in real life) who is running the business. I go to check it out, because I'm worried about my friend- he and she have a son together, but beyond that don't seem to get along well enough to be entering into a business together- especially not one that's her making money off of him. I discover that the service offers more than just sex for hire- there's also drugs and (for some reason) a girl who can See Things when pain is inflicted on her (which is a direct pull from a different story I have). She has two "handlers"- one to push harder ("She can take more!") and one to protect her ("Too much!").  Between the two of them they keep her on the edge of Seeing as much as possible without being too damaged to See more.  I witness her being put into a car against her will, without her handlers- and when I try to find out what's going on, the Push one is really worried- says she's already been pushed too hard for this client. I'm trying to find my old friend to help me get her back, but he's gone missing, too, so I call in a different old friend, who is weirdly fascinated/horrified by the whole thing- but I know he'll help me rescue her, because that's sort of what he does: rescue people. We're sitting in a trough-shaped hot tub set up on a couple of ladders, discussing our strategy, when two-year-old Beetle pops her head up over the edge, looking for her Dad. So now I have to keep her safe while I go on a rescue mission for at least one psychic escort, and possibly my first old friend, as well.

(My dreams are so weird.  And strangely non-sexual for such a sexual setting.)

Rough Draft from a Dream

Last night's dream I found a powerful magical artifact made of rose quartz (one of two "keys" that had to be combined to actually be used) and was rescued by an elderly witch who told me I'm a witch, too.  She helped me escape the bad witches chasing me for the key, using long-step magic to get us to Scotland.  We turned ourselves into dogs to run better, and I was beginning to turn into an Irish Setter (for my hair) until I realized that's not who I am, and instead turned into a large silver pit bull with powerful jaws (I very specifically thought about my powerful jaws).  We went to her house, where her husband was, and my baby was there with him, his diaper being changed- but her husband gave us a wink and a nod so we knew that the enemies had beat us there, and then they revealed themselves and even though I was in human form I stood over my baby growling and snarling and knowing I would literally crush the throat of anyone who came near him.

(We did escape, and I managed to get the other key, and fit the two of them together.)

And if that's not a damn fine story seed, I don't know what is.  Although I suppose it would be helpful if I'd gotten to find out just what, exactly, the artifacts did... the fact that I thought of them as "keys" implies that they opened or unlocked something... perhaps greater power?  Hmm...

Ranting Robin

This may be part of a story-seed Nathan planted a while back, or it may not.  I haven't decided yet.

***

If you want someone to notice your problems, be rich.

Especially if that problem is being missing.

See, poor folk disappear all the time- run away, kidnapped, killed- but no one cares.  Well, no one but other poor folk, and obviously we don’t count, or we’d have money.  Every day, dozens of disappeared denizens of the District, and no one blinks an eye.  Can’t notice somethin’ missing if you didn’t notice it was there in the first place, right?  People starvin’ to death in the streets, and you’d think they’re just so many cobblestones placed for decorative effect.  But just one rich fattie vanishes, and suddenly the general population takes notice.

Miles Plenus didn’t know my name, but I knew his.  Everybody in the District knows his name, ‘cos one way or another, he owns at least half of it.  Bully boys breathin’ down our necks for us to pay double the rent we did last week, ‘cos Mister Plenus raised ‘em in the meantime.  And there he is on the television, talkin’ about how it’s his Christian duty to provide affordable housing to the downtrodden, desperate denizens of the District.

Only reason we’re so downtrodden is ‘cos we’re under the heel of the likes of him.  Sad thing is, his rents actually might be considered “affordable” next to what the other guys demand.  He is the proverbial lesser of evils.

Just wish it were only two.

So Plenus goes missing, and while we don’t much care, they do.  Flipping, flapping, jabbering about like so many jays, while we little brown sparrows go about our business in the dirt.

Seed, Sprouted

So after I uploaded yesterday's photo, I had a bit of a brain-wave about a story-seed I planted a few years back, with the working title The Breath Stealer.  The premise was that cats do, indeed, steal the breath of babies (thereby killing them), but only babies that are fated to grow up evil.  I never shared it on here, until now:

When I was very small, eyes still blue and fur still tufted into ridiculous spikes, I lost a brother to a hawk.  I don't remember much of him- I'd only known him a few weeks, after all, and then primarily as a competitor for the most free-flowing of my mother's teats.  What I remember quite clearly, however, was how my mother mourned for him.  There were six of us left in the litter, six tiny lives to love and care for, but still she cried for the one who had been taken.  Sometimes, in my most private nightmares, I hear her crying still, but it wasn't the hawk who killed her baby-

It was me.

There was a bit more, but that was the hook.  At any rate, that's been percolating in the back of my mind for, as I said, a few years, until yesterday when I posted that photo of Krumps and suddenly thought, "But what if, this time, the Cat chooses not to kill the child, but instead to attempt to rewrite it's fate?" which lead me down the rabbit hole of the Cat trying to raise a tiny sociopath to be a force for good rather than evil, and the hilarity that might ensue from that.

We'll see.

Wandering Off the Path

I was tidying up some paper files today, and came across something I typed out a year or two ago.  If I recall properly, it was in response to a writing prompt, although I cannot remember precisely how it was worded, or who gave it to me (Adam, maybe?).  I still like the little vignette very much indeed, and since I haven't been able to find it published in a previous blog post, I thought I'd polish it up a bit and share it today.  (There is a bit of a tangential tie in to this post from 2010, which is set further in the future of this Universe, but which also explains one key piece of terminology.)

***

My eldest daughter does not take the results well.

"This is bullshit," she rages, and I wince.  So does the clerk, although surely he is more used to people screaming obscenities than I am.  I have a sudden flashback to Kaia as a toddler, smiling up at me like a miniature sun, her teeth tiny perfect pearls against her smooth dark skin.  "Busha!" she crows, and I know I am going to catch it when her mother hears this exciting new exclamation.

"Ms. Sejoh," says the clerk, eyes carefully avoiding my own.  "Perhaps you'd like to further discuss your questions... in private?"

"No, I don't want to discuss anything 'in private'," she snaps.  "You can explain to me, to both of us, in exquisite detail, just why my father's application has been rejected!"

It isn't really 'my' application, I think to myself.  I'm not the one who submitted it, after all.

The clerk sighs in a way that is meant to be understanding, but which I understand to be simply tired.  "It's the results of his medical exams.  There are concerns that his body will not be able to handle the effects of wet-hi."

"What do you mean, concerns?"  Kaia's eyes narrow in challenge.  "Is this because of his age?  He's only ninety-two!  There are plenty of older colonists-"

Old.  Old.  I do not think of myself as 'old'.  This is not to say that I'm under any sort of illusion that I am 'young'- all the rejuves my well-intentioned daughters have 'gifted' me with cannot keep me from feeling the weight of my years in my heart, in my soul- but I am not 'old'.  Cannot be old.  The trees I recall from my youth were old.  Mountains are old.  Stars are certainly old.  Humans can never be truly old.

But they can be young, as this solemn, white-frocked clerk is young.  He must be at least thirty years junior to Kaia, which is probably part of why she's so frightened.  Yes, frightened.  My daughter has always transmuted fear to rage, ever since her mother died.

"It's not about his age, Ms. Sejoh, although just to clarify," his lips purse in disapproval, "what you see on the clips is not particularly indicative of the reality of the situation.  Certainly there are a handful of celebrities who can afford the extra procedures- procedures that never get mentioned in the clips, mind you- the extra procedures required to help an older body deal with wet-hi, but they are the exception, not the rule."

"If this is about money-"

"It's not about money, either."

"Then what is it about?"

The clerk holds up perfectly manicured hands, as if to physically halt Kaia's fury.  I feel I should warn him it will only do the opposite.  "Your father has genetic markers which indicate that he is part of a small percentage of the population for whom wet-hi, for whatever reason, does not work."

"What?  Why have I never heard about this?" Her voice is suspicious, as though she believes the clerk has made up this condition just to thwart her.  I try not to smile.

"The layman's term is 'Falfurrias Condition'," he says patiently, "and, as I said, it affects only a small- a very small- percentage of the population."

"How small?"

He sighs again.  "Literally one in a million, if that many."

"Hah!"  The laugh escapes before I can stop it; they both turn to look at me, but I pretend to be coughing.  'One in a million'!  How Sehme would laugh to hear her words applied to me in this new, strange context.  Of course, she always used to follow it with the cheeky reminder that, if it didn't work out with me, she'd just go find one of the other 1.5 million she might have a shot with.

I consider this, sobering.  One and a half million people who cannot get Off: cannot escape our dying planet.  Doesn't seem like such a small number when you put it like that.  I slide my eyes over to my daughter and see her making similar calculations.  Her full lips have compressed into a brittle line.

"This is unacceptable."

"This is reality, Ms. Sejoh." The man's voice starts hard, then gentles as he adds, "I'm sorry it had to happen to you and your family."

Reality happens to everyone, I think.  What is there to be sorry about?

"I'm getting a second opinion," she snaps, shoving to her feet.  I take a little more time about it.  I've never been one to rush.

"Please do.  I hope they prove us wrong," says the clerk, and I almost think he means it.  Almost, but not quite.

We leave the office too slowly to make a truly dramatic exit, but Kaia's glares more than make up for that, I think.  As we retrace our steps to the parking pad she mutters under her breath.  At first I think she is still cursing the clerk, but then I realize she is calling my youngest daughter, Dalili.

Lili got Off ages ago, when she was still a teenager.  In those days it was only the young and adventurous who took such gambles- this was before people realized that the greater gamble was how much longer our world could survive.  She'd paid for it by going as a mentary, creating clips of her experiences so the world could watch in fascination.  As such she had been popping in and out of wet-hi every three years for the past four decades, which meant she would be a lot older than her compatriots when they finally landed, but also a lot wealthier.  She was currently awake, and scheduled to be that way for at least two more months.

I watch her clips, of course- the nets turn three months of constant recordings into two seasons of shows, not to mention tie-in material- but I have never accustomed myself to how young she stays.  Neither, although she would never admit it, has Kaia.

Lili has always reminded me of Sehme, although the two only had eighteen months together- and nine of those months Lili was cradled beneath Sehme's heart.  But she has the same bright spark that drew me to her mother, the same bright spark that draws everyone.  She loves freedom and adventure and love in general.  It seems appropriate that she should remain young, not just cosyoung but truly young, while the rest of us age.  It's not that different from my amber-trapped memories of Sehme.

Kaia is... I wonder, sometimes, if she might have been more like me in temperament, if not for her mother's early death.  But then I remember how the shape of her scowl is exactly that of my own mother's, and I think perhaps we must be who we must be, regardless of the circumstances.  Kaia is very serious, and very controlled: strong and competent, and not one to suffer nonsense.  When Kaia decides a thing will get done, it Gets Done.

She is not used to being successfully thwarted.  The term "genetic marker" might have brought most people to a screeching halt, faced with a variable that was set before I was even born- but not my eldest.

"I'm not going to just leave him!" Kaia exclaims, and my wandering mind is brought back to the present.

It is highly doubtful that Lili suggested- or even implied- that Kaia 'just leave me'.  This makes no difference to what Kaia has heard, however, and she begins to rail against her 'irresponsible, feckless child' of a sister.  Poor Lili.  It is hard to bear the weight of others' regrets.

We cannot exit the building until we have suited up, and of course we cannot suit up so long as Kaia is still so enthusiastically ranting.  I sidle over to one of the windows and stare up and out at the sky.  The skins on the window make it a dull orange-brown, of course- but even if the skins weren't there, it wouldn't be the clean blue I remember from childhood.  Kaia and Lili never knew skies like that.  The thought makes me wistful.  But then I remember that the new worlds have blue skies, and I am happy.

Eventually Kaia comes and finds me, scolds me for not already suiting up, and bustles me out to where our pod is waiting.  I think we are going home, but as the moments pass I realize Kaia has keyed in entirely unfamiliar coordinates.

The pod moves in and out of the flow as efficiently as if Kaia herself had been guiding its movements.  She is on the nect again, but since she is suited up I cannot decipher who she is speaking to.  I turn my attention instead to the gracefully curving lines of our pod: it's top of the line, the interior smelling of warm leather, orange-oiled wood, and the vanilla of Kaia's perfume.  I'm glad we bought it- it's much more comfortable than our previous pod- but there are days when I sorely miss the wild, manual-driving days of my youth, nothing but two tons of metal and sheer nerve between you and destruction.

I am drawn abruptly from my memories when we arrive at a hospital- not my hospital, that I am so familiar with, but a hospital.  I assume Kaia has decided there's no time like the present for second opinions.

"Wait here, father," she says, climbing out the door onto the cold blue-gray of the pad.  Her plum skirt hikes up, but she jerks it viciously back into place.  "I'm going to see what I can arrange."  Kaia always does her best 'arranging' face-to-face.  Her presence can be... intense.

I do wait.  In my defense, I do wait an entire three minutes.  And then I key in some coordinates of my own.

When I was a boy and wanted to escape, I would go to a green place and hide, free from my father's walls, my mother's expectations, free to breathe in air that had been to places I would never see.

These days, of course, I do not have such a luxury.  No one does.  But the city's biodens are close enough for my purposes.  I program the pod to fly home, knowing it will give me a little longer on my own, and I enter the dome.

Being rich was never a goal for either Sehme or myself- it was one of those things that just sort of happened while we were busy working hard.  Most of the time I don't think about it, but times like this, times when I can enjoy the privileges of a biome Pillar Level membership, I am grateful.  Kaia calls it 'an unnecessary expense', but I, as is my right as patriarch, insist it is quite necessary.

Anyway it's my money.

I make my way, slowly, from one bioden to the next.  I could hop on a slidewalk, of course, but I find more satisfaction using my own legs, at my own pace.  I am so rarely allowed to do things for myself these days.  And what's the point of all these rejuves if I'm not going to keep using the limbs they claim to be preserving?

The biodens remind me of the women I have loved.  Do love.  Sehme, of course, because she loved all growing things.  Kaia, because she, too, will always find a way to adapt and survive, as so many of these little plants have.  And Lili, because, like my youngest daughter, this small part of the world remains young and fresh while the rest of us age... and die.

The world is dying.  It is sick, so sick- just as Sehme was.  Sick, and dying- but beautiful nonetheless.

I pass through woodland and scrub, taiga and tundra.  I come at last to desert, and it is here that I wander off the path and into the shimmering dunes.

There are certain privileges to being old and very wealthy.  If they catch me, they will shoo me out in the kindest way possible.  But they rarely catch me, because who in their right mind goes wandering around a desert biome?

I do.  And I do it for a specific purpose.

Once the pathways are out of sight, I settle down into the trough of a dune and run my fingers through the hot, silken sand, digging down to the cooler layers beneath.  The desert has many secrets, and it just so happens that we share this one.

"Hello, Sehme," I say.  She is in these sands, her ashes mixed to the point of disappearing, but she is here nonetheless.  The curator would be horrified if he knew what I'd done- as would Kaia- but I like to think that Lili would understand.  Sehme needed to be part of the world, not bottled up and kept on a shelf.

I must have dozed, because the next thing I know, one of the young caretakers is gently shaking my shoulder, and the light has taken on a certain slant that tells you it's later in the day.

"Mr. Sejoh," he says shyly, "Your daughter is here, and I think you do not want to be officially discovered off the paths."

Immortal Mind

Nathan came up with a clever little story seed the other night; I'm letting it percolate itself an actual plot, but in the meantime, I started playing...

***

All in all, it is better not to attract the attention of gods.

Gods like to be entertained- they can have very different standards of entertainment than we do- and when they feel they have been entertained enough, they like to reward the mortal who provided it.

Of course, they also can have very different standards of “reward”.  Standards that are tied up in their desire for more entertainment.

Acacius had not meant to attract the attention of the gods, but when he did, and when the god in question refused to accept his demuring of reward, insisting that immortality would be an excellent reward, Acacius had the presence of mind to interject that he did rather hope eternal youth would be part of said reward.  The god chuckled knowingly, said, “Too clever by half!”, and disappeared in the same shrieking gust of wind he’d arrived in.

Acacius did not age beyond that moment, suspended forever at the somewhat advanced age of thirty-seven.  Of course, as the centuries passed, his relative agedness became less and less, until at last he was considered “young”- not even in the prime of life yet!

This might have amused Acacius, could he remember those early days.

It's Not the First Time I've Been Called Cold-Hearted

Last night's dream was and intense, and kind of bizarre.  And my husband laughed at me and my arrogance, but I'm going to tell you anyway, because quite frankly I think there's a good story seed at the core of it- I just need to let it compost for a while.

Anyway.

In my dream I was in a large parking lot and came across a guy packing up his truck (big truck, like a moving truck.  It was teal.) after a sort of farmer's market bazaar type thing had come to an end.  He was alone, and asked for help, so even tho' I felt a little weird about it I went ahead and helped him- but I was smart enough to call Nathan and give him a description of the truck I was helping to load before I came home.

Turns out dream-paranoia was all for the best, because I totally ended up being kidnapped, drugged, and put to work in a sort of extremely high-end brothel that catered to the very rich (mostly lawyers, for some reason).  The drugs they kept in our systems removed our emotions, so we didn't feel anything, and certainly didn't care about anything.  Because of this, no one tried to escape because, as mentioned, no one cared.  Except, in my case, they'd underestimated my ability to think without emotion (this is the part where Nathan started laughing, damn him).

See, even tho' I didn't actually care about the situation I was in, I could remember not wanting to be there- so I got all coldly logical about following through on the decision I'd already made, even tho' it didn't have any sort of current emotional meaning for me.  I saw people who knew me, and they were shocked to see me working in that place, but since I wasn't upset they assumed I was okay where I was.  During one part of the dream I managed to find a cell phone and call 911, and calmly tell them what had happened to me- and I was hyper aware of the fact that they weren't likely to believe me, because I was so dispassionate about the whole thing.

Very strange.  But also, I think, a potential story seed.  Also perhaps my subconscious screaming a commentary about something?  Who knows.

Here is a sketch of a winged girl for you:

I just realized she totally doesn't have thumbs.  Crap.  This is why non-sober-doodling is not the BEST of ideas.

Tomorrow is Cooking Baking Day.  That's right, three capitals on that.  Three.  Ponder that, why don't you?

He is Tall and I am Small

Sketch for a children's book I'm formulating:

New Neighbors

"Do you think they're nice?"

"I don't think it matters if they're nice, because we're not going to talk to them.  We're not even going to let them see us.  In fact, we ought to leave now."

"Pssh, don't be such a nymph.  They're too busy carrying stuff to notice us.  Nobody said anything about not watching them."

"It's implied."

"Oh it is not.  Anyway you can leave if you want to.  Then there won't be any witnesses."

"Witnesses for what?"

"Doesn't matter- you won't be here."

"Fine.  I'll stay.  But only to keep you out of trouble!"

"...I like the look of that one."

"Which one?"

"The female.  Look at her eyes- she has proper eyes, all slanty like ours."

"So does the male."

"Yeah, but he looks grumpy.  She looks... like she still believes in fairies."

"Don't be ridiculous.  You know the grown ones never believe in fairies."

"That one does.  I can tell."

"You'd better hope she doesn't.  The last thing we need is for her to recognize signs of our presence.  Then we'd have to move again, and I like it here."

Nearness

(This was for an assignment for my writer's group, for which stories are theoretically supposed to be about 500 words.  I almost never stay even close to that- I'm doing well to keep it below 1000, to tell you the truth.  And my first attempt at writing this was actually abandoned about 700 words in because I had not gotten nearly far enough with the narrative- so please forgive me if this seems a bit stunted.)

(It sprang up from an story seed I had regarding the other half of the rainbow being in the underworld, and I will most likely expand it one of these days...)

***

Once when I was a child I decided to follow the rainbow to its end.  It was further away than I’d expected, and it was only after several hours of chasing that I was able to track it down to a little canyon I’d never encountered before.  I saw the rainbow had come to rest between two boulders, and was so excited by the prospect of finally dancing at its end that I forgot to take care with my footing, and so tumbled to the ravine floor, smashing my left arm into a rock on the way down.

I lay there for several minutes, dazzled with pain and wondering how I’d be able to climb back up, before I noticed that I’d landed right next to the two boulders I’d spied from above.  Sure enough, the rainbow swept down between them, but now that I was so close I could see that it did not end there, but in fact had slipped into a crack in the earth.

The crack was too small for any adult to get through, but for a child of my size it was more than large enough.  And since I could not go up, I decided I might go down, holding my left arm awkwardly in my right.

It was fortunate that the rainbow was giving off a faint glow, because the interior of that crack was as dark as- well, as the underside of a rock.  But the further into the dark I went, the stranger the colors of the rainbow became- it was almost as though they were inverting themselves, or becoming their own shadows.  Whatever it was, within thirty yards of the crack, the rainbow had become colors I had no words for, colors that I had never seen before, nor since.

I began to grow uneasy, and glanced back over my shoulder to reassure myself with a glimpse of daylight.  Surely no harm could come to me so long as I could see my way back out.  As I was thinking this, I ran into someone, jarring my wounded arm in a way that made me feel nauseated.

I let out a cry of pain and collapsed at the pale feet of the other person.

“Oh!” the voice was sweet, but strangely hollow sounding- almost like wind across a large reed.  The young woman crouched down next to me, and I saw by the quality of her garment and the purity of her skin that she must be nobility.

“You feel pain,” she said it as though surprised, and reached out a hand as if to touch me.  She stopped just short of my shoulder, however, and I was glad of it.

“Yes, Lady,” I panted.  “I fell from the cliff and I think I may have broken my arm.”

“You are far from home, I think,”

“Yes Lady.  The rainbow led me here.”

She shook her head.  “This place is not for you.  If you had gone just a few steps further you would have lost sight of the light, and you would not have been able to go home at all.”  I felt a shiver that distracted me from the pain.

“Lady, the truth is that I don’t know that I’ll be able to go home, light or no.  I’m not sure where I am- and even if I was, I can’t climb back out again.”

She looked at me with dark eyes that reflected the strange inverted colors of the rainbow, and I thought she looked terribly sad.

“Perhaps this place is for you, after all,” she said.  I felt a tightening in my throat and knew that tears could not be far behind.  She sighed, and it was like the wind again- but this time like the wind through a pile of fallen leaves.

“But no,” she continued, as though to herself, “you can still feel pain- and the light is still within your reach.  I think I can send you back, this time.”

“But Lady, the canyon walls-“

“Are of no concern.  Close your eyes and do not open them until my messenger tells you that you may.”

I closed my eyes and felt a pair of arms wrap themselves around me.  Their touch did not hurt me, not even against my arm- they were warm and comforting as sunshine on a spring day.  Somehow I knew they were not the arms of the Lady: her arms surely would be cold as her breath upon my ear as she whispered,

“Good bye, mortal child.  We will meet again.”  And she kissed my cheek.

The arms tightened and I squeezed my eyes tighter, determined not to disobey the Lady.  But I must have slept, for the next thing I knew a voice soft as rain was saying, “Wake up,” and I was in my own bed, arm covered in plaster.

Later my mother would say it had only been a fever dream- that some of the men had found me at the base of a cliff not half an hour from our house, and had brought me back and dressed my wounds.  And I might have believed her but for one thing- to this day there is still a place on my cheekbone that is cooler than the surrounding skin: an area the exact size and shape of a pair of lips.

Updates and Composting

My articles and illustrations were received with as much enthusiasm as my query letter, so hopefully sometime this summer I'll be able to officially refer to my work as, "As seen in!"  Hah, I slay me... now I just need to get paid to write something... baby steps, O, baby steps...

Read two excellent books recently.  I just today finished The Way of Kings (Sanderson), which was so, so satisfying.  Sometimes you read a book and you get to the end and it's not particularly believable and you think, "Eh, well, it's made up so whatever."  But not this book- no, this book remained true to itself.  The ending was exactly as it should be.  The same is true of the book I read earlier this week- Across the Universe (Revis).  That one is Young Adult scifi, and just fun.

As for my own writing, I've been tooling around with a story seed from about five months ago, about a super-weak vampire.  Maybe you remember it?  It was based on a rather disturbing dream I had.  Anyway since that time it's evolved quite a bit, until I hit a snag in my world-building that had me stuck for a few weeks... but today I woke up and the solution just popped into my brain, which was a relief I tell you what.  So I was able to pound out about two-thousand words of world/plot-building/refining, until I hit another couple of snags, but they are the sorts of snags I fully expect Nathan to be able to help me with when he gets home.  He is so good for that sort of thing...

But maybe you'd like to know how things have developed?  Here,  have a quick update...

Pippa, her father, and her three (yeah it was two before but now it's three) brothers are in a horrible car wreck that kills all the males, and leaves Pippa clinging to life by a thread.  Pippa's mother (who, unbeknownst to Pippa, is actually fae) strikes a deal with a vampire: the vampire turns Pippa in exchange to access to her mother's blood (fae blood being a particularly valuable commodity to vampires).  Because of Pippa's half-blood nature, the fae half of her blood tries to reject the vampirism, which results in the cancer-patient-like status.  But of course she gets better(ish) eventually (it would be a terribly boring story if it was just her laying around being ill- I'm no Lurlene McDaniels) and that's when the vampires reveal that as far as they're concerned the "blood" of their bargain referred to Pippa herself.  They have a use for someone with her unique status...

Anyway on to other things in my life that are not fictional.

When I first started hooping, my great goal was to be able to go and practice down in the park without humiliating myself.  Well, as of this past Sunday I have achieved that goal.  It was such a gorgeous day that I packed up my backpack full of fun (books, etc), grabbed my hoop, and headed down to the park, where I plugged in my earbuds and proceeded to play for almost an hour.  At first I was a little self-conscious, but then I became overwhelmed by the people smiling at me- and not pity-smiles, either: more like "good for you" smiles.  So.  That was a Goodness in my life.

We leave Birmingham in less than a month.  That is more than a little freaky.  We are maybe two boxes away from having all the books packed up, and I've begun breaking down the shelves.  Our AAA cards came in the mail today, and I've created our Road Trip Itinerary.  According to my To-Do list there's really not that much left beyond getting Nathan's car checked out, selling mine, and packing up all our stuff.

You know, little things like that...  ::sigh::

Story Seeds

So here's the thing- I wrote about a thousand words on a fun new story idea I came up with today, but not a word of it is where I'd like it to be before I go around sharing. It's still in the percolating zone, the bouncing-it-off-Nathan-to-get-practical-feedback zone. Composting, as some authors refer to it.

But I'm excited about it, so I want to at least try to sum up the concept for you guys here on the blog... (plus, you know- I have to put something up...)

Mages can take human vessels, combine them with a spark of demon, and bind them with their own (mage) blood, to create super-warriors known as (for now) blood-slaves. A blood-slave is controlled by and can only be hurt using the specific blood used to create him- which means so long as their master/creator survives, so do they. (Which, of course, is excellent motivation for protecting said master.) Blood-slaves don't tire or hunger or thirst, and are faster, stronger, and tougher than mortals. Neither injury nor mutilation will kill them (although they are easier to control when they're whole): they're immortal-within-their-creator's lifespan, basically. You can see how an army of them might be a force to be reckoned with...

Originally there were five Houses that controlled blood-slaves (and therefore the Empire), but it's dwindled down to three- and those three keep one another in check with a careful balance of mutually assured destruction. But the patriarchs within each house are coming close to death- and when they fall, their legions of blood-slaves fall with them- which, of course, opens the way for a new balance to emerge among the younger generations! Cue intrigue and plotting and oh so much more...

Percolation- go!

Omega

Recently on Dinosaur Comics, we've been learning the story of Robert Scott. In case you do not care to click on links today, I will sum his story up thusly: tried to be the first to reach the South Pole, ended up coming in second, and then dying on the way back. Oh, and the rest of his crew, too.

Tragic, tragic.

Anyway, part of what we learned about in Dinosaur Comics was that Captain Scott (whose middle name was Falcon how cool is that?!) wrote a final letter to his wife, which, quite frankly, made me cry, especially because he goes on a great deal about how much he loves her and his main regret is that the price of his mission is that he will never see her face again. I mentioned this to Nathan, and he said (incredible paraphrasing going on here), "Don't worry- I have no plans for adventuring: don't want to be the first at anything. I'll be the last."

This, of course, got my story-brain going down the path of people who want to be the first to do something, and what if a guy really wanted to be the first at something and kept narrowly missing, so instead he decides to be the last to do something. And at first I cracked a joke about this guy getting to the South Pole and sitting there and shooting anyone who got within a hundred yards of it, thus ensuring he'd be the last to reach it. But then I got to thinking- well, he's going to die eventually, and then someone else will just come along and do it. So I thought, well, he could do something similar with a planet. Booby-trap it, or something. And now my mind is a whirl with "How would I permanently ensure that my character be the last to do a given thing?"

Excellent fodder, I think. But it will definitely have to percolate for a while. Maybe I'll turn it into a writing prompt for my writer's group...

Children of Prophesy

When the common people first began to whisper of the prophecy, I paid them no mind. I whose ear was so full of the booming voice of my god could spare no time for the voice of anything lesser- especially nothing so nonsensical as prattling about the succession. What cared I for the succession? I had at least a dozen sons by my wives, and more by my concubines. The succession would take care of itself when the time came, and in the meantime I had a temple to build: a temple for the glory of my god. He had promised me I should not die before its completion, and I knew it would take a score of years or more. More than enough time for one or more of my children to show himself suitable for the role.

But as the great temple took shape, and the voice of my god grew softer and more content, the voices of the commoners gained in volume and urgency. Soon even the nobles were speaking- behind my back, of course- of the prophecy. Of the babe who would be king, not just of this land but of all lands. A child with two fathers- one royal and one common- but the blood of neither. A child who would grow to be a man who could not die, and who would enslave the world to his will.

And when the priests came to me, speaking of signs and portents and a star blue as death where none had been before- I decided it was time to listen.

Into the temple- the great temple my god had commanded, with its soaring columns and smoking altars- into the temple I went, and I knelt, and I begged my god to guide me, to tell me how I could prevent this invincible usurper from coming to power. How I might save the world from the coming darkness. I opened my heart to my god and I listened for what he would tell me- but the temple was complete, and His once-insistent voice had grown so soft it was now silent.

Three nights and days I knelt, and I waited, and three nights and days my heart remained empty. Until the the sun sank below the horizon on the third day, and I felt my heart grow heavy and sink with it. Because I remembered that the prophesy said the child would grow to be a man who could not die- but first he must grow to be a man.

What I did- what had to be done- I am not proud of it. It left me broken and empty, surely you must know that? But in fairness to my people I had to make an example of my own twins. Could anyone doubt the underlying purpose to my actions, that I sacrificed my own blood for the sake of my people? I asked nothing of them that I did not give to them in return, to keep them safe. To keep the entire world safe.

My people can have more children, new babes to replace those sacrificed. And those children will be able to grow up without fear of a prophesied tyrant who will not die. They will grow up in the light...

Derailed

Adam Rivers liked trains. Not in the little-boy-wonderment sense, and definitely not in the Freudian-slip sense. In fact, it wasn’t even the trains he liked so much as the travel via train. He liked that once you got on a train, you weren’t going to get lost. You sat in your seat (or wandered the cars) and you did whatever suited you- you read, you ate, you drank (sometimes you drank a lot), you chatted up strangers (at least, he saw others doing as much), whatever. The point is that you didn’t have to put any thought into getting where you were going, because you were going to get there. You might arrive early, you might arrive late, you might go there directly or make a bunch of stops on the way- but as long as you stayed on the train that was staying on the tracks, you weren’t going anywhere but where you were going. Adam found it soothing to know he could rely on at least one part of his day going according to plan.

He was thinking as much to himself as he settled down for the ride from Portland up to Seattle. The rest of his day had definitely not gone as planned. For starters, he was supposed to have company on this late-night journey. The seat next to him should have contained his girlfriend, and the two across from him should have held his brother and soon-to-be-sister-in-law, respectively. But those seats were empty, thanks to one work/personal/family crisis after another. They had encouraged him to go on without them- they would meet up with him tomorrow and anyway someone had to check into the hotel, etc. etc… whatever. Adam didn’t mind the solitude, and he was used to being The Responsible One, so pretty much par for the course, right? Right. Anyway he had a manuscript he needed to work on, and the three-and-a-half hours of uninterrupted quiet beckoned invitingly. He glanced around the car and found he was its only occupant. Yep, he ought to have plenty of peace for his writing.

But first a nightcap.

Adam reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a silver flask decorated with intricate knot-work. He took a smooth swallow of bourbon and couldn’t help but grin: between the story bubbling in his head and the liquor warming up his belly, it ought to be a fine night, indeed.

***

Bright. Way, way too bright.

“Hon- c’n turnna light off?” he groaned, and rolled to bury his face in the pillow.

Except there was no pillow. And he couldn’t roll over, anyway, because he was sitting up. Adam opened his eyes, feeling severely disoriented.

“Whuzza-“

Shit. He was still on the train, and the landscape flying by was lit by sun, not moon. Shit shit shit. He didn’t even remember falling asleep- and he’d bet a million dollars he was now traveling away from Seattle. Why hadn’t the damn ticket-taker come by? Or had he? Shit, how much had he drank? Adam shook his flask doubtfully. It was heavy in his hand, and sloshed in such a way that told him he’d never gone past that first sip.

What the hell?

He rubbed his face, feeling weary and resigned: he was never going to live this one down. Obviously he needed to cut back on the gym, if it was leaving him so exhausted he was sleeping like a coma-victim. He sighed and stood up, determined to figure out what leg of the journey he was on. If he was close to Portland he’d just ride it out and try to get on whatever train his girlfriend was on. If he was closer to Seattle maybe he’d just hop off at the next station.

The first door he tried was locked. Of course. He sighed again and moved to the other end of the car. Also locked.

What the hell?

Okay, so maybe they were… running an exercise? That required locked doors? Adam peered back out the window. He’d done this trip often enough that he figured there was a pretty good chance he’d recognize some landmark or another, and then at least he’d know which way he was headed.

“Uhhh…” he shook his head and looked again, but the view did not change. Rather than the familiar mountains, hills, and lakes of Washington State (or even Oregon, for that matter) he was staring out across a prairie. A flat, endless gold prairie beneath an equally flat and endless blue sky. Maybe it was his imagination, but he was pretty sure he saw a herd of buffalo in the distance.

Imagination! Of course it was his imagination- the whole thing was his imagination, because obviously he was asleep. Obviously. Damn vivid dreams. He hadn’t slept through anything, because he was still asleep.

“But now that I know I’m asleep,” he said aloud, “I can wake up.”

Nothing.

“Okay fine. Then I can fly.”

Still nothing.

“Fantastic. My girlfriend gets to dream about fighting epic battles as a salamander, and I’m stuck in the world’s most boringly realistic dream. And I can’t wake up.”

He gave himself a half-hearted pinch, but couldn’t remember if being pinched was supposed to wake you up, or tell you whether or not you were dreaming. Since it didn’t seem to do either one, he sighed again and sat back down and stared out the window for a while. The landscape didn’t change, but he began to feel more confident that the dark mass he’d glimpsed early had, in fact, been buffalo.

Part of him was tempted to pull out his laptop and get back to work on his story. But another part of him resented the idea of pouring a lot of time and effort into writing something that wouldn’t even be there when he woke up. He was debating whether or not his conscious mind would be able to access something written by his subconscious when he felt the train begin to slow.

Interesting.

The slowing soon became an actual stop, and both doors slid open.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” he muttered, and stood up. Dream or not, he gathered up his coat and backpack and made his way to the end of his carriage, and then out the train. There was no platform, no station- as far as he could tell the train had just paused in the middle of the grass. A prairie dog was watching him warily from about ten feet away: Adam nodded to it, wondering what it was supposed to represent.

“What, are you like the Kansas welcome committee? Should I call you Toto?” But the creature just disappeared down its hole.

Okay then.

The too-bright sunlight felt warm on his bared forearms, but the wind was sharp as a knife and slipped right through his sweater. He tugged his sleeves down, pulled his coat back on, and started walking up the length of the train. He’d almost reached the engine when it disappeared.

Not just the engine- the entire train. Gone. Poof. And the rails with it.

“Oh come on,” he said, but then checked himself. At least the dream was getting semi-interesting.

“Come on what?” asked a voice from behind him, and Adam whirled. There in front of him stood- well, she seemed to have the requisite girl parts in the chest region, but girl was probably not the right word for her. Not human girl, anyway. Her skin was a sort of reddish-ochre he’d never seen on a human, and her eyes were a bright yellow that reminded him of a bird of prey. Her ears were… well, they were pointed. And, unless he was much mistaken, so were her teeth.

“Elf,” he said. The dream was definitely getting more interesting.

“Self?” she said. “Come on self? That makes no sense. Have you injured your head?”

But Adam didn’t answer, because he was still taking in the sight of her. She was shorter than him by at least half a head, and wearing a dusty leather get-up that, to be frank, disappointed him with its practical cut. He was pretty sure he could have come up with a sexier outfit than that for a dream-elf. Her hair seemed to consist of a blending of black and reddish-brown feathers, of all things (or maybe they were called down when they were soft and fluffly like that?). One of her hands was resting lightly on the neck of what seemed to be a perfectly normal horse- but the hand had only four digits, and resembled a bird’s claw more than a human hand. He glanced down at her feet- but they were covered in sensible boots.

“Well?” she demanded.

“Sorry- what?”

“Are you injured?”

“Oh! Uh, no. I don’t think so, anyway.” She gave him a funny look, and then let her eyes travel up and down his body with a clearly unimpressed expression. Adam wasn’t sure how he felt about his a manifestation of his id judging him, but since he’d just done the same…

“I must say, you aren’t really what I was expecting.”

“Excuse me?”

“Come along. My sister will want to meet you, oddly shaped or not.”

“Excuse me?” But the elf-girl did not answer- merely swung herself up onto her horse and began walking it away from him.

“Coming?” she called back over her shoulder.

“Why the hell not,” he muttered, and started following his subconscious into the unknown.

***

(On a completely unrelated note, you The Reader definitely need to see our totally awesome rat-o-latern.)