Erik Amundsen's Blog, page 57

You can Always Go.... DOWN TOWN

Forget all your worries, forget all your cares and read BLACK GATE!
and read my new column there
BLACK GATE!
(images found by Claire)
BLACK GATE!
Tolkien got name dropped here, too...

(BLACK GATE  BLACK GATE)

Motherfucking Pirates, Part 10

wirewalking's house has decided to try and rot out from under her.  She writes amazing stories and makes really tasty cookies and caramels, and she is offering books  and baked goods to help defray the costs of, well, her house breaking.  She is offering them here
She also wrote an awesome story about zombies.

Here's the link to her story: http://nicolekornherstace.com/stories/present/

Here's the link to her tip jar: http://wirewalking.livejournal.com/229970.html


shadesong is still trying to fund the bionic upgrades to her poor clumsy kitty  who broke her arm recently.  Halfway there, but a new round of auctions is bound to go up here.

shweta_narayan is sending people to WorldCon.  I want people to go to WorldCon, too, and if you'd like to help her send people to WorldCon, you should go here.

  “Qualm, I   need you.  She’s got him, and heaven knows what she’s going to do to him if we don’t.”

“Gem?”  Qualm scooched up to sit against the headboard of his bed, and Gem flowed onto the foot of it. 

“Yeah, it’s me.  Gem.”

“Who’s got him?”

“Red Hull.”

Qualm started to get up.  “We have to tell the authorities, get the constable…  We-”

Gem flowed again, it was the only way Qualm could really describe her movements, and she put one hand on his shoulder and pushed him back to the headboard.  She was really strong.  She pressed her cheek against his.

“It has to be us.  You and me.”  She pulled back away again and looked at him.  “And the authorities, Qualm, really?  The authorities have had what, twenty three years to deal with Red Hull, and they’ve not a lot to show for it.  A line of hanged cabin boys and foot soldiers they claim are her number two and number three top lieutenants; how many of those you think she has?  When authorities meet Red Hull, their throats get all closed up and their hands tremble and their…”  Gem wiggled her index finger and let it drop limp.  “Erm.  Anyway, I don’t think the authorities are going to be a lot of help, even if they listened to you, and they won’t.  Think about it.  You’ve already had a funeral for him.”

Qualm was certain there were some very good arguments he could use against Gem, if he had expected to see her again, if this was not the middle of the night.  He was also certain he couldn’t think of them at the moment, and so he put on some clothes, after asking Gem to look the other way, slipped out the window and went to sea.

Many, many years later, when Qualm, as all must, went forth to meet his Maker, they carved him a simple stone with a simple motto inscribed below the dates of his durance:

A Little too Agreeable for his own Good.

Bicycle

I rode a little less than my usual ride backward, and oh, but it is a much harder ride that way.

Pirates on the Fail Boat

Okay, I must have been hallucinating the whole thing.

Motherfucking Pirates, Part 9

wirewalking's house has decided to try and rot out from under her.  She writes amazing stories and makes really tasty cookies and caramels, and she is offering books  and baked goods to help defray the costs of, well, her house breaking.  She is offering them here
She also wrote an awesome story about zombies.

Here's the link to her story: http://nicolekornherstace.com/stories/present/

Here's the link to her tip jar: http://wirewalking.livejournal.com/229970.html


shadesong is still trying to fund the bionic upgrades to her poor clumsy kitty  who broke her arm recently.  Halfway there, but a new round of auctions is bound to go up here.

shweta_narayan is sending people to WorldCon.  I want people to go to WorldCon, too, and if you'd like to help her send people to WorldCon, you should go here.

“I have a map, Qualm, which will get us a compass.  It’s hidden in Cyprus, but we can find it.  I got it from Spider Heart.  The compass will help us find the island.  That’s where she’s got him, but we can save him.  You and me.”

Motherfucking Pirates, Part 4

[image error]wirewalking's house has decided to try and rot out from under her.  She writes amazing stories and makes really tasty cookies and caramels, and she is offering books  and baked goods to help defray the costs of, well, her house breaking.  She is offering them here
She also wrote an awesome story about zombies.

Here's the link to her story: http://nicolekornherstace.com/stories/present/

Here's the link to her tip jar: http://wirewalking.livejournal.com/229970.html


[image error]shadesong is still trying to fund the bionic upgrades to her poor clumsy kitty  who broke her arm recently.  Halfway there, but a new round of auctions is bound to go up here.

[image error] shweta_narayan is sending people to WorldCon.  I want people to go to WorldCon, too, and if you'd like to help her send people to WorldCon, you should go here .

Besides, there is a script, a way you can get in and out of a place like the Devil’s Hoof with your skin and your soul intact.  You don’t go to a dance hall not knowing the steps and Gem didn’t come here ignorant, either.  Observe.

First, she announced her presence by pinning Spider Heart’s hand to the table with a knife buried an inch deep in the table.  She learned a few things from the innkeeper and her fat, knife throwing cook of a husband, too, and this was one of them.  That’s the first step of the dance, the bow, the introduction.  It’s a country dance at first, and everyone who cares to joins, but in the moment before, there is always that pause, and then the music starts.  Gem took that moment to slip off her clogs and put them by the door.

Partners come from every angle they can, so it’s important to stay at the foot of the dance floor to start.  It starts close and crowded, knees and elbows, bottles and knives; it’s good to have another knife in your hand, and most people only bring one, which is why this dance doesn’t usually end well for them.  At first, there is ducking, since Gem’s the smallest dancer on the floor by a hand and several stone, but the floor clears out as some roll to the sides, groaning, some flee and others clear the furniture to use as weapons against her. 

By the first refrain, most of the poseurs had left the dance, and the floor was much clearer.  Gem took advantage of the chorus, while Spider Heart was still working the blade from the table and spitting curses and oaths like grapeshot in Gem’s direction, to survey the crowd still in her dancehall.  She counted five or six villains for which God would probably forgive her.  Six at first, but five after he put himself in the arc of her second knife’s journey; Gem had a third, but the crowd was thinning out for the second verse, and she figured that, by the third, the sword was going to be more appropriate for what she was going to try to make a partnered dance.

Motherfucking Pirates Part 3

[image error]wirewalking's house has decided to try and rot out from under her.  She writes amazing stories and makes really tasty cookies and caramels, and she is offering books  and baked goods to help defray the costs of, well, her house breaking. She is offering them here
[image error]shadesong is still trying to fund the bionic upgrades to her poor clumsy kitty  who broke her arm recently.  Halfway there, but a new round of auctions is bound to go up here.

Table of Malcontents can be reached here .

The first thing Gem did when she went into town was check her belongings in at the inn where she grew up with Auntie Nina. The Innkeeper hadn’t quite recognized her at first, but her husband, the fat, knife throwing cook, did. There was a bit of a reunion, but it was a quiet one. Gem insisted that she needed a little head start on the news of her return and while the innkeeper aired out the little room that she and Auntie Nina shared, Gem went down to the part of the harbor was stained black with wickedness and spilled blood and hunted down a pirate.His name was Spider Heart, and the volume of his sins was only a pamphlet to Red Hull’s volume, but the handwriting was abomination and bloodshed and the most heart blistering curses were mere punctuation in it. He was also, as fate would have it a very handsome devil, and had enough sense to make of himself the pirate baron of a little inn, where the iniquities of the sea stabbed deepest into town, in a twisting black maze of alleys and piled bones, mostly swine, but if you dug, there’d be something down there easier to recognize and more plentiful than I think you’d like. Spider Heart dared not to go to sea, since he stole a secret or two of Red Hull’s from her boudoir, and the moment he touched the water it turned red to his eyes and the seabirds assured him that she knew. Instead he held secret court with a mess of poseurs and those who had retired from the sea but not from wickedness. The poseurs didn’t remain long past Gem’s arrival, and the rest departed by a different route soon enough after. You might think that it’s pretty fucking foolish for a girl to walk in to place like the Devil’s Hoof on her own, but again, Gem isn’t exactly cut from the same mold as you and I, so stay with me another minute or two. There definitely were some things on her mother’s side, and some different things on her fathers’, for one. For another, auntie Nina knew a thing or two about all the things on her father’s side, since they shared the lot, and spent a lot of time teaching her what to do with them. The rest, she picked up from teachers in the ports of call where her mother’s people came from. I can’t tell you what it all was, because there’s a lot and not all of it is mine to know, but when something comes up, I’ll tell you.

Bicycle

Another 6 miler. I am feeling more and more confident in my riding.  I really need to get lights and a helmet so I can go out at night with d|p and div/0. 

AND ANOTHER! #submissionsdontmatter

Stone Telling has picked up "The Lend!"

Motherfucking Pirates (Part 2)

wirewalking's house has decided to try and rot out from under her.  She writes amazing stories and makes really tasty cookies and caramels, and she is offering books  and baked goods to help defray the costs of, well, her house breaking.  She is offering them here

shadesong is still trying to fund the bionic upgrades to her poor clumsy kitty  who broke her arm recently.  Halfway there, but a new round of auctions is bound to go up here.

Table of Malcontents can be reached here .

“Waiting for your sweetie?” 

he found he had to fight himself to fight the pirates that slithered out of the dark around him and dragged him to the boat, and by the time he had himself mastered, it was too late. 

Gem saw this all from the dunes as she came running, her sword in hand, but the boat was already halfway out to the Strigiform and wisdom told her that any sound she made would only make Quay’s chances worse.  She watched in the moonlight as the Strigiform glittered and rippled in the moonlight and then was gone, as if invisible.  Yes, it could do that, and you do not want to fucking know how or why, so don’t ask.

For a week, no one else knew about lovely Quay’s fate.  His actual sweetie went so far as to check the lair of the monster in Lamp Cave for his remains, but turned back at the last and lived a long, healthy life because of it.  The others searched and combed the beach, and peered with accusation at the rocks where sometimes selkies sang, but the selkies weren’t around to answer back, so no one got any wisdom on the poor boy’s fate.  His brother Qualm was long out on the water, because both of them were fisher boys, and he peered into the water until the sun made him half blind, but the face he saw below the waves was his own.  The resemblance was close, mind you, poor Qualm and Quay were twins, and while they were not identical, they were close.  Not so close that a stranger could not tell one from the other, sun and moon that they were, but close enough.  Except that without Quay around to be the sun, the light of the moon went out, and Qualm searched, hardly ate and rarely slept, not that he was ever that good at eating or sleeping.  Grief and worry gnawed on him the way he imagined the crabs must be gnawing on his brother.

We’ve got to leave poor Qualm, though, for a little and follow
Gem into town.  Gem had been three years at sea from her thirteenth birthday, and no one in town knew, yet, that she’d come back.  Gem had followed in her auntie Nina’s sailing footsteps and come back, well, not quite a woman grown, but definitely something different than how she left.  It’s complicated to explain, so let me show you what I mean.