#not Shardkeeper

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Cold

Got off work early so I wrote a little something spooky!

Of course it was madness to travel this late. Only the ghost-white gleam of the moon showed our path, the sun having fallen below the horizon line hours ago.

But what choice did we have? What passed for shelter along the road was unstable when we inspected it. Our last shelter had vanished into a hole and we couldn’t chance another close call like that.

Aurea gasped for air as she held her hands against her shaking legs. We’d walked all afternoon since our hideaway fell and she could barely stand. But she still put herself between the younger girls and the lumbering figure with the blade.

“Get… get them out of here,” she said through panted breaths.

My eyes darted to the two girls we’d found. Cori was no older than ten. She huddled behind Allis, who had picked up a rock and was steadying her aim. She herself was only about twelve. I had to get them somewhere safe.

But I couldn’t leave my sister.

I found a stone of my own and hurled it with everything I still had. It landed miserably short of the figure but its – his? - attention shifted to me. I puffed out my chest and stood as tall as I could manage.

“Over here! Yeah! I’m the one you’ve got to deal with!” I was shouting before I could stop myself. I hopped to the right over what used to be a retaining wall and picked up another rock.

The figure turned slowly and deliberately. We were all tired and hungry and wouldn’t last long in either a chase or a fight. It didn’t matter what order we went down in.

“Shade!” Aurea shouted.

Too late. I was lunging forward with a crazed yell. I want to say I hoped to put the figure off-guard but the truth is I was just running on instinct. The blade rose into the air above my head as I closed the distance. I knew I’d never dodge in time. My only prayer was to ram the figure with the rock hard enough that the sharp metal would lose momentum before slicing me to ribbons.

My forward foot found only air where the ground had been.

I fell forward. In my surprise I dropped the rock. It didn’t hit the ground.

Because there was no ground.

A hole like the one that had swallowed our shelter gaped open where the dirt road had been less than a full second earlier. An impossible void of eerie blue light took its place.

The figure and I both fell into it.

***

I never landed. These holes weren’t simply places where the ground had fallen in on itself over some hitherto unknown hollow. They were blank spots in the fabric of the world.

I’d expected to be dead by now after falling into one. But I could still see and feel. I must have been alive.

What I could see and feel did little to reassure me. My gaze found nothing but the pale blue light in all directions. The large blade and the figure that had held it were nowhere to be found. I wasn’t plummeting any longer. Gravity no longer had a hold.

But more than anything else I felt the cold. Bitter and biting like a winter’s relentless wind. My fingers and ears ached as it tore into me. My skin almost burned with the icy nothingness that ripped through me like thousands of microscopic shards of glass or steel.

I shook with an involuntary urge to warm myself through motion, shivering through the horrible, unending cold. My teeth chattered so hard I was sure I’d break them against each other. They champed together so violently I couldn’t even force out a cry for help.

I wasn’t dead, but I was certainly dying.

I forced my eyes open again. I had to find a way out. A way back up to the solid world.

And then it appeared.

A great, thin being stood before me. It had the shape and proportions of a human but no human was ever that tall. Nor was a human’s skin the pale blue that only barely distinguished itself from the light, not even one deprived of oxygen. It wore tattered, dark robes and I more than half expected a skeletal hand to reach out when it extended an arm toward me.

But the being wasn’t Death.

“Lost little one… from the world of humans…”

It had a somewhat singsong voice that I heard more in my mind than with my ears. I forced my chin from where instinct buried it into my chest for warmth to look up.

“You have come to our world… and found only danger here…”

The pale blue hand that extended to me was palm up and open, like it was offering me to take it. Beyond the color and size it was a simple human hand with flesh and skin. I looked higher to meet the being’s eyes.

I found a mask instead of a face, blank and featureless with not even holes for eyes to look out. Around its head it wore a crown of twisted metal with five branching points reaching down and out until each end finally curled up into a sconce as though it had found some fallen chandelier and decided it would be a fine hat.

I tried to force a smile at the ridiculousness of the thought but the cold bore into my bones and I found myself forced to look down by a body that insisted on curling around itself for protection.

“I have an offer… for you, little human…”

I pulled my head up again and tried to keep my gaze steady. I tried to ask what it meant but I couldn’t form the words with my teeth chattering.

“Save our world… and you may be returned to yours…”

Home.

The thought overwhelmed all else. Even, for just a brief moment, the cold. Since Aurea and I had come to this world we’d searched and searched for a way back to the human world. The closest thing we’d ever gotten to a lead was another pair of human children, just as lost as we were.

I forced my rigid arm outward. It struggled to wrap itself back around my torso. The cold was too much. I couldn’t reach.

My hand met the being’s outstretched fingers. Just enough to brush them before I curled back in on myself against the stinging cold.

The being nodded. The hand reached forward and pressed against my forehead.

Everything burned with a cold more frigid than I could imagine was possible. I heard my scream echoing through the void around us as the being pulled… something from my forehead: a light, faint and glowing orange against all the blue.

I watched as the being lifted the light to one of the sconces of its crown. The flame caught and settled into place, burning with a warmth that slowly flowed through me starting at the place on my forehead where the being had taken it and running through my blood to my organs and limbs and finally to the tips of my near-numb fingers and toes.

“Thank… you…”

I stared at the flame dancing on the prong of the crown, warm and lively and lonely, the only lit sconce of the five.

Gravity returned to the world beneath me. I fell again.

***

I landed on the dirt road before the figure with the blade. It had plunged the sword into the ground – the ground! – inches from my side. I rolled to an opening away from the weapon and scrambled to my feet.

I spun before the figure could loose the sword from the dirt and gripped my palm around the handle of a dagger. I lunged and pushed the short blade deep into the figure’s side. Ice spider webbed out from the point of contact. I pushed harder and I could hear cracking.

The figure howled: a horrible noise that reverberated through my body as I forced the dagger as far into its body as it would go. White chunks of ice broke out along every exposed patch of the figure’s flesh.

I pulled the blade back. The figure shattered.

I stood there for a moment processing what had occurred.

“Shade?” asked Aurea, her voice shaky. I looked up.

Aurea and the two girls crept forward to see that the threat had truly gone. I breathed and stared at the dagger, clear as water and solid as ice, that now rested in my hand reflecting the moonlight.

“Shade,” asked Aurea. “Where did you get that?”

“I… I don’t know,” I lied.

[emeraldmew]

The new scene is perfect for my Rebecca dragon!

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imposter

WRITERS

If you see this, spoil your WIP's biggest plot twist using ONLY ONE WORD

Here's mine!

Dying

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I'll get to the things I was tagged in later.

Spending the start of the weekend watching RPG Maker MZ tutorials.

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toying with ideas for members of an eldritch pantheon for a wip...

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New Year's Eve, end of 2023

An old year ending is meant to be a time for reflection, right?

On the positive side, I finished draft 2.5 of Shardkeeper Book 1 (which is going to be called Changeling unless I come up with something else). I even got my sister to read it - still working on Dad, though.

I keep going back and forth about a fairly significant detail with one of the characters, but since that point will be a more central focus of Book 2 I'll hopefully resolve my doubts during the writing process.

I'm excited about ideas for three other WIPs too, if I ever find the time.

On the negative side...

I'll be honest, I've been in a funk for a while. I could say it's the weather but I know I'd be missing a lot of key points.

It is the weather in no small part, of course. Climate change and the domino effects thereof (rising racism in response to migration in response to places becoming unlivable) has been a heavy weight on my mind. That the year struggling to be born tomorrow is an election year is not lost on me.

It's things on smaller scales as well. A long commute to and from a soul-sucking job that chews up most of my week is a big one on that more personal scale. Everyday I watch my manager destroy her health, both mental and physical, to appease the temperamental CEO while Cruella in HR tries to sniff out any little misstep she can report back to him. I haven't gotten a raise in years. No one there has.

I'm stuck in a rut there but I feel guilty about the thought of leaving. We have such a tiny workforce as it is that my manager can't find time to let me train the other person in my department on everything I do.

And I'm finally admitting to my introvert self that I'm lonely. I've never been good at socializing. I really don't have irl friends outside my immediate family. I haven't seen my two friends from school in years (I am spectacularly bad at keeping track of time and somehow even worse at being the one to initiate a conversation out of the blue). I haven't really socialized at all since Mom died. That'll have been a whole decade ago in a few months.

So what do I DO about this in 2024?

I guess I start with job hunting. Losing an hour of my day to the commute alone and feeling the stress of how unfairly the job treats its hardest workers is one of the biggest things draining my energy to do anything else. I know from way too many years of working there that it's not getting better than this.

I was there at its worst. Things are miles better than the first years I was there. I saw Manager take the helm in all but title and pay to stop the ship sinking and make the place functional after the worse management got axed. I saw ideas I'd suggested finally, finally be implemented and things become fairer on the production floor. But the salaried Manager is still being worked to death. Raises are non-existent. The most vacation I can use at a time is a day or two because we have a skeleton crew.

I've been holding myself back, telling myself that it wouldn't be fair to leave Manager with a massive workload from losing half her department if I bail. But if I'm honest I'm sticking in my rut because I'm scared: because I know what to expect there and I don't know what another job might throw at me. I can't keep watching Dad worry about how little money I'm making or how miserable my job is making me either. And, of course, my own mental health. I am beginning to acknowledge that as something important, too.

Minor shout out to blind-the-winds' The Infinite Sadness AU for helping me put that into coherent thoughts.

The socialization is going to be harder. I've been using the ongoing Plague as an excuse (as well as losing a lot of my time to my commute and my energy to the job), but I think I actually do need to do the people thing. My social battery is low, so I know I'd have to start with something flexible, with the ability to bail if I get overwhelmed (so, like, not looking to restart my taichi classes because I don't feel like the obligation that comes with something I'd pay to attend would really work for me right now. At least not while also buckling down to job hunt).

So, I guess the first step there is learning how to socialize to begin with. Wish me luck.

Anyway, I'll start with job hunting. Gotta do it eventually, right?

If I do end up getting enough energy back from all that, I hope to find more writing time, too. Shardkeeper's second book isn't writing itself (I refuse to let creative endeavors be replaced by AI).

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Re-writing sometimes makes me feel like I should be keeping a bug-fix log or something.

Chapter 2 version 0.1.5: introduced conflict between character X and Y earlier in the plot. Removed buggy subplot C.

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Last Line Tag VI

Thank you, @blind-the-winds, for the tag!

Just entered chapter 6 7 of book 2. Let's see how the kids are doing.

“Aritla form, huh?” asked Rebecca. Her own form was currently a weird blob that vaguely resembled a boa constrictor with a human face. She was wrapped around Kevor, who hadn’t uttered a word since our fight. “Easier to balance on uneven ground,” I said. I readjusted the bundle in my inner claws. “They really need to invent clothes that change with you.” “Tell me about it,” said Rebecca. “I just sort of… um… formed around my clothes? It feels really, really weird and uncomfortable.”

When you and the bestie are both shapeshifters but are wildly different types of shapeshifters.

Tagging (no pressure): @ghost-town-story, @drippingmoon, @jezifster, @aziz-reads, @theboarsbride, and anyone else interested in sharing their latest writing!

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Last Line Tag

Thank you for the tag @blind-the-winds

The last bit I wrote today:

“You guys are really planning to poke around this planet? You’re going to get lost. For nothing. This planet makes Earth look advanced. They haven’t even put so much as a rock into orbit.” I turned to Kevor. “Oh? I thought you said you didn’t know much about this planet because you’d only been to the station.”

Tagging: @andrewbelindo, @autumnalwalker, @drippingmoon, @athensoddcollections, @written-in-starlight, and anyone else who'd like to participate

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Heads Up, 7 Up Tag

Thanks for the tag, @blind-the-winds!

Looks like the last thing I wrote (the opening of a chapter!) was seven sentences exactly.

Alma was right about me and I hated it. I might have had all the adults on Earth fooled into thinking I was the responsible one but in truth I was a flake. Even I had to admit I felt relief when she turned down the offer. Back when Mahroa’s ship crashed I just froze even though I’d been the first to run to check it out. It wasn’t until Rebecca went aboard that I regained the will to move. I’d told Rebecca I trusted her and instead I [end of book 1 spoilers redacted]. I didn’t even have the nerve to begin to help [redacted].

Tagging (if you want): @thestorywitch, @that-chibi-writer, @copper-dragon-in-disguise, @akindofmagictoo, @dumbthunder, @andrewbelindo, and @bluefox4

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Figured out a quirk of zan biology that'll play a major part in book two and probably book 3.

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Two truths and a lie

Thanks to @autumnalwalker for the tag and deep apologies for taking so long to get to it.

Tagging: @afoolandathief, @blind-the-winds, @bayalexison, @charlesjosephwrites, @bluefox4, and anyone else who wants to.

Since I'm close to finishing up book one I'll make these about Paige (the narrator of book 2) to help me get into her mindset.

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I know where point A and point B are.

I just need to figure out point A-and-a-half.

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When your scene isn't going as planned because your disaster character is making smarter choices than you originally intended...

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Initial theme I wanted to explore with Shardkeeper:

The rate at which the world changes is just so fast. The technology you were introduced to as a child is already ancient. People's living memory reveals a world with very changed opinions about race/sexuality/gender/etc. in just a handful of decades. Your world is so different from your parents' world. Your world will change before you own eyes, too.

Only, ya' know, represented by aliens being "just a thing" to a whole generation when the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life was introduced to their parents by a failed alien invasion and Earth's subsequent induction into an Intersteller version of the United Nations.

What I'm actually exploring:

What if I threw a bunch of kids into space together and they had to figure out how to survive?

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9 lines, 9 people

Thank you, @blind-the-winds for the tag.

Now I'll preface this with saying that I'm not sure this blog actually has 9 followers who would be interested in doing this, so just consider yourself tagged if you see it and want to share some writing.

The most recent nine lines paragraphs from Book 2:

“I speak a little, but not enough to really get me anywhere. And my pronunciation’s horrible,” I said. “Heck, I can barely say rockyour… ro-cal-you-car.” I was worried Ekver would be insulted by my continued issues with the name of his species but instead his eyes lit up like a fire had been ignighted behind them. “It might help to know what the parts of the word mean.” His beak was all the way open, exposing his grinning mouth below. “So we start with Calyu in the middle. That’s the name of our planet. Or I guess we should really start with the ro. See, ‘ro’ is a prefix that indicates a compound of a thing and the thing’s owner. Like an ‘apostrophe s’ in English only for things where the object and its owner are mushed into the same word.” I was taken aback. I found myself reaching for my notebook and pen before I realized it was pointless. “Now, ‘ro’ in particular means that the thing is going to be a lesser piece of or an offspring of the owner. The second part of the word is the origin or owner. In this case, Calyu.” “No one cares,” called Kevor. “The only thing no one cares about is your opinion,” I countered. I returned my attention to Ekver. “So it’s ro and then Calyu.” Ekver nodded. “And then the ending ‘ar’ or ‘car’ simply means a person. So rocalyucar just means a person who is a child of Calyu.” “Rocaryou,” I tried again. I felt my cheeks flush. “Bleh. Sorry, I still can’t get my stupid tongue around it. Ro-Calyu-car. So it’s like a human being called an Earthling, then.”