#laeder dalion

[treesandwords]

Here’s my attempt at the John Mulaney challenge, thanks for tagging me @sophiewritingstuff​ !!

Here are some of my main characters from Children of the Mage Wars, sorry for the terrible picture quality on some of these lol...

Jerod:

Also Jerod:

Laeder:

Mikial: 

Tanja: 

Bonus - Jamos:

Tagging: @songsofaleria​  @ryns-ramblings  @writerfae​   if you guys want to do it for your WIPs 

Thanks!

[treesandwords]

CotMW and dreams/visions

Each main storyline has an emphasis on repetitive dreams and visions. I try to use it as a way to tie the characters together, even though 3/4 of them are unrelated and live nowhere near one another. I also like to use dreams or visions as means of foreshadowing, for later in the same book or for other books in the series I have planned. Examples include:

Jerod has a similar dream twice in the book, regarding his siblings dying as well as his guilt about the situation with the mage. Also, through his connection to the mage, he gains the ability to see visions of things happening in other parts of the world at that time. Usually they are obscure or hard to interpret, but he ends up writing them down each time he has one to try and make sense of them, while when he first found out he had this power he was afraid of it.

Tanja has had a repeated dream since childhood of a red forest, and sometimes of a flaming tree. These dreams get more and more detailed as the story goes on and she comes closer to the Saldigan Empire, which seems to be the heart of the location she dreams of. Part of her story in future books (?) involves her going on a journey to discover the meaning behind these dreams.

Laeder often has nightmares about his experience in the war, and later about (spoiler) the death of his daughter. Even before she dies he dreams of it happening, and afterwards can’t remember the details of the dream but it leaves him feeling unsettled for many days. He only remembers fully once it comes true in real life. 

Mikial has dreams of his home and family, though the images grow less and less distinct the longer he is away. Once they had grown almost completely indistinct, they start to evolve into something else which he can’t make out at first, but he sees what he thinks represents his future rather than his past. 

Anyway. Dreams, y’all. 

[treesandwords]

CotMW very first excerpt!!

From Children of the Mage Wars. I’m finally brave enough to post something.

Laeder’s eyes went to the new sword. “Can I take a look at that?”

Jerod nodded, and handed it over. His brother weighed it in his hands, looking it over with a critical eye.

 “This is a man’s sword, not a child’s,” he said. “Do you think you’re ready to be a man, then?”

 Jerod hesitated, then spoke determinedly. “Yes.”

 For a moment Laeder kept his serious face on, then a smile broke through. “You don’t have to be. Don’t worry about that. You’re still only a child.”

Jerod frowned. “I’m thirteen. Father says that means I have to start thinking about adult responsibilities, now.”

“You’re only a little boy. When you get to be my age, you will look back to today and wonder why you worried over such a thing. Did Father say what you’d need this for?”

“He… he said it was for battle. When I would have to be in one.”

Laeder’s eyes were following him. “You are worried, aren’t you? About what that might mean?”

Jerod knew what he was talking about. Would it be safe, to explain to Laeder of all people?

“I’m not sure I’m ready for it,” he said quietly, “Father says I’ll need it if I am to go to battle, but I’m not sure I want to go to battle at all, is that wrong? I know it would be expected of me if there was one, but I don’t know that I’m…right for it.”

His brother looked thoughtful but, to Jerod’s relief, not angry or concerned. “You are only young,” he said, “you’re still a boy. You have time to think, many years to think, and to decide what kind of man you will be. If you are not ready to be a fighter now, there is little hurry.” He paused, and swallowed. “Perhaps when you are my age you will feel differently. And…perhaps you will not.”

“And what if that’s it? What if I don’t feel any differently? Does that make me a coward?”

Jerod wasn’t sure, but he thought his brother’s face tightened a little. There was something hidden there, he thought, lurking behind the blue of his eyes. He was sure whatever he was about to say would be some kind of grown-up lecture.

“Do you want to know something about me?” said Laeder, surprising him. He shook his head. His brother continued.

“I fought in battle beside our father for the first time when I was sixteen. You know that.”

Jerod nodded. The Battle of Shale it had been called, where the Idraic island people sought to take back a sliver of mainland that had belonged to them, but long had been held by the northern Gostals. The Gamelorics rarely liked to take sides in the conflicts between these two rival regions, but this time their father had, deciding that the Idraic people had more of a reasonable cause, and were more in need of help from the Gameloric army. It had been a risk, however; while he had become close friends with the lord of the Idraic region in doing this, their region’s relations with the Gostal people had been damaged.

Laeder sighed and went on. “I had no great want to go to that battle. It terrified me, more than you can imagine. But I went because I was needed, because it was my duty. And now, if I were needed again, I would go, just like the last time.”

 And would you be terrified again? Jerod thought, but did not ask.

His brother laid one hand on his arm, a gesture more familial and intimate than anything he usually initiated. “If the time comes that you are called, you will be able. Because it will be your duty, as it was mine. And the pull of honour alone will give you the strength you need. I did not want to go when I was young, but I did go, and I survived, did I not?”

He had…and yet he was changed, as Mother said. Jerod felt that his true question was not being properly answered, that it was being deliberately avoided. And suddenly he no longer wanted to know.