Ramblings of a madman

Chapter 0

Tue, 21 Nov 2006 14:23:10 GMT

Several weeks previously

Ranye felt the pounding throb of the wakeup call in her temples and willed it to go away. Her parents had said that the alarm would begin to get stronger as her powers developed, and that this was a good thing because otherwise she’d soon be a lazy teenager that spent all morning in bed. Ranye was okay with that. Right now, she’d settle for a few minutes in the downy embrace of her pillow. But she knew that the pain would only get worse until she got up, so she didn’t bother.

It was Elnaday, the one day in the week that kids had off from school yet parents did not have off from work. This made it a childcare nightmare, and a child’s paradise. Ostensibly, there was a large childcare industry for all families wealthy enough to pay for it. In reality, there were never enough workers for all the demand, and even if families did pay for it, the harried babysitters would let their charges run amok without paying any attention. Ranye’s parents hadn’t bothered with it since she was seven. Not worth the money, they said.

Today, Ranye had plans to meet some friends and go explore a factory that Ranye had run across in her wanderings last week. Technically, it wasn’t trespassing, since it was owned by her dad. But Ranye suspected that neither he nor his security guards would appreciate a pack of tweens running around, and therein lay the fun of it. She had found a secret way in, and the challenge was to explore as much as they could without getting caught.

Now fully awake, Ranye hopped out of bed and headed over to her closet. She had an outfit for every possible occasion in here. Ranye was one of those girls who claimed not to be interested in fashion, but this was a big lie, told to make it seem even more impressive when she came in to school wearing clothes that her friends had only read about. Her father indulged her. He had money; there was no way his daughter would be shabbily dressed, unless, of course, she wanted to be.

Today was one of those days. They’d be going through areas where the latest designer fashions would certainly attract unwanted attention, so she was looking to dress down. Also, a dress just wouldn’t cut it – she’d be climbing over all sorts of things, and there was no sense in putting on a show for people. She ended up selecting a pair of “casually ripped” jeans and a nondescript top.

She headed off to her bathroom to hop in the shower. As she undressed, she glanced at her nearly-flat-but-not-quite chest in the mirror. She had mixed feelings about that. On one hand, she couldn’t care less about boys, and would rather they not take notice of her. On the other, if they did take notice of her, it would make her so much popular with the girls.

Ranye had always been at or near the top of the social heap. Her family had money and pedigree, she did well in school (and particularly well in the magical subjects), she was always impeccably dressed, and she tried not to as much of a backstabbing bitch as some of the other girls who vied with her for the title. But lately some of the other girls had been getting all the invitations, the whispered giggles. Many of them had full-fledged breasts, and all the attention that went with them. Rumor had it that Elniara Davyndred had even been caught letting a boy feel them. Elniara had always been near the middle of the social heap, but the mere act of letting a boy put his grubby paws on her had catapulted her to the center of every conversation.

Ranye almost wished she had had an older sister. She’d be somebody to talk things like this over with – it’s not like Ranye could go to her parents and ask “Do you think my boobs are growing?” But alas, Ranye was an only child. Most of the time she liked it, but sometimes it did get lonely.

At least she had several friends, she thought as she let the water run down her body. Well, maybe. At this age, friendships always seemed to come and go. Ranye wondered how many of her friends would stick by her if she suddenly became an outcast. Probably none of them. She’d be left with the other outcasts.

She finished up and got dressed, taking the opportunity to practice drying herself off with magic. It worked for her almost every time now – she was becoming almost as good with water as with fire. She’d mastered the lighting several years ago, but that was no major feat. Even ordinary common people could control modern light fixtures, whether they had any magic or not. It was fun to try and work around the automatic mechanisms, though.

*****

Downstairs, she fixed herself up a large breakfast and gave her friends Alneissa and Lynian a call wih her talkbox. Her parents had already left. This was typical: they often left before she woke up, and got home late, late at night.

“Hey, it’s Ranye,” she said once the box had connected. A faint image of her two friends appeared at the other end of the room. This was a late-model talkbox which displayed visuals, though they still hadn’t got the transparency quite right.

“Do you always eat so much?” Lynian asked. Lynian was a short girl, though not quite so short as Ranye, with a bit of pudge. Ranye’s ability to eat just about everything in sight and still remain thinner than everybody else had caused more than a little resentment between them, though Lynian kept silent for the most part. It was only when Ranye started picking up on others’ emotions through psionics training that she realized her friend’s jealousy. This magic stuff wasn’t quite an unmitigated blessing.

“I’m hungry. Besides, we’ll be running around a lot today.”

“What time are we meeting? And where?” asked Alneissa. Alneissa was like that: all practicalities. Ranye liked that about her. She also got the impression that Alneissa was one of only a few of her friends that didn’t really care whether Ranye was popular or not. Then again, it was hard to tell with Alneissa. She didn’t give up her secrets easily. Always seemed to know everybody else’s, though.

“How about you come over to my house in an hour or so?” Ranye suggested. “Ilthrana’s not coming; her parents are taking a day off from working, so they’re all going to the dragonshow.”

Ranye almost thought she saw a frown cross Lynian’s face. She wouldn’t be too surprised: Ilthrana and Lynian were much closer friends than she and Lynian were. Lynian would never turn down and invitation from her though. And Ranye wasn’t about to rescind it – that would just be rude.

Alneissa seemed fine with it though. “Sure, we’ll be there. Wear comfortable clothes, right?”

Ranje nodded. “Yep. And we’ll be climbing too, so don’t wear a dress.” Alneissa liked dresses much more than Ranye did; her idea of comfortable often included a long flowing skirt. That wouldn’t be terribly convenient where they were going.

“Okay. See you.”

The two images winked out, leaving Ranye alone. She grabbed the daily Nithrallah Tribune, which her father had thoughtfully left out on the table. There was a large magiscreen that she could easily have used, but Ranye preferred reading. She got more information that way.

The top news was all about the coming parliamentary convention. Agitators from the North were calling for Prime Minister’s resignation because of the harsh economic conditions there. Ranye thought the whole thing rather stupid. She’d met the Prime Minister once, and he’d seemed like a very nice if somewhat old and dowdy man. Besides, it wasn’t really his fault that Northern agriculture wasn’t competitive anymore.

There were also the normal reports about killings and muggings at some faraway place. Probably just sensationalism; Nithrallah had always seemed plenty safe to Ranye. They had to fill the papers with something.

Ranye headed outside to wait for her friends. Ranye’s house was abutted the Central Canal in the back, right near where it joined the Inland Canal, and so they’d come by boat. Windriders would be faster, but Lynian hated them, always losing her balance. So boat it would be.

It would be another twenty or thirty minutes, so Ranye whisked a book from the house. Something quick that she could put down easily.

Next door, she noticed that the neighbor’s son Lathrav sat out on their back dock too. He waved at her. They had been close friends once, five or so years ago. But that was when they were young, before it became taboo for boys and girls to hang out together. She gave a halfhearted wave back.

Alneissa and Lynian pulled up in a gondola. The gondola of Nithrallah were all driverless, magicked so that you need only think of your destination and they would take you there. This was a very good thing, since Ranye doubted that the bottom of these canals could still be poled against.

“Should we invite him with us?” Alneissa asked, gesturing at Lathrav.

“No. He’s a boy,” Ranye replied curtly.

“I think he likes you. Ilthrana said that Pellenem said that Crysani was talking to her ‘boyfriend’ who said that she should get Pellenem to get Ilthrana to get me to hook you up with him.”

“Let’s go,” Ranye said curtly.

“Suit yourself,” Alneissa said.

Ranye noticed that Lynian hadn’t said anything, and was looking rather wistfully at Lathrav. They’d actually make a good couple, insofar as any couple could be nice. Ranye almost changed her mind and brought him along for her sake. But it would end badly – Lynian would spend the whole trip paying attention to Lathrav, who would spend the whole trip paying attention to Ranye, who would spend the whole trip trying to get everyone where they were going, and everything would be messed up. So she hopped in the boat and cast off.

They headed north through the central canal, past the royal canal that led to the old palace. That was worth a trip sometime – Nithrallah had once been the imperial capitol, in the early days of the empire before

chapter 1, WIP

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 15:01:55 GMT

Eralon wandered through the docks of Oronyan. He moved quietly, not wanting to alert the guards, and yet not so quietly as to seem suspicious. All around him, workmen went about their daily jobs, hammering and lifting and dragging and stowing all sorts of goods in heavy metal containers, thirty-foot boxes that would be shipped throughout the empire. Eralon wished, as he often did, that he had some sort of magical talent. Something that could make him invisible. It would make things so much simpler.

Of course, if he had any magic, then he probably wouldn’t need to scrounge around the harbor for scraps that he could eat or burn or pawn off on street corners. There was food to be scavenged here, food and goods and, if he was lucky, something that might even fetch a few coppers at the local market. Oronyan was the busiest port in Northern Visk. From here, the agricultural wealth of Torranzio and Nornik would be shipped off to the population centers around the Inland Sea. The metals and magical stones of Mornikos would be loaded onto barges and towed to the factories in Elsevereth. And the fine trinkets of Arbarik would be shipped across the empire.

It was a scavenger’s paradise.

Unfortunately,’ that meant that it attracted lots of scavengers. The docks of Oronyan were known throughout the empire for their street rats. Beggars, thieves, pickpockets, muggers, thugs, grifters, and plain old scavengers like Eralon roamed the freightyards. This, of course, brought an equally large population of guards, police, and watchmen to stop them from roaming the shipyards. So for a simple scavenger like Eralon, it was a constant struggle to find pickings that the other drifters had missed and evade capture by the guards.

Slipping between two large boxes full of goods, Eralon eyed the premises. Up ahead and to the left, a team of four dockhands were struggling to load an enormous metal ingot into the container. They were indisposed of; they wouldn’t notice anything unless it fell on them, and (glancing at their ripped bodies) probably not even then. Behind them, a fair distance away, a guard stood on a tall platform. His eyes scanned the rows of containers, but his line of sight to Eralon was blocked by the ingot and container. As long as Eralon stayed fairly low to the ground, he wouldn’t be seen. He just had to make sure that his crouching didn’t attract attention from the workmen.

Eralon took a quick glance behind him; the coast was clear. It was time to see what he could find.

Ducking forward, he made his way to the mouths of the containers. A long line of them stretched off into the distance; the shipowners would brook no inefficiency in loading their vessel. He glanced over to his left and tried to keep an eye on the work crew without seeming too out of place. They were still engaged in their task and took no notice of him.

This close to the ingot, he could feel the tingling in the air of magic. Of course; it would’ve been magicked to seem lighter; otherwise, there was no way that only four people could move it. For all Eralon knew, the whole walkway might have a conveyor system of interlocking spells, all designed to bring goods along with a minimum of manpower. Eralon had never been in this part of the shipyard before; he usually went for the lighter fare, and he knew there was no magic there.

The important thing was that they didn’t have detection spells implanted. Eralon doubted it; everyone knew it was very difficult, if not impossible, to create a detection spell when you didn’t know exactly what you had to detect. And “a thief” or “someone with nefarious intent” didn’t cut it: you needed to know which specific thief or person with nefarious intent.

Still, Eralon wouldn’t necessarily put it past the corporate fat-cats; who knows what they would come up. He’d just have to take his chances and hope nothing bad happened.

It wasn’t the ingot that he was interested in anyway; he’d never be able to drag it home. Even if he could get a hold of it without anyone noticing, it would crash to the ground as soon as it left the confines of the underlying magic matrix. It wouldn’t be very useful to him then.

But maybe the container on his right…what might it hold?

It was shut. Blast. The door had been closed tight, and sealed, probably magically. There was no way Eralon could open it without attracting attention.

Much farther down the row, however, there was an unguarded container with the door open wide. Getting to it meant wandering out into the guard’s field of vision. However, if he could just get inside, there was nobody to catch him.

Thankful that his tattered rags basically matched the tattered rags that the workmen wore, Eralon crossed his fingers and set off at a nonchalant yet purposeful pace. He glanced back at the guard: good, he was looking off at another part of the shipyard. That would give Eralon a few seconds.

A pair of conversing workers stepped out from between two containers. Eralon’s heart jumped in his chest. Surely they couldn’t hear that? He ducked his head and avoided making eye contact. They walked on, oblivious.

He was almost there.

He took one glance back over his shoulder, only to see the guard turning back his way. Moving quickly, he passed the lip of the container and ducked inside. Had the guard seen him? His quick movement would probably have seemed suspicious, if it had been noticed. He mentally cursed himself; why couldn’t he think more clearly and act less impulsively?

Leaning against the container wall, he let his pulse slow down, and then took a look at his surroundings. The floor was covered with…feathers? At least, they looked like feathers, all soft and wispy. Yet there seemed to be scales mixed in, hard leathery things. Had a python eaten a chicken, maybe? It didn’t seem likely that a shipping company would be dumb enough to ship the two together, but Eralon couldn’t think of another explanation.

Towards the back of the container was an empty cage. It was big; it took up almost the entire width, and extended over the rear third of the container. The door was open, but the cage itself had heavy bars made out of a metal that Eralon had never seen. Some of the bars were dented and bowed outwards; whatever had been in the cage was surely fearsome.

For that matter, the container itself was dented. What had been in here? Obviously, it wasn’t here now; it must have been unloaded earlier, and the container had just never been refilled. But it looked like it had put up quite a fight on unloading.

Also, the sharp tingle of magic was all around the air. Whether it came from the cage or the beast or the unloading process, Eralon couldn’t say. But he knew that something had involved a terrific amount of magic here.

Eralon set about searching his surroundings for anything of value. He wasn’t going to let curiosity distract him too long from what he set out to do. He had to eat tonight, and obviously he wasn’t going to eat feathers or scales.

He sifted through them, however, thinking they might conceal something of value. At first, it didn’t seem likely. The only thing concealed by the feathers was a whole lot of droppings and a few food pellets (which were unidentifiable and definitely not fit for human consumption, alas).

Eralon was about to give up, when his fingers closed on something that felt like a chain. At first he thought it might have been part of the cage, which either would be a little nice (rare metal links often fetched decent prices on the black market) or completely useless (if it was still attached). But it was too small, barely the size of a bracelet. Maybe it was a bracelet – as he picked it up, he realized that it was just about the right size, and the links were certainly smooth enough. It had an odd glimmer to it – it was metal, but had a slight reddish cast to it, and shined as if it were polished silver.

He pocketed the bracelet and went back to searching. Nothing else jumped out at him though.

A muted conversation nearly made him jump, however. People were approaching. He didn’t know if they were workmen or guards, but it didn’t really matter. If he were caught in here, there would be no escape. He could play at being a workman for a bit, but if they asked for ID or a badge, he had nothing to give them. The game would be up.

He made his way to the front of the container and got ready to run for it. The voices were closer now, and he could barely make out what they were saying. “A hard job…fought like a dragon in heat,” one of them complained. Workmen, at least, but Eralon still didn’t want to get caught by them. It would lead to unpleasant questions.

He slipped out, hearing the workmen behind him, and started walking down the row. “Hey mate,” he heard behind him. He ignored it, pretending not to have heard.

“Hey man,” the voice continued, raising in volume a little. “Hey! Don’t ignore me!”

A hand grasped Eralon’s arm from behind and spun him around. He found himself looking up into the angry face of a burly dockyard worker. The man looked him straight in the face. “Disrepectful little…” he began. His eyes narrowed, and then he turned to his compatriot. “He’s not authorized! Look at his face! He’s too young to work here!”

Eralon jerked around and broke free. He felt the man grasp at his back, but Eralon lunged forward and out of reach. The man swore. Eralon heard him call out for the guards, bright and clearly.

Suddenly, it felt like a million eyes were upon him. All around him, heads swiveled around and workmen dropped their jobs to apprehend the street rat. Some started moving towards them. He ran. Fast.

Running between two containers, he nearly collided with a burly dockhand. He ducked underneath the man’s arm, evading him to shouted curses. He turned left as the alley opened out onto another row, his feet skidding on the loosely-packed dirt.

Up ahead, a posse had turned his way and blocked the row completely. He’d need a miracle to get past them, and given his past luck, he didn’t suspect a miracle was forthcoming. He turned right again, and ran up a pile of bulk cargo. The jagged pieces of metal scratched his shins, but he didn’t care. The heavy workmen would not (and probably could not) follow him up here, because the pile would shift and they would all come tumbling down. They could, however, surround him, and he needed to figure out how to avoid them.

Another group of guards had formed slightly behind him, cutting off his way out of the shipyard. However, up ahead, towards the harbor, was a relatively clear pathway. Only one or two guards: as long as they were not magic-users themselves, Eralon could run right by them.

And there was a ship just beyond them. One that looked deserted.

Eralon set off in a run down the scrap heap. He heard cries and frantic activity behind him, but he was faster than them. He blew right past a policeman who tried to tackle him, leaving the policeman sprawled on the ground. The end of the quay was fast approaching.

Eralon took a deep breath and jumped into the water.

It was frigidly cold. The early spring weather had not yet had a chance to warm the water, and the year-round currents that fed the Northern Shore didn’t make it all the way out to Oronyan. Eralon fought to keep his wits about him. He couldn’t swim straight to the ship; there was no way he could make it all the way in one breath, and people would be looking for him. Instead, he turned around and swam back towards the dock, where he knew there was an overhang. He surfaced and took a deep breath.

His pursuers were right on top of him.

He tried to stay very quiet and keep his breathing calm. The lapping of the water covered most of the noise, and it was too dark for them to see through the cracks in the dock. He waited for them to give up and go away.

After nearly an eternity of shivering, he took a deep breath and started off towards the ship. He couldn’t make it all in one breath, but he wanted to stay underwater for as long as possible. Best that no stray workman hear the splashing and investigate.

He surfaced in near total darkness, having swum under one of the two hulls of the vessel. From hear, there’d be no way into the hull, and hence no way to get warm. He swam around back to the stern. There was a flimsy rope ladder there. Not exactly an easy climb, but better than nothing. And he couldn’t stay in the water. He’d freeze to death.

Trying hard to make his numb fingers grip the ropes, he made his way up the ladder and onto the afterdeck. The boat looked deserted; probably its crew were all ashore on leave. With any luck, he’d find a small trinket or two that might be worth something and yet be carryable back to land.

But first, warmth. He entered the main cabin and made his way down to the hold, listening intently in case someone had stayed behind.

A slight tingle went through Eralon’s skin. The cargo was magical; that much was clear. It seemed to consist mostly of machinery and guiderails for windriders, the transport mechanism of the cities. Not really what he was looking for. There were more complicated pieces of equipment than he’d seen anywhere outside of the shipyard, though.

A quick warm breeze caught his attention. He followed it to its source, a flickering flame that floated eerily above the floor. Again, the faint tingle of magic touched his skin. But any misgivings were overwhelmed by the need to get warm. He ran over to the fire and started stripping off his wet clothes.

“That’s mine,” came a small voice behind him. “You’re blocking my light.”

Eralon jumped and whirled around, thankfully before he had gotten his clothes off. A girl sat in a small nook, apparently made by arranging pillows around a control console of some sort. She was sprawled across the cushions, a book in her hands.

“Move please,” she said again, not lifting her eyes from the book.

Eralon wasn’t quite sure how to respond. “Who are you?” he finally stammered. It sounded weak to his ears; the girl must think him the crudest sort of plebian.

The girl finally put down her book and sat up. She had a pretty face, which would probably be prettier if she didn’t have a strong expression of distaste plastered upon it. Dark hair fell in a ponytail besides it, pinned back in the style of the well-to-do, and obviously had not washed in a very long time. Her clothes also smacked of wealth: she wore the sort of rags-and-ripped-pants outfit that the children of wealthy parents wore to appear poor, except every crease was custom-designed by the fashionistas, every rip form-fitted. Not that she had much of a form to begin with: she looked to be about Eralon’s age, perhaps a year or two younger, and so only the faintest curves were visible.

“You’ll know my name,” she replied. And he did. Ranye. He didn’t understand how, but the name had suddenly implanted itself in his mind. “I’d rather not say it out loud, in case someone’s listening.”

“How…” Eralon started, and then figured that she wouldn’t tell him anyway. The fire shifted a bit, the flames flickering eerily a few inches off the floor. He tried a different question. “Who might be listening?”

“Oh, the ship’s weatherworker is still on board. Resting, for now. She knows I’m here – she took me on board in the first place, and kept me hidden from the crew. But she doesn’t know who I am, and I want to keep it that way. The crew themselves are off having fun with the ladies” – she said this with more than a little irony, and a trace of disgust –“so they won’t be back for a while. I hope. It’s dreadfully boring here, and I wanted to keep up with my reading. I haven’t been able to read the whole voyage, you know? It’s too damp, and the captain would know if magic were used on his ship.” Ranye paused, finally, and then evidently ran out of things to say. An awkward silence followed.

“So you can use magic then?” Eralon ventured. He had never met anyone that could personally control the flows; such people just were not part of his social strata. Eralon’s only exposure to magic had been the industrial artifacts that pervaded Oronyan. One couldn’t escape those, but it was easy to forget that behind them all were people who could change the fabric of reality with a blink of an eye.

“Top of my class,” she beamed with pride. “Or at least I was, before I ran away. Say, how’d you end up soaking wet and stealing my fire anyway?”

“It’s a long story,” said Eralon.

“We’ve got time. Usually the crew doesn’t return until long after dark. I did want to finish my book, but I doubt that will happen as long as you’re here.”

So Eralon told her the day’s events, starting with his morning on the docks. She seemed surprisingly interested – moreso than he expected for someone of her background, at least. He doubted that she’d ever met anyone who didn’t have a roof over his head and a family to go back to; probably, she’d never even met someone who couldn’t work magic. Maybe that was why she found him fascinating.

“Now we just need to figure out how to get you back to the mainland,” Ranye said, after he finished. “You can swim, right? You must be able to, to get over here.”

Eralon didn’t relish the thought. “Why can’t I just stay on the ship until it sets sail? The police will be looking out for me in Oronyan, and besides, I have nothing to keep me here.”

Ranye suddenly turned frosty towards him. “This is my ship. I know all the crew’s routines and I’m good at keeping away from them. I’ve kept myself hidden all this time, but there’s no way I could keep you hidden too. You have no magic, and you’re bigger than me.” It was likely the first time she had realized that Eralon was a head taller than she was.

“Well, you can’t just make me disappear. Unless you have some magic spell that disintegrates people.”

Ranye looked pensive, and Eralon worried for a moment that she really did have some spell up her designer-tattered sleeve and would turn him into a toad or worse. But no ribbits were forthcoming. “No,” she said simply. “You’ll just have to…”

She stopped in midsentence, and seemed to be listening carefully. The fire flickered out and died, leaving only the light of the portholes to see by. Eralon was sad to see it go: his clothes were only half dry, the air was cold, and he started shivering. But Ranye apparently had concerns other than his warmth.

“Did you hear that?” she whispered.

Eralon didn’t hear anything. He was about to say so, when Ranye flinched. There – he heard it. The scuffling of feet on the deck above.

“Take cover over there,” she ordered, guiding him to a large pile of rocks, quite unlike the containers that he’d seen on the dock. “It’s material for a new rockpark, plenty of nooks to hide in.”

Eralon let her lead him around, and then ducked behind a large piece of granite. Ranye had crawled inside a hole in some river-worn limestone, and now seemed quite invisible. Eralon wasn’t sure whether it was magic or whether Ranye just naturally disappeared into the background when you weren’t talking to her.

Whoever was above them had now moved over to the ladder, and Eralon was beginning to hear voices. There was a man and a woman, their speech slurred and fawning. “C’mon honey, lemme show you our load,” he heard the man say. “There’s good stuff down here, and the company will never care if a trinket or two is missing.”

More cooing ensued. Across the rockfield, Eralon could just barely see Ranye’s face appear, all scrunched up with disgust. She made a vomiting gesture with her finger and rolled her eyes.

The couple really seemed into each other, and Eralon was momentarily afraid that they would walk over to the rock pile and discover him and Ranye. But they seemed far too into each other to notice another pair.

They did, however, notice the afterglow of Ranye’s fire. “Wait…” said the woman. “Is there something magical in this hold?”

“Only us,” replied the man. Eralon had to stifle a guffaw.

“Someone’s been working magic in here. The residue’s quite strong.”

“It’s probably just some piece of equipment. We came in with a load of parts for a new windrider. They require magic, right.

“This is newer, and more intricate. Somebody’s been in here lately.” She pulled away from the hopeful sailor and started concentrating intently.

A visible trail lit up the hold, from the fire’s past location to where Ranye was hiding. The sailor visibly shrank back – apparently, he no more expected his date to be a magic-user than Eralon had expected to find Ranye in the hold. Across the rockpile, Eralon saw Ranye flinch and shrink down behind her limestone. She was illuminated in a pale blue haze.

The woman pulled on the sailor’s hand. “Looks like we found our intruder. Let’s take care of her, and then we can be alone together.”

Ranye frantically whispered a command to Eralon, the blue glowing a little more brightly around her. “Get out of here. She’s powerful – back in Nithrallah, she would have been at least my father’s rank. I don’t know what she’s doing with a drunken sailor. But they don’t take well to stowaways.”

The couple was nearly upon them, and the sailor was speaking into a talkbox. There would likely be other crew members cornering them in soon. Eralon could still get away, but he had to move now. Ranye would have to fend for herself. Wherever she went, the woman’s tracker would follow, and she’d just bring them down upon him. Eralon didn’t see why he should care anyways – Ranye had been nothing but selfish and bossy since he met her.

He stealthily moved away from his granite hiding place, ducking into the shadows. He was halfway across the hold when he heard a squeak behind him. The woman had grabbed Ranye by the wrist. “Pretty little thing we’ve got here,” she said. Her companion just stood there silently – there really was no right response to that. If he agreed, the woman would probably just get mad that he thought Ranye prettier than her. If he disagreed – well, never disagree with a woman. “You had some friends that couldn’t find girls tonight. I wonder if they’d like this one.”

As she said this, Ranye tried to break away, but she didn’t get far. She stopped in her tracks, apparently immobilized by…something.

Eralon hesitated, a moment of indecision gripping him. He should get out – he wouldn’t have a chance if he delayed for just one minute. But he felt that he shouldn’t leave Ranye to her fate no matter how bossy she was.

His conscience won out. Eralon crept back towards them, looking for something to throw or otherwise distract them. He found a small metal disk – not heavy or sharp enough to do serious damage, but if it hit someone in the head, it would likely knock them out. He hoped it would.

Creeping carefully back, he stopped about ten feet away from the woman. He’d need very good aim – a heavy metal disk like this was not easy to throw, even though he had experience with slings and rocks from his days on the street. And if he was off by a little, it would hit Ranye, give away his presence, and make things even worse for them all.

He threw. It hit the woman in the temple, and she crumpled to the floor. The man lurched forwards, frantically searching for the source of the discus, and then strangely toppled to the floor.

Ranye rushed by him, grabbing his sleeve and pulling him with her as she ran. “That was dumb. Let’s go!” she said.

They ran towards the stern of the vessel, the same place that Eralon had climbed on board. Above them, they heard the pitter-patter of running feet. The rest of the crew must be back on board now, and probably had been alerted to their presence. It wouldn’t be long before they ran out of time.

They reached the railing and stopped. “Can you swim?” Ranye asked, and then remembered their earlier conversation. “Okay, dumb question. Jump!”

And just like that, he was in the freezing cold water again. He surfaced immediately, then looked around for Ranye. She wasn’t hard to find: she was splashing around frantically and doing her best to keep her head above water. He set off with strong, vigorous strokes towards her.

“I thought you said you could swim,” he teased her.

“I asked…” her mouth nearly disappeared beneath the water, prompting a coughing fit when she resurfaced. “I asked if you could,” she said, determined to finish the thought. “I haven’t been in the water for five years. The canals - ” her head disappeared again. Eralon grabbed her by the waste and pulled her back up. “The canals in Nithrallah are polluted, and we had to get rid of the swimming pool when we moved.”

“Can you make it over to that island over there?” He nodded towards a lightly suburbanized exclave sitting across the harbor. It was unlikely to be patrolled by policemen, and looked to be a swimmable distance away. For people who could swim, that is.

“Of course,” she said, though Eralon rather doubted it.

He set off anyway, listening carefully for Ranye’s splashes behind him and ready to turn around if they stopped. He had to rescue her three times, the third times actually diving beneath the surface to pull her back up. After that, he half dragged her up onto the beach. She gave a sputtering cough and panted for a bit.

“That was a really dumb idea,” Eralon said. “Jumping into the water without being able to swim. Couldn’t you have held her off magically?”

“I’m eleven,” she retorted. “She must have been a trained magic user for years. I have no idea why a sailor would’ve picked her up.” She shivered. Eralon did too. It was still cold out, though the sun had moved overhead.

“Could you at last magic our clothes dry?” he tried.

“Too tired,” she said. And then collapsed back onto the beach.

“What do we do now then? We can’t stay here – the residents will notice and call the police.”

“Ask me again after I’m dead,” she murmured.

“Suit yourself,” Eralon said, and started walking off. “I’m getting off this island.”

“Wait!” he heard behind him. He turned around. Ranye was sitting up now. “How do you get off?” Right, she didn’t know the area. She needed him much more than he needed her.

“There’s a tunnel that runs below the harbor mouth. The general public doesn’t know about it – they built a new one, complete with windriders and even a transporter, and so the old foot tunnel’s just abandoned. I’m going that way – it runs by a few houses, but there’s a buffer of trees between them and the beach, and if we’re quiet, they won’t notice us.”

“I’m coming with you,” Ranye said. Suddenly she had more energy. Not much more, but enough not to play dead on the beach.

Eralon shrugged. “Whatever. Just don’t expect me to slow down and rest.”

She ran to catch up with him. “Where will we go after that, anyway.”

“I’m going to catch up with some folks I know in the city. I don’t care what you do.”

“I’m coming too.”

Great. A tagalong. “Will you be a little quieter then? We can’t afford to attract attention in the city. Act like a street kid and don’t stick out much and you’ll be okay. Act like you’re somebody important’s daughter and you’ll get us both kidnapped. And can you dry out these clothes now.”

Amazingly, the wetness in his clothes started to dissipate. Eralon noticed that Ranye’s hair was already dry, and her jeans would be soon too. Figured that she would take care of herself first. Then again, that was what most people did, so he shouldn’t be too surprised.

They walked in silence along the beach, keeping to the treeline to avoid detection. It wasn’t far to the mouth of the tunnel, a rickety hole in a copse of trees, concealed by some planks and leaves. Eralon lifted the loose covering off the hole, revealing a steep staircase leading off into blackness.

“I’m not going down there,” Ranye complained. “It looks like the kind of place where psycho thugs take victims to murder them.”

Eralon wasn’t quite sure whether she was comparing him to a psycho murderer. “It’s the only way off the island, besides the windriders. Take them and everybody will know you’re here.”

She chewed on her lip a bit and thought. “Is it long?” she asked.

“Very,” Eralon said. It wasn’t really, but if she was going to act like this all the time, he’d be better off without her.

Ranye made to turn around, then wavered a bit. “Okay,” she said, finally. “You’re going first though.”

Eralon shrugged and hopped into the tunnel. Ranye followed close by, so that Eralon could pull the tunnel entrance closed behind them.

The blackness closed in upon them.

NaNoWriMo

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 13:54:39 GMT

Fri, 21 Apr 2006 00:50:09 GMT

Doing the drabble thing again. Not necessarily fantasy, or even all in the same universe. Just throwing things on paper, 100 words a time.

Tiny pinpricks of light danced across the water’s surface. They flittered and flicked like faeries over the fen.

Beneath the water, creatures of the deep swam.

Neither was aware of the other.

It had been like this for thousands of years. A thermocline separated the surface and the deep, and what went on in one was completely separate from the other. The two worlds had no knowledge of each other.

This would change soon.

It would come on a sunny day, a stiff breeze fluttering across the sea. Little whitecaps whipped up. Each whitecap was a tiny soul letting loose.

****

It was an ordinary stoplight, with an ordinary pattern. An ordinary pattern that ended in the sickening crunch of steel.

Inside, a life snuffed out. Outside, the frantic murmur of pedestrians. Aside, a shady character with a device off E-bay.

He had wanted to save a few minutes on his way to work. He had ended up saving a few mouths to feed – and leaving a few more hungry.

Oh well. To live, one must die. Or maybe strike that. Reverse it.

He didn’t care. Life was about survival, and he had survived. It was like animals. Live or die.

****
Bored already. I suck. Maybe I'll try revising these sometime.

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 20:37:23 GMT

Starting where I left off. I believe I was describing the members of the council in this prehysteric time.

But there, the similarities ended. Vellurium was the son of a wealthy merchant, and his family had long held a seat in the Assembly. His two older brothers both had launched successful careers in business; his sister was married to none other than the head advocate of the province of Sera Vartoth. He had significant wealth in both government and economics.

Rastelbrinn, however, was the only son of one of the city's porters. Unschooled and unnoticed, he had attempted to earn spare cash as a street rath before Sartvoldrath had come upon him. In fact, he had tried to pick the great wizard's pocket, an attempt that hadn't gone so well. After he finished nursing his hand, Sartanvoldrath took him back to the Tower to be educated.

From there, the two had followed remarkably similar paths. Vellurium had arrived at age 12, 3 years before Rastelbrinn was found at age 10. They each attained the rank of Apprentice after 3 years, a nearly unheard-of time. They were both perpetually at the tops of their class, working magic like it wasnearly effortless. They managed Journeyman after another 4, at the age of 19 for Vellurium and 17 for Rastelbrinn.

Of course, there was some rivalry between the two of them. It was ameliorated somewhat because of Vellurium's 3 year headstart, but each couldn't help noticing that the other was the only one else in the Tower who came close to their abilities.

After reaching Journeyman, Rastelbrinn left to work in the world. He came back changed somehow - more dedicated, more bitter. Whatever he had seen, he wanted to change it.

Vellurium, however, stayed at the Tower, taking over the teaching of apprentices

And that is enough of them for now. I kinda want to write the story of each of them now, showing instead of telling, but later.

Vellurium's Faction
Lloranoth was Vellurium's best friend in his novice days, and continues to be his closest ally. Only son of the largest stonecutter in the city, it's said that his ancestors helped build the Tower. Second only to Vellurium and Rastelbrinn in magical power, he was a shoe-in for the council, despite coming from a family that had never before evidenced the slightest hint of magic. His Journeyman and Mage days were spent as magical liaison to the gargoyles.

Marzan is the Master of Novices and a skilled teacher. Son of a weaver and a tanner, he didn't feel the spark of magic until he was 14. After that, he made quick progression through the ranks, reaching Journeyman at 23 after 4 years as a Novice and 5 years as an Apprentice.

Faranzet is liaison to the government

Rastellbrin's Faction
Dranoras is the young head of the Battle Mages. Born to a whore, with an unnamed father, he has an intense need to prove himself. He entered the Tower at age 9, the youngest ever, but spent 7 years as a novice because he couldn't control his powers.

More, same universe

Sat, 15 Apr 2006 04:44:26 GMT

So, where was I last time? I believe I'd settled on drabbles because they were quick to write and yet still had plot. I don't feel like counting words tonight though, so I think it'll be vignettes or character sketches. Still around the same time period, which is a prequel to what I have in mind, but still very necessary.

There were no women.

The men of the mage's council were all just that - men. Nobody knew why, really: women were just as good at magic, and often better in terms of raw power. But they never held political office.

And so the council consisted of old men like Sartanvoldrath, the ancient chairman who could never reach a decision. He saw three sides to everything, and then a dozen, then a hundred, and before long his mind was like a prism, scattering the light instead of focusing it. In his youth, it was said that he was a powerful warrior, responsible for single-handedly killing over a dozen rogue shakans. But years of fighting had aged his mind, and he no longer knew how to make the quick decisions that a leader needed to.

There were his two ambitious proteges, Vellurium and Rastelbrinn, more alike than they cared to admit. Each had been found as a young man by Sartanvoldrath, who realized their potential and personally trained them. Each was utterly sure of himself, almost arrogant in his knowledge. Each had a lot to be arrogant about.

But there, the similarities ended. Vellurium was the son of a wealthy merchant, and his family had long held a seat in the Assembly. His two older brothers both had launched successful careers in business; his sister was married to none other than the

Whee cutoff in mid-sentence. Anyone know of a word that's a fancy synonym for "lawyer"?

drabbles

Mon, 10 Apr 2006 12:59:36 GMT

Rather than flailing around endlessly for something that goes somewhere, I figured I'd try writing some drabbles. That way, I'm done when I get to 100 words, no matter what. Eventually maybe something useful will emerge.

The tower rises from the surface of the lake, reaching to the sky. Workmermen swim around the base, floating concrete block into elaborate archways and then lifting them up with the help of magic. Pegasi carve ornate decorations into its towering spires. Unicorns float enormous blocks of marble, slate, and granite into place.

In a generation, it will be deserted.

The mermaids will have retreated to the bottom of the sea. The pegasi will have flown off the far away lands. The unicorns will have vanished to the places from whence they came.

All because of the world of men.

*****

“The conclave will come to order.”

Sartanvoldrath’s voice boomed over the assembled wizards. As Headwizard, the decision eventually rested with him. But it never hurt to ask for input.

“The gargoyles must be dealt with,” Rastelbrinn spoke. “Our farmers cannot survive with them forever flying off with the sheep.”

“Have you asked them to find other prey?” Vellurium asked. “Perhaps they can be convinced to substitute wild animals into their diet?”

“It is not just the gargoyles. The kraken terrorize our ships. The unicorns lead our caravans to nowhere. All the beasts must go. We have the power, Vellurium…”

*****

Another day, another meeting. Another shouting match.

“We must be allowed to develop these magics further! Think of all the suffering they could ease!” Rastelbrinn’s voice shot through the assembled mages like lightning.

“We have no idea where they lead. Humans were given dominion over the beasts to watch over them. Watch, not change! These magics could be our own doom.” Again, Vellurium objected.

“Right now, our healers work on a cure for wasting sickness. Our herbologists have developed magical strains of grain that could feed the peasants many times over. And you worry about balance? Why should we be the ones to suffer. We can make things better!”

“At what price? Already, the old magic weakens. Unicorns grow sickly and fade away. Mermaids beach themselves on our beaches.”

“And our children grow strong. Where a village family might have seen two children grow to adulthood, they now have six. People have food! They have security!”

“Will they forever? Or will your fantastic new magic run out? Will you find that it’s all gone one day, and you’re left with nothing?”

“We’ve seen nothing to indicate that…”

“You’ve seen nothing. Nothing. You have no idea where this leads.”

And so it went. Back and forth, meeting after meeting after meeting.

*****

Sartanvoldrath stayed out of it. His position was to let it all play out, until the parties had no further arguments.

The council had aligned itself into factions. Five mages each supported Rastelbrinn and Vellurium, with Sartanvoldrath and two other mages remaining neutral. The two sides had staked out positions on opposite sides of the long council table.

It worried Sartanvoldrath.

The council had never been divided like this. There had been disagreements before, but never outright hostility, with sides taken. If the council fell apart, so would all wizards, and then who knew where the world would end up.

****

He thought about calling a halt to the debate. Ending it, with a decision on one side or the other.

But he couldn’t. The issue was too important. And he hadn’t heard all the information yet.

Rastelbrinn begged him to make a decision, pleaded, implored. “Make up your mind, old man,” he would cajole. “Yes or no. Shall we pursue these new lines of magic or not?”

Sartanvoldrath pursed his lips. “You’ll pursue them whether I give the okay or not, is that right?” he spoke. Rastelbrinn looked abashed but didn’t respond.

“You are not to use them. Not yet.”

More randomosity

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 02:45:22 GMT

Am gonna try something vaguely Westing-Gamish, starting with a contradiction and seeing where it leads me. Probably nowhere, but oh well. Might help me get to sleep.

This is a story about magic, dragons, unicorns, castles, and fantastic peoples. Yet there is no magic, the dragons and unicorns have left this earth, as have most of the fantastic peoples, and the castles lie in ruins. Instead, there is a river. A river that runs through a small farming village, huts on either side. The inhabitants of this village do not have much, but they have their sheep.

They really like their sheep. Really like their sheep. As in, AC/DC parody like-their-sheep.

This is not considered unusual, because there are few women to get upset. Women do not fare well in the harsh, rough & tumble society of the shepherds, where duels are settled with swords and everybody goes hungry at night, unless they like lamb chops.

It has been like this for many years, back and back and back. So long, in fact, that none of the inhabitants of the village remember what it was like before.

That is about to change.

The wizard stood on a rock outcrop, nestled between the two mountain peaks that overlooked the village. He was not from the village, and yet he knew of it. Knew it well.

On his shoulder sat a raven, beast of the night. You would think that the raven was a familiar, one of those things that mages like to carry to prove their magic. You would be wrong. The wizard had no magic.

The wizard starts down the path, taking care not to dislodge pebbles with his footfalls. This far up, he could cause an avalanche. Besides the path lay to rocky detritus of a thousand similar avalanches. It is best not to add to them.

The wizard wishes he could fly, avoiding the whole thing. He cannot. Flight has been lost to people since the pegasi left.

The smoke of a dozen chimneys wafted into the air over the village. The villagers were awake, and burning things. This was good. It was cold out. The wizard wished he had a spell to warm himself. But he had no spells.

He walked into the fields lining the valley. A farmer saw him. The farmer rushed to the village, to warn or notify the others.

A welcome party - or armed defense force - walked out to meet the wizard.

I'm bored with this already. Why can't I ever come up with something interesting?

Time for another try at sleep. Will be back if I can't.

Sun, 02 Apr 2006 06:03:30 GMT

Weird. LJ's autosave recover seems to have problems. Anyway.

Am tempted to try that thing where you write for 5-15 minutes, take the most important idea that you've just written, throw away everything else, start from that, and repeat. Last time I wrote, I started with a castle and a bifurcated river, and ended with some teenager having his way with the miller's daughter. So, I guess the first episode will be porn.

Gah. I forgot the character's name.

Fooled you.

Tarlach felt the miller's daughter Altha's warm body tighten around him. He fought to maintain control. It was hard (that's for you hermionemalfoy, him being a young virile adolescent male. And it wasn't like miller's daughter was like old Queen Mirialle. She was young, curvaceous, and ripe for the plucking.

Their trysts had begun one Enosturn ago, when he had smiled at her at the market and she had smiled back. They had rapidly found themselves in Farmer Luarn's hayfield, rutting away. It had been a good first time, all twenty seconds of it.

"Mmm, don't stop," Altha moaned. "Oh...that feels goood...oh. No, no, don't stop. Hey! Tarlach! What in the name of Zoldran is wrong with you?"

Tarlach hadn't realized that he had stopped his thrusting in the midst of his reverie. Now he needed to come up with an excuse, one that was better than "I was thinking of the Queen." Somehow, he didn't think that would go over too well.

"Is it safe?" he stammered. "I mean, you and me, if we had a kid..."

She put her finger to her lips. "I'm not going to have a little demon-child, if that's what you mean. Though if my pa caught us at this...I'm not sure I'd call it safe." Her insides gave a little twitch that nearly sent him over the edge.

Demon-child. Funny that she had mentioned that. Demon-child was an old expression for a child born out of wedlock. Back in the days when faeries and shadows and tree-folk still roamed the land, people believed that the offspring of any unwed mother was always the spawn of a demon. That may have been true in a metaphorical sense, but people believed it to be literally true, and ascribed special, often malevolent powers to the child. Evidently it was easier to believe than some guys fooling around.

Tarlach didn't believe it - most people nowadays, even the peasants, didn't. But the term demon-child was often used as an epithet against the bastard-born children of such unions. It had never quite lost its sting...in fact, people were often more cruel, now that they knew that these kids would not smite them with evil powers.

He started thrusting again, and finished soon thereafter. Thirty seconds, this time. It was getting better, at least.

That was terrible. Really, really terrible. But it gave a starting point for the next iteration.

Demon child, demon child
Conceived amidst the hay
Demon child, demon child
Why do you fear the day?
Demon child, demon child
Walk amidst the night
Demon child, demon child
Be gone, you scourge of fright

Airenlia walked past the taunting children, her nose in the air. Walked, not ran, though she may have wished to scurry back to her gardens. She did her best to maintain her dignity - she was a princess, after all, and they had no right to call her names like that. Her mother had always said she was her father's daughter, no matter what the rumors said, and to never forget it. But whispers had spread far and wide from the palace, ever since the day she was born 8 years ago, and by now it seemed like the whole kingdom was talking about her.

She hated coming out during the day. Just as the rhyme said, she was a creature of the night. She loved to wander with the three moons overhead, walking through the deserted market stalls. Everything was so much more beautiful without people.

Legend had it that the world, in the days before humans, had been populated by all sorts of mysterious creatures. Little faerie-folk flitted through the air like hummingbirds. Shadows cast objects, and yet melted away with both the darkness and the light. The belljars hovered around, little pinpricks of light that somehow carried their intelligence outside this world. Mermaids swam in the sea, unicorns roamed the land, and pegasi floated through the air.

They were all gone, extinct by mankind's insatiable lust for land.

Airenlia cried over them sometimes. Not so much for the creatures, whom she'd never met, but for the humans that had replaced them. People didn't care. They might mention the beasts of the deep once in a while, probably as part of a curse, but nobody ever thought about how the world used to be and what it might have been. They were too wrapped up in their own lives.

She had nearly broken into a run, to hell with dignity. People were staring at her - surely, they must recognize the distraught youngest member of the royal family - but she didn't care. They gossipped enough. A little more wouldn't hurt.

A hand reached out and grabbed her. She was about to reach for the dagger hidden up her dress sleave (no member of the royal family ever went unarmed), until she realized it was her friend Solas. The grizzled old man ran a newsparchment stand on a streetcorner near the palace, and was one of the few people that either didn't believe the demon-child rumors or didn't care.

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 03:34:01 GMT

WaaahreallyboredandIdunwannadoanythingproductive.

So I'll write. Randomly. With no clue what shall come out.

Waaah, can't think of anything. Even with rhiddle's help. I'm afraid this will be frightfully dull.

It was frightfully dull. Totally, completely, frightfully dull. A blank sheet of paper, with nothing on it.

And yet, there was something charming about it.

It's whiteness, perhaps. Andrenica had always liked white. Her people were really a dark sort, prone to deep hues of blue, green, indigo, and black. It all seemed very depressing sometimes, yet she knew that it was just the culture, and there was nothing she could do about it. Even if sometimes she just wanted to swim to the surface and come up for air.

It was funny, for all that her peers said they valued diversity, they were all the same. They may clothe themselves in elaborate patterns, embroidered with finely-detailed designs and intricate color patterns, but behind it all, nobody really tolerated true difference. What if somebody wanted to be boring for once? What if somebody didn't want to go to all that trouble to express their individuality?

What if there wasn't any individuality to express? Wouldn't that itself make them "different".

Andrenica was thoroughly unremarkable in every way. She wasn't terribly pretty, but she wasn't ugly either. She wasn't a brilliant genius, but she wasn't an idiot. She was neither remarkably nice nor horribly cruel. Her friends were all of these, but there was no real pattern to them. It's not like she hung out with a specific crowd.

And somehow, in a society that cared so much about individuality, that made her dreadfully easy to overlook.

Sometimes, she felt like her very unobtrusiveness made her somehow offensive to the people around her. Once in a while, she'd catch a dirty look thrown her way, a sideways glance that said "What are you doing here?" It was as if by not sticking out, she stuck out even more.

The one thing that she could call a talent of her own was art. She let nobody know about this, working in secret. It wasn't even something she felt she was terribly good at, just something she enjoyed doing. She liked observing the world around her and committing it to paper. Maybe she wasn't anything special, but all around her, other people were. And there specialness was something that they often did notice, so caught up were they in trying to seem special. Somebody had to capture it.

She glanced down at the paper to see what she'd drawn. It was still white, but there were faint scribblings on it, blurred shapes that she didn't really understand. She always did her best work when not thinking about it; something about letting her mind wander gave her fingers the freedom to draw what they really wanted.

She would come back to it sometime, another day when she was feeling bored. Now that she'd looked, she wouldn't be able to do any more today. Looking always spoiled it. You can't figure out what's really there if you think you know.

From downstairs, her mother was calling. "Andrenica darling! Dinner!"

Andrenica sighed and hopped off her bed. She could come back to it later. Food was good.

Down in the dining room, her brother was busy setting the table. He glared at her when she entered. "Why doesn't she Andie have to help with the household chores? She just stays in her room all afternoon doing whatever."

"Shut up, squirt," she replied.

A warning look from her mother suggested that perhaps this wasn't quite the best response.

"But mom.."

Okay bored now. Why do I always get bored with my stories? It's a rather big problem when trying to finish anything.

I see more dead people

Sun, 08 Jan 2006 04:49:39 GMT

Continuing...

Cirullan looked Lillenith reticently. "Well, I dunno. My mother told me never to talk to dead people. Before she died, that is."

Lillenith gave a sigh of exasperation, and it seemed to come from everywhere in the air at once. "Is your mother here? Come on. She's dead. So am I. So why not listen to me instead of her."

Cirullan gave a shrug and tentatively reached out to clasp her waiting hand.

The world dissolved. It shimmered and faded a bit first, and then suddenly the cave and everything else shattered. Cirullan was left in blackness, an intense nothingness that he could feel all around him.

And then he came down to earth with a crash.

They were in a graveyard, a placid rolling green dotted by marble and granite headstones dotting it. It was night out, and the full moon cast an eery glow on the tombs. It reminded Cirullan vaguely of Harry Potter, which had even made inroads into the "fantasy worlds" market. He almost expected Lord Voldemort to leap out at him from behind a gravestones.

"Come on," Lillenith exclaimed, dragging the last syllable out in a long exasperated whine. "You can ogle the other folks later."

"I wasn't..." Cirullan began, but cut himself off when he noticed that Lillenith wasn't even close to listening. Instead, she had drifted off up a hill, clearly intent on whatever she was doing. Cirullan turned to follow, not wanting to get lost in the graveyard.

She stopped in front of a small headstone, a stone so inconspicuous that it would have been easy to miss that there was a grave here at all. At first, Cirullan thought it was her own headstone, and was about to say something comforting. But then he noticed the lettering chiselled into the headstone. "ZOE", it said. Only Zoe. Unless she was lying about her name, it wasn't her.

But as Cirullan looked over at her, he saw that there were tears running down her cheeks. Clearly, whoever lay in this grave meant something to her. Family, perhaps?

"Who's Zoe?" he asked, not unkindly.

"It's not important. You'd just think I'm silly," she sniffled.

"I won't," he said.

"You will. I know you will!" She turned around suddenly and ran/floated down the hill.

Cirullan took off after her. "Wait! Don't go! How will I get home?"

"Figure it out! I shouldn't've brought you here!" She was faster than him, probably owing to the lack of annoying physical impediments like legs. Soon she'd be gone from earshot entirely.

"But what'll happen to me?"

"Worst case, you'll die," she cried over her shoulder. "Then we'll be equal."

Cirullan cried out again, but she didn't hear. He was alone in the graveyard.

cont'd

Tue, 03 Jan 2006 05:06:14 GMT

Continuation of yesterday's post.

"My name is Lillenith. I'm dead," she said, without batting an eyelash.

Cirullan wasn't sure he'd heard correctly. "Dead? You said you were...dead?"

She swung her legs innocently, seemingly passing right through the rock she was sitting on. "Yep. Been dead for nigh on a decade now." Her voice took on a certain wistfulness. "It does get kind of boring, though."

Cirullan didn't know what to make of this. He expected dead people to be decaying or something like that. But this girl seemed perfectly normal. Playful, even.

"You don't look dead. How do I know you're not lying?"

Silently, she stood up (if that's the word) and glided over to Cirullan. She didn't stop in front of him though, nor did she stop when she pressed up against him. Rather, she went through him. They stood superimposed for a bit, and Cirullan didn't feel a thing, except possibly an odd tingling inside of him. He gasped when he realized what had happened.

"Does this mean I'm dead too? Did I really fall off the cliff"

She laughed then, a ringing sound that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. "No, silly. I'm dead. One dead person is more than enough, don't you think?"

"How can I see you then? Aren't dead people supposed to stay in their graves?"

"The sensible ones do. My guardian always told me that I have far too little sense." She pulled back then, so she was out of his body, and gave a little twirl. "I think I'm in pretty good shape, considering I don't have a pulse. Don't you think so?"

Cirullan didn't quite know what to say. She was pretty, sort of, though a bit more insubstantial than the girls at the market. And they were just kids, really - should he be looking at girls yet, let alone dead onens?

"Here," she said, holding out her hand. "I want to show you something..."

Randomness

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 06:07:31 GMT

Have to write something. No clue what yet, but something.

Once upon a time, in a hovel by the sea, there lived a small family. It was small even by the standards of the land around it, for it composed merely a boy and his grandfather. Large families were not common in the village, because the food supply didn't allow it. Still, the villagers would try, and try, and the kids would die, and die. Nobody was very happy about this arrangement, but they had no other choice (lacking birth control or food), so it persisted.

The boy's mother had died in childbirth. Instead of the many children that normally die in childhood, she had perished instead. His father had disappeared not long after. Some said he threw himself off the tall seacliffs, unable to live without his wife. Others said he died of a broken heart. Not even the boy himself knew the truth. It was said that the grandfather did, but the grandfather had lost the ability to speak many years before.

Cirullan (for that was the boy's name) was a moody, introverted child. He shunned the company of the other villagers, instead preferring to walk out to the cliffs and talk to the sea. The sea was far more interesting, being always the same yet always changing. Cirullan would head down to a little crag in the rocks and sit their for hours, listening to the swish of the waves as the broke in the caves below. He would feel the salt spray on his face and sit there, thinking.

He thought about many things. He thought about the great tower of sorcery, off to the north in Sera Vartoth. He thought of the palace in Mri Narrim, and the immense riches that were hidden there. He thought of the shipbuilding port of Rohyr, across the sea which he looked upon now.

All these were beyond his grasp.

For it was known, within their small fishing village, that nobody ever leaves. The village had a nearly supernatural hold on them, always pulling them back.

He had heard, a few years before, of a young woman, barely into adulthood, who had tried to get away. She had taken up with a group of bandits that frequented the trade road nearby - the same group that ensured that the village had few visitors. It had caused quite a scandal, because the girl was supposed to marry into a selectman's family. The groom was handsome, wealthy by villager standards, and an all around decent man - for him to lose his bride-to-be to bandits was the deepest shame imaginable.

In any case, it mattered not, for she was found dead a few days later, a wayward arrow in her breast.

Then there was the old crone who made her home in a copse of elm trees nearby. She had disappeared some ten years before. People used to think that she had gotten away, but it turned out not. A sea falcon had pecked her eyes out, and then flies had laid eggs in the empty sockets and maggots had consumed her brain.

No, nobody ever left the village. Alive

Cirullan heard the squawk of a puffin nearby. He tiptoed his way across the ledge. It was a steep drop, perhaps 50 feet, to the rocky waters below. A misstep would be fatal.

The birds scattered as he approached them. A few flew at him, nearly causing him to lose his balance. He flailed his arms and beat them off. They scattered.

The nest was empty. Empty, that is, except for one large purple-and-blue egg.

Cirullan scooped up the egg and headed up the cliff. Food was always welcome in the village, even if it was just puffin eggs. Perhaps he had done something right, for once.

He fell.

[No, actually I just put that in because I'm crazy]

The rock gave out from under him, and suddenly he felt the tug of gravity. It pulled him down, down - until his jerkin caught on protruding branch. He hung there for a while, suspended between death and life.

"Boy? Why are you falling?" came a childish, feminine voice. Cirullan could not see where it was coming from. It seemed to come from all sides at once.

The voice tittered. "Falcon got your tongue? It's rude not to answer when spoken to, y'know. My guardian keeps telling me that. I usually don't answer. It pisses her off. I like doing that."

She - whoever "she" was - seemed friendly, so Cirullan answered, doing the best to keep the panic out of my voice. "Who are you? Where are you? Can you let me down?" He glanced down below him, at the 40 feet of air separating him from certain death, and figured he ought to rephrase that. "Uhh, let me down gently, that is."

"Oh. You mean I should dump you, but nicely?"

"I wasn't aware we were dating."

"That's because men are always un-perceptive loafs."

Cirullan scowled. He still could not see this conversational partner, and he really did dislike being hung out to dry like this. "Well, yes, you see I'm kind of preoccupied at the moment. So excuse me for missing the fine points of our relationship." The branch he was hanging from creaked a bit. "Mind saving my life?"

He felt the air rustle around him, and suddenly it seemed - solid. Well, solider than air should feel. And then, just like that, he was being spirited away, downwards, inwards, into a small cave in the rock. The wind pushed him farther in, where it was pitch dark.

"I can't see. Is there a fire around? A light?"

No answer.

"Hello?"

Nothing.

"Are you still there? Whoever you are, maybe you could help me? Where am I?"

Cirullan began to lose his patience. He kicked the floor and started feeling his way around. "Answer please!"

A fire burst into being at the center of the room. The sudden brightness almost blinded Cirullan. He looked away, spots flickering across his vision.

"It takes time for me to reformulate. I'm not a miracle worker, you know."

Across from him, on the other side of the fire, sat a girl maybe his own age. She seemed almost translucent, like she wasn't supposed to be on this earth. Wispy black hair framed her face and trailed down her neck, coming to chest level, where two small breasts were just beginning to bud. Her face seemed delicate, almost beautiful, yet had a mischievous cast to it.

"Who are you? What are you?" Cirullan asked.

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 05:57:11 GMT

Still continuing...

He felt water enter his lungs, a sucking gasping choking fit overwhelming him. He tried to grab ahold of the ice on top of him. It splintered. His head broke the surface, and a gasp of cool refreshing air filled his lungs. But then he fell again, deep into the lake, his head submerged.

His body turned to ice. No, literally. And ice, being lighter than water, floats. (Granted, dead bodies float too, but he wasn't dead. More's the pity. Though he didn't see it that way). He bobbed to the surface, where a quick flow of fire made him melt.

Suddenly thawed, he pulled himself out of the water and onto the ice. He lay there, still, for a long time. And he tried to figure out what he had just done.

It had something to do with the water. Could that be it? Did he always have water around when he worked his magic?

No, he didn't. But he always had some element around. Maybe the wind was gusting, or a fire was burning, or he was in a dusty patch of ground. Today, there had been both wind and water.

Yeah, I'm bored with this.

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 05:41:50 GMT

Continuing from yesterday...

It was in the depths of winter, a couple years later, that he made a breakthrough. The frigid snows had come early that year, driving the game out early, and he'd been forced to survive by icefishing. The ice was thick, but he'd made a few tools out of chunks of slate he'd found on the island, and found he could cut through it fairly easily. And the fish were plentiful. He'd eaten well.

Snow curled around him, little flecks blanketing his fur coverings and stinging his cheeks. He had walked out to the ice, and there was no protection from the wind here. He huddled low to the ground, hoping the wind would blow over him, and set to beating a hole in the ice. He had lashed a pointed piece of slate to a cylindrical wooden branch, and was using it as an ice chisel. He hit it with a hammer made from granite and wood.

It was slow going. The ice was thick, hard, and unyielding. By midmorning he had carved only a few chunks out of it; by noon, he had the beginnings of a crack in the ice, but nothing close to a hole. By midafternoon, a thin lace of spiderweb fissures began to radiate outwards from the spot. This worried Vartoth; the ice was supposed to cut cleanly, and not crack throughout.

Suddenly, he heard a low groaning, followed immediately by a sharp crack. He barely had time to register what was happening. The ice gave way, and Vartoth was doused immediately into the frigid waters of the lake.

They say that when you're about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. Vartoth didn't notice any of that. All he could feel was the sharp stabbing pain of icy water, a moment of confusion and panic as his head dipped below the surface, and the sudden burning desire to live.

Enough for now...

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 07:41:08 GMT

More NaNo practice. I would just go to bed, but I'm waiting for a FA build to finish, and talking to hermionemalfoy. So I might as well do something while I wait.

This time it's a standalone, not a continuation of previous entries. It's in the same universe, but different characters and a different time period. And I really have no clue what it's going to come out as, but I figured I'd give a try.

Vartoth looked out across the frozen lake, the icy-tipped peaks of mountains hanging low in the background. It was barren. It was desolate. But something felt right about the place.

He had been travelling for forty days, wandering from place to place in search of...something. He wasn't sure what. People like him travelled often. Vagabonds, gypsies...they were called a lot of names, mostly by people who had no clue what they were like. But wherever Vartoth and his ilk went, strange things happened. Trees would droop and whither, or suddenly spring to life. Objects would float through the air. Lightning storms would spring out of clear skies.

They called him a curevra, a cursed one. One of the untouchables of society. Upstanding citizens would move away when he approached. And for good reason. Something terrible might befall them, something terrible and out of his control. Because whatever freaks of nature happened around him, he had no idea what caused them. It was all a mystery.

Once in a while he would find people like him, people for whom the laws of reality weren't quite the same. And they would talk, and commisserate, and move on. Because just because you're isolated from mainstream society doesn't mean you fit in with other outcasts. Each wanderer, each witch he met was unique in his or her own way, and rarely had anything useful to talk about with Vartoth.

And so he lived a lonely life, always moving, surviving on whatever scraps of food he could get. The lowland plains were harsh places for him: most land was claimed by farms, now, and he was not welcome on their land. Farther to the north, in the deep forests, he felt more at home. But even they now had tribes of settlers enroaching upon them.

That was why he was now in the mountains, besides this frozen mountain lake. There was plenty of game - mountain goats and sheep and birds of prey. And very few humans to share it with. The perfect place to start a new life.

The lake in front of him stretched on for miles. He thought he saw a low, flat, island in the center, with some low scrub vegetation. With any luck, there'd be fish in the lake, come spring. The scrub brushes would provide adequate shelter. And he could see birds flying overhead even now, and there had been deer in the woods as he climbed up. This was the place.

*****

He studied. And practiced.

Vartoth had expected that he'd spend the whole time staying alive. But nature had been good to him, the game bountiful, the fruits succulent. He'd soon settled down into a routine, and found that he had plenty of time.

So he spent his free hours trying to figure out just what made the world so weird around him. Because it was still happening. At odd times - in the middle of a hunt, as he was setting down to eat, when he was voiding his bowels - something odd would happen. It was something different each time, but every one of them was an incongruity. A stick would suddenly burst into flame. Solid ground would turn into mush, or a rivulet would spring up from the earth. The trees would bleed. The birds would take root.

He never understood it. Nothing seemed to make sense. Maybe he was just going mad, like all the villagers of his past life had suggested. Maybe he really was curevra. But he couldn't live like this, not understanding the world around him.

Something had to be common to all the experiences. Something that would let him control them.

He tried meditation. He tried visualization. He tried praying to the Gods of nature. But nothing worked, and the incidents continued.

It was in the depths of winter, a couple years later, that he made a breakthrough.

NaNo practice

Tue, 11 Oct 2005 05:56:05 GMT

Again, starting from where I left off, and doing it for NaNo practice. In other words, small time limit (I have to go to bed soon anyway, and write down anything that comes to mind).

A group of urchins stood at the curb, playing a game that involved kicking a bean-filled sack around in a circle. Vellurium smiled wistfully. He remembered being a kid and having time for those sorts of idle pursuits. Granted, these children had it far worse than he ever did. Growing up as the son of a minor noble, he'd never lacked for comforts or amenities. But with privilege came obligations, and he had precious time available for himself when growing up. He was shuffled from one lesson to another until his skill with magic became apparent, and then sent off to Ellyria for training.

Then had come training, which had been harsh too. The first thing the mages teach you is how to control the magic, which is always a difficult task. One false move and it can consume you. Magic thrived on uncertainty and chance, which is exactly what teaching abhorred. Accidents were frequent, and it was not unheard of for young mages to die in training. The Elders did their best to shield and ward their charges, but they couldn't envision every possibility. And nature had a way of biting you in the ass when you least expected it.

At least the Academy had presented a safe social environment, such as it was. He'd had kids around him for the first time, without the barriers of class and privilege. In fact, his first friend had been the brother of the woman he was about to see, and they had formed a bond that had lasted for a lifetime. His friend's lifetime, at least. Too bad they were cut short so quickly.

Looking back at the kids, he couldn't help but reflect that that would likely be their lot too, and much too soon. The life of a street kid was often nasty, brutish, and short, and half of them might very well be dead by tomorrow. It was refreshing to see them engaging in enjoyable pasttimes; they may not get a chance for a while. Of course, that didn't stop him from keeping his hand firm around his satchel.

Moving onwards, he walked deeper into the warehouse district, the worn cobblestones digging roughly into his feet. He must get better shoes. This was not the finely paved rodes of Ellyria: for all the wealth in the great merchant houses, the Rohyrans did not have the resources to keep this part of the city well-maintained. And with decrepit infrastructure came decrepit humanity.

The streets were deserted here, and Vellurium wasn't sure whether that was a sign of safety or danger. Off in the distance, he could still hear the bustle of the docks, but there wasn't much human activity here. Off in the gutter, a few rats scurried: Vellurium was glad that his healing skills worked well against diseases, because who knew what plagues they might bear? They rustled through the offal lining the streets, eating all sorts of detritus. Maybe the human inhabitants just knew to stay away. Good for them.

The streets got narrower and darker, squeezed between tall buildings storing goods bound for all over the world. Vellurium was sure that at least some transportation happened inside the warehouses themselves, they were so big, and so there was good reason for the neglect on the streets.

He wondered briefly: coudl he have taken a wrong turn somewhere? He had always been terrible at directions: growing up, a chauffeur or horseman had always taken care of that. It would not do to get lost in this part of the city. At least he had his magic to protect him.

All he felt was a gentle tug on his shoulder. But that was enough to tell him: his satchel was gone! How could a thief have been so quick and so invisible? He should have had warning long before any cutpurse could get close.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a slight flicker. Perhaps the thief had an invisibility charm? He ran after it. He wasn't sure exactly where he was going, but he knew that the thief wouldn't just stand still, and he had important things in the satchel.

Where had they gone? The streets were deserted - again - with no trace of an occupant. Not even footprints, other than his own, and one would expect a person to leave footprints in the heavy dust coating the cobblestones.

He heard a faint scuffling, off down by an alley, and turned to follow. The alley ran between two squat, square, heavy stone structures, both built in the spare archituctural style of Rohyr. He hesitated briefly at the mouth - the alley was dark, narrow, with limited visibility, and he wasn't sure how safe it would be to follow.

But in the end, necessity won over prudence, and he followed...

Wed, 28 Sep 2005 05:07:37 GMT

Yeah, I'm starting from where I left off...

And in true NaNoWriMo tradition, going for pure word count at the expense of quality. That means long, lurid descriptions of every rock, tree, and cobblestone. And possibly not the greatest readability.

A twinge of regret flickered through Vellurium's stomach. He had been close friends - no, more than friends - with Lady Fyllian's brother. He'd made this walk several times before, over the years of their friendship. But he had not gone back in the ten years since Falon's death.

He walked off the wharf into the warehouse district. The wealthy areas of the city of Rohyr were inland, near the folded hills that marked most of the island. As the land got lower, so did the economic fortunes of the residents. The wharves and warehouses may have been the engine of Rohyr's economic growth, but you couldn't tell it from their dilapidated appearance. The wealth came in here and went elsewhere.

The main thoroughfare narrowed here, and Vellurium felt the cobblestones grow rougher underfoot. Close to the docks, the roads at least were maintained, because they were needed for wagon traffic. But here, just beyond the immediate loading area, there was little need for such practicalities. Freight was loaded and unloaded from the warehouses only; very few heavy goods actually traveled inland to the meager farmsteads in the interior, and only light luxury items to the wealthy families in the city proper.

A steady stream of merchants still poured out of the city center, each carrying exotic wares destined for points far east. Most had a load of servants to help them with their goods. Sometimes the servants were themselves quite well-dressed; othertimes, the merchants showed all the trappings of wealth and the workers none.

But mixed in were a large crowd of urchins, beggars, and other dispossessed. Some undoubtably formed the day labor for the piers, working to load and unload the ships and get them ready for sailing. Others were unemployed, and stayed here because they had no other place to go. Rohyr had scant other industry besides trade and shipping, so those that controlled the trade controlled the money. Everyone else was left behind.

A group of urchins stood by the curb, playing a game with a pebble-stuffed leather sack that they kicked around in a circle...

Ficlet/planning

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 06:08:37 GMT

Yeah, this is kinda a preliminary sketch for NaNo. It's really like a prequel short story, because I don't think I'll get to this part in the actual story. If there is an actual story. NaNo last year netted me about 500 words total.

It was cold. Cold and misty. A low fog sat over the harbor, engulfing the small two-masted sloop like a blanket on a child. Vellurium looked upwards, trying to make out the tips of the masts in the pea soup. Nothing. He might as well have been looking into a pillow.

At least the wind had died down, now that they had entered the harbor. It had blown briskly the whole voyage over, a chilly breeze that never quite came out of one's clothes. They had made good time, even though they did have to tack back and forth the whole time. Perhaps he'd been right to choose one of these Rohyran vessels. Unlike the small Kandit fishing boats that dotted the coast, Rohyran sloops could sail leagues out of sight of land, where the wind was strong. A journey that might have taken a fortnight ordinarily had lasted a scant 5 days.

Then again, the price was seasickness. With wind came waves, and Vellurium's stomach had never dealt well with waves. He'd spent most of the voyage leaning over scuppers, emptying his last meal into the Sea of Fortina. The crew had looked on, first with compassion, then with concern, and finally with growing amusement. Here he was, supposedly a powerful wizard, and he couldn't keep his dinner down.

But that had all ended when they pulled into to harbor of Rohyr properly, the ring of capes and islands finally blocking out the sea swells. Now there was just that infernal fog, the blanket that blocked out even a glimpse of the island from view. They would be docking soon, and yet he could not see the docks.

A sudden bustle on deck signalled that they had arrived. Soon enough, lines were going over the side, and the sloop was tied up to the dock. These seamen must have a sixth sense for land. If Vellurium had been at the helm, the ship would've ended up on the beach. Or worse, on the rocks.

The captain walked up besides him. "Pleasant voyage, I trust," he said. Vellurium grunted assent. "That good, eh? Well, you're welcome to sail with us again anytime you like."

No doubt the captain was influenced by the large sum of gold that Vellurium had paid for passage. The Council kept its wizards in good financial health, and Vellurium felt that this trip was important enough to warrant assurance of a speedy - and safe - passage.

But he was glad that he'd paid in advance, and didn't have to hand over the coins now. Given how he currently felt, he probably would've docked the captain's pay by at least half. And it was not a good idea to stiff a Rohyran. Word got around, and one was as likely to end up dead.

A pair of porters came up with Vellurium's belongings. He didn't really need their assistance - he had brought little, and could carry it all himself. But they'd at least saved him from having to go belowdecks, into that miserable cabin. He tipped them each a gold coin for their troubles and headed down the gangways.

Even this early in the morning, the docks were a bustle of activity. Rohyr's main industry was the shipping trade, and every day dozens of ships arrived to load or unload their cargo. Rohyran vessels were the only ones capable of making open-ocean journeys, and they returned with wondrous goods that had never before been seen on the continent. These were then loaded into sloops, barques, and caravels for transport to greedy buyers on the mainland. The whole enterprise had made some families very, very rich.

Vellurium was on his way to visit one of those wealthy families right now. The Council had deemed them a worthwhile ally, and that meant Vellurium was to do everything possible to make them so. Never mind that Rohyrans were highly distrustful of wizards, that sorcery was illegal on the islands, and that merely being here could easily result in his death. Somehow, it would all work out.

A twinge of regret...

I think that's enough for now. Time for another try at sleeping.

Interview, part 2

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 05:43:49 GMT

Part 2 of that pesky character interview thing. Might want to read Part 1 for abbreviations, setting (not like we're following it anyway), character descriptions, etc.

AY: Good music choice.

IV: What did I tell you about anachronisms?

AY: I'm sorry. (IV: I don't believe you!) But I really do like music. There wasn't much in Rohyr. I love going out by the docks and watching the street musicians play.

IV: Do you play anything yourself?

AY: I wish I could. I'm getting this lady to teach me. She lives in a little hut. Her name is Mlavrodora.

IV: What does she do for a living?

AY: She's a beggar.

IV: *disapproving look*

AY: Oh, but I'll be paying her for lessons. They give us a small allowance at the Academy.

IV: And your teachers there know that you will be leaving the grounds?

AY: We have some free time.

IV: Admit it. You were planning to sneak out.

AY: *guilty look*

IV: *shakes head* Geesh, why are my characters so disobedient. Won't even obey me, let alone their superiors.

AV: It's for a good reason! And they're not my superiors. I know more than most of them.

IV: They have experience. You don't. If you were allowed to run amok, you'd end up burning up the continent.

AV: I would not! *indignant* Maybe a couple streets, but only the bad ones, where thieves and murderers live, but not everything.

IV: You would. You can't control your powers. They're going to run away from you someday.

AV: Will not.

IV: Will too.

AV: Will not.

IV: Will not.

AV: Will t...wait. Who's supposed to be the 11-year-old here?

IV: I am the author. I am timeless.

AV: ~~Timelessly annoying.~~

IV: Let that be stricken from the record.

AV: *muzzled*

AV: *struggles to speak*

IV: Oh, all right. *removes gag order*

AV: I told you you were a mean and nasty man.

IV: There will be no oliphants in this interview.

AV: You said it, I didn't.

IV: ENOUGH.

IV: Why is it that I can get in 2 or 3 good questions, and then we go off on a horrible tangent that either ends in oliphants or quackery.

AY: *swings legs innocently* Good question.

IV: Okay. Where were we?

AY: Music?

IV: No, more like sneaking out. Do you like to sneak out often?

AY: *eyes widen* *guilty look*

IV: I thought so. I'm not going to turn you in; the interview for the headmaster doesn't come until later. He doesn't even have a name yet.

AY: *audible sigh of relief* Phew.

IV: But I do want to know. Where do you go when you sneak out?

AY: Oh, down to the river, most of the time. I like to watch the ships unload. It reminds me of home.

IV: I thought you didn't care about home.

AY: I don't care about the streets or the land. But I love the water.

IV: Why?

AY: I'm only 11. How'm I supposed to know?

IV: Okay. Pretend you're an omniscient examiner. Like me. Why?

AY: If you're the omniscient examiner, why can't you tell me?

IV: Because it's much better if you get it for yourself.

AY: I don't want to talk about it.

IV: Here we go again.

AY: *zips lips*

IV: Fine then, be difficult. *switches bodies*

IV-as-AY: Interesting. Never been a girl before. It's a somewhat different experience.

AY-as-IV: What's that between your legs?

IV-as-AY: Oh my.

IV-as-AY: Umm. This was a bad idea. *switches back to normal body*

AY: That was interesting. Can we do it again? I wanna touch all the new body parts!

IV: Good lord, what have I done?

AY: There's always white-out.

IV: Oh. Good idea.

IV: Now, will you tell me why you prefer the water?

AY: *sighs* It reminds me of my parents. They used to take me on trips to visit their outlying holdings. I'd stand up on deck and ask the seamen all sorts of questions.

IV: I can imagine.

AY: Even after they died, I used to sail a little pinnace in the harbor. I'd take a few of my mates out, and we'd terrorize some of the smaller ships before they got to unloading.

IV: Did you steal stuff?

AY: *guilty look*

IV: That look is getting awfully familiar now. It's pointless anyway; I'm omniscient, remember.

AY: You won't tell anyone, will you?

IV: Did you return the stuff you stole?

AY: We ate it.

IV: *shakes head*

AY: We were hungry!

IV: I'm sure you were.

AY: You're mean and uncharitable!

IV: Yes, we've already established this.

IV: Y'know, the more I think about it, the more I believe that you're not the star of this series.

AY: Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease let me be the star! I'll do anything! I won't sneak out! I won't steal stuff! Well, any more than I have to.

IV: *sharp look*

AY: *zips lips*

IV: See...I get the feeling that you're in the wrong time period. Remember how you kept asking to go to the future, and to play with the lightsaber?

AY: *hopeful look* Can I?

IV: Hopefully. And you could easily be a girl in modern times too. Or in colonial times. Or deep in the far future. I think I may have an alternate storyline for you.

AY: Do I get to play with lightsabers?

IV: Maybe not lightsabers. But definitely some futuristic sort of gadget.

AY: Cool!

IV: See? You belong at least in the 20th century.

AY: But I'm stuck here.

IV: Maybe. I'll see what I can do.

Character interview

Sun, 31 Jul 2005 04:46:56 GMT

Character interview, like they tell you to do on writing websites. Really just playing around. Character name is from a fantasy world I've been building, but I dunno if the character will amount to anything.

The Interviewer: Aka "The Author", the interviewer is a magical, omnipotent being. He glides over the storyline, appearing shimmery and ethereal to the characters. He acts as a silent puppeteer, pulling their strings.

The Character: Named "Allyandra" (that's 3 syllables, not 4). 11 years old. Dirty-blonde hair, slight of build, oval-ish face. My notes have her down as an heir to a murdered Rohyran family, raised from the age of 7 by a poor family in the slums, until discovered by a mage talent-searcher. She will likely disagree with me on that.

The Setting: A dark, cold dungeon. No wait, that's cliche. A dark, cold castle. A little better. Castles were dark and cold, at least. A dark, cold wardrobe in a dark, cold castle on a dark, cold island in a dark cold kingdom.

Interviewer (IV): What the hell are you doing in that closet?

Allyandra (AY): You put me here. Duh. Try to be a little more creative next time. It could've been a laundromat, for example. Or a sewage treatment plant.

IV: *taken aback* Watch your anachronisms, young lady! You're stuck in the middle ages, whether you like it or not.

AY: What if I don't want to be stuck in the middle ages? What if I want to see the future? What if I think this is a dirty shithole and wish you'd set me down in the year 2050 instead of some dreary fantasy novel?

IV: Hmm. That's an idea. Will you behave if I give you a nice sci-fi part?

AY: No. But I get to play with cool lasers.

IV: You're hopeless. Why don't you settle for being a powerful witch like every other character in this story?

AY: Because then I'd be ordinary. I want to be exceptional! I want to be the star!

IV: Braggart.

AY: *blushes slightly* Maybe a little. But do I have to be like everyone else? That's so dull!

IV: I can't let you hog the story. Then you'd turn into a Mary Sue.

AY: So write me as one and get it out of your system?

IV: Nice try.

AY: Hey, it could've worked.

IV: So...you're not actually helping much, y'know. We haven't worked out a single character detail. Other than plopping you down in the future.

AY: Canyoucanyoucanyou?

IV: I'll think about it.

AY: Yay! I want a lightsaber too! And a Death Star!

IV: THIS IS NOT STAR WARS FANFIC.

AY: A wand and a patronus then?

IV: NOT HARRY POTTER EITHER.

AY: *sulks* Fine. I'll go back to my world. If you insist.

IV: Good. Okay, let's talk about Rohyr. That's your birth-country...do you feel any attachment to it?

AY: Eh. It's home. Mostly I got to know the back alleyways really well. There's nothing special about them.

IV: What about before then, when you had a real family, in one of the richest houses of Rohyr?

AY: I barely remember it.

IV: Surely you must have some memories.

AY: *whispers* Can we talk about something else?

IV: Come on, the damaged-child-who-blocks-out-part-of-her-childhood is soooo cliched.

AY: *tear*

IV: All right, you win. You're very emotionally manipulative, you know.

AY: *cry*

IV: Okay, okay, I didn't mean it! Here, have some candy...*produces a toffee out of thin air* Can we get on with this?

AY: *softly* I miss them...

IV: *more tenderly* Do you want to talk about it more.

AY: No.

IV: It's fiction.

AY: NO!

IV: All right.

AY: *sucks on a lock of hair*

IV: Look, okay, I'm not good at writing kids your age. I'm not good at writing anyone, really. Youngest character I've done anything significant with was 13-year-old Harry.

AY: You're a mean old man.

IV: Maybe so, but you're still my character, and you have to do what I want you to.

AY: I haven't been doing it so far.

IV: Damn straight.

AY: You said "Damn!" *giggles* Wait till I tell the master of the house!

IV: He's my character too.

AY: Oh. *looks thoughtful* When do I get to be the author?

IV: When you grow up and write a book-within-a-book.

AY: Can I write you in and make you do what I want then?

IV: I suppose.

AY: I'm going to, y'know.

IV: I'm sure you will.

AY: And I'm going to make you quack like an oliphant.

IV: Oliphants don't quack.

AY: In my book they do.

IV: I fear.

AY: *beams*

I think that's enough for now, though I'm going to continue this in another post. My characters hate me. No really, I mean they literally hate me. Oh well...I suppose this was a good idea. Might as well show me just how contemptuous of me they really are.

So, so bored

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 04:26:41 GMT

This is kinda a multi-songfic, because I'm not quite ready to go to bed, yet I'm also not doing anything else productive. Waaah. So, I'm going to pick the line that sticks out most in each song of my playlist, as they come on, and then write a scene based on that.

I will not be afraid of women...

Elanthra kicked the fine gravel sand by her feet. It wasn't fair. The boys in the family got to do everything. All she got to do was sit at home and spin. She'd taken to calling her mother rumpelstiltskin, she spun so much.

It wasn't really because she had to. Her parents had always given her a choice, and, being of the noble caste, they had money to play with. But her mother had been a weaver to rival Arachne, and Elanthra felt honor-bound to carry on her mother's talent.

Except she just wasn't good at it.

Weaving hurt her fingers. It was fine work, delicate, and she lacked the patience for it. She wanted to accomplish great things. Great things, however, seemed to have no need for her. So she stayed at home and wove, as much as she hated it. Naturally, all of her pieces sucked donkey balls.

A crow flew past her. Birds, at least, could fly. They weren't cooped up by bonds of honor and love. Sometimes Elanthra felt like her wings had been clipped.

I'll be glad to go...

A plan hatched in her mind. Would anyone really care if she left home? Probably, at least for a while, but they would get over it. They didn't really need her. Nobody did.

Sure, her parents would grieve for her, but she'd never really fit into the family. She'd always just been there, struggling at a task that she hated her and that hated her. Her brothers had been the stars in the family, one scholarly and wise, the other tall and strong. They would carry on the family honor, while she could live her own life.

It was so close. All she had to do was keep walking. This rode led on to the next town, and then onto the great city Shrevardnia. She wasn't really packed for travelling - she'd just gone out for a quick walk - but she had money with her. She could buy whatever she needed.

Elanthra's mind went back and forth between her plan and her family. It was a hard choice, but not really. She'd never really lived her own life before - this was her chance. With every footstep, she wandered farther and farther from her home.

A traveler passed by her. He tipped his hat, but she ignored him. One could never be sure of the intentions of strange men. She'd have to make her own way.

She kept walking. It was midafternoon now, and the sun was beginning its slow descent to the horizon. It would be night soon, and she'd have to find a place to stay.

In the house of stone and light...

Up ahead, a small cottage stood by the road. It had a stone foundation, small wooden beams for framing, and a thatched exterior. A modest dwelling, but sturdy. Probably the home of a woodcutter or peasant. They would be glad for a couple coins in exchange for a night's lodging.

She walked up to the door, suddenly feeling nervous. Who were these people? Would they take kindly to strangers? Was it safe to stay with them?

Fighting her trepidation, she knocked. A middle-aged woman answered, blonde with tinges of gray in her hair. Her face was lined, betraying an age greater than her appearance.

I know that I'm not the first one...
"What do you want?" the old woman asked brusquely.

"I seek a night's room and board," Elanthra answered. "I can pay."

"We don't take in strangers," said the woman, and moved to shut the door.

"Please," Elanthra said hastily, "if not with you, where can I find shelter for the night? It shall be cold in the morn, and I have no clothes but those on my back?"

"Well, then you should have thought of that before you left home in such flimsy clothing."

Chastened, Elanthra made as if to leave. Perhaps she would even head home. Her parents would be mad, going away for so long without telling anyone, but they spoiled her and would let her get away with almost anything.

But the woman caught her shawl and pulled her back. "Wait," she said. Her eyes seem fixed on the pendant Elanthra wore around her neck. "Where did you get that?"

"My mother gave it to me. It's been in our family for years. I don't even know who first had it, or how they came about it."

"Perhaps there is room at my hearth for one more. But only for tonight. Come inside." It was more of a command than an acquiescence.

Possibly to-be-continued, but I'm getting bored & tired now. In case you were wondering the songs were:

Dar Williams - As Cool As I Am

Rasputina - A Quitter

Martin Page - In the House of stone and light

Ace of Base - Angel Eyes

And next up would've been Dream Theater - A Change of Seasons ("Let's feed upon his misery"), but I got bored.

more sketches

Fri, 25 Feb 2005 05:58:03 GMT

These are a couple of "WTF?!?!?" pieces. They don't actually make sense, I'm just playing around.

There are no answers. Only questions.

What if that were the case? What if there literally were no answers, only questions? What if every sentence were like this one, ended with the curly punctuation mark?

Would we be able to live? Would we be able to make sense of the world? How? Don't we rely on answers to give us a solid base to ask more questions from? If we don't have answers, how can we interpret the questions?

That is all.

------

Enoch is. With a burgundy flannel shirt that he keeps perpetually unbuttoned, with the mildly hairy chest that he goes on displaying, he just is. He's not special at all. He holds a nondescript job at a nondescript construction site building nondescript buildings. When he gets off work, he goes home to his nondescript rowhouse, to see his nondescript wife and their nondescript kids.

He lives a boring life. And he likes it that way.

Change brings uncertainty. Uncertainty brings indecision. Indecision brings angst. Angst...well, angst is just plain bad. And therefore change is bad too.

Besides, Enoch's nondescript wife and kids love him just the way he is. Everything is well-ordered, like the set of natural numbers. Nothing ever goes wrong.

Standard tropes would suggest that Enoch's life is about to change. It's not.

He continues living each day like the past. Each is so unremarkable that it does not deserve to be shown in the story. He gets up at 4:30 AM, well before first light. He showers. He shaves. He tries to get dressed without waking his wife, who works as a hairdresser and so has somewhat saner hours. He wolfs down a bowl of cereal. He makes the kids' lunches and puts them in the refrigerator. He goes to work. He welds beams together. He welds more beams together. He welds more beams together. He welds more beams together. He welds his lips shut. He goes home. He spends a couple hours of quality time with his kids.

He enjoys every moment of it.

And then one day, he drops dead. He is no more.

That is the end of Enoch.

Sat, 30 Oct 2004 03:59:58 GMT

Taking a break from NaNo plottage for now for some HP fic. T/G pregnancy fic, to be precise. Inspired by adjudicated's post about pregnancy fics . I just had to see if I could do one.

This is rather obviously an AU, as there're no Weaslylets running around in GoF and beyond. And I don't have the books with me, so I'm playing fast and loose with canon.

Oh, and this is probably a stupid idea, because I have 50 minutes in which to write a pregnancy fic, and pregfics take a lot more time than that to develop properly. But I'm going to try anyway.

This is for rhiannariddle, because she never writes anymore. :-( That, and I miss the old Gin 'n Tonic days, even if I was never really a shipper.

*****
It is June. The Chamber has been sealed. And Ginny still can't sleep.

The satiny sheets feel cold and clammy against her body. Soft moonlight filters through the window, but it brings no comfort. She twists and turns, yet never drifts off.

Instead, she thinks. And she remembers. She wishes she didn't; she wishes that that night would drift off into the hazy oblivion of memories past. But it doesn't. It keeps on resurfacing, frothing to the surface like a drowning man coming up for air.

What really happened down there?

It was Tom. The Tom of the diary, the friend she trusted with her most intimate secrets. He knew everything about her, and he...used her.

She remembers his heavy form upon her. She remembers him fumbling with her clothes, ripping, tearing them aside. She remembers being too weak or too stuporous to resist, a rag doll on the rocky floor. She remembers crying out in pain. She remembers the warmth coming unbidden to parts of her body. She remembers the hot flush of shame spreading across her cheeks.

She wishes she didn't remember.

And now it is over. Except it's not. Ginny knows that it's not over, that it can never be over, because what happened in the Chamber of Secrets cannot be undone. Some things just change a person forever.

Ginny rolls over for the umpteenth time and shuts her eyes tight. She buries her face in the pillow and wills herself asleep. After a while, unconsciousness claims her.

*****

It is July. The school year has ended. And Ginny is worried.

She is late. She tells herself that it is probably nothing. She is young. Her monthlies are not yet regular. Scarcely six month before, she bled for the first time. It has only been six weeks since her last.

There're many reasons why a twelve year old girl might be late. Ginny knows them all. It could just be her age. Perhaps her diet is inadequate. Maybe the Muggle milk her father buys is laced with hormones. It could be her newly-strengthened magical powers. Or it could be the stress of the Chamber.

The stress of the Chamber.

Ginny no longer forces the memory of what happened there from her mind. She has come to terms with it. She knows that she cannot deny it. She knows that trying will only make things worse. But oh, how she wishes she could pretend it never happened.

The word "rape" comes unbidden to her mind.

Tom raped her. He violated her. And Ginny did nothing to stop him. A fresh flush of shame falls upon her face.

She still hasn't told her parents.

The rational, logical part of her mind seethes with anger. She knows it is unproductive; Tom was a memory, a ghost from 50 years ago, something hideously preserved by an age old diary. But she feels better. It takes her mind off the present.

How will her parents respond? They thought she was safe when she turned up alive. Little did they know.

It is too early to get upset. Ginny sits back and wishes her period would come.

*****

It is August. The air is hot in the Burrow. And Ginny is pregnant.

It can no longer be anything else. Ginny hasn't menstruated since the middle of May. Ten weeks is a problem. So the Weasleys take Ginny to the witchdoctor.

The witchdoctor said, "Ooh, eeh, oooh, aahh aahh." And he takes Ginny's vitals. And he performs lots of tests. And he gives Ginny a full exam. And then the word comes.

Ginny is pregnant.

Arthur and Molly are in shock. "How could this happen?" Molly stammers. Her face looks like it's just been trampled by a hippogriff. A mixture of rage and sadness and disappointment and disbelief. Ginny can't stand it.

Arthur is more direct. "Who have you been with?" he demands.

Ginny feels like crying. She feels her eyes water. Luckily no tear falls. "The Chamber..." she stammers.

All the anger drains out of both parents' faces.

"Oh, honey," Molly says, embracing Ginny. And Molly is crying. Ginny can feel her sobs, her whole body shaking. "I never knew," Molly says, numbly.

"I didn't want you to," says Ginny.

They go home in silence. Ginny can tell that her father wants to speak, but he doesn't know the words. None of them do.

When they reach the Burrow, he finally speaks. "What next?" he asks.

*****

It is September. The school year has begun again. And Ginny is sick.

Hermione holds her hair back while she vomits into a chamber pot. "Thank you," Ginny murmurs. "It must have been something I ate."

Her friends don't know yet. Dumbledore does, but not the rest of the school. Her parents wanted to keep it a secret.

Ginny doesn't see the point. In a few months, everyone will know anyway.

But she keeps her silence because she's afraid of their reactions. Will they think her a monster? A freak? Twelve year old girls do not get pregnant. It is against the laws of nature. Heck, most of them can't even get pregnant. But it happened to Ginny.

She thinks about all the older students. Some of them must be having sex. Why, she'd even caught Percy and Penelope going for it on the Hogwarts Express. Yet this didn't happen to them. None of them were dumb enough to let the consequences catch up to them.

Ginny pushes such thoughts from her mind. It was not her fault. Tom Riddle abused her. She was assaulted by the most powerful dark wizard who ever lived.

But would they understand that? They were not the ones who would be having a baby. She was. How could they ever empathize? Or even sympathize?

Ginny went downstairs to try and keep some breakfast down.

*****

It is November. Snow is on the ground. And Ginny is big.

She feels like a fat cow. Her belly has swollen like an overinflated Quaffle. Her breasts - tiny bumps when this ordeal began - are now larger than some of the 5th years. She feels ugly and ashamed and wishes she could hide all day.

Everyone knows. Most people are pretty decent about it. If they comment at all, it's to reassure her or express their sympathy. Although the well-wishers sometimes get annoying. Sometimes she wishes she could just forget.

She feels their stares upon her. She knows she's the center of attention. Last year, she would've loved it. But this year, she wants to disappear. Let someone else provide the freak show.

She bumps into people on the way to class. They move out of the way, afraid to touch her. Or they treat her like glass, a fragile vessel that might break. Neither one is particularly fun.

She hopes she can go back to the carefree girl she once was after all this is over. But she doesn't think so. You don't carry around another life form for 9 months without being changed by it.

*****

It is February. The comforting environment of the Burrow surround her. And Ginny is in labor.

Dumbledore decided it would be best if she gave birth at home. Hogwarts is no place for a pregnant woman, even if she is a student. Ginny doesn't mind. She welcomes the privacy.

She has been keeping up on her schoolwork via owl. It is almost most relaxing this way. Far fewer stressors. Except for the impending due date.

Now the contractions have started. Ginny feels a slight twinge in her abdomen. Another one, later. Then they start to come faster and faster. Ginny is afraid.

Her mother is next to her. She holds Ginny's hand and whispers comforting words of encouragement. "Don't worry, darling, you popped right out. It'll be over in no time."

Ginny thinks on the irony. Only twelve years ago, this baby was her. She feels oddly sad. What happened to her childhood?

Another contraction. They are painful now. Ginny cries out. She feels the most unbearable pressure on her pelvis. Her mother tells her to "PUSH!"

She hears crying and looks down. Her mother swaddles the baby and brings it close to her. He has black hair and blue eyes. Just like his father.

Ginny shivers. She has given birth to a monster.

And now I'm being kicked out. How was that? Not terribly bad for 45 minutes writing.

Character sketch - Ada

Wed, 27 Oct 2004 06:14:47 GMT

Trying the character-sketch thing again, because I don't really want to go home yet and I certainly don't wanna do my paper. Stolen from out_lines via biztheinsane:

Questionnaire #1 - The Basics

1. Your Name: Ada
2. Your age: 15
3. Describe yourself: I never know what to put here, because it's such a broad question. Umm...I hack computers? I like to read. I hate not having enough information. I don't seem like a loner, but there's a lot about me that my friends don't know. Oh, and I have dark bra-strap length hair that I'd like to complain about but have no reason to, and a flat stomach, and no breasts to speak of.
4. Describe your mate (if applicable): I wish! But my ideal one would be tall, dark, and handsome, wouldn't mind my occasional hackery, and would be well-read in just about everything.
5. Where (and when) do you live? 3 Oak Hill Rd, Winthrop Collective, Northeastern North America. It's one of the few private houses left on the continent, and the property encompasses some of the last privately-owned forests in the region.
6. What's your favourite sweet? Maple syrup

Questionnaire #2 -- Favourites

What is your favourite...
1. Season? Fall. Love the crispness in the air.
2. Food? Probably will come as a surprise to most people, but rhubarb stew.
3. Animal? Squirrels
4. Colour? Green
5. Time of day? Past midnight, when everything's quiet
6. Weapon? Umm...my HyperNet connection?

Questionnaire #3 - Background

Tell us about...
1. Your place of birth. I think I may be the last person who was born at home. Actually, my grandfather's home, which I'm living in now. My parents were up for Solstice, and I decided that I didn't want to wait. I was delivered on the library floor.
2. Your childhood. Another awfully broad question, eh? I remember the playroom my parents set up for me, with all the mobiles and blocks and curly metal things. I'm sure some of them were brand-name, but I was blissfully ignorant back then. I remember grandpa giving me circuit boards to play with, and then my parents getting all mad because they had little electronic components that could be bitten off. I remember my nanny, or actually nannies, because I scared the first 4 off, that I spent most of my time with because my parents were at work. I remember visits to my grandfather's, and how he would hold me on his lap in the library and read to me. I remember the first time I used a computer - I think I was about 3, and my grandfather taught me to program by having me move this little bug around the screen.

I remember the day my grandfather died. And I don't want to get into that.

I don't remember all that much of the rest of elementary school, though I know I read a lot and tried to learn everything I could about programming. I felt I owed it to my grandfather.

I remember how I hated middle school and had no friends, and how I programmed Blaise (my AI friend) out of boredom when I was 11. I really had no idea that AI was an unsolved computer science problem, and of course now I've gotten too attached to Blaise to turn him over to the professors. He comes in handy too; tends my garden when I don't have time to.

And then in high school, I finally found friends and tried to be normal. But I'm sure there's another question on that.

3. Your parents. My dad is a bioengineer for Vivitek Inc. My mom is a lawyer for InstaWin Legal Services Inc. They both work really long hours and don't have all that much time for me.
4. Your siblings. Have none. I used to want a little brother, until I found out how annoying little boys could be.
5. Your (current) home. It's my grandfather's old place - my parents moved in after he died because they couldn't bear to sell it. It's really big for a house nowadays. It was built in about 2025, soon after my grandfather cashed out much of his HyperNet stock. It's huge and meandering, and has many nooks and crannies. It's also got some of the region's few remaining private woods, where my garden is.
6. Your favourite "hang out". Public or private? My favorite private hangout is the crawlspace between the library and the upstairs hall, because I don't think anyone else in the world knows about it. Public hangout is probably Starbucks, as it's better than the fast-food joints with their smell of boiling fat.

Questionnaire #4 - Skills

1. Can you read? A lot.
2. Can you write? Yes.
3. Can you sing? Umm. No. (I've heard my voice isn't that bad, but I can't carry a tune at all.)
4. Can you play an instrument? See above re: carrying a tune.
5. What languages do you speak? Erlang, Haskell, Scheme...oh, you meant human languages. What, there're languages besides English?
6. What weapons can you use? My deadly Twiddle-O-d00m and a 'net connection.

Questionnaire #5 - Secrets

1. Are you good at keeping secrets about yourself? Yes
2. What is your best kept secret? *shifty eyes* Like I'd tell you.
3. What is your worst kept secret? That I have a huge crush on Zaheer. Ooops.
4. Are you good at keeping secrets about others? Yes, surprisingly. You'd think that with the whole freedom-of-information thing, I'd blab everything to everyone, but usually I just don't care enough.
5. What secret about someone else have you kept and wish you hadn't? I wish I'd told my grandfather about the car I'd seen on the street the last time I saw him.
6. What secret about someone else have you not kept and wish you had? I wish I hadn't told the whole school that Mr. Bohenan was actually a woman according to his birth certificate.

Questionnaire #6 - Sex

1. Are you a virgin? *sigh* Alas, yes
2. Do you mate for life? I hope to eventually, but not for a very long time.
3. Who was your first lover? (or, if you are a virgin -- Who would you like your first lover to be?) I think practically everyone knows who I want it to be. See the worst-kept secret.
4. Who is your current lover? *pouts* I wish I had one?
5. What is your favourite sexual position? On top. *blush*
6. What are your kinks? *blushes* I always wanted to do it in the library stacks. Actually, any public place is kind of hot.

Questionnaire #7 - Best and Worst

1. What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you? My grandfather dying.
2. What's the best thing that's ever happened to you? It's hard to tell, this early in my life. Probably creating Blaise.
3. Who is your worst enemy? The Corporation. But that's rather abstract. If I had to pick a
4. Who is your best friend? Zaheer, probably
5. Tell us about your worst kiss. Oh, if only I'd had one.
6. Tell us about your best kiss. See above.

Questionnaire #8 - Mornings

1. What time do you wake/get up? As late as possible! Which, unfortunately, is only about 7:00 on school days and can be as late
2. What's the first thing you do upon waking? Curse the alarm clock.
3. Are you a morning person? No. Absolutely not.
4. What is your typical morning like? Get up, throw some clothes on, brush teeth etc, grab breakfast, run out the door.
5. Do you drink coffee? Yes.
6. Do you need coffee? No. It's more of a social thing, for group get-togethers and stuff.

Questionnaire #9 - Are you?
Are you...

1. Smart? Yep.
2. Arrogant? A tad, maybe
3. Good-looking? No. Well, maybe.
4. Sexy? I try to be. I usually fail miserably.
5. Capable? Usually.
6. Dangerous? You bet. Let me near your networks, baby, and you're going down.

Questionnaire #10 -- Marks

1. Do you have any scars? One, from when I fell on the stairs at grandfather's house and scraped my shin when I was 7.
2. Do you have any piercings? Ears pierced, two holes in each. Nothing else.
3. Do you have any tattoos? No. Eww.
4. Do you have any other markings? There's a small birthmark on the back of my left shoulder.
5. Do you wear any jewellery? Occasionally a bracelet or a choker, and I love the flash memory rings.
6. Have you ever broken any bones? Same incident that gave me the scar.

Questionnaire #11 - Grab Bag

1. What is your favourite mode of transportation? Bicycle, actually. But it's so hard to get around in one in a vehicular world.
2. Can you cook? Yeah, decently. I usually end up cooking for myself because my parents are shameless carnivores.
3. Do you have big feet? No. They're quite petite, actually
4. What is the square root of 169? +-13
5. If you could change your name to anything you wanted, what would you change it to? Liss. And not short for Elizabeth or anything. I just like the sound of it. It's almost like Lisp, too, which is a nifty benefit.
6. What is the sound of one hand clapping? Depends if it's hooked up to a VR machine.

Questionnaire #12 -- Rituals

1. Do you believe in a higher power? I'm...not sure. I'm almost certain that one didn't exist, but occasionally I have doubts.
2. Do you belong to a formal religion? Absolutely not. Sham and a crutch for weak minds.
3. Do you have any religious rituals? Is gardening a religious ritual? Cycling? Hacking?
4. Do your people have any sort of coming of age ritual? Getting picked on in middle school? Shamelessly exposing (nonexistent, woe) bodyparts to the opposite sex in hopes of getting them to pay attention.
5. Do you have any personal rituals? Maybe this is where "religious rituals" should go.
6. Do you have any sexual rituals? If I had sex, I probably would.

Questionnaire #13 -- Your lover
If you do not have a lover/mate/significant other/spouse, please answer the questions about your best friend.

1. How long have you been together? 2 years
2. What do you like to do together? Program computers?
3. What do you do to make your ~~lover~~ ~~friend~~ potential lover happy? I...don't know! I'm a horrible person. Maybe this is why he's not my lover yet.
4. What do you do even though it upsets your lover? Bitch at Kerry
5. If someone was going to meet your lover for the first time, what one thing would they need to know? He's Muslim? And he's actually a - God forbid - honest person?
6. What's your absolutely favourite thing about your lover? He's always there for me, and always knows what to say.

Questionnaire #14 - If you were...
If you were a _____ what would you be?

1. A metal. Silicon, because it either lets current flow or doesn't. It's a semiconductor; that's close enough.
2. A plant. Moss, because it grows in the dark.
3. A fault. Impatience, probably, because I always take the easy road if something looks the least bit difficult.
4. A virtue. I'd like to think it's justice. I try to do the right thing.
5. A colour. Midnight blue, and no, my favorite is green.
6. A season. Early spring, even though my favorite is fall.

Questionnaire #15 -- What is your most distinctive...
What is your most distinctive...

1. Physical feature? Eyes. They aren't quite Asian, but they aren't really Caucasian either. It's somewhere in between. (I'm 1/4 Japanese, the rest being Russian/Polish/English/Irish/Swedish)
2. Physical mannerism? Standing up, it's that my hands are always in my back pockets. Sitting down, probably that my eyes will always glance off to the peripherals periodically.
3. Character trait? I sometimes get really excited - as in, obsessed - by something, and then quickly try to hide it.
4. Turn of phrase? "No way"
5. Pet peeve? Stupid people in large groups.
6. Habit? Hacking. It's addictive. Though few people know I do it.

And that's enough for now.