Introversion

I'm a bit of an introvert, and when I say a bit, I mean that I'm extremely introverted. It's not overly hard to let people into my bubble, and I think on the outside a lot of people look at me and see a very extroverted person, but I'm not. I'm just good at acting like I am. There are other parts of being an introvert that hit me really hard - particularly, the idea that I have a currency to spend on social interaction.

If you've never heard of that, let me explain. Imagine you're walking into a store or arcade, and there are hundreds of things there that you want, and that you've heard so many good things about. I'll stick with an arcade, because I can explain it better. So there are tons of games, and you want to play them all, but as an introvert, you walk in with a handful of quarters, while the extrovert walks in with pockets overflowing. The extrovert can go to any game he wants, play as many rounds as he likes, and never feel stressed about if he wins or loses because he can just keep playing. But the introvert only gets so many chances. He can only play so many games, try so many times, and if he doesn't win, he feels like those quarters were wasted.

Some introverts walk in with a dozen or two quarters, can partner up with a friend, and take on their one game as they slowly get better on each visit until they're masters at their craft. I think that's what most people think of when they think of an introvert. I, on the other hand, walk in with like five quarters and a hundred games I want to play, with a dozen friends that each want to play different games, and a very strict time limit. It's incredibly stressful to me. I want to go, I want to play those games, and I want to play them with those people, but I can't get to everything I want. I just can't. Even just thinking about going and seeing all those options can be stressful, because I think about what I'm not going to be able to do.

Believe me, it's not something that I enjoy. I hate feeling so limited in what I can do, how far I can stretch myself out. But when I try to step over that boundary, I literally feel like I'm coming apart at the seams, like the air is being pulled from my lungs, and like my muscles are becoming heavy and unwieldy. I shrink further and further into myself, become quieter, and angrier. I don't want o be around anyone anymore. I want to tear a hole in the wall with my bare hands that I can climb out of and just run. Run away from the noise and the people and the stress that's eating away at me.

But the worst part? The worst part is that there is an extroverted part of me. And that when I keep staying away from these things that cause me pain, it just creates a different kind of pain, because I need to be with other people and to do things to some extent. I can't just stockpile my quarters until I can be one of the extroverts. If I don't spend them, I lose them. And when I lose to many, it hurts just as bad.

Vents

Moriah crawled slowly through the vents, having just enough space to shimmy her body along the way as she searched for one of the many more open areas where she could sit up straight and pull her knees tight against her chest. It was an extensive system, with many small openings where she could glance into the rooms below, but she could do nothing to actually escape. The small, gated airways were bolted tightly on, and removing them would require either tools she did not have, or an expense of strength and space for pulling, which she also lacked. She had been trapped in the vents for two days, and she was running low on food and water.

Occasionally, she came across some crumbs or drops of water spilling just through the airways, but that was only enough to buy her momentary relief. Hardly more than a passing moment of it, but that was more than incentive enough at this point to lap at what she would only just a few days prior have found utterly disgusting as though it were the stuff of heaven. But that assumed that she was able to find it, which was unlikely, given how dark the ventilation systems were. It wasn't like they were designed for a human to be roving them, lost and alone and afraid, after all. She was sure if she could see herself in a mirror, the many bumps and bruises that covered her from her blind stumblings would make her look like a monster, come to devour the souls of man.

She could feel the rush of air and the weight of the short ceiling lifted from her back as she entered a more open space. The air pushed into her lungs, forcing them to expand, making her gasp and shutter as she remembered what it was like to be able to breath. She knew that nearby, perhaps in the next path, there would be another airway from another room, and that was what was bringing her this fresh air. But it must have been the middle of the night, because she could see no light, and only the crushing darkness continued to surround her.

Making her way to a wall, she leaned up against it and pulled herself into a tight ball. The hard metal of the vents made it hard to relax or sleep, but she did the best that she could. It was much safer to sleep in the more open spaces - she was less likely to get herself stuck in a corner and get herself crushed like an idiot.

She wasn't even sure if she did sleep. She had no dreams - as she drifted from one state of consciousness to another, there was only more darkness. She prayed that perhaps this entire experience was little more than a nightmare, though the pangs of pain from both inside and out suggested otherwise.

Eventually she heard the sound of voices murmuring in the next room over, and when she opened her eyes, she could see a singular ray of light. With all of her energy, she made her to it, and tried to look into the room. Two people stood a dozen feet away from her, talking about something she couldn't quite understand. Weakly she pounded against the grating, and she heard them grumble about how noisy the vents were when they turned on in the morning.

She wished desperately that she could speak, not for the first time. To have a voice with which to call for help. She might have escaped much sooner that way.

An extra hour

"What would you do if you had an extra hour in the day?"

I think that's a pretty famous question that we're all familiar with. We've been asked it before, or we've thought about it on our own before. Most of us probably think about it quite often. I know I do. What I wouldn't give for that twenty-fifth hour in the day. For that chance to do just a little more of whatever it is I need to do.

And, of course, we all have our go-to answer. I think mine's a pretty popular one, because I would absolutely use that hour to sleep. And honestly, if you don't want to use that hour to unwind in some way or another, I think you're doing it wrong. But the truth of the matter is that we would all use that hour to just extend our days a little bit. We'd do whatever we'd normally do at the end of our day just a little bit longer. Whether that's partying, watching tv, or surfing the web. We'd just use that time as an excuse to keep doing it. We might say we'd use that hour to fit in the time we've needed so long to exercise, but the truth is that we'd just stuff our face with food for another hour instead. 

But I really think the best answer we can possibly give is sleep. I often screw myself over with my habits, and that often leaves me writing these blog posts late at night (though for some the fact that I call how early I go to bed "late" is a joke). But I never wish that I had an extra hour to get it done. I just wish I had an extra hour after it was finished to be unconscious, and recover all of the systems that I've burned out all day. To be able to start the next day just a little bit more energized and ready... I don't think I could ask for much more. 

Maybe then I'd have the energy to get done all of the things that I want to do. Maybe then I'd have the mental capacity to be creative and actually come up with things to write. And maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't be such a rude ass to everyone I come across. 

But knowing me I'd just blow it away, like leaves in the wind. I'd make a mockery of everything that I could and should be. And before you knew it I'd be asking for a twenty-sixth hour. But I think we know how that would go, and what it would lead to.

Costumes

"Why are you wearing that?"

I was wearing a renaissance outfit at the time, which I had pieced together slowly over a number of years as I travelled to faires. It was a bit of a money sink, but I made good use of that outfit, and it was something that brought me a lot of pride and joy. Granted, most people looked at it and assumed I was dressing as a pirate, but that was their fault for taking the media's influence as though it were fact. So the fact that someone was asking me why I were it wasn't necessarily unusual or unwarranted. 

"Because I feel like it."

"No you're not." The man's words were bizarre to me. He spat them at me immediately after I gave him my answer, as though he were prepared to shoot me down. I'm sure he could see the confusion in my eyes. What right did he have to tell me that he knew me better than I did? That he knew why I did things?

"You do it because you're not happy with yourself," he told me. "You want to be something that you're not, because you think that what you are isn't good enough. You try to hide behind a facade that enables you to feel stronger. But that's not strength. That's just you giving up on yourself. That's just you hiding."

Perhaps in another place or situation, his words may have had some credence to them. Maybe, from the way he delivered his statement, it was not the first time he had given such a speech, and with those before me, it had meant something to them. But with me...

"First of all," I retorted, "I'm not hiding behind this. If I was, this wouldn't be the first time in the three months you've known me that you've seen me like this. In fact, this is me literally wearing myself on my sleeves. I'm a medieval history major. I'm wearing this because it's part of who I am, and a part that I'm proud of. And not only this, but I have a half dozen of these kinds of outfits, all of which represent a different part of who I am, what I do, and what I like. So don't tell me that I'm hiding behind something I'm not when I have literally never before been more who I am."

The man's face was stunned. I don't think he'd ever gotten a response like that before. Never seen someone fight back against him in such a way. But the way he had talked down on me had irritated me, and I wasn't ready to let him get away with it.

"And secondly, the reason I felt like wearing it today in particular is because I have a final in my Medieval History class today, and I found it appropriate to wear."

He mumbled something about what he had said becore, weakly trying to insist on it, but I checked out when I realized he wasn't going to budge on that. It wasn't worth arguing. I'd be who I was, and he'd be him, and life would go on. 

Say it to my face

I've been spending a lot more time lately thinking about my writing, rather than trying to think of what to write, if that makes any sense. Trying to think about what my patterns are when I write, which are good, which are bad. How to go about improving my writing. I know I'm not the easiest person to give criticism to, nor am I the best at recieving it, but I try not to take things personally. It's not easy, to be sure, and that's not to say that I never do. But I try not to. 

Recently I've gotten a couple of comments from some friends of mine that I've been trying to take to heart. The first being that the things that I write are very same-y. Which, to an extent, I'm aware of. And it can be hard not to come across that way, because I'm just one guy, and I'm writing with my one style, and I have the same goal everyday. And none of that is necessarily a bad thing. After all, you'd be hard pressed to find an author with a library of widely diverse writings that don't all have some kind of characteristics that all tie them together under one roof. And you wouldn't necessarily want that to be the case either. But at the same time, as a writer, you don't want your reader to look at two things you've written and not pick one of them because it feels like reading the other all over again. And I'm afraid that that's the kind of thing that's happening with my blog. 

The other thing stuck out to me was that it's really obvious when I write about something I've never experienced before. Which is both completely fair and true. I've never been drunk, or ever had a drink, and I don't plan to. But that makes any drunk character I write very exaggerate and stereotypical. Which is frustraing, because there are certain kinds of drunk characters that I would like to write, but I can't really do them justice, because I just don't have that kind of experience. Nor do I know anyone who gets really drunk, and if I did, I probably wouldn't spend that much time around them. That's just not the kind of thing that I really want in my life. Which is probably a wise decision, but it makes a few characters more challenging. 

When my friends told me these things, they were really nervous about doing so. I imagine the look of concern on my face doen't exactly help. But I don't want that to be something that people feel uncomfortable talking to me about. It may take repeating the same advice to my face multiple times before it really sinks in that it's something I need to do. And it may hurt in the moment, but growth is what I'm striving for here, and looking for the flaws in myself is not the easiest thing in the world. I need help, regardless of how big or small that help is. And it's a lot easier to know where to start if someone else shoves it in my face. 

Hiking

It was a quiet day out on the mountain. Among the trees, there was little more than the sound of the wind blowing, a few birds chirping, and Jeremy's feet crunching the dirt beneath him as his pack shifted from side to side as he walked. He was on his last full day on the trail, moving between campsites, and his pack was the lightest it had been since he started, seeing as he only had a few meals left to eat. He carried out his trash, too, of course, but that was a whole lot lighter than the food that was in his system had been.

Jeremy's muscles were sore and tired, but it was a good kind of sore - one that he could work with and keep pushing through, and that he knew would only amplify how could the bath and soft bed would feel when he returned home the next evening. This was a kind of sore that he looked forward to. The kind that made him remember that he was alive, and that he was capable of incredible things. Most people didn't understand that feeling. They didn't enjoy being tired and sweaty and gross. And, to be fair, he wasn't a big fan of that part of the adventure either.

But there was so much more to it than that. And as he broke over the peak of the hill he was traversing, the sight that greeted him only reminded him of that. He looked out over rolling hills, covered in green trees that swayed gently in the wind, housing all kinds of wildlife. He saw the blue sky, reaching out over the earth like a protective blanket. And later that night, he would be witness to the colors changing as the sun set, and cast reds and oranges over the land and sky in vast ways that would easily be missed while at home, staring at brightly lit television and computer screens. It was a serene kind of beauty that could hardly be replicated.

For a long moment, Jeremy stood and took it in. It was the kind of thing that he and his father had looked upon in his younger days, and believed in. It reminded them that there were things in this world beyond the hands and minds of humans. That somewhere out there, there was a greater power, and it had made these wonders that they were free to go out and enjoy.

But his muscles cried out to him, urging him to move on before they no longer could, and so he stepped back onto the trail, and back down the hill which he had finished climbing. From that point forward, there would not be many uphill climbs left to make. Most of the journey would be downhill, and gravity would be on his side, rather than against him. That night, he would set up camp alongside a river, where he could refill his water bottles for the day ahead. It would be a shorter one than those prior, but that didn't mean he could or would take it any lighter. What was the point, after all, if he did not give himself the tools to appreciate all that he had come out to be amongst?

Summer painting

Sarah glanced up from her sketch pad, which she had fashioned into a more suitable collection of her water paintings, to look at the boy she was with. He was standing in an open field, shirt discarded on a tree stump a short distance off, his head and torso covered in sweat that shone in the mid-summer sun. It was a beautiful day outside, and John had been committing himself more to his training as of late, in order to combat some weight gain he had recently gone through. Sarah had wanted to go outside to paint anyway, and to have an opportunity to witness him, well... She could hardly pass it up.

She wasn't sure how long she had been staring at him when he jogged over, his breathing heavy as he grabbed a bottle of water and began to drink. The smell wasn't great, she had to admit, but the view...

John set the bottle down and glanced at Sarah, his breathing still hard. "Am I making it hard for you to paint?" he asked between breaths. Sarah glanced down at her painting, having forgotten for a brief moment that she had it. She was a slow painter as it was, and she could easily blame the small amount of progress on that. She had sketched everything out on the paper before beginning painting, but she had filled hardly any of the lines with color, and they had been out for an hour. She had had a hard time focusing. "We can head back inside."

Sarah smiled gently and shook her head. "It's alright," she said. "I really want to be out in the sun today. And I really want to paint. You're just... a little distracting."

John couldn't help but smile at that. "I can head back then, if it'll help you," he offered. "I've done a lot today. I could use a shower."

"You know I don't want you to shower without me." Sarah pouted playfully, but after having watched his body for so long, it would be even harder to paint knowing that he was in the shower. Right now it was hard to take her eyes off of him. That would just make it impossible for her to take her mind off of him.

John chuckled and nodded. "Should I just keep going then? Test your focus?"

"Yes, please."

Her response was so light and happy, John burst out in laughter. He reached out and ruffled her hair, which was met with a squawk that only made him laugh harder. He took another swig of water and jogged back out to his open field in order to continue working out.

Sarah watched his back, the way his shoulders moved as he ran, accentuated by the sweat running over his skin. It was so hard not to stare. The fact that she was painting him wasn't exactly helping.

Feud

It was late at night when Angelo flipped his book open to the two hundred and seventy third page, which contained the instructions for constructing a summoning catalyst for one the five gods. A simple procedure, one which would only call upon the god for a short period, but if he could obtain some kind of answers to his questions, he would be ecstatic. There were many things that he had begun to learn in his readings - things that he did not understand, that contradicted everything he had ever known and learned throughout his life. As he read the deeper scriptures, reserved for the higher positions within the church so that they might be able to lead the masses, he only seemed to become more lost.

Three candles he set out before him, the first lit just as the match was, the second as the match was halfway burnt, and the third only moments before it burnt his fingers. A surprisingly delicate procedure, and one which he had had to practice a great number of times, as clearly evidenced by the burn marks on the fingers of both hands. They had been painful - especially when he had to hide them and read the pages during services the next days - but he could now reliably light his candles. From there, he cast a mixture of herbs amongst the candles, watching them spark and burst into flames in the air before their ashes fell to the ground. And all the while, under his breath he muttered a prayer to the gods, asking for their help and guidance.

There were dark clouds in the sky overhead, and as Angelo prayed, those clouds began to swirl and build together, circling a point just over the spot where he stood. The gentle smoke from his candles and herbs rose into the sky to meet them, and though he could not see it, when the smoke touched the center of the swirling clouds, a single lightning bolt broke free and struck the ground just before Angelo's feet. The abruptness of it, the sound, and the heat, sent Angelo staggering back, falling to the floor.

And in front of him stood a man, his body built as though carved from stone, dressed not in clothes but covered in dark blue tattoos with sharp edges, as though threatening to leap off of him and strike down those who opposed him. The god looked down at Angelo, a calm smirk on his face, as though he had come prepared to deal with the man who had summoned him.

"Oh, God on highest," Angelo proclaimed, scrambling to his knees and bowing deeply, "one of the Five on high, please, grant your wisdom upon this small and confused man."

Angelo felt a hand on his back. He expected it to be warm, perhaps even soothing, but it was as cold as ice. "Well," the god spoke, his voice laced in poison, "there's your problem. There aren't five gods. There are six. And you chose poorly."

Death in writing

I've mentioned a number of times how much I dislike Game of Thrones, and that the main reason for that is the excessive amounts of death. I hate how frequently the characters die. That the one thing you can count on in the story is that a character is going to die, or might as well be dead. With the new season recently out, I'm being recommended the show all over again, even from people who I've already been over how much I hate it with. "How can you not like it?" they always ask. "It's medieval. You're the medieval guy. There's swords and magic and dragons and fighting and sex. What more do you want?"

I want death that actually means something, and I don't understand why that's so hard to get. It's not that I don't like death in stories. I dislike the death of the main character, sure, but it's not death overall that I dislike. Death is an important part of some stories, and when implemented well, its implications and consequences create depth and meaning to a story and its actions. Pain that touches characters, and touches readers, creates an innate connection between reader and story. And the world that those characters exist within can only proceed onto the next evolution if the things that are holding it back die. And what is a story without evolution?

One story in particular which I have read comes to mind as a good implementation of death, that being the Night Angel Trilogy. A very bizarre series, I concede, but one of the few in which the nature of death therein is what draws me to the story. And if you wish to read it for yourself, I advise you stop reading this here, because I can't explain why that is without giving spoilers.

Part way through, the main character becomes immortal, but only in a sense. He can still die, but he will inevitably be revived after a period of time, without injury or lasting consequences for himself. But that is the key word - himself. As he learns, with each death he suffers, someone else must pay the consequence for his actions. Every time he is revived, someone else must die in his place. And there is a good chance that that someone is near and dear to him. But this is a sacrifice he learns of too late.

This is an amazing implementation of death. Important characters die, there is immense pain, yes. But it is death that leads somewhere. Death that gives the main character motivation to change and to grow. Death that, despite the sadness and the pain, eventually leads to happiness. That is exactly the kind of death that I love.

I guess it's just uncommon to have that kind of death in a story, I suppose. I wish it wasn't. Perhaps that's simply something that I will have to change.

Worlds

When I was a kid, I considered for along time becoming a video game developer, or writer, or something of the sort. I didn't really know a lot about how making video games worked - I just had this idea that I could create one, and that it would be a thing, and that I could make it be exactly what I had in mind, and that I would find a way to make it a good. I was young. It was also during a point in my life where I really wanted to know more about my religion, and I was frequently trying to read the bible - try being the keyword. I never made it very far. But there were some stories I read that caught my attention, and that I thought could make for good stories or games.

As I grew older, I started to learn more about games and how they were made and how many people were involved, and I started to realize that, perhaps, that wasn't the path for me. But that didn't take my enjoyment of them away, and I learned to appreciate video games and their creators on a new level that I hadn't experienced before. My friends and I talked (and still do talk) about them all the time. What we liked about them. What we didn't like. What we wished they did and didn't do. And how we would change things if given the opportunity. We discussed video games the way other people discuss religion or philosophy - it may not have been a conscious thing, but we wanted to know more.

One of the things that we struggled with frequently, and that I think most gamers struggle with, is what makes a game in a series a part of that series. I think that's a weird question for people who aren't into video games. It's not really something that other forms of media have to deal with. In tv, movies, and books, parts of a series are connected by characters or settings. But that's not necessarily the case in video games.

Probably the best example of this is in Final Fantasy. Let's ignore for the moment how dumb of a name that is given what comes next, but Final Fantasy is a series that has spanned three decades, with a fifteenth main title coming out soon, and numerous spin off titles under its wings. Which tends to confuse people, because none of those main titles are connected to each other. Final Fantasy 1 has absolutely nothing to do with Final Fantasy 2, regardless of whether or not it's the Japanese or American version of the game - which is a different problem entirely.

But if that's the case, why do we recognize them as being a part of the same series? They take place in different worlds, with different characters, accomplishing different feats with different motivations. Surely the gameplay then? But comparing the latest game to the first, even the gameplay is hardly recognizable between the two, and there are hundreds of other games with the same gameplay that are completely unrelated.

It's small things that connect them. Reoccurring names or animals. The twist that occurs part way through the game. The surprisingly complicated stories and characters. And the ability to flip the switch from quirky and funny to serious and depressing. Things that, on their own, hardly make the series special, but when you put them all together... Well, you get Final Fantasy.

It makes me wonder if something like that could be accomplished in other forms of media. If a series of books can be linked without links, and that rather than saying "Oh, those are x author's books," a reader would say, "Oh, that's part of that series." To take completely unrelated stories, but write them in such a way that they are undoubtedly connected in some way.

I think that would be an interesting challenge. But it starts with making one story that connects to itself. So I still have a ways to go.

Edit: The rock

Laya and Arnov approached the crater hesitantly, already knowing what they would find inside of it. It was not the first time they had traversed the rock-ladden hillside to peer down into the massive cavity, whose perimeter was an hour's hike, that had been left there many years prior, looking to see what the hidden and protected mystery was - but it was the first time they were planning on entering the gaping wound in the ground. They were tired of idly observing. They wanted to get close. To touch it. To feel it. To not only wonder, but to experience. Whatever exactly it was.

But that didn't mean that they were about to throw themselves blindly into action. They had talked for sometime about how to go about it - when to do it, how to enter and exit the hole, and what they would do once they had descended. They knew that during the day the area was patrolled, but at night the fences were locked up tight and the patrols were sent home. Granted the fences were a solid fifteen feet tall, and the tops and random inner fencings were barb wired, but with a little practice Laya and Arnov had managed to learn how to scale it without getting hurt. They had had to do it in the late night, so as not to be seen, which had lead to a number of cuts and infections, some of which were now scars. But now they could do it blindfolded. They'd just never dared to go much further than that.

They peered over the edge at the immense floating boulder in its crater, held down by four chains, each with links as big as their bodies. The boulder itself was easily as large as their high school, and the chains were connected to a ring encompassing it tightly, as if holding a prisoner in his cell. In a way, that was how the rock appeared. A giant prisoner, caught in a freak accident that had brought it to the wrong place at the wrong time.

Tying the long rope they had brought with them around the base of a tree at the top of the hillside, the two descended into the crater, close enough to one of the chains that they could reach out and touch it. The metal was cold and dirty, but the dirt was only a thin layer on top of the steel. It seemed as though the chains were kept well cleaned most of the time, perhaps to prevent rust, but the winds that had been blowing earlier that night had covered them with a thin veil.

They set foot down at the bottom of the hole and made a beeline straight for the rock. Laya reached it first, placing a hand gingerly on one side of it. The stone was warm, as though it were basking in the summer sun, despite the fact that, not only was it night, but they were on the underside of it, where its own shadow would block the sun's rays. The spot where her hand rested had likely not felt the sun's warmth since before it had arrived in its new home.

"What do you think it is?" Arnov asked quietly as he placed his own hand on the rough surface. "Why do you think it's here?"

"I think the real question is why is it chained up like this." Laya muttered in response.

Arnov nodded in agreement. "What do you think would happen if we broke one of the chains?" he asked after a long pause, almost more to himself than to his friend.

Laya turned her head in shock to look at him. "Arnov!" she whisper-shouted. "We talked about that! We can't do any damage to anything. We can barely afford to touch anything in here. No one can know we were here! Can you imagine how much shit would go down if we were found in here? We'd get arrested. And you want to just go and break whatever they've built to see what would happen?"

Arnov frowned and shook his head. "I know," he replied, taking a deep breath. "I know. I'm not saying we should. Especially not right now. I just... I can't help but wonder, you know?"

Laya looked back at the chains keeping the rock earthbound. On the far end, they were connected to thick metal poles lodged deep into the ground. Everything about the construction was impossibly huge. She could only imagine how far down the poles must have gone.

"Yeah," she muttered reluctantly. "I know."

Paper wings

Michelle stood atop the large hill overlooking her friend's ranch, gripping the handlebars of her flying contraption and feeling the wind on her face. She knew her creation was a tad impractical - she had used bamboo to make the frame because it was the lightest solid she could think of to do so with, and had covered the frame in thin sheets of paper carefully sewn and glued together. She had decided against adding wheels, as she figured that the less weight she had, the more likely she was to take off - that also meant she had to wait for a particularly windy day in order to have the wind and the speed to fly. But that wind also had to be blowing the right way, so as to pick her up, and it couldn't be blowing too hard or it would simply tear through the delicate membrane. It was a very frail procedure.

She had finished construction well over a month prior, and had been waiting on pins and needles ever since for the right day to come around. This day was the best one to arrive yet, and if she was ever going to be time for her to take it for a joyride, this was it. "Remember not to fly too close to the sun," Sabrina said. Michelle smiled at her best friend and nodded, knowing full well the lesson of Icarus - the two had joked about it many times while she had been working. Sabrina was there to make sure that she didn't hurt herself trying to fly, and to be a witness to the success or failure, whichever it may be.

"Wish me luck," Michelle replied before taking a deep breath, and pumping her legs as hard as she could down the hill. She felt the weight of the contraption mostly on her hips, through the two bars that were built into a belt around her waist to help support the weight and keep it above her and off the ground while she was taking off. It was more uncomfortable than she had anticipated, and it was somewhat debilitating for her running, but she refused to let that stop her. She kicked as hard as she could off of the ground, and when she felt her foot missed, she closed her eyes tight, afraid of slamming face first into the ground.

But a second passed. And then another. And her other foot swung again without hitting ground. And that was when she realized she wasn't falling.

Her eyes flew open, and she could see the ground falling away from her, and feel the wind blowing hard in her face, whipping her hair around her shoulders and back. It was an incredible feeling - one she could hardly describe. Like being picked up by the wind itself and carried down a long hallway, where the artwork on the walls extended endlessly in every direction. The colors seemed more vivid from in the air. She glanced around, and saw bright blue of the sky, the green of the hills, marked by a multitude of colors that were the flowers and wildlife. And she saw whites in the sky, of clouds and birds and...

She whipped her head back to look at her wings. Her hair was too long. As it whipped and snapped in the wind, it was hitting her wings, and slowly chipping at the paper that formed the membrane keeping her airborne. She had not accounted for that possibility. She twisted her hands hard around the handlebar, trying to aim herself down while she was still somewhat in control, but it took much more strength to steer herself than she thought it would. When she started to drop, it was because a small hole had formed.

The landing was rough, but luckily it was in the open field just outside of the ranch's fence. Sabrina had been running under her, and was there in less than a minute. "Oh my god, Michelle, are you ok?" she called out, a mix of fear and wonder in her voice.

Michelle sat up slowly, her legs having buckled under her only a few steps after her shaky landing, and looked at her friend with a weary smile. "I need a hair cut."

Sellsword

The water was rising, unbidden, in a very sharp way, completely unlike how the water usually reacted. Lisa watched it, unable to turn away, her violin resting by her side, the air filled with utter silence. Even the water rising was without sound. There was something unnatural about it - the way it moved, how it seemed to have a mind of its own, and how it piled up on top of itself to give itself form. That last point took Lisa far too long to recognize. She was used to having her eyes closed, to feel the water move reaching through the core of her system and giving her a vision of how it moved without her having to see it. But this had nothing to do with her.

The water bent and stiffened as it rose, giving itself shape and texture, the light reflecting off of its surfaces to give the vague shape meaning. Lisa didn't know how long she was standing there, transfixed and watching the water move, before the shape was clear enough to make out. It was a man, standing in the calm waters, one hand crossed across his waist. There was something at his side that he was grasping on, but she couldn't quite tell what it was. And then a shiver ran through her spine, as the wind picked up and blew all around her, towards the watery figure.

Ice formed across the man's body, making him appear as though a sculpture made in the lake, a mask across its wide opened eyes that stared into her soul. They were a piercing blue, making her intensely uncomfortable. She wanted to turn away - everything about her was screaming for her to turn and run - but she simply couldn't. She watched as the man's arm extended toward her, revealing that what he was gripping was a sword that had been sheathed on his hip. He pointed it at her, face smooth except for the eyes, unable to say anything to accompany the motion. She didn't understand what it wanted. Why it had appeared. Why it seemed to be almost as transfixed on her as she was on him.

And the figure rushed forward, faster than Lisa's eyes could comprehend, sword pointed straight between her eyes. Lisa's breath caught in her throat, and she was prepared for the icy blade to cut her, but it stopped only a meter away. The figure glared at her, but did not move any closer. Shaking ever so slightly in her knees, Lisa glanced down. The figure had reached the edge of the lake, and appeared unable to take a step further. It was stuck where it was, and if she had been standing much closer, it surely would have cut her down. But it could not.

They stood in a standstill for a long moment, Lisa breathing hard, and the water man glaring and pushing hard against the land. Neither could move. Neither was willing to turn away.

And then, in an instant, the cold in the air was gone. The ice melted, and the form as a whole splashed down into the water, vanishing loudly - though if anyone else had heard it, they would have thought nothing of it. Lisa stared at the spot where the man had been. Where had he come from? Why? And why did it seem to want to kill him?

She could only hope that the others would have some form of answer.

Birthday present

Emile couldn't wipe the smile off of his face as he swung his legs back and forth, dangling off of the massive branch that was supporting him and his best friend. It was his tenth birthday, and Emily had promised that after the party she would show him something really cool. It had taken their parents some convincing, but they had managed to run off together the moment that the last of his guests was gone. They dashed into the forest, weaving their way between the trees, leaping over creeks and rivers, until Emily lead him into a small hole in one of the massive stone walls on the opposite side of one of the rivers, formed by the erosion of the hillside over a number of years, though the two didn't quite know what that meant.

"I was playing over here when there was a rockslide," Emily had explained as they walked through the small cave. There wasn't enough room for them to stand fully, but there was enough for the to move. They had always been too small to go any further than the rock wall. For Emile, this was completely uncharted territory, and he was ecstatic to see what lay beyond. "The rock falling let me see the hole to get in here. When I saw what was on the other side, I knew we had to come out here."

Emerging from the other side of the cave had brought the two to the far edge of the forest, just as the sun was beginning to set. The light reflected off of a pool below them, making the air glow with oranges and yellows. It was like they had stepped into another world entirely. They had run around and explored for a while, but it was late in the day, and they knew that they wouldn't be able to stay long, and instead agreed to come back the next day to traverse these new lands and map them out, as they had with the forest.

Instead, they found the biggest tree they could and worked together to scale the branches, until they reached a larger one that extended out over the pond and could hold them up. They sat together and watched the sunset, excited for what they might find the next day, telling tall tales of the sights they would see, and the daring deeds they would do.

Emile didn't think much about it as he felt Emily's hand rest on his, so he didn't see the blush spread across her face as she did so. She was a year older than he, and had been exposed to the magical, dangerous "boy." It hadn't taken her long to realize that Emile was her boy. As they sat, she wondered how long it would be before he learned of the mysterious, undefinable "girl." She hoped that she would be his girl. Maybe that could be her birthday present for him in a few months.

They were too excited in their thoughts to consider how they were going to get home in the dark.

Duties

The words on the papers were starting to blur together, forming lines of smudges of ink on aged and crinkled sheets of paper that very clearly would have better served remaining trees. Adam's head was swimming, and no matter how many times he tried to blink away the pain, the words refused to reform. He kicked his chair back away from the desk and swung his feet up on top of it, leaning back in his seat and rubbing his forehead, closing his eyes tight to hold back what was sure was his brain melting out of his sockets. It had been a very long day, trying to keep his men under control as they learned of the fall of one of the other great commanders and realizing that they very well may lose the war. They had very nearly rebelled against him, and it had taken all of his physical and tactical strength to keep them from throwing him overboard.

He really needed a drink. Unfortunately, the wine was the first thing the men had thrown overboard in their anger. He was still unclear as to why that was - they seemed just as infuriated as he was that there was no alcohol left on the ship. And conveniently they had forgotten whose fault that was, so the blame was all back on Adam. He had done nothing but try to help these men, and now he was the fault for all of their problems. It wasn't his fault that the other commanders had all lost! In fact, if it wasn't for him, they all would have fallen in battle long ago!

The crash of his sword, which had been resting against his desk, hitting the ground scared him, and he nearly fell out of his chair because of it. He looked down at the sword on the ground, almost glaring at it, as if he was trying to pin his problems on it. It took him a while to even realize that he was the one who had knocked it down. He had begun flinging his arms back and forth to the anger of his thoughts as though he were ranting to his men. He was really losing it.

He pushed out of his chair and went to the window, pushing it open harder than he meant to, nearly cracking the glass inside of the metal frame. Near immediate regret washed over him as he heard the men angrily fighting, full on fist fights ringing through the air. There were still arguing over whether or not to follow their commanding officer. There was nothing left that Adam could do to convince them. All that was left was to wait for them to make a decision.

Practically feeling the rush of the water over his head as he was dropped into the depths, Adam slammed the window back closed. He had wanted to get some fresh air, to get away from the stuffy, musty breaths that were catching in his throat. But he would rather deal with those then his men right now. They were more dangerous than the war had ever been. If only he could make them see that. Then maybe they'd be able to come out the victors after all.

Writing on writing

This is a pretty ironic thing of me to say, and something that I have more or less always understood about myself, but I hate reading about writing. There's just something about reading someone tell you how to write, or how they write - even though I know they're just expressing a personal opinion - that really puts me off. I know that looking at how other people write and think about their writing is important and useful, and that it's one of the best ways to learn, but good lord it just irritates me. And that's absolutely nothing against the people who do so - maybe in the past it would have been, but I've done it myself far too often to be able to say anything about it now.

When I was deciding whether or not to write this blog, I really didn't want to do these kinds of posts. I didn't want to write about writing: I don't know nearly enough to say anything with certainty, nor would I want to read it if I were a reader. And I never expect anyone to want to read these. I would never blame anyone for coming to my blog, seeing a Real talk post, and leaving to wait for the next day and another chance at fiction. Hell, even if my fiction isn't that good, I have to imagine that it's better and more interesting than this ranting dribble.

But I decided that it was something I wanted to do. More so for myself than anything else, as the whole writing process should be as a whole. But I consciously decided that I want to write about writing so that I would have a way to think it all out, to put my thoughts into words and see if they really make sense to me as I put it all down. And there have been times where, as I am writing, I have realized that I didn't really think the way that I thought I did. Which is an extremely bizarre experience, and one that I strongly recommend you experience sometime in your life if you never have.

I once wrote about how I don't like writers and I don't think of myself as one. In retrospect, that is only sort of true. I don't like writers in the same way that I don't like guitarists. I love writing and reading, and I love guitars and the music they can produce. But I don't like the people who feel that writing and music can only be done in a very specific way, and if you don't know this story or this song and you don't love it unconditionally without criticizing its perfection in absolution, than you are a faker and should give up whatever fake crap you think you are doing with your life.

I've tried to make that distinction in my head, and realize that not every writer or guitarist thinks that way. The problem is that there is a very loud minority that thinks that way, as there is with most groups. And there is also this feeling that we have as human beings to say that what I think is the truth, and I will present it as such because I have seen one other person who agrees, and therefor everyone must. And me saying that is exactly the problem that I'm talking about, but...

It's hard to avoid. I think most everyone has had that at some point in their life. I'd find it hard to believe that anyone hasn't. They probably just haven't realized it yet.

At least I can admit to mine. I'll work on it.

Journey

Maria glanced over the rocks in front of her, looking for a good place to stand as she perched herself precariously on two small outcroppings of stone. She was well over a thousand feet in the air, and could hardly see the small town in which she had grown if she glanced down and behind her - though she would never dare, or risk falling. It had taken her many years of practice and scoping out the landscape of the floating mountains to make this journey, several multi-day ventures into the rocky formations just to make a few dozen feet of progress. This was the furthest she had ever progressed...

And she wasn't turning back this time.

She made a well practiced leap across a gap in the mountain, landing on a flat surface just wide enough for her to stand with her feet shoulder-length apart - a convenient stance for landing. The heavy bag on her back shifted as she landed, and she took a moment to tighten her core and adjust her hips, changing her center of gravity to accommodate for the shift in weight until she could safely recenter herself. She carried supplies that would last her far more than a week. She planned to be able to make a new life in the mountains.

That was something she had learned a while ago. Despite the unique terrain, and the way it was separated from the rest of the earth, there was a surprising amount of life in the mountains. She had learned to hunt, to cook, and to use their hides, furs, and bones to make clothing and supplies. The clothes she was wearing was some of her favorites that she had made, from the quick footed and highly reactive deers in the nearby forests. They were a sign of how skilled she had become, and she had taken extra care to make them beautiful. They hung loose off of her shoulders, keeping her warm in the cold, and cool in the heat.

Standing in a safe spot, she glanced back at her old home. It was far away in the distance, barely visible, but she knew that no one there would be questioning her disappearance. They had long since accepted that she would disappear for long stretches at a time. She always came back with a collection of meats and furs to pay back any loses that may have been made by her disappearance, and so the people had learned not to question her actions. It would be quite a while before they began to wonder about her location. But there was a good chance she would never see any of them again.

It was ok. She had learned to live without them, and they without her. She had long wanted to start anew. The floating mountains were the place to do that. So strange, like they were a different world only barely in tandem with their own. She had no idea if there would be any other humans in that world. But she accepted that there was a chance she would be alone. And if not, perhaps she would find people like her, and be able to start anew with them.

Regardless of what happened, she would make do. This was the choice she had made. There was a tenseness and a soreness to her body as she pushed forward. It felt good.

Of angels and kitsune

I've written the "Angels and Kitsune" opening bit a couple of times now, and it's an idea I go back to fairly regularly in my head - which, as it often times is, is because I love the character in it. But before I go into that, it's worth noting that this isn't a straight original idea that I've had. I mean, there's no such thing as originality in writing, but that's beside the point. This was an rp that I had written with one of my best friends, and while I'm sure that if I reread it today I would hate the way it's written, I have always loved some of the ideas behind it, and particularly the character that I controlled - who, of the two options, was the angel.

I know it's an incredibly cliche writing technique, but my angel, Erasmus, suffered heavily from amnesia. And when I say heavily, I mean heavily. I mean, he didn't understand how doors worked. There was literally a scene where he was given a key to a door, and he looked at it, went to the door, and just pushed the key against it and couldn't figure out how it worked. I loved that. He was one of the most clueless, inept characters I have ever written, at least when it comes to how the world works, and it was some of the most fun I have had writing.

And the things that he could do - strictly fighting - was tied to his background, and in such a way that I felt made sense. Eventually it would be revealed that Erasmus was one of the leading generals in heaven's army, and that through unforeseen circumstances, he was banished from heaven and sent to Earth to attempt to redeem himself. I felt that while his mind might not be able to remember things, that didn't mean that his muscles wouldn't, and so fighting would be able to come naturally to him, even if he didn't fully understand why. Meanwhile, things like the door still don't apply, because that wasn't something that he ever had to do or deal with while he was in heaven. It made sense for him to act the way that he did as more of his character was revealed.

I'm sure that it wasn't executed as well as I remember it being. And there are some things that, while I loved and thought were hilarious at the time, I would probably cut out if I were to go back an edit it. One in particular off the top of my head is a scene where he fights a bear. I mean, there was a purpose to it, and with his skill level as a general in heaven's army, the fact that he could do so makes sense. But perhaps the thrill that he experienced in doing so, or his desire to fight a bear, were misplaced and unconstituted.

Some day I hope I can fully return to that story, or at least that character. I wouldn't want to step on the toes of the person who wrote the part of the kitsune, though I concede that it would be hard to tell a story using Erasmus without his kitsune friend, given how tightly interwoven the two are in my head. But we'll see. One day.

Dirt surfing

The roar of the engine was loud, but was muted by the bandana tied around Mike's head, pulled down over his nose and mouth to keep the dust out of his lungs, partially held in place by the sunglasses that hugged his face to do the same for his eyes. He sat in his UTV atop the mountain, looking over the paths that he had available to him, looking not for which one was going to be the easiest, but which would be the most fun. Boulders, sharp turns, thin roads. Those were the things that caught his eye. All with the backdrop of dozens of mountains of multi-colored stone, covered in trees and shrubberies that accentuated the hard lines of the stone's history.

With a kick of the gas pedal, and a kick of the engine, he was off. By all accounts, he wasn't moving all that fast. Twenty-five, thirty miles an hour tops, his speed was nothing compared to that of the cars down on the highway miles away. When he topped the hills, he could see them in the distance, small moving dots on straight lines. They couldn't feel the wind like he could, blowing in his face, and in his hair. They might even call him crazy for loving the way the dirt he knocked loose was ripped up by the wind and his engine, whipping around his head and chest and arms. The way that it reminded him he was alive, and not just a machine telling another machine to move.

He flew over the rocks, the impact of his wheels hitting the ground hard when he least expected it rocking him to his core. It tested his core and his arms, his ability to keep control of both himself and of his vehicle. He watched the road, felt the way it bucked his wheels, and at times he let go of the wheel completely. At times, he had brought a few friends up to ride the trails along with him. They had screamed when he let go of the wheel, and the fact that he had regained complete control of the wheel only a few seconds later had not consoled them. They couldn't understand that it was a necessity. That holding on in those moments could break his fingers or arms as a rock underneath grabbed his tire and yanked it in the opposite direction.

He was well accustomed to traveling by himself because of that. So the excited scream of his passenger - a cute girl he had picked up a few weeks ago - was something he was unaccustomed to. She didn't seem to mind in the slightest as he flew, as he rocked, and as the glass of his half windshield and the closed top roof rattled the way that he knew his bones were. She called out for him to go faster, to fly higher, to hit harder. She was a freak, just like he was.

He could get used to having a passenger like that.

Goals

This is a somewhat counter productive post, as you will see once I get into it, but it's something that I think about a lot while I'm writing, and seeing as how I'm coming up blank with anything else to write about, it seems a good time to talk about it. I'm not exactly sure how long ago it started - maybe after around one hundred blog posts - but for a very long time I have had a goal of having twice as many fiction posts as real talk posts. The problem with that being, of course, that every time I write a real talk post, I have to write two fiction posts, and there are stretches of time where I find great difficulty in trying to come up with new fiction to write. And that happens more than I'd like to think about.

I've never really been all that far off, though I have certainly been closer at some times than others. At the moment, with the addition of this particular post, I will be twenty-one fiction posts behind my goal. In theory, that's not that bad. After all, I've been writing this for some time, and have surpassed five hundred blog posts only a short while ago. Twenty one in the grand scheme of things is not that many. But when you look at it in a more short-term light, that's three straight weeks of fiction, and as much as I would love to be able to do something like that, with my tendencies, it seems unlikely. However, I do get into my long stretches of fiction, for instance having written eight fictional pieces between this real talk and the previous. That's a pretty good ratio, eight to two. And I'd really only have to keep up a ratio of five fictions to two real talks in order to keep gaining. Write fiction throughout the week, and real talks on the weekends.

If only it were so simple. As some of my friends are well aware, my creativity is not something that can be controlled. It comes and goes, and some days I can latch onto an idea quite quickly and easily, while others it can take up to hours of searching for inspiration. Which is just as painful for the people trying to help me as it is to myself.

For as long as I can remember, however, I have been behind on that goal. I have gotten extremely close - I believe at one point I was only about four pieces behind. But it only takes a few days of lack of inspiration to really mess with that, and I can have that for all too long.

There are certainly things that I want to write. I need to work more on the Wings story that I wrote in November, and I have been wanting to write my elemental instruments story for a few years now. Just yesterday I had a new idea for that that became yesterday's blog post. But I try not to write those all too frequently on the blog, because those are things that I want to become full books, and if you can find all of the content online for free, there doesn't seem to be all that much purpose to buying the book, other than to have it in the intended order. Not that I want to nickel and dime anyone who would want to read my writings, but someday I would like to be able to make a living off of them. Which is another goal all in itself.

Water show

A large crowd gathered around the pond just outside of the school to watch the dancing water show. It had been being organized, planned, and advertised for a number of months, and nearly every student had heard about it. It was the third night's preformance, and the crowd was the largest it had been yet. People weren't sure what to expect, and the initial outcome had been small, but those who had been there had been blown away. Many were back for the third time.

Lisa stood in front of the pond, her violin clutched tightly in her hands. Even with the mass of people smiling at her, practically cheering for what she was about to do, knowing that they were all there for her and what she was about to do, even if they didn't complete understand what that was, she was nervous. The only real sources of comfort she felt were the gentle hand of her friend and partner Alexandra on her back, and the bright and loving smile of her boyfriend, Ramses, sitting front and center in the crowd. With the two of them there, she knew that she could do almost anything. But with so many people, she still couldn't help but feel nervous. 

As the sun began to set and the light of the sky dimmed, the murmuring of the crowd began to die down. They had all been informed that it was preferred if they could keep their volume down during the show, and that  the show would begin at sunset. The people who had been previously were shushing those who were new, and didn't fully know. It was nice to see how much respect she had gained, Lisa thought to herself. That was a nice, new experience for her. 

As silence fully fell over the crowd, Lisa lifted her bow to her strings and pulled out the long, slow first note. Many in the crowd gasped as, in the same instant, spouts of water began to rise into the air in response. As Lisa began to play, the water began to dance, and she could hear it rise and fall in time to her song behind her. She tried not to look, but she could see the mesmerized looks on the faces before her. It was strangely empowering. 

And then beside her, Alexandra's voice emerged, singing to the music Lisa was providing, and the area around them lit up. Though she couldn't see it, she knew that the lights were emerging from beneath the water, emphasizing every movement of the water as it danced in line with the music, and their audience was having a hard time keeping their voices down. Most of them had never seen anything like it. Especially not with live preformers. 

It was a fifteen minute show, with five songs. By the end of it, Lisa and Alexandra were exhausted, but the standing ovation they received was more than worth the pain. 

The students began to file out, and Ramses rushed up to grab Lisa in a tight bear hug, which sent both of the girls into a giggling fit. They stood together and watched as everyone left, listening to them talk about the show. There were a number of them who talked about how they didn't even know that the pond had water jets or floodlights, which only sent the three into more giggling fits.

It had been a good night. A good three nights. Lisa had never been so open and free about who she was. It still scared her, but she was starting to get the appeal.

Gambling

The smell of smoke and alcohol was thick in the air, only overshadowed by the sound of ringing bells, spinning wheels, and card dealers calling out what was occurring at their tables. People were packed tight, all spending their life savings in a wild attempt to win back even more than they had arrived with, though less than a single percentage of them were lucky enough to do so. Most left with a deficit, and a select few who dove too deep could hardly call it leaving at all, having accrued a debt that they could only pray to god they could pay off. A good number of those would keep gambling, hoping to win enough to pay it off. They weren't playing the odds. They were playing against them.

Gorgeous women in equally gorgeous gowns stalked the halls, serving drinks and collecting more cash than those drinks were worth, stuffing the surplus between their breasts in a seductive manner that only called forth higher prices and higher tips. They tended to stick closer to the winners than the losers in the games of chance and fortune. After all, they couldn't let people walk away with too much of a profit. The men could hardly pull their eyes away to look at their games, causing them to dig too deep and lose an easy win. The women grumbled at how low some would stoop whilst they threw their money away, hoping that if they could win the fortune, maybe the men would look at them that way.

And over it all, a single man presided, a wry smile on his face as he traced a finger along the rim of his whiskey glass and watched the money fly. He watched man and woman alike throw their money at a chance to gain more, and hardly any of them stuck. In the meanwhile, all of their money that fell to the floor disappeared, only to end up in his pockets. There was no gamble that he made. His was a carefully concocted contraption, in which the patrons who arrived at his establishment would gladly fork over their hard earned money and never once demand that he treat them in any special way. They were here to play the odds, and odds he would gladly provide them.

It amazed him at times that more people didn't do this. That they were too blinded by the constantly skyrocketing numbers that could potentially fall in their pockets. They couldn't see that the chance of that actually occurring was less than one in a million. And even if they could, the thought that they might be that one in a million was too brilliant for them to turn away from. Meanwhile, his own pockets were lined with even more than they were playing to win. He could afford to give those winnings to those ones in millions. It was barely a dent in his own winnings.

What fools, he thought to himself. To think that people could be so dumb. It made him wonder what else he could get them to do. Now that was a gamble that sounded worth taking.

Historical crossing

The party was banging, a few dozen people talking, dancing, and drinking, the sound of their voices and the music nearly deafening. Melissa had gathered all of her friends - and her friends' friends - together for one hell of a good time for Christmas. They were all college kids, too busy with their majors to go home or not having any home to speak of to go home to, but with some free time that they needed to burn in a different way than just more studying. A tree was tucked into a back corner of the large gathering hall, a myriad of presents pushed under the branches of green, each addressed to one of the many students who had gathered there that night. Melissa had the fortune of parents with just a tad too much wealth, and the heart of a saint. There was much excited guessing at what the patrons might be receiving, but there was really no telling until it was time to open presents.

But even over all of the commotion, the distinctive clicking of tipped boots was easily recognizable. Regnaut glanced up from his lonely seat at one of the dining tables, where he had been contentedly drinking a bit too much and watching the people interact with each other, at the sound. A woman was approaching him, eyes showing her dead-set decision to greet him, and he took her in. It was hard to deny her beauty, even when struck with the abruptness of her odd apparel - she was dressed from head to toe in the full attire of a saloon girl, and clearly utterly comfortable with it. Not that he should have been one to criticize. Regnaut himself was dressed in the formal dress of a medieval noble, complete with a dress sword slung at his hip - though Melissa had insisted that he tie it with a peace knot at the opening of the sheath, regardless of his lack of intent to wield the blade.

The girl sat down across from him at the table, a mischievous and determined grin plastered across her face. "People watching?" she asked, the tease clear in her voice.

Regnaut looked her up and down, deciding how best to approach her. He wasn't much of one for conversation - not that he didn't enjoy conversing, he just wasn't great at it, and his particular manner of doing so wasn't exactly common by any means. He had lost many a potential acquaintance thanks to his blunt and side-stepping manner of speech. But those who stuck around long enough to get accustomed to it were some of the best friends a man could ask for.

"Gwynneth," he finally stated. "Though I mostly hear people call you by Gwyn. A historian, who prioritizes herself in the Wild West. Open. Fun. Beautiful. Always looking to have a good time, and not having much trouble getting it. The boys always look on you with desire, and some of the girls too. And you are more than willing to flirt back, regardless of whether or not it gets you anything in return."

The grin never left her face, though he could see the surprise briefly flash in her eyes. "And quite the people watcher at that," she stated. "But if I ever hear you call me Gwynneth again, I assure you it will be the last time you get to brag about how good you are at it, since you won't have a tongue anymore." The curve of her lips showed she was only half joking. "And you are?"

Regnaut only smiled and skipped over her question. "I wonder just how the wild west caught your fancy."

An unimpressed look flashed over her eyes. "I hardly think it polite to ask questions without supplying any answers."

"You're asking the wrong questions." Her eyes showed a combination of irritation and curiosity. She might actually stick around. The edge of Regnaut's lips curved up in a grin. This might be an interesting night after all.

Dislodged

The wind was blowing hard and cold, but Arianna could barely feel it, as sweat ran over her body and she tried hard to catch her breath. She had a few minutes at best before the group of brigands chasing her would catch up and begin searching the area for her, and she needed her energy if she was going to have any chance of getting away with her life. Poor circumstances and bad timing had gotten her in trouble - she could not have been in a worse place at a worse time if she had actively tried. She seemed to have a knack for that.

She glanced down at the clothes she was wearing, having forgotten what they looked like. Her mind was all over the place. Thick, dark green cotton that hung loosely off of her shoulders, tied around her waist with coarse rope, and a simple white skirt around her legs, also made of cotton. No wonder she was sweating so hard. Such old, hardly refined materials, almost hastily thrown together because some kind of clothes were necessary. But it was strange, she could have sworn she was wearing something lighter, more colorful...

That must have been in the other place.

The sound of horse steps getting louder reached her ears, and she knew that it was time to go. She forced herself up onto her feet, acknowledging in passing that her knees were wobbling but not having the time to do anything more. She slipped into the trees of the forest that she had reached the edge of and just started running. She had a shortsword bouncing on her hip, and she wasn't exactly non-proficient with it, but it could only carry her so far in a fight, and even then, that was only against one opponent. There were at least a dozen men chasing her.

Her legs hit her harder than she expected, though. Only a couple dozen trees in, her knee gave way, and she fell hard onto the ground, face first. Pain shot through her, and she involuntarily cried out in agony, immediately wishing she hadn't. She heard the whinnies of horses as they were abruptly steered in her direction. She had given herself away, and there was nothing she could do about it. The sweat on her skin turned cold, and she could practically feel the icy grip of death reaching out for her.

"Hey, Arianna, are you feeling ok? You look like you just saw a ghost?"

She was pulled back into the conversation with her friends with a jolt. Her head was pounding, and without thinking she grabbed the glass of ice water in front of her and downed it quickly. How long had they been sitting there talking again? She glanced down at her thin but stylish layers of shirts, which hugged her figure and showed off her best features. Hadn't there been something about cotton...?

That must have been in the other place.

Waist deep

Matt used the long pole he had fashioned some time ago from a fallen tree branch to prod the water's floor beneath his feet, making sure that he wasn't about to disappear into the depths, never to be heard from again. He did so carefully, making quick and repeated jabs over and over again, proceeding forward only in small steps when he knew that the ground was safe. The water was well above his hips, making his shirt float slightly around his midsection, but he was well accustomed to it by this point. The flood had occurred years ago - as one of the survivors, water was hardly even a concern to him anymore.

He used the pole with his offhand, holding a pistol of some kind in his dominant hand. To be honest, he had no idea what caliber it was, or brand, or anything of the sort. He had found it on the body of another a few days prior, and had quickly scooped it up. He wasn't overly fond of using guns - he had been terrified of them before the flood, truth be told - but there was a certain necessity to them now a days. Perhaps even a sense of comfort. Despite the practice, he still wasn't any good at firing the damn things. He had been through so many of them, he was never sure how much recoil to expect when he pulled the trigger, and his hand was usually shaking when he did so. Meant that he could mostly only use them to fire warning shots, or for point blank kills. So he had had to gain proficiency at taking people by surprise.

The blockage on one of the old bridges had recently washed away, which meant that Matt now had access to whatever goodies may be underneath. He made his way below, barely registering the way that the wildlife had overgrown the man made structure. The traces of man were slowly disappearing with time, being replaced by what they had once sought to conquer. It wouldn't be long before man was only a memory of what had been on the planet. Many had realized that early on, and in the ensuing madness, taken their own lives, not wanting to lose in a battle with nature. Others, like Matt, had recognized that they may never even be another generation after themselves, but refused to go down so easily. After all, if a flood had wiped them out without warning, no one knew if something might be able to bring them back just as blindingly.

He felt an irregularity under the water with his pole and came to a stop. He prodded it a few times, gently at first to make sure it wasn't a fish or other aquatic animal that might attack if he reached down for it, than began to search its parameters, looking for a way to pry it loose. He was searching blind, but he was much better at that than at firing a gun.

It didn't take long before the pressure on the ground was gone, and only a few seconds later a moss covered something rose to the surface. Without hesitation, Matt scooped it up and dumped it into the pack on his back, not even bothering to check what it was. He was slow moving, and there was only so much daylight. He had a lot of ground to cover.

Dragon queen

Eileen sat on her throne and watched coolly as foreign men broke in the door to her chambers, tossing the large battering ram to the ground as they entered, completely surrounding her, steel brandished and anger clear on their faces. The queen had received word weeks prior of the invasion that was being planned on her castle. If they had been paying any attention, they might have questioned why they did not encounter any resistance as they stormed the castle, or that the doors to her throne chambers were not actually locked or boarded. They could have merely used it like normal people instead of busting through with a massive battering ram. And perhaps they would have thought it odd that it took only a single blow to blow the doors open, but they were too busy reveling in their manliness to notice.

The first began hurling words at her, but she looked at him, not understanding. She had never bothered to learn their language. She knew what he was saying regardless. Accusing and insulting her for her actions, those that were draining his people and their land, taking their resources and their power. He had no idea what it meant to rule a kingdom, what kind of things were needed to rule so many people under a singular rule. He was mad over things that no other kingdom would blink at. Things like taxes and a regulation of economy. It seemed as though every primitive culture she took under wing was so callous and rude. But they would learn.

She did not flinch as the man pointed his sword in her face, threatening to take her life if she were not to free them from the shackles and bonds that she had placed on them without their consent. Never mind that they had signed the treaties stating that they agreed to join her kingdom, or that they had more food than they had ever had before. They would claim not to have been told the full truth about her rule. But they had been informed.

Eileen lifted the staff that had been in her lap with one hand, staring the man in the eyes as she did so, his sword pointing directly between her eyes and hovering only a few inches away from her face. Every eye in the room was directed on her, watching her every movement. They were prepared to stop her if she chose to fight back. To rip her life away from her body and reclaim their home as their own.

They would not be fast enough. No one ever was.

The man lunged forward the instant he saw her staff begin to glow, but his sword couldn't pierce the shell that was before her face. As if in slow motion, he looked up to see the massive dragon that had simply appeared in the room, encircling Eileen and staring down at him with death in his eyes. Fear drained everything else from his body, and his sword clattered to the ground.

If only they knew how many were in the air around them at all times. How they watched the people in their homes, waiting for them to falter and fall. She was merely trying to protect them. But they always had to fight back.

Arcanist

Mirai waited, attempting to be patient but afraid that his tepidness was shining through in his face. He had never had any interest in becoming an arcanist - but Mr. Temran had insisted that he had the blood for it and was suited to it. So Mirai sat and watched as Temran silently wrote at his desk, his walking cane resting against the wood, and his bird dozing quietly in an open cage in the corner. Books were piled around the room, a few open - though Mirai had been strictly instructed not to read any of their contents - and a few bits of odds and ends scattered all over the floor in what appeared to be the result of a careless and anger-prone owner, though Temran insisted that they were arranged with the utmost of care and were not to be tampered with.

The only noises in the small, cramped room were the constant tick-tocking of the grandfather clock in the corner, and the scritching of Temran's feather pen on paper, pausing only long enough to permit the shuffling of papers before continuing on. Mirai didn't even know what he was writing about. He only knew that it had kept Temran occupied for well over an hour, and that Mirai had been instructed to wait silently and motionlessly until the task was completed. He was growing fidgety. If he wasn't allowed to move or make a noise much longer, he was going to lose his mind.

The soft setting down of Temran's pen was like a crashing iron in contrast to the constant sound of before. The scooting back of his chair nails on a chalkboard, just allowing for Mirai's ears to adjust in time for the two pounds of Temran's walking stick on the floor, summoning his raven from its cage and onto his shoulder. Mirai stared at the man, wide-eyed, as though he were seeing a ghost. He had almost forgot that he could do anything other than write.

Temran's bright blue eyes were piercing under his long locks of silver hair, his lips flat as he stared through Mirai. It made the apprentice incredibly uncomfortable, and it took everything he had not to bolt from the room, much less not squirm under the hot gaze of his master. It felt like an eternity that he was under the microscope, being analyzed and mentally torn apart, though it was only under a minute.

"It seems like you are much more capable than you think you are," Temran said, an unexpected smile breaking out onto his face. "Most apprentices have to practice that for at least a month before they can sit so still and so quiet for that long. And even then they are losing their minds by the end of it, as I'm sure you are now. I told you you were born for this. You will learn much faster than you expect."

Master

The sounds of students practicing echoed through the hall, as Master Vince strode the pathways, watching his apprentices practice the strokes of their blades, dancing back and forth with the least of grace. It was still early on in their training, but the off tempo steps and off key strikes were grating on his ears. This happened every year as the students filed in through the door, ready to learn but unwilling to be taught. They needed discipline, and that was what he was there for. But it grated on him ceaselessly year after year.

Precision. Power. Timing. Everything that they needed to fight, exemplified in the simple act of clapping his hands, shooting a booming explosion of noise throughout the hall, overshadowing the noises of all of the students. They came to an abrupt halt, thrown off by the interruption, and a few who were in the middle of a poorly executed swing lost their balance and fell haphazardly onto the ground. All eyes were on him. It felt good.

Master Vince pointed wordlessly to a nearby student, who shuffled forward and took their stance as they had been instructed. Vince pointed out with one hand, aiming directly between the students eyes, his fingers loose as they traced the boy's face. His back clamped and tightened as his sword arm drew back behind his head, raising his rapier and pointing it directly down his fingers, his arms forming a perfect line from fingertip to elbow, and the tip of his blade pointed at the exact spot his finger directed it to. He took one step back, solidifying his stance an guard, legs tight and clenched to absorb the impact of a bow. His students adopted the stance. He lived it.

With a gesture, the student lunged forward, attempting to strike. Vince danced his fingers back, legs unmoving, and pulled the strike into his own blade, which diverted the power and angle, sending the blow harmlessly to the side. He could feel every eye in the room glued to him, intensely desiring to learn of his skill. Again the student lunged, and again he diverted it, letting the straight stab slide across his blade to bounce off of the pommel, dragging the student toward him and into his own deadly range.

His own blade rushed forward, just dodging to the left of the student's head, allowing his guarded fist to slam into the boy's cranium. He stumbled back as Vince drew forward now, striking again with his hand wrapped around the handle to the other side of the head. Each blow, quickly following in rapid succession, drove the boy over and back, until his feet could no longer support him and he crumpled to the ground.

Without missing a beat, Vince turned toward his captive audience, pose unbroken, and hurdled the rapier like a javelin. It flung through the air, catching a blade that a student was lifting to attempt what he had witnessed unprovoked, ripping it from the student's hand and pinning it to the far wall. Every eye watched the blade fly. They had all witnessed what had happened, and to whom.

"Now that you have all seen what a master can do," Vince shouted, authority running heavy in his voice, "why don't you all try a little bit harder to get there? I want this room to be filled with music! Not the clinkering clattering of a bunch of apes discovering metal for the first time!"

Lipogram

If you've never heard of a lipogram, permit me to inform you of one of the most subtle, interesting ways of testing your abilities as a writer. In short, the rules of writing a lipogram are very simple - you take a single letter from the alphabet, and eliminate from what you are writing. A small thing, perhaps, and one that the vast majority of readers would probably never even see, but it demands an exhaustive ability to not only pay attention to your own writing, but to utilize synonyms to their maximum potential.

Now, it should go without saying that there are a myriad of letters that are far more taxing to avoid than others. Vowels are by far the hardest - and amongst them, the letter E is the hardest. E is the single most reappearing letter in the English language. Insanely simple words are removed - the, he, she, they, be. Hell, the entirety of the name of my blog would be unusable. And yet, there are both poems and novels that are written in just this very way.

Personally, I've only attempted to write a lipogram a few times, and never without the letter E. I feel that I would need far more skill than is in my possession in order to take something like that on. And furthermore, the things that I have written in this style have not been overly long - probably no more than three pages, if I remember rightly. And to be honest, I tend to forget that lipograms exist from time to time, thereby making it somewhat impossible to keep attempting them. But every time I remember that they exist, I feel urged to at least talk about them.

Unfortunately, the list of words that are in my head as available to be summoned at any given moment is far fewer than I would prefer it to be. I generally have a good sense of the meaning of most words, and am able to string some kind of explanation of what I'm trying to get out. Using smaller words to explain bigger ideas is something that I'm pretty good at - or at least, I'd like to think that I am. And that works out at times. But I am definitely short on the synonyms that you really need to write a lipogram, and write it well.

But that doesn't mean that I won't try to do it anyway. And I'll pull it off, even if it doesn't sound all that great. Like this, for example. You didn't think I'd explain what a lipogram was without writing one myself, did you? There are probably some letters that I left out without meaning too. It's not easy, after all, to offhandedly mention that quirky xylophones are zeroing in on how to jump. But I think that just about handles every letter, sans one. Feel free to take a guess. Try not to gyp the system by using find in your browser, first. More fun that way.

Decisions

She was just one woman. One woman, in an old suit of armor, which was clearly made more for decoration than for protection. One woman, wielding a sword in a gold encrusted scabbard, refusing to pull it free from its sheath. One woman, who elected to discard her helmet for the choice of a red cloak instead. She should not have been any trouble at all to eliminate.

Yet she stood over a field of bodies, which she had cut down without effort, looking quite impressive with her blood red cloak fluttering in the wind, if Gerald had anything to say about it.

He stared up at the female knight, his eyes wide. He had served as her page for more than a year, and yet the feats that she could accomplish were still far beyond what he could comprehend. He would watch her fight, try to understand what she was doing and how - but all that he could see was a blur from her sword hand, a wave of gold flashing through the air, before her opponent was cut down, falling dead to the ground, blood spurting through the air.

He dreamed of learning to fight the way she did. Of being able to cut down his opponents in an instant, making it as though they never came to attack him in the first place. He wanted to be as strong, as fast, as enigmatic as Lady Eline. She was everything he could ever dream that a knight would be, and he couldn't have asked for a better knight to be a page for. His only qualm was that he couldn't figure out as much as he wanted of how she managed to do it.

She turned to look at him, and on cue, he rushed up to her, ready to start cleaning her sword. She waved him off though, her hand firmly grasped around the base of the sheathed blade. He looked up at her, surprised, wordlessly asking what was going on. She pointed down the hill that they had perched atop and waited for the attacking forces to climb and attack from. Looking down, Gerald saw a figure in the distance, lumbering towards them. It was slow moving, but it was much larger than any man he had ever seen.

"What is it?" he asked.

"The stuff of legends," Eline replied matter of factly. "A giant. Not sure how they got it on their side. Perhaps they led it over here, and it can smell all the spilled blood. But we can't leave our position now. We'll have no choice but to fight it."

"Have you ever fought a giant before?"

"No." The certainty of her voice surprised Gerald. It was unlike her not to be confident in her victory. "I have not. And so I doubt I will be able to defeat it quite so easily as I normally do."

"So what will you do?"

"That is the wrong question."

Gerald was taken aback by that. He didn't understand what she meant. He racked his brain, trying to think of what other question there was to ask, but he couldn't think of one. Eline waited patiently, staring down at the giant as it made its approach.

"I don't understand," he finally, humbly admitted.

"The correct question is what are we going to do."

Gerald sputtered. "B-but I don't know how to fight," he spit. "I-I'd only slow you down."

"Yes," she agreed, "and sometimes that is exactly what needs to happen." She slipped her sword out of its sheath, the bright polish that Gerald had so meticulously shined onto the blade ever present in the sunlight, and offered it to him. "So what will it be? Are you going to remain a page, or is today the day you become a squire?"

Of Balls

I've talked about it briefly a couple of times, but as I was considering a prompt a friend of mine gave me today for writing, I started realizing how grossly similar it was to a story I wrote a very long time - my first story, titled "The Power of the Balls." I mention that title every time I talk about it, because good lord, even at ten years old I knew it was an innuendo, and I stuck with it anyway. No one's going to read a story about the power of balls, past me. Not in any serious capacity.

I was obsessed with this story for a couple of years. It was my story. I had made it, and it was unlike anything that I had made before. It had a certain level of depth that I had never been able to achieve before, and I could share it with my friends and get them into it, after they laughed relentlessly at me for my dumb ass title. I played make believe games within the universe of my story, and my friends and I would go and fight giant imaginary monsters of all the different elements so that we could get their power balls (because I had never heard of an orb before apparently, which doesn't sound that much better, but is still better). And some of my friends would get mad at me for really stupid crap that really shouldn't have outraged them as much as it did, especially because it wan't even an original thing I was making and they ignored everything about what it was - but that's a different story.

I very distinctly remember what the document I wrote it on looked like. Not the story. But the document. My font was way too big, way too fancy, and way too green. I don't know why I made those decisions - probably because I was ten - but it was vomit inducing. And worse than that, the major conflicts of the story that I prided myself so much on - the large number of monsters and power balls that were threatening the world - were hardly conflicts at all. Multiple of them were defeated per page, and that was with how massive I made the text. In fact, I think multiple monsters were defeated per sentence, and that was before any of the main characters even had power balls to, you know, gain power.

I honestly can't write any more about it, because there wasn't anything more to it. It was a garbage story, with garbage pacing, and garbage ideas. I seem to recall the characters falling into some kind of hellscape where the monsters were from while trying to protect the world from them. What about the ones already in their own world? How did they get there? How were they going to get back? All excellent questions. None of which were answered. And I think that pretty much explains the whole problem.