1kaday

So, things have been quiet, haven’t they? Yeah.

I’ve got half a dozen things in various stages of written, most of which probably aren’t going to go any further. So I’m closing them today and letting them sit waaaaaay back on the burner and starting fresh.

And by fresh I mean completely. I’m resetting the counter over there on the right and starting it anew on Monday. The counter’s supposed to be a tool to help me write, not an albatross around my neck, and it’s turning into such, so back to zero it goes.

Let’s see if I can do it right this time.

Of course, you can help.

(Bonus points to the three of you who get the reference in the title.)

Filed under: Challenge Meh!, Kayble Challenge, administrivia
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The world is not kind to those who are different, Jim reflected, and nowhere in the world is this clearer than in high school. This is especially noticeable when you are surrounded by three larger boys who can sense weakness and wish to exploit it.

Jim was not a very weak person on the surface. He was sixteen, on the tall and slender side, with sandy brown hair that pretty much defied all attempts to keep it combed. Dark green eyes were set in a blandly handsome face—the type that looks good and is forgettable minutes later.

Socially, however, he was very weak. He tended to keep to himself, which in his school was an unforgivable sin that would mark a person as easy prey. The loners didn’t have a social group to help defend them from the slings and arrows of the others in the school. Of course, he had what he felt were good reasons to avoid people. Most people didn’t like the sight of needles, or of people using those needles, even if it was on themselves.

Jim didn’t have the luxury of avoiding needles. He had to be aware of how much and what type of food he was putting into his body, and based on that figure out how much insulin he needed to take. He didn’t want to get a pump, to wear all the time and give him regularly scheduled injections; he preferred having more control over when and how much he took.

When he first started going to this school, he made the mistake of taking his insulin in the cafeteria, and noticed that he was getting looks from amusement to shock, all of which led to him being called to the principle’s office. Things were cleared up quickly—the nurse was able to confirm that he was diabetic, and not taking anything he shouldn’t—but it had been embarrassing, and while it wasn’t a problem with the school, it had made a permanent mark on his social record.

So he knew he couldn’t count on his friends to get him out of this situation; he didn’t have any. The teachers and staff were, as usual, absent. He had to rely on his wits.

He felt like he was doomed.

“I said, give me your lunch money, creep!” The bully was bored, too bored to come up with anything clever. He and his friends just wanted to collect a few dollars, so they could spend the afternoon at the arcade. Some of the students felt that giving them that money was a small price to pay—not only did it keep them from being beaten up, but it meant that the trio would be away from the school the rest of the day.

“I don’t have any,” Jim replied calmly. “I brought my lunch today.” He held up the brown paper bag lovingly packed by his mother that morning. She packed most of his lunches, since that way she had more control over what he ate. You couldn’t keep a teenager away from eating things that aren’t good for him, she reasoned, but you could at least make the effort.

The bullies eyed the bag with disapproval. The alpha bully reached out and grabbed the bag. “Maybe we’ll consider this your contribution, then,” he said, pulling out the sandwich. He sniffed at it. “What the hell is this?”

“Um, peanut butter and jelly?” He wasn’t completely sure; it could have been tuna.

The bully rolled his eyes in disgust, dropping the sandwich to the floor. “I hate peanut butter. If you’re going to brown bag it, start bringing better lunches.”

“Hey, I’d love to, but you try telling my mom something…” He knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say. The bully closed what distance there was between them, bending his neck so that his forehead was touching Jim’s. Jim coughed a little—apparently the bully had been smoking.

“Don’t give me any back-talk, creep. Bring money tomorrow, or we’ll throw you in the dumpster.” His fellows nodded, liking that idea.

“When you put it that way…” Jim coughed. “Okay. Money. Sure.”

Jim felt better when the trio walked off, but it was only because he could breath more easily. He felt like a wimp. He knew he should have stood up to them, but he didn’t really want to get beaten up, and that was the likely result if he tried to fight all three of them.

He picked up his sandwich, putting it back in the bag. He confirmed that it was, indeed, peanut butter and jelly. Low-fat peanut butter and no-sugar-added jelly, of course. He didn’t blame the bully for rejecting it; he wished he could, too.

Jim started toward his next class, rubbing his forehead. He felt another migraine coming on, which would make the third one in five days. It was already the headache equivalent of fingernails on a chalkboard. If it got worse, he reasoned, he’d have to go to the nurse, or home. He hoped it wouldn’t be the latter; if it was, his mother would be called to get him, and he wouldn’t be able to go to the comic book store on the way home.

He brightened at the thought. Wednesday–new comic book day–was the best day of the week, because he could catch up with old friends. He could learn what Peter and MJ were up to.

Jim related to Peter. They were both highly intelligent people, and Peter’s high school life read a lot like Jim’s. The only difference was that Peter had superpowers, and Jim didn’t. He envied Peter that. But then, Jim wasn’t a comic book character, and that sort of thing only happened in the comics.

Jim nearly stumbled as he walked into his classroom just ahead of the bell. The migraine was getting worse, but wasn’t at the point where he felt he should go to the nurse yet.

Filed under: HERMES Project, fiction, kayble
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Whenever I write something I’m particularly proud of and post it, like the previous pair of kaybles, I get a form of writer’s block I like to call performance anxiety. For the next X days, I’m incapable of getting any real progress on any writing, because my mind is constantly comparing it to the last thing I wrote. As a result, I’m now on day seven of not posting anything, with four partly-written things in open windows. With any luck, I’ll break through this soon and be back to daily postings.

It wouldn’t hurt, of course, if someone would give me some suggestions….

Filed under: Challenge Meh!
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If you like to read this sort of thing via your livejournal friends page, a syndicated feed has been set up here. The link is also in the sidebar under “Places to find me,” which I think is kind of recursive, but what’re you gonna do?

Special thanks to Scott Raun for setting this up!

Filed under: administrivia
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Because of how blogs work, these notes are posted after the two parts of the story but show up over them on the front page. So I’m going to put a cut here so you can click on them when you want to read them. If you want to read them.

And no, these notes don’t count toward the wordcount.

(more…)

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I shivered in the chill of her smile.

“Well. You have courage enough, mortal child, that I will grant you. But do you have the skill…” The Lady looked at me standing there a moment, and gave that smile again. “You play?”

At first, I wasn’t sure what she meant, then remembered I was holding my fiddle case. “I do.”

She nodded her head, and two… well, elves, or something, human in proportions but only one and a half feet tall, with delicately pointed ears that added another inch or two to their height, moved over to the door. One jumped onto the other’s shoulders and pulled up to where he could reach the knob to open the door. Steps slid out and she glided down them.

She was very tall, over seven foot, and very slender. As she moved, I could see her ears poke from her hair now and again, and realized they were just as pointed as most of her entourage. The gown she wore was almost as incredibly beautiful as she herself, and I know I stared. I barely noticed my fiancee move out as well.

The Lady said, “Then that shall be the challenge, child. We shall each play. She who plays better shall leave with the boy.”

Oh, he would love being called a boy as much as I enjoyed being a child, I thought as I nodded. “All right, but who judges?”

The Lady fixed me with a look that could melt steel. I’m not sure why I didn’t melt myself. “Do you doubt my impartiality?”

That was, of course, exactly what I was doing, but I couldn’t say that. Instead, I inclined my head without looking away from her. “Your pardon, Lady, of course I don’t. By your grace, you have accepted this challenge, when you could have ignored me and moved on, and so I know I can trust your honor in this matter.” I hoped.

Even if I was wrong, my words were right. The smile the Lady gave was warmer, if only just. “You show courage and wisdom.” She held out a delicate, slender hand, and a tall, dog-headed creature handed her a fiddle that was more beautiful than any I have ever seen. Dark woods, delicate tracings of metals, letters, no, runes in a language I didn’t know, and clearly made to her exact specifications. It was becoming even clearer that everything was by her exact specifications here. The bow she was handed next was the perfect companion to the fiddle.

And then, with no preamble, with every eye on her, she began to play. She produced sounds from that fiddle that I woudn’t think possible if I hadn’t heard them. Almost everyone began a lively dance around her, all but two of us. My fiancee was just standing there, his eyes still dull as he stared at the Lady.

I was the other. My heart had moved deep into my stomach by the time she removed her bow from her fiddle and raised her head, looking down at me. I knew as well as she that the contest was effectively over. I had never played that well even on my best day–which had been that day, if I thought about it. I had no hope of winning this contest.

And then I looked to my fiancee again, and knelt for a moment to open my case. The Lady looked faintly amused as I took out my fiddle and rose again, preparing it, but she said nothing. I knew she was only humoring me, but she wouldn’t interfere.

I didn’t look at her anymore, though. I knew I had lost, and that I would never see my love again. The only thing I could do was say goodbye.

I set my bow to my fiddle and began to do so, playing what my heart felt. It was not a song I had ever played or heard before. In truth, it wasn’t a song at all. It was pure emotion, flowing through my fingers and into the instrument, coming out as notes the ears hear but the heart feels. In those eternal, few minutes I played, everything I felt for my love came out, all the joys and pains, the beauty and even the little annoyances, everything.

When I was finished, I expected to feel drained, but instead I felt exhilarated. While he still didn’t move, there was recognition in his eyes rather than nothing, and I knew that, at the very least, he would remember me when he was gone. I looked into those eyes for a long moment before returning my attention to the Lady.

She was staring at me, her porcelain features paler than before and eyes wide. “You have won.”

I stared back in shock. “I… but… I…” I was very coherent at the moment.

“Your skill is less than mine, of course. But skill alone does not win a contest such as this. You have more in your heart than I, and that is why you have won.”

She turned back and began to climb back into the carriage. With an almost offhand gesture, she waved toward my love. He blinked a few times, as though released from a spell. “You are free to go,” she said, but I barely heard her. I was too busy embracing my fiancee, who was very confused but willing to return the hug.

“But, where do we go? How do we–?”

She cut me off with a look and a soft smile. “Open your eyes, child.”

I frowned. “But my eyes are….” I trailed off as I looked around from where I was laying. The car was a few feet behind me, and there were two holes in the windshield. My love was stuck in one of them, and I rushed over to where he was. He looked at me with confusion, pain and love mingled. “What…”

“Hush, my darling,” I replied, heart in my throat, finding the cell phone. “It’s all right. We’re together.”

Filed under: fiction, kayble
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It only takes an instant for a good day to turn into a bad one.

The fair had gone extremely well. You can’t predict these things, but my fiddle had danced well and the people had responded, filling my case with coins and even bills. One of those bills had Benjamin Franklin’s face, and I wish I knew who’d put it in there, because I wanted to play for him again.

But I was frozen to the bone, thanks to an uncommonly chill wind. Uncommonly for Texas, anyway. People up north would laugh at those of us who do the fair circuit in a Texas winter… just as we would chuckle in the summer at them. So I was thankful the heater worked as I started my way home.

And then, in an instant…

I didn’t understand why the car shut down so completely, not at first. The engine, the electronics, everything just stopped, but the wheels kept moving and the road was slick, which added up to me finding myself in a ditch, some ten feet outside of the car. Every part of me ached, but despite going through the windshield, I didn’t seem to be actually hurt.

“I am never going to forget to buckle again,” I managed to groan, starting to get up.

Then I froze. The back hairs on my neck were rising, and I realized they knew something was wrong, too. There was almost no noise, which was almost impossible this close to a highway, even this late at night. Only, the highway didn’t seem to be there anymore, as I looked around searchingly. I hadn’t gone that far off the road, had I? And I hadn’t been thrown that far out of…

“Where’s the car?”

I almost jumped, my voice startlingly loud in the silence. I peered about more, searchingly, looking at all the trees that made it impossible to think there was a highway anywhere nearby, let alone a car. The only thing that looked at all familiar was my fiddle case, laying at my feet. I hooked it with my shoe, not wanting to move from that spot until I had more of an idea what happened but not wanting to leave my case sitting in the snow like I was, and pulled it onto my lap, almost hugging it as I looked around some more.

Even the trees were unfamiliar. They were clearly trees, of course, but not the oak that’s so prevalent in the area. I think I muttered something about this not being Kansas when I heard a sound behind me and shifted around.

Even after everything, I still wasn’t prepared for the procession I saw. The horses seemed normal enough, six large black stallions, but the carriage they were pulling was anything but. A large carriage, so white as to almost blind, with gold trim along the front, sides and base that looked like real gold rather than paint, floating behind the stallions as they effortlessly pulled it along.

It likely was effortlessly, too, as the carriage had no wheels and the body was a couple feet off the ground. If it had only been that, I would have suspected some sort of experimental anti-gravity devise, but everything else I was seeing pointed to another explanation.

The people moving beside and behind the carriage, for instance, were clearly not human. Some were too tall. Others were far too small. Still others had complexions you don’t find on people. Yet others had the heads of animals and the bodies of people, or some other hybrid of man and animal, such as the centaur near the back of the procession.

And then there was the lady in the carriage. I could see her through the windows, see the ethereal, otherworldly beauty, the porcelain skin, the ruby lips, the black velvet hair… I very nearly fell in love with her on sight, and I’ve always been completely heterosexual. No man could resist her charms, I felt sure, and I could see a man in the carriage with her, clearly staring at her, enthralled.

I stared at the procession as it came close, passing as though I weren’t even there, and I blinked again, realizing something. As the carriage drew abreast of me, I rose to my feet without knowing I was going to, and shouted, “Wait!”

The horses paused, as did the carriage. The people were more haphazard in stopping, causing a few minor collisions but likely no injuries. All eyes turned on me.

A small part of me was glad I’d stayed in my gown rather than changing into my jeans and t-shirt before leaving the fairgrounds. This way, at least, I was properly dressed for the occasion.

But most of me was staring at the Lady in the carriage, even as she looked back at me, a delicate eyebrow arched as she waited for me to explain why they were no longer moving. The man with her looked as well, but dully, as though he didn’t really see me.

“That’s my fiancee,” I said in a small voice tinged with wonder. “Please, you cannot take my fiancee.”

The Lady’s other eyebrow joined the first. “Cannot? I assure you, child, I can, and will, do as I please. Already, he is devoted to me.”

“No, no, you mustn’t, this can’t be hap…” I trailed off. No, it couldn’t be happening, could it? I must have hurt myself more than I thought, and was still lying by the side of the road, probably bleeding to death and having a horrible, dying dream.

But I didn’t believe that, not really. If that were the case, then I was dead anyway, but I couldn’t take the chance that things weren’t happening the way they seemed to be.

I pulled myself up to my full height, squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. “Then I challenge you for the right to his heart.”

The Lady smiled a small, cold smile. “I see.”

–

Now Playing: Cottage from the album “Legend soundtrack” by Tangerine Dream

Filed under: fiction, kayble
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Batten down the hatches, mateys, we’re a-headin’ for a squall!

Which is enough pirate talk for me, and a way of saying that I’ve been linked to by Banter Latte and need to be ready to approve new registrants to the site.

So, if you’re new here (and really, this being the third day of the project, who isn’t?), welcome!

Filed under: administrivia
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Tim always woke up first.

In the old days, that bothered him a bit. When he was fragile, and afraid of being alone. After so many years, he knew he only need wait a few minutes, and Samantha would be with him again.

After so many years, it had become a ritual. He would wake up, and he would carefully unwrap his arms from her, and get out of bed to tend to needful things. First the bathroom, then check with Jenny to see if any emergencies had come up. The answer was usually no; if something were to come up, odds are they’d have been awakened, or at least that Tim would.

Waking Samantha was almost always an exercise in futility for anyone other than Tim.

Then he would move across the room and open the drapes, to let the sun in. Or the grey, even odds. Then he could finally do the part he enjoyed; sit on the bed and watch his wife sleep.

Age had not diminished her beauty at all. She had been sixteen when they met, and now she was thirty and looked twenty. People often mistook her as older sister to the twins, now brushing up on eleven, and were astonished that she had children that age.

It was something they’d have to get used to. Tim knew her uncle to be over a thousand years, and he appeared maybe middle-aged. For himself, he’d looked 18 when they first met, and he still did. An accidental shot from an aging beam had frozen his physical age at that state, though his mental age had far surpassed that by now.

If the girls followed in their mothers’ footsteps, then it wouldn’t be too many years before they’d be thought to be triplets. Though it might take awhile, just as it took so long for an apparent four years to be added to Samantha.

And there was enough of him in the girls that he was sometimes thought an older brother. And, again, it would just get worse.

It was time for him to admit to himself something that had been building for years.

He saw Samantha start to stir and revised that thought. He could admit to things later. He spoke softly, “Good morning, sunshine.”

Samantha murmured, “Be with me all day,” not sounding very awake at all, but still music to his ears.

Tim shifted to lay down next to her again. “Just don’t let the rain pass you by,” he continued with a smile, then stopped her from giving the next line by kissing her softly.

Some time later, they drifted down the stairs. The girls were apparently already up from the sound of things, which they confirmed visually upon entering the kitchen. Toni was floating in mid-air, reaching a mixing bowl down to Terri. Tim gave Samantha an amused look. “Oh good! Here I was thinking we’d have to make breakfast, but it looks like the girls are a step ahead of us!”

Samantha nodded, hiding a smile. “We’re off the hook,” she said, heading instead for the table and ignoring mild glares from the girls. They looked at each other, then shrugged and continued what they were doing, which was hopefully making pancakes.

Tim got the chair for Samantha, making sure she was positioned so she could keep at least one eye on the girls, then took a seat so that he could keep one out as well. “So, I’ve been thinking.”

“I know and it worries me.”

“Bah. Just because our minds are linked, you think you know when I’ve been thinking. I’ll have you know I think far more than half the time.”

“Now I am truly frightened.”

“And yet you love me anyway. I think it’s time for me to give up my secret identity.”

Samantha looked at Tim, expression unreadable. “Oh, no. No, you’re very wrong about that.”

Tim blinked. “I am?”

Samantha nodded. “Absolutely. You’d have to have a secret identity in order to give it up.”

“Hey now, wait a minute…”

Samantha grinned a bit. “No, I’m serious. Look at the facts. First off, there’s the people that know. All the former Mob. My brother and sister and brother in law. Everyone in Team M.E.C.H.A., the Adjusted League, half the ALA students, the Sentries, Aurora… extended families I’m probably forgetting about… And then you get into the fact that you, Tim Ward, are married to me, the hero known as the Dreamweaver, even though I’ve been romantically linked to one of my teammates, that Mental Dude.”

Tim rolled his eyes reflexively. “It’s just–”

Samantha held up warding hands, grinning more. “Sorry. But I mean, come on. You’ve been photographed in an embrace with me three times in the last month, and only one of those was out of costume.”

Terri piped up from where she was carefully stirring batter. “Show and tell.”

“Oh yes. Thank you, dreamling, I forgot. There was also the time that Mental showed up for show and tell for the girls.”

“So, what you’re saying is…”

“You had a secret identity fourteen years ago. Today, not so much.”

Tim sighed. “I hate to admit it, but… well, now, that’s not true. I’m glad to admit that you’re right, even though that’s almost… that is, that’s always the case.”

“Nice save, Daddy!”

“Thanks, munchkin. Don’t turn the burner all the way up. Only three-quarters.” He turned back to his wife. “So, really…”

“There’s not much need for you to make an announcement. A press conference is even more unnecessary. I’d say just tell your friends to stop worrying about it.”

Tim took Samantha’s hand into hers. “So, you’re not exactly worried about it?”

“Not exactly. In a way, it’s kind of a relief.”

“How so?”

“Well, now those few who don’t know the truth won’t try so hard to kidnap you to get to me.”

—

I Recall A Gypsy Woman from the album “Dreaming My Dreams” by Waylon Jennings

Filed under: kayble, superguy
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It was mentioned that it would be easier to avoid suggesting fandoms I don’t know if I gave a list of fandoms I do. And as I don’t have a lot of readers at this point, I feel the need to cater to those I have.

I’ll probably upload this list from time to time, as I add to my vast knowledge of stuff.

(more…)

Filed under: Kayble Challenge
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