#story:roads of monsters

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Shakti rockstar moment where she's doing a song-magic in front of a crowd and she points at Locket like YOU. FINISH THE LYRIC IF YOU REALLY WANNA BE FRIENDS AGAIN.

And he does, badly, but he does, and the crowd is in synch w him.

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Blaire, Part 2

Daine and Blaire hit it off at once. He was young, like her, and strong and handsome. Most of the court were old and world-weary, he seemed almost childish by comparison. He was an exceptional swordsman, and had joined Occkadai (the god) for glory. They joked easily together, and he let her boss him around. Blaire was quickly infatuated.

More than anything about Dain (I don’t have to settle on a spelling if I dont want to!), what attracts her is the feeling of being wanted and looked up to. That image of herself she put together to cope, of the wise and motherly girl, is flattered by having someone to take care of. Being in charge of him makes her feel better about herself.

The god (I don’t know how i feel about Occkadai as a name, but i don’t want to keep calling him ‘the god’ :(.) is acting against this other, older one, and there’s also a younger goddess named Myranyah (I do like that name!) who’s also against him, but he doesn’t know that yet. They don’t leave for a good while, and Blair and Dain’s relationship grows steadily. (I don’t know where else to add this, so: they’re both 19 right now (Daine’s older). Ratter’s is unknown to him, but about 18-20. Locket is 17, Shakti is 11. We’ll get to them later.) Blaire doesn’t tell her mother, she doesn’t know how. She tells the sister she’s closest to, but is ruthlessly mocked, and almost convinced to stay back for how ridiculous the idea that she could make it out there is. Also, she says Dain’s only playing with her, and she’s an idiot if she thinks that’s ever working out. She leaves quietly, bumps into Dain, but dodges his questions. She’s fine!

She doesn’t say goodbye to her family when she goes.

It’s not the adventure she expected.

Really, she was only included because she was young, strongly built, and clever enough. The immortals in Occkadai's court don't get tired as much, but they are outnumbered by ancient - and very mortal - retainers, because it's been ages since O did anything. So she's stuck working as a cook in a caravan moving incredibly slowly with only Daine and eventually Ratter for company.

(I'll get into her relationship with Ratter later)

Anyway, she and Daine do not work out. Thanks to the mess of loneliness and neglect that was her childhood, she responds to any overture of companionship by digging her nails in and sticking there. She constantly worries - justifiably - that Daine doesn't actually love her, and like. She doesn't love him either, even though she's completely obsessed with him? She believes she should, as per her imagined self, she desperately wants that affection and security, she is attracted to him, seeing as he is an absolute sweetheart and a badass, but it's not as deep as she wants to believe. Daine is a well-balanced and self-sufficient guy, and he tends to resist her constant attempts to mother and patronize him.

O, as it turns out, is not a particularly good guy! Woulda thought! Even though she's not herself responsible for them, seeing the terrible things he does and makes Ratter and Daine - who are like, magically bound to him - do, makes her already pretty bad mental state worse.

She and Daine have a huge fight, she slaps him, he breaks up with her, she goes absolute bananas. As per the general age of the other people, it is decided that the cook has become a hysterical woman, and should be ignored. Somehow, Daine - at Ratter's begging, because she won't listen to him - finds it in him to forgive her bad girlfriend-ness, and they talk it out.

As they continue to work with O, she picks up every skill she can from the people they meet, most of whom are charmed by the witty young lady, the handsome man, and the gentle giant of a boy. She finds some hope in her ability to learn just so much random shit, which her boys assure her is cool. She also notices that the attacks of bad fortune, illness, and general bad... vibes, are coordinated, and the source is another god, Myranah.

Specifically, her retainer, Shakti. (who is NOT a girl, she's a monster!)

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Hey, I wrote something!

“You came to me. You wanna die?” “Hell no.” He breathed. “But I can’t stop you.” A young woman confronts a murderer. A young man begs help from an old friend.

This is a little out-of-context confrontation between Locket, Emma Bride, the former's ego, the latter's grief, and a little murder committed years ago.

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There is a point in the story where the main 4 are dragged into a dreamscape-type world and separated. As they make their way back towards each other, the dark wilderness around them provides them with weapons/tools which each reference their place in the dynamic. These tools also don't quite fit comfortably, showing the issues with the places they've made.

Ratter has a sword, of course. He finds it stuck into the road, waiting for him. However, the handle is too small for his hand, because he's been growing out of the life of killing monsters he's been used to since he was a child, and started wanting more.

Shakti has a flaming torch with fine gold work, showing that she is the gang's princess character, something to inspire and amuse them and push them to fight on. However, it burns so high and hot, and she can't control it's flames. Her passion and teenagerness gives her strength, and the pain she's been though pushes her forward, but she can't always direct herself, and that energy tends to burn her.

Locket has a shield, but a heavy one with sharp edges that cut into him. He tries his best to keep the others in line and protect them, but his way of doing those is scoldings and austerity, and his insistence on being So Fucking Strict with all of them and himself and never letting anything go and refusing himself anything he really really wants hurts him and is tough on him. He's constantly tempted to let it go, but simultaneously too afraid to.

Blair finds many weapons, in many odd places others would not look. She recognizes a crooked sword from a normal branch or arrows from reeds or a longsword hidden behind bricks, and she makes a rope from bark to carry them all. She's desperate to be of use, so that she can be sure that she won't left behind. Eventually, though, she gives up on those unwieldy, badly-made weapons, like she gave up on her aspirations of being the Mom Friend or an authority figure or like, Daine's gf, and she starts gathering sharp stones and edible-looking plants instead, showing her resourcefulness and her knowledge of everyday things that the others love her for.

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Ok, this is just for me to remember which of my characters is which:

Blair - aspiring mom friend

Locket - stiff as a ruler

Ratter - the Bitch

Daine - knight

Shakti - singer

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Setting

Roads of Monsters takes place in a world - or several worlds - which is broken into fragments, each it's own miniature planet/dimension, each different. Moving between them is possible during great (and RARE) natural calamities, sometimes triggered intentionally by the gods to bring mortals over form one to another. While people can survive in a world that is not their own, belongings cannot (neither can monsters. A god born in one world can't enter another where it is unwelcome.). Over a short period of time, everything from stone to metal disintegrates. Additionally, amnesia and dissociation will start to set in over time.

The physical size of a world is inversely proportional to its population. There is one world (E and C's homeworld) which has seas, vast mountain ranges, monsters everywhere, and nothing more than some hamlets. There's another (from where A is) which is just one huge city, population 10mil, cosmopolitan as can be. If the humans are killed en masse, space expands - resulting in one case in a ruined medieval castle acres wide.

There is an 'underworld' of monsters that spans all the worlds, as does 'imaginary space', a sort of border area.

Magic is the prerogative of monsters and gods, humans can only use magical items (a book of spells where pages can be ripped off to trigger the spell; potions; etc). Demigods and demimons can do it too.

If the bureaucracy of heaven demands it, whole worlds can be culled at the gods' whim. If a world is dying, time itself begins to unravel, the past and future mixing into the present. A dying world brings down the ones around it too.

Monsters are eldritch and do not follow human morality or psychology. Some of them are very animalistic, and many are malicious. They reproduce through rituals and magic. Most people consider them to be mindless or demonic, but they can be good too. Aesthetic wise... soulsborne, I'm ripping off soulsborne. They are more powerful than humans, usually, but very rare, and as likely to be fucked around with by the gods as anyone.

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Well. My brain just vomited up a brand new story idea (in the middle of exams! During Nanowrimo!) so here goes.

Overarching tag is #roads of monsters

The main characters are, let's say, A, B, C, D and E. Actually I've decided D's name is Dane. More info on them will be up in future posts.