Random Jordan's Blog, page 3

Are Writers the New Shamans?

In the modern world of sciences the mysticism of sickness has mostly been eliminated as the prevailing understanding for solving problems in the body. There are still some people who believe in the powers of soup and certain holistic remedies that have been passed down the generations. But we know the power of belief itself can be strong when healing people. So for the most part, healers, especially in the sense of the shaman have not been as strong in the modern world.

But what if shamans only changed their position from one thing to another?

The idea of the shaman, while not always using that name, is rather ancient. They are a type of person who underwent a trial of some kind, sometimes to the brink of death, then came back and understood the ways to heal other people. Across cultures their jobs varied to the point that anthropologists today still have a hard time determining the correct definition of a shaman. For the most part shamans were guided by spirit guides that were usually animals, they entered dreams and other altered states of consciousness to repair or mend the souls of people. They were also psychopomps, mediators, healers, and storytellers.

It’s the last one I draw the most focus, but you can find parallels in other areas as well. One part of being a shaman was retaining and telling or retelling stories over and over again. They were important to pass along and in many cases the shamans made the stories themselves. This ties in with a writer perfectly, and brings the most evidence to the table. A writer is a storyteller first and foremost, and a shaman fulfilled the same function.

It’s the other areas, like healing and fighting off evil spirits that become a bit more challenging to explain when you try to pair up writers as the new age shamans. But isn’t that exactly what writers do?

Let’s start with the altered states of consciousness which are used to cross into the spirit world. Have you ever felt like you were in a trance when writing? Like you were so zoned and focused on writing that you were getting it done without paying attention to anything else and then suddenly it was done! You might not have, because of the amount of distractions we see in life these days and how easy we have access to them. But when you eliminate all the distractions you are left with pure writing. Some people enter these trances for only ten minutes, others can do it for hours. But it still gets done.

Next you have spirit guides. That’s a bit easier one to handle. When storytelling became the main focus, and shamans had to start believing in new kinds of spirit guides, what writers got was their characters. How often does a character sway you one way or another? Maybe they even start to bleed into the rest of your life and you think about what one character would do in a situation you are in. These characters are guiding you.

We can even go so far as to take a look at just what kind of people end up becoming famous writers. You see an unusual amount of writers today that have gone through some horrible experience in their lives. Sometimes it may be problems around suicide (a common one with writers) and maybe it might be just horrible experiences. Either way these are what you can consider the shaman initiation rite, which is something that happens to most shamans to provide them with their healing properties, so that they can understand sickness. You can look at it further as, the good writers have experienced life first and now they write about it. A good shaman experience death first and then they could heal it.

Finally we get to the healing aspect. We aren’t fighting off evil spirits. But writers most certainly heal people. They heal people emotionally, and mentally more than anything, but even physical wounds can be overcome. Just look at how many self-help books are out in a bookstore. But it’s not the self-help books that matter. Writers heal people by showing them that there is more to life, that there is so much to experience and love. Writers heal the heart-break by showing people love that can withstand. Writers heal the suicidal thoughts and fantasies by giving people worlds where those people matter.

There is so much that a book can do these days and the writers are a vessel for that. They aren’t walking around healing cancer with their hands on patients chests, but they are giving cancer patients the hope and personal strength to defy cancer on their own. A book can change your world and writers hold the power to that. They may not heal everyone, but if you let them, they will heal you.

Introducing Rewriting Mary Sue

Next week is the final reveal and grand opening of a website created by a group of indie writers focused around women writers and women as characters in stories. Rewriting Mary Sue was the name decided among us, and its been a roller-coaster over the past few months while we got the project working and Amy cursed at her screen repeatedly while dealing with the coding of the site. Overall the design and subject matter are right up my alley, even if I hadn’t always discussed these topics at large.

This provides the perfect platform to discuss such topics though, and there is nothing more close to my heart than fairy tales. So maybe for the introduction of the site I should explain how fairy tales are connected to Rewriting Mary Sue (RMS). You may have heard it before, but I think its something that needs to be repeated hundreds of times over: Fairy tales are women’s tales.

The background of fairy tales is so often little-known compared to the fairy tales themselves, and there are a number of tales that don’t see an ounce of the spotlight. But on top of female writers being the origins of fairy tales, the storytelling aspect of them gave a voice to many women in times when they were socially and culturally voiceless. Storytelling was decided by men long ago to be the fancies of women and nurses who raised children and we were perfectly accepting of that role because it gave us power; a power men didn’t come to realize til later on.

This is why despite the majority of known fairy tale books today being edited by men, most of the information was recovered from women. The Grimms drew from sisters and others like Dorothea Wild, but you haven’t heard of her name like you have the Brother’s Grimm. Andrew Lang, possibly the greatest collector of fairy tales, drew most of his fairy tale knowledge from his wife Leonora Alleyne, but you haven’t heard of her name have you? These are just some of the fairy tales that were drawn from women.

But this doesn’t seem right though, since most days you hear of women complaining that fairy tales are restricting, and that they don’t want a prince or that fairy tales are limiting to women. But you have to think in the context of the days these tales came from. They were women discussing the problems they faced in the world and the things they wanted. Every women wanted a happy ever after, and not all those happy ever afters were based on marrying a prince; some women became the princes themselves such as with The Girl Who Pretended to be a Boy.

The more you look at fairy tales of all kinds from these times the more you see that they are stories about women’s fears and hopes and dreams. They wanted a good person to marry like in Prince Darling, they wanted to avoid pain from men like in Bluebeard, they didn’t want to lose their children like in Rumpelstiltzkin, and they wanted to have a purpose in their lives like in The One-handed Girl.

The problem is that we haven’t updated these fairy tales, or made new ones that incorporate what women think and believe and value today; because it is much more than just finding a love, raising a family, and avoiding the horrors of men, though it can involve many of those. Instead we should be seeing stories about women facing the challenges of raising a family life and a working life. We should see stories about women of all types loving others, but being their own person.

Women today aren’t sitting in their castles waiting around to be rescued. They are storming the castles with their lovers and friends by their sides, enjoying life to the fullest rather than being held back from all the joys in the world. And we need the stories to represent this.

This is why I write for Rewriting Mary Sue. This is why I write the stories I do. We need our new fairy tales. We need to rewrite our old fairy tales.

A Faerie in a Purple Dress: Chapter 5

Five

 

Magical Maladies

None of us could even respond after we got the chance to look at ourselves in the lake that was next to the lilac field. There wasn’t really much that could be said. I clearly had failed to get my spell finished before the Faerie Truth’s had gone off, but my spell still did the job. We were somewhere else. I had no idea where, but hopefully neither did the Faerie Truth.

I was about to say something. Just to get some conversation going rather than the moody silence, but it was drowned out by a voice in my head.

“This is what lying to yourself has brought upon you. Now you are faced with your true form and you are frightened of it. Maybe if you had learned to accept who you are, then you would not be faced with this.”

It was the voice of the Faerie Truth, but based on the reactions of everyone around me, none of us had any idea where it was coming from, and clearly they were hearing it too.

“What just happened?” Ashe asked.

“It was likely a mind-link component linked into the spell she cast on all of us. I doubt she can do something like that again though. It was probably just a one-time thing. It would be too hard to maintain that connection over this distance.” I explained.

“That’s true.” Prince Darling agreed while nodding. I realized it wasn’t a wig that he was wearing, but it was actually his hair, just like the rest was actually his body.

I eyed him. “Care to elaborate there?”

“Well uh…” he looked down at the floor, embarrassed. “The Faerie Truth is my Faerie Godmother.”

My eyes widened. “You cannot be serious.”

He just nodded again.

“So does this whole true form spell have something to do with you then?” I pressed on.

He nodded again.

“Does it explain the dress and body?”

He paused, but then nodded again.

I glanced around at everyone. “Everyone sit down. It sounds like we might have some story time after all.”

Darling started to look nervous, but he sat down. Ashe pressed her arms around the boy and whispered, “Don’t worry. She won’t hurt you.”

She then stepped over and took a seat next to me, though she pushed Reynard to sit between us. I was almost sure she was mad at me, especially after what the Faerie Truth forced me to say.

Once we were all seated, Ashe nodded to Darling and added softly, “Go ahead.”

“I’m the youngest of three to an emperor, and the only one born with a girl’s body. My father doted on his little princess, and my brothers tortured me because of it. So you can only imagine how much my brothers picked on me when I said I didn’t want to be Daddy’s little princess anymore.”

Ileana pressed a paw over Darling’s hand on the ground.

“They joked and teased and pushed me into situations like hunting in the forest with my bare hands because they said it was the only way I could prove I was a man. But my father was worse, when I told him. He grew worried and asked a fairy to be my godmother and to keep track of me and keep me on the right path.”

Both Ileana and Darling tensed up. “That’s the first time I met the Faerie Truth. And it was also the first time I realized she wouldn’t be my ally. Instead she continually kept pushing anything that was considered normal for a princess. The more she pushed the more I acted out.”

Darling’s face soured and Ashe glanced to me with an expression that I had grown used to seeing when someone was in need. She wanted me to do something for these two.

“That was when she put the ring on me.” Darling held up the ring of thorns, and it was then that I noticed the scaring around that ring.

“Any time I do something that is considered by her to be not lady-like then it pricks me. If I continue, it will make my finger bleed. Eventually I’ve gotten used to the pain it has caused.” Darling sighed. “But I still wish she would understand. That all my family would understand.”

“That was the reason we had escaped from them. With help we found a secret passage to lead us out of the city and ever since then we had been resorting to unusual tactics to stay alive.” Ileana added.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, we know that part. You did well for yourself if you were passing as a traveling prince and maid.”

Ashe interrupted me with a glare and then said, “So you two are runaways. But how are you two connected to each other?”

The two thieves glanced to each other and Ileana nodded to Darling. He then turned to us and explained. “During one of my escapades that my brother’s convinced me to try I rescued Ileana from an evil emperor in a neighboring empire. When I came back home they gave her a lavishing room and days later we both discovered my family planned to marry my eldest brother to her. They told me that I could do no such thing since I was a woman.”

“Something tells me your family wouldn’t even provide a single room for Ashe and I.” I added.

Darling just nodded.

“So you two escaped because of the abuse to Darling and because Ileana did not want to marry your brother?” Ashe concluded.

They both nodded. “I refused but they told me I had no place if I didn’t marry. I said I would marry Fett if I had to, but they would hear none of that.”

“Are you two in love?” Reynard asked as he popped up from his seat next to me, both his fluffy tails wagging.

“No.” They both said in unison. Then Ileana continued, “But if I was to marry, I would rather it had been Fett who I knew was kind and at least could be good friends with.”

I leaned forward, resting my arms on my knees as I glanced between both of them. “Then I have one question for you Darling. Are you a prince?”

Darling nodded. “Yes.”

“Well then…” I said while standing up and stretching. Darling adjusted in his seat, looking worried. I cracked my fingers out in front of me and grinned at him. “You won’t be given a way out from me if you change your mind later or have an identity crisis on whether you truly want to be a boy. Do you understand that?”

The fake prince stood up, eyeing me. “What do you mean?”

My hands lit with energy as I swirled them around and produced a spell that I had only ever used once before. The spell was technically a reverse of the first spell I had ever cast, but still the same at the core. I couldn’t be sure I could still even muster the same power for it.

The energy left my body though, and surrounded Darling in a brilliant swirling vortex that lifted him off the ground. And then as soon as it touched into Darling I felt the weight of the magic fade from my hands and Darling dropped from the sky, landing on his butt.

I glanced down at my hands, frowned and then shook my head. “Of course. I’m a faerie now. I can’t remove or override another faerie’s gift unless it is a solstice or eclipse.”

I shot back down into a seat next to the fox. “I’m sorry. I have to fix what the faerie did to me before I can help you with anything. Which means we have to take the long way around.”

“And that is?” Ileana asked.

“We have to figure out why she gave us these bodies and solve the lesson she was trying to have us learn. Either that or find someone who isn’t a fairy to revert us back to what we were before.” I explained.

“Oh, that’s all.” Ileana said with an odd tone and then laid her lion head back down like she was giving up.

After that the group grew silent, many of us concerned as to whether it would ever be possible to fix this. I wish I had known the laws around when a faerie gives a task that can’t be completed as a lesson to someone. Because she was asking for acceptance of whom we are, but it was her that had changed us into things we weren’t.

And then it dawned on me. What she said at the beginning. It wasn’t the form that mattered when it came to your identity.

But then why was she so cruel to Darling about him wanting to be a prince and not a princess?

It wasn’t making sense, there had to be more information missing. I just sighed. And my sigh received a response of a roar.

Everyone glanced toward Ileana with a look of surprise, but she just lifted her head back up from her paws. “What? It wasn’t me.”

The roar came again. And this time I looked across the lake in the direction of the sound. “Was that…”

Ashe responded first. “A dragon? I think so. At least it sounded like the other one we met.”

I was looking toward Ileana and Darling though. Their faces seemed worried or frightened. I wish I could tell them not to worry, but truthfully I just didn’t know when it came to dragons anymore. If anyone should be worried, it should be me, considering the last dragon I met told me that I would be blessed by dragons and then die.

“Are you two okay?” I asked anyway.

They didn’t move or say anything at least for a few moments, then finally glanced at each other, and then toward me. That was more than just fear in their eyes. It was recognition?

“Do you two know where we are?”

Darling looked down, but nodded. And Ileana said quickly, “This is the place we ran away from.”

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that.” Ashe said while glancing over to me.

“I guess we need to be avoiding this place then.” I added.

“But didn’t you have a bounty for us? Wouldn’t this be the place to take us?” Darling pressed.

I shook my head. “No, I believe the bounty was placed on you by the first Kingdom you took money from. I have been there, and this wasn’t it. If anything they would arrest us for thinking we kidnapped you.”

“I doubt the last thing we want to be doing right now is moving through an enchanted forest though.” Ileana explained as she turned and pointed toward the forest that was thick around the meadow in the opposite direction of where the city could be seen in the distance.

I frowned. “No. It’s best we avoid those. And that means our only path is through the city then?”

“Yes, this lake continues on in both directions with only the bridge leading to the city that can be used to cross it.”

“Then we are going to need some disguises. That, I might be able to do.” I explained, and then flexed my fingers and attempted to see if I could form any spells around Ashe and I first. The magic was able to wrap around both of us and I gave it an image and form to follow, one that I was reminded of when seeing the Faerie Truth. We both looked like normal humans, with slanted eyes and dark hair. The Illusion seemed to be sticking, which meant as long as I didn’t change our actual forms and just presented illusions it would work to cover up the way our bodies looked at least.

I did the same to Ileana and Darling, giving Darling the look of maybe a more rugged prince just so he wouldn’t be mistaken as a girl, and Ileana received something close to her original body and looks, though with different hair and eye color. She had brilliant red hair and eyes of a dark green.

The only problem was when I turned to Reynard and his two tails. “I’m not sure what I can do to pass Rey off as anyone, since it is only an illusion. Ileana had least still had mostly human proportions to her body.”

“A young child?” Ashe offered as she went to pick up Reynard, but he backed up.

“Wait. I want to try first!” Reynard said, and I smiled.

“Rey, I don’t think you can use magic. Even if you had a mirror spirit share a body with you.”

“No, I can do it!”

He hopped around with his tails bouncing everywhere. And I was reminded that I knew very little of what a Kitsune actually was. Reynard had the least change about his body, but a second tail is rather significant of a change, especially when that was all.

His eyes closed though and his paws shook with his intense concentration. Then he yelled, “The body of a person!”

And my eyes grew wide when the fox actually had a surge of magic overcome him and surround him and then with a quick pop and a gentle mist he was no longer a fox with two tails.

Reynard looked like a little girl with two bright cherry colored pigtails, and could have very easily looked like the child cross between Ashe and I in our current illusion form, if I still had my red hair showing.

Ashe leaned against me and whispered, “Did you know he could do that?”

I shook my head and just stared with my mouth agape as Reynard jumped around all excited and squeezed his fingers into fists and then released them. “I’m human! I’m human!”

“Rey, when did you learn that?” Ashe asked him and he stopped bouncing around long enough to look over at us. He smiled with a cute little girly smile.

“Just now! But that Faerie lady told me she couldn’t help me, but that I could take the form of what I wanted by myself. So I tried!”

“Wait. The Faerie Truth told you to try?”

The girly Reynard nodded and his pigtails bounced. “Yeah! She said she gave me access to my second tail.”

I grimaced in thought. “I guess that explains where you got your second tail.”

“You wanted to take this form, Rey?” Ashe said as she moved close to the fox in human form.

“Well I wanted something that was like the form you two have right now. But I also like Dori’s red hair, so I wanted that, and I saw someone with pigtails and thought they were so cool!” Reynard said, with an incredible amount of excitement.

I glanced to Ashe and she looked to me and we both laughed. “Well I guess we have a daughter for now then, Gnidori.”

And then Ashe moved over to pick up Reynard and give him a big hug.

I’d have to ask Reynard later if he had intended to take the body of a human girl. Not because it wasn’t appropriate now, but because I could hear footsteps around us.

“You have been requested to enter the city gates for inspection and clearance of suspicion for being malicious magical beings.” Someone with a light voice said from behind us.

I swirled around and glanced at the dozen or so soldiers in dark blue uniforms that started to surround us on all sides. “Wouldn’t that be better done outside your city?”

“Quiet. Until we can confirm who you are and how you got past the forest you will follow us, and ask no questions.” The same soldier said before she gestured to the members surrounding us.

Ashe set Reynard down and took him by the hand, while we all huddled closer to each other to keep the guards at a fair distance away from us. The last thing we needed was any of them touching something that wasn’t visible through my illusions, and even Ileana and Darling knew that.

“Okay. We’ll follow you quietly. Could you at least not frighten our little girl?” I asked.

The brown-haired woman who had been talking showed a softer smile and looked like she had some empathy to her as she responded, “Very well.” She waved to some of the troops that were surrounding us and they fell back behind us to make sure we didn’t try and run for it. We were heading into the city anyway, so having an escort both made things more complicated and easier at the same time.

“Lead the way.” I smiled, and glanced over to Ashe who had an expression of worry on her face.

I wasn’t any happier about this either. But life with magic involved often was like being hurled through a tornado and just hoping you’ll land somewhere soft, like a field of marshmallows or something.

What is Your Subtext?

Over the years there is one area that I’ve personally never been great with when it comes to writing, however I’m brilliant at reading and noticing it. And that is subtext. It’s particularly important in crafting brilliant romance novels, but can be just as effective and important in really any genre.

I’m more likely to just have two characters kiss rather than beat around putting them in moments where they seem like they might, but then don’t. It might be from my time of playing with fan fiction, turning all that build up between the two characters into a final release. And unfortunately writing in subtext is not exactly something you can learn. Even if you don’t purposely put in subtext, there will always be readers who notice something you hadn’t.

Much like pacing is something you just develop over time by writing, subtext falls into the same area. It’s not something you can just go out and learn by practicing it, or learn by other people teaching it to you. It just happens with the more you learn to write and the more you consume media in our world.

As a person who has consumed a lot of lesbian media in particular, I’m very acquainted with subtext. It’s often all we get in the mainstream media, unless it’s two girls kissing on-screen for the pleasure of a man. However that has changed more and more lately. It’s not all subtext anymore. We have shows like Dracula, Orange is the New Black, and hell… come to think of it most shows lately have had a lesbian character appearing. Two and Half Men added one which is brilliant (even though the show is still incredibly sexist)

We still see heavy subtext though shows like with Once Upon a Time and Two Broke Girls.

Unfortunately we don’t see this transferred to books. Lesbian books are still lesbian books. And straight books are still straight books. There’s no variation there, or having a lesbian character that matters. We do see books like Cassandra Clare’s series that have gay men, but certainly not gay women. And it’s not like there isn’t an audience for having a little variation with your characters, just look at fan fiction for the proof. There isn’t a mainstream media alive that doesn’t have gay and lesbian romance twists thrown in from fan fiction.

And that was my biggest problem with deciding to say my book is a lesbian fiction. We keep all the lesbian books with the other lesbian books and all the straight people books with the straight books. You’re not allowed to have variation, or surprise people with diverse character sets. We have book segregation going on and it’s an awful thing to see, but at the same time, how else do you let people know which books they might enjoy just based on the genre they can look up?

Regardless subtext in books, while not stressed upon by the tumblr or fan fiction community, can definitely be seen quite heavily. We have books like Amy Good’s own Rooted where there is countless subtext between Rebecca and Chloe, as well as books like in the House of Night universe with characters who are clearly in a relationship like two of the boys, and then two girls who are almost all subtext when determining if they are actually involved with each other.

It gets even better when you introduce the Yuri community from Manga and Anime. Authors of Yuri (Literal: Lily) and Shoujo Ai (Literal: Young Girl Love) are actually told when they first start to create their series that they need to be all about the subtle and the subtext, because it’s all about subtext when it comes to lesbians or girls who love girls in fiction. I often wonder if this means that people are told the same thing in Hollywood and by Publishers when they submit works that aren’t so much about the subtext.

There really is no right or wrong in this case though. Some people enjoy the subtext, and it’s been a staple for work with lesbians in them that we’ve often gotten used to it if we regularly consume it. But every once in a while, it’s nice to step out of the subtext, and right into the forefront. Keep that in mind with all subtext, because as much as your readers are going to keep delving into different relationships and subtext that you didn’t notice or specifically write in, they’ll take to heart the relationships made by the writer just as much.

Becoming a Writer

Over the years writing has become more and more part of my life, but years back when I started my career paths, I was on completely different plans. I wasn’t one of those kids who was obsessed with learning to write at a young age, in fact I needed hooked on phonics when I was younger to even get to a point that I could read on my own. The process was long, but eventually I absorbed books regularly because I could read them and went on to tutor other kids my age in reading. But at that time, I didn’t think I was good enough to write. This was back when the internet was still just being born to a level that people used it regularly.

When I was twelve I took a summer college creative writing class that they offered kids my age. And that was my first real exposure to writing. I even have the first thing I ever wrote. It’s pretty awful, but I keep it around just to see how much my writing has evolved over the years. I even posted it on here. That first exposure was what made me realize that I could write things that people might want to read. Unfortunately it wouldn’t be for another few years that I would take an actual college creative writing class that had me delving into just what it meant to be a writer and to see if I truly had what it takes.

Back then I had little discipline in myself, which when you aren’t disciplining yourself it can make it incredibly difficult to just sit down and write. I had a thousand different ideas to write with, but I just couldn’t get the words out on the paper. It was a challenge for me at first. I just couldn’t do it. And I gave up for a few years. I’d occasionally go back when inspiration hit me to write something, but for the most part I devolved into the online roleplaying forum scene. It’s from that world, of creating a character and then building story lines that I first realized I did have a way of writing that I could follow.

You see, every writer handles things differently. Some are all about the plot in their book, others the premise, some like to keep balanced. But me… I was all about the characters. I wrote my stories to find out what kind of ridiculous situations the characters would get into, and to discover more about them. They became the important thing to me, and eventually when I was 20 I developed one character who encompassed my voice. At first she was called Jocelyn, and she is still called that today on possibly the only roleplaying forum I still keep up with. But I changed her name to Gnidori when I started writing my first legitimate novel.

The process started slow. I wrote two chapters over the course of multiple months. The first chapter I wrote, I had someone read along with two other pieces I had written. They picked that one out of all the others and said this was a brilliant piece and I needed to write more about that character. So I went with it and wrote more. It was after I finished the second chapter that I found myself in mental hospitals. There I proceeded to complete thirteen more chapters over the three months I spent locked up. I knew I wanted to see more and more of Gnidori and her life unfold.

By the time I was out of mental hospitals I had written around half a book. I kept it with me everywhere, but I didn’t write more. I went through periods of just trying to survive and live. Changing homes at least four different times until eventually I found myself in a second living home. They are the kinds of places you go when you would otherwise be sleeping on the street. It was there I found the stability to finish my novel. I wrote the second half of the book, over 50,000 words in under two weeks then proceeded to edit and publish the book all while still living in that second living home.

As much as I admit today that if I had known ahead of time I would have started with a one-off novel rather than a series, I still see The Real Folktale Blues as the book I wrote through so many struggles in my life. Much of it came from a place and time when I myself was ‘blue’ and you can see that depression leaked through in the pages. But if anything helped me to get back on my feet it was the writing of that book. It did more for me than hundreds of hours or therapy and numerous people telling me to grow up and stop being lazy.

Since then, I’ve been writing short stories and little pieces here and there, until finally I realized… Hey I need to write a novel again, because I become HAPPY when I do. And then I realized… when did my happiness depend on how much I wrote each day?

That’s what being a writer is for me. I’m a writer because I’m a better and happier person when I write. So why would I not do this?

A Faerie in a Purple Dress: Chapter 4

Four

The Faerie Truth

“Please. I just need to rest my feet. I’m not used to all this walking.” Ileana complained once more. I lost count of how many times it had been already.

Reynard was walking behind her and growling anytime she slowed, but eventually all of us would need to rest. I just didn’t want the rest to be here, in the twinkling forest.

The average traveler might only be afraid of the forests where the trees look rotted and the whole place is dark. But travelers who are aware of magic know that the really dangerous forests are the ones that are so overfilled with blooming and colorful flowers, especially in the winter, that you can practically smell the magic around you.

It also happens to be the first sign that you are in a truly enchanted forest; the kind that are protected by Faeries. There was no other explanation for a year round spring within a single forest, when a few kilometers back we were trudging through ankle deep snow.

The last thing you want to do is screw around with magic that defies nature like that or the beings who produce it.

Sometimes I wish I would take my own cautionary advice.

“We can’t.” I finally tell her, after a pregnant pause, and kept moving past a collection of golden honeysuckle. My eyes wouldn’t peel away from the sweet-tasting flowers. They reminded me of my first meeting with someone.

“That’s what you said last time. We need to stop eventually. I can’t be the only one who is hungry or thirsty.”

My mouth watered, but when I felt Ashe’s hand sliding into mine, I averted my gaze from the honeysuckle. I looked to her and knew why she stopped me from moving too.

I shook my head though. “We can stop when we are out of here.”

“And where is here exactly.” Darling interrupted as he stepped up next to both of us.

“I already told you. We don’t want to be here any longer than we need to be. Just keep moving forward. We need to get out of here without touching, eating, drinking, or doing anything in this forest other than walking forward.”

“Because it is enchanted?” He pressed and swept a hand close to a low-hanging frond.

I grabbed his wrist and yanked it back. My teeth were showing with my jaw set, and he tried to back away as I turned him to look at me. “An enchanted forest is an area under the dominion of a faerie. It keeps everything beautiful and alive. But it’s fake. The forest is locked in time, and it is fed magical nutrients. One touch of a plant, one bite of a fruit and that magical quality can transfer to you, as a spell.”

He tried to yank his arm away from me, but I held onto it. “Faeries make these because the forest gets to be eternally beautiful and the faerie gets a way of trapping living things drawn to it.”

I pulled him closer, “So please, touch something. But don’t expect to ever escape here…” I smiled. “Ever. Again.”

I let go of him and he stepped back from the frond with fright drawn on his face.

I would have been more amused at frightening him if my skin wasn’t crawling from just being in this forest for any length of time.

“Hey. Why haven’t I heard what’s her name complaining for a while?” I asked while turning and glancing behind me.

The hairs on my neck stiffened and caused me to shiver. “Faerie Fudge.”

Ileana pulled her hands back from a tree, holding what looked to be a peach carefully, like it was a treasure. She lifted it up to her face and I lunged toward her. Even with magically enhanced speed there was no way I’d be able to reach her. She had already touched it anyway, but she added to that by taking a bite just as my hand yanked on her wrist.

The peach dropped to the floor with a muffled thud and Ileana ripped her arms away from me. She spat vitriol I wasn’t expecting. “Why did you do that?”

She bent over and reached down to pick it back up while I just stared at her. Then she took another bite of the peach and glanced to me. “What?”

“You…” I started, a bit stunned.

“Yes?” She asked in between bites.

“You should be enchanted, enthralled, different… something!”

She gave me a raised eyebrow, like I was crazy. The expression of a skeptic, possibly even someone who doesn’t care or believe in magic.

I didn’t understand, but I wasn’t about to grab a fruit and take a bite too. It was still possible she was enchanted, sometimes it was something subtle like being unable to leave the forest.

Reynard poked his head from between my legs and sniffed toward Ileana before backing away.

“She’s in danger.” The fox whimpered.

That snapped me out of the confusion, while Ashe and Darling came closer.

I slipped past both of them and looked around the area we were standing. Other than the solitary small fruit tree and some other bushes like the honeysuckle, this area was mostly an open field. It was a reprieve from the forest thicket and a perfect place for travelers to stop and rest. It was the perfect trap.

“We’re all in danger. We need to get out of here now.” I explained, turning back to Ashe as she pushed the prince so they could head toward the path. They didn’t get far before the prince exclaimed, “I can’t get past it. It’s like—“

“Wind blowing you to the side?” I finished for him.

“Uh… yeah.”

“He’s right.” Ashe confirmed, as I swept a foot to turn over a thin log between them and I. It was hiding some mushrooms in a curve like they could make a circle if they kept going.

“Midnight Magic… it’s a faerie circle. Nothing gets out, certain things get in.”

Ashe met my eyes. She understood. “And what certain things are going to get in, Gnidori?”

The howls echoing in the forest did more for an answer than I could have. It wasn’t the same kind of howl you would hear from wolves though, it had a twinge of eeriness to it that left a rippling sensation from my shoulders to the small of my back.

“What was that?!” Ileana shrieked, and the fear in her quivering voice suggested maybe she wasn’t enchanted. It could just be the faerie circle was set up as a trap. Or it sprung up around a person who touches something in the forest.

I slipped a hand axe from my cloak, enchanted cold iron, to handle faeries when needed. There was no doubt that was what closed in on us.

“If faerie circles are involved this means it is a hunt trap.” I explained, while looking to Ashe. She already had her rifle out and ready at her hip.

My wife spoke through gritted teeth. “As in the faerie hunt? The Wild Hunt?”

I didn’t answer, but she took one glance back to my face, and tightened the grip on her rifle.

This was trouble I was purposefully trying to avoid.

Unlike normal hunting parties, there was no slow, frightening approach on the prey. First, there was no one around us, and then there were suddenly twenty unicorns in a pattern just outside the mushroom circle. Two of them stood on either side of me. That’s why no one ever escaped the Wild Hunt.

Growls erupted again from the mouths of the unicorns, it almost seemed mismatched, with animals looking like they should be neighing. But they weren’t true unicorns. Most of those had died out.

Still their hooves stabbed the ground repeatedly, churning up the dirt. I gripped my axe harder, ready to strike if the ones around me moved. They just raised their heads, with their wild and pearl-like hair shining and gave off some snorts and grumbles.

“I want to speak to your head faerie.” I yelled among the sounds they made. They all fell silent and turned to look at me. The ones right next to me backed away.

The silence lasted for a few seconds. Then one unicorn spoke. “No one escapes the hunt.”

As soon as the first one finished that phrase the rest of the unicorns started chanting the same thing, over and over again.

I gripped my hand axe tighter then turned and threw the blade straight into the bridge of the nose of one of the unicorns.

That shut them up pretty quick.

Each of the unicorns backed away from the one I hit, which had toppled to the ground, spilling iridescent blood everywhere. And then it shifted back into the human it had once been.

I heard Ashe gasp near me on the other side of the mushrooms, as she lowered her rifle. “It was a person?”

“They all are. Or used to be.” I explained, while stepping toward the pool of rainbow blood. The other unicorns backed away even further, though no fear registered in their eyes. As I reached down for my axe though, all the remaining unicorns lifted their heads and let out an awful screech in unison.

Still, I ripped the axe from the person’s head and stood up, before covering my ears.

It was a solid minute before they finally stopped their screeching and glared toward me again.

This was just getting creepy.

“I just had to see what was upsetting one of my better hunting parties when they were just sent on retrieval.” A voice said from behind me. “But I never expected it would be the great and terrible Red Faerie causing this kind of commotion.”

I twisted around to see a brilliant purple dress, spotless and with wings spanning out from the back of it. The wings were large and ridiculous, but faeries never really cared for practical wings, just beautiful ones. She smiled down to me, clearly amused in maybe more than one way. “How are you, Red?”

I shook my head. “How many times do I have to tell you Faeries, I’m not a faerie anymore.”

The Faerie woman tilted her head to the side, while her wings gently flapped. Then she exploded into laughter. All the unicorns whinnied with her. “You can’t just stop being a faerie, any more than you can stop being a girl. It is even funnier since you actually believe what you said is true.”

I pointed to my back with my free hand. “See, no wings.”

She made a disapproving sound then said, “You should know better than anyone that form does not always follow identity, Gnidori. You are who you are, no matter what. And you were one of the most ruthless faeries. That will never change.”

I locked my jaw.

“But where are my manners. We have never formally met.” The faerie made a gesture to bow, but never left my eye contact. “I am the Faerie Truth.”

I snorted back a laugh. “I always knew the tooth faerie was real.”

As soon as the words left my lips a gust blew over the forest, sweeping back my hood. The Faerie Truth was gripping her fists tight. “Truth. I am the Faerie Truth, not the Tooth Faerie.”

Ashe giggled near me. “You just love antagonizing them.”

“W-would you both stop it!” Prince Darling stuttered. “I don’t want to die.”

Ashe and I looked at each other and started bursting into laughter.

“What’s she going to do, give us a tooth ache?” I mused.

Many of the unicorns exploded into their screeching again, which stopped my wife and I.

“You insolent little…” The Faerie Truth started with full blown rage.

What can I say? I had a gift with pissing off faeries.

“I think… you are all overdue for some truth. Especially you, Red Faerie.”

I rolled my eyes, but the Faerie Truth went immediately into chanting.

I took one step forward to stop her and found nets wrapping around my hands, legs, hood and neck. Not just any nets either, some kind of energy that was spewed from the horns of five different unicorns around me.

I couldn’t take even a single step further, and even the axe in my hand couldn’t be thrown. And yet not even a few meters from me was a faerie casting a spell in which I knew nothing about it.

This was a great day.

Her chanting grew louder as I struggled against the nets. Even with fueling magic into my body for extra strength, I managed another inch of movement along the ground. And then I heard the crack of a gun being fired.

I couldn’t glance back but I heard Ashe yelling at the Faerie Truth, “If you do anything to my wife, I will hunt you down!”

That caused the Faerie Truth to pause. She floated down near me and glanced between Ashe and I. She had stopped her chanting completely. “Wife? Now that is interesting. And your words certainly rung with the truth. I only wonder if The Red Faerie can say the same thing with such honesty.”

She glanced down to me, and Ashe followed. I struggled against the netting still.

“Let’s try a different spell.” The Faerie Truth explained and gestured toward me before a weave of yellow light floated from her hand toward me. “Now let us see what truth you do speak, Red Faerie.”

I kept my mouth shut. Not because I didn’t want to tell Ashe that she was my wife. I knew that was the truth. I was afraid of what else would come out as well. I had no idea what the spell was.

“Speak, Red Faerie.”

“N-no.” I gurgled the words out, and scrambled to grab hold of the netting so I could tear at it. But I could barely get fingers into it. I had to try a different strategy.

“Well you aren’t certainly resilient. But speak!”

Instead I flicked a sign that could release a blast of pure force around me. The netting exploded, but when the smoke cleared from it, I was still trapped under it. I didn’t even scratch it.

“Speak.” She commanded, and I struggled but I just had to say something this time.

“Ashe is my wife, she always will be. But I still have feelings for Ettie. And I think she has feelings for me.” I blurted out, before I could snuff my mouth into the grassy floor.

“Well I had expected worse, but that will do for now. It does seem that maybe a new spell does need to be cast. And I have the perfect one for all of you.” The Faerie Truth explained while flitting back into the air. I glanced up, and checked to make sure I wouldn’t start spurting out anything else.

After that I turned my attention to Ashe who had tears running down her face, but there was so much resolve in her eyes, like she wanted to hurt the Faerie Truth, and bad. I had only seen that kind of resolve once before, when I noticed just how much strength she had to combat the terrors that I dealt with in my travels.

The Faerie Truth started chanting again. I could catch some of the words this time, from the Faerie language. She was talking about showing the true form and more things about truth and a few words I couldn’t really catch, one even sounded like she said rabbit. But I can’t be sure.

Ashe yanked her rifle in front of her and took a few more shots, but they just flew in the wrong direction like they had been knocked off their course. A few broke apart some bark on trees at the edge of the meadow.

“Don’t you dare touch her.” Ashe yelled after she realized she was lucky her bullets were even making it past the barrier, even if they were flying off in the wrong directions.

I had to do something, before the chanting was done. It definitely wasn’t going to be a good spell. The only thing I had though was some basic elemental spells that might work for disrupting the unicorns.

My fingers held an L shape, then a concentrated point where all my fingers touched before I released that. It resulted in an explosion of flame on one of the unicorns that was keeping me tied to it. That unicorn’s net vanished at it charged off through the forest screeching in pain while on fire.

Great. Only four more.

There had to be a better way.

So I focused on the Faerie Truth instead. Using the same hand motions I ignited an explosion of fire on her and she screamed in pain. Her chanting was disrupted for now, but she doused the flames easily with a water spell.

“You only make this worse for yourself. All that built up energy can now be directed to affect even more of you with the spell. Wouldn’t you like to see the true form of each of the people here?” The Faerie Truth explained, followed by a laugh before she started chanting and gathering energy again.

I could keep doing that, but she would just start over again. We would be here for an eternity struggling.

So that wouldn’t work either.

I needed something large to scare off the unicorns at least, then I could deal with her without nets on me. Or… I could counter with my own spell.

Faerie circles were locked in time and based on the location they were in. So if I could just make a bigger faerie circle around the current one and then displace it, I could separate us from her and most of the unicorns.

So I looked up at her and started my own chanting. It was probably going to fail completely since my magic wasn’t strong when it came to incantations, but my body was limited to be able to use it for something powerful like this.

Really it was an impossible spell. But I had to do something. And the only other thing I could think of was summoning something big and bad. And I was even worse at summoning spells.

At least with this spell I could just expand the current faerie circle to consume me and then transport us. It was mostly using the faerie circle’s power and not mine.

Of course the Faerie Truth worried. I could see it on her face. She had no idea what I was casting and it was taking just as long as hers.

I just had to magically reach out to the faerie circle and the spell would be set in place.

I latched onto it and pulled the circle out to extend to me and one of the unicorns. But then I heard The Faerie Truth laughing.

“You are too late!” She exclaimed as I felt the weight of her spell’s energy crush down on me. It washed over me and I took some of that energy and relayed it into my spell.

There was a bright light, and then everything vanished into darkness before flooding entirely new scenery into that darkness. I was no longer under nets, and I laid in a field of lilacs. The unicorn that was caught in the expansion of the faerie circle took one glance around and then darted off in fear.

I picked myself up off the floor and took in the sight of a giant city in the distance from us. The city didn’t look familiar but really anywhere other than where we had been was better. Even better was that the holding effect of the faerie circle wouldn’t last outside of an enchanted forest.

I stepped toward the ring of mushrooms cut into the ground awkwardly through lilacs. Then I stepped over it and laughed in triumph.

“Uh… Gnidori?” Ashe asked, and I turned back to look at her.

My mouth dropped at what I saw.

First was Ashe. Or at least I think it was Ashe. She had the same physique and looks including ragged versions of the clothes she had been wearing, but her skin looked more like dark bark, and her hair was twisted into various vines and branches like a tree.

The second I noticed was what I only assumed could be Prince Darling. Though he currently wore a brilliant blue and fluffy dress, along with a long wig and his cleavage was ready to burst around the bust of the dress.

Ileana was perhaps the most bizarre, looking like some cross of a monster. A chimera maybe, fused of different parts of various animals. She had a lion’s head with bull’s horns, and parts of scorpion and bear and a few other odd animals like maybe wolf’s feet.

Even Reynard did not come out unscathed, possessing two beautiful and furry winter tails instead of the one he had previously. Though it could be said growing an extra beautiful tail was the least of the damage among all of them.

Ashe’s voice was the first to pierce my moment of stunned silence. “Gnidori. You…your…”

She put a hand partially over her bark-like mouth and finished. “Your wings are back, Gnidori!”

The Power of Profanity

As I was writing a post about the profanity I use in my novels I realized I never really talked about the power of profanity itself on my blog. For those that don’t know, profanity has a unique place in culture and people’s minds. It’s separate from the normal language areas we use, even in the brain.

When we speak we use an area on the front lobe of our brain, either in the left or right hemispheres depending upon a number of factors including whether we are right-handed or left-handed. This is why damage to the frontal lobe can result in people losing speech all together or sometimes ending up with one type of Aphasia that prevents them from speaking more than simple phrases or one or two words. Interestingly enough we know this area of the brain deals with the grammatical idea of language so the reason these people can’t produce their sentences well is because they stumble over recalling the correct grammar.

But the frontal lobe only covers speech and grammar as far as we know. The temporal lobe instead governs the understanding of speech from other people. Damage to this area often results in a type of Aphasia where you can have the most amazing grammatical sentences, but you often can’t understand other people, or you can understand but you can’t repeat anything anyone says. These people also have difficulties with words in general, especially naming things and will often use words close to what they are trying to mean. They could produce a sentence that is grammatical correct, but it is otherwise gibberish or not remotely connected to a discussion topic. This is sometimes called word salad, which is like the ugly cousin of word vomit.

There are a number of other areas of the brain that handle language, but the most important area with profanity is what has often received the nickname: The Reptile Brain. The brain stem is some of the most primitive of brain functions, in which almost every animal has it. It also happens to govern emotion, and strangely enough that is where the majority of profanity comes from. Even more interesting is that a word doesn’t have to be profane or a curse word to be a word you use from your emotional center of your brain. It can be any word as long as it is a word you have come to associate with saying when you feel a burst of a particular emotion.

Some people might say ‘FUCK YES’ when they get excited and happy to the point that they can’t control bursting out. But others might be more inclined to scream ‘WOOOOOO’ which has the same function as someone telling a chair they stubbed their toe on that it is a cunt. All of these are curse words or profanity or more appropriately words that help you express your emotion. The societal value or hatred of a word does not make it profanity, instead you assign it as profanity because you often hear other people around you exclaim it when they are caught in a time of pain, or excitement or venomous hate.

Because of this, profanity actually serves a strong purpose, both as emotional health for an individual and as a way to see into different societies. You can tell a lot about a society as a whole by what words they consider bad or profanity. The majority of English-speaking countries currently have a lot of bad words associated with sex and being foolish, incapable, or inane. In the same way some profanity has popped up as well such as when someone states ‘that’s so gay’ when they mean they didn’t like what happened. This tells us that the majority of English-speaking countries (short of Australia) actually have a lot of stigma around sex, being stupid, foolish or foolhardy, and being gay (in the sense of replacing the word queer).

Only a hundred years ago stating something being queer was often negative despite queer meaning unusual or different. Gay has replaced it now as a word in the same vein, despite gay meaning happy and then denoting a sexual orientation. In the same vein, words like Fuck and Shit have started to lose some of their value as societal curse words. The average child today may use the word Fuck and Shit regularly as a word of emotion, but does not believe it is a word they are not allowed to say. This could mean that inevitably we will end up with far different words in only fifty or another hundred years that are considered ‘curse words’ just as our current profanity of today was not what was used one-hundred or three-hundred years ago.

And that’s the true beauty of language in general. It’s always changing, growing and evolving based upon the people who are using it. As more and more people who used queer as a curse word dies off, we see more and more new generations taking on gay as a replacement in United States society. Just imagine what kind of curse words and profanity will exist a thousand years from now?

 

 

Gnidorisms and Beyond Ever After

Recently I’ve had a few conversations with people about the world I’ve built with my Beyond Ever After series, and specifically around the use of the exclamations and expletives that I use in the series. Or more specific, Gnidori uses in the series (though a few characters use some of the others). Many of these are alterations of phrases that we use every day in America or other countries and some of them I straight up invented and inserted in areas that I felt were appropriate.

Regardless I wanted to actually keep a list of them in some way and what they tend to be used for or how you would use them and what they might mean. It’s a fun little exercise and the biggest problem I actually had was trying to come up with a name for the phrases. I really wanted to credit Gnidori (My main character), since she is the one that comes up with most of them, so I ended up going with Gnidorisms, though I considered faerisms since many of them involve faeries.

As time goes on, I’m sure to expand upon this list and add more as I come across them, but for now this is a small list of some fun words and phrases.

The List

Once Upon My Time! – An Exclamation, like Egad! or Eureka! Often said due to surprise or alarm, especially when seeing someone you hadn’t expected.

Faeries be damned. – A phrase slipped into a sentence that is pretty much the equivalent of ‘no fucking way’.

Faerie Fudge – An expletive that actually ended up coming to replace ‘shit’ more than ‘fuck’ but technically can be used interchangeably much like those two words.

Midnight Magic! – An exclamation used where a moment of pause my sit as you evaluate a situation that just occurred. Sometimes also used to denote a new discovery in thought. Similar to ‘Eureka!’ but not as exciting, more often terrifying.

Where in the Seven and Seven Lands…? – A phrase used here in place of ‘where the fuck…’.

Happy Ever After – A goodbye phrase used to wish someone good luck or a safe life, sometimes used ironically or sarcastically like if you had tacked ‘bitch’ onto the end.

Faerie Follies – A phrase here that is the equivalent of ‘idiots’. Used to refer to more than one idiot. Folly would be used for the singular, though is less common in this world.

What the Fey? – An expletive that just means ‘What the fuck’. Possibly the most common phrase uttered by people.

Flying Troll Piss – Used more as a replacement for a noun, like ‘what is this flying troll piss?’ Can be used to mean ‘shit’ when shit is representing a noun.

Oh My Faerie Lord! – An exclamation of pure excitement. Could be used in place of areas you would say ‘Oh this is so exciting!’

Fey-blasted – A adjective phrase here that is used in place of ‘new-fangled’ or to explain that something is a piece of junk.

Oh Fey… – A simple phrase that is equivalent to the use of ‘Oh shit…’.

___ Flipping ____ – Used as a replacer for phrases you might supplement in ‘fucking’. Always surrounded by other phrases and words that are often also expletives such as ‘Faerie Flipping Fudge!’.

Fey – The original replacer for ‘shit’, that has quickly come to replace ‘Fuck’ more than anything, but not ‘fucking’.

A Faerie in a Purple Dress: Chapter 3

Three

Ashes of the Past

 

“You found the children!” The mayor exclaimed as we ushered all the children inside a house that was about as warm as this village would get. “We truly could never repay you.”

“You already paid me with the help on capturing these two.” I explained while shoving the blue-eyed girl into the corner so Ashe could tie her up.

My eyes followed Ashe’s to the girl laying on one bed, bandaged and an arm missing. “Besides, some of those kids aren’t whole. If my partner had her way, she’d make us wait til I could heal them all before we left.”

Ashe turned and gave me one of the worst looks, like I had just killed one of those kids in front of her.

“You can’t stay?” The mayor asked.

I shook my head. “We have to leave tonight.”

I yanked on Ashe to pull her to me, but she wasn’t having it. “But I do have a friend coming that will help heal them. And you only need to give him a few fish.”

Ashe smiled, and hit my shoulder with her fist. She knew whom I was talking about. A cat I’ve known well for years.

“How do you know Mister Boots is coming?” She asked, while leaning down to tie up the second of our two bounties.

I glanced back at her just as she was picking up Reynard and putting him on her lap after she sat on a cot with an unconscious kid. “Because I scryed for him in the snow after we got the kids inside. He said it would be a day before he got here, but he’ll have the kids looking brand new.”

I turned back to the mayor. “Just keep them alive til then.”

The mayor nodded and turned around to gather up a few people, and send them for supplies or something.

I stepped over to Ashe and ran a hand along Reynard’s tail. “I’m going to change, then we are leaving.”

“I heard.” She said as she set her jaw and kept looking at the fox while she pet his head.

“Ashe.” I started, “We can’t stay. We’ve been here long enough, and now we have bounties to return. First rule of bounty hunting is to turn your catch in as soon as you have them. The longer you hold them, the more likely you are to lose them.”

She huffed, “I know.”

I shook my head and bent down to lay my hands on top of the one Ashe was using to pet Reynard. “It wasn’t your fault. We didn’t know what that snowman was, and if you hadn’t done that I wouldn’t have been able to dismantle the snowman to get the kids free.”

“I understand.” Ashe responded in a monotone way while still not looking at me.

I laid my hand on hers. “I wish I could have done it another way. But magic doesn’t fix everything, and it certainly doesn’t solve everything. Some days I wish it did, and others, I’m glad it doesn’t.”

“I guess. But you used to be able to do everything. Anything. When you were… my godmother.”

“Trust me, I wouldn’t be worrying about getting these two bounties where they are supposed to be if I still had that kind of Faerie power. It’s amazing we didn’t already lose them in the snow.”

Ashe smiled and glanced to Reynard in her arms. “We would have but Rey kept track of them and herded them for me.”

I grinned to her. “Is that your subtle way of saying we’re ready to have a kid because we taught Reynard well?”

She turned to me with her dimples glinting. “Maybe.”

Reynard flicked his fluffy winter tail and glanced between us. “You do have a kid. You are my parents.”

Ashe giggled and I pet the fox.

“That’s right, Ashe. Rey is our kid, we don’t need another. He’s already a handful.”

“Hey!” Reynard exclaimed, flinging his tail at me. It smacked me in the face.

I blew some fox hair out of my face and laughed. “Well you are. But you are also a good kid, sometimes.”

Ashe smiled, but then her expression grew rigid and controlled. “Gnidori, I am serious though.”

I chewed the inside of my lip, and Reynard looked a little disappointed, like he wasn’t enough, or a ‘proper child’. “Maybe we should get a real wedding day together before another kid. How does that sound?”

I really didn’t have to finish my sentence before her face had lit up with life. “Okay. But Soon. I’ve waited a long time for you.”

Sometimes I forgot she had been waiting for me since we had first met years ago, when I had been her fairy godmother. It’s strange really, to think how much had changed since then.

I smiled. “Okay then. After this bounty?”

She didn’t even look back at our bounties and just jumped forward to hug me, and then kiss me while a fox scratched and scrambled to get out from between us.

Ashe smiled in the kiss before she broke away and hugged Reynard against her. “Sorry, Rey.”

I watched her and Reynard as she made it up to him with petting and brushing his fur. At least until my attention grew toward the two individuals chained up near the cot. Ashe mentioning my past reminded me of something I might be able to do for them.

I walked over and crouched down by both of the thieves. “Look, I don’t want to keep you both locked up the whole time. It’s a hassle for everyone. So I can bind your words instead if you both agree you won’t escape from me or Ashe until we get you to the people who put out your bounty. Do you understand what binding your words means?”

“Yes.” The blue-eyed woman hissed. “We know faeries. You don’t look anything like one though.”

“I’m not. But I’ve picked up some tricks over the years. And I’d much rather bind your words in a promise you have to obey than keep you tied up and ready to escape at a moment’s notice. So will you promise, or do I need to make this trip as uncomfortable as possible for you two?”

The woman shook her head, and then let it slack between her legs. She sighed. “Fine.”

The fake prince glanced to her, and then nodded. “Okay.”

I frowned at their words. “I need a little more than that to bind the promise.”

“Oh!” The prince laughed and then took a deep breath. “I swear not to try to escape from the bounty hunter’s custody.”

He looked to the sapphire-eyed woman, but she said nothing. So he ribbed her and she grumbled. “Okay. I swear not to escape your custody until we are delivered.”

She then glanced to the prince, “Happy, Fett?”

The boy said nothing while I reached out and drew some of their exhaled breath to my hand and molded the binding. Wisps of light sparked from my hand and they watched in shock. I could see the rainbow colors reflecting in the boy’s eyes.

Then the only light was coming from the pitch torches hanging on the wall.

“You were serious.” The prince rasped.

I grinned while turning a hand back to Ashe, who laid the keys to the shackles into my palm. “You two are the only ones who have been lying here. You’re actually the few live bounties I’ve taken. I’m not much for shackling people up.”

Ashe leaned against my shoulder, looked at our captives with a vulpine grin and added, “But I am.”

I pushed against her with my shoulder. “Ignore her. She just means capture is better than killing. More hassle,” I glanced to Ashe and she smiled sweetly, “But better.”

“Anyway,” I began, “it is going to be a while to get back, so I think it would help if we at least introduced ourselves before we go.”

“We really are leaving now?” The blue-eyed woman asked.

“In a minute.” I explained while stooping down to unlock the chains on my bounties.

“I’m Ashe. And this is…” Ashe started, holding up Reynard to introduce him.”

“Don’t you mean Cinderella?” The prince asked while he fiddled with his wrist after I freed it. I noticed an odd thorny ring on his finger. I wanted to accidentally stab himself with it for asking that question. But Ashe had her own way of handling that.

“Yes, but that’s not my actual name. It’s like a title, like general. And…”

“But why wouldn’t you go by it? That’s awesome to be Cinderella. What happened to your prince for you to end up with her?” The fake prince interrupted again and I ground my teeth.

“I was explaining that. The story you think you know isn’t accurate. Those events in my life, they weren’t good or happy except when my fairy godmother was around.” Ashe nodded to me.

The two bounties stared at me with wide eyes.

“A fairy godmother bounty hunter?” The woman asked and I had to say something then. Especially since Ashe was giving me a look like she didn’t know what to say.

“Former fairy godmother. It’s been years since I’ve been one. Had to find a new job, so bounty hunter fit my skills at the time.”

“And learning to use an axe was a hobby?”

I set my jaw. “No. Like I said, bounty hunter fit. I knew how to track and fight because I learned from a huntsman.”

The prince’s eyes lit up. “So I was right, you are in her legend, just not the prince.”

“Thankfully.” I groaned, and Ashe laughed while leaning against me.

“Anyway, this is Reynard.” Ashe continued, and set the fox down on her lap. “And my lovable wife is Gnidori.”

“Wife?” The woman asked, looking over me with surprise that I wasn’t sure how to take. Maybe she was thinking I’d flirt with her?

“So Cinderella ran away with the fairy godmother instead of the prince…” The prince said, lost in thought. “I always thought some of the legends might be off. I mean if that stuff happened in real life…”

“Oh, some of it does.” I smiled. And that broke his train of thought. He shook his head.

“Well, I’m Fett Darling, and this is Ileana Simziana.”

“Darling? Faerie Fudge, you might as well be Charming’s brother.”

“You know Charming?” Darling asked, before absent-mindedly pointing between Ashe and me. “Was he the prince?”

I threw my hands out to my side and stood up completely. “Well I think I’ve had more than enough Introduction time. Let’s get going.”

“But why are we leaving with sleeping?” Ileana asked.

I turned to glare at both the bounties. “Because you are a bounty, and we have other things to do besides babysit you. I’ve spent long enough on you two for the reward I’m getting. Besides, we won’t be seeing each other again, and I’m not up for telling my life story to criminals I just met.”

Ashe reached over and squeezed my hand, without standing up herself. I ground my teeth though. “No, Ashe. I’m done. We have work. Don’t get attached to them.”

She let her hand drop away from mine and slipped my cloak from her body. “Here then.” She said, letting the cloak drop from her fingers as she stood up and held it out to me. I caught it and watched her pick up Reynard before turning to the door.

Great, now she was pissed at me.

“Ashe…” I sighed.

She turned back to me with a forced smile, a fox on one shoulder and her rifle on the other. “What? We have a job to do, Gnidori, right?”

Seeing her face like that, with her dimples not even showing in her smile, I just sighed again and gave up. “Yeah.”

My eyes fell to the bounties and I hitched a thumb in Ashe’s direction. “Let’s go. We have to get past an enchanted forest before dawn.”

“Why dawn?” The prince asked.

“Because…” I started and Reynard jumped from Ashe onto my shoulder, which made me pause from the strain.

But he finished for me. “That’s when all the magic happens! Duh.”

One Week Check Up on the Three Month Challenge

So it has been a whole week on my new schedule and new challenge to finish this novel in three months and then start that process all over again! And it has been going well I’ve written around 22k words in a single week, which puts me a little less than a quarter of the way through the book that I’m expecting. In most cases I’ve always written more than what I am expecting when it comes to short stories and novels though. So with the track I’m currently on I am looking at this book being done in just another month of time. Which puts me ahead of schedule about 3 weeks.

I’m all for being ahead of schedule, and the most interesting thing is that I actually slacked pretty hard on Friday and Saturday. I got maybe a total of 250-1000 words written on those days. To be fair I wasn’t feeling well, with the sudden change from needing the air conditioning on in my home to shivering under the blankets over the course of a single day. But even so I was able to complete my schedule and I got about 3k words written each day for seven days when you split the word count up in total.

I did however notice a little hiccups with my schedule that had to be changed as the day came around. Particularly on Tuesday and Thursday I had myself set to write for roughly 5 to 6 hours straight and that is just too much unless I am really on the ball and excited to write. About 3 hour chunks of writing time seem to work the best and so I split up the writing time and shuffled the schedule around a bit. It was expected to happen that when I got to the day it might change a bit, but for the most part I’ve kept to a schedule the entire week other than Friday. And that’s why I’m thinking of making Friday my weekend day. I can do whatever I want that day when I need to, maybe I’ll get a bunch of writing done, maybe I won’t. Either way by the time Friday came around I needed the break.

So moving forward the schedule has been changed to split up my writing time on Tuesday and Thursdays and I’m nixing the schedule on Friday other than I HAVE to wake up at 8am like all my other days and be in bed by 11pm. This keeps me from doing something radical like sleeping in or staying up til 4am then expecting myself to wake up at 8am the next day.

I’d also like to thank everyone, especially Ksenia Anske for providing me with motivation over the week. I just have to get this book done, it’s been two years since I had touched this series and I had been sitting on this book and the third one for so long that it’s flowing out of me faster than I can write or type.

I’ve also already had a few beta readers take a look at the first 9 chapters that I’ve written and it seems promising so far. It’s enjoyable and has an air that the first book had as well. So I’m happy. This week I’m hoping to aim for 25k words or roughly 8-10 Chapters. We will see how it goes, but I’m enjoying the ride so far.

P. S. I’m also looking into illustrators for my three books in the series. I’m looking for more cartoonish kind of work, rather than realistic. And I have a few people who have already contacted me. The goal is I will be doing trade paperbacks of the first two books at the same time as a digital release for the second book, and a second edition digital release of the first book to all digital reader types.