Together

Reinan and Asval stood, back to back, both tired and weak, as the seemingly endless onslaught of enemies continued to circle around them. Reinan still had his sword firmly held in his hand, while Asval had long since lost his own. Fortunately, Asval was much more skilled in magic, and had been able to continue to hold his own. However, his supply of mana was running low, and it wouldn't be long before he was out entirely. Reinan, on the other hand, had his sword arm badly damaged, and could barely hold off attacks, much less retaliate.

"Hey, buddy," Reinan called out, his voice barely loud enough to be heard. "You know, I've been thinking. Neither one of us can last much longer, correct?"

"Yeah," Asval responded, just as breathless. "Not very likely. I'm running low on fuel, and you can't even attack. We might as well be dead at this point."

Reinan sighed. "Blunt and irritating as always, dear friend," he replied. "I was thinking though. You know that spell we're not supposed to use under any circumstances?"

"You son of a bitch," Asval cursed, using a blast of wind to knock the enemies away, buying them some time. "You can't seriously be saying that's what we should do. You know better than that, don't you?"

"Well, normally I would. But it's kind of do or die right now."

Asval grumbled, unable to disagree. He took a deep breath and began to cast, his words mumbled and foreign to Reinan's ears. He was used to hearing his friend's spell casting, but even this sounded dark and unfamiliar, unwelcoming. He could practically feel the power of it starting to pull at his feet, and how corrupt it was. Asval had refused to tell his friend where he had learned this magic. But Reinan could tell it was not from his old master.

Darkness began to swirl at their feet, pulling them together. It lifted from the ground, crawling up their legs and torsos, constantly pulling them closer together. Just before the darkness reached his hands, Reinan cast away the sword he had been holding. He remembered just in time the danger that could arrive from his holding it when the spell was finished. They didn't know all of the details, but they knew for sure that, other than the clothes on their backs, it would be best for them not to be holding much that wasn't directly a part of them.

As the darkness completely covered them, it pushed them together, mixing together until there was no longer two towers of darkness, but one. The moment the towers of darkness finished coming together, the darkness faded away, and there were no longer two people, but one. The combined person looked down at his body, an amalgamation of the two people that had been there before. Their features had combined together, and the clothes had become a jumbled mess. And yet, somehow, the appearance worked for him.

The man walked to the discarded sword and picked it up, testing its weight. Finding it suitable, he looked at his other hand, and summoned a tornado of fire around it. "Well," he spoke, both voices of Reinan and Asval coming out of his mouth simultaneously. "I think this will work after all."

Artsy

For a guy who focuses so much on story and the like, you might think that I'm a fan of games and movies that are, as I tend to call them artsy fartsy. You know, stuff that's all about the meaning and the story behind it, rather than necessarily what is there presented to you. I get why these kinds of things exist. In a way, they probably need to exist. They have a purpose, and I know what that purpose is. I get it.

I hate them.

I just feel like these kinds of things are trying to push a message on to you, trying to make you feel something that you might not necessarily want to feel or even fully understand. And frankly, half the time these messages are incredibly depressing. I don't understand the fascination with sad things. Sad music, sad stories, sad anything. I don't want to have sadness thrust upon me. I've been in deep, dark places, and quite frankly, I don't want to have to go back to them.

Maybe I'm just seeing the wrong corner of the artsy fartsy genre. But every time I see one pop up, the story is depressing, and the author is either giving you a narration of exactly what is happening, or is willing to tell you absolutely nothing. Neither of these are useful to me. If you want me to experience something, let me experience it. Give me the necessary details, like where I am, who I am, where I'm going. But you don't have to tell me anything more than that if your goal is to make me feel. Give me something to experience and I will experience it. Give me something to feel and I will feel it. You don't have to hold my hand through it, or dump me carelessly into an open, empty world to get your point across.

I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't enjoy these things. I'm never trying to say that. And I understand why people enjoy them. I'm just saying that I don't, and these are my reasons why. I feel like you can tell these stories in a much better way. You can have your artsy fun and still make something compelling and interesting. But I personally have yet to see it.

I haven't really talked about it much here in the blog, but I'm a big gamer. And these things that I'm talking about apply especially in artsy fartsy video games. The people who make these kinds of things abandon everything that we know makes a good game. They limit gameplay, push storytelling, and generally make it feel more like you're watching a somewhat interactive movie than playing a game. Again, that works for some people. Even I play rpgs, which are heavy on cutscenes. But you can only push that so far before it starts to seriously detract from what makes games fun and interesting.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be artsy fartsy. Wanting to do something in a new and different way. But if you're going to do that, don't forget what elements of your media of choice make it good. Push the boundaries, reach for new heights, that's how things change and evolve. But don't just abandon the things that worked in the past. They worked for a reason, after all.

The mine

"Yo boss, how much further we gotta keep digging?" One of the miner's asked, setting his pickaxe aside to wipe his brow. The group had been mining for days, going deeper and deeper into the earth, with seemingly little to show for it. Their boss, a strong man named Lloyd, had woven stories of the fortunes that they would make, digging up silver and gold and who knows what else. But so far, all they had manage to find was rock and stones.

"Are you questioning me?" Lloyd demanded, pushing a finger into the man's face. The man flinched and stepped backwards, which resulted in his slamming his head into the hard stone wall. "Do you really think that I brought you down here for nothing? Did you forget of all the riches that I told you about? Do you think that was all a lie?"

"Of course we don't, boss," one of the other miners said. "We know you're in it with us. It's just that we've been out here for so long, and we have so little to show for it so far. It's not good for the crew's morale."

"Not good for morale, eh?" Lloyd picked up the pickaxe the first miner had set aside and swung it hard, sticking it into the wall by this new complainer's head with a reverberating crash. "Don't you tell me how to run my crew, son," he warned. "My aim is perfect. Ain't no mistake you're still standing there."

The crew nodded, trying not to shake in their boots. They knew that showing fear or hesitation in front of Lloyd would not end well for them. They had seen others go down that route before. It was not a pretty sight to see.

Lloyd backed off and gestured flatly for the men to continue. Carefully they picked back up their pickaxes, gently removing the one stuck in the wall so as not to do any damage to the stone that they did not want, and set back to work. Their muscles ached, but they kept pushing. Even if they thought they could get away with resting with Lloyd there, they knew that there would be no point. The longer it took them to find anything of value, the longer they would be in the earth.

Very abruptly, one of the miner's took a swing and the rock before him fell in. Far in the distance, they heard the rocks crashing to the ground. They collected together in front of the hole and looked inside. They pointed flashlights, but they couldn't penetrate the darkness far enough to see to the other wall.

Suddenly, Lloyd's arms clasped around their shoulders. "Well boys," he exclaimed happily. "It looks like we hit something alright."

Fear

I often hear that love is the most powerful emotion. While I don't necessarily disagree with that, I also think that saying that really weakens the amount of power that our other emotions hold. In particular I can think of the power of fear. Have you ever been so intensely afraid of something that even the thought of it makes you ill and weak? I know I have.

This doesn't necessarily detract from the power of love, though. Being in love with someone, you are afraid of hurting them or losing them. You will do anything for that person because you love them and you are afraid of anything bad happening to them.

Here's the thing about fear. We put a lot of emphasis in our lives on getting over fear, being more powerful than fear. I don't agree with that. I think we should learn to control our fear. We should focus our fears on the things that hold us back. Be afraid of failure. Be afraid of falling behind. When that is your greatest fear, you will push yourself to new limits, find new ways to find success. When you fear never becoming something more than what you currently are, you will grow to new heights.

This is not to say that there aren't fears that are bad. Of course there are. That's why you must focus your fear. Fear not surpassing your fear more than the fear itself. You will find that you have no choice but to evolve.

This is all probably harder than I'm making it sound. I don't have answers. I just have ideas. I know from experience that fear is not only powerful, but painful. Being afraid stabs you deep inside, it paralyzes you, makes you unable to act. Fear can keep you from growing.

But I have also personally experienced instances where fear aided me. Being afraid of holding myself back allowed me the strength I needed to push myself forward. Fear has often kept me on the proper path, probably just as often as it has kept me off of it.

Perhaps the point isn't not to be afraid, nor to know your fears. Perhaps the point isn't even to learn to control your fear. Perhaps the point is solely to understand fear, recognize what fear is good and what fear is bad. I suppose you could say it's the misunderstood kid, who so often says the wrong thing at the wrong time and seems to ruin everything. But every once in a while they're in just the right place at just the right time, and you realize that maybe they're not so bad after all.

I just try to remember that sometimes life sucks, and looking forward, it's hard to see that anything up ahead is any good. But I fear being stuck in the past, being stuck in a place where I am weak and on the wrong path. That fear pushes me forward. That's really all I wanted to say.

The king's wife

"Jack, please," Matilda begged, "you can put your sword down now. You've done enough."

Jack turned fast on his heel to face his wife, the queen, his sword held tightly in his fist, shooting out to point directly in her face. The blade was dangerously close to her eyes, but stopped just short by his extreme control of the blade. The years of fighting had honed his abilities, and the blade was practically inseparable from his arm. It was rumored that he even slept with it.

"Do not try to tell me what to do, woman," he hissed through his teeth. "I am making sure our kingdom is safe and prosperous. How dare you imply that I can simply step down from my campaigns." Matilda hesitated for a brief moment, knowing the wrong move could push that point in her face too far. But she refused to step down.

"You have claimed to be protecting our realm for ten years now," she replied hotly, "yet you crushed the rebellion ages ago! Ever since then all you have done is claim evil intent has been held by our neighbors so that you might crush them and take their land." Jack glared as the word's came out of her mouth, unable to believe the words that were coming out of his wife's mouth. "Sure," she continued, "you're expanding our territory, but are you really protecting us? You've been so busy off fighting that you don't even have an heir to your throne."

Only at this point did Jack realize the weight of what his wife was saying. Slowly his arm lowered, pulling the sword away rom Matilda's face. She let out a small breath of relief, but she did not let her guard down. She had gotten her husband to think again, but that didn't mean her work was over yet.

A charm

"What is this?" Damien asked confused. He stared at the object his sister had placed in his hand, skeptical of its supposed purpose. It looked like something a ten year old would make. Seashells collected from the nearby beach, pierced by a needle and sewn together in a swirling pattern. "Do you really expect me to take this?"

Sarena pouted at her brother. "Yes, I expect you to take it!" she proclaimed. "It's a good luck charm, and I made it for you myself!" Sarena had spent several weeks after learning of the trip her brother was going to take, collecting the shells on the beach. She had only taken that ones that were absolutely perfect in her eyes. She had broken many of the shells before she had learned the proper way to sew them together. She had put her heart into this project, and the way her brother was trying to cast it aside was deeply hurting her.

Damien could see this, and in a way he felt bad. But at the same time, the good luck charm did not look very good, and he found it highly unlikely that if anything were to give him luck, it would be this. "Sarena..." he mumbled. His sister harrumphed, pushing the charm into his hands and turning away.

"I won't take no for an answer on this, Damien!" she exclaimed. "I refuse to let you go on this trip without something that will make sure you come back to me."

"And how is this going to make sure of that?"

Sarena sighed. "Damien, why don't you ever pay attention?" she demanded. "The legend says that a great man was to go on a journey, and before he left, his lover gave him a charm made of seashells. When he was lost, he held tightly on to the charm, and could feel the love of the one who made it, and it lead him home."

"Sarena, you're my sister, not my lover. That's gross."

Sarena punched her brother hard on the shoulder. "That's not the point, you big idiot!" she yelled. "The point is that I put all my love for you into that charm, and you're gonna take it, so if you get lost you can find your way home."

Damien sighed and reluctantly took the charm, slipping it into his pocket. "Fine," he said exhaustedly.  "I'll take your good luck charm. Are you happy now?"

Sarena smiled sweetly up at him. "Yes, brother," she practically sang. "Now be safe on your trip. I don't want you to come back hurt, either."

Damien nodded, and sat up straight on his horse. He was about to set out on the trip of a lifetime. A trip that would finally make him no longer a boy, but a man. It felt like everything in his life was leading up to this moment. In the back of his mind, he could feel the good luck charm resting on his leg, and though he would never consciously admit it, it did in fact comfort him.

The woman on her horse

Marguerite swung herself up on her horse, delicately sitting side saddle upon it. Her servant brought her her supplies, which she lifted easily up beside her on her saddle and tied into place. Only once she had all of her possessions safely with her was she brought her rapier. She took it out of her servant's hand, examined it for good polish and weight, and expertly slipped it into the frog on her hip.

"Are you sure that you will be alright traveling on your own?" Marguerite's butler asked. He had taken care of her for as long as she could remember, ensuring that she had everything she needed or wanted, before she even knew it herself. He had been a faithful servant to her since she was a small child. She loved him dearly, and she knew that he loved her too.

"I am sure, Seymour," Marguerite responded. "This is a trip that we both know I must embark on by myself." Seymour nodded, sad but respectful, and took a step back away from her horse. She took a moment to look over the servants that she had grown up around. They were just as much her family, if not more so, than her parents. She would miss them dearly while she was away. But her journey was inevitable, and it was best she be getting on her way.

With a wave, she steered her horse away and rode away from the only home that she had ever known. She tried not to look back, to see her home and friends slowly disappear into the horizon. But she couldn't keep herself from thinking about them. They had raised her, protected her, and taught her. It was only thanks to them that she would be able to complete the journey she was embarking on.

She traveled for days on end, heading north, camping at night beside her horse, slowly working away at the supplies she had brought herself. She slept with her hand firmly holding the hilt of her rapier, so that if bandits attacked her at night, she would be prepared. During the day she rode hard, trying to cover as much distance as possible, always side saddle so that she would be prepared to dismount at any time for any reason. She had practiced this for many years, and found the motion as natural as breathing.

Only once was she attacked by bandits. They arrived at nightfall, just as she was dismounting, and fell upon her quickly and heartlessly. They vastly underestimated her. Her rapier slipped free from its frog and stabbed quickly and accurately. Each bandit dropped from a single blow, piercing their hearts, throats, and brains. It was only a matter of moments before they all lay dead before her. She carefully wiped the blade on the grass before removing the bodies. She spent the night cleaning and resharpening her blade before falling asleep. She would not be slowed on her travels.

Plans

I'm not the kind of person who makes outlines for my writing. I don't plan things out before hand, at least not in depth, and don't try to use references to make connections between different things. Trying to follow some kind of plan messes me up. I know that doesn't apply to all people, and I'm not saying that people shouldn't use outlines if that works for them. I'm just saying that it's not a thing that works for me.

I've tried to do it in the past. It's kind of hard to avoid doing, almost every teacher I have ever seen has insisted that I make an outline before I write things. Trying to follow that outline really messes me up. It disrupts the organic flow of a piece for me. It makes me feel like the end result is clunky and mechanical. It feels distinctly like I'm falling an outline, which makes it boring and slow. I don't fully understand how people write that way. I mean, I can respect people who do that, and they must have a really cool way of thinking that they can make an outline and still make their paper sound good. That's cool. I just can't wrap my brain around how it works.

In some ways, I understand that it hurts me. I routinely have trouble writing stories, because I don't know what the end goal is, or I don't know what events are going to happen on the way to that goal. It's a problem I recognize and am working on fixing. But for me, an outline is not the way to do that. I would rather set a story aside and come back to it years later than try to force myself to plan it all out in advance.

One of the really cool things to me about writing is the way that my story can very abruptly change. Readers are surprised and intrigued if you can write a good plot twist. By the thing that they don't realize is that as a writer, when I write that twist, I am just as surprised and intrigued. That's how I know I'm doing it right. But when I plan things out, if that happens, I don't want to deviate from the plan I've made. So I try to force my story to continue on its original path, and that's where it starts to fall apart. My characters don't want to do what I'm trying to tell them anymore, and it becomes a pain rather than a joy to continue writing.

Being a writer, to me, means having a certain degree of multiple personality. And it means embracing that, and utilizing it. One of my favorite things I've ever heard about a writer was that as they were riding a bus, thinking to themselves about a story they were writing, an idea occurred to them. They realized something that was going to happen in their story and, amongst a crowd of strangers, excitedly proclaimed, "Yes! I get to kill him!"

That is so hilarious and awesome to me. Obviously it sounds bad to people that don't know, but in context, knowing better, that is a hilarious story. And stories are what we writers live for.

The blacksmith

John wiped away the sweat on his brow before pulling the heated steel out of the forge. Having his cool sweat dripping onto the metal would be bad, cooling it before he was ready and improperly forming small bits, causing weakness in the finished project. He laid the steel out on his anvil and lifted his hammer high into the air, bringing it down with full force. A loud clang rang out and sparks flew as the steel was flattened in an instant. He did this over and over, shaping the metal how he wanted it until its orange tint began to fade to red, at which point he immediately threw it back into the fire.

He pumped the flames a few times, making sure it was at the temperature he wanted it, before he walked out to the front of his store. He wiped his hands on the way, removing both sweat and ash, which tended to mix together into a disgusting black substance that liked to get on everything he touched. He supposed they didn't call it blacksmithing for nothing.

On his desk were the blueprints for several pieces that he was working on, which he picked up and looked over as he sat down. He grabbed his goblet of ale, half drunk throughout the day to keep his throat from becoming too dry, and took a good long swig. He still had several hours of work left to do. The raging fire of his forge allowed him to work late into the night, and he often did, long past when others had gone too sleep. For that reason, his workshop was located a good deal off from the main part of town, avoiding keeping his neighbors awake. He may not have been much of a people person, but he certainly wasn't rude.

As he looked over his blueprints, the door opened, and in walked a strange man. He was clearly not from this town, although looking at him, John couldn't say he could think of any place the man would belong. The man seemed nervous and frail. A blacksmith's shop was the place he belonged the least. "What do you want, son?" he called out. "I've only got a few minutes before I need to get back to work. I advise that if you wish to speak with me, you be doing so quickly."

The man looked over John, his eyes wide, as if he were surprised by both his presence and his size. "T-this is the blacksmith's shop, right?" he asked timidly. John rolled his eyes and nodded. "I-I'm looking for a sword."

"Well, we got plenty of 'em," John replied, "but somehow I doubt you could even lift our lightest ones, much less swing one. It'd best not be for you."

The man cringed at John's words, clearly wounded. "I-I want to be strong," he said, "and I think something guided me here for that purpose?" His voice was clearly confused. "Isn't that how people get strong here? They fight with swords?"

John laughed, a deep and hearty bellow. "If you want to be getting strong," he said, "I can surely help you there. But a sword is no way for a man like you to be getting strong." The man appeared clearly disheartened. "Come with me, boy, and I'll make you strong. What do the call you?"

"M-Michael, sir."

"Well, M-Micahel," John said with a coy grin, "get in here and tend to my fires. I'll make a man out of you, else God may cast me down."

A new life

Hunter sat in the Elder's home and gladly accepted the tea he was offered. He didn't fully comprehend just how thirsty he was until the liquid touched his lips. In only a moment, the tea was gone. The Elder chuckled and refilled his cup without a word, repeating the process several times over until Hunter was satisfied.

"I suppose it makes sense," Hunter said, "that I would be so thirsty. How long did you say it was? Three hundred years that was encased in stone? Or made of it. Whatever happened."

The Elder nodded, thinking and watching the young man. "Did you know what would happen to you when you sacrificed yourself at the end of the war?" he asked the man. It was so strange to him to think of this man, Hunter, the legendary hero, as not only being alive, but younger than himself. He had looked up at that statue of the hero for as long as he could remember. He had vivid memories of being a child, playing with his friends and acting out battles between Hunter and the monsters. No one had ever wanted to be Sage, though, he thought to himself, chuckling. That would have required kissing their Hunter, and no one wanted to do that.

Hunter shook his head. "Not entirely," he explained. His memories were still a bit shaky. "I knew something would happen. I knew I probably wouldn't be around anymore. I assumed that I would be dead." He looked down at himself, reacquainting himself with his body. His memory was especially shaky on what had happened to his arm. He recognized it as his own, despite the dark, distinct monster shape it held. Somehow he had changed at some point during the war. He just couldn't remember how or why.

The Elder nodded. Just then, his wife came in and placed a tray of food on the table before the two. Hunter looked up at the Elder, as if asking if he was permitted to eat. The Elder chuckled and nodded his consent, and much as with the drink, Hunter only truly became of how hungry he was as he began to eat. Before long, the tray was clean.

"They always said you were a heavy eater," the Elder said with a laugh.

Hunter smiled back slightly. "Yeah, I suppose I was. And three hundred years of sleep certainly doesn't help." At that, Hunter's smile faded away and he drew inward. The Elder watched, concerned, but let the man have his space.

"I became quite the warrior by the end of the war," he said quietly after a while. "My one thing tying me down to reality, reminding me that there was more to come at the end, was Sage. And now she's gone. I don't fully know what to do with myself."

The Elder nodded slowly. "I understand your confusion, child," he said. "We all at one point must make a choice of what we are to do with our lives. You have both the fortune and misfortune to make that choice twice."

Hunter nodded and rubbed his face. "I don't even know what my options are now. It's like I have found myself in an entirely different world. I don't know where my skills will be useful, and even if I can find a place for them, I am sure I am quite rusty. And my spells... I can hardly recall the incantations."

"About that," the Elder replied slowly. Hunter looked up at him, confused. "You see, not long after Sage passed on from this world, magic started becoming harder and harder to come across. No one knows if it had anything to do with her, or if it was simply coincidence. But fewer and fewer mages started popping up. People witnessed less and less mythical beasts. I would venture to guess that your reappearance is the first magical event in thirty years."

Hunter looked at the Elder, dazed and confused. "Are you saying that there is no magic left in the world, or that the people who could use it simply passed away?"

The Elder shrugged frowning. "No one knows. The records of incantations have long since vanished. I should hope that you can recall yours on your own, because otherwise... You may never cast magic again."

The glove

"So how does this thing work, anyway?"

Jason slipped the glove onto his hand, looking it over. It was much too large for his hand, and had dozens of strange parts to it, sticking out or not fully in place in the strangest places. As instructed, he pressed a small button on the inside of the glove, just on the inside of his wrist, and the parts of it began to move. They slid into place, becoming more accurately shaped like a hand, as it closed in around his own, fitting tight but comfortable. He wiggled his fingers and turned his hand back and forth, looking it over. The glove slid its pieces and adjusted accordingly, making every movement smooth and uninhibited.

"The glove, now attached," the professor informed him, "is learning your composition, skills, strengths, and so forth. It's examining the form and consistency of your body. In a minute, it will fully understand you. You must remember that under no circumstances should you ever remove the glove during this first minute. It would not be pretty."

Jason sighed and rolled his eyes. "I know, I know," he said, "you've told me a thousand times. But you keep telling me about how amazing this thing is going to be. What does it do?"

Just then the timer on the glove went off, and Jason felt a rush of adrenaline shoot through him, coming from the glove. Wave after wave rushed through his body, first cold, then hot, electricity, he couldn't even describe them all. He could feel his hair standing on end, his skin felt like it was being stretched to its full capacity. And then it all faded away. It had all happened in a second, but had felt much longer. He looked up at the professor, who simply smiled at him. "Why don't you see for yourself? Push yourself, Jason. See what you are capable of."

Jason stretched his gloved hand. He couldn't even feel it now, it just felt like a part of him. He walked out of the lab to the training area that the professor had prepared for him. There were large structures, hollow and solid, placed all in varying positions and distances from one another. It looked very similar to  a child's playground, but taller and wider. Jason had spent a large portion of his life practicing parkour, and was accustomed to moving smoothly from one structure to another, but these were farther and taller than he was used to.

Bracing himself, he stepped between two of the structures and pushed against one to launch himself to the top of the other. The motion felt familiar, no different than any other day, but he shot into the air farther than he had anticipated, soaring over his goal. As he began to fall, his eyes darted around the area, taking it in faster than he ever had before. He saw that he was moving toward a long pole extending between two towers, and he reached out his hand to grab it. Fingers curling around the bar effortlessly, he swung under it, back to the top where his feet gently landed. Finding himself perched, he looked around the area once more, now in a new light, for he knew it would be too small for him.

He let out a laugh and shouted, "Doc, this is amazing!"

The professor chuckled to himself, leaning against the doorway and watching. "I know, Jason," he muttered. "I know."

The next step

William was in his room after the ceremony, sitting on the edge of his bed and looking down at his hands. Today was the day his life was supposed to change entirely. In a way, he supposed it did. But he didn't feel that much different. He was very suddenly being thrust into a very adult world, and he still felt like little more than a child. A skilled child, to be sure, but still a child. And he knew that it wouldn't be long before he had to prove himself. On a physical level, he knew that he could prove himself. But he didn't know if he had the knowledge to make that proof worthwhile.

He slowly laid back on his bed and looked up at the plain stone ceiling that he had stared at for nearly ten years now. The simplicity yet solidity of it always reminded him of what kind of person he was supposed to be. Steadfast, but not full of himself. At least, that's what the stories he had always heard said. But as he had grown up around the people that so many of his childhood friends had wanted to be, he had found that to only be half true. They were steadfast, assuredly. Incredibly powerful and wise. But they were also very full of themselves. Everyone around him today felt that they were the greatest, the most unstoppable. William didn't know how to feel about that.

He didn't feel that way at all. He felt like he could be struck down in an instant. He was strong and quick, and he had learned to defeat each of his colleagues in a fight, but he didn't know how well that would translate into the real world, into a real fight. He had been smart enough to learn patterns, change his own way of fighting depending on the opponent, adapt. But did he have the skill to do that on the fly? He had learned how to do that over many years of training and observing. He didn't know if his mind was quick enough to do it at a moment's notice.

He sighed and sat up, beginning to discard his armor. The ceremony had required him to wear it, and he hadn't bothered taking it off when first arriving to his room. It was a difficult task to do on his own, but he preferred to know that he was taking care of each piece individually and correctly. He carefully set them aside so that they would not be damaged, and made a mental note to himself to clean them all rigorously later. He was a knight now. He needed to be presentable and prepared at all times. He couldn't risk letting his gear be damaged or tarnished.

As the last pieces came off, he laid down again and stared once more at his ceiling. He was a knight now, but in many ways he still felt like a squire. He would have to rise bright and early for practice, to take care of his horses, and get all of his work done. His head hurt just thinking about doing that all after all the food and wine he had just consumed. He should have held back more, but his fellow knights were quite insistent that he enjoy this day.

Being a knight would be hard work.

The dance

Randall waited stiffly outside of Joanna's house, tug uncomfortable at the collar of his tuxedo. He wasn't used to getting so dressed up. He couldn't even think of any time he had ever worn anything that looked so nice. It made him feel strange, as though he were wearing someone else's skin. His parents had insisted that they buy the suit specifically for tonight. To Randall, it just felt like a waste of money. It was so uncomfortable, so unlike him, he couldn't see himself wearing it - or anything like it for that matter - ever again.

About fifteen minutes after Joanna's parents had opened the door and told Randall she would be out soon, the door opened once again. Joanna stood there, her face a pale pink blush, looking shy and nervous. Randall had always considered her to be pretty, but the way she looked tonight blew him away. Her long, golden dress hung from her shoulders as though there were no more natural place for it, and her curly brown hair rested on her shoulder. She dressed simply, but it only made her natural beauty stand out more, at least in Randall's eyes. He knew he should say something, but he was just so in shock at how beautiful she was, he couldn't think of anything to say. He didn't even notice her parents standing a short distance away behind her.

Joanna's blush deepened as the moment dragged on. It had only been a few seconds, but to the two of them, it felt like minutes had passed. "A-are you going to ask me to come with you or not?" Joanna blurted out. At that moment, Randall's face flushed a deep red as well.

"O-of course," he muttered, having trouble forming the words. He felt so embarrassed and nervous about the whole event. He offered out his arm and Joanna took it, stepping out of the house. Behind her, her parents called out words of advice and encouragement to them both, but their ears were full of the hot steam of embarrassment.

The school where the dance was taking place that night was only a few short blocks away from Joanna's house, and they had agreed previously to walk there together. For a block or two they walked in silence, before once again Joanna blurted out. "Why didn't you say anything?" she asked, clearly upset. "Why did you just stand there? Am I not pretty enough for you?"

Randall paused, confused and surprised by her words. "What?" he asked. Her expression was clearly hurt, but he didn't understand why. "What does that even mean?"

Joanna stopped walking and pulled her arm away from Randall roughly. "If you don't want to go to the dance with me anymore," she cried out on the verge of tears, "then don't take me! I don't need your pity!" She turned to run back to her house, but Randall grabbed her arm and held firmly on to it.

"Joanna," he said, "what are you talking about? How could I not want to go with you?" She looked back at him, now the confused one. "Not pretty enough for me? Seriously, what are you talking about?"

"But... You didn't even..."

"I couldn't even. I lacked, and still lack, the words to describe how amazing you look tonight." Joanna's face flared as she blushed hard than she thought she ever had before. "You've always been pretty, but now, I just... I can't even describe."

Joanna choked back a sob, but she smiled now. Before Randall could say anything else, she leaped onto him, forcing herself into his arms, and kissed him.

They walked the rest of the way once again in silence, but it was a much happier silence.

Draconians

Briam landed with a loud thud outside of town where no one would notice him. It wasn't very often people witnessed a man fall from the sky, and in his experience, they tended not to respond to it particularly well. He dusted the soil that had covered him in his landing off of his clothes and walked casually into town. It was evening, so people wouldn't have noticed his arrival, but this particular evening was the town faire. People had come around from miles to buy and sell goods, as others danced and made merry. It was one of the few times Briam could enjoy himself around the normals as he referred to them, because they tended not to take much heed of his appearance.

At a glance, Briam looked more or less like your average individual, though generally worse for wear. He always had bags under his eyes, deeply shadowed, his face covered in lines, and his hair was was messy and white. His body itself was lean and clearly muscled, but looked off in some undefinable way, as if it didn't quite fit properly on his bones. Upon closer inspection, the lines on his face extended down on to his arms as well, as if the skin was stretched and pinched in various ways. His clothes were raggedly and old, clearly from a time gone past, but he never had the money to purchase new ones, and he hardly seemed bothered by them anyway.

His body moved smoothly through the crowd, managing to walk effortlessly through the crowds, both standing around the shops and dancing through the streets. He only stopped briefly on occasion to look into the shops. He didn't have the money to afford anything, but he found it was enjoyable to see what was available regardless. He could hear people debating prices around him. He had never fully understood that. What was the point of setting a high price as a seller? It just meant people weren't going to buy it. And yet they tried to anyway, apparently, but didn't want to pay the set price? It didn't make sense.

As he was making a transition between areas of the faire, he heard the sound of pounding feet as someone came running out of the alleyway. He stepped aside to make room, but heard the feet change at the same time, continuing to move toward him. Briam looked toward the sound, confused, as it seemed the runner was intentionally running at him, and saw the shape of a man drawing closer. Again, he tried to step aside, but the runner moved again, and a moment later came crashing headlong into Briam, sending them both sprawling to the ground amidst the crowds, causing shouts of confusion and pain as others were knocked to the ground in the process.

The runner leaped up to his feet almost immediately. "What the hell are you doing?" he shouted at Briam. Briam looked up at the man, confused. What was he doing? What was that supposed to mean? The man was the one who had run into him, not the other way around. "You want to start a fight? Is that it?" Without warning the man pulled a knife from his belt, and the people around them screamed in terror. Briam slowly and carefully rose to his feet.

"You don't want to do this," Briam hissed out. His voice was rough and sluggish. He didn't talk very much, and his mouth was unaccustomed to the movements. The man responded with a primal growl as he shot forward. Briam slithered out of the way, but grabbed the man by the collar, moving him in a circle so as to prevent him from hitting anyone else. The man lurched out of Briam's grasp and turned once more to face him, striking in the same moment.

Briam could have easily dodged the attack, but in that same instance, he could feel a woman running behind him, trying to get away from the fight. If he moved, the man would undoubtedly strike the woman. Briam's arm shot out, crashing into the knife and stopping it in its tracks. He heard shouts of fear as it happened, and he saw the man grin with satisfaction. It took a moment before anyone realized that there had been no sound of the blade sinking into Briam's skin, but instead a clacking sound, almost akin to steel hitting stone.

Briam stood, frozen in his spot by the realization that he would likely be unable to return to this town again. Slowly the man looked down, to see the knife point first against Briam's skin. The lines of his skin were beginning to twitch and shift, and abruptly it began to turn and flip around, revealing the true dragon scale that was Briam's outermost layer. Again screams rang out, now at the horror of the monster in their midst. As his skin began to change, moving along him like ripples coming from a rock in a pond, he pushed the man up against a wall and knocked the knife from his hands, falling uselessly to the ground.

A brief moment later, his wings emerged from his back in a panic, ripping the back of his shirt open, rendering it finally unwearable after so many hundreds of years. He stepped back from his attacker and, with one final glance at the crowd surrounding them, launched into the air and disappeared from the town faire.

Darkness

Reedan discarded the darkness he had wrapped around himself as he emerged from the shadows. With his pitch black hair and clothes, he hardly needed the darkness, but he didn't like taking chances. It was early evening, so the shadows were long and deep, making it easy for Reedan to move around undetected. His eyes had been soaked in darkness for a long time. He had no trouble seeing in the weak light. 

Out on the edge of town, Reedan didn't have to deal much with people. The lights of town in the distance were just coming on, and the noises were starting to die down. It wouldn't be much longer before night would fall, and it would be time for the events to begin. He could practically feel the darkness crackling with anticipation for what was to come. 

He found his perch in a tree just at the edge of the forest. He watched as the life of the town slowly died down and the people went to sleep. The moon began to rise slowly over town. It was large and full, and practically shined a spotlight down on the buildings. As the moon climbed higher and higher, the light moved further into the town square, and it became more focused. 

Reedan watched from his perch, and saw the fountain in the center of town finally light up. Every building was dark, but their darkness was nothing compared to what came next. Across town, where he knew Seeran was waiting, thick lines of darkness extended, pitch black, like a shadow extending out out from a silhouette. The darkness in his own body was begging to reach out, pounding against his skin.

Extending his hands, he let the darkness free. It leaped out of him, racing forward, bounding over the buildings that stood in its way. It slammed into the other strands as they wrapped around the fountain, just on the iuter edges of the moon's light. They danced, swirling around each other, extending up into the sky, encasing the light of the moon within themselves. Reedan could feel himself in his darkness, flying through the sky, held firmly in the arms of Seeran.

Higher and higher they soared, seated firmly in their trees, and the darkness created a tall tower, reaching up to touch the moon. Before long, the moon couldn't even be seen beyond their tower of black. But they continued to climb, unsatisfied until they could touch it, far beyond the reaches of their existence. 

And then the moment passed, and the light moved, and their tower ceased to be. The darkness fell away, evaporating into the air as if it was never there to begin with. Reedan let hinself drop tonthe ground, where the darkness of the ground reached up to cloak him and make it disappear until the next time. 

Meetings

Leo entered into the foreign restaurant and glanced around. He had only recently noticed it for the first time and, now having a free lunch, had decided to try it out and see if it was any good. It wasn't far from work and, depending on how long it took to eat there, it had potential to be his new stop in place of choice. He just hadn't wanted to test that out and be proven wrong on a day that he was limited by time.

He nodded to the greeter and took a seat at an open table off to the side. From there, he could more easily view the restaurant as a whole and observe as he was prone to do. He lifted the menu and carefully surveyed the options before making his choice and setting it aside. As he watched the customers chatting and eating, patiently waiting to be served, his arms crossed his chest and his finger began rhythmically tapping away on his arm, easily maintaining a steady beat without his thinking about it. 

In the back, Raine had just finished carrying in a pile of dirty dishes from one of her tables. She carefully tidied herself, pushing everything back in to its proper place on her person. She checked the clock and saw that she only had about half an hour left on her shift. Just enough time for one more table, she mused to herself. 

Just then she heard the familiar giggling of her friend, Kathrine. She turned to the girl, a grin plastered on her face. "What's got you all riled up today?" she asked. 

Kathrine giggled again. "Nothing," she responded in a teasing voice. Raine glared playfully. "There's just a really cute guy who just came in, and you're going to serve him." Raine opened her mouth to protest, but Kathrine was already dancing away. She sighed and checked herself in the mirror to make sure she was presentable. She didn't care about what Kathrine had said about the man being cute, but she did have appearances to uphold as a waitress. 

She strided out of the back room, smile on her face, and quickly found the man her friend had been talking about. He was sitting off to the side on his own, and he wasn't a regular, so it wasn't too hard to pick him out from the crowd. As she approached, Raine couldn't help but look him over. He wore simple clothes, a pair of cargo pants and well fitted t-shirt. He wasn't huge, but he was certainly built, and she imagined he would be quite imposing if he so wished to be. His black hair was a bit of a mess, and contrasted with his bright green eyes. She couldn't help but think that Kathrine was right. He was cute. 

Leo in turn was examining the approaching waitress as his finger continued to tap away. He didn't take much notice of the uniform she wore, but his eyes were drawn briefly to the silver moon pendant she wore around her neck. Her smooth brown hair matched her gentle hazel eyes. She was not the kind of person he came into contact with often, he thought. It then occured to him how odd that was. He needed to get out more. 

"I'm Raine. I'll be your waitress for today. How may I help you?"

"Nice to meet you Raine."  Leo's voice was rough and dry, which took Raine by surprise, though she tried not to let it show. "This cute boy, as the other waitress called me, would like a glass of water."

Raine could feel her face flaming up. How much had he heard?

Drunk

Tyreus burped loudly as he finished another glass of beer. He slammed the glass down on the bar and looked around at the crowd. There were dozens of people from dozens of places, all with various weapons strapped to their bodies. No one trusted any one in a place like this. While he was looking, he felt another glass be pushed into his hand, and he lifted it to his lips and began drinking heavily.

He turned back to the bar to see that the glass had not been placed there on purpose, however. A large man was looming over him, knife in hand, clearly pissed off that Tyreus had taken his drink. Maintaining eye contact, Tyreus finished the drink and placed the glass carefully down onto the bar. "Thanks fer the drink, big fella," he said, slurring his words, "but I'm afraid ya can't buy this lady off tha' easily."

The man roared and slashed at Tyreus face, but it was already gone as he slipped out of his chair and onto the ground. He rolled backward and ended up on his feet, swaying back and forth, his fists twirling uselessly in front of his face. "Not much of one for rejection, eh?" he asked. The man was growling, stepping towards his foe, knife raised and ready to strike. The tavern had fallen silent, all eyes on the two fighters. "Ya might wan' ta spring fer a prostie nex' time. I hear they's pretty easy."

The man lunged forward, and Tyreus stumbled off to the side, arm flailing up to smack the man in the side of his head. The blow didn't do much to hurt the man, but Tyreus bounced off of him and bent almost completely over backwards, dodging another slice the man threw out. He heard the crowd around them starting to snicker. This huge man was losing to an unarmed drunkard.

As Tyreus pulled himself back upright, he stumbled around, finding himself back at the bar with several empty glasses sitting in front of him. He picked one up in each hand and turned back around just in time to see the large man throwing the knife at him. As the knife left the man's hand, Tyreus lifted one glass as if he were drinking from it, and the knife stuck straight into it, stopping just before hitting the space between his eyes. He slowly lowered the glass back down, frowning as he looked at it. "Tha's no beer," he mumbled, looking back at the now fuming man. He could practically see the steaming coming out of the man's ears.

Tyreus stumbled forward towards the man, swaying from side to side, and as the man tried to punch him, he swayed just past his fist each time. Just before reaching him, he tripped, falling forward and slamming his forehead into the man's chin, and his weight pushed them both to the ground with a loud thump. The man groaned in pain from his jaw, and Tyreus shakingly sat up on the man's chest. "Ya nee' ta relax," he muttered, holding up the glass that still held the knife in it. The glass was visibly continuing to crack from the weakness created by the foreign object. "Take a drink." He dropped the glass on the man's face, where it shattered, cutting into his face. The knife his hilt first, bouncing into the air and turning before it fell again, piercing the man's ear before sticking to the floor.

Tyreus stood up slowly, continuing to sway, and walked back to the bar while the man screamed in agony. The tavern watched him in silence. As he sat, he swung the second glass up onto the bar. "Beer, please."

Originality

One of the hardest things about being an author today is the expectation of your story being original. Cliches and tropes run rampant, and for some, the use of any of them instantly brings the quality of your story down. How dare you take someone else's idea? they may ask.

In today's world, there is no such thing as originality, and I hate how people are so heavily accused of not being original. There is no story that hasn't been told. Rather than telling an original story, it is important to tell your story in your way. There is a difference between taking others ideas and using them in your way as opposed to blatantly taking others stories. But today we've forgotten what that difference is. We've become so focused on the pieces of stories that we've forgotten to take them as a whole.

An excellent example of this is tvtropes.com. I hate this website. What it says is "Let me take every single piece of this story and tell you why it's a ripoff." That's not a good way of thinking. It's not even a healthy way of thinking. The extent to which these tropes cover every possible situation is ridiculous. It's built entirely upon the concept that using cliches is bad. Here's the thing. Cliches exist for a reason. People keep using them because they keep working. They keep making good stories.

Is it possible to tell a story that is cliched? Of course it is. If your story is nothing but cliches, of course that's a bad thing. But every story has a cliche of some kind. It's unavoidable, no matter how hard you try. Even if you told a story completely devoid of cliches, it probably wouldn't be any good, because it probably wouldn't make any sense. Intentionally avoiding cliches puts you in a very limited position, and forces your story to lead nowhere.

If you've ever heard of the Hero's Journey, you probably know how true this is. Thousands of stories follow its pattern. You could make a Mad Lib using its format, just changing names, and get some of the best selling books and movies of the past fifty years. But that doesn't make any of them bad. Clearly it's a formula that works, has worked, and will probably continue to work for a long time.

It's easy to compare things to those that have come before it. That is not in itself bad. It's when we start judging things because other things are similar to them that it becomes a problem. You can say you personally prefer one similar thing to another, no problems. But to say that one thing is inherently better than another because they are similar and it came first is deeply flawed. I know I've done it, I won't deny that. But I often try to understand the two things before I make that comparison. But I can't always do that, and so I resort to judging by cliches and tropes. But that's no real judgement. It just shows how little I know about the topic.

The bridge

The flames rose high from below, licking at the sides of the bridge that extended over the pit. Sam could feel the sweat evaporating off of him the moment it came out of his pores. He didn't know how long he could withstand the heat, but he was terrified to move forward. He tried to stuff away the thought that the fire was weakening the supports of the bridge and that the moment he set foot on it it would collapse, dragging him down with it.

He could see on the other side of the bridge the lone pedestal that contained the item he had searched for for so long. He didn't know how much time he had to try and retrieve it, and deep down he knew that he was running short on time. But he couldn't seem to make himself take the steps across the bridge to do so. He peeked over the edge and saw the lava not far below.

"Stupid magic protection," Sam mumbled to himself. "These things just can't be easy for me, can they?" He sighed and gingerly put his foot onto the first step of the bridge. Even with as little weight as he was putting on it, the bridge still creaked and groaned, and he could feel how hot it was through the sole of his shoe. He knew he would have to run across if he didn't want his shoes to burn off entirely. But running meant the pressure on the bridge would be more focused and abrupt, raising the chances of the bridge breaking.

"Come on, Sam," he said to himself, backing up to get a running start. "You can do this. Don't think. Just run." He took a few quick hops to prep himself and then shot forward at full tilt. As he crossed the bridge, he felt it sway beneath him, he heard the steps cracking, and he felt the fire licking at his feet, but he couldn't stop now. It was only a few short moments before he was across, but it felt like hours.

He slowed to a stop, only having a few steps to do so with the small size of the platform that he had been running towards on this side of the bridge. He took several deep breaths to steady himself and looked back. The bridge was still there. That was the good news. But it definitely looked visibly weaker than it had before he had run across. He prayed that it would last long enough for him to make it back.

Sam approached the pedestal. On it lay a single golden ring. Carefully he picked it up, and as he did so the pedestal crumbled away before him. Examining the ring, he could see how expertly it was crafted, and the words that were carved upon the inside of it: amabimus semper inuicem. He could swear he could feel the ring hum with an inescapable, yet subtle power. Before he had time to really examine it, however, he knew he had to go.

Quickly he pocketed the ring and turned back to the bridge. He wasn't sure if it was just his own paranoia, but he could swear the flames were reaching higher now. He made a mad dash, and upon the first step a loud crack reverberated through the area. He felt his foot giving way as the step beneath him shattered, but he reached forward with his other foot and kept moving. Each step fell away beneath him as he ran, just barely behind him, so that if he slowed down for even half a second he would drop into the lava below.

He fell hard onto his face as he reached the other side and slammed into the ground. His body hurt, but he was safe on the other side. Shaking, he got up onto his knees and pulled the ring once more from his pocket, seeing that it was undamaged.

"With this," he said to himself, "she has to say yes."

After the war

I fell to the ground, hard. I took quick, shallow breaths. I felt freezing cold, and my muscles were weak. My eyelids were heavy and it took a while before I could open them, and even then my vision was so blurry I could barely see. It took me a while to realize I was surrounded by wide eyed people all staring down at me.

"Hunter...?" one of the children asked quietly. I looked down at them, trying to focus, before I realized it was a small child. I tried to remember which child she was, but I began to realize that I had never seen her before. I hadn't been away from the village for that long, had I?

"Yeah, I'm Hunter," I said. My throat felt dry and heavy. I guess I had done more shouting in that last battle than I remembered. "I'm sorry, but I don't recognize you. Whose child are you?" The girl squeaked and ran back to hide behind one of the older women. I assumed she was the child's mother, but as I looked at her, I didn't recognize her either. I looked around, thinking perhaps I had been carried somewhere else while I was sleeping, but this was definitely my home town.

"But..." came another voice. I looked around the crowd, and was surprised to find I knew not a single one of them. "How can you be here?" I found the source of the voice, an elderly man. The man seemed afraid of me, but I didn't understand why that would be. I had never hurt anyone in my village. "We thought you were just..."

A thought came to me suddenly. I tried to get to my feet, but my legs wouldn't support me. "Sage," I breathed out. The crowd started mumbling to each other, and they looked even more worried. "Where is Sage?" I tried to ask them. They moved back and away from me. Their voices sounded confused, afraid. Nothing was making any sense. I tried to think back to what had happened before I'd fallen asleep, but it was hazy, like a far off dream.

"I thought Hunter was dead," I heard one of the children say. "I thought he was just a legend," said another one. My head was starting to hurt. Slowly I managed to stand up, all my limbs heavy and stiff, and stumbled away from the group. Nearby I saw a book on a pedestal, and I made my way towards it. It was open to a page, detailing my last moments. As I stared at the page, it all began to come back. The war. The battle. We were losing. I didn't have a choice. I...

A man walked up behind me. I turns and stared at him, trying to comprehend. "Hunter," he said gently. "About Sage, she's..." I focused everything on him. Somehow I knew that his answer would explain everything. I just didn't know if I would like it. "She's, well... She's been dead for over three hundred years."

Editing

I have never been good at editing. The closest I get is running spell check and making sure that sentences make sense grammatically. I can't really go through a piece and remove and add lines to make it more interesting. I can't polish a turd and make it shine like a diamond, if you will. Instead, if I don't like something, I rewrite it from the ground up. There are some things that I have written, rewritten and written again time and time again. I work on singular stories for years at a time, never really making any progress because I don't like how they're coming up. Maybe that's a writer thing, or maybe it's just me, I don't know. But it makes it hard to make a full, solid story.

I'm not saying editing is a bad thing. Far from it. Editing makes a decent story good, and a good story great. I just can't do it. And that makes progress slow. I've mentioned before that if I get on a roll, I can write like there's no tomorrow. The thing is, that doesn't mean that what I end up with is any good. Maybe it sounds good to other people, but not necessarily to me. Everything I have written on here is a rough draft. There are pieces that I love, and pieces I hate, and those may not line up with what pieces other people love and hate. That's just the nature of it.

I have a few friends who are the opposite. They couldn't write for the life of them, or perhaps they can and just aren't into or don't like the pace that they do it at, but they can edit far easier than I could ever dream. They even enjoy doing it, and I don't blame them. I have the power to create a world. They have the power to refine it, focus it, make it work. That's amazing to me. And so often, they don't get any credit for it.

Think of your favorite author. Think of that amazing world they created, that you can get lost in for hours, that you would kill to live in, even if only for an hour. They had an idea, a beautiful, brilliant idea. But do you really think they could make that idea something so amazing all by themselves? Somehow I doubt it. I mean, it's possible, I won't deny it. But there's a good chance that they had someone help them, and you'll never know who that person was. The information may even be there, free for you to see, but you've never taken the time to look. I know I haven't.

Writer's wouldn't be much without a good editor to help them. And yet we never give the editor any credit. At the very least, not enough credit. It's hard to remember. But it's worth paying attention to. I think I'm gonna start trying to make the effort to learn what kind of editors my favorite authors ask for help. I'm gonna start learning not only how my favorite authors think, but how their editors think. And maybe someday, when I need help, I'll know what I'm looking for.

Rain

Thunder crashed in the distance as I walked home through the rain. My jacket was soaked through, and I could tell I was going to wake up in the morning with a cold. My phone was dead in my pocket, and I found it somewhat unlikely that it would be turning on again. Without it, I had no watch, and I never had a particularly good sense for time passing, so I had long since lost track of how long I had been walking. My legs were tired. It had been a long day.

It wouldn't be too much longer, however. I could see my house starting to appear in the distance. I fished around in my jacket pockets and managed to pull out my house keys, but they near immediately slipped between my fingers and fell to the ground. I sighed, but kneeled down and carefully picked them back up, curling my fingers around them into a fist to make sure I wouldn't drop them again. As I stood back up, a car drove by and a huge splash of water soaked through me, like a wave crashing into the shore. I wiped my face and kept walking.

The moon hung high in the sky as I approached my door. I'd had to start walking when my car battery died miles back. I'd called a tow company, but they told me they were extremely backed up today and that while they could take my car, the tow yard was in the opposite direction of my home and they couldn't give me a ride. At the time it hadn't been raining, so I wasn't too worried about it. It wasn't supposed to rain that day. But it happened, and I just had to deal with it. No one who had passed me was willing to stop and help me out. But that's just what kind of world we live in.

The lock stuck as I tried to open my door. It was a typical problem, and it didn't bother me, even in the rain. I was far passed being bothered by such a small difficulty at that point. It took about four tries before I managed to get the door open, and I was finally out of the rain. I closed the door and stripped out of my soaking clothes, discarding them haphazardly in a pile by the door. I sat on the couch in the living room and put my legs up, letting them rest after who knows how many hours.

Only a few minutes had passed before I heard steps coming down the stairs. I looked up to see Sarah standing on the bottom stair just staring at me. I pointed at the pile of clothes, and she looked at them and nodded. Without a word she came over to me, sat on the couch, and leaned down to kiss me. I kissed her back and put an arm around her, and she laid down with me and slowly ran her hands across my skin to help warm me up. We fell asleep like that, leaving our troubles to be dealt with in the morning.

The locked door

"Shit." Aiden tried the knob on the door again, to no avail. "Shit, no. Why is this happening?" He pounded on the door, knowing that no one was inside, but hoping desperately that someone was. "God dammit, why am I such an idiot?" He patted himself down, hoping that he had just put his keys in the wrong pocket.

He hadn't.

Frustrated, Aiden kicked the door, but all that served to do was make his toes hurt. He bit back a yell of pain as he jumped back away from the door, gingerly trying to keep off of his now bad foot. "Of all the stupid, no good, rotten things to do..." He rubbed his face, trying to clear his mind so he could think. How could he get back into his room?

The window. He remembered that he had left the window to his room open so he could get some fresh air. Quickly, he rushed down the stairs and out and around the corner to look up at the window to his second story room. Even if he had the upper body strength to climb up that high and hold himself up long enough to climb through, there were no foot or hand holds.

Dejected, he made his way back up the stairs, and realized as he made it to the top that now not only was he locked out of his room, but the apartment itself. The apartment door locked automatically upon closing. Aiden felt like he was going to blow a gasket. It was late at night, all he had was a jacket, and there was no one he could contact to help him out now.

As he turned away to see if he could find someone, anyone to help, he say a notice that his eyes had glossed over nearly every day, but that he had never really paid attention to. In Case of Emergency, call... "Thank god," he mumbled to himself, "my saving grace." He pulled out his phone, noting angirly that the battery was low, and dialed the number.

One ring... Two rings... Three rings... And thankfully someone picked up. He quickly explained that he had locked himself out of his apartment. "I'm sorry, sir," came the operator's voice. "Locking yourself out of your apartment doesn't constitute an emergency according to our policy. You'll have to take that up with maintenance." Before Aiden could argue back, the operator hung up.

"You've gotta be kidding me." Aiden sighed, but at least he knew where the maintenance room was. He made his way there as fast as he could, but he was starting to get cold. He didn't want to be outside any longer than he had to. As he came to the door, he raised his hand to knock, but stopped as he saw the note written and left there.

Maintenance will not be back in until after the holidays. If assistance is needed, please dial emergency number. Merry Christmas.

"You have got to be kidding me."

Writers and their work

I'll be the first to tell you that seeing how and what a person writes is an excellent way to learn more about them. It's another reason that I like doing roleplays. It's a great way to get to know a person, what kinds of things they value, what their favorite traits of themselves are. This is all because, as a writer, we put ourselves into our work, whether we realize it or not. Everything we write is based on our personal experiences. It's one of the great things about being a writer - there is literally nothing you can do in your life that will not be relevant.

That being said, you shouldn't assume too much about a writer because of their writings. I know that's counterintuitive to what I just said, but hear me out.

Have you ever read or heard about old laws or beliefs? They seem completely foreign to us, incomprehensible, but that's just how that world was. Things change, and we understand how things are in the here and now, but tomorrow and yesterday are strange to us. They don't make any sense. An author will sometimes put themselves in that place. Their not dealing by our rules anymore. They're dealing with an entirely new set of rules, and sometimes to us that can seem really messed up. But that doesn't mean that the author is messed up.

Take, for example, the Joker. He is one messed up character. In fact, everyone in Gotham is. But do we assume that the people who made those characters are as messed up as they are? I wouldn't, and I certainly would hope that you wouldn't either. Sometimes, to make an interesting story or world, we have to make really messed up people. I know I certainly have. I've written characters that, if they existed in the real world, would immediately be sent to either prison or an insane asylum. And sometimes, those are the good guys.

I'm not saying that these things don't come from the author. They do, somewhere, somehow. But that doesn't necessarily make it part of them. It could be someone else they've encountered or heard about somewhere down the line. It might be from a nightmare they had as a child. It might even be something they ripped off entirely from another story you've never heard of.

The point is, don't judge a writer by they're strangest work. Judge them by what they write normally, repeatedly, and well. If that's something creepy and weird, then sure, whatever. Maybe they're a really messed up person. But maybe they've just been in a dark place for a long time, and they don't want to be there either. A person's story is a great insight into who they are. But it's only an insight into that singular moment when they were writing it. Sure, writing takes a while, but it's only a small portion of a huge life that they are living.

Even just going through this little bit of writing I've done here, you can see a person who changes and evolves everyday. The things I see and do influence me. It's all a part of me, but it's a part of a growing person, someone who's still figuring it out. It's a really cool thing that we can see, and we can read into it, just not too far. No one wants to be remembered for a single instance of something they did wrong. They want to be remembered for an entire existence of things they did, right and wrong, and how they adapted to that afterwards. So writing is a great way of learning. But it's not a good place to stop.

The fight

The clang of swords striking rang out like a shockwave through the air. The two fighters stood, holding one another's blades just back from the other's throat, locked in combat. They had been fighting for well over an hour, and they were both breathing hard, covered in sweat and blood. Their arms in particular were covered in cuts, both deep and shallow, and their clothes were in shambles, barely hanging off of their bodies.

Geriad shoved his elbow into his opponent's gut, making him step back, and giving himself the freedom to do the same. They both stumbled away from each other, their strength long since drained. The only thing that had kept them going was an unwillingness to lose. Geriad was determined to make it past this dark knight, and the dark knight was determined to keep him from advancing.

With a shout, they rushed toward each other once again. The swung hard and fast, vertically, horizontally, diagonally. The grunted in agony and rage with each blow, chipping away at what little strength they had left, when suddenly Geriad's blade snapped clean and two, and the end of his sword crashed and stuck into the ground. He looked up, drained, as the dark knight raised his own sword in victory, preparing for the kill.

However, as he swung, Geriad collapsed to the ground, causing the knight to just miss, and as the momentum of the strike carried the sword down and across where his body would have been, the sword crashed into the broken remains of Geriad's sword stuck in the ground, and it too broke. The broken metal clattered to the ground, and the two opponents stared at each other in silence. Slowly, Geriad got back up on to his knees, and the knight did not stop him. They maintained eye contact as Geriad got once more on to his feet, and the prepared to fight with their bare hands.

Blow after blow they traded, making no attempt to block the other's punches. This had long since stopped being a test of skill. The fight would be decided by whoever could stand the longest. Fists made contact with stomachs and faces, plowing away in vain attempts to end the fight. Both fighters could feel themselves going numb.

Finally, both of their punches landed on the other's face, and they fell, hitting the floor simultaneously. They breathed hard, wheezing as they tried to force the air through their crushed bodies. From beyond the door that the knight had been guarding came a tsk, and the door opened to reveal the princess whom Geriad had been coming to save.

"You two," she muttered. "I have been waiting for so long for you two to finish already." She stepped gingerly over their bodies, a knife in her hand. "All of those guards expecting you to com get me. Never expected me to come in from behind." She discarded the knife, letting it drop into the chest of the dark knight, who gasped only for a moment as the blade sunk. "Won't be needing that anymore. You beat the rest of them for me." She danced happily to the door. "Finally, freedom. Toodaloo."

Earth and Water

It was late at night as Ryan danced his way around the school campus, feet pounding against the ground to a beat in his head, and dust flying up around him. His arms swung wildly around, as if he were at home playing his drum set, and though they had nothing to hit, they moved with a precision that one could only have from years of practice. As he reached the climax of the music in his head, Ryan slammed his foot hard into the ground, which pushed back hard against him, launching him into the air where he spun around before landing solidly on his feet.

Ryan laughed to himself aloud, rubbing the back of his head, and as the dust around him settled he heard something in the distance. It was a much softer music, something from a string instrument, and it was enticing, as if it were begging him to come toward it. Slowly he started to walk towards the front of the school, where a large fountain had recently been installed.

As he approached, he saw one of the girls from school who didn't talk much. He thought that her name was Megan, but he wasn't entirely sure. She was sitting on the edge of the fountain, violin in her arms, playing it slowly and gently. Music rose from her violin as if it were enticing everything around it nearer. The water from the fountain seemed to rise and fall with the music. Megan played with her eyes closed, gently swaying with her music.

Ryan couldn't help himself. "Megan?" he asked. She immediately stopped playing, and the water seemed to return to a normal flow as she looked wildly around for the place Ryan's voice had come from. She let out a terrified squeal when she saw him, and tried to run away, but tripped on the fountain. Ryan moved quickly, seeing her fall, and rushed forward. As his feet pounded against the ground, he could feel it pushing back against him, launching him forward. He slipped under her body just before she hit the ground, catching her and taking the blunt of the impact.

Megan squeaked as Ryan grabbed him, but the impact of their bodies hitting the ground startled her and she didn't move. After a moment to catch his breath, Ryan slowly sat up, cradling Megan in his arms. He smiled gently at her. "It is Megan, right?" he asked softly. She gave a small nod, her eyes wide. He carefully got up and set her down on the fountain.

Megan scooted away from Ryan as soon as she was out of his arms. "What do you want from me?" she asked, her voice wavering. Ryan blinked, confused by her fear.

"I heard your music," he explained. "It was like it was drawing me here."

"I knew I shouldn't have been playing in public," she muttered to herself. "I didn't want anyone to find me playing."

"Why not? Your music is beautiful." Megan's eyes shot up to him, wide opened, her face blushing hard. Ryan grinned, a thought coming to mind. "Kind of like you," he tacked on. Her eyes seemed to widen even further, her blush getting deeper. She started stuttering, trying to think of a response, and Ryan just started laughing at how adorable she was.

Megan glared at him at that, and quickly gathered her things and started to run away. Ryan jumped up and ran after her, shouting for her to wait. He was much faster than her and easily caught up. She scoffed at him and turned her head away. "Hold on, Megan," he said quickly. "Let me walk you home. I'm not a bad guy. You just keep catching me off guard." Slowly she looked up at him, one eyebrow raised. "Please?"

"...Fine," she muttered under her breath. Ryan smiled and, without thinking, put one arm around her waist and kissed her on the cheek. Megan's cheeks flared up, and Ryan laughed again, but this time she didn't run away.

Numbers in writing

Make no mistake, in making this blog, this challenge for myself, I decided that I would meet a minimum of five hundred words a day in writing. But numbers mean nothing. The reason I did that was so that I wouldn't feel like I was cheating myself by writing, say, a haiku. Now I have nothing wrong with haikus, but I want to be a novelist. Writing haikus so I can say that I wrote something every day isn't going to help me.

I bring this up because in school, every writing assignment is a page or word count. As we go further along, teachers don't necessarily ask for better results, but longer results, at least in my experience. And I understand that they don't see what you've written in the past, so they don't know that you're getting better. But why does longer equal better? Why is that the equivalent that we strive for instead? We do this with everything: books, movies, games. We put so much emphasis on the quantity that we forget that it's the quality that really matters.

Have you ever read something incredibly dry that just kept going? It just goes on and on and on, it never ends, and it never goes anywhere, and you feel like your brain is going to start dripping out of your ears. It just boggles your mind as you're reading it how the author could have possibly thought it was a good idea to stretch this scene out for so long. We've all been there. If we've ever written anything, we've probably thought that about our own writing. I know I have. And yet we leave it there, because we have this insane idea in our head that it has to be that long, or it wouldn't be good.

But then there are the people that get this idea too far into their head. An excellent, classic example is the philosophy final exam. The question is simple: Why? People write entire papers, pages long, answering the question. And then there's the student who responds "Why not?" It works there, sure, but can you imagine if you tried that anywhere else? It doesn't work. It's not an answer, it's a push off. You're just ignoring the question rather than answer it. People need answers. When you write, you have to anticipate those questions and answer them. Otherwise when the reader finishes reading your work, they'll feel dissatisfied. That's just as bad as making them bored.

Here's the thing. Being long doesn't make something bad. It also doesn't make something good. When you write something, it should be long enough to be interesting, to serve its purpose, and to leave the reader with no questions that you don't intentionally want them to be left with. It doesn't matter if you're writing fiction or non-fiction. It's all about the content. One of my favorite sayings as a writer is that you should write like a girl's skirt. Long enough to cover the important bits, and short enough to be interesting. And I don't care how sexist that is, because it's hilarious and true. And it's certainly not something that you'll forget any time soon.

Flight

Jason's feet pounded against the pavement as he ran as fast and hard as he could away from the lab. Any minute now he knew the guards would come chasing after him, and it wouldn't take long for them to catch up to him. His hands were sweating inside of the freshly stolen gloves, and the shoes on his feet were heavy and awkward. He couldn't have lasted very long running away from the guards regardless, but with this equipment it would only be harder.

As he got further away, eventually Jason heard the sounds of sirens burst to life behind him. Time was growing short for him to get out of range. The buildings on either side of him as he ran felt constricting, as if they were closing in around him. His legs were quickly getting tired, unaccustomed to the weight of his shoes. He had to find a place he could make the jump.

Suddenly there was the sound of a concentrated explosion behind him, and he felt a bullet whiz by his face. He was definitely running out of time. The guards' shouts were drawing closer. Jason could practically feel their breath on his neck. He turned a corner, and in the distance could see a sudden cliff drop as he approached the end of the city. This was his only chance, and he made a mad break for it. He pushed his legs to give the last of the energy that they had, and he prayed that they would last long enough for him to make it to the edge.

Gunshots became more frequent. Fortunately the guards were having a hard time hitting him while running and trying to avoid hitting what Jason had stolen. He briefly considered zigzagging to make it harder for them to hit him, but it would have cost him time and energy that he was severely lacking.

As he made his last few steps approaching the edge, he could see miles beneath the city the distant remnants of land upon which his ancestors had lived. They were far too wasted for anyone to survive in now, however. Even if he could somehow miraculously survive the drop, he wouldn't last more than a few days in the wreckage of the old world.

He braced his legs and leapt wildly into the air, pushing himself off the edge of the city floor. The wind rushed around him as he began to plummet. As he disappeared out of sight of the guards, he snapped his gloved fingers and felt his shoes begin to buzz with energy. He swung his legs back and forth, vainly attempting to make them parallel with one another, and fear gripped his heart as he saw the ground below slowly approaching. But then there was a loud crack of energy, and suddenly his feet would no longer move apart from each other. He looked down to see that his shoes had created a field of energy beneath his feet that he could ride like a skateboard.

He pulled hard on his electric skateboard, and in doing so found his path of descent start to change, curving upwards until he was no longer falling, but flying. Jason laughed out loud. "They work!" He shouted to the air. "They really work!"

The crash

There are some things that happen to you in life that never leave you. Some are the memories that fill us with joy, that we turn to when we are in pain, that give us hope for our lives. And others are the most painful things that we have ever experienced, that return to us time and time again throughout our lives in the form of nightmares that make us wake in a cold sweat. No matter what we do, we will all experience both of these, and they will stay with us forever. We often wish to forget the painful memories, but they are just as important to hold on to as the happy ones. They give us the ability to see through the darkness. They remind us that things could be worse, and have been worse, and that we made it through those times. Knowing that gives us the strength to make it through the dark times.

I wouldn't be surprised if people thought I was too young to experience these kinds of things. These dark memories that haunt me and always will. But there is no minimum age that these come at. They could happen when you're five, and they could happen when you're thirty-five. I've been through several of them, and I freely admit it. I try not to think about them, but it's impossible not to at times. But I know that they're important to hold on to, and to understand.

I was making a night time drive, making my way up to college on my own for the first time. I was already kind of on edge. I had only just begun to live on my own for the first time, and I was never much of one for driving in the first place. It took a good deal of focus not to dwell on the uncertainties that I was already faced with, and I tried to use the road to do so. Nothing was off. It was just dark, and I had my music playing. Nothing was strange.

I looked down for a moment to check something. Whatever that something was is the only thing I can't remember. Before I looked down, there was nothing wrong with the road. I had plenty of space in front of me, I was on pace with the other cars, everything was fine. I looked back, and suddenly I was faced with a full stopped car, and quickly shortening ground between us. My foot slammed into the brakes, and it only took half a second for me to know I wasn't going to stop in time. I tried to swerve to the left, into an empty lane, but the momentum of my car wouldn't allow me to move from side to side.

I couldn't stop in time. I couldn't get out of the way. There was nothing I could do. All of this had happened in the space of maybe three seconds. I was maybe a dozen feet away from the other car, and all I could think was "I'm sorry."

If you've ever seen a frame by frame of an animation, you know what the next split second was like. Only half a second went by, but there were three distinct moments. In the first, the crash itself occurred. There was an explosion of sound, the pounding of the airbags against my face, a jolt that shot through my body as he forward momentum of my car abruptly came to a stop.

In the second, there was nothing. My music never stopped playing, but I could hear nothing. I was still smashing forward against the belt and airbag, but I felt nothing. There was darkness as my eyes instinctively closed. It was as if, in the not even half of a moment, I had simply ceased to be. I've often heard that, in the instance before death, a person feels bone chillingly cold. I did not. I did not feel cold or hot. I felt nothing.

In the third and final moment, I was suddenly dropped back into existence from the nothingness I had so briefly experienced. I could hear cars continuing to drive by me, my music kept playing, and my emergency blinkers methodically ticked away. It took me a second to realize my glasses had flown off my face, and the reason I couldn't see was because of that, not because something had happened to me eyes. I felt sore, but as I patted around myself I couldn't find any injuries.

I didn't know what to do. If I had to go through this again, I probably still wouldn't know. All I could think about was how glad I was to be alive, and how deeply I wished the people in the other car were as well. My heart was pounding hard, and I couldn't do anything from where I was. I couldn't find my phone, or my glasses, and I certainly couldn't make the car move.

A lot of other things happened after that, and I remember them just as distinctly. But the thing that scares me is the crash. It's a miracle that I lived through it, much less experienced so little injury. Sometimes I can't help but think about it. I can't help but picture how I could have died, pierced by broken metal or glass. It terrifies me. It takes everything I have not to be crippled by what happened and what could have happened.

And yet I'm still here. I'm still moving forward. I'm alive, and I'm well, and I'm still doing the best I can to do what I want and need. Remembering this is painful. I can physically feel the pain that was and could have been when I crashed. But I can't just forget it. I have to remember it. I have to remember it because, as weak as it makes me, it also gives me strength. I could have died there, but I didn't. I was permitted a chance to keep living. I have to use that.

Death is terrifying. But life is so much more than we give it credit for. Those bright points in my life are so much brighter now that I have such darkness to compare it to. Would I have avoided this if I could? Of course I would. And if I had a second chance to change my past, I probably still would. But I can't. And so, instead, I will use it to better myself.

Wings

Princess Arianna sat on the single chair in her bedroom, which she had moved to allow her to look out the large glass doors leading out on to her balcony. She watched the stars twinkling up in the sky as she sat in her warm room in her nightgown. She imagined herself pushing the doors open and leaping off of the balcony, spreading her arms to reveal a beautiful set of wings as she flew away from the castle and her cramped life. She knew better than to try. But that didn't mean she couldn't dream.

Suddenly a servant burst in to her room without knocking. Arianna let out a small scream voluntarily. The servants were supposed to knock before they entered a room. "Princess!" the man gasped. He seemed short of breath, and his face was drawn and terrified. "There's an intruder in the castle! You're not safe here!"

Arianna leapt to her feet and pulled her nightgown tight around herself. She suddenly felt very cold. "What about my parents?" she demanded.

"They've commanded me to make sure of your protection," the man responded. He turned and pulled the door shut behind him, pushing the lock firmly into place. "They are going to stand their ground in the castle, but they've said you must escape."

"But where am I supposed to go?" she asked, becoming scared and desperate. She could feel her mind starting to shut down, unable to think properly.

The servant reached into his pocket and pulled out a letter, holding it out to Arianna. "The King advised that you should escape to your uncle. It probably won't be safe there for long either, but it will give you time to plan." Arianna nodded, taking the letter shakingly in her hands. Abruptly she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around her servant. 

"Thank you, Perman," she whispered, trying not to cry. 

Just then, there came a powerful pounding on the door. It was as though they could feel the entire room shake woth each slam of the door. 

"You should go," Perman whispered back. Arianna nodded and, without hesitation, ran to the glass doors she had been looking out of earlier. She took two long strides to cross the balcony, then leaped, taking a step off of the railing to throw herself into the air, three stories off ground level. 

Behind her, Perman quickly closed the glass doors and turned around as the main doors exploded open. He could feel the remains of the lock just barely miss his head. A huge man entered, towering above Perman, anger on his face as he scanned the room. "Where is the princess?" He demanded. 

"You're too late," Perman said defiantly. 

Outside, Arianna's discarded nightgown flopped to the ground, as the letter she had been holding on to was caught by the wind and floated gently through the air. A moment later, a bluejay gracefully soared down and caught the letter in its claws, then flew high into the air, headed in the direction of the Kingdom of Vastria, where Arianna's uncle lived. 

Writing blocks

The first day of the new year seems like an appropriate time to talk about writer's block. Especially considering that, coming in to the new year, I am experiencing it. I find myself facing writer's block very often, which is part of the reason I want to do this whole thing. I'm hoping to find ways to continue writing even when faced with writer's block, if not start to make it go away simply through repetitive writing.

I think this is something that every writer goes through at one point or another. I've heard people try to deny that writer's block is a real thing, and I personally think that those people are conceited liars. I have seen so many people say that writer's block is just people being lazy, or lacking creativity. Some of them are even skilled writers. But I refuse to believe that they have never had a single day where they sat down to write and nothing came out. They probably pushed themselves to write something, and it probably came out terrible, and somehow they've convinced themselves that they still did something so they didn't experience writer's block. But they did. That's just how it goes.

People have off days. The thing about writer's block is that writing is a much more personal activity than a lot of other things are. There's no formula that you can just follow and make it work. You can analyze stories and find formulas, sure, but just writing off of one makes a story sound cliche and boring. I can't speak for other creative activities. I don't have any experience in them, and I don't want to imply that they are somehow easier or lesser than writing is. But writing has to come directly from you. It can't be taken over by someone else, and by writing you are putting your own self on the line.

One of the only solutions I have ever heard to dealing with writer's block is to keep writing. But the thing is, writing when you don't know what to write is, at least to me, one of the hardest things in the world. Some days, I'd rather be in a fist fight with someone twice my size than try to write with writer's block. On a good writing day, I can easily get off 100 words a minute, sometimes for hours at a time. On a bad day, that slows to a crawl of 100 words in an hour if I'm lucky. As someone who wants to be a writer, that is unbelievably painful.

I don't know if these kinds of things even apply to other creative endeavors. I've never really heard of an artist's block or a musician's block. I'm sure they exist, however. I've just personally never heard of them. I have to wonder how they get through those things. Do artists just force themselves to draw? Do musicians just force themselves to make music? It seems to me like these really aren't the best options. It seems more like they're the stories that people spread about things because they heard them somewhere once, but they have no basis in the real world. I don't have a better answer off the top of my head, but I would have to think that somehow, somewhere, someone has a better solution. If only they would share it with the rest of us.