Thank you @little-peril-stories and @blind-the-winds for tagging me! 😁
Rules: Share 15 or fewer lines of dialogue from an OC, ideally lines that capture the character/personality/vibe of the OC. Bonus points for just using the dialogue without other details about the scene, but you're free to include those as well!
The first 10 lines I have here are directly from Nowhere to Nowhere but I also included some lines from a winter based prompt I did for an @writeblrgarden event to show a lighter side of Bryn the narrator that the story hasn't gotten to yet.
1. Jagged bark and gnarled roots, swollen in certain places like arthritic digits indicated an uncountable age...a fact I was reminded of when I'd climbed up there.
2. Instead I looked down at those foolish girls and acted foolishly myself.
3. I landed in her arms yes, but I didn't jump willingly.
4. The indignities of that day seemed to have no end as I hung there with my back half and tail dangling haplessly while my front half was getting the life squeezed out of it by a ten year old human girl.
5. The words bled from me, staining every inch of my patchy wiry fur and instructing it to stand up in guarded attention.
6. My patchy paw over Sam's hand and my tail wrapped around Jen's wrist.
7. It was a simple reminder that I, a fellow living thing, needed air to my lungs as much as she.
8. They would take my girls and leave me broken.
9. I wish to note that the descriptors here are accurate to Thorn's time not to present, do not laugh at the idea of a 'massive' village.
10. I hissed as a splash of stagnant water hit my already drenched fur. It happened at such a frequency that I was beginning to suspect malicious intent.
11. From my perch I saw Sam open her mouth to return the playful teasing, for that's all it really was, and before she could get a word out I kicked one of the branches which sent a cascade of snow down on Jen with a freezing plop!
12. The snow rained down just as Sam asked and I knew right then as I saw Jen's eyes sparkle with the reflection of thousands of flakes like tiny stars in their own infinite galaxy, laughter echoing around the forest, what was so special about snow.
13. Anything made by the hand of humans, has the heart of humans as well...so it's good thing I'm a cat.
14. "The wind is uncooperative today." The tree told me with lingering sadness in his creaking tone, sharing in my wish to make Sam happy even though neither of us understood what was so important about her request.
15. I bounced carefully on each branch as I leapt tree to tree, a few feet ahead of them always.
Gently tagging: New Writeblrs and anyone who is interested
stealing this for drakeswood! 3 narrators=5 excerpts (i could not cut them down anymore it made me too sad) from each narrator!
andré
It was a healthy sort of fear, he reasoned, as pulled a chair up to them. The inn seemed to quiet, the walls seemed to lean into that table, as he refused to hold his breath with fear. If anything, he was glad the reckless heart of he still had something to panic for with the way it beat furiously in his chest.
2. The covers weren’t particularly clean, but he crawled under. André Portalis really wasn’t as big of a name in Fraunca as Kyhrra seemed convinced it was, and the conditions weren’t anything he was unfamiliar with.
3. The ache of it was a near-constant hum, and it was such a part of him that only the lapse in conversation had let him notice. He leaned up, covers falling down the bed, to slowly work off the latches. Strips of leather criss-crossed around his shoulder and upper arm, but undoing the prosthetic was methodical.
4. “No one worries about me,” he murmured.
5. “You weren’t exiled and that was your cover story—were you?” She muttered something about with the trouble he caused, it wouldn’t be impossible. He couldn’t entirely disagree.
kyhrra
It would have been easy to say she was a nineteen-year-old wunderkind of dance, of theater, of production, back in Pragoven, and had been telling the story of Colette and Adis since she could walk, but she didn’t.
When Kyhrra’s eyes slowly, achingly slowly, moved to her face in the reflection of the river, the skin wrinkled and grayed. Dreams like this had found her countless times before. The seconds ticked away, the reddish pigment of her hair fading to gray. The lush forest around her wilted and trees fell in her reflection. It wasn’t the beautiful city of Soretes, it wasn’t the sparser forest home of her father in Pragoven, but somewhere in the recesses of her mind. It was something like a genetic memory. Threads of the dream tangled her within them, her brain bucking and writhing in an attempt to escape it.
A part of her ached for the stage, but she hadn’t performed in years. Dancing at festivals was as far as she went, but her mother had discouraged the performance. There was always the chance you stumbled in front of hundreds and had to live with the shame—she wouldn’t risk Kyhrra being an embarrassment.
Alacor smiled at them all the way. Memories of doing exactly the same thing, arguing with Alacor on comfortable couches she wished she had stolen and in hard chairs she wished she had burned, echoed. She was two-hundred-four years old and acted like a child around him every time. Every single time she was the one who stood and left, yelling expletives across her shoulder. Somewhere in that, there was a poem, and she would have written it if someone had given her a pen.
He knew Kyhrra would fight tooth and nail if she thought it would do anything to get Corydalis to be treated as less of a madman, to get Sebastien his rightful place.
alacor
The youngest member of the Arvidorian council, the elf Alacor Dire, relished in the pinprick dots of pain that bloomed from the needle tapping into his shoulders.
Her eyes were like looking into a mirror. Hazel eyes, on Kyhrra and friends and everyone else, were like being transported to a different time. He felt the way his eyes would burn with lack of sleep, the way soreness became his default state, the way he would keep a pin in his collar to stay awake. The taste of alcohol, especially, stuck out.
The remnants of Ferran’s life were heavier than anything Alacor had ever carried. There was the box he carried his father in, the effort he had to put in to focus as they shrouded his body in plants and flowers. Something heavier was the raw hate he stared at Kyhrra when they stood over their mother’s body.
... “and then, the Mid-Autumn Festival will be upon us. Hopefully, you’ll live to see it,” Alacor laughed, and the dire wording seemed like a hallucination. André laughed with him, pale.
Alacor grinned. His hazel eyes narrowed just barely as they focused on the blades André held in both hands, the one Kyhrra had been using in his left. Alacor reached for it without a word, and it took André a moment, but he did hand it over.
current status: dreading writing
current concern: how do i write action
currently working on re-ordering some of the scenes after the midpoint, essentially allowing kyhrra to be less of a bitch to andre. finally got to the midpoint, and changed some of the festival scene but i still dont love it.
this weeks obsession: this beautiful art of cory and kyhrra by @ ruporas
some thoughts i have in no particular order:
this is getting to be long. too long. i have 37k words before the mid autumn festival and i fear this starting to turn into a 100k book.
i am so glad i started this digital archive bc this is gonna be fun asf to look back on
writing banter. its so fun
4. how in the world are sebastien and andre gonna become friends? i edited the lizard scene already, and cory and andre are TIGHT, but seb is just kinda there which is not really what i wanted
5. why do i keep writing fucked up siblings. like i really dont understand whats wrong w me
6. i googled history of belt buckles yesterday. thats how im doing
currently trying to finish "rooms" and bulk up nearly everything else. set a precedent of ~2000 word scenes and am regretting it--not sure what i'm going to do about that.
this week's obsession: media that vaguely resembles things in my novel
"The beauty of the dragon was something that haunted Colette."
introducing pr. drakeswood: what was formerly my childhood escape->nanowrimo project->current wip novel.
ya medieval fantasy, draft 1.1, ~80k words. identity, change, growth.
In the thousand years that elves have lived on Pasithee, no human has entered elven cities and managed to tell the tale. André Portalis is determined to be the first.
Kyhrra and Alacor Dire have vastly different reasons to vouch for him, Corydalis Yanu wants him to themself, and Sebastien Prue wants nothing and everything to do with him.
André has his own struggles to face, though, including navigating an intricate web of politics and legend. The present is difficult enough, but historians have to look at every angle.
features:
elves elves elves, magic, dances and festivals, language learning, nerds and himbos, a singular dragon (1), a non-binary deuteragonist, an amputee protagonist, and some horses and birds (for good measure). no primary romantic relationships.
primary cast:
these folks narrate, commit most of the atrocities, and are the protagonists.
kyhrra dire - she/her. elf of the arvidor clan. secret softie. "Kyhrra Dire lived as an ultimately selfless woman, with little regard for her own reputation or safety, who through a singular fall and winter learns to break the cycle and let loose."
andré portalis - he/him. human from the distant empire of fraunca. polyglot and history nerd. "André Portalis landed on Pasithee without a place in the world except for a single order, but Arvidor teaches him an entirely different way of life and gives him the space for it."
alacor dire - he/him. elf of the arvidor clan, youngest member of the arvidorian council. wannabe womanizer. "Alacor Dire’s responsibilities built and continually pressured him, but external conflict ultimately pushes him to make changes for the Arvidor Clan—but especially, change for himself."
secondary cast:
these folks may narrate in a sequel, and are the deuteragonists.
corydalis yanu - they/them. elf of the arvidor clan. scientist enraptured with humans. "Corydalis Yanu was on the outskirts of social circles in Arvidor, but the arrival of Portalis and the tightening of deadlines allowed them to realize that there may be a bigger life for them than expected."
sebastien prue - he/him. half-human elf of the arvidor clan. quiet outcast type. "Sebastien Prue was comfortable in his own company, but the Arvidor clan changes around him, and he realizes it is a chance to make a change for people like him—now and future—even if it takes some work."
this project comes out of a lot of things, but mostly out of my love for languages. using this blog to keep all of my rambling in one place!
