Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel
A Wheel Inside a Wheel
Works
- Speaking In Tongues
- Talking Without Speaking
- Life Out of Balance
- Servants of the Pharaoh
- Whatever It Takes to Keep the Body Warm
- Keep the Home Fires (Burning)
- Lighting Out for the Territories
- (FORTHCOMING) Serpent's Mouth, Serpent's Teeth
- (FORTHCOMING) Lightless Labyrinth
- (FORTHCOMING) Silent Spiral
- Extras
Status: In Progress.
Wordcount: 700,000
When his father’s spaceship is destroyed, Yang Wenli is left with nothing but a debt that would take his whole life to repay. To escape the indentured servitude he would be forced into, he flees his home country and take up residence in the Galactic Empire on a scholarship to their military academy. When his own classmates try to murder him for being a foreigner, Yang finds an unlikely ally in the aloof top student in the class: Oskar von Reuenthal.Meanwhile, the young Reinhard and Annerose von Musel make the opposite journey, fleeing from the Galactic Empire to the Free Planets’ Alliance, when they learn that the fifteen year old Annerose is to be sold to the kaiser as a concubine. They arrive destitute and beholden to charity, but determined to prove their worth in their new home.
Out of the blue, Reuenthal said, "You should be more ambitious." He looked across the table at Yang. "Other people will like you more if they see you have interests outside of history."Yang hesitated a moment, picking up his teacup before answering. "I have ambitions.""Oh? What kind?"Yang hid a small smile behind his teacup. "The wrong kind."When Reuenthal didn't say anything in response, Yang returned to his reading, though he could feel Reuenthal's eyes on him. After about half a minute of silent study, Reuenthal said, "I think I am a man with the wrong kind of ambitions, as well."Yang didn't look up to meet Reuenthal's eyes, but he gave a quick nod.
Writing > In the Shadow of Heaven
In the Shadow of Heaven
Works
- New Creatures With New Hearts
- The Realms of the Unreal
- The Eyes That See the Glory
- Every Hateful Instrument
Status: Ongoing / On Hiatus. Currently writing Every Hateful Instrument. Planning rewrites of New Creatures With New Hearts, The Realms of the Unreal, and The Eyes That See the Glory.
Wordcount: 850,000
Yan BarCarran is the orphan daughter of a spacefaring clan, about to graduate from the school where people with the one-in-a-million God given power are sent to train. The next phase in her life is the apprenticeship, where she will train under someone else with the power to begin her lifelong career. She’s hoping for a research position, but instead she’s given an opportunity that will put the weight of the universe on her shoulders.Aymon Sandreas is the de facto leader of the Empire, wielding the unfettered power that being a theocratic dictator provides. But he’s getting older, and he needs to choose a successor. He needs someone that he can shape into a leader: someone who will carry on the traditions of the Empire, someone who will be able to make difficult and correct decisions, and someone that he can bear to spend the rest of his mortal life working with. He picks three students as potential leaders: the talented and thoughtful Yan BarCarran, the impulsive and striving Sid Welslak, and the mysterious and troubled Kino Mejia. Only one of them will survive their apprenticeship to take his place.Yan’s life quickly spirals into chaos. Her best friend, Sylva, is in love with her; she can’t figure out how to make her new coworkers get along; she hates the man who is supposed to train her to survive assassination attempts; and, on top of all of that, she begins to learn the horrible secrets at the heart of the Empire. If she’s lucky enough to survive her apprenticeship, that secret burden will be on her shoulders. As it turns out, though, surviving that long will be a big if.
Aymon heard the door open, and looked up from the borrowed desk he was using at the girl. She was tall and lanky, the familiar figure of any born spacer, with dark skin and close cropped hair. She wore the standard cassock of all the students, and aside from her unusual height and stride there was nothing that made her stand out visually. Mentally, however, looking at her and gauging her power sent a shiver down his spine. Just as the other two students had, something in her called out to him. He imagined his own predecessor must have felt this way when she interviewed him and the other apprentices who had been in his cohort. It was a strange thought.She stood just past the doorway as the two regarded each other silently for a moment. He could tell that she was extremely nervous, and he could see her count her breaths, a meditation technique that children used."Sit." He gestured to the chair placed on the opposite side of the desk. Obediently but cautiously, Yan sat down in the chair. "Do you know who I am?""First Sandreas, Voice of the Empire," she answered."That is correct. And you know why I am here, and why you are here?""This is an apprentice interview.""Also correct. Recently, I have heard the voice of God whispering in my ear that the time has come for me to choose apprentices. Your project appealed to me. Tell me, what did you intend to be the punchline of your joke?""What joke are you talking about?" Yan asked nervously."When I looked at your project, I could see the spirit in which it was created. What is the punchline to that joke?" Aymon stared her down and watched her squirm for a second."Was it theologically unsound?" Yan asked."Is that why you don't tell me the punchline? Don't worry about that. I'm just curious to know the answer." Yan was silent for a moment more, and Aymon regarded her steadily."The idea was either..." She paused. "I could never decide between 'That which is not living can never die' and 'It's not alive but nobody can tell the difference'.""Neither are strictly true, though,” Aymon said."Of course not, that's why it's a joke," Yan said, as if that explained everything, but then continued in a rush. "The idea is striving to do what only God can do, even saying 'it can never die', as though the heat death of the universe won't take care of it, or saying 'nobody can tell the difference' when clearly it's easy to tell." Yan took a breath. "It's impossible to be what God is, it's impossible to do what God does, but the importance of it is the striving. That's why we are the way we are-"Aymon held up his hand to cut her off. "I don't need the theological lecture. I liked your project, that is sufficient."
Standalone Novels
Arcadis Park
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 70,000
When Jonah, a down on her luck college senior, returns to the same terrible summer job she's had for years, lifeguarding at the rundown waterpark in her town, the last thing that she expects is to pull a severed head out of the lake that feeds the park's attractions.
Writing > As In a Mirror, Dimly
As In a Mirror, Dimly
A series of short, canon compliant Legend of the Galactic Heroes fics.
Status: Added to as the inspiration hits.
Wordcount: 49,863
Towards the Tail-End of an Age That’s Almost Finished
Magdalena von Westpfale investigates why Reinhard chose to help Reuenthal rescue Mittermeyer from prison.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 9,107
Annerose thinks about the lengths that she’s willing to go for Reinhard.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 4,720
Schenkopp and Yang have a long overdue talk after the battle of Vermilion.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 4,132
Untroubled By Comings and Goings of Men
Magdalena tries to rescue Annerose from her self-imposed exile.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 8,332
After Reinhard's proposal, Hilde tries to make sense out of her place in his life.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 7,273
Reinhard and Hilde go on their honeymoon.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 8,020
Mittermeyer tells Evangeline three secrets: one about the Empire, one about the kaiser, and one about himself.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 4,022
On Felix’s thirty-third birthday, Mittermeyer contemplates the past.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 4,257
Short Stories
Vampires of the Sun or: Sudden Oak Death
Teenagers genetically modified to receive all their nutrition from the sun still crave food.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 4k
While trying to make their way home during a thunderstorm, two boys make a startling discovery.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 2k
A young woman speaks to her past and future self.
Status: Complete, needs revision
Wordcount: 5k
Writing > Short Stories > Vampires of the Sun Or: Sudden Oak Death
Vampires of the Sun Or: Sudden Oak Death
2019
I should make it clear to you: it wasn't a prison. You'd think what happened was more understandable if I said it was a prison, that we were all trapped there looking for a way to escape. That's what some people were saying. I was given a newspaper that said that they kept us locked up there and we hated them. That isn't true, and I don't want you to think that it was. I could have left at any time, at least before the blizzard. We went out a lot, all of us. There was a bus into Hobarth that I started taking by myself when I was thirteen. I had a license and I could take my dad's car anytime. I had plenty of access to the outside world.I think it was Juniper's dad who started calling the place the Hundred-Acre wood, but it stuck. Charming, right? It was a beautiful place where we lived, all of us and our families and the scientists. It was normal. We went to school together. Someone might think they had stepped back into the past to see us, in our little one room schoolhouse. But we were all the same age, so it wasn't quite the same. All of the scientists' kids went to school in Hobarth. Didn't want to be around us, I guess.The summer before our senior year started, I was sitting with Ivy on the deck. We were laying there, looking up at the sun. I remember exactly what she said to me. She said, "I don't think there's anywhere else for us to go." She asked me if I wanted to stay in the Hundred-Acre Wood forever. I said I didn't know.If you think that I'm proving the opposite of my point, just find me a high school senior who doesn't feel trapped inside their own life. That feeling doesn't make their small town a prison. I should know what makes a prison, at this point.You're looking at the picture of us, printed in the papers, on the internet, on the news, all our high school class photos that were meant for the yearbook. You're seeing what's not quite human about us and you're thinking, "I'm glad that could never happen here." Ha.I bet that you're imagining how awful it must have been, what kind of evil people we all were. You're clutching your pearls and saying, "Imagine, a whole nest of vipers in a high school classroom together!"Probably anybody paying attention to the trial is here for the lurid details. Curiosity. We're a spectacle. I bet you're all imagining what we're like. You want to know what it feels like to be me, or any of us. You want to know how it happened, and why, and if it's going to happen again. I'll tell you what you want to hear. It's no skin off my back, at this point. It's hard to explain, though.I guess I should start by saying that we were all always hungry when it rained. All the buildings in the Hundred-Acre Wood had big, big windows. We'd always sit by them, soaking up the light. When it rained, there wasn't enough sun. No sun, we were hungry.It wasn't hunger like you understand it-- I don't really know how best to describe it. Like we were skin-hungry. Like our skin was crawling like it wanted something, and what it wanted was sunlight. You could get the feeling to go away a little, or you could at least distract yourself from it, by being touched instead. When it rained, or when it was dark, we'd find someone to huddle up with. It used to be our parents, when we were really little, but when we were older we'd find each other. You know. You just want to be held, and you want to hold somebody, and one thing leads to another.I'm not going to go into details about it.I miss it, though. I don't like being alone here. I'm hungry all the time.Another thing was that we didn't really eat food, or get food. We couldn't digest it, not really. We were all messed up because of how they made us. We had these nutrient shakes that we drank, and that gave us all those elements that you don't get through sunlight and air and water. They didn't taste like anything. I did try eating real food, normal people food, a couple times out of curiosity. I'm willing to bet that most of us did. Just made me sick, though. Went right through me. Our parents always ate in a different room, away from us, just because they were being polite. Well, I'm not sure if that was the reason they ate away from us, or if they were told not to eat in front of us to not tempt us with food.Intellectually, I guess I didn't mind the whole food thing. I've always lived this way, and thus have no basis for comparison. On a different level, though, there's some part in the back of the brain that still tells our bodies that we should be chewing on something, eating something. It's funny, maybe, or stupid. We all ended up with these oral fixations, or pica or what have you. Was there a single one of us who didn't end up eating dirt by the handful, and chewing on furniture, and absolutely demolishing our shirt collars by chewing them up as a kid? We were all given these chewy toys, and that helped a little. Oh, and sugar free gum-- we could have that. The urge to chew on things never really went away, even though it wasn't really connected to anything that we needed. It stayed, even when we were older, so, you know.Maybe it is an inevitable quirk of how we were made.You think that I was the ringleader of all of this. By some definition, that's true. I was the first one to do it. I can admit that.The first time it happened was a Friday night. Ivy and Pine and I, we would always like to go into Hobarth on Friday nights. There was a club that we liked because it was crowded, dark, and loud. The lights were fantastic, all different colors, and the DJ that they usually had was decent. I like music.Technically, we were underage, but we got in anyway. It doesn't hurt to tell you this NOW, but the bouncer there was one of the scientist's kids. He knew we physically couldn't drink. He'd let us in. We'd go dancing. I didn't ever tell my parents or anybody where I was going, and I bet Pine and Ivy didn't either. But it wasn't like we were really getting into trouble, and we were ALLOWED to go places.Nighttime was the best time for going out in public, because we didn't have to worry about getting enough sun on our skin. We were just hungry. We would go to the club, and we would dance in the crush of bodies. It was good. Touching, being touched. Moving, being moved. It helped with the skin-hunger. In the dark we wouldn't look any different from everybody else. Green in our eyes would just look like reflected light. There was this girl there, she was always there on Friday nights, and we made out sometimes. It was a casual thing. We'd go in the corner and, you know. She liked it when I would kiss her neck. She was really, really into that. Anyway, we were making out in the back, kinda near the bathrooms. It was beyond loud in there, but when she said anything I could feel the rumble in her throat. I guess I was kinda into it too. She was running her fingers through my hair, and her head was tilted back, and I was just in the crook of her shoulder and her neck, and we were up against each other like there wasn't any difference between her body and mine. Somebody bumped into me. I didn't do it on purpose, I swear. There was the jolt of someone smashing into me. By accident, I bit her. I mean, really it was more like my teeth crashed into her skin enough to make a hole. It wasn't a serious wound, but there was blood.I was like, "Oh no, I'm so sorry!"She was like, "Don't stop baby." I guess she was kinda into that, too. I didn't really know what else to do but get back to it. I kept kissing her neck, and the blood got in my mouth, and it tasted like nothing I had ever tasted before. She stopped bleeding pretty quickly. Like I said, it wasn't a deep cut. That one little taste of it, it was crazy. Someone flipped a switch in my brain.After I left the club with Pine and Ivy, we were sitting in my dad's car (I was driving, but we were back to the Hundred-Acre Wood and parked in my driveway.) I told them about it."It made me stop being hungry," I remember saying. "I'm not kidding."You were probably just weirdly into it," Ivy said. "You got so excited you forgot about being hungry. It happens sometimes.""No, I don't think that's it," I said. "I mean, maybe?""I've tasted my own blood before," Pine said. "When I've cut myself. It doesn't taste very good.""Well, maybe ours tastes different," I said. I don't know why I was defensive about it. I knew what I had felt, and I needed them to understand. Maybe I should have not said anything, and tried to forget about it, but for some reason it was sticking in my head and I couldn't get the thought out. It had been a transcendent experience. My mouth kept moving by itself to tell them, even though them knowing wasn't going to help us all live better lives.Pine and Ivy went home, and I tried to go to bed. A couple days later, Pine came to see me. It was daytime, and we went for a walk along the edge of the woods, just soaking up the sun, feeling warm, full, and content."I've been thinking a lot about what you said.""Yeah?""About the blood.""I've been thinking about it, too," I said. "Am I crazy?""Maybe. Do you think... Maybe it's just, you want to taste somebody else?""Do you want to try?" I asked him.I let him kiss me and I let him bite my wrist to taste my blood. He said it didn't taste any better than his own. "Maybe you just have to be hungry," I said. "Or maybe it is that our blood is different. Not the same nutrients in it, you know.""Introduce me to your friend," he said. "Maybe she'll let me kiss her neck too."I didn't know why Pine was into the idea, why he wanted to try that badly, but there was some part of me that understood. The next time we were at the club, I found my friend and I introduced them. We danced, the three of us. We were all beautiful in that dark light. Pine's eyes shone like I'd never seen them before. I have some self respect left. I won't go into the details.That was how it began. It was innocent. There wasn't any urgency to it. I never meant to hurt anybody. Nobody else did either, when word went around. We were a tight knit group. We all talked to each other, and when Pine and I both said that it was something that made us less hungry, people listened. They wanted to find out for themselves. I bet that everybody who had a friend in Hobarth (which was everybody) did it at least once or twice. Nobody minded that all the young adults in Hobarth had friends from the Hundred-Acre Wood that wanted to kiss their lips a little too hard. Nobody got in trouble for it then, anyway.But you know how this story ends, and it doesn't end that summer in Hobarth, because the summer came to an end, and the fall. Then it was winter. It was crushingly dark all the time. Pitch black once the sun set. We all hated the winter. Even the artificial lights couldn't make us satisfied. We huddled up together, and tried to let the feeling pass. We had survived all the winters before this one, and we would have probably survived this one too, except for the blizzard.Who builds a scientific facility dedicated to people who need the sun's energy to live, way out in the middle of Minnesota? Was land cheap there? Was it nice to get us far away from civilization? I don't know.It was really the worst storm anybody had ever seen. And I'm not just talking about us. I mean our parents, and the scientists too. Nobody had been through a storm like this in living memory. You couldn't see the sun, and you couldn't go ten steps out the door without getting lost.The power lines cut out pretty quick after the snow started. It was mostly the wind, I think. That would push you off your feet, if the snow wasn't thick enough on the ground to hold you upright. It was easy to blow the power lines down, I guess.We had a generator, of course we did. It that could only last as long as the fuel. The snow lasted longer. It snowed and snowed and snowed. My mother told me this story about her grandmother, who had been alive for the blizzard of '78, and how long they had been without power for, and how long the snow had lasted. Everyone agreed that this was worse.Even when the snow itself stopped, it was deeper than your head, the sky was covered with clouds thick enough to stop all light from getting through. It was midnight at noon, I swear it was. The roads were closed. The wind was a hundred knots, the conditions on the ground were impassible, there was no way they were fixing the power lines, and there was no way we were going to get more fuel for the generator. Not even by helicopter. The solar panels were as hungry as we were. Hungrier, maybe.My father lit a fire, and we huddled by it, but that paltry little light would never be enough for me. I felt like there was a piece of me burning away in there. My family had food. I did not. I was starving to death amidst their feast. I looked at them while they sat by the fire because they were cold. I wasn't cold; I was hungry.I found Pine and Ivy and asked them what we were going to do. We carved a hole in a snowbank and sat, clutching each other. All of us, we were the only ones who understood what it was like to be this hungry. I hope you never have to understand."How long can somebody live without food?" I asked."I don't know," Pine said."They can live for a month," Ivy said. She pointed at all our little houses, buried to their gables in snow. "Who knows about us?""They'll get some good data points on us," Pine said, and laughed. "They'll learn they can't ever make people like us again. We starve to death in a snowstorm.""I don't want to die," I said. "I'm hungry."I put my head in the corner of Pine's neck. Felt his skin on mine. We were both skin-hungry. We were dying. My mouth moved. It wasn't like I was controlling it; it was just the hunger instinct. I bit him. He hit me."I don't even taste good," he said.I think we all realized at once exactly who did taste good, and exactly what we thought would make us less hungry. All of us, all thirty of us, we gathered together. Pine and Ivy and I, we picked the place and spread the word, but I think everybody would have figured it out even if we hadn't. We snuck out of our families' houses that night. We all met in the schoolhouse.We had outgrown the place. We were all a little too old, breaking out of the confines of youth, into some other way of living. It was unnatural to sneak around there in the dark, without our teachers to guide us. We put the desks in a circle and talked in the dark about what we should do.The hunger was so bad. You have to understand that when you get that hungry, you'll start to do anything. We all understood this on a level that was deeper than skin, all the way to the bone, all the way to the heart. There wasn't any disagreement from anybody. Not a single word."None of our families," Ivy said. "We'll have to just pick from the scientists.""How many do you think we'll need?" Pine asked. "There's a lot of us."We wrote down the names of all the scientists on little scraps of paper, and we put them in a box, and we drew out five names. It was fair that way. We weren't picking favorites or least favorites. Six of us to each one.It was a small town. We knew where everybody lived. Nobody could call for help without electricity. The snow on the ground made everything sound awful quiet. I had Jefferson Bethume's name written on a little piece of paper in my hand. Sage, Maple, Rose, Willow, Briar, and I, we broke the lock on his door. We rifled through his drawers and took knives from his kitchen. We were quiet. We crept upstairs to his bedroom. Dr. Bethume looked kinda peaceful. He had this big quilt over him, and there was a fire in his fireplace. It crackled loudly enough he didn't wake up or hear us when we opened his bedroom door. We held him down and cut his throat. I had the knife, because I guess I had the idea, which meant it was my job. But Sage and Maple held his arms, and Rose and Briar took his feet, and Willow kept the pillow pressed down over his face so he couldn't struggle away. It was over pretty quick. We laid him down over his kitchen table to make all his blood drain out into his biggest stockpot. Then we took mugs from his cabinet and we drank it all.
.
Maybe it didn't even make us less hungry except in that we thought it should make us feel less hungry. This feeling came over us, though. Like nothing any of us had felt before. I can't explain it to you, but it made us feel like we had done what we had to, and that we were going to continue to do exactly, exactly what more we had to.We tossed all his bedsheets in the fire, because they had blood on them, and we found new ones in his linen closet to replace them with. We washed out his stockpot and all the mugs we drank out of, and we put them back in his cupboards. We wiped everything down with paper towels and bleach. We dragged his body out into the woods and we cut it up and tried to make it look like maybe wolves or coyotes had gotten him. The wind was still blowing enough that all the different parts of him were half covered by snow by time we were done.I don't think that you really want the gory details. Maybe you do. Kill somebody yourself and you'll get to see it firsthand, if you really want to know.Anyway, you know how this story ends. We went back to our houses, pretended like nothing had happened. The crazy thing was, nobody even noticed that people were missing until a few days later. There was the search, now that the weather was cleared. They found the bodies pretty fast, didn't they? It must have been something, to find all that in the woods. It didn't take too long for someone to put all the pieces together after that. Nobody really thought that five scientists would go on a hike in the woods in the middle of the worst blizzard in a hundred years.Whatever.Do you want me to say that I feel bad about it? Yeah. Fine. Guess I do. But you don't know what lengths you'd go to if you were me. Nobody's ever going to know what it was like to be me again. After this, they're never going to make more of us. Of course they won't.It's probably for the best that we're first, last, and only to be like us. But I'm not the first person who went hungry, and God knows I won't be the last.That's all I have to say. It's the truth. There's no reason for any of us to hide it. We were all in it together, and we all confessed when we asked. Maybe we should have lied, said it was only a couple of us, and then the rest of us would have been free. Doesn't really work like that, though. There's your show trial, real work of brilliant entertainment, to look at us and marvel about how strange these not quite human youth are. You marvel. You do that. I've said my piece, and I won't be saying any more for the judge and the jury and the cameras.I'll be here with this electric fucking light, and no windows. They won't let me talk to anybody or touch anybody, you know. I'm goddamn hungry and I'm fucking lonely all the time. I have no intention of living out the rest of time here. But I'll spare you the details.
Writing > Short Stories > A Thousand Lifetimes Away
A Thousand Lifetimes Away
2019
The rattle of the spraypaint can sent the local birds cackling and scattering up into the sky. "You're disturbing the wildlife," Pierre said mildly."The wildlife is disturbing me," Habib replied. The early afternoon sun filtered through the trees, and the lazy river mumbled a few hundred feet away. The two boys stood at the edge of the treeline, on the length of ground before the crumbling dirt gave way to haggard chunks of limestone rock, slanting down to the river. Some plants found their perch on the steep slope, but the trees were decidedly spindly. Still, Habib grabbed one sapling and dropped down to a lower ledge of rock, keeping his spraypaint can tucked beneath his chin. He looked up at Pierre."Come on," he said.Pierre hung back. "Why don't we stay over there?" he asked, pointing to a section of cliff they had visited many times before."Because everybody and their mum has been over there," Habib said. "Look at it." The white rock was covered with overlapping scrawls in riotous color. "You could paint over it.""And somebody would paint over mine," Habib said. "I want to go where no one will touch me."Habib gestured for Pierre to follow and, when Pierre didn't, rolled his eyes and continued down the cliff. Pierre considered how much steeper the rocks looked close to the edge, and how Habib had no trouble navigating the area. He scrambled over areas where many teenagers from Saint-José had gone before and traipsed into the steep crumbling sections where few dared to tread. Habib turned around. "Seriously?" he called, voice echoing against the rock.Clutching the straps of his backpack, Pierre scooted down. It was easier past the first hurdle, so he scrambled to catch up with Habib.Habib tucked the can of paint into Pierre's backpack, and they continued together. They came to a section of the rock face where they inched across a tiny slip of rock, barely wider than their feet. From there, they hauled themselves up on their elbows onto a shelf, a place that scooped out to form a perfect bowl, with craggy sides and top.People had been there before-- there was a discarded beer can in the corner-- but it was graffiti free."Ah, my blank canvas," Habib said. He spun Pierre around by the shoulders to access the backpack."How come I have to carry everything?" Pierre asked. "Seems unfair.""Because now you don't have to do any of the work," Habib said. Pierre shrugged off the backpack and slumped against the stone, watching Habib as he arranged the paints neatly at his feet."I wish I could tell you to go all the way over there, so you could tell me if I'm drawing it straight," Habib said, pointing to the other side of the river."I'd need binoculars," Pierre said. "Nobody will see this out here."Habib shrugged. "Doesn't matter.""Then what's the point?""I'm recording my presence in the world. And isn't it enough to make something beautiful?"Pierre saw the appeal in that. He fished around in the backpack for a paint marker, pulling it out triumphantly. "I'll leave my mark, too," he said.In neat block letters, Pierre wrote his name at the bottom of the rock wall."And you were worried about no one ever seeing mine," Habib laughed."Well, maybe in a hundred years, my grandkids will come here and they'll say, 'Wait, wasn't our grandpa's name Pierre?'""Hah. Well tell me if this looks good, okay?" Habib asked, drawing the outline of his painting in black, consulting a folded sketch. The lines were chunky and uneven at first, but the skeleton of the piece would be covered by the colored paint."How's the outline look?" Habib asked."Great," Pierre said. "You gonna let me color it?""You can color it when you buy the paint, and your hand gets less shaky.""My hands are steady, I'm just bad," Pierre said. He kept the genuine self deprecation out of his voice by tacking on, "Because you never let me practice.""Like I said: you buy the paint, I'll help you out as much as you want. You can even pick the spot. Maybe start with lettering your name.""Alright. I'll chip in," Pierre said. He didn't think that would happen, as he was chronically broke, but Habib grinned and nodded. Pierre offered encouragement as Habib worked, and amused himself by chucking pebbles down the cliff face.A painted green dragon took shape. It sprayed out a great gust of red and yellow fire, and its front paw was raised to strike down a comically small figure. As Habib painted the details, clouds gathered in the sky. Pierre regarded them with some anxiety. He wasn't thrilled at the prospect of climbing back upon wet rocks. He kept opening his mouth to bring up the idea of leaving, but Habib was intent on his work, humming and shuffling along. He hesitated so long that fat drops of rain began to fall, spattering down the cliff face."We should get going," Pierre said."I'm almost done," Habib said, though this was most definitely an exaggeration. If allowed, Habib would keep working his paintings forever."It'll be hell to climb back out if the rain gets worse.""Then we should wait it out," Habib said. The rain fell harder. Pierre hoped it wouldn't last; his mother would be angry if he stayed out late.Lightning flashed, and rain sloshed down in torrents. Pierre's family had once gone hiking to a place where one could stand behind the surface of a waterfall; now, the rain crashing down outside their shelter looked rather like that. Pierre shivered as water hit him and he scooched closer to Habib.He imagined the water from the river, engorged by the rain, swelling up out of its bounds, crashing over rock and tree alike, coming to sweep them away. The thunder and lightning grew ever closer. He could feel it in his bones, a deep rattling quake, accompanied by the brightest light he had ever seen. Pierre shuddered; Habib laughed. There was the sound of thunder that was not accompanied by a flash of lighting, making the whole ground rumble."What the fuck was that?" Pierre asked."No idea," Habib said, with a tinge of alarm. Pierre stuck his head into the torrential downpour, looking around for the source of the noise. Their path back had collapsed in a long slide of mud and rocks, the whole cliff face crumbling away into the river."Oh, fuck," Pierre said. Habib abandoned his painting and looked out, whistling."What are we going to do?" Pierre asked. "Should I call someone to rescue us?""We'll just have to climb out," Habib said with a shrug. "I'm done now. How's it look?""Great," Pierre said, but the enthusiasm was gone. Habib put all the cans of paint back into the bag and tossed it to Pierre."Alright. Let's get going.""It's still pouring! And--""Do you really want to stay here?" Habib asked. "What if this whole thing collapses right on top of us?""Fuck you," Pierre said. "You're just saying that to mess with me."Habib smiled. "It's working, isn't it? Let's go." He stepped out, gingerly lowering himself down onto the ledge below. "It's not so bad," Habib said. "Going up is easier than going down.""Your dad will kill me if you break your neck," Pierre said, following because he didn't want to be left behind.The rock was slippery and the mud was worse. At the landslide, they had no choice but to clamber up on all fours, sinking their hands into mud and scraping on buried rocks. It felt stable, or at least like it wasn't going to slide any further.Habib made it to the top of the collapsed section first. He shouted down, "Get up here!" urgently.Thinking Habib was warning him that the hillside was going to crumble, Pierre climbed with renewed urgency, panting and slick with mud.At the top, Habib stared at a hole in the rock. A musky smell emanated from it, strong over the smell of the rain. "Look at this," Habib said. "I'm going inside.""Are you fucking crazy? What if it collapses again?" Pierre asked, but Habib wedged his shoulders into the crevice, disappearing halfway into the hole. He pulled his feet in behind him. "Are you stuck?" Pierre asked."No, there's plenty of room. Come in." "No way, no way," Pierre said."If you don't come, I'm never taking you with me on anything again."Habib following through on that threat was too much for Pierre to handle. Habib's hand emerged from the hole, waved around a little until it snagged on Pierre's shirt, then pulled him forward. He stumbled towards the hole. Pierre squirmed through and fell to the floor. The musty smell was stronger now, dampness that had been trapped for years. The ground was surprisingly silty and soft. Maybe there had been a stream running through this rock and that had been what made the original cavern, wearing a path through the limestone, depositing sediment on the floor."How deep does it go, you think?" Habib asked. His voice was echoed, but he was quiet, and the rain still roared outside.Pierre searched through the backpack for his phone and turned on the flashlight, holding it in shaking hands.The cave stretched on, taller than both of them, and widened further back. This cave had been here, not a hundred feet from where Pierre and Habib had hiked for years, yet it had been completely closed off, not part of the world. How many more caves like this were there? Could such things be hiding under every ignoble hill?"Give me your phone," Habib said."Why didn't you bring yours?" Pierre asked, feeling like he should whisper for some reason.Habib shrugged, but Pierre handed the phone over nonetheless.Habib headed into the darkness past the throat of the cave. The sediment underfoot crunched, and in the glint of the phone light, Pierre noticed what looked like bones-- small ones. Squirrels or birds, maybe. The chamber was large, and the phone's light didn't illuminate much. Habib walked back, casting the beam up and down. The brown smudges on the wall didn't look like much more than natural discoloration among the rocks, an impression not aided by Habib's frantic light swinging. "Give me my phone back," Pierre said."Why?" Habib asked, shining it in Pierre's face. "I don't want you to leave with it.""I wouldn't do that to you," Pierre said. "I just want to look at something." He snatched the phone.Controlling the light, Pierre saw the ceiling was ten feet high, maybe. The walls were dry, surprising given the damp smell in the air. And...All across the walls of the cave were scrawled pictures of animals: horses, birds, unrecognizable beasts. In the phone's dim glow and his quivering hand, they seemed to move, meandering down the walls of the cave. Pierre froze, silent, the flashlight revealing the images slowly, laying down pieces of a puzzle. He shuffled forward, unable to breathe. Habib stretched out his hand, hovering it just over the surface of the wall. "Do you think..." he started."I don't know," Pierre whispered. This was more powerful than being in a church. He had disturbed this place he was not supposed to be, but he still felt at home. He took Habib's hand and walked further in. At the far back wall of the cave, there was one image that stood apart from the rest. In daubs of red paint, there were reliefs of handprints. Someone held their hand flat against the wall, then used an implement to paint around it, leaving an empty space where the hand had been. These were layered and overlapped, reaching higher than either of the boys could reach, extending down to the floor."I shouldn't touch it," Pierre said, but he laid his hand flat on the wall anyway, finding a hand, so much like his own, reaching back as cold stone beneath his fingers. Who had stood there before him? Who had written their name on this rock? His throat was closed in silent, choked wonder. He wanted to hold his hand there forever."Look at this one," Habib said, crouching down. Reluctantly, Pierre dropped his hand and followed. "Mother and baby, you think?" Habib pointed.He didn't dare touch it again-- once was enough-- but he looked at the red hand relief, so small. Impossibly small. It was tucked in the center of a larger hand.They looked at it for a long time. The reality of their bodies set in, and their legs ached from crouching. Habib stood and pulled Pierre up with him. The phone light flickered in the darkness. The images danced with it."I think the rain's stopped," Habib said quietly.The riotous but muted patter of the rain outside the cave was gone. They couldn't stay here forever. But for the moment, this place was theirs alone. "We have to tell someone about this," Pierre said. "We should...""It's ours," Habib said.Pierre shook his head mutely."It is.""Maybe they'll name it after us.""No. We just won't tell anyone.""If we don't, someone will," Pierre said. "Or it'll get wrecked."Habib tensed up. Pierre grabbed his arm again, tugging Habib to the antechamber entrance of the cavern, away from the weight of history."I don't want anybody else to know," Habib said."Why?""It's our secret," he said. "Someone left it for us to find."They sat with their backs to the entrance, watching the light peek where no light had peeked for so long. "You wouldn't want nobody to see your paintings," Pierre said."That's why I make you watch."That revelation was unexpectedly sweet. "It can still be ours," Pierre said."How?"Pierre pulled out the can of red spraypaint from his backpack. He passed it to Habib, who didn't understand. Pierre held his hand flat against the rock wall."It's ours," he said. "It'll always be ours." His conviction was strong and unusual. They were inheritors of this place, part of its lineage, no matter what happened in the future. "Are you sure?" Habib asked. The lack of confidence in Habib's voice was unexpected. Still, he shook the spray paint can, bouncing sound around the cavern."It won't hurt anything." They were far away from the ancient drawings. The paint sprayed on Pierre's hand was slimy, wet, and cold. When Habib stopped, Pierre drew his hand away and looked at the relief. It was startlingly similar to the ones deep in the cave."Your turn," Pierre said.Habib's hand hovered over the wall for a second, deciding where to put it. Slowly, gingerly, he meshed his fingers with Pierre's handprint. Pierre pressed the nozzle of the spray paint. His hand didn't shake.
Writing > Short Stories > No Comfort In the Past
No Comfort In the Past
2020
Elijah's mother was a witch, and wise and kind. And when Elijah was thirteen, her mother gave her a long cord of knotted twine, a circle, all full of little stones like beads.She said, "Elijah, if you hang this rope on a doorway at night, the barrier of time weakens a little, and the past and the future can slip through. Wear it around your waist, underneath your shirt, so that no one can steal it. Don't speak of it to anyone." Her mother had tears in her eyes when she said this, and Elijah knew that she was being given something very important."My mother gave this to me, and her mother before her, and now I'm giving it to you."Elijah was a solemn child, so she nodded and took the cord. It was heavy, but she tied it around her waist during the day anyway, twisting it around and around so that it wouldn't fall off. All day long she thought about it, and at night when the whole house creaked around her tiny bedroom, Elijah held the cord in her hands and pressed her fingers against its stones one by one. Then she carefully draped the cord over the lintel of her closet doorway. It was so long that the bottom of it pooled on the floor. She sat in front of the closet and waited, staring in the dim moonlight at her hung clothes and old toys. She was a solemn child, and patient, too, but there was only so much patience that one could have during the night. And, when clouds passed over the moon and plunged the room into darkness, Elijah's head dropped to her chest, and she dozed there, leaned back against the post of her bed.It was in this darkest part of the night that a woman stepped through the cord, out into the small bedroom with the red rug on the floor. She looked all around herself, then down at the sleeping child on the ground. She remembered exactly how it had been, so many years ago, to fall asleep on the floor, waiting for something to happen. She remembered how it had felt to be gently woken in the night, by strong arms pulling her up, tucking her into her cold bed, and someone who was not her mother stroking her hair. It had felt like a dream, then. It had remained with her, and in the years since, she had wondered exactly when she would stand on the other side of that closet doorway, and pick herself up and tuck herself into bed. Now she was here.Not for the first time, not for the hundredth, maybe not even for the thousandth time, Eli wondered what would happen were she to disobey the bonds of her own memory and leave her sleeping self on the floor. What would happen to her if she took the child's scissors on the desk and sawed and snipped her way through the rope rung around the closet door? She looked behind herself, into her own bedroom in the future, where it was snowing out the window, where her own warm bed beckoned. She knew that her younger self would see nothing of what was behind that door, just a shadowy hole in the air. But she could see through, because that future was her home, and this past was her home as well, in a way.As it always was when Eli visited herself in these early days, she stopped and took in the creaking of the old house, a place that was long gone from her life. She wanted so desperately to step away from the young Elijah, pull open the bedroom door, walk with adult strides down the halls, and greet her mother one again. It was painful to come here, to come to this now, and she could never explain that to her younger self. She just had to learn to take this pain as a gift, of a sort.She considered changing the past, but then she looked down at the sleeping Elijah on the floor, and her heart was moved by the tenderness that one feels when looking at something small and defenseless. She shook Elijah's shoulder, gently, and put her own hands on Elijah's arms to hold her up. She pulled back the covers of the cold bed, and laid the half-dreaming Elijah into it, then covered her. Her eyes were half opened, and she looked up at Eli with an expression that had far too little caution in it. Eli smoothed her hair back from her forehead. It was the most natural thing in the world, and she could have hardly done any different, even if her own dream and memory weren't telling her what to do. Elijah fell back asleep, and Eli stood from her crouch and left, casting a long and longing glance behind her at the past as she left through the closet door.
Elijah swore that she would stay awake the next night, in the way that children will make promises to themselves so solemnly, that seem so strange to adults. She hung the cord on the closet door, and clutched a pen and notebook in her small, sweaty hands as she waited. She didn't know what she was waiting for, but she knew that someone who was not her mother had come through her closet door the night before, and she wanted to know who it had been.In the darkest part of the night, when Elijah's eyes were slipping half shut, as though weighed down with lead, a figure appeared in the doorway. She looked so normal, wearing purple pyjamas, with hair that was much shorter than Elijah's. She was older than Elijah was, but probably only by about five years. She had that end of puberty look to her, though to the young Elijah, almost anyone older than her still looked like an adult, with little differentiation."Oh, I'm early," Eli said, looking down at Elijah. "What's today's date?""August third," Elijah said, staring up at the newcomer. "The year, silly."Elijah told her, and Eli laughed. "I really am early.""Who are you?" Elijah asked, as Eli stepped around her to flop down on the bed."Oh, hey, I haven't seen this thing in ages," Eli said, grabbing a little jade statue of a frog off of Elijah's desk. "How'd I lose you, little guy?" She put it back down after a second, Elijah's words seeming to register in her brain. "Oh, wait, you don't know?""Know what?""Oh, jeeze," Eli said, rolling over onto her back, draping her head over the side of the bed, and looking at Elijah on the floor, upside down. "I'm you. In the future.""Oh." Elijah thought for a moment, the gears turning in her brain. "Prove it.""We've both got the same birthmark on our knee," Eli said. "I remember this conversation, now. It's all coming back to me."She pulled up her pyjama pant leg, or more accurately let it fall down, by kicking her left leg up into the air, revealing a hairy leg with a dark brown splotch of skin right above the knee. Below it was a nasty looking scar.Elijah stood up and studied it, turning on the desk lamp shaped like a ladybug to get a good look at it. Hesitantly, she touched the leg with the tip of her finger. The stranger in her room, her older self, certainly felt real."How did that happen?" Elijah asked, touching the healed scar, a thick stripe down the front of Eli's leg."I'm definitely not allowed to tell you that," Eli said. "Probably shouldn't have even shown it to you. Oh well." She didn't sound that sad about it."Not allowed?""Jeeze, if you haven't even..." Eli shook her head, then lapsed into silence, still staring upside down at her younger counterpart."What's your name?" Elijah asked."Call me Eli, but you know it's the same as yours," Eli said. "Just to keep us straight. If I come through the door, I'm Eli. If I'm here on this side of the door, I'm Elijah. I don't think it hurts to tell you that, does it?"She was remembering this conversation, vaguely now, as it had slipped into the depths of her memory. It had been the first time she had talked to her future self, her present self, now, but it became mundane when she put it next to all the other times, every following night, that she had conversed with herself."You should write this down," Eli said, pointing at the notebook that Elijah was still clutching in her hand. "Help you keep it straight. Someday you'll want to have this record. Whoops, I'm cheating again.""I would have written it down anyway," Elijah pointed out. "That's what I have the notebook for.""Sorry I'm not being very entertaining tonight," Eli said."Am I usually entertained?""I guess. Start writing.""Don't boss me around.""You're so baby right now," Eli said. "It's cute.""What should I write?""Your choice."Elijah was a solemn child, but she glared at Eli anyway. "Tell me.""You should keep a detailed journal of everything you do, every day. And then when you visit yourself, you write down, well, I usually write when I come from, and what I talked about, and, you know, anything I notice or thoughts I have.""Does it help anything?""I like to have the record," Eli said. "I like it when I can put the pieces together. I'll match up both halves of the encounter, and put them in a box.""Why?""I like there to be symmetry.""Do you get to pick, coming here?""I hang up the cord, and sometimes it's a doorway that I can step through, and sometimes it's a doorway that some other Eli can step through. I don't put the cord up every night.""Why not?""Sometimes I just want some sleep," Eli said. She delivered this line with the utmost seriousness. Elijah wrote it down in her notebook."When do you leave?""Whenever I get bored. Or when the sun comes up.""Do you not come during the day?""The doorway doesn't work in the day.""Can you stay here?""You'll have to try and find out," Eli said with a wink."What happens on the other side," Elijah asked. "Are you still there?""It just looks like there's a door between this room and mine back home.""What's your life like back there?""I can't tell you.""Can I go through?""Try it."And so Elijah did, standing up and reaching out to touch the darkness that hung in front of her closet door. It felt like nothing, so she shoved her hand through further, then she took a step. Her bare foot landed on something sharp, and she stumbled and fell, facefirst into the hangers and clothing in the closet. Behind her, Eli laughed, but Elijah's flailing in the closet caused the cord to fall off the lintel to the ground, and the sound of Eli's chuckles faded into nothing.Elijah extracted herself from the mess and looked around, picking up the cord off the ground. Eli was gone, leaving absolutely no trace. She hung up the cord over the doorway again, but nothing happened. Even when she stayed up for as long as she could, Eli didn't reappear.
Elijah was thirteen. Eli was fifteen.It was somewhat rare for these visits to be so close together in age, but it happened. It would happen more as she got older, of course, and the barrier of a few years meant less and less, but here it meant a little bit too much.Eli stepped through the doorway. Elijah smiled and held out a half a chocolate bar, intending to share it with her other self. Eli looked at it with a kind of derision, then stepped past Elijah to flop on the bed."Don't you want some?" Elijah asked. "You can have it.""I can't have candy. I'm too fat," Eli said.Elijah looked down at herself, studying her body. She hadn't thought she was fat, and she didn't think that Eli was, either. But she looked at the candy bar in her hand, too, and rewrapped the end of it and shoved it in her desk drawer."I hate being Eli," Elijah said. "I should just stop hanging up that stupid cord.""Why?""Because I always have to go to some baby version of myself who doesn't know anything about my life," Eli said. She wasn't looking at Elijah. She had her head propped up on her elbows and was looking outside the window at the rain that dripped down from the tree leaves."What's the matter?" Elijah asked."Nothing's the matter." Eli scoffed and rolled over onto her back. "Absolutely nothing is ever the matter."Elijah didn't like the way her older self was clearly in a bad mood. She tried to divert the situation by handing over the grubby little notebook in which she recorded these encounters. "Can you fill it out?" she asked."Fine, fine," Eli said, taking the notebook in her hands and flipping to the latest page. She scribbled the date and other identifying information in it, then tossed the notebook back to Elijah, who didn't catch it. It fell to the floor with a pathetic plop, and Elijah had to crawl under the desk to retrieve the pen that had rolled away."Was I really such a clutz when I was you?" Eli asked. "No wonder nobody liked me."Elijah clutched the notebook to her chest, feeling the bitter sting of Eli's words. She didn't really know what to say in response. What could she say? Clearly Eli knew better than she did."I don't think people don't like me," Elijah finally got out."Of course you don't think that," Eli said, and she was very bitter. "You don't have any perspective.""How do I get perspective?" Elijah asked, though she had this feeling in the back of her mind that she was about to deeply regret asking."You have perspective right here," Eli said. "You can just ask any Eli who comes through that door to tell you everything that's wrong with you. I'll do it."Although she knew it would hurt her, Elijah couldn't help but ask, "What's wrong with me?"And, although she could feel these remembered stings of pain, Eli couldn't help but answer. "Stand up," she said. Elijah did. "See, first of all, you don't stand up straight.""Oh," Elijah said, and tried to straighten her back, feeling much like some kind of puppet."You look like if a worm managed to evolve two legs to walk around," Eli said. "Get your arms under control."Where should Elijah put her arms? She didn't know. She shoved her hands into her pockets."See, now you look defensive, like you've got something to hide. That makes people hate you. Smile."Elijah tried to smile, but it was hard, when she couldn't look at her older self straight, feeling her judgmental glare upon her."You don't even act like a human being," Eli said derisively. "You don't do what other people want you to do.""What do people want?""They want you to act like everybody else, duh.""I try to," Elijah said, voice breaking."It doesn't work, though," Eli said. "I can see you now, like, you're always half a step behind everybody else. You watch what they're doing, and you copy it, and then it's too late. I'm too late to help you." Eli shook her head. "Wish somebody could have told me all of this earlier.""It's not too late," Elijah pleaded. "Tell me what I have to do." She was desperate for the approval of her older self, wanting to make her proud, and wanting to get the knowledge that would somehow make the other kids at school like her. She knew she didn't have that many friends, or any, really. She had thought it was because she was a solemn child, and that was why she spent her nights talking to these older versions of herself. But Eli came and told her that there was something wrong. There was something wrong with her, but it could be fixed."When was the last time you showered?" Eli asked."I don't know," Elijah said. "I don't like to.""You stink. You smell bad. People don't want to be around you because you're filthy.""I don't—""You do," Eli said. "I can smell you from here. And your hair looks disgusting."Elijah reached up and touched her own head. It felt fine. She wished she had a mirror in her bedroom to look in. Why would Eli lie to her, though? So it must be true."And your clothes," Eli continued. "You don't wear anything that other people do.""I like my clothes.""Other people think they're ugly, and they make you look ugly and stupid.""I'm not stupid.""But you look stupid."Elijah bottled up the tears that were threatening to come out of her face. She rubbed her eyes and nose fiercely with the back of her hand. She didn't speak because if she spoke, she would cry."And you always say the wrong thing."Elijah didn't know what the right thing to say was."You always want to talk about you, you, you. You have to figure out what other people want to hear, and say that to them, so that they like you. They don't care about you. If you don't talk about yourself, you can't say anything embarrassing about yourself."Eli looked at her. "Well, are you going to take my advice?"Elijah didn't know how to respond. She didn't know what there was to say. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. She didn't want her older self to hate her, but the way that Eli's eyes bored into her, she knew she did. Elijah looked away, at anything but Eli's face, frown, terrible stare. She wanted to take the advice, but she didn't know how. She wanted to be better, but she just had now become aware of how terrible she was. It was a heavy burden.When Elijah didn't respond fast enough, Eli said, "You're useless. I'm wasting my time. Grow up a little."She rolled off the bed and practically stomped away, back through the cord, leaving Elijah alone. Now Elijah sat on the bed, on the warm spot that Eli had left, pulled the blankets to her chest, and cried.
Elijah was fifteen and Eli was thirty two.Elijah was inconsolable. Eli did her best to console."Can you at least tell me what's going on?" Eli asked, sitting on the edge of the thin twin bed and rubbing Elijah's back, as she lay sobbing into the pillow.Eli could probably have narrowed down what the offense was, by searching through her own memory, but the times in which she had been brought to tears by the cruelty of high school students was many, and the number of times that she had gone back through the dark walls of time to comfort herself was also many. It hardly mattered what the particular offense was. It had felt like the end of the world, at the time.Eli stared around at the teenage room, hearing the wind whip past the walls of the house. Downstairs, her mother had the TV on, loud. It put an ache in Eli's heart, but it was an old and familiar ache, that she tried to never let show."Jason dumped me," Elijah choked out through the pillow over her face, in between sobs.Eli barely remembered Jason. Her teenage memories were of a boy with a wide smile and curly hair, who laughed a little too loudly at his own jokes, and had dumped her in the middle of a date, because high schoolers didn't really know any better. There probably wasn't anything more worth remembering. The likelihood that the relationship had been good even while it lasted was minimal."What movie did you go see?" Eli asked, struggling to remember."Crisis in London," Elijah managed to say. "He picked it." And that sentence had a particularly plaintive tone."Was it any good?""Noooo," Elijah said. "And he dumped me.""It'll be okay," Eli said. "How do you know?""I can't believe you're still asking me that question." She continued rubbing Elijah's back."I've never been this miserable in my life," Elijah moaned.Eli didn't say anything, but since Elijah wasn't looking, and therefore couldn't glean any information from it, she did smile a bitter smile. There were plenty of hard times coming, and it made looking back on this relatively petty matter a bit of a chore. But she would do it, because it had been done for her, and she had been comforted, even just a little, all those years ago. And life had gone on."Jason's a dick," Eli said. "Try not to think about him too much.""That's easier said than done.""But you can do it."Elijah lifted her head up from her pillow, where prominent tear stains lay. "You're probably right.""I'm always right."
She had hung up the cord, hoping that Eli would come through, hoping that there would be someone on the other side to comfort her, but it had wavered into the doorway that was all too familiar to her, and not what she wanted right now. But she couldn't help but step through, compelled as she was to answer the call of her younger self.Eli was twenty three. Elijah was sixteen.Eli tried to wipe the tears from her eyes, hide her sniffles before she stepped through, but it was an exercise in futility. She had never been good at not wearing her heart completely on her sleeve.Elijah was sitting at her desk playing a game on her phone when Eli stepped through. She turned around, wearing a half smile. "Hey," she said."Hey yourself," Eli managed."Notebook's on the bed," Elijah said, then turned away for a second to finish her phone game. "I need some advice from you." She hadn't seemed to have noticed Eli's puffy face, and the sniffle that Eli gave as she bent over the bed to fill out her date log was clearly misinterpreted by Elijah. "You have a cold or something?""No," Eli said, scrawling the date on the paper."That's good. I don't want to catch your future germs.""I'm not sick," Eli said."Want to watch a movie?" Elijah asked, continuing as though Eli hadn't said anything. "Today was the last day of school before April break, so I'm like, free to stay up and do whatever.""Cool," Eli said, but her voice was as flat and neutral as she could possibly make it.Elijah dropped her phone onto her desk with a clatter that made Eli jump. "I've been meaning to ask you," Elijah said, turning around. "Should I ask Chris out?""That's your decision," Eli muttered. Chris, a gawky teenager who played the saxophone, was long gone from her mind. She only vaguely remembered this period in her life, and didn't remember this particular conversation at all. It hadn't stood out to her when she had been Elijah, and now as Eli, she didn't care about Chris, she only cared about her own misery, one that was upon her like a tide."You don't have to be grumpy about it," Elijah said. "You can just tell me if it doesn't work out.""It's not about that," Eli said, trying to keep the shaking from her voice."Hunh. Well. Whatever. I have this stupid math packet to do, can you help me out with it for a second?"If she had been Elijah, this time, she would have been able to say all of her problems out loud. But instead she was Eli, and so she said, "Let me see it."Elijah pulled the trigonometry packet out of her desk drawer and passed it to Eli, who looked down at it, squinting. If her brain had been in the right place, she would have been able to be helpful and explain everything to Elijah perfectly, but instead, the numbers seemed to swim in front of her eyes. Elijah was talking, going on and on about something that Eli didn't care about, couldn't care about. A tear dripped down her face and fell onto the math paper."I'm sorry, Elijah," Eli choked, interrupting her younger self. "I don't think I can help you with this right now." She passed the paper back with shaking hands."What's the matter with you?" Elijah asked, suddenly looking at her, as if for the first time. She didn't say this kindly; she had a kind of accusatory tone, one that made Eli want to curl into a ball and roll away. She always forgot how downright mean her teenage self could be, and how much even that innocuous displeasure, that feeling of disappointing her past self, could hurt so much, even on top of the hurt already here."I can't tell you," Eli said. She could keep that promise, at least. Follow the rules that kept her safe from her own future, as much as possible."Then why'd you even come here?" Elijah demanded."Because—" She wanted to say that she had been hoping for some kind of support, but she looked into Elijah's eyes and knew that Elijah wouldn't understand. So she shrugged helplessly."I can't help you," Elijah said. "I don't know what you want.""It's okay," Eli said, or tried to say, anyway.Elijah crossed her arms. "So do you want to watch a movie or not?""I should go, I think," Eli said, the words coming out stiffly."Fine. Suit yourself."So Eli stumbled back home, and pulled down the cord from her closet door with a thud, leaving it pooled up on the cold floor. No comfort to be found there.
Elijah was twenty. Eli was forty two."How come I never see you like, any older than this?" Elijah asked, looking at her older self, trying to decide if she had gracefully aged or not. "You know I keep careful track.""I think if you think about that answer, you'll draw your own conclusions," Eli said. "Focus. Math." She tapped her finger onto Elijah's calculus textbook. "You can do it."Elijah pushed her homework away. "I mean, I guess I could be dead," Elijah said. "Seems like I'd be pretty young. Do you think it's like, a car accident? You don't kill yourself, do you?"Eli sighed. "Do you think I would tell you how we die, even if I did know that information, which I physically can't?""I'd try to get it out of you.""I like to think that I'm good at avoiding giving you too many hints." Elijah frowned. "Tell me.""How did you get the cord?""Oh my god, I have a kid? Who with? Do I get married? Boy or girl?""I'm obviously not going to answer those questions. All I can say is that I am fairly certain that the cord will leave my possession of my own volition, within the next few years."Elijah stopped to consider this. "I don't think I'd want to give it up," she said. "Why not?""I'd be lonely.""Maybe I decide to stop being so narcissistic," Eli said. "After all, talking to oneself is not precisely healthy. Nor is living in the past.""From my perspective, it's the future.""From my perspective, you're going to fail your calc exam if you don't focus and do your homework.""Do I fail?""Do you really think I remember the grade I got on every exam twenty years ago? It's a miracle I remember my own name.""You make it sound like getting older is a bad thing.""It is when I have to compare myself to you," Eli said. "Enjoy your youth, I suppose.""But how will I know how to enjoy my old age when you're not around to provide a positive example?""You'll have to be your own example, just like you always have been.""Hmph. Sounds fake.""You know what's not fake?""Math?""Got it in one. Come on, or I'm heading out. I need my beauty rest more than you do.""Fine, fine."
Elijah was forty three, and she was alone. Her ear was pressed to the wall of her bedroom, listening for... She didn't know exactly what the sound would be, but she thought she would know it when she heard it.Her daughter moved around on the other side of the wall, thumping, talking to herself in her singsong way. And then there was a long, long stretch of silence. Elijah thought about giving up, but remembered her own first night, falling asleep in front of the doorway. She leaned against the wall and listened.Footsteps, creaking footsteps. A soft voice."Up you get," her daughter said. The voice was friendly, warm, alive. "Hey, it's alright. Don't be afraid. It's okay. Everything's going to be okay."Elijah covered her mouth and stifled a sob, not wanting to let her daughter next door know she was listening. She wouldn't do it again, but she wanted to hear her daughter grown, just once, just in case. Just to catch a glimpse of the future around the corner.
Writing > Poetry > The Invention of the Circle
The Invention of the Circle
2020
Laying low and waiting
in the grass, see the sky.
Light above is grating,
caught, perfect, in your eye.
How the moon guides you by
its untroubled movements.
Pristine, untouched, how thy
hand makes no improvements.With the spear you’re weighting,
once again you will try
in the dirt translating
(caught, perfect, in your eye)
that unbroken line. Lie
that your own amusements
could hold that light. Each sly
hand makes no improvements.While you stand hesitating,
I place your hand on mine.
“Look,” I say, “duplicating,
caught. Perfect, in your eye,
the moon reflected, spy.
Despite the light’s influence,
to your beauty, his high
hand makes no improvements.”In vain we satisfy
our heart with our reply.
All of us are truants--
all of nature’s students.
Writing > Poetry > I Love The Summer For Its Light
I Love the Summer for Its Light
2019
I love the Summer for its light,
and the Spring for the light that is coming,
and the Fall for the last vestiges of it that hang on
like spiderwebs tying the night to the day.I love the Summer for its light,
and the Winter for its darkness.
But as the season wanes and marches on,
I wish the light would stay.How can we stand here,
among these most melancholy of shadows,
with the warm wind at our window?
How can we not say,
"I love the night but dream of the day."
Writing > Poetry > The Sun Departing Down the Street Like a Guest
The Sun Departing Down the Street Like a Guest
2019
The last rays of the sun are touching the third floor of the buildings.
Same color as the clouds.
For as long as I look at it, it will stay there,
perfect and frozen and beautiful.
The moment I look away it will be gone.If only I could hold this last light in my hands,
like a cup to keep me warm,
like a bowl that brims over.Peek through the blinds again tomorrow, love.
I'll still be here.
Writing > Poetry > Providence, November
Providence, November
2018
as the birds fly south for winter
the excavators come home to roost.
they bow their heads to the ground,
wishing for wings to tuck their necks under.
everyone guards piles of salt and twisted metal
brushed cold and golden by the sun.
a boat lifts its arms to the sky,
all rattling chains and gentle, grasping claws.
gentlemen, best prices for scrap here:
all metals, all amounts.
the highway crawls home.
Writing > Poetry > .2mi Visibility
.2mi Visibility
2019
This January, fog slips thick fingers through the hair of the trees,
wrapping them in blankets against the cold and against the sun.
Streetlamps and headlights make halos
of red, yellow, green, white,
carving slices into the air,
the same at three as they are at six as they are at nine as they are at--And something whispers to me that elsewhere there is snow.
It’s only getting warmer.
It’s only getting warmer.
Writing > Poetry > Coming to Terms With the Fact That I Didn’t Spend My Youth Like Everything Told Me I Should
Coming To Terms With the Fact That I Didn’t Spend My Youth Like Everything Told Me I Should
2013
I want to be skinny and sexless,
to lay around in sleeping bags under the stars
with friends and maybe lovers
to feel the comfort of skin
and the ear tickling of dreamy nonsense words
of plans and ambitions and dreams and loves.I want to be skinny and sexless,
to waste my youth- idle- with thoughts that lead
nowhere but to other young holding hands-
fingers, long hair, short hair, scissors.I want to be skinny and sexless,
with the romanticized and stigmatized idea of
children gone wild-
skateboards and swimming pools and
hot red blood and money burning holes
not in pockets but in hands
and broken bottles and brown paper bags.I want to be skinny and sexless,
to write poetry and half romantic letters
that swear with my whole heart
"I hope I die before I hit thirty."
Fic
A Friend Is a Friend (And We Both Know How This Will End)
On the night of December 17, Wolfgang Mittermeyer has a dream.
Fandom: Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 1,651
Mais Ou Sont Les Neiges d'Antan
Poplan and Konev in the snow.
Fandom: Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 6,503
Lenny chooses a different way to deal with Kurtwell.
Fandom: The Young Pope
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 1,836
Reuenthal and Kircheis live one particular night again.
Fandom: Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 4,534
Can You See That Young Star Overhead? That's the One That Designed My Undoing
Nita Callahan meets the Lone Power, before he fell.
Fandom: Young Wizards
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 6,825
A Somewhat Larger Death, Indeed
When Lady Mary breaks her arm during the hunt, it's up to Thomas to entertain Mr. Pamuk after all.
Fandom: Downton Abbey
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 3,373
To Love That Well Which Thou Must Leave Ere Long
The soldiers on Reinhard's ship entertain themselves by putting on plays. Kircheis has the misfortune of being cast in the leading role.
Fandom: Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 6,557
Dave and Hal, before everything goes wrong.
Fandom: 2001: A Space Odyssey
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 2,045
Other Projects
An episode-by-episode analysis of LOGH.
Fandom: Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Status: In progress.
Wordcount: tbd
An AMV about Reinhard and forgiveness from sins.
Fandom: Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Status: Complete
Project Status
Top Priorities: Serpent's Mouth, Serpent's Teeth,Every Hateful Instrument, various exchange ficMiddle Shelf: New Creatures With New Hearts (Rewrite)Back Burner: none.As Inspiration Strikes: Blood, Water, and Alcohol; As In a Mirror, Dimly; Short Stories; Poetry; FicBy Request: As In a Mirror, Dimly, assorted fic
Speaking In Tongues - Complete. 70k words.
Talking Without Speaking - Complete. 77k words.
Life Out of Balance - Complete. 129k words.
Servants of the Pharaoh - Complete. 173k words.
Whatever It Takes to Keep the Body Warm - Complete. 23k words.
Keep the Home Fires (Burning) - Complete. 33k words.
Lighting Out for the Territories - Complete. 147k words.
Serpent's Mouth, Serpent's Teeth - In progress.
Lightless Labyrinth - Not Started.
Silent Spiral - Not Started.
Extras - sporadic updates
New Creatures With New Hearts - First draft complete, 225k words. Currently being re-written. Rewrite on semi-hiatus.
The Realms of the Unreal - First draft complete, needs rewrite. 329k words.
The Eyes That See the Glory - On Hiatus. Needs rewrite. 278k words.
Every Hateful Instrument - In Progress.
That’s Me
Natalie (Noodle)
27
they/themwhat even is there to say about me? I write a lot. you already know that.I work as a systems/mechanical engineer but the only reason that’s relevant is b/c you can see the terminal engineer brain happening in my writingwriting year count
2018 - 350k
2019 - 550k
2020 - 668k
2021 -
Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel > Speaking In Tongues
Speaking In Tongues
Written in February 2020
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 70,659
When his father’s spaceship is destroyed, Yang Wenli is left with nothing but a debt that would take his whole life to repay. To escape the indentured servitude he would be forced into, he flees his home country and take up residence in the Galactic Empire on a scholarship to their military academy. When his own classmates try to murder him for being a foreigner, Yang finds an unlikely ally in the aloof top student in the class: Oskar von Reuenthal.
Out of the blue, Reuenthal said, "You should be more ambitious." He looked across the table at Yang. "Other people will like you more if they see you have interests outside of history."Yang hesitated a moment, picking up his teacup before answering. "I have ambitions.""Oh? What kind?"Yang hid a small smile behind his teacup. "The wrong kind."When Reuenthal didn't say anything in response, Yang returned to his reading, though he could feel Reuenthal's eyes on him. After about half a minute of silent study, Reuenthal said, "I think I am a man with the wrong kind of ambitions, as well."Yang didn't look up to meet Reuenthal's eyes, but he gave a quick nod.
Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel > Life Out of Balance
Life Out of Balance
Written in March and April 2020
Status: Complete (needs revision)
Wordcount: 129,058
Reinhard and Annerose von Musel are forced to flee the Galactic Empire when their father sells Annerose to the kaiser as a concubine. On the other side of the galaxy, they are beholden to the charity of the Free Planets’ Alliance, and they struggle to prove themselves.
* “What do you want me to be?” Reinhard asked. “If you want me to try, I’ll try. I do try. For you.”*“I don’t know,” Annerose said. She sounded almost defeated, perhaps by the sight of Reinhard twisting the chain of the locket around his finger. “I’m afraid—”“Of what?”“I could demand something of you that you can’t give. And then we’ll both start to resent each other for it.”“The fact that you aren’t means that I can trust that you won’t.” Reinhard paused. “I’m sorry.”“I don’t even know what you’re apologizing for.”“Whatever you like.”“Then it’s not a true apology.”“Perhaps. But wouldn’t it be better than nothing?”“I don’t know.”“I’m sorry for fighting, then, because it upsets you. And I’m sorry that you want things from me that you know I can’t give you.”“I don’t want it for me,” Annerose said. “I just want… I want you to be happy. Content.”“There is a world of difference between those two things.”“I’m worried that you won’t be either, if you keep going on the path you’re on.”“I know how to be happy,” Reinhard said.Annerose shook her head. “But are you?”“Having you around makes me happy.”“I’m not the only thing, though.”“Of course not.”“And I’m not enough.”“You don’t need to be.”“I want to be. If that’s what it takes to stop you from—“ She shook her head.“And what makes you happy?” Reinhard asked.“We’re not talking about me.”“We’re not?” Reinhard stared at her, though she didn’t meet his eyes. “You fear that I want too much. Should I fear that you want too little?”“Stop it,” she said, and her voice was so raw that Reinhard did.
Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel > Servants of the Pharaoh
Servants of the Pharaoh
Written in May, June, and July 2020
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 173,048
Now a full officer in the imperial fleet, Yang Wenli struggles with the morality of his actions, as well as the rot at the very heart of the Galactic Empire.
* “Unfortunately, Commander, on that point you might be wrong,” Yang said, smiling a little. “I’m a very lazy man, and I have no great desire to provide distinguished services to the Goldenbaum dynasty.”*“And yet you are one of the Goldenbaum dynasty’s servants.”“I shall strive to be a humble one.”“Why is that?”“It seems strange that I would need to explain why I dislike the idea of being an effective weapon of war.”“Sub-lieutenant,” Oberstein said, “you stand out by virtue of your being. It might be to your benefit to be above reproach in your actions, which by necessity means being successful.”Yang scratched his head. “Maybe.”“But perhaps all of this is dangerous talk,” Oberstein said.
Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel > Whatever It Takes to Keep the Body Warm
Whatever It Takes to Keep the Body Warm
Written in July 2020
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 23,435
Reuenthal and Mittermeyer have a confrontation on Kapche-Lanka.
* Reuenthal reached out and traced one finger along the soft line of Yang’s jaw, waiting for him to speak. “Mittermeyer’s on Kapche-Lanka.”*“Oh?”“Yeah.”“And this worries you?”“No,” Yang said, shaking his head. “I just thought you should know. But you don’t like when I bring him up.”*It had been over a year since Reuenthal had last seen Mittermeyer, at his wedding, but the thought of him still caused a miserable, twisting reaction in Reuenthal’s heart. It was easy to pick out the mixture of anger and desire-- the feeling of betrayal remained strong-- but there were other things that Reuenthal never wanted to look too closely at, like peeling the flesh away from the wound to see underneath. In the quiet darkness of the bedroom, still on the edge of sleep, though, his emotions were muted. *“I’m sure I won’t see him,” Reuenthal said. “It’s a big planet.”
Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel > Lighting Out for the Territories
Lighting Out for the Territories
Written in 2020 and 2021
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 147,110
Reinhard begins his career as a diplomatic attache on Phezzan, while Annerose joins the Rosenritter.
* “There is always somewhere higher to climb. And in the grand scheme of things, what I have accomplished was flashy and exciting, but not particularly tactically relevant. The loss of one ship for the imperial fleet is nothing, and while the saving of four hundred Alliance soldiers may mean much to their families, in a war where battles regularly involve the lives and deaths of millions of people, it’s insignificant.”*“You want to be in charge of the lives and deaths of millions?”Reinhard’s smile showed teeth. “I would like to see the Goldenbaum dynasty destroyed,” he said. “And that is a goal that will involve a great many people, a far greater number than are on a single ship, or in a single fleet, even.”
Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel > Talking Without Speaking
Talking Without Speaking
Written in 2020 and 2021
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 77,612
When Oskar von Reuenthal enrolls at the Imperial Officers' Academy, he doesn’t expect to make real friends. The IOA is a competitive place, and Reuenthal has never been well liked. But when a foreign student shows up to challenge him for the top spot in the class, Reuenthal can’t look away.
* “Why do you have such an interest in me? You’ve been staring at me since the day we arrived," Leigh said.*“So has everybody else.”“You know what I mean.”Reuenthal was afraid that he did. Or, not afraid precisely, but surprised to acknowledge that his thoughts about Leigh stretched back, in some form, to before, even, than the brief moment they had spoken in the hallway outside the practicum where they had faced each other. Reuenthal had seen Leigh at the convocation dinner, seen his head tilted back to the ceiling, seen his throat bared— vulnerable— and thought, “So, this is the number two.”“Isn’t it only natural for me to have an interest in my direct competition?”
Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel > Keep the Home Fires (Burning)
Keep the Home Fires (Burning)
Written in 2021
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 32,900
Three soldiers. Two bodies to be buried. One haunted house.
Nothing had been touched. His room was exactly as he had left it when he had packed up after the winter break of his senior year at the IOA. There was a layer of dust over everything, and when he flipped on the overhead light only one of the bulbs worked, but other than that, it was unchanged. He stepped inside, crossing the threshold, and closed the door behind him.There were his old swim medals pinned up on the wall above his bed. There was the IOA class photo of all the top students arranged in a neat pack— the one photograph he had allowed himself to hang of Yang, since it was less personal. They stood next to each other in the photo, one and two, and Reuenthal could just make out his own serious expression contrasted with Yang’s genuine, if uncomfortable, smile. He hardly looked any different from the other students in a photograph this distant and grainy.Reuenthal sat down on the bed, which creaked underneath him and sent a puff of dust up from the neatly made bedspread. The room seemed smaller than he remembered it, though that couldn’t have been true considering how much time he had spent in the tiny cramped cabins for junior officers in ships. He thought it was probably even larger than his senior dorm room at the IOA had been, though perhaps he was misremembering that, as well.A careful numbness settled over him, a practiced emotion, where he could think about things without letting his thoughts run wild. Tomorrow, he would need to start cleaning. He should get rid of his father’s things, sort the important paperwork that had been neglected in drawers, make sure that there weren’t any parts of the house that were falling down. He needed to arrange his father’s burial. The body was currently being held in the morgue.He cracked open the beer and sipped it. It was the kind that his father liked, some cheap local variety. He would have never picked it for himself, but it was just another thing that felt natural in this house.His thoughts slid away. What would he do with his father’s things? His clothing? No charity shop would want them, certainly. He needed to find an outfit to bury his father in.Unbidden, he had an image of tossing his father’s clothes in the fireplace downstairs. Shirts, jackets, shoes, socks, underwear, the whole thing up in flames, spilling out onto the floor, rippling towards him, and then up the walls, the whole house a pillar of fire. He lingered on this image, imagining himself immaterial and untouchable as he wandered through the house. Everywhere his mental gaze turned, new flames leapt up, licking the curtains and the paintings on the walls, racing up the stairwell, consuming the books in the library, bursting the wine bottles in the cellar, moving like a tidal wave across the wood floors and roaring over the master bedroom, until the ceiling itself crumbled and the house collapsed.
Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel > Serpent's Mouth, Serpent's Teeth
Serpent's Mouth, Serpent's Teeth
Estimated completion date: August 2022
Status: In Progress
Wordcount: tbd
As the Empire collapses into civil war, Yang must do whatever it takes just to survive.
Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel > Lightless Labyrinth
Lightless Labyrinth
Coming 2022/2023
Status: Not started
Wordcount: 0
Reinhard consolidates his power within the Alliance.
Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel > Silent Spiral
Silent Spiral
Coming 2022/2023
Status: Not started
Wordcount: 0
With enemies approaching from all sides, Yang holds on to the people he can.
Writing > A Wheel Inside a Wheel > extras
A Wheel Inside a Wheel - Extras
A preface to the third edition of A Wheel Inside a Wheel.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 1,180
Almost by coincidence, Rear Admiral Bronner and Martin end up in the same place at the same time: watching a banned play.
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 1,719
Art for WIAW, hosted on AO3.
Writing > In the Shadow of Heaven > New Creatures With New Hearts
New Creatures With New Hearts
Written in January-December 2018
Status: First draft complete, second draft being written.
Wordcount: 225,000
Yan BarCarran is the orphan daughter of a spacefaring clan, about to graduate from the school where people with the one-in-a-million God given power are sent to train. The next phase in her life is the apprenticeship, where she will train under someone else with the power to begin her lifelong career. She’s hoping for a research position, but instead she’s given an opportunity that will put the weight of the universe on her shoulders.Aymon Sandreas is the de facto leader of the Empire, wielding the unfettered power that being a theocratic dictator provides. But he’s getting older, and he needs to choose a successor. He needs someone that he can shape into a leader: someone who will carry on the traditions of the Empire, someone who will be able to make difficult and correct decisions, and someone that he can bear to spend the rest of his mortal life working with. He picks three students as potential leaders: the talented and thoughtful Yan BarCarran, the impulsive and striving Sid Welslak, and the mysterious and troubled Kino Mejia. Only one of them will survive their apprenticeship to take his place.Yan’s life quickly spirals into chaos. Her best friend, Sylva, is in love with her; she can’t figure out how to make her new coworkers get along; she hates the man who is supposed to train her to survive assassination attempts; and, on top of all of that, she begins to learn the horrible secrets at the heart of the Empire. If she’s lucky enough to survive her apprenticeship, that secret burden will be on her shoulders. As it turns out, though, surviving that long will be a big if.
Writing > In the Shadow of Heaven > The Realms of the Unreal
The Realms of the Unreal
Written in December 2018 thru May 2019
Status: First draft complete, needs major rewrites.
Wordcount: 329,000
On the other side of the galaxy and in more danger than she has ever been in, without the tools and people she has come to rely on, Yan must do anything she can to survive.Sid and Kino’s responsibilities increase, as do tensions as they are forced to work together.Aymon fears that instability in leadership of the Guild might ripple out into the Empire as a whole, and he struggles to maintain control.Sylva and Iri find unlikely allies in each other on a dangerous quest.
Writing > In the Shadow of Heaven > The Eyes That See the Glory
The Eyes That See the Glory
**Written in May-October, December 2019, March 2020 **
Status: On hiatus, needs major rewrites.
Wordcount: 278,000
Lines are drawn in the sand, alliances are formed and broken, and no one can avoid being caught up in the coming confrontation that will shape humanity’s future.
Writing > In the Shadow of Heaven > Every Hateful Instrument
Every Hateful Instrument
Written in November 2020-present
Status: Currently being drafted.
Wordcount: 11,916
Aymon Sandreas would like to think of himself as an indolent prince, but the ugly realities of being next in line to rule the galaxy keep catching up with him.Hail and Farewell Vinright had an easy life as a pirate, happy with his drug-smuggling family, until he discovered that he had been born with the one-in-a-million God-gift. He decides that, to help his family’s business, he should learn how to manufacture and sell one of the rarest and most sought after objects in the universe: the stardrive that is at the heart of every ship.Aymon is sent to track down and destroy this rogue stardrive maker, in orfer to maintain the imperial government’s monopoly. The two young men are on a collision course that will define the rest of their lives.
Writing > Standalone Novels > Arcadis Park
Arcadis Park
Written in November and December 2019
Status: Complete.
Wordcount: 67,413
Jonah is a college senior who can't seem to score an internship, so she's returned to the summer job that she's had every year since she was old enough to work: lifeguarding at the run down waterpark on the outskirts of her small town. Things take a turn for the worse when a dismembered body is discovered in the lake that feeds the park's attractions, and the whole staff becomes convinced that they are the murderer's next target.
Writing > Standalone Novels > Not To Be Reproduced
Not To Be Reproduced
Written in November 2020
Status: Ongoing.
Wordcount: 14,000
Kennedy McLaughlin is desperate to learn what caused John, her older brother, to kill himself. His alarming behavior in the days and weeks before his death makes no sense, until his girlfriend, Emma, begins to act in the same way.
Writing > The Children of This World Marry & Are Given In Marriage
The Children of This World Marry & Are Given In Marriage
Written in March-May 2021
Status: Complete.
Wordcount: 42,000
A Legend of the Galactic Heroes canon divergence fanfic.After Reinhard has conquered the universe, with Kircheis at his right hand, the only thing that remains is to secure his legacy with an heir. But as Reinhard grows weaker, that task falls to his sister, Annerose.
Last Gasp at Calama
Written in 2021
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 83,000
A Legend of the Galactic Heroes / Downton Abbey crossover fic. It's way less stupid than it sounds I promise.
Writing > In the Shadow of Heaven > Art Gallery
In the Shadow of Heaven
Art by Others
Art By the Author
