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The Upstairs Archives

~ A random repository of how-to-write and geekery, with an occasional snippet of accidental wisdom.

The Upstairs Archives

Tag Archives: original stories

I Have Loved the Stars Too Fondly

25 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales from Selay'uu, Tales of a Wandering Bard, Uncategorized

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

a tale of two cities, a wrinkle in time, baroness emma orczy, c.s. forester, charles dickens, doctor who, horatio hornblower, j.r.r. tolkien, madeleine l'engle, original stories, short stories, star wars, the lord of the rings, the scarlet pimpernel

Call this a tribute to all my favorite characters–I was thinking back on all my favorites and I noticed that my very favorite characters all tried and failed at some point, but kept on trying. Their victories were by no means constant, and their successes were not always total.

So here is my tribute to Horatio Hornblower, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Martin the Warrior, the Doctor (though this sounds much more like Eight than like Eleven), Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Charles Wallace Murray, Meg Murray, Sydney Cotton, and all my other favorite characters.

Enjoy.


They all pity me. I can tell.

I’ve got all the scars and bruises and broken bones I earned by my trouble, I skirt the edge of madness, and sometimes I seem to be invisible.

Sometimes, they ask me why I’m like this.

“It couldn’t be helped,” I say.

After all, if I told them the full truth, they wouldn’t stop to listen.

Sometimes, when you reach out to touch the stars, you fall and fall hard. Not all your leaps of faith will be successes.

Of course, since they pity me, they’d never see the truth. The truth is this: I tried. I did my best and sometimes it just wasn’t enough. Reduced to this shell of a man as I am in their eyes, they would only see the futility of the struggle. Never its nobility.

The very core of the truth, condensed and concentrated, is that I do not regret one moment.

I do not grudge one bruise, one scar; not the shattered bones or the bleeding knuckles or broken skin. If I had my live to live all over, I’d do it all again. I’d risk it all. I’d step out without knowing if I had a safety net. I’d run farther and fight harder without knowing if I’d win or not. I would seize every chance, take every risk in hope.

I have lived more fully than any of them. The path of least resistance is not one that is by any means enviable. It’s safe, certainly—but it is not satisfying. Not to me, in any case.

I would not give up one second of this. I do not regret one moment of this.

Some things are worth failing for.

A Few Updates and Current Projects

20 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Uncategorized

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

life, original stories, steampunk, writing

Hey, everyone! It’s been a while since I posted, so I thought I’d give you all a sneak peak of what I’ve been working on! 😉


The hatch that sealed off the bridge was locked. Meghan was a little bit shocked to see Pennon take out a series of lock picks and try them on the lock, then select one and proceed to work on the lock more intently. He nodded to Meghan, who readied her strikers. Pennon threw open the door and rushed into the room.

It was a fairly typical bridge with a cluster of instruments and controls. However, at the far end of the room, grouped around the wheel, stood a group of strange figures with their backs to them. They somehow struck Meghan as strange and unnatural, their bearing awkward and stiff. Pennon somehow didn’t seem fazed. He walked forward and whirled one of the strange figures around. “Excuse me…”

Meghan cried out in fear and surprise. The face was distorted, immobile. A moment later, she realized it was a mask. She swallowed hard. Clockwork automatons. Pennon frowned.

The automatons turned around slowly, gears clicking. One of them stepped forward, the movement bizarre and unnatural. Pennon unsheathed his rigging knife and held it in one hand, his strikers in the other. Long, jagged blades, whirling gears rolling their centers, jutted away from the automatons’ hands. Pennon dropped into a crouch, beckoning with the blade. Meghan swallowed. The automatons stepped forward, hesitantly, their cogs grinding. “Use your knife to keep them away from you, and your strikers to disable them,” Pennon instructed. “Aim for the head, neck, joints. If you can hit them square in the center of the chest, that disables the spring mechanism, but you have to be quick and hit hard.”

“Right,” Meghan said, her voice high, frightened. Pennon glanced halfway round and gave her a quick smile.

“I didn’t intend to drop you into the deep quite so soon. I’m sorry.” Meghan swallowed.

“Right. Okay.”

“I’ll do my best to keep them away from you.” With that, Pennon leaped forward, dealing the first automaton a rapid uppercut that sent it staggering back without coordination.


In other news, classes start on Monday and I feel not at all ready. *sigh* It’s hard to believe that summer is over already.

Now Turns the Rolling of the Years

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Tales of a Wandering Bard

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

completed stories, cuteness, doctor who, eight is adorable and no one can deny it, fanfiction, humor, original stories, short stories

Now Turns the Rolling of the Years

                New Year’s Day, the year of Our Lord 2000, San Francisco. Just after midnight.

As Chang Lee ran off, the Doctor gave Grace a slightly shy smile. “It’s a bit cold for California, isn’t it?” he asked apologetically. Grace couldn’t help laughing.

“It’s just after midnight, and it’s winter time,” she pointed out. The Doctor slid out of the borrowed frock coat and draped it over her shoulders. It fit her just about as well as it did him.

“Maybe… before I go… would you like to get some hot chocolate?” he asked, hopefully, absently tucking a lock of chestnut hair behind one ear. Grace couldn’t find the heart to deny that wide-eyed, innocent look.

“Where are we going to find hot chocolate in the small hours of the morning on New Year’s Day?” she replied, not wanting to dash his hopes. The Doctor shrugged. The cool air didn’t seem to bother him at all, in shirtsleeves and vest as he was.

“I don’t know yet,” he said with a laugh, and offered her his arm.


 

Small groups of people made their way through the streets, cheering and blowing on party horns. At one street corner, Grace awkwardly accepted a pointed party hat that proudly read “2000” from an older man who seemed to be determined to make sure that everyone was enjoying themselves. The Doctor looked in dismay at his own small plastic top hat. “I need bobby pins,” he announced to the whole street. Grace winced, but fortunately no one took any notice. She took the hat from him.

“Here, let me show you how it’s done…” She snapped the elastic under his chin, tipping the hat at a jaunty angle. Tugging on the elastic to keep it from biting into his skin, the Doctor gave her a look of pure horror.

“You can not be serious,” he pronounced solemnly. Grace had to swallow down a laugh. The Doctor took the hat off and handed it to a young woman who happened to be passing by. “Humans are so strange,” he said. This time, Grace couldn’t help but laugh.

The next street over, they met with a group of drunks who, while harmless enough, tried to take them along with them. They ran through the snowless streets, the Doctor laughing merrily and Grace struggling to keep up. It was too easy to evade their pursuers.

Around the next corner was a small shop, still open, though there was no one inside. They stepped inside to catch their breath, and the girl at the counter, who had been dozing, started awake to the jingle of the bell. “Are you alone sleeping in this city of wakeful revelers?” the Doctor asked her, in fine dramatic style. The girl blinked at him, as if she thought she was dreaming still.

“What can I get for you tonight?” she asked, yawning. “We’re all out of most things, but we might be able to rustle something up.”

“Do you have hot chocolate?” the Doctor asked. Grace blinked at him. She’d forgotten the reason for their expedition. The girl nodded.

“It’ll be a moment. I have to heat up the milk.”

“May we come into the kitchen?” the Doctor asked mildly. Grace poked him.

“That’s rude,” she said firmly. The Doctor gave her a startled look. The girl raised her hand placatingly, yawning.

“It’s too late—or too early—for manners,” she said. “It’s warmer back there anyway. Come on.”

The kitchen was clean, neat, and utterly unremarkable, but cosy—a home kitchen made over for commercial purposes. An old-fashioned cross-stitch circle hung on one wall, proclaiming “Remember to Smile!” in bright colors. The girl yawned again as she stepped into the industrial refrigerator, emerging with a gallon of reduced-fat milk. She produced dark chocolate powder and crushed peppermints from a pantry.

“Not much business for a late night,” the Doctor observed. The girl yawned, once more.

“There never is,” she said. “But tonight they’re all at the bars. Which is nice, but I’d still rather go home. I was planning to sleep rather than wait for the ball to drop—until I got called in to work, of course.” Grace mouthed ‘I told you so’ at the Doctor. He gave her a wide-eyed look that clearly said ‘I found us somewhere with hot chocolate, didn’t I?’

“What’s your name?” the Doctor asked. The girl blinked at him, her hand frozen with the measuring spoons halfway out of the chocolate box. She smiled.

“Kaitlyn. Though, you could have looked at the name tag,” she said.

“I had to wear one of those for half a day once, years ago, back home,” the Doctor said conversationally. “There’s nothing quite as hearts-stopping as being addressed by your own name by people you don’t know at all. In the end I switched it for one with a name I’d made up. It was less terrifying that way.” Grace blinked. Here she’d been pumping the Doctor for any meaningful scrap of information about himself ever since she’d started talking to him, and now he gave the cashier at a little shop more than he’d given her the entire time. Kaitlyn smiled. “I’m the Doctor, by the way,” the Doctor said gently. Not to be outdone, Grace smiled her brightest.

“And I’m Grace.”

“You’ve got good taste,” Kaitlyn said, smiling at both of them. “Best hot chocolate in San Francisco—though I might be biased.” The Doctor laughed.

“Make that three cups, please,” he said. “My treat.”

On New Year’s Eve, Grace had met the most remarkable man she would ever know and had a bewildering adventure that no one would ever believe. On New Year’s Day, she sat in the back room of a small café, drinking hot chocolate with two people who might have been total strangers before, but whom she now felt as if she’d known all her life.

It was the little things in life, Grace realized, that she’d been missing all along; her love of opera, discovered anew (Kaitlyn was partial to Wagner), new friends, a cup of the best hot chocolate in San Francisco. They laughed together, sharing small stories and big dreams well past three o’clock.

On the last day of 1999, Grace Holloway had the biggest adventure of her life. On the first day of 2000, she had the second biggest.

She would never forget either one.


Hopefully you enjoyed my little New Years’ special!

It was inspired by the fact that the 1996 movie takes place around 1999/NewYear’s 2000, and is slightly AU to the end of the film. Not all adventures are scary!

Thanks for reading, thanks for sticking with me throughout 2015, and may God bless you in 2016!

See you all in the new year! 😀

 

Escape

28 Monday Dec 2015

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales of a Wandering Bard, Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

c.s. forester, completed stories, doctor who, fanfiction, horatio hornblower, original stories, science fiction, short stories, yaaaay bush is awesome

I’m supposed to be working on the script for our Doctor Who fan production. Shame on me. But Paul McGann plays both the Doctor (the eighth one) and Lieutenant Bush and Bush in the movies just has this sort of wry, understated humor that was absolutely fantastic and I was sort of daydreaming and then this plot bunny came up. (Hornblower and Bush make such a dynamic team and are such awesome friends and if you dare to disagree with me I will find you and feed you to the Kraken.)

If you were wondering, this actually references some events from the books but is closer to the movies for characterization.

I give you: the Hornblower final frontier resistance AU you never knew you wanted! Late merry Christmas (and especially you, WriteFury! 😉 )


Escape

                I am determinedly angry today.

I would say I’ve never been this angry in my life before, but I’ve been angrier. There were bullies in the group home I grew up in and I learned righteous anger early. I still haven’t learned prudence, it seems.

But this morning I woke up, remembered, and decided to hold on to that anger. I am not going to die of gangrene here. There is no British Empire any more, and some would argue that there’s no reason to fight any more. That’s another thing I always have been, though—stubborn. Stubborn as an Old Earth mule.

I wouldn’t know an Old Earth mule if one fell on me out of an apple tree—which is another thing I have never seen. Child of the Frontier, me. Born and abandoned on Proxima Centauri X, the planet no one bothered to name, just numbering it after its star. I don’t even know if I’m remotely British in extraction. But the cause sounded right to me, and that’s why I’m here, right now—William Bush, Third Lieutenant of the HMS Resistance—before it was destroyed. Not even a citizen. And now a prisoner of war. Though Napoleon’s new Empire—New France, though it’s really only a pretense at a culture no one really remembers any more—wouldn’t call it that. To them, we’re anarchist upstarts.

The door creaks open and I look up, though there’s really only one person it could be. It’s a two-room suite in a prison that used to be a hotel, and the front room door has been sealed for the past few weeks, ever since they threw us in here and forgot about us. It’s not so bad… except that Horatio keeps banging on that front door and shouting that we need a doctor.

He might as well not waste his strength or wear his voice out. There is no one coming. The men out there—our jailers—aren’t even military men. They don’t have the same ancient code that we try to uphold. No civilian really understands a soldier. It’s a basic truth of the universe. Their security systems—stolen and smuggled out of Ganymede, no doubt—are good, but nothing else about this place is. They probably haven’t even posted regular guards. Horatio’s clever and I have almost twenty-four years of experience. We’ll find a way out of here.

Just as soon as my leg heals and provided I can fight off any infections that I’ll doubtless contract with no medical care.

Horatio Hornblower, twenty-three, from the Mars colony. Absolutely British, right down to the core. If I’m fighting because the cause was one I could believe in, he’s fighting for his home and the memory of his family. Not that he ever talks about them, but he had one. His father was a doctor who knew a Captain Keene, and I guess it must have seemed like the thing to do at the time.

He’s looking at me now. What is that expression? Is it concern or pity? I don’t want pity. I have no use for it.

“How are you doing?”

It’s almost like he’s never seen an injured man before. No, that’s not entirely accurate. This was… a friend, I guess, though we sort of empathized with each other, in passing—this is the first time we’ve ever had a sustained conversation. It’s rather pathetic, really—almost like he’s never had an actual friend in his life. Or like he’s not quite sure what he’d do if he found one.

“I’m going to heal, and we’re going to escape,” I say firmly. He nods, doubtfully.

“It looks bad.”

“I’m still going to survive. I’ve decided I’m not dying here, and I’m not about to change my mind.” That surprises a sort of snort out of him, and it’s a little bit funny.

“You know, there were veterans of the Taurus civil war, back at home… On Earth, they make prostheses. Good ones, too,” Horatio says hesitantly. I give him a level look.

“I hacked their Ethernet on our first day here. Those get bugs on almost a daily basis. No, I’m going with wood—something I can rely on. I am going to learn to walk again.” There’s a sort of admiration in his smile.

“How long do you think you’ll be?” he asks, sounding a bit less awkward, a bit more considerate, a bit more compassionate, and much more human. He sits down—backwards—on one of the ladder-backed chairs and laces his fingers, resting them on the top slat and his chin on them, brown eyes boring into me. I smile.

“I can’t say exactly, but I’m determined that it’s going to be less than a week,” I say firmly. He smiles.

“I have an idea for us to escape.”

Gallery

Art Dump

03 Friday Apr 2015

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Artwork, Living Life with Passion, Story Dynamics, Tales from Selay'uu, Tales of a Wandering Bard

≈ 24 Comments

Tags

angels' reflections, artwork, avengers, candles, captain america, dragons, fantasy, how to train your dragon, leaves, marvel, novels, original stories, original work, sketch dumps, star wars

This gallery contains 19 photos.

Apparently I have a lot of art I’ve completed over a number of weeks and haven’t uploaded, for some reason. …

Continue reading →

Bound to the Flame, Chapter IV, Part I

29 Thursday May 2014

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Bound to the Flame, Tales of a Wandering Bard

≈ 70 Comments

Tags

bound to the flame, original stories, original work, stories in progress

Erin should not ramble around, trolling other people’s blogs like a zombie, making no sense whatsoever, at nine p.m. her time.

Erin should not ramble around, trolling other people’s blogs like a zombie, making no sense whatsoever, at nine p.m. her time.

Erin should not ramble around, trolling other people’s blogs like a zombie, making no sense whatsoever, at nine p.m. her time.

Whew, that’s done with! (I promised Sheikah last night after posting a VERY rambling comment about hoods, animation models, video games, and special effects. Yeah… that’s going to be an INTERESTING conversation… *wince*)

Once again, Erin is back with more Bound to the Flame! Rosalie: Please don’t worry. I am working on Battlefield of the Soul. Slowly but surely. I also have not given up on Shifting Tides in general. This is merely all the stuff for Bound to the Flame I had written already. It’s 30k long–and I haven’t even typed up everything yet!

Warnings: Some violence, emotional distress. It gets a bit intense, but hopefully not too bad.

Bound to the Flame

Chapter IV

Part I

                As he drew nearer to the ancient stone circle, this time Rowan could feel it drawing him in, seeking to ensnare him. This time, though, he was aware of it, and resisted its allure. To be of any help to Adyn, he had to remain conscious, aware. He could feel its power pulling at the edges of his mind, whispering a lisping siren song to all those who could hear it at all. Rowan threw off the cloying tendrils and moved faster.

Reality was warping now. Time bent and creased; might-have-beens played out in memory, flashing in and out of existence. His stomach twisted rebelliously at the vaguely unpleasant, unfamiliar sensation. His life played out, oddly different somehow.

Rowan snapped himself fiercely out of it and gasped softly at the synaptic snap of pain behind his temples and in his sinuses. If Adyn was experiencing this, he didn’t know what he could or should do. The boy was only half-trained!

Rowan moved faster. The strange currents carried him forward more rapidly, drawing him forward, murmuring to him. A pale mist rolled around the edges of his vision, but he had it under control. He wasn’t going to give in. He could feel the currents carrying him away, but he would break or be pulled under. This magic, though, felt strange—untouched, primal, raw, its breath far older—tangy, foreign—than anything Rowan had ever felt before. He shuddered as he felt it course through him. It was odd, and yet somehow familiar. He brushed the feeling off and focused himself, still wary of the curious energy, the strange raw surging of power. It murmured strange words to him, words with no meaning, words that still terrified him. It wanted him, though for what purpose he could not say. Cautiously, Rowan let it pull him towards its source, the nexus of its flow, faster and faster. All answers could be found within that curious ancient circle of standing stones.

Faster. Faster. Over the breast of this low knoll, leaping a stream, breathing steady. He did not grow tired. His leg did not pain him. The miles between him and his object were rapidly eaten up, in this strange dreamlike state where the elder energy bore him on. Speed did not bring exhaustion; movement was thought and done with nothing between the two. Indeed, it felt as if thought was motion. Long miles were not weariness. Time stretched out, and twisted confusingly. Rowan was glad for the fact that he was in control, not only because of his prior vision and the subsequent revelation, but because of the phantasms and wraiths that hovered on the edge of consciousness, waiting for the first slip to close in for the kill. The colorless mist rose slowly up again, clouding his eyes; Rowan fought it back down once more.

Then, suddenly, he was at the edge of the Cremlegged itself, with lightning cracking overhead, under a stormy sky.

Rowan jogged through the stones, weaving in and out between the huge monoliths and tall boulders. The stones pointed, ominous and threatening, toward the black sky. “Adyn? Adyn!” He dared not raise his voice above a low murmur. The stones whispered back, echoing, hollow, mocking. Adyn… Adyn… Adyn… The last dregs of the curious magic were slowly draining away, but as they lasted they bore him up, blocking any pain from his damaged leg. It felt almost euphoric, giddying, like a drug. Rowan did not particularly like—or trust—the feeling. To lose control was to unleash a storm on the world.

As he loped around the stones, their names echoed inside his mind. Courage. Honor. Hope. Premonition. Trial. Sacrifice. Dreaming. Waking. Service. Obedience. Command. Virgin dawn. Drawn-out nightfall. Pain. Freedom. Trust.

The last stone was cleft in two, riven to its base. Its two faces faced two ways: Past and Future. It was more ancient than any of the others; its name, Time. Between the two pillars of the riven stone was an empty space, empty in more than one sense of the word, and yet reverberating with power, the eternal presence, the moment in which men were given to act. Its ordained power was a terrible one, more terrible even than the immutability of the past, more terrible still than the most horrifying, ominous premonition of the future, and Rowan found himself instinctively shying away from the hollow, yawning void in the break of the twin pillars.

At the center of the ring of standing stones was a single, low, flat stone, its top and upper edge polished and worn by passing ages, crusted with lichen, carved with runes, overgrown by grass and moss—and it was stained threateningly dark. It whispered strange words directly into Rowan’s mind. He fell back from it, resisting.

He stumbled against the ancient, moldering gray stone of Trial. His fingers slipped into deep-carven runes, scrabbling against the roughness of the rock. He clung to the stone for support, struggling against the storm. The world seemed to have lost all stability. Rowan felt unmoored, weightless. The thunderous, ominous sky roiled overhead in lightning and clouds. The wind picked up suddenly, reminding him of his nonexistent, illusory control. It was developing into a maelstrom.

Again came the vision of the same precipice, but this time he was not climbing those malevolent, looming rocks alone. Margery was with him. Even as he watched, her foot slipped and she tumbled over the edge, catching herself only in the nick of time by grabbing the edge of the path’s ledge with both hands, and his vision-self was reaching down a hand toward her, calling out words he could not catch. They were carried away by the rising wind. The scene shifted. Margery and he were fighting against overwhelming odds, trying to fend off their enemies’ attacks. Margery fell, injured, and he limped to her side, attempting to turn aside the flood of black crows that crowded in on them. The vision changed again. His father and mother, Rheadwyn, Fortaine, Taryn, and many others belonging to the Ertraian clans were under attack from monstrous black-furred wolves. The wolves piled in on them, bringing them under. Rowan cried out, his voice one with the storm, feeding the gale. A dim figure, its face clouded by mist and shadowed by a dark hood, turned away from Rowan’s reflection in the vision, shunning him. He saw a twisted labyrinth; everyone who touched him fell. Melilana—Halbryn—his two foster brothers—even Adyn and Margery fell as though dead. He heard himself, faintly, as though from a great distance, crying out in denial, screaming in horror. The vision twisted, wrenched, turned inside out. He saw ghostly figures moving through the Cremlegge—some dark cult performing their arcane rituals. A young child was brought forward; Rowan closed his eyes. A beast—or perhaps a man—cried out as it, or he, was struck down. Rowan could not so much as move to interfere. Whatever the creature was, its blood now stained the low, ill-portended stone in the center of the Cremlegge. Rowan reached out, half-entranced, to one of the figures, his hand passing straight through it. Oddly enough, the figure reacted to him as well, flinching away from his touch. The warping threads and currents of power twisted out again and Rowan couldn’t contain his scream. It was ripped from his throat like an animal cry of pain. Now, walking around the other ghosts, who were beginning to withdraw, new ones, faintly outlined in shadow, as transparent as the others had been. Three children, fleeing in terror. Instinctively, Rowan reached out to aid them, but he could do nothing. They were not real—they were not present. Only as present as a dream. The children’s pursuers were already upon them. The youngest—a small girl—screamed. Lightning flew from the turbulent clouds above and smote among their persecutors, striking them down. They faded slowly away. More faded shouts and cries. This time, it was a group of full-grown wizards who sought refuge in the ancient circle of standing stones. However, their attackers were among them, slaying many, smiting them down as if they were no more than beasts. Rowan choked on his tears. A flash of light, and then the Wielders’ tormentors were fleeing in terror, eyes wide with madness. The unseen power of the place twisted and writhed once more, and Rowan was caught in the middle. He gasped at the churning, disorienting motions of the universal fabric. He cried out again. His grip was slipping. He was losing control.

Bound to the Flame, Chapter III, Part II

27 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Bound to the Flame, Tales of a Wandering Bard

≈ 26 Comments

Tags

bound to the flame, insanity, novels, original stories, original work, philosophy, stories in progress, theory

Sorry it has been so long. My life has been busy to the extreme of sanity. But I’m finally posting this again. Enjoy!

Warnings: None for this chapter. A lot of theory is discussed, and Adyn acts up. Nothing special. ;-P

Bound to the Flame

Chapter III

Part II

                Margery met Rowan in the chapel that morning, for prayers. She gave him a sidelong glance. It seemed that he wouldn’t be done for a long while; he was kneeling upright, hands folded demurely, large golden-hazel eyes turned slightly up toward the makeshift altar in the pavilion. The lights cascaded down over him in a golden shower of shifting, glittering dust motes, adding to the home-like atmosphere. Margery slid into a row of pews, kneeling down as she did, and shooting another sideways glance at Rowan. He looked as if he was exhausted, but drawing comfort and strength from this place.

After a long while, Rowan made the sign of the cross and rose. He picked up the stick that was resting against the pew beside him and made his way out of the makeshift chapel, struggling to genuflect. He limped slowly out of the tent and into the open. Margery followed. “I thought you were going to tutor Adyn…” she began.

“I am,” Rowan replied, “but only after we’ve had breakfast, and once we’re well within the woods. We don’t want any trouble. Meet us in the glade by the stream with the two standing rocks once you’ve eaten. That’s where we’ll have our classes.”

“All right. I’ll see you then,” Margery said.

 

Margery ate breakfast with her family and some of the other members of her clan and made her way into the woods as soon as she had finished. This was perfectly normal for her, so no one remarked on it. She followed the stream that ran through the encampment at Cremlegged, instinctively avoiding the forest on the side of the encampment that faced the ancient circle of standing stones in the woods beyond. She didn’t know why, but she dreaded to enter that ancient star wheel. She found her way easily to the glen Rowan had specified. Just as he had said, there was a stream flowing through an open glade with two large gray moss-covered, lichen-encrusted boulders at its head. She perched on one to wait, enjoying the sunny morning in the woods.

She was sitting there, as pre-arranged, on that same stone, when Rowan finally appeared, leaning heavily on his staff and shepherding a reluctant Adyn ahead of him. She rose, quickly. “What took you so long?” she asked.

“Adyn has a ritual of playing hide and go seek before magic lessons,” Rowan replied succinctly, with a little irritation evident in his breathless voice. Adyn grinned, unabashed, then he looked up at Margery with a look of awe.

“Are you a pixie?” he asked, eyes wide. Rowan groaned.

“That’s a marvelous way to start an awkward conversation, Adyn.” he reproved. Almost miraculously, the incorrigible, insufferable grin reappeared on Adyn’s face. Rowan sighed. “You’re impossible, obstreperous, and frustrating, and you’ll likely come to a bad end one of these days.” Rowan sighed and faced round to Margery. “Once in a blue moon, one word in three will get through to him. Not much more than that, though.” He sighed and gestured to the base of a nearby tree. “Shall we begin?” Margery stared at the huge—at least ten feet across—pixie ring that stood a few feet away, under the canopy of a spreading oak.

“Wouldn’t you rather use the pixie ring?” she asked. Rowan shrugged.

“Suit yourself, but you might as well make yourself comfortable,” he said, adding a slight emphasis on the last word. “We’re not doing magic practice today. Only theory. And mystique isn’t really worth much. There’s not much point in exhausting yourself just to sit in a circle of mushrooms.”

“That’s all it is?” Margery asked, disappointed.

“Quite everything,” Rowan replied. “Though some plants are thought to channel magic or have magical properties, mushrooms often just make you hallucinate. They have nothing to do with magic at all. In other words, they’re perfectly normal. There was a rumor, once, about mushrooms that could supposedly block a magic user’s abilities, but that’s just legend, with no substance that I know of. They just started calling those things pixie rings because someone thought that a toadstool would be a nice little place for a pixie to live. I don’t know why they would think that. It might make a nice place to hide under if you got caught outside in a downpour, but it would make a pretty poor seat or house in the long run. I think that pixies would really rather prefer trees, actually.” Feeling rather foolish, Margery sat down on a low stump nearby, and Rowan began the lesson.

“Much of modern magic theory is based on the work of Greek philosophers, such as Empedocles and Aristotle… you remember that much from last time, don’t you, Adyn?” The boy nodded. Rowan continued. “The Aristotelian theory of the elements states that there are not four, as in Empedocles’ theory, but five. The first four, which you probably already know, are earth, air, fire and water. The fifth Aristotle called ‘ether.’ He postulated that it was the material which made up the heavenly bodies, the stars, sun, comets, and planets. Maewyr the Great, whom we consider to be the first of the true Wielders, was the one to come up with the idea that the heavenly bodies were made up of similar materials and elements to Earth itself, and the fifth element, ‘ether’, was in fact, the essence of magic itself. All the work of later Wielders in theory is based off of his.

“According to Maewyr, the two classic elements most akin to magic are fire and air—air, because it is invisible, like magic is; only its effects are commonly seen and felt—and fire, because it is pure energy, just as magic is. Magical manipulation of the elements is a very large part of traditional magic, and more challenging than simple telekinesis or enhancement of the senses. Most people have an affinity for one, or two, but it takes training to effectively wield all five. Magic and fire are the two most difficult to use, as both are pure energy and as such are hard to control, but for the same reason they are the easiest to summon. It takes practice and experience with the elements to control plants and growth, and to learn to bend and summon light, which is considered the highest form of magic.

“Each element has an extension, or a separate form or continuation beyond itself. Some are both. The extension of fire is lightning. Water’s is ice. Earth’s is stone. Air’s continuation is rain.”

“Why rain?” Margery interrupted. Rowan looked at her, half-bewildered at having his discourse thus interjected.

“The air feels moist at times, does it not?” he asked. “And clouds come from the air, and rain comes from clouds. I think there is rain hanging suspended in the air at all times; it only falls occasionally, though.”

“Oh,” Margery said, subdued.

“Elemental storms are the most dangerous form of this kind of magic, especially since they can be so hard to master and remain in control of, and can be so easy to start in some circumstances.” Rowan continued. Adyn’s eyes wandered, following a butterfly across the pixie ring. Rowan sighed, frustrated. “And you’re not hearing a word of this, are you, Adyn?”

“Nope,” the boy said cheerfully. Rowan groaned.

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to turn him into the kingdom’s champion,” he confided to Margery. “The little scaramouch.” Margery looked surprised.

“He’s supposed to become the Champion?”

“Well, what did you expect? He’s too scatter-brained to be a Seneschal,” Rowan bemoaned.

“Then… why are you training him? No offense, but you’re just a kid like me. Younger, even. How old, exactly, are you, anyway?”

“Seventeen,” Rowan replied, scuffing in the dirt with the toe of one boot.

“I’m a year older than you, then,” Margery said. She glanced at Rowan, coyly. “I thought you were younger.” Rowan sighed.

“Everyone tells me that,” he said. Margery shrugged.

“So… why are you, of all people, training Adyn, then?” Rowan sighed.

“I think it’s partly because of… the accident… to keep my mind off things. Keep me from brooding.” Margery frowned.

“Accident?” she asked, uncomprehending.

“Your highness, I’m crippled.” Rowan said bluntly. Margery gasped, both her hands going to her mouth. Rowan carried on, ruthlessly. “I’m not so badly crippled that I’m helpless, but one of my legs is weaker than the other, and some days the pain is so bad I can’t even walk at all. Since I can’t always walk and ride, I can’t be a knight in the strict sense, so I teach instead.” He glanced around, to see Adyn attempting to sneak off. With a startling burst of speed, he caught the miscreant by the collar and dragged him back. “Where do you think you’re off to, wretch?” he asked. Adyn struggled helplessly.

“I can’t help it if you’re boring, can I?” he snipped back. Rowan shook him gently.

“You just want to sneak back and see what’s going on at the Gathering, don’t you?” he said, softly. “A Wielder does not seek adventure or excitement for their own sakes!”

“Yeah, well, maybe I don’t want to be a Wielder,” Adyn retorted. Rowan’s eyes widened and he dropped Adyn, taking a step back.

“How can you say such a thing?” he asked, horror-struck.

“I don’t want to spend my life stuck in some moldy old castle in Ertraia! I want to see the world and have fun!”

“Adyn, being a wielder is an honor and an ancient tradition, and you have the potential to be the greatest,” Rowan said. “You can’t just throw that away! You can not disregard the Call like that!”

“It’s my life,” Adyn said obstinately.

“You wouldn’t go back to what you had before my mother took you in,” Rowan pointed out threateningly.

“I was a baby,” Adyn said, his voice whiny, completely ignoring Rowan’s ominous tone. Rowan’s dark eyes flashed.

“How can you be so ungrateful? You have talent, Adyn, talent, and you could be greater if you tried harder, but no! You throw it away the first time you see fool’s gold! There’s a reason why it’s lying by the wayside, Adyn, and that’s because it’s worthless!” Rowan gestured to the stone upon which Adyn had previously been sitting. “Now, sit back down, and we’ll complete the lesson.” Adyn stepped away, shaking his head.

“No. Not anymore. I’m not doing this any more. I’m leaving!” Rowan gripped the staff.

“Adyn!” he called after the boy, but it was too late. Adyn dashed off, ignoring him, vanishing into the surrounding trees in a matter of seconds. Rowan moved to run after him; limping a few steps, he tripped over a tree root and fell, stumbling and falling flat on his face, sprawled across the soft, moist loam. He gasped in pain. “Adyn!” he called again, but Adyn was gone. Margery ran to his side and helped him to his feet. Rowan limped forward, leaning against a tree exhaustedly for a moment, drawing in a slow, painful breath. Margery moved with him, supporting his slender form.

“Rowan…” Margery began.

“No time—I have to find him!” Rowan replied, anxiously.

“No. Wait.” Margery said. “You can’t catch him by your own speed, Rowan. You have to use your wits. And before you can find him, you have to rest.” Rowan groaned.

“I have to find him soon,” he stressed. “You don’t know Adyn as I do. He’s going to try to run away. His response to anything that doesn’t go his way is to run. And here, he could run anywhere.”

“But he won’t run just anywhere,” Margery said. “You know him. You can make an educated guess as to where he’ll go. And I—Right now, I need answers.”

“’Need’ and ‘deserve’ are dangerous words,” Rowan said coldly. “It would be both arrogant and shallow to take your high birth for granted, Your Highness.” Margery dashed his icy words aside as if they were so many annoying insects.

“I may not know Adyn, Rowan, but I do know humankind.” Rowan stiffened.

“And you’re saying that I do not?” he asked dangerously.

“Adyn didn’t really mean everything he said to hurt you,” Margery carried on, brashly ignoring him. “He… well, to be harshly accurate, he feels interest in me, almost fascination. He was showing off in front of me, trying to impress me. You were just an unintended victim caught in the crossfire, nothing more.”

“Do other boys act like this?” Rowan asked.

“Yes, I think it’s part of their natural disposition. Hormones are terrible things.” Rowan groaned.

“Why does Adyn have to pick someone twelve years older than himself to develop an attraction to? Sometimes I swear he’s just doing it all on purpose to give me grief.”

“Haven’t you ever had a crush on someone?” Margery asked. Rowan looked confused. “Puppy love. You know.” Rowan frowned, still confused.

“No, never.”

“Maybe it has something to do with you being so short,” Margery mused. Rowan dismissed the comment as unintelligible, walking slowly off, leaning heavily on his staff. “I’ll help you look for him,” Margery offered, running after him. Rowan paused and turned, a look of relief on his thin, narrow face.

“You will?” he said, tawny dark eyes deeply grateful. “Thank you.”

“Where would he go?” Margery asked, catching up. Rowan looked throughtful.

“When he’s having fun, he generally hides where he thinks I’ll never find him, but when he’s mad or upset, there’s no telling where he’ll go. He might even consciously put himself into danger of some kind, just to spite me.”

Margery nodded. “Where did he come from?” she asked. “I heard you say that your mother took him and his mother in.” Rowan sighed.

“Years ago, his mother came to us. She was a an orphan, and had been chased from her home by accusations of sorcery, though she was not a magic user in actuality. She was about sixteen, then. My mother offered her work in the royal household, and she took care of me when I was little. Eventually, she left us to get married. A few years after that, she came back. Her husband had been murdered by sea raiders. She took care of me, again, after I was injured two years ago. Adyn was a child at the time. He doesn’t remember anything about the sea raiders’ attack, and he doesn’t understand. He’s a volatile child. I’m afraid of what he’ll do when he’s a bit older, old enough to be interested, anyway, and finds out what really happened to his father. But, when he’s upset, he runs to his mother, she’s the only parent he’s ever known…” Suddenly, Rowan froze.

“His mother—that’s it! Margery, he could be in one of two places. One is with his mother. Hurry back to the encampment of Clan Caerlen and ask around for Taryn. If Adyn is there, with her, well and good. If not, tell her I’ll find him.” The determined ring in Rowan’s voice said he would brook no argument. Margery nodded and set off to find the mysterious Taryn. Rowan headed off into the deeper woods—toward the circle of the Cremlegged.

 

Hello? Anyone out there?

21 Friday Mar 2014

Posted by erinkenobi2893 in Story Dynamics, Tales of a Wandering Bard, Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

accidents happen, angels' reflections, camp nanowrimo april 2014, dystopian fiction, keyboard, laptop, laptop returned, nanowrimo, national novel writing month, original stories, story dynamics

Preparation for Nanowrimo Camp: FUN! 😀 Is anyone else super excited? I sure know I am!!!

Okay, so I’m working on the same project as I have been last year for the past two camps and hoping to complete it this time. As soon as I get my laptop back, I’ll start preliminary editing. This is why I love first drafts: you can mess with them as much as you like and see what works best. (I’m addicted to everything Microsoft Word. Did you notice? :-P)

Okay, that first bit was written before my laptop came back. I am currently writing this on my laptop! YAY! 😀

So, besides announcing camp… I have a laptop return to announce! Yay!

Well, recently I’ve been working on getting together the camp workshop, using these blog posts… I think that this blog is like journal keeping for me. I have an obligation to write, since I’m writing for people. Keeping a journal just for myself feels sort of counter-intuitive. Thus, I write my blog more than my diary. It’s almost like I’m keeping a record of all my most pertinent discoveries, and not just for myself, so it keeps me accountable.

I will be continuing my camp project of April and July 2014 that I failed to complete in November. In this chapter of the Angels’ Reflections saga, we meet a whole new group of characters, the Shape-Shifters of Kalya: Karyll, the Raven; Verun, the Wolf; Nadya, the Falcon; and Beckra, the Bear. These four are the only survivors of a genocide against the Shape-Shifters’ race, and play well into the dystopian theme of the previous stories, since they are different from the other people of the world, they want more than simply what they are given, they live under a brain-washing government that promises a utopia, but doesn’t properly deliver… I could take all day listing the reasons why they fit! 😉

Verun, especially, will share a special bond with the Binders, Jay and Aliana: All three of them possess powers that they don’t fully understand, all three of them have a special destiny to complete, and all three of them are questions that have never been posed before.

This is it. This is the final battle for both Elayatar and Kalya. There is nowhere to turn, nowhere to run. Sides must be taken. There is no going back from this moment.

All roads lead here.

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