What inspired Damsel?

Don't worry, the next chapter of Damsel is still being posted tonight. But, I thought it might also be nice to share some background on what inspired the story, if anyone has been curious (it contains spoilers if you've not read up to Chapter Eleven: Tempering the Ruecross).

Damsel
What inspired me to write

I think I explained that I was raised Catholic, but I don’t believe I ever conveyed that Damsel was actually developed during a time in my life when I was (a) K, so it’s obvious that I was tragically single then (b) going through something and very sad as a result and (c) was living in the twilight of a painful decision I had made a few years ago to no longer be Catholic again. 

(b ) Did not being Catholic make me sad? No. I was relieved—not everyone is comfortable worshiping what they see as God, or honoring the sacred in life via one religion or another. I felt free and stronger.

Sort of the way Eve behaves...

Tempering the Ruecross

DAMSEL
Chapter 11

Eve did not mind the uniform Mother Superior Margarethe proscribed for her, Eve was comfortable with gray.  And they all took turns scrubbing the dresses and smocks, which seemed fair.  Eve never had anyone else help with her clothes before, that was nice.  They fed her on schedule along with everyone else, and she had her own bed, enough room to uncross her legs, even.  But it was on perhaps the third morning, when Eve saw that they had all been made the same, irrepressibly exact, that she began to feel the onset of madness…

“Oh, you aren’t losing your mind, back in line, Eve.  And why don’t you comb through your hair, it’s getting tangled again.”

Eve pushed into Margarethe with her clean plate, going wide and white-eyed.  There was light morning chat in the dining hall, though no one else looked so panicked and upset by warm oatmeal and an apple.  “But I can’t, don’t you see?  It’s the only thing I can do for myself.  I thought to hem my skirt once, and Master Arc had a girl tied up to a stake for that—”

“Eve, he would not do that, considering…”

“Well, I suppose not, but he did take a yardstick, and pop!  Right over the head.  I thought that maybe I’d call a guard but no one even said anything.” she whispered, “I suppose I should have said something earlier, but I was afraid.  You aren’t going to strike me now for it now, are you?  Or perhaps, you’ll strike me for telling on Arc and not the confession… or twice.  Once for the silence and another for the shouting!”

Saint-Makers and Uniform Wearers

Damsel
Chapter 10

Eve smiled and sang for weeks after being kissed by an angel.

“Oh Cymen, I’m in love...”

He grunted. “Yes, you should be. Micco has never shown interest in any woman, not as long as I’ve known him.”

Damascus was walking on the other side of Eve.  A big black studded collar with red jingling bells was fastened around his neck.  “If her good fate gets any better I’m going to disgorge what’s been sitting in my second stomach—”

“Oh, Damascus, stoppit. Miccolangiolo even hates it when you do that.”

The animal interrupted, “--I’ve known King Miccolangiolo longer.”

“Once more, you have a selective memory, Damascus.  Miccolangiolo spake with me first.”

“Yes, but I knew he was coming.  I saw him soar down from the heavens.”

“With what wings?  They’d all been plucked out.  Damascus, I’m fairly sure Micco fell out of the sky.”

“Oh did he?  That’s so amazingly sexy…”

Cymen paused them all awkwardly before the large doors to Micco’s room behind the altar.

“I believe what Cymen is too modest to refute is your estimation of what is attractive about that ridiculous and incorrect image.”

Eve hummed to herself.  “Oh, I don’t know.  I just see the King’s toga flying away and all, and him yelling at the top of his lungs, passionate, sweaty, and then fallen into some woman’s lap!”

“Yours?”

Damascus blinked at Cymen for saying that.

White Wall

Damsel

Chapter Nine

Damascus was unlike any animal Eve had ever met… she had to consider, briefly, whether or not she merely saw or became acquainted with animals? Not a limb of his moved naturally, she observed. He walked on fours, the way a person walked on twos. Very self-conscious of the stride and what that could convey, worried about stepping in something, missing a beat sometimes, because men didn’t go swiftly on two legs and then two legs more, like a puppet pulled on excellent strings. Strings of instinct, or else made by the Father…

“Why don’t you wear clothes?”

Damascus lowered his head.  She saw two very long ears and his nearly smeared-clean horn from her perspective.  “What’s that you’re doing?  Stop it.”

“But I’m just holding on…”

“No, you’re trying to steer me, but that isn’t necessary, is it?  When I know the way.  I do not need to be driven.  Do you see blinders on me, or a saddle across my back?”

Eve let a finger drift past her ear, to do what?  Well, whatever it was she was used to doing, her tangled tresses seized upon her jagged fingernail instead.  She yanked.

“Virgins don’t smell like you do.  Nor do they ask such stupid questions.”

“Will you really take me to Cymen?  With no guidance at all?”

“He did not send me!  Why would you think he sent me?”