Zelda was somewhere between life and death.
Not unconsciousness—nor sleep—but in a state of knowing that something inside her had left and could never be brought back. She had struggled for the light, holding her breath as long as she could, and cut the waves with the rusty sword from the flagstones when she grew desperate for progress. It grew no closer, no closer, but always remained just out of reach—an intangible, awful goal.
Zelda was drowned.
Zelda Fairchild:
16. Half-human. All-doomed.
Zelda isn’t good at apologies.
Zelda isn’t good at a lot of things, but apologies probably top the list. Unless you count telling when other people are lying. Or not trusting everyone she’s known for more than five minutes. She’s been the most hurt by the people close to her—her best friends, her family, and now her father.
It’s hard discovering you’ve been lied to for your entire life. It’s harder discovering that everyone else was right about you: You are some kind of creature from outside the realms of normalcy, and they have every right to be afraid of you.
To be afraid of what you can do.
Justin Fairchild came to town seventeen years ago and ran off with Karma Wethers, the daughter of the wealthiest family in Gramarye. A year later they had a daughter; two years after that, Karma went to fulfill her dreams of being a lawyer in the big city.
Zelda has been raised by her father for as long as she can remember, helping out in his flower shop and making very few friends along the way. He pushed her to become friends with Jupiter Grey, but the Grey family was just too weird for her—and besides, that could jeopardize her friendship with Scott Key. The Keys aren’t fond of outsiders, and she sees the weird looks his parents give her whenever they’re around.
Now her aunt has come to town and strange, awful things are awakening in the fog.
When Scott disappears, can she find him? Can she save him? And can she salvage her normal life from the ashes?
I’m almost at 60000 on my current WIP, The Autumn Door! I’m going to come back and post my progress with a snippet every day that I write -- but my goal has changed from 70000 to 82000 by December 31, so I’ll be writing basically every day to reach my goal~
I can’t wait to be done with this first draft! There are so many stories in this world I want to write, and once I get this draft edited/refined I’ll be able to start on those~
On the matter of Jupiter, Zelda was conflicted. She wanted nothing more than to trust the other girl—but she also wanted to be normal. To be human. And anyone associated with the Greys was neither.
- daily writing 09/05/18 // total word count: 26294
I figure it’s time to do a real introduction! I’m Vespatrix/Vespa/Raye and you can use whatever pronouns you like for me c: most people use they/them, but I’m not opposed to he/him, she/her, etc.! I’m still really new to the writeblr community - I used to have a main blog years ago, but a lot of stuff went sour and I quit the site before I got into my swing of writing.
I love people! I love people and I love books and if you are either a) a people or b) a book I am 100% guaranteed to love you.
I mainly write fantasy, including urban fantasy, but I dabble in sci-fi and its subgenres with great joy c: I’ve got a few ideas ruminating right now, and I’m trying to decide what to work on for NaNo and as I near the end of this draft of my WIP.
My current WIP is The Autumn Door, and I’m planning to finish draft 1 by the new year. A quick teaser: A girl’s best friend is kidnapped into Faeryland, and she must rescue him from her evil aunt. The characters are my favorite part so far - there’s a half-faery girl with more anger than common sense, her ex-best-frienemy who happens to be a witch, a seer who’s slowly losing it, and a cursed faery who wants to take down the ruling class.
It’s the first in a series of 4 stories I have planned to take place in this world/around this central plot, and it kicks off the party! If you have any questions about it, you should totally ask me c:
I’ll follow anyone who reblogs this & I follow back!
Day Three of the September Writing Challenge by @katywritesbooks. Featuring more characters from The Autumn Door, this time 13 years in the future. Thanks for tuning in!
“June 2nd,” he said to himself. The words were fire in his throat. He’d always hated the day—took it off work, went to church, and pretended the rest of the world didn’t exist. It had been thirteen years since he was dragged away from everything he knew. The iron cross at his neck warmed him and kept him safe from those terrors. “It’s June 2nd.”
He thumbed through a hymnal, muttering the words like a holy refrain. There was nothing in those pages that surprised him or washed him of his past. He twisted the cross pendant in his fingers, black with age and red with rust like blood, and flipped through the pages until he found the hymns he sang as a child.
Every year, for just a day, Scott liked to pretend there was a seat in the house of the Lord for people like him.
“I heard I’d find you here.” Her ghost settled next to him on the pew. She wore her head shaved and tattooed in blacks and blues, twisting shadows and malformed words. She didn’t reach out to touch him, but just being there was too much.
“Go away.” It was a numb demand. The words dropped like a pin on the floor of the silent church.
“I’m sorry.” She splayed her hand out on the seat of the pew. They’d been so close, once, but now the two feet between them felt like a mile.
He wished it was a mile. He wished it was a thousand miles. He wished she was somewhere else, messing up someone else’s life. He was happy—finally, truly, happy—and now his heart was turned to stone again looking at those hands. Those splendid rings, made of metals he’d never find on Earth, adorned with stones from deep beneath the oceans. That slender wrist, mangled by a scar.
“You’ve done well,” she said, like he needed her validation to know that. “What’s your daughter’s name?”
His eyes flickered up to hers. She didn’t belong here. He shook his head mutely—no, low and harsh, buzzed in the air between them. “Why are you back here?”
She lowered her eyes and lifted her knees to her chest. She was longer than she had been as a teenager. No taller, but more stretched out, dark circles stained under her eyes. Like she’d been to Hell and back. “I wanted to apologize. It’s been…long enough. I never got to say sorry.”
He bit back the urge to welcome her back into his life. That was her twisted magic, he reminded himself. It took thirteen years, but he’d taught himself to cringe from people with orange eyes, people who ran like the wind, people who had no flair for tact but complied obsessively with the truth. He twisted the cross again and again in his fingers until the chain was tight against his throat. “So in the end, it’s all about you.”
“I never—”
There was a perverse kind of joy to be had in listening to her choke on her own words. She clutched for truth, hands balled into fists, body curled into a ball. Finally, she breathed and let herself relax, standing from her seat. “I’m sorry, Scott. You’re right. I was making it about me.”
Somehow that was worse than the alternative.
“Your wife is kind,” she continued, “and your daughter will live a long and satisfying life.”
The sharp twist of magic in the air caught him. His stomach knotted in his throat. “No! Don’t—”
She looked at him with old, sad eyes. “You were my best friend, Scott. Do you really think I would hurt you like that?” She shook her head, lights shimmering in the air as she passed by him towards the huge double doors. The fading sunlight scattered through the stained-glass windows and painted her the Virgin Mary. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come back.”
“That was all a long time ago,” he tried to say, but she was gone.
The echoes of her words hung like sweet perfume: “You have been tortured for thirteen years. You shall be joyous for thirteen more. May your table and heart be full ‘til we meet again.”
5. Search for the word “knife” in your WIP. If you find it, paste the line and explain the context.
She would rather have had things she could experience: the glint of sunlight off a knife or the rustling-paper buzz of a beehive in the crown of a tree.
Context: Poor Zelda lamenting how she’s bad at analogies and themes in analyzing literature.
19. Post a picture or gif that describes your WIP.
Have a funny one and a more serious one (both pulled from Merlin because why not?)Wi
