Saturday Scene, 15 September 18

It's a frustratingly short #SaturdayScenes excerpt from my WiP Smokey and the Monkey Girl. Now here's your snippet!

Dallas follows Jessica silently. The pair walk up the hill and cross the street to a parking lot, where Jessica makes a beeline for a car under a tarp. Dallas rolls her eyes. “You’re one of those people?” she asks rhetorically.

Jessica just raises an eyebrow, and pulls out her phone. She taps on it for a moment, and there’s the sound of a lock opening, and the bottom edge of the tarp falls loose. Another moment, and she’s swept the cover off, dramatically, revealing… Dallas isn’t sure what she’s looking at. A car, that’s certain. Yup… four wheels, two doors, headlights, turn signals. A car. A very, very sporty looking car. And even in the twilight, it’s clearly a very, very blue car with shiny silver accent stripes on the nose and down the sides. “What is it?”

“It’s a 2017 McDowell Spyder,” Jessica grins, leaning over to tap the word “Spyder” in cursive chrome lettering just in front of the driver’s side door. “Well. I guess it’s kind of a 2013 through 2017 Spyder?” She laughs at the confused look on Dallas’ face. “I built it. Mostly in Auto Shop in high school.”

“Oh,” says Dallas, watching as Jessica opens the driver’s side door and touches something inside. The trunk pops open and the roof of the car folds itself, withdrawing into the trunk. After a moment, the trunk closes again with an audible thunk.

Jessica walks around to the passenger side, opens the door. “M’lady.”

“Thank you,” Dallas says, taking a seat and glancing around. The seats are patterned on racing buckets, but they are comfortably padded and upholstered in blue and white leather. The dashboard is one solid slab of black glass -- unless it’s obsidian? The steering wheel looks more like the control yoke of an aircraft, and the logo in the center is an M in an irregular octagon, with eight legs sprouting out of the long sides.

“Buckle up,” Jessica directs, sliding into the driver seat. “For this ride, you shouldn’t need the fifth belt, but do pull the shoulder and lap belts tight.” She illustrates the comment, and Dallas follows suit, making sure everything is tight and nothing is twisted.

“Power up, James.” The dashboard lights from inside, forming a bewildering array of indicators and gauges. “It’s not instant power,” Jessica explains, watching the gauges. “It’s a Stirling cycle engine -- a hydrogen fired, external combustion engine which uses heat differential to generate power. So it has to come up to temperature before we can take off. The engine is tied to an ultra-compact nested pulley infinitely variable transmission. I put in a drive-by-wire system with inverted recurve suspension.” She looks at Dallas and laughs. “Sorry.”

“At what point in there did you just start making up words?” Dallas quips.

Fragment brought back from a dream

Two eight year old girls stand on the shore. "You need water," Rihoko said, frowning at the crumbly mound of sand.

"Water?" Jane asked, scrunching up her nose and turning to look at the ocean from under the brim of her straw hat.

Rihoko nodded. "My dad told me the Roamin's made the best roads the world has ever seen, by mixing water, sand, and limes."

"We don't have any limes," Jane pointed out, sounding Very Practical. "Or even any lemons."

"Well, we don't want it to last a thousand years. Just today. So maybe sand and water will do."

Saturday Scene, 25 Aug '18

There are only two dorms closer to the south campus dining hall than the one on north campus. Dallas eats, not talking to Ashlyn, then goes to the dorm she doesn’t live in. She walks the halls asking, “Jessica? Asian girl, green jacket?” and following the pointing fingers. When she finds the door decorated with construction-paper letters spelling out Jessica and Monica, she pauses, knocks.

Jessica answers the door, blinks. “Oh,” she says.

“I wanted to apologize,” Dallas explains. She holds her hands in front of her, pulling on her left thumb with her right hand, looking down and away. “Ashlyn’s not a homophobe; she’s just a jerk.”

“Oh,” Jessica says again.

There’s silence for a moment. Then Dallas sniffs. “Is something burning?”

“No,” Jessica says, glancing over her shoulder. “That’s my hot glue gun.”

Now it’s Dallas’ turn to say “Oh.” There’s silence again. “Well,” she says, “I should be….”

“Would you like to come in?” Jessica says, in the same moment.

They laugh together, and Jessica steps back, in, out of the way. Dallas follows. “Smokey?” Jessica laughs.

“Yes?” Dallas says.

“No, I mean… why do they call you Smokey? How do you get to Smokey from Dallas?”

“You take the I-40 to Farm-to-Market Road 199,” Dallas says, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Then she relents and holds out a strand of her coppery-red hair. “I’m a Forestry student. Red hair… forest fire… the smoke gets in your eyes?”

“Wow,” Jessica says. “That’s a long trip down a gravel road.”

“Yes,” Dallas agrees. “Yes; it is.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“Dallas; it’s my name.” She shrugs. “Though, honestly, anything is better than ‘Cowboy.’”

Jessica smirks but makes no comment other than, “Okay. Hello; Dallas.”

Dallas smiles. After a moment long enough that it has begun to feel just slightly awkward, standing there just looking at Jessica and smiling, she turns and looks at what the other young woman is working on; what requires hot glue and a scent of burning. “Oh! EVA foam!” She casts her eyes over the assortment of pieces, the foam, the pre-cut panels of flight satin and what looks like carbon fiber. “You’re making the… thing,” she says, running her hands vaguely in the air to suggest a vest-like shape over her chest.

Jessica rescues her, “the flak vest for my flight jacket. I’ve got an SDF-80 patch on order, and one for the fighter squadron.”

“Cosplay for the win!” Dallas enthuses, pumping her fist.

“You know, I did wonder about the Snow White outfit.”

Dallas beams. “You noticed!”

“I noticed.” They stand in silence for a moment, grinning at each other.

“Oh!” Dallas says, holding up one finger as if experiencing a sudden epiphany. “You said you have a sickle? May I see it?”

“Sure, if you don’t mind taking a short ride in my car? Campus rules make it iffy to have edged things about, and having a roommate…” Jessica uses her chin to point at the loft bed and desk on the other side of the room, “makes it even iffier. I’m hoping I can get a single next year, but for the moment, I keep a storage unit off campus.”

Dallas makes a show of looking over the smaller girl. “We just met, and now you want to get me in your car? How do I know you’re not a candy-giving murderer?” Her tone is teasing, but there’s a serious look around her eyes.

“Have I given you any candy?” Jessica counters.

“Point,” Dallas agrees.

Jessica scoops up her flight jacket, turns off the glue gun. She pats her pockets. “Keys, wallet, phone… oh!” She opens one of the front pockets on the jacket and pulls out a small paper sack. “Jelly beans?” she asks, as if ice cream wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

“Aieee!” Dallas says, pretending to flee in fear.

Saturday Scene: 21 July '18

This is a list of words which describe Jessica McDowell: short, dark, dorky, quiet, observant, self-contained. She sits at a table in the student dining hall. It’s late November, and while snow has not yet fallen, outside is chilly. She’s wearing a sweatshirt with Sam-I-Am and his brightly colored eggs and ham; a green satin flight jacket; old black jeans; knee-high trooper boots. Her underpants are striped robin’s egg blue and white, because that’s a thing in Japanese animation, and she secretly wishes she had cooler name, like Sakura or Umiko or Nenene; a name to go with the epicanthic fold of her eyelids. She hasn’t bothered to wear a bra today -- who’s going to know, anyway? With one hand, she’s eating meatloaf. She loves meatloaf, even the way the student dining hall at the University cooks it. She also loves books, and her other hand is holding one, her chocolate-brown eyes reading eagerly.

Three girls approach the table. There are eight seats, and Jessica’s only taking up one, down at the end. The girls set down trays, start taking off coats, draping them on chairs. Jessica glances at the trio. A blonde, a brunette, a redhead; the redhead is only separated from her by one chair, Jessica notices before pulling her attention back to her book. She’s only halfway listening to the girls.

“The Sugar Skull is the easy part,” the redhead is saying with a shrug. “I mean, it’s just makeup. The black robes should be easy enough to distress… just a bucket with some gravel and kick it around the parking lot. But where am I going to get a scythe?”

The blonde girl shrugs. “I’m sure we can find a plastic one at the mall.”

The redhead is chewing, frowning. The brunette holds up three fingers, drops one, then a second, and finally points at the redhead just as she finishes chewing. “No, I want a real one. Steel. If I’m going to be a reaper, it should be functional.”

Jessica looks up from her book. “Will you marry me?” she blurts. “I don’t have a steel scythe, but I do have a very sharp bronze sickle.”

The redhead turns her head and looks at Jessica. Jessica squirms, feeling the rays of judgement, the condescension. The redhead is cute, Jessica realizes. Beyond cute. Her skin is pale, with a pinkish undertone, and a scattering of freckles across her nose. Her eyes are hazel, not green, not brown, but both at once. She smiles. “Not tonight."

“Huh?” Jessica asks.

“Getting married is not on my agenda for tonight.” She sets down her fork and extends her hand. “Dallas.”

“Jessica.” Jessica notices that Dallas’ hand is very, very soft. Her skin is smooth.

“I may take you up on the sickle, though,” Dallas says. “If I can’t find a scythe.”

“Sure,” Jessica says. “Whatever you need.”



These are some words which describe Dallas Morgan: tall, passionate, brilliant, funny, va-va-voom. She has, as the boys like to tell each other, “all the right curves in all the right places,” and she’d started growing them before any of the other girls. People hardly ever notice, or at least, hardly ever mention, but she enjoys putting together outfits she calls everyday cosplay. She’s wearing a red crop-top under a blue cold-shoulder tee, paired with a lemon colored, knee-length skirt. It’s cold outside, so she’s also wearing a fuzzy white coat and black fleece leggings. She should be wearing a red hair bow, but red disappears in her hair, so she’s wearing a yellow one instead.

They’re walking away from the buffet line at the dining hall when Laurel points with her chin, and Ashlyn says, “Oh, look, it’s Smokey’s fiance!” She says it loudly enough that Jessica hears and looks up from her book.

Dallas smiles warmly at Jessica and heads that way, Laurel falling in behind her, Ashlyn bringing up the rear, still talking. “Should you both wear a dress?” she asks, rhetorically, “and does that mean we’ll need to decorate with two different colors of flowers? What about bouquets?”

Jessica is frowning, closing her book, standing. “I don’t have to sit here and be mocked,” she says, picking up her tray. “I can go anywhere on this campus and get that.”

“No, wait,” Ashlyn calls after her, “How do you feel about lingerie?”

“You’re an ass,” Laurel says, quietly.

“A whole ass,” Dallas agrees, then re-phrases, "an ass-whole."



There are only two dorms closer to the south campus dining hall than the one on north campus. Dallas eats, not talking to Ashlyn, then goes to the dorm she doesn’t live in. She walks the halls asking, “Jessica? Asian girl, green jacket?” and following the pointing fingers. When she finds the door decorated with construction-paper letters spelling out Jessica and Monica, she pauses, knocks.

Jessica answers the door, blinks. “Oh,” she says.

“I wanted to apologize,” Dallas explains. She holds her hands in front of her, pulling on her left thumb with her right hand, looking down and away. “Ashlyn’s not a homophobe; she’s just a jerk.”

“Oh,” Jessica says again.

There’s silence for a moment. Then Dallas sniffs. “Is something burning?”

“No,” Jessica says, glancing over her shoulder. “That’s my hot glue gun.”

Now it’s Dallas’ turn to say “Oh.” There’s silence again. “Well,” she says, “I should be….”

“Would you like to come in?” Jessica says, in the same moment.

They laugh together, and Jessica steps back, in, out of the way. Dallas follows. “Smokey?” Jessica asks.

“Yes?” Dallas says.

“No, I mean… why do they call you Smokey? How do you get to Smokey from Dallas?”

“You take the I-40 to Farm-to-Market Road 199,” Dallas says, a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Then she relents and holds out a strand of her coppery-red hair. “I’m a Forestry student. Red hair… forest fire… the smoke gets in your eyes?”

“Wow,” Jessica says. “That’s a long trip down a gravel road.”

“Yes,” Dallas agrees. “Yes; it is.”

“Which do you prefer?”

“Dallas; it’s my name.”

“Okay. Hello; Dallas.”

And Dallas smiles.

Saturday Scene: 24 March '18

It was late in the evening. The fire had burned down. A log popped and fell into embers; a shower of sparks drifted up into the sky. The knight followed the ascending motes with her eyes. “We call ourselves the Order of the Celestial Guardian,” she said, “but you never do. When you think we are not listening you call us…?” She looked at her apprentice.

“The little sisters of the Dragonslayer.”

The knight nodded. “And do you know why we are the little sisters?”

The merchant reached for a stick and stirred the coals. “I have wondered,” he admitted. “Is your Goddess not your Mother?”

“She is our Eldest Sister,” the Knight answered. “But to understand why, you have to understand a little about the Gods.”

Though there are Eighty Thousand Gods (the Knight explained), all under the stars, all the peoples of the Ten Thousand Isles, are the adopted children of our Fathers, Earth and Sea; our Mothers, Sun and Moons. We may point to this or that one of the host of spirits great and small, say that this one, this is our parent, this is the one who created these people. And from the smallest of the Fae to the largest of the Hexapods, each has such a story. Perhaps some of the stories are even true.

But these five: Earth and Sea; Sun, Red Moon and Black Moon, were the first Great Gods of this world, and these Ten Thousand Isles. These five, and one more; the One Apart. She had a different name, a different purpose, in those days, but now? Only the stars recall what that name and purpose were. Now we call her the Dragonslayer.

When the Great Gods became aware, they walked the world and realized that they had been walking together for some untold time. They decided it would be good to be still, to have a place to rest. So they came to build their hall of Jade Thrones within the Palace of Fire at the top of the Mountain That Never Was, and for a time they ceased their wanderings.

(The old woman coughs; looks apologetic. The Knight’s apprentice listens to a story she has heard many times in her young life. The Merchant watches the fire. Only the Knight goes on speaking).

The Great Gods became known to themselves as they built the Palace of Fire. They became known to one another. Stories to fill many nights could surely be told if we knew the details of those times. How the Sun wooed the Earth; how the Sea won his wives. But if those stories are known to mortals, they are not known to me. Nor do I know if the Dragonslayer loved, or if she was loved; if she was sister to all, or if she stood always a little apart, watching, listening, waiting.

In time, a Power came from beyond the world, and alighted upon the Mountain That Never Was. Xe took the form of a dragon, indescribable in beauty and might. Xir scales shone with all colors hard as metal and smooth as water; Xir grace amazed the Great Gods. “This is a lovely world,” the Dragon said, and Xir voice was male and female; the voice of wisdom, of time, of awe. “But it is empty. I beg your leave to bring my children here, to give them a home warm and verdant.”

The Great Gods looked upon each other, speechless. How, they wondered, had they not had the idea of filling their world with children? And so they smiled together, and extended their hands in welcome to the First Dragon and to Xir children. The Dragon placed eggs throughout the islands, not so many that they would be crowded; not so few that they would be lonely.

(“This is a story of Dragons,” the Merchant protested. “But they are only myth. Stories to frighten children.”

“To know the Slayer, you must understand the Dragons,” the Knight answered. “And there were dragons. There are dragons, though you may not have seen them. They are old now, and rarely walk among mortals.”

The Merchant nodded thoughtfully, and the Knight went on telling her tale).

The eggs hatched. The dragons grew. They learned from their parent and the Great Gods listened, and they, too, learned. The dragons dug deep beneath the land and the sea. They found gold, and silver; mythril and orichalum. They found gems of all hues, and learned to work these materials in ways that delighted the eye and the finger; the mind and the soul.

But the One Apart wondered: from whence came the First Dragon? Long did she stand upon the Mountain That Never Was, at the top of the tallest tower of the Palace of Fire. Long did she look into the places beyond, long did she listen. And when she had learned, she called the Great Gods together to sit in their thrones of jade. She spoke to them of what she had learned.

There was a war, she said. Far away, in the places beyond, a great war raged. Powers great and mighty built tunnels from one world to another, and through the gates of these tunnels they sent their forces to destroy, to enslave, to conquer. These concepts were new to the Great Gods, and the One Apart explained them as she had learned to understand them.

Then Mother Sun spoke, her compassion flowing like a stream of soothing water. “And under the feet of these Powers,” she asked. “Are there those who would flee from the war? Leave behind the tunnels, and their gates, and live here in peace with us?”

The One Apart did not know. So she went again to the highest tower, and more long years she spent looking into the places beyond. She heard the lamentations of the small, and when she had learned, she came again among the Jade Thrones, and she told what she had learned.

“Let us open our world to those who need shelter,” Father Earth said.

“No!” cried the First Dragon, who had not been invited, and whose presence had not been noted. “You have given this world to my children, and they fill it! There is no room! No room!” With a mighty roar, Xe lept into the circle of thrones. Lightning flashed, fires surged. It was clear that Xe meant to end the Great Gods.

But the One Apart had learned, watching and listening to the War Beyond. She had learned the arts of war, and she stood now before the First Dragon, and for an age the two struggled. At last, the Dragon fell.

“Sister,” asked the Red Moon, “what have you done?” For it is a terrible and shameful thing to end that which is rightfully unending.

“I have done what had to be done,” the One Apart said. “I have slain the Dragon, and in shame and dishonor I discard my name, and take in its place this deed, that it never be forgotten.”

“Sister,” asked the Black Moon, “what shall we do now?” for a thing which is born in blood can have no good outcome.

“Now, we open our arms to those who are tired of war; those who are hungry; those who are lost,” Mother Sun answered, when it was clear that the Dragonslayer had no ready answer.

(“I know this part,” the Old Woman said, drawing her blanket closer about her shoulders. “The ships came, bringing our ancestors.”

The Knight nodded. “The ships came,” she agreed).

For a thousand years the ships came bearing refugees and their gods, fleeing the tunnels and their gates. Fleeing the Powers that warred. Here they settled, but all was not peaceful. The deed of blood had written its legacy upon the world. In grief the Dragonslayer walked among the children, lamenting at their anger and their strife. But she saw also that some stood as she had; some did what must be done to protect others.

How could she encourage that behavior? She looked, and she saw that some, often girls, were unwanted; some were left on hillsides to die, or cast adrift into the sea. She took these girls and from the unwanted she made sisters. Raised them up strong and wise in battle, to stand against those who would hurt others; to stand in protection against any who would impose their will by force, to stand against those who came from outside to conquer.

And as these girls became family, wanted one by the other, sisters, we became also sisters to the Dragonslayer; our eldest sister, our dearest kin.

Reviewed!

Erica Friedman of Okazu does a tremendous amount for the literary, nerdy (otakui) members of the LBT community, which includes me. She's been kind enough in the past to publish my guest reviews of various Yuri (L/B) Anime, and now she's written a fabulous review of Flowers of Luna!

Thanks to Erica for the kind words and for feeling the book was good enough to bother reviewing.

Wrestling with the Angel

So, I'm wrestling with a concept, and I kind of need some feedback from you, my readers.  See, the thing is... one of my reviewers mentioned that he'd happily read Flowers of Luna all over again, if it was told from Hana's perspective.

And I've come to realize that if I had written the book from Hana's perspective in the first place, it would have been a better book. After all, as several people have pointed out, there's little external conflict in the story -- almost all of the conflict is internal to Hana, as she goes through one of the most basic struggles of Japanese literature: the struggle between what's right for her family / social group, and what's right for her.

So, on the one hand, I kind of feel like maybe I should crack open Hana's head and write inside of it. I think Hana's a lot less confident than she tries to appear, and my own anxiety gives me something of a window into that feeling.

On the other hand, I kind of feel like the story is done and told, and I should move on to something completely different -- the long-teased Little Sisters of the Dragonslayer, or The Delicate Art of the Sword, or... something. Anything but more Flowers of Luna.

So... wha'd'ya think?