Random Jordan's Blog, page 4

Girls Don’t Do That

There is no phrase I hate more in the world than ‘XXXX don’t do that’. Usually it comes in the form of ‘Girls don’t do that’ or ‘Writers don’t do that’, which piss me off the most, but I see them in all avenues these days. Plenty of people want to inform me and others that what they are doing is not something they should be doing. Sometimes it might even be masqueraded as ‘All girls do this’ or my favorite of all ‘Real Writers do this’.

It’s seeing things like these that make me wonder if most of the human population actually understands how Identity works. I Identify as a girl, a writer, a gamer, queer, a lesbian, and an imp. These are all identities that are at my core. Some of them are based on things I’ve done in my life, and yes even some of them come from other people originally calling me them, but that doesn’t mean for one instance that the entirety of my identity there is determined and dictated by other people.

So when I see things people are saying like: Real writers drink coffee. And I don’t drink coffee. I take it as you are saying I’m not a real writer. Of course it has no impact on how I perceive my identity because I’ve ingrained it into me, but when other people who are maybe considering adding ‘writer’ to their identity see something like that and they don’t drink coffee, they suddenly start thinking… oh maybe I’m Not a writer. I know, because I’ve done it before.

Possibly one of the greatest areas this occurs and it constantly is seen in the news and online happens to be whether girls are gamers. Or more specifically which girls are fake gamers and which ones are the ‘real’ ones. It’s mainly because of the conversations about fake gamer girls that I’ve honestly gotten tired of hearing the word ‘real’. Ironic, considering I’m more likely to use the phrase ‘real women characters’ than I am ‘strong women characters’ these days, but that is more because I just don’t have the right words to use in that instance yet.

Otherwise, real has been off my list for a long time ever since people started gating me on what I’m allowed to say my identity is. And this gating is the reason I think a talk about identity is needed.

There are only three things you ever need to know about identity.

1. Identity means your conception and expression of individuality or the groups you belong to. Sometimes it can be something commonly shared between a group or unique to you but still represent that group to you. (IE: I am queer, so I wear a rainbow ring to represent that identity).

2. Your identity has impact upon other people with the same identities or considering the same identities only by association. So the people you know when you are forming any of your identities often determine whether you consider yourself of a certain identity and vice versa. (IE: Someone who is a writer says that TV is a waste of time for writers, anyone who had been considering writer as part of their identity and then sees this will then think it isn’t part of their identity, if they do write but also watch TV.)

3. You can’t command other people’s identities. You can manipulate it at the time when the person is still forming the identity, but you can never force someone out of an identity without their say. You can also say they aren’t that identity, but it does not take away their identity. (IE: Telling me girls don’t play games, does not mean I stop thinking of myself as a gamer or a girl.)

If you can understand and respect these three things, it will go a long way. And the next time you see yourself wanting to say something like ‘real XXXX do XXXX’ or ‘XXXX don’t do XXXX’ consider carefully whether what you are saying would cause fewer people in the world to want to identify with what you are talking about. These groups of people we make like woman, and man, and queer, and straight, and writer are not meant to be exclusive. We built them because we are trying to find people who can relate to us and understand the things we are going through, but that doesn’t mean everyone under a same group has the same experiences, because we all have vastly different identities that make up who we are.

 

 

A Faerie in a Purple Dress: Chapter 2

Two

Snow White Golem

A few tons of moving snow would normally activate that fight or flight response, especially when it is making a heading straight toward you. But I had lost that response; it was mostly a snark and evaluate method now.

Unfortunately the fake prince I was attached to didn’t have that same shedding of fight or flight. He toppled next to me, while trying to get away and I went with him, attached by the wrists and all.

My hand was on an axe, as Reynard jumped from my shoulder and landed in the slush. He tugged on the fake prince’s tunic to get him up.

Ashe was running toward me, yelling, “Just run!”

I shook my head but she yanked me up from the snow and took the prince with me. Reynard sneezed into the snow as I glanced to her and looked down at the shackle around my wrist.

“You and Reynard keep track of our bounties. I’ll handle this.” I said sternly. She nodded, so I mouthed the words ‘Love You’. She smiled in response with one of those tragically beautiful grins that appear when she is both worried but also understanding. She scooped up Reynard and ran after the blue-eyed girl. I focused and zapped the cuffs free from my wrists and pushed the prince in the same direction.

“Don’t try and run. She’ll just shoot you down.” I told him then took a few steps forward, before realizing I stepped on my wet skirts. I was out of time to rip them though as the snowman smashed something like a fist down at me. I rolled out-of-the-way, as snow splashed over me.

If I hadn’t cast a cold resistance spell to keep myself from shivering while lying in wait for the prince I might have already been useless with magic and I would have been shivering from that cold.

I tore at some of the skirts while the snow man pulled the arm back from the cold ground. Ripping the skirts was actually necessary to even stand back up. But I had barely stood and tore the last of the hem away to give my legs more room to breathe when I felt a hammer of packed snow slam my side and I flew toward the wall of a nearby house.

I didn’t hit the wall, but I skidded pretty close. It would have torn skin off if the snow hadn’t been there. My breath escaped me in a wisp of visible air, before my axe ripped into the snow and I used it to lever myself to my feet.

Luckily when the snowman had casually tossed me aside it had kept going after the others. That gave me time to catch up then I just had to stop it.

Well, actually I had to catch it first.

No, scratch that. I had to catch my breath first, wherever that went. I took a few deep breaths and ripped the rest of my skirts to my knees before taking off through the snow.

I should have had Ashe hand me her rifle. It would have made things easier, as the snowman was moving too fast for me to catch up. It would reach the others before I would even be in its shadow.

Why was I relying on Ashe though? Only a year ago I would have been throwing an axe already instead of thinking about something I didn’t do.

I gripped tight on the axe and released it toward the snow creature’s head. It stuck in the back of it, but it only caused the snowman to stop in place and pull it out.

That gave me the time I needed to reach it and dig my heels into the creature’s back leg and pull out another two axes to create an easy way of climbing up the snowman.

However, I was not expecting blood to be trickling from around the hatchet where it stuck in the snowman. This was way more than just an animated pile of snow. It didn’t even make any noises of pain despite bleeding. It just kept moving forward after tossing aside the axe I had thrown.

“A golem that bleeds, that’s new.” I mused while digging a few more axe lengths into the snowman. I had to climb, even if it meant putting more bloody holes in the creature. The alternative was to put Ashe in danger.

I cringed after digging a few more holes in the snow creature. I couldn’t imagine how the golem wasn’t reacting to bleeding so badly if it had been given blood in the first place. There was even a smeared trail of bloody snow all down the golem’s back as I yanked myself on to the giant’s snowy shoulder and straddled it.

I blew what warm air I could muster on to my hands and focused trying to magically turn the snow into water. I did have to hurry on this, since my ward to the cold would be fading soon.

Instead of focus though, I got a cracking sound that shook me enough to look around and see half the head of the snowman was gone. Not twenty feet ahead was Ashe, with my cloak shuttering around her and her rifle smoking.

“You almost shot me!” I yelled.

I couldn’t see her face but her tone of voice definitely said she was rolling her eyes. “But I didn’t.”

I ground my teeth and tried to focus again as I heard two more shots.

Breathe in.

I watched the head start to regrow with new snow.

Breathe out.

Another shot at the neck, next to my leg, sent blood all over the place and left an oozing wound.

Breathe in again and shape signs with my hands.

It was then that I decided I had to change the spell. Simply turning the snow to water wouldn’t do it. Not with unfrozen blood running like it was. I needed to just straight disenchant the golem. That should sever any spell holding this thing together. But to disenchant I needed to know what the golem was without the enchantment; a bunch of blood with snow around it?

Another shot, and the snow was missing along the fist that was being used to attempt pummeling Ashe. She was rolling out-of-the-way and when the fist pulled up from smashing the ground there wasn’t snow, or bone. Just lots of blood and…

I was going to be sick.

An unconscious child, missing an arm and bleeding made up what should have been bone for a human arm.

How many children had I just killed to climb my way up onto the snowman?

No, I couldn’t think about that. Ashe was distracting it. I had to separate the kids or kid from this golem.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Hand signs. And then finally I slammed my fist into the shoulder of the snow golem, just as it threw another punch at my wife.

There was no way she could dodge that punch in time.

As the fist came down, my spell took hold and snow exploded in every direction; not just where the fist was, but the whole golem.

I was sitting on snow, and then nothing. I would have worried more about Ashe and Reynard but there wasn’t any time to worry before my face collided with the ground, or actually a body on the ground.

I jumped up and yelled, “Ashe? Are you okay?”

I heard grumbles and looked down to see the child I landed on was stirring. I slipped my axes away before bending down to lift them up.

“Fine. I uh… caught someone.” I heard Ashe groan back to me. I smiled and glanced back to the kid, holding their head.

“Careful. You are lucky to be alive.” I soothed in the best way I could.

The kid shook their head and shrugged my hand away. “I’m fine!”

I stood up, “Well, if you are okay then help me dig the others out.”

The kid looked up at me and then vomited straight into the snow as I jumped back.

I sighed. “Sadly that isn’t the first time someone has done that when they looked at me.”

Ashe marched closer to me, holding a dark-haired, dark-eyed, and dark-skinned girl in her arms.

I eyed her. “What are you doing with her? We aren’t keeping any of them.”

“I know that.” Ashe said with some spicy attitude. “I told you I caught someone. She was the other fist. The one… I didn’t explode.”

Ashe sounded a little grim with that last phrase. Of course she was blaming herself.

I scrunched up my face and attempted to just get the kids out of the snow quickly so I could comfort her. When I tried a spell though, nothing happened. My cold ward must have run out, which meant my body wasn’t happy about casting anything now.

“Ashe, if we don’t hurry more of these kids will be dead. And I’m too cold to draw on more of my energy to magic them out.”

She glanced to me and set the girl down softly next to the other kid, out of the puke.

I attempted a smile. “And we can talk about it later. It wasn’t all you. How do you think I feel since you became my conscience?”

She tried to hide her smile and instead took a deep breath and looked at the snow. “Okay.”

I glanced at the snow too and bent down to start digging kids out.

Faerie Fudge.

Magic just never works when you actually need it.

How to Fatten Up Your Characters

I wish I could start and end this post by simply saying your characters should eat more. But that would be incredible crass of me, considering this is not at all about how fat your characters are or how the very heteronormative, white Hollywood and book world also includes skinny-ass people and that you should fatten up your characters. It’s still your choice no matter what. Instead this is about fattening up your characters in a different way: adding more dimensions.

It doesn’t matter who you are, if you are a writer, you have struggled or worried that your characters, whether your main or side characters, are a real person, or just a stick figure. This is most heavily laid upon female characters as a whole but there are many instances where male characters are exactly the same way. But Female Characters tend to receive the brunt of whether they are real women or not.

The biggest thing however that I encounter is people putting a female character into a particular category. These categories were made even more real when I came across this flowchart earlier in the week. The flowchart top I completely agree with, if you follow these three things–Story, Flaws, and more than an Idea–you’ll discover you’ve actually made a character that is three-dimensional, regardless of gender.

It’s the rest of the chart that severely bugs me. After all a character can still be some of these stereotypes and a three-dimensional character. It’s when they are ONLY those things like only a damsel in distress and nothing more, that there is a problem. But the flowchart does bring up something else important.

What Does It Mean to be Three-dimensional?

From a mathematical standpoint, three-dimensional just means the amount of space you take up. If you can be measured upon three and only three different planes, or lines. It’s very simplistic in math, and so much more complicated when discussing people in three-dimensional space, especially fictional people. If it was simple enough to say, hey, your character should have three qualities about them to be three-dimensional then we’d all wipe our hands and be done. That’s why I didn’t say three-dimensional in the title. It’s not about making the characters in three dimensions. It’s about making them multi-dimensional, the same as a human. You want to be able to measure your characters on as many planes and axis as possible. They should have so many traits and dimensions to them that you can’t really even count all of them. So many that you are still discovering things about that character years down the line!

But how do you add the dimensions? Especially to a character that you’ve already made and realized they weren’t very dimensional, or even solely fit into one of the flowchart examples?

Adding on the Fat

Discovering the character you made just doesn’t have very much dimensions or ‘fat’ to them can definitely deflate you. But that doesn’t mean something can’t be done about that character. They may be one or two-dimensional now, but all it takes is a little cleaning up and you have a multi-dimensional character in no time. First, if your character falls into a trope or category rather easily then consider that character for a moment. Why are they this trope? What else has happened in their lives to lead them there?

The more questions you ask yourself about a certain character, the more you are likely to see that character’s full personality come out on the paper when you go to write them. If you just have a generic idea of who they are, such as what job they have or why they are in the story then you just won’t see much of that character’s true personality. So keep asking questions about your characters. Why do they do what they do? Answering these questions along the way, and maybe even incorporating some of those answers into the writing of the character is how you add-on that dimensional fat!

Going Beyond the Trope

When it comes to writing, the last thing you should be worrying about is whether your character fits a trope. Those are always going to exist and they exist not always because they are over-used (Which is a cliche) but because they are stereotypes. As much as even I hate stereotypes, they do exist because there are large amounts of people who fit them. The key with writing is not to just play into those tropes and stereotypes though. They may have one of those things apart of them, but it doesn’t define them! It’s possible to have a damsel in distress who also has their own life. They may be in distress now, but maybe during that entire time they had been learning to fight, or how to invent gadgets.

We’ve seen a number of these tropes flipped on their head, from characters like Fiona from Shrek, who is the characteristic damsel in distress but then also learned to fight while she was waiting to be rescued. Fairy tales in particular happen to be one of the most commonly flipped around tropes. People are re-inventing and rewriting fairy tales all the time, and with it they want to make it different and new, so we see tropes like even my ‘Little Red Fighting Hood’ who happens to be grown up and skilled at fighting. It doesn’t mean these are bad, or that you aren’t original with your work, it just means you need to make sure that isn’t all you are doing!

My Red Riding Hood isn’t just a fighter, she’s a bounty hunter, a lesbian, a magic user, and she has a great reputation throughout the land as being a badass, but then she’s also soft and sweet, and caring to her friends and even takes care of a baby fox along the way. She isn’t all masculine, because I didn’t want to praise masculinity, but she isn’t all fairy tale princess either. She’s a balance in between and that is what made her a character all on her own.

So pay attention to your characters, what they are doing, how they are acting. You can always go beyond the trope or stereotype and you’ll have more fun with it in the process! And don’t forget to keep fattening up those characters, that way they are nice and plump for readers to consume!

Nanowrimo and the Ksenia Anske Three Month Challenge

I’ve been participating in Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) for the past four years or so, though I do so unofficially. I don’t actually submit anything for Nanowrimo, I just use it as an excuse to get myself to write more for that month than I would normally. It works well, but only one of those years I’ve managed to get the 50,000 words done, which is about half a novel for me. It was two years ago that this happened and since then my writing has been rather slow, at least when it comes to novels. I’ve been sitting on two novels that are quite literally half written. And even more novels that are a few chapters in. And that’s not even counting the number of novellas and short stories I’ve been producing for the past year.

The problem is, I’m not finishing any of this work. I start it, then I start something else. Then I come back to it, and touch it a little, and then I just don’t get anything done. And when I don’t have anything done, I have nothing to show for it. I have no complete works, and the last thing I want to do is show people my incomplete work. I’ll show whole chapters from some of my novels but that’s as far as I go, and even those are just one of the many rough drafts I go through.

Regardless, it was over the past month that I finally realized. I’m in one of those unique positions. I’m a writer, who actually does have a job that leaves me with an insane amount of hours each day to get writing and reading done, and yet I’m not always doing it. I’m playing games, or I’m watching videos on youtube (which I realize has replaced what I used to do with Television). I’ll find almost anything just to not write my novels, or short stories or anything. Heck, I’ve been resorting to writing my card game up just to do something because I’m bored but I won’t focus on just writing my novels.

It’s not that I’m even bored of writing my novels. I love them. And I love writing down new scenes for it. And I love talking about what I’m writing, and what scenes I’m working on, or what scenes are in my books that are already written! The problem isn’t boredom, or even lack of muse or inspiration, or having writer’s block. It all just has to do with rhythm. I am probably one of the worst people you could ever meet when it comes to setting and keeping to a schedule. I’m awful at it. I just get tired at one point while starting the schedule and then I say, well one day won’t hurt not to do it, and then two days and then before long I’m not even following my schedule anymore.

However. Along the way, I did notice something about myself. I stop keeping to a schedule roughly around 3-4 months after I set it. It’s almost consistent every time I set a schedule, it is 3-4 months and then it changes. I do something else, or I give up on the schedule, even if it had been working.

So then comes along a Ksenia Anske post in which she gathers up some of the things she said in a rant on twitter. Much like large collections of advice from anyone, not all of it is gold, but there are some gems in there, especially for freelance and self-published writers to take advantage of. It wasn’t until she mentioned that to succeed as a self-published author you need to write 4 books a year that it really hit me. 3 months. That’s it. 3 months is actually generous when it comes to writing a novel. But accounting for obtaining a cover and all the publishing aspects, it is reasonable to say 3 months at maximum for one book.

So, what if I set a schedule to follow for each three months. During that time I set my entire schedule up on what I’m going to do. Then I’ll stick to it for those three months, and that means, finish the novel and get it published. Then I can start another three-month schedule, different from the last, and follow that.

It was this little nugget of information that made me realize I don’t need to set a schedule that I have to follow for the REST OF MY ENTIRE LIFE. Just 3 months.

So I’m calling it the Ksenia Anske Three Month Challenge. It’s a bit like Nanowrimo, in that you have to write an entire novel within the three months. But, its more professional than Nanowrimo. You have to write, edit, and publish an entire novel within three months. Everything. Sure, you can have help, but the key is that you get it all done within a three month period. That’s it. That’s all it takes. Simple right?

You’d think so. But there is a level of dedication you do have to commit, just like nanowrimo. Nano may be extreme in asking for a 50k novel in 30 days, but this is roughly going to be 100k word novels every 90 days. That means essentially, going by nano levels, spending two months writing the novel. And one month for the editing and publishing process. And that’s only if you write at the nano level of writing for that long, which I might add is not too difficult, it’s just about setting your schedule!

So this is my schedule. And it’s going to start on Monday, September 22nd and last until Saturday, November 22nd.

Monday: 

8am – Wake up. Lay in bed and read a book. At least until 9am

9am – Shower, eat, and social media. 

10am – Write a blog post to be published on Tuesday. 

11am – Check social media then travel to local coffee shop

Noon – Start writing on novel.Type anything up that was written on paper, before writing anything new on paper. (For first day this will just be writing on paper). At least one chapter to be completed so long as that chapter is around 3,000 words, otherwise more than one.

3pm – Free-time and break from writing, check social media, play a game, research topics, or read a book.

4pm – Continue writing on novel with writing on paper. Finish a single chapter if 3,000+ words, otherwise more than one chapter.

7pm- Gaming with Friends. Role-playing games, computer games, etc. This is in person.

10pm – Relax and eat. 

11pm – Lay in bed and read a book. At least until midnight or whenever I fall asleep. 

Tuesday: 

8am – Wake up. Lay in bed and read a book. At least until 9am

9am – Shower, eat, and social media. 

10am – Work on Freelance writing jobs til around 3pm or whenever finished.

3pm – Free-time and break. Check social media, play a game, read a book. 

5pm – Continue writing on novel. Type anything up that was written the day before on paper. 

10pm – Relax and eat.

11pm – Lay in bed and write on paper, at least until midnight or whenever I fall asleep.

Wednesday: 

8am – Wake up. Lay in bed and read a book. At least until 9am

9am – Shower, eat, and social media. 

10am – Write a blog post/short story to be published on SECRET SITE. 

11am – Check social media then travel to local coffee shop

Noon – Start writing on novel.Type anything up that was written on paper, before writing anything new on paper. At least one chapter to be completed so long as that chapter is around 3,000 words, otherwise more than one.

3pm – Free-time and break from writing, check social media, play a game, research topics, or read a book.

4pm – Continue writing on novel with writing on paper. Finish a single chapter if 3,000+ words, otherwise more than one chapter.

7pm- Gaming with Friends. Role-playing games, computer games, etc. This is in person.

10pm – Relax and eat. 

11pm – Lay in bed and read a book. At least until midnight or whenever I fall asleep. 

Thursday: 

8am – Wake up, Lay in bed and read a book. At least until 9am.

9am – Shower, eat, and social media. 

10am – Work on Freelance writing jobs until about 3pm or whenever finished. 

3pm – Free time and break. Check social media. Play a game, read a book, research things.

5pm – Continue writing on novel. Type anything up that was written the day before on paper. 

10pm – Relax and eat. 

11pm – Lay in bed and write on paper. At least until midnight or whenever I fall asleep. 

Friday: 

8am – Wake up, Lay in bed and read a book. At least until 9am.

9am – Shower, eat, and social media. 

10am – Write a blog post to be published on Saturday. 

11am – Start writing on novel. Typing up any work that was written on paper the day before. 

2pm – Free time and break. Check social media. Play a game, read a book, research something. 

5pm – Write or continue writing a short story. Finish 2-3k words for a short story or novella. 

8pm – Free time and break. Spend time with loved ones. Eat. 

11pm – Writing on novel. Write on paper. At least until midnight or whenever I fall asleep. 

Saturday: 

8am – Wake up, Lay in bed and read a book. At least until 9am.

9am – Shower, eat, and social media. 

10am – Start writing on novel. Typing up any work that was written on paper the day before. 

1pm – Free time and break. Check social media. Play a game, read a book, etc. 

2pm – Continue writing on novel. 

5pm – Gaming with friends. Role-playing games, and other board games in person. 

1am – Lay in bed, reading a book until falling asleep. 

Sunday: 

9am – Wake up, lay in bed and read a book. At least until 10am.

10am – Shower, eat, social media. 

11am – Freelance writing jobs until 4pm or whenever finished. 

4pm – Free time and break. Spend time with loved ones. Eat. 

7pm – Writing on novel. Typing up any work that was written on paper the day before. 

10pm – Free time and break. Can include eating if not done earlier. 

11pm – Writing on novel on paper until falling asleep. 

That will be my schedule til November 22nd. And yes, I know, you are wondering, that’s only two months! Well that’s because after the two months. The last month will having any area that was marked with Writing on novel, be replaced with editing novel/working and fixing novel/obtaining cover art/more blog posts and guest posts to promote the book/anything else I’m missing from publishing a book. Otherwise the schedule will be about the same until December 22nd when I will release the book.

The first book I’m doing this with? It’s one I have a few chapters of a headstart in, but otherwise I need to put in a lot of work. It is the second book of my novel series Beyond Ever After, called ‘A Faerie in a Purple Dress’.

If you’d like to join me on the Ksenia Anske Three month challenge, I encourage you to post the schedule you will stick to so that you can get a book out in three months! THEN KEEP TO IT!

Now how am I going to keep to it? Well I posted in my schedule that I’ll be connected with social media. You are the people who will keep me to it. I’ve already seen so many people ask me when I would have the second novel out for my series, and I need to hold onto that. That there are actually people who want to read my writing and enjoy it. So I’m gonna give updates, I’m gonna mention when I’m working on something. Maybe even give cool lines from my novel I like while writing it. Anything.

So… let’s have fun!

 

What I learned: From World of Tanks

What I learned From Playing World of Tanks

I’ll be the first one to admit that I am not a military person, or at all interested or obsessed with big guns or vehicles. So it’s easy to understand that I was never too thrilled to jump into World of Tanks, which is a free cooperative and competitive game that you can play. The game premise is pretty simple, it’s a third person shooter game but in tanks and with other various mechanics that tend to piss people off.

I honestly didn’t think it would be a game I would enjoy in the first place. But as I tried it finally, I realized not only had I been wrong, but I could actually learn a number of things from playing a game like this. Learn things beyond how pissed I can get at the computer or the game when something that invokes RNGesus totally screws me over.

The Art of War

Sadly, the Art of War is not one of those books that is at the top of my list, in fact most books written before 1700s is not high on my list. But the advantage with a game like this is that it attracts a lot of people who are in the military or were in the military and that means with any amount of experience playing the game you actually find out strategies and are taught strategies from people who you can take advantage of, not just in the game but if you ever actually find yourself in a war zone. I’ve learned a number of fighting tactics and strategies that can also carry over to things outside of tanks; they are just basic strategies like flanking or using cover.

Monkey See

Probably one of the harder lessons for me to ever learn, even before this game was that if you can’t see the enemy that doesn’t mean the enemy can’t see you. This is even more apparent in World of Tanks as you have a number of people who have vision ranges that reach far beyond anything you have and that means you can be sniped out instantly before you even realize you are a target. This is very similar to the same problems war zones face. It’s the reason you stick to cover, and you can moving when you are able to. If your placement is always changing the enemy may not always know where you are going or where you are.

Be One with the Team

You can tell pretty quickly when your team of 7-16 people are just going to all die horribly just from the first movements that are made by people. If everyone runs up the middle and leaves the sides of the map we are on wide open, we are all going to die horribly because enemy tanks are going to take those sides and sneak up behind us and kill us all. Even just a few people trying to keep the enemy tanks at bay can completely save a team. So instead of complaining your team isn’t working together, just do what you can to shore up areas where your team is lacking. You may become the weakest link because of it, but at least there is a weakest link on the team and the enemy has to get through that first to dismantle the rest.

Patience

Some people will tell you I’m an incredibly patient person. And I am in real life, most of the time. But when it comes to most games, I like to keep moving constantly, and I actually prefer that in life too. I need to always be doing something. People just find me patient because I might be taking a nap while waiting for them, or doing something else I consider productive. This game however has truly taught me that sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all. If you just wait and out patience the other team you’ll find they come straight to you like whales to the plankton.

Be Observant

The final lesson from World of Tanks was actually something I’ve practiced all through my life, but selectively. This game has helped reinforce that if I truly want to succeed I need to be paying attention to the people and the world around me. I may not have a convenient map on the right side of my vision in real life, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be just as observant of my surroundings. Because of this I’ve become even more observant of what’s going on around me than I used to.

Of course there is still more lessons I will find as I continue to play this game, but overall it has provided some insight into the way I think and the way I do things that allows me to evaluate and readjust how I want to. I may not be battle-hardened and a strategic thinker but I am certainly more capable than I thought I was before.

What is Your Story Monster?

I feel I need to write this to address some of the comments I received around my post about writing Fan Fiction. Many of them revolved around people saying they would hate for someone else to pick up their universe or the world they created. And all because when someone does, it comes down to two options. They do worse with it, and ruin it. Or they do better and ruin you.

But it is exactly this kind of non-sense fear that ruins so much of the creativity and arts in the world. The amount of wonderful things that have been snuffed out because of people’s fear and lack of trust in people.

The best artists, and in turn the best writers, steal. Although steal is really a poor word for it. More realistically, what all good authors do is we read a bunch of books or watch a lot of tv shows and movies and we absorb all that story-telling and plots and we stew on it until something new and shiny pops out that wasn’t anything like what was before, but if traced well could draw you right back to the same stories.

It’s this fundamental truth that most authors accept. Not all of them will admit it, in fact many of them will state they were completely original when they came up with their idea, but that is never the truth. In many cases you may have thought you were original, but someone else wrote a story that is so similar to your own because it follows the same premise and you never even knew about it! Don’t worry though, no matter what you were never original. Because the entirely of our society is built by ideas standing on top of each other. We pile the ideas higher and higher, adding something new or removing something old. But no matter how much we change it, the spirit of the idea is still the same.

If you are one of those writers who are firm on the idea that you developed the entire stories in your novels on your own, with absolutely no inspiration from anywhere. You are also likely one of the people who absolutely hates the idea of someone else writing something in the universe you created.

Why is this the case? It often has to do with both quantum physics and psychology. In the quantum physics world there are a number of Quantum Field theories, including one around neutrinos in that the vibrational frequency of a neutrino traveling along that field can induce ideas in human brains. Of course this theory is a bit complex and still hasn’t been proven but it provides the fascinating look into why we have things like books that are similar come out at the same time, or why two people can think of the same ideas and never meet, or why we have images of astronauts on ancient structures all over the world when they didn’t even exist back then.

Combine this with a truth that we do know in psychology. We know that as we learn or absorb new information, our brains quite literally will alter neural pathways, creating new paths or erasing old ones. Physically, our brain is changing constantly as we learn new things, including the connections we make between different things. You could have the idea that oranges always remind you of your aunt, but then you read a book that talks about oranges and you learn some new and cool fact about them, and suddenly your brain alters to follow that instead. Now when you are reminded of oranges, you are reminded of that fact instead.

This means, at the core. Everything we read, watch, or experience alters and influences not only us, but our way of thinking. Both our creative thinking and our factual thinking. This means, the moment you have absorbed any kind of media, it has affected you in some way. Maybe you’ll put a little more drama and less fact into your next book because you liked the way a scene in a movie you saw looked and you want the same kind of thing.

It’s this underlying thinking that makes every story you write or create a Frankenstein’s monster. Ripping apart old and dead pieces of fiction to make something alive and new. It isn’t stealing when it comes down to it. It is the creative process. It is messy and crazy and fun, and you wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t like that. The problem is that in psychology we also know that the majority of our thought process is ‘below the surface’ as well. Chances are you won’t always realize that the arm for your story monster came from this one movie that impacted you, or the leg is from this book you loved and you wanted to replicate something.

Looking through all of this, is it all that different to go from ripping apart hundreds of old stories, to make something new, to just take an old story and introduce all new elements into it? It’s the difference between taking a bunch of parts of dead people and putting it together, and just taking a whole cadaver, giving it some fluids and revitalizing it. In both cases, not all of it, is ever your own. And that’s the best part of it all. When it comes to art, no one owns anything. You don’t own an idea, or a premise, or a character. You have told some of the story, but that doesn’t mean you own it. And if no one owns an idea, then how is anyone stealing it?

So instead of worrying about whether someone steals this or that from one artist or another. Think about instead what the difference is, between blatant plagiarism and the kind of stories you see with fan fiction.

One hundred percent, there isn’t a single person I know that doesn’t think someone who steals word for word from someone else is a good person. This is not what I am saying every writer does. No self-respecting writer steals someone else’s work word for word; many of us are even skeptical to include quotes or song lyrics and when we do, it’s always credited.

I’m simply talking about the Frankenstein monster we all create from this thing called the creative process. Harry Potter wasn’t the first book series to have wizards using wands. In fact the vast majority of fantasy in general is based upon mythology and faerie tales we already know from many years back, simply changed to fit a new world. It’s this world that Fan Fiction sits in. Your good fan fiction doesn’t steal from the source material, more than names of characters. You get to see those characters in a whole new light, from a different voice, sometimes told from different points of view and they are brilliant stories to read that were born from someone reading someone else’s work and going… “Hey, I wonder what would happen if this person told the story instead” or something like that.

So get out there and take advantage of the Fan Fiction, and let me know what kind of story monster you’ve created.

Even Immortals Fear the Reaper: Chapter 0

Book One, Chapter Zero
The Origins of the God Slayer

I wish I could say it was all Zeus’ fault. It was his idiocy that led to the choices I made, but I can’t blame him for those choices. Even if those choices left me as something that never even existed before. The God Slayer is what they came to call me, though I do more than kill gods.

I was just a normal human, only a couple of millennia ago. I cursed the gods, and praised them when something was going right in my life. I was completely ignorant. And maybe that ignorance was my downfall.

Of course, my ignorance and innocence was shattered, the day I saw Zeus rape one of my best friends. And that was the first choice Zeus forced me to make. I pulled a spear from a statue nearby and thrust it right through that whore’s back. He stumbled and turned around to me, and then I took a lightning bolt straight through my heart.

Mostly everything was a flash in that moment. I could see the radiant mantle of power surrounding Zeus as the last thing before everything went to darkness. And then the darkness brightened as a woman stepped toward me. Not just any woman, I could feel a similar mantle of power radiating from her. But it was different, somehow.

I never would have guessed at first that the woman was the god of the dead. Hades had always been marked off as a man, and brother to Zeus. But she had no issue with telling me her name used to be Hel, and that she had been doing her duty for longer than Zeus had been commanding the gods. She seemed sad as she spoke, even though she smiled.

Hel’s face is something I will never forget, because after the introduction she said, “You have a choice before you now. Hera has already bestowed upon you a gift for stopping her husband once, and now comes my turn. You may be dead, but you died a hero’s death. Therefore you may spend the rest of your life in Elysium, chosen by some of the gods for defying Zeus when no others would.”

“Or, there is another option. Emerged when you proved Zeus has been abusing the powers of his mantle, and not keeping to his responsibilities. You may emerge from my realm, as the keeper of mantles. Something of a failsafe for when a god gets out of control with their power. It will not be an easy job, but Hera has already blessed you with a talent for seeing the mantles of power around the gods, as I’m sure you can see mine now.”

She was right. I could see something around her. But I didn’t know what it was, really. It felt good though, maybe because Hades had always been praised as someone who kept balance and did their job at all times.

“So, you may choose. The afterlife in Elysium, where everything you want will be given. Or a hard immortal life, as something special, a being who can oppose the gods and set them back on the correct path, or remove them entirely.”

I shook my head then. And told Hel the truth. “The greatest thing I want, is not something I will ever find in Elysium.”

“And what is that?”

“Justice to Zeus. And all the gods that have done what he still does.”

She smiled at me, and she seemed even more radiant than the god of thunder. Then she scooped me up, and dropped me into a river.

The process was repeated four times, until I had been drenched in the waters of each of the rivers in Hades. After each dunking, Hel explained them. I was dumped into the Archeron so I could cleanse the gods of those I touched, stripping the mantle straight from their souls. The Cocytus was next, so that I would never forget the pain and sorrow of those who suffered at the hands of gods when no one quelled them.

Then came the Phlegethon, so that I may scorch the immortal bodies of gods to mere ash, so long as they have not followed the vows and responsibilities given along with the power of their mantles. The Lethe came next, in which my soul and body were drenched so that I would be ready for the rebirth as an immortal being, and allow me to assume the identity of anyone I chose to become without forgetting who I am or was.

Finally when we stood over the river Styx, Hel spoke to me before she dropped me within it. “I must ask for an oath over this river. So that you will always be bound by it. You must agree to always do what you can to stop those in possession of a mantle of power from using their power without following their responsibilities. And that you will never reap a god or goddess when they are keeping to their duties.”

I agreed and she dropped me into the river. The Styx gave me the immunity I needed against the gods and goddesses she explained afterward.

When it was all done, I stood on the shore of the Styx with Hel and gazed at how awefilling her mantle was then. She had never strayed from her duties and it showed in the way her mantle was. She told me to pay close attention to that, for I am one of the few who could see the mantles of power and I could decipher much information from them, including who was not following the responsibilities they required.

Then she told me to go, follow the Styx and it would lead me to the center of my hatred. I did just that, and I found myself at the foot of Mount Olympus.

So I climbed.

It had to say something about my new immortal stamina that I didn’t even have trouble breathing by the time I reached the summit. I stepped through the halls of Olympus with ease, and passed countless gods and goddesses, many I could recognize from the mantles they had, but not all. There were some who made me think Olympus was more than just my gods at the time, just as Hades had been.

Even if I could not recognize Zeus’ mantle from seeing it before, it was clear who he was, despite the change of form. I stepped right up to his throne, with immortal beings eyeing me from all directions. I truly had stepped into the belly of the beast, but I stood as though I didn’t have sweat dripping off me from pure fear.

“And who are you to disturb me and my kin?” Zeus said, standing from his throne, but not coming down the steps.

I pointed to Zeus. “I have come to bring justice to you, Zeus.”

I knew Zeus wasn’t his real name from the moment I could observe his mantle again. But I didn’t care anymore. Especially when the moment I said it, he started laughing, and everyone around me joined in.

It was this moment, which made me truly realize just how much the gods had gotten out of control. Justice was a joke to them.

So I took the steps up the throne and stared down the king of gods. He puffed up his chest and grinned at me. He looked at me like I was nothing, like he hadn’t been the one to kill me for catching him in the middle of raping someone.

So I smiled back, with pure joy at my job as I placed my hand on Zeus’ chest and he gasped for air. Many other immortals around us backed away in sudden fear, while a few of the various gods of war were upon me within a moment. I was ripped from Zeus and thrown half-way down the throne room, but I was still smiling when I stood up, because I could feel Zeus’ mantle within me, ready to find someone else who could actually handle the duties of lightning and thunder.

Zeus pointed to me, gasping for breath as he barely croaked, “Kill her.”

None of them had realized I was immortal, or that Zeus no longer was. I took a cleave of a sword from Athena, the strike of a halberd from Ares, and the pierce of an arrow from Neith, or Artemis as she was called in those days. But when I didn’t even move, or feel the pain from their blows they each dropped their arms in shock, and when they did I stepped back toward Zeus, who was crawling away from me and onto his throne.

I looked down at Zeus and said, “Let all who stand before us now, be witness to the justice being done upon the immortal whom formerly carried the mantle of thunder and lightning. You have been seen and accused personally by me to have forgone your duties and use your power to seduce, rape, and kill innocent women.”

It was when I said personally that recognition finally flashed in his eyes, and he stumbled over his words. “But…I killed you…”

I nodded as I bent down to the cowering former king of gods and placed my hand upon his body for the last time. “Now let me return the favor.”

Zeus’ face caved in as ash by the time I turned around to face the remaining gods. It was the second image I would never get out of my head, for as long as I lived.

Many of the gods were stunned, for I had just done the impossible. Killing a god did not happen. Imprisonment, or removal of immortality could happen, but not death to a god. And I had a feeling I was one of the first people to ever see true fear strike the faces of hundreds of gods at once.

I waved my hand back at the dust that Zeus was, and told them all. “You have witnessed what happens when an immortal forsakes the duties and responsibilities that come along with the mantle of power they have been given.”

“So don’t you all have something to be doing?” And in moments there were only four immortals still around me.

One of the ones who remained had not actually been there earlier. Hel, or Hades clapped. “There could not have been a better revealing of your existence. Though, it seems many of the immortals have gone to call you the God Slayer. I find the name amusing, but you scared the wits out of so many, I will be surprised if anyone crosses you again.”

She was right, for at least a few hundred years.

Even Immortals Fear the Reaper: Chapter 2

Book One, Chapter Two
Sweet Taste of Death

The sweet taste of death couldn’t have come sooner. Well, a cigarette didn’t actually taste like death, but it was fun imagining that. I hadn’t been able to smoke during the entire flight over, so as soon as we hit the lobby I had one in my hand.

Shima stood patiently while I exhaled a puff; she didn’t even have a weird or concerned look on her face, instead she seemed thoughtful. That was the advantage to being around other immortals at least. They knew not to tell you something could kill you. If I died, it wouldn’t be my smoking habit that did me in.

“So… you are like my father?” Shima asked.

I sputtered and coughed a few times, accidentally inhaling because of the question. When I had regained my composure I took a puff and eyed the kappa girl. “I’m guessing you’ve thought about how that question means you are asking where Kappa come from?”

Her eyes averted from me, but she still nodded softly.

“Well…” I started and tossed my cigarette down before crushing it under my boot. “When a mommy Kappa and a daddy kappa love each other very–”

I didn’t even get to finish before I saw one of the most serious dead-pan stares I’d ever seen, which was quite the accomplishment. She was clearly telling me she wasn’t a total child.

Maybe she was my kid.

I laughed and picked up my smooshed cigarette, and tossed it to the Ash tray on top of a trash can. I turned and waved my hand for us to leave. So she stepped up next to me, and fell silent again.

“Look. Mizu has the mantle of rivers. She’s a minor diety but still has a mantle of power. That means the only way she can create a kid is by chucking a piece of that mantle together with a piece of someone else. Usually hair, blood, or an item that they’ve been around for a long time. She probably used one of my hairbrushes or any number of things I left with her. It means you got most of my looks, but a piece of her power, making you a kappa.”

I glanced to her and she nodded, but seemed distant in that moment.

I blew out a deep breath. “It’s not like a mother or father kind of thing. Neither of us carried you in a womb, it was more…” I waved my hands and spread them out, “Poof. You exist.”

She looked dejected and lowered her head. I adjusted the strap on my bag and looked away.

“Shouldn’t Mizu have told you this?”

She nodded, “Yes.”

“But she didn’t?”

“She did.” The girl glanced over to me. “But it was a lot more romantic sounding than you put it. Even though she didn’t mention you specifically.”

“Ah.” I elongated the vowel and glanced to a taxi as we stepped outside the airport. “I’m guessing you know where we are going?”

“Yes.” She pursed her lips and glanced in the direction I had. “But we aren’t taking a taxi.”

My eyebrows raised. “Of course we aren’t.”

I shook my head and when I looked back a writhing serpent was descending to the sidewalk outside the airport. “Mizu loves her theatrics.”

Shima giggled, “Try living with her.”

“Oh, trust me. I know.” It was a good thing glamours were natural for pretty much anything born from or given a mantle. I couldn’t imagine what the serpent looked like to someone without a mantle of power, or how it looked for the two of us to awkwardly climb on the back of the creature. Maybe we just vanished and the serpent was glamoured as wind? Or maybe it looked like another taxi? Who knew.

Shima’s face was all screwed up, which made me wonder if she was thinking about the same thing. But as soon as we were settled on the beast’s back and we lifted in the air I realized why Shima had looked off. Her face was practically a pale green when I glanced back at her, just as we took off.

“It’s the winding isn’t it?” I yelled over the sound of the wind. She clung tighter to the beast, and to me, nodding. She must have realized it was better to answer, because she looked even more sick after tossing her head up and down.

I reached at my waist to grab onto her hand.

“Listen to my voice.” I spoke calmly, projecting my voice rather than yelling. “I want you to fall right on down, right away to sleep. You will hold right on to the dragon. You will be safe and sleeping, right on through the whole trip.”

I couldn’t be sure the hypnotism worked but she seemed to slump against my back and I didn’t hear anything from her. It probably wouldn’t have worked if she hadn’t been so agitated about the flight.

When the serpent landed I thanked her and pulled Shima down from the creature’s back. I held onto her hand, squeezing it softly as I went to wake her up. “Shima, the trip is finished. You can wake up now. You’ll even be fully refreshed and wide awake.”

I pulled my hand away and she blinked as the serpent blasted some wind around us when taking off.

“That was quick.” Shima squeaked, as she looked around, clearly confused about being on the ground already.

“So where to?” I asked before she could ask anything.

“Um…” She started, a bit disoriented, but pointed to a cave settled between a fork of the stream flowing around us.

I shook my head. “Her and caves. I swear.”

“It’s a lot more homely than it looks.” Shima assured.

“I know. I spent some time with her in her last one.”

“Oh.” Shima glanced up at me. “Well this is her original one, so she’s had a long time to shape it.”

I nodded and we both stood there longer, in the silence.

It was getting awkward.

Especially when she clearly wanted to say something, but didn’t dare say it.

Finally I just swallowed and breathed. “Well… Let’s go.”

She lowered her head and I took one step before I suddenly felt a force slam into my stomach and all the air ejected from me. I toppled to the grass, gasping for oxygen with a small woman laying on my chest.

I took the best breath I could before glancing down and groaning. “Mizu, please.”

She looked up at me with a frown. It was way too cute on that face, with all roundness, watery blue eyes, and a tiny form attributed to ‘Chibi’ if I was a teenage girl who loved anime.

“That’s how you greet me, after what… six or so years? All I get is a please?” She pouted and crossed her arms, still on top of me. It really wasn’t all the surprising to see her in that kind of form, she liked smaller human frames since her natural shape is massive.

It was even weirder to try to explain that somehow that tiny form contained something bigger than the creature we flew on. Glamours were weird like that, manipulating reality with illusion. It could make you think anything was anything else.

I huffed again. “Please, Mizu. You are gonna kill me.”

She giggled. “Very funny.”

Yeah, yeah. Kill me. What a joke. She was about the only one that knew the truth about that. I had been dead for thousands of years.

“Not until you tell me about the bonding experience you had with our daughter.” She was looking at me pretty seriously, which made me think maybe it wasn’t all me that made up Shima’s genetics.

I tried to shrug. “What’s there to say? We took a plane, barely talked, then I smoked and she stayed shy. She nearly puked on the dragon and I bespelled her so she wouldn’t. That enough?”

She rolled her eyes and jumped off me in a single leap. “No fun. Not even tears and cries of papa or mama or something?”

I picked myself up and glanced to Shima. “If I hadn’t known, I would have said she had the mantle of drama, not rivers.”

Mizu hit my shoulder and laughed. “That’s not a real mantle, silly.” Then her eyes bugged out as she did a double glance at me. “Is it?”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Yes, Mizu. That is a mantle.”

It was true. It had been around since the greeks, which meant it appeared around the same time as I did.

She punched my shoulder again and I rubbed it while she hugged Shima with just as much enthusiasm as she had done for me. When their hug was over, she turned back to me with her arm around the kappa’s shoulder.

“You two should come inside.” Her face grew grim then. “We have to talk about who you need to kill.”

My life, ladies and gentlefae.

 

Marci Moreno and the Knight of Knowledge: Chapter 1

Chapter One

Elf-Struck

A strawberry-haired elf collided with me, just as I stepped out of the hover taxi. She slammed into me so hard I would have thought she was a cyborg, if it wasn’t for the clearly exposed areas of dark skin in all the usual cyborg modification spots. There was a tattoo though, down the side of her shoulder that looked something like a fox, but the artist took some liberties with it.

She wiped her exotic colored bangs out of her face, and showed off her pointed ears as her lips curved into a knowing but interested smile. She picked herself up off the floor before offering a hand to me. “Sorry. Sorry. It’s like I’m a dolphin on land or something, sometimes.”

Her bright blue eyes shifted to my arm, and I followed them to see a long scrape around my elbow. She groaned, “Oh crud! That was me wasn’t it?”

She grabbed my arm to examine it before I even responded; pulling me up from the ground like it was nothing. “It doesn’t look too bad, but you might still want to go to the school infirmary.”

Her eyes slid right back up to look into mine, with a big smile on her face, as she added, “You do go here, right?”

I let my hand fall away from her grip, and nodded softly. “New.”

“Oooh…” she started, elongating the vowel. “Fresh meat for the trials, then. Well, I’m—“

“—Tori Tomika, you know better than to run on school grounds.” A woman with a single streak of grey in her black hair stepped down the stairs just in front of us, leading up to the school doors.

“Tori…” The Elf finished with a sigh before turning to the older woman. “Headmistress, I’m running around the school grounds, not on them. It’s a sidewalk.”

“What have I told you about your technicalities, Miss Tomikia? Anywhere you run where I can see you is the same to me. You are lucky you didn’t cause more damage to you or your friend.” The headmistress continued, glancing from her to me.

“Yes, Headmistress.” Tori lowered her head and I saw her roll her eyes.

“Now, who is this other young woman, Miss Tomika?”

Both of them looked to me, and I swallowed. I could feel my face getting red. I did not want to be put on the spot like this.

“M-Marci, Marci Moreno.” I said.

Apparently it was too soft though since the headmistress leaned in closer. “Once more without the mumbling, please.”

I opened my mouth, but Tori spoke for me, far louder than I could ever be. “She said Marci Moreno, Headmistress.”

The headmistress leaned back and upright, straightening her dark blouse. “Ah, yes, Miss Moreno. We were expecting you a few days ago.”

She was staring down at me like I had just killed someone. Or maybe she always looked disapproving like that. I could barely even look up at her.

“I…uh… my train was delayed. A…um…”

The headmistress winged an eyebrow up while looking over me. “Yes, Miss Moreno?”

“A-An Apatosaurus was on the mag tracks. He wouldn’t leave!” I finished, and Tori instantly burst into laughter.

The headmistress stared me down with an intensity of a laser. “Miss Moreno. I do not enjoy being lied to. Nor does it put you with a good first impression at this school.”

“But… I’m…”

“No buts, Miss Moreno.” The headmistress silenced me, and Tori snickered, which caused the older woman to turn to the elf. “Something to add, Miss Tomika?”

“No. Headmistress.”

“Good. I think it will serve you both to join me for the first detention of the semester. Until then, Miss Tomika, why don’t you show Miss Moreno around the school and get her settled into the room, since you seem to already be so anxious to make friends.” The Headmistress turned as she finished, but then glanced back. “And Miss Moreno, I suggest you think before lying to me again. You don’t want to end up like Miss Tomika, who has been here hardly a week and already has many weekends to spend with me in detention.”

Her eyes shifted to Tori, then she turned completely and her heels clicked up the steps.

Tori rolled her eyes and adjusted her body toward me. “Don’t worry, she’s always that intense. I think she was gene-pressed that way.”

“Like you were?” My voice left my mouth before I thought. I shouldn’t have said that.

But Tori just chortled. “You mean my ears? Or hair? Cause my hair is just from a bottle. My ears on the other hand… well I’m second generation. So no one messed with my genes.”

“Oh.” I nodded and looked down. “Sorry.”

Tori shook her head and her smile spread across her face. “Don’t be sorry. Most people think I did it to myself. Not many second generations survive with an altered gene trait, like me. But that’s the cool thing about the school, so many people here are second generations.”

She turned toward the steps and offered a hand toward me. “So should we get going?”

I nodded and gently reached my hand out so she could take it, before heading up the marble steps to the massive doors leading to the school. There was silence between us as the doors opened into a sparkling sapphire entrance hall.

“Shiny, huh?” Tori asked and I just nodded.

The halls were gorgeous, like shining faeries were hiding everywhere, but their sparkle still gave them away.

“Welcome to Gloriana’s Academy.” She stepped in front and then turned around to face me, as she added, “Where all your dreams come true.”

Her face scrunched up in thought, which was kind of cute. “At least I think that’s the tagline now. But don’t quote me on it.”

I smiled and she grabbed me and pulled me to the blue marble grand staircase. Her head leaned in close to my ear and she grasped my arm like she was a hawk perching on it. “So I have to know. Did you really see a Apatosaurus on the track?”

My face felt like it was burning up as I nodded, then realized she might not be able to see which way my head shook, since I was next to her. “Yes. It was Jacob. He’s lazy.”

She pushed my arm so I turned to face her, her eyes bright and wide. Her voice was hushed but still loud. “You know the dinosaur’s name?”

I lowered my head and looked around at a few people in the hall, passing us. I swallowed as I glanced back to Tori. I didn’t know if it was a bad thing to know dinosaurs or not. Everyone in my home town grew up with them, but not everyone did. I knew that. Most of them got bad raps for causing trouble.

“Um…yeah. My whole town is one of those dinosaur reserves. We have hundreds, and we live in peace with most of them.” I explained without ever keeping my eyes on Tori. It was just kind of embarrassing.

“And they don’t like terrorize you or cause trouble or break things or something?” Tori asked with just as much intensity in her eyes as she always seemed.

That’s what most people had come to expect from dinosaurs since we had brought them back. Many people thought it was a mistake, or that we were going against god. But if they just spent even one day with them, they’d know there was so much good in them too.

My sadness at the situation must have shown on my face because Tori looked worried. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say something rude. I just…” She let out a soft breath, “I talk too much sometimes.”

I shook my head and smiled. “I don’t talk enough.”

Her bright smile grew again and she nodded. “We’re the perfect pair then, right?”

I nodded with her and she took my arm as we kept heading down the hall.

“Still, it is pretty cool that you got to live with dinosaurs. I bet people will be jealous, here. I mean, I’m jealous.” She bumped her hip into me and I glanced to her with a soft smile. This was probably one of the better receptions I had at a new school.

There was silence between us for a minute as she led me down the hallway and pointed at the obvious kitchen and cafeteria. “You can use the kitchen at night, but it is off-limits during the day, since they have a staff that handles regular meal times and snacks then.”

As we kept going Tori showed me the four different studies, the nine bathrooms between the three floors of the school, some of the classrooms which were mostly on the second floor, and then the dorm rooms on the third floor. We paused at one of the hallways with three paths in front of us.

“All that is left is the garden and sports areas out back, which I can take you to look at some time. For now we should get you settled into your room. She pointed to our left, “Boys dorms.” Then to our right, “Girls dorms.” And then in front of us, “And that’s for the other people. Anyone who isn’t one or the other.”

Then she hit her forehead and glanced to me with those brilliant eyes. “I completely forgot to ask you if you were a girl or what you wanted to go by.”

My face was bright red now. Did she already know? What if everyone knew? What if they put me in the wrong section? Did they give me a room in the boy’s dorm? I stuttered to try to form a word.

I was pretty sure I saw pity on Tori’s face at that moment. “Well, I only ask because we had someone here that they assigned as my roommate, and they requested to be moved to the non-binary section. So since you’re my roommate, I just wanted to check that you’re a girl?”

I was. I am. I nodded pretty fiercely and her smile returned quickly.

“Good. Then we are down here.” She pointed down the girl’s hallway, to a room a couple of doors down. Her eyes were not facing me but her voice was higher, which suggested she was surprised when she said, “To think we ran into each other when you were to be my new roommate.”

It was unusual. My mother would have said it was fate. But I was curious about something else. “Um…how do you know I’m your roommate?”

She glanced back to me with her bright grin. “Because your stuff was moved in the day after Sue, that’s the person who moved to the non-binary section, moved out.”

Her eyes became sturdier and narrow as she added, “They had your things in the boy’s section for a week. Then out of nowhere it was in my room. I only knew because my cousin was going to be your roommate.”

My face was burning up, and I think she noticed because she turned her eyes away and touched the door leading to our new room. For some reason I felt bad not telling her that I was transgender. Like she knew it, like it was obvious, but that I hurt her for not saying what was obvious, just to confirm her suspicions.

I kept my head down even when she opened the door and stepped inside the room. I followed her in and had my hand on the door to close it, when she turned around and put her hand on mine; both of us holding the door. Her eyes scanned up and down me.

“Look. You don’t have to tell me anything. I know I’m pushy. But, hopefully eventually you will open up and we can be good friends?” Her eyebrows grew high on her face and that bright smile wasn’t there, she seemed so serious.

I nodded. “I want to. I’d like to.”

Her smile returned. And then grew into a brilliant and full grin; a devious one almost. “I think we will be great friends, Marci.”

I blushed, and was sure I wanted to be friends with her. She seemed exactly like the kind of person my mom always said would help me out of my shell. Maybe even help me get over my fear of explaining I was transgender.

I really was just about to tell her, explain the whole thing and that I was glad she was so accepting, when my eyes fell upon a large grey egg on one of the beds. My mouth fell open and I slipped past Tori to rush to the bed.

“I can’t believe she sent it.” I breathed, as my hands caressed the egg and pulled it to cradle against my chest.

Tori came up next to me. “Did someone send you a dinosaur egg or something?” She laughed, and I guessed she wasn’t trying to be serious.

I looked up at her and she backed up a step and put her hand to her mouth. “No way. That’s seriously a dinosaur egg?”

I nodded and she stepped forward to look more closely over the egg. I watched her face, but glanced back to the set-up the egg had been under. The lamp and everything else was here to keep the egg warm, but if my stuff had been here for a week, the egg might not have made it.

I frowned, and Tori saw it. “The lamp was plugged in at my cousin’s room. Your stuff was only moved in yesterday to my room. Will it be okay?”

I glanced down at the egg. “I hope so.”

At least Tori seemed worried about it too. I set the egg back in the box, and pulled on the wire. She snatched the plug from me and reached behind the bed to snap it in. “Give it twenty-four hours and it should be hooked up to the wireless electricity in our room.”

I glanced around the room then. “Our room…”

She turned back to me and smiled, spreading her arms out like she was showing the place off. “Yeah, our room.”

It wasn’t anything really special. There was a light blue paint on the walls, and stucco on the ceilings, which I didn’t particularly like, along with basic metal furniture. Although what I assumed was Tori’s side of the room, had significantly more. Clothes were all under her bed, and a few in the bed, with the sheets and comforter in a total mess. Her desk, unlike my shiny new one, had marks on it, and some crumpled papers and books all over.

She stepped over to her bed, and quickly stuffed a blue bra further under her rainbow-colored comforter. Her hand went up to her neck and she rubbed it. “Sorry, I didn’t think you’d be here today or I would have cleaned up.”

I shook my head. “I like it. It’s you.”

Her face brightened. “That’s why I tried to tell the Headmistress. She’s given me at least three detentions just from my room alone. She almost didn’t want me to room with anyone because she was afraid I would rub off on someone.”

She laughed and I joined her in that.

She plopped down to sit on her bed and glanced behind me at the egg, before I sat on my new bed. “I can’t believe you were allowed to bring that with you.”

I grew worried. I didn’t realize I couldn’t. But at the same time, I hadn’t brought it. My mom sent it with all my other stuff, ahead of time. “Is it…” I started sheepishly, “going to be a problem?”

She laughed again and shook her head. “With me? No way. I want to see it hatch. But I’m surprised the headmistress let you keep it. It wasn’t like she didn’t know, since it was here before you.”

I made a sound of relief, then shrugged. “Maybe my mom worked something out. It was the egg I was raising before I came here.” I grinned as I added, “And it is close to hatching.”

Tori’s eyes grew brighter at that. And I loved it. I couldn’t believe my luck that I got a roommate that was excited about dinosaur eggs. But that might have been because she was never around one, like I had been.

“I can’t wait.” She sounded so eager and it made me smile wider and wider until my cheeks hurt.

“Me either.”

Maybe this school wouldn’t be so bad. I did have the best roommate.

A Kiss Like Magic

The last thing I expected, when a girl walked up to me with a knife, was a kiss. But at least it was better than the other option.

Well, until I blacked out.

Waking up to your wrists and ankles in manacles is not comfortable or comforting. And all I hoped was that this would be the beginning of something kinky, because once again, the other alternative… I didn’t even want to think about it. It definitely wasn’t anything kinky.

“Fuck. She’s awake.” I heard a stern voice state as my eyes adjusted to the bright lights in my face. I tried to speak but my mouth was weird, bumbling, like it didn’t want to listen to me.

Eventually part of my sentence filtered out, in a couple of words. I tried to say: ‘If you let me go, I won’t hurt any of you.’ Unfortunately it came out more as, “Taking…mmmzbbzz…go…szmz.”

A finger went to my lips though as the face of the girl I kissed came in view. “Don’t speak. You’re drugged. You won’t be able to talk for a few more hours.”

She pulled her finger away and I kept my lips shut. If she used the drug I was thinking of, even if I could speak, I wouldn’t be able to produce any words of power.

Fucking foxglove. The bane of every sorcerer and sorceress.

She nodded, and said, as though reading my mind, “Yes, Foxglove.”

Her hands went to my shackles while I looked over the skin exposed from her bending over me. Not only was her skin incredibly soft but she had a dark green marking or tattoo, like vines running up and down her arm. I say dark but it was pretty bright against her brown skin.

I desperately wanted to say more; ask more. Like how she knew I was a sorceress. Or what she was going to do to me.

“I’m sorry.” she said as her half-lidded eyes glanced to mine. I shivered at the spark of energy exchanged between us, and knew instantly she wasn’t a sorceress too. There was something different about her though.

She hestitated before saying anything else, which suggested she felt the same tremor of energy as me. “Uh, we need a sorcerer’s help, but we don’t want you hurting anyone before we can make sure you’ll help.”

This was a poor way to ask anyone for help. I couldn’t say that though, so I raised an eyebrow at her.

She sighed, and fiddled with the manacles around my wrists and ankles. My guess was to make sure I hadn’t done anything to them. Some sorcerers had background in performance magic, which meant escaping shackles. “I know, I know. Not a good way to start a relationship, huh?”

Well apparently that kiss was supposed to lead to a relationship. Interesting. But no.

I gestured my eyes down to the chains and shook them.

She frowned. “We’ve come across too many sorcerers who recover from foxglove quickly, or have non-magical ways of escaping. These cut into your powers as well.”

I looked over the shackles. They looked like some normal iron. And I didn’t feel anything magical off them. I shook my head to signal they didn’t cut off anything. Otherwise I wouldn’t have felt the pulse of energy when we had both looked into each other’s eyes.

She must have mistaken me because she whispered, “I can’t take them off you yet.”

I shook my head again and lowered it. I was done with this half-communication non-sense. If I could feel the spark between our eye contact, then I could do more. I looked back up and straight into her eyes. The spark of energy erupted and this time I grabbed it, like a fishing line to reel myself in. I held the line tight, as their was a brief struggle, then thought.

“I was trying to say the shackles don’t do anything.”

She jumped back, fright was etched on her face. Then she cautiously leaned in closer, curious. I heard her voice in my head, clearly she was testing if she could respond the same way.

“You can speak to my mind?”

I sighed, “Well, clearly you weren’t trained to be anti-sorcerer. So it was the kiss that drugged me, wasn’t it?”

Her face flared in heat, and I wasn’t sure if she was embarrassed from the kiss or that I figured out she wasn’t meant to be combating sorceresses.

“Y-yeah.” She stuttered.

I nodded. “So how did you know I was a sorceress then?”

She shrugged and said out loud. “I can just tell.”

I had a feeling this wouldn’t get me anywhere. So I projected into her mind again, “Okay, Don’t tell me. I’ll just search through your mind for the answer.”

She turned away and stepped back immediately. It wouldn’t change the link though. I had a tight grasp on that and wasn’t going to lose my only option of communication, especially since I had a feeling she wouldn’t be making eye contact with me again for a while. “I’m not serious. Though I don’t see why I shouldn’t. You haven’t exactly been courteous to me.”

She turned back around and I felt some sudden anger boil up and make the link between us scorching hot. The anger and heat subsided before it became too much for me to maintain my grip. Her voice was hard and strained in my mind. “That’s not my fault. I kissed you. I’m talking to you. I’m being nice.”

I shook my chains, “Yep. Real nice.”

She ground her teeth and the connection started to burn again. But she didn’t say anything. And then I realized where the heat was coming from.

“You’re touched? Grew up with a sorcerer around? Or had something bound inside you?” I prodded, and she turned around and shot me a dangerous glare.

“It’s the last one isn’t it? I’m going to take a guess and say something from the fire plane, they love leaving traces of their emotions, power, and energy behind.”

In that moment, the carpet at my feet set on fire, and my mind started to burn from the pain of holding onto the connection. Probably not smart to continue to piss her off. And yet I laughed, or gurgled an attempt at a laugh.

“I’d say that’s a yes. Uncontrollable anger, setting things on fire. Probably see a glow or shimmer around sorcerers. Am I getting warm?”

That was a poor choice of words, considering I was getting warm. Both at my feet and in my mind.

She turned around and collected a bucket, then threw it over my lap and smoke rose into my face as the fire sizzled out. The heat in her mind, seemed to cool slightly too.

“Thanks.” I growled into her mind.

“Let go of my mind.” She demanded with a lot of the soft warmth in her voice gone, and all of it vibrating along the connection between us.

“Not until I can say the magic words.” I mused. I probably shouldn’t have been toying with her.

“Let go.”

“Not until you tell me your name.”

That made her pause. Finally she shrieked out loud. “What?!”

I laughed in her mind this time. She hadn’t been expecting that question. “I don’t normally kiss someone unless  I know their name.”

“Fine.” she growled out loud. “I’m Ariel.”

I smiled at her. “Hi Ariel. I’m Nessica the Magician. The great and powerful. You wouldn’t have heard of me.”

She didn’t say anything as she set the bucket down before going around to my back. I tried to look over my shoulder but couldn’t see far since I couldn’t turn around in my chair. She tilted the chair back and started wheeling me to a door.

“Let go of my mind now.” She whispered as she leaned down to my ear from behind.

I shook my head. “Why is it so important to do that?”

She growled and the flare on the connection nearly made me drop the link. “Because I don’t want to be fried too, by the connection.”

The chair stopped moving and she swore when she realized what she just gave away. “Shit.”

“You do realize that makes me want to let go even less now, right?”

She pulled back and let go of the chair, muttering under her breath. “Sorcerers, you are all the same.”

“We’re all the same when it concerns our survival, Ariel. All of us, even you.”

“Humans in general.” She agreed and lifted the chair up to wheel it the rest of the way to the door. She slipped around the side of the chair and looked directly into my eyes again. Her hands fell to my chained ones as she bent over.

“I had to choose someone. I picked you because I’ve never seen so much energy around someone. If anyone might have a chance of surviving this, it is you.”

I shook my head and smiled, “I told you I was the great and powerful.”

“And the prideful.” She added in my mind.

“A kiss for good luck then?” I asked her and she gave me that fiery glare again.

“You wish.”

My smile turned into a smirk. “I’d wish for many other things before that, a few would still include you though.”

Her eyebrows furrowed at first, but then her eyes went wide and she straightened out her stance, pulling her hands from mine. She shook her head and laughed softly. “Maybe some-day, Lover-girl, but not today. Maybe if you survive. Now, let me go, please?”

I almost did. Even though there wasn’t any heat that would have made me let go, there was something else between us that made me worry about holding onto her mind. I couldn’t let go though, not if I wanted to survive. She knew more, and if she was sending me somewhere  that my mind could be fried I needed that information.

After all, in the magic world, information meant power. Literally.

“If you tell me what I’m dealing with I could shield your mind and mine. Otherwise I’m as dead as if you walked in there.”

She had this utter look of horror on her face. “Is… that… why…”

She placed a hand over her mouth and I finished for her. “All the other sorcerers failed? Probably. Secrecy in spellcasting rituals could fry my mind because I wasn’t able to set the proper path for the energy to travel. That’s where most magical deaths come from. Stupid sorcerers.”

She pressed her body against the door behind her and I could feel her anguish. The amount of sorcerers she sent through those doors. And yet she also seemed to be in a calculating thought. Like she was weighing her options.

Her hand came away from her face and she pressed in closer to me. She whispered, even though it was straight into my mind, like she was afraid she would still be overheard. “It’s a summoning. Channeled through a sorcerer to create an anchor in this world. But that’s why it hasn’t worked, since the sorcerer needs to survive for the ritual to complete.”

I gritted my teeth. “Summoning from what plane?”

She looked to the side in thought. “I overheard something about the underworld. But I’m not sure.”

I sighed and shook my head. “That doesn’t help, people on this plane could refer to twenty other planes when they say the underworld.”

Worry was etched on her face now. “You need to know the plane to survive?”

I smiled reassuringly. “No. It just helps. I’m Nerissa the Magician. The great and powerful, remember? I have this.”

She seemed suddenly relieved and then laughed before leaning forward and kissing my cheek.

“And downgraded to cheek kiss, apparently.” I mused in her mind, which made her shake her head while smiling.

Then she gave me a hard look. “You really want this to be about winning a kiss, or saving your hide?”

“Honestly, neither. But I’ll settle for both.”

She rolled her eyes. “You are a worse flirt than most men I know.”

I grinned. “Ariel, Men have nothing on me.”

She laughed again, and I fiddled with the shackles, sliding my hands through the holes, with a quick twist. I held up my hands and smiled at her.

“You could have done that at any time.” She said aloud. And I nodded. Her arms crossed over her chest. “And yet you let me wheel you to the door?”

I laughed nervously in her head. Whoops.

She shook her head and leaned down to unlock the shackles on my feet. “How is this going to even help?”

“Isn’t that obvious? It lets me be showy.”

She stood back and tossed all the shackles and chains to the side and muttered, “Like you need help with that.”

“True.” I grinned. “I’m guessing this means you are helping me though. Because you know whatever comes out of a plane called the underworld can’t be good, right?”

She stepped around me, without looking at me and pulled the chair away from the door. “I just hope you know what you are doing.”

“You’ve been hoping that since you kissed me.”

She crossed her arms and looked up at me. “And is it misplaced?”

I half turned my shoulder and looked over it at her with a grin.

“You tell me?” I asked as her eyes lit up when she saw the water that had soaked into my clothes was wrapped around my arm like a coiling snake.

She couldn’t say anything, think anything, until finally, “You… can…”

“Cast without words of power? Of course, how do you think I linked our minds?”

She blinked and the realization that she hadn’t even thought about that hit her. It was like she was just so used to me talking in her head already. “But, how?”

“Do you want the magical lesson now, or shall we take care of this summoning?”

“W-we?” She stuttered again.

“I need you to stand with me. Only reason I can hold the form of this spell is because your mind is the anchor. Foxglove still prevents some things.”

“Oh…” She stepped closer and grabbed my hand hesitantly. Her body stiffened when the water shot up her arm, passing from mine.

“Just in case you need it. Hold you hand out and the water will release.” I explained and then pushed open the door into a dark chamber. It was large, like a supreme courtroom with chairs on either side. I think I was in an aisle.

The only vibrant and visible thing were glowing runes and etchings on the floor. Where the chairs on either side ended, there was a circle made of those markings, stretching farther than I could actually see.

I heard Ariel gasp at my side and looked to her. The worry was still there, but strength was rigid in her body. She was a survivor. She stepped forward, before me, but I followed and loosened from hand from hers so I could move quickly.

She stopped at the threshold of the circle and I glanced back. It was already hard to see her, even a few feet behind me. If she hadn’t been standing as a silhouette in the light from the other room and the markings on the floor, I probably wouldn’t have been able to see her at all. I could see her head shaking back and forth.

“Come on.” I called back, but she still didn’t move.

The worry struck me then. Would she betray me? Was it all a set-up? I was kidnapped after all.

But then her voice echoed in my mind. “I can’t move forward anymore.”

Before I could even think of how bad that was to hear, pain shot up my legs and I gripped the floor as I dropped to it. Of course the they would make a circle that only sorcerers could go into. That was all they needed. Anything else would upset their plans or ruin the ritual.

Of course I still didn’t know who ‘they’ was.

My hands gave out from the pain, and I pressed against the floor with my elbows. The pain was like my whole body lit on fire. Burning flesh off, inch by inch. Almost like the same burning feeling I got from Ariel’s connection when she got angry…

Well at least I knew what plane they were summoning from.

I steadied my hands and gritted my teeth on all fours as I spoke to Ariel through our link. “These are the same people who bound you. It was imperfect though, that’s why it left you. They needed a sorcerer to complete the ritual, but they want something worse than what was in you.”

I could feel her fear, ice-cold, a relief compared to the heat blistering me. A relief I took hold of and spread through my body before standing back up carefully.

“Words. You are my words of power.” I growled. “Think Flame. Fire. Think of what it felt like to have that being from the fire plane in you. Then think of water, a cold bucket being poured over all that fire.”

A surge of energy ran through my body and I burned. I think I attempted a scream but nothing more than stifled words came out. They were starting the ritual now that they knew I was in the circle.

Candle light sprung up everywhere in the massive room, lighting most of the place so I could see Ariel’s face again, and not just shadow. I glanced to her and nodded before I bent over from another surge of pain. I kept going in her mind though.

“Say: ‘The water takes the flames and scatters them.’ In whatever language is comfortable with you.” I said in her mind, before taking a few deep breaths. It wasn’t just my body burning anymore, I could feel that gut wrenching moment where my soul started to scorch. I wouldn’t get out of this without a scar.

But I felt her tense up, and then she yelled out the phrase, and I started to funnel the energy for the counterspell to her. She yelled in Chinese, I think.

The effect wasn’t instant though. Even as I supplied the magical energy for the spell I was helping Ariel cast, I could feel more energy drain out. It was clear I wasn’t just a conduit, but a battery for the summoning. They had to get the magical energy somewhere to puncture a hole between planes.

If this summoning was for what I thought it would be, then there was no way I’d have enough energy for both spells.

And then there was a pop, like when your ears pop at too high of an altitude, but for your whole body. All the pressure from the spell and the circle I was in just poofed. I didn’t feel the siphoning, or the pressure, or pain.

I could breath normally. I could even stand without feeling like a new-born giraffe. The spell was working as a counter to the summoning ritual. It wouldn’t have worked without Ariel though. She had something from that plane in her, she had the perfect feeling for that plane to supply the counter. I wonder if whoever put the ritual together realized the very counter to their spell was the person they had capturing sorcerers?

Before they could reset the ritual, I ran for a way out of the circle and toward Ariel. And I didn’t just jog, I was pushing as fast as I could across the distance to her. So fast I slammed right into her, since I couldn’t stop or shift my direction in time.

We both hit the cold floor outside the circle with a thump that made me look at her, worried.

“Sorry.” I groaned into her mind with one eye closed from the pain on my end.

But she didn’t seem in pain. In fact it was quite the opposite. She burst out laughing, grabbed the side of my head and kissed me right on the lips.

I was in shock enough that I barely registered her saying, “Congratulations.”

I rolled off her and laid on my back, letting out a few breaths. She stood up and loomed over me to repeat. “Did you hear me? You passed the test.”

I spoke through a few heavy and deep breaths, and some attempts at getting it right. “Test?”

“Yes, test.” She continued in my mind. “You’ve been formally inducted into the Red Swamis.”

My mouth hung open and I forgot to keep breathing as I spoke back to her in her mind. “All this…” I finally took a breath. “Was a test?”

It was then that three more individuals strode in from the door we had entered from previously.

“A strategic test. Taking who you are, your intellect, and spell history into account.” Spoke a silver-haired woman who had entered the room, as I looked at her upside down and on the floor.

“Considering the data we had on you, we assumed a very different outcome. No one expected you to put your trust in a woman who drugged you earlier.” Another hooded sorcerer spoke this time.

I laughed and laid my head back against the ground. “That…” I coughed, “makes five of us.”

“Then why?” Ariel asked with her arms crossed and standing over me.

“Why I did it?” I shook my head. My voice was starting to come back. “Because I lied about looking in your mind.”

She rolled her eyes. “That’s bull. I would have known. I am trained against psychic situations. That’s why it was surprising you could even establish a link.”

I sighed and lifted myself to sit up and look straight at her. “Okay you got me. I liked your face. It was trustworthy and scared.” I glanced over my shoulder at the others. “I’m guessing if you have a file on me, you thought I was going to try to torch her or something?”

“Something like that.” A young man, who had entered with the others, replied.

“Yeah, well your sources are wrong. Most of the acts you have recorded were another sorcerer using my identity. Your files were way off.”

“Do you have proof?” The hooded one asked.

“Hmmm…” I thought sarcastically, “Now why didn’t I ever think of that? There’s a reason I never brought it to the swamis. No proof, no exoneration.”

“Well we might have a mind to expunge your former records if they are that severely off.” The woman said.

“If I do what?” I twisted around while sitting to eye the woman.

“You have to marry, Ariel.” The woman stated so seriously.

If I had a drink this would have been where the spit take would have come. Instead it was sputters, “W-what?”

Luckily I wasn’t alone. Ariel expressed the same surprise as me.

The hooded figure took over though. “Nevermind her. Just an old woman’s joke about you two kissing so much. However she is to a degree correct. You will be paired with Ariel as your familiar from now on. And I’m sure a few missions in will prove your character enough to wipe your records from before joining.”

I glanced to Ariel, as the young man added, “Until then, you might be known as Nessica the terrible.”

Ariel smiled and glanced to me. “I have heard of you then.”

I laughed. “Well I’ve been called worse.”

Ariel held her hand out to me. “Welcome to the Red Swamis then, Worse.”

I shook my head and smiled too, before taking her hand.

Maybe this guild would be more interesting than the last one.