It is not June yet, okay? I'm still ahead of the deadline. This is going to be a lame post, but it's a post and it counts, okay? I also might have to go to work in forty minutes and have to eat, do my hair, brush my teeth, and finish getting my snack together. Short post.
Long story short, I'm in Alaska (again), I'm working 1-8pm, five days a week, our internet is not in our house yet, and I've been reading a lot of books.
Yeah. That's about it. It's been a busy few months of travel. Once again.
My writing scribbles have meandered all over story ideas, but I liked this scrawl best that I did over this last week. Hopefully you guys do too.
Original storyline, just by the way. Since it's so confusing with the four some different storylines and I get turned around every once in a while as well.
Sarris found herself wide awake despite not having slept in almost two days. The starliner thrummed around her, as soothing and constant as the sleepy warmth pressed to her front.
It felt like events had not stopped slipping past faster than she could almost comprehend. Two days ago she had been returning home to an empty apartment and an aching pain in the wake of visiting Tara—again.
Now she glanced down and wondered that the past forty-eight hours weren’t anything more than a dream. That she would wake up in an empty bed, reaching for the only constant in her life, only to find him gone.
Downy blond curls were stark against the gray of Sarris’ uniform jacket, softening the military edge in a way no smile could. Quiet breaths left the child in her arms as she slumbered.
At six months old, Ruusan was just beginning to take an interest in the world, and was sleeping through the night on a somewhat regular basis. Not that it would’ve made a difference.
The Warrior had been struck by the vivid blue of her eyes from that first moment on the side of the road after dragging the crying child from the burning wreck of her parents’ streamer.
Letting her head settle back, Sarris stared at the illume casting faint light over the rows of seats, the low setting telling that their destination, Sinjaro Kahn, was in the late hours of night. Sleeping now would be in the passengers’ best interest.
She hadn’t commed Novarr any details beyond asking him to meet her at home tomorrow, or the earliest he could get away from his current job.
This wasn’t something she would be able to talk about, could make a decision about, without being able to see him, to grip his hands with hers and see the truth of his own choice in his eyes.
Ruusan could and would change everything. Already had. Even if they didn’t keep her, even if they committed her as a ward of the bureau on Norsha’ac, Sarris knew there would be no going back now. Not after memorizing the weight of the child in her arms, the pitch of her cry, the gentle scent that clung to her hair and skin after a bath.
It was burned into her mind as deep as Gogam, as her time with the Force, as the people who meant everything to her.
No, there was no return from here. And Sarris didn’t care, as she laced her fingers together over Ruusan’s back, her eyes closing. She knew that she wouldn’t get much rest, but it was worth it to at least try. There was no telling when Ruusan would awaken. Or what the next few days would hold, for that matter. She would need every moment of respite she could manage.
//
Sarris knew that the only thing Novarr would read on her face and in her eyes would be strain, so she grabbed his hands, hoping the contact would help him understand.
“You’re really starting to freak me out here, Sar,” his voice was strained, brows at an odd angle as he attempted to keep at least a hint of a smile on his features. His fingers were tight around hers with rising tension.
The words stuck in her throat, as easy as they should’ve been, but she didn’t know what to say anymore.
Staring into the concern in his gaze, the Warrior struggled. She didn’t do well conversing even within normal parameters, let alone when it came to an issue of this magnitude.
“Her name is Ruusan,” Sarris murmured at last. Her name almost got stuck, came out as a whisper. “She’s six months old, Norsha’acite, and her parents are both dead. Killed in a streamer accident.”
Novarr was uncomprehending, a frown crowding out his failing attempt at a smile, and he rubbed agitated circles around her knuckles with his thumbs. “What about her, Sar? I need details here, babe.”
“Next of kin waived their claim, she was going straight to a bureau-operated home, Novarr.” Sarris was unfamiliar with the desperation crawling beneath her skin. It was wishful, devastating, craving, unthinkable, nothing like she’d ever known.
Her hunter, her Novarr, waited, knowing to give her time, to allow her to work past her barriers and speak, perhaps already thinking he knew where this was going.
“I—“ Sarris paused, closed her eyes. “She’s here. I brought her home with me. She’s asleep in our bed right now.”
It might have been amusing in any other situation, with any other circumstances. Novarr stopped functioning, frozen, staring at Sarris.
She let him process, her attention on their conversation, but every sense tuned to the small noises of their apartment. Waiting for that familiar cry to come.
It would be weeks before her usual sleeping schedule returned. Before her senses dulled again from razor sharp awareness, at a level she hadn’t seen in years.
Since her first years off Gogam, struggling with the blood that had soaked her.
“We… have a baby?” Novarr’s dawning comprehension made warmth spread through Sarris’ fingertips.
Drawing in a breath, she explained in low tones, “If that’s what we want. I have temporary custody because of my dual status as a Warrior that’s acknowledged by both Kahn and Uhric. It allows some space to maneuver legally.” Away from the emotion of the situation, her tongue loosened, thoughts flowing with more ease.
Not that it made a difference what she said now. Novarr wasn’t attending again, just smiling, a goofy expression she didn’t see on him often. His good humor was usually more focused, not an uncontrolled reaction like now.
“Her name is Ruusan?” He checked, squeezing her hands at odd intervals.
Sarris blinked at him. Nodded once. “Yes. Ruusan Armstrong.”
“And her family doesn’t want her?”
“No.” That was the part of this she couldn’t understand. How Ruusan’s grandparents had walked into that security station where Sarris had waited with their granddaughter, and had turned their backs on her. Had signed all the forms to give up their rights without looking at her twice.
It had made her burn with anger. That they were so willing, so eager, to be rid of Ruusan. Of her blue eyes and golden curls, her sweet giggles and priceless babbling.
Short but sweet, I hope. Unfinished, as with all my projects. But it hit me during church last week and I ran with it. This is a phase of their lives I never really got around to writing out, just put a mental marker in with an idea of events and moved on to bigger fish.
Baby Ruu is so. adorable. Just so you know. One of those babies that makes you think, "I wouldn't mind having kids after all" because she's just precious and a sweetheart and. Yeah.
I've gotta run now.
Thoughts?
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
Showing posts with label Sarris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sarris. Show all posts
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Saturday, February 21, 2015
Writing: Sarris (military!au)
Well, it's not Valentine's Day, which is probably a good thing, after rereading this blurb.
It's not quite in the festive spirit, let's put it that way. ::cough::
Inspiration source: a rewatch of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and the beginning sequence of him joining the military and subsequently being badly injured in a helicopter crash, landing him in Walter Reed Hospital for rehab.
I'm not sure what it was about it, but the combo made me want to write Sarris in a similar situation, although my focus is on the emotional journey for her as she struggles through rehab, and not on the "life after" portion. Not yet, anyways.
Mild content warning for the scrawl in general. There's not a lot of details, but Sarris was injured in a tangle with a bomber while deployed overseas, and is not handling the end of her career as a soldier very well. It's overall darker than I tend to write and there is some talk of PTSD. Just as a head's up.
Also, I was terribly lazy in the research department and just threw in details that may or may not be accurate to how the process actually works.
(Kudos to those who can guess who the "her" is that Sarris thinks about.)
It happens nine months into her seventh deployment.
Afterwards, they tell her about her own bravery, about the lives she saved in one blind moment of reaction. It’s on the news, on the lips of her nurses, her doctor, the members of her squadron who are allowed to make the flight to see her—everywhere she looks.
All Sarris remembers is the split instant where she’d recognized the telltale signs of a bomber on that man and her body had moved itself on instinct. The instincts that had kept her alive and uninjured through every tour she’d asked for until that point.
When she wakes up in the NATO hospital in Kandahar a week later, after days of passing in and out of agonized consciousness, red hazes of pain, they tell her about the people she’d saved before they tell her the price of those actions.
She’s never going to be able to walk the same way again. Her hearing is shot on her right side, and the shrapnel she’d taken all down her back limits mobility in her right arm and means when she first regains consciousness, she can’t feel anything past her hips.
They say she’ll be getting a medal—medals, in fact—and she couldn’t have cared less. She’s not going back to the front lines, where she has lived for the past eight years of her life. Where she belongs. The only place where the innocent blood on her hands weighs a little less.
Only her CO seems to get it, somewhere in the subtext, when he comes three weeks later, right before she’s scheduled to head to Maryland and Walter Reed to undergo multiple surgeries, heal, and then start rehabilitation.
“You’re getting an honorable discharge. The doc said there’s no way you’ll be back in the field, even if you do well in rehab. You’re done, Nadir.”
“I know.”
“You did well. You had a good run and we’re going to miss you out there. I know you’ve never been much of a people person, but you should know we trusted you to watch our backs, Master-Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll be alright. Get through rehab. Everything else will fall in place.”
She’d had no answer for that.
Ten years of her life she’d devoted to the United States Army, with no intentions beyond giving everything she had left of herself for others. Because of those two lives she had taken, had never been convicted of. That gang—the Shedek—would always be with her, inked as deeply in her skin as they were in her soul, but that doesn't mean she will ever stop trying to erase the damage they, and by extension, her, had wrought.
And now even that had been ripped from her.
//
The flight stateside was one of the longest she’s ever endured. Even longer than three years ago, when her squad had returned home less two members.
She starts refusing the pain meds the day before she’s scheduled to ship out back to the U.S., and not even the jarring motion of takeoff and the subsequent hours of turbulence bring her to submission. It doesn't mean her three attending nurses don't offer at least half a dozen times to hit her with a shot of morphine.
The doctor that meets her two days later in another white, sterile room doesn't have much more to say than the one in Afghanistan. They’ll operate, repair as much of the damage as they can, then she's going to rehab for at least a year.
Days passes in a blur of time, beginning and ending with a blinding veil of pain. It wakes her up in the middle of the night without fail, which she never admits, even when the doctor who comes in at oh-eight-hundred on the dime every morning asks her several pointed questions about it.
It’s late summer in Maryland, which means oppressive humidity outside if there’s not another sporadic bout of heavy rain. After her surgeries are done, all three of them, Sarris goes outdoors as often as her caretakers will both take her and let her. Which isn’t often, but she needs the change of scenery if she’s not going to lose her mind.
Television has never interested her—she knows all she needs to about the state of the world (she prefers newspapers anyways) and there’s no point to watching the countless television shows that are prolific on cable—and it’s hard to find a delivery address for Amazon if she wants to order books.
The nurses are too friendly—always asking about her family, if she’s sure there’s no one she wants to call, and what a unique set of tattoos she has, what’s the story? The doctors are too repetitive—always the same information, over and over.
Sarris considers trying to get in touch with her, but knows better than to even contemplate it. Their parting hadn’t been on good terms. Even though Sarris has recognized that missing piece in her life, she knows there is a very slim chance that she’s been forgiven of the things said that day.
(“He will be the death of you.”)
And there’s nothing that she can do anyways. It’s over and all that’s left is to pick up the pieces.
A month after her final surgery and some preliminary rehabilitation, the hospital staff moves her from her too-white room to an alternate ward in a different building altogether. She isn't mobile enough to take care of herself off-site and with no family being produced, the military becomes her primary guardian. Unless she improves in leaps and bounds, enough to navigate Baltimore unaided, the hospital will remain her prison until they deem her fit for release.
As she has with everything else life has bombarded her with, Sarris bears through the torment that every waking moment is with silent neutrality.
It is not the worst storm she's ever weathered.
It may be the second most devastating, but at least it is only her that bleeds this time. No one else. Just her.
(Murderer. Killer. You deserve this. This is punishment for your crimes.)
Sarris shuts her eyes to blank out the smiling nurse and the bag of fluids she carries and wishes the disembodied voices in her head could be blocked out just as easily.
//
“Hey, Nadir!”
Silence.
“Nadir?”
Nothing.
“Oh, come on, at least it isn’t your first name.”
Continued quiet.
“Alright, fine, Master-Sergeant Nadir, would you please stop and lend me a moment of your apparently precious time?”
"What do you want, Doctor Schaefe?" She doesn't lose focus on the task at hand—one foot in front of the other, one step at a time—hating the burn in her body over something so simple as walking. The two parallel bars are warming beneath her lingering grip.
Over-friendly, incessantly inquisitive. Warm brown eyes and genuine compassion for his patients. (She fights not to see it as weakness.) He plants himself in her path, too close for comfort and there’s nowhere to go besides backwards, which sounds two times as complex as moving forward at this point. "First, you've been going for twenty minutes and need to sit down."
She looks up, meets that knowing expression, that easy-going but not to be ignored persona that's been hounding her since day one in this personal Hell, and is aware that he's correct. Her body is shaking from the effort that every step takes, perspiration beading her forehead.
That doesn’t mean she’s going to let him know it, though. Tightening her fingers around the bars keeping her upright, Sarris stares him down, unflinching.
Schaefe narrows his eyes at her, pensive, but continues speaking after a short delay. “Second, the nurse said you left even the Ibuprofen untouched this morning. Want to tell me what that's all about?”
It surprises her that this hasn't come up sooner. They all want to talk about her chronic refusal of any pharmaceuticals before long.
“No.” Sarris glances over her shoulder, where she knows her watch dog nurse is on standby, waiting for the slightest hint that her assistance is needed.
The woman comes to guide her to a nearby seat, the doctor backs off without further prying, and the soldier—the soldier wishes that was what she still were.
//
Nights are the hardest. The longest.
When the doctors are gone and the nurses settle in for the night shift. There is only beeping in the halls from computers and monitors—they sound like an IED and Sarris has to tell herself to breathe.
Darkness blankets everything, because the rest of the patients are sleeping, and the lights have been flicked off for the night.
Sarris sits upright in her bed, fingers flexing, wanting of some sort of safeguard against possible attack.
PTSD, the psychologist says when three weeks pass and her nurses grow tired of her ceaseless vigils, calling in reinforcements to deal with what they see as a problem.
Sarris doesn't disagree with him.
He's right. She spent almost eight years over there—she knows the signs, from others and in herself.
But it’s also saved her life and for Sarris, it isn’t a problem; she knows how to run on four hours of restless sleep for weeks, even months, if that’s how long it takes to disconnect her mind from the belief that she’s still on the frontlines.
And she knows how to stop herself dead in less than a heartbeat to keep from killing someone when they approach without warning.
By this time, there is no solution to it for her. There is no recovery, no treatment, there is no coming back. There is just Sarris Nadir, once gangbanger turned soldier.
You don’t want to see me on drugs; is her only explanation, skipping his prognosis of ”you have severe post-traumatic stress and need to start getting help” altogether, and knows the psychologist’s mind is racing behind his neutral expression as she gets up to leave.
//
The weather starts to turn.
Sarris watches the leave start to bronze from her glass box on the sixth floor up.
The air is too moist still, too heavy with water for her comfort. She is used to scorched earth and deserts. Lips peeling, skin cracking, nose bleeding. Air so dry it sucks the life out of everything it comes in contact with.
Humidity sets her on edge, her senses telling her something is wrong, even when she slips into brief unconsciousness.
Fall begins to bear down on them and Sarris gets quiet. Says less. Withdraws further.
She hates the crutches, hates the wheelchair, and does not pass a day without wishing that that d--n bomber had done his job as well as she’d done hers.
Bleeding out in the sand would’ve been a less cruel fate than this.
The voices in her head have no sympathy. They pleasure in the black swallowing her, the helplessness killing her.
Sarris wakes up and aches to move. She wishes for death if only to escape the weakness of the body she has relied on for so many years to be strong. There is no strength in her legs, her arm will not respond when she needs it to, and the loss of hearing in her right ear has given way to an incessant ringing in her left.
Each morning is a reminder that she is never going to run again, is never going to be able to tackle an obstacle course, fire a rifle, swing a punch, or carry a comrade like she once did.
She is a soldier to her very marrow.
And living through every day in rehabilitation is a steady stab to her soul that tells her she can no longer be.
//
Cliffhanger!Siani strikes again and I am so sorry. Inspiration cuts in and out on a regular basis for me.
But, personally, I like this scrawl. I tried to get snips of a different writing style in there, focusing more on the abstract and letting reality drift in now and then, which... sort of worked. Maybe. You can decide.
It is kind of depressing, which I apologize for. But Sarris is a person of motion, of action, and, as we catch glimpses of in this au, repaying for a crime she committed years ago. And her method of payment has been ripped away from her in one fell swoop, depriving her of drive and purpose for life. It'll take a while for her to find a new way to keep pushing forward.
Her story actually parallels quite nicely with the original storyline, although, between the different galaxy version and the here on Earth version of Sarris' story, here on Earth has quite a few less extremes.
And yes, Novarr is a rehab doctor. Don't ask me. He's one of those stupidly talented people who can do whatever they want, more or less, if they put their mind to it. I think the doctor gig was a mid-life crisis escapade. Unusual, considering most guys might buy a car, but he's an unusual sort of chap.
Is love in the air?
Hard to say. He's the bane of Sarris' existence at the moment, but he's started that way in all the other 'verses too. We'll have to see.
As always, I welcome comments, critiques, or whatever ambly, rambly thought passes through your head. Let me know, yeah?
Thank you for reading. ^_^
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulty.
It's not quite in the festive spirit, let's put it that way. ::cough::
Inspiration source: a rewatch of Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and the beginning sequence of him joining the military and subsequently being badly injured in a helicopter crash, landing him in Walter Reed Hospital for rehab.
I'm not sure what it was about it, but the combo made me want to write Sarris in a similar situation, although my focus is on the emotional journey for her as she struggles through rehab, and not on the "life after" portion. Not yet, anyways.
Mild content warning for the scrawl in general. There's not a lot of details, but Sarris was injured in a tangle with a bomber while deployed overseas, and is not handling the end of her career as a soldier very well. It's overall darker than I tend to write and there is some talk of PTSD. Just as a head's up.
Also, I was terribly lazy in the research department and just threw in details that may or may not be accurate to how the process actually works.
(Kudos to those who can guess who the "her" is that Sarris thinks about.)
It happens nine months into her seventh deployment.
Afterwards, they tell her about her own bravery, about the lives she saved in one blind moment of reaction. It’s on the news, on the lips of her nurses, her doctor, the members of her squadron who are allowed to make the flight to see her—everywhere she looks.
All Sarris remembers is the split instant where she’d recognized the telltale signs of a bomber on that man and her body had moved itself on instinct. The instincts that had kept her alive and uninjured through every tour she’d asked for until that point.
When she wakes up in the NATO hospital in Kandahar a week later, after days of passing in and out of agonized consciousness, red hazes of pain, they tell her about the people she’d saved before they tell her the price of those actions.
She’s never going to be able to walk the same way again. Her hearing is shot on her right side, and the shrapnel she’d taken all down her back limits mobility in her right arm and means when she first regains consciousness, she can’t feel anything past her hips.
They say she’ll be getting a medal—medals, in fact—and she couldn’t have cared less. She’s not going back to the front lines, where she has lived for the past eight years of her life. Where she belongs. The only place where the innocent blood on her hands weighs a little less.
Only her CO seems to get it, somewhere in the subtext, when he comes three weeks later, right before she’s scheduled to head to Maryland and Walter Reed to undergo multiple surgeries, heal, and then start rehabilitation.
“You’re getting an honorable discharge. The doc said there’s no way you’ll be back in the field, even if you do well in rehab. You’re done, Nadir.”
“I know.”
“You did well. You had a good run and we’re going to miss you out there. I know you’ve never been much of a people person, but you should know we trusted you to watch our backs, Master-Sergeant.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’ll be alright. Get through rehab. Everything else will fall in place.”
She’d had no answer for that.
Ten years of her life she’d devoted to the United States Army, with no intentions beyond giving everything she had left of herself for others. Because of those two lives she had taken, had never been convicted of. That gang—the Shedek—would always be with her, inked as deeply in her skin as they were in her soul, but that doesn't mean she will ever stop trying to erase the damage they, and by extension, her, had wrought.
And now even that had been ripped from her.
//
The flight stateside was one of the longest she’s ever endured. Even longer than three years ago, when her squad had returned home less two members.
She starts refusing the pain meds the day before she’s scheduled to ship out back to the U.S., and not even the jarring motion of takeoff and the subsequent hours of turbulence bring her to submission. It doesn't mean her three attending nurses don't offer at least half a dozen times to hit her with a shot of morphine.
The doctor that meets her two days later in another white, sterile room doesn't have much more to say than the one in Afghanistan. They’ll operate, repair as much of the damage as they can, then she's going to rehab for at least a year.
Days passes in a blur of time, beginning and ending with a blinding veil of pain. It wakes her up in the middle of the night without fail, which she never admits, even when the doctor who comes in at oh-eight-hundred on the dime every morning asks her several pointed questions about it.
It’s late summer in Maryland, which means oppressive humidity outside if there’s not another sporadic bout of heavy rain. After her surgeries are done, all three of them, Sarris goes outdoors as often as her caretakers will both take her and let her. Which isn’t often, but she needs the change of scenery if she’s not going to lose her mind.
Television has never interested her—she knows all she needs to about the state of the world (she prefers newspapers anyways) and there’s no point to watching the countless television shows that are prolific on cable—and it’s hard to find a delivery address for Amazon if she wants to order books.
The nurses are too friendly—always asking about her family, if she’s sure there’s no one she wants to call, and what a unique set of tattoos she has, what’s the story? The doctors are too repetitive—always the same information, over and over.
Sarris considers trying to get in touch with her, but knows better than to even contemplate it. Their parting hadn’t been on good terms. Even though Sarris has recognized that missing piece in her life, she knows there is a very slim chance that she’s been forgiven of the things said that day.
(“He will be the death of you.”)
And there’s nothing that she can do anyways. It’s over and all that’s left is to pick up the pieces.
A month after her final surgery and some preliminary rehabilitation, the hospital staff moves her from her too-white room to an alternate ward in a different building altogether. She isn't mobile enough to take care of herself off-site and with no family being produced, the military becomes her primary guardian. Unless she improves in leaps and bounds, enough to navigate Baltimore unaided, the hospital will remain her prison until they deem her fit for release.
As she has with everything else life has bombarded her with, Sarris bears through the torment that every waking moment is with silent neutrality.
It is not the worst storm she's ever weathered.
It may be the second most devastating, but at least it is only her that bleeds this time. No one else. Just her.
(Murderer. Killer. You deserve this. This is punishment for your crimes.)
Sarris shuts her eyes to blank out the smiling nurse and the bag of fluids she carries and wishes the disembodied voices in her head could be blocked out just as easily.
//
“Hey, Nadir!”
Silence.
“Nadir?”
Nothing.
“Oh, come on, at least it isn’t your first name.”
Continued quiet.
“Alright, fine, Master-Sergeant Nadir, would you please stop and lend me a moment of your apparently precious time?”
"What do you want, Doctor Schaefe?" She doesn't lose focus on the task at hand—one foot in front of the other, one step at a time—hating the burn in her body over something so simple as walking. The two parallel bars are warming beneath her lingering grip.
Over-friendly, incessantly inquisitive. Warm brown eyes and genuine compassion for his patients. (She fights not to see it as weakness.) He plants himself in her path, too close for comfort and there’s nowhere to go besides backwards, which sounds two times as complex as moving forward at this point. "First, you've been going for twenty minutes and need to sit down."
She looks up, meets that knowing expression, that easy-going but not to be ignored persona that's been hounding her since day one in this personal Hell, and is aware that he's correct. Her body is shaking from the effort that every step takes, perspiration beading her forehead.
That doesn’t mean she’s going to let him know it, though. Tightening her fingers around the bars keeping her upright, Sarris stares him down, unflinching.
Schaefe narrows his eyes at her, pensive, but continues speaking after a short delay. “Second, the nurse said you left even the Ibuprofen untouched this morning. Want to tell me what that's all about?”
It surprises her that this hasn't come up sooner. They all want to talk about her chronic refusal of any pharmaceuticals before long.
“No.” Sarris glances over her shoulder, where she knows her watch dog nurse is on standby, waiting for the slightest hint that her assistance is needed.
The woman comes to guide her to a nearby seat, the doctor backs off without further prying, and the soldier—the soldier wishes that was what she still were.
//
Nights are the hardest. The longest.
When the doctors are gone and the nurses settle in for the night shift. There is only beeping in the halls from computers and monitors—they sound like an IED and Sarris has to tell herself to breathe.
Darkness blankets everything, because the rest of the patients are sleeping, and the lights have been flicked off for the night.
Sarris sits upright in her bed, fingers flexing, wanting of some sort of safeguard against possible attack.
PTSD, the psychologist says when three weeks pass and her nurses grow tired of her ceaseless vigils, calling in reinforcements to deal with what they see as a problem.
Sarris doesn't disagree with him.
He's right. She spent almost eight years over there—she knows the signs, from others and in herself.
But it’s also saved her life and for Sarris, it isn’t a problem; she knows how to run on four hours of restless sleep for weeks, even months, if that’s how long it takes to disconnect her mind from the belief that she’s still on the frontlines.
And she knows how to stop herself dead in less than a heartbeat to keep from killing someone when they approach without warning.
By this time, there is no solution to it for her. There is no recovery, no treatment, there is no coming back. There is just Sarris Nadir, once gangbanger turned soldier.
You don’t want to see me on drugs; is her only explanation, skipping his prognosis of ”you have severe post-traumatic stress and need to start getting help” altogether, and knows the psychologist’s mind is racing behind his neutral expression as she gets up to leave.
//
The weather starts to turn.
Sarris watches the leave start to bronze from her glass box on the sixth floor up.
The air is too moist still, too heavy with water for her comfort. She is used to scorched earth and deserts. Lips peeling, skin cracking, nose bleeding. Air so dry it sucks the life out of everything it comes in contact with.
Humidity sets her on edge, her senses telling her something is wrong, even when she slips into brief unconsciousness.
Fall begins to bear down on them and Sarris gets quiet. Says less. Withdraws further.
She hates the crutches, hates the wheelchair, and does not pass a day without wishing that that d--n bomber had done his job as well as she’d done hers.
Bleeding out in the sand would’ve been a less cruel fate than this.
The voices in her head have no sympathy. They pleasure in the black swallowing her, the helplessness killing her.
Sarris wakes up and aches to move. She wishes for death if only to escape the weakness of the body she has relied on for so many years to be strong. There is no strength in her legs, her arm will not respond when she needs it to, and the loss of hearing in her right ear has given way to an incessant ringing in her left.
Each morning is a reminder that she is never going to run again, is never going to be able to tackle an obstacle course, fire a rifle, swing a punch, or carry a comrade like she once did.
She is a soldier to her very marrow.
And living through every day in rehabilitation is a steady stab to her soul that tells her she can no longer be.
//
Cliffhanger!Siani strikes again and I am so sorry. Inspiration cuts in and out on a regular basis for me.
But, personally, I like this scrawl. I tried to get snips of a different writing style in there, focusing more on the abstract and letting reality drift in now and then, which... sort of worked. Maybe. You can decide.
It is kind of depressing, which I apologize for. But Sarris is a person of motion, of action, and, as we catch glimpses of in this au, repaying for a crime she committed years ago. And her method of payment has been ripped away from her in one fell swoop, depriving her of drive and purpose for life. It'll take a while for her to find a new way to keep pushing forward.
Her story actually parallels quite nicely with the original storyline, although, between the different galaxy version and the here on Earth version of Sarris' story, here on Earth has quite a few less extremes.
And yes, Novarr is a rehab doctor. Don't ask me. He's one of those stupidly talented people who can do whatever they want, more or less, if they put their mind to it. I think the doctor gig was a mid-life crisis escapade. Unusual, considering most guys might buy a car, but he's an unusual sort of chap.
Is love in the air?
Hard to say. He's the bane of Sarris' existence at the moment, but he's started that way in all the other 'verses too. We'll have to see.
As always, I welcome comments, critiques, or whatever ambly, rambly thought passes through your head. Let me know, yeah?
Thank you for reading. ^_^
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulty.
Friday, March 22, 2013
A Writer on Pinterest
You know that awful moment when it's a Saturday morning and you're expecting to sleep in after a really long, really emotional day yesterday that had you in tears as you crawl into bed, and then it's 7:30 in the morning and you never wake up this early, let alone on a Saturday, but you're awake now and it's just... Sigh.
So, yes, it's 7:45 and while my headache from last night is gone, I really had wanted to sleep longer. Oh well.
For the focus of this post, Pinterest.
I believe that the majority of you already follow me on Pinterest, but I'm going to put this together for those who don't.
As any good writer on Pinterest does, I have a variety of story and character related boards to which I pin a good deal of pictures pertaining to the board's title.
I will provide a link to each board and a brief summary about what's entailed below. Please don't hesitate to follow through, even if you don't have Pinterest. (Though if you don't have Pinterest, you might consider it.)
Story Inspiration
I have three boards that all begin with "story". Story Inspiration is a collection of pins that provide me with inspiration for something to include in a story. That could be anything from a bunch of dragon pictures to a short quote that makes me go "Ooh, that'd be a fascinating line to spin a story off of."
Story Setting
As the title might suggest, Story Setting is all about the world in which a story might take place. The locations range from an artwork of an oriental palace in mountains to a digital rendering of a sci-fi style hotel room. Take your pick.
Story Style
This would be for those looking to outfit their heroes in anything from silver wire masquerade masks to a black bustle skirt from the Victorian era. This board is still a bit new and my eye is not particularly drawn to things of the accessory/clothing genre, so filling it is a work in progress.
Faces to Remember
When you're on Pinterest and going through people's story boards, you'll find that they have a penchant to save pictures of people who they find inspiring, and this is my take on that. All the faces to be found in this board are ones that I think would be interesting in a story, but have not yet found a home for. Ages range from adorable little Asian girls to an older woman with gray hair who has all the qualities of a mentor in her face.
Now, for the more personal boards, involving the characters I already have.
Characters
This is a stashing spot for the pictures I find that remind me of my characters. It doesn't always have to be spot on. Maybe it's his hair, or her expression, but it's a little conglomerate of things that make up the people inside my head. (Hint: If you wanted to have an idea of what Vivian looks like, here's your chance.)
Hints of Character
This board is very similar to Characters, but it's in words, songs, and poses instead. This song lyrics remind me of those two characters at this given time; that Mustang is one that I could see my character's brother fixing and then the character driving. Little things that make up the characters on the inside, instead of on the outside.
Profile: Sarris and Novarr Schaefe
This is a specialized board for my characters, Sarris and Novarr. It's a big mish-mash of Characters and Hints of Characters, just for the two of them. I also enjoy doing MBTI for my characters, so Novarr has a fair deal of ENTP pins. Sarris, on the other hand, shares her type with several other of my characters, and I have stuffed them all in another board that I'll share at the end. (Warning: Sarris has had a tough background, and a couple of the pins in this board reflect that. One is of bloody hands, the other uses the word "h*ll", so if you're not comfortable with either, consider skipping this board.)
Profile: Ruusan and Jaydn Schaefe
Technically, Ruusan has been both an Armstrong and a Vhander, but calling her a Schaefe was easiest, so I went with that. Like Sarris and Novarr's board, this is just a collection of pictures and quotes that remind me of these two sisters, although now it's extended to encompass the Deviant, so if something doesn't make sense, see if it has a "Deviant Ruu/Jade" note attached. If not, it may have a "Kidnapped Ruu" note, and that means the same as the deviant.
Profile: Ianthe and the Tribes
I believe I already shared this board when I posted about Ianthe a while back, but I'll share it again for any newcomers or happen-byers. This board is a bit more expansive than the last world, extended to include Ianthe's world and all the people and places in it. So there'll be pictures that remind me of characters or images of real life Arabian palaces, all in an attempt to capture the feel of that world.
Profile: Jasmine "Jaz" O'Haire
Not one of my largest boards ever, but this is a smattering of things that make me think of Jaz, who I've posted a couple of scrawls about. The majority of this board's contents are her MBTI type, which is ESTJ, but there are a handful of others things included as well.
MBTI Personality
And last but not least, my MBTI Personality board. This has a mix of various types that either hold meaning to me via friends or characters, or just interested me enough to repin them. If they are connected to a character, there will be a note at the bottom saying who it is. For instance, there are several ISTJ pins that are marked with Sarris, Jaydn, and Cameron, and more still of ISFP, which is a new character of mine, Leo Argon.
And with that, I think I've covered all my story-related boards on Pinterest. If you feel like delving into the bottomless pit that is the rest of my Pinterest, feel free, but don't expect to escape for some time.
Hopefully, you all found this quite interesting, or some such. Thanks for your time and I pray you all will be sleeping on Saturday morning, not writing blog posts, as I am.
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
So, yes, it's 7:45 and while my headache from last night is gone, I really had wanted to sleep longer. Oh well.
For the focus of this post, Pinterest.
I believe that the majority of you already follow me on Pinterest, but I'm going to put this together for those who don't.
As any good writer on Pinterest does, I have a variety of story and character related boards to which I pin a good deal of pictures pertaining to the board's title.
I will provide a link to each board and a brief summary about what's entailed below. Please don't hesitate to follow through, even if you don't have Pinterest. (Though if you don't have Pinterest, you might consider it.)
Story Inspiration
I have three boards that all begin with "story". Story Inspiration is a collection of pins that provide me with inspiration for something to include in a story. That could be anything from a bunch of dragon pictures to a short quote that makes me go "Ooh, that'd be a fascinating line to spin a story off of."
Story Setting
As the title might suggest, Story Setting is all about the world in which a story might take place. The locations range from an artwork of an oriental palace in mountains to a digital rendering of a sci-fi style hotel room. Take your pick.
Story Style
This would be for those looking to outfit their heroes in anything from silver wire masquerade masks to a black bustle skirt from the Victorian era. This board is still a bit new and my eye is not particularly drawn to things of the accessory/clothing genre, so filling it is a work in progress.
Faces to Remember
When you're on Pinterest and going through people's story boards, you'll find that they have a penchant to save pictures of people who they find inspiring, and this is my take on that. All the faces to be found in this board are ones that I think would be interesting in a story, but have not yet found a home for. Ages range from adorable little Asian girls to an older woman with gray hair who has all the qualities of a mentor in her face.
Now, for the more personal boards, involving the characters I already have.
Characters
This is a stashing spot for the pictures I find that remind me of my characters. It doesn't always have to be spot on. Maybe it's his hair, or her expression, but it's a little conglomerate of things that make up the people inside my head. (Hint: If you wanted to have an idea of what Vivian looks like, here's your chance.)
Hints of Character
This board is very similar to Characters, but it's in words, songs, and poses instead. This song lyrics remind me of those two characters at this given time; that Mustang is one that I could see my character's brother fixing and then the character driving. Little things that make up the characters on the inside, instead of on the outside.
Profile: Sarris and Novarr Schaefe
This is a specialized board for my characters, Sarris and Novarr. It's a big mish-mash of Characters and Hints of Characters, just for the two of them. I also enjoy doing MBTI for my characters, so Novarr has a fair deal of ENTP pins. Sarris, on the other hand, shares her type with several other of my characters, and I have stuffed them all in another board that I'll share at the end. (Warning: Sarris has had a tough background, and a couple of the pins in this board reflect that. One is of bloody hands, the other uses the word "h*ll", so if you're not comfortable with either, consider skipping this board.)
Profile: Ruusan and Jaydn Schaefe
Technically, Ruusan has been both an Armstrong and a Vhander, but calling her a Schaefe was easiest, so I went with that. Like Sarris and Novarr's board, this is just a collection of pictures and quotes that remind me of these two sisters, although now it's extended to encompass the Deviant, so if something doesn't make sense, see if it has a "Deviant Ruu/Jade" note attached. If not, it may have a "Kidnapped Ruu" note, and that means the same as the deviant.
Profile: Ianthe and the Tribes
I believe I already shared this board when I posted about Ianthe a while back, but I'll share it again for any newcomers or happen-byers. This board is a bit more expansive than the last world, extended to include Ianthe's world and all the people and places in it. So there'll be pictures that remind me of characters or images of real life Arabian palaces, all in an attempt to capture the feel of that world.
Profile: Jasmine "Jaz" O'Haire
Not one of my largest boards ever, but this is a smattering of things that make me think of Jaz, who I've posted a couple of scrawls about. The majority of this board's contents are her MBTI type, which is ESTJ, but there are a handful of others things included as well.
MBTI Personality
And last but not least, my MBTI Personality board. This has a mix of various types that either hold meaning to me via friends or characters, or just interested me enough to repin them. If they are connected to a character, there will be a note at the bottom saying who it is. For instance, there are several ISTJ pins that are marked with Sarris, Jaydn, and Cameron, and more still of ISFP, which is a new character of mine, Leo Argon.
And with that, I think I've covered all my story-related boards on Pinterest. If you feel like delving into the bottomless pit that is the rest of my Pinterest, feel free, but don't expect to escape for some time.
Hopefully, you all found this quite interesting, or some such. Thanks for your time and I pray you all will be sleeping on Saturday morning, not writing blog posts, as I am.
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
Monday, March 18, 2013
Writing: Original -- Ruusan, Vivi, and Life
Honestly, half the time I don't even know how to title these things because the contents are so hard to define in a few words.
But, the three original Ruu bits I have decided aren't too awful to look at take place about ten months apart, although the last two will require a bit of explaining. As does this first one, I suppose, though it needs less than the others.
The first scrawl takes place about a year after Ruusan and Jhidek are married in the original storyline, putting Vivian at three years old, as you will read. I am contemplating not explaining the reasons behind Ruu's odd physical health until the very end of this post, so you smart readers who figure it out can congratulate yourselves on not needing to be told what was going on.
Actually, you know what, I'm going to hold on and let you guys see if you can work it out, just for kicks. Also, as a warning, this one's a bit on the old side and probably needs a bit of cleaning, but I'm not in a current mindset to do so, so you'll have to wade through the un-edited-ness. My apologies.
Ruusan puttered through the apartment, humming along with whatever was coming through the radio. Jhidek was off-planet working, so she and Vivian had been left to their own devices for a few days.
The three year old was caught up in an alphabet video, and her vocabulary had been expanding by the day. Ruu had been surprised though, that her daughter didn’t ask a hundred million questions, preferring to observe and learn for herself what something did.
She picked up a pair of socks and added them to the laundry basket on her hip, pausing to watch Vivi’s video for a moment.
The animated characters on the screen were in the midst of singing the alphabet song, and Vivian’s brow was lowered in concentration.
Ruu continued her foray for dirty clothing, getting the towels from the kitchen and bathrooms then went to the washer. She started a load, bent retrieve the dry clothes, and reached out to steady herself when she straightened. The world went black for a moment, and Ruusan hurriedly sat down, fighting a sudden bout of nausea.
Her heart pounded as she tried to control the urge to throw up.
Ruu worked to rationalize. We haven’t been anywhere; I haven’t been exposed to anything. So what’s going on?
When her stomach settled enough so she could stand again, Ruusan left the laundry and went on unsteady legs to sit on the couch near Vivian.
Her daughter’s green eyes turned her way when she came back into view. “What’s wrong, Mommy?”
“Mommy just feels funny,” Ruu said, smiling a bit to put the child’s worries to ease. “I’ll be okay in a minute.”
Vivian watched her for a moment, and then came over to sit beside her on the couch. She didn’t comment further, drawn in once more by her video, but Ruusan reached out to smooth her curls that were going wild.
After a few minutes, the nausea and dizziness faded entirely, leaving Ruu wondering what had happened as she contemplated returning to her work.
“When’s Daddy going to be home?” Vivian asked, looking away from her show.
The woman tucked the child close and kissed her forehead. “He said tomorrow, but we can watch for him tonight as well.”
“At bedtime?” Vivi checked, brow furrowing.
“Yes, at bedtime,” Ruu said, getting to her feet and carrying the child with her. “Are you hungry?”
Vivian thought for a minute, gaze returning to her movie and Ruusan knew she’d lost her.
“Alright, you stay here; I’ll scrounge up something to eat. Mommy’s starving all of a sudden.”
She went to the kitchen, and began to go through the fridge, looking for something that seemed at least remotely edible. The music of the alphabet movie shut off and Vivian appeared in the doorway.
“Vivi, does something smell funny to you?” Ruusan questioned, wrinkling her nose as she took a whiff of a Tupperware in the fridge.
“No,” the three year old said simply, coming in to sit on one of the stools.
“Huh.” Ruu murmured, frowning. “I think your father brought home something the other day and decided to share it, Viv.”
“Share what, Mommy?”
The blue-eyed woman smiled, and held out an orange to her daughter. “A bug, sweetheart. Mommy feels kind of off.”
“You said you were okay,” Vivian said, seeming put out.
She ruffled the mop of curls and picked out a couple of apples.
Alright. That is that. Feel free to leave a comment if you figured out what's up before I revealed it at the end. :P
Oh, crud... I just realized that the next two bits are going to spoil my surprise. How very frustrating. Oh well. Kudos to you if you figured it out before getting down to these next scrawls.
They take place, again, after about ten months, and in that time, several things happened. Namely, Jhidek being in an accident with a chemical (I think...) called tefloidite that caused him to go blind, followed promptly by the birth of his and Ruusan's first daughter, Ellora, the following day. There was a bunch of drama around all that as well, considering Ruu came pretty close to dying and such, but she was fine in the end.
It takes a month to locate a doctor who (Ha. Anyone else see that?) can fix Jay's eyes, and two days after that, he's already gotten a job. To say the least, Ruusan was not pleased over that, but he distracted her pretty well after allaying her fears.
These bits take place during the week that Jhidek is gone working, one mid-week, the other the day before her gets back, although they seem a bit disoriented, in that, the first doesn't seem to have any effect on the second.
You'll see what I mean. But, on their own, I rather like both the bits and I hope you will as well.
The darkness poured in then and she couldn’t see anything, could barely breathe, and this couldn’t be happening, not again, not to her, please Lord don’t do this to me.
Ruusan woke to more darkness interrupted only by a pale splotch that was her mother’s face. That was the only thing that saved her from panicking.
The sheets were tangled tight around her legs, and her heart was pounding from her dream; no, her nightmare. Definitely a nightmare.
Ruu drew in a shaking breath and croaked, “Momma...” She sat up with Sarris’ help that came in an arm across her shoulders.
“You were... crying, Ruu,” she replied, voice hushed in the stillness of the room as the Warrior drew a cool hand across the younger woman’s forehead.
“Did either of the girls wake up?” Ruusan asked, wiping the evidence of tears from her cheeks with a trembling hand.
Focus on the girls, don’t think about it, she told herself.
“No. Ellora almost did but she fell back asleep.” Sarris informed her, easing down onto the bed at her daughter’s side. “Do you need your comlink?”
The reminder of Jay brought tears back to Ruu’s eyes, but she blinked them away and shook her head. “No, I’ll be okay.”
Silence reigned for a long moment before Sarris murmured, “You were screaming, Ruu. It was like someone was killing you.”
Years of learning this woman, her mother, had taught Ruusan how to read the hidden emotions in her voice and on her face and right now there was a tinge of pain to her words. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispered, leaning into the Warrior. “It was a nightmare about Jay and... and Cameron too.”
The details of it felt like they’d been etched into her mind; the blood, the distorted scream of pain – not her own – and then the silence that had been the part to truly terrify her. He’d been motionless, not responding, then Cameron had been there – she’d known it was him from the moment he took her arm in hand – dragging her away. He’d pulled Jay’s arm around his shoulders, dragging him way into the darkness and he didn’t look back once.
Ruu didn’t remember screaming in the nightmare, but she must have. Her skin prickled and she shook her head to try and dislodge the memories. Sarris rubbed her upper arm, resting her chin on the top of her daughter's head.
Some of her bubbling fear slid away at the soothing touch, and Ruusan slumped against her mother, exhaustion pouring into her. “Sorry about this, Mom... you should be sleeping since your flight is tomorrow, not dealing with a nightmare.”
“It’s fine. I can sleep on the way home.” The Warrior said dismissively.
Did I mention Sarris visited? Calling her "the Warrior" is a reference to her being a Uhrician Elite Force Warrior, just as a reminder, and I'll go more into Ruu's nightmares after the next bit.
The apartment was dark and quiet, moonlight peeking through the shades over the windows. Ruusan lay on the couch with Ellora sleeping on her chest. Vivian had been asleep in her room for hours already and she had no wish to know what the time was now.
All that she needed to know was that it was late – or early - and even though she felt weariness weighing her eyelids down, Ruu didn’t want to get up and go back into the bedroom and the empty bed to be found there.
Ruusan studied the pale light that illuminated the living room, noting how much larger it felt right now and wishing it didn’t appear that way.
He’ll be home soon, the woman reassured herself, rubbing El’s back absently, unperturbed by the small puddle of drool staining the tank-top of her pajamas.
Jay had said he would be back tomorrow afternoon, so she just had to hold out until then, but it felt like the time between now and then was a month, not a matter of hours.
Her attempts to hide how much his absence had affected her this time from Vivian had failed rather dismally. The four-year-old could be more than observant at times, and Ruusan had already fielded a question of, “Are you sick, Mommy? You’ve got black things under your eyes.”
A quiet sigh escaped her as blue eyes went to the roof, contemplative.
As much as she missed him while he was gone, Ruu knew Jay was happy. With the device implanted into his eyes to help him see again, he was back to flying. And she was here with Vivian and Ellora, waiting for him to come home.
That was the way it was supposed to be, right? That was how it had been since the beginning, and that was how it would continue to be.
Ruusan laid an arm across her eyes, her other hand on Ellora’s back. I miss him more than I thought I would. I guess I just got used to having him around after El was born. Now though... It hurt.
A quiet breath left her. The first year of Vivian’s life had been like this, only ten times as worse. There'd only been a sleeping child and a bed devoid of a warmth she needed to be there during the heavy hours of night.
Ruu knew Jay was all right. He was out there, doing his job, doing what he loved. But when she would be just waking up in the mornings, still between sleep and awareness, and she’d reach out to find him... feeling that emptiness where he should be made her heart stop. Then she would wake fully, and remember that he was fine, just working, you don't have to be afraid.
And that is that. What doest you all think?
I mentioned explaining Ruusan's nightmares, so allow me to digress briefly on the matter. For some reason, after Cameron's death in the Original and after a rather difficult situation with a very close family friend in the Deviant, Ruusan is often subjected to nightmares when she has a lot of negative emotions swirling around inside her.
For instance, with the second bit, she'd been majorly worried about how Jay was doing, adjusting to his eyes being functional again while working at the same time, and that translated over very strongly into her dreams. She dreamed he'd died and that Cameron had dragged him away.
Also affecting her at that point were the similarities between that week and basically any point after Cam died, before she married Jay. Having a small child and waking up alone in a bed when she'd been expecting to find her husband there with her. The reminders of the devastating days following Cameron's death weighed really heavily on her mind.
And those are just a couple of emotions that her subconscious can be affected by; stress can get to her, feeling alone, even though she knows she's not, general worry over things occurring in her life, etc.
I find it, personally, to be a very interesting trait of hers. Thus far, it has cropped up more in the Original than in the Deviant, although I believe that, with all this kidnapping business, her four months completely cut off from her family and Jhidek in difficult conditions are going to have some pretty bad aftereffects on her mental state.
(I absolutely cannot wait. #sadisticwriter)
And, with that, I am finished with this post. Next, I want to do those Jaydn and Jase scrawls that I mentioned, although I can't decide whether or not to split them up into two different posts, because the bits are of some length and there are at least four of them, possibly five.
At any rate, I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into another aspect of Ruusan and thank you for putting up with all this randomness! (And muchas gracias for reading, my amazing followers and random visitors. I adore you all to bits.)
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
P.S. This forgetful writer almost forgot to let you know what Ruu was suffering from in the first bit, although you all probably know due to the following two bits. It was that evening that, with a bit of help from Jay, Ruusan realized she was pregnant with their first child. It was all quite adorable, let me tell you.
But, the three original Ruu bits I have decided aren't too awful to look at take place about ten months apart, although the last two will require a bit of explaining. As does this first one, I suppose, though it needs less than the others.
The first scrawl takes place about a year after Ruusan and Jhidek are married in the original storyline, putting Vivian at three years old, as you will read. I am contemplating not explaining the reasons behind Ruu's odd physical health until the very end of this post, so you smart readers who figure it out can congratulate yourselves on not needing to be told what was going on.
Actually, you know what, I'm going to hold on and let you guys see if you can work it out, just for kicks. Also, as a warning, this one's a bit on the old side and probably needs a bit of cleaning, but I'm not in a current mindset to do so, so you'll have to wade through the un-edited-ness. My apologies.
Ruusan puttered through the apartment, humming along with whatever was coming through the radio. Jhidek was off-planet working, so she and Vivian had been left to their own devices for a few days.
The three year old was caught up in an alphabet video, and her vocabulary had been expanding by the day. Ruu had been surprised though, that her daughter didn’t ask a hundred million questions, preferring to observe and learn for herself what something did.
She picked up a pair of socks and added them to the laundry basket on her hip, pausing to watch Vivi’s video for a moment.
The animated characters on the screen were in the midst of singing the alphabet song, and Vivian’s brow was lowered in concentration.
Ruu continued her foray for dirty clothing, getting the towels from the kitchen and bathrooms then went to the washer. She started a load, bent retrieve the dry clothes, and reached out to steady herself when she straightened. The world went black for a moment, and Ruusan hurriedly sat down, fighting a sudden bout of nausea.
Her heart pounded as she tried to control the urge to throw up.
Ruu worked to rationalize. We haven’t been anywhere; I haven’t been exposed to anything. So what’s going on?
When her stomach settled enough so she could stand again, Ruusan left the laundry and went on unsteady legs to sit on the couch near Vivian.
Her daughter’s green eyes turned her way when she came back into view. “What’s wrong, Mommy?”
“Mommy just feels funny,” Ruu said, smiling a bit to put the child’s worries to ease. “I’ll be okay in a minute.”
Vivian watched her for a moment, and then came over to sit beside her on the couch. She didn’t comment further, drawn in once more by her video, but Ruusan reached out to smooth her curls that were going wild.
After a few minutes, the nausea and dizziness faded entirely, leaving Ruu wondering what had happened as she contemplated returning to her work.
“When’s Daddy going to be home?” Vivian asked, looking away from her show.
The woman tucked the child close and kissed her forehead. “He said tomorrow, but we can watch for him tonight as well.”
“At bedtime?” Vivi checked, brow furrowing.
“Yes, at bedtime,” Ruu said, getting to her feet and carrying the child with her. “Are you hungry?”
Vivian thought for a minute, gaze returning to her movie and Ruusan knew she’d lost her.
“Alright, you stay here; I’ll scrounge up something to eat. Mommy’s starving all of a sudden.”
She went to the kitchen, and began to go through the fridge, looking for something that seemed at least remotely edible. The music of the alphabet movie shut off and Vivian appeared in the doorway.
“Vivi, does something smell funny to you?” Ruusan questioned, wrinkling her nose as she took a whiff of a Tupperware in the fridge.
“No,” the three year old said simply, coming in to sit on one of the stools.
“Huh.” Ruu murmured, frowning. “I think your father brought home something the other day and decided to share it, Viv.”
“Share what, Mommy?”
The blue-eyed woman smiled, and held out an orange to her daughter. “A bug, sweetheart. Mommy feels kind of off.”
“You said you were okay,” Vivian said, seeming put out.
She ruffled the mop of curls and picked out a couple of apples.
Alright. That is that. Feel free to leave a comment if you figured out what's up before I revealed it at the end. :P
Oh, crud... I just realized that the next two bits are going to spoil my surprise. How very frustrating. Oh well. Kudos to you if you figured it out before getting down to these next scrawls.
They take place, again, after about ten months, and in that time, several things happened. Namely, Jhidek being in an accident with a chemical (I think...) called tefloidite that caused him to go blind, followed promptly by the birth of his and Ruusan's first daughter, Ellora, the following day. There was a bunch of drama around all that as well, considering Ruu came pretty close to dying and such, but she was fine in the end.
It takes a month to locate a doctor who (Ha. Anyone else see that?) can fix Jay's eyes, and two days after that, he's already gotten a job. To say the least, Ruusan was not pleased over that, but he distracted her pretty well after allaying her fears.
These bits take place during the week that Jhidek is gone working, one mid-week, the other the day before her gets back, although they seem a bit disoriented, in that, the first doesn't seem to have any effect on the second.
You'll see what I mean. But, on their own, I rather like both the bits and I hope you will as well.
The darkness poured in then and she couldn’t see anything, could barely breathe, and this couldn’t be happening, not again, not to her, please Lord don’t do this to me.
Ruusan woke to more darkness interrupted only by a pale splotch that was her mother’s face. That was the only thing that saved her from panicking.
The sheets were tangled tight around her legs, and her heart was pounding from her dream; no, her nightmare. Definitely a nightmare.
Ruu drew in a shaking breath and croaked, “Momma...” She sat up with Sarris’ help that came in an arm across her shoulders.
“You were... crying, Ruu,” she replied, voice hushed in the stillness of the room as the Warrior drew a cool hand across the younger woman’s forehead.
“Did either of the girls wake up?” Ruusan asked, wiping the evidence of tears from her cheeks with a trembling hand.
Focus on the girls, don’t think about it, she told herself.
“No. Ellora almost did but she fell back asleep.” Sarris informed her, easing down onto the bed at her daughter’s side. “Do you need your comlink?”
The reminder of Jay brought tears back to Ruu’s eyes, but she blinked them away and shook her head. “No, I’ll be okay.”
Silence reigned for a long moment before Sarris murmured, “You were screaming, Ruu. It was like someone was killing you.”
Years of learning this woman, her mother, had taught Ruusan how to read the hidden emotions in her voice and on her face and right now there was a tinge of pain to her words. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispered, leaning into the Warrior. “It was a nightmare about Jay and... and Cameron too.”
The details of it felt like they’d been etched into her mind; the blood, the distorted scream of pain – not her own – and then the silence that had been the part to truly terrify her. He’d been motionless, not responding, then Cameron had been there – she’d known it was him from the moment he took her arm in hand – dragging her away. He’d pulled Jay’s arm around his shoulders, dragging him way into the darkness and he didn’t look back once.
Ruu didn’t remember screaming in the nightmare, but she must have. Her skin prickled and she shook her head to try and dislodge the memories. Sarris rubbed her upper arm, resting her chin on the top of her daughter's head.
Some of her bubbling fear slid away at the soothing touch, and Ruusan slumped against her mother, exhaustion pouring into her. “Sorry about this, Mom... you should be sleeping since your flight is tomorrow, not dealing with a nightmare.”
“It’s fine. I can sleep on the way home.” The Warrior said dismissively.
Did I mention Sarris visited? Calling her "the Warrior" is a reference to her being a Uhrician Elite Force Warrior, just as a reminder, and I'll go more into Ruu's nightmares after the next bit.
The apartment was dark and quiet, moonlight peeking through the shades over the windows. Ruusan lay on the couch with Ellora sleeping on her chest. Vivian had been asleep in her room for hours already and she had no wish to know what the time was now.
All that she needed to know was that it was late – or early - and even though she felt weariness weighing her eyelids down, Ruu didn’t want to get up and go back into the bedroom and the empty bed to be found there.
Ruusan studied the pale light that illuminated the living room, noting how much larger it felt right now and wishing it didn’t appear that way.
He’ll be home soon, the woman reassured herself, rubbing El’s back absently, unperturbed by the small puddle of drool staining the tank-top of her pajamas.
Jay had said he would be back tomorrow afternoon, so she just had to hold out until then, but it felt like the time between now and then was a month, not a matter of hours.
Her attempts to hide how much his absence had affected her this time from Vivian had failed rather dismally. The four-year-old could be more than observant at times, and Ruusan had already fielded a question of, “Are you sick, Mommy? You’ve got black things under your eyes.”
A quiet sigh escaped her as blue eyes went to the roof, contemplative.
As much as she missed him while he was gone, Ruu knew Jay was happy. With the device implanted into his eyes to help him see again, he was back to flying. And she was here with Vivian and Ellora, waiting for him to come home.
That was the way it was supposed to be, right? That was how it had been since the beginning, and that was how it would continue to be.
Ruusan laid an arm across her eyes, her other hand on Ellora’s back. I miss him more than I thought I would. I guess I just got used to having him around after El was born. Now though... It hurt.
A quiet breath left her. The first year of Vivian’s life had been like this, only ten times as worse. There'd only been a sleeping child and a bed devoid of a warmth she needed to be there during the heavy hours of night.
Ruu knew Jay was all right. He was out there, doing his job, doing what he loved. But when she would be just waking up in the mornings, still between sleep and awareness, and she’d reach out to find him... feeling that emptiness where he should be made her heart stop. Then she would wake fully, and remember that he was fine, just working, you don't have to be afraid.
And that is that. What doest you all think?
I mentioned explaining Ruusan's nightmares, so allow me to digress briefly on the matter. For some reason, after Cameron's death in the Original and after a rather difficult situation with a very close family friend in the Deviant, Ruusan is often subjected to nightmares when she has a lot of negative emotions swirling around inside her.
For instance, with the second bit, she'd been majorly worried about how Jay was doing, adjusting to his eyes being functional again while working at the same time, and that translated over very strongly into her dreams. She dreamed he'd died and that Cameron had dragged him away.
Also affecting her at that point were the similarities between that week and basically any point after Cam died, before she married Jay. Having a small child and waking up alone in a bed when she'd been expecting to find her husband there with her. The reminders of the devastating days following Cameron's death weighed really heavily on her mind.
And those are just a couple of emotions that her subconscious can be affected by; stress can get to her, feeling alone, even though she knows she's not, general worry over things occurring in her life, etc.
I find it, personally, to be a very interesting trait of hers. Thus far, it has cropped up more in the Original than in the Deviant, although I believe that, with all this kidnapping business, her four months completely cut off from her family and Jhidek in difficult conditions are going to have some pretty bad aftereffects on her mental state.
(I absolutely cannot wait. #sadisticwriter)
And, with that, I am finished with this post. Next, I want to do those Jaydn and Jase scrawls that I mentioned, although I can't decide whether or not to split them up into two different posts, because the bits are of some length and there are at least four of them, possibly five.
At any rate, I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into another aspect of Ruusan and thank you for putting up with all this randomness! (And muchas gracias for reading, my amazing followers and random visitors. I adore you all to bits.)
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
P.S. This forgetful writer almost forgot to let you know what Ruu was suffering from in the first bit, although you all probably know due to the following two bits. It was that evening that, with a bit of help from Jay, Ruusan realized she was pregnant with their first child. It was all quite adorable, let me tell you.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
A Summary of Storylines
This post is going to be entirely dedicated to the explaining of three storylines that myself and my best friend, Penny Kearney, have developed over the past six years of our lives. Well, one of them is six years old; the other two are under one.
There is the Original Storyline, the Steampunk Storyline, and the most recent Deviant Storyline. I've give brief intros to how they each began before each summary.
Also, there is a great chance these will be really confusing to you guys and I'm incredibly sorry for it, but there were just a million things that went on during all that time, so please just leave a comment if you need clarification on something and I'll get back to you with something more understandable as soon as possible.
...And let me warn you that my "summaries", as you will soon see, might as well be novels. I am no good at summarizing, although, in my defense, I am summarizing 20+ years worth of multiple character's lives. At least for the Original Storyline.
One more thing to note: both the Original and Deviant storylines take place in the Zephron Galaxy, which includes several planets, among them Sinjaro Kahn, Uhric, Norsha'ac, Gogam, Karon, Tigersoon, Tiloon, and Klowdarr.
Original Storyline:
Began: Oh, heavens, years ago. Penny and I started talk-gaming (character developing? What do regular writers call that?) with a taciturn Uhrician Elite Force Warrior and a green-eyed intruder who are about as night and day as Penny and I are. I think Sarris and Tara are kind of a testament to our own friendship, in how highly unlikely it is and yet it still happened.
General Summary: Sarris Nadir (Gogamian, UEF Warrior) and Tara Benson (Norsha'acite, bounty hunter) met under rather unlikely circumstances and became dysfunctional friends, though Sarris didn't admit to it for years. Literally, years.
Tara met Nuridarr Vhander during a brief, accidental stint on Gogam, which he helped her get through alive and in one piece and then they both were rescued from the planet by Tara's brother, Luke Benson (bounty hunter as well). Immediately after, Tara, Nuridarr, and Luke took a sudden leave of absence from the galaxy for two years, during which time Sarris an acquaintance through Tara by the name of Novarr Schaefe. (My apologies for similarities between Novarr and Nuridarr's names. Mostly accidental, and you never get them mixed up once you know them.)
After that, Tara and Luke find three of their younger siblings. Their entire family has been missing for several years, and they do find them somewhere between finding Ron, Andro, and Mara and Luke 'dying'. Except he didn't actually die. (Don't ask me, not my characters, and I can't recall anyways.) Following Luke's death by a couple of months, Tara married Nuridarr. Sarris and Novarr are just... living during this time. Not a lot is going on for them.
Tara and Nur's first daughter, Raina, was born a handful of months later, followed closely by Sarris and Novarr's adopted, newborn daughter, Ruusan. And Jhidek/Jay (Tara and Nur's son) came along a bit after that. (Don't worry, that was the end of the baby boom for seven years.) Sarris, a Ronin in the Uhrician Elite Force's ranking system, went into "the reserves", in a way, during all this that way she could be at home to look after Ruusan.
There was another kind of blank seven years, where life just went on and the Vhanders and Schaefe's raised their respective children/child. Jaydn and Merri were adopted/born about the same time. Jaydn was five when Novarr whisked her away from an inevitably bad situation after her parents died/were killed. (The details are still kind of sketchy at that part.) In the following eight years, there were a passel more Vhander children, while the Schaefe household remained safely at two. The two families are far from strangers, to the point where the parents are all "aunties" and "uncles" to each other's offspring.
Jaydn follows in Novarr's footsteps, taking up bounty hunting and eventually turning into something of a loner, which is her downfall in the end. Ruusan, after being lost for a time, decides to become an Emergency Response Transport Paramedic, which means that she's in the ambulance, at the scene of the crash. She attends medical school and takes up a job as an ERTP on Sinjaro Kahn, where her parents live. It's in the hospital that she meets Cameron Armstrong, a fairly average guy who is dying from a non-contagious, but uncurable, disease. When he asks her to marry him, she does.
Cameron's death ten months later coincides with the birth of their daughter, Vivian. Two months pass, and Sarris works with Tara and Nuridarr to find an apartment near the Vhander home on Norsha'ac for Ruusan and Vivian. Staying on Kahn is only a constant reminder of Cameron for Ruu, and the vote is unaninmous that she needs some time away.
Over the course of two years and through a series of author-caused events to cause a little heart-pounding anxiety and to strengthen bonds, Ruusan falls in love with childhood friend and never-before-romantic-interest, Jhidek. And he falls in love with Vivi, and Ruu too. (What? Vivian's an angel. Anybody would fall in love with her first.)
So they get married, and Ellora, the first Ruu/Jay bundle of adorableness, is born fifteen months later. Jaydn dies from her injuries after her ship is shot down by space pirates, much to the trauma of her family.
Here, I shall end. (Though there is a lot of unaccounted drama, let me assure you.)
Steampunk Storyline:
Began: Sometime in early 2012, Penny and I had been curious as to how Jaydn and Nuridarr would get along, as they've both got the same blood running through their veins and all. We couldn't come up with plausible trouble for them to get into in the original storyline, so we picked them up and moved them to Penny's steampunk world (a city named Sanbourne) which she has with a friend of hers, Katana. It really only served to show Jade's true colors.
General Summary: Nuridarr, now Nathaniel, and Jaydn, shortened to Jade, meet when she's ten-ish and he's eighteen-ish and she's an orphan and he's thrown himself out of his Gogamian crime....syndicate/gang/tribe/thing. Ten years later, and the two of them have, quite successfully, made their living on bounty hunting. Life is good, Jade is happy, and I kind of want her radio that she's got.
Insert Natasha Bennet, a rather fiery woman they nab, who ends up biting Nathan ("Shikhan, should you take something for rabies?" "I've had worse.") before they take her to meet the person who hired them to find her. It turns out to be a Gogamian that Nathaniel knew back when he was still with them. Also a man that Nathan isn't going to hand Tasha over to, so he sends Jade and Tasha off while he faces their client and his goons.
To summarize the rest, because this was an incredibly difficult storyline to write and it's hard to capture everything that happens, Nathaniel falls in love with Tasha, and it doesn't go over well with Jade. She moves out, starts working on her own, and goes to great pains to avoid seeing Tasha.
A lot of things occur in the next year or two.
Jade locates Tasha's missing family with the help of her contact, Charles, and an ex-assassin-turned-bounty-hunter named Jase Drouais gets mixed up in everything through a former connection to the kidnapper and the disappearance of his brother, Markham. Unfortunately, Jade gets laid up with an injured leg and is out of commission for the actual rescue.
Later, there is the appearance of a government official bent on killing all lowlifes. He's sees them as a taint upon the clean-blooded people of higher society in Sanbourne. Jade, Nathan, and his daughter with Tasha, are on the hit-list due to their heritage. After a really close call which Jase, the ex-assassin who she now works with, saves her from, they go to make sure that Nathan, Tasha, and Raina are safe and the three of them end up leaving town. Jade, Jase, and Tasha's brother, Lucas (Luke, originally) work together to try and locate, then bring down, the government official, Horace Scott. It is thought for a time that Nathan, Tasha, and Raina perish in a train wreck, which makes life difficult, to say the least.
After that, Penny and I never actually finished talk-gaming it. And I know it sounds like Jade's perfectly balanced through all those events, but she really isn't, and after it turns out that Nathan, Tasha, and Raina are alive, she skips town for four years, staying away as long as she needs to so she can screw her head on straight again. A lot happens to her while she's gone, including a couple of near-death experiences, a semi-relationship with a guy named Sato, and a friendship with a woman named Kensey during her last year
who ends up dying from sickness. After that, she goes back to Sanbourne to see if she'll be welcomed back after practically abandoning the people there that cared about her. And while things were far from what they'd been years prior, Nathan and Tara were willing to let her back into their lives to start rebuilding what she'd crumbled.
Deviant Storyline:
Began: Back in August or thereabouts of 2012, with Penny's curiosity over what would've happened if Luke had been unable to locate Tara on Gogam and save her, and by extension, Nuridarr, from the planet. Initially, I was a spectator, interested in the idea for itself and the effect it would have on Sarris. I didn't really become involved until the characters got their revenge for Penny and I wondering if Jaydn might've been an antagonist all along that we'd been trying to make into a protagonist. The question came up of how Jade might've turned out different had she been raised up with good, strong morals while still on Gogam. If that hard setting that she was born for was where she needed to be in order to be instilled with a good heart. The idea caught on quickly, and thus it began.
General Summary:
Tara's transponder is damaged during her initial days on Gogam, so instead of being rescued by Luke, she and Nuridarr are forced to remain on the planet, living on the run from his tribe who've branded him a traitor. She has gives up hope of ever getting off Gogam quickly and they just survive for a year or so. They're negotiating for supplies with an tribe that's an enemy with Nuridarr's old tribe when the tribe is attacked. In the chaos, Tara rescues a three-year-old baby girl named Jaydn after her motherr is killed. (Please don't feel bad, her parents were a far cry from what parents should be.)
For a small amount of time, the plan is to drop her off with another tribe, but Tara falls in love pretty quickly and while Nur was initially opposed to the idea of keeping her, he gets attached as well and they adopt Jaydn as their own.
Over the course of the following six years which are spent constantly moving, fighting to survive against both the planet and other Gogamians, Jade is brought up included in every process, being given her own duties and responsibilities, and she's taught that they all protect each other. Not every man for himself, as the rest of Gogam does.
While Tara gave up on leaving, Jaydn's addition to their family gave Nuridarr a newfound motivation to get Tara and Jade off of Gogam and to a better life out in the rest of Zephron. And he does, joining a pirate gang in order to get them passage on a ship headed off Gogam.
Jade is nine years old when the time to leave comes, and they realize that Tara is pregnant either while on the ship, or shortly after they escape into the rest of the galaxy.
While all this has been happening on Gogam, Sarris has spent the six years searching the galaxy for Tara, not even having a place to start, but refusing to quit until she finds Tara, living or dead. Novarr, only an acquaintance at this point, keeps in touch with her and does some of his own searching, while Luke, unable to get to Tara on Gogam, breaks off his efforts early on to continue looking for their missing family.
After this point, events get fairly fuzzy, as Penny and I haven't even talk-gamed their leaving. But Raina and Jhidek are both born within a couple of years of their getting of Gogam and Jade settles into her role as Imo's (Daddy's) wing mate and big sister with
ease, much to our relief.
Merri follows seven years after Jhidek, when Jade is seventeen, Raina eight, and Jay seven.
In the deviant, their focus as hunters is trained much more on the Gogamians who leave their home planet to terrorize the rest of Zephron and either turning them back or finishing them off. The effect on them as a family is a much more trained, orderly, and possibly an even tighter and closer dynamic than the original. They protect each other and carry out their missions together once Raina and Jhidek get older. (Not sure how they worked the Merri angle when she showed up later.)
Meanwhile, Sarris and Novarr slowly drifted toward each other, Tara's return to their worlds drawing them back together. He's there to help support Sarris as she deals with the guilt she feels over not finding Tara sooner, but eventually it turns to something more.
Ruusan does not go forgotten either. Sarris helped rescue her from a hostage situation on Sinjaro Kahn when Ruusan was ten and on her way back to Norsha'ac following a failed adoption attempt. Always a decisive thinker, Sarris decided that she didn't want to let Ruu go back to the orphanage and worked with the social service system on Kahn to legally adopt her. I'm not sure what her relationship status was with Novarr at the time, but they might've been on the edge of getting married when Sarris picked up Ruu and that was the turning point.
For a few years, the Vhander and Schaefe households would get together, so Ruusan wasn't strangers with Raina, Jhidek, and Merri, but when they got older, the visits dropped off some, possibly because the Vhanders, now with the kids of a safer age to aid in the fight, got busier with missions. Not positive on that account either.
Ruusan headed to med-school on Sinjaro Kahn from Uhric at eighteen, taking a more intensive course and finishing in four and a half years to return to Uhric where her parents and Jensen lived.
(Sarris became a Grandmaster while Tara was gone, which equates to a general or some such, and Jensen is a Ronin [equivalent = colonel] who works as her aide and was with her when she helped to rescue Ruusan. He started as a trusted aide and friend and was basically adopted into the family after a couple of years. Ruu sees him as an older brother and close confidante.)
The unintended silence between the two families came to a rather abrupt end when Jhidek, injured in an explosion while he and Raina were on a mission, dropped in, quite literally, to Ruusan's apartment. Things were touch-and-go, but she saved his life and
things just take off from there. I won't bore you with those details, but suffice it to say, after a couple of spontaneous visits, a close encounter with the bad sort of Gogamian for Ruu, a few months of silence to protect her on Jay's part, a tought fight that ended with a "missing, perhaps dead" news report on the Vhanders, and a conniving Tara, Ruusan and Jhidek worked out what they both wanted. Not without a bit of drama, of course, but they were married just under a month later.
And the rest of the story, as they say, has yet to be told.
And that's all of it! For the moment, at least. The only really "finished" storyline is the Steampunk storyline. The other two kind of go through stop-again-go-again expanding. Currently, Penny and I are caught up in the Deviant again, although we're at the tail end,
instead of the beginning.
To clarify that, we're talk-gaming at two points in the storyline. The first point is with Nuridarr, Tara, and Jaydn on Gogam and Jade is currently seven. The second point is twenty-five-some years down the road, with Ruusan and Jhidek, although I don't think we
truly intended to pick it up as agressively as we have. (It's only mostly my fault; I was curious if Ruu and Jay would work out in the Deviant as they did in the Original.)
Once again, please feel entirely free to either leave a comment here with questions or on my OYAN profile, where I can be found as PenWielder62. These storylines are ones that Penny and I have invested a lot of time and thought into, and they're actually quite
important to me, so I would greatly enjoy helping you clear up whatever it is that I've confused you with.
And thank you so much, as always, for reading. Knowing that there are people who actually enjoy what I write means a great deal to me.
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
There is the Original Storyline, the Steampunk Storyline, and the most recent Deviant Storyline. I've give brief intros to how they each began before each summary.
Also, there is a great chance these will be really confusing to you guys and I'm incredibly sorry for it, but there were just a million things that went on during all that time, so please just leave a comment if you need clarification on something and I'll get back to you with something more understandable as soon as possible.
...And let me warn you that my "summaries", as you will soon see, might as well be novels. I am no good at summarizing, although, in my defense, I am summarizing 20+ years worth of multiple character's lives. At least for the Original Storyline.
One more thing to note: both the Original and Deviant storylines take place in the Zephron Galaxy, which includes several planets, among them Sinjaro Kahn, Uhric, Norsha'ac, Gogam, Karon, Tigersoon, Tiloon, and Klowdarr.
Original Storyline:
Began: Oh, heavens, years ago. Penny and I started talk-gaming (character developing? What do regular writers call that?) with a taciturn Uhrician Elite Force Warrior and a green-eyed intruder who are about as night and day as Penny and I are. I think Sarris and Tara are kind of a testament to our own friendship, in how highly unlikely it is and yet it still happened.
General Summary: Sarris Nadir (Gogamian, UEF Warrior) and Tara Benson (Norsha'acite, bounty hunter) met under rather unlikely circumstances and became dysfunctional friends, though Sarris didn't admit to it for years. Literally, years.
Tara met Nuridarr Vhander during a brief, accidental stint on Gogam, which he helped her get through alive and in one piece and then they both were rescued from the planet by Tara's brother, Luke Benson (bounty hunter as well). Immediately after, Tara, Nuridarr, and Luke took a sudden leave of absence from the galaxy for two years, during which time Sarris an acquaintance through Tara by the name of Novarr Schaefe. (My apologies for similarities between Novarr and Nuridarr's names. Mostly accidental, and you never get them mixed up once you know them.)
After that, Tara and Luke find three of their younger siblings. Their entire family has been missing for several years, and they do find them somewhere between finding Ron, Andro, and Mara and Luke 'dying'. Except he didn't actually die. (Don't ask me, not my characters, and I can't recall anyways.) Following Luke's death by a couple of months, Tara married Nuridarr. Sarris and Novarr are just... living during this time. Not a lot is going on for them.
Tara and Nur's first daughter, Raina, was born a handful of months later, followed closely by Sarris and Novarr's adopted, newborn daughter, Ruusan. And Jhidek/Jay (Tara and Nur's son) came along a bit after that. (Don't worry, that was the end of the baby boom for seven years.) Sarris, a Ronin in the Uhrician Elite Force's ranking system, went into "the reserves", in a way, during all this that way she could be at home to look after Ruusan.
There was another kind of blank seven years, where life just went on and the Vhanders and Schaefe's raised their respective children/child. Jaydn and Merri were adopted/born about the same time. Jaydn was five when Novarr whisked her away from an inevitably bad situation after her parents died/were killed. (The details are still kind of sketchy at that part.) In the following eight years, there were a passel more Vhander children, while the Schaefe household remained safely at two. The two families are far from strangers, to the point where the parents are all "aunties" and "uncles" to each other's offspring.
Jaydn follows in Novarr's footsteps, taking up bounty hunting and eventually turning into something of a loner, which is her downfall in the end. Ruusan, after being lost for a time, decides to become an Emergency Response Transport Paramedic, which means that she's in the ambulance, at the scene of the crash. She attends medical school and takes up a job as an ERTP on Sinjaro Kahn, where her parents live. It's in the hospital that she meets Cameron Armstrong, a fairly average guy who is dying from a non-contagious, but uncurable, disease. When he asks her to marry him, she does.
Cameron's death ten months later coincides with the birth of their daughter, Vivian. Two months pass, and Sarris works with Tara and Nuridarr to find an apartment near the Vhander home on Norsha'ac for Ruusan and Vivian. Staying on Kahn is only a constant reminder of Cameron for Ruu, and the vote is unaninmous that she needs some time away.
Over the course of two years and through a series of author-caused events to cause a little heart-pounding anxiety and to strengthen bonds, Ruusan falls in love with childhood friend and never-before-romantic-interest, Jhidek. And he falls in love with Vivi, and Ruu too. (What? Vivian's an angel. Anybody would fall in love with her first.)
So they get married, and Ellora, the first Ruu/Jay bundle of adorableness, is born fifteen months later. Jaydn dies from her injuries after her ship is shot down by space pirates, much to the trauma of her family.
Here, I shall end. (Though there is a lot of unaccounted drama, let me assure you.)
Steampunk Storyline:
Began: Sometime in early 2012, Penny and I had been curious as to how Jaydn and Nuridarr would get along, as they've both got the same blood running through their veins and all. We couldn't come up with plausible trouble for them to get into in the original storyline, so we picked them up and moved them to Penny's steampunk world (a city named Sanbourne) which she has with a friend of hers, Katana. It really only served to show Jade's true colors.
General Summary: Nuridarr, now Nathaniel, and Jaydn, shortened to Jade, meet when she's ten-ish and he's eighteen-ish and she's an orphan and he's thrown himself out of his Gogamian crime....syndicate/gang/tribe/thing. Ten years later, and the two of them have, quite successfully, made their living on bounty hunting. Life is good, Jade is happy, and I kind of want her radio that she's got.
Insert Natasha Bennet, a rather fiery woman they nab, who ends up biting Nathan ("Shikhan, should you take something for rabies?" "I've had worse.") before they take her to meet the person who hired them to find her. It turns out to be a Gogamian that Nathaniel knew back when he was still with them. Also a man that Nathan isn't going to hand Tasha over to, so he sends Jade and Tasha off while he faces their client and his goons.
To summarize the rest, because this was an incredibly difficult storyline to write and it's hard to capture everything that happens, Nathaniel falls in love with Tasha, and it doesn't go over well with Jade. She moves out, starts working on her own, and goes to great pains to avoid seeing Tasha.
A lot of things occur in the next year or two.
Jade locates Tasha's missing family with the help of her contact, Charles, and an ex-assassin-turned-bounty-hunter named Jase Drouais gets mixed up in everything through a former connection to the kidnapper and the disappearance of his brother, Markham. Unfortunately, Jade gets laid up with an injured leg and is out of commission for the actual rescue.
Later, there is the appearance of a government official bent on killing all lowlifes. He's sees them as a taint upon the clean-blooded people of higher society in Sanbourne. Jade, Nathan, and his daughter with Tasha, are on the hit-list due to their heritage. After a really close call which Jase, the ex-assassin who she now works with, saves her from, they go to make sure that Nathan, Tasha, and Raina are safe and the three of them end up leaving town. Jade, Jase, and Tasha's brother, Lucas (Luke, originally) work together to try and locate, then bring down, the government official, Horace Scott. It is thought for a time that Nathan, Tasha, and Raina perish in a train wreck, which makes life difficult, to say the least.
After that, Penny and I never actually finished talk-gaming it. And I know it sounds like Jade's perfectly balanced through all those events, but she really isn't, and after it turns out that Nathan, Tasha, and Raina are alive, she skips town for four years, staying away as long as she needs to so she can screw her head on straight again. A lot happens to her while she's gone, including a couple of near-death experiences, a semi-relationship with a guy named Sato, and a friendship with a woman named Kensey during her last year
who ends up dying from sickness. After that, she goes back to Sanbourne to see if she'll be welcomed back after practically abandoning the people there that cared about her. And while things were far from what they'd been years prior, Nathan and Tara were willing to let her back into their lives to start rebuilding what she'd crumbled.
Deviant Storyline:
Began: Back in August or thereabouts of 2012, with Penny's curiosity over what would've happened if Luke had been unable to locate Tara on Gogam and save her, and by extension, Nuridarr, from the planet. Initially, I was a spectator, interested in the idea for itself and the effect it would have on Sarris. I didn't really become involved until the characters got their revenge for Penny and I wondering if Jaydn might've been an antagonist all along that we'd been trying to make into a protagonist. The question came up of how Jade might've turned out different had she been raised up with good, strong morals while still on Gogam. If that hard setting that she was born for was where she needed to be in order to be instilled with a good heart. The idea caught on quickly, and thus it began.
General Summary:
Tara's transponder is damaged during her initial days on Gogam, so instead of being rescued by Luke, she and Nuridarr are forced to remain on the planet, living on the run from his tribe who've branded him a traitor. She has gives up hope of ever getting off Gogam quickly and they just survive for a year or so. They're negotiating for supplies with an tribe that's an enemy with Nuridarr's old tribe when the tribe is attacked. In the chaos, Tara rescues a three-year-old baby girl named Jaydn after her motherr is killed. (Please don't feel bad, her parents were a far cry from what parents should be.)
For a small amount of time, the plan is to drop her off with another tribe, but Tara falls in love pretty quickly and while Nur was initially opposed to the idea of keeping her, he gets attached as well and they adopt Jaydn as their own.
Over the course of the following six years which are spent constantly moving, fighting to survive against both the planet and other Gogamians, Jade is brought up included in every process, being given her own duties and responsibilities, and she's taught that they all protect each other. Not every man for himself, as the rest of Gogam does.
While Tara gave up on leaving, Jaydn's addition to their family gave Nuridarr a newfound motivation to get Tara and Jade off of Gogam and to a better life out in the rest of Zephron. And he does, joining a pirate gang in order to get them passage on a ship headed off Gogam.
Jade is nine years old when the time to leave comes, and they realize that Tara is pregnant either while on the ship, or shortly after they escape into the rest of the galaxy.
While all this has been happening on Gogam, Sarris has spent the six years searching the galaxy for Tara, not even having a place to start, but refusing to quit until she finds Tara, living or dead. Novarr, only an acquaintance at this point, keeps in touch with her and does some of his own searching, while Luke, unable to get to Tara on Gogam, breaks off his efforts early on to continue looking for their missing family.
After this point, events get fairly fuzzy, as Penny and I haven't even talk-gamed their leaving. But Raina and Jhidek are both born within a couple of years of their getting of Gogam and Jade settles into her role as Imo's (Daddy's) wing mate and big sister with
ease, much to our relief.
Merri follows seven years after Jhidek, when Jade is seventeen, Raina eight, and Jay seven.
In the deviant, their focus as hunters is trained much more on the Gogamians who leave their home planet to terrorize the rest of Zephron and either turning them back or finishing them off. The effect on them as a family is a much more trained, orderly, and possibly an even tighter and closer dynamic than the original. They protect each other and carry out their missions together once Raina and Jhidek get older. (Not sure how they worked the Merri angle when she showed up later.)
Meanwhile, Sarris and Novarr slowly drifted toward each other, Tara's return to their worlds drawing them back together. He's there to help support Sarris as she deals with the guilt she feels over not finding Tara sooner, but eventually it turns to something more.
Ruusan does not go forgotten either. Sarris helped rescue her from a hostage situation on Sinjaro Kahn when Ruusan was ten and on her way back to Norsha'ac following a failed adoption attempt. Always a decisive thinker, Sarris decided that she didn't want to let Ruu go back to the orphanage and worked with the social service system on Kahn to legally adopt her. I'm not sure what her relationship status was with Novarr at the time, but they might've been on the edge of getting married when Sarris picked up Ruu and that was the turning point.
For a few years, the Vhander and Schaefe households would get together, so Ruusan wasn't strangers with Raina, Jhidek, and Merri, but when they got older, the visits dropped off some, possibly because the Vhanders, now with the kids of a safer age to aid in the fight, got busier with missions. Not positive on that account either.
Ruusan headed to med-school on Sinjaro Kahn from Uhric at eighteen, taking a more intensive course and finishing in four and a half years to return to Uhric where her parents and Jensen lived.
(Sarris became a Grandmaster while Tara was gone, which equates to a general or some such, and Jensen is a Ronin [equivalent = colonel] who works as her aide and was with her when she helped to rescue Ruusan. He started as a trusted aide and friend and was basically adopted into the family after a couple of years. Ruu sees him as an older brother and close confidante.)
The unintended silence between the two families came to a rather abrupt end when Jhidek, injured in an explosion while he and Raina were on a mission, dropped in, quite literally, to Ruusan's apartment. Things were touch-and-go, but she saved his life and
things just take off from there. I won't bore you with those details, but suffice it to say, after a couple of spontaneous visits, a close encounter with the bad sort of Gogamian for Ruu, a few months of silence to protect her on Jay's part, a tought fight that ended with a "missing, perhaps dead" news report on the Vhanders, and a conniving Tara, Ruusan and Jhidek worked out what they both wanted. Not without a bit of drama, of course, but they were married just under a month later.
And the rest of the story, as they say, has yet to be told.
And that's all of it! For the moment, at least. The only really "finished" storyline is the Steampunk storyline. The other two kind of go through stop-again-go-again expanding. Currently, Penny and I are caught up in the Deviant again, although we're at the tail end,
instead of the beginning.
To clarify that, we're talk-gaming at two points in the storyline. The first point is with Nuridarr, Tara, and Jaydn on Gogam and Jade is currently seven. The second point is twenty-five-some years down the road, with Ruusan and Jhidek, although I don't think we
truly intended to pick it up as agressively as we have. (It's only mostly my fault; I was curious if Ruu and Jay would work out in the Deviant as they did in the Original.)
Once again, please feel entirely free to either leave a comment here with questions or on my OYAN profile, where I can be found as PenWielder62. These storylines are ones that Penny and I have invested a lot of time and thought into, and they're actually quite
important to me, so I would greatly enjoy helping you clear up whatever it is that I've confused you with.
And thank you so much, as always, for reading. Knowing that there are people who actually enjoy what I write means a great deal to me.
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
Friday, February 15, 2013
Writing: Aftermath
...to Jaydn's death.
I'm making up for my lack of posting, see? Two posts. Maybe three, if I can hang onto consciousness long enough to work on the next thing I've got in mind.
These are just my scrawls for the aftermath of Jade's death. Truth be told, while I didn't shed a tear writing the actual death scene, I cried writing these. (I suppose the time at which I wrote it might've been part of that. It was either really later, or really early. One of the two. Somewhere between 12 AM and 2 AM, how about that?)
Other notes to keep in mind:
-- Charro ki sotan -- Gogamian, an apology.
-- Charro shik -- Gogamian, I love you.
Jay equates to Jhidek Vhander, Ruu's (epic) hubby who she loves to bits.
Charles is Jade's contact who is amazing and originally from the steampunk alternate reality.
Novarr held Sarris by the shoulders, his voice shaking as he told her, “Don’t blame yourself for this, Sar. You can’t blame yourself for this.”
She shook her head, grabbing his forearms, but the Warrior couldn’t force his hands away. She drew in shuddering breaths as she continued to shake her head, over and over and over, unable to stop, because this could not be happening.
Dear God, don’t do this to me, Sarris begged silently as Novarr pulled her close, dropping his head to her shoulder.
Ruu’s grip tightened on the comm. and her voice was so very quiet. “You’re lying to me.”
“I’m sorry, Ruu. I’m sorry. I wish I were, but I’m not.” Novarr said to her, sounding as unstable as her heart was beginning to feel.
“No, Dad, you have to be lying to me. Jade can’t be—be—“ She couldn’t finish, couldn’t think of her little sister – her precious little sister – and imagine never being able to see her brown eyes again. “Please, Daddy, don’t tell me this,” Ruu pleaded, her voice catching in her throat as the first tear slid down her cheek. “Please, Daddy.”
“I’m sorry, Ruu. I’m sorry.”
She crossed her free arm over her stomach, a sob breaking from her throat. “How, Daddy? Who took her away from us?”
It took a moment for him to answer, voice rough as well and Ruusan tried to remember if she’d ever seen her father cry. “Her ship was shot down by space pirates, Ruu. Charles tracked her down a couple of days ago.”
“Was anyone there? Please tell me she wasn’t alone, at the very least, Daddy.” Where was Jay?
“She wasn’t. A local found her before she— before she was gone,” the Hunter explained to his remaining daughter, fighting the urge to breakdown again. “He said... he said that she had things she wanted to tell us through him.”
Ruu clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her sobs, desperate for someone to hold her, but Jay had gone to his parents for a bit to talk with Raina and his dad.
“She said she loved us, Ruu. All of us. And that—“ he halted to try and regain his composure. “Charro ki sotan and charro shik. He said those were her last words to us, Ruu.”
The woman nodded, unable to speak, unable to get the words from her closed throat, because Jaydn was gone. Jaydn was dead.
Neither Sarris nor Novarr slept that night. Her grief came in the tears that traced her face, not a noise passing from her lips, but Novarr’s chest heaved for air as he cried for his lost daughter.
The apartment was so black that night, so empty and lonely and Novarr clung to Sarris, clung to his wife, because he didn’t know how to handle this.
He couldn’t handle this. His Jaydn, his baby girl who held his hand so very tightly that first day even though she hadn’t known a lick of Galactic. So he clung to Sarris and tried not to think, tried not to realize she was gone forever.
And since that all looks like such a puny amount, I'm going to go find my initial scrawl for when Novarr brought Jaydn home in the very beginning, when she's five and Ruu is seven, I believe.
Additional notes:
-- Ey, Ji -- Gogamian, yes and no.
Galactic equates to English.
And Novarr is a bounty hunter. Have I mentioned that before?
“Sar, you around?” Novarr called, leading Jaydn into the apartment by the hand.
The five-year old studied her new surroundings with quiet interest, and looked up at him with a bit of question in her gaze.
“Hang on a sec,” he said, ruffling her hair and heading farther into the space.
Jaydn trailed along at his heels as Sarris appeared with a basket of clothes on her hip and Ruusan hanging onto her arm, in the midst of asking something.
His wife and daughter both paused at his small shadow.
“Say, Sar, how much of your Gogamian can you recall?” Novarr asked with a congenial grin.
“...Why?” She said, setting her basket on the ground, gray eyes on Jaydn.
“Because this little lady doesn’t seem to speak a lick of Galactic,” the man explained, guiding the child forward with a hand on her head. “It was a very quiet trip home, to say the least.”
Sarris crouched down to Jaydn’s level, meeting the girl’s brown gaze with a calculating look. It was a moment before she spoke, and Novarr didn’t understand a word of what she said.
But Jaydn seemed to perk up and she replied to whatever Sarris had said with a simple, “Ji.”
Sar glanced up at him. “Where are her parents?”
“Dead.” He said, settling down on the floor as well. “Gogamian pirate ship, and she was the only one left after all was said and done. I wasn’t sure what they were going to do with her, so I decided to take responsibility.”
His wife nodded and returned her attention to Jaydn. The five-year-old voiced what seemed to be a question.
Sarris glanced over her shoulder at Ruusan, whose blue eyes portrayed her confusion with the situation.
Novarr smiled at his daughter and held out an arm for her while Sarris answered Jaydn’s inquiry.
“What’s she saying?” Ruu asked, hugging his waist.
“She wants to know if you’re our daughter, because your eyes are so bright and your hair is so curly,” Sarris said, without looking away from Jaydn.
Novarr reached out to tap the child on the shoulder, bringing her gaze around. He pointed to his chest and said, “Novarr.”
Accustomed to this game, Jaydn pointed to herself and dutifully repeated, “Jaydn.”
He tapped Ruu’s nose. “Ruusan.”
Jaydn blinked. “Ruusan?”
“Ey,” Sarris broke in, then continued with a sentence that included Ruusan’s name and her own.
“Sar, you need to ask her if she wants to be part of our family,” Novarr murmured after a few minutes of interchange in Gogamian between Sarris and Jaydn.
Gray eyes flicked to him, and he caught the hopeful light in her eyes as she nodded.
Jaydn waited patiently for them to finish talking, looking around the apartment with now-undisguised curiosity.
...You have no idea how many little red lines I've got in this bit, as Sar, Novarr, Ruusan, and Jaydn, are all not included in the dictionary and thus get marked as spelled wrong.
At any rate, that shall be all for this post.
I hope you maybe enjoyed it, despite the initial depressing stuff and then the subsequent heavy-weighting of Jaydn's death, and thank you, as always, for reading. You have no idea how much it means to me to know that somebody actually enjoys reading the little scribbles I come up with.
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
I'm making up for my lack of posting, see? Two posts. Maybe three, if I can hang onto consciousness long enough to work on the next thing I've got in mind.
These are just my scrawls for the aftermath of Jade's death. Truth be told, while I didn't shed a tear writing the actual death scene, I cried writing these. (I suppose the time at which I wrote it might've been part of that. It was either really later, or really early. One of the two. Somewhere between 12 AM and 2 AM, how about that?)
Other notes to keep in mind:
-- Charro ki sotan -- Gogamian, an apology.
-- Charro shik -- Gogamian, I love you.
Jay equates to Jhidek Vhander, Ruu's (epic) hubby who she loves to bits.
Charles is Jade's contact who is amazing and originally from the steampunk alternate reality.
Novarr held Sarris by the shoulders, his voice shaking as he told her, “Don’t blame yourself for this, Sar. You can’t blame yourself for this.”
She shook her head, grabbing his forearms, but the Warrior couldn’t force his hands away. She drew in shuddering breaths as she continued to shake her head, over and over and over, unable to stop, because this could not be happening.
Dear God, don’t do this to me, Sarris begged silently as Novarr pulled her close, dropping his head to her shoulder.
Ruu’s grip tightened on the comm. and her voice was so very quiet. “You’re lying to me.”
“I’m sorry, Ruu. I’m sorry. I wish I were, but I’m not.” Novarr said to her, sounding as unstable as her heart was beginning to feel.
“No, Dad, you have to be lying to me. Jade can’t be—be—“ She couldn’t finish, couldn’t think of her little sister – her precious little sister – and imagine never being able to see her brown eyes again. “Please, Daddy, don’t tell me this,” Ruu pleaded, her voice catching in her throat as the first tear slid down her cheek. “Please, Daddy.”
“I’m sorry, Ruu. I’m sorry.”
She crossed her free arm over her stomach, a sob breaking from her throat. “How, Daddy? Who took her away from us?”
It took a moment for him to answer, voice rough as well and Ruusan tried to remember if she’d ever seen her father cry. “Her ship was shot down by space pirates, Ruu. Charles tracked her down a couple of days ago.”
“Was anyone there? Please tell me she wasn’t alone, at the very least, Daddy.” Where was Jay?
“She wasn’t. A local found her before she— before she was gone,” the Hunter explained to his remaining daughter, fighting the urge to breakdown again. “He said... he said that she had things she wanted to tell us through him.”
Ruu clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her sobs, desperate for someone to hold her, but Jay had gone to his parents for a bit to talk with Raina and his dad.
“She said she loved us, Ruu. All of us. And that—“ he halted to try and regain his composure. “Charro ki sotan and charro shik. He said those were her last words to us, Ruu.”
The woman nodded, unable to speak, unable to get the words from her closed throat, because Jaydn was gone. Jaydn was dead.
Neither Sarris nor Novarr slept that night. Her grief came in the tears that traced her face, not a noise passing from her lips, but Novarr’s chest heaved for air as he cried for his lost daughter.
The apartment was so black that night, so empty and lonely and Novarr clung to Sarris, clung to his wife, because he didn’t know how to handle this.
He couldn’t handle this. His Jaydn, his baby girl who held his hand so very tightly that first day even though she hadn’t known a lick of Galactic. So he clung to Sarris and tried not to think, tried not to realize she was gone forever.
And since that all looks like such a puny amount, I'm going to go find my initial scrawl for when Novarr brought Jaydn home in the very beginning, when she's five and Ruu is seven, I believe.
Additional notes:
-- Ey, Ji -- Gogamian, yes and no.
Galactic equates to English.
And Novarr is a bounty hunter. Have I mentioned that before?
“Sar, you around?” Novarr called, leading Jaydn into the apartment by the hand.
The five-year old studied her new surroundings with quiet interest, and looked up at him with a bit of question in her gaze.
“Hang on a sec,” he said, ruffling her hair and heading farther into the space.
Jaydn trailed along at his heels as Sarris appeared with a basket of clothes on her hip and Ruusan hanging onto her arm, in the midst of asking something.
His wife and daughter both paused at his small shadow.
“Say, Sar, how much of your Gogamian can you recall?” Novarr asked with a congenial grin.
“...Why?” She said, setting her basket on the ground, gray eyes on Jaydn.
“Because this little lady doesn’t seem to speak a lick of Galactic,” the man explained, guiding the child forward with a hand on her head. “It was a very quiet trip home, to say the least.”
Sarris crouched down to Jaydn’s level, meeting the girl’s brown gaze with a calculating look. It was a moment before she spoke, and Novarr didn’t understand a word of what she said.
But Jaydn seemed to perk up and she replied to whatever Sarris had said with a simple, “Ji.”
Sar glanced up at him. “Where are her parents?”
“Dead.” He said, settling down on the floor as well. “Gogamian pirate ship, and she was the only one left after all was said and done. I wasn’t sure what they were going to do with her, so I decided to take responsibility.”
His wife nodded and returned her attention to Jaydn. The five-year-old voiced what seemed to be a question.
Sarris glanced over her shoulder at Ruusan, whose blue eyes portrayed her confusion with the situation.
Novarr smiled at his daughter and held out an arm for her while Sarris answered Jaydn’s inquiry.
“What’s she saying?” Ruu asked, hugging his waist.
“She wants to know if you’re our daughter, because your eyes are so bright and your hair is so curly,” Sarris said, without looking away from Jaydn.
Novarr reached out to tap the child on the shoulder, bringing her gaze around. He pointed to his chest and said, “Novarr.”
Accustomed to this game, Jaydn pointed to herself and dutifully repeated, “Jaydn.”
He tapped Ruu’s nose. “Ruusan.”
Jaydn blinked. “Ruusan?”
“Ey,” Sarris broke in, then continued with a sentence that included Ruusan’s name and her own.
“Sar, you need to ask her if she wants to be part of our family,” Novarr murmured after a few minutes of interchange in Gogamian between Sarris and Jaydn.
Gray eyes flicked to him, and he caught the hopeful light in her eyes as she nodded.
Jaydn waited patiently for them to finish talking, looking around the apartment with now-undisguised curiosity.
...You have no idea how many little red lines I've got in this bit, as Sar, Novarr, Ruusan, and Jaydn, are all not included in the dictionary and thus get marked as spelled wrong.
At any rate, that shall be all for this post.
I hope you maybe enjoyed it, despite the initial depressing stuff and then the subsequent heavy-weighting of Jaydn's death, and thank you, as always, for reading. You have no idea how much it means to me to know that somebody actually enjoys reading the little scribbles I come up with.
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Music: A Family and a Desert
"Desert Symphony" by the PianoGuys.
This song, ever since I listened to it a few weeks ago, has held a lot of meaning for me in the way of story. But, to warn you, it has a lot of backstory before I can get to what it is that I actually enjoy about it (beyond that it's just a pretty song, of course) so I hope you're comfortable.
A while ago, my best friend, Penny, came up with an alternative storyline for her characters Nuridarr Vhander and Tara Benson. It was just one little tweak, but it was enough to send massive ripples through the entire sequence of events in the original storyline. It was quickly named the Deviant Storyline, and has remained as such since.
In this Deviant Storyline, Tara Benson gets stuck on this planet called Gogam. (This is a sci-fi setting, just FYI.) In the original, she was soon rescued from this planet by her brother, Luke, but not without the help of a local by the name of Nuridarr. What changed between the original and the deviant was that she didn't get rescued. Luke was unable to locate her and remove her from Gogam.
To understand why this is such a bad thing, you need to know about Gogam.
In this galaxy, the Zephron Galaxy, there are quite a few planets, not many of which whose names I recall, but of them all, Gogam is decidedly the worst. It is a desert planet, filled with people who are the living embodiment of survival of the fittest. Another suitable label would be, "kill or be killed". And there is a lot of killing on Gogam. They are a rough, harsh people who have no moral issues with knocking off anyone who keeps them from reaching their goal.
You see why Tara's being stuck here is such a problem, yes? There aren't a lot of people who weren't born on Gogam that can go to Gogam and remain intact, either physically or psychologically. It gets in your head and tears you apart, whether you try and fight it or not.
Tara could have well and truly been dead within a few months time or less without the intervention of Nuridarr. The best metaphor for them would be that opposites attract, and they took that to the extreme. At least, in the original storyline.
In the deviant, though, Tara became quite a bit more Gogamian that she otherwise would've been over the following nine years. But that isn't the end of the story. Not yet, anyways.
Now I have to back it up again to the original storyline and tell you about the Schaefe family, all of whom are my characters.
A short explanation for each family member:
A short explanation for each family member:
Novarr Schaefe - Bounty hunter, good friend of Luke Benson, and quite the imperturbable fellow.
Sarris Nadir - Gogamian, originally, but got off the planet and became a Uhrician Elite Force Warrior. She struggles with her heritage a lot and is (unspoken) best friends with Tara Benson, who is much her opposite in many ways. My oldest, most developed character to date.
Ruusan Dekker - Ruu was adopted into the Schaefe family when she was just a few months old. She has an incredibly long back-and-forward story that we won't get into right now, but she has one of the biggest hearts you can imagine and worked as an Emergency Response Transport Paramedic (ERTP) on Sinjaro Kahn for a handful of years.
Jaydn Schaefe - Jade is not a birth daughter of Novarr and Sarris either. She is Gogamian and was adopted at the age of five. Originally, I'd been very excited to see what her character would become, but she spiraled downward very quickly in recent months. I finally killed her to end all of our misery, and her unanticipated antagonistic side has been a weight on not only my shoulders, but of my characters, Penny, and her characters.
Right. Now that you've got all that, let's focus on Jaydn. She is one of my greatest regrets, not just in a character, but in that she revealed a lot of personal details to me about myself while on her path of darkness. Anyways. Penny and I, and both of our characters never liked the way it had ended with her.
So we decided to give her a second chance in this deviant storyline with Tara and Nuridarr. We figured that being raised in familiar terrain, and being instilled from a younger age with a lot of important, moral qualities would help her turn out for the better in the end.
And thus far, it has worked. Jaydn has been incredibly happy with Tara and Nur, reaching a degree that I never found within her in the original storyline.
Now I can explain about this song. "Desert Symphony" by the PianoGuys. The first time I listened to it, I didn't click too much with it. I liked it a lot, yes, but it took hearing the title and connecting that "Desert" with Gogam to see the Vhander family with this song.
The soft beginning is reminiscent of just Nuridarr and Tara, relying on each other for strength and support as they live the life of bandits, constantly running and hiding from Gogamians seeking to kill Nuridarr. (He betrayed his tribe, you see, to protect Tara, and Gogamians never take betrayal well. Stubborn brutes, that lot.)
As the music grows and swells, Jaydn joins them and, though she is still young, both in body and in heart, she combines her love and her strength with theirs. Their love for each other as a family is steadfast and unyielding, despite the challenges that face them, despite the dangers that chase them.
And their love remains as it has been from the beginning as they search for a way to leave Gogam, a way to leave the constant wariness and fear to a place that is safer. It may be a place that Nuridarr -- and Jade -- know nothing about, but they went through the hell that is Gogam together, as a family, and survived. What more can the galaxy offer to attempt to tear them apart?
...I apologize. Words run away with me at times, but I had to attempt to capture what comes to mind when I listen to this song. Not so much the struggles they endured, but how their bonds to each other strengthened with every passing day together.
With that, I shall close. Kudos to the Piano Guys for another amazing song and I hoped you enjoyed this brief glimpse at one of the multitude of worlds that I have characters within.
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
To the stars, through difficulties.
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