A Portrait of Lovers

Hi! Not dead. Moving right along, I have a short story for you. It is only appropriate for mature audiences, so if you are under 18, at work, or squeamish about sex, pass this by.

It’s a romantic and sexual interlude between Aethra and Ardanir, two of my oldest Fae. It is written without spoilers for the main story. It’s just a story of two lovers, passionate and young and deeply in love with each other. Ardanir is Queen Aethra’s chosen consort, meaning they are married but Ardanir does not have the same status as a king. It’s just the way the Fae work in my world.

And yes, it is explicit, so again, this is going behind a page cut and you may click through to see the story in its entirety. Just remember, these characters are my property, so no swiping them.

For trigger warnings, the only one I can think applicable is that they do discuss attempting to conceive an heir. If you are experiencing fertility issues this might be painful to read, so just read at your discretion. Without further ado:

The Allegorical Dragon

Once in a while I think of a really great topic to write about. Today, and for a few days prior, I’ve been hard at work on dragon information. This is a dragon species page, which contains information I’ve come up with under many different headings, such as Appearance and Physical Characteristics, Habitat, Diet, Magic, Mating, Reproduction, Lifespan, Social Behavior, Societal Structure & Hierarchy, and much more!

But today I want to go a little bit off to the side of the actual information. You see, of course, why dragons have been on my mind so much lately! I’ve focused almost all of my writing time on coming up with more information about dragons — everything to do with them. However, for today’s topic, I want to speak about a “hypothesis” of mine.

I think dragons are an allegory for the ultimate expression of subjective, ideal human nature. 

Let’s consider.

The Rose and the Rebel

It’s been a while, so I come bearing gifts! A silly, bawdy poem written for no reason other than “I needed something to do and it sounded like a good way to pass the time.”

It’s called The Rose and the Rebel, and it’s part of the Ethiedus world. I’ve yet to come up with the name of the “Rose” in the story, but it’s probably not Rose!

The poem is behind an expanded link due to the adult nature of the content, please click to read more or scroll if you’re already here!

Of and In The World

I’ve been working a lot on Ethiedus and have made progress in considerable spurts since my last blog post. Thousands and thousands of words of progress. It’s going kind of slow at the moment, which is why I figured I’d do a blog post.

I had just finished deciding what the church or temple of each god does in the world, what functions it performs. For those who don’t know, I have six main gods in the world. Isannus, Ceusi, Kalimor, Niasis, Celaestus, and Eolande. After each god’s paragraph, I have inserted the emblem I made (a few years ago) for the god just described.

Isannus is god of strength and justice. His priests are mediators of disputes, and counselors to those who need strength. Basically, anything you need an archetypal father figure for. Isannus is also the only god who can remove the gift of magic from a person. It remains a very secret ritual and is very hard to undergo. It’s not something you take on lightly, but it can be done.

Isannus’ emblem

Ceusi is the mother goddess figure, and her churches often end up ministering to young families and pregnant people. They tend to be the ones making sure there’s enough to eat and everyone’s handling the stress of new children well. Her churches also shelter victims of domestic violence.

Ceusi’s emblem

Kalimor’s churches are very interesting places. They are the agitators of change and social justice. The priests are often queer and/or openly trans or non-binary (though I don’t have specific words (yet?) for trans or nb folks in this society)… They tend to be very unique in their self-expression. It’s not uncommon to see priests of Kalimor with tattoos and piercings! They are involved in politics and advocate most often for the betterment of human rights provisions. They’re also an underground resistance network of people working actively against anti-magic hysteria, which mounts rapidly in the time the main story takes place. They often shelter witches and weak or highly specialized sorcerers or sorceresses.

Kalimor’s emblem

Niasis is the goddess of magic and magical healing, among other things, and her churches choose to focus on being places of care for those who need it: most often, the sick or the dying. Magical and mundane healers alike work in her halls. Most magical healers also have mundane healing skills as well, because magic is based in sacrifice and thus you wouldn’t go around using magic for every scraped or banged up knee. They’re the ‘specialists’ you call when someone has severe injuries, severe pain, severe symptoms. Niasis is also patron of thieves and agency, so she really doesn’t ask questions. If you’re hurt, her healers heal you, no matter who you are.

Niasis’ emblem

Eolande’s churches are very social. She’s at once your typical goddess of love, beauty, music, the dawn, and joy, and your less typically seen goddess of grief. She is also blind. In her churches, you will find wedding ceremonies, funeral services, and concerts with devotional music taking place. Any kind of basic community event is welcome. Babies are not baptized in this religion, so that’s not a thing, but you would also see things like confirmation rituals taking place here. Dedications, any commitment you want to make formally. Things like that.

Eolande’s emblem

And churches of Celaestus are scholarly institutions, as he is the god of prophecy, medicine, dreams, and so forth. They train mundane healers, as well as studying and teaching advanced academic subjects. Basically, the wise come to Celaestus for wisdom.

Celaestus’ emblem

There are also commonly rooms in each church dedicated solely to prayer and meditation. These are quiet spaces, meant to provide room for reflection upon the gods and the opportunity to find a moment of peace in a very active religion. The followers of each god respect and honor them in different ways, but as you can see, the most basic tenet of this religion is kindness. To be pious in Ethiedus is not merely an act of lip service and quoting doctrine and scripture, but an active upholding of the ideals the gods represent. This is not a world in which it is acceptable to sit on your hands and hope the gods do the work for you. These gods expect you to get your hands dirty and do the work. You still find pockets of complacency and corruption, but for the most part, no one’s hands lay idle. I find a lot of inspiration for the major religion of this world (no competing ones are around at the moment) under the umbrella of paganism, where your own agency is heavily emphasized. But there is so much more to come, and as the world of Ethiedus changes, so do its gods.

 

Happily Ever Afters Don’t Come Easily

Hello everyone! I’ve been working hard on Ethiedus and coming up with new and interesting things to do to my characters. The plot is moving along nicely, and I’m currently taking a short side trip to write a fairy tale for the lore library. And like most of your true fairy tales, it’s become quite dark. The idea came out of a sentence:

“Did you forget you’re made of glass?”

The story is about Sima, a glass doll enchanted to life. She has thoughts, emotions, feelings. She feels pain and joy. But she is still lesser and other to those who created her. Sima falls in love with Rainan, the son of the sorcerer who enchanted her. Falren, the sorcerer, sends the boy away to clear his head, and sells Sima to the glassblower Irven who has coveted her since he saw her come to life. In the process of making the deal, Sima’s entire appearance is changed without her consent, and her voice is taken away as an unnecessary and irritating feature, rather than being seen as her right as a thinking and feeling creature. Sima is terrified and knows what she is heading into, and searches for a way out. But Falren and Irven anticipate her desire for freedom, and there are things that bar her way. I wonder will she find freedom and live her life? Or will the forces arrayed against her win out? I still don’t know, myself. But I am really enjoying the process of finding out. One thing is certain: happily ever afters don’t come easily. And sometimes, they don’t come at all.

Details

It’s really incredible how many details there are to work out for a story of this scope. I don’t often have updates for you, but I’m always turning something over in my head or hammering out a detail here or there, adding to things until the whole world sprawls out lush and vivid in my head.

Just to give you a brief example, here are some of the aspects of the story I’ve been working on lately:

• Working on a short lore side story called Eolande and the Three-Day Dawn, which is going to shape the mythology surrounding that particular goddess
• Trying to figure out whether a plague manifests, and how
• Where to stash a kidnapping victim in a busy castle
• Filling out many character biographies
• Working out family connection charts (Family Echo is a fantastic tool for this!)
• Figuring out political/alliance relationships and whether reciprocal feelings enter into play for each relationship
• What poisonous attributes a fictional plant called Valley Bittercup, endemic to Aldramor, has, and who sourced it into Sereche
• Dragon race page revamp – 20 headings to fill out!
• Miscellaneous random ideas jotted down for later

So even if I’m not saying much, I’m doing a lot. My pain makes things very difficult, unfortunately, but it can’t squash my dedication to getting this story told. So it will happen and it is happening, slowly but surely.

Still Not Dead

…might as well be the title of my autobiography. I’m still here and still working on stories. Mostly focusing on The Wards of Ethiedus right now (it has a name, at last!), and I’ve recently figured out what will be happening in untitled Book 3. So now I have a pretty good arc of story to follow and to help guide me through writing the first book.

I made some friends recently and directed them here, and wanted to give a shout-out to them in particular. Hi, friends! ❤ You know who you are. Hope you are well.

I’m really excited about the trajectory of the storyline for Ethiedus, and though I don’t necessarily know exactly how I’ll end up going from A to B to C here, I’ll have fun along the way. It doesn’t leave me a lot of creative latitude to plot out every single detail, so I don’t. I just know where I’m going, and along the way I find some interesting things. It’s how I prefer to write.

Anyway, I don’t have a snippet of my own writing for you today, because everything is very spoiler-y right now, but I did want to share a favorite poem of mine. I recently shared one of them (not this one) with a friend, and these poems have special meaning to me. They lift me up when I feel down, and remind me that I am not the only one struggling. They remind me to be kind to myself, which I would remind you to be, too. I’d love to post two here but I will just say, if this does not whet your appetite for wisdom in poetry, go find the Desiderata (“Desired Things”) by Max Ehrmann. This one is by Mary Oliver.

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Be well.

Damnation by Moonlight

I have a short story to share with you! It is… well, let’s just say I didn’t pull any punches. It’s sad and macabre, and I kind of love it. Let me know what you think. 🙂 The title is “Damnation by Moonlight”. This is the full piece, so please respect my ownership of my work and, if you would like to share it anywhere, share the blog link. Don’t copy and paste. Thank you!

Where the Lilac Grows

Well, that was a long absence! But lately I’ve been writing again. It comes and goes, but right now the inspiration is back, so I’m posting again. Tonight I thought I’d share a poem I just wrote. The poem is an exercise for my Ethiedus world, a love poem from Dorian Anneroy to Lirania Terrell. Dorian is a prior at Isenvale Abbey, and he’s a healer as well. He is patient, faithful, and self-sacrificing. And he is deeply in love with Lirania Terrell, a relation of the abbot who came to the abbey with her two small children several years ago (at the time of the poem’s writing). Dorian cannot be with Lirania due to vows he has made, and Lirania is very focused on her growing children first and foremost in any case. Lirania tends the beehives at Isenvale Abbey, works in her small flower garden, and helps make candles both for the monks’ use and to sell to support the Abbey. But the love is mutual, if chaste. Dorian spends a lot of time with Lirania, teaching her the healer’s arts, and talking of many things. They never seem to run out of conversation. Dorian is one of the few who know that Lirania Terrell was once Lady Reias Greylyn, widow of the late Lord Corsam Greylyn, and that her children are more than they seem. Intimacy has carefully blossomed between them in Lirania’s time at Isenvale Abbey, and now Dorian has written her a poem to express the depth of his love. So here’s what I wrote tonight, “Where the Lilac Grows” — I hope you like it.

Where the lilac grows in your garden
So too will you find me there,
Awaiting the touch of your hand
Soft as sunlight and delicate as bee’s wings.
So carefully do you tend them,
Keeper of my honeycombed heart,
No winged hive-dweller would grudge you your due.
Neither can I begrudge you this love,
Unsought and unbidden,
Transformative as spring rains.
The landscape of my heart has changed.
You, no naive young girl,
No stranger to pain and loss,
Say the garden of your heart is dead and withered
But I know the truth of your beauty.
I see the love in your eyes,
When your little ones play at games
When you tuck them in at night
When you look, then, at me
And over tea we talk late into the dark.
I see the love in your eyes.
You say
You don’t know how to love me
But the beautiful thing
Is that you already do.
Would that our lips would someday meet
Would that I could caress your bare skin
With all the tender desire that I feel
But should it never come to pass thus,
I will regret none of the hours
We have spent exchanging words
Long into the reaching twilight.
No promises have touched our lips
Nor can vows of love pass mine
But here, in secret, you will know my devotion
And I am content.
Tender sweetness, like the honey in your hives,
And love as gentle
As the light from the candle in your window
Guides me
Guides me home.

Mixed Media

Today I’ve got two things for you. A (more?) complete regional map of Selari and its neighbors, and a teaser for a short story project that I’m working on.

You might have to squint a little, but as you can see, we have towns and a bit more geographical information now. Khosseth will be the capital of the Selari Kingdom, I think, so I’ve made the font just slightly larger to denote that. I also added an almost-imperceptible touch of snow to the heights of the larger mountains and smoothed out an “oops” of an edge where there should not have been one.

Our first protagonist’s story will start in Emmerton, a little northwest of Khosseth. I hadn’t planned to put her so close to the capital, but I think I’ve actually made things a little easier on myself with that. All in all, the map will help me tell the story a little easier.

And now the short story news, which is a bit of a diversion from my main fiction projects, but I really want to get the wheels turning a bit more freely before I put any kind of pressure on myself to write something good.

The premise is pretty simple. The story is called Keep the Change. These are the first lines:

“And what is in each of these bottles will change me, all in different ways?”

“For one day only, yes.”

I didn’t have to think on it long. “I’ll take seven.”

You’ll get seven, possibly eight mini-chapters, and they’ll be posted here on my blog once I’ve finished the story and gone back and tweaked it to my satisfaction. I’m almost done writing the second bottle now, and I have plans for the rest, so it shouldn’t be too long, but it might be quiet around here while I work on the story. Then I’ll release it over the course of about a week, I think.

Hopefully, it will be fun for all involved. I’m enjoying writing the story and thinking about how I want it to end.

That’s about it for now! Maps and writing, writing and maps.

Quick discussion question for anyone who feels like commenting:

On the subject of change, if you could change something about yourself for one day, what would you choose to change, and how would it change? Bonus cookies for answering “why” as well. Serious and frivolous answers welcome alike.