Words Cannot Describe

If there is one thing I become ceaselessly, brilliantly good at during the month of November, it is procrastination. I do wonder if some of it isn't burn-out, because I do try to write almost every day and I tend to start at nine in the morning and not stop until I go to bed at one the following morning, but it's not constant writing. I stop and start and while some days I will produce words upon words, several days this month I just...haven't.

Still, the official wordcount of NaNo is well over 130k, and Kaverlen Falls is just slightly under 30k, so if I keep on keeping on I should hit the 50k for that alone before the 30th. I've produced a lot this month, even if it's not entirely what I wanted it to be. (The Juniper Bones just isn't going to be finished this year either. ...balls.) I finally finished the story I was arsing about with as a prequel to Kaverlen Falls, too; it hasn't got a proper name but I call it Blood Still For Blood and it's about 7k. It was intended just as a Lovecraftian mockery of sparkly vampires, but it's...a bit more interesting than that, now. And naturally I wrote the disturbing end of it to the tune of the Amnesia OST. I am pure class, of course.

I've written somewhere near 5k so far today and once I finish this entry I really am going to go and sort out the writing for today, because it's been patchy as all get out. Mostly this is just because the other day I was hunting something out in my terribly disordered Documents folder, and I was reminded again of a sprawling story an old friend and I were writing in various forms from the age of sixteen until we were both about twenty-two (which was about the point we stopped speaking to each other). As you can imagine, characters who have been in your head that long...just don't ever go away. The air you breathe is full of ghosts, as one of my favourite song-titles puts it, and when I started watching/reading George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire epic I was pushed right back into the waiting arms of these ghosts. My co-author was very, very influenced by Martin in her writing of our story; having never read any of his work, I didn't realise how deeply until I myself starting reading A Game of Thrones. And...while I am enjoying Martin's story on its own merits, it reminds me terribly of the story I had been writing all those years ago with my friend, and the last couple of days I've been procrastinating by rereading it.

It's a huge amount of text -- the story itself, which wasn't even a third done when we quit, is well over 300k. This does not include the files filled with character sketches and half-written snippets; those would be somewhere in the region of 200k, I would imagine. And again, this doesn't account for the story this was all based upon; I wouldn't be surprised to find that was about another 500k of text in the form of the main story (which was further along before we switched it with the new version) and a huge collection of supplementary material. I also have a good deal of pictures both by myself and by some talented friends who shared in our world, and...yeah. It's wonderful and nostalgic and sad, and I just can't help myself right at the moment. While my friend was a very plot-driven writer and revelled in the politics of our story, I am and always will be the character author.  I loved these characters. I still do. This is why I write; it's for the people who live the stories. And it's been so long since I really thought about this incredibly diverse cast of characters for any length of time. And believe me, there were a lot of them. I can't even hazard a guess at how many major characters there were, but fifty would be a ballpark figure. I just...yeah.

There are likely worse ways to procrastinate, as I am learning one thing -- I have vastly improved as a writer since I worked on this novel with my dear friend. In fact, working with her vastly improved me as a writer anyway, but even now I can see how I've moved on from some of my worst habits. I've also learned the difference between trope and beloved cliché, and it's all...well. I don't know. I have all sorts of FEELINGS about this that I'm not really up for articulating. Maybe once I get to the end of what she wrote I'll be better able to explain it, but for now...I think I've spent enough time reading today. I should be writing.

Still. As I was flipping through various files, I found a drabble collection. I felt like sharing one, jsut because these two characters...I always did wonder what would happen to them. I have the vague niggling feeling I might just write something about them in the weeks before Christmas, once I am done with the insanity of NaNoWriMo. But they always fascinated me. In the novel, Gaia is the eleven year old daughter of a recently widowed and deposed emperor, wheras Lais is the thirty-five year old son of the Regent in the North, a cold and pitiless Old Monster who has lived well beyond his alloted lifespan because he is waiting for his beloved to be reborn to him (she's being contrary about it, and rightly so; in the slightly misappropriated words of Tyrion Lannister about his own sire: "Everyone everywhere always has to do exactly what my father says...he's always been a cunt."). Lais is originally at the imperial palace as an envoy of his father, and is unusually gregarious considering his dread family; Gaia is a very reserved and retiring girl who lives in the shadow of her elder and more highly-born half-sister. There springs up a very unusual and rather sweet friendship between the two of them which was destined to be sorely tried by the opposing agendas of their respective families, and somehow we ended up thinking they were meant to be together despite the huge age difference. With that said Lais comes of a stock with deeply unusual longevity -- I don't know how old his father is, but let's say at least two hundred; I also think one of Lais's younger nephews is about twenty years his senior alone -- and it could have worked. Perhaps. But they were just so sweet together, when the world wasn't being a bastard at them, and when I found this drabble I wrote back in 2003 or 2004 or something...it brought it back.

I so very rarely write fluff. So, let's have some fluff before I go back to making life hell for some other poor characters, shall we? ^_~

Precious Things

“Mama?”

“Yes, darling?” she replied, raising dark eyes from her needlepoint; her surprise caused the needle to slip from the fabric and into her finger, but she removed it near-absently as she focused on her daughter alone. She barely noticed the blood as she pressed on the small wound, smiling easily at the small figure standing uncertainly in the doorway.

The dark-haired little girl promptly barrelled into the room; Gaia only just managed to remove the embroidery from her lap before Priya took up the entire space in a ball of limbs and big grey eyes. Accepting the glomp-greeting easily, she dropped a kiss across the girl’s browmark. “Did your nurse send you in to say goodnight?”

“Yes, mama,” she said; her heart was both glad to have this time with her mother and then sad. It would end all too soon, the way it always did. She ignored this fact for a brief snugglesome moment, then suddenly popped her head up and looked around with wide eyes. “But where’s papa?”

“Did I hear the sweet voice of reason calling out my most august name?”

Priya promptly burst into a gale of giggles to see Lais pop up his head from behind one of the couches; he was absolutely drenched in dust with his hair beginning to spring free in wild snarls from his tight braid. “Papa, you’re silly!”

“Saving each and every one of the pretty hairs on your head from the dust bunnies under the couch is not silly,” and the words were spoken with great dignity as he climbed to his feet and brushed off his equally-dusty trousers. “What if they multiply? We’ll be pulling them out of our ears and noses for weeks after the exterminator has been!”

Gaia spared her husband a long-suffering smile, and began to stroke her daughter’s dark-hair. “Ignore your father, darling. I think he hit his head again.”

“Well!” Lais returned, hands promptly moving to sit akimbo upon his hips as he beetled his brows. “Is this really what I get for playing at being a hero, your one and only knight in shining armour with a sword that would bring down all the stars in heaven if you’d but ask for a necklace of them to hang about your lovely neck?”

Priya blinked up at him; for a young child she was developing a precocious vocabulary and understanding of language, and everyone knew it was just because her father was pathologically incapable of being able to shut his nonsense up. “You have a sword, papa?”

“Well, I did have a sword once. But it happened to be made of sticky candy and had a hilt of the finest fudge, and it rather inexplicably disappeared one sunny, lazy afternoon. But surely we both haven’t the time for mourning my suspiciously-lost sword.” He came over to both wife and daughter, folding his long body onto the arm of the chair; while one arm draped itself easily about Gaia’s small shoulders the other joined her hand in stroking Priya’s soft, still-babyish hair. “You have a big day tomorrow and if you’re going to be big enough to fit into it without the seamstress making any of those tiresome last-second adjustments, it’s time you ran off to dream-land to play with the sleep-fairies.”

“May I ask a question before I go?”

“Only one, sweetling,” he granted generously, twirling a dark curl about one pale finger. “The fairies are waiting and they get grumpy. You know how it is. Their magic dust gets dull so quickly when the little girls are late to the land of dreams.”

She grinned up at her father, leaning up to plant a kiss on his cheek to show she understood. After doing so, Priya actually turned her attention to her mother and asked: “Mama? Was daddy your daddy, too?”

Gaia blinked, met Lais’s own blink for a brief moment, and then returned her surprise to Priya. “What do you mean, darling?”

“It was something Dasha said…I said I wanted a brother or sister, and she kind of laughed and said the only other children my papa had were you and Uncle Michael. I don’t get it. Was daddy your daddy too, then?”

“No,” Gaia said slowly, feeling Lais’s arm tighten about her as if in silent apology. “Your daddy was only my foster father, once.”

“Foster father?” Even with a father as vocal as Lais, it appeared the little girl had not heard the term before. “What does that mean?”

“It means he gave me all of his sweets and lied to me a lot.”

Lais’s jaw dropped promptly around his well-shoed ankles. “Dora!”

Still, Gaia was grinning as she absently tugged on her daughter’s nose and made her laugh. “I forgave him for it all a long time ago,” she confided in a low voice with a soft smile, pushing a strand of her own long hair back behind one ear.

“He gave you all his sweets?” Priya asked, craning her neck to look at him as she focused on what her mind saw as the most important thing her mother had just revealed. “Daddy never gives me all his sweets.”

“Oh, yes,” Gaia returned, and then dropped a wink at her dumbstruck husband. It was always so amusing to her, seeing Lais in his most unnatural state. “He always gave me all of his favourites, too.”

“…then I want daddy to be MY foster father, too!” Priya decided abruptly, a determined glint coming into eyes very much like those of her father’s family. She promptly turned on her mother’s lap and demanded of her stunned father: “I want you to treat me just like you treated mama!”

“Er…” he returned, Gaia already shaking with laughter at his continued and complete loss of his silver tongue.

“What?” the little girl asked, words resounding with the form of total innocence that was designed only for the very young to possess.

“We’ll tell you when you’re older, sweetheart,” Gaia chuckled, and carefully took a hold of Priya as she stood up. Before she got halfway up Lais had to claim the small girl; she was simply growing up too fast, was already too heavy for Gaia’s slight strength. “Now, isn’t time for bed?”

As she later shut the door to their private study, Priya returned to her nursemaid Dasha and her warm bed, Gaia shook her head and crossed the floor back to her armchair and needlework. “Lais, don’t look at me like that,” she murmured without even needing to look to her husband to read his expression. “I will let you tell her when she grows up.”

Lais trailed her in silence, but in a burst of elegant movement then overtook her slower form; by the time she reached her chair he was ready for her, reaching out with a quick hand to tumble her onto his lap. “But what if I simply can’t wait that long to share all my great wisdom and vast knowledge with my darling daughter?” he asked mournfully, barely acknowledging his wife’s token struggles.

“You waited until I was all grown up before sharing all your great wisdom and vast knowledge with me,” she pointed out as she gave up, setting about finding herself the most comfortable way to burrow into her husband’s lap.

“Yes, but my darling il’Gaia,” Lais pointed out as he dipped his head lower, brushing smiling lips against her ticklish ear, “I had extra special things to share with you.”

She shivered as his breath skipped across sensitive skin, heart jumping a beat in warm anticipation. “Your real favourite sweets, perhaps?”

“It’s no sacrifice,” Lais said, and kissed her long and sweetly. She was laughing even as he told her seriously: “They are, after all, precisely the kind that taste better when they are shared.”

*****

Incidentally, from the song title I can but assume I was listening to this song as I wrote it. There are so many memories to be found in music. I think it's time to go back to the old playlists.

Slow and Steady...?

Ah, racing turtles -- although calling my NaNo progress "turtling" rather depends on how you look at it, considering the wordcount. But I have become an absolute rebel and am still not writing The Juniper Bones like I'm supposed to be; rather I'm about 13k into the sequel of Greywater, which seems to have titled itself Kaverlen Falls even though a) I wasn't aware there WAS a waterfall at Kaverlen and b) I haven't got a clue why the characters would end up there anyway. So go figure.

I'm having a right ol' interesting time with this, mind you. Mostly it's because I haven't a clue where the story is going...well, I do, that's a slight lie. I wrote a YA adult recently called The Neverboy, and Kaverlen Falls involves that storyline to some extent as Cira, the main character of KF, is a companion of the main character of Nb. Meaning I now get to tell certain parts of Nb from an entirely different point of view. This is going to b fun. It also mixes up the story a bit, because Cira isn't present for the first twelve chapters of Nb anyway, and they also part ways towards the end for a bit. So, it's not like KF tells the same story only from Cira's viewpoint. It's her own story entirely, and I am not entirely sure where it begins and ends.

...well, okay, another lie: I know where it starts. Or I do now, anyway. I started writing a short story the other day for my own amusement about blood fae for no good reason, and as it turns out...it's the prologue to KF. And in the first chapter of KF a legendary character who was offhandedly mentioned maybe twice is now apparently a major influence on Cira's early life at Greywater. So now I am all O_o WTF OTZ because...I did not expect that. At all. Not to mention Cydrac Agrane strolled into the first chapter waving his hands about something I didn't know about, and now Nan Jerikak has announced she wants to play My Little Cavy with Alara, and I...what. What.

I love NaNo. Although sometimes I get the feeling it kind of hates my guts. Here, have a .gif that explains my relationship with NaNoWriMo a thousand times better than I ever could with words:

Speaking of writing things from other POVs, I also had a strange experience while writing the scene between Nan and Cira. I'll actually put a snippet of it here so you can see what I mean upfront.

*****

At first she was silent, and Círa glanced back to see she had furrowed her brow. It might have been a mistake to ask Nantya; she was young and no real ranking magian – but she had already been given in service to the Attorney-General of Lonan at least once. Another moment of thought later and Nantya shook her head, the dark curls of her hair dancing beneath the scarf she had tied over half her head.

“I don’t know what it is, if that’s what you wanna know.” She peered at Círa, pale eyes very curious. “Is your Lady Maiden worried about him? ‘cause I don’t think she should be, really. I doubt Mister Wolf is gonna bother her again, after the flak he copped from the First Consul over it all.”

“What flak?”

Nantya blinked at her sharp tone. “Oh, it was flak, all right. I mean, it’s not like I saw anything, but I heard some of it. He summoned Lord Rendran to him at the beginning of the winter, after the mourning-month for his little girl. I got a call up there myself, ‘cause I was with him in Aran Nomese when it all went to pot. It was all very civilised, mind, or at least it was supposed to be – just a discussion about how things would be, what with Mister Wolf’s privileges at the palace being revoked. But…”

Círa frowned. Not one word of this had ever reached her ears before now. “But what?”

Nantya shrugged, but it seemed more bewildered than nonchalant. “I don’t rightly know, not for sure. But I was down in the glasshouse, these huge big offices under the First Consul’s chambers where all his pages and assistants and things work. There were raised voices, then thumping, and this huge crash…and then they really started yelling at each other.”

“The First Consul was shouting?”

“He was really angry. Not that any of us could really hear what he was saying.” She seemed just as disbelieving as Círa herself. “The Attorney-General came out first. You could see he was furious, too, but he wasn’t shouting anymore. He just came down those stairs and stood there, looking at all of us like not a one of us was really there.” Shaking her head, she had to take an audible breath before continuing. “Then Lord Consul Asfiye came down. You could tell he was upset, but he was…not like he usually is. He was just…pale as a ghost, but he could have been made of marble. I’ve never seen him like it. No smiles, eyes dull as dishwater.”

Círa didn’t bother to hide her shudder. “I can’t imagine it.”

“Me neither -- if I hadn’t seen it.” Again she shook her head, like she was trying to clear it of a mountain of llama wool, and Círa began to understand why no word of this strange discussion had ever reached her ears. “He asked Lord Rendran, polite as you please, to come back with him. And they went up. No-one heard anything else strange upstairs, and when they came back the First Consul was all smiles and the Attorney-General charmed his way through the whole office, but…I’ll never forget it, the way they looked then.” Her small fingers, hidden in her black kid gloves, clenched into sudden fists. “They said the great window was what smashed. Someone had put a paperweight through it.”

“The Attorney-General, surely,” Círa said, faint, and Nantya only shook her head.

“I dunno. I just...I dunno.”

The clear reluctance to commit to anything sent a shiver down Círa’s spine, but she covered it with a blithe smile. “So you haven’t talked about this to anyone, have you?”

Nantya’s eyes, coloured that strange pale green more common to those born of the fire-lady, held more solemnity than a grave. “No. I haven’t.”

Círa swallowed hard. More secrets had risen to wind their coils about the life of the First Consul, and she did not like it at all. Arosek, what are you doing? she thought, but all she had before her was the troubled small face of the magian.   

*****

Now, it probably seems quite pedestrian, I know, but the point is -- I had to know exactly what the argument between Ryennkar and Arosek was. Do other people do this a lot? I do it upon occasion; for instance in The Neverboy Cira and Otho quite obviously have a history they are not going to discuss in front of Kit, who is a thirteen year old boy. So I went and wrote out the scene where they thrash out some out demons (and yes, it involved sex, but even that wasn't why it couldn't ever be in the main body of the story). As it so happens this scene will now end up in Kaverlen Falls, but...yeah. Roughly 2.5k later I had an "extra" scene I called Close Every Door for a lark (damn you, Andrew Lloyd Webber!). It can't ever fit in Kaverlen Falls given the POV, but...I had to write it, because I really needed to know exactly what passed between them. But then again I did the same again in Greywater because I knew that Arosek and Ryenn had also had an "altercation" of a sort between the time when Otho first returned from Alkirn and then when Otho returned to Greywater. Again, neither Cira nor Otho could possibly have been privy to these conversations, but they have a major impact on their lives, and...yeah. Dammit. I hate having all these lovely words AND NO-WHERE TO PUT THEM.

...and I would snippet part of the scene here, but it's dodgy as hell. So I won't. I'll just go back to sulking and writing some more. In closing, here's another .gif; once again it explains the relationship between me and NaNo in very succinct terms. But I'll let you guess which of us is which. ^_~



The Final Countdown

So, it's Halloween. Not that Halloween is a big thing where I'm from -- this does tend to be the only time of year I really wish I was Stateside, if only because they really do love Halloween. And it's about the only really tacky holiday I can take pleasure in just for its sheer tackiness. Easter's not my thing -- too much surprise!church as a child while living with my grandparents -- and Christmas is a bit tricky in my family (the other set of grandparents inadvertently gave us bad associations), but Halloween? I can get behind Halloween. Although given the spring heat here I've only managed to scare myself with Amnesia and creepypasta stories on livejournal, ha ha ha.

Quite aside from all that, the last day of October obviously heralds the oncoming storm of NaNoWriMo. I'm set up to go, of course, because all I've been doing is writing anyway, but I am hoping like hell this is going to work. I've always found the basic requirement of NaNo easy, when I've bothered to see it through; last year I amped it up by saying I had to do 100k rather than 50k, and this year I am focusing on another problem altogether: finishing things. So, I've got to have a starting point. The novels and their current wordcounts are:

Greywater: ~150k
Hibernaculum: 187,374
The Juniper Bones (part three): 83,188

Greywater has an uncertain count because I'll almost certainly be working on it tonight before the official wordcount period begins. I'm almost a hundred percent certain it will be finished by the end of the week; Hibernaculum might be a couple of weeks, and then The Juniper Bones is far more iffy. It's the real struggling-point, that one; the other two are almost certainties, but the last one isn't. It's got a very complicated ending and I really am not sure how it's going to play out. But if I'm really in the zone...hopefully the finishing frenzy from the other two will coast me through the third, too.

I'll have to update this journal everyday to keep myself strong for this. In the meantime, I ought to go do some writing. As it's Halloween, though, I might as well update with a tiny snippet from a Halloween story from last year. I didn't have the opportunity to do anything this year, even though I rather liked the idea of writing something about a similar holiday in Sarin. This is something I wrote for my writer's group, involving a couple of characters of The Juniper Bones. I do love them so.

*****

“A Halloween party?” he asks, holding the invitation like it might explode. Given its origins, he wouldn’t be surprised if it did. The bearer of these bad tidings, pressed and perfect in his three piece suit, grins as if he has just read Eliot’s mind.

“Oh, yes. Had you forgotten it was coming?”

Eliot hadn’t, but even had he been inclined to turn up at one of Morgan’s soirees, he’s always figured himself to be beyond invitations. His modus operandi is just to show up when and if he feels like it. Examining the engraved card, personally handed to him by the good doctor’s own husband, he realises that he really doesn’t like the sound of this.

“She has them every year,” Baedeker adds, helpful to a fault. “You know what she’s like…throws parties, invites half the hospital around, and no-one can quite work out if she’s making fun of them or actually wants them to come over, and…yeah. At least with Halloween parties they can be fairly certain it’s going to be insane, whereas at most other times they really can’t tell.”

“So glad to hear it’s not just me,” he mutters, and holds the card out. “Not that I’m planning to come.”

“You don’t have to plan to come. You’re coming.” He raises his hands when Eliot makes a stabbing motion with the card, resolutely refusing to take it back. “Trust me, she’ll drag you over herself if you don’t show up.”

“Like she’s that desperate to see me.”

“Do you want to tempt her?” He’s grinning despite the warning note that’s entered his voice. “I know she was reading about Alexander the Great the other day, I saw her with Arrian. Between the thing with Hector in The Iliad and what Alexander did to that bloke at Gaza, and the fact I know she was thinking of buying a racehorse last week…unless you want to see what it’s like to be dragged behind a chariot you really ought to turn up.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t she?” He arches an eyebrow. “It’s Halloween. Everyone knows the blood is fake on Halloween.”

“That sounds like the tagline of the most terrible B-movie never made.” Something of a guilty look flashes behind Baedeker’s glasses, and Eliot groans. “Oh, please tell me you don’t moonlight as a wannabe screenwriter!”

“Look, you’d better just turn up.”

Eliot’s stuck with the invitation as Baedeker turns to leave, and he looks down at the shimmering lines of his name with a sigh. There are probably worse things than a Halloween party with Viola Morgan, but he’s pretty hard-pressed to imagine what they might be.

*****

And just in case you wonder why Eliot is so afraid of Morgan, here's a recent commission of the two I had done recently by the wonderful Danielle Ellison, otherwise known as thecosmicdancer over on DA. It's gorgeous. And terrifying. And we all know that's the way Eliot loves it, no matter what he says. ^_~

"Tell me we both matter, don't we?"

I've been quite lax with this journal the last few weeks, partially because my brain's all over the show whenever it comes to doing much between feeding my face, going for long walks around Koombana Bay, reading trashy novels or writing my own. I think it's because I did feel guilty about not being about to keep up with Rule of Three, especially as I had an email today that made me all excited about it again. Oh, well, I should go and catch up on some stories and get involved in voting with those that were shortlisted. I also think the avoidance is helped by the fact that this journal is tired to a gmail account I don't use for anything else but this sort of malarkey, but while I was in the UK my smartphone picked up on the account and was always chirping to tell me when I had new comments. Usually I wouldn't notice until I came specifically to check, and since I've been in Australia I've been off the 3G network I was on and I haven't been often by, so...yes. Head in the sand, that's me. I'm rather good at it, too.

Still, I've been writing. It's almost NaNoWriMo time again, too -- and I am taking part, although I'm not doing it properly. I want to finish the first drafts of at least Greywater and Hibernaculum, and if things are going really well I might just have to give The Juniper Bones an all-mighty kick to go with it. I've been working on Greywater since Monday night or so, and currently it's slightly less than 140k and I just got to the end of chapter sixteen. Which isn't to say it's 140k to 16; there's probably fifty or sixty pages of text beyond what I've been writing up to, simply because I habitually write out of sequence. But when I get into this kind of mood I go right back to the beginning and write chronologically so that I can pull the threads into a proper weave. This was particularly important with this novel, as the first chapter existed while the next two didn't, and I really needed a better sense of the beginning to make the middle come together. And it is coming together, often in ways I didn't quite imagine. The characters are very alive to me right now, which I suppose can only be for the best. They're off doing things and behaving in ways I didn't expect -- I'm looking at you, Leylea and Sabin, and you know it -- and I can't complain because it just makes me feel as if the story is about real people...because real people often do things we don't expect, even when we later realise their behaviour is perfectly in line with their personality.

Still, Deniz left a comment on my last entry asking for snips, and as I am still quite pleased with this little (little?!) story, I thought I'd share some of what I've been up to. These two characters aren't a large part of Greywater -- in fact only Nan makes an appearance in that novel -- but they're a part of the larger story and they're becoming dearer to my heart by the day. Even though Nan told me the other day she wants guinea pigs because her parents farm them and then she climbed in a box with the First Lord Consul and the Ice Maiden of Aran Nomese and started a sing-along to the tune of I'm On A Boat. But I have to love her. Even if she seems to be turning into a female Bret McKenzie more and more with every passing day...

So, we have two little bits here -- the very beginning of the story, which doesn't actually have a proper title. I refer to it as Keep Calm (And Carry On) while the file is tea,dammit.docx, but it probably doesn't matter. I think the UK put tea on my brain and it's just not going away.

*****
 

It was silly, she thought sourly, that they would think a mere cup of tea would settle anyone after what had happened, least of all a Mydaraën. Not that she’d been shy about pointing that out – yet her suggestion of a rousing band and enough alcohol to sink seven ships had been summarily shot down and she had been installed in the little bedchamber far from the rest of the delegation.

With a pot of tea.

She did wonder if Alara would have been more amenable to her suggestions – for all Alara Feronza would generally appear to be the least amenable of the priggish lot of them, Nan knew that the woman would at least pretend to listen to her. But then she recalled how she had last seen her – covered in blood, her face that same perfect porcelain mask even as she meticulously cleansed her sword of all gore – and shuddered. She did not know the true Alara. She was beginning to doubt that even Alara herself knew.

*****

The next part comes much further in the story; though the story is from Nan's POV, it's really Alara's tale -- but it's about them both, because this is where knight and magian, forced to close proximity by the one they refer to as the grey wolf of Kerdenet, begin to realise they're quite comfortable where they are.

*****

“He told you that?” She cursed, loud and long, in the harsh-vowelled dialect of the far north-east. Only when she realised Alara had no idea of the exact meaning of what she said did she finally spit out: “Son of a whoremaster! Tell me his name, Al. I mean it. I’ll kill him myself.”

As you killed those men for me. Those words hung unspoken between them. But Alara simply shook her head, though Nan knew now she could not be as unmoved by her passion as she appeared to be. “Not now, Nan. Or at least, not yet. But yes, he came to me that night, said I could do the right thing and tell Rolande about us. My husband-to-be might then have been kind enough to simply break the contract and leave the dowry with my father. It would be harder, the Red Dog said, if I left it until the inevitable discovery in the bridal chamber.”

“I hope you told him where to shove it.”

“I punched him in the face, actually.”

“You…Alara.” Nan had no idea whether to laugh or cry. She settled on something between both. “Oh, gods, Al.”

Both of Alara’s hands wrapped around her now and she actually smiled, though it was tainted with sadness. “He told everyone it had been an accident. But several people knew he’d been speaking with me, and most people were aware that I was my twin’s equal in all ways. In the end I suppose I played into his hands, for if it had gone the way he wanted, Rolande could have pointed towards it as evidence of our previous association.”

“I still want to kill the bastard,” she seethed, linking her fingers tightly through the other woman’s. Her head still ached, but it seemed more important than maintaining the wards. “Tell me his name, honestly, I’ll tear him a new arsehole tomorrow. And again the next day, too.”

“Let me finish the story, Nan, please,” Alara chided, but though her smile had long gone Nan could hear faint amusement that faded only as she went on. “So, Rolande and I were married the next day with all the pomp and circumstance required.”

Nan’s eyes dropped downwards. She’d always noticed that Alara still wore her wedding rings. She’d never really looked at them, but Alara allowed her to turn the leftmost hand over, let her raise it to the light. The ruby in the ring closest to her heart was deep and bloody, the birthstone of her husband. The one on the outside held an amethyst in a delicate leaf setting. That was Alara’s own birthstone, deep violet with rainbows of every colour concealed within.

“That night, he came to me in the bridal chamber.” As she sighed Nan lowered her hand, pressed it close between the palms of both of her own. “He was very gentle. But I laid there like a rock, unmoving, and afterwards he said to me: was it so very bad, then?” She bowed her head. “And I cried.”

The admission, so utterly at odds with everything Nan had been taught of this peculiar woman, hung on the air like a condemned criminal kicking the gallows air. When she spoke again, Nan found her own voice strange, higher-pitched than normal. “He’d been with a woman before?” She swallowed hard, half-choked on her own fear. “Did he…know?”

“He knew. He never went into details – he was too much a gentleman to be as crass as all that. But he’d known women in his travels, and could be sure I was no virgin. But he also knew that my lack of response came not from a longing for a man I would no longer know, but from a fear that he would know me again.”

*****

Now, I probably ought to go back to working on Greywater, as tomorrow I should properly get out of the house and go for a drive to Margaret River or somthing. Even though I'm here to write, I suppose I need a proper break sometime...? 

The Favoured Child

I’m not much of an artist. I can draw, but I don’t do it very much these days. Mostly it’s a time thing, but it’s also because it’s far more satisfying to write and have it come out the way I want, than to draw and have it come out only somewhat like I was thinking of. Which is why I’ve developed an addiction to commissioning people on deviantart, ha ha ha.

Now, I have a few different commissions on at the moment, but I felt inclined to talk about one today as I just got received the finished product in my inbox late last night. (You know, the other day I mentioned I’d finally caught up with the times and acquired a smartphone; in some ways I wish I hadn’t, as I spend too much time online as it is. Because when I received this file, it was well after midnight, I was supposed to be sleeping, and instead I was watching videos on youtube and reading my email, wtf.) This was a slightly unusual commission in that I was quite lucky to get it – the artist’s hard to reserve a slot with – and La'Vata O'Neal's style is quite realistic. Observe:

I was blown away. Completely. And somewhat terrified with it, too. ^_~ This is Doctor Viola Morgan, a little voice I’ve discussed on this journal before. She’s been in my head since I last lived in Christchurch; I’m not sure of her exact birthdate, but it was the middle of 2005. (If I bothered looking up the release date of Batman Begins in New Zealand I’d have a better idea, as I remember going to see it with my younger brother at the flicks and thinking of Morgan most of the way through, but go figure.) She’s been a very vocal presence there ever since, and while I’ve drawn her myself as well as having some other art commissioned, seeing her like this…

…wow.

I think I’ve said before that one of my shallower reasons for wanting to be a popular published author is that I’d love to have a movie or a mini-series made of my work…just so I could look a character in the eye, or wander through Círa’s gallery or Radeen Dam’s oratory or the great library at Deseran. I’m a traveller, and as such I don’t just want to read things, I want to feel them. And the realistic tone of this portrait gives me a bit of that. This is what she’d look like if she was a person.

And like I said, it’s pretty damned scary. Here, have a tiny extract of Morgan from The Juniper Bones. Even though I’d love to meet Morgan for real, I think this explains why it’s also a very good thing that I never ever will. ^_~

*****

“What are you doing here?”

He turns, startled; the only good thing about having Viola Morgan sneak up on him is the fact her hands are empty. “Your bloody husband won’t leave me alone,” he says, keeping a wary eye on the tall woman. Morgan may be without visible weapons, but he knows better than anyone else that Mr. Happy Scalpel is quite capable of concealing himself in very odd places about her person.

He isn’t detecting any discernible threat from her now, at least; she circles around him with an easy step that indicates her mood, if not good, is at least not bloody. “You’re such a sucker for coming back here,” she remarks finally, coming to a stop some ten feet to his left.

“So why are you here?” he asks, noting she now stands beneath one of the larger paintings of the western corridor. It’s a reproduction of a Dalí work he’s sure he’s seen before in Paris, or perhaps Madrid.

“Ah, but being a bitch doesn’t preclude me from being as much a sucker as you are,” she offers with a waggled finger, and turns her back on him. She is tracing that same lazy finger over the gilded frame of the painting when she adds: “You’re too damn interesting to just kick out of the house.”

“Is she here?”

Morgan looks back to him over one shoulder, the hard lines of her face carved from marble. He cannot decide if she resembles more the pale reclining woman in the painting at her back, or the two tigers arcing towards vulnerable flesh with claws unsheathed. “Yeah. Not that she lives here, or anything. Creepy little bitch that she is.”

“Morgan!”

“Don’t start with me, Eliot.” The words are as clipped as the individual shots from an automatic weapon, and he flinches when she comes forward to jab that calloused finger hard into the centre of his chest. “And I thought you’d be a few damn weeks later than this at the very least – thank god there’s no one to take bets with around here!”

“What about Dragovich?”

“Doesn’t do bets,” she explains moodily; she has fortunately retracted her clever surgeon’s fingers from his person, but he doesn’t feel any better for it. “God knows what I pay him for.”

“I think he asks himself the same thing every day.”

“Don’t start with me,” she repeats, and Eliot’s opening his mouth to suggest something potentially suicidal when she cuts him off with a slash of one strong wrist. “So you want to talk to Rowan, then?”

“Just get me Baedeker.”

She snorts, rolls her eyes like a mad horse. “What am I, your girl Friday?” Without waiting for an answer, she stalks out of the room; it is some fifteen minutes before Baedeker walks in with an air of vague bemusement that clears the moment he sees Eliot.

“Oh. I thought you were dead.”

“What?”

The smile he gives Eliot is wry, with a touch of affection which Eliot doesn’t really want to contemplate. “Viola said she’d left me a cadaver in the foyer,” he explains, removing his reading glasses to squint critically at Eliot. “…she didn’t kill you, did she?”

*****

…you have to cut Baedeker some slack, you know. Because with Morgan, you just never can tell. ^_~

Cookies, Tea and Cuddles

I rather suspect this is going to be a bit of a TL; DR post, but that’s the way the biscuit breaks? Heh. Yesterday I was having a bit of a shut-in day; I’d contemplated going to another museum or the British Library, but I didn’t really get any further than Boots because I needed some things for my trip to Egypt next week. But as I was kicking my heels picking away at Greywater, one of my flist over at livejournal spoke of how she and her friends were having a lousy pre-autumn Friday and came up with a weekend-long rainy day cuddles, cookies, and tea fest! in the comments of her lj post. And as I’d been chatting to Natalia, my awesome Polish artist friend, somewhat idly the night before about a need to write fluff, this struck me as a Rather Lovely Idea Indeed.

So, I ended up writing three little ficlets. I’m not very good with drabbling, or short stories in general. I had intended each snip to be maybe five hundred words. One’s a thousand, and the other two are about fifteen hundred between them, so…oops. That’s where the TL;DR comes into this. You don’t need to read them. I’m doing it for the lulz, essentially; perhaps the biggest laugh comes from the fact that even when I write fluff I still manage the melancholy. Hell, I should have tried writing something fluffy about Jonathan and Tess or a pairing like them; they do have their angst, but it’s generally buried beneath layers and layers of rainbows and unicorns and cute flying dolphins. And Erasure. We can’t forget the Erasure.

So, I played to the theme. We have cookies, tea and cuddles. Three different pairings. Something for a rainy day, perhaps…? Let's start with two people who probably need more fluff in their lives, really.

If You Can’t Take The Heat

It took him longer than it should have to find the chambers he sought. He’d never have thought such knowledge necessary, but the porter had assured him he really had last seen the Sixth Consul heading for the kitchens.

“He was talking about biscuits,” the man had said, bemused. Ryennkar had closed his eyes, briefly intoned a prayer to a god he had no personal belief in, then taken both his directions and a small lantern on his journey downward.

The deeper he descended, the darker it became; at such an inhospitable hour most of the gas-lamps burned low or not at all. Yet when he finally heard signs of life deep in one of the central kitchens, a lively humming more suited to noon than the deepest hours of night, he slowed his step and clicked the lantern off.

Making no attempt to announce himself, Ryennkar took a seat at the end of the long table nearest the stoves. Only one had been fired, each coal a bright ember in the dark; otherwise, only a single gas-lamp gave the scene any illumination. It appeared not to disturb the man as he bent forward to stir the coal with the poker. In silhouette, in profile, he was as striking a figure as ever. He straightened, pushed his hair back; he’d rolled his sleeves up, and his open collar revealed skin both vulnerable and familiar. Caught up in his work, returning to the bowl he’d set upon the edge of the stove, he paid Ryennkar no heed whatsoever. He sighed and balanced his chin upon one hand.

“What are you doing?”

Startled, the other man looked up. The great dark eyes blinked, expression as pensive and uncertain as a rabbit caught in the path of a fox. A second later his entire face lit up, the cheerful smile something like the creation of a universe in the darkness. “Oh…oh! I’m making biscuits.”

“Biscuits.” Ryennkar rolled the word around his mouth, still didn’t find its shape sensible nor practical. “Arosek, there are people who can make biscuits for you.”

He blinked again. “They’re asleep.”

“So do you not think maybe you should be, too?”

“You’re not asleep.”

“I’ve only just arrived.”

Arosek didn’t react to the growing tension of Ryennkar’s words, only shrugging at logic that could not be argued with. He then wiped at his forehead with the back of his hand, his whole face lightly sheened with sweat. “Would you like to try some?”

The wooden spatula extended towards him, a small lump of dough perched on the end. Ryennkar could only stare at it. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Arosek capable of baking. He was the sort of person who could be good at anything, if he wanted to be. Yet still it seemed absurd.

Arosek frowned. “Don’t you want it?”

“Since when do you know how to cook?”

“I can survive on my own,” he said, wry as he withdrew the spoon, returning both dough and attention to his stirring. “Much as you doubt it, sometimes.”

“You say that,” Ryennkar said slowly, lacing his fingers together, “yet I find you baking biscuits for no reason hours before dawn on the day of the Assembly’s summoning.”

“Is that why you’re here? Because you think I need someone to look after me?”

He’d turned, ceased his movements to give this indignant reply – but Ryennkar could see the pleasure beneath it, too. It only made him sigh.

“No.” And his gaze skipped downwards again, where the long line of his throat slipped beneath the collar of his shirt. “I just came to see you.”

“All right, then,” Arosek said, and with a little skip to his step he reached over, retrieved a tray from a nearby bench. “I couldn’t sleep. That’s why I’m down here.” He flicked the spoon in his direction, again both amused and irritated. “And I do know how to cook, thank you.”

Some part of him wanted to ask how and when he’d learned; Ryennkar himself certainly had no recollection of the man ever doing anything of the sort when they’d been children, either during termtime at Truron or upon the few occasions he’d accompanied him home to his family estate at Wendar. But then, when he thought now of that great half-empty house and the long hours his friend had been left to himself within its walls, he thought maybe he understood.

That same friend was now taking the dough and rolling it between his palms, somehow both careful and careless in his actions. Ryennkar stood and stepped forward without a word. Arosek blinked up, surprised, but Ryennkar did not stop. With long fingers he reached out to catch him lightly around his wrist. Those wide eyes stayed on his and the other man made no motion to break the hold – not even when Ryennkar inclined gently forward and pressed Arosek’s fingers, slick with butter and the remnants of the dough, against his own lips.

“Oh, so you are hungry, then?” he asked, and even though he smiled still Ryennkar caught the tremor in his voice.

“Always.” His own smile began to curl upward, deeply flavoured and seasoned with promise as he met Arosek’s gaze. A flicker of tongue, a trace of warmth from tip to knuckle, and the other man’s breath hitched. “Delicious.”

“I…” He wavered, but Ryennkar knew he was already lost even as he looked to the stoves with half-panic in his eyes. “They’ll burn,” he said, finally, faint. And Ryennkar only snorted.

“They’re not even in the oven.” This time, when he leaned forward, his lips brushed instead against the warm shell of Arosek’s ear. “Is is even hot enough yet?”

He drew back. Something close to a dozen different expressions warred their way across his face, and Ryennkar wondered if he hadn’t read this recipe wrong. Then with sudden finality Arosek pushed the bowl aside. Hopping up onto the table he tilted his head and opened his arms wide to accept the aid of another.

“Yes,” he said, and pulled himself free of the apron. “I think it’s hot enough, now.”

*****

After posting that, I have this mental image of my poor mother burying her head in her hands and wailing “Oh Claire, can’t you write something with a girl in it?”

Yes. Yes, I could.

A Little Something For The Ladies

“Don’t slump, Nan, it’s unbecoming.” Then, added with the subtle yet distinct horror of a born fashionista: “It’s also going to wrinkle your dress something terrible. Think of the lace! It’s Ivernian.”

“Oh, what does it matter?” Scowling, Nan slinked even deeper into her chair and contemplated disappearing. “I’d look like a monkey in ball gown no matter where the damn lace was woven!”

“No, the silk comes from Ivern, the needlework is done in Gerat – and I didn’t realise you’d ever seen a monkey in a ball gown.”

And the only reason Nan didn’t choose that moment to vanish was simply because it would have been to avoid Alara – and she was the only person in the vicinity who could have stopped her. Instead she just dropped her eyes to glare at her embroidered napkin. “Huh. You have no idea what I’ve seen.”

In the silence that fell, Nan refused to look up; with arms crossed, she thinned her lips and let the low hum of the tea-rooms do the work for her. Then, the other woman sighed.

“Please, Nan.” One hand reached across the table, a delicately gloved hand resting on her lower arm. “Can’t we just have one civilised afternoon together?”

“Civilised?” Nan glanced upward, half in despair. “Honestly, Al, what does this really matter?”

Her face, as lovely and grave as any cameo carved in ivory, did not move. Yet Nan felt guilt begin to coagulate, low in her abdomen, even before Alara chose her careful words.

“It matters to me.”

“But why?” Nan rubbed her eyes, looked down at her fingertips to see she’d got the shimmering shadow all over the tips of her kid gloves. Cursing, she dropped her hands to her lap, held them there as she met Alara’s impassive stare. “I mean, sure, you make a better lady than I do. You always will. But you’ve usually got a sword strapped to your hip and I know you’ve not given up your twin daggers just to sit down in here…and you and I both know you’ve probably got half a dozen other blades hidden gods-know-where even in that ridiculous dress! And yet you’re all up for looking like we’re two silly twits out for tea? What’s the bloody point?”

Alara remained still as stone, spoke only one word. “Nan.”

Immediately she dipped her head, ashamed; it wasn’t as if Alara had activated the compulsion, as knight could always do to their magian, but then she hadn’t needed to. Nan knew she was in the wrong, no matter how reluctant she was to co-operate. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be.” She reached for the teapot, the feathers upon her neat little hat bobbing elegantly with every movement. “If you keep behaving like that, you won’t be allowed any cake.”

Nan sat up straight. “But that’s the only reason I agreed to this!”

“Is it?”

Pausing now, on the verge of pouring, Alara gave her an incurious look. In reply, Nan sighed, leaned back in her chair. Much as she would have preferred an argument, she could not embarrass Alara, not here. “No.”

“I’m glad,” she said, pleasant; she moved the pot forward. “More tea?”

“I really don’t like tea.”

She sighed. “Please, Nan.”

“Why, will I get the cake if I try?”

“Mmm.” Even though the little teapot was heavier than it seemed, Alara’s calm expression showed no strain as she tilted her head, deep in thought. “Actually, I was thinking I might let you see if you can locate the rest of the blades under my bodice.”

Nan’s eyes widened. “What, here?”

“Of course not.” Then her lips, deep crimson and perfectly set, curved upwards in the most delicate and welcoming of smiles. “I was rather thinking of the powder-room, myself.”

Her eyes skipped sideways, then back. It never ceased to amaze her, how something as simple as a smile could transform that beautiful face from an elegant aristocrat’s to that of a cheerful young woman. There was no decision to be made. She held out her cup. “I’ll have the whole pot, thanks.”

Though it was quiet, hidden behind a hand, Nan still heard the lady-knight of Sai’Ona laugh as she carefully filled the tiny teacup. As she then busied herself with refilling her own, Nan raised it to her lips and shook her head.

“And here I was, thinking you were such the lady.”

“I’m all woman,” she said, soft and sincere, and with a snort Nan raised her tea-cup.

“Cheers to that.”

“Slowly, dear,” she reprimanded, but her smile had turned low, and secret; something just between them, even in the crowded tearooms. “You want to savour it. It makes the taste so much better.”

“I suppose you’d know?”

Alara gave no answer. She merely smiled over the rim of her cup and took a long sip of her own. And for the first time that afternoon, Nan looked forward to learning more about being a lady of the land.

*****

…I think I owe someone an apology. Heh. But to complete my little trilogy of rainy days and comfort seeking, I have one last couple to go. Unfortunately this turned deeply melancholy on me, but I’m hoping there’s enough hope in there to make it happy.

Thought of You

“Could you stop the rain, if you wanted to?”

“Should I?”

He traced a finger through the dust on the window, leaving a serpentine curve in its wake. “Would you not want to?”

“There’s a balance, in these things.” Entering the study fully, she came to where he had folded himself into the windowseat. As she perched beside him the long skirts of her gown swirled about her like a whirlpool. “Yes, I could stop the rain. But should I?”

“Would you?” he insisted, and she shook her head.

“This is starting to sound a lot like semantics.” Though the conversation had barely begun she had decided to end it; pushing up from her place at his side, she turned as if to leave. He missed her even before she had gone, and though he did not want to reach out with a hand, he stopped her with a word.

“Círa?”

Her reluctance was revealed in how quickly she turned back. “Yes?”

“Are you angry with me?”

She stared at him for so long he felt ridiculous for having asked. But when her expression softened, her lips twisted in a wry smile, he knew he’d been right to do it. “No. I’m not.”

“It sounds like you are.” A crease appeared in her brow, and he shook his head, went on. “I don’t want it to be this way. Rylea could never cope with my work – but after everything I thought that you would.”

“Or that I should?” she asked, sharp, and he couldn’t help but parry.

“What was it, that you were saying about semantics?”

She closed her eyes, briefly. Already he regretted it; his life was too short to waste in arguing with her over things that could not be changed in either of them. Then she opened her eyes, her own decision made. Without words, with the rain to accompany the rhythm of her bare feet, she returned to him. Sliding into the space at his side she wound her arms around his waist and laid her head against his chest.

“Círa?”

“She had a point, I think.” Her voice was muffled, her lips the movement of butterfly feet against his skin even through the thin cotton of his shirt. “She just wanted you. Whatever time you could have together, she thought she should take it, hold it, never let it go.” And she sighed, her face hidden by the spiralling dark curls of her hair. “Is that really so strange, that she would?”

His arms went about her in turn, held her closer. The rain outside continued to beat a light staccato against the dusty glass. No, he thought, it is not so strange. There was no need to say it aloud – it lay between them as it always did, a shadow and a shroud yet to fall. He would always have her. But she would not always have him.

“But would you stop the rain, if you could?” he asked, soft, and she moved her body deeper into the curve of his.

“Even if I should, it doesn’t mean that I would.”

“Because there’s a balance to these things?”

“It’s the way things are,” she murmured, and somehow, he smiled.

“So let’s just stay this way,” he returned. “I don’t have to go anywhere, not right now.”

She gave no answer in words. All she had to offer in that moment was her warm body, heavy with the scent of the sea. He welcomed her presence without reservation. The rain still fell beyond their window, relentless and cool – but they were sheltered by the glass. And as he bent his head to press a kiss to her lips, he figured that it should be, could be, would always be enough to remind him that behind the clouds, the sun would still shine.

*****

Hilariously, as I was working on these stories my sister messaged me on facebook and demanded I make her Belgium slice as she had a craving. It seemed to sit so well with the general theme of the afternoon that I did so. But I’m away from my well-stocked and well-applianced kitchen, and ended up using a can of Guinness as a make-shift rolling pin. A can of Guinness. I’m wondering if this grants me automatic Irish citizenship, actually.

…god bless you, Guinness.