On the Rogue, Damascus

Damsel
Chapter Eight

And so the Father put some beasts in this world to bear witness to his power and spread that.  Others are followers, mass-goers, with their good monks who are redeemers of those going masses.  The last among the ordained by Heaven are great knights who protect creation and its efforts.  Their greatest duty, thus, is to maintain the harmony and order it.  Their greatest joy is to love, with absolutely open hearts, this grace which is greater than gold.  He who defies his role through sin of apathy, gluttony, avoiding mass, blaspheming the sacraments, owning slaves, fornication, especially beastiality…

“…but is she a virgin?”

Eve only knew so many sins—the ones that worried her the most—and so her memory always faded at that point.

“Little Miss Evil…”

Last Chance through the Flames

Damsel

Chapter Seven

Coming across Eve’s name burned into a fallow field was… interesting.

The horrifying art faced the knights exactly as they came down out of an old earthworks to rejoin the road.  Some time, once upon a time ago, Eve had playfully interjected, there was a great war in the valley of Axes and the two raging queens—one a red head and the other a brewed blonde—refused to agree on whose bridal gown was better and so the soldiers went at it, but for too long, too savage, and they needed cover, so they built up the ground and…

“King Lorilander had no queen, and the other of the last valley kings was Harthmond.  There have never been any ruling queens at all, according to Scripture, Eve.  And what is this further nonsense about them fighting over a wedding dress?”

“Well, I may not know the history, but I don’t see how it’s any different from what nonsense you told me the other day.  I see that these are left over from some battle, years before I was born, and there must be a story to it, so then I made one.  People pick the one they like in the end, and don’t look at me like that, Cymen. That’s exactly how it works, too, and you know it.”

Cymen shut his eyes.  “You spin so many tales, we never know what you’re really doing, or what you truly know, my Lady, and please excuse me for venturing so far as to call you a liar, but at this point I figure I’d better warn my men first.”

And then there it was, at such an angle that the sun couldn’t shine on it all...

A good GAFE

DAMSEL

Chapter 6

“Is this from GAFE?  It’s very old, Cymen.”

Eve had been talking, Cymen now realized, in her needy whispering tone for far longer than was decent.  He heard her in the hay, cuddling him and mewing at him such that he’d dreamed they were both cats.  He a gold tabby, and she black.  Him flattening ears and waiting for her to stop hissing and scratching, and yowling.  Thank the Divine, a cat was not a man, not even a knight, and so Cymen had raised his paw, claws unsheathed, and swiped viciously down.

Cymen exhaled through his mouth and rolled his eyes awake.  “GAFE isn’t old, Eve.”

“Then why come it’s got black smudge on some parts, though I do clean it—”

“You don’t even take a rag to your own skin—”

“Hush, and look!”

Cymen had to rub his eyes twice, because the large medallion was nearly lost in so much nakedness.  Eve had unwound layers of scraggly scarf and unfastened a gray dress and fancy white underthing, well, once it had been something like white, that certainly did not belong to her.  She thought it enticing, but really, the entire ensemble of an unwashed woman was curious.  It was more like a layer of fat, flesh, and skin on a boar.  Beneath was the meat, the meal.  Had Eve separated the clothing from herself with the help of a carving knife?

“You’ve exposed yourself to me in order to entice me, but it makes no impression whatever because of how filthy you are.  So please stop.”

Eve got angry and pulled the necklace off, and pushed it into Cymen’s hands.  “You said that GAFE is a heavenly kingdom.  And, look, this was given to me and it’s an angel, isn’t it?  Should I keep it for you, or should I give it away?”

Even Crispy Children

DAMSEL
Chapter Five

The Valley of Axes was the decrescendo before foothills built up into a spine of mountains that blocked the Eastern sun on a good day.  As Eve walked alone, she scratched her head and stumbled.

“Axes… axes… Axzzz…” a cry.  “Braximus, Sylvestre, Jarshaun, Axz, and now Cymen.  Oh… Oh, Cymen.  But you told me to.  You told me to live.”

She leaned on a tree in her filched nearly-dry clothesline dress and cried.

What was on the other side of the mountains that made the wind blow always?  The Valley was wide, hollow, desolate.  Eve felt this in her soul as the chill snatched her tears away.  But in the other direction, far behind her and to the West, the range of mountains at the other edge of the world were dark and dung-colored.  It smelled close and the people huddled together in the mines.  Sweating, working, their lives stifled and as sickly as their bodies.  Here was air and vastness, and back in the Forest, or at Sea… that between was vague.  And the point of it all?

A woman with a chicken under her arm came up and grabbed Eve.  “Are you crazy, being out here like this when there’s a curfew!  I came out for a drink, but I’m bad off; what’s your excuse?  Child, what can you be thinking?  Where is your home?”

Eve pointed West.  “I was thinking that life lacked color, and why would it?  If it’s on purpose, then how cruel of the Divine to make it so.  But if it’s on accident… how much worse.  And how cruel of us to be forced to live on in bleakness for no reason at all—”

“Are you loony? Come on!”

Robin in the Hood

Damsel. 
Once upon a time, when I was Catholic…

Chapter Four: Robin in the Hood

Roland was the smallish one who Cymen sent to fetch sticks for a fire.  Bernard was the sort of man to trade places with Roland, because Roland’s leg looked sore.  Arth wordlessly took tough bread and what turned out to be a rabbit he fetched earlier from the saddlebags.  Clandestine was a nickname for the one who kept making jokes, and then the men complicated that still further, calling him Clay and refusing to share what Clay’s birth name was.  Skun whistled a tune while he handed out bedrolls, and Foxheart took Eve by the tips of her fingers and started to dance.

They all got to clapping.  Cymen turned his back and put his hands on his horse.  Eve turned circles, watching Fox and then the Captain.  An exaggerated, “Oh, how fine your steps,” a gasping, “My, aren’t you swift, and your hold so confident, yet… soft.” At last, “I believe I know exactly why all the ladies call you Foxheart—”

Cymen cut in right then, over her laughing.

“Lady Eve.”

“Yes?”

“Tonight, I… the Knights of the Harmonic Gold Order are going to teach you a new dance.  I shall be their representative.  Welcome back, Bernard, and nevermind the kindling.  Get your violin.”

“Sir, but that would make noise—”

Fine. Here's my novel. Read it.

**I was upset, and I'm sorry. That wasn't fair of me. All the mean stuff was removed.
(Or, one of my novels)

Guess what? Figuring out that whole 'write-stories-based-on-washington-post-articles' thing got too complicated. I do have something ready. It is really creative and heartfelt and I somehow turned Romney's "fire people" quote into a tale of dragons coming to purgatoried DC... but it just isn't something I'm comfortable with posting yet. I had a conversation with a friend about this, and maybe getting that personal about life in DC is just too much work.

What I'm doing instead

Do you know what else my friend and I discussed? Actually, I've spoken with a couple people about this: I need a presence online as a young writer, I'm damned good at writing, and I have damned good stories already, that I'm afraid to share because I have 'big plans' for all of them...

But, then again, I'm too busy to do something new every single week when I'm already trying to finish my novel manuscript and managing other blogs too. Also, Anne Lamott wrote something about that first draft needing to be a shit-draft, and also the need to let your inner child loose if you're going to ever come up with something great (Lamott, Bird by Bird, 1994).

Also, I'm really f-ing pissed off right now because I'm so tired of romantic drama...