It's been a whole month since I posted - and one of the busiest I've ever seen.
You probably remember that I launched my first attempt at NaNo, with not 50, not 30, but 20,000 words as my goal - and just baaaarely squeezed in a win. Not that I stopped there, because the plot decided it wasn't finished with me and I bashed out another 4,414 words. Meaning I have to trim down the draft 4,414 words. I sent out the first draft of it to my readers yesterday evening and am refreshing my inbox obsessively. *cough*
This is a cover I made for my short story. I may or may not have been procrastinating when I made it.
It kind of counts as fanfiction because it's a retelling of Cinderella for this contest:
Yes, I probably have too much on my plate. Do I care? No.
December is going to be pretty busy too, because I have promised Certain People that the draft of my first novel will be to them by Christmas. So don't expect the posting rate to pick up again right away. I'll be guest posting in a couple places in the near future, though, so look out for that!
As a sort-of celebration of my sort-of return, I'm going to post my very first piece of fanfiction that I wrote for Stacia's contest over at her blog:
Yes, it involves Iri, who is very glad to be back and is already waiting to soak up the fangirls' accolades. It also involves Stacia's character Rykel, of whom I have been a fan for some time.
(That is Stacia's sketch of le Rykelface. Gah, I wish I could draw my characters like that.)
I had the time of my life writing it, nibbling peppermint chocolate in my bedroom floor and toasting my toes in front of a space heater. (To those of you who are inevitably wondering, this falls right after my prologue.)
Iri’s
fingernails whitened round the edges of a snow-white scale as his other hand pressed
a rag to the rift in his dragon’s colorless hide. A phantom pain throbbed in
his left forearm and Snow whimpered, hanging her great head down in a fervent
desire to lick the wound. ‘No,’ Iri
snapped, glaring up at her.
She swung
away, eyes screwed shut. ‘Iri, it hurts!’
‘Be
still.’
Something
nagged him about his bad mood. Maybe it was because he wished he hadn’t used
his magic up and could heal her instantly instead. Maybe because he’d
assassinated a princess yesterday and left her body to rot in that abandoned
temple. Or maybe he was just tired from the battle.
Tiredness.
That was it.
“Sir!”
Iri turned
and felt the swift, immediate movement behind him as Snow pulled the wound out
of sight to nurse it. Damon, a fair elf and one of the few other Carseldians in
Klista’s service, bowed in deference to Iri’s new status as head of the Riders.
A bit of the pleasant glow from his promotion reignited in his tired limbs. He
straightened, stretching his cramped fingers. “What is it, Damon?”
“There is
a…stranger at the gates asking to see you. Seems to know you.”
“I can’t
take visitors now.” Iri let his head sag
to the side in exasperation. “Besides, practically everyone knows me.”
Damon’s
eyebrows seemed to hunch forward in confusion. “He’s asking quite…forcefully.
When the guards apprehended him, he threatened to…blast us. Or something of that nature.”
“Magic?”
Iri scowled, wrapping the bloody rag round his palm. “Is he a Rider?”
“He – he –
doesn’t look like any Rider I’ve ever seen.” Damon glanced down as if to check
his information against something and found his empty hands to stare at. “He
also mentioned” – his voice fell to a near-whisper – “a world called Earth.”
Iri tucked his chilled fingers into his palms.
Earth.
He brushed
past Damon and strode toward the gate.
The Riders
moving through the courtyard bowed to him, greeting him briefly in the Andunian
language, but no one wanted to get in his way. Even the dragons coiled up stray
wings and tails from his path.
He realized
at the gates that Damon still trailed him and waved the Rider off with a flick of his fingers. His sword hung
on the rack in his rooms – he thought to have no need of it today – but his
dagger still sat
firm and cool in its sheath against his thigh. His finger arched over the top
of the curved pommel, back and forth, as the guards parted at the door of a
room adjoining the gates. Usually their captain shared this room with an
absurdly small desk, but today an altogether bizarre young man lounged against
the edge of said desk, tattoos cascading over his crossed forearms.
When Iri
entered, the stranger flicked a ragged edge of hair out of his eyes and levered
to his feet. The guards’ spear shafts clacked together in front of his chest. The
stranger lifted a pierced eyebrow. “Tell them to buzz off, would ya?”
Iri shifted
weight from his sore leg, enjoying his advantage a little bit longer and using
the delay to study his visitor. The eyebrow wasn’t the only piercing – he had
some kind of rings in his ears, though Iri had only ever seen women wear them
there – and he wore a curious tunic with ragged tears at the shoulders where
the arms should have been. Blocky markings crossed the front of it. Letters,
but they spelled no words that he could make out. Ac, dc. Aack duc. Who put words on their clothing, anyway?
Despite all
his oddity, Iri’s first thought was that he knew him.
His second
thought was that he would like to see whether the muscled youth would put his
solid-knuckled, calloused hands to good use. The weight of the rank pin at the
breast of his uniform checked him. He had responsibility now; he couldn’t start
fistfights for no reason. But still…
Pay attention. Act like the leader you are. “Threats
aren’t the best way to put them at ease.”
The
stranger shrugged. “They messed with my Indian.”
“Your –
what?” There went the poise. It reminded him too much of his father, anyway.
“Oh, don’t
tell me.” The young man raked scarred fingers through his mop of overhanging
hair. “Dangit. You don’t have those here. Yeah, I know – some of the kids at
Poly read fantasy novels. Pretty freaky stuff if you ask me. But I had to get
here somehow. Not my fault if you’ve
never seen a motorbike before.”
Iri
frowned, curling his first finger round the dagger pommel. Familiar or not, what
Iri knew of Earth and the people there gave him more than enough reason to be
wary. “Who are you?”
“Jack
Rykel. You can call me Rykel. Now can
you tell ‘em to buzz off?”
Iri
hesitated only for a moment. Strangeness aside, this Rykel seemed well-connected
to Earth, and ill treatment of a representative could lead nowhere but trouble.
Besides, he
seemed already far too comfortable in a world different from his own, and Iri
wanted to see what he thought of dragons.
“Stand
down,” he ordered. The guards lowered their spears, their narrow eyes sharp
with interest. Iri shot a smile at his visitor as he turned to the door. “Whatever
magic you may have, you’re in the Riders’ headquarters now. Watch what you do.”
“Dude, it’s
not magic,” Rykel said to his back. Iri grinned and led the way out into the
courtyard.
The first
dragon they met was relatively small – a blue belonging to an Elvarian
desert-dweller named Nyvien – but she was impressive enough as she reared her
angular head up out of the recessed pit lined with rushes for padding. The
courtyard bustled with dragons and their Riders – larger fighting beasts
resting from the takeover three days ago, small couriers coming and going, the
two or three broody females rustling their wings protectively over their eggs
as others passed.
Iri glanced
back at the stranger sauntering behind him – sauntering truly was the best word – to gauge his reaction. Rykel’s
mouth had narrowed to a pucker which presently let out a low whistle. His eyes
followed the path of a green courier as she circled the courtyard and dived out
of sight behind the walls of the compound. “Don’t have those where I come
from.”
Snow raised
her head guiltily when Iri stepped to the top of the recessed pit where she
sprawled, her impressive, serpentine bulk set off by the dark rushes patterning
the light stone beneath. He jumped to the bottom, turned back to face Rykel,
and leaned against her side. She curved slightly to accommodate him, her tail
flicking between him and the newcomer, a motion that said mine, mine. Rykel stood at the top of the steps, hands on hips,
feet set wide.
Rykel had
the high ground, but Iri had a dragon.
“So you
haven’t told me what you’re doing here.” Iri crossed his arms, letting the weak
sunlight glance on his gold armbands.
Rykel
shrugged again and settled into a comfortable crouch, digging a packet of
something out of a pocket in his tattered pants. “Your author’s had my info on her laptop for ages.” He methodically placed a slender paper tube between
his lips, lit the end of it with an odd blue device, dragged a breath on it,
and said in a puff of acrid smoke, “I figured I’d come meet you.”
“That can’t
be the only reason.” Iri tapped his fingernails on the armbands; he knew it was
a mannerism most people hated, but it helped him think.
“No, you’re
right.” Rykel rested one elbow on his knee and waved his hand, trailing a
streamer of smoke across the watery blue sky. “So I thought I’d do a little
snooping while I was here. I have no restraint. It’s a curse.”
It wasn’t,
Iri thought, watching the upward tilt of his square chin, a curse he was
particularly eager to remedy.
“Your
author leaves stuff everywhere. Notes, plans, timelines.” He placed the
cylinder in his mouth again. The end glowed with fragments of fire. “It wasn’t
hard to figure out.”
“You don’t
want me to decide that you’re wasting my time.” Iri examined his fingernails,
blue-crusted as they were with his dragon’s dried blood. “I have an evening
scheduled with a courtier who’s a lot prettier than you.”
“You really
don’t listen well.” Rykel bounced
once on his toes, his hair flopping up and down again. “Fine. In plain
language, I’m trying to warn you.”
“Warn me?”
“Whatever
you’re doing, believe me, you want to stop.” Rykel’s startlingly blue eyes
narrowed for an instant, in something like concern. “I read ahead, man. It
doesn’t end well.”
“And why do
you care?” Iri stifled a thought that was beginning to sound a lot like Why would anyone?
“Because.”
Rykel’s knuckles paled on the white cylinder. “You don’t.”
Iri was
suddenly, inexplicably angry. “It’s not as easy as you seem to think,” he
snapped.
“Changing?
Oh, I know.” Rykel huffed a short breath and leaned forward so the white
letters wrinkled across his chest. “Heck no, it’s not easy.” He rose in a
smooth motion, shrugging the shoulders of his odd tunic straight again. “But –”
“Go back to
your own blasted story!” Iri shouted, blind with an anger that struck faster and
hotter than lightning. Snow, reacting, rolled half to her feet and hissed a
cloud of chill air, ruffling the edges of Rykel’s tattered sleeves.
“Easy,
snowflake, I’m not gonna hurt him,” Rykel said in an offended tone, backing a
step. “Gosh, you people take things so seriously.”
“Take your
warnings and your motor-bike and go back to Prolly –”
“Poly.”
Iri gritted
his teeth. “Wherever you came from!”
“Dude, I
can take a hint.” Rykel raised both hands in surrender. “Don’t overreact, okay?
Just – for what it’s worth.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll, uh,
see myself out.”
Iri watched
him swagger away, winking at a female Rider who had no idea who he was. His
eyes narrowed.
‘Iri?’ Snow’s wings spread over the
floor, enclosing him in a blanket of warm, scaled leather. ‘Who was that?’
Iri caressed
his dagger hilt. ‘An enemy.’
So, what do you think? Does fanfic suit me? ;) Are you happy to see Iri back, or should I do a different character next time? Who should it be?
