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Rain Summoner Excerpt

Beginning of Chapter Two!

Content Warning for child death (briefly referenced under the readmore)

Chapter One 👈

Raul regarded Akeem with great incredulity. “The heir to the capitol arriving so late? What are we guests to assume when you can’t be bothered to be punctual like the rest of us?”

The rest of the table waited, largely resentful, for a response.

Akeem dropped onto a cushion as if he were sitting down to a meal with close friends. “You could be grateful I made an appearance at all. I think we must infer the Crown Prince of Mardesal has remained overseas again this year.”

Giuliana sat perfectly still. “He is most frail, and only twelve years of age. Would you have me bring my one remaining child on a voyage across such rough seas?”

Akeem stared back at her with a challenging look. “I’m sure his journey wouldn’t be too hazardous,” he said as Samar lowered onto a cushion gracefully across the table. “Your Mardesalian ships seem to have an easier time crossing than ours, at least these days.”

🌊Rain Summoner Taglist: @tabswrites @saturnine-saturneight @cowboybrunch

Let me know if you'd like to be added or removed!

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Writecamp day 15

Yay! Thanks as always for the event @agirlandherquill and TY for the tag @theeccentricraven

Today's prompts: She let her smile fall, as the last kingdom fell, the terror of triumph

"Are you sure?" Sadie asked the telegraph operator.

"Positive!" His voice was full of excitement. "Our forces stormed the capital and took the palace with almost no resistance! The kingdom has fallen!"

The words were barely out of his mouth when the Alliance headquarters erupted in raucous celebration. People were shouting, cheering, throwing caps into the air, and drinking copious amounts of wine, ale, and other drinks.

Amidst all the hullabaloo, Marcus noticed that the smile had gone from Sadie's face. It was not like her to get serious in the middle of what should be good news. He went over and asked what was on her mind.

"Not here. They are too busy to listen. If you want to know, meet me on the rooftop."

And so Marcus excused himself and climbed up the partially collapsed fire escape and exposed rebar up to the roof. Sadie was already there, looking out over the first nation that the Alliance had liberated. From the city to the country, light poured out of every house as cheers and songs echoed on the night air. Somewhere off in the distance fireworks leapt into the sky, lighting up the dark with sparks and fountains of color.

"The sights and sounds of liberation." Saidie's voice was controlled, barely betraying any emotion. "It's what we worked so long and hard for. It's what all people yearn for, and what they will fight for, even if they don't live to see it." She turned and walked across the roof.

"I want to know what's going on in that head of yours." Marcus stated. "You should be happy right now. The war's won. After sacrificing so much, we can now lay down the sword and gun. No more fighting. No more tears."

"If only it were so." Sadie let out a sad smile. "Tearing down the old regime was one matter. Building something from the rubble is a completely different one.

"The revolution, the dream...it was all so fragile. By all rights it should not have worked. Disgruntled nobles, idealists, dreamers, poets, the scavengers, opportunists, anarchists; the only thing that held us together was the collective wish to see kings and emperors of the world toppled. Now that they are all gone, we're all going to turn on each other. It might happen today, it might happen within a year, but sooner or later this coalition will fall apart. And when it does, it will go down in a war that will make this one look like a child's game."

Tagging @pippinoftheshire @thebookishkiwi @tabswrites @late-to-the-fandom @elizaellwrites

@diabolical-blue @theaistired @cherrybombfangirlwrites @reneesbooks @alinacapellabooks and all who want to join in!

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Heads Up 7 Up

Tagged by @oh-no-another-idea here!

I don't share much these days, so here are the first seven lines of Ouroboros:

I awakened in the grave of my creator–I know this because she told me so. My life for yours, Ce’Lindrí, her voice echoed in my mind. The soil that blanketed me was dense with moisture, but soft. My hand reached out. With some effort, I pushed through the thick roots that grew around me and sat up, breathing in deeply. The air was stale, and far too still. I turned back and looked at the bones beneath me.

Tagging: @storiesandsquirrels @winterandwords @talesofsorrowandofruin @dyrewrites @diabolical-blue @finickyfelix @harps-for-days and an open tag!

Please ask to be added to the Ouroboros tag list for snippets, updates and more!

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Heads up seven up

The wonderful @cherrybombfangirlwrites tagged me ages ago -- thank you! It's raining today, which means I can't do a garden job, so I got three hours of life handed back to me -- hooray! Perhaps I can get some writing done ;) Here's the last thing I worked on yesterday...

Elina Lieber beamed, her eyes vanishing in delight. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said, patting his arm once and taking her hand away. “Everyone needs to eat.” She was walking down the steps with a last wave over her shoulder before he could say more, and he watched until the last flash of her yellow kerchief was gone from view, using the doorframe to hold himself upright when his legs forgot to. Then he remembered his noontime appointment and rushed back into the apartment, trying to remember if he’d ever bought a comb or just thought about it.

I'll tag @exe-writes-sometimes @dontjudgemeimawriter @revenantlore @tabswrites @willtheweaver @talesfromaurea @tc-doherty @oddcryptidwrites and anyone else who wants to join -- no pressure!

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Last Line Tag

I was tagged by @teamdilf here, thanks so much!

Tagging (gently): @acertainmoshke @void-botanist @oh-no-another-idea @paintedbutton and anyone else who wants to do this!

From AASOAF 3:

Helter-skelter. Kirik wouldn’t stop saying it when I arrived at his open-air berth in the crow’s nest the night before. He’d made room for me, I remembered, wide-eyed and disturbed as I’d never seen him. His face kept coming in and out of view as the night swell of the sea rolled beneath us, knocking his humble lamp about against the mast. It was as though he were a ghost, caught in its spectral wanderings, stunned and silent. The slick black shapes of the waves shattered the moonlight as they rose, bearing us along, frustrated and wishing for us to break, too. Whenever his face disappeared I wondered about Mariel. When it came back… “Helter-skelter.” “Aye, Kirik, aye. Helter-skelter.” But it wasn’t the roiling that set either of us adrift. It wasn’t pleasant and with the ship’s pitching magnified so many feet in the air, we were mostly rooted to the ground, but we’d flown in worse, we both knew as much. So we stayed down, passing a pipe between us with every confidence the other wouldn’t drop it, and waited for the turbulent waves to pass. No, this wasn't troubling, rather, it was the hidden space of our minds which tormented us, putting the same long, troubled look on our faces as we were beat back from the quickly receding shore of rational thought.

AASOAF 3 Taglist: @outpost51 @thelivingdeceased @faelanvance @captain-kraken @illjustpretend 

@elshells @writeblr-of-my-own @the-mindless @zestymimblo @tabswrites

@void-botanist @acertainmoshke

Join/leave the taglist using this Google Form.

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Last Line Tag

Tagged by @sunset-a-story here!

Last line from Part 1 of Ouroboros:

“Dhu’rá waits for you in the peaceful beyond,” I whisper. “Go now, and wait for me.”

Tagging: @rachaellawrites @theroseempress @aalinaaaaaa @eli-writes-sometimes and an open tag!

Please ask to be +/- to the Ouroboros tag list for updates, snippets and more!

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Last Line Tag

Thank you @thatndginger for tagging me! (Their post here!)

Been working on a romance arc for Vol 3 that we neglected in the first pass so here's a spoiler-free line from that!

“Were you trying to die?”

Zero pressure tagging @tabswrites @mjjune @awordchemist and open tag!

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16 sentence tag

tagged by @oh-no-another-idea, thank you! i’m going to be gutting (heh) claws soon to re-outline it for Draft 2, so here’s the current first 16 lines from there

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The first time Vivien breaks into Magus Mortem’s office, he still has tits. It’s early, the kind of winter early where mist clings to the air and the cobwebs turn to glass and the binder beneath your winter layers itches with sweat. Vivien runs a hand over the radiator, blazing hot already. The university can afford such wasteful luxury; well-spent to keep Rainier warm in here, where otherwise the old windows and older walls would let the cold seep through. He’d catch something, working in a chill like that. He’d have to take time off, and if he did that, Vivien wouldn’t be able to see him for who knows how long. He presses the pads of his fingers into the radiator until they’re bright red, then sucks the pain away as he explores the rest of the room. Dark too, this early. He doesn’t dare turn on the light for fear of getting caught, so he just widens his eyes and takes in what he can. Desk. Filing cabinet. Bookcase, heavy and overloaded, with more books spilling onto a nearby chair, the floor. So many books. Vivien picks one up—Forester’s Grammar of Binding Circles. Basic shit. What’s Rainier doing with it?

[ID - a red and black decorative divider]

no-pressure tagging @talesofsorrowandofruin @vsnotresponding @zmwrites and @tabswrites

claws taglist: @belovedviolence @foxboyclit @coven-archives @noblebs @mjjune

@revenantlore @sarandipitywrites @k--havok @asterhaze @verba-writing

@indecentpause @bootstrapparadoxed @olliexwrites @cowboybrunch (ask to be +/-)

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find the word

tagged by @artdecosupernova-writing, thank you! my words are spin, crime, city, roof, peel, and great. these are all from claws, so a nsfw warning (non-explicit sex and dubious consent) for the first excerpt.

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spin

He kisses Vivien’s jaw, his throat, keeps stroking him until he can’t think, can’t breathe. There must be so much ichor coating his hand. In her tank, Bitsy darts back and forth and back and forth, and the weavers are spin-spin-spinning. Rainier’s cock nudges at the place he hates to think of, the place he pretends doesn’t exist. “Can I?” he breathes and Vivien doesn’t say no.

crime

It’s possible it isn’t even his, that someone planted it to undermine him. Stealing ichor is not a crime that goes lightly punished, especially with the purity of the kind the university keeps on hand. If this is from the university’s stores, even this tiny amount will be enough to throw you straight into the deep end of corruption. He still has his needles. Transition is slow; corruption is faster. The only thing that’s stopped him begging Arachnis for a new body is the fact that to get a body he’d need to give her a body, maybe even two, and such things are hard to come by.

city

There are perks to being a Mortem, and the penthouse is one of them. The view over the city is incomparable, especially in winter when it’s dark so early and all the lights, every one some tiny little soul, twinkle in the thick, cold night. Standing up against the cold window, a glass of whiskey in hand, Rainier feels like a god.

roof

The house looks the same as it always has. The bus stop is across the road, and after the bus has hissed away, Vivien stands there for a long minute, just looking at it. He’d sort of expected it to have collapsed in on itself, under the weight of everything that happened there, but no. The roof is solid, the windows glint cold and blank, and the tiny garden in the front is, if not neatly maintained, at least alive. The same moss-covered collection of garden-centre statues sit in the exact same places they’ve sat since he was a child.

peel(ing)

It’s three-am and the bathroom light keeps flickering. There’s black mold clinging to the peeling grout between the dingy tiles, dead flies scattered on the windowsill beneath the broken blind and Vivien can hear them buzzing.

great

Wonderland is a great big club behind a tiny little door, on which is painted an Alice too slutty for copyright to claim.

[ID - a red and black decorative divider]

no-pressure tagging @thegreatobsesso @viscerawrites @princessbonecrimes and @tabswrites with the words family, dread, start and fast.

claws taglist: @belovedviolence @foxboyclit @coven-archives @noblebs @mjjune

@revenantlore @sarandipitywrites @k--havok @asterhaze @verba-writing

@indecentpause @bootstrapparadoxed @olliexwrites @cowboybrunch (ask to be +/-)

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I feel like I have to add that I was referring to white people. If she saw me she would think I was about to die.

So far the cutest part of writing with Ce’Lindrí is that every time she sees someone without green skin she immediately wants to stick them in the sun.

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So far the cutest part of writing with Ce’Lindrí is that every time she sees someone without green skin she immediately wants to stick them in the sun.

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Writing Share/Nine Lines Nine People/Seven Sentence Sunday Thursday Tag

Thanks for tagging me, @mrbexwrites, @axl-ul, @willtheweaver and @eccaiia! :D

Here's my favourite excerpt from Like Snow on Hungry Graves, where the irony is so thick you could cut it with a knife (warning for mentioned rape and sex slavery. Also, Hariye interprets part of it as victim blaming; it's not, but he doesn't know this yet):

"What was my mother like?" he asked, keeping his eyes on the white-topped waves. Elamirja was silent. Hariye looked round and saw that he'd achieved his goal: Elamirja stared at him in utter disbelief. Something strange lay under that disbelief, something haunted and bitter. If he hadn't known better, he would have said Elamirja was hurt by the question. "Weak," Elamirja said sharply, snapping his teeth shut as if trying to physically bite the word. Hariye bristled. He had no idea who his mother was, but he was damned if he'd let anyone insult her. Especially when he was sure she hadn't married his father willingly. "How can you say that?" "What would you have me say?" Elamirja snarled. "Tell you fairy-tales of a grand romance?" Hariye jumped up and spun to face him. "Being kidnapped didn't make her weak!" For some reason Elamirja startled. He looked at Hariye in disbelief, then his face became a blank mask. "Did no one tell you anything about your mother?" he asked calmly. That was more unsettling than his rage. "No." It pained Hariye to admit it. A little voice whispered that he should drop the subject, that he had gotten more than he bargained for and would get far worse if he kept digging. "What was her name?" Elamirja looked at him, then out at the sea. "I forget." The urge to call him a liar burned in Hariye's throat. Instead he asked, "What happened to her?" "Betrayed. Enslaved. Raped." Elamirja still wouldn't look at him. "Escaped." The last word sent a shock through Hariye. He had taken it for granted his mother died in the imperial harem. "Is she still alive?" "No. Not for many years." The hope of meeting her died as quickly as it was born. Hariye felt suddenly as old and battered as the ruined castle. But there was one more thing he suddenly had to know. "Did she hate me? Because of my father?" Elamirja stared at him with a frightening intensity. He flinched involuntarily. Slowly Elamirja said, "I think… sometimes. Yes. But not all the time." Stop asking, that little voice urged. Hariye had never been able to leave well enough alone. If he could just figure out what relation Elamirja was to him, he might be able to find his mother's identity. "Did you grow up together?" Elamirja laughed sharply. "I suppose." His odd, jerky answers and his strange behaviour created a suspicion in Hariye's mind that was somehow even worse than he'd supposed. Had he gotten everything wrong? Had his mother already been pregnant when his father bought her? Did he look like Elamirja because Elamirja was his father? Common sense reminded him that he was half-human. Whatever else Elamirja was, no one could call him human. But the question lingered. "Did you love her?" he asked nervously. Elamirja smiled, a grim and broken smile. "Not at all."

Tagging @tabswrites, @alintalzin, @oh-no-another-idea, @space-writes, and anyone else who wants to do this! :D

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9 Lines, 9 People tag

Thanks for the tag @mthollowell-writes!

Gently tagging: @cee-grice @eccaiia @tabswrites @winglesswriter @at-thezenith @cwritesfiction @k--havok

Have a snippet of a very tense scene from The Willing and The Chosen:

Matthias turned narrowed eyes on her. “Why the fuck are you defending him so much? I know you used to have a thing for Ayden, but I thought you got over that when you realized he was an ass. Changed your mind?” When Matthias took a step farther into the room, Ella reacted without thought, jumping up from the bed and positioning herself between him and Tiffany. His eyes widened. Ella held her ground. “She’s asking some pretty fucking reasonable questions, I think.” “What part of wishing Keenan dead isn’t threatening?”

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Find the Word Tag

👒 Thank you to @oh-no-another-idea for the tag here! 👒

Gently Tagging: @sarahlizziewrites @tabswrites @rhikasa @chauceryfairytales @dyrewrites and an open tag for anyone else who would like to join!

Your words to find will be: Slam, Slight, Wind, and Trail 🔍

These first two come from Until Then. The second two come from PQ/Rain Summoner.

Content Warnings for Memory Loss and References to War under the cut.

Remark

Another thing, less hazardous but more disquieting, was the consensus Niall had once been someone else. Those who had known him when he was younger remarked on the change with what could only be called dissatisfaction.

"You're altogether serious, now," they would say with a mystified twist to their features.

Fierce

There he was. Lugovalos, the warrior who shared his name with a legend. Twice as tall as many around him and draped in the pelt of a bear, he was unmistakable. He came towards Niall with a fiery gaze and a grin on his face. His appearance was as fierce as his reputation suggested.

"Are you Ghost-Hand?"

Alarm

The dagger pulsed as if a heart beat within it. The sound of waves crashing filled his ears when he took the hilt in his hand. He felt the sand under his feet, heard distant cries echoing through a great city and the tearful desperation of Sadira ordering him not to die.

The shock of experiencing someone else's memories was so alarming that he nearly let the dagger drop from his hand.

Only

Rather than appear moved by any sense of conviction, Niall seemed resigned to her questioning. His flat gaze held only exhaustion. "What is it you would have me tell you?"

Perhaps that was as good a response as Sadira could hope for, coming from him.

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Sprained my pinky at work this week, but I prefer to think of it as extreme Mara Wilkes LARP

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Art asks for the cast of Ouroboros! Choose the most fitting OC per question, one for each :)

Pen: what's one minor moment your character regrets? A small mistake, but something they "can't erase"?

Paintbrush: How often does your character "brush over" conflict instead of facing it head on? Is there something specific they don't like to face, or do they avoid conflict as a whole?

Tortillon: does your OC "blend in" with the people around them? Physically? Metaphorically?

Eraser: what's one way this character has changed over time? Either over the course of their story, or over the course of designing them as an author.

Thanks for the ask! From this ask game:

Pen (Ce’Lindrí): Ce’Lindrí is mistaken for a cosplayer at the beginning of the story during a festival that celebrates humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial life. Rather than make an excuse for a hasty exit, she allows herself to be talked into joining in on the festivities, which sets the entire plot in motion. She definitely will regret that down the road.

Paintbrush (Drav): He really hates conflict, which is hilarious considering he’s part of the military. His goal in any given situation is to have complete control so that he can set the tone and keep things running smoothly. He resents anything that disturbs his peace, namely his brother Nik, who failed to grow out of his mischievous personality.

Tortillon (Arelle): She is a master personality chameleon (some might refer to it as code-switching). It is important that not only everyone likes her, but that they’re never in a bad mood around her. This allows her to keep moving through life uninhibited.

Eraser (Nik): He was a very curious and silly child, who cared more about making people laugh than paying attention in school. As he got older and began to recognize the disadvantages he faced, he lost that spark. Rather than use his passion for good, he jumps straight into extremism. He lost his compassion for other people and started thinking, “What about me?”.

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Marker, for Arelle

Thanks for the ask!

From this ask game:

Marker: what's one thing your character would never tattoo on their body, even if they were paid a million dollars for it?

Literally anything. Piercings are acceptable to her because they can be removed, but she can’t think of a single thing worth having on her body forever. If absolutely forced (she has plenty of money) maybe some sort of flower because she doesn’t get to see them outside of VR.