Mother's Mementos

[Evermore Reality]

Welocme to my labyrinth. Here I shall post my musings, contest entries and challenges. You are welcomed and encouraged to post here and I am always open to constructive criticism.
Point count:{See Subforum Library)

And, just to make your searching simpler, here's a guide to my stories, arranged by challenge:
1. Pending
2.
3. Pending
4. Summer Boogaloo #7
4. Summer Boogaloo #10
5.
6. Pending
7.
8. Pending
9.
9.2

 

[Evermore Reality]

Challenge #2 Response
The Fear

“I would have given my battered, filthy, immortal soul not to see Elijah’s face just then; to avoid the disgust and the hate I anticipated there. More than anything, I rejected the possibility of finding fear there. I couldn’t handle that.

I thought he understood what this meant to me, what I had at stake. Instead, the need that previously enveloped his aura disappeared abruptly, leaving a gaping wound in my mind where I expected to find him, waiting for me.

I just needed to keep telling myself what a blessing in disguise this was. I didn’t want to talk to him, he, apparently, didn’t want to look at me.”- Felicity Flowright (page 79.)

The smell of lingering blood and antiseptic filled the air, nauseating me, but effectively distracting me from the situation at hand. I didn’t want to see this body. I didn’t want to identify this victim, look into the face that I removed life from with my own two hands, feel his blood sticking to my skin and his hands on my wrists. I still don’t want to remember how it was supposed to end.

I locked my knees and clamped my teeth together so tightly I heard them grinding, all in an utterly futile effort to negate the awful pressure driving me onward, into the blissful unknown beyond the curtain. Fate intended for me to go forward, but I just couldn’t. Pulling back that curtain meant utter damnation; it meant admitting that I was, in fact, a murderer. My knees impacted the ground, sending sharp, refreshing splinters of pain along my legs, which shook to violently for me to rise under my own power.

From this vulnerable, weak position, my hand stretched forward, drawn as though by invisible strings to the nylon barrier. I clenched my fingers around the dry, textured fabric, gripped until my weight hung entirely supported by the limb. My body strained against gravity, fought the dead weight of my legs. A single snap echoed throughout the still vacant room as one support came free, allowing the drape to swing more loosely, and I was on my feet, trembling violently enough to rattle the rest of the curtain’s tiny, plastic hangers.

My vision wavered as though my eyes themselves spasmed within my head and then, suddenly, the curtain was gone and nothing but air and infinite time stood between me and this man whose life I so easily ended within a span of several hellish minutes.

The face of death stared back at me, no more hideous than any stranger on the street below, meandering home, drunk and lost. In fact, Charles looked better, almost as he had in life, as though someone had drawn a crude dot on his head as he slept.

The blank, pale perfection of his face, marred only by one single, dark bullet hole, just above his smooth browline, cut into my heart and an instant later, I was on the floor once again, kneeling, groveling before this man who ruined my life. I spoke to him perhaps three times throughout my employment and saw him twice more beyond that, yet life in his absence appeared deathly still and dusty gray.

My body writhed and my throat sealed tight with the mortar of unshed tears. They condensed withing my trachea, burning a path to my lungs from lack of air.

My vision tunneled down to a lone point, focusing on nothing but his face and that mark. I vaguely recall hearing a nurse bustle in behind me, pause momentarily, and then shrill for help. It sounded inexplicably wrong, like someone behind a window talking as though you could hear them as well as you could see them.

There were hands, everywhere, touching me, poking, prodding, lifting my limbs for some sign of response until I just want to scream, to tell them to leave me be, to let me die in peace, but I can’t, because that would mean opening my mouth and letting the tears out. I swat them away mindlessly, and I continue swatting until another, different pair of hands rests on my shoulders, calming and immovable.

They’re gone now, talking behind me, their words flowing together into a long, convoluted hum. Talking but saying nothing. Another voice, belonging to the hands, cut through the humming then, sharp and authoritative, commanding the nurses away.

They left, abandoning me to the one conversation I knew I couldn’t have.

“Why didn’t you wait for me?” I can feel his essence filling the void its absence left in my mind.

I know he wants me to tell him that I had no choice, that I acted foolishly, but in my own best interest. Even if I could open my mouth, I wouldn’t tell him that. He’s been to good to me to hear those kind of black lies.

“Fae, look at me.” I could have ignored him, but I didn’t. Just like taking a Band-Aid off, Mamma used to say, the quicker the better.

I tilted my head up, steeling myself for his anger, but all I met in those green eyes was a pity so understanding and all consuming I nearly screamed aloud. You don’t pity murderers. Elijah, of all people, should know that.

“Fae, please. Just tell me what happened. Nobody else ever needs to know.” He knelt down, reaching out to me, and I leaned forward into an awkward embrace.

“Here, come with me,” He stood abruptly, pulling me up with him, out of the room and down to the end of the ward. “The nurses need somewhere to get away from it all,” he explained as we walked. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Outside on the tiny balcony, the air was a crisp and refreshing as I could have asked for, and the heady, floating feeling of being trapped inside the hospital began to fade. Stopping abruptly, Elijah rearranged me in front of him and resumed his embrace from behind me, placing his hands beneath my jaw and pressing up. The tilting motion forced me to swallow, slowly clearing the congestion from my throat and noes, although I still needed a Kleenex or twelve.
“What do you see?”

I saw the tips of the Embassy’s finest skyscrapers, but I didn’t think that was quite what he was getting at, so I said nothing and waited.

Sighing, he tilted my head even farther back, until it rested securely on his chest. “How about now?”

“Stars?” I inquired shakily, pressing words past the quivering lump in my throat.

“Precisely.” I heard the smile in his voice. “And why can you see them now?”

“It’s dark.” I replied, beginning to comprehend.

“Think for a moment,” he implored, mouth inches from my ear, without a chance of being overheard. “What stars did Charles Vendel show you?”

I broke. I stood on that balcony sandwiched between the railing that fenced the tiny concrete slab in and the grip of the only person in the great wide universe who could possibly understand and I sobbed like a child. Elijah held me. He didn’t let go, not even when my sobs moved us both, just rearranged himself into a sitting position and situated me onto his lap.

When I came back to myself, we were still sitting, exactly the same, as though it were utterly commonplace to breakdown on the 12th story balcony of a hospital. Elijah certainly acted as though it was, leaning in once more to say:“Now will you talk to me?”

I chocked back another round of tears, swallowing hard before croaking, “Yes.”

“What happened?” he inquired. “Did he catch you by surprise?”

“I killed him.”

“But how, why?” he sounded exasperated, and I couldn’t blame him. Obviously I killed him, or he wouldn’t be dead. But he didn’t know what he was asking of me and I didn’t think he could handle the truth.

“Why do you need to know?” I exploded, wriggling in an attempt to free myself from his grasp. “I killed him and that’s all there is. He ruined my life and he was going to ruin others and you couldn’t get there in time and I took a gun and shot him What else is there to tell?” I was crying again, in fury and frustration this time, and he made no move to console me as I tumbled from his loosening grasp, slamming my back into the unforgiving grated fence behind me in my haste.

He didn’t move at all in fact, just sat there and stared at me, as though I’d sprouted another head. I’d expected horror, and this was my reward.
“You didn’t know?” I hated myself for asking, but I had to know.

“No,” he replied slowly, moving his hand as though to touch me, stopping just short of my shoulder. “I didn’t know the circumstances.”

“The circumstances?” I chocked on the words. “Is that what they’re calling murder these days?”

“Fae-”

“Don’t,” I hissed, feeling the hysteria rising once again, “Don’t tell me this will be okay, don’t try to console me, just listen. I killed Charles Vendel. I looked him in the eyes and I shot him. It was the most disgusting thing I have ever done in my life and I will never again if at all possible, but it was a crime.”

“Self-defense,” he retorted, standing before me, just far enough away that I could see his expressive face contort with a flurry of emotion without needing to look up. Anger, grief, despair, danced through his expressive eyes, warning me away from an argument.

I never was good at listening.

“It wasn’t self defense,” I cried. “Self-defense would have been him finding me and my shooting him. I chased him, Eli. I hunted him down because I was livid and when I found him, I was already in way over my head. This was my fault.”

He didn’t argue, just continued to stare at me, before stepping forward and wordlessly embracing me. For a man who allegedly spent more time with Intel drones than people, Elijah just understood. Right now, somehow, he knew how stupid arguing with me would be and how much I needed someone to just be there.

After an eternity passed our rooftop haven, Eli lifted his head and said, apparently to the air before us, “You’re forgiven.”

“What?”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” He looked at me then, truly mystified.

“No,” I answered after a moment’s deliberation. “I want Charles to forgive me. But,” I added, resting my head on his chest, “Since that’s not going to happen, I suppose you’ll do.”

“So will you come back?” His head was tilted ever so slightly, inviting me even as he issued his tiny dare.

“Am I still welcome?” The lethargic calm sweeping over my body pleasantly replaced my earlier panic, leaving me docile, but relatively incapacitated.

“Of course. What would my night sky be without its brightest star?” His voice mellowed once again, soothing me like the lullabies of my childhood.

“What if I’m afraid of the dark?” I murmured, less uncertain than downright pigheaded.

“ Bring a flashlight.”

Leave it to Eli to pitch my uncertainties off the hospital rooftop so unceremoniously.

Twenty minutes later, we were en route to Paris and the Wrinkle awaiting us.  

[Evermore Reality]

Summer Boogaloo Entry #7 ( Begin One Fanfic)

Trigger Point, A Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfiction

A/N: Hello peoples, ThreeBlackRoses here,

I was recently introduced to the magic of Hetalia and this little plot bunny sprang into my mind. Keeping in mind that I have yet to take European History and that I would probably ignore, edit and otherwise adjust history to my means, I feel the need to introduce you to the characters of my fic.

*Spoiler Alert* (as much as fanfic can be spoiled.)

Germany: This is the Germany featured in Hetalia: Axis Powers. Due to the setting, he is now Post WWI and WWII Germany. He represents what is now known as West Germany. He will be identified as Germany in this story.

East Germany: I do not believe that East Germany is ever personified in Hetalia and hopefully never in an adult form. In appearance he perfectly mirrors Prussia, and, in agreement with KivaEmber’s ReBorn verse drabbles, he is Prussia’s re-incarnation. He will be identified as East, for simplicity’s sake.

Prussia: This is the Prussia featured in Hetalia: Axis Powers. His appearance is also where I’ll begin to screw with history.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Not the show, not the nations, heck, not even the clothes on my back. Feed the starving artist? Anyone?

Warnings: Violence, improbability, manipulation/denial of minor historical events/persons for the sole purpose of furthering the plot, and, of course, ridiculously hopeless idealism.

All nations will be referred to by their country’s name, as I am too lazy to remember everyone’s real name, and this is a political fic anyway.

Get on with the fic, you say? Very well:

1. Division

“And we shall be as never before, two nations united by the most common of goals, a peace and prosperity shared by all. We shall be as brothers, markedly different but connected on a level mankind has yet to probe.”

“Well, what do you think?” Germany questioned, hands resting lightly on his young brother’s shoulders as they watched his Prime Minister address the world on the eve of East Germany’s ascension to independent statehood.

“I think I’m glad that they’re finally getting around to setting everything up. Not to imply that I find living in your home the least bit distasteful, brother, but I feel well and ready to inhabit my own land. It tastes of victory, albeit a bitter one.” East Germany replied, massaging his temples with a hand.

“Bitter?”

“Come now, Brüder. However dearly you may love me, your bosses feel no such kinship to my people. I am but a reminder of a shattered nation that apparently refuses to die,” East shook his head slowly, smiling up at his elder sibling.

“Nonsense I won’t stand for any such talk about my family. Prussia is dead, and East must stand apart from West. This is right, Brüder, and let no one tell you otherwise,” Germany snarled in return, lifting his hands to the other’s temples and massaging in slow, deliberate circles. “Headache any better?” he inquired tone softening as his fingers slid through the younger’s white hair.

“Yes,” East lied, wincing as the migraine rattling about within his cranium threatened to rip his skull in two.

“Liar.” Germany’s calm tone lacked discernable accusation, but his eyes held the concern of a father when East looked up. “Tell the truth. Will you be alright to attend the ceremonies today?”

“Of course,” East cried, startled into motion. “Our nations have been planning his for years now. We can’t just move the date because I have a headache,” he drew out the syllables, sounding so like the petulant child he had until recently been that Germany smiled and resumed stroking his “son’s” brow.

“Be that as it may, should you be too ill to be in attendance, only our bosses would truly notice the difference, and even they will be preoccupied come time for the presentation. Besides,” he continued with a grin, “I could just tell them that Italy’s jabbering finally sent you over the edge. We both know they’d believe it.”

“Be that as it may,” East began, before the renewed pain of his headache stole the worlds from his lips and sent an array of colors dancing across the backs of his eyelids.

“Be that as it may,” he began again, grinding the words out with determination, “ I have an obligation to my country to make an appearance. I promise,” he mollified at Germany’s disbelieving stare, “On my honor as a young, impressionable country, I will beg out as early as possible, veg about in my new home and generally accustom myself to unfamiliar territory.”

“See that you do,” Germany grunted, only slightly more comfortable with this plan. He removed his hands from East’s head and stared down at his younger brother. Deceptively innocent-looking blue eyes stared back, the only visible difference between the young nation and his former self. A minor detail, thought Germany, but one that had won other nation’s to their cause in the first place. Hesitant to put another Prussia in a position of power, the world’s major powers were hesitant to allow East Germany statehood of its own. Finally, after years of work , countless hours of training poured into the impressionable young nation and personal interviews with every nation individually, East’s first chancellor was being named today.

Germany’s thoughts broke off abruptly as a cry of “Pastaaaaaa~~!” echoed throughout his house.

East smiled and rose from his seat, turning the television off as he went. “I suppose that’s our cue,” he chuckled, “Italy’s late for everything.”

With a resigned sigh Germany conceded the point and followed his younger brother out of the room, worried frown still shadowing his normally stoic expression.


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Germany knew his brother was in pain. He could see it in the grim set of the younger man’s mouth and in the tightened skin around his eyes.

Yet somehow the younger man lasted through the entire ceremony, through lengthy speeches by important political figures and the first address of his own chancellor to the people of East Germany.

Despite Germany’s fretting about his brother’s health, the actual ceremony went off without a hitch. Two nations gathered together as one people to celebrate the independence of their brother country. So seamlessly, if fact, did the people come together, that Germany knew for a fact that something was wrong.

“You worry too much Brüder,” East scolded him sullenly when he voiced his growing concern. “It’s a headache, not cancer. I’ll get over it. In fact, I bet it’s nothing more than my people’s excitement.”

“But-”

“Enough already!” East snapped. “I have no more patience for conspiracy theory today. You saw your people’s joy. You heard my chancellor’s speech. Now go home and let me rest as you instructed!”

Germany didn’t bother to add that he wished his brother would rest with him nearby. He simply stood and inclined a respectful half-bow to his young sibling. “Good day then.”

“I’ll come by tomorrow, when I’m feeling better.” As much of an apology as East will ever give him, Ludwig knows.

“Noon?” Apology accepted.

“Eleven. Let’s live on the wild side.”

“Understood. I will see you then.”

Dusk enveloped the world outside of his brothers door, muffling and muting every light and sound. The people had long since retired and the air felt taught with tension to Germany’s frayed nerves, almost as though this entire community was waiting for the most minute of signals to erupt.

Dismissing his fears as irrational conspiracy theories brought on by his worry, he continued on his way, intent on sleeping some before his brothers arrival.


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“East Germany has become its own nation today, da? You find this exciting?” Russia looked down at his comatose companion, knowing full well that no answer awaited him.

“Do not worry, darling,” he soothed in a falsely jubilant tone, twining his fingers through the others hair and curling the strands around his gloved fingers. “Don’t worry. Soon enough we shall reclaim what is ours.”

A/N: And so ends the first chapter. This is the unedited version and a newer version will be posted after I hear back from reviewers/my on-again-off-again beta. Flames will be saved and used to heat my house this upcoming winter. Critiques are embraced and dearly loved by the author.

Thanks all,

TBR  

[Evermore Reality]

Summer Boogaloo Challenge #10 (Write an Original Essay)

A/N: This is an opinion based essay written in regard to bad characterization in written works. It reflects no ones certain opinion but my own and I apologize in advance to any offended party who failed to take the time to read the tiny authors note.

Proper Characterization in Roleplaying and Writing- Essay One: The Issue at Hand

No man is immune to the most basic of temptations: the opportunity to play God. As readers we imagine and as writers we indulge. Our characters, both original and adapted cannon are our children and we vest our hopes and dreams upon the fragile chance that an audience, any audience will accept and support their brainchild through those first tentative, beautiful years of their early lives. It is here, with this sentiment and this boundless creativity that we make our first and most terrible mistake.

The following informal essay exists as a guide to artists of two different disciplines: Roleplayers and Writers. It’s sole purpose as a written work is to expose the flaws and traps of bad characterization, to help creators identify faulty characterization, to teach artists how to rehabilitate their characters and lastly, to outline good characterization and the traits of effective characters.

At first glance, writers and roleplayers display very little difference between their crafts, but after months of consideration, I, personally, have come to the conclusion that roleplayers are not writer. Roleplayers can be writers and writers can be roleplayers, but they are not inherently one and the same. Too many roleplayers scarcely write at all, relying on symbols and effects to get their point across, and others write without thought to the traits of good prose we were all taught in grade school. For this reason, this series of essays will be written with consideration to each as its own, rather than one large mass of useable characters.

The first and most noticeable difference between characterization in the written work and in the roleplaying universe is that within the confines of a roleplay, no matter how like minded the participants and how elaborately constructed the world, there is no plot. In reality, plot would defeat the roleplay’s purpose altogether. Rather than a dozen people reacting to one another, playing their roles as though the characters were real, you would encounter a dozen people trapped within an assigned role, unable to move their characters and allow them to evolve like humans rather that paper. Unfortunately, while the randomized roleplaying school of thought has the definite advantage of nearly boundless freedom, it also posses nearly crippling drawbacks.

Those roeplayers among my friends know at least to an extent that I am not nearly the avid roleplayer that they are. This reluctance stems not so much from time, of which I admittedly have very little, but from style. In my mind, the first of those crippling drawbacks is speed. Rather than allowing for conversation outside of play and development of some semblance of plot, a majority of roleplayers I have found are all too eager to rush through the plot and move on to their next fandom. I have a great deal of respect for some of the people I roleplay with and I don’t mean to insult their styles, but the speed with which they maneuver their characters through roleplays both baffles and frustrates me. It was this frustration that drove me to examine why I find myself less and less inclined to join in, or even to look for another group to sojourn to for a while. Along this path I arrived at what I feel to be te motivation and the muse that begat this essay series. My problem, as it were, lay not with the players, but the characters. In ever roleplay I investigated, I found the same characters, acting in the same manner, wandering through new worlds but essentially having the same adventure.

Somehow, no matter how originally we started out, our characters always wandered back onto the same paths. We always had the wise but jaded one, the reckless but brave one, the creepy villain, the bitter loner, and me, the girl next door. Part of my love hate relationship with roleplaying stems from my inability to step away from that character. I’ve come to hate her, a pity really since she fit so well in so many other places. If I made her edgy, I lost interest, if I made her older, she became the mother and if I made her powerful she became lost.

Withing writing, I have encountered innumerable instances of this same problem. Although less in my own examples (considering I seldom finish anything I begin), canned characters litter the tomes I frequent. A thousand times over I have remade the characters in my own novels after stepping too deeply into one these common pitfalls. As a young writer (although by all rights I still am one) I went out of my way to create non-stereotypical characters, in hopes that they would liven up my writing. As a reader however, I have come to see that by reversing a stereotype I merely fall further into the cliche I was trying to avoid. As a happy medium, I have recently begun to experiment with mixing the two in an attempt to marry originality into my writing through a muse that has a very specific set of characteristics he must, to some degree, follow.

For example, take one of my earlier characters, a vampire who loved humans and drank from a blood bank to spare their necks. The cliche is obvious, as trying too hard to break a stereotype destroys the characters purpose. Now take that same vampire and compare him to one of my modern characters.

Malcolm Solei is my newest vamparic character, as easygoing fellow with curly brown hair, sharp green eyes and fangs. He works as an interdimensional police officer along with my main character and her partener and feeds on the blood of whomever, or whatever, he finds easliy available (Including, but not limited too animals, villains and co-workers).

I’m sure that I won’t avoid every cliche trap with him; in fact I’m not even sure it’s possible, but Malcolm has a backstory, a job and a motivation for his actions. He drinks blood like any other vampire and uses his odd feeding habits to the best of his ability. He has flaws and strengths and he adds flavor, humor and drama to my story.

How well will he work? I won’t know until I write him in. Will he be revised? Absolutely. Does he glitter? Thank God, no. (Sorry Ms. Meyer).

As an avid reader, I am always on the lookout for an original character. I inhale promising books on the first read and them pass through them once more, savoring the characters. Danielle Bennet and Jaida Jones’ Havemercy, for example, contained a refreshing cast of original characters in an original setting spun from an age old mold. A battle between the good dragon riders and the bad enemy has grown so cliche that my heart hurts to even look at Eragon anymore.

However, in this strange tale a fleet of gigantic metal dragons manned by crass, rough, hilarious pilots and monitored by a studious, morose young intern had me alternately in stitches at their antics and in tears at their inability to effectively communicate.

Add in homosexual overtones between a pair of loveable, believable character and I was in love. If you’re thinking ‘fanservice much?’, so was I, but these particular character’s relationship simultaneously showcases how much a character can change simply by learning about himself and how easily a character who knows himself well can remain solidly the same without being paper flat.

On the topic of paper flat, I shall adjourn from the subject of published works and move on to the realm of fanfiction and original, unpublished fiction. Before I really lay into these poor writers, I feel obligated to mention that one of my closest friends write a fanfiction series followed by what seems to be half the know world. This writer is among the most talented I have ever had the pleasure of reading and I dearly look forward to the day when I can tell my children that yes, not only have I read her works, I know her. I am also impatiently awaiting the completion of her first novel, whichever of the nine she gets around to first.

Unfortunately, however much I adore her writing, she is the exception, not the rule on fanfiction. I personally hope with all my heart that should I be lucky enough to be published I will never have the misfortune of reading a fanfiction based on my work. Not to insult any writer out them, particularly those just entering the world of writing, but I shudder to think of what the original creators of some of my favorite books, games and animes would think if they saw how other writers portrayed their characters. Written work is always debatable, particularly as so much of the art relies to heavily upon the audiences perception of it. Nevertheless, perception only goes so far before absolute fantasy kicks in.

Far too many authors in this day and age allow their characters to run away with their imagination, or vice-versa. They place their characters in impossible situations, drag them through hell and back or set them up in impossible romances. I have nothing against homosexual or heterosexual pairing, when it makes sense. Unfortunately, all too often it doesn’t. Too many pairings are born simply because the character s are “soooo, like, perfect for each other, ya know?” Rather that based on some semblance of a cannon relationship, or, at the very least, some manner of contact within cannon conversation.

Having now touched upon character types, stereotyping, good characterization and characterization and romance between fictional cannon and original characters, I can successfully introduce the installments of my essay series. All will likely be shorter than this one and all will be absolutely simpler to understand.

They will address:

Common Character Pitfalls

The Downside of Bad Characterization

The Benefits of Good Characterization

Healthy Character Relationships and Why They’re Important

Coining Your Character

A/N: To any and all of my friends and acquaintances that I’ve cited in the above essay, I apologize if I have offended anyone. That was not the intention of the essay. The roleplaying paragraph noted out guild specifically because of a problem I’ve notices (see above) and how frusturating it’s been attempting to fix my characters. See you next time!

Peace out,

TBR

++ Reviews = Love++  

[Evermore Reality]

"Hope is the dream of a man awake." - French Proverb
A faucet, a flag and a moustache

Quest

Queue dipped his hands into the water gushing from the tap before him, lowering his face until his nose bumped the faucet. He brought his hands upward, splashing a refreshing arc of water onto his sleep deprived visage. Three more times his hands descended and three more times liquid ran down from his brow line, obscuring his eyesight and clogging his mouth and nose. Finally, content that continuing to drown himself would accomplish nothing more than the discovery of Do-It-Yourself water boarding, Queue raised his head to examine his reflection.

His first thought as he examined his sleep dulled features in the reflective glass was that if he intended on rescuing Evelyn, he should probably shave beforehand. He'd let himself go in the horrific aftermath of the Second Coming and he knew how she despised stubble. The mustache he currently sported would send her into apoplectic shock, like as not. A caterpillar would look more becoming, the Evelyn in his head declared, scowling at his facial hair. A great, fuzzy caterpillar.

It hurt more than he'd expected, losing her. Knowing that he'd never again hear her voice call out from one of the numerous rooms in the PATHOS complex, chastising him for some inevitable foolhardy decision that, as always, had gravelly endangered his own well being, lodged an ache deep within his chest, a painful knot of emotion that no amount of coughing-not crying- could clear.

He could still hear her voice in his head, the laugh he had come to love above all else, the worried tone she'd used to fret over all of them, even Maya when she thought the older woman wasn=t watching, the hysterical shriek that had been that last thing he'd heard before the world went black.

The Second Coming. No one in PATHOS expected Mercia herself to step out onto the battlefield, Craig at her right hand and the lazuli ring on her left. But come she had, and her arrival had changed the tide of war in ways no tactician-on either side- had predicted possible. Her chaotic nature lent an aspect of random definition to the battle. Advantages became disadvantages and vice-versa, fliers dropped like stone from the sky, earth became mud and the sky filled with thunder heads. It was as though the apocalypse descended upon this tiny South Pacific Island tundra and ravaged the land for hours on end.

Queue grew up with Maya, Malcolm and the other pilots, and two weeks ago he would have declared it impossible for them to hate one another. But never before in his life had he felt the peculiar, poignant boiling sensation he did when Maya transmitted the order to retreat as they were and leave Evelyn trapped inside the Mausoleum. Indeed, he considered outright refusing, a tactic that would have him labeled a traitor and executed on sight, when the enormous crypt in question collapsed.

Even then he stood, staring at the wreckage for what felt like hours, although Malcolm later told him it spanned only a few moments, wondering if Evelyn even knew when the supports gave way and the building crumbled inward, crushing itself.


It wasn't until later that they found out about Evelyn's apparent mutiny. Even Maia, their greatest skeptic and legendary tactician express doubt over the lauded report that their girl had set the Chaos Queen free. He could still see the briefing room so clearly in his minds eyes, the blank walls accented by the lack of luster that spanned all of the Haversham, the dead looks on the faces of their commanders; the only color in the room came from them, the pilots. There was red, deep crimson blood spilling from wounds yet untended by Nani, the sooty blacks and earthy browns of the battlefield they'd worn home. Intermixed he vividly remembered the colors his teammates themselves lent to the background. Maia, fierce and orange, burnt henna by her own fury, Malcolm, cold and grey, life drawn out of his clammy skin, his sister Val, clinging to his hand and exuding her calming mint scent in waves, and Blue, looking suddenly very grey, clinging to her data pad with white knuckles and praying for her dearest friend’s survival.

He obviously couldn’t see himself, but if he had, he thought he would have been transparent. Queue loved Evelyn, and he knew it, but for that very reason, he could not argue her innocence with the ardor that every other being in the room exuded. None other but he had even confronted Chaos herself face to face and he had barely walked away. He knew the promises she made, the uncertainty she bred within your soul and he still carried some of those scars with him today. He knew, too, more of Evelyn=s heart than any other in the room and he knew, without a shadow of doubt, how easily she could fall into Chaos' hands. He would never blame her for the events that had come to pass, but he could never tell these people that she had nothing to do with the pandemonium they barely survived.

Instead, he swore on that day, he would search out the answer and find her himself. He knew that he couldn’t spend the rest of his life without this girl of his who dreamed with her eyes wide open, even if it blinded her from time to time.  

[Evermore Reality]

Well It Wasn’t Dark And Stormy To Begin With…

It was a particularly calm and well lit night, aglow with the burning iridescence of several schools of flying fish. The forecast called for it to remain like that. Unfortunately, the forecast was also compiled by a particularly mundane set of well meaning but thoroughly ordinary people and, no matter how well educated they were, no chart in existence included variables for him.

I was just pulling on my galoshes to muddle out and give the jabberwocky his dinner when the sky rather abruptly turned a disturbing shade of totally unseasonal indigo before darkening abruptly to Egyptian black and filling with thunderclouds and lit, although not substantially, with bolts of lightening followed suspiciously quickly by uncommonly loud, threatening lightening.

Oh bollocks, I thought to myself as the fish scattered, their scales clattering noisily against one another as they shook in pure terror. The plot bunnies rampaging around my feet and through my head promptly took it into theirs to follow the flying fish and I swore privately- both were costly and time consuming to hunt down again.

The boss-man had better have a really, really, very exquisitely convincing explanation for this one.

Speaking of the devil, he lumbered into view as I was wrapping up my mutinous thoughts and nodded in my direction before bowing his head again in a futile attempt to escape the sheeting rain and hurricane gusts of his own Dramatic Entrance Storm. I shook my head at the idiocy of it all and rummaged through the bin beside my door in search of an umbrella before he approached any nearer. Suspended disbelief would only keep me so dry once he reached any kind of proximity.

I glowered at him and he glowered at me until he came near enough for me to see the deep lines around his eyes and mouth and the odd, stooped posture he had adopted in the time since our last encounter. By the time he made in to my doorstep and out of the rain my eyes picked out a thatch of graying hair and a pair of rose colored bifocals tucked into his jacket pocket.

“Well don’t just stand there girl,” he snapped. “Let me in out of this infernal rain. Lately it’s been following me everywhere.”

“It won’t follow you into my house, will it?” I asked, with some trepidation. After all, stranger things have happened.

“Of course not,” he replied scathingly as I finally shifted sideway to allow him to pass. “Don’t be daft. It will just hover ominously above you- er…lovely abode.”

I chose to ignore the jibe at my preferences in habitat location and appearance in favor of what was- or so I hoped- a sharp and witty retort. “Just hang there? Won’t we drown?”

“Of course not you daffy girl,” he chided, incredulous. “Look at how much water is already out there(True). I practically had to swim to your doorstep!(A slight exaggeration, but not much) Your standing in your foyer in galoshes for pity’s sake. (First he insults my house, now my footwear?) A little more water won’t do any harm (I beg to differ),” he finished with a flourish, looking perfectly reasonable.

And that, dear, masochistic, possibly non-existence readers, is, in a nutshell, all you need to know about my strange guest: The Plot Liner, a man with as many names as faces- and his faces changed daily. The last time he showed up at my house uninvited and proceeded to turn my life upside down a pair of deranged fangirls had invaded the Sherlock Holmes universe and were cleverly employing their surprisingly resilient Mary Sue’s to simultaneously best both Moriarty and Holmes- and, if my suspicions were correct, seduced the both of them.

By a stroke of brilliant, if somewhat accidental luck, I had managed to work with a Dr. John Watson to beat some sense back into Mr. Holmes and defeat the scheming females once and for all. But Mr. Plot had warned me that the damaged caused by these roving monstrosities of fans could be more permanent than just the one fan fiction gone awry. If his current appearance at my house and incredibly disheveled façade were any indication, the problem struck deeper than we knew.

It also meant that my few weeks hard earned vacation from the Looking Glass Publishing Company was about to turn into two weeks of mucking around some fandom or another in search of the plot slandering pussies who couldn’t just stick with the canon characters. Oh joy.  

[Evermore Reality]

Darkness, Are You Lonely?

Prologue: The Glass Coriander

‘You deserve to die.’

She remembered pain.

She remembered the fire that burned behind her eyes and seared her sight into a multicolored blur of agony.

She remembered drowning in a sea of blood that pooled without and within, swirling behind her eyes and clogging the back of her otherwise parched throat.

‘I brought you here to die.’

The world disappeared in a wash of silence, broken only by the rhythmic pounding of the rain sheeting down on the metal of the platform beneath her head. The sound cut in and out like the faulty audio on an archaic video cassette.

‘I planned for you to die.’

She struggled to breath past what felt like a mouthful of cotton, desperate to get air from one side of the invisible blockade to the other.

She rolled her eyes skyward and saw the face of a boy she knew once-upon-a-time, a boy whose eyes were filled with frantic worry. She opened her mouth to tell him to stop, to think clearly and her words met with a current of water that ran down her throat and nose, obliterating any sound but her own weak, frantic choking.

‘I knew you would die.’

She heard that same voice, filled with the manic certainty of absolute madness, repeating the litany that had become her death knell.
The boy arrived at her side and she smiled up at him one last time, focusing on that last, desperate cry as her world faded into absolute black-

‘You deserve to die!’

~*~

The darkness receded slowly, reluctant to relinquish its newest playmate to the merciless world above. Eventually hunger and restless motion won out and two blurry, uncertain eyes opened to a world of absolute white.

The disorienting, pale expanse above her filled her vision for barely a moment before a face leaned over hers. It appeared merely head shaped in her blurred vision and it's chin moved as though its mouth worked soundlessly and hidden. She jerked away, badly startled and opened her mouth to scream, only to discover her throat already raw and her voice long gone. She gasped uselessly for a moment before realizing that a third party had entered the room and begun to talk. The empty face had moved out of her vision, perhaps to near the hall. Somewhat calmed, she settled down and tried to listen into their conversation.

The newcomer’s voice came through in starts and stops of incomplete sentences, her syntax jarring and unpleasant to listen to. “…may be disoriented … have trouble with sensory funct…lose…at a time…certainly missing sev….”

Eventually she stopped listening and tuned out the small non sequiturs she could understand. She rolled her head in a slow circle, taking in the sterile, white walls of the room she lay in. She struggled for a moment, puzzling over where she was and how she got there. A hospital, she realized. I’m in a hospital. She grinned slightly at that, proud that she had wrestled event that tiny morsel of common sense for her memory.

Her head felt as though someone had stuffed it with cotton and even the simplest of thoughts took an eternity to complete. Fortunately, after those first, frustrating minutes everything began to speed up. In her present state, she had no idea what normal was, but she lay back onto the firm, unforgiving bed and closed her eyes, breathing deeply and allowing the memories to come.

She was in a hospital, she rationalized, so she must have been in some sort of accident. She felt almost no pain, probably due to the anesthetic pumping through her veins. That could also explain the fuzzy, white noise sensation in the back of her head. Having puzzled that out, she moved on to her injuries. She felt nothing out of place anywhere on her body, no uncomfortable plaster or tightly wrapped bandages. Reaching no discernable conclusion, she moved her hand up to her head, only to have it catch and tug back towards the bed halfway there.

She had no more thought to untangle it than a hand wrapped around her wrist and a face consumed her vision, staring down at her with frantic hazel eyes. She dimly registered the eyes, but the longer she thought about where, the sharper the pain in her head became. Finally she gave up and dimly registered that he was saying her name, somewhere far above her, above the din of beeping medical machines and the doctors sterile voice. The litany of “Fay” accompanied her into a deep, calming sleep, the last thing in her vision the face of a boy she should never have forgotten.

There, the first chapter of My Darkness, Are You Lonely? has finally made it somewhere other than my computer. I will try to update the whole thing in this thread, but feel free to comment. I love to know what people think of my work and what things I can fix!