Forever and Today

Konichiwa; soy Mini! Hoy, hablamos del amor y soulmates:
(Yes. That was japanese--> spanish--> english >.<')

Life:
Summer school part one--complete! Yay! Now I have a week off and then summer school part two begins. :P

Writing:
For NaNoWriMo 2014 I'll be working on Zephyr, the tale of Alina Zephyr. Between working out the details of that, I'll be working on a fanfiction for AshMac's novel Island Prophecy and on Sorcerer, a collaboration between Forsaken and me.
Next week I will be posting about some summer reading/ gaming.

Forever and Today:
Another soul-mate related concept, continuing off the Maze from last week. This concept is a little different. For the same microfictions group that brought you Irregular Orbit and Nothing and Nowhere, I wrote Forever and Today to the theme of "Forever".

On her 60^th birthday, Cerine Notalwaski looked no older than 20. At nearly 16, Jira aimed to be like her Aunt Cerine: forever young. 

“Sweetheart, Emily made it.” Jira’s uncle, who’d also remained immortal, announced the arrival of their close friend—one who’d sacrificed her youth for her love. He crossed the room and helped Jira up, naturally avoiding his wife even as he spoke to her. 

At the foot of the tower, Emily Evvans—looking exactly like her fifty years, introduced her teenage son. 

Jira and Ethan didn’t need the introduction. The moment they were in the same room, they started watching each other with stunned fascination. All the light in the world shifted, making the other the focal point of their existence.  

The adults didn’t notice the change until Jira slipped. When Ethan reached forward instinctively to help her, she screamed, warning him away. But what everyone else was oblivious to was absolutely certain for them: they were soulmates. 

At first, keeping away from each other was easy. But as the months passed and their relationship grew stronger, so did the temptation to move closer, just as their hearts had. Pair by pair, their friends traded immortality for the freedom of physical contact. 

“I’d give up forever to touch you,” Ethan whispered. “To be able to hug you when you cry.” 

Across the room, Jira dried her tears and didn’t move. “I’d give up that warmth today to spend forever at your side.”

Process/ Inspiration:

The concept of the story came from an old story idea that a high school writing club member prompted: Everyone is immortal until they touch their soulmate. Once you meet/ see/ are in the proximity of them, you'll know, absolutely and certainly, who they are. But once you touch, even accidentally, you'll start to age. 

I wrote a short, incomplete story to the concept back then, which appears to have been lost in the computer crash in Christmas 2011. In that original version, Jira and Ethan meet as kids, neither of which can fly or do magic very well yet. In that one, both of them are curious about each other, but also very resolute to not give up their magic and immortality. In the end, Ethan falls off the edge of the cliff of Jira's oceanside mansion. He's hanging on to the side, but when Jira tries to help him up he warns her back. She runs back to get help from the adults, but it's too late. Jira is heartbroken and goes through life miserable and unwilling to be optimistic or whatever, but no one believes that soulmates can meet so early and try to convince her to regain hope in life. 

For this microfiction, I started with the same idea, but with the intention of letting them get to talk for a bit so that they could talk about the concept of forever. I ended up trimming everything down to what you see, hoping to preserve the main points of the soulmate concept and illustrate it, instead of just tell. I realized in retrospect I could have cut out some of the unnecessary stuff about their interactions with the adults. XD

For 250 words though, I think it's decent. I don't know if this story in particular or this concept will be elaborated more, but we'll see.

Maze

About last week, my friend and fellow writer Forsaken came up with a story idea.

This past Wednesday morning around 5:50, after an all-nighter dedicated to writing a lab report, I started writing for a "20 minute break". I go so into it that I just wrote the entire story. I stopped typing, glanced up at the upper-right corner of my computer and realized it was 7:50. 

The entire piece is still kind of messy and I think the same word is almost never used to describe an action more than once, so it reads kind of crazy. Nonetheless, I'm quite proud of this writing endeavor. If only I didn't have to pul all-nighters to do this kind of thing T_T

I've withheld the premise of the story for the afterstory comments in the hopes that people will actually understand the story and the final line without knowing the premise beforehand. Please enjoy the return of the standard characters! XD

Maze
WC: 1,266

Fifty thousand leagues from any civilization is the Maze. The only thing you can trust to be real is yourself. The only things you can trust to help you are those that try to kill everything before they know what it is. The only way to get out and live is to die within. 

Cisternae felt a warning buzz in his head even before he heard the footsteps of the oncoming mazelings. He loaded up his pistols, readying himself for anything the Maze could throw at him—and it had thrown,  jumped, even dumped plenty of strange things at him already. But he’d survived splendidly thus far and planned to keep it that way. Safety off, trigger ready. 

Behind him. Two on the ground, maybe three or more behind that. He didn’t even look back as he started running, shooting a few bullets behind him in case Lady Luck was looking kindly upon him. He turned corners and ran down diverging lanes with subconscious decisiveness, hoping to draw the mazelings into a dead end, where he could burst them down without worrying about being jumped from behind. 

They were gaining on him. Cisternae whirled, emptying both of his pistols in a matter of seconds. Three violet-colored mazelings burst into smoke and dust, but the others kept charging at him. He stashed the empty guns and drew the sword from his back, waiting for contact. It came, claw on blade. And then in a flash, his blade was driving through the claw, and into the head of the beast. Slash, slash, uppercut and smash—he cut the mazelings into dust before the next wave materialized from the the hedge next to him. He ran on, sheathing the sword and reloading his guns as he sought a better fighting ground. 

He rushed into an open arena, hedged in a wide circle all sides except for the way he’d come. Cisternae turned, eyes narrowed, and swapped the guns for the sword again. Whirlpools of gray smoke opened in the sand around him, signaling the arrival of more mazeling company. 

“Bring it.”

The mazelings didn’t hesitate to attack and Cisternae didn’t either. His blade waltzed around the battlefield, turning purple skin to gray smoke. For every creature he that fell, two more seemed to rise in its place. But even this couldn’t slow his onslaught. The sword in his hand swung as though it were controlled by his mind, cutting through anything around him. 

Then he glimpsed up, and saw the latest mazeling threat—airborne.

Cisternae switched his sword to one hand and cocked a pistol with the other, wary of the winged mazeling barreling towards him. Then, just before he fired, a shard of ice jutted from its chest. The winged beast vanished into smoke, just as its earth-bound brethren had fallen to Cisternae’s sword.

—

Qualia directed her staff up, throwing out ice and fire from the same attack. As the mazeling in front of her burned into gray dust, she ducked, dodging a crooked claw. In the next instant, sand beneath it opened and dropped the clawed creature back to the void it came from. Wind spiraled around her and slammed another monster backwards and into the sword that killed it. She met the gaze of the other mortal for a dangerous moment.

They should have been fighting each other, driving each other into the next horde of mazelings that spawned. They’d both proven themselves fighters—that is, they’d both demonstrated to each other  that they were much more lethal than the average maze-dweller. That meant they were a threat to each other. 

Yet Qualia found herself back to back with the swordsman, directing a shield of fire around the both of them, and relying on him to raze the mazelings as they neared. Even without speaking, their movements harmonized. Slash and burn in perfect synchrony.  It was strange, because she’d never met him before. She’d never even seen someone like him—sun-kissed golden-brown skin, and shadow-streaked eyes—no, she had definitely never encountered this person. 

—

Cisternae felt a rush of heat and exhilaration whirl around him, scathing the nearest monsters. His sword arched up and around, beheading the creatures as they came. He wasn’t watching his back anymore— his focus was directly before him, slicing through the lilac sea. Creatures seemed to line up, partially frozen or rooted to the ground, awaiting his blade. His sword was a guillotine, and he was the mazeling executioner. 

He tore through their ranks, turning what he could to dust and directing what he couldn’t into  fireballs or thorns. Sometimes blades of air joined his weapon, and together, swords of metal or wind stabbed through their enemies. He parried an attack, and a jet of water countered in the same instant. 

Qualia felt a spark of happiness light up her face, and a tremble of amusement grazed her as her partner danced past. She touched upon a kind of freedom she hadn’t known since she’d been trapped within the Maze. It was the way she and this boy worked so well together, ghosting past each other in perfect balance as they supported each other. It took her a moment to grasp the feeling. It was still fighting, but now, it was wicked fun. 

Cisternae laughed now as he destroyed the creepers that swarmed the arena. He’d never understood how the endless fight could be fun. Only now—and only with this girl. Two loose trails of chocolate swirled around her head as she turned and her smile was as bright as a sunrise beyond the Maze. He realized suddenly who she was. 

She was the reason his heart continued to beat and his body continued to move. She was the other half of the fragment he called himself. She was the person that could break the illusions around him. And that meant that she alone could decide how he would die. 

Qualia recognized it as well, as light scorched everything before her staff. The reason they defended each other and the meaning behind their unified fighting patterns and the very mechanism of their seamless thinking: they were soulmates. He was her antithesis. He was the only one who could understand her flawlessly. He was the only one in this world who could kill her.

Finally, a swing from her staff and a bang from his gun took out the last of the mazelings. To confirm the end of the day’s battle, a silver whirlpool opened up at the center of the arena, depositing a cornucopia filled with food, water, fresh clothes and all the amenities they could hope for. The fight was over. They knelt or leaned over their knees, breathing heavily and stowing their weapons. They had survived another day in the Maze. 

Cisternae contained his breath, but his expression betrayed both relief and anxiety. Qualia turned around slowly, but she shivered from a combination of excitement and terror. His guns were holstered and sword sheathed. Her limbs hung at her sides, the staff slung on her back. They were no longer on the edge. Yet neither moved towards the glimmering cornucopia.

They were still and silent as the adrenaline drained slowly from their blood. They both knew the person before them. Before them was the way out of the Maze. That was the final fight—for both of them. One of them could escape the Maze here and now. Yet they hesitated to move, because they both understood that death awaited both of them, albeit in different forms.

“So...bullet to the brain?"

Comments:

The original premise was a world where your soulmate was the only person that could kill you.

Thus, I made the only way to escape the maze is to die, and consequentially the only way to escape would be to find and get your soulmate to kill you. I think the idea got twisted when I was writing it into something like "only one person can escape/ only the killer gets away".

To restate, the conditions for leaving the maze are to find your soulmate, whom you will/ should recognize almost immediately, and then kill them. The line at the beginning, "The only way to get out and live is to die within," refers to the condition that if you want to survive and leave the maze, you have to kill the other half of your heart.

The speaker of the last line is intentionally vague. It could be Cisternae asking Qualia if a simple bullet will do, or Qualia requesting a quick death.

Origins of the Story:
Originally, Forsaken and I were talking about how our soulmates would be like in this AU (conversation roughly paraphrased):
me: dude, I would never die because he can't find me. I'd be sitting there like "SOULMATE-KUN COME FIND ME PLEASE. I WANNA LUV YOU"
Forsaken: I'd be the complete opposite. "DON'T YOU DARE LOOK FOR ME."
me: dude. no. You and your soulmate'd be beating everyone else up.

Forsaken: no...I can't be enjoying myself with him because if we're soul mates then all of sudden he's gonna be like, "so...bullet to the brain or...?"

She thought this was the funniest mental image ever and from there came up with the skeleton of the scene. During my productive all-nighter I fleshed out this skeleton into what you see now.

The whole soul-mate thing is similar to another soulmate concept I had earlier in high school. More on that next week :)

Best,
~Minerva

Sometimes

Hi! Sorry for the late update! The life-section is long. And it took a long time to write XD

Life: 

For summer, I have been hella busy.
In short though, for the first half of summer  (I daren't say what's happening the second half yet)

What I thought I was doing	What I’m actually doing/ trying to do
AKA What I signed up for and	What this means
Molecular Biology Lab	4 hrs of lab, twice a week * 5-8 hour lab reports**
0 classes	AP Comp Sci in 5 weeks*
Work Research	Work  Research/ trying to get stuff done and log hours in.
CSET (teacher credential exam)	Putting cramming skills to the test**
Sleep	Unable to wake up until 11..or 4.***
Writing/ wiring on projects	Don’t even have enough content to keep up with weekly blog posts
Time to play and improve at League	Flailing and failing
Getting organized	Room still a mess.

* Lab and Comp Sci are actually really fun and interesting. So I'm not complaining here. XD
** Only because I work hella slowly at academic stuff.
*** On the night after my CSET, I went to sleep around 1 and woke up at 15:00 the next day. I didn't actually get off the bed until 16:00.

If you're bored, this is an ad nauseum kinda script about how the conversation went on in my head:

End of Spring Quarter: 
Mini: I can't wait until summer! For the first half of summer, I'm only taking molecular biology lab and studying for the CSET (teacher credentialing test) early July. :) :)
Friends: ....o_O
Mini: And work.
Friends: O_O
Mini: And research.
Friends: .....O_O! (kinda maybe...ambitious?....)
Mini: Well it's going to be better than these last two quarters have been anyways ^_^
Family: kk. whatever you say, you deal with it.

From the First Week of Summer: 

Except this summer,
I'm the High Expectations Asian father,
talking to myself. >.<"

LazyMini/ the mini that sleeps and plays games and messes around : lalalala all I've been doing is sleeping and relaxing and playing League :D Summer is amazing.
WorkMini/ the mini that works and makes moolah: I know right? Because of all the extra time, I've been able to work more! Making bank! :D
NerdyMini/ the idealistic student mini : Omigosh there's this new AP Computer Science class at the tutoring center I work.....
WorkMini: Sounds like a great opportunity!
NerdyMini: Ikr! It's Java! I'm taking introductory programming in the fall anyways....and it even fits perfectly into my schedule!
WorkMini: Yay!
LazyMini: waitwait hold up. Even if it's just a intro to stuff you'll be learning in school, it's still a class. Like, homework and quizzes.
WriterMini: yea and if you still want to do CampNaNo or all the other writing projects.....
<Here the Nerdy and Work Minis tie up Lazy and Writer Minis. Nerdy Mini successfully signs up for the Java class. ^_^>
NerdyMini: I'm so excited!

After Summer School starts:
Mini/ the mini that has to actually put everything together and get stuff done: FML.
Optimistic Mini: It's ok. It'll all be better after the CSET is behind us.
Mini: You're right. Stay positive....OH SHOOT the CSET. *studycramstudy*

After the CSET:
Mini: YAY FINALLY SLEEP zzzzzzzzzZZZzZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZzzz
Lab report and comp sci hw: ......hey....we're kinda still....not done...or even started.
Writing projects: Seriously, man. Not cool. You keep switching up which one of us you're dating, but it's all in name anyways because it's not like you actually go on dates with us anyways.
Research project: Me too...*sniffle* You said we could be together this summer....but you're neglecting me again.... *weep*
Blog: Hey me too! You put me on hiatus for a month and now that it's summer you can't even get around to seeing me once a week?
Mini: FML.

Exercise: Hi! I had a reservation for this summer?

But even if I've got a lot on my plate and I'm still trying to juggle everything around, I'm really enjoying what I'm doing. Mol Bio isn't actually as hard as I thought it would be; I'm keeping up, and I'm enjoying the challenges. I'm super excited about the comp sci class, as I tell my coworkers whenever they ask. (I even had this idea of using my newly-learned programming to make a text adventure game of sorts.) Although I'm disheartened and "BLAH" at times, I'm happy to be so busy. I'll pull through and make everything work out, definitely.
>>>>http://instagram.com/p/mbfsC0yRX0/?modal=true
(Something motivational from earlier in the school year, and completely applicable here XD)

In case the above wasn't enough entertainment to you, an actual bit ball of words strung together: Sometimes: 
Today's writing bit is more like a rant I wrote based off a poem/ prose poem/ I-think-it's-a poem-so-suck-it that one of my friends scribbled onto my computer. As always, I hope you enjoy it!

Without further ado:

[Untitled]
By Jesus Castro 

sometimes i want to…..
sometimes i need to…..
sometimes i feel like dying….
the air thick….
the light dim….
the blade sharp….
does it end or does it begin….
who knows…

Below is the rant/ little reflection thing I wrote, inspired by the above. It pretty much follows what I feel like when I get miserable or introspective or generally reflective.

WC: 680

          Sometimes I want to fly, to leap off the balls of my feet and soar into the metaphorical battlefield of life and work. To charge in there, blades spinning out and back. I conquer the field with magic. My movements are swift, perfectly timed, and accented by eerie mystery. I sweep my hand and the blades transform into a staff, bladed on one side, and a pointed, pen-like wand on the other. A shard of ice bursts from the tip of my wand and the enemies are frozen to the ground, merciless at the string of elements I follow up with.  

         Sometimes I need to work, to just sit there and accept that I’ve messed up my own life with the poor decisions I’ve made. Sometimes I need to just stop making excuses for myself and come to terms with my defeat. But then, and more importantly, I need to change it. I need to make a plan, but more importantly follow it. Sometimes it’s just hours of grueling sitting there, chipping away at an assignment.  

         Sometimes I feel like dying, when I’m tired and drained and I still have all this work piled ahead because I wasn’t working. And I whisper that death would be like rewinding the clock, back to when I was young and had all the time in the world to build good habits and good skills and good relationships—and stuff that isn’t actually too late for me to get now. 

         The air thick around me, I wrap myself in my miseries and turn into a depressing little monster, bloated with my arrogance, languid with my laziness, rotting with my guilt. I glop around for a while, reeking of negativity and writing with anger. After a while of this though, I cast off the cloak of negativity, because I think it doesn’t quite fit me. I’m much more suited for clear days with a light breeze—optimism and bright, cheery, naivety, and a vigor that can’t be contained.  

         The light dim on the path ahead of me, I search—as I have, for some kind of light—for “who I am”. I learn though, maybe too late, that we don’t ever really find ourselves by searching for it. Rather, we realize who we are as we go out and try everything that strikes our fancy. The light’s not found sitting in the corner of a passive mind, waiting to light the way. It’s born as we stumble though the darkness and find our bearings slowly, with great struggle. 

        The blade sharp at my head, I tremble. It's threateningly close and jeering at my fright. This is the main part of the test—convincing the world holding the blade that I am trying and that my efforts are worth rewarding. It might be a facade. It might be a genuine plead. It might be a little bit of both—a true emotion, but a little exaggerated for the purposes of the mask. It’s this act that everyone tells me I’m good at, but whenever I look in the mirror, I see a ripped costume and bleary makeup and actions that were hastily choreographed.  

        Does it end or does it begin—my life, from this moment? Am I rushing towards failure or plowing towards success? I want a map. I want to know. I want to read a guidebook and repeat the answers, so I can pretend that I know what I’m doing and that I’m intelligent. But that’s somehow wrong, I also believe. In the confusing law of ethics and morality or humanity and idealism, reading the answers somehow feels wrong. Instead I ought to plunge into the unknown, like the image of myself flying into battle, confident and powerful and graceful. Except I’m not quite powerful or graceful. Not yet anyways. I can keep striving forward, taking tiny steps so I might not be seduced by sloth. But I wonder if the dreams in my head are actualizing themselves? Will my plans will work and my life will go where I want to go? 

        Who knows?  

Gunpoint

Hey everyone!

Since I've decided to drop the Drive By idea, or at least put it indefinitely on hiatus, I might as well just post this. Gunpoint was a little emo rant I wrote and rewrote in August 2013. Drive By would have been my attempt to put it in a little more context, but I think it is also fine by itself.

<I've read this probably a dozen times already; I might insert audio recording here as well sometime?>

WC: 1,560

Gunpoint 

         There is a gun pointed at my head.  

         It’s a silver- reinforced mana gun: soul-eater division one. The body of the gun is a pale silver sheen with three black rings positioned every other inch along the barrel starting with one at the muzzle that juts upward to form the sight. Three aesthetic ridges on either side of the  body lead down to a trigger guard studded with three small rubies on either side and a shiny red trigger. Black leather and spelled silk make a grip designed for only one hand. Poking out the back is a red hammer, with a minuscule hole drilled through the tip and a small knife charm hung there with a bit of rose gold wire. 

         It’s very fancy, but that doesn’t make it any less lethal. Past the aluminum casing is a pure platinum core that focuses magical energy siphoned into the gun through 20 tiny bullet- shaping crystals—each one handpicked diamond grade gems—and propels the newly minted bullet at its target at something near the speed of sound. Even the weakest shot from this gun will pierce through bone and tear through flesh, searing any living cell it doesn’t destroy on contact. But technology can fix all that. 

        That’s where the soul-eater comes in. About four of those tiny crystals inside the gun twist the bullet into a wicked dart that’ll seek out any unguarded shred of soul-stuff and latch parasitically on. The magical energy used to create the bullet consumes that bit of soul with itself, sending bits of the victim soul to reinforce the soul of its master. Lifesteal and penetration applied very neatly in one function.  At this range though, the wielder hardly needs to put any energy into it to deal a killing blow. By the time I hear the gun fire, it’ll be too late to do anything but pray I’m going to heaven, wherever the hell that is.  

        One shot will end me. 

        But soul eater has its consequences. It’s magic after all, and if you lose control of that magic, it’ll consume you. You let yourself fall too far, and there isn’t tech this side of your dreams that can fix you up again.  

         I stare into the face of my adversary, wondering if they really know what it means to fall into that kind of madness. An oval, maybe oblong, face stares back at me, bored and expressionless at least, condescending and angry at best. Long black hair is combed back, pinned flat against her head, and tied in a low segmented ponytail that drapes to a small breast. Her figure is a long rectangle with a small roll of chubbiness around her belly and thighs, almost like she had (slightly deflated) life preservers hidden under her skin. Her upper lip is thin but the lower lip is full, and both are an off-brown color similar to the rest of her skin—she doesn’t have an ounce of makeup on to cover up her blemishes. Her nose is roughly triangular, though so rounded at the tip that it looks like someone stuck a marble between the oversized nostrils. Deep maroon almond-shaped eyes are framed by eyebrows that grow in patches like weeds: some areas thicker than others, sometimes so sparse I wonder what happened. 

        Actually, what I really wonder is what happened to myself; how did I get here? Why am I in this situation, with this person, of all miserable people, pointing death at my face? 

         I take a slow breath and try to re-evaluate. She’s not really fat. Under the black shirt-pants-coat outfit she always wears, she looks healthy sized. And her face isn’t really that ugly. Marred by a few acne scars, but not really that grotesque. (The weed-like brows can’t be observed any other way though.) Beauty is supposed to be in the eye of the beholder, and despite the gun, I try to see some beauty in her. She seems to be doing the same thing, searching the windows to my soul for some redeeming trait—or just surveying what her bullet’s going to consume.  

         Her gaze is level, but she can’t hide the emotion there. There’s cruelty behind those slits, but also guilt. Some insecurity that holds her back from pulling the trigger— that’s held her back until now. I can almost imagine the gears grinding in her head, calculating whether this handful of flesh and soul merits living.  

        Bitterness washes again over me and tears run down my face.  

         “Stop crying,” says the girl with the gun pointed at my head. “Why the fuck are you crying?”  

         When did I start crying? There’s not exactly anything else I can do though, and I keep sniveling, to my own disgust. I don’t want to die crying. I want to die surrounded by a family that doesn’t exist yet. I want to die with adrenaline flooded through my system. I want to die in a noble spectacle of greatness and sacrifice, not cornered uselessly so. 

         My would-be murderer drops her aim for a moment. Her expression is now devastated, remorseful and I realize she doesn’t want to kill me and I don’t want to die. But there’s the rule to be obeyed: eliminate all things bad and useless. Only the good and strong can remain.  

         I had doubted she knew what it was like to fall into madness, but now I turn away and inquire whether I know what it means.  

         My life these past few months has been a cycle: It starts with getting lucky. I feel the exhilaration of triumph or a job well done, an encounter well met, or a fun adventure with profitable return. I’m on a high, invincible, and can’t be brought down, no matter how miserable everyone else is or how hectic and unforgiving life is. But if a crucial strike doesn’t miss or a dismal failure doesn’t bring me down first, that enthusiasm drains away in a few days, leaving me a hallow husk with a painted smile and recorded laugh. A few days later, even the paint fades and the recording jams. I become—or maybe I always was—a miserable glob of meat sucking resources from the world and dumping pollutants behind.  

         I try to convince myself I’m okay and I’ll succeed eventually. I try to convince myself I’m in one of those dismal stages now and I’ll get over it with the next coming of the tide. I try to give myself a ghost of credit for being “moral” and for persevering even this long. Half of me argues that I’m not doing that badly, that I didn’t deserve this fate, that I’m not at the bottom of the pit. That half argues for more hope, for a brighter tomorrow, and a brilliant future where all my vague dreams of happiness come true. I believe it.  

         But only for the moment. The next instant the other half laughs. It scoffs at the naivety of the optimistic half. Because while I can hope, I also can’t help but look at those who don’t make my mistakes, those who never stop improving, those who never falter at the hurdle: those who never really fail. They’re nicer, smarter, happier, busier. More diligent, more talented, more skillful, more clever, more persuasive, more confident, more thoughtful—more. I find them everywhere: people who are just more than I am. More than this mediocre, spoiled pretense. 

         Another sob escapes me and the gun returns to my cerebrum. My consciousness retreats back from rational thought.  

         I feel mad, but not at anyone or anything. I’m mad at myself, for allowing myself to sink so far. Magic corruption? I’ve been trampled by another kind of madness, closer to home: personality destruction.  

         Telling someone is catharsis, but after the catharsis all I feel is this satisfied, fluttery feeling and all I want to do is sit at home and knit. Which is fine, except I’m not very good, and I only knit scarves, and all that has nothing to do with anything.  

         I go back to jealous thinking, and wonder if her life-preserver fat rolls help her float. I might laugh mordantly. But it wouldn’t matter. In this world, you can’t just float. It’s sink or swim. I feel a sense of despair clutching at my heart. I feel defeat settling in: I’m sinking.  

          As I metaphorically drown, I stare upwards, searching for a last ray of sunshine. All I see is water, a vast muddled expanse of it, bearing down on me, pushing me further down.  

         I wonder what could have been different if I had known a few years ago that I would feel this way—or, while we’re time traveling, let’s just go all the way back to whenever I first started being conscious of my existence. I wonder if it would have changed the way I worked and behaved, growing up. I wonder whether I was born to lose or if I screwed myself up somewhere along the road. I wonder if this is nature or nurture. It all seems to come down to that mystery. I wonder if  knowing the answer to that—to all of those things— would make a difference.  

         I stop wondering and pull the trigger. 

This is supposed to be from the point of view of Exyshixos Zqwiu, a vampire-demon I used in the roleplay Protect Against Nightcrawlers (PAN) on Gaia. PAN is a worldwide underground organization of people who have survived the mysterious nighttime attacks by creatures called the nightcrawlers. These survivors now put their abilities to use combating the nightcrawlers and protecting their cities.
Unfortunately, the thread the roleplay was in was taken down so I can't link to it :( It was my favorite roleplay I've ever been in. This depressing little self reflection is probably sometime before Exy joins the London PAN group.

Point one: It's long, an it's ranty. The tension of her having a gun to her head would probably be better done if the oneshot was a little shorter, and I did what I could to cut it. However, despite that, it still came out quite long. This is why: I had an idea for the structure of this to literally, in the writing, show Exy's descent to madness:

1. The opening part is her description of the gun: clear, more or less objective description. 
2. The second part has her describing the person with the gun (herself, as we find out at the end). This is obviously biased, but it is still description, based on something she has before her. 
3. The third part is hazy, around where she starts talking about her life in these recent months. It's based on memories, and it's getting vaguer and more loaded with emotion. 
4. Finally, in the last few paragraphs, it's just despair and philosophical desperation talking. She makes a metaphor to drowning, and goes off into a world of muddled thoughts, bringing in the universal debate of nature vs nurture and retrospective wishing. 

This was the structure I was hoping to write into the rant and I sacrificed the conciseness and power of the suicide threat for it. I'm really hoping someone else noticed this, or at least can see definitively what I'm talking about after glancing back at it. If not, please tell me how I could make this happen!

There's a bit of Ayn Rand in here too, against my liking. I think Ayn Rand (writer of Anthem) says at one point "I hope I go to Heaven, wherever the Hell that is" and Exy says that towards the end of her description on the gun.

So what do YOU think? So tell me what you think! I love feedback!

Thanks for reading!

The Last Life

Hello all! Changed the blog look again XD

Life Rant and Plans:
<rant> 

Flow. Possibly the only game I'm even half decent at.

I also spent the entire day playing League of Legends. I failed my first two ranked games and am now wondering how I feed/ fail so badly....still. I wonder if I've gotten ANY better. Or if I'm really just dependent on other people to do well for me to be able to do anything. I'm just really bad at this game. I don't know why I play it. I don't know why I play any game, because I'm honestly not good at any kind of game. Except maybe Flow. But that's not a competitive game, so it doesn't really count in this sense, I should think. I love playing games. Like League, Bastion, poker, chess....but I'm kinda really really bad at them. I should hope I have a positive attitude in game, but I don't know how much that makes up for absolutely sucking. Sometimes I wonder if I'm just stupid and can't think and that's why I fail so much at playing games. But being depressed just feels intrinsically wrong to me, so I stop thinking like that. But sometimes (and I'm talking about League specifically now again) I really don't know why stuff goes wrong. I'm doing the best I can and by now I know what I need to do as a support character to help out. I try to poke the enemy champions and protect my adc (adc is attack damage carry. If you don't know MOBA terminology, this is basically someone that the support is supposed to protect so they can carry the team to victory). Sometimes I want to blame the situation being not ideal for me to do something. Sometimes I just can't. And I can forgive myself for that, and I can definitely recognize that maybe the other team is just more skilled. But what I can't understand is why I still can't hold my own and turn things around. How do I go about gaining this skill that somehow just makes them a better player than I am? How is my paradigm different from theirs? And I fancy that I can think of an answer to this, but thus far it hasn't come to me. Half of this Gemini thinks I won't. Not alone, not anytime soon. The other half says "Yet!" I haven't yet, but I will. Somehow, I'll definitely be ok.
</rant>

More relevant stuff:
For the last week, I've been searching for a project for the summer and for NaNoWriMo. I think I have decided on a NaNo project, and think I should just focus on school and little writing exercises over the summer.For the next few months I'll be posting random scenes, and a few more of those River Windrose description pieces, and if I'm diligent enough, I might even get back to writing Sun Dagger. Or maybe I'll start InkAcademy, another little episode-based story idea I had that features a collection of my original characters in the Academy setting.

Finally, I want to reiterate that while I try to post on Fridays, I usually don't end up doing so until the weekend; thus, I'm changing the "official" post time to Mondays. A post--be that a writing segment or drawing or just a rant post on my inability to effectively deal with my life-- should be up before Monday mornings. ^^

I ought to stop playing games and start writing more....or studying....hmmmmm.....


Today:
Today's post is something very old. I was looking for another file (which I still haven't found) when I stumbled upon it. It's clearly got some kind of story linked to it, but I haven't been able to write more, and I don't know the characters very well at all. That might change. Or it might not. I haven't touched them since I wrote this almost 2 years ago.

Regardless of the age of the piece, please enjoy! Comments are, as always, much appreciated.

WC: 2794

THE LAST LIFE 

     Out of the mist came a black cat with ethereally blue eyes.  

     “Cadence,” Tarisha whispered. At first Gavin thought it was a spell. Then she lowered her hand. 

      “The cat,” Gavin asked, tugging Tarisha’s robe. “You know it?”

     “Cadence,” Tarisha replied. “Cadence Winds, seraph of Fate.” Then Gavin saw his aunt, the Heart of Evil that never so much as thanked someone, kneel to a cat. 

     

     >><<

     “The cat,” Aunt Tarisha explained, “Is a form of the seraph known as Cadence Winds.” 

     Gavin waited quietly. He knew his aunt well enough to know that she would explain. 

     Tarisha stared off into the misty night. She didn’t seem like she was about to explain any mysteries. 

     Gavin thought back to what he had read from her books. “A seraph. One of those that came before the Great Birds, before the Age of the Great Trees, right?”

     Tarisha nodded absent-mindedly.

     “What ability does this one grant?”

     “Lives,” the Heart of Evil said. “She’s the seraph of Fate.” She paused. “She can give lives.”

     “She can give lives?” Gavin asked, staring back into the mist where he knew the cat was waiting. 

     “She gave me nine,” Tarisha affirmed. 

     “At what cost though? Getting that kind of magic must have cost you something.”

     “At the cost of one. I would give one of my lives to her when the time came.”

Gavin glanced back into the mist again. “You think that time has come. Since she’s back.” He looked back at his aunt in time to see her nod. 

     “How many more do you have?”

     “One.”

     “Did you know this would happen?”

     “That I had a life still owed to the seraph when I last died? Well, I knew that I had eight lives to use as I would and I knew that the cat hadn’t shown up for the last seven. I knew I was giving my eighth.”

     “You gave your last free life to save my mother.” Gavin was stumped. “Even though you opposed each other for most of your lives.”

“Tabitha?” Tarisha seemed amused. “We did fight on opposite sides, yes. And I did hate her for a lot of it.” She smiled bitterly. “But if Tabitha had needed it, I would have readily given her all eight.”

     She smiled down at Gavin and drew him close. He huddled close in her cloak. 

     “You see, even if we fight for different causes, Tabitha’s still my family.” She looked at him severely, “You must remember that, Gavin. Family is the most important thing you have in this life. You must always protect them to the best of your ability.”

     He nodded. “I’ll try.”

     “You must,” she corrected. “You will.” She rested her chin on his head and stroked his hair a little. If he concentrated, he could feel the rhythm of a heart—her heart—beating. Aside from his there was just a single heart. He wondered if at one point there had been nine hearts beating in his aunt at the same time. 

     “Is that why you agreed to watch me?” he asked. 

     “Hm?” She pulled away. 

     “Because we’re family. But I’m my mother’s son. Mom would have killed you if she could.”

     “Tabitha never would have killed me,” Tarisha laughed. “My sister had many chances to kill me and she never did. I don’t believe she wanted me or our parents dead. She just wanted to see the evil we had started come to an end.”

     “But you hate my dad too. He destroyed your castle.”

     “And killed my dragon,” she added bitterly. She shook her head. “Your father is different. But you are my nephew. You are related to me by blood.”

     “And that’s what matters? Blood?”

     “No. But just because I don’t approve of my sister’s choice of mate doesn’t mean I won’t recognize my nephew as kin.” She petted his hair again. “I didn’t promise my sister I would watch over her husband. I promised I would watch her son. When Cadence gave me the nine lives, I said I would use them to protect my family.”

     “But you won’t be able to watch me any more. Not if you have to die again.” He paused. “For real this time.” He changed his mind again. “Not that the other times weren’t real.”

     “For the last time,” his aunt suggested. Gavin nodded agreement. She didn’t reply. 

     “Maybe,” he thought, thinking through the scenario. “Maybe it’s not time yet. Maybe she’s just popping in to say hi.”

     Tarisha actually chuckled at that. “She never did that before. Even a few years back, when I thought I’d lost count.” She sobered and shook her head. “No. Did you see the condition of the cat? Something’s amiss with the seraphs. My death will be serving a higher purpose, possibly one that mortals will never know about.”

     “And you’re fine with that?”

     “I wouldn’t want to break a promise with a creature older than the planet itself,” she retorted. Gavin thought that over. 

     “Family is the most important thing, but keeping your promises is too,” he said. “These seraphs. You study them, don’t you? You deal with them and borrow their powers for your own magic. That’s the dark magic you practice.”

     The Heart of Evil didn’t deny it. 

     “And you protect those you love with it. You protect your family with it,” he amended. Tarisha accepted that. 

    “Who’s going to know all this after you’ve given the seraph her life though?”

     Tarisha seemed stumped by that question. “Well, no one really. I have notes, but few people know how to read the cipher I designed.”

     “Just mom now. And me, a little.”

     “Yes, I suppose that’s it.”

     “I want to learn though,” Gavin said. “Mom always said knowledge should never be wasted. I don’t want to see that magic wind up in the wrong hands either.”

     Tarisha pondered this for a long moment. “Then you shall have to learn,” she decided. “I’m afraid I won’t have much time to teach you, Gavin. We may only have a few hours before Cadence comes to collect me. You will have to learn most of it by working your way through my spellbooks. But I can help you as much as I can.”

     >><<

     The crystal point of Etherion was pointed directly for her heart. Tabitha took what she thought would be her final breath as the crystal exploded and an impossibly many streams of piercing bright light arched out of the crystal point and joined in a single needle-thin beam that would pierce her heart and silence her life. No magic could save her now. She hoped she had done enough. That the Army could finish the war and Darus could take care of their son. She hoped she had lived a life that would benefit others. 

     Then suddenly the spell that had fixed her to the death point was broken. Another body took her place, pushing her out of the spot and shoving her out of Etherion’s reach. Tabitha shut her eyes before dirt and grit flew into it, landed and turned to see her savior. She feared it was Darus. 

     It was Tarisha. 

     The beam of light struck through the Heart of Evil clearly, a dagger of light that exploded at her flesh and sucked the soul out before imploding within the body. Not even ashes should have been left in the aftermath of that blast. But aside from frizzed up hair and a horrible cough, the Heart of Evil seemed very much intact. Tabitha sat stunned. She lifted a hand but Tarisha held up hers, signifying she was ok. She continued coughing and choking.

     “Tarisha?”

     Her sister hacked on.

     “Etherion hit you.” Tarisha nodded, managing to gasp a breath between choking and wheezing. “You’re supposed to be dead.” Tarisha managed to stop long enough to roll her eyes. She coughed once more before speaking. Her voice was hoarse and crackly, but still hers.

     “Don’t worry, it hit me and I died.”

     “But you don’t look dead,” Tabitha pointed out stupidly. “Are you dead now?”

     “I’m alive,” she assured. “I died. But now I’m alive.” She rolled her eyes at her sister again.      “Complicated magic.” She waved her hand. Her voice was already returning to normal. She pointed up at the tower where Urnek had escaped to. “Etherion only activates once in a lifetime and blocks out all magic in an area for a while after its kill. This is your chance. Urnek’s at the top of the tower. He can’t teleport or use any magic because of the radius of Etherion’s aftereffect. He’s at his weakest right now. And you, my dear sister, are a perfectly lethal person even without magic.” She reached over and drew out what she had been clutching: a sword. More precisely, Tabitha’s first gunblade, a beautiful weapon with smooth sliding parts and a creamy silver blade. 

     “I enchanted it with blood magic before coming here,” Tarisha explained, handing over the weapon. “But I’m not sure if Etherion’s aftereffect will counteract the enchantment or if it just removed it when it struck. You’ll see when magic is back on in the vicinity, I suppose. But I suggest you defeat Urnek before then.”

     Tabitha nodded, accepting the weapon. She slid it into the holster that usually carried her now-broken gunblade. “Tarisha about—“

      “This?” Tarisha gestured around them. “This can’t happen again.”

      Of course. Whatever complicated spell Tarisha had used to save herself wouldn’t work again; and there was no way her sister would risk her skin for hers again. She had gotten lucky—extraordinarily, unbelievably, impossibly lucky—this time. It wouldn’t happen again. 

      “Right.”

      “Go now. You don’t have long.”

      Tabitha hesitated. “How long do I have?”

     “Until the witching magics balance and reset.”

      “Midnight,” she translated. “3 hours,” she calculated aloud. “To travel up there, fight and win.”

      “Piece of cake,” Tarisha mumbled sarcastically. “I would help you, but I’m of little use without magic and I’m not exactly a the state to fight.”

      Tabitha nodded. She understood.

     “Right. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She took off. 

     Tarisha  watched her sister until her figure disappeared in the distance. “Seraphspeed,” she blessed.”Stay safe. Protect yourself, last of my family. Because I no longer can.” 

     >><<

     There was nothing anymore. So this was what it was to really die, Tarisha thought. She accepted the coldness and the finality. Good bye.

     When she opened her eyes she was lying on a bed of plain white cloth, dressed in a ragged dress. Her hair was brown and braided to her shoulders. She looked at her hands. She closed and opened her fist, summoning a weak ball of fire into her hand. So she still had magic, though it was severely diminished. She looked up. 

     At first the overgrown greenhouse was unfamiliar. It was filled with plants, some with magical properties or spells weaved in their roots. Even with her reduced magic ability she was could feel traces of magic from around her. Then she noticed the figure seated on the cloth chair next to her. 

     She blinked and then spoke. Her voice was lower than she remembered it, younger. “Therian Collisar, seraph of Death, if I’m not mistaken?” 

      She tried to get to her feet to bow properly. The aspect of Death himself stopped her, holding up a hand as she would. “Please. Don’t strain yourself. I’d much rather you stay on that bed until we’re finished here anyways.” 

      Tarisha didn’t understand but nodded anyways. “Aren’t I supposed to be dead? I gave my last life to Cadence, as agreed.”

      “Yes, yes, and I was hovering nearby to see it. Another selfless sacrifice, I must say.”

      “Then I am dead.”

      “Not quite,” Death told her. He fingered his scythe. “As it turns out, you’ve a life left. One Cadence herself didn’t even know about quite yet.”

     Her mind ran back through her deaths. Two for her parents. Three for her half-sister’s family. One given to her step-father. One lost keeping the blood-curse from affecting the rest of the family. One to bring back her grandfather. One for Tabitha. One for Cadence Winds. That accounted for all nine lives. 

     “Someone returned a life,” Therian explained. He handed her a thick package, about the size of her volume of notes, wrapped in brown paper and tied in plain string. A letter was tucked on top. 

      My dear niece Tarisha, 

      Thank you, for your concern and for offering one of your lives for my sake. I understand you have more, meant to guard your family with and I am honored that you consider me a member of that company. But I must reject this life. Keep it for yourself instead.

     I am glad that there is someone in this family that is selfless enough to spend their lives to protect and cure those of their blood. But I also worry that by the end of your quota you will not have had a life of your own to live. Thus, I return this life to you at the end of all the others, so that when you would have died in sacrifice you might gain another chance to be revived yourself.

     Thank you. 

     Holly Verbena

     Tarisha stared at the neat, curly script. She read it again. “He..gave it back? How did that work?”

     Therian nodded at the paper. “Well, that’s just it. When I came to collect him and found that he had the offer of another life to live, he made a deal with me. I would get the life I came for. And I would keep the life that you had offered him, until after all your other lives were spent.”

     “So why am I like this?”

     “There were no real rules as to how such a revival would happen. Of course, I would come to pick up the departed soul at your ninth death. But then I would return this one to you.” He waved around the scene. “Do you recognize this place?”

     She looked around again and realized it was familiar. This was the very greenhouse-garden that her would-be stepfather had owned and run. She was sitting on the very stretcher she had found him in, and Therian was seated in the same chair she had sat in when she had come to offer Holly Verbena another chance at life.

     For a moment she didn’t understand what the scenery had to do with anything. Then she met the cold, blank gaze of the aspect of Death. “The life you return is the one I was on when I gave Holly my sixth.” She sent her memory back to that time. “Nineteen. I’m 19 again.”

     “Smart cookie,” Therian commented, impressed. “Very good girl.”

     “So I’m supposed to just…start my life again from here?”

     “Except you only have one now. You’re as mortal as anyone else.” 

     Tarisha remembered her diminished magic. “With my stats and knowledge from then. But I have my memories and notes.”

     “And you’ll recall your semantic memories when you pick up those notes.”

     “Did he leave anything else? Something for me to work off of from this point?”

     “Just your life and whatever that package is,” the seraph replied all too innocently. “Though I believe that is a matter between you and the package.” Too suspicious. She tore into it.

     Therian laughed. “I believe that’s all our little deal required of me. So if you don’t mind, I’ll be off to reap more souls.”

     “Wait,” she requested. “Why did you agree to it? You’re the seraph of Death. Why would you agree to give someone life?”

     “Oh Cadence can be troublesome, very true,” Therian laughed. “Her sister is a greater force to be reckoned with though.”

     “Cadence has a sister?”

     “And a brother,” Therian chuckled. “They are three, all seraphs of the Wheel of Fortune. Silence Winds is Destiny. She’s the one I have a hard time with. Whatever the Diviner sees in her mirror is what will happen, one twisted way or another. She is the definite. Absolute nothing. Silence. 

     “Cadence is Fate, as you know. The lows and highs, the intermediate stages of life that you have a direct control over and decide how to face. She is the rhythm of the mortal lifespan, the heartbeat, the constant tempo. 

      “And finally their mercurial brother Tone, whose melody is every shifting. Tone Winds is Luck. He gets along nicely with everyone sometimes and no one other times. Sometimes he slips souls from a hairsbreadth of my blade and other times he dumps a whole pot of them on my doorstep.” Therian Collisar grinned. “Just helping you with your research,” he added. “Good luck on your adventure. I will see you in a lifetime.”

Fall or Fly

Hi!

Hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day last Friday and a refreshing three-day weekend (or, those who had three-day weekends).

I'm disappointed to say that despite the late update (D: AHHH D: )I don't have the scene I wanted to have up today ready. It was going to be a clippet of Enlaika/Eileen and Alan a few months after the events of Spring Ball Trouble. I had an idea for a scene on Friday, but that turned out to be just this:

         We sat in relative quiet, one of us occasionally humming something off tune or entirely made up. His fingers danced over the keyboard, typing away at the second book of his series, while mine guided a needle and thread through cloth. We had so little time together now that we attended different colleges, but there was still always so much work to be done. So we treasured the few hours we could be within physical distance of each other, and relied on phone or video conversations the other times.  We didn’t say much, instead just savoring the peaceful time we had together.  

        Behind us, the sunset was counting the minutes left of our time together. His fingers stopped for a moment, and I curled my head in the crook of his neck, relaxing at his touch. Even if it was just a moment, we knew we had each other. 

I imagined that they would end up with a long-distance relationship of sorts, and just to complicate it a bit, Norbert would end up going to the same college as Eileen or somewhere near. And the would hang out a lot and become good friends. Y'know, just to add to the drama a bit.

Anyways, I did write something else earlier this week that I wanted to share: Fall or Fly. 

         I might be a little masochistic. 

         I’m out of time. I’ve still got too much to do. I’m tired. There’s too much to do. I’m still not doing anything. Time is just tick-ticking by, and I’m just die-dying, not able to motivate my body and brain to focus and get anything done. I want to drown in happy thoughts. I want to run away. I’m paralyzed, honestly. But instead of being panicked, I’m startlingly tranquil.  

         A wave of calm floods through me, inundating all the interneurons in my body. Just the interneurons, mind you. The sensory neurons are tingling, as though there was something just a few nuances from their receptive fields. It creates a feeling like a force field, shivering nervously in existence an inch from the surface of my skin. I’m trembling— not quite a nervous wreck, but on my toes, excited, anxious. 

        I want to jump, and pounce on something. Fly and soar and shoot magic from my fingertips and cause storms with my thoughts. Do something powerful and amazing.  

        But I can’t. There’s nothing but an endless sea of work to drown in .  

        I don’t want to drown. I’m afraid—is that the right word?—of the bottomless ocean, of not being able to swim, or even swimming poorly. I’m already floundering as time pushes me towards the edge. 

        It’s time to fall, or fly. 

I only have a few notes on this one. I wrote this while waiting for a friend on the bridge overlooking a courtyard at school. I thought it would be a short wait, and was didn't have any work on me that I could actually work on. So I pulled out my commonplace notebook and was just flipping through it when a sudden inspiration to write just hit me. I wrote it mostly just stream of thought, which kinda explains the nerdy neuron bit there in the third paragraph/ chuck/ whatever-you-call-one-liners-of-text-blobs.

I had the idea afterwards to write it in context of an OC, but I don't quite have it worked out.

I don't know what I'm posting next week either, but I'll have something up! Unfortunately I still don't know what the next major project I'll be posting is. I'm still running through a lot of side projects, finishing up and adding a little in the spare pockets of time I get.

Until next week then, good luck and have fun, everyone!
~Minerva ^_^