Just Another Update

Just popping in to let you know that I haven't fallen off the face of the earth.

Really.

Still working on my fanfiction. I'm up to about 40 handwritten pages and I've edited and published 2 chapters at fanfiction.net. I *think* I'm about halfway done. Maybe a little more. Hard to tell at this point.

I've also started school again, so that's been taking a pretty big chunk of my time. Surprisingly, I'm doing much better at algebra than I am at writing. Granted, the class is Technical Writing, but still... so weird.

So, I promise I'll be back to finish up The Key and get going on some other stuff as soon as this ravenous fanfic lets go of me. :)

Quick Update

I know I haven't posted anything in a while and I wanted to let you know that I am still writing. Right now, I'm working on a fan fiction (of all the silly things). When I finish, if I post it anywhere, it won't be here because the manga I'm basing it on has some mature content and the fan fic itself contains some language.

And to those who know me, I say, "I know, right? The disbelieving look you're giving your monitor on my behalf is totally not lost on me." And to those who don't know me, I will tell you that I'm the queen of "good girls". I was the goody-two-shoes of my private Christian school. So the language thing is completely out of character for me. Like, to the point where I was blushing furiously while I was writing and I thought, "This is just sad."

So that's what's going on with me right now. And I still have the key story bubbling on the back burner. First line of the next section? 'And then the cat showed up.'

Skysnakes (part 2)

The forest was cool and still except for the faint squeals and hisses of the angry skysnakes. Their sounds were my guide and the louder they got, the more cautious I became until I was slipping from tree trunk to tree trunk like the fabled assassins in the stories the village boys seemed so fond of.

Finally, I found myself concealed in the shadow of a tree on the edge of a clearing. The skysnakes were a veritable swarm of activity, but the few that flew near my hiding place ignored me. I inched my way around the trunk as quietly as I knew how, but still, when I peered into the clearing, could not escape the hypnotic gaze of a legend: a Great Skysnake. Rivaling a dragon in size, easily big enough to carry two full-grown men in flight, it stared at me as if it had known I was there all along. Which, I thought ruefully, it probably had.

But where was its bond? The magnificent creature was injured, one wing rendered useless by a gash through the muscle connecting it to the body. Surely its bond wouldn't have just abandoned it. 'Him,' I corrected myself, knowing it was true but unsure exactly how I knew. The thought crossed my mind that the bond could've died, but I dismissed it. If the bond died, so would the Skysnake.

Unable to tear my eyes from that majestic gaze, I searched the clearing with my peripheral vision, but saw no one. Great Skysnakes were incredibly rare, but one unbonded in the wild? Unheard of.

I wanted to touch him. He was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and I wanted contact more that I could remember wanting anything before, and yet I hesitated. These creatures had a reputation for visciousness toward any but their bonds and I had no idea how a wounded one would react to a stranger, except that it couldn't be good.

Despite my trepidation, though, I found my feet moving of their own accord toward those incredible eyes. Without warning, the Skysnake's tail lashed out toward me, stopping so precisely that the wickedly sharp tip rested in the middle of my forehead. My vision filled with a golden-green light and my very being filled with a presence so ~other~ that my senses were overwhelmed. The last thing I heard were the distant shrieks and hisses of the terrified, fleeing skysnake flock.

I woke to a notably quiet clearing and the gentle nuzzle of a scaly snout. ~Concern~ radiated through me and it took me a moment to realize it wasn't my emotion I was feeling. Without thinking, I reached a reassuring hand toward the Skysnake and felt ~concern~ melt into ~relief~.

It was only then that I realized what had happened. This creature of legend, this being of indescribable beauty, had chosen as his lifelong bonded partner a disheveled, unsure, lowly servant girl. He'd chosen me. I gazed at him in sheer, open-mouthed wonder and felt his amused affection glitter through me like stardust.

Then the pain hit. I felt his wound as if it were my own. Scrambling to my feet, I followed an instinct that wasn't entirely my own and pressed my forehead to my new bond's. I felt him draw on my life-force and a wave of dizziness washed over me, but I steeled myself against it, determined to be strong for him. For us.

He drew back after a moment and I clutched at him, trying to keep my feet under me. He stayed perfectly still, allowing me to lean on him until I could stand on my own again.

There was no pain. I saw that the place where there had been a bloody gash was now pristine, every scale in place as if the wound had never been.

I turned, smiling, to my bond and felt his joy and mine reflecting each other like two mirrors until I couldn't contain the laughter that bubbled up in me. At his urging, I settled astride his back, hooking my knees around his wing joints and then we warped into flight.

Below I saw my mistress and the ragtag search party she'd assembled to find me. We flew low enough that I could see them all gawping at me. The face of my (former) mistress flowed from confusion to rage as I waved cheerily to her before gaining altitude and angling toward the capitol city of Lyrin and my new life.

Key, cont.

When I got home, I popped a frozen dinner in the microwave and sat down to contemplate my mysterious new key. I was hoping that it simply wanted a quiet place to tell its story, but it still refused to communicate.

The microwave beeped and I set the key on the table, only to snatch it back, startled, as the insistent buzzing began again. It didn't want to reveal its secrets, but it also didn't want me to let it go. I huffed at it in frustration and shoved it back in my pocket, only digging it out again when I was settled with my mostly warm dinner. I turned it over and over in my hand while I ate, searching for any mark or stamp I may have missed, but the key was as much an enigma at the end of my meal as it had been at the beginning.

After dumping the dinner tray in the trash and my fork in the sink, I rummaged around in the junk drawer for the roll of twine I'd only just remembered stashing there. I cut a length and threaded the key on, tying it around my neck. I kept the twine long enough that I could examine the key, even while wearing it. And that's when it finally began to communicate, albeit so subtely I would've missed it, had it not tickled so much.

At first I thought it was just the normal movement as your average pendant, but then I noticed that I could turn around while standing perfectly straight and still feel the key skitter across my skin. So I took my shirt off and bent slightly to let the key dangle away from my body, where it buzzed faintly in protest, then rotated slowly around it. I'm sure I was quite the sight: a full-grown, half-naked man bent awkwardly at the waist, body orbiting a dangling key as if engaged in some sort of geriatric waltz, but it told me what I wanted to know. They key pulled in only one direction.

West.

The Key

I love finding lost keys. Doesn't matter what kind. House keys, padlock keys, desk keys, even music box keys, as long as they're lost, they call to me. And, when I find them, they tell me their stories.

All except one.

It all started the day a friend asked me to help him replace some drywall in his house. I could hear the key the moment I walked in the door. It was one of the most insistent callings I'd ever experienced, the drone so loud that I had trouble concentrating on the conversation I was trying to have. Fortunately, my friend was oblivious to both the call and my distraction. He simply handed me a hammer and pointed to a section of wall. To my immense relief, I found this to be where the noise was loudest. I struck at the wall with a ferocity that surprised both of us, but my friend simply left me to it.

Each blow widened the hole and increased the volume of the buzzing until I thought my teeth would vibrate out of my head. Then, I saw it: the faint, golden gleam of the key. I reached in, grabbing it from its hook.

Silence. I breathed a sigh and held the key, waiting for it to reveal its secrets to me, as every other lost key I'd ever found had.

It refused.

"What?" I whispered at it. "All that ruckus and now you've got nothing to say?"

Silence.

I studied it. It was like no key I'd ever come across. It appeared to be pure gold and the bow was crafted of filigree so fine it seemed it would shatter at the slightest touch. The blade, on the other hand, had teeth so wickedly sharp that it appeared the key had fangs. My curiosity was piqued in a way that was entirely new to me. I squeezed the key until it bit me, but it remained stubbornly quiet. There was nothing to do except pocket it and promise myself I would unravel its mysteries at the first opportunity.

So...

... haven't posted in awhile. We went to the Oregon Country Fair last weekend with my Mom-in-Law and I was trying to put together something fun about it, but I just couldn't wrestle the thing into submission, which is a shame. There were some really fabulous characters out there. I think I'm okay with that, though. The way to get better at anything is to practice and the way to practice writing is to write (thank you, David Gerrold, for that insight). And sometimes you just need to let yourself write badly. Still, I do believe that the spectacle-and-a-half that is the Oregon Country Fair would make an excellent setting for a story, so I'll let it simmer on the back burner for a bit and see what bubbles up. :)

Mim

The movie "The Sword in the Stone" contains my favorite Disney villain, possibly even my favorite villain of all time: Madam Mim. Now, I'm a sucker for green eyes (see Schmendrick the Magician, Harry Potter, Cho Hakkai, my husband...) and what I wouldn't give to have hair that silvery shade of purple, but my love of Mim goes deeper than simply her physical attributes. I've found that most villains brood more than your average goth teenager, have a decidedly monochromatic wardrobe and some of them even seem like they might have been decent people at some point. But not Mim. She appears to have made the choice to be evil long ago and she revels in it. Every act of wrongdoing elicits gleeful chuckling and, while her laughter can be as maniacal as any other's, it has an undercurrent of pure joy most villains lack. Her desire to indulge in the darker arts did not stem from outside circumstances, was not cultivated to further any personal ambition, was not a result of parental love she failed to win. No. She's evil because, dang it, it's FUN! If I was a villain, I would want to be like her: extravagant in her enjoyment of evil. She's my anti-hero. She is the magnificent, marvelous, mad Madam Mim.