#novel notes

[novel--notes]

Sometimes silence is what a person really needs.

[fakesurprise]

There are even exorcists who think they are kind, or at least almost good.

[devynjett]

A couple pages later and the outline for this chapter is done!

[novel--notes]

Passive aggressiveness is a tactic reserved for hormonal teenagers and simple-minded adults.

[fakesurprise]

Language was invented to protect people from feelings. Language made a barrier, a wall for those who did not have protections of their own.The only magic in the world is words, the only spells the ones that act as barriers to feelings. All stories about magic involve words, not only because they are stories. 

We are herd animals; only in the herd are we happy. But also only then are we vulnerable. Because there are those in the heart who have learned to take, and twist that taking. To turn people against themselves. To bend wishes and desires and needs into other shapes and forms. Energy vampires look like regular people, most of the time. But they feed, and change, and grow strong with that change. 

Few understand they are one, and few hold the power long enough to truly become. Those that do are changed, for those with eyes to see such things. Not all are bad. Not all are good. For all they take and drain, they are no worse than many others. Some are good at eating sins. Others eat sorrow or loss, and others twist and change others and create stories that give energy vampires a poor name indeed. 

But regardless of their skill and power, an energy vampire is a predator. 

Only very few realize they are not the only monster out there. 

[fakesurprise]

rabidwerewolfie replied to your post “Flight”

A sequel already? Impressive.

 More planning and ideas than anything else. The story barely touched the world, and the end of it forces the characters out of the six kingdoms. No clue when I’ll get around TO working on it - I have a handful of books to read as research and figure out what will happen. 

The novel itself ended. The world has not. Which is - interesting.

[fakesurprise]

Flight

A sequel to Wings.

Meldak is dead, but Prince Leos of New Dakesh  is no longer welcome in the six kingdoms because few great deeds come without prices. A prince still, though his title has no sway in the vastness of the Niand Empire he has travelled into. With him are Sia and Cel. Sia out of a misplaced sense of duty. Cel out of the desire to try and forgive Leos for what he did to her family and to remain with her beloved.

They carry silence instead of secrets, and silence can be worse by far.

Leos is nominally looking for his older sister who is the ambassador to the empire. But mostly he is trying to understand what has happened to him, find out what paths he might be on and what he is meant to do with his life now that he has been  touched by both the Providence and the Blight

He succeeded. Ten years of planning and effort, of learning and gathering knowledge and skill culminated in the death of Meldak, the man who would have brought ruin to the six kingdoms and perhaps caused a new Blight War.

This is what comes after.

---------

This is what came into my head today. I won’t be writing this novel for some time; I have a pile of research and planning to do, an entire empire to map out and explore - but the core is here. Leos gained Wings he did not want, he succeeded in destroying a great evil. He did hs deed of heroism and valour, and all remains is to find out what he is after he is free to just be Leos. 

(This novel will probably be from Sia’s POV instead.)

[fakesurprise]

The kingdom of Mrel

Northern-most of the six kingdoms, Mrel alone stretches its hands into the northern wastes. (The people of Tollith have more sense, and that is saying something.) Mrel is bracketed by what they perceive as the insanity that is the Tollith Collective to their east, ice to the north and the lush and protected lands of New Dakesh south of them. Mrel has spent much of its existence in fear: the fleets of Rilkesh further to the south can cripple their fleets, that the mad people of Tollith might try to destroy the Mrel monarchy as they did their own, the wandering tribes of the northern waste descending and New Dakesh itself are all threats to the guarded against. As such, the kingdom is rather insular and defensive in nature, built solely to withstand attacks that have barely come - a fact that only serves to increase their collective paranoia.

Mrel is unkind, and that unkindness is directed inward as much as out.

Being perhaps the most resource-poor of the six kingdoms does not help overmuch. The cities are ruled by barons and baronesses who owe nominal fealty to the crown. The crown passes through the female lines of succession except on rare occasions where there is only a male heir. Mrel is infamous for some queens - and the occasional king - having only two children at the most and as such the monarchy has shifted from one baronetcy to another, with the unuckly taking up the thankless role of ruling the kingdom.  

The rulers of Mrel rarely try and use the ability to command given by Providence, but more focus on the open secret of power over the seasons that is given to them. A competent ruler can make spring arrive early and hold back the winter, allowing the kingdom to eke out precious fertile weeks it would otherwise lack.

The people of Mrel tend to be as harsh and unforgiving as their land. Crimes are punished with slavery to those wronged, and no one much cares if the slave should perish. Those born touched by the Blight are mostly killed at birth, and those who develop abnormalities later tend to suffer accidents that are seldom accidental. Those who lose limbs and the like through means of accident often find themselves relegated to slavery and death as well, through no fault of their own. Those who can get to New Dakesh or Tollith do, though the kingdoms border guards are not in favour of emigration, especially not to save or protect the weak.

This is the only one of the kingdoms where Meldak has little influence. The Art is not deeply practised here: one heals, or one ioes. Trickery is not permitted, and most physicians are killed if their remedies fail to work. (The royal line does have healers who use the Art, but this is an exception.)