So…my goal for March was to make it to 70k in Drowning Sky. And (more importantly) to finish it.
AND I DID BOTH.
Actually, made it to 76K. And it is complete, though I must say that the ending is a little shady. I have no doubt that when I go back to edit it will inflate at least 10k or more. Despite February being such a delicious month to reach my word goals, March was surprisingly easy. Even not seriously writing until about mid month I was able to push through the final goal. Of course, I know from experience that writing a climax always goes by really fast.
I really don’t have much more to say about it. I’m glad I got it done, I look forward to editing it come May. And I really look forward to starting something else. It’s how I always feel with noveling. You write a first draft and its hard and annoying and fantastic and then you get it done and all you want to do is start another.
So April is my month of rest and I will be changing tactics and writing some fanfiction. I made a promise to my fans to start posting the sequel in spring 2014, so I got to get going on that.
So here’s one last (extremely rough) excerpt and I’ll be back next month!
Tranquil is standing on the edge of the cliff, just outside her home. The sun is high and warm. The ground is soft. The wind is gentle, flowing around her, then away.
She feels the mountain, the slope, the trees, the ground. The hard edges, cold water. She feels the buildings of her neighbors, intact as she remembers. There is no smoke from their fires, no people tending their gardens.
Tranquil is not afraid or lonely, however. She feels refreshed, guiding the wind around to touch soft flower petals at the main house. Disturb an old shirt someone left out in the sun. She turns to her own home, the roof freshly thatched, the stones sealed and door repaired.
She steps inside and feels the warm fire, the smell of dried herbs and cooking meat. Her father’s books, left open on the table. A bucket with fresh water. The floor is recently swept and smoothed. She walks to her room to find the furniture intact, more books stacked beside the bed.
Myria is sleeping on her pallet, buried in blankets. Her eyelids flutter, hand thrown over her forehead. Her gills twitch in her sleep, as if hoping for a drink. Tranquil kneels at the bed and leans foreword, hair falling around her shoulders.
She pulls down the covers, revealing that Myria is wearing a long tunic, bunched around her hips, and worn pants. Where the tunic rides up, Tranquil can see a hint of skin, smooth and damp.
It is a strange reaction that she does not consider, but merely obeys. She reaches out and lifts that tunic, sliding it gently. Myria’s stomach is bare, but not the smooth plane of skin she expected.
Instead, it is wet, drenched. The liquid thick and oozing. And its not just on Myria’s stomach, its everywhere. Soaked into the blankets and pallet, pooling across the floor. Tranquil finds it traveling up her elbows, thick, warm. It reeks, clogging her nose. Blood.
Tranquil screams, arms thrashing. She cannot wipe it away. The air stills around her and she cannot see Myria or the room. She just feels the blood on her arms, pooling on her chest. She has a wound there and it bleeds, gushing. She cannot hold it back. She cannot stop it.
Tranquil wakes abruptly, body drenched in sweat. She is lying by the fire in Leigh’s main room. It is warm, though only embers in the late hour, but she shivers and slowly sits up. She runs her hands over her face, trying to wipe away the dream.
She knows she should not take it to heart. Myria only left yesterday, the first time since they met that they’ve been truly separated. Tranquil is worried, she knows this. She is sure that is why she dreamt such a thing.
But she cannot shake the cold feeling sliding down her back. So she stands, fumbling around until she finds her cloak, tucked in her bag in the corner. Sliding it on, she walks out into the main commune, hoping to find someone to inquire about what time it was.
The main fire is being coaxed to life by someone, Tranquil hears. “Who is there?” she asks softly, hoping she isn’t disturbing them.
“Jun,” the woman answers. “It is an early hour for you to be awake, Tranquil.”
“Is it?” Tranquil feels along the wall, finding a barrel of rain water, collected to be drunk by the people of the tunnels. She ladles herself a mouthful, swirling the bitter water on her tongue. She cannot drink too much of it before it turns her stomach. She supposes that she will get used to it with time.
She expects Jun to be making noises around the kitchen, preparing an early meal for those who take the first shift in the fields. Instead, Jun steps next to Tranquil. “You look ill.”
Tranquil turns her face away from the voice, self-conscious. “I had a bad dream, that’s all.”
“Because Myria has left?”
Tranquil is unnerved by Jun’s perceptiveness. “Probably. We’ve been traveling together for so long.”
“And because you are also a goddess?”
Tranquil stills, holding her breath. “What do you mean?”
Jun sighs, like she is tired. “I do not pretend to understand the legends of the goddesses. But I am not blind, nor deaf, nor dumb. Myria could make the water sweet as you can make the air. And she did say there were four goddesses. It was not hard to piece together.”
Tranquil forces herself to breathe. Eventually, she moves to the nearest table, sitting with numb legs. “Does everyone think this?”
Jun does not sit, but stands beside her. “Camden and the others are fools.” She says the words so blunt that Tranquil flinches. “Myria is obvious. She looks different, acts different. And when she showed such a force of power, it was all they could see. Power. But you…you have power as well.”
Tranquil hangs her head, letting her hair fall over her face. “I do not know of my power.” She hesitates, but Jun makes no sound to continue. “What are you going to do? Send me off to defeat the Wanted? Use me like you wished to use Myria?”
Jun is so silent that Tranquil wonders if she has walked away. When she speaks, her voice is heavy, deep. “To have you live among us would be an asset. You’ve made the air around us painless to breathe. Even here, inside the commune, I can smell the fresh taste in the air. Others may not notice, when the cooking smoke fills the room. Others may not notice, as the fields are large and your presence does not reach out to them. But we all sleep here, filling our chests for the first time with something that is not poison. Yes, you would be used, in that way. But, I think, it would be useless in the end.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our world is dying. Every year, every day, the fog thickens and grows. Our people have been dying, over the decades. New children are unlikely to be healthy, so many women have gone barren, and we do not live long. Even the Wanted suffer, their numbers not as great as in past generations. It will not be long before the fog is as thick as the Deep End, as poisonous as the flowers in the ruined city. Will you keep us safe then? And if you do, what of the other communities in which we trade with? What of the people in the City? For even if we despise them, they are still people of our world. What of the people who live in the mountains? For surely there are more communities than yours who will soon be taken by the clouds? I do not relish the idea of being one of the last of my kind. To bear witness to the slow decay of an entire culture.”
“Then what use am I?”
“What use indeed? And what use is Myria, going into the City? What is she trying to accomplish?”
“To find what happened to my people-”
“Hardly,” Jun snaps. “You cannot see her eyes like I can. She has compassion for you, undoubtedly. But she also knows her calling. She feels responsible for this world like no one I have ever seen. She is trying right whatever has gone wrong in this world. She is trying to save us all. And she is not even born in this place.”
“What are you saying? Are you saying that I am at fault for not following her?”
Jun’s hand lands on Tranquil’s shoulder. It is soft, for the first time Tranquil has ever felt. The fingers grip her with gentle warmth. “I would not presume to know your path. But it disturbs me that everyone in this commune, including yourself, cannot see the connection between you both. When she left and you remained…you could not know her expression. You could not know your own.”
Tranquil bites her lip. “Myria does not need me.”
“You are sure?”
“You’ve seen her power. You’ve seen her drive. She knows so much more than me and what she does not know, she strives to understand. I…never asked for this. All this time, since my village was destroyed, I’ve been trying to find a place for myself. A normal place, a place that makes sense. That place is here. I do not want to go and try to change the world. Is it so wrong that I would rather secure my own life before I even attempt to secure the lives of everyone living on this world?”
“You say it like you have yet to find a place.”
“I thought that my place could be here!”
“Then you truly do not know.”
“Know what?”
“For as long as you’ve been with us, lived with us. The only time you have truly seemed comfortable, at ease, yourself, is when you are in the company of Myria.”
“I’ve…just known her for longer.”
“You are deluding yourself, Tranquil. And you are insulting a relationship that is more profound than I have ever seen.”
“And how do you know this? How can you tell all of this? You say you read our faces? But we’ve barely talked before now, how can you know the conflict of my heart?”
“Because, child of air, I chose you.”
Tranquil stills. Quickly, she touches the hand on her shoulder, but finds no contact. The reaches out, wildly, but feels no body. She stands pacing back towards the wall, the voice follows, even though there are no footsteps to accompany it. The voice is close, surrounding, encompassing.
“Tranquil, one who was named after being born in the midst of a terrible storm. Tranquil, one who has touched air like water, like earth, like fire. Tranquil who is blind more in heart than sight. Tranquil, do not question the creator on destiny.”
Tranquil’s sweaty hands gripped the wall behind her. She cannot move or speak or breathe-
“Child, look at me.”
She exhales, but the Goddess does not have the substance of mortality. Instead, Tranquil falls, unable to feel the wall or the floor or the warmth of the main fire in the commune. The world is dark like she has never known. Lacking not only in sight, but sound and touch and even Tranquil’s own thoughts and emotions.
No comments:
Post a Comment