My European Adventure! pt 3

Something had to be said about the food this last week at the Chateau le Pin. It was good in a way that defies description. One might say,  "Ann, that salad was amazing," or "Ann, I can't stop eating this bur blanc. What's in it?" But in order to really understand something about how amazing it was, we are going to have to get a little context:
I'm a picky eater. Always have been, probably always will be. I don't know when it started, but ever since I realized how bad it is, I've been trying to come back the other way. Pushing myself to eat foods I normally wouldn't has had its successes and failures. But at the end of the day, I have a very limited selection of tastes I enjoy. Its not something I'm proud of, but there you go.
From the first dinner, I already knew I was in for a treat. By the second day, I had no worries that I would dislike anything I put in my mouth, no matter how strange it seemed to me. By the third day, I was dreading leaving because for the rest of my life I have to put up with mundane food now. By the end of the week, I worshiped Ann's cooking like a heretic.

Here's a quick run down of our mealtime experiences:
At every meal there was several different kinds of wine - sparkling, red, white or pink, a basket full of fresh rolls, and enough anticipation for Ann's cooking to make your palms sweat.
A 'little' wine and chatting, while we all gathered
Appetizers - Salad/light protein
Main Dish - Meat/Veggies/Starches
Interlude  - Cheese plate(always of the region)(with wine)
Dessert - Exactly that, life-changing, mind-blowing dessert.
Conclusion - licking our plates and finishing off the bottle(s)
Drinks and discussion(puzzle) in the Greatroom.
(All the drinks should have their own post but I really know so little about the subject I wouldn't get very far. Needless to say, there were many of great range and value, and not just wines either. On my next trip maybe.)

Maybe some pictures will help:

(Chocolate Mousse cake with a divine cream drizzle - Probably everyone's favorite.)

(One of our group was a vegetarian, so Ann, saint that she is, cooked her a separate dish to replace the meat dish, FOR EVERY MEAL!) 

 (Butter basted scallops if I'm not mistaken)

(Ann's own dressing, smoked salmon, and fois gras. I'd never had it again, probably never will, but Ann made the fois gras herself, and I even knowing what it was I still couldn't stop myself.)

(Artichoke hearts drowned in butter and cheese, and some kind of peasant or duck. I don't know what it was, but I know it was delicious.)

(My favorite of the week, buerre blanc (which was essentially vinegar, white wine, and butter), over potatoes and sandre, a fish which is apparently only caught in this region's rivers, and only during this time of the year. The beurre blanc apparently took her a dozen times to get right. It seems this sauce was invented to go with this specific fish. I literally cleaned the plate so thoroughly you wouldn't have even know we'd eaten yet.) 

There's more (so much more) but I don't really have the bandwidth to keep going, if you want to see some more, Mimi posted some similar and parallel things on the writeaway blog here:

  http://www.writeaways.com/blogaways/ 

I'll try to go into it more later, but man, I'm depressing myself now because the week is over and I don't know if I'll ever get to eat Ann's cooking again. Bwaaaa!

(PS> For all those worried that I might have been having too much fun to get any work done: You were right to worry. However thanks to the experienced and insightful guidance of John and Mimi, we did get a lot done, and I have moved forward extraordinarily with my book. I hope I will be able to give you all a glimpse at a near complete draft soon.) 

My European Adventure! Pt 2

Day 2, after many trails I ran into my host for the weekend and arrived at the designation for leg 1 of my trip: chateau le pin, an old castle in the heart of France with roots to the twelfth century. After a long winding road we turned into a little courtyard and through an old carriage portal so narrow the car barely fit. And the I saw it: like something out of a folk story, it's tall gothic spires reminiscent of another age; and my home for the next week. 

(The entry)

( the lounge)

(The great room)

(The stairs)

(My room)

(My view pt1)

(My view pt2)

(Even my own gold plated throne)

Needless to say this will be a week to remember. 

My European adventure! Pt 1

Man has it been a  crazy few days. I've been awake now for somewhere beteen 18-24 hours but somehow the excitement of the trip keeps me going. Unexpected bonus: I got to see some norther lights while passing over Greenland. At least I think it was Norther Lights. It was really dark out my window so I couldn't see if there was a moon or not but it did seem like the light was only coming from them. Nothing developed on the camera though. I took a few pictures of other stuff though. 

(PDX pre-flight ritual)

Nothing fancy and nothing extraordinary to anyone but a noob like me. 
(Waiting for my second flight in Calgary. Man was it crowded.)

I asked the Starbucks in Kings Cross Station if they'd take a picture for the partners back home but they didn't want to. I can respect that but I'm a little disappointed. 

They did have a nice selection of mugs though. I'm too cheep to buy any... Maybe on my way back. The biggest thing I've gotten out of the trip so far is 1) How similar to home it is. 2) how much older everything is compared to back home. 

That's all for now. More to follow. 

Even the road to hell, is taken one step at a time . . .

Stories are a strange thing. Both as the writer and the reader, the pull to immerse myself in a good story has always been irresistible. Even from the earliest age I was pulled towards stories, writing them in pitiful form and soaking in every source I could. Later, stories became a refuge, safe from the rest of the world.
There is a tendency towards escapism in both writers and readers, because it is a way of helping ourselves work through things we aren't strong enough to face head on. This happens not only conscienceless, but subconsciously as well. We are pulled towards the stories that speak to us, sometimes not knowing what it is that calls. As a writer, this is even stronger; the amount of possibilities, tied to the flow and drive of the story can confuse a me even in the middle of a story and send me veering off the storyline.
The story begins in a rush, the images so vivid, and the characters so real you can smell the salt in their tears. But as it progresses I begin to lose my grip on them. Characters, like young children, pull away, getting more defiant as they get older and stronger. The desire to mother hen them into a particular storyline overwhelms the original inspiration. It overwhelms the truth that cried out to be heard, and my desire to write something that conforms to a preconceived theme derails the very story I was trying to bring to life.
In parenthood there is a impulse to guide your children. It is a natural impulse and not wrong, but as the children get older they need freedom. This too is natural, yet fraught with wrongness. The job of the parent is to walk the tightrope: guide their children but allow them opportunity to grow. A child who is given free reign from the moment they are born will grow up wild and spoiled, yet a child who is caged from their first steps will be stunted and dull. Children need to experience their own faults and their own destinies, their paths must be their own or they will lose the desire to keep moving, but without guidance from their parents, they will flounder rudderless looking for meaning. I'm speaking in generalities of course because there is exceptions to just about everything, but this analogy translates to writing almost perfectly.
Just as a parent may spend the first decade getting to know their child and he or her personality, a writer may spend years writing but not understanding their story. And the crux of both cases comes down to ourselves. Children are products of their parents, both genetically as well as habitually: We inherit the sins of our predecessors, and we endow them as well to our offspring. We may not recognize it,  in fact we may refuse to admit it, but truthfully we share as much of our bad habits with our children as we do the good.

Likewise in writing, we often drag more than just inspiration into the stories that we write.

That's what I ended up doing during this last project. I've always had a soft spot for extravagant fantasies. Floating cities, daring heroes overwhelming sinister enemies, mythological monsters, and exaggerated stories. I've always wanted to write a story like the St. George and the dragon. Dragons always having been the pinnacle of monsters in my mind; physically powerful, sly and crafty as they come, fundamentally greedy and jealous: In classic (western) mythology they play the part of the perfect villain. Yet as I began to write my story, I could already tell was deviating from my own ideal dragon story. Firstly, there was no damsel, no great trial, only a single hero with a goal which even early on only seems ambiguously moral. Even the first chapter was robbed of the common whitewashed heroism of classic romantic dragon hunting stories. Tsorn finds himself not fighting a worth foe, but a weak and unworthy one. He is forced by circumstances to a result which immediately afterwards he regrets. The end hints at themes of pride bringing him to this end, and his own stubbornness which drives him forward even though he knows he has passed a point of moral cleanliness.
The next chapter the he continues to move, haunted by his own pride and stubbornness. But in a filtered perception he, and by extension the audience, begins to brush aside the doubts they had earlier, and plan an assault against an enemy who seems to deserve Tsorn's hunting.
The third chapter then I danced between a current Tsorn and his scheming self, and again there's a torn nature. In the current, there is no room for half measures, there is no time to rethink a plan of action, so there is no moral deficit. But in reflection Tsorn clearly had time to plan, time to execute, time to retreat if he wanted, yet he continues to push forward. He again pushes into the moral grey area, using tactics which seem dubious in the extreme, yet justified by a unexplained end goal which the audience can only assume is righteous and worthwhile.
Then the final stage: Immediately the audience is hit with a grim scene. There is an impulse to doubt Tsorn's methods, even his motives. We rely on faith that its in line with his previous tactics, and an assumption that the ends may justify the means, but there is a nagging wrongness to the whole story. They way he manipulates the dragon, makes him seem more the villain than the story's protagonist. But as the final confrontation plays out, even Tsorn wakes up to his own sins. In the end Tsorn looks around at his own actions and asks, "what was the goal that could justify this cost." And at the same time, so did I.

The entire time I was writing these chapters, I continually asked myself 'how'. How does an inexperienced hunter fight an apex predator? How does he distract it? How does he trap it? How does he kill it? And in the few months I was working on the story (between other projects), only a few times I asked myself 'why'. "Why would a boy go to such lengths."
I wanted to make a character who the audience could root for. Not one that was perfect, so to speak, but certainly someone who was  good in a relative sense. But even as I wrote the previous chapters I did not mean to write a morally driven piece. I was not intending to include so many morally ambiguous actions on the part of the protagonist. I had planned a completely different ending to the story that I wrote. The way that Tsorn acted, the tactics he used seemed logical, and the morality of it never really dawned on me until I came to that very same scene that Tsorn did, I looked back and I realized Tsorn was not a hero. I looked at his actions and through them my own, and I saw something ugly, something twisted. He could not be called a good person, and through him, neither could I.

 I could not end the story with him walking away with a trophy of his hunt after so many hideous actions and still hold his head high. Certainly having a morally good character is not a requirement for my writing, but for this story, I wanted Tsorn to be a good guy. Yet after having written the former three pieces, I could not go back on the forth and re write it and more than I could the first three. Because Tsorn would have acted like that. At that point, I could only look back and regret what I had done, the same as Tsorn, because in a true sense that's exactly what would have happened to Tsorn. No one can rewrite their past either. There was truth there, even if ugly.

As a writer I could not truthfully un-write Tsorn's history. It would have been as dishonest as trying to lie about my own past. But at the same time, I could not in good conscience write a story so close to praising trophy hunting. Personally, I detest trophy hunting. Hunting in general is fine, as long as the hunters are aware and responsible for their actions. But killing an animal for a single piece, which serves no function other than to elevate one's statues is wrong and hideous. Animals are not playthings, they are living creatures who experience pain and loss the same as we do. As the pinnacle of our habitat it is out responsibility to act appropriately. Tsorn's goal, though not wholly for status and in the end turned out to be for a selfless cause, could not justify what he'd done.

Tsorn then faced a dilemma that everyone has faced at least once in their life. It is innately human to be flawed. From the moment we are born we amble forward instinctually. We learn to talk and we learn to walk without thinking, and in the same way we learn to sin without thinking as well. We hurt those around us as a matter of nature. It is not generally intentional that we wrong those around us, it is just that life is predisposed to chaos, and often we find ourselves the agents of woe. But at some point after the fact, we wake up and realize what we have done. And that is where our caliber shows. Do we choose to make things right, to do the hard thing and work to fix the sins to reign the chaos. Or do we turn a blind eye, ignore our own actions out of defensiveness or selfishness, and thus continue to walk in it. The thing is, it is never one decision, these points hit us everyday. They are small, usually imperceptible unless you're looking for it. Thus it is a step by step fall. Often it is not until we hit the bottom or near bottom that we wake up and see the devastation left in our wake. That is the point we witness Tsorn wake up to; his rock bottom. We saw his step by step, we saw his willful ignorance, and we saw him face the consequence of his actions, only because desperation gave him no other option than to stop and look. I could not go back and 'fix' Tsorn because I cannot go back and 'fix' myself, I can only keep walking forward, meeting each of those evil-impulsed moments as they come, doing my best to step rightly, praying I have the strength to do the right thing the next time, and the next, until my end.

That is the beauty of writing. The art of writing both informs us of the world, but also of ourselves. I didn't know I was writing about trophy hunting until I looked back at my own stories and saw the evidence there. But the story speaks about so much more than trophy hunting as well, it is a cautionary tale of walking blind. That is the truth that stories can show us. Waking us up to the cause associated to effects. There are so many things in our lives and in the world that we can willfully ignore, but doing something so nuanced as writing reveals those things to us. Anyone who tried to write better, can and must become aware of these issues playing inside of them. The more you write the more aware you become.
The act of imitating life requires close observation and insight. As you stare at these things, you cannot ignore the contradictions and flaws as easily as in normal day to day life. Just living sun-up to sun-down, its easy to turn off your mind and live on autopilot, but you do not grow that way. You don't get stronger, if anything you atrophy. Writing and in a lesser extent reading, helps me become more aware of my life. It helps me to be intentional about how I live.  
I know I'm biased but I urge everyone I meet to write. Not necessarily for an audience, but for themselves. Because the awareness you gain helps you to live intentionally, to awake to those moments in your life before you reach a destination of desperation.

If you were walking towards a cliff, wouldn't you want to know?

By the Dragon's Tail pt 4

The end of the valley was something out of a nightmare. Rotten hides, bones, fetid meat lay strewn about, hanging from branches and vines strung along the sides of the valley and staked to the ground. Supplemented by wet and moldy foliage, limp and musky leaves and branches.The smell was overwhelming, the sight gruesome and disorienting. But that was the plan, if it disturbed the Greck half as much as it did Tsorn, then that was in his favor. In the couple days he'd been tracking the Greck, some of the carrion had been picked at by the local wildlife, but the stench of poison over the whole bunch, kept the more intelligent creatures away.
Grecks were as picky eaters as Storm-bears, and their senses were much finer, meaning the smell would hide him, but rather it was the Greck's hearing that would give him away. The smell was meant to be disorienting and distracting; having the Greck follow him was part of the plan as well.
"Go, Leon," Tsorn said, looking the wyrm meaningfully in the eye, "My life is in your hands. Please listen to me for once." The watcher chirped and blinked reassuringly, then flew off in a spectacular flurry. No time left. It's all come down to him. Tsorn thought as he made his way to the traps' head.
The walls of the valley were steep where the trap began. There was no point otherwise. But just in case, Tsorn had gone through the trouble of placing stakes into it, pointing down, to discourage the Greck from trying. Those were the only options, try to go over, or try to go through. Going over would be impossible, and the cliff at the other end of the valley meant the Greck had to come his way. He bound up his shoulder, trying the useless arm around his waist so it wouldn't get in the way later. He'd been dumb, leaving himself open, while luring the Empress into the trap, but what was done was done. He'd known about her intelligence, and ability to smell out a trap. But he still let her get too close. He needed her to think he was true prey, but now he was going to have to do the difficult part with one hand. He smiled at that.
Tsorn's father always said he could take an adult Greck one handed, now Tsorn would take an Emperor one handed. Or die trying.
"Nothing ventured," Tsorn laughed to himself.
The Empress showed herself a few minutes later. She was crouching low at the end of the valley, her hide blending into the mossy mud of the valley floor. She didn't seem to mind the stream flowing around her either. Tsorn only saw her because he was looking for her and the possible area for her to approach was extremely small. She'd enhanced her normal camouflage by rolling in the mud as well, taking on a similar hue to the natural geography. But in the end, it was impossible for her to sneak up on Tsorn. As she saw him see her, she stood up and shook the earth from her long slim body, the crown glowing fiercely with her defiance.
"Just you and me beautiful." He called out. "One last dance, before the music ends."
The Empress roared challengingly. It was majestic and heartbreakingly beautiful.
"Come on!" He yelled grabbing a rough made spear and threw it at her.
She dodged easily, and then almost as an after thought batted it out of the air. The speed and precision of her movements, even injured, were inspiring. She began to move towards him, and Tsorn backed into the web of rotting cover. He moved so she could no longer see him, retreating into the maze, giving up ground liberally. The trap extended back maybe a few hundred feet, so every allowance was expensive, but if he played too conservatively, it could cost him in blood and life. A reminder the bloody arm was consistent in delivering. If tendons or nerves had been severed, his life as a hunter might be over, but it was too late to worry about that now. The hunt had to be finished; even if getting away alive was possible at his stage, which was doubtful, Tsorn's pride would never have allowed it.

The Greck snarled as it encountered the wall of decomposed matter, well seasoned with poisonous plants; from mild irritants to lethal bitters: Tsorn had pulled out all the stops. With an Emperor Greck he couldn't hold back. Nothing there could kill it, the crown offered ridiculous resistances and regeneration, but any advantage Tsorn would seize, even just giving the monster a rash. It slashed down the first wall, baring fangs against the difficulty of the task. Tsorn had reinforce every few partitions, just to frustrate the beast. If it got so aggravated and used more energy than necessary at just the first layer, it might make the final task easier. As it pushed into the trap, Tsorn threw another spear. This one the Greck didn't see, since it was preoccupied with the slush it was walking through. The spear was a simple branch, sharpened ruggedly and poisoned. It struck the Greck near the backside, where the Greck was already limping. It failed to pierce the drake's hide, but the Empress snarled, and Tsorn knew he'd hit a sensitive point. Good to know, he thought as he disappeared behind the cover of his maze.
The Greck moved forward again, and Tsorn moved to the next position, cutting a line leading to the top of the valley, where a bundle of sharpened sticks and stones fell to the valley floor. They pelted around the Greck, and while maybe three or four of the few dozen actually hit it, but it served to further infuriate and confuse the Empress.
The tactic was to continually bombard her with new and unexpected traps. If she didn't know where the next trap was going to come from she'd get nervous and strain herself. But at the same time Tsorn needed to keep her attention and aggression to make sure she didn't retreat up the valley to recuperated. She was tired and hungry before, now injured and insulted, the more strained she was like that, the better chances Tsorn's last play would work out. A pit fall was next, and she snarled as the fell into it, one of the spikes even puncturing her foot. Just as Tsorn was about to thrown another spear, she did something completely unexpected.
Tsorn dove to the ground, landing badly on his hurt shoulder, as one of the spears from his barricade careened where he had just been standing. It was thrown poorly, the shaft drifting during flight, but thrown from an animal, for the first time, it was as incredible as anything as Tsorn had ever seen. The Empress barked triumphantly and Tsorn had to rush to his next trap to make sure the Greck didn't get carried away with her victory.
But still, the idea of a wild beast throwing a spear like a person; terrified and excited Tsorn. The Greck tore through two more barricades before Tsorn managed to set the traps up in proper order. He catapulted a number of spikes into the air, and released a sling with a burning sap at the Greck before it slowed again. It put out the burning sap by rolling in the stream, though that was almost as an after thought, unperturbed by the heat since she had a drake's normal resistance. They were reaching the end of the maze when Tsorn heard the long screech from down the valley. Abandoning his spot he rushed down the valley, taking up his next position. Timing was everything; the traps were all just so he could get the players in position for the final act.
When the last barrier fell, Tsorn was standing a dozen paces away, in full view of the Greck, and looking as tired and worn as the Empress. "Well we've come to it at last, haven't we." The Greck sniffed the air expectantly, the clean, open glade so different from the valley-trap; it must have just seen another trap, more enticing than the last one.
"Just one last surprise," Tsorn said. "Think you can take it?"
Tsorn's last few words were muted by the tremendous roar from behind him.
Leon glided down over the the foliage, as the crashing of a large beast tearing through the forest echoed up the valley towards them. The Greck shuttered, and tensed, looking back towards the trap it had just come through, but also watching the shaking forest with trepidation.
That was the play, the Greck would never fight anything bigger than itself if it didn't need to, but Tsorn had no chance of beating it by himself, so he figured he'd borrow some muscle. All he had to do was arrange an unavoidable fight, and clean up the mess afterward.
Tsorn rushed to a spot he'd picked earlier, hidden in the valley's side. He just reached it as the impossibly large Storm-bear rumbled into the clearing. It was well past twice the average size of a Storm-bear. Since Tsorn was hidden from view, the first thing the Bear saw was the Greck. There was a moment while both of the monsters processed the event. Then the Storm-bear stood, its furry hide, shimmering with electrical light. And it roared challengingly, easily the loudest Tsorn had ever heard. A tremendous roar. Shaking the foundations of the earth, roar.
For the last few days, while he was building his trap, Tsorn had been antagonizing the bear. Never directly, he'd toss spoiled game into the Bear's den or have Leon screech into the entrance in the middle of the night. Or Marring territory, around the den in a fashion like the Greck, as if something was encroaching on its grounds. The Empress' scent was already around, since the Greck had been trying to find Tsorn days earlier. So having come to a place that was filled with carrion, facing a Greck that screeched similarly to Leon, with the familar scent: The Storm-bear came to one quick and ultimate decision, the Empress was responsible to all the Storm-bear's woes. It was poetic, since all of the things Tsorn had imitated were directly inspired by the Empress. Leon, in one final evidence of guilt, swooped down behind the Empress and screeched defiantly.
The Storm-bear couldn't have possibly known Leon was a different species, or that it was trained to deceive him, or tell that the Empress had as little understanding about what was happening as he did. He just saw two little reptiles, both needlessly antagonizing him. He saw enemies. And he charged.

The Empress froze in fear. It was as surprising as it was unpredictable. Emperor Drakes were known as fearless, peerless rulers of their domain. No matter size or ferocity they never doubted their own strength. But then again, all Emperors Tsorn had ever heard of were males; they were almost always huge, with total superiority in power. The Empress was little more than a third the size of the Storm-bear, and couldn't spit like a male Greck. And for a moment, Tsorn doubted his plan. But just as the bear charged and was about to close in on her, the Empress exploded. It was faster than anything Tsorn had seen her do before. She started to move to the side but after a few feet she dug her claws into the earth, stopped dead and rolled the opposite direction. The Bear was unready for the maneuver and stumbled. Rolling, slashing and biting empty air, while the Empress fluidly jumped clear attacking back. Staying behind him, the Empress, bound off the valley wall, clawing the back of the storm-bear's legs and back. His hide was tough, but she was an Empress. He snapped in retaliation, but she was never where he thought she was. He was the storm, sparks flying from his black coat, as foam from his mouth, but she was the lightning. Blindingly fast, even more unbelievable by her size. She was all claws and air. But the angrier the bear got, the stronger his storm got. Even she couldn't resist his electricity after a while, her feet scorched black after just a few minutes. So they were at a standstill, he couldn't touch her, and she couldn't get a killing blow. But still they circled; too drawn into the fight to breakaway. And then she made her move.
The Storm-bear never saw it coming. The stake, nearly six feet long, only looked like a twig sticking out his back, but even the fact that it broke through his hide was incredible. The Bear roared in furry. But the Greck moved gingerly, keeping well out of the monster's reach. Then again, the Grech threw a spear. This time Tsorn watched closely, fascinated. The spear glanced off the bear's shoulder this time, but Tsorn could tell it was as surprised as Tsorn was that the Greck was throwing things.
It was awkward the way it picked a spear up off the ground. Grecks had no thumb on their paws, so it grabbed the stake by wrapping its claws around it. With a jerk, it threw another spear; there was no fluidity to the motion, but the focus and aim of the Empress made it possible. Any other animal wouldn't have been about to do any damage by tossing it that way, much less accurately enough to hit its target, but the Empress was no longer an ordinary beast. The Storm-bear roared fruitlessly as the spear drove into its shoulder, the tip snapped off in the wound while the rest of the pole flew off across the clearing. The Bear then tried to toss a branch at the Empress. It went less than a dozen feet. It was hilarious to watch though.
The Greck did something like a laugh, but sounded like a bark. It picked up another spear and hefted it almost threateningly. What am I watching? Tsorn wondered to himself. The Storm-bear stomped, and shook its coat, the hairs spiking with charge. The Greck threw its projectile, which the bear swatted from the air, splintering the wood into a dozen pieces, before charging. The drake, obviously pleased with herself over the spear-throwing was unprepared for the Bear's attack. She began to dodge, but at the edge of Tsorn's stake pit, slipped, her back feet losing their grip, it was the same leg that had limped after the fall, which Tsorn had hit with his spear. Her speed worked against her, and the rest of her feet, slipped from the loss of coordination. She got quickly mired in the mess of vines and branches left from Tsorn's maze. The impediment lasted less than a few seconds.
One chance was all the Storm-bear needed.  Closing the distance, in a few strides, his claws crushed the Greck to the ground and sunk between her scales. His maw seized her at her right shoulder; he'd been aiming for her crown, but reflexively she dodged. Rolling onto her side she furiously counterattacked, her speed doing considerable damage in just a few seconds, her claws raking him up and down his back legs and lowed belly. Snaps of electricity attacking her every place their bodies connected, though soon the Bear's charge was depleted. He still had size on his side, and by pulling out one of his claws he immobilized her backside with one tremendous blow sinking his claws in again. If things continued like this, Tsorn saw his prize being lost. Whistling, he ran forward tossing a bomb he'd made for just this case. It was a little of the burning sap left over from earlier, in case the bear was more than the Empress could handle. Pulling the snap fuse, Tsorn tossed it against the Bear's back, just as it exploded, covering the bear in flaming goo. Without the drake's resistance to fire, the trick worked much better. The Bear roared again in confusion and terror as it realized it was on fire. At the same time Leon swooped down and clawed at the Bear's face. The Bear snapped his head back and forth and Leon careened off limply.
"Leon!" Tsorn screamed. The Bear seemed to see Tsorn for the first time and turned, more than three times the boy's height, and a hundred times his weight, it was like being seen by an angry mountain. There was such fury in the bear's eyes, and Tsorn could feel the air charged with electricity, even a twenty strides away.
Then the Empress was there, on the Bear's back, biting down on his neck. Blood gushed, splashing down on Tsorn like molten lead. He opened his mouth to scream but found it filled with thick, burning iron. The monsters were falling towards him, and he scrambled to get away, slipping in the thick mud and fire. Something heavy hit him from behind and threw himself forward so as to not be crushed by. It threw him a dozen feet, through mud and water and blood.
Rolling up for his life, hands up defensively, Tsorn looked just in time to see the Greck brutally finish the bear off, the crown glowing bright as the sun. No longer greenish-brown, the Empress glistening ruby, her drake's hide covered in blood, reflecting in the light of her crown and the shine of the midday sun.
Standing on top of the Storm-bear, Tsorn was certain there was no greater power than an Emperor drake. There was no contest of who held the strongest title. Tsorn knelt there waiting for the Empress to descend the Bear and kill him. He was too weak to put up a fight, not against something that powerful. But as the Empress turned towards Tsorn, her leg slipped and she fell from the bear's back, landing in the clearing with hard crash.
Too tired to even roll over, her breathing was slow and labored.
Tsorn could barely believe it. Trembling he moved towards her. He couldn't feel his left side anymore. His whole back throbbed, his ankle creaked, and he barely had enough strength in his hand to keep his balance. His whole heart jumped as the drake flopped into its belly, its eyes turning slowly towards Tsorn. For all their weariness, a strong will remained, defiance was still there; as though it could kill Tsorn with its mind alone. But even a few feet away, it couldn't raise a claw to swing at him. By the way its haunches still lay twisted the way it fell, its back was broken, probably by that blow the bear had given him. Tsorn looked over at the bear. Its head alone was almost as tall as Tsorn, its fangs as long as his arm, lay closed for good, still pressed into the clay where the drake had forced it. Tsorn would never have set up this fight if he'd know how big the bear was. There should have been signs but Tsorn had been to focused on the Empress, on his prize to think things through properly. He didn't have time to think it through. He came too close to losing his prize.
The Drake rumbled as Tsorn reached out and touched its crown. Given enough time, the drake would fully heal, given an intact crown. Something about the miraculous composition of the fluid inside, granted powerful abilities, like regeneration back from near death. It was these properties that drove Tsorn so far. As he examined the crown his heart broke. Along the backside, the crown had cracked, and was leaking its precious fluid over the Drake's back. He put his hand out to stop the flow, but could only stand the burning heat of it for a few seconds. He tried to stem the flow with his shirt and then collect a pool in his leather jerkin, but everything it touched melted, sluicing away, along with Tsorn's hopes. Frustrated he pounded the drake's side. The Empress rumbled angrily.
Falling desperately to sit against the monster, only vaguely away of the teeth just a few feet away that would have torn him to shreds if they could.
The Emperor's Mantle, as the liquid was called, had powerful healing abilities. Able to bring men back from the brink of certain death. Able to cure any disease. Rulers the world over payed kingdoms to bath in the stuff, said to grant decades even centuries to one's life and endow them with powers mortals could only dream of. And here it was draining into the dust. Tsorn laughed as the stuff flowed over his shoulders. Laughed as he cried.
The Empress would be dead within the day. No drake survived a cracked crown. Tsorn stood sudden and aggressively and began pounding at the crown's base. It was thick and hard like a goat's horn, too thick for Tsorn's to break. It was trumendously strong, it probably cracked when the Storm-bear tried to bite down on the drake's neck, but even that amount of power had only cracked it. He pulled out the long steel wire he'd brought for this purpose and began to wind it around the crown. The Crown rose out of the drake's head like horn, but ballooned out into a majestic crescent shape, but even at its base it was as large around as Tsorn's torso. At full strength and without it leaking, the cutting would have taken four hours, but at the rate the Mantel was leaking, he didn't have a quarter of that time.

He stopped, hands trembling, looking at the terrible scene. The blood of the two beasts literally covered everything in the once idyllic meadow. What beauty there had been had been trampled in their fight. The stream that ran through the valley was now clogged, red, and muddy. The carcasses, the rot, the traps he'd all set up; desolation he'd caused for his goal. Tsorn looked at himself, also covered in blood. He though about how far he'd gone the last few months. He looked over at where Leon lay, still motionless where he'd landed after getting caught by the bear.
Was it worth it? All this to save one man? Tsorn's father always insisted a man shouldn't fear death, nor complain when it came; the life of a hunter was knowing one's place in the cycle. Tsorn had gone so far outside that cycle he could barely see the path anymore. All to divert fate for one man who was already at peace with his own demise. Tsorn hobbled over to Leon.
The little wyrm was alive, but only barely. The Bear had bitten down on Leon's left side, almost severing the wing at the shoulder, and crushing his side. Gently Tsorn picked up his companion and carried it over to the Empress, laying him in the little pool of Mantel that had gathered at the base of the drake's skull. In the liquid, Tsorn pulled the wing together and using the remaining hem of his shirt began to bind the wound together. The effect was immediate, the wound sealing up as Tsorn watched. He continued to bath the wyrm in the liquid, slowly reviving his companion. As Leon came alive again, Tsorn could feel tears of joy burning in his eyes.
"Thank you, I'm so sorry, thank you so much," He said hugging the Empress' crown. He pressed his hands into the crack, ignoring the pain of the heat. The Mantle leaking out was felt boiling, but Tsorn gritted his teeth, and bore it. It took him a second to realize he was using both hands equally, not having noticed when the pain in his arm went away. But with both hands he was able to hold the crack closed for a moment, stemming the draining, and prolonging the drake's life. He thought as hard as he'd ever thought in his life. But every way he thought about it, he couldn't think of a way to seal up the crack. By this time, nearly everything he had been wearing had melted away, so he didn't have so much as a bootstrap to stuff in the hole. Even the binding around Leon had liquified, though now there was enough flesh to hold itself together.
Tsorn knew he didn't deserve it, but he wished for a miracle, wished there were some way he could fix what he'd done. And a few seconds later he had one. The crack had closed. Not totally, maybe only a few centimeters, but Tsorn was certain it was smaller than it had been. There was hope, even if just a seed. As long as Tsorn held the burning fluid in with his hands, he could save the monster's life.
It was more painful than anything Tsorn had ever felt. It cooked the flesh in his fingers to the bone. But if, just if, he could fix just one thing... Trying harder to stem the crack, he pressed his hands into the burning flow, the sticky substance flowing down his forearms and chest.
The way he pressed up against the Drake's body to get at the crack on the backside of the crown meant he made a perfect conduit for the liquid's flow, wrapping around his body as it slid down to the mud. It felt as though he was dying, being cooked, basted alive, though in a poetic way, he kind of deserved it. He didn't care about the pain, it was so intense it almost felt unreal. He just hoped that maybe there would be enough Mantle to save the Empress' life.
Her breathing was slower now. Besides the Crown's crack, she was also bleeding profusely from the claw and bite marks around her body. But all that was secondary to her Mantel.
Slowly, ever so slowly the crack did close. It was almost night by that time, and Tsorn was so exhausted he could barely stand. Gingerly he pulled his hands away, making sure it really wasn't leaking anymore. With more relief than ever before in his life, he stepped back. He was so tired he literally lay down right there and fell asleep, the mess of the battle still covering him.
He woke the next morning, the smell more terrible than anything. He wanted to go back to sleep but there was too much to put right.
He walking the forest gathering healing herbs for a salve, along with clean clay from upstream. He brought them back to the clearing where he began to put these in the Drake's wounds. The bleeding had stopped mostly already but it felt necessary. If enough Mantle remained to keep her alive, the wounds would be fine, but he couldn't stop himself. When there was nothing left for him to do, he picked up Leon, who had almost fully recovered though deathly tired, and started home.

By the Dragon's Tail pt 3

Tsorn ran for the clearing ahead, holding his torn, bloody arm to keep it from swinging lifelessly. Leon's screech told him the beast was right behind him. He didn't dare look. Looking could slow him down. Slowing down would get him killed. He spotted the red cord he'd tied around an upcoming limb and turned sharply. A bluff was just ahead, its sudden edge hidden by the thick foliage. To the Right, the hill rose sharply, creating a wall on one side, which lead right up to the edge of the drop. But between the rise and the valley, there was a small lip. Large enough to run on, but narrow enough that you had to be very careful where you stepped or else you'd be rolling down a hill too steep to stop yourself until the bottom, some fifty paces below. And the embankment was so steep down there, not even a drake could climb back up. Further up the valley, the embankment got steeper, turning it into a full cliff. All of this was necessary to his plan. And why he chose it over the other thousand valleys in the territory. If only he stayed ahead of the wild hunger chasing behind him.
A low growl warned him, teeth and claws were on their way, just as he reached the embankment, he dove for the lip.
In the sudden turn, he almost lost his footing, but desperation and years of training helped him fight the impulse to tuck and roll; instead grabbing a tree branch he swung himself back on to the game trail along the lip. The sound of tearing earth and clawed wood told him the Greck hadn't expected the maneuver and was wrestling gravity as it found itself tumbling down the slope of the hill that he'd just avoided. He was hoping the Greck would have fallen right in, but from what he'd seen, she was more agile than that, so he moved for plan B. The maneuver did give him a few extra seconds. Each one counted now. A pain in his ankle told him he'd taken the turn too sharply, but there was no time to worry about that. He shot down a vial of Tiem, a powerful painkiller, his face souring at the bitterness. It would make thinking harder, but if he was busy fighting down the pain in his own body, the Greck would tear him to pieces before he had a chance to think. The adrenaline would have to help him fight to think for the moment. As the waves of lightness hit his head, the pain in his ankle lessened and he quickened his pace.
A scream of desperation sounded from behind him, telling the Greck was already back on his path, though struggling with the narrowness of the trail. And none too soon either. If he got too far ahead, the whole plan would have been shot. It was less than a dozen feet to the objective. The Greck was smart; if it suspected he was leading it into a trap, it might cut the chase off and retreat back to it den.
That would mean days of misspent planning and labor. He started to hobble again on his bad foot, giving the Greck time to catch up. The little theater lulling the Greck in. He could hear it behind him. Hundred paces. Fifty. Twenty. Ten. The beast roared victoriously.
Tsorn jumped the last ten feet, the Tiem giving him supernatural strength. The snarl from the Greck, was full of resentment and surprise. It knew it had been tricked. But it was too late. The lip the Greck had landed on was already sliding away under the force of its landing. The Greck tried to backtrack but every step sent buckets of earth raining into the valley, further enmiring its legs in the thick, heavy clay of the hillside. On the reinforced pathway that he'd jumped to, Tsorn grabbed the vine-rope, leading to the framework of branches he'd hammered into the trailside. Pulling it out, it displaced the delicate support of the earth, stealing the last bit of support for where the Greck was standing. In a slow, almost comical slide of earth and scales and claws, the Greck slid away from the face of the cliff down into the valley.
The Greck crooned as its last footholds crumbled away, tearing clawfuls of earth down with it as it tried desperately to climb to the reinforced lip where Tsorn stood. But even as it gained ground, Tsorn condemned it, picking up the pole he'd left there and pushing the Greck down into his trap. He felt grim satisfaction after the weeks of being hunted, watch the Greck balefully side into the valley.
The valley wasn't deep enough to kill the drake, but it was deep enough to injure it. Not to mention all the earth that would subsequently bury it, even momentarily. From where he stood, Tsorn could see the Greck, land, heavily, splashing into the shallow creek flowing through it. Soil and clay still tumbling down on top of it, though the majority of the landslide was finished. The Greck was stuck, muddy and partially buried, but alive. It would dig itself out in a matter of minutes, aided by the flow of water. An hour at the latest. But it would be tired, and hungry and wounded. In strange territory and routed into a narrow valley with only one exit. If he was lucky, the Greck would start up the the wrong way and find the cliff face at one end of the valley before needing to back track to the entrance where Tsorn would be waiting. If not, it just meant he had that less time to waste. Everything else was ready for the final part of the plan. He just needed to get into place.

A month's worth of planning, and it would be over in a few hours. The first week, Tsorn had barely slept more than a few hours a night. He spent the daytime exploring his quarry's territory; game trails, watering holes, nesting pads, valleys and ravines, the lay of the land. Once he had a pretty good grasp of the area, he soured the water sources. Nothing lastingly harmful; a Tart pill dissolved slowly at the head of the streams and creeks, making the water bitter to drink and prompting mild nausea. It would drive the normal game out of the valley, depriving the Greck of a food source. Then he started leaving bait out in the open, lulling the Greck out. He banked on the Greck taking obvious bait rather than trekking miles to find fresh herds.
As the Greck got more and more accustomed to eating his snacks, Tsorn got the opportunity to study his prey. To his surprise, the Greck was female. Generally smaller than males, females were also usually less aggressive. Though the rabid territorial-ism made more sense, since nesting females were more protective of the nests. But by the size of her crown and the strips on her back, she was well past egg-bearing age. There must have been an exceptional event to drive her to expand her territory so aggressively, when she had no nest. It was indescribably deviant from the norm. But then again, Emperor Drakes were always exceptions.
For a female she was exceptionally large, but compared to even average adult Grecks she was still small. Drakes often began growing again once their crowns reached a certain maturity, but The Empress, as Tsorn began to think of her, was still quite small despite her advanced age. After a few days, he realized why. While most drakes got larger and stronger, they used their spitting abilities to compensate for their lack of mobility. They could shoot farther and faster, with greater accuracy, so they used it to hunt rather than chasing and wrestling their prey to the ground. Because of the lack of exercise, most ancient drakes were slow and lazy as lizards. But the Empress was anything but slow. If anything, she was faster than even adolescent Grecks. Faster than any drake he'd ever seen.
Female drakes occasionally mutated without the ability to spit. Their ferocity was often a defensive posture more than anything else. They were excellent hunters, but the lack of the offensive maneuver. It was one reason many hunters believed females never reached Emperor status. Certainly this was the first time Tsorn had ever heard of one. But now it made sense why she was so cautious. And why she so aggressively marked her territory. It was to avoid a showdown between full grown Grecks with the spitting ability. But if her speed was any indication, she'd still have the upper hand in a showdown. After that, Tsorn had to adjust his plan. He had thought he was facing a near century old male Emperor Greck. Something slow but enormously strong. But so poorly disappointed, he needed to rethink his strategy, since most of the gear he'd brought with him was worthless now.
He started with letting a few wild hogs back into the valley, to watch her hunt, and get a better understanding of how she fought. Out of the three he release, he only saw one taken, and that one only just barely. Which meant she was even faster and smarter than she seemed at first. She used cover and stealth rather than brute strength. Closing the distance with speed before prey could sense her.
But she knew he was watching. As closely as he watched, he couldn't get a good mark on her. The only thing he could think of why she hadn't slain him his first hour in her territory was that she had been hunted before, and knew how dangerous a professional hunter was. If she'd suspected he was an amateur, he wouldn't have survived the first night. From then he knew it was only a matter of time before she made her move on him.
His hand was forced though when he woke up to her creeping up on his campsite in the middle of the night. Leo's screech was the only warning he had, before he dove for cover, her black form blinking against the night, straight through his camp sight, clawing the earth he'd been laying in a heartbeat before. She was gone again, before he could gage where she was. He never even saw her, but he was certain that night was the closest he'd ever come to dying in all his years of hunting. He used every trick in his book to spook her off, flares, bombs, smoke, and whistles; but in the end he was forced to ditch all his belonging and jump a ravine into a river, in the pitch dark, to avoid being killed and eaten. Even as he swam blindly, he could feel her eyes on him from the dark. The next couple days he spent just trying to stay ahead of her, Leon his eyes and ears, as he ran blindly across an unexplored side of her territory. He found refuge in an old Storm-Bear pit. The bones in the entrance were fresh, but he covered himself in old skins disguising himself as leftovers, knowing Storm-Bears refuse to eat carrion. The Empress stalked the den for a few nights but refused to meet the Bear in open confrontation, and left him after a few days. And it was in those few days that he'd come up with his plan.

By the Dragon's Tail pt 2

It was a cold morning, and the forest canopy was thick enough that very little sun could piece it's foliage. Tsorn woke easily, instantly aware of every kink and sore in his body. He yawned, pulling the blanket wrapped around him snug, bidding warmth goodbye as the haze of rest fled. A freezing drop of water fell down his back then and repressed a growl. Untying the strap that held him in the tree, he steadied himself so he didn't loose his balance and fall twenty feet to the ground, in trying to stand. Shrugging off his blanket, he lifted his pack from where it had hung beneath him, off the branch he'd slept on. Riffling through it, he pulled out his morning rations and chewed it slowly. As he ate, he whistled absently to find out where Leon had gone. A quiet cooing came from above, but it took a few more exchanges to spot Leon. The Spying Spiegal's ability to blend into its surroundings was surprisingly useful, and even Tsorn lost track of him every once and a while, needing their game of echo to pinpoint him. Sometimes when Leon was being more playful he'd move spots during their conversation just to confuse Tsorn. Thankfully Leon wasn't as playful this morning.
Tsorn clicked twice, dismissing the Watcher to go find his breakfast, as he himself followed his own morning routines. Carefully lowing his gear to the ground, then following himself, took some time. The tree was a tall oat, meaning its lower limbs were few and far in between. What few there had been, Tsorn had hacked off on his ascent the night before. He slept in trees because out in the Wildens the ground after nightfall was especially dangerous. He trimmed the limbs similarly, because there were even some climbing beasts out here, and he wasn't going to leave them any advantage if he could help it. Once safely back on the ground, Tsorn saw to his equipment.
Starting with his weapons, he sharpened, polished and oiled each one. With his life in their effectiveness, they were his first priority. Then he took stock, down the the gram, of everything on his person. Food, medicine, gear, supplies. Every morning, so he always knew exactly what he had, how much, and where they were. Again, if his life ever came down to knowing if he had a twelve foot rope or a twenty foot, he wasn't going to be the fool. That was how his father taught him; and there was no better Slayer in the Nine Valleys than Gregger Valten. Even Earl Tilbour said so. But the world was a big place and Tsorn always had the feeling he was living in small shadows, never really glimpsing anything real.
"Leon." Come about. Tsorn whistled. If I'm going to surpass him, it won't be waiting here, He thought, trudging into the misty forest.

Two hours later, Tsorn held up as Leon screeched sharply, winging down to his shoulder. But he didn't need the Watcher's warning. He could clearly see the marking the beast had laid at its territory. As if the putrid mucus spewed over everything wasn't enough, several nearby trees had been scarred deeply, with smaller trees uprooted; it gave the clearing a general atmosphere of desolation. But the trail he was following lead right through it into a narrow gully. The ridges walls were sharp, leading as far in either direction as Tsorn could tell, and if he left the path to try around there was no guarantee he'd be able to find it again on the other side. The gully itself was foreboding, dark and narrow, hard to move it with a trickle of water running through it so the earth would be well soaked and hard to move through. The lips of the crest, well covered with foliage. A crowned Elephant-Wyrm could have been hiding up there and Tsorn wouldn't have known the difference.
"Well buddy?" He asked, looking over at Leon. The little wyrm keened uncertainly.
"A great help you've been." He said, rubbing the Spiegal's head reassuringly none the less. "Well, you've got to fall before you can fly," he said, pushing into the little valley. Holding Torg, his trusted spear, up before him he walk sideways, keeping his profile parallel to the valley ready to charge or retreat at a moment's notice. He ignored Leon's fluttering wings, shuffling against his head and shoulder.
"Gonna abandon me at the first sign of trouble? Yeah, I don't blame you."
Leon trilled as if offended, but continued to shake like day old kitten. The hollow was only a hundred paces long, but crossing it felt like an eternity. Despite the cold, sweat dripped from Tsorn like it was mid summer. Every rustle in the eves brought his hackles to bare, and he felt certain something was watching them hungrily. But they reached the other side of the gully eventually, without any incident.
And as soon as they did, Tsorn knew they were in trouble. His quarry was vicious. Killing Barking Grecks as a territory dispute was evidence of that. But what it just showed was far worse than ferocity. What it displayed in letting them enter its territory was cold, and calculating intelligence. Worse than that, it was patience. And patience and intelligence in such a beast, was the worst like of hunt. He doubted it would let him leave as easily as he had entered. It could tell he was taunt, and it was letting him stew in his own fear. Letting him exhaust himself. Shifting his sweat soaked grip on Torg, he scanned the open forest, knowing he wasn't going to spot it. "Leon, I don't know what we've gotten ourself into." He said with a grown smile. "But this is going to be fun."

By the Dragon's Tail pt 1

Tsorn slid down into the drake nest headfirst, knife extended out front, ready for anything. It was a tight squeeze, but widened as the tunnel gave way to the main pit of the den, the snug area where the drakes slept. It was cold inside, and damp; the wetness of the earth permeating into the nest's heart even though it was several feet beneath the ground. A few other tunnels ran off from the common; escape holes, cellar pits, and other necessities, but there Tsorn confirmed what he had guessed before even finding the nest.
The few cold eggs, some broken, all abandoned, partially buried in the corner told a sad story. In addition, there was a general raggedness, and an unnatural scoring on the walls. Aged about two weeks, by the weathering. The eggs looked ready to hatch about that time too. What could evict a Grek from its own nest, especially during breeding season? Tsorn asked himself. Rolling around on his belly, he turned back to the tunnel he had just come from, squirming back up towards the surface.
His head was barely out before a darting shadow swooped down on his face, with a screech. Instinctively, Tsorn threw up  his arm, catching the leathery bundle of scales and claws before it could smother him to death. "Leon, down!" He laughed, pushing the affectionate watcher away from his face. The form jumped down and around, bounding off every stone and tree in the clearing energetically.
Leon was a Spying Spiegal; one of the smallest breeds of wyrm. They were little bigger than a barnyard cat, and just as mischievous, but worse because they came with a pair of wings. He put up with it because Spiegals had the best vision of any wyrm class watcher. Even if the little beast spent half his time licking his own balls instead of watching out for predators.
"Bad, Leon! I said, 'Spy!' Now go." He chided, suppressing his amusement and taking on a commanding tone.
The Spiegal's head drooped before springing off into the trees and catapulting itself into the sky.
"What good is a Watcher who refuses to actually watch?" Tsorn grumbled to himself, making a mental note to chew out his sister Aiegal out for spoiling Leon. He was barely finished with the thought before his hackles reared. Leon cried alarm a moment too late, Tsorns diving to the side, a thick glob of viscus matter shot through where he had just been standing, saved by his hunter's instincts.
Tsorn came up with his knife postured defensively, as he assessed the threat. A deep trilling, rumbled from the bushes as a male Grek crashed through, jaws wide and claws out. Waiting until the last possible second before the Grek lunged up at him: Tsorn pulled a short tab out of the metal box fixed to his belt, and dove forward.
The bracelet screeched, emitting a sharp metallic sound, as the rings and crystals in the mechanism resonated. The Grek stumbled, his head rearing at the noise, allowing Tsorn to dive under its outstretched claws safely. None too soon, as the drake tripped and tumbled foward, a mass of teeth and claws where Tsorn had just been crouching.
Most drakes and wyrms used highly sensitive hearing in addition to their eyesight, to hunt and fly in near complete darkness. The bracelet used some resonance to interrupt that. Tsorn wasn't sure how it worked, just that it did. But drakes were infamous for their adaptability. It wouldn't work a second time, as the Grek already had begun to vocalize a similar shriek, neutralizing the ringing. Tsorn had to make the opportunity count. While the Grek was righting itself, he rushed over to where he'd lain his gear before crawling into the nest. Ignoring the pack, he grabbed Torg, his thick, six foot drake-hunting spear and turned to face the beast.
Male Suro-Wilden Barking Greckers were smaller than their partners. But this one was smaller even than average, barely bigger than a dog. Its hide was still tender and oily. But most importantly it's forehead lacked the presence of a crown; the crystalline third eye which most draconic beast began to grow after reaching adulthood. On a guess, it was one of the brood from the nest, its egg just old enough to hatch when  the nest was abandoned. Which would have put it at barely two weeks old.
The rate at which draconic breeds grew still fascinated Tsorn. Even so young it could and would kill and eat a full grown cow. Normal adolescents often single handedly fought off full grown bears and packs of wolves as they learned to hunt. If they had a brood to learn from.
The Grek spat again; this time Tsorn didn't dodge fast enough. The projectile exploded, even as it barely caught the edge of his jacket. Luckily its momentum carried most of it past him, leaving only a scalding remnant burning into his shoulder.
He knew better than to try to brush it off, instead he rolling into the dirt, grabbing a handful of mud and pressed it into the mucus. Scrapping away the excess or at least trying to cool it down quicker. Aside from that, treatment would have to wait, because the Grek wasn't. The beast was already charging. Momentarily exposed while neutralizing the goo on his arm, all Tsorn could do was whistled shrilly.
Leon thundered down into the Grek's face screeching and clawing, to the drake's surprise.
As it recoiled in shock, Tsorn brought Torg around and thrust. He caught the drake in the ribs, too low to hit the heart, but enough to piece its liver and probably stomach. It was as good as dead, but still too enraged to know it yet. The Grek twisted and tried to charge, but Tsorn dropped, putting the butt of the spear into the ground, so any charge would only push the weapon deeper. As the weapon caught on bone the Grek lurched suddenly to a stop swinging on the lever of the brace, to the side, where it collapsed, scrabbling helplessly.
There, they all held; the tension of the few seconds tumbling into a sudden exhaustion for everyone. Leon hopped and glided to Tsorn's side chirping with worry. Tsorn petted him reassuringly, pulling off his coat gingerly. The mucus wasn't poisonous, just scaldingly hot. It burned him where the jacket had laid against the skin, it was already inflamed. It wasn't a dangerous wound, there would be time to tend it later, and there were more important things to deal with at the moment.
Carefully he circled the prone drake, whose hind legs still clawed uselessly at the ground. It was trying to stand despite the spear. Every time it tried to get its legs under it, it turned against the pole, which by its own charge had been well rooted in the earth, pushing it back into the prone position. Each attempt only weakened the Grek, which now that Tsorn had the time to observe, was dangerously malnourished. Never having been taught how to hunt by its mother, the adolescent drake probably survived by eating carion and underbrush. It broke Tsorns heart to see the an emperor of the wild brought so low.
"Sorry, old boy," Tsorn said to the dying drake regretfully, "I-- Just, sorry."
Having made his way behind it, where it couldn't swipe at him, even if it had the strength, Tsorn stepped in, sinking his hunting knife deep quickly and accurately; ending the Grek's pain. When he was sure the drake was truly dead, he hastily pulled the knife free and began working out the spear; knowing the scent of blood would soon attract more dangerous game.
I should have brought Buckie. Tsorn thought bitterly, Buckie would have seen the juvenile coming from a mile off, we could have avoided this mess entirely. Damn my pride.
It took Tsorn a few moments later to pick out the two week old trail he was looking for, that brought him to the den in the first place. Following it, he hefted his pack and whistled for Leon to go and scout ahead. For all the good it will do. Might as well be walking blind. But I swear, I'll bring back a Celestial Crown if it kills me.

"T"ea is for Toby . . .

There is an old buddhist proverb which goes something like this: A haughty young scholar comes to an old zen master looking for instruction. On his first day the scholar pesters his instructor for wisdom, about politics, economics and various other subjects, even going to bait the older man with boasts of his own accomplishments in philosophy, and politics. The Zen master taking it all in stride not answering, only continuing to sip on his tea. Eventually growing frustrated, the scholar gets angry at the Buddhist and demands that he respond.
The old Zen master stretches out his hand and offers the younger man a seat. Handing him a cup he begins to pour tea. Quickly the tea overflows the edge and burns the scholar's finger. Jumping up, he shouts at the old monk, accusing him of overflowing the cup intentionally.
The Zen master, speaking slowly and quietly says, "You are like the teacup. You have not taken time to drink, yet you demand more. Drink first, then refill your cup."

Or something like that...

This is one of my favorite stories. I've heard it told a variety of different ways, but each time it strikes me anew. The nuance and the layers of the allegory remind me that a short story can be just as powerful as a long winded epic.
The metaphor can be applied to so many different areas of life, and even just life in general. It is not a complicated story and not hard to understand, yet it is a reminder to the well educated as well as to the everyday plebeian.
Wisdom comes from a place of humility. It takes time to ruminate, and even if we learn, doing nothing with them wastes the lesson. Knowing that the Bible tells us to be loving does not impart any sort of benefits by itself. But by loving, those benefits manifest themselves. Knowing that prayer is powerful is not the same thing as being a powerful prayer. Knowing that God honors the humble is useless unless we humble ourselves.

It is easy to profess to be a Christian, but living the lifestyle that the Bible proscribes is not. In fact, its incredibly hard. Impossible in fact. But it is not the result which God asks for. He does not demand that we be humble, or loving, or powerful prayers. He demands that we try.

Journal:
Languid, the bright eye hung over the world, her silvery glow watching down on the affairs of men. Always watching, searching for the long lost love, stolen in her youth, near the very dawn of time. 
Bathed his the light of the moon, Taro lifted his face in prayer, taking it as an omen that the moon's face would shine so brightly tonight of all nights. Asking for guidance, before slipping out into the empty street, he set out in search of his own lost love, hoping it was not too late. 

A shadow on the mind . . .

As a writer I spend a good amount of time thinking observing, thinking about, and paraphrasing human behavior.  But certain traits seem to come up more often than others. The things which drive us, like love, fear, ambition, or grace come up often in cultural references. Fear and love are by far the most common. Something about the depth of these reactions in us tend to bring out in us potential that we normally don't utilize. Its as if they are still wired deep down into that primal side of us that touches on the live or die scale. Fear can be a great thing at times. Love can be a curse. It all depends on the object in question. Our ideas of these emotions can be so clinical at times; after all science says they're just chemicals in the brain. 

Except life is rarely as clean as science would have us believe. Many times, fear in my life is more than a simple knee jerk reflex. I think that's how most people see it. This is easily justifiable, though I believe fear is not merely the impulse to run away from confrontation than love is the urge to kiss someone you love.
Ask someone, what is love, and they will not describe the psych-text book definition. It will be personal, nostalgic, even emotional in and of itself. These emotions are hard to categorize, because its not just a state of mine or merely a release of prescribed chemicals into the body and brain. It is a living thing. Creatures with a health and desire and a hunger all their own. Anyone in a successful relationship will agree love takes nurturing, attention, dedication, and its fruit can enrich your life and empower you beyond yourself. Fear is the same. Though being unwanted makes it more akin to a cancer; feeding off our lives, our doubts and our hopes. 

Few people could tell you when exactly when fear spawned in their life. Few, if any, remember back that far. At best guess it was a very early age,  if not programmed since the absolute beginning. Simple at first, but growing with every life experience, every pain. It takes every worry and compounds it; it whispers to avoid, to refrain, to distance. Lurking in the back of everyone's mind, feeding, growing, strangling.

Yes, fear is a living thing. In all reality, it's actually a part of you. At any given point, I believe that anyone of any age, creed, or culture, can look inside of themselves and find that bit of greedy hesitation living inside of them. Fear is simple really; the base part of you which, rationally or irrationally grips your heart at times of decision. Whether it's picking an outfit for school/work, diving into the swimming pool, riding your bike down a steep incline, or trying to talk to that one redhead. It screams at you, demanding your attention, insisting that all the worse things that could happen, will happen. 

From a scientific perspective, fear is the combination of knowing your limits and impulse for self preservation, but horribly twisted beyond usefulness. It uses the power of the imagination to torture you with nearly impossible situations. And never just one; countless versions, often pushing the limits of reason.

In a spiritual sense I believe fear is more than chemicals, I believe it is an act of war. On humanity, and through them, on Christ. I believe in spirits; in angels and demons, and maybe others. I believe there are things out there that we can't understand or accept if we did see them. And I believe the Bible when it says a large number of them are our enemies. Whispering in our ears. Preying on our insecurities. Sound like something else?

Ever instance of fear I can think of in my life, it holds me back. It has never helped me once. And there are many, many instances to choose from. Because I am a coward and a large portion of my early life was characterized by fear. I still can't swim well because I feared drowning. I have problems making friends and approaching women because I fear rejection. I didn't ride a roller-coaster until I was sixteen because I feared going fast. I stay away from high places because . . . heights. Bugs. Muscle fatigue. Cold weather. Lint. The list goes on and on; you name a source, I'm probably afraid of it. And I know that everyone has similar feelings to one degree or another.

But it can't end there. We can't let it.

So the last few years I have been waging an active war on fear. Where I find it, I chase it, and I fight it. Sometimes I win and sometimes, for weeks at a time, fear wins. It has been a rewarding few years, but terrifying. And liberating. 

Throughout the Bible, we are reminded fear has no place at our table. We are reminded again and again to expel fear, to have courage, and to be bold.

Why? Because fear is the enemy of action. Fear almost always strikes at moments of decision. To those that listen to it, it cripples their ability to think or react rationally; it either keeps us from solving our own problems or from challenging our minds and bodies. Fear eats away at potential, at hope, at joy. It can take a moment of spectacular beauty and inspiration and poison it. It can take a moment to glory god and turn that moment into the enemy's win through our weakness. 

A healthy life is not devoid of fear, but rather challenges it. Never accepts things the way the are but goes the extra mile, because life is so much more enjoyable that way. So I ask you to join me. Fight back: Help me, help you, help me, by helping yourself. Kick fear in the balls and do something you're afraid to. Just be safe.

Edit: I originally wrote this post and several others a few weeks ago. But as I was about to post them, they struck a sour note. These posts were all about fear, depression and anxiety. But every time I wanted to publish I always plucked out phrases or sentences that weren't true or I wasn't wholly sure about. So for these few mosts, they aren't so much manuals for operation or any real wisdom, but some of my thoughts; dark and hopeful, more artistic than scientific; more spiritual reflection than cold hard truths. There is much and more to be said on these subjects, both by myself and from true professionals but for the sake of brevity, I kept it short. I hope you find some truth here. Amen.

Journal: 

If you give a man a cause, you must also give him a sword. Because neither has any place, without the other. Alone, they both become dangerous and hollow. 

A soul full of holes. . .

You don't know a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. That's the old saying and as far as I'm concerned one of the most profound inspirational quotes ever. Of course as a writer it means more to me than most other people. I spend a majority of my life in my own head, walking in other shoes, living other lives, imagining inspired worlds. But at the end of the day, I am not the warrior, or the poet; the lover, or the schemer, or even the mastermind. I can only ever be me.

There's another saying which is popular among writers, anyone who's taken a serious writing class will recognize it: Write what you know. And to me, that is one of the worst, most frustrating, embittering sayings ever. And unfortunately no less profound than the other.

They are both true, and in my opinion, set at juxtaposed positions. One of course urges the listener to explore or meditate. To empathize with those different from you by stepping outside yourself and imagine yourself under another person's stress. The other tells you to lean on your own experience, to write with confidence something that you're confidant about. Not to ponder, but to preach. To be the teacher of what you know, what you're good at.

I love the first for the same reason I dislike the second. Because my life is small.

That is not to say I dislike my life, but compared to all that my mind's eye is capable of, it falls short. I will never be the conquerer. I will never stand on the soil of another world. I will never fill my lungs with air that has never seen another human. What can my life compare with that? Until of course I remember that the ordinary makes the extraordinary possible.

I grasp for perspective because I can recognize that mine is so limited. We need both. A balance. That challenging of my own mind makes me a better person. I have faced hardship, but I have never known homelessness. I've lost family, though not tragically. My loss informs my compassion for other people. But because of that gap, I cannot help but struggle to understand. I'll never know the bite of bigotry or sexism, but my taste of ignorance has given me a hatred for it. I've never been betrayed by a friend, but seeing the wreckage afterwards of those who have, has cemented my commitment to be the best friend I can to those around me.

But how do I bridge the gap? Can I ever understand the difficulties that most minorities face daily? Life is inarticulable. A feature I'll probably write about later, but there is something too dissimilar in life, that there will always be a gap. I'll never stop trying to close it, but where do you draw the line? When do we give up trying to understand each other? As for me, it will be my dying breath.

Journal:
"There's us and there's them; there's the have's and the have not's. We're just fighting for a little closing of the gaps. Equal footing; that's it."
"But Joan, there are always going to be differences. Here, there, today, tomorrow and forever. Fighting isn't going to change the nature of the world. Its always been this way since the beginning of time!"
"But it doesn't have to be! Just because it hasn't, doesn't mean it won't. Ten thousand years it has been, and maybe another ten thousand years more, but maybe one day, ONE DAY, just maybe, people will learn to share freely, but only if we keep trying: Keep fighting! If we don't, you're right it will never happen. But as long as we keep trying, there's hope ONE day!"
"The nature of something MEANS it can't BE changed. People will always be like this. The difference is that you think a leopard can change its spots and I don't."
"No, the difference between us is that you can't imagine a world difference from this one. You can't imagine men and woman being equal or where race means nothing more than heritage, or where resources are given freely to anyone who is in need. You can't imagine a better world. Can't or won't."
"Oh, I can imagine it. But vision doesn't change natures."

Rocks fall, everyone dies...

 A lot of my stories spawned from a kind of wish fulfillment, in that I am usually lost in a daydream of some sort, imagining an adventure. And if my brain invents a scenario that really captures my imagination, I take it further and develop its own story.

Because of that, many of the stories that I imagine have plenty of action and fights in them. But when it comes to actually writing that scene, it usually presents a slue of its own problems; pacing, imagery, dynamic twists. They are all need complicated interpretation and explanation to tell you what you would normally just absorb in real life. When writing fight scenes there are much more considerations to control than one first thinks. No one ever just punches someone else in the face, even something so simple is intricately complex in a prosaic narrative.

For instance: If you were to watch two people just duke it out, you would need very little explained. There are so many minutia that the brain picks up and interprets without having to be told. The air between two people explains a context even if neither say anything. Were they two strangers? Friends having a tiff? One feeling betrayed and the other guilty? Both defensive. Are either martially trained? Are they fighting to blow off steam, hurt, or even kill each other? Everything is automatically noted by the audience. The reactions in the postures and body language would tell a whole story.

But for writers, we must assume the audience is blind, deaf, and sadly even dumb. Context, tone, atmosphere, speed, intensity, desperation. If a tooth is broken, you have to explain that. Does spattering visceral matter blind someone? If at the same time as the fight, a person across the room grabs their phone to call the police; you have to mention it somewhere.
It becomes a juggle to fit all of the pertinent details on the page without losing the tension or confusing the reader. And that's with all the stuff that you're intentionally putting in there. But there is always the need for situational cues and setting description. Minor events and chain-reactions often become lost in the tug-of-war in the struggle to follow a chronological step-by-step. Even the most talented writer can sometimes forget to mention the fight moving or scenery settling, like residence clearing the area or by-standers (the important ones anyways) reactions.
Unfortunately additional details clutter up the action. But all that information has to fit in somewhere. Do you stop the whole fight to explain the broader context? Do you make every odd sentence a violent one and every even one situational? Do the fighters halt their combat just so the audience can see what happened to the protagonist's date while they got into a brawl? Where does the line for detail verse drama go?
Sentence structure, and paragraph length are absolutely essential to pacing; which fight scenes live and die by. Someone like myself who strives to wholly immerse their audience in the urgency of the fight, stretch ourselves to examine every single word, sentence by sentence and paragraph by paragraph, to fit in those context clues. But that over-analysis often kills word-count momentum(that is to say total book completion); it's easy to lose the pace of an overall story-arch when we get caught in a fight scene.
In writing it's often necessary to budget: Words per sentence and sentences per paragraph, paragraphs per scene, et cetera. But for fight scenes, those budgets become stringently cheap. Mentioning the color of a shirt, or tears in cloth, or every bead of sweat becomes impossible. You begin having to cut details that seem indispensable. And it becomes tempting to sacrifice the tension in the fight to mention that the world goes on around them. Or even worse the temptation to pretend like the whole world stops while the fight goes on. Both of which are false. 

Fight scenes are similar to adrenaline highs. Sometimes they're necessary, but you get caught in the moment and lose your situational awareness. Then afterwards there's the disunion, the normal story pace feels slow in comparison. In this disjointing, transitions become invaluable for restoring the story's equilibrium. They have to pull the reader back to the story, and readjust the focus. But again, at cost of overall theme and character development. Unless of course the writer is very clever.
If he relies too much on a style focused on confrontation to pull the story along, he will give the reader a frenzied but empty feeling, which is off putting, because it often neglects story content. But on the other hand if you too few action sequences in an adventure story, the reader might feel cheated.

That may be why many modern writers stay away from action driven stories. Or why terrible books are so common. So next time you read a compelling story with an excellent fight scene; take a moment and appreciate how much effort and skill went into it.

Journal:

Adam walked down the dusky road, a small bag slung over his shoulder; necessities for living. He would not starve or freeze for a good long time. He walked at an easy pace, no where to be, no where to go; neither leaving or returning. He was dust, or wind. Driven by any force or will, because he had none. No purpose, no desire, and for the first time in his life he was absolutely free and in that moment he felt pure, uninhibited despair.

An empty mind and a full heart...

How many times have I sat down to write without a single thought of where to start? More times than I can count. But that's not saying a lot, I can't count very high. More times than most people could count, I wager. Yet time after time, day after day, chapter after chapter, I plod through, more instinct than intelligence. More grit than game. Its not an issue of skill, after all, what I lack in potential can't be taught, and what can be taught must be tempered with experience, so all I really can do is keep wading through the ocean of my imagination, paddling out pages as they come to me, and time will tell whether it is all been a waste or not.

That is not to say I start without a plan. I begin with inspiration. A song that resonates with adventure, a phrase that saddens me, a mysterious abandoned bit of rubbish my brain struggles to explain, or more often than not a dream like story which haunts me as I try to sleep. It begins days, weeks, sometimes months or years in the back of my brain, playing like some far-off song in the back of my mind, developing itself and molding itself to my psyche. Getting louder and louder until it cannot be ignored and I am force to summon it into physical world, beginning on the first page.

When I begin, there is a panic. My mind races to fill the void, and I am bombarded with the possibilities of a given story, threatened and enticed by the blank white of fresh paper. Characters and scenery dance around my head, all jostling to be first to the party. And suddenly the drought of words is drowned by the thoughts. 

Rarely is there any order to what my mind asserts first. No grand scheme, or powerful theme. Just a storm of color and emotion in raw form, desperate to be understood but too young to express themselves to me in an understandable way. They coo and cry and puke, pulling my hair and scratching my face while I guess at the best way to write them into the story. And often, I get it wrong. The characters I make don't fit best where I put them. Their personalities wouldn't do what I make them do, and I spend seven or eight rewrites trying to decipher an honest story, when I myself don't know what that looks like.

I write with my heart. Its about as stupid as it sounds, but that is the truth. It leads me down the wrong roads and costs me days of writing time. It would be easier and quicker to plan out a draft and character diagram every person, and map every decision, but whenever I do that I get the story wrong.

My dad is an engineer. He believes in diagraming, in formulas, in templates, and right answers. Every time he sees me he's got a new idea or a new strategy to make me the world's most famous writer. But what he fails to understand no matter how many times I try to explain it to him, is that people aren't machines. We don't act in predictable or simple ways. We are individual, flawed, illogical creatures, who say one thing and do another, believe things and condemn others for the same, and who don't understand the things they do themselves.

That I am that kind of person, and that is the kind of book I'm trying to write. Not a right book, or a good book, or even a popular book, but a person book. A story with its own life, for better or worse, that is truthful and authentic without being right or perfect. I write from the heart because I believe people can feel when something authentic the same why people understand when a musical note is on key or not.

Maybe one day I'll learn how to write with my heart and my head. But since I can only write with one right now, I'm going to write the most emotionally authentic story I can.

Journal:

Social upheaval is the result of two things: The failure of a past generation to foster their own legacy. And the failure of the next generation to accept the condition of the world they were born into.