November

Today is Halloween, and while I would love to spend tonight out trick or treating, going around and getting candy and having a good night out on the streets with my friends in ridiculous costumes, there are a number of things keeping me from doing that. Most of all being that at 4 AM, I have to be at work starting an eight hour shift, and I'd frankly prefer to be awake for that.

I considered writing something to go with the season today, but frankly, I don't think I'm going to top Sacrifice when it comes to that, so if you really want to read something from me that will give you the spooks, it's only a few days back.

Instead I'm going to talk about tomorrow.

Tomorrow is an equally scary and exciting day for me. I'm fairly certain that I've written about it before, but November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short (with NaNo shortening that even more). As you might be able to guess, I'm a huge fan of NaNo and all that it stands for. With a goal of writing a fifty thousand word novel in thirty days, meaning that you have to write 1667 words a day.

Words a day? Man, where have I heard that before.

I've participated in NaNo a number of times, but in recent years have had trouble finishing. That was one of many reasons that I wanted to start this blog, and at least a part of why I decided to have a words per day goal. I was familiar with the concept and comfortable with it, knowing how to weave my way in and out of it, and decided to go with a lower goal, knowing how much time I spent on the goal of NaNo, and about how much time a third of that would take.

But with it coming back up, I find myself with an interesting problem. I already have a set writing goal per day. It will quadruple come tomorrow by following this goal. But this is something that I know I both want and need to do. I've been spending the past year working on writing. But what I haven't been practicing is writing a book, and that's the thing that I really want to do.

I've considered stepping away from the blog while I write this book, seeing as I will more than be meeting my goal on a daily basis by writing this novel. But when I started this I said that I wanted to write here, on the blog, every single day. And sure, I've missed two or three days along the way, but that's a hell of a lot different from thirty. Besides, part of it was exploring different ideas everyday, which is hard and focusing on a single story for thirty days might be a relief from pushing every day for new content, but that was a challenge I accepted from the beginning.

I also considered writing shorter blog posts every day, in which case I would still be writing and exploring, but when I'm already writing a little over one and a half thousand words a day, what's another five hundred?

So I think I've decided to just keep going. To push myself every day more than I have all year. And I think that'll be for the best for me. Hopefully over the next month things won't fall off in either quality or quantity, but if they do, at least now you'll know why.

The airship

Vincent stood amongst the sweltering steam of the engine room, directing his team as they attended to the various problems and maintenance that were so commonplace in their lives that any sort of peace of mind was strange to them. Water was in constant motion, in an out of their bodies as it was in and out of the machines. Sweat poured from their pores freely, and evaporating just moments later to mix with the steam in the air.

Steam was their livelihoods. Steam kept them employed, and steam kept them alive. Flying in the air, thousands of feet above the ground, with only the power of their steam to keep them there, if the steam ever stopped pumping, they and the crew they were flying would be dead in less than an hour. And so the engine room was filled with only the quickest thinkers, hardest workers, and most resilient men.

And two out of three was never good enough.

Vincent had hand picked his men personally, and there was no safety net period. You either gave it your all from the get-go and were capable of the work, or you were off the team. No mid-way points, no partly done jobs. He didn't have time for people who couldn't get the job done, and get it done right the first time. The airship they worked on was privately owned, but in service to the government on several important cases of exploration and delivery. That meant things had to be working constantly and efficiently at all times, and any one member messing that up would ruin it for everyone else.

"We're landing in three hours!" Vincent shouted over the noise. "It's time to start preparing to let her down nice and gentle! Lower the feeding, pour the last water reserves, and make sure we stay airborne until we arrive! Tonight we get a nice break, and you get this done, the first round's on me!"

That brought about a cheerful shout in response, and his men set to work on preparations, with Vincent carefully watching their every movements to make sure he knew exactly what was happening.

He had trained for years in every aspect of the airship's engines, from how they were built, to how they worked, to how to fix them when things went wrong, even without the proper tools or replacement parts. He could probably build a new engine in his sleep with spare parts and discarded junk, and his records were surprisingly well maintained. There weren't many engineers who kept their engines running as well as he did, but there weren't many who were paid as well as he was either. And his pay was well earned. He wouldn't have it any other way.

"Vince," his right hand man called out.

"What's up?"

"We're lower on water than expected. Plenty to arrive to destination, but a smooth landing might be a little shaky."

Vincent nodded and put his hand on his partner's shoulder. "I'm sure there are some men in need of relief. Tell them we're i need of their assistance."

Vincent's right hand man made a face of disgust, but didn't question. "Yes sir," he responded, and went about his duties.

Vincent wasn't always the most normal guy around. But he got the job done. His men knew that. And his employers knew that. And he made sure that his men were comfortable, so none of them could complain.

Chains

Rogan's wrists chaffed under the handcuffs - a feeling that he had long since gotten used to and that no longer bothered him. He had worn the cuffs for over ten years by this point, the only relief from which being the thirty seconds he had every few months during which one set of handcuffs was traded out for another, so as to prevent sweat and weather from rusting the metal away and allowing Rogan to break free.

Not that that was really what was holding him back. He didn't want to be freed of his chains any time soon.

It had been a year since Rogan was released from prison, and therefor a year since he had been freed from his shackles. He had learned to carefully clean the rust away on a regular basis, so as not to become infested with it on any unseen cuts beneath the metal bracelets.

Being a hermit, far from civilization meant that Rogan didn't have to deal with visitors or guests who might question the harsh steel connecting his wrists together, forcing them to constantly be held in front of him and incapable of completing most tasks. It was nearly impossible for him to write letters, cut food, or comfortably read a book. But he had learned how to make due with his life under these conditions, and he was able to compensate for his arms with his legs in many ways.

It wasn't until the day that an unexpected knock on his door arrived that Rogan ever felt that his way of life would be unable to be maintained until the day he died.

A man was waiting at Rogan's door, a grimace plastered on his face, and an aggressive intent clear in his eyes. He carried a short, thin blade loosely in his left hand, and his clothes were plain, suggesting that he was either poor, or did not want to be noticed on his way out of town to find the strange, self-handicapping hermit who had been in jail for so much of his life. Rogan was placing money on the latter.

"So, you think by getting out of town and keeping those damned cuffs on you can forget your sins, old man?" The stranger demanded, sword bouncing lightly in his hand.

"I'm afraid I don't know to what you are referring," Rogan responded, his hands limply falling front of him, but his legs taut and ready to move at a moment's notice.

"Don't play games with me," the man hissed, his grip on the blade's handle abruptly tightening. "That was my family that you killed. The people you put in the grave. Those who you so callously slaughtered. You think you can forget about them?"

"No," Rogan replied defiantly. "I think about them everyday. What happened was an accident, and one that I should have prevented. I think about them daily."

"Don't lie to me, old man!" The man was advancing slowly, his knuckles turning white with the intensity of his grip, and Rogan knew he only had a few moments before that blade leapt forward.

"I swear, I never-"

The freshly sharpened sword leapt forward, just as Rogan had been anticipating, and he was ready. He swung his arms up, letting the blade slip into the open chains of his handcuffs, and twisting his arms to rip the sword from the man's hands and across the room. Before the man could move again, Rogan kicked him hard in the chest, cracking two ribs and sending him flying out the door, with Rogan giving chase only a second later.

The man rolled onto his stomach and tried to push himself up, but Rogan was on his back and throwing his arms in front of the man's head, holding the chains at his lower jaw to catch the man, and hold his head up.

"You going to kill me too?" the man asked bitterly. "Snap my neck like a twig and keep living here, pretending that nothing is wrong?"

"You're the one who attacked me," Rogan responded, not moving one way or another.

"You killed my family."

"It was an accident."

"You can say that all you want, but that doesn't bring them back."

"I spent my time in jail. I carry these cuffs as a reminder. I left my life behind me. What more do you want from me?"

"I want revenge for my family."

"And then what? Go to jail for killing a man? What makes you better than me then?"

"I'll have had a reason."

"One that only leads to suffering. Is that what your family would have wanted?"

There was a long pause after that. Rogan sat stock still, holding the man's head up, and his knees pinning the other's arms to the ground, keeping him from moving in any meaningful way. The man could tell that even after all this time, Rogan was still stronger than he could have hopped to be. He didn't stand a chance.

"Fine," he finally muttered.

Rogan dropped the chains from the man's neck instantly and stood up, letting the man free. The man stood up shakily, his cracked ribs making it difficult to breath.

"Please," Rogan said. "Go be attended to. Live your life. You still have yours. Leave me to my self-pity and self-punishment. I will not let my existence bring any more misfortune for others.

And so the man left, not seeing how the strain his sword had blown on the chains allowed Rogan to easily snap them apart as he left.

"Now I have to replace these," he muttered to himself.

Frank

Featureless faces featured fairly frequently in Frank's feeble, fearful life, following fierce, frightening formulas for full forfeit of unfortunate freedoms.

Frank couldn't keep the sentence from popping into his mind from time to time. He wasn't sure where it had come from, or even really how long it had been in his head, but it was difficult to argue with the sentence's sentiments. For as long as he could remember, the world around him had seemed limiting, as though it were trying to constrain him and his thoughts. The people he spoke to seemed to speak the same senseless dribble repeatedly, like they were following a script which Frank had had the misfortune of not being privy to. They didn't like the way he expressed a wish to leave his small hometown, and over the years he felt as though he had been pushed to fill one particular role in life, regardless of his own dreams and desires.

With time, the faces that he saw on a daily basis had begun to blur together. He could hardly remember which names went to which faces anymore, seeing as everyone looked the same to him. They were as pawns in a game of chess, moved with little more purpose than to clear space for the more important pieces on the board to pass them by and do more important work. The loss of such smaller pieces was hardly of concern to the players, whoever they might be in this strange and twisted world that Frank lived in. All he could think about was wanting to make it to the other side of the board and be given the chance to trade his miserable existence for a more exciting and meaningful one. But that was hard when the only path forward was blocked by those who did not want to be left behind.

Routine was the closest thing to luxury that Frank felt in his life. Knowing when he woke up in the morning exactly how his day was going to go meant that he could simply follow the motions, and let his mind go to other places that his body could not. He dreamed of better things. Of worlds of freedom, where a person's choices mattered, and where the people around him were vibrant and unique, pushing each other to do their best rather than holding them back so as to never feel outdone.

He sometimes wondered if he could give that support to someone else. If he himself would not feel jealous to see another moving ahead of him. If he would not try to reach out to them and pull them back so as not to be left behind.

Such thoughts scared him. He did not want to be like the faceless monstrosities that he saw around him. The dull and devoid of self. But was it too late for him? Had he spent far too long amongst them already, and been tainted by their actions.

Frank lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling, thinking long and hard about these kinds of thoughts. Wondering if the worlds he dreamed of could even exist. Wondering if he was alone in his thoughts, or if perhaps there were others like him. And wondering if those people existed, what that could possibly mean for him, and if they could work together to achieve something new.

But eventually he would have to sleep, and a new day would begin.

Free Write

This is gonna be something a little different. I've been struggling a lot lately with coming up with topics that I wanted to write (save for a few ones that quite clearly came to me, but those are pretty rare exceptions), and so I thought for today I would try something a little less focused than what I normally do. This is effectively going to be jotting down whatever thoughts come to my head, so they're likely going to be jumbled, disconnected, and trail off from one to another without ever fully exploring any one topic in particular. On the other hand, it could end up being that I write some very in depth discussion on a particular topic that I just happen-stancely end up on. All that being said, I expect this won't be of much interest to a reader unless that's a kind of thing you're super interested in, so feel free to skip over this one.

On  separate note, I am amazed that happen-stancely evidently registers as a word. I was sure I was making that up.

After recently getting what I would describe as my first real job, I've surprisingly found that I have a good amount of time for playing video games. The fact that I can come home and not have to prepare something for the next day is remarkably freeing for time - one of several reasons why I prefer it over going to school - and so I've been having a good deal of time to bounce around and try some different stuff that I might have otherwise passed up on. Particularly, I've been going back to some games I had previously finished and working on their bonus content. I've actually had a few ideas of things I want to write because of that, but I'm not sure how to go about it without just completely ripping off the games I got the ideas from. That's something I'm going to have to spend some time thinking about.

A couple days ago I wrote a horror post, which I'm pretty sure is the first scary thing I've ever so much as attempted to write. Suffice to say it came from a dream and didn't want to leave my head until I put it down on paper. It made me legitimately uncomfortable writing it, and I really shouldn't have put it off as long as I did, seeing as I had trouble going to sleep after writing it because I couldn't get the scenes I had written out of my head. I don't know if anyone else would find it as disturbing or creepy as I did while I was writing it, and if they did, I don't know if I'd be happy about it. On the one hand, that was the purpose of it. On the other hand, that's not really what I want to do with my writing. But it's hard to argue with results.

I'm not sure why, but I was recently struck with the thought of weapon practicality in writing. It's not a thing that bothers me, seeing as how about ninety percent of stories have entirely impractical weapons or fighting styles, but with the amount of training I've had in those areas, it's something I'm pretty aware of. Dual wielding swords in particular came to mind. I considered writing a blog post about it, but I'm not really sure I have enough to say on the subject, nor that I really want to write about it. Is it a thing worth saying? Possibly. But I imagine it will come off more as me ranting than anything else.

Although, criticizing that while writing this is a bit hypocritical, I suppose.

I'm not entirely sure how, but I recently started receiving emails from some writing newsletter or something? At first I thought it was cool, I was getting stuff about writing! But every single day I got two emails, both saying the same thing - you can make hundreds of thousands of dollars by writing! Here's how!

And it would then go on to detail about how companies need people to write basic, conversational letters for them to send out for whatever reason.

And I'm sure that's a perfectly legitimate thing, and it's probably highly necessary in the business world.

But really? It doesn't take that long to write a letter. In fact, I'm pretty sure most places have that kind of thing automated by now. And more than anything, I feel like that would be boring. Does it give you a lot of freedom to do other things you enjoy? Yeah, sure. But I was under the impression that boring, monotonous, easy to do jobs that you're just doing to be able to do the other things you actually want to do weren't the way to go. Though nowadays, that seems to be more and more what people are telling me, so maybe I'm just under the wrong impressions. I think I'd rather stick with my ideas, impractical as they might be.

Another ending

Cador walked calmly into the hospital room long after visiting hours had ended. The halls were quiet, only the faint sounds of monitors steadily chugging along and night nurses shuffling from room to room, dealing out medicine and fresh pillows, and occasionally following through with the unfortunate but necessary duty of helping patients change and go to the bathroom. There wasn't anything in particular Cador was doing to actively avoid these nurses or hide himself from them, but generations of practice had made him good at sticking to the shadows, quieting his breath, and stepping light as a feather. The nurses weren't expecting to see anyone there, and so they didn't. They saw movement out of the corner of their eyes from time to time, but they couldn't catch sight of the man that caused it.

Sarah was laying in her bed as she did every night, long after her husband and children had left her side to rest for the night, waiting for the visit from her old friend. Cador was more than a thousand years older than Sarah, but he was nowhere near the end of his life as she was. He had watched her face became long and wrinkled, her hair dry and gray, and the once energetic spark in her eye fade away as the life drained away from her. He would ask with her increasing frequency as she aged if she was growing tired of him, and she would always say no.

He would ask her if it bothered her that she looked different in the mirror every day, but his face never changed. She would say no.

He would ask her if she was bothered by the fact that she know looked older than him, despite being a tenth of his age. She would laugh and shake her head.

He would ask if she wanted to hear another story of days long past.

She always said yes to that question.

He sat on the edge of her bed and gently placed a hand on her stomach, making her eyes flutter open. He knew that she was awake and waiting for him, but it was easier for her most of the time to rest her eyes.

She smiled weakly up at him. "Hey, Cador," she whispered hoarsely.

"I'd ask how you're doing," he whispered back, "but I saw your charts on the way in."

Sarah nodded, but the smile didn't fade from her face, though he could see the pain in her eyes. "It's time," she said simply.

"I know. It's been a long time since I've been invested in someone as I have been in you, you know." She smiled more at that. "It's been difficult to watch someone I knew as a teen become such an old woman. I could have sworn I swore that off a long time ago." She chuckled. "World's gonna be a little bit emptier with you gone."

Sarah softly put her own hand on top of his. "Don't be alone again," she whispered. "You were alone for too long."

"It'll be difficult to find someone like you again, that actually reminds me what joy and companionship can be."

Sarah smiled and closed her eyes, laying her head back down. "You'll find someone."

Cador stood up and gently kissed Sarah's forehead. "I won't forget you, Sarah," he whispered gently.

"I know you won't," Sarah replied. "You never forget anyone."

Cador chuckled. "Perhaps. But especially not you."

Sacrifice

The old oak staircase creaked under Brian's feet as he hesitantly and fearfully descended the steps into the darkness. He had awoken in the attic of a stranger's house with no recollection of how he had gotten there, or generally any of the previous night's events. He didn't think he had been drinking, but for all he knew someone could have slipped him something. Given his current predicament, it didn't seem like an entirely unlikely course of events, though who could have come after him or why he couldn't guess. He was a regular guy. There wasn't much special about him. He worked a desk job and just tried to get by in the world, with a few close friends that he spent the weekends with drinking and playing video games. But now he was trapped in a barren house with no windows and half the doors locked, just trying to find a way out.

The darkness was overwhelming, broken up only by the creak of each step that Brian took. He didn't see the final step, nor the door only a few paces in front of it, until he tried to step down a step that wasn't there and tumbled face first into the hard wooden frame. Without thinking, and while rubbing his pained nose, he grabbed the handle and yanked hard on it, not expecting it to swing open wide as it did. The light on the other side was blinding after the darkness that Brian had previously been experiencing, but it was a murky, ugly light, and when Brian's eyes adjusted to it he saw the figure in the middle of it.

A hideous figure. The figure of a man who looked as though he had been decaying for years, standing stock still, leaning to his left as though that leg were shorter than the rest of him and putting him off balance. His eyes were wide open, lacking any color of iris around the tiny, black pupil, as though he were blind. But he could see Brian, there was no doubt of that. The soulless, empty eyes were staring incessantly at him. They wanted something, Brian could see that, and after a moment he knew what they wanted, for the face was missing something other than the irises - its nose was hanging limply from only a few remaining tendons and a shattered bone.

Brian had been frozen in spot by the sight for only a moment, but that moment was long enough for the figure to see what it wanted and take it. Before Brian could lurch away, the shape was on him, its eerily greasy fingers surprisingly powerful as they gripped his face, tearing at the already damaged nose that Brian had slammed into the door. He cried out in pain, but could feel the skin beginning to split, followed by the muscles underneath. He tried to fight back, but the figure had experienced pain for so long that the puny, frantic blows meant nothing to it.

It felt like an eternity, but it was only a few horrible seconds before Brian's nose was forcefully removed from his face.

He dropped to the ground, blood pooling underneath him as he screamed in gargled pain, and the figure awkwardly tried to push the new nose onto its face. Tendons reached out from the empty hole where the nose belonged like tentacles, grabbing onto the bloodied and bruised nose and attaching it to the decrepit skin. Brian couldn't watch, but he couldn't tear his eyes away either.

In the blink of an eye, the door slammed shut and the darkness that had been there before was banished. Were it not for the incredible pain in his face, Brian might have thought it had been a dream. He tried to blink the tears in his eyes away, and in the process the door that he had lost his nose through simply vanished, replaced by a well lit hallway leading further into the house, with a door at the end.

He didn't want to move forward. He didn't want to lose another piece of himself to whatever he had just seen.

But if he didn't, what hope did he have of escape?

Train officer

The ticketer walked from seat to seat on the train, as he did after every stop, checking the seats for people who had gotten off and people who had gotten on, asking to see tickets to make sure there weren't any freeloaders and deadbeats trying to cheat the system. His face was a mask of emotionlessness, mechanically moving from seat to seat, checking the passengers and their tickets, thanking people for their business, then advancing onto the next set of seats to do the same. He had worked on this train, the A-Line 317, for over twenty five years. It didn't pay well, and it wasn't exciting, but he had a lot of free time, got to see some fantastic sights on the journey, and had a cheap way to take vacations with his family on his free days thanks to the company discount.

There were a few regulars in the early and late hours who would make conversation with him. He'd smile at them, offer a word or two of recognition, but always faithfully move on before getting too invested in a conversation. It wasn't that he didn't want to become friends with some of the passengers, nor did he think that he didn't have the time to stop and have a chat every now and again. But he was a man dedicated to his work - he believed in a functional train with a functional staff that got the job done smoothly and efficiently. And being efficient didn't always allow for being nice.

On the train that day was a younger man, somewhere in his early twenties, and it was clear that he was pretty new to this system of travel, and to being generally in public. The ticketer had seen young men like him before. Young men who had gotten cocky in some or another and lost access to the form of transport that they were more used to - usually a car. But despite that, they still had a chip on their shoulder, and didn't want to be associated with what they saw as the riff-raff that were more accustomed to taking the train. He was in one of the seats in the back by himself, with some rear-facing seats across from him that he was using to rest his feet on.

"No feet on the seats please, sir," the ticketer said as he approached. The man scoffed at him but pulled his feet down, but the look in his eyes said they were going back up as soon as the ticketer's back was turned. "Ticket, please," he spoke again, and the man fished around in his back pocket to grab the ticket. It was wrinkled and difficult to scan, seeing as the man had hastily shoved it into his pockets when running out the door to catch the train, not wanting to be caught with such a sign of weakness. The ticketer got it into the system though and moved on. "Feet," he called as he walked past.

"Why don't you just do your job?" the man jeered angrily.

For the first time in a long time, the ticketer looked back at a passenger he had already ticketed and paused to look at him. The man was grumpy, slumped into his seat, arms crossed, trying to hide himself. A bag at his feet, and another in the cargo bay over his head. A man with places to be, it seemed, and either a dislike for having to get there, or a lack of patience and a desire to get there faster than the train could allow.

"This is my job," the ticketer replied calmly. "Please remember to keep your feet down. It's quite rude to the next guest who takes that seat, don't you think? I should hope that the last person to sit in there didn't have their shoes up on your seat. Who knows what they had been walking through."

He walked away with the young man squirming in disgust at the thought the ticketer had planted in his head.

Treehouse

Jason quickly ascended the rickety wooden planks that served as the ladder into the treehouse he and his father had spent the previous weekend building. He had been begging his father for months to build a treehouse for him, and he had finally whittled down at his father's patience and willpower enough to make him submit to the idea. Jason couldn't have been happier the day his dad had come home with a trunk full of two by fours, and he couldn't be prouder than he was in that moment, sitting in his treehouse, looking through the empty space they had left as a window over his dominion.

They hadn't much of a chance to furnish their creation, however. Carrying furniture up into the treehouse wasn't much of an option, seeing as the tree was a good dozen feet high and the ladder was difficult enough to climb with the use of all four of one's limbs. They had decided that if they wanted to have chairs and such inside, they would have to build new ones, which meant getting new wood and learning more complex cutting and connecting then the simple nailing of boards together they had done in order to build the house. But Jason looked forward to that. It was more time he could spend with his father, and it was more that he could say, "Look at this. I built this with my own two hands."

For the time being, Jason sat on a thick pillow that they had been able to carry up the ladder that they planned on using as the cushion to one of the chairs. There were a few such pillows laying around the floor, as well as paper and crayons that Jason had been using to create art to decorate the walls with. This treehouse was his, and he intended fully to make that fact clear. Every inch of this treehouse would reek of him and his father. It would be their creation, and only a select few would be given permission to enter into their hall.

He had such plans for this home away from home. There were many adventures to be had. Spies to be sent out and stopped. Dragons to be slain, princesses to be saved. Mad scientists to be stopped from taking over the world. Zombies to be stopped. Maybe not the princesses part. Girls were still gross. But he wanted to do so many things, and this treehouse would be an excellent headquarters from which to do so. His father had seen it as a large investment. Jason saw it as only the beginning.

Mother probably would have opposed, Jason thought quite suddenly and much to his surprise, if she were still around. She would have said that there were better things to spend their money on then wooden slabs that she would have been convinced that Jason would grow tired of faster than you could shake a stick. That thought made him sad, but it also made him determined. He would show his mother. He would show her just how much he could love these simple planks of wood. How much they could give him. He would do it to prove her wrong.

He sat back and looked at the still bare wood that surrounded him and smiled to himself. He would make this treehouse out of his dreams. He would craft it to be the ultimate playhouse. He would make friends so he could bring them to it, so they could help him make it into something that he wouldn't be able to make on his own. It would be the greatest treehouse the world had ever known. It would give birth to the stories of generations. And maybe one day, he would let his own children into it.

But that meant girls first. And girls were still gross.

The Knight's Lover

Amelia curled up in the arms of her knight, Sir Rodrick. It was late in the afternoon, and Rodrick had only just returned from the field of battle, his armor badly misshapen, and the bruises and cuts on his body easily visible through the gaps in his armor. He was seriously injured, but while the healers were preparing space and equipment, he had insisted on seeing his Amelia, rather than staying in a spare room. They found a spot under a tree behind the castle many years ago where they would lay together when they had the time, and that was where they could be found.

Amelia looked up at Sir Rodrick, feeling his weight shift as he leaned back against the tree. He had taken off the dented helmet he had been wearing, and both of his eyes were black from the beating he had taken. But behind the injuries, Amelia could see one thing above the rest quite clearly - Rodrick was tired. He had been on the leading lines for years, protecting his king and kingdom with everything he had. This was not the first time he had returned from the field bruised and beaten, nor were his injuries the worst they had ever been. He had survived much worse.

But Rodrick was old now, as far as knights went. And now that he had found Amelia and fallen for her, his lust for blood and steel had diminished over the years. He was proud of his capabilities, and he would never act against his king, always prepared to stand as a guard between him and the enemy, but he was beginning to question how long he would be able to do so, and had confided these concerns to Amelia alone. She had promises to conceal his thoughts from the rest of the castle, but ever since he had spoken to her about them, she had become deeply distressed that one day the pain he went through for his kingdom would overtake him.

"Rodrick?" Amelia whispered. Rodrick peaked down at her through one eye. He had been close to falling asleep.

"I don't like where this is going," he said sleepily. "You never call me Rodrick unless it's something bad. What's wrong?"

Amelia pouted, but couldn't refute what he had said. "What are you going to do about all this?" she asked. "You look exhausted, and I can feel the weakness in your breath in the way your chest rises. I know you don't want to speak against the king, but surely there are other capable, younger knights who can take your place. And it's not as though you have to cease your service. You can become a military adviser. Then you can use that battle mind of yours in safer places."

The gentle smile Rodrick gave her always filled Amelia's heart with a warmth that she couldn't quite describe in words. "You've been thinking about this quite a lot, haven't you?" he said. "Sometimes I forget that I have fallen for such a wise maiden of our fair kingdom."

He hissed at the light slap on the cheek she gave him, but smiled through the pain. She fussed over him for a moment, apologizing profusely before finally settling down. "I just don't want to lose you," she finally whispered.

"You won't lose me," Rodrick reassured her.

"Look at you, though."

"I've been through worse."

"You were younger."

There was a long pause after that. Amelia listened to Rodrick's heartbeat until they saw the healers coming for him. "I'll think about it," he said as he stood up.

Amelia smiled. "Thank you, Roddy," she whispered.

He grinned back at her as the healers lead him away. "That's my Amy."

Delete

Throughout my life, I've been given a lot of advice on writing that I find to be less than helpful. Rules that people say I should follow that hardly pertain to the actual act of writing. Things about what words to use, or what not to say, or what not to write about. Things I heard in school, especially, like "don't use the word 'thing.'" Rules that I don't generally pay much mind, seeing as they're not exactly useful. But every once in a while I do hear a good piece of advice, and those are things that I try to remember.

One such rule was "Never delete anything." For whatever reason, that just resonated with me. Of course, it's not just that simple. It's not that you never delete, because sometimes you have a piece of writing that is complete and utter garbage. In fact, most of your writing is going to be. Editing wouldn't be effective if you never got rid of parts that don't work or don't make any sense. Rather, the rule is to never delete anything permanently. If you write something, and you don't like it, or it's not working right now, or you want to write a different story, don't just delete the words and forget about them. Take them out of the story, and put them in another file. Save them as a miscellaneous sentence or prompt.

This sounds like a weird piece of advice. You're getting rid of that something for a reason. And it's not talking about you take out a sentence to rewrite it. It's not talking about the various adjectives and adverbs you take out of a sentence. It's talking about entire sentences, paragraphs, or even entire chapters or stories that you scrap because you don't like them or they just don't fit. They don't sound right, or they lead your story in a different direction that you don't want to go down.

So why keep them?

You never know what's going to happen down the line. You don't know where your story is going to go, and you don't know what kind of stories you're going to write next. An off-hand, half-formed idea that you once scrapped could be the starting point for your next story. Something that you once looked down on as absolute shit you could realize has a diamond embedded in it just below the surface that will come out with a little bit of polishing. Or a lot.

It's kind of a strange thought, but when you put it into practice, it starts to make a lot of sense. For example, I once wrote a hilariously terrible sentence. Without going into too many details, for the following year I would regularly show this sentence to people when talking to them about my writing, asking them if they had any idea what in the hell it was supposed to mean.

Not a single person I came across had any idea.

It took that full year for me to finally remember what that sentence was supposed to mean. The thing that it was missing was a single comma. One comma that made all the difference between an entirely unintelligible sentence and, perhaps not the best sentence, but one that at least means something. Over and over and over, I thought about just erasing that sentence from existence. It wasn't entirely necessary. I could afford it. But I left it in, hoping to figure out what I had been trying to write.

It's funny how much of an enemy one key on the keyboard can be to a person who lives by those letters.

Ocean

Arnold climbed up onto the deck of his ship, unfazed by the pouring rain and the thick, gray clouds. It was a miry day by all accounts, and Arnold couldn't be happier about it. The rain was a lifesaver. It kept the men alive. Kept the boat afloat. Not that that was really a problem, but it was a nice thought.

Arnold had never seen an inch of dry land in his life. He had been born on his boat. Raised on it. And when his parents had passed away, the boat had come into his possession, as well as all of the responsibilities thereof. He had to keep the storerooms stocked, the men working and motivated, and most importantly, the barrels full of water. Being constantly surrounded by an endless ocean was a constant mocking from the gods of the fact that they couldn't drink any of it. The high concentration of salt in every cubic meter of water was deadly to intake.

They'd lost a lot of good men that way, desperate for a drink.

As he mounted the deck, Arnold saw his men had already seen the clouds coming long before, and had set up the collectors well in advance. Numerous pipes, pails, bottles, cans, and pots, all collecting as much of the rainfall as possible. He smiled to himself and walked around the contraptions, checking their stability and storage. Every rain pour, there were more collectors. Eventually there wouldn't be any space left to walk on board during a shower.

Arnold supposed that wasn't necessarily the worst case scenario.

It was difficult to even see where the sun was in the sky through the clouds. The rope ladder leading up to the topmast was slick and heavy, somewhat unwieldy to climb, but the ship's captain didn't mind. He wrapped his arms into the steps and pulled himself up two rungs at a time before doing the same with his feet. He felt the cold rain on his back and head, and reveled in it. Rain was the joy in his life. The encouragement to keep pushing. That he was doing the right thing.

Even the crow's nest was filling up with water. There was a small step in to the nest, and the water was getting near to flowing over that step, down onto the masts, and flowing all the way down to the deck. Arnold's feet slipped under the water, where it reached just to his ankles. He leaned against the wooden frame and looked out over the horizon. There wasn't much to see. There never was. Not only did the sky and sea mirror on a constant basis, but other ships were rare sights. The ability to fish and farm undersea plants was vital to his crew's survival. And over time, they had mastered just that.

There were only legends remaining of the world before. A world where water was only a portion of the planet, rather than the marking feature. The crew knew the legends by heart. Arnold knew them too, but he never spoke them. He didn't believe in the stories. As far as he was considered, the only purpose of the word "land" was for the sea floor.

Water was his life. It was the only life he knew. It was the only life he had ever known. And looking out, it wasn't a bad life to have.

The monolith

Jeremiah was nervous, being lead to the mouth of the cave. He had just turned twelve, which was the age of adulthood in his village, and when a boy became a man, he was taken to the cave. He would be left there for a day, to find himself and learn about who he was and what he was to do with his life, and return prepared to take his new role. It was a tradition that no one quite knew the origin or age of.  But it was difficult to question something that had lasted for so long, and that had such a success rate. There wasn't a single adult in the village that was unhappy with their lot in life.

But that didn't make Jeremiah any more comfortable with where he was going. The people who had already been inside the cave didn't talk much about it, and the kids liked to tell stories about what they thought was inside of it. At times, they attempted to make dares of one another to go into the cave before their day came, but no one ever got any further than the mouth. They were too scared of what would happen if you went in before your time.

The rumors were that entering early would tear you open from the inside out. That the burden of adulthood thrust upon you too early was too much for a child's young mind to manage, and that were they able to even return, they would be incapable of maintaining a position of any worth to the village, and would be banished. No one wanted to be separated from the people that they grew up with. They didn't even know what there was outside of the village. For all they knew, there wasn't anything on the outside.

Jeremiah didn't notice at first that his escorts had stopped accompanying him. He was at the mouth, the jagged rocks like teeth, ready to clamp down on him at any moment and his life before it had really ever begun. He looked back at the men that he had walked there with. They were standing a good ten feet back, watching him go, their faces flat, knowing what it was he was about to experience.

Hesitantly, Jeremiah descended into the dark. The air was heavy and cold, weighing down on him with a dampness that permeated his very being. He felt as though he were walking back through the course of history, back to before men had even found their footing, to when the earth itself was forming. It was dark, but an invisible force seemed to be guiding his feet, leading him deeper into the darkness.

Turning a corner, there was a dim red light in the distance. He knew that that was where he was headed. Whatever was making that light was calling to him, waiting for his arrival, as it had waited for so many arrivals before him.

Deep inside the cave was a monolith, towering in the empty space, made of a solid material that Jeremiah couldn't quite explain. It glowed red, pulsing like a heartbeat, and he felt inexplicably drawn towards it. It called to him, and he could not resist it.

He reached out to it. Put his hand on it.

He saw a flash of life. An entire lifetime in an instant, flooding through his mind. His own life. The life that lay ahead of him. He saw the family he would make. The things he would do. An understanding of everything that he would be.

He woke up in the morning, back at the mouth of the cave.

Dating

It had been a very long week up until that point, not by the amount of things that were happening, but by the things that were absent. It was perhaps the longest week of my life up until that point. Or at least it felt like it at the time. The last day up until that point had been marked by packing, getting ready to make a flight to visit my mother for a week, during which even less would be happening. I would have nothing but time to agonize over the silence that had been plaguing me. But at the last minute, that silence was broken.

I don't know if it was better or worse for that silence to have been broken, seeing as in turn it broke me as well. I was never much of one for talking, but for a few minutes, I was more silent than usual. I think this caught my dad's attention already, but the utter devastation and uncontrollable sobbing that followed thereafter were what made him take action.

I felt as though my heart had been ripped straight out of my chest. I had lost my girlfriend under circumstances that I couldn't have imagined in my wildest nightmares, and the fact that it hurt her just as much as it hurt me only served to worsen the pain.

I don't think my dad fully understood the pain, or what had brought it on. I didn't want to go into details. I barely wanted to talk about it, and I knew he couldn't sympathize. So in silence we finished packing up, and he drove me to the airport.

On the way, he tried to give me a myriad of advice. A few in particular I remember quite clearly. The first, he told me to eat chocolate. He said that something in how it was made would make me feel better. I didn't like chocolate, but at the airport I tried it anyway.

It didn't help.

Secondly, he gave me this incredible piece of advice on dating. He told me, "You should get out there and date as many people as you possibly can. See what it is that you like, and how people change between when you are dating them and when you are not."

This advice hit me hard. Specifically, because it was idiotic.

I remember having a moment of clarity in which I looked at my father with what must have been the most incredulous look I have ever mustered in my life. "Why would I do that?" I asked him. "Why not just be friends with people? If someone changes from how they are when I'm friends with them to when I'm dating them, I wouldn't want to date that person."

My dad paused for a long time, thinking over my words. "That's a better plan," he told me.

It was no wonder to me why he was divorced in that moment.

Looking back, it's funny how much about me has changed, and how much has stayed the same. That day no longer seems like such a big deal. And yet the stupidity of my father's advice sticks with me, as does my logic of the response. After all, what is your significant other but the ultimate best friend?

Stormy end

The wind blowing around his head - pushing at him from every direction - roared in Jacob's ears, deafeningly loud, yet somehow he could still hear his brother's voice perfectly clear. "Can't you see, Jacob?" his brother called. "This world is old, and broken. We are some of the only living things left on this desolate planet. I'm doing it a favor. A chance to start over. A chance to be born anew, to redo its history, to make something out of itself, rather than be fated to becoming a dead rock afloat in an endless sky. I am helping, Jacob, why can't you see that?"

They were standing atop a massive stone coliseum, a towering testament to the might of the people that had once been the moving force of the entire planet, visible for miles around. It had been said that to awake in the tower's shadow was good fortune, and that you would be invigorated by its presence in your life. Now the cyclone that Ishneal had summoned in the clouds above it was shaking the tower to its core, ripping giant shards of rock from its walls and spinning them upwards into the red eye of the sun that was the center of the storm, where they burned to ash in an instant, engulfed by the intense heat of Ishneal's rebirth.

"And what of the life that still remains on this planet, brother?" Jacob called back. He felt as though the air was being ripped from his lungs as he spoke, but he fought with all the might he had to keep control of his voice. A bolt of red lightning shot out from the eye of the storm, striking just next to Jacob's foot, but he remained stalwart. He had to stop his brother, by any means necessary. "Do they not deserve to live out their lives? There is little left, yes, but finally our people have known peace for that very reason. And now you wish to take that away from them."

"Peace for how long, Jacob?" Ishneal shot back. If it were not for the violent fluttering of his clothing, he would have appeared completely unaffected by the storms he had called down upon the planet. "There are only so many resources remaining here. How long until they are run dry, and the wars begin again? I highly doubt your son will die before those times return."

Jacob clenched his fist tightly, but did not respond. He knew his brother was coaxing him on. He was the only one who could stop the storm, and Ishneal knew that. But only at full power, and only if he could stop Ishneal's own power. Anything he could draw out of his brother was the key to Ishneal's victory. And so keeping himself under control was the key to Jacob's.

"And what of your daughter?" Jacob called back. "Will you shed a tear to watch her fragile body ripped apart by your rebirth?"

Ishneal smiled a toothy grin. "The storm will slow her quickly, brother, as it will you. There will be no pain. Only an instant of recollection being ripped asunder from your body before the new world is brought forth."

Even the ground at the base of the tower was being swallowed. Enormous fangs of earth were being pulled from the tower's base, flying upward like arrows launched from longbows, attempting to stop the burning eye, but only being dissolved by its power.

"And how do you know that this will truly bring about a new beginning, brother? If not?"

"Then the last records of this world be of a time of peace. We will not die at each other's throats. Our legacy will be a good one."

"There will be no legacy left of us."

"Just as well!"

Ishneal raised his hand, and another bolt struck down from the storm, this time aimed directly at Jacob's heart. Ishneal had taken complete control. It was Jacob's only chance.

Jacob had less than a heartbeat of time to move. So he gave himself more.

With a raise of the hand, time itself stopped. Ishneal had counted on his lightning bolt to be faster than Jacob could account for, but Jacob had been waiting for that moment. Ishneal had almost succeeded, however. The tip of the deathly red bolt was mere inches from Jacob's chest.

He had only a matter of seconds. Freed from the billowing winds, the struggle of keeping his footing, and the unbearable heat, Jacob could move freely. But the longer he stayed in frozen time, the less likely he was to make it back to the regular flow in one piece. He had already lost one eye that way.

He made a mad rush forward. His brother was nearly a hundred paces away, and Jacob had to cover that distance as quickly as possible. He ran parallel to the lightning bolt, following its path back to Ishneal's hand, where it had been redirected from the clouds overhead toward Jacob. He could feel his control over time slipping away, but he didn't stop moving. He flung himself into the air just as time returned to flow.

He was caught in the air by the massive winds, and flung like a rag in a headwind. He slammed headfirst into Ishneal's chest, tossing him out of his stronghold of space, and carrying them both into the winds billowing upwards toward the eye.

"Jacob!" Ishneal screamed. "You will kill us both!"

"If that's what it takes!"

From the ground, far away, the village saw two small dots raising up from the top of the coliseum,   into the mysterious red glow at the center of the cyclone.

Self-publishing

It's funny how quickly a world can change. Sometimes it can be terrifying. When my parents were growing up, the self made man was someone who went through all the steps, went to college, worked the shit jobs, got the experience, and eventually was able to raise through the rungs of the world through hard work and dedication and doing what they were supposed to. Today, the self made man is the idiot who found a good way to make the world look at them, regardless of how stupid they may be, and figured out how to charge them to do it.

Think about it. The internet has provided a pathway for the average joe to be seen by everyone on the face of the earth, doing anything. We had to create a new world for the phenomenon of one person's idiotic fifteen minute limelight online being seen by millions of people worldwide, and permanently painting our view of a word or phrase or face. We called it going viral. Like a virus that infects the minds of the entire world, one person's actions can get around like wildfire in ways never before possible.

And people figured out how to profit off of this. That's why websites like youtube exist. To provide a service for people to try and go viral, and when they did, to make a profit off of that. But it didn't just create one hit wonders. Today, music artists find their start on youtube, leading to pop stars like Justin Beiber becoming a household name because someone saw him singing and deciding to sign him on a record label. TV shows like America's Got Talent or The Voice give performs the chance to get out there and make a name for themselves. Dreams are more accessible than ever before.

And what about the writers? Some of them are able to profit just off of blogs like this one, although they generally aren't writing fiction. Novelists are given spaces through online retailers to sell their books without needing to get it published by a big name company, which means that books can no longer be shut down before hitting the market for not being what a specific publisher is looking for, or perhaps not being of a high enough quality. This process of self-publishing goes back to the beginning of the printing industry, returning power to the writers rather than the publishers as it has become.

But this leads to a slew of new books, and not necessarily of high quality. The perfect example of this being Fifty Shades of Gray, a self-published book series that started off as a fanfiction of another hit series, Twilight, and can hardly be seen as good writing by anyone with a grasp of storytelling, or the English language. Yet it sold millions of copies, and far more of that profit went into the author's pocket than would have had it gone through a traditional publisher.

But for every big hit, subpar Fifty Shades, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of other self-published books that never go anywhere. Every Justin Beiber, hundreds of singers that go unheard. Thousands of people trying to find their voice, their niche in the world, all fighting for space that is no bigger than it ever was before the internet came along to give them that opportunity.

The old methods are still there. They are harder, they are slower, and they can still fail. But they are still there, and they are still probably more stable and reliable. The question becomes - which road will you take?

Assumptions

The old man sat on the subway, eyes staring straight ahead, seemingly in another world from the other riders. He clutched his ticket tight to his chest, feeling it with the tips of his fingers that was exposed through the torn, woolen gloves. His beard was long and unruly, having needed a shave and a good brushing for well over three years. His clothes reeked and were poked with holes, and they kept the area around him open. No one wanted to sit next to the hobo. No one wanted to sit within a fifteen foot radius of the hobo. He didn't seem to mind.

It was late at night, and there weren't many people on the subway to begin with, so there was plenty of space for others to find much better seats. But it also meant that no one was surprised when the group of wannabe gangsters crowded in, trying to act tough and like they owned the place. Big, thick jackets that they hid their guns in, or at least made you think they could be hiding a gun. Plenty of bling - some of it might have been plastic, meant to make them look better.

The group looked around the train, eyeing up its passengers. No one so much as looked at them. They had seen enough "gangsters" on trips like this. They had long since stopped caring. They knew better than to expect anyone really dangerous to get on. These groups were just punks, who wanted to look like they were dangerous. That's why they were on the subway, instead of the streets, where the real danger was. Or even just at the subway stops, waiting for people to get off. That's when people had to worry. Not when they actually got on.

But the punks still wanted to make an impression. They wanted to make people feel like they should cower. They wanted to be dangerous. And who was a safer bet to attack than the hobo off in the corner by himself? He had no want to protect him. No one to go home to. No one would miss him if something happened. They might not be able to get something good off of him, but maybe he was hiding something. Something valuable. Something so valuable he didn't want to just sell it.

The punks were so focused on showing their strength, they didn't notice that no one so much as looked up as they approached the old man.

"Hey, old man," the leader said, weaving and bobbing his head because it was a thing he had seen in the movies. His gang was digging it up, throwing out gang signs that they didn't even understand. "Real proud of that ticket, huh? Clutching it like yo life depends on it." The gang laughed as he reached out to grab it, but the old man snapped at that moment. As soon as the boy's fingers touched the ticket, the old man slipped his arm like a serpent's around the incoming arm, locking it in place, with just the lightest pressure pushed onto the elbow joint.

The boy's eyes widened and he lurched his hand back, but the old man didn't let him budge. He stared intensely into the boy's eyes, challenging him to take the ticket silently. The boy finally let go of the weak grip he had, and the old man sunk back into his chair. The group looked amongst itself, trying to decide for a moment what to do. But they knew. They couldn't let an old homeless freak like that be the reason they fell back. They'd never live it down.

So they circled around him. The man was back to staring blankly out the window. "The fuck you think you are?" the leader called out. He gestured forward, and two of his boys lunged at the man.

He moved faster than they could comprehend. He was out of his seat, slamming his wrist into one's gut and popping the pelvis completely out of place, collapsing the boy's entire structural integrity and sending him limply to the floor, whilst grabbing the other's hand and using the attacker's momentum to throw him head first into the hard metal wall, instantly knocking him unconscious.

Another came at him next, and the old man waited for him. As a fist came forward, the man slipped just past it before striking at the elbow which was too straight, shattering the joint instantly. The fourth came forward, but he had to move over his friends' bodies, and the old man struck first, hitting just under the center of the ribcage, knocking both the air and the last meal out of the boy vehemently.

Only the leader was left. He looked at the old man, then at his "gang" moaning on the floor around him, and he ran for it.

The old man was on him in an instant, forcing him to the ground, a knee directly on the boy's spine. He grabbed the boy by the hair, ripping his head upwards to look at the other passengers. Now the fear was in their eyes. Not of him, the boy thought, but of the old man. "Apologize to them. You made them see this."

The boy stuttered out an apology, then the old man slammed his head into the floor, putting him to sleep. He stood up straight, looking at his work, before staggering off to the bathroom to clean up the vomit that had gotten on his musty old jacket.

Heirlooms

"Grandpa?" The young voice was coming from the doorway. It was late, the moon was high in the air, and they were both supposed to be asleep. So Girald didn't shoo or criticize the child. He turned the light on and smiled down at her instead.

"What is it, Francine?" he asked gently.

Francine blinked her eyes a few times at the lights. It had been very dark in the house, and her eyes had long since grown accustomed to that darkness, so the sudden light was momentarily painful. "I wanted to ask you something, but mommy specifically told me not to talk to you about it."

Girald chuckled at that and nodded to the girl. "Well then, I suppose this is the only time of day you could get away with asking it of me," he said. He invited her to come and sit in his lap, which she gladly did, having to wiggle her way up onto his legs in the chair and make herself comfortable. In the dark of the night, by a solitary candle, Girald had been polishing an old sword that had been past down in his family for several generations. He had tried to pass it off to his own son, but he had rejected it. Girald was disappointed, but did not speak out against his son's wishes. "What is it you would like to ask me?"

Francine looked down at the half polished sword before looking back up at her grandfather. "Why do you keep that around?" she asked. "I've seen you swinging it at nothing out in the yard sometimes. Aren't you too old to be playing pretend? And mommy said it was dangerous to touch it, but it seems like what you do is way more dangerous than just touching it."

Girald chuckled again and absentmindedly ran his hand through the young girl's hair. "First of all, you should learn "its" name. It's called a sword." Francine nodded at him fervently. She was a curious girl, and she loved her grandfather's stories. "It's been in our family for over six hundred years, passed down from father to son."

Francine's eyes flared up at that. "It's that old?" she asked, mystified. "Where did it come from?"

"That's a good question," he replied. "Some say that one of our ancestors was a blacksmith, and he made it himself. Some say that ancestor was a master of combat, and had the sword commissioned for his personal use. Either way, it is a magnificent blade." Francine was too busy staring at the sword in wonder, so Girald smiled and continued with her other questions. "When you see me in the yard with it, I am practicing my sword fighting. When my father passed it on to me, he insisted that I not only care for it, but permit it to care for me."

Francine frowned and looked at him in confusion. "How is it supposed to care for you?"

"I learned to fight with a sword for two reasons. Firstly, it keeps me healthy and strong. Doing so ensures that I have a good amount of control over my body, that my muscles stay strong and limber, and that my heart and lungs remain powerful. Secondly, it protects me. If anything were to happen to me or my family, I know that I will be able to pick up my sword and do something about it."

Francine paused and looked at the sword, and Girald allowed his words to sink into her mind. When she looked back at him, he could see the burning question in her eyes that he had anticipated. "Why didn't you give it to daddy?" she asked.

"I tried to," he replied. "But your father didn't want it. He's a pacifist. He believes in solving problems through words, not fighting. And there's nothing wrong with that. The world needs more people like that."

"But then why do you still want to be able to fight?"

"Because as long as there are bad people out there, I want to be able to protect my family from them."

Another long pause.

"Can it only be passed down to sons?"

Girald smiled warmly. "Every tradition will be broken eventually," he said. "But not tonight. When you are a little older, and a little stronger, I will teach you how to use this sword. If you still want me to."

Francine smiled brightly for a moment, then frowned, remembering her final question. "But mommy..."

Girald ruffled Francine's hair lightly. "Mommy will love and support you no matter what you choose. And I will teach you how to use this sword safely and properly. I will teach you when to rely on it, and when not to. Mommy knows that I will teach you that well. When you are ready to learn, she will be ready to let you."

Francine smiled brighter than ever and tightly hugged her grandfather's neck. "You're the best grandpa," she squealed.

Girald chuckled. "I try to be," he told her. "Now you should be getting back to bed, so you can dream of the good things you will do someday."

Francine giggled, but jumped out of his lap and raced back to bed, before her mother caught her out and about.

Apprenticeship

Raine smiled softly as she looked down at the necklace between her fingers. She had lost her old one in an accident, and Leo had seen how heartbroken she had been over it. Three weeks later, he had shown up during her lunch shift, covered in sweat and ash, a crushed up paper towel in his hand that he pushed into her hands with the biggest grin on his face she had ever seen him give. Inside was an exact duplicate of her necklace that Leo had forged for her. She had kissed him right then and there, completely disregarding the mess that he was, or the fact that she was still at work. It had taken ten minutes to clean up afterwards, and the customers and her co-workers had teased her about it for the rest of the day, leaving her face beet red until the end of her shift.

She had gone straight to the smithery afterwards to wait for Leo to get off work, a large nalgene full of ice water tucked into her bag for him. He smiled when he saw her, but she handed over the water before he could say a word, and he gratefully drank heavily from it.

"So I take it you like it, then?" he asked teasingly. Raine looked up at him and smiled. They were walking together now, and she was letting him lead her, and and she had gotten distracted thinking about the effort Leo had gone through for her. She had let him examine her old necklace before she had lost it, and he had faithfully recreated it to precise measurements. He had told her that that was why it had taken so long - he wanted to get it just right.

"I love it," she said happily.

Leo chuckled. "Yeah, it sure seemed that way, the way you kissed me."

Raine blushed and shoved on Leo's arm fruitlessly, but couldn't hide the shy smile on her face. It had felt good kissing him, even if she didn't want to admit it. She wondered if her had felt the same.

They walked in comfortable silence for some time longer before Raine spoke up again. "I know you told me why you got into blacksmithing," she said, "but you never really told me how."

Leo hummed to himself as he sometimes did before speaking. Raine had learned that that meant he was choosing his words. "Funny story, that one," he finally said. "My dad took me to a Renaissance Faire. It wasn't the first one we had been to - we both had full outfits at that point - but it was the first time we both kind of had ideas of what we wanted to do, and they didn't really match up. So we agreed to go our separate ways. I must have watched the blacksmith there working for a couple hours straight. Eventually he asked me if I wanted to feel what it was like to swing the hammer. I accepted, of course. Then after a while it was to feel the heat of the forge. By the time my dad came to find me so we could leave, I was working on my first piece. I kept in touch with that smith. And when I started looking for work, he hired me."

Raine giggled and smiled brightly. "I'd like to see that outfit of yours one of these days."

Leo smiled. "Why don't you come on up and I'll show you."

Raine's eyes widened as she very abruptly realized they were standing in front of the door to an apartment building. He had lead her back to his home. She tried to stutter out a response, but the words weren't coming to her.

Leo chuckled and hummed as he turned away and went inside, leaving the door open behind him for her to follow. She hesitated until he was almost out of sight up the stairs before she rushed in after him.

On the frontlines

Kingsley held up his hand, signaling the relatively small group of two hundred marching behind him to come to a halt. They had a series of groups like this marching around to their positions along the high ground of the hills, preparing for the battle that would take place in the valley below the next day. Knights dismounted their horses as squires gathered supplies to make camp for the night, and Kingsley stayed mounted, looking out into the valley and making plans.

Greeves pulled his own horse up beside Kingsley's and greeted him with a soft, "Commander." He waited patiently as Kingsley thought about what was to come the next day, what orders were, and how to go about executing them. Greeves had worked with Kingsley for ten years, and fought beside him in three separate wars. He had watched Kingsley climb the ranks, learn to lead, and become a force to be reckoned with. Most knew that Greeves was no lesser man than Kingsley, but did not feel the need to climb, and was satisfied to work beside Kingsley. They had learned to trust each other. They were forged as a pair, a sword and shield for the king, to protect his lands and bring him new ones.

"We have the tactical land," Kingsley eventually spoke aloud. "Our archers will be able to rain death upon them as they approach. But the moment we need to descend, we will find ourselves struggling. The cliffsides are too steep. The horses will hardly want to attempt them, and our enemies will find themselves on much more solid footing as we slide down to meet them."

"The logical decision would be too find a more gentle path down," Greeves said, knowing already what his friend would say in response.

"Yes, but that path would take significantly longer to descend, and leave an open path for them to advance upon. If they were to send even a few up the center as we moved around to meet them, they would be able to attack not only us from behind, but our allies as well."

"Would we truly have a need to fall on them? If we can make them come up to us on the top of the hill, we will be able to simply hold them back from a-high."

"That is assuming that we can make them feel like they can approach. They know that we have the advantage as long as we stay up here. They would have to be insane to approach us."

Greeves fell quiet, an the two looked out over the valley. The sun was hanging low in the sky, painting the horizon brilliant shades or red and orange. The next day, the valley would be painted with those very colors. They hoped to be the painters, not the paint.

Kingsley sighed and dismounted, leading his horse back to camp, and Greeves followed suit. "Perhaps it would be best to eat before giving it anymore thought," Kingsley said. "It has been a long day."

"Aye," Greeves agreed. "That it has."

Language of the smiths

James let the massive bag he had been carrying on his shoulders drop to the ground, making a massive thump as it did so. He had been wandering the wilds of an entirely separate continent on his own for nearly a month, and the backpack he had brought with him was significantly lighter than it was when he began, but still heavier than most average people could lift, much less carry for extended times. He smiled to himself, looking up at the building that he had come across some distance from the town where his journey was to come to an end.

The smell was powerful and instantly recognizable to him, even in such different lands than those he had grown up in. Smoke filled the air, loud ringing noises accompanying it, and so he began to dig through his pack.

James was an experienced camper. He knew that any weight he put onto his shoulders needed to be vitally important, else he ran the risk of putting himself in needless danger of injury. But from within his pack, he pulled a small, three pound hammer, and a pair of iron tongs, both of which he had been unable to use in any useful capacity until this very moment. With a fresh lungful of smoke, James pushed his way into the shop.

Almost immediately eyes fell on him, his complexion and stature visibly different from those of the workers in the smithy. They called out to him in their own language, but to James they sounded like little more than babes speaking before they could fully form words. He knew better though, assuming they must have asked something about what he wanted and, without a word, held his hammer and tongs up with a smile.

The smiths blinked for a moment, recognizing the tools, but untrusting of the man brandishing them. They called out to him once more, questions clearly being asked, but James had no idea what questions those were or what answers were being hoped for. He just smiled once more and held out the tools again, attempting to urge the men to understand he was one of them.

The men looked at each other and muttered back and forth for a moment. Finally, an apprentice was sent forward, and brought James to one of the forges given a small piece of steel, as if as a test that he was indeed who he claimed to be.

James happily set to work pumping the flames of the forge, heating and shaping the metal into a new form with a new purpose. The apprentice watched him closely and, having eventually decided that James was in fact who he claimed to be, the men were content to return to their work and let James use the spare space.

James grinned a toothy grin to himself as he worked and watched the other men work. Their styles were massively different from one another, and they each had much to learn from each other. This was what he had been hoping to find when he had set out on his journey. A chance to learn and share. Speech did not matter. The language of steel and flame was enough.

Order

There is a small part of story writing that seems obvious and simple, and yet I quite frequently see it played with, both to a stories benefit and its downfall. The order in which thinks happen. This can mean a variety of things, of course, but the first and most obvious is the timeline of your story. You want there to be an order of events, an understanding of when things happen, and a clear distinction of the relationship between one event and another. At least, most of the time you do.

Rules can always be broken. When you want your story to be unsettling and uncomfortable, telling the events out of order is always a good starting point. And of course, there are many stories that start just before the pivotal moment, and then flashback to the story of how they came to that point in the first place. Many don't even reveal until the very end of the story how it began, revealing in the final moments that the narrator is really the main character telling their story from some other point of view that casts the entire thing into a different light.

But there is another type of order in stories. An order of how things must be done, rather than an order of how they are actually done. On a very basic level, this is more or less the same. A character can't die before they are born, after all. But assume that a character is on a quest? An errand is set before them, an errand of epic proportions, and in order to accomplish that adventure, they must do things in a very specific order. Talk to this person to collect this item so it can be brought to another person in exchange for another artifact, so on and so forth until he ultimate goal is accomplished.

But what happens when these orders are broken?

As I see it, there are two possibilities. The first, and the more preferable, is that the rules of the world begin to collapse, giving the main character new capabilities and importance in their story, as they become the moving force, rather than an effect of that force being pushed on them. The second possibility is that nothing changes. The order becomes irrelevant. The entire story begins to fall apart, because by changing the order, you reveal that nothing actually matters. Any growth that once could have been is eliminated, because the events that built upon each other to culminate in that growth are torn asunder.

An excellent example of what I mean by this is the film adaptation of the book, The Dark Is Rising. Under only one circumstance should you ever watch the movie if you enjoyed the book - because you want to see how spectacularly something can fail. Many things are changed needlessly in the movie, but the biggest of them all is order. In the book, five rings must be collected, and in a very specific order, for only with the power of the previous can the next be unlocked. In the movie, this order is shot to hell. Not a single ring is collected in the same order in the movie as they are in the book.

Why was this change made? What advantage did it have over the original?

None.

It completely changed the pacing of the story, making the rings completely irrelevant to each other. In fact, the climax of the book, the big final battle, in the movie is moved to before the rings are even fully collected, forcing the final ring to be changed to an idiotic explanation that has absolutely nothing to do with anything that has happened. Each scene in the movie is its own beast, completely unrelated to any scene that preceded it, other than the fact that the main character is in them.

It's amazing how important such a small detail can be. It can make or break a story. It can instill a sense of time, or it can make a reader question what the hell is even going on. Such a small matter, yet one must think long and hard about what they want their story to be before deciding on it, else risk utter ruin. Pretty impressive for something that seems obvious.

Artistry

Lately I've found that I am much more capable of writing based on visual prompts than textual ones. Images of vivid worlds and wonderful creatures fill me with inspiration, and they make me think about what kinds of stories might be told in those worlds, or take place in them. What events might have brought those worlds about, and how an outsider might think of it looking in from the outside. They make me want to be able to make a reader see those worlds in their minds as they read. But I'm not particularly good at descriptions. It's good practice for me to be doing this, but it's also quite frustrating knowing the world I want to see, but not fully getting the image of it as I read back through my writings.

It's times like this that I wish I were more of an artist.

I've never been very artistically inclined. I often describe myself as not being able to draw a good stick figure. I've never understood color theory, or how to make lines align the way I want them too, or even really how to make a basic silhouette. I'm not one for measuring out my lines, as I have seen some artists do, although my free hand style often means that proportions are hilariously incomprehensible.

Further concepts, like shading, depth of field, and perspective are entirely outside of my field of vision. My handwriting alone is poor - what hope have I of ever making something beautiful?

Yet it seems as though everyone around me is capable of drawing. They complain frequently that they cannot, but in comparison to me, not a one of them can argue that they are lacking in skill. They may not be able to create lifelike paintings, but they can at the very least create an image with a recognizable shape. Meanwhile, I can create vague shapes that look like something a third grader might draw while they are bored in class.

I would never wish to trade away what little skill of writing I have for skill in art. I love being able to write, and I love the act of writing. I love the idea, however implausible it may be now, that I can paint landscapes and portraits directly onto a reader's mind with my words. That somehow I can impress my own imaginations on another person without ever showing them any sort of image.

But sometimes it would be nice to be able to put that image onto a piece of paper.

Learning to read

Albert pushed aside the book in disgust, having gotten not even a page into the story. It was miraculous that he had managed to get through even a paragraph before he gave up. "I hate reading," he muttered under his breath. His father sighed and slumped down into his chair. "It's so boring," Albert continued. "There's no pictures. Nothing happens. It's just words on a blank piece of paper. Why do you like it so much?"

Jim rested his head in his hand as he looked at his son. He didn't know how he was going to be able to explain all this in a way that made sense to the young boy. He had grown up in a world of tv shows and video games. How was he supposed to show the boy the wonders that only a book could contain? The wonders that he had grown up on.

"First of all, if there are words on the pages, then they aren't blank," he said. Albert rolled his eyes in response. "And second of all, it's not all about moving pictures. The words in those pages can show you things that movies can only dream of being able to show you."

"Yeah, right," Albert said indignantly. "What could a book possibly show me that the tv couldn't?"

Jim took the book that Albert had tossed aside and gingerly opened it, flipping to his favorite passage. "Let me show you," he said. "Close your eyes."

"Close my eyes?" Albert asked. "How is that supposed to help me see what you're talking about if I can't see anything?"

Jim didn't say anything to that - just waited for his son to do as he was told. With a sigh, Albert closed his eyes, and Jim started to read aloud.

"Arqez cast his line into the water, sending ripples out over the deep green water. He stood patiently in his tiny canoe, waiting for the fish to bite. He could see them just below the surface, bright white spots dashing around clearly in the water, unmuddied by the moss below."

"This is boring," Albert butted in. His father shushed him and continued on.

"He watched the waters, but the fish ignored his bait, swimming circles around it and his boat as if they were spectacles to be seen, and not touched. But Arqez didn't seem to mind." At this, Albert's attention seemed to perk. Jim smiled. "He had bigger fish to fry.

"It was an hour before anything changed in the water. Arqez waited, watching the fish swim around him. He wondered if they knew what was coming. He wondered if they were waiting too.

"A shift. Barely perceptible at first, and difficult to say where exactly it was coming from. But the shift grew quickly, and the ground beneath the surface of the water split open, just a dozen feet from Arqez's boat. He didn't move. He knew better. Any movement now, and he would lose this, the only chance he had."

Albert was practically straining to hear the next line before it came out of his father's mouth.

"Before he knew it, he was floating on his boat above a massive eyeball just below the surface, whipping back and forth, searching for that which disturbed its sleep. Arqez had dressed for just this very moment. His bright blue boat and rich red raincoat were sure to stand out amongst the colors of its usual surrounding.

"The waters shifted. It surged upwards and away from the eyeball, pushing Arqez away violently as the eye reached up to breach the surface. It took all of his strength to stay in his boat, which only barely stayed afloat. The eye parted the waters, lifting up its face, and the monster came to the surface..."

There was a long pause, and Albert grew impatient as he waited. "Dad!" he cried out. "You can't just leave me hanging like-"

His words were cut off as he opened his eyes to find his father had already left, leaving the page open on the table. Albert only hesitated a moment before snatching up the back and searching for where his father had left off.

Alternate worlds

"What do you mean you don't know who it was?" she asked.

Jumal sighed and rubbed his face. He had forgotten the girl's name. So many people to keep track of... "Do you know the name of every human on your planet?" he asked her condescendingly.

"But you're a god!" she protested. "And aren't there only five of you?"

"That you know of."

Jumal immediately regretted saying that, as he saw the joy and wonder blooming onto the girl's face. "You mean there are more?" she asked, bewildered at the idea.

"There are more than you can count," he said dismissively. "This is not the only world, and each world must have its gods."

The girl grabbed onto his arm, seemingly having forgotten about the numerous wounds that she had suffered in the carnage that had only hours before swept into their land, and which Jumal had only barely been able to hold at bay, thanks to the meddling the unknown god had done. It had known he would be there, and masked its presence. But Jumal knew the acts of a god when he saw them... "You have to tell me about them!" the girl exclaimed, bringing Jumal back to the present.

"There are too many to describe," Jumal said, shaking his head.

"Just tell me about some of them, then! I have to know what kind of things there are out there!"

"Why? You may never even be able to see them. They hold no relevance in your life at present, and I find it hard to believe they ever will."

The girl shook his arm, almost violently, and he suspected the movements was more aggravating to her than they were to him.

Jumal sighed and thought to himself for a moment. There were too many worlds to visit in one lifetime, even for a god. And so many whose differences were minuscule compared to this world...

"Imagine a world where colors are painted," he said after a long pause. The girl's eyes widened and she nodded vigorously. "They aren't just there. They aren't various textures. They are like paint on a canvas. Never quite consistent, but more vibrant than any natural thing in this world. They swirl together at times, and at others lie next to one another, sharp contrasts between them, giving depth and shape to that world.

"In a valley of greens and purples and blues sits a single tree. Maroons and browns crawl along each other up its trunk, until they reach the vibrant pinks and scarlets of its leaves, which are little more than circles surrounding the ends of the branches. Its shade falls down on the valley, but instead of darkening the land, it brightens, to become blinding yellow and rose. This spreads out like fire in the shade of the tree, and its edges fade back to the greens and blues of the surrounding hills.

"And just under this tree, stuck down halfway into the ground, is a cyan great sword, its sharp edges only amplified by the soft and rounded edges of the grass around it. It rises like a thorn from the ground, a marker left behind for unknown reasons."

The girl's eyes couldn't have been wider. "Is there really such a place?" she asked.

Jumal raised an eyebrow. "What possible reason could I have for lying about that?"

Paying the price

When Gerard woke up, he was in a black void that consumed everything, and he had no recollection of how he got there, what had come before, or if this was even an unusual thing. He had no memory. Just an understanding of what his name was. He floated along endlessly, not sure of what to think of what he was seeing, or rather, what he wasn't. With nothing to compare it to, everything around him seemed normal. In a life where nothing else had ever existed, why should he feel uncomfortable being alone? And yet, deep inside, there was an aching - and emptiness - that he couldn't explain.

Eventually he came across a face in the darkness. It was small, almost dainty, but its pupils were a bright red and burned with a light that was nearly blinding, but impossible to look away from. "Hello, Gerard," the face spoke to him with the voice of a young boy. "It seems you simply couldn't walk away from the carnage that you left behind. I suppose it is somewhat difficult, seeing as how there is nothing else left in this world anymore. Not after what you did."

Gerard blinked, looking at the face, unsure of what the words coming out of its mouth even meant. "Carnage?" he asked, unsure of what such a word could describe, and only further puzzled by the dirty feeling it left in his mouth, as if it were somehow displeasurable. "What I did? I don't understand."

The face laughed at him. The laugh was cold and sharp, and struck a nerve in Gerard's core. It made him want to strike out against the face, but something else in him told him not to. It told him that doing so would make things only worse. "Did you destroy your own memories along with the rest of this world, idiot?" the face mocked him. "You don't remember the vicious slaughtering you did? You killed everyone, Gerard. You killed everything. You left nothing behind in your wake. Every living thing you encountered, you erased. You took the wrong lessons to heart, and you paid the price for it."

Gerard looked around at the void. The face's words were raising something inside of him. Images of... something. He wasn't sure what they were. He couldn't bring them far enough forward to make them out. "Why would I do that?"

"Because you're an imbecile." The vitriol in the face's words was palpable. "A complete and utter buffoon that somehow convinced himself that death would bring life, and entrapment freedom."

Other faces. Creatures large and small. He hadn't known them. Not really. But they had attacked him... Hadn't they?

"Boy, I had you going though, didn't I? How many people came through before you that hadn't fallen for my words? What made you different? What part of your brain were you missing that made you believe me? Was it the same part that made you forget all that you had done?"

Gerard's fist clenched tight. He hadn't even realized that he had curled his fingers. Something in his heart was burning. Frustrated. Angry. "How do I make it come back?"

The face's laughter was so loud and sharp it made Gerard's ears ring. "After all you did, you want to bring it back? Fine. I can make it come back. But not without cost. Great cost. And even then, it will still be scarred by what you did. It may never fully recover."

"But it will be back, yes?"

"Yeah, sure, it'll be back. Just forfeit your soul to me. Give me everything that makes you you. Become a soulless puppet that can't even think for himself, and I'll bring it back for you. It can't be that bad. You clearly couldn't think for yourself very well before hand."

Gerard nodded his head, and in the blink of an eye the face had a body, and that body was mere inches away from him, its arm pierced elbow deep into Gerard's chest. He couldn't breath. He could only watch as the arm pulled slowly back out of him, clutching a blue fire in its grip.

Gerard only had a few moments of consciousness. In that time, the hand crushed his soul, and an explosion of colors and sounds erupted into the air. An entire world was born before his eyes. But he couldn't smile, or frown, scream, or cry. He blacked out as his body realized it was emptier than that void had ever been.

Misplaced

Brendan hit the ground hard, and his vision blurred together into one mass of dark red. It felt like his ribs had shattered, and his entire spine was numb. He didn't know if he would even be able to stand up again. The fact that he was alive was little more than a miracle. He had been falling for quite some time. So long that it had seemed like all other sounds had simply disappeared. After lying on the floor for some time, he heard the sound of someone sighing as they sat down beside him, but he didn't feel them reaching out to touch him in any way. They waited.

After a while, Brendan's vision returned to him, though the things that he saw seemed unreal. Above his head was a staircase, completely upside down, like in those perspective challenging paintings, completely with a twisted figure walking along it. In fact, such abstract images surrounded him entirely. Only one thing seemed to be the right way up, and that was the cloaked figure sitting next to him, waiting for him to get up, though it took Brendan some time to realize that that was what the figure was waiting for.

"I don't think I can move," he murmured out weakly. Even with how weak he felt, his voice was surprisingly quiet, yet he could hear it perfectly clear.

"You can move," the figure said dismissively. "But what in the blazes are you doing here? That shouldn't even be possible in your condition. This is going to be a logistical nightmare..."

Brendan rolled his head towards the figure, sending shocks of pain throughout his system, pulling a gasp from his lips. With how much that gasp hurt, he wondered if one of the shattered ribs had pierced his lungs. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

The figure's head moved in such a way as to imply it was rolling its eyes, though Brendan couldn't see them. "You're supposed to feel like that here," the figure said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It's part of the punishment. It makes for quite the entrance. And then you have to deal with that while going through the other consequences of your failures. One of my better creations, if you ask me."

The words made little sense to Brendan. Punishment? Consequences? This felt like little more than torment without reason. "Where am I?"

The figure scoffed. "You can't tell?" It cast its hood aside to reveal a skeletal head with empty eyesockets. Brendan gasped sharply, sending another stab of pain throughout his system. "This is hell, moron. And you are not supposed to be here. You're not dead yet. I don't even know how that's possible. And if the big man upstairs finds out, I'm gonna be in deep shit, even though this isn't my damn fault."

Brendan blinked, not really understanding what he was being told. "How is that even possible?"

"Damned if I know!" Death responded, throwing his hands up into the air. "All I know is either you have to die, or I have to get you back to the surface, pronto. And I'm not actually allowed to do the killing. I just harvest." Death sighed and stood up, lifting his scythe from behind him and using it almost as a crutch to do so. "How the hell am I going to get you back to the surface?"

"I really don't think I can move."

Death grabbed Brendan roughly by the arm, cold bones wrapping around skin, and lifted Brendan to his feet effortlessly. Pain seared through Brendan's body, ripping forth a wail from his lungs, but to his surprise he was able to stay on his feet. "I told you," Death said. "I can't kill people. I can't even hurt them. Just disembodied souls. Now come on. We gotta get you out of here before any of the damned try and use you as a vessel. I swear, that man must be messing with me. It's the only explanation."

"What man?" Brendan asked meekly.

Death looked at him, and Brendan could sense that if he had eyes, Death would be giving him a look of contempt. "God," he responded dryly. "How stupid are you?"