Green Journal 1

(Starts with a list of all my charectors at that time)


Lyanna stared into the falling snow, letting her thoughts drift with them. At least this was a gentle snow; each flake light and beautiful on its life’s journey to earth. Last monthe Winterfell had been plagued with blizzards , so she knew she should be grateful, but still...

Still, the snow fell, laying a fresh gleaming coat on the surface of the earth, adding to the deep drifts that never fully melted. Perhaps the snow at the base, long since turned to ice, had been there since winter started, still frozen from that first snow. Or perhaps that snow had melted like a brief spring, only to be replaced by the next fresh fall. She didn’t know; such things were the knowledge of the maesters, not Lyanna Stark.

The last few days had seemed as long as the as the wide earth before her, blanketed in a cool grey snow. A field had lain there, once, hadn’t it? The field with the little blue flowers, perhaps. It was hard to remember. The details of her childhood had faded into shades of grey, leaving only a blurred memory of the feeling of summer.

********

Her skin was still pink, scrubbed half-raw from her scalding hot bath that morning. She felt fresh, and clean in the cool wind beneath the hard white sun. The dew in the grass had gone as cold as tiny crystals of ice, but as she saw her father coming back to the castle she ran through it happily, relishing the feel of the lush green blades on her bare white feet.

She embraced the Lord Starks leg as she reached him, and he laughed and took her in his arms. Glancing at her bare feet, wet with the freezing dew, he smiled and shook his head, teasing her.

"Put on your sandals, Lya." He said. She obediently dropped them to the ground and struggled to get them onto her untamed feet, but not without a pout.

"I hate wearing shoes." His face turned a little sad as he thought into the future, into the winter that could not be far away.

"Best get used to it, child. This is Winterfell, and it will not be summer forever. The day will soon come that you will need to wear more than these sandals."
********


That day had come... she was still young when it came, still hopeful that it would pass as swiftly as one of their summer snows. But the winter had come. And the winter remained.


(The rest of the notebook is more or less school stuff; Latin and Spanish notes, and attempts at the Hirigana.)

Purple Journal 1

(These are in no particular order, but usually the stuff within a journal is from the relatively same time period.)

Chran lisa tasare ilnava ren.
Tambave galesan amarei olnava ren.
Ave Kyrie.

Are Stamuna til nellavore
Sanareve fanan.

(I don't ask. Neither should you)

Meiou, Meu, Elan

(There are sometimes random names scattered throughout)

Aleu, Amara, Ashe, Arien, Aya, Aerill

The rain is alive - it moves and it breathes, it strengthens and weakens. You can see it in the lake moving in wonderous waves as if in racing.
A girl about Melissa's age, running with her own personal beaver stick, her shirt is either tie-dyed or soaked - I can't tell which. Her jeans, light and splattered by the rain. Leaning on her stick, she stares at the sea and sky for the wonder it is due.
Half of me want's to run and dance in the rain like Christy, feet in the mud and arms outstretched. But the other half of me is perfectly content to sit here in the fragile shelter and watch it from afar.
A rainstorm is something you can never hope to capture. But writing, and music together may help me to remember it. There are some things in life that there are no subsitutes for. Cao standing beside me, pants rolled up sloppily, one higher than the other; and to no effect, both were thouroughly soaked.
The sopping pink shirt says "Flavor of the Week", and as I stare into her rain soaked, exhilerated face, the name fits so well.
The music changes - violins. The rain begins to slow but...
Christy comes up and informs me with that straight face that makes everything she says that much funnier;
"Ok, my shorts are dry, but my shirts soaking wet." Turning to me as if I am expected to come up with a divine explanation.
There's this artist wandering around with a charcoal sketchpad. I tried to make small talk, but I don't think she gets it. We are both trying to capture the rainstorm.

There have been moments of bright inspiration, but something here is missing. It's not quite the same. The leaves have fallen from our Gryph-Bush.

Christy's sleeping bag is very creative - a cracker jacks bag with the classic "Suprise Toy Inside."

"Ellie! I'm trying to sleep! Don't hit me with pillows!"
"I Didn't."
"Then who did?"
"No one. It wasn't a pillow."

I was on the long bus. And I think it was my fault. Because I was sitting there all content, about an hour into it, and I was happy because I had my friends there and was listening to music and I thought to myself that if the bus ride went on forever, I would be happy.
And then it did. And I wasn't happy. I think sometimes we all feel like we want to stay somewhere, hold a moment in your heart forever. But you can't.

(That is a short excerpt from one of my Talking Stick speeches. I rather forgot the rest, but it was about how our experiance at the Blue Mountain Camp can't last forever, but our journey with god can, and should.)

(Here this journal ends... but I think it ties in very closely with another one, because I'm pretty sure I have notes from the same trip there.)

A torrent of dust....

Nowadays I get by with my blog, my aim logs, and a handful of word documents on my Palm, but there was a time in the distant past where I kept journals. And these journals, which I purchased for 7 cents a peice, no joke, are now disentegrating into dust. So, I am putting anything even semi-notable from them here.

This stuff starts the summer of Sixth Grade, and continues halfway through 8th grade, so it's not the best stuff I've ever written. Still, waste not want not, and there are some good on-site descriptions of rain and sunset etc.

A Return to Borders

Oxford Essential Guide to Writing
Writers Complete Fantasy Reference
Ranma 1/2 Volume 5
Planet Ladder Volumes 3 and 4.

So happy is Ellie. But Checkout lady looked at me funny for buying Ranma and Grammar Books.

Old and New

Old and New - I didn't take this one myself.

Cool Tree

And this is the same tree with the color temperature set cooler.

Warm Tree

This is the same tree with the color temperature set warmer.

Pretty Tree

This is a very pretty tree in my neighborhood, blooms breifly every year with white/pink flowers. Its also pretty when the petals are falling, but harder to catch on film.

The Foxfire Book

The Foxfire Book is amazing. I recommend it to anyone.

In the late 1960s, Eliot Wigginton and his students created the magazine Foxfire in an effort to record and preserve the traditional folk culture of the Southern Appalachians. This is the original book compilation of Foxfire material which introduces Aunt Arie and her contemporaries and includes log cabin building, hog dressing, snake lore, mountain crafts and food, and "other affairs of plain living." - Amazon

About Coachwhip Snakes:
Theyre like a black snake, and the end of their tail looks just 'zactly like th' end of a whip plaited. They say they can get around a cow's leg and just run her t'death a'wuppin' her with th'end of their tail. I saw one. It looks just 'zactly like it was plaited on there. They're a flat land snake. Now these snakes ain't poison, but now they'll hurt y'just th'same as anything else bitin; blood out of y'will.

Some Common Cures:
Buttermilk and Lemon Juice mized together and put on freckles will remove them.
Take a small peice of lead and bore a hole in it. Put a string through the hole and wear it around your neck. Your nose wont bleed again.
Sore throat: Take a sock you have worn inside a boot and worked in for almost a week so that it has a bad odor. Tie around your neck.
Don't ever burn the cloth bandage from a sore; you must bury it for the sore to heal.
If you get punctured by a nail: Draw out the nail with a hammer, grease the nail and put it away somewhere to prevent lockjaw.

And To Forever Heal My Athsma:
Get a Chihuahua, or suck salty water up my nose, swallow spider webs rolled up in a ball, smoke strong tobacco until I choke, or, If I drill a hole in a black oak just above my head, and put a lock of my hair in the hole, when I pass that spot in height, I will be cured, but if I die, so will the tree.

Ben

I'm determined to find out what happened to Ben if it takes me all summer, but I seem to keep hitting dead ends. We're pretty sure that Ben was 14, a Freshman in High School, and lived near Milford Connecticut. He vanished in November of 2004. If you know anything about a death or tragic accident involving someone who fits this description, please email me at Elindomiel@gmail.com.

A distinctly droll Pun

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him .... A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Learning

I've done alot for my 15 years, and I have to say that in all the world there is nothing so wonderous as learning. Now, to qualify all learning on this higher level of marvel is inaccurate; that is like saying sleep is best while falling to eternal sleep in the far north (although according to The Master Backwoodsman this is an old wives tale), or saying that wildlife in its splendour is joy while being devoured by a hyena. But there is nothing like picking up a book and just ingesting it. There are so many good books. Nonfiction is brilliant. Fiction is brilliant too. Nonfiction is amazing because its true, and the truth can be just as spectacular as what was invented. Reference books are tasty too. The Dictionary is a personal favourite.

Patheticus Ellicus.

Here I sit listening to gregorian chants, blogging at about 70wpm, and eating chinese takeout. How geeky does one get? When did one (myself, in particular) get so geeky? Records indicate yesterday, the day of like 12 blog posts. Blagh.

Chosen Hopeless Nothingness

[23:11] *: they're... slots
[23:11] *: I really don't know how to explain it
[23:11] *: is your sound card intergraded?
[23:11] *: intergrated*
[23:11] Elindomiel (*): I have a soundcard
[23:11] Elindomiel (*): I know that
[23:11] Elindomiel (*): Thats abotu the extent of my knowlege of sound cards
[23:12] *: but is it in a PCI slot or on your motherboard
[23:12] Elindomiel (*): I think its inside
[23:12] *: lol
[23:12] *: you're funny Ellie
[23:12] Elindomiel (*): lol
[23:12] Elindomiel (*): Am I?
[23:13] Elindomiel (*): I know what a motherboard is though
[23:13] Elindomiel (*): its inside
[23:13] Elindomiel (*): its the big thing
[23:13] *: lol good
[23:13] *: lol
[23:13] Elindomiel (*): :P

A Nice Church Service

Today's church service was rather nice... it opened with Lord of the Dance, a great song... closed with On Eagles Wings, and was otherwise delightful. Good sermon, too... they were talking about how americas culture is so extremely focused on being powerfull - economically, physically, all of that - and then there was this really nice metaphore about that church in england, made from the stones of Hadrians wall. The architect wanted to do something no one had ever done before; to have a central dome without pillars holding it up. But they kept telling him it was impossible, so he eventually used pillars. 800 years later, while renovating the church, they unpealed some flagstones and found that one of the pillars was standing on nothing. They unpeeled more and found that instead of holding the ceiling up, all of the pillars were hanging from the ceiling.

After that it was helping with 3 year old sunday school... and I think I picked up a new babysitting client despite there being 2 of us and 20 of them we survived. ^^

The Last of the Crap

As I finish cleaning out all my untitled word documents, I finish an amazing blogging day with a few subpar lines achieved during a 'just write stretch after I hadn't done anything but really crappy rps for a while, but some of the lines may be salvageable. Or not. Whatever, here they are.

Fingers forget their ways after a fashion, and even proud wings grow weak and grey with disuse. In this way I return to writing; with hands gone soft again, almost as soft as my mind.

Yet return I must, if I can ever hope of reaching even those heights I once soared; those heights that lay so small beneath the great writers. But when I retrace my path, the blurry footholds carved in stone; never easy, but surer the second time, I can begin to truly climb again; climb in the journey of my whole life.

Can you imagine how it must have looked all those years ago, with the sun shining on it golden and gleaming? Behind it were the great blue mountains, and it was set in hills covered with soft green. It was small, compared to the standards of Lea, but it was no less than we ever needed.

To one side a cliff, to the other a thorny hill; it perched upon the hillside easily, but coming up the narrow walk it loomed almost hidden and magnificent; not upon you until the final turn.

It was all green and yellow there; so much green in one place it made my eyes water. Small rocky cliffs grew up here and there, but the land was fertile enough, the sky was blue, and a little river tumbled across the field.

She was not the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, but a pretty girl nonetheless, with dark hair to her shoulders, a well shaped face, and a good figure. All in all, she was prettier than any girl had rights to be, when you took into consideration her already sizable resume.

The Six Stages of Hero

Copied down rather quickly on my foldable while being 'lectured' so to speak. I'll search google for a pretty copy, but I found this interesting.

Innocent - is happy, content, provided for, fairly ignorent.

Orphan - world is shattered, life is hard, little direction

Wanderer - has decided to do something, personality formed, not really ready to take action.

Warrior - Taking action, doesnt fully understand.

Sage - Understands the deeper meanings of life, sees weaknesses and shortcomings.

Wizard - Sees the good in everything, can act as a redeemer.

More Names

Another list of sparkly names: A shorter one this time. I need to put these all in a nice spreadsheet.
Ayashe
Karin
Kieran
Aidan
Finbar
Dyri
Adiran
Gabirel

Thoughts in California

A poorly typed (wrote on a little palm foldable keyboard), poorly phrased (wrote things right as they came), bit of inspiration from the hills of California, courtesy of Spring Break earlier this year.

Yosemite National Forest - March 28 2005

The things that challenge a writer - hills forever in red and gold, others in fresh green - every green. The rocky mountains a deep grey, with shining silver white watefalls cascading over and filling the valley below with mist like a pearl.

Feelings like this since the dawn of civilization artists, poets, writers, painters, musicians; all try so hard to be master of thier craft, to capture the feeling of the top of the world, where the sky meets the earth - that which god made they can only hope to capture a pale reflection of.

Here I find my own humble words slip away in awe of natures majesty, and its all I can do to capture the feeling of a feeling.

Sequoia National Forest, March 30 2005

By forces seemingly antagonistic and destructive, nature accomplishes her benificient design. Now a flood of fire, now a flood of ice, and again in the fullness of time, an outburst of organic life. John Muir - 1877

The world as a sandbox... having yet the power to sweep into impossible pinnacles of sheer rock without losing its unity.

Green rolling hills... laced with gold.

Here a dusky crimson flower joined the gold. She saw it first from afar - blending into the gold flowers.

Words cannot describe. Like the maps; its like the mountains on a map, but made real and huge and magnificent, and robed in a carpet of green with lacing gold and violet, and the thin twisting trunks of flowering trees.

Tree and Root

I felt like my main story was getting rather lost on the main blog, so I moved it to its own, but if you don't want to mark down the other address, the really meaty stuff will still be posted here anyway.

http://www.nreva.uni.cc

A list of names

I found this list of names in my files; their a little stranger than I typically use now, but names should never go to waste, right? :P

Sanrin
Yamashiro
Cailir
Ihana Sieva
Aarnio
Vainuta
Plarata
Naryo
Lehti
Opetella
Sennyo
Yamadera
Tenmou
Tenrai
Alessia
Sanyu
Kaida
Majari
Bellmyra
Rebecca
Areides

Weird Stuff

Here are some random peices from a story I was contemplating some time ago, they're a bit random and not very good, but hey, I wrote them, and I may want to steal bits and peices later, who knows?:

A small girl sat in the corner of an alleyway, facing the street of the Lamb, where peddlers were beginning to roll out their carts, heavy with wares made the night before as the day dawned on Wing Zhi. A pair of dung-sweepers, coming almost in unison with the departure of the night watch, began to shoo away the stray cats and chickens that were the night creatures of the streets, driving them into the refuge of the narrow alleyways.

The girl was still and silent, as if asleep, but her eyes were wide open, watching the city awaken. She paid no notice to the tabby that held her corner by day as he slinked in and away from the dung sweepers and other harsh phantoms of the sun.

She had been a cute baby; with large dark eyes, and a thick head of straight black hair, but this was hard to see now, although it had only been a few years since she had been that baby. In her long ago memory of that time, when she was a baby, she had people who loved her, cared for her. She had had a name, then; but it had vanished into the mists of time like her family and her baby looks. Her once bright face was streaked with dirt and tears, her once shiny hair matted with dust. Her eyes, once sparkling with cheerful innocent, now looked merely sad, as if she remembered the times before she had been given to the streets, become a lost child.

She slept when she was tired, finding some corner in some alley, she ate when there was food, which had become increasingly rare with the slight depression going around the city. The peasants had been hit the hardest, and now scarcely found the means to toss a bit of bread to one of Wing Zhi’s many lost children. The nobles didn’t even bother to glance her way, but then, they never did.

This child had not eaten for days, and though her eyes seemed at first alert and watchful, her gaze swam before her, catching on nothing particular. She gazed first at the clouds of dust that flew ever above the street, then at a pair of wary cat eyes staring at her from the alley across the way, and then at another peddler and his cart, which bore a cargo of red fruit…

The vision of an apple danced before her eyes, its sharp crimson outline fading into a blur. She envisioned her nails breaking through that crisp skin into the fleshy fruit, saw the foamy juice run down her fingers and drip into the sandy dirt.

She hardly noticed that she was drawing slowly closer to the cart, which was filled with the rather low quality, third rate apples that had been refused by the nobles market and then by the merchants until they fell down to the worthless lot that lived in the dust of the inner city. Feeling a liquid form on her lip, she licked it away, the salty taste reminding her that it was only blood from her chapped lips.

Unable to hold herself back, her thin hand reached for the fruit. The sun peeked out from a hole in the clouds, and a scattering of rays reached down from the sky, penetrating the towers of uneven building that stretched up from the street, penetrating rows of hardly laundered clothes hung from window to window, evading windowsills and hanging plants, the wooden boards that connected each roof and wobbled in the wind. Filtered down to a faint glow, heavy with shadows, this lonely ray settled upon the faded, bruised skin of the peddler’s apple, and for a brief moment gives it the illusion of a bright halo. The girl’s fingers reach the apple, and begin to trace its shape.

Up on her tiptoes and with her mouth hanging slightly open as she wishes for the fruit, the girl let out a sudden cry when she was slapped hard on the hand. Tears formed in the corner of her eyes as the peddler begins angrily yelling at her, although she knew from experience that he will do little more, for the peddlers are as poor as the rest of the peasants, and though they could barely afford to feed their own family, much less someone’s ‘lost child’, they felt sorry for the children that so often made daring but futile attempts on their merchandise.

She refused to meet his eye as he continued to screech, not knowing that if she looked carefully into it, she would see more pity than anger. Instead, she turned her gaze back to the apples, just in time to see, through her swimming vision, a twinkle of silver, the flick of a wrist. An apple vanished with a swirl, and looking up in amazement she could see the faded figure of a girl, not more than fifteen, pocket it with an almost imagined grin.

Without a glance back she ran up, a shimmer in the air that could scale the building faces with impressive agility. The board above the alley shook, as it did often, but this time there was no wind. The strange thief was gone, and the lost child couldn’t tell if she had been real, or just a figment of heat and hunger.

Kaida sped up the buildings with glee, fingers using even the slightest indentions and decorations in the walls to propel her towards the roof. The tips of her fingers were rough and almost unfeeling after years of climbing the rough stone, but she still enjoyed the texture of it under her speeding digits. She climbed like a squirrel and she knew it, but it wasn’t the pride that caused her to often go out when she needed nothing, it was the thrill. The raw excitement and moving all but unseen through a crowd, and flying towards the sky on the corner of an apartment.

She reached the roof, and felt free, with nothing but the wide blue sky above her. There were people, she knew, that lived their entire lives in the streets below, never seeing the sun without its veil of dust. The skies were truly amazing; blue in the day and scarlet in the west at sunset.

She took off at a run, first crossing the rickety boards over each busy street, and then, as she gathered speed, taking the alleys in leaps. She spread her arms out wide as she leapt over the street of the moon… the largest one she could safely take in one jump. She closed her eyes as nothing but air folded all around her. Her short black hair lifted, allowing the wind to cool her shoulders and neck, and the silk sleeves of her shirt...

Cailir opened her antique copy of A Handbook for Meditation, written by the scholar Tailin, who had taught elementary levels at the school since before her own time. It was well-bound, tough book, with a bare leather cover and metal binding, but the years had not been good to it; during her first year at the school it had been one of her most heavily used books; meditation had not come easily to her, for she always wanted to think…

She was far beyond that level now, but she had kept the book, for the mere act of reading it put her into a meditative trance better than any method she knew. She smiled as her fingers traced the familiar pages. Poor Tailin had clean strokes, but his penmanship had been terrible. Even though the school used magic to copy books much faster than they would be able to by hand, they had not come up with a way to mass-produce typeset books, so the students still had to deal with the ‘peculiar’ hand of certain infamous writers… Many a student had complained in this very room that they had been unable to do their homework because they could not read a poorly written textbook – the teachers never took this as a valid excuse, and the students soon learned to adapt.

As far as it went, in fact, The Handbook was one of the more legible texts… at least it didn’t give her a headache to read. The fact that it was in her native language was an even bigger plus; although Cailir had been at the head of her class in languages, it was much easier to slip into mindless non-thought when not forced to translate as you read.

Cailir stood silently by one of the gleaming reflection pools, her thoughts flowing to and fro like ripples in the water. It was late spring, and the delicate pink blossoms were beginning to fall; they filled the air all around with pink petals and dropped them gently into the silvery water at every passing breeze.

Each breeze brought voices as well; the music that the students of Ihana Sieva sung from high in the crystal white tower. Only in the silent moments, when no birds sang and no fish leapt from the shining pools did the sound reach Cailir where she stood in the garden.

She knew the song well; it was the one about the little forest with the singing birds that the floodwaters covered to make the ocean; the one that said that if you listened hard enough you could still hear the voices of the birds beneath the water.

She had heard the song countless times; had learned it herself as a student in the academy. Now she was a teacher there, taught the art she was born with; the estranged branch of magic that bordered at times on foresight, the kind that few ever mastered but most had a trace of. It was like the shivery feeling you get when someone you are close too is in trouble, or like the cold sense of dread that comes over you when something bad is on the horizon.

This branch of her magic was acting up now, to a worrying degree. She had even called her class of for the day; she felt she needed some quiet. She had come down to the reflection pools, hoping the calm nothingness would bring her sense back down to normal. But it was worse than ever; jumping at every little thing.

A flower leaned towards the water, heavy with last night’s dew. It bent ever so slightly as a drop of liquid freed itself and fell into the water with a dripping noise. Her shoulders tightened as she watched the tiny ripples float across the surface; the sight filled her with inexplicable dread.

More Wingsense

Mara turned and half dove into the cool of the river, here in a deep stretch where it became a different world. Blind, mute, and nearly deaf, Mara knew everything by touch alone. The cooler dampness pointed down, and down her hands reached, to touch the gravelly silt as she felt herself carried along. Touching from the harsh other world, filtered through the muddy depths, a faint call reached her ears, and the sharper mutterings of the birds filled in what her ears had missed. Surfacing, she turned to see as much as hear her aunt, standing from the little yellowwood porch, calling her.

She swam now because it was more efficient, faster and more graceful than trudging waist deep through the muddy water, but when she was younger she had thought herself beautiful and extravagant, often swimming with her legs together in a clumsy and vain approximation of some river creature. At some point, however, she had come to realize that not only did this look ridiculous, but her aunt would have turned back to other things long before the display could be properly admired. As with most things, Aunt Alondra and her daughter Wren chose simply to ignore Mara’s differences and unusual habits… living there was like being always a guest, a welcome guest amoung close relatives, but a guest nonetheless, expecting a home but not instruction, a bed but not a raising.

For whatever reason she had always been a bit separate, like the new cousin instead of a sister. Perhaps it was because she had come later, when she was five and already her own person in the ways that mattered most. It wasn’t as obvious at first, when running around the house and to the little millpond was all the exploring she sought, but as she grew older it became apparent… she was a hawk, while the others were chickens. She spent lazy afternoons exploring sky blue springs and darkling caves downstream, while Wren was happier sitting on the little porch, overlooking her familiar stretch of river, reveling in the comfortable sameness.

Cowriting

So I was talking to Austin about my story, and things just really started to flow; plotwise and everything, and after a while I felt almost like I was taking as much from him as from me. And we were both really shining where this was concerned, so there was only one thing to do. After all, how can having both sides of the brain make it worse?

Two Things

Two Things:
One, I felt like the Larks and the Lemons stuff was taking on a rather unserious, unrealilistic tone, and second, I changed the setting somewhat. Before, I kind of invisioned it in a Californian Valley, and now it takes place on a Missouri River, comparitively. See below post. I'm rather excited about this; once I started thinking about the Missouri rivers the other settings in the story fit well into the US too... so I think that will be a good influence, plus Ill be able to be realilistic about plants and animals etc. And of course, I can take whatever liberties I want, cause it isnt really America. Its just American rather than European. Whatever.
Any way, The first line echoes the old first line, because maybe its silly, but it came to me and started the whole thing, and at least for now Im loath to completely abandon it. Also, this is more description and less 'action' than the last one, its also much shorter. ^^

The Sparrows were in the Sweetgums, the pipits were in the oaks. A few lazy mallards drifted beneath the willows, searching for mouthfuls of bread left by eager children. A hawk flew over the rivers calm flowing water, casting a shadow that rippled and vanished. The sun was bright, but gentle as it lit on the trees and on the houses scattered amoung them on the hillside. It shone on Mara’s face and in her auburn hair as she stood in the current of the river, feeling its cool water flow around her. Although it could be altered, moved and parted even as it altered all those in its course, its final destination would be obtained, and the quiet confidence in the water of its path and purpose vibrated in every ripple and rapid.

Mara was comfortable in the river, loved it not as a man loves fertile soil, or even as he loves a faithful horse, but as he loves a friend, respected it and cherished it. She had spent her entire life on its gravelly banks, beneath its mossy shade, reveling in the deep, silent green of the deeps and the sun filtered brown of the shallows. She loved the gentle sloping of the south side, the gravel bars and straggly bush, filled with sun and songbirds; she loved the darkness of the northern bank, where all the trees bent over, reaching for the sun, in turn shielding the river beneath it. There were tangled tree roots reaching and blending into the dark water, there were snakes long and slender, gleaming like ebony, there were reeds and moss and tiny black butterflies flitting from shade to shade.

An Idea

You know how most fantasy books are so European... like their not really set in Europe, but you can feel it all around; you look at a map, you have a blobby bay where the Mediterranean would be, you have your unexplored southern continent, you have the mostly vertical orientation and the northern, icy oceans? Well Ive decided, that in all the lazy and inaccurate ways I want, Im going to base my worlds more of the American continent. Because I'm not amazingly fond of American culture, and because we have no long term history to speak of, it'll be mostly ecology and stuff that I'm mirroring, but I think it would be interesting, because America is what I know, so I think Ill be more comfortable with that. And; America is the melting pot, and my imagination is basically Western with Eastern ideas here and there, so that should work well, don't you think?

Laura got a Blog!

w00t.... Laura, aka Kyra Goldeye, aka Fish/Pisciculus, got a blog. ^^.
http://pisciculus.blogspot.com/

The Fanged Printer

“Hi Mrs. Knight.” I stepped gingerly into the room, keeping watch for stay cords. They seemed to specifically target my feet.

“Hm? Oh, its you Miranda. I’m, ah, cleaning the computers for the summer, so you probably shouldn’t get on them.” There was a year of experience behind her words. Unspoken was the power that shut off as I entered the room; the computers that froze or did unheard things when I got behind the mouse. Sometimes I’d wander to two or three computers before I found one that was responding. I knew clearly what she meant; if I got on the computers now, It could mean overtime for her. That was alright, actually.

“I’m just here to talk.” I said, waving my hand. I looked over to her desk, hidden in its own little alcove. Her computer was, of course, the best in the lab. Next to it, the second best, and my own favorite, was a pc… stuck with an Out of Order label to try to prevent students from using it. That ruse had never worked for me.

“Really? Alright, then.” She seemed surprise, a little reluctant. Maybe she was just busy, maybe her own connection with computers had led her to dislike me as well.

“My printer bit me today.” I said it nonchalantly, as if such things happened all the time. “D’you think I’ll get a scar?” Yeah right, go to the nurse, not the technician. But I knew the nurse – she was a crabby, large old lady whose cancer alone kept me from downright hating her – and she wouldn’t put up with such things.

“How’d your printer bite you?” She asked, a little interested, but mostly just relieved that her computers were safe. That was permission enough to start my story. It hung in my head, half formed, but I trusted it to grow in the telling. They always did.

“So it said the print cartridge was stuck. I opened up the case, and sure enough, it didn’t spring to the middle like its supposed to. So I reach in there… like this… and suddenly it shoots across and pins my hand against the other side.”

“Miranda, you’re amazing.” She didn’t need to tell me that.

“It’s getting worse,” I insisted. “I worry what it will do next time. I can see it in the paper now: Local Girl, 14, Attacked By Printer. Computer Teacher Reports General Affinity Between Her and Electronics…”