#wip: akws

[rachelswritings]

akws characters -> lyria mordayne

Lyria stood resolute, straight-backed, her eyes fixed on the seer. Gone was the cloud of anxiety she’d been shrouded in since they’d met. All this flickering firelight turned the blue of that proud gaze to cold steel. If she was afraid now—and she was afraid or she was insane—there was no trace of it in her face. For a fleeting moment, Isham could almost admire her. He could almost see why Rhydion thought she was worth saving. He could almost forget that she was a Mordayne.

“Daughter of sorrow,” crooned the seer. She reached across the table, long talons of nails scraping across the purple cloth with unabashed hunger. “How far you’ve wandered. How little time you have left. Is that the scent of roses on the wind?”

The Mordaynes were once a powerful noble family of the Kaskyes. Yet when the king died, they rose up in rebellion rather than see his witch-queen become Regent. Their punishment was swift, but their last plea was that their daughter, Lyria, be spared. After all, she was only an innocent child. They say that the Queen Mother obliged with a cruel smile. Lyria would live... until she came of age. Then, on her eighteenth birthday, the curse would come calling in the form of a rose’s thorns.

Now Lyria is seventeen, and an apprentice to the wizard Elennan. They have spent years researching a way to save her, but the fateful day draws ever closer with no hope in sight. When the new king comes to claim Elennan’s services and burns down their tower, Lyria is forced to admit that high magic has failed her. She needs the low magic of witches to break a witch’s curse.

In the midst of magic-wielders being hunted down, her friend Rhydion manages to find her perhaps the last free witch. Yet he’s the Queen Mother’s own wayward pupil, Isham, raised to despise Mordaynes. He’ll save her... but only if she and Rhydion assist in a daring and desperate plan.

TAGLIST -> @solarflare-ink | @novel-novelist | @ofwordsandwonders | @maryscots | @purgatoryforever | @atbwrites | @the-violet-writer (Please ask to be added or removed!)

[homesteadchronicles]

AKW’s Writing Positivity Game

Thank you to my dear friend, @druidx, for tagging me in this delightful game!

...I say “delightful”, but I am notoriously bad at talking well about myself. But hey, if I laugh (good-naturedly) at myself for some of these too - because, let’s be real, I know very well titles are not my forte - then it balances out the vulnerability!

___

Rules: Enbold the statements you agree/connect with, and let’s start looking at ourselves in a positive light.

I am a talented writer | I have a way with words | I can plan my stories really well | I can improvise my stories really well | I am great at writing realistic dialogue | I can really paint a picture with my words | My writing is very atmospheric | I am great at descriptions | I am great at action | I am great at touching people with my stories | the backstories of my characters are all diverse and I feel like I truly know them | I am great at making a realistic and complex personalities | I really enjoy the character dynamics and relationships in my wips | my main characters aren't always the same | I am great at coming up with gripping beginnings | I am great at coming up with gripping endings | I am great at coming up with titles | I am in love with my characters and would die for them if they were real | I love how I write animals and mystic creatures | I am great at worldbuilding | I have intriguing and gripping plots | I write amazing character-driven stories | I am great at capturing and keeping the audience's attention | I am persistent even when I want to give up | I'm very organized with my writing notes | I am constantly learning from every story I encounter | I devour books

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TAGGING: @oof-another-writeblr, @incandescent-creativity, @raiswanson, @47crayons, and @arturas-writes. No pressure to participate! I pulled both from friends and recent interactions, so sorry if you don’t do tag games - just trying to connect on a wider scale.

[druidx]

AKW's Writer Positivity Bold Game

Thanks for the tag @writingonesdreams! 

Rules: Enbold the statements you agree/ connect with, and let’s start looking at ourselves in a positive light.

I am a talented writer | I have a way with words | I can plan my stories really well | I can improvise my stories really well | I am great at writing realistic dialogue | I can really paint a picture with my words | My writing is very atmospheric | I am great at descriptions | I am great at action | I am great at touching people with my stories | the backstories of my characters are all diverse and I feel like I truly know them | I am great at making a realistic and complex personalities | I really enjoy the character dynamics and relationships in my wips | my main characters aren't always the same | I am great at coming up with gripping beginnings | I am great at coming up with gripping endings | I am great at coming up with titles | I am in love with my characters and would die for them if they were real | I love how I write animals and mystic creatures | I am great at worldbuilding | I have intriguing and gripping plots | I write amazing character-driven stories | I am great at capturing and keeping the audience's attention | I am persistent even when I want to give up | I'm very organized with my writing notes | I am constantly learning from every story I encounter | I devour books

Tagging: @homesteadchronicles @aquadestinyswriting @viawrites-andacts @ryns-ramblings @strosmkai-rum ​ @chauceryfairytales @morganwriteblr @warriorbookworm @odysseywritings @spacetimewraithwrites @jaguarthecat @dreamwishing

[writingonesdreams]

AKW's Writer Positivity Bold Game

Saw this game by @anonymouskudoswriteblr and added some more statements or it would have been a bit too empty for me :D

I am a talented writer | I have a way with words | I can plan my stories really well | I can improvise my stories really well | I am great at writing realistic dialogue | I can really paint a picture with my words | My writing is very atmospheric | I am great at descriptions | I am great at action | I am great at touching people with my stories | the backstories of my characters are all diverse and I feel like I truly know them | I am great at making a realistic and complex personalities | I really enjoy the character dynamics and relationships in my wips | my main characters aren't always the same | I am great at coming up with gripping beginnings | I am great at coming up with gripping endings | I am great at coming up with titles | I am in love with my characters and would die for them if they were real | I love how I write animals and mystic creatures | I am great at worldbuilding | I have intriguing and gripping plots | I write amazing character-driven stories | I am great at capturing and keeping the audience's attention | I am persistent even when I want to give up | I'm very organized with my writing notes | I am constantly learning from every story I encounter | I devour books |

Tagging if you want to play: @thewalkingnerdx @kosmosian-quills @akindofmagictoo @druidx @sleepyowlwrites @free-as-an-ox @sharraus @kg-willie + open tag!

[rachelswritings]

wip introduction -> a kingdom worth saving

“What should have been—that was a strange phrase to use to a group like this. Isham should have been standing at a queen’s side. Lyria should have been a fine lady of her father’s noble house. Magpie and Vorokh should have been free upon the mountains. Khetara should never have set foot on the Kaskyes. And Rhydion, of course, should have been nothing and nobody. Yet the stars that might have led them to those fates had instead been reshaped to bring them to each other.”

WORKING TITLE -> A Kingdom Worth Saving

GENRE -> YA high fantasy

POV -> Third-person limited POV

THEMES -> Found family (both good and bad ones), fate, power and responsibility, monarchy, prejudice, courage, duty, good vs. evil

SUMMARY ->

On the northern, windswept islands called the Kaskyes, Queen Isadel’s word is law. Her knights and her Guard are hunting down the most powerful magic-wielders in the land, whether they serve earth or sky or neither, whether they are witches, wizards, or mages. With dreams of a glorious Kaskyan Empire, she will stop at nothing to gather them for her army.

Isham, a nineteen-year-old witch taught his craft by the Queen Mother herself, is now on the run. He has a little girl in tow, Magpie, a child with the most raw magic he’s ever seen. As they’re forced north, with him a brown-skinned foreigner and her a blue-skinned elf, they become more and more recognisable.

To escape the Queen’s clutches, they need all the allies they can get. A survivor from Magpie’s decimated elven clan. A mighty swordswoman from far to the east. A charming young man unlucky enough to be blessed by the spirits of the air. And last but not least, a wizard who’s been running from the Queen—and something far worse—since she was born.

They’re a small force compared to the Queen’s knights. They might still be able to make it out of the country, find a ship to Ghazar or Valaguerra. Yet as they discover the full magnitude of the Queen’s plans, they begin to realise that they cannot abandon their home—and that the only way to truly escape Isadel’s war is to stop it, once and for all.

MORE EXCERPTS

(There is no taglist yet but I can make one if people are interested!)

[rachelswritings]

here, have a random no-context excerpt. why write any of your established wips when you can write random self-indulgent high fantasy that you came up with two days ago

[rachelswritings]

akws characters -> rhydion

“Ah, there you all are!”

Isham raised an eyebrow and looked up to see Rhydion. He was silhouetted against the evening sun on the high walkway above, red and white hair caught momentarily in a blaze of sunset. He leapt down to them easily, landing with a roll, a casual feat of those carnival acrobatics somehow not hindered by his extraordinary coat. Magpie gasped delightedly.

“Show-off,” muttered Lyria.

“Magpie doesn’t mind,” he said, winking conspiratorially at the little girl. He leaned back against the wall, turning to Isham with a bright grin on his angular face. “Are those flowers for me?”

Isham, who was organising the herbs he’d collected into the dun horse’s pack, afforded him an amused glance. He’d barely spoken to the others all day, but Rhydion was somehow easier. Isham had always liked people who took up space so that he didn’t have to. “They’re healing herbs,” he said. “So maybe. If you have very bad luck.”

“Perfect,” said Rhydion lightly. “The one thing I can always rely on.”

Rhydion is a mage—barely. From his trace of elven blood he has a mere spark of elemental magic, but with a few carnival tricks it can be made into something extraordinary. If only he’d also been born with the survival instinct to hide it. Thankfully, his other talent is making friends and allies wherever he goes, from famous wizards to the country’s best swordswoman.

Some people would describe his appearance and personality as... ostentatious. He wears a distinctive red and blue coat, and he never hides the remarkable half-white hair that came from using potions to transition. It certainly pleases him to be noticed. However, deep down is a colder streak of loyalty and ambition. He’ll never give up on his friends or his dreams. And if it’s what it takes to save the life of his childhood friend, Lyria Mordayne, he’s willing to make an enemy of the Queen herself.

TAGLIST -> @solarflare-ink | @novel-novelist | @ofwordsandwonders | @maryscots | @purgatoryforever | @atbwrites | @the-violet-writer | @sprigofbasil | @alternativeforensicscientist (Please ask to be added or removed!)

[rachelswritings]

akws characters -> isham of arcalen

“When I was a child, I had nothing,” he admitted. When was the last time he’d spoken of this? Had such words ever crossed his lips? “I was nothing. Powerless, nameless, hopeless. The Queen Mother saved me from that.” He laughed a small, mirthless laugh, shaking his head as he took another swig of the strong northern ale, not even noticing its burn. “And I betrayed her. Her family, her legacy, everything she’d worked for. What does that make me?”

He wasn’t really expecting an answer. Yet when he glanced up, Rhydion’s expression was thoughtful, even earnest. It was the first time since they’d met that Isham had seen him consider something without the slightest hint of humour in his face. “I think,” he said, slowly, “that it might just make you the bravest man I’ve ever met.”

Most Kaskyans are wary of foreigners. They rarely warm to Isham, with his quiet, serious demeanor, his ragged cloak, and his sharp, haunted face. Suspicion would follow him even if there wasn’t a small elven girl at his heels. Few would imagine, then, that this strange pair of travellers grew up in the royal household.

Isham was plucked from the capital’s streets and raised as one of the Queen Mother’s infamous witches, trained to serve and protect her young daughter, Queen Isadel. Yet Isadel grew up into a monster. When she revealed her scheme to force the kingdom’s magic-wielders into an army, Isham fled with the powerfully gifted child key to her plans. Now he is making a desperate attempt to escape the only family he has ever known.

TAGLIST -> @solarflare-ink | @novel-novelist | @ofwordsandwonders | @maryscots | @purgatoryforever (Please ask to be added or removed!)

[rachelswritings]

akws characters -> magpie

The innkeeper’s eyes nervously darted between them, then down to the floor. Distaste rose like bile in Isham’s throat. He understood the decision to betray a stranger like himself. Everyone in this remote region was hungry for coin, and the weight of prejudice was against his foreign blood and harsh appearance. But to give Magpie up, too?

Right now, the girl looked smaller than ever in the hands of the tall woodland elf. She was still in her nightgown. Without her customary cloak, the pale silver scar across her throat was visible against her deep blue skin, and she had had her arms wrapped around her to keep out the cold. Her grip on the nightgown’s folds was white-knuckled with nervous energy. Yet when she saw Isham looking at her, she smiled shakily at him. Frightened, but brave. She trusted him to get them out of this scrape like he’d gotten them out of all the others.

Isham couldn’t imagine being willing to betray her. Well, of course he couldn’t. That was, after all, exactly how he’d gotten into this mess.

Little Magpie might look helpless, but she possesses a great and terrible magic. Unlike a witch’s or a wizard’s, her power isn’t taken from spirits. It’s her own, a rare ability she was born with and can’t control, and a war-hungry young queen is desperate to take it and use it.

She’s being protected by Isham, a witch who is using potions to keep her wild magic at bay. That’s what has left a streak of white in her hair. Yet Isham is only one person against the Queen’s forces—forces which have already decimated Magpie’s mountain elf clan for trying to hide her. With her magic getting harder and harder to conceal, nowhere in the kingdom is safe.

TAGLIST -> @solarflare-ink | @novel-novelist | @ofwordsandwonders | @maryscots | @purgatoryforever | @atbwrites | @the-violet-writer

[rachelswritings]

another excerpt from the isham & magpie story. sometimes getting yourself intentionally possessed by the spirits of the earth (who then try to use you to murder someone) can freak out small children, even if you’re doing it to protect them

[rachelswritings]

I just saw your introduction post for lyria and your wip sounds so interesting?? Could I be added to your taglist for akws please?

of course! thank you so much!!