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

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.