Chapel Orahamm's Blog, page 37

Roast Rant Review: The Third Eagle | R.A.MacAvoy

If you like what you read and want to help the author know what to review next, here are Amazon wishlists for reviews.

The Blurb

A young warrior’s coming of age journey across space leads him to a vitally important—and mortally dangerous—mission.

When the warrior Wanbli came of age, he cast his lot among the stars and left the world where he’d been born. Left it, he thought, forever. His odyssey led him to one ship, then another, and to another still. It brought him face to face with the far-flung members of the universe’s Seven Sentient peoples. And, finally, it brought him to the colony ship Commitment. There, Wanbli learned the true purpose of his life—a mission so vital that it required risking the lives of everyone on the ship and the future of his home world. His mission meant returning to that world, but only if he could survive the deadly machinations of those who sought to stop him.

The Author

R. A. MacAvoy is a highly acclaimed author of imaginative and original science fiction and fantasy novels. Her debut novel, Tea with the Black Dragon, won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. She has also written the Damiano trilogy, the chronicles of a wizard’s young son, set during an alternate history version of the Italian Renaissance; The Book of Kells; and Twisting the Rope, the highly acclaimed sequel to Tea with the Black Dragon. She is also the author of the beloved and much-praised Lens of the World trilogy.

The Breakdown

“Lessons Along a Minor String”

Chapter 1

We open on a set of poetic verses, though this is not a continued pattern through the rest of the book.

Intro our main character: Wanbli, shirtless, and the mud village, it states so twice, of Tawlin. A bunch of name dropping for location and setting up “hey look, this is a strange new planet” without enough depth to understand what is being mentioned. Descriptions are useful, especially if flora and fauna can be noted as such. Hello food descriptions for skin color, and tea with milk and sugar? Who introduced tea, milk, and sugar and from where? Are we a British off-world colony? Yes yes. Impeccable. Perfectly sculpted. Why not? Why not…

Setting up for a bunch of indigenous people portrayals. Well, this is uncomfortable. I knew this going into it. The coverart kind of tells you what’s up. I do remember reading this in my early teens and at that time thought the whole affair intriguing. Now though, with an eye to political correctness within fiction, this just comes off as a problematic choice.

Gum, a gun, a wallet and a leather pouch all hanging on a breachclot belt…suspension of disbelief is wobbly here.

WTF is Tawlin a place or a person? Wacaan is both people and person, but we’re pingponging back and forth here with a lot of low context descriptors.

Okay, ‘earth heritage’, so we have some context that the people here are descended from earth, that may or may not help. I’m still lost on Tawlin.

Let’s throw a bit of name dropping on drug usage and fetish sex into this and a drop of flat image vs. holographs. Well. As it stands, the rating on the book at least age wise stands at probably 18+, which means any 13 year old is going to get their hands on it and most of this will go over the heads (i.e. me when I first read this well over almost two decades ago).

I’ve hit on the word ‘very’ about 5 times now and I’m glaring at the book. Sigh.

A bit of quick action taken down to the slow-mo style.

Red man. Redman? Pardon me while I blink at that text and take some deep breaths. It’s in the book. It’s literally written in the book. Oh my…gahhh…oh and Tawlin is yellow. We’re…we’re going there…alrighty then, the author has gone that route. Save me, this was a bad decision to read.

Primitives!!!??? oh frack no

Nope. I’m noping this book. Got to page 20 and I’m just…nope.

The Review

The Review. What to say? I had to DNF this book. I remember reading it at the end of middle school or beginning of high school. It was in one of the school libraries. A) I have no idea why they stocked this book in the school when the refused to Stock Princess Bride, but whatever.

The opening is disjointed and racist, failing to hide under the veneer of sci-fi 30+ years after its publishing date.

That sucks. I remember liking the book, but remembering much of what it actually was about other than some guy going all over the galaxy doing cool things just so he could get a vasectomy reversed or something like that.

Got another book suggestion for me? I’m out already.

RT @chapelorahamm: I can’t wait to read what happens next in The Kavordian Library! – #scifi, #fantasy, #webseries #books

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Time Table for Reviews

The Wishlists

Above is a link to the page of wish lists I have put together on Amazon for my batch of reviews. This is my time table for when I plan to start doing my reviews this year and what to expect. I need a couple months to buffer enough material and possibly obtain some of the pieces for the reviews.

April 5 – 11Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | Haikyuu!Tuesday: Chapter Update | Melancholic Harmony 16Wednesday: Console Roast | Kingdom Hearts 1Thursday: Popcorn Roast | Hansel & GretelFriday: Roast Rant Review | The Third EagleSaturday: Tea and Anime | Summer WarsSunday: Tabletop Roast | Bears vs. BabiesApril 12 – 18Monday: Manga Cafe Corner |Toilet Bound Hanako-kunTuesday: Chapter Update | The Feather on My Scale 8Wednesday: Console Roast | Kingdom Hearts 1 – cont.Thursday: Popcorn Roast | ClueFriday: Roast Rant Review | Magnus Chase vol 1Saturday: Tea and Anime | Pom PokoSunday: Tabletop Roast | Magic MazeApril 19 – 25Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | So I’m a Spider, So What?Tuesday: Chapter Update | Life of a Librarian 15Wednesday: Console Roast | Kingdom Hearts 1 – cont.Thursday: Popcorn Roast | Cinderella Live ActionFriday: Roast Rant Review | Magnus Chase vol. 2Saturday: Tea and Anime | My Neighbor TotoroSunday: Tabletop Roast | Catan Jr.April 26 – May 2Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | Jujutsu KaisenTuesday: Chapter Update | Soul Transfer 2Wednesday: Console Roast | Let’s Go PikachuThursday: Popcorn Roast | 101 DalmationsFriday: Roast Rant Review | Magnus Chase vol 3Saturday: Tea and Anime | Spirited AwaySunday: Tabletop Roast | AzulMay 3 – 9Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | The King’s BeastTuesday: Chapter Update | The Toy Keeper 5Wednesday: Console Roast | Let’s Go Pikachu cont.Thursday: Popcorn Roast | ThumbelinaFriday: Roast Rant Review | The Eye of the WorldSaturday: Tea and Anime | Kiki’s Delivery ServiceSunday: Tabletop Roast | Uno: UnocornsMay 10 – 16Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | Demon SlayerTuesday: Chapter Update | Struck 9Wednesday: Console Roast | Let’s Go Pikachu cont.Thursday: Popcorn Roast | Alice in Wonderland animatedFriday: Roast Rant Review | The Great HuntSaturday: Tea and Anime | Howl’s Moving CastleSunday: Tabletop Roast | Sushi Go!May 17 – 23Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | Mushoku TenseiTuesday: Chapter Update | Melancholic Harmony 17Wednesday: Console Roast | Zelda: Breath of the WildThursday: Popcorn Roast | AnastasiaFriday: Roast Rant Review | The Graveyard BookSaturday: Tea and Anime | Weathering with YouSunday: Tabletop Roast | Taco Cat Goat Cheese PizzaMay 24 – 30Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | Persona 5Tuesday: Chapter Update | The Feather on My Scale 9Wednesday: Console Roast | Zelda: Breath cont.Thursday: Popcorn Roast | Animal HouseFriday: Roast Rant Review | DragonsingerSaturday: Tea and Anime | Metropolis – TezukaSunday: Tabletop Roast | Welcome to the DungeonMay 31 – June 6Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | One Punch ManTuesday: Chapter Update | Life of a Librarian 16Wednesday: Console Roast | Zelda: Breath cont.Thursday: Popcorn Roast | BaltoFriday: Roast Rant Review | DragonsongSaturday: Tea and Anime | TrigunSunday: Tabletop Roast | Throw Throw BurritoJune 7 – 13Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | By the Grace of the GodsTuesday: Chapter Update | Soul Transfer 3Wednesday: Console Roast | Pokemon TekkenThursday: Popcorn Roast | Bedknobs & BroomsticksFriday: Roast Rant Review | DragondrumsSaturday: Tea and Anime | Your NameSunday: Tabletop Roast | Shadows in the ForestJune 14 – 20Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | Attack on TitanTuesday: Chapter Update | The Toy Keeper 6Wednesday: Console Roast | Pokemon Tekken cont.Thursday: Popcorn Roast | An American TailFriday: Roast Rant Review | Masterharper of PernSaturday: Tea and Anime | Trinity BloodSunday: Tabletop Roast | Betrayal at Baldur’s GateJune 21 – 27Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | Black CloverTuesday: Chapter Update | Struck 10Wednesday: Console Roast | Pokemon Tekken cont.Thursday: Popcorn Roast | Fievel Goes WestFriday: Roast Rant Review | Freedom’s LandingSaturday: Tea and Anime | Blue SeedSunday: Tabletop Roast | Scrabble (National Parks)June 28 – July 4Monday: Manga Cafe Corner | Solo LevelingTuesday: Chapter Update | Melancholic Harmony 18Wednesday: Console Roast | BattlecrashersThursday: Popcorn Roast | Blazing SaddlesFriday: Roast Rant Review | Freedom’s ChallengeSaturday: Tea and Anime | The Sky CrawlersSunday: Tabletop Roast | Cards Against Humanity

Wish List

If you like what you’re reading here, want for a review to happen on a particular topic sooner, or just want to send a snack, instead of using the tipping apps like Buymeacoffee, Ko-fi, and Patreon, I have Wishlists on Amazon!

Here are the different lists:

Snacks for ReviewsAnime Review ListBoard Game Review ListJust Being Nice ListManga Review ListMovie Review ListReading Review ListVideo Game Review List

Writing and Social Media

The author of the modern era chases challenges in an effort to be heard on the international stage, or maybe in the corner of the auditorium. We sell our wares, flash them about like newsboys on street corners asking for a penny in return for the latest run of words.

We, as writers, are told, if we truly wish to become fulfilled authors, we must publish, publish publish. We must reach that goal! New to us in this era of the internet, is the driving need to also market for ourselves. We now have the luxury of indie press, small press, and self-publishing.

With freelance editors and cover designers at our finger tips, dependent upon the sums in our wallets, we have the capacity to bypass the traditional industry and break into the churned up mass market where every book on every shelf blurs into the same themes and imagery.

How to market for a small time author without a marketing warehouse behind us? We are told to open up social media accounts again and again. Locations for audiences, places to set up advertising, gain interest, get the attention we need. I now have at my fingertips: Twitter, Instagram, Art Station, TikTok, Patreon, Ko-Fi, BuyMeACoffe, Pinterest, etc. I’m looking at opening up an OnlyFans account come next fall to start releasing an adult webcomic, seeing as I’m hamstrung in a bunch of other social medias now. I’m glad there are certain accounts that don’t allow adult content to an extreme extent. That makes it safer to handle around certain family members and friends. I enjoy drawing risque art, though, and am looking forward to this next feather in my cap.

The issue with social media is finding your spot on the ground, building your platform, and climbing the scaffolding without falling off. Then, once you reach the top, you discover that everyone liked hearing about your day to day trials and tribulations, but really aren’t interested in the product you made your platform for. This is common for many authors in the writing community of Twitter. We go in circles, flaunting our wares, working to refine how we advertise. In the end, we find sales have not risen and become disheartened. We express this frustration, and with that call of pity, others in the community come out of the woodwork to tell us we are strong, courageous, and good. They work to reassure our self esteem, and yet the social media platform for marketing and advertisement has failed. It has turned into a cycle of dramatics for the small accounts.

True, it is nice to have somewhere to microblog. To talk about random things you discover, to help a fellow writer with writer’s block. It’s nice.

I discovered though, in the past month, ever since the 45th president left office, that my particular niche had turned more and more toxic. We no longer had a common enemy and once removed, we turned on ourselves.

In a moment of clarity a couple of days ago, after scrolling through yet another slog of the community, especially the lgbtq+ author community, I realized I was done with reading yet another person screaming at the void to listen. To stop harming people. To be better. To be what the world needs. This sounds great until the follow up was to instead go on a tyraid of racist, sexist, phobic bashing of an entire people group, what they had just been asking to have stop. Slowly, ever so slowly, in the following days, I noticed this particular litany going up all over my feed and it was eating at me that a community I was a part of was turning into such a hateful group.

I muted the first person, then the next, then a third that all took up the cry, all feeling valid in their particular perspective of events. I’m trans. If I had my way, I would be male (medical ptsd says noooo). I am white. I would prefer to be cis. I wish I was born male. And the call was bashing on cis white males (hetero was thrown in there too). I realized that if I had been born correct, that these people would hate me for existing, would be bashing me. Often it is perpetuated at allowed. Priviledge. Patriarchy. The system is fixed to promote the white man. Those who stand up to say that bashing on white people is being racist tend to get slammed pretty hard, called neonazies, and such. You know, after the insurrection at the capital and everything that has happened, the fear and resentment of white people is by and large something people are justified in expressing. Marginalized groups have come under threat again and again. This, I won’t deny. To do so would be to gloss over centuries of disenfranchisement and hate.

My skin is what I was born in. I can’t change that. Am told not to express a wish of changing it. Am told I don’t know my place. Don’t know my priviledge, don’t know what it is to suffer. That I need to sit down and shut up.

If the script was flipped by these twitter accounts in regard to cis (or cissy as I’ve been seeing) white, men to the opposite, it would be designated as racist and sexist and their twitter accounts would be ratioed out of existence, and yet, it was becoming prevalent.

I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t. I couldn’t continue seeing people bash on what I wish I was born. I’m trans. I don’t want that label. I don’t want to own it as some badge of pride, forever reminding myself my body isn’t and never will be right. I want to just be physically what is inside my head.

Once I muted these accounts, I started muting anyone else that popped up who was bashing on this, that, or the other. I started unfollowing people, pairing down my feed, disassembling a platform I’ve worked for three years to build for my books.

I woke up this morning and realized, I was happy. I was relieved. I didn’t fear opening my twitter and knowing I was on duty to try to reassure people triggered by one event or another, or help them find work arounds for another drama issue.

This, this was not what I was told to do when developing my writing platform. It was giving me stress, anxiety, and depression, quite honestly, I was investing so much of my emotional energy into helping and truly, getting very little in return, other than a large platform interested in my daily life, rather than in my life. My books are my life. My books are my therapy for events in my life. They helped me work through difficult situations. Fyskar and Polaris Skies especially.

And so, with that realization, I culled a large portion of my following list on Twitter.

My feed looks better, and my driving desire to respond and help with whatever new bit of drama has taken root in the community has abated. Now, I find myself wondering: If Twitter and the other social media platforms were not achieving the results I needed, what the point of maintaining them was? I now have probably 30 people I enjoy interacting with on all of my social media platforms and a pretty decent amount of others I might sometimes interact with on occassion. That feels comfortable to me.

I’m not sure where to go from here in regards to selling my life *ehem books* but it’s not there. It never was there. It never will be there. It’s not content people there really want to deal with. Social media is where we go to air our grievances, to commiserate in misery, to have a moment of joy that no one truly cares about, and to wallow in pity of the self. For people to watch the train wreck of our lives and find some small bit of peace with themselves that they are not the only ones suffering through a bad day.

I don’t have the emotional bandwidth for it anymore. I can’t. It doesn’t get me book sales, and it’s caustic for someone who is in the rainbow community who is realizing that they are hated by the community for existing as they are and for who they wish they were.

So, for those struggling with making social media work for you, and all you deal with is drama, instead of going on yet another day, week, month haitus from social media, pare down who you interact with, find out for yourself why you talk to them, and determine if you’re willing to invest that minute of your life yet one more time.

For your own mental health, social media isn’t the answer. It’s a facet for achieving, but it is not the end all be all of being a writer or a published author.

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The Writing Pet Peeves

Everyone has pet peeves. Things they find particularly aggravating to encounter in their mundane lives. Readers and consumers of entertainment tend to have many. I am no exception.

I have developed, in my time since graduating university and setting my path on becoming an author, many pet peeves I find irksome.

Usually typos and punctuation are not one of them. I am not especially good at catching either of those mistakes, and with the market becoming international more and more day by day, I find that words that used to be “wrong” are quite often times “correct” within the context of the country the manuscript was composed in. The difference in British vs. American spelling is phenomenal, and I rather prefer the British spelling, though I was raised American.

With that in mind, I do find myself suffering difficulties in reading novels anymore. I have spent the last several years of my life writing novels and editing them, and editing them, and editing them. As such, now when I peer into the pages of other authors and find everything that I have been told to edit out, I find it difficult to take the material seriously.

With that information in mind, allow me to introduce to you, my personal pet peeves. These are in the category of “Chapel dislikes these things. Your opinion on any one specific issue is entirely valid and please disregard if you find it stringent and useless drivel. Also, for the most part, this deals within the lexicon and grammatics of Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult fictional material. I realize Picture Books, Elementary and Middle Grade books require the repetitive utilization of some of these words for concise understanding by individuals yet to fully comprehend the depth of a piece intended for an audience five times their age.”

With that disclaimer in mind, let’s look at what I tend to ctrl+f out of my manuscript AFTER I’ve finished writing the story. I say after with the express intent that writing a first draft should not be hogtied by means of training yourself out of writing the issues. That tends to lead to writer’s block, and is not worth worrying about.

First and foremost on my list of things to do upon entering the last period on my manuscript is to close the lid, walk away, make some tea, and take a bath. Many authors and editors will tell you to leave it sit for at least six months. Forget the story elements such that when you revisit the script, certain things you will have forgotten and be able to analyse with new eyes. I am complete rubbish at doing this. I tend to turn around the next day and start massacring the thing.

Ctrl + F

There are many online resource lists of words one should consider removing from a manuscript upon finishing it. These are not written in stone lists. They might be standardized practice for certain publishing houses and should be analysed with that contingent in mind if you wish to go through obtaining an agent and landing a book deal with the Big 5. For me, I try to go through the lists so that my self-published books are clean, tight, and within the same parameters. When I run into these words in traditionally published books and beta manuscripts I will tend to ditch the book and start red marking the manuscript pretty hard – hence why I make every effort not to beta read someone else’s precious life project.

I tend to keep this list as a sticky note next to my monitor once I’m in editing mode. If I run into these words within dialogue, I will work out how necessary it is to leave in for the character’s personality. If it’s within the rest of the script outside of dialogue, I will try to eliminate it by way of restructuring the sentence or paragraph. Sometimes the word must be kept though. To me, it should be rare and infrequent.

JustShouldCouldWouldWasWereHadHaveSuddenlyVeryReallyThatAnd ThenThenbreathed, sighed (I do this too much)begin/began/beginninglooked, blinked, glanced (one of my worst problems)-ly words. (This one I will ctrl + f “ly” and read through what it yields. Actually, Totally, Literally, etc.)rathersome – what, how, thing, one, body, etc.Dialogue tags. If you are a stringent believer in said/asked being the only existing dialogue tags, then use it sparingly and add in action. Otherwise, mix up the dialogue so that you learn the character’s mannerisms and communication skills. Having an entire block of one line dialogue between one or more characters of: “abc” x said. “def?” y asked, is tiring to readers and comes across as juvenile to me. This is where disclaimer comes in for Picture Books, Elementary, and Middle Grade books. I have found this said/ask structure prevalent, so it must be some type of industry standard and is where I will make an acception, though it pains me to read out loud for any length of time.quite – this one is fun to play with for Victorian era writing, but otherwise noisome.directional words and action words in relation to an understood movement: I nodded my head up and down. This can be switched to : I nodded. Or I stood up on tip toes. This can be switched to: I stood on tip toes, or I stretched to reach xyz, etc.feel, felt, could feel, had felt…please for the love of all that is holy delete these from your vocabulary and invest in emotion and sensation descriptors. If necessary, use sparingly, like once in every other project. *grossed out shivers* (and I’m horrible at writing feel/felt into a script so I can move on and come back to it at the end of a project to adjust for atmosphere)not and never : please use sparingly. Running into paragraph after paragraph of pronoun did not, pronoun would not, pronoun could not…OLD. FAST. – I speak from having read a book where for an entire chapter the traditionally published author referred to their character at length purely through not sentences. It came off negative and repetitive.Speaking of repetition. If an broad word outside of articles and pronouns is used more than once in a paragraph, maybe consult a thesaurus.

Let’s call this rant done for the day. I can get into plot tropes a different day.

RT @chapelorahamm: I can’t wait to read what happens next in The Kavordian Library! – #scifi, #fantasy, #webseries #books

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Help Decide a Webcomic

I’m currently running a batch of polls over on my twitter account: @chapelorahamm and could really use some input!

I’ve found that I can put my nsfw art up on OnlyFans. I do not have an account on there yet. I would like to get a nice stockpile of art done so that I can have things scheduled in case I have to take a day off here and there. That happens a lot now days. My goal is to have the webcomic up starting in the first week of September on the site. This gives me this spring to get a lot of hand drafts done and this summer to do a lot of Clip Studio digitizing and clean up.

Running theme of: Wealthy Patron and a Patronee (i.e. a Victorian variation of a Sugar Daddy)

Want to help me decide character attributes and things like that?

Here are current poll links:

Original Title Poll

Came down to: Gold & Snow To be Gilded, and Hedonist’s Love Letter

Albrecht the MC’s Favorite Author

Lord Byron won this one

Albrecht’s Hobby

Archery for the win

Who is Albrecht’s Tropey Friend?

A pessimist and an optimist, seeing as I asked for how many friends he should have and 2 won out.

So, now we know where we stand, let’s look at today’s polls:

Narrowing down the title

Options are Gold & Snow, and To Be Gilded

Albrecht’s Hair color

Albrecht’s Eye Color

The Love Interest’s name

The Love Interest’s profession

Should they write each other Love Letters?

Once I have these, I’ll put up polls tomorrow asking about LI’s hobbies, hair & eye color, and based on profession I might have more questions regarding that.

Here are a couple hand drafts (so really rough sketches) of where my idea with this is going:

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Melancholic Harmony: Chapter 15

*first draft and exercise in frustration – my characters are mutinying on me*

“Ian!” Seran called behind me as I broke the surface of the ocean. We were surprisingly closer than I thought to land. The crevice had been part of a deep section off a long shallow shelf. Instead of wasting the charm, I used it to push myself towards the soft sand beach.  “Ian!” Seran called again. I ignored the call, intent on putting feet to earth.

At the beach edge I cleared out my gills and drew in fresh, humid air. The type like Gaviston in summer when the wind had settled. Suffocating, when the sea turned into the heavens and you sweated like you’d been swimming. The trees were strange compared to my pine and birch I had grown up. Wide overarching palm fronds and thick staggered trunks.

I couldn’t survive in the human world the way I was. Going back now was chancing my freedom and my life. Going in the ocean unclaimed meant dealing with Leviathan, and others of the Join. Nuada gave me the creeps. Leviathan I understood. That motivation was almost tangible and bluntly honest. 

People from the village had a saying. “Come to a crossroads and count the stars above you. Make a pact with the first person to intersect with you, if you wish to live.” An easier way of saying it: “When no other choice is available, make a pact with the devil that lets you sleep at night.”

“Ian Cimet?” Seran called from several feet out in the surf. If he came in much closer he would beach himself and get stuck.

“Where’s a freshwater source?” I asked, digging a foot into the sand to get myself upright. The world protested, slipping sideways on me. The sun was shifting past midday and I was famished.

“South.” He pointed along the beach edge.

“How far?” I called back, starting on my trudge.

“Not more fifty spans.” He followed me in the surf.

“Your length?” I asked.

“Not my length, no. I’m not sure how to relate it to you. You saw Nuada’s length. Twenty of her, at least,” he answered.

The beach ran up against a set of dark cliffs, interspersed with broad foliage. Birds flitted in and out of the trees. He had brought me to paradise and I was lost. Set my sail and let the rudder list, I was lost and floating to the whims of the gods.

“I don’t like her,” I grouched at him.

“She takes time to warm up to,” he hedged.

“Thank you for getting me to someone who could help with my shoulder.” I still couldn’t lift it and rotate it properly, but it was better.

“Of course! You were wounded and you warned me of danger with those humans. Why did they injure you?” Seran asked.

“I was camped on their territory, so they wanted me to leave, until they realized I was different. Ever heard of a circus?” I scrambled over a jut of volcanic rock.

“No, it is a new word for me,” Seran admitted.

“Companies collect odd and strange creatures and employ people who can do tricks or look strange. They travel, acting and performing for money from crowds of other people. There’s something called a sideshow, and they are usually part of the circus. That’s where bearded ladies and strongmen and short people exhibit themselves. The men, once they saw my spots, changed from wanting me off their land, to wanting to put me in a sideshow,” I explained.

“But they shot you? You said no?” Seran asked, confused.

“They would have gained a finders fee for me. I may or may not have actually gotten paid. I can’t stomach that kind of attention. It was something Jarl had initially wanted to do with Taigre, send him to the sideshow. I couldn’t stomach seeing him stuck in a tank. That wouldn’t have been good for him.” I ended up having to backtrack at an impassable rock and get into the water.

“Thank you for not sending him to this sideshow place. A finder’s fee. I am not sure I understand,” Seran admitted.

“You know how humans value pearls?” I splashed through the tide around the rock.

“Yes.” He pulled closer in as the shallowness of the beach dipped.

“Does the Join deal in money, currency, taxes, barter?” I lifted away deep lobed leaves to search for the absentee shore line on the other side of the rock.

“We will barter, yes, but I am not familiar with the use of the other terms.” Seran shrugged. “We’re almost to the freshwater, around that next outcrop and you’ll be at the delta.”

“Essentially they would have bartered my life for pearls,” I gave him the blunt version, finding the edge of the shore again.

“But you are not theirs to give,” he specified, his tail splashing in startled frustration

“You’re not wrong there. If I had been one of them and come across Taigre, you would not have gotten him back. Humans, some are good, some are not, and it’s not always easy to tell who is who.” I turned at his rock, the smell of the water changing noticeably. The temperature dropped and the delta merged between a clear soft green and a murky algae green. Seran dashed into the deep river. I followed him along the bank while he rolled in the current in ecstasy.

“You are a river creature, aren’t you?” I called out to him, putting my feet in the water. It was soft, compared to the ocean. Cooler, calming, it was easy to slip into the stream and walk along the edge as he fluffed his fins and cleaned the algae from his tail.

“Yes. It feels better. The water doesn’t burn my gills like it does out there,” he admitted, finding himself a large rock to bask on, his eyes and back fins above the waterline. His tail and side fins flicked in and out of the rocking tree light.

“Can I really not breath this?” I waded farther in to sit on a rock close to his.

“If I find the sea to burn, you will think you have died. Reason why I chastised Taigre when he dragged you into the sweetwater mix. It can take a long time getting used to waters that are not natural to you. That could have killed you, being honest. Nuada is not wrong. A Kraken child and a Fomorii would not make a good match.” His gaze slid from me to regard the canopy shading our spot.

“Explain the names. Fomorii, child of Domnu, Bet-tah. I know you are Seran. Also, what are charms? They help a lot, but humans can’t do what you do.” I slipped deeper into the water to enjoy floating.

“You do not fear the river?” Seran pushed himself from his rock to circle me warily. “Charms are a manipulation of energy. Those of the Join, and those with blood from the Join have varying capacity for them. You could learn to cast them with time. Llyr is higher than the saltwater gods. Domnu is higher than the sweetwater gods. Fomorii is an old name for us from when Nuada fought on the side of Llyr against Domnu. The Fomorii, underrepresented in the Join Council for millenia, had thought to take the seat and transfer the council. A revolution broke out and a lot of both sides were killed, more so from the children of Domnu than the children of Llyr. This was well before my time, or my mother’s. Are you okay to be in this?”

“I grew up hunting crawdads in the creek, swimming in lakes in summer. I’ve waded flooded pastures. These waters, they aren’t something as broad and deep as that out there.” I pointed back the way we came.

“But rivers can be deep. There are those of the Join who are the same as Nuada in size. Do not think it safer,” he cautioned.

“Do I know that feeling. Viktor, my younger brother, got too far out once and I had a fun moment of running into a massive catfish getting him out of the water. Creeped on my memories for weeks,” I chuckled.

“You were angry out there, and now you are singing? All the sea gods will hear you,” Seran cautioned, stuck between not trying to catch me and leaving me to my floating.

“Maybe I’m a solitary creature, one that finds a person, or two and after that, it’s too much to handle?” I offered, catching onto one of his wrists. He startled at my audacity. “I’m probably not what you need here, just a problem to navigate around. Mate claim isn’t something you’d want with me. Bet-tah is what you are, isn’t it? Your group in the Join, like Nuada and Dian Cecht are different from Taigre’s family? Fomorii refers to the separation between the fresh and saltwater factions, not your clan or tribe or people, yes?” I guessed, pulling closer to him and his wavering uncertainty at my motivations.

“Yes, those are what the names mean” he conceded, his voice catching, his fins flattening at the assessment. He fluffed back out and looked up at me, “but I would argue with you on the validity of Mate Claim. Siren’s Voice. You’re singing now. Can you not feel it?”

I closed my eyes to listen to the trickle of water over boulders. The sound of home. The drip of humidity off the leaves. The coating of the freshwater spray on my skin. Seran swallowed. I opened my eyes to regard his expression. He was watching my spots intently, all of his fins feathered out into clouds. “What?” I fought a smile wavering at the corner of my lip.

“I – um -” his fingers slipped along my waist, but his focus was across my chest and arms.

“I’m doing weird patterns again, aren’t I?” I asked after his closeness. He dipped below the water and came back up, flicking his eyes between mine and the rest of me. I snorted at the surface of the water, ducking below the surface to run fingers along a stripe on one of the side fins along his tail. He stilled, fixating. “Is ducking your way of showing yes? Like I nod?” The charm had to still be active between my throat and iase.

“You know what you’re doing?” he asked, joining me under the water.

“Admiring you?” I traced the edges of his fin before bobbing for the surface to grab another breath of air and diving back to him.

“I mean, well, you see,” he stuttered as I traced the feathered edges of his fins in fascination. Delicate, they tickled my fingertips, my lights playing in tight patterns up my arms. He twisted, all of his fins flashing in the river light. I pushed for the surface and sucked in more air and let it go, this time diving on empty lungs. I reached for him. He grabbed for my wrist pulling me so I could curl around him. I kissed him, taking a breathe of hellfire. He held on until I had fought past that first flash of pain. His fins wrapped around me protectively. Returning the kiss, he pressed his charm into my chest, helping me draw in and out on the burn.

“The sea gods, Nuada, they’ll recognize us, yes?” I asked.

“Are you sure? Weren’t you the one who said yesterday that humans need time?” Seran asked.

“Maybe we’ll find love, if those in the Join even understand the concept. For now, can we seek protection in each other?” I twisted with his movements, slipping along his ridges.

“You’ve never seen this,” Seran whispered in startled awe. “Kraken or Fomorii, and you can’t hear yourself.”

“No. I’m not sure I ever will. Someday, I’ll play you songs on my mandolin or guitar,” I offered, slipping fingers behind his neck.

“You’re dancing,” he hedged.

“How does this work with you?” I trailed fingers down his chest.

“Work?” he swallowed.

“Maybe I missed the concept of Mate Claim?” I offered. “You said you’d seen it. That often there was a pairing off after only a couple hours?”

He settled timid fingers over mine. “You seem to know what you’re about.”

“Is this the time to ask if Bet-tah approach this like Taigre and Keris, or is this more of a trout thing? You’re quite literally three times longer than me, so I’m trying to, uh, you know?” I hesitated.

“Like Keris.” Seran’s fins were shimmering. I paused, calculating. “Your spots have gone dim, Ian?”

“I’ve seen enough livestock in my life. I’m trying to work out how this isn’t going to hurt.” I admitted. 

Seran got the concept of where my problem lay, all of his fins going slick as his fingers traced across my skin absentmindedly. “You um, well, I thought, see you’re Kraken. I thought you were going to…” he trailed off. 

A miniature jack and a clydesdale came to mind at that admission. I was insignificantly small around the others of the Join I had met up to now. The world turned vastly more intimidating all at once. “I’m not going to say no, but am I assuming you designated this off of some hierarchy thing in the Join that I’m not familiar with, or? Again, three times my size, I have some doubts, size wise, that I’ll please you in much of any way?”

Seran ducked at the question, his way of nodding yes. “You’re not wrong. There is hierarchy in the Join.” 

I shifted from teasing and admiring to tug him toward some of the low rocks where I could more easily perch. “Would there still be this problem if I were capable of bearing children? Would that impact how this went?”

“Paired like that, I would still be secondary to you because you are Kraken child, but I would be provider.” He let me pull him to rest between my knees.

“Okay. Let’s just clear this one up now. Join hierarchy is bullshit,” I told him.

He shifted in protest, like I had said something taboo. “I’m not sure you understand, Ian. You’re – you’re up there being Puca’s child. You guarantee someone will die if you mark them.”

“A grim reaper?” I clarified.

“That is an unfamiliar term, but the sensation feels right. If you’re down here long enough, you’ll come across more of your siblings. I told you, Puca’s children pack hunt other Kraken and sea gods. You bite someone, the rest will come,” he explained.

“I bit Taigre,” horror flashed all of my spots bright at that realization.

Seran’s eyes went wide at that as I pushed him off me and launched myself into the river current. “Bit him? When?”

“When he dragged me under that first time. I got scared and he wasn’t letting go. I got one of his fingers. Where are we going?” I demanded as I let the headwater carry me to the delta.

“Pull out and clear your gills before you smack into the ocean, Ian! You think riverwater hurts, that mix is going to make you pass out!” Seran cautioned, catching my foot before I could make it into the murky swirl. I did as I was told and clambered into the swampy mud and spat out the water.

“Who’s more likely to have others like me come after them, Leviathan or Taigre, right now?” I demanded, the water taking its sweet time clearing.

“Leviathan. You took a full chunk out of that massive snout. Tigre had all his fingers when I saw him.” Seran answered from the ocean side.

“Do we have time to get there? Is there a way to let the Join know there’s been a mistake?” I asked, wading into the water and dived in. Saltwater, I had to admit, felt significantly better on my lungs.

Seran reached for my hand as I struggled against the current we turned into off the island. “Hold tight and let me know when that charm goes. Dian Cecht said your ribs will eventually soften to passing water through your gills, but to not push it, lest they crack from strain. You’re fast, but I can cover the distance with less effort, I’ll get there faster.”

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Melancholic Harmony: Chapter 14

*rough draft*

“You will need to tell him, Seran. It will do him no good to learn you are Fomorii, a child of Domnu and not a child of Llyr,” a low voice said over me in the dark. I had been asleep on Seran, heading out to see. Now, I found myself stationary. 

“He has met very few of any of the Join, Nuada. Are the politics necessary?” Seran quipped.

“Not politics, Seran. Not in this regard. He should know the separation between the children of the sea and the children of the river. A kraken child mated to a Fomorii will suffer,” the low voice continued.

“I can live in the salt,” Seran protested.

“And it does you no good. It is stressing on your body. The white lines have grown since last I saw you.” Bubbles, a swirling sound of water echoed in my skull. I was numb though to my sensations, floating in a quiet abyss.

“I am getting older. Age happens,” Seran defended.

“You are still quite young, Bet-tah. You have centuries before your colors should change as drastically as they have,” Nuada placated.

“What would you have me do, Council Leader?” Seran yielded. “Leviathan has already threatened Mate Claim in favor of using him to take your position. He is after a rebellion.”

“You haven’t claimed the Kraken Child as a mate. Everyone would know it,” Nuada bit.

“He was raised human and Join customs intimidate him. I have given him a dowry and he agreed to it,” Seran tried to explain.

“Of pearls? Cast offs from meals, Seran? That is nothing more than an insult!” Nuada reprimanded. “Are you after a mate, or are you too trying to take my position like Leviathan?”

“Pearls were meaningful to the humans of my homewaters,” Seran hissed. “Do not disregard his heritage so easily.”

Peeling my eyes open to the low light blue water, I sucked in a deep gasp. It didn’t hurt. That caught me off guard, along with Seran, and two other individuals of a bizarre shape to my predispositions of normal. “Pearls,” I coughed, coming to Seran’s defense, “are actually quite valuable to humans. What he offered me, I could buy back my dad’s farm, and more land on top of that, livestock, and never suffer a shortage of food,” I coughed again, wheezing this time, “sorry, sir.” Seran reached for my hand as I tried to turn off the stone I was laying belly flat on.

“Careful, Dian Cecht is seeing to your shoulder. She said it will take a few more hours to pull the rest of the shrapnel and mend the bone,” Seran cautioned as he helped position me so I could sit upright.

“He does have Puca’s lights. You are a son of Puca, he has never held a human farm such that you speak of.” A massive creature, well over eight times Seran’s size and a deep blood red peered down at me from over a ledge. Not as large as Leviathan, he still set all of my spots pulsing. A lantern hung from the top of his head and abominably massive fangs curled up near its eyes. “And I am not sir, I am ma’am. My mates have been well apart of me for eons, they were all sirs.” Nuada motioned irreverently long arms towards the length of her body where lumps rose along her. “Stop flashing. I will not eat you.”

Rendered mute, I could do no more than turn from Nuada to Seran and back. Out of terrified curiosity, I turned to see who was behind me working on my shoulder. A smaller creature of similar build to a dynllyr but of my size stood on a series of multiple thin tube like legs, a short, thick, lobed tail jutted from the back. Compound eyes glittered in a myriad of rainbow colors. “I am Dian Cecht, Kraken child, it is an honor to meet the progeny of Puca,” Dian Cecht bowed. Multiple sets of arms, one on the right possessing a massive claw was enough to set my spots going all over again.

“You may wish to lower your stress, Kraken Child. You will wear through the charm allowing you to breath comfortably,” Nuada cautioned. That did nothing for my rising level of anxiety.

“Ian?” Seran tried to draw my attention. I turned to him as he slipped his fingers beneath mine. I latched on, desperate that I not be in this seventh layer of hell.

“I can’t do this.” I gulped. The lights under my skin had not had a sensation up to this point. The brighter I got in the blue depression, the more my skin prickled. “I want to go home. I want my little plot of land on dad’s farm. I want to feed Omah. I want my mandolin. I want my pencils. I can’t do this.”

“I hear you. I know this is scary. I remember being scared when I first came to the Join Council. Let’s get your shoulder fixed first, okay?” Seran bobbed to keep my attention focused on him.

“How am I talking proper?” I asked.

“Cainte, another of the Join Council, put a charm between your throat and your iase, where you seem most attached to communicate so that you weren’t left dependent on me,” he explained. I nodded as Dian Cecht prodded into my flesh.

“And Siren’s Voice?” I gulped as fire shot through my nerves and Dian Cecht dropped a piece of metal on my rock slab.

Nuada pulled closer to me, her lantern illuminating the bowl shaped crevice we were hiding within to keep from being swept by the currents. “Do you have Siren’s Voice, like Seran claims?”

Swallowing, I shifted from the monstrous visage in my face. “I could not tell you. It is what your people have claimed since the moment one of yours bit me and I started glowing in the dark.”

“Then it is probably nothing more than the wishful thinking of errant upstarts and calves who have not been exposed to the sound in their years,” Nuada assumed. “You need not fear others coming after you, Kraken child. I highly doubt Leviathan was who you saw. You’ve been in Keris’s nesting grounds too long, Bet-tah.”

“I am unsure of it’s tone, unaware in the moments they have claimed me to have used it,” I conceded.

“He sings. Your heart breaks in listening to it. Craves hearing it again. Do not insinuate I am outside of my depths because I am Fomorii,” Seran hissed darkly at the creature.

“Many of our people sing, Bet-tah. It is not an uncommon phenomenon,” Nuada admonished.

“You’re telling me this when I have lived as foster child and now guard of Keris’s nesting grounds?” Seran’s fins were twitching, laying flat in agitation.

“Others do too, Bet-tah. It is for being stuck in Keris’s nesting grounds that you may not have experienced others of the Join singing and just been confused by it,” Nuada tried to placate.

“Tell me of a Kraken that sings, Nuada. Who. Puca communicates through his lights to warn others. He does not sing. Neither he, or others like him. Does Lamhfada, being half-human and Great Kraken child?” Seran seethed.

“He is ancient. Of course he does not sing,” Nuada rationalized.

“He still occupies the land near my old nesting grounds?” Seran asked.

“I know not. He has slipped from the waters into the human realms and no one has heard from him in over a century,” Nuada conceded.

“Then you are not sure if he can sing or not.” Seran judged.

“He does not have Siren’s Voice. That much I can guarantee,” Nuada leaned her massive head on her hand to regard Seran with one of her massive brown and black eyes.

“And you would leave Ian to his own safety by stating he does not possess Siren’s Voice upon seeing him. You would risk a Siren in the Join by dismissing him? You would not ask of him anything? Leviathan imposed on Mate Claim!” Seran’s fins went as flat as I had seen him achieve.

“Singing. Music? That is Siren’s Voice? My heart singing? And you would make me do it on command?” I muttered at the concept, agitated at the merfolk. Dian Cecht patted me on the shoulder, finished with pulling the buckshot out of my wounds. “I had always hoped it would be my art that was admired through the world. I wanted to be famous, escape my parents’ farm, go to the city, become something. Now, my world has turned inside out and you want me to shred my soul for you so I can claim a spot in this food chain?” I growled at Nuada, fingers tightening on Seran’s wrists.

“I meant no ill-will, Kraken child. I do not trust the lack of evidence. You are clearly of Puca’s lineage. I will not dismiss that. However, you are not of Siren’s Voice. I have met several in passing and I would know it.” Nuada dismissed with a flick of her wrist.

“Then pearls and rivers will make no nevermind to you.” I pushed myself from the stone slab. My shoulder blazed, but I was done.

“Where do you think you are off to, Kraken child, to leave a Council Leader who has not dismissed you?” Nuada reprimanded.

Numb terror had turned to boiling anger. My spots changed, toning down, dimming the space around us. I slipped my fingers from Seran’s, using a kink in his tail to launch myself up out of the sheltered bowl. I had hold of Nuada’s enormous jaw before she realized I had moved. “Call me Kraken child again, mudkip and I will become your Kraken. Do you taste like Leviathan?”

“You wouldn’t.” Nuada shivered under my hold, her massive eyes swiveling to locate my location.

“Strip me of my name. Strip me of my humanity. You do not rule me, mudkip. I have not acknowledged you as any leader of mine. Shall I leave you the way I left Leviathan?” I barred my teeth.

“You really maimed him? You left your mark on him to be hunted by your siblings? For questioning the legitimacy -”

“If it is the one power I hold in this place, I will protect myself. I don’t trust you. You’ll be letting me pass now,” I interrupted her. She kept quiet at the threat. “Seran, stay here or come with or do whatever you choose to do. Just point me in the direction of land. Rather take pot shots from bb guns than deal with entitled eels.”

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The Feather on My Scale: Chapter 7

*First Draft*

Returning to my rooms that evening left me hollow and suffering a headache. With luck, and Nebra’s planning, the evening’s sacrament had involved honey. The congregation had rejoiced upon the luxury, reserving all they could to take home to their families. With that cover, we kept Wash’s Repercussion in check.

Nebra caught me, letting me splay out on the lounge and rest my head in her lap. “Seth already in bed?” I buried my eyes into her robes to hide from the light of the oil lamps.

“She’s taking a bath with Ptolemy. Said you could come in and join when you were ready. You all right?” Her fingers tugged through my hair, rubbing all the aches out of my skull.

“Don’t stop,” I encouraged, yawning.

“Long day?” she chuckled when she found that one spot behind my ear that left me in pain free bliss for a few seconds.

“Ptolemy tell you what happened with the fanged eel?” I asked.

“Adom went and put his foot in his mouth in a glorious way, at least that’s what Ptolemy said before whistling himself off towards the baths. The swagger he had going, I’d almost believe he watched the High Lectern put himself in a casket.” Her fingers trailed farther down my neck to my shoulders.

“Adom floated the idea of cups.” I weaseled one arm between Nebra and the couch cushions and wrapped my arms around her hips.

She burst out laughing. “Damn, that’s perfect. No wonder Ptolemy was clucking like a proud rooster.”

“You’re good with cups?” I scooted closer, turning my head up in her lap to regard her features.

“Oh, hell yeah, do it. It means you get to sucker punch both the nobility and the temple in one go. Wash is also pretty nice for the few hours I got to talk to him. Think he’d be good with our family.” She scooted down in the lounge until I was laying between her legs, my head resting on her stomach.

“You think so? Ptolemy seems sold on him and Seth has found a potential new playmate. You?” I asked, her fingers conducting magic on my shoulder blades.

“He gets flustered and cleavage will make him space out,” she whispered in my ear.

“What did you do?” I snorted.

“I was just picking out clothes was all.” She was failing to hide an amused grin.

“You and Seth going to have a moment with my heirophant?” I teased.

“I forgot all about Seth and him.” She chortled.

“Does he seem the type?” I asked her.

“Not really sure.” She shrugged. “Not much of one to be teased if he doesn’t know the context. I think, though, that he is not without interest in the potential of us.”

“You think so?” Relief eased down my back.

“I asked him what his thoughts were on being a consort. Ptolemy was trying to sell him on the idea, but Wash looked lost with all the innuendos seeing as Ptol wasn’t saying anything outright in front of the regiment.” She pushed the edge of my robes from the back of my neck.

“He seemed to hedge with me around,” I qualified, lifting myself so she could tug at the knot on my belt.

“Once we abandoned Ptol, he had questions. Mainly trying to understand what the eyebrow wiggles were from Ptol. Rather a point blank kind of person, about how everything worked with the four of us. Didn’t seem to mind the idea once he got how all of us work together, and work together.” Her tone dropped suggestively with where her fingers were dancing.

“He seemed more embarrassed than disgusted with Ptolemy pinning him earlier,” I led on, gasping as she traced hard lines.

“Told me he didn’t mind either or, just not experienced, so not sure what to expect, or what’s expected of him.” Her other hand slipped behind my waist to encourage me closer.

“I have a feeling Seth is going to be grouchy if she isn’t invited in on the fun tonight.” I kissed my way up the line of her curves to her throat.

“Seth, you, and me tonight?” Her fingertips had turned feather light and everything was tightening. I raised an eyebrow in questioning surprise. She kissed me and let go, reaching for the com on the table. “Hey Seth?” she sang over the mic.

A minute passed and the com buzzed back. “Are you two going to come join? The water’s particularly warm tonight, or is it just us?” Seth asked.

“Wanna bring some things back to Henu’s room. He’s volunteering to be in the middle tonight.” Her tone had my heart on fire.

“I’m coming too,” Ptolemy called, water splashing on tile echoing in the com.

“I didn’t even say yes yet!” Seth protested, though the resounding whump and state of chaos on the other side of the com told me Ptolemy had already tossed her a towel.

“Ptolemy pent up more than the rest of us?” I asked Nebra when she set the com back down.

“I don’t think he was joking when he said he was keeping Wash.” She turned back to me, determined this time to be rid of all of my robes.

“As long as everyone in the family is happy with the arrangement.” I got off of her and dropped the masses of silk.

“Happy. Try horney.” Ptolemy burst into the room and tackled me, landing me between Nebra and himself. 

““So that’s a yes from you too then?” I gasped, his lips and hands finding too many sensitive places at once. “Where’s Seth? Take five minutes to turn horney down and get your leg looked at before you chafe to hell and back,” I reprimanded, withdrawing from cold wet metal with a squeak. 

He snorted. The mediocre towel he had been wearing was ditched in favor of drying himself and his prosthetic off the rest of the way. His mood didn’t lessen, though, blatantly flaunting it. He was calculating my skin and my observations. “Getting things. And yes, bring in the piebald dove. He’s got that same vocal range you have that is going to hit some of those perfect notes.” Ptolemy leaned over me to drive the point home, teeth nipping. “Like that one.”

“You’re mean.” He wasn’t letting me catch my breath.

“I’m just getting you started. Seth’s gonna make you worship her.” Ptolemy tossed the towel.

“Fuck.” I muttered.

“That’s the idea.” Nebra whispered in my ear.

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Melancholic Harmony: Chapter 13

*first draft*

“I heard Siren Voice so far out, I had to come investigate, Bet-tah,” Leviathan chuckled to itself. “And here I find you hiding a Kraken child. Who’s do you have? Cuttle? Lineolata, Mestus? Typica’s mayhaps?”

Bet-tah? Who was Bet-tah? The creature must be referring to Seran.

Seran swallowed, his chest rising beneath my fingers as I concentrated on trying to pull water in and out. “Sh, sh, just breath, Ian. That’s all you’re doing,” he whispered, arms tightening around me.

Quiet. I needed to silence myself. Make all of it go away. A Kraken child was a Kraken child, nothing more without Siren Voice other than a child of a sea king. I still was unsure of what powers one could hold with that type of position.

What had I done to make myself silent by Seran’s definition? I had been embarrassed. I couldn’t pull that emotion out right now. Not with my shoulder screaming at me and trying to remember to get water into my gills. My ribs hurt with the effort. Seran’s fins settled around me carefully. The frilled edging tickled along my arms and the back of my neck.

Even in the midst of this intrusion, he continued to help me regulate. It was either Leviathan or the men on shore with the shotguns. I knew what that last option felt like. I would rather deal with drowning at the moment. The saltwater was less painful after a few breaths than the freshwater. At least the sensation of it coating the bizarre organ inside my chest. The pressure density was something else to contend with though.

“My mate, Leviathan. He is mine, regardless of parentage.” Seran tightened closer around me, his fins blanketing me protectively.

“It is unmarked. I would have smelled that as much as its Kraken.” The creature’s voice slid across me, an uneasy, manipulative slither. The timbre vibrated through my skin into my bones. It made me nauseous.

“You interrupted our courtship is all,” Seran bluffed, trying to pull me to his side, putting himself between me and the creature. My right hand was going numb. Rings flashed in my eyes. I gasped, fighting with the next breath of water.

“Then I can still Claim.” Leviathan’s head came closer to us. I caught the red irises between the frills of Seran’s tail.

The dynllyr shivered beneath me. “You would push Claim on another’s mate. For what right?”

“That the kings of the sea shall secure Siren’s Voice. None have been born to the Join in well over five centuries at this point. Siren’s Voice shall be mine. I will become the leader of the council! We shall no longer suffer under humans’ thumb.” The creature lunged. My chest contracted at the movement, my heart stuttering. All of my spots radiated, blinding both me and Seran in our enclosed space.

Leviathan recoiled in surprise, hissing in fear, “Puca Kraken.”

“You would risk Puca’s anger, claiming one of his sons against his will?” Seran laughed at the situation, pushing a hand to my chest to help me expel the water still stuck in the bottom of my chest cavity without Leviathan seeing.

“Puca has not had children in centuries. He is not Puca’s child!” The creature weaved to look closer at me.

Seran leaned into my forehead. “If he gets too close to you, bite him. Bite him like you are going to die.” I nodded, fighting with the driving fear permeating my limbs. “You have seen his lights and know him to be Kraken child and yet persist in saying he is not Puca’s? You would tempt a Blue Hole’s depth?”

“What is wrong with him, that he cannot answer for himself who his father is?” Leviathan pressed closer, invading our space. “It is of no matter. It has Siren’s Voice. Puca’s child or any other, I will rule the council.”

Seran loosened his hold on me as I sucked in a deep gulp of water. The white nose bumped into us, sending us summersaulting far away from the bottom of the Texas shoreline. It’s head kept up with us, it’s neck disappearing well into the darkness even my lights couldn’t reach. The creature’s nose was the length of Seran’s body easily. I twisted in the blanket of fins and latched onto the massive creature, biting down like Seran said. My gut seized on the flavor, that of something akin to honeysuckle and sea spray. Were the creature not beneath the water and looking me in the eye, I would have believed myself to have taken a large bite of saltwater taffy. 

Leviathan shreaked, thrashing to have me dislodge. “You would destroy me upon a simple inquest on the validity of Mate Claim? You shall be tamed!” The creature shook viciously. “Release me. It hurts!”

Large hands grasped around my chest to pull me from the creature. “Woah. Easy, Ian. Let go!” Seran demanded. “You’re not going to be able to eat him and breathe at the same time yet!”

I didn’t want to let go. The creature had scared me. I wanted my shoulder to stop hurting. At this exact moment in time, I felt justified in the method, and it tasted like the sweets counter back home. The walnuts and persimmons had not done much for me and I was famished.

“No. No. I understand that Puca’s children like the taste of other Kraken and the sea gods, but you’re going to stop being able to breathe if you don’t let go. Eyes are too big for your stomach, Ian. You need the rest of your siblings to take down Leviathan. Argue all you want. Not dinner! Let go. You only needed to warn him off. No, you can’t have more right now. If he comes near you again, you can then, but that’s more than enough for a meal. Let go.” Seran commanded. I chomped down once more for good measure before releasing my grip to curl back into my dynllyr’s arms. He was not wrong either. Swallowing was difficult against the water compressing my organs.

The massive snake headed creature withdrew, honeysuckle blood gushing into the dark. “Puca’s child!” It screeched, angry and scared. “A Siren’s Voice from a Kraken child of Puca. The Join Council will hear of this!”

“Are you to tell them, Leviathan? By what means will you tell them? That you tried to Claim another’s mate in the midst of courtship? That you antagonized Puca’s child into biting you? You will have no sympathy, Leviathan. Neither you, nor the scar on your nose if and when it heals,” Seran hissed.

I had a million and one questions running through my head. The most pressing though was the fading rings from Seran’s charm. Leviathan retracted, leaving behind a wash of cold water that buoyed us to the surface. Seran turned over on his back to hold me out of the water while I cleared my gills for sweet air.

I could not see the land for the water, the sun having dipped below the horizon to leave us in a blanket of stars. “Do I-” I almost hacked up my lung, “do I want to know why that snake tasted like candy?”

“About that,” Seran started nervously.

“Actually. Hold off. Is there a way to get my arm to stop hurting?” I switched topics when cold air hit my wounds.

“Here, turn, let’s see what we’re working – oh great Llyr!” Seran hissed at whatever he found. By the way my skin felt, I could only guess the glancing blow from the buckshot had probably left a pretty ragged looking wound. “Every sea god will be coming for you with that!”

“Is that what I just met, a sea god?” I coughed the last of the water out.

“Leviathan. Ghastly creature. I’m going to need to get you to a better healer than myself. I know tricks and charms, but I can’t handle something this complex.” Seran explained.

“When Taigre and you left to the nesting grounds, it took you a long time to get there and back,” I let on, my anxiety of having to go back in the water to breath rising.

“I do not need the nesting grounds. There are reefs closer. I can find you someone there,” he reassured.

“Are you able to set another charm for me to breath again?” I asked.

“No. That took everything I had for charms for at least the next day. For the moment, rest, you might get a bit wet, but I can swim us towards our destination. I’m sorry about that. Your mantle is going to be tender for days at this rate.” He encouraged me to lay against his chest.

“You are much larger than Taigre,” I mumbled, curling so that I could keep my right shoulder above water.

“Wait until you meet Keris,” he whispered back to me with a chuckle as I drifted into blackout.

RT @chapelorahamm: I can’t wait to read what happens next in The Kavordian Library! – #scifi, #fantasy, #webseries #books

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