Theme & Variation

Timing is Everything

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 23:05:55 GMT

Holy crap, it's been a year.

In short, I think I am finally in a place where I'll have internet reliably again, and this means I am much more likely to have a virtual pulse now. Summer was no surprise, but the incredibly tumultuous months that preceded this summer were shocking and taxing and wild. Thank god that's done.

In not so short:

I am choosing to gloss over the multitude of things in this past year that have ranged from annoying to just plain awful. One thing is universal, and that is that life is hard. This year has been hard, but easier still than things I've faced before. I am happy to report that despite pulling the plug on my day job, I am not yet utterly destitute, or trying to figure out how to get on welfare, for that matter. I am, by no means, a person of anything but humble means, but I am getting by, and that's all that you can ask for. I expect work to pick up more, especially after the new year as things with the economy continue to stabilize.

I no longer own a house, and yes, this is good news. The ex and I sold it, and quite happily, the whole affair is done. This will certainly make it easier to actually move on.

And speaking of moving, at the end of this month, I may be able, after a full year of trying, to actually finalize my move. Once I finish with my current major free lance project (hello, four months of bills), I'll be in a place that is mine. Not a guest room, not a weigh station, not a temporary situation, but one place, with my own bed, my own kitchen table, my own space. I've learned to build altars this year. I've learned to let more go. I'm starting to feel more solid than water again.

My heart is hopeful, too. I've met a writer this year, and he's shades dorkier than I am: always a good sign, in my world. Things are proceeding very, very slowly, but I might just be willing, after a pretty substantial heart break, to let something male into that space again. I'm not one of those people that needs to be in a relationship, but thus far, wading into these waters has not yet left me with cold feet.

I have missed this part of my life. The writers and characters that live in this space are like whispers in my head. Shadows. They hang around, and I think of them, and look forward to getting a better peek at them. I hope that you all are reasonably well, and I do hope to catch you around. You know how to find me.

Mermaid Notes

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:44:25 GMT

I am such an enormous dork. So glad I like dorks!

Massive amounts of personal notes about the merfolk in my story. Probably boring, unless you are me.

Piscisalio Veneficus
Common Name: Merfolk
Class: Demon (ensouled)
Habitat: Open Ocean

**author’s note: The elegant piscisalio veneficus is not to be confused with the slightly less pure form of merfolk, piscismulier aliquantulus. These cousins of the merfolk in question are more popular, more likely to be spotted, far hairier, and exponentially more likely to burst into song or sprout legs. Veneficus is a creature that would never willingly leave the ocean.

Overview

Merfolk, as they are most commonly called, are some of the more secretive creatures that make a home on Rhydin. Though their unique and uncommon physical adaptations in concert with their relationship to magic technically identifies them as a demon race, the few who have written first hand accounts of interaction with merfolk have been loathe to describe them in these terms.

Culturally, they favor a matriarchal colony. The females of the species are larger than the males, more brightly colored, more aggressive and far more dangerous. These are most commonly seen by seafarers, as they are far more likely to stray from the safety and seclusion of deep water. Their bright colors also make them easier to spot from any distance. The more carefully camouflaged males gather food, care for the young, and are far more likely to engage in intellectual or artistic pursuits.

Biology

All merfolk have certain adaptations which enable them to live in many different sorts of underwater environments. These adaptations also make it theoretically possible that they might travel on land, if they were transported. However, there is no evidence of this ever occurring.

Piscisalio veneficus does not have scales. The skin is very smooth, and transitions seamlessly in color from the more human torso to the long, powerful tail. From a distance, the easiest way to tell the difference between the males and the females is by their coloring and marking. The males are built to hide, with mottled, freckle-like markings along their tails and up the sides of their bodies, including the arms. Males have darker torsos than the females. They are predominantly blue, grey, green, and sometimes black. Males often have combinations of these colors in their patterns. They average less than 2 meters in length.

The females are much more flamboyant. Their tail and limbs are brightly striped in a pattern reminiscent of a tiger. The short, coarse hair that grows from the tops of their heads also carries this striped pattern. Where not striped in almost violent hues of red, gold, and very occasionally, orange, their flesh is much paler. Along their forearms and lateral lines, females also feature several small ray fins which an aid in maneuvering them more efficiently, or even serve as a deterrent to predators. Larger and leaner than the males, they are naturally stronger and faster. They average about 2.5 meters in length. The females have gas bladders to aid in underwater buoyancy. The males do not.

They gain oxygen from their environment in two ways. Their primary method is through absorption. Their skin contains cells that absorb oxygen directly from the water and deliver it into the bloodstream. They do have a small set of lungs and a respiratory tract, mostly for use during the sunning behavior that occurs around mating season. This adaptation also allows them to speak (a function that requires breath). When the secondary respiratory system is not in use, there is a muscular valve that closes at the top of the trachea, which prevents water from entering the lungs.

Merfolk reproduce very slowly. Their biological process requires a great deal of heat, which does not happen naturally. Though merfolk do not choose a mate, they are known to group, and spend more time with certain individuals in their colonies. They seem to choose diverse partnerships; it is rare to see a group of four Reds or four Greens exclusively together. The mating season, which lasts a few weeks every year, is usually only capitalized upon by a few groups out of the colony.

During mating seasons these small subsets of males and females travel to a desert island far to the south of their territory, one difficult for land-dwellers to get to as the underwater terrain in the area is very treacherous to all but the smallest of ships. They lay on the rocks for hours, absorbing sunlight to raise their body temperatures to the appropriate levels. The excess energy enables them to produce an egg. The males fertilize this egg, and then the eggs are gently carried all the way back to The Cradle.

Because of the extremely delicate nature of the eggs, few survive the gestation period, which is about twenty-six months. When they hatch, ready to swim, they have hair and teeth, and all of the markings they will possess as adults. Because, at birth, they are ready to eat what the adult merfolk eat, there is no nursing process. Therefore, it should be noted that these merfolk have no nipples or navels. The young are raised by a group of males, and when they are between the ages of seven and ten years, they are slowly introduced into the social group where they will live and work to support the colony.

Magical Properties

Their relationship to magic is powerful, but much more passive than most other magic-using higher demons. The seat of their power is an undersea place known as The Cradle. In a radius of at least fifty nautical miles from the seat of The Cradle, the conditions of the ocean are notably affected by the presence of these creatures. Both weather and current are milder, making the territory that belongs to the merfolk a more accommodating environment.

The effect of this broad area can ultimately have profound global implications. There is no one person with controlling interest over this space. Rather, it is the overall well-being of the merfolk that seems to dictate the status of The Cradle. When threatened, weather and climate can become erratic in their environs, and can lead to an increase in sea monsters or dangerous anomalies in the nexus.

The energy emanating from The Cradle, and through the rest of their territory, is rumored to have healing properties. Merfolk have tremendous health and longevity, which makes up for a very slow rate of reproduction. Other creatures doubtlessly benefit from the positive energies that encapsulate their environment, so many diverse forms of life are drawn to the reefs and kelp forests within the reach of The Cradle. It’s a key path for migratory creatures of the sea.

Their magic also enables them to communicate with higher forms of intelligent ocean life. Merfolk have formed a rather symbiotic relationship with many species of dolphins, and several species of whale. Though it is rare for merfolk to intervene directly in matters that happening Above, it is not uncommon for them to direct dolphins to assist seafarers in shipwrecks or accidents. It is theorized that they can grant escort to vessels of note, or conspire to destroy any threat from above that finds its way into their territory.

Mythical Creatures, Part VI

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 03:19:43 GMT

The Grove

It had been a beautiful place, once. Ghostly stalks of kelp stretched and swayed against blue infinity and the light that streamed from above. Fish weaved in and out of the beams, and their silver scales winked back at the distant sky. Maia could feel as her vessel slowed and then simply drifted there. The dolphins all broke rank to rest at the surface. They looked as solemn as pallbearers as they passed through what she had been brought to see.

Tangled in the monstrous plants were the bodies of fallen merfolk, mostly female. Really, they didn’t look the way that artists or lovesick sailors would have one believe. They were fierce and angular, formidable even in death. More striped than mottled, these were the fighters of their people. The colors, brighter than the males, were primarily deep reds and shimmering golds. The stripes extended to their short, wild hair. They were beautiful once, too.

Some of them had been torn to something beyond recognition. Others looked more like they had just been scared clear out of their bodies and mind, and chosen to abandon ship. Maia honestly found those more unsettling to look upon. Tero was just outside the window. He turned to look on Maia. She placed her hand on the glass, fingers splayed wide. He followed suit.

After a beat, the ship was being towed to the surface above the kelp forest. Even before it broke, she knew that she could not go anywhere, not before something was done. These isolated people were being murdered by the dozen, and for what? Certainly, they did not know what was happening to them, but she had at least a few ideas.

The hatch opened, and she was above. As the midday sun hit her face, along with the wind and the powerful and familiar smell of the sea, Maia nearly felt weak in the knees. Had it not been an overcast day, the brightness of the light might have hurt her eyes. She looked in every direction. Nothing, as she expected. They’d not have brought their secrets to the surface with prying eyes nearby. The wind was warm, warmer than she ever would have expected.

Alongside her vessel, they began to surface. A few of the females, weapons in hand, faces grim. The guard, no doubt. A few of the males were there as well, and Tero. He came nearest, an expectant look on his face. They wanted an answer, and she needed to know more.

“I need a small knife. One of you has one, probably? I will go below and look more closely, and then I will know more.” Tero turned and made some sounds. One of the Reds approached and presented a knife, made from the same stuff that she suspected comprised the ship. It reminded her of bone. Maia pulled up the grey hem of the long robe and took the knife to it. Very sharp.

“Good,” she said, before she dropped the robe, leaving it in the seat that was hers. She jumped into the water, knife in hand, and immediately felt clumsy. In the presence of creatures of such extraordinary grace, it was understandable. It was colder than she would have liked, but tolerable. She’d have perhaps two minutes, and with help, it might be enough. When she felt her body adjust to the water, she issued her next command.

“Take me to one of the untouched, first.” Tero translated to the unarmed Red, who stayed near.

“Are you ready, ma’am?”

“Stay close, Tero.”

Maia sucked in a few deep quick breaths, expelled them, and then drew as much as she could, reaching for the hand of the red. No further confirmation was needed. How swiftly she was pulled through the current to the carnage below. She kicked her clumsy legs, as though it would do something helpful as the descended into the cold deep. The pressure of the sea was intense, and though it made her ears ache dully, she shut it away and walled it out.

Wisely, they brought her to the nearest of the dead. He was a blue, like Tero, and his eyes were locked open. The expression was more shock than terror. It was as comforting as any fact could be. The Red stayed near, orange eyes watching as Maia looked briefly over the body, then cut at the kelp in which he was tangled to free him, and turned him around. There was a mark at the base of his neck, where it met the spine.

They surfaced, and Maia gasped, and shook her head to both sides, shaking water from her ears. After a moment, she was ready again. Red took her below, to one of the gold-colored females that had been slain. Maia went through the same motions, and found the same mark, placed more haphazardly. This time, it sat on her striped flank, in a place that had not been brutalized by whatever had killed her. It looked, to Maia, too rough and irregular to be a blade.

Maia beckoned Tero over and indicated the mark before she moved to surface again. She had pulled herself back into the transport and reached for her robe when he emerged. Maia returned the knife, then wrung her hair over the edge of her vessel.

“I need to know if they all bear that mark. I know it’s unpleasant, but I suspect it is significant. Get it done.”

Tero nodded. “Are you ready to return home?”

Oh god yes, she thought. Hot food. Tea. Fresh air and trees and the timbers beneath her feet. Maia closed her eyes and breathed deep, feeling the sun on her face.

“A few minutes more in the sun. Then I shall consent to return to my chamber.”

Her consent. Yes, it made all the difference in the world.

Mythical Creatures, Part V

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 07:54:16 GMT

And this time, I swear I'm going to sleep. Will further edit tomorrow. It probably needs some editing. Woo.

In the Chamber

Night and morning were impossibly mixed in her head. It was always light in a way, where she was, and all of her needs were simply provided for. If she’d had some free will about it, it wouldn’t have been the worst situation in the world. As it was not her choice, Maia was a little worried that she’d lose her mind, and she was a lot worried that she would never live her own life again. She wanted to feel the ocean rolling beneath a ship, again. She needed to see Harry again.

And yet, there was something about this place...something deeply healing, on a physical level. Maia gathered it was what had kept her from sustaining noticeable injuries from the fight with the leviathan and why, despite her kept existence, she was so keenly aware of her own strength, of late. Even the scar Valdas left at her neck seemed somewhat improved. The phantom itch of an aborted vampire curse haunted her no longer. She wondered if it was still as pink as it used to be.

Where she had once seen the rather airy mentality of the merfolk as novel and unthreatening before, Maia was beginning to worry they weren’t even aware of whatever it was that she was supposed to help them with. She needed to help them in order to get home, or rather, for home to find her. The day that everything changed was something of a blessing, on that front.

Tero looked haunted when he arrived with a meal for her. It had taken her the better part of her time there to get him to stop addressing her as ‘My Liege.’ She had settled for ‘ma’am,’ eventually, as at least it was familiar in her ear. That day, the first thing Tero did was address her in a rather uncertain stammer.

“My Liege,” he said, and he did not look up to greet her.

“What is it, fish-boy?” Tero smiled weakly at her attempt to put him at ease with her jest. Maia had figured out early on that this merman was probably her ticket out of this gilded cage, so she had been gentle and relatively kind with him. Familiar. Matronly, perhaps. She could see on that guileless face that he had begun to trust her. Though it was all an act, at first, lately she had begun to feel genuinely fond of him in an odd way.

“It’s happening again. After you have finished with your meal, I am to take you to see.”

She simply nodded and took the covered plate from him. The cover unscrewed from the shallow dish, rather like an upended jar. She wondered if she had been brought through the water to this place in a person-sized container like that. It was a mildly unsettling thought. Inside was fruit that had long been out of season in Rhydin–berries and melons, mostly. Some cucumbers. A sweet drink she had been told was nectar. This was a typical meal; nothing they ever brought her was cooked. No fires in mer-land.

“Please tell me what is happening again, Tero,” she said as she knelt near the water, placing her dish on the floor beside her. Maia lifted a slice of cucumber, and glanced furtively at the spooked creature. He was very clearly afraid.

“Come here, now,” Maia said gently. He complied, as he always did. She placed her palm along his cheek, which was cool and damp. His skin felt different from her own flesh in its firmness. The warmth of her hand was as foreign a sensation to him as most of this experience was to her. He felt a jolt from her hand that peeled through him and steeled his fraying nerves. His eyes slipped shut, and even the pomp and circumstance he carried with him fell away.

"I would never let harm befall you, ma'am. Not for all the world."

“I know, boy, ” she said. So long as this creature was her link to the world, Maia felt certain that she could believe that. She knew it just as certainly as she knew that she could slit his throat if it would buy her freedom back. It was sickening to be put in such a position. Tero didn't know. At her touch and her kindness, he was quiet a long moment, as though trying to pull the right collection of words together. “My Liege. They are dying again...my people. We cannot tell the cause or the source, but all have faith in you, ma’am.”

“I understand. And I shall go to see, with my own eyes, what has happened?”

Tero looked grimmer again, and Maia watched him with care. “There is a place the shells are left for us to see. Sacred waters, profaned by the blood of my kin.” He trembled as he spoke, and the pieces started to fall into place. He was going to take her away from the chamber, and she was going to have her chance, perhaps, to find a way out of this.

Maia wondered if this was the short way out of captivity, or if perhaps she would finally get a clue about the ones who had recruited her for demon duty. If she could figure out what it was that they thought she owed, maybe she could finally stop being haunted by Celaeno, and by every nasty thing that goes bump in the night. Escape, and continue run from the past, or remain captive and perhaps free herself from it. Only the ‘perhaps’ gave her any pause; Maia knew the price of running.

“I have finished, Tero,” she said, putting the plate back together and handing it to him. He took it with a gracious nod, then said “Ma’am, we will arrive in moments with your transport. Is there anything else you will require?”

“My sword.”

“You will have guard.”

“And if I am to leave the safety of this chamber, I will have my sword.”

“Of course.”

He ducked beneath the surface, and she stood at the water’s edge, watching him swim towards the side of the chamber where things entered and exited. She had as many questions as ever, but at least she was starting to get some answers. In minutes, the transport arrived.

Maia had never seen anything like it. It was the sort of thing one might dream up in a fairy story. Its hull had a smooth ivory gleam, and even ridges. It was narrow, and shaped to glide through the water with ease. Spaced along the hull was what looked like thick glass windows, placed with an offbeat, but discernible sense of symmetry. On either side of it, dolphins began to surface, and circle around the perimeter of the chamber. Tero came up next, with a smile.

“All is prepared. Your sword awaits.”

“In there?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

And then the vessel opened as though on a hinge, rather like a clam shell. The inside was the color of a stormy sky, a pale blue grey. Inside were three odd little seats, seemingly formed of the hard grey surface. Maia was suddenly quite happy that she was not a very big thing. Her sword (thank goodness) was sheathed in its scabbard and still attached to the old leather belt that had served her for ages. Her own things- a sight for sore eyes. Maia gingerly stepped in and settled into one of the seats, which, miraculously, was not completely uncomfortable.

“How does this move?”

“The allies, you see, will take it.”

“Wait, you mean the dolphins?”

“Yes.”

“Are our allies?”

“Yes. They helped us to find you.”

“Huh.”

That was the last she said before the odd clamshell ship closed. Through the windows she watched as the dolphins, six to be exact, took rank and formation around this transport, holding what Maia assumed was the merfolk equivalent of hardy rope in their beaks. This just continued to get wilder in her mind. She had been made a captive monarch by mermaids after being set up by Celaeno and apparently ratted out by dolphins. Maia found herself, then, en route to a mermaid murder scene by way of giant submerged clamshell carriage. A sad little smile tugged at her lips as she watched out the window as other merfolk took rank near the carriage and followed the procession.

“Harry would never believe this.”

Mythical Creatures, Part IV

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 22:30:14 GMT

In Search of Angels
Above

Log
Current Date Unknown

Captain d’Thalia is missing. I can find no clues as to her whereabouts or the reason for her disappearance. Last seen fighting a Leviathan, 26 October. Structural damage sustained by the ship seems to have been repaired. All efforts will be made to recover the captain. The company will not consider this an acceptable loss. Must get word to Lowe, he will undoubtedly aid in the search.

Conditions are clear, warm. Coordinates of start will be estimated from star charts, after sundown. Probable error caused by drift should indicate reasonable search area. Headed to nearest viable port to acquire provisions; present rations will not sustain my search and subsequent trip to Rhydin City.

She thought the words on paper would tie her scattered thoughts together, and that maybe those thoughts would lead to the answer, but the answer was beyond her understanding and perhaps even her imagination. Ayrani drifted in those thoughts, much the way Te Maru had drifted on the calm, warm seas as she slept. It wasn’t easy to keep the boat going on her own, but it was necessary, and Rani had always been able to finish what needed finishing.

The night was long, and she sailed through it. Rani would not need sleep for days, perhaps, and she may be able to make port before then, if the ocean cooperated. Through those sleepless hours, the nagging doubt and dread pulled at her thoughts. Maia could be gone, and the elf could not help but feel responsible for that loss. When you are alone with someone at sea, there is little else to be accountable for. To have it be so wholly unexplainable was even more trying.

All around the ship, still the dolphins danced. As she caught flashes of their slick flanks, she tried to piece the grey spots in her memory together. Rani pulled at the images, thinking that she had dreamed them, but she could not be entirely certain. The whole situation was too spooky to be natural, normal, or coincidental. She worried that this had something to do with Tarsolei. She worried that it would not, for then she would be left without explanation. It would be so trying to break her long silence to say, ‘Sorry, sir. I cannot fathom where she disappeared to.’

It took only twenty six hours for her to make landfall. There was very little money left aboard, so Rani engaged in a little creative bargaining to get what she needed. It wouldn’t do to have the bare necessities for one. In a perfect world, she would recover the captain, and they would both want to get home. The skies were darkening.

10 November

The storm is beginning to let up. Been stuck for two days on Fells Island due to these conditions. I’ve checked with the locals, tried to find her. None claim to have seen her. Beginning search for the captain at sea. I am not hopeful. Though it remains very mild here, by the time I get back to Rhydin, the freeze may have begun. This is a chance I must take. There will be precious little time for entries while at sea.

At each port she visited around the area marked on her map, the story was the same. Nobody had seen Maia. Everyone had the same story:

“Sorry, ma’am. Never seen her. This says she’s a sailor; well, she probably was lost at sea. People drown in storms, or they just vanish...you should go home, get some rest. Sorry, truly.”

Seven ports. Seven times the same stories, over and over again. It made her cold to think of what it probably meant. She departed, once more, from Hæli. The business she’d conducted there with Maia weeks and weeks ago had made it easy to get a line of credit. She restocked (much less creatively) and set a course north, back to the port of call. For the first time in years, Ayrani prayed. Once, They sent her an angel with a steely resolve and a ready sword. Maybe They would see fit to do it again.

Mythical Creatures, Part III

Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:20:24 GMT

I'm alive, and writing again.

I've not suffered writer's block, or death these past two months. I've just been absorbed in the pursuit of new life in my new civilization. To infinitively split my time into little pieces...

In plainer English, moving in with your best friend makes it difficult to spend much time on the internet, because best friends are totally awesome.

Having said that, I have been left with some time to write this week, and I've been hearing these voices in my head for months. Rolling things out.

Miss you guys. Hope you are all doing okay.

The (short) Story So Far
Mythical Creatures, Part I
Always by slwatson
Mythical Creatures, Part II

And now, the story continues.

Above
Ayrani came to on the deck of Te Maru, adrift on a calm sea. It was unseasonably warm, still. The last thing she recalled was the ship sustaining significant damage from the leviathan. She didn’t remember losing consciousness, but her throbbing head gave her an idea of the cause of the blackout. Rani squinted against the sun as she rose to her feet and looked around.

She was deeply disturbed. The captain was gone; it was as though the sea itself had opened up and swallowed her whole. The ship was as tidy as it could possibly be; not a thing was out of order, anywhere. There didn’t seem to be as much as a scratch or a dent from the battle with the beast. It made no sense.

She was far enough from land that there were no marks to guide her. Water on every side, as far as the eye could see. Provisions were limited, but there was enough to take her a bit of the way. No sign of bad weather on the horizon. Off the starboard bow, a small pod of dolphins frolicked.

She took a deep breath, and tried to accept that she was alone, and that she may have to sail back to Rhydin bearing news that she did not want to consider herself. For the first time in a long time, Ayrani felt genuinely fearful of something. That elf, however, was about as resilient as a creature could be. By sundown, she was calm and focused. As the stars began to shed their light on the sea below, Ayrani looked up and set her course. Alone on a boat in the middle of the ocean, she would be of use to no one. She took action. It’s what her captain would have done.

Below

Maia wasn’t in hell. She would have been at least moderately prepared for that; she’d seen a few versions of the underworld firsthand (and Rhydin had always offered a few different versions of hell for any number of its denizens). Rather than hell, Maia found herself the drafted leader of a group of rather bubble-headed creatures with access to an awful lot of big magic, but not a whole lot of context or horse-sense to go with it. Kidnapping seemed like an awfully harsh way of putting it, and frankly, the merfolk didn’t seem like they’d be quite up to that level of duplicity. Something else was behind her sudden change of career.

Which is why it didn’t surprise her in the least the morning that Celaeno appeared in her chamber; someone had pull the strings to put this epic joke into motion. Maia had been in that strange place they called the Cradle for ten days on the day that Cela came to visit. The woman rose straight up from the water like Venus herself, as though it were the most normal thing in all the world. Maia willed up what patience she could, and then she stood. The pale grey robe she had been given to wear fell in a clean, straight line to her ankles. With her chin held so indignantly she did nearly look regal.

“I’m not asleep, which makes me wonder what you are doing here,” Maia said flatly.

“I cannot come calling when you are conscious?” Her voice lilted, like a spring wind over a hillside.

“It hasn’t been your way in ten years, no.”

Cela smiled in response to that, and raised her palms in a hapless gesture. Maia hated the theatrics of these interactions, and was less than pleased to be living one instead of just dreaming it.

“Why are you here, Celaeno?”

“Ask me plainly and I must answer. I came to see if you are happy with the shift in the wind.”

“I don’t follow.” Maia crossed her arms, and kept a distance between herself and the...whatever Cela was. Nymph. Fairy. Titaness. Demigod. It was never made perfectly clear. All those years, she had been kept on a “need-to-know” basis. Any thinking person would wonder what lived between the lines.

Cela made herself at home, settling on the edge of the bed as she began to explain.

“We figured that you would eventually return to the mission, but it appears you were quite effectively sidetracked. You made it clear you wouldn’t be an instrument anymore, and we had to keep you in the balance. You belong in the equation.”

“I belong at home, or with my ship. Why the hell can’t you all just leave me be?”

“Because you asked for this.” On a dime Cela’s tone turned from lilting to flat, impatient, a cold brand of anger. She stood and neared Maia, and Maia had the good sense to worry. There was nowhere to run, and she knew (or at least very strongly suspected) she couldn’t kill Cela. Worst of all, it wasn’t entirely untrue. “You should never forget that, Maia.”

“I asked for the fight, yes. I didn’t ask for the rest of it.”

“There is always a price, Maia.”

“I’ve paid my debt.”

“Nearly, yes, but we have use for you yet.”

Maia took a deep breath, trying to cool the flare of anger. Those sorts of impulses were so rarely productive. With the exhale, more words, the most patient tone she could muster. “I do not belong here. I belong at home.”

“I tend to agree, quarami.”

“So what do they need me to do? These mer-things are bloody cryptic.”

“It’s why they were chosen for you. It’s easy to write them a new script, if you catch my meaning.”

“So tell me.” Maia caught herself again, and carefully added the final syllable, perhaps the only thing that Cela wanted to hear from her. “Please.”

“Make no mistake; it was recently written, but it does not make it less true: you are their sovereign being, and they are in need of someone with your talents. See them through their troubles, and home will find you soon enough.”

Cela moved back towards the water, where presumably she would disappear, disintegrate, or otherwise depart again.

“And then what?” Maia asked. Cela did not turn.

“And then you may be rid of us for a long while, if all stays as we intend.”

“Oh god, I hope so.”

Maia said it to nothing.

Mythical Creatures, Part II

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:46:47 GMT

Were this in a book, or threaded on a board sometime, this story should come after slwatson's recent post, Always

It was a fact, unassailable.

Oh my god. I’m dead.

Perhaps not a fact, but certainly, it was the only logical conclusion. The second before she closed her eyes, she had been staring into an angry sea that had come, once and for all, to devour her. The leviathan had tried and failed, but the ocean had conspired, at last, to claim its wayward daughter. When Maia opened them again, there was light and warmth and the faint sounds of water and wind. Though the light was bright, it did not pain her eyes. More telling, there was no pain. Maia had never come to after battle and felt so well. Though, she had to wonder why, in the afterlife, she would still smell like...well, she still smelled vaguely like dead leviathan. Once this realization dawned, she began to get her bearings and another rather startling revelation followed.

Oh my god. I’m naked.

She sat up in what she surmised was a bed (however oddly shaped it was). The irregularly shaped bed had layered on it some irregularly shaped blankets. She clutched one around her and stood up to take in the room. Her bed had been in the very center of it, and the floor beneath her feet was hard and strangely, also warm. The walls stretched high and arced up in one long gleaming expanse. Maia had never seen anything quite like it. It was alien and beautiful. The room was roundish in shape and vast. The floor did not extend to those strange high walls, but rather, was surrounded on all sides by water, deep enough to swim in. Bed. Blankets. Indoor Moat. This place was surely weird. Maybe it was purgatory.

“Hallo?”

Her voice hit the walls and came back to her, but it seemed to elicit no response. The echoes bounced, the water lapped, and high above her from openings unseen, a wind wafted. The more Maia thought about it, the more she began to feel some genuine concern that she was not, in fact, dead. A person, upon discovering that death had been delayed might be joyful, but Maia was a sensible thing. Being a prudent thing, she would belay her joy until she received some substantial proof of her own life...and proof that her situation was not a completely undesirable one.

Carefully, Maia paced the perimeter of the room looking for some clue of her location, or some way out. She thought, as she did this, that she would feel infinitely more at ease if she knew where any of her things were, or where Ayrani might be for that matter. She knelt to sniff at the water and then gingerly touched it. Like the floor, like the room, it was warm. She tasted her finger and recognized the sea. This just got weirder and weirder. Nevertheless, that leviathan smell wasn’t going to take care of itself, and it would do well to solve one of her problems. Once she had determined that there was no lurking danger, she dropped the blanket and lowered herself into the moat to try to rinse the remaining monster gook from her person.

One big breath of air, and she ducked beneath the surface, and let herself sink a little. The weightlessness of water was a comfort; something familiar in this otherwise strange place, and strange it remained; beneath the surface, Maia thought she could hear something like muffled music. Song. A singer, perhaps? When she rose above the water to see if it was a sound in the room, the day got stranger, still.

Maia opened her eyes and turned, startled nearly to death to see a man some small distance behind her. More startling was the look of him. He resembled, oddly, someone she loved and lost, long ago. Bright blue eyes gazed out at her from beneath inky locks, and for a moment, she was sure again that she had died. Then, the freckled markings at his hairline caught her attention, and she followed the strange, dark markings down the expanse of his neck, bare shoulders and arms to see that beneath the surface of the water was a long black and blue tail.

“Touch me and I’ll kill you, fish-boy,” Maia stated flatly, as though there were no question that she could. Honestly, it had not escaped her attention that in her current state, she would be scarcely better equipped to fight anything aquatic than a deer would be to hunt a shark, but Maia could never drop that sharp-edged front. Said fish-boy blinked at her, expressionless, and then that face relaxed into something like a smile. His accent was thick, and strange, like he had spent a long while studying her language without ever hearing it really clearly.

“Oh, my Liege, I would never deign to touch you.”

Maia kept a wary eye on the interloper as she swam over to the side of the moat and pulled herself from the water then, drawing the blanket around her again. The creature in the water with her had been rather impassive about her absence of clothes, and seemed equally nonplused that she had chosen to cover up.

“Did you just call me Liege?”

“Is there something else you would be called, My Liege? I am not sure of the manner to which you would be accustomed.”

“That was a yes or no question, fish-boy.”

“I’m sorry, my Liege.”

“Yes, then.”

“Yes, my Liege?”

“Stop that.”

She snapped at the creature sharply, and as she did, he bowed his head, apparently supplicant. Weirdest day ever. She tried a new tactic.

“Tell me your name.”

“It is Tero, my Liege.”

“And what are you?”

“I am your Ambassador.”

“Right, but what manner of being are you?”

“I am one of the merfolk, my Liege, and I have come to do whatever you bid me.”

“Why is this?”

“As it was told, so shall it come to be,” said Tero. His eyes drifted closed, like he was reciting an often practiced passage from a beloved story. “When she comes to her throne, the winds will warm through the time of ice, and the greatest beast shall fall to her hand.” When he opened them again, he looked up at her, reverence clear upon his face. “We have waited ages for you, and now, just as it was foretold, you have arrived.”

“Me?” Maia coughed, incredulous, eyeing the horribly earnest merman.

“Yes. You are our beloved Sovereign. Give me any errand, and it shall be done.”

“My clothes?”

“Ah, yes. Your raiments were nearly destroyed in battle, and unworthy of your splendor. I shall bring your royal gown, posthaste.”

Yep. It was a fact, unassailable:

Oh my god. I’m in hell.

Mythical Creatures

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:56:02 GMT

I've been working at this in various drafts for a few months, and most of them have left me cold. I like this one, and it should begin to explain where Maia has been all this time. It's sort of final in content, but not totally final in wording, but it's in a good enough place that I am comfortable putting it up for public consumption. There is much, much more (and I will no doubt need some help with lots of the pieces of it), but here it is:

And in the End
At Sea

She never thought it would turn out this way. Maia had always expected that it would be a fight, a fury, a noisy, deadly rage. Everything slowed, and she was suddenly more aware of her own heart than she had been in some time.

Thump.

The ship bucked, but she held her ground.

Thump.

Her fingers went loose.

Thump.

A bloody cutlass clattered on the deck.

Thump.

The foam rose in strange torrents before her.

Thump.

The world began to tilt.

Thump.

She looked the angry ocean in the eye, and made her peace.

Thump.

One more breath.

Thump.

Maia closed her eyes and did not feel sorrow, nor rage. She was, in fact, surprised at what she saw alone there, in the dark of her imagination. Dark eyes and mussed hair. Half a smile, followed by a warm, full laugh. A rough hand in hers, on her, tangled in her hair. A smell that meant home. It had meant everything, for a while. It had saved her, once.

By god, she was sorry that she was never going there again. It was beyond choice, though. As she spilled into the gaping maw of the roiling sea, Maia let go of her life.

---------------------------------------------------------

Two Weeks Prior
Tarsolei’s Fortress

The women moved in a slow circle as the gang of six closed in. Maia could sense the elf just paces behind her, long and lean and burning with an anger Maia had never witnessed before. Away from the pending fray, Tarsolei watched and laughed, his voice a haughty, carefree tenor.

“Spare me at least one, both if you can. It is hardly every day that such a rare gift falls into my lap. And that, my sweet, is where you will live a while, if my boys leave you pretty.”

Disgusting. Maia actually felt ill listening to this delusional pig. Coming to this island to take him out, despite the terrible odds, still felt like the best idea she had hatched in a long while. The room was silent, and almost still for a beat. And then she heard it. Rani drew her blades, and Maia followed suit. The outer ring of fools pressed in as the surrounded pair did their best to press out. Ayrani caught the first who moved too close with a vicious swipe of her knife. She was so quick that she had buried it to the hilt in a second attacker before the first man began to bleed. With a shove, she pushed the impaled man towards his freshly lacerated friend, knocking them both to the ground.

Maia’s cutlass clanged dully against the saber of another of the attackers, and she knew in the space of a breath that she had a much better grasp of swordplay than her larger attacker. He thrust in, and she parried easily, throwing him off balance long enough to clock a second man in the nose with the rough palm of her hand. Stunned, he stumbled away. She engaged–and promptly disarmed–the man with the saber. He ran at her, and rather than attempting to stop him, she sidestepped and shoved him on through. “Your right!” She barked.

Ayrani answered with the strong, graceful extension of her right arm, knife bared. With his focus still locked over his shoulder on the shorter of his opponents, he ran right into it, and fell in a heap. Maia clubbed the stunned man unconscious and turned just in time to see Ayrani doing the same to a second swordsman that she had disarmed with efficiency. Five down. and it was clear to both women: Tarsolei was going to die.

The sixth of the men had stayed to the edge of the fray, swinging a weighted chain. Suddenly it flew out and fixed itself around Maia. It pulsed with an energy she recognized. She had felt that same energy humming through the collar and shackles the day she had freed Rani. With the deft whip of his wrists, he wrapped the chain up and around her neck, and she dropped her weapon, grabbing the chain with both hands as he pulled, trying to hold on to her ability to breathe. It was happening so fast. Rani flew at him, and without taking his cold eyes off of Maia, whom he pulled closer and closer, he reached a hand out, and uttered a single word. The elf was battered with an unseen energy, and it sent her flying across the room and into the stone wall of the fortress.

Maia was not one to panic, but there are surely situations where any rational person might start to worry. As she saw the elf land in a tangled heap across the room, Maia, indeed, began to have doubts about the outcome. A rotten, gluttonous slaver was one thing. A rotten, gluttonous slaver with a powerful and sadistic magus on his team was quite another. Wisps of smoke seemed to curl off of the glove on the hand he had used to throw that spell at her second mate. He wrapped that hand around the chain and drew her closer and closer. Tarsolei watched and laughed.

“Wait, Lemiu, a collar for that one...” He nearly waddled to an elaborate trunk near where Rani had fallen and started looking for the perfect match. Yep. Disgusting.

A crazy idea coursed through her mind, and as the sadistic magus pulled her closer, she figured she had little to lose. One hand dropped to the small knife at her thigh, and she felt the chain tighten horribly around her neck as she lost the leverage afforded by two hands. Maia drew the knife just in time to hear him utter another command. By the will of the Magus, the blade flew from her hand and skittered to a stop out of reach.

Two things happened, then.

One. Maia had cut her own hand on her knife, and she felt the wet warmth of blood coming from her thumb. With that bloodied hand, she grabbed the chain again.

Two. Tarsolei leaned over Ayrani, pulling at her scarf that he might collar her anew. As his soft hands brushed the scar tissue that had marred her neck, impossibly green eyes opened to see her captor there. She caught him off guard, and tore the collar from his hands, immediately smacking him in the jaw with the iron band. Tarsolei screamed, and she hit him again. And again.

Lemiu the Magus lost his focus. Maia’s own will, amplified greatly by the presence of her blood, poured into the chain that bound her. Fueled by adrenaline and a little bit of healthy rage, it was as potent as it could ever be from an amateur. It was enough. The chain trembled and went slack around her. With as much ease as he had seemingly ensnared her, she untangled herself, and rolled away from the onslaught of force he released at her. A table across the room upended.

Maia was within grasping distance of a saber, left from the fight they had won with the other henchthings. She wiped her bloody hand on the blade, charging it with a little effort. Faith was never her strongest virtue, but at times like these, she recalled the excellent training of her Paladin. The very fiber of that blade resonated with her brand of faith: echoes of the dead men, her own strength, and the light of hope in her. She rose to her feet to see the Magus with his gloved hand focused at her. He unleashed another round of force. Maia held the blade before her and steadied her will.

His force met that will of hers and shattered into pieces. It hurt like hell to hang on to the blade, but she gripped tighter. He tried again, looking confused. There was a second rush of pain, though it was less. The Magus was wearing out. She advanced a few steps. The blade grew darker and darker each time he tried to throw that force at her. Each time, it met with the instrument of her will and passed around her. Each time, it wearied him. Lemiu began to back away from her. The blade grew blacker, still. It was hot in Maia’s hands.

One last shot. It barely registered, and then she was within striking distance. Maia made it quick. Unless he’d lost all of the trappings of mortality, the magus was dead before he hit the floor. The blackened blade hung from his chest at a peculiar angle. It had been a clean shot to the heart.

Maia took a deep breath and dropped to her knees. Across the room, it was quiet. Ayrani knelt also, shoulders shaking as she sobbed. There was blood all over her hands, but the elf felt no regret for the dead. Maia knew that look. She had seen it in the mirror, before. Ayrani mourned the daylight that she had been missing.

Perhaps now that the bogeyman was dead, she would see it again.

----------------------------------------------------------

Earlier Still
Hæli Isle

She knew then why she had been having the nightmares again. That woman–that awful insidious thing–had never prowled around in her subconscious without reason. Celaeno whispered in riddles, and Maia, in sleep, could smell that they were bathed in blood. It unnerved her, and she tried to shake it off, to forget what she had been and what, in many ways, she would always be. She denied her place, but the dreams persisted, as they always did. Maia could not place to what end these dreams would come until the evening she sat in the tavern with Ayrani, celebrating the closure of the deal. There was now a place in this world that belonged to hope. Hope, that day, was deeded to Harold Lowe and Maia d'Thalia. He would have some paperwork to sign, but they would have that start they had wanted. Rani and Maia had wanted a relaxing night, but it was inevitable that they would overhear the tense, quiet voices.

He was taking the girls. Sometimes the women, but most often the young ones. The vulnerable. The malleable. When Rani heard the name they attached to the urgently spoken pronoun, every part of her stiffened in place, and Maia took notice. Sharp green eyes narrowed to slits, and her jaw set in defiant, deathless hatred. The elf turned her head towards the conversation, staring without discretion or manner. Maia’s own gaze followed, and there they looked until the whispering stopped.

She noted that the elf’s hand was trembling very, very slightly.

“He’s the one,” Maia breathed as she felt her own tension rise.

Ayrani looked to Maia, a slow burn, and nodded once in the affirmative.

“Did you bring your knives?”

A second nod from the elf. Maia looked out the window towards a lighthouse in the distance. It was the only thing that cut through the darkness and brought the sailors home. It was the only thing out there besides the black.

“So did I," she whispered, and the two women rose to interview the small, battered group nearby.

It wasn’t a long conversation, and the details were numerous enough. The slaver had set up shop on an island not too far from Hæli, and had been using the locals in a radius of about a hundred miles as cattle for his operation. Tarsolei was a specialty dealer, and he handled women the way that one might deal in exotic birds or caged predators. It was sickening, and in some parts of this screwed up world, it was still legal. As long as he wasn’t caught red-handed in the abductions, nobody could do anything about it within the confines of the law.

He was taking their daughters, sometimes their mothers. Once, he had taken Rani and she was never the same again.

Maia talked and Rani listened, and they soon learned more than enough to go find him. A rescue party had been sent a year prior with disastrous results. Most of the men had died, and the only ones who survived and made it home were gravely injured. Not one of their women had been returned in the effort. Most of the girls hadn’t even been there; they’d been sold by that point. The ones that remained at the island compound had barely been shadows of themselves. They hadn’t even tried to run. Those poor people had been too frightened to even think of living life outside of a collar, anymore.

He doesn’t kill the women, they said. He keeps them. He likes to watch them disappear in tiny increments, they said. Brave, strong men...they feared this man. They had lost friends and loves and vitality to this villain. Tarsolei. The longer Maia chewed on the name, the more she knew why all had aligned to bring her here. It was the call, but it came for a demon of another color. She often had nightmares before she had to meet them, and this mortal was no exception. He was the kind of nightmare that had to gall to walk around in a human body with a human face. He was a demon who would do it again, soon.

Every attempt to rescue his prisoners, thus far, had been a disaster. Like any other precious commodity, they were heavily and carefully guarded by people trained to die to defend them and to keep them locked away. This was where the mission had always failed. It was in the intent of the few brave enough to try to recover what had been stolen from the world. People that loved these enslaved women went in hoping to find them, to bring them home, to save them.

But those women didn’t need a savior. They needed a killer. A hunter. A Valkyrie.

They were about to get two.

----------------------------------------------------

Present Day
Daily Bread, Rhydin Proper

The envelope was unremarkable, except that it looked like it had been through hell. Appearances were not at all deceiving; with the weather having been so out of whack during the unseasonably warm and stormy autumn, some of the post (particularly any that endured sea travel) had gotten quite battered. The address marking had survived, and eventually the messenger brought it to the flat above the bakery. To Harold Lowe, it said. Nobody was home, so he left it just under the door and carried on with the rest of his business. He was just the messenger, after all. How could he know what he carried and delivered?

There had been no sign of Te Maru in weeks, and the ship was long overdue. The other members of the shipping company had started to whisper that something must have happened. An accident. A storm. Others still suspected that something more gossip worthy and far less tragic had occurred. Pirates never really change; perhaps Maia and Ayrani had simply made off with the little boat and the vast amount of money aboard. She was supposed to use the money finalize dealings for the harborside building that would be theirs on Hæli. She was supposed to be home long ago; yet, there had been nothing. Not a word. Not even an echo.

The Welshman would no doubt come home sooner or later to find that battered envelope. Inside was a letter from her. Her messy script bore evidence of urgency in its bold, deliberate lines. The ink had spotted in a few little places. Maia had been in a hurry. The paper itself was not plain parchment, but rather a page torn heartlessly from a book full of charts. On the map, she had clearly circled a seemingly empty space of ocean and written a set coordinates. It was a place about a hundred miles from the place they might call home, and it was where she knew that the slaver had his island. The last existing evidence of her life was scrawled beneath. Just twenty words, but they said everything that they needed to say.

Harry–

It couldn’t wait. Rani’s slaver: here. If I am late, come for me.

I’m sorry. I love you.

Maia.

Why Maia Never Married

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:45:24 GMT

Ahoy, me hearties.

A most wondrous International Talk Like a Pirate Day to all me skeinsmates.

In due observance of a day of such grand import, I refer ye all to this tale of why the lass ne'er did take a husband.

The Captain's Wife's Lament

Fair winds, and arrrrrrrrrrgh.

Hope and Comedy

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 19:46:48 GMT

I still have some hope for the world. Why? Well...

I actually got a little bit choked up listening to this:

Yep. Craig Ferguson. Late late show is starting...

I am inspired by his passion and fervor, and I wish everyone felt this way. Maybe if we thought like this man, we would be in better shape. Maybe if we still believed in duty. I don't think we do, but I must be an optimist, because I believe we can. I just hope it doesn't take some brand of apocalypse to make it happen.

Women Against Sarah Palin

Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:43:09 GMT

She horrifies me. If the Republicans win, I am defecting. Maybe I will try Reykjavik; they are the greenest city in the world...

Any way, a friend sent me this, and I am participating. I figure it can't hurt. Rather than e-mail it, I am posting it here, behind the cut.

Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters,

We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed mere partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce on the part of a pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate that has a real possibility of becoming fact.

Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and for our present or future daughters. To date, she is against sex education, birth control, the pro-choice platform, environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor she wanted to ban books and attempted to fire the librarian who stood against her), gun control, the separation of church and state, and polar bears. To say nothing of her complete lack of real preparation to become the second-most-powerful person on the planet.

We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, a mother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a rash, incompetent, and all together devastating choice for Vice President. Ms. Palin's political views are in every way a slap in the face to the accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers so fiercely fought for, and that we've so demonstrably benefited from.

First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does not demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women.

It is presumed that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters. We want to disagree, publicly. Therefore, we invite you to reply here: womensaynopalin@gmail.com with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our nation.

Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and place of residence.

We will post your responses on a blog called "Women Against Sarah Palin," which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Please send us your reply at your earliest convenience. The greater the volume of responses we receive, the stronger our message will be.

Thank you for your time and action.

VIVA!

Sincerely,

Quinn Latimer and Lyra Kilston
New York, NY
womensaynopalin@gmail.com

Yes, it Lives.

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 16:47:25 GMT

Oh my god.

I am back at home (home is used here only for lack of a better term, and to help avoid confusion). My summer was...hellaciously busy and exhausting. Somehow, I also think that it was good. I missed my cat, a LOT. She sat on the edge of the bathtub last night purring at me and then hugged my arm for most of this morning. Yes, my cat hugs. It is very charming. Now, I think she is off sniffing the things that smell like the rustic setting where I have lived for the past two months without internet, or a really clean shower, or solid walls.

I skinned my knee a few weeks ago doing I don't even remember what, but it can't have been all that comedic/dramatic. It's healing up. Things are solid and the skin is all dry and sloughing off where it needs to. Because of this, there is a really vague itch there all the time. About twice a day, that itch gets really, really intense. After this summer, this is how my heart feels. It's still not all the way right, not by a mile. It's still shedding the layers of what this year has been. But, there is an itch there, something hopeful, like perhaps I am nearly ready to spring from the ashes of the glorious clusterfuck that has been my year.

Along these lines, I have come to some decisions about this year:

One. I am not going to be teaching. I have resigned from my position as a teacher and my boss has been very supportive. Boy oh boy...this should freak me out a whole hell of a lot, but frankly, it's not. Good decision, I guess. I need to be done for a bit.

Two. I am going to focus this year on my writing. Not just the writing I do here for fun, but even more so, the composing and arranging. The universe seems to be telling me, loudly, that I need to be creating music. It is even hinting that I can get paid for it. I shall explore this further.

Three. I am going to move. Not to Cambodia or Reykjavik, but certainly to somewhere else. I think I would like to live somewhere I have never lived. I've got three different time zones on the list, and none of the places I am considering are places I have ever lived year round. It's going to be interesting. This will likely not go down until after the New Year, but changing states takes time...

Four. I am going to go get a haircut. Probably.

That is all, for the time being. Missed you folks. I still have work at my place of employ, so I will be pretty busy playing the post summer catch up for the next few weeks (and trying to sleep some), but I should actually occasionally be around.

How the fuck are you people, anyway??

Run-By Hi-ing

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:46:48 GMT

I am here.

I am alive.

I am fucking exhausted.

But, for the most part, I am well.

I'll be free-er in about twelve days, and will be more present. Not daily, but much more reliably.

Hope you all are well. Miss you!

Anon, Playfriends!

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 02:59:39 GMT

In about 10 hours, I am officially offline for the summer. In terms of my accessibility, this means that I will onlybe checking in here sporadically (once, or occasionally twice a week). I'll post a little, a hello here, an update there, and perhaps a story or twelve if they cooperate and come on out.

I'll miss you folks. Have a fun summer and write well!

-Kay

What, you say? A natal day?

Sat, 17 May 2008 06:17:33 GMT

A birthday concoction for slwatson.

Happy birthday to one of my all time-favorite playfriends, Steff!

Nope. Not ashamed of playing favorites openly.

Bluffs

A thunderstorm was on its way, but it would be a day or so in arriving. Far in the distance, grey clouds rolled along, looking lazy in spite of all the haste the wind used to draw them back to the city. In the meanwhile, it was bright, beautiful, and warm; an ideal spring day. With their ships out thriving, and their ducks (for the most part) in a row, it was not an opportunity to be missed. It was a very fine day to be away from the city.

April had been strange for Maia, and she had pulled away. Many old memories came swimming up, to haunt her thoughts and her dreams alike, indiscriminately casting a pall over what might otherwise be a better humor. With the weather warming consistently, and that cursed stretch of year behind her, she was feeling a strong desire to reconnect, and to draw the man that she loved nearer again.

Not far south of the city, the hilly country side was green again, fields and copses both wearing their summer finery. Here and there, patches of wildflowers scented the air with their strange perfumes, bitter and herby, some pungent, some delicate, some earthy and others airy. With the smell of healthy grass and that faintest tinge on the prevailing wind that signaled the coming storm, it was an intoxicating smell. Armed with simple food, a good book, and one another, they sought a place among the hills where they could be alone. No people or city noises, no requests nor demands. Just the wind, and two people who too often wore their weary souls like an unwieldy cloak. It was to be a carefree day outdoors.

Maia cast off her boots to climb to the precipice of the grassy bluff, where there resided one large old tree. She left that weary soul with her boots near the base of the hill, and up she went. Harry was not long in following. The view was not the most spectacular in all of history, but she always found the sight of hills and trees to be calming. She did not need breathtaking; there was good company and she liked her breath right where it was.

Harry, who had also abandoned his boots in a very prudent effort to feel the grass beneath his feet, settled in the shade of the welcoming tree to look out over those hills, to the south. Perhaps he thought of a home they might find there, as soon as they had everything organized enough to depart Rhydin Proper once and for all. Perhaps he thought of other pleasant days from before, where the sun was gentle and the wind whispered instead of roaring. Maia thought of him, of their early nights curled together, confused and certain all at once that they were in the right place.

With those gentler thoughts in her mind, she settled just behind him, curling her arms and legs around the Welshman to rest her chin on his shoulder. Tipsy on the ease of the day and the familiar scent of her lover, she smiled a secretive little smile, and heaved a heady sigh. At that sound in his ear, he caught Maia's hand between his chest and his own, running a thumb fondly over her rough fingers. She shut her eyes, and thought of all the good days she had enjoyed in the recent past, and all of the better days that she was certain lay ahead. Maybe they would leave the city, or at least spend the summer at sea. At the very least, Maia was certain that the days included him, and that was all that she needed to know.

Even with a storm on the distant horizon, she could not deny that there was an amazing sense of peace there on the hill.

Even storms pass over.

Notes about this entry:

I had a really clear picture in my head of the two sailors getting out of the city on a nice day, where they were just allowed to be together. There is no dialogue for a myriad of reasons, mostly because...I don't usually feel comfortable putting too many words in Harry's mouth. This little scene may or may not go into a larger thread that is all part of my evil plan. (insert evil laughter here)

As for the picture, this is my first (and maybe only) lame-ass attempt at drawing for a character thing, because I know that Steff loves gift art and it is her birthday, right exactly now. Yes, the people were referenced for the sketch from all manner of weird sources, cobbled together in my brain. I cannot presently draw humans nicely without a reference. Without a reference, I must stick to mountains and cartoony sketches that are not so great. You all would have really enjoyed watching me try to angle and draw my own foot. heh. The kitten looked at me as though I had taken some sort of crack. Anyway...the hair was accomplished using the advice found in Steff's Hair Tutorial. I like the hair. Anyway, happy birthday Steff. Hope that your year rocks several kasbahs, and thanks for being a friend!

Of Headaches

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:39:22 GMT

Hello livejourneyers,

Let me tell you, yesterday was a doozy. Had the multitude of little kids that I teach on Tuesday decided to be any less well behaved, I would have been screwed. I was sporting a migraine that was about an 8.7 on the Richter scale. The light of day was so painful that I actually thought I was going to puke (and I am not prone to puking). In a span of 17 hours, I took five excedrin. An average sized human, according to the bottle, is only supposed to have 2 in a 24 hour period, and I am smaller than the average bear. Also, this was not nearly enough to will the pain out from behind my left eye (that's the side my seeing migraines happen on), just to dull it enough that I would stop weeping. Which I did as I was driving home at twilight: the only time of day where the sun is not blinding me, and the headlights are not unbearable. I stayed at work an hour late to leave at that time. Hmm.

I have never had a migraine quite of this magnitude. Today, as I am feeling better, but just exhausted, I am starting to think that perhaps it is time to suck it up and go on some prescription meds for this issue because yes, they have been getting markedly worse this year. I assume that it has something to do with stress, at least in part, but yesterday was rough. The reason for this entry: I am not trying to whine, I don't need a slew of "poor Kays." What I am mostly interested in is whether any of you all deal with the migraines, and if so, are you on prescription meds and how is that working out for you?? I get very nervous and edgy about having outside chemicals in my body (especially after the birth control experiment-but that's another rant entirely) so here I am, going into hardcore research mode part one: poll people you know.

Anyone have experience with Imitrex or her equally inscrutably named cousins? Or, does anyone KNOW anyone who deals with this stuff?

Two Letters

Fri, 09 May 2008 19:39:14 GMT

Behind the cut: a pair of letters.

Which cut?

Dear Kitten,

You are adorable, and I am grateful for your furry presence in my otherwise fur-less life. You have brought me immeasurable comfort in the short time that we have been together, and for that, I will give you a lifetime of healthy food, affection, timely veterinary care, and many, many cat toys. I do, however, have a request.

Please stop chewing cords. This is dangerous to your health and perilous to my pocketbook (and my tenuous schedule). Last night, you managed to destroy an eighty dollar computer cable with one bite. I'd like to live in a world where it is feasible to always keep you away from these things, but unfortunately, I live in reality, and here, it's never going to happen. Now, I am a little behind schedule, and out eighty dollars. Try to chew on things that are a little less pricey, like the cardboard you love so well, or even my shoes. I wear cheap-ass shoes.

Thank you,

Your Person

Dear Apple Store,

You are utterly rad. I love that you can check me out anywhere that I am standing in the store, as long as I am talking to one of your knowledgeable, friendly, and attractive blue-shirted Apple vendors. I hate that you are totally crowded most of the time, but I understand; you are too cool to be empty. I wish against wish, however, that you were not in the mall. Man oh man. I despise the mall, and this mall is particularly ridiculous, with its size and volume and traffic. Apple Store...that's how much I love you. I braved the mall for you and this is not something I ever willingly do.

One day, when I finally sell out and make tons of money, I will frequent you at less busy hours and probably drop a fair amount of cash and/or credit because–let's be honest–you are THAT cool, and I am THAT intrigued by many of your offerings. Thank you, Apple Store, for having my computer cable in stock so that I did not have to lose three tense working days to a cat-related power adapter accident. I'll see you again someday, but hopefully not too, too soon.

Best,

Kay

Tiny Fictional Nugget

Mon, 05 May 2008 07:16:07 GMT

Can't sleep. Words bouncing around in my head, like those twenty-five cent rubber balls you can purchase from the vending machine at the grocery store.

In April

Once, in April, she died. Not a literal death, where the heart stops and the breath pauses; that would have been a far sight easier. Rather, the world ended, and her heart did not stop, but rather, it shattered. She was always a woman who tried to keep the lid on the boiling pot that held all that she felt, and often did this to great success; but when it bubbled over, she felt with such intensity that she thought it might burn her alive. Sometimes it did. It certainly left a mark.

April would come and go every year, regardless of her place in the world. In the city, the trees returned to color and bloom. Tight buds guarded their secret until one or two mornings when, with beautiful synchronicity, the city erupted into color. Pink and white, yellow and red, green and greener. Even then, when she felt like those trees, springing back to the best of all possible forms, the mark once left behind made itself known and Maia felt an understandable melancholy to which she was unable to lend words.

Still, it was hard to find the strength, or lack thereof, to allow herself to express these things openly. Perhaps the only other living breathing human in the world who would ever begin to understand the way she felt was right there, and she could not quite bridge that gap. The spring was a time too fresh, too raw. The heat of the coming summer, the sweat, the weight of the air and the lightness of the wind–this was a time when she would be in season, maybe when all secrets and shadows could spill from her.

Happy Birthday, Karen

Fri, 02 May 2008 15:20:45 GMT

I think you might still be out of town, and I hear that your birthday is tomorrow from the little goat on livejournal, but may it be happy nevertheless!

Hello Playfriends

Fri, 02 May 2008 15:19:39 GMT

Hey everyone,

Been a quiet week in playland. I hope sincerely that you all are doing really well. I have been better, but this is why, in about an hour, I am leaving town. Won't be around at all this weekend, but I'll surely be back. Silly work...

I'm a bald sexy English guy!

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:36:27 GMT

nabbed from ehzoterik, who snatched it from elf_fu

An accomplished diplomat who can virtually do no wrong, you sometimes know it is best to rely on the council of others while holding the reins.

There are some words which I have known since I was a schoolboy. "With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." These words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie -- as a wisdom, and warning. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged.

Jean-Luc! My dad would be so proud.

Bermuda, Bahama, Come on Pretty Mama...

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 02:40:42 GMT

For Ehz, and anyone else who has read some of the older bits of Fragments and picked up on my whole "how Maia came to be in Rhydin" theory, here is an article that made me smile:

Bermuda Triangle

Fragments: Choices

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 08:25:50 GMT

Another chapter, from way further back. Might almost be ready to thread these badboys!

The Choices We Make

“I love him, you know.” It was difficult for her to look him in the eye, but she did it all the same.

“I know.” His hand was soft at her cheek, fingers tender as could be. The both of them were battered in so many ways. Bruised and bloodied from the fight, and in that moment, tangled in the very thread that had long bound them together. “I love him, too.”

Maia looked frightened, an expression, he thought, which looked wholly out of place on her face. Perhaps it was that it was a rare thing, that he had never been so close to it. Perhaps it was that he was suddenly the cause. “Oh god,” she sighed, curling her fingers up into his shirt, earnest to her rotten core. “If I had to choose...if I have to–“

“You don’t,” he interrupted. “You never will.” It might seem strange that then, the Gypsy kissed her, as rapturously as ever he had, but it was truth in contact. They may never revisit this feeling, but they could not deny that it lived. Maia would only cling to him a second longer, and she pressed her ear to his chest to hear his pounding heart as he clung right back. His voice, like a purr, thrummed through him and into her ear. She felt at home.

“This spin of the wheel, Maia…it isn’t our turn in this life.”

Seven Days Prior

The Gypsy knelt before her, in silence. They both were shell-shocked from the battle, and stunned that they had both escaped. They had all escaped, though there had been bloodshed. The rest of the party doted over their recovered friend, but Maia sat away from the group, as she sometimes did.

He looked different to her, that morning. They were, all of them, weary as the day is long, and he wore it more plainly than he had worn such fatigue before. It haunted his eyes, like the hopeful melancholy that lay there, too. Maia had never been so grateful, in all her life. The witch had not undone this. Still they walked this mortal coil.

With great care, she removed the used bandage from his shoulder, and applied more of the pungent smelling poultice there. The dents and lines and curves…men had such beautiful shoulders and beautiful arms, especially men that used them. She tried to shake the thought as she wrapped a clean bandage there. It seemed so wrong, in a way, that violence would profane such a beautiful thing, but he would heal. His grace almost guaranteed that any mark left would be minimal, at best.

Their eyes locked then, a long quiet minute. His hand slipped beneath hers, palm to palm, a gesture that warmed and chilled her all at once. Maia nearly spoke, but that unsettling look on his face dropped to her raw knuckles. How evident that she had been in the thick of a fight. How natural that it would be all over her. He knew that she fought the same way that she did everything; with such commitment that it consumed all of her, head to toes. As she had tended to his shoulder, he tended to those bloodied knuckles in kind. There was nothing to say.

Two Nights Earlier

Why state the obvious? It was strange to think that in a day, the world as she knew it would be over, and she would likely be dead. The witch was powerful, dangerous, and well-guarded. To retrieve her captive was a brand of suicide, and every last one of them knew it. Maia found that she was free of fears, save one: a world without him.

The woman didn’t pray often, but in those black, sleepless hours, she spent some time on her knees, begging whatever god might listen to take her in his stead, to let her hand defend him, to let her strength be enough for both. Pain, blood, defeat: she could live with any of these things but to lose the Gypsy would be the death of all that was good in her. Maia felt this keenly.

Hours passed and God did not answer. He had never answered her. Maia did not wait to hear from someone she did not expect, and instead, she padded out of that tiny room in the inn and down the hallway to another. Maia did not knock, but rather just opened the door and let herself in. Even the jasmine near the door could not hide that scent. His scent. A smell like home. Maia nearly trembled at the taste of it, in the back of her mouth. It mingled strangely with her coppery, palpable fear.

“I cannot rest.”

“You never rest,” he replied. She could hear the smile in his voice before she could see traces of it in the moonlight that flooded through the unveiled window. He sat up, and patted the space beside him. Her fear was notable, and it gave him great concern.

“Maia?”

She caught his eye then, and there was a cast so grave to her expression that she held his attention, entirely. In even tones, she voiced these thoughts, so carefully rehearsed between her prayers.

“I would not ask you to sit this out. I know what your answer would be. I just–Oh god. Nobody in this world mattered, even a little, before you, and you must survive tomorrow. If you leave me in this world without you, I will not endure. I am not so strong as I look.”

“No. The woman I know is stronger, even more than she looks.” As he had at least a hundred times before, and wished he could at least a hundred times again, he drew the woman into his arms, and sighed. They held each other a while in silence. How grave it felt, and how strangely hopeful. The night before the world ends is a very unique thing, indeed.

He slipped his hand beneath hers, palm to palm. This gesture caught her eye again. She watched him with a moon-wide gaze. Maia’s fear had dissipated, though her heart pounded. His breath, a whisper. His hand was soft at her cheek, fingers tender as could be. “I love you, you know.”

“I know,” she said.

Fragments: The Flood

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 06:25:45 GMT

Part three of this mini-series within the mini-series I am calling fragments.

I never put the songs or poems of others at the top of posts, but I will put one here, because this one really, really, really fits ridiculously well.

Be afraid of the lame,
They'll inherit your legs,
Be afraid of the old,
They'll inherit your souls.
Be afraid of the cold,
They'll inherit your blood,
Après moi, le déluge
After me comes the flood...

-Après Moi, Regina Spektor

The Flood

The humid summer air clung to every inch of her, from head to toe. An opening presented itself, and quickly, Maia gritted her teeth and pinned the tall, slender elf to the wall with a savage growl. Her knife was up in a moment, a dull walnut gleam on the carefully fashioned blade.

You are not ready.

“I am,” she said, spitting the words with anger. Pale fire in her eyes. Maia had found her fury. She raised her hand for the killing blow, and within a heartbeat, he had grabbed her, spun her about, and taken the upper hand. Maia grunted as she suddenly felt herself pressed to the wall, and none too gently. The wooden blade clattered to the ground, a sharp and hollow sound in the courtyard. That wall was rough and hot against her cheek, and her arm, bent and restrained behind her, screamed that it might break.

You are dead. She heard the words in her head, as she heard all of his words, these days. She hated him for a second.

“You’re a bloody bastard.”

He let her go and she turned, leaning against the wall, eyeing the pale man as he calmly stepped away. Maia rubbed at her arm and took the moment to catch her breath. The Paladin picked up the wooden blade and studied it. For them, it was a thing for practice, though against certain enemies it was a doubly deadly tool. He spoke as he paced and she glared, or what passed for speaking. The voiceless man had ways of being heard.

Rage, Maia, is why you are not ready. You should be angry. Your fire, I think, is what kept you alive, but it will be the death of you out there. They are stronger than you. They are faster than you. But they will always underestimate you, and when you can choose the battle, and keep your head, you will always win. With this rage…you will never keep your head, and they will tear your throat out. You cannot be the fire; fire is too delicate and impulsive a thing. You are the flood.

“I am the flood? That’s supposed to keep me alive?”

Anything in the path of the flood must succumb to it. Only those who yield artfully to a flood have a hope of surviving it.

“Or those who have boats.”

I don’t know of any shipbuilding vampires.

That made her laugh a little and she stood up straighter, nodded once. She was ready to spar again. Slowly, they circled one another, and the game began again. Take the knife. Kill the enemy. It was a simple game, but complex in the undertaking. The Paladin had speed and grace that she could not yet match. The conversation continued as they danced.

You have little to lose, which shall make you a fearless thing. You train harder than anyone I have seen, so I think that your body will be ready for what it might need to endure…but, I must ask you: are you prepared to die?

“I have died already.”

You may die again.

She thought of the possibility of being slain, or worse, becoming a plaything again. Maia pursed her lips, and focused on the game, despite the dark wanderings of her thoughts. Stop the man…

“I am alright with passing. I have seen enough death to know that there are worse things.”

And if they take you?

“I will not let them change me,” she said, a cool tone to her voice. She would not be kindred, nor would she be broken. Maia swung wide with her closed fist, and as the Paladin weaved away to dodge the blow, she swung her leg around to spoil his balance. It worked, and in a moment, he was on his back. Before he could catch his breath, she put her knee to his chest, none too gently, and drew her own short knife from the sheath her leg. The dull edge of the blade was held to his throat, and she raised her left brow high at her quarry.

And if they kill me?

“I’ll even the score… and then say something kind at the wake.”

She felt the dull point of the wooden knife nudge at her ribs again, and the Paladin shook his head ruefully.

By the way, you are dead again.

“But this time, so are you,” she said with a winning smile, then sheathed her knife and offered him a hand up.

Again?

“Yes.”

And yes, they went at it again. Over and over and over, until the day came that she would not die. It was not long.

Control

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:02:17 GMT

Another later bit of Fragments. Soon I'll get the earlier bits done and post a bunch of these over on Greater Realms. If you have read this: The Turn, this chapter will make more sense.

Control

Who was this woman staring back from the glass? Thin, pale, bruised. The blood beneath her skin had cast off its black, leaving only the yellows and greens in its wake. Maia wondered why it was that the colors of skin healing were, in fact, so sickly looking to her eyes. One of nature’s many quiet ironies.

It had been ten days. At night, she did not sleep, and none seemed to question this. She chose to sleep in the afternoons, the curtains thrown open, blanketed in the sunlight of late spring. Even this literal expression of brightness and security could not keep her dreams from creeping to a place of genuine despair and hopelessness. The Progenitor was dead and dust, but he was still winning.

Maia gazed in the mirror, looked on this haunted stranger, and the son-of-a-whore was still winning.

The Paladin was the good kind of pale; not sickly and sunless like those walking dead, but healthy. Pinkish, even. The sun outside was setting and cast the room in its glorious curtain-call warmth. The long mirrors in that bathroom bounced the light around in playful ways. She remembered thinking of this home as beautiful, once. It had since become haven and hospice for the ill, a thing more important than beauty. The pale elf placed a tender hand on her shoulder, and she met his glance in the mirror. Blue on blue.

His eyes were as dark as his hair was pale; her eyes were as pale as her hair was dark; what was left of her hair, at any rate. Maia’s wild locks had been the first casualty in the recent attack. Perhaps her most easily identifiable feature, they were cut from her head with a ragged knife and sent home as proof of…hair. Nothing, yet, had been done to address the wreck that remained. Scraggly and uneven, it refused to do much, save get in her eyes and remind her that everything had changed.

She patted his hand and turned up her lips. Some might call it a smile, but this expression had no mirth. It was, instead, a practiced thing. He gestured with his free hand: the sign for her name. His home was a quiet place, largely because the Paladin was mute. She turned to face him, and then he took her hand and pressed something into it. The cold weight of it told her that it was metal, and she looked down to see a straight razor there. Maia unfolded it and took a long minute staring at the clean, sharp blade. She looked to the Paladin again, and his hands danced in their beautiful, expressive way.

You have control.

He said it twice, kissed her forehead, and then he left the room.

The soap smelled vaguely of lavender, and Maia thought of the mother that she never really knew. In reputation, she was beautiful and gentle; not the sort of person you would imagine marrying a rough Irish sailor possessed of a wanderlust appropriate to his chosen profession. The pirate never thought of herself as beautiful, or gentle. Both were luxuries a woman in a man’s world ought not afford herself. Lately, she even had some difficulty thinking of herself as strong, which, given what she had endured, was laughable. She was strong before, and she remained strong after. Nobody faulted the tree that could not weather the hurricane; sometimes the wind was just too strong.

It was not time for her to be a tree, strong and unyielding like the men she knew as fathers. In thinking of her mother, she was a gentler thing, and she yielded to the vastness of the world that she lived in. With slow, careful strokes, she cleaned up the mess that was left on her head. She allowed herself to weep for what she had lost, for it had been significant. It would have been easier to die. Maia listened to the pounding of her heart and the gentle hiss of the sharp blade against her skin. She smelled the lavender of the soap and tasted the salt in her tears. She did not belong to the night.

She sponged and then dried her naked scalp, rather nonplused by the little bit of blood on the towel from the few spots where she had nicked herself. Those did not hurt. After a few deep breaths, she wept no more, and she studied the stranger in the mirror. The difference was astonishing, and she looked even less like herself than the scraggly haired creature that had earlier entered the bath. The difference between the woman then and the woman now was that Maia had chosen this. This change was not on his terms, it was on her own.

She would never be the same, and this was something that she could see. Still, she was certain then that she could choose her path. It was not chosen for her, even when the world outside was so dark.

The Paladin was not to be found, and she was at peace with this. She took a cup of tea to the room where she had been sleeping, and she looked out at the hateful stars and the moon that mocked her. They rose with the twilight, and she stood defiant in this colder nighttime light. That night, for the first since she was taken, she took to her bed and she slept a while. It would be nice to say that the nightmares didn’t chase her. It would be nice to say that she slept peacefully. It would be a lie. That she slept–on her own terms, at her own time–would have to be enough.