Tidbit and winter thoughts

Ho-hum. It's a snow day here and things are quiet. Too quiet. So below is a tidbit to amuse you. I could be induced to post the rest of the scene.

Currently, I'm working on the next novel, with about 25,000 words of notes (that's the way I think things out) and still a lot of questions. At the moment I'm puzzling over events in the Riverland while Jame is at Kothifir. Unfortunately, most of my ideas so far apply to the end of the series when everything blows up. I need events that show that the Kencyrath is under pressure to change, not necessarily in good ways if the Caineron and the Randir have their way. Also, Kirien has sent Kindrie to be Tori's scribe, re: all of that paperwork. I'm open to ideas. What problems do you see brewing?



Speckled with drying blood, the Coman scout panted up the ridge through leafless trees.
"Their headquarters are near Perimal's Cauldron," she reported. "They spotted us. Hurl got egged."
"The first cadet lost and it had to be one of mine," said the Coman master ten-commander Clary. "Still, that's useful information. We can storm them while we still have full sacks."
Jame sighed, her breath a cloud on the crisp air. Clouds scudded overhead against a bright sky, and the occasional snowflake drifted down. Spring, ever fickle, had turned to glance back at winter.
The Coman was annoyingly eager to leap ahead with the exercise. Perhaps uncertainty unnerved him, or maybe he wanted somehow to make his half of the team look good at the expense of hers, which was stupid. Of all houses to be paired with on this rare, much coveted double lesson, why couldn't it have been the Brandan or the Danior, her natural allies? Instead, she was set against both on the other side.
Anyway, hadn't she seen Clary talking with Fash before the class? Fash, as usual, had been jovial. Clary had looked uncomfortable. Everyone knew that the Coman lord couldn't make up his mind whether to support the Knorth or the Caineron who, after all, were his blood-kin. Awkward for him, unfair for his cadets, who couldn't decide where their loyalty lay.
Still, while at Tentir all were family, regardless of house politics. That, according to the Commandant.
Ha.
"Such an assault should only be out of desperation if we run out of time," she said, repeating the sargents' earlier advice. "As it is, we still have most of the day if we need it. No one has found the target yet, and that's the main objective."
"It would help if we knew what we were looking for," Clary grumbled.
He had a point, and made another one by not meeting her eyes, which also annoyed her. Surely she had gotten past that point at Tentir after two culls. Her ten-command stirred restively, picking up his tone and her discontent with it.
"The sargents say we'll know it when we see it," she said.



Oh, and here's one of my father's in-jokes. Note the critters in the background of Eden. Some day the Creationists are going to come after me.