In accordance with prophecy, here's this week's #SaturdayScenes! This offering is a freshly-written snippet for what may (or may not) evolve into a sequel for Flowers of Luna. As always, you are encouraged to leave a comment after the show.
It's funny, but when you walk away from people, you expect them to stay right where you left them. Planets are predictable that way. There's no, “hey it's Tuesday! What's Jupiter doing?” Ol’ Jupiter is doing just what he’s been doing for the last billion plus years: The King of Storms is rolling along his orbit with his harem of moons orbiting around him. “Hey Io, nice to see you. Callisto, how you doing today? Big guy! Still got your red spot, I see!”
But people? People have agency. They're liable to get up in the middle of the night and decide, “hey, I'm going to walk down by the reservoir and get murdered.” Which is apparently what happened to Jin’ichi Fujikawa. Which in turn, was what gathered four Gray women together in Lunagrad.
My three-mat apartment was not big enough to hold four Grays and a Tsuchiya, even if we were of the younger, less mythically engorged, generation. So we were at the other place we could be reasonably certain no one could see or hear us -- the storefront-turned-design-studio my business partners and I rent to run our student fashion label, The Girl Goes Dancing.
My girlfriend, Hana Tsuchiya, was pacing in front of the display sheets that blocked the view from the street. She was picking the rough cuticles of her thumbs with her other fingernails. My sororal twin, Ren, was draped bonelessly over the leather sofa; our identical nieces Maddisyn and Makayla were leaning against the pool table in mirror-image postures, arms folded under breasts, one heel resting on the toes of the other foot.
That the four of us were family was immediately obvious to the casual observer. We all had the same retrousse nose, epicanthal fold, and steel gray eyes; we had the same figure, archtype 12, broad of breast and hip, with a long, well-defined waist and proportionally shorter legs. My hair was raven-wing black, though it glowed in the dark; Ren’s was burnished copper. Maddisyn and Makayla shared dark-blonde hair as they shared everything else. But beyond the physical, there was a shared sense of dangerousness about us; a sense of impending violent action.
Maddisyn decided I’d been silent too long. “I bet you’re all wondering why I called you here,” she quipped.
“I was wondering that, actually,” Makayla responded. “Is it my birthday? I love birthdays.”
“Sush, children,” Ren said. Our nieces were the same age we were, commissioned from the same genetic lab twenty years ago, but we made a point of being of the older generation. “Let Ran tell the story.”
“Story time?” the nieces chorused together. They sat cross-legged on the Persian carpet in fluid sync, propping elbows on knees and chins on conjoined fists. “Tell us a story, venerated and aged aunty!” Makayla added.
I held out my hand toward Ren. She picked up one of the sofa pillows and tossed it to me. I threw it at Maddisyn, who ducked. “Hey,” she protested. “She said it! I’m just the straight man!”
“Would you be serious?!” Hana exploded, coming around the pool table. “Jin’ichi is dead! Murdered! And you’re acting like this is some kind of game!”
“No one is acting like it’s a game, Hana-chan,” I reassured her. “This is the Gray family version of deadly serious.” The other three nodded agreement. Somewhat mollified, Hana came over and took my hand, squeezing it tightly.
“We understand this is our Moore’s Farm,” Ren assured her, referencing a situation our parents and older siblings had faced when we were small children. “Humor helps keep the mind calm and working. And Grays… well, you know our credo.”
“Scientia Dimidium Bellorum?” I asked, trying to figure out how that fit.
“Stab when you have to,” Ren countered. “Offer candy bars when you can.”
“Also?” Maddisyn chimed in, “remember the lesson of Great-Aunt Umeko, and don’t get the two mixed up.”
“It’s really not very effective if you stab them with a candy bar,” Makayla agreed.
Hana looked at me and shook her head. “It’s like dealing with four of you at once,” she complained.
“That’s why I called them,” I agreed. “These guys are going to learn that they messed with the wrong Gray.”
And now, time for linkies! If you enjoy my writing and would like to read more, there's a short story I wrote available for free on Wattpad. Also? My book Flowers of Luna is available on Amazon. It's only U$2.99 for the Kindle version -- and it is available on Kindle Unlimited, so if you're one of those folk, you can read it without any further financial outlay.
I'd also like to mention that my friend Andrea Marie Brokaw recently released her second shifter romance, Of Snow and Whiskers, also on Amazon, at the same price. And my friend Maria Hollis' book The Melody of You and Me? Same price! On Amazon!
It's funny, but when you walk away from people, you expect them to stay right where you left them. Planets are predictable that way. There's no, “hey it's Tuesday! What's Jupiter doing?” Ol’ Jupiter is doing just what he’s been doing for the last billion plus years: The King of Storms is rolling along his orbit with his harem of moons orbiting around him. “Hey Io, nice to see you. Callisto, how you doing today? Big guy! Still got your red spot, I see!”
But people? People have agency. They're liable to get up in the middle of the night and decide, “hey, I'm going to walk down by the reservoir and get murdered.” Which is apparently what happened to Jin’ichi Fujikawa. Which in turn, was what gathered four Gray women together in Lunagrad.
My three-mat apartment was not big enough to hold four Grays and a Tsuchiya, even if we were of the younger, less mythically engorged, generation. So we were at the other place we could be reasonably certain no one could see or hear us -- the storefront-turned-design-studio my business partners and I rent to run our student fashion label, The Girl Goes Dancing.
My girlfriend, Hana Tsuchiya, was pacing in front of the display sheets that blocked the view from the street. She was picking the rough cuticles of her thumbs with her other fingernails. My sororal twin, Ren, was draped bonelessly over the leather sofa; our identical nieces Maddisyn and Makayla were leaning against the pool table in mirror-image postures, arms folded under breasts, one heel resting on the toes of the other foot.
That the four of us were family was immediately obvious to the casual observer. We all had the same retrousse nose, epicanthal fold, and steel gray eyes; we had the same figure, archtype 12, broad of breast and hip, with a long, well-defined waist and proportionally shorter legs. My hair was raven-wing black, though it glowed in the dark; Ren’s was burnished copper. Maddisyn and Makayla shared dark-blonde hair as they shared everything else. But beyond the physical, there was a shared sense of dangerousness about us; a sense of impending violent action.
Maddisyn decided I’d been silent too long. “I bet you’re all wondering why I called you here,” she quipped.
“I was wondering that, actually,” Makayla responded. “Is it my birthday? I love birthdays.”
“Sush, children,” Ren said. Our nieces were the same age we were, commissioned from the same genetic lab twenty years ago, but we made a point of being of the older generation. “Let Ran tell the story.”
“Story time?” the nieces chorused together. They sat cross-legged on the Persian carpet in fluid sync, propping elbows on knees and chins on conjoined fists. “Tell us a story, venerated and aged aunty!” Makayla added.
I held out my hand toward Ren. She picked up one of the sofa pillows and tossed it to me. I threw it at Maddisyn, who ducked. “Hey,” she protested. “She said it! I’m just the straight man!”
“Would you be serious?!” Hana exploded, coming around the pool table. “Jin’ichi is dead! Murdered! And you’re acting like this is some kind of game!”
“No one is acting like it’s a game, Hana-chan,” I reassured her. “This is the Gray family version of deadly serious.” The other three nodded agreement. Somewhat mollified, Hana came over and took my hand, squeezing it tightly.
“We understand this is our Moore’s Farm,” Ren assured her, referencing a situation our parents and older siblings had faced when we were small children. “Humor helps keep the mind calm and working. And Grays… well, you know our credo.”
“Scientia Dimidium Bellorum?” I asked, trying to figure out how that fit.
“Stab when you have to,” Ren countered. “Offer candy bars when you can.”
“Also?” Maddisyn chimed in, “remember the lesson of Great-Aunt Umeko, and don’t get the two mixed up.”
“It’s really not very effective if you stab them with a candy bar,” Makayla agreed.
Hana looked at me and shook her head. “It’s like dealing with four of you at once,” she complained.
“That’s why I called them,” I agreed. “These guys are going to learn that they messed with the wrong Gray.”
And now, time for linkies! If you enjoy my writing and would like to read more, there's a short story I wrote available for free on Wattpad. Also? My book Flowers of Luna is available on Amazon. It's only U$2.99 for the Kindle version -- and it is available on Kindle Unlimited, so if you're one of those folk, you can read it without any further financial outlay.
I'd also like to mention that my friend Andrea Marie Brokaw recently released her second shifter romance, Of Snow and Whiskers, also on Amazon, at the same price. And my friend Maria Hollis' book The Melody of You and Me? Same price! On Amazon!
2 comments:
You are such a tease! I do hope this becomes another book, carrying on Ran's story. I like the way you set the mystery hook, and I like the humor (of course, I do!) displayed here. I want to know MORE! Give me MORE!
If it does develop into another book, it's got to get in line behind Little Sister of the Dragonslayer and Monster Monogatari.
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