Meet Melody: Part 3

So? Had enough of my mild insanity yet? Here's some more just in case.

Melody’s legs started to move by themselves and she was suddenly running, a drab blur moving through the winter woods. Her trapline was one of the longest in the area and the trek to her cabin, which should have taken days in the deep snow, took less than an hour. Though nearly twenty, Melody, an orphan, had spent almost two years posing as a fourteen year old boy, earning his income by trading furs. The remote cabin and trapline offered a hard life, but compared to the life of an orphan in the colony, Melody thought it preferable. Even as it was, it was getting harder to avoid curious glances every time she went into town.

“You won’t have to hide anymore,” said the voice as she opened the cabin door. Unbidden memories of the men other girls had warned her about came to her mind. “You’re stronger now….”

“Then what are we running from?” she demanded as she went to the hearth. The winter cold didn’t bother her, but the familiar ritual of lighting a fire was comforting. “If I’m a blood dragon, what’s there to be afraid of?”

“Our maker was running,” replied the voice. “The dragonflights are the founders of the supernatural courts, but it doesn’t mean that we’re above their laws.” Melody gasped as a flood of memories and knowledge filled her mind. “Our maker was being hunted by the Court of Magi and the mage dragonflight.”

“But I didn’t do anything,” Melody groaned, dropping miserably into a rickety chair. “They don’t need to hunt me!”

“Our maker was a renegade,” said the voice. “Courtless. Until we find the Court of Blood and our own dragonflight, the Court of Beasts and the Court of Magi will consider us a threat. Other courts would be eager to gain the favor of a dragonflight… without our own Court to back us we are vulnerable.”

“How do we find our Court then?” Melody asked wearily.

“I don’t know. The Blood Dragonflight will search for us though… a new dragon is too valuable to ignore. We just have to survive until we’re found.”

“We have to get to town,” Melody said. “They’ll be less likely to attack there… I, I have to get ready.”

“Look in the mirror,” commanded the voice. “You’re disguise won’t work. We’ve changed.”

Melody got up and went over to the single old mirror. Her breath left her in a gasp. Even under a layer of dirt and ash and blood, her face was… beautiful. Too pretty to be mistaken for a boy any longer.

“My eyes,” she said, running her fingers over skin the color of ivory. “They’re purple!”

“The color of our dragonflight,” said the voice. “Blood dragons and their vampires all share purple eyes. Your friends will know something is wrong. We need to be careful.”

Melody threw off her stained and dirty clothes, suddenly filled with an uncharacteristic desire for elegance.

“What else do I need to know?” she asked, forced to choose a pair of heavy woolen breeches and a man’s shirt that was several sizes too large.

“You already know it,” the voice said. “I’m your memories. I’m nothing but a way for you to cope with the turning.”

The voice faded away and Melody was left feeling strangely alone as she gathered what little money she had and shrugged on her heavy, fur lined coat. The new memories and knowledge was becoming easier to process and the subconscious piece of her mind that made up the voice, opened. Melody swayed and fell against the doorjamb, feeling like her head was going to split in half. The psychic pressure faded and the girl swore, growling under her breath as she stepped out into the snow.

Meet Melody: Part 2

If you haven't guessed yet, I have an odd imagination. One slightly demented result is the blood dragon, the most feared member of the three dragonflights. All dragons refuel their innate magical abilities by "consuming life force". Wild dragons and mage dragons hunt prey, typically devouring it whole, but blood dragons drain their victim's blood, allowing them to leave victims alive.

“What are you talking about?” screamed Melody, a deep growl ripping from somewhere deep in her chest.

“We’re a blood dragon now,” the voice snapped. “I’m your ancestral memories. The one who turned us should be helping us, but right now I’m all we’ve got! So shut up and listen!”

She froze in shock as a vision of a tremendous creature with shining red, black, and purple scales popped into her head. The dragon spread its sail like wings and roared, spouting flames. She felt the beast inside of her at the same moment, straining, begging to be unleashed.

“No!” commanded the voice. “Not yet! Not here!” Melody subsided, her breath coming in great, heaving gasps as the voice continued. “Blood dragons don’t need to show their true form. You have all the strength you need as you are.”

“My throat,” she choked. “It hurts!”

“It’s the thirst,” said the voice. “We have to feed!”

*

Melody dropped the last wolf to the ground, wiping blood from her mouth as her fangs receded. She looked around at the four others, equal parts horrified and exhilarated. The  wolf pack, once so terrifying as she followed her trapline,  had been no match for her newfound strength and ferocity. It had been a simple thing to chase them down and drain them, their jaws not even scratching her skin in the few moments they had to fight.

“I killed them,” she panted, the thirst finally sated. “I drank their blood!”

“You’re a blood dragon now,” the voice said. “One of the three great dragonflights! As well as the most powerful vampires in the world!”

“Vampire?” she whimpered, sinking to her knees as she stared at the slaughtered wolves. “Blood dragon? No… no, no, no, this can’t be real….”

“It’s real,” snapped the voice, losing patience. “But our turning attracted attention! We should go, we’ve been out here too long already.”

Meet Melody

I'm doing something a little unusual. I've mentioned my new characters, Melody and Barnabus, the main characters of my latest story. I'm actually taking a break in their main story to write a short piece about Melody's origin. I'm not quite finished with it yet, but I'll post the first part anyway.

Melody MacTyre woke up alone in the snow, amid a ruin of fallen and broken trees. Her head was swimming and her throat ached horribly, as if she hadn’t had a drink in days. She stared at the sky in confusion, unaffected by the brightness of the sun as she looked past it into the countless stars.

“Move,” said a voice in her head, a voice not quite her own. “Get up!”

“I can’t,” she mumbled, her words feeling like fire in her neck. She looked down without moving her head, peering stupidly at the great limb pinning her legs to the ground. “I’m stuck….”

“Move the branch!” growled the voice.

Her leg moved, an involuntary jerk that sent the heavy branch tumbling away in a spray of powdery snow. Melody’s eyes widened and she stood up, looking down at her torn and dirty breeches in awe. The pain in her throat temporarily forgotten, she reached down to grab a length of broken oak that would have taken ten men to move. With barely a thought, she flicked her wrist and sent the log soaring away into the forest.

She swore softly, nearly falling back into the snow.

“Well done,” said the voice. “Told you!”

“What’s going on?” Melody asked as the burning in her throat returned. “Wh… what’s happening to me?”

“Us,” corrected the voice. “I’m you… at least your new memories.”

Melody’s head spun and she staggered away, her movements as quick as the wind. She came up hard against an unyielding outcrop of stone, shattering the rock with her shoulder.

“Watch it!” cried the voice. “Take it easy! Act a little more like a human or we’ll never blend in!”

The Letter I didn't Want

Rejection is an unfortunate part of a writer's life. According to popular belief, we are a sensitive species, notorious for our insecurity. I can't speak for other writers, but for me it's true. Each time I get an answer for a query or submission, I have to work up the courage to open it, fearing another blow to my already fragile self esteem. Being chosen for publication is little more than sparking an editor's interest, whatever it happens to be that day. It's more luck than anything else, submitting your work to someone's whim more often than careful consideration. Even for magazines, monthly submissions can number in the thousands. Most submissions are admittedly pretty poorly written and planned and the reading team often spends hours poring through stacks of bad writing without finding anything worthwhile. Even if they do stumble upon something that is well written and compelling, the deciding factor is typically whether or not the reader thinks the piece is sell-able. Sometimes good work is passed over simply because it was not what the reader was looking for at that moment. This usually leaves the writer with a baffling rejection, with no real idea of what went wrong. Still, we can't give up, even in the face of this sometimes senseless discouragement. We just have to keep trying until we find the right person at the right time, someone who is willing to take a risk because something we wrote resonated with them.

How did I get Here?

I had big plans for my weekend last night I swear. It's not my fault I ended up sitting in Books A Million this morning, honest. I was going to paint the guest room today, or at least scrape off the peeling paint and tape off the trim and ceiling. I've learned over years of working on maintenance that nothing ever quite goes as planned however, and this job isn't any different. Putting up a sheetrock wall is a relatively easy task, and when someone eventually decides to paint over the work it should be a simple job. Whoever decided to build the walls of my guest room had something very different in mind.

At a glance, the room's biggest problem is the choice of paint. It is a deep maroon that might have been nice in a bigger room with polished wooden trim and picture windows, instead of a single hung window and white painted boards for trim. If you look closer though, you will notice that none of the walls are quite flat as the builder used two different sizes of materials. To make matters worse, the joint compound used to blend the pieces of drywall together were never properly sanded, giving the wall a rough, unfinished texture. So that's how I ended up here in BAM instead of painting my guest room. After a few hours in one of my favorite places, maybe I won't decide to rip down all the walls and start from scratch....

Confessions of a Romantic

I have a confession to make. I'm a romantic. Not in every sense of the word, but in many. It influences great portions of my life and personality, though for many people the definition of the word has changed slightly. For me, my favorite definition is that of one who is imbued with idealism, has a desire for adventure and chivalry, and emphasizes imagination and emotion and introspection. Part of my makeup as a writer is my tendency to feel deeply, and without reservation. This may or may not explain my dislike for Realism and my loathing for The Great Gatsby. 

Endless Battle

I feel like I'm fighting a never ending battle against leaves out here in the woodlands of New Hampshire. Even with a leaf vacuum attached to a riding lawn mower does little to stem the tide. There's a soccer field here that takes about forty five minutes to mow in the summer season. Today though, it took me most of the day to clear the leaves away, and tomorrow, I expect more of the same. I don't mind though, there's something relaxing about riding the mower in the crisp fall air.