Seek: 5 - Jonah visualized

Jonah - tall, in good shape but still lean; curly, sandy-colored hair, brown eyes with flecks of gold, bushy brown eyebrows, tanned (white) skin

I had never really thought about my appearance much before we arrived in the village, Secra. When I was younger, the other kids at school had made fun of my "Seeker eyes," because I guess the flecks of gold weren't the most common of characteristics for an average kid growing up in the Middle Districts, but as a whole, I was pretty much like everyone else. In Secra, though, my eyes were the least of our differences. I stood a full head taller than most of them, and I could feel their gazes stumbling over my features in a mix of curiosity and fear. My summer's tan was pale in comparison with the dark/antique copper of their skin, and as I would later find out, many of them had never before seen curly hair. There was a boy standing at the edge of the village with his mother, their tattered clothes hanging loosely off of thin, tired frames, and immediately my thoughts went back to a boy and his mother from a picture that had hung in the hallway back at home. The mother's hand rested gently on a head of honeyed curls, and their eyes were full of longing. That was before the boy had been admitted to the academy, back before his frame had grown tall and strong on academy rations, back before his limbs had become corded with muscle from the drills that he and the other Legion initiates had run each morning at the first light of day.

Seek 6: The Raid

 A reptilian shriek fractured the night. Shadows shifted through the trees, claws tearing at the earth in a wild frenzy as spurred heels dug deeper into scaly flesh. Silence. Outside the village of Secra, moonlight filtered through the jungle canopy, coils of darkness evaporating into the clearing as a hand, an eye, a boy of seventeen emerged into the light. Beneath him, clawed feet dug into the rich, dark earth, scales reflecting midnight as the armored salamander awaited orders from a second rider. A call rang out, then shouts resounding in the dark, and then silence once more as each of the legionnaires raised his arm before him and a jet of flame erupted from each calloused palm. Smoke poured from the first few huts in billowing cataracts, acrid and black, and screams burst from the night. The boy glanced down at the stone in his left hand, it's sanguine face glimmering in the fire's glow. His right arm raised, he took a deep breath, and the flecks of gold in his eyes shimmered for just a moment before a stream of flame blossomed from the center of his hand and night was consumed in the blaze. Bent human shapes stumbled through the yellow haze, smoky silhouettes blowing into the night, and somewhere beneath the ashen pall covering Secra, a quavering voice repressed sobs as it hushed a child's cry. Coughing, wailing. A dusky shape emerged from the wreckage of a hut, its raw and blistered hands dragging from the firestorm a smoldering bundle, ragged breath now fled.

Seek: 1

I've been mulling over a novel idea for about a year now, and it's been a lot of fun to think about different characters or scenes that I want to include, but I haven't really ever gotten around to plotting out the story, so I figured this would be as good a time as ever. I've been looking into the hero's journey of late, and I've realized that what I do have so far is actually pretty close to the beginning of the heroic journey, so I may see if I can kind of use the general model as a template to build upon. I've also thought about splitting up my story ideas into a couple of novels, as I have a ton that I want to address, but my fear is that I will lose track of the main ideas that I want to convey throughout the piece as a whole. I think what I've decided, though, is that each really is a different story, and I need to focus on one first (Jonah's) and then retell it in a second novel from another (Simeon's) point of view. Anyway, I'm going to start writing now, and I don't know when I'll stop.

Out of Khaios

I was thinking today, what if every twenty dollar bill that you found in that old pair of jeans was really put there by someone else, just to make you happy? I think I want to do that for my kids some day.

I've been thinking a bit about a novel premise that I've been mulling over for a year or so now, and I've decided it's time to quit sitting around thinking about what could happen and instead work to get something out, whatever the form. So, here we go.

[1st person] Not everyone can be a hero. What to do when you are too afraid to do the things that you know you should do?

[3rd person] Main character, Jonah, is drafted into the Salamander Legion, an elite military corps responsible for maintaining the security of the megalopolis Khaios, the only remaining city of the four ancient capitals. On a night raid of a nearby village--purported to be a safe haven for rebel Seekers, or users of ancient technology that has been denounced as heretical by Khaios's prelates--Jonah is tasked with razing a group of huts, and Mara, a young woman from the village, arrives just in time to see her home go up in flames as the soldiers fade into the darkness of the jungle all about them.

It's afternoon of the next day, and Jonah receives a court summons to stand trial before a military tribunal for the crimes he committed the previous evening. Jonah wants to think it all over and write everything down before worrying about the trial, but his mother, fearing for his life, hires men from the ciity's Outer Rim to smuggle Jonah out of the city by night. Three men arrive in dark clothes, their faces masked, and they set off into the darkness despite curfew enforcement. [Ronan and Simeon are among them: "Surely you can't have forgotten that dark night in Khaios just months ago." Simeon looks upon his face as if in recognition when they later meet outside Khaios]. They proceed through the Market District, which is abandoned except for scattered patrols of mercs, the city's hired peacekeeping force. They stumble into a guard, who sounds the alarm, and the mercs give chase through the market, weaving through the narrow rows and crashing past stalls that would be bustling early the next morning [Jonah later remembers this as he is chasing [Scout] through the market later on]. One of the smugglers is shot, but they keep going. Another falls to a concussion sphere and is left behind. Jonah and the two remaining smugglers reach the outer wall--the Founders' Wall--and as the taller of the two smugglers places his palm to the wall, one of the engraved Founders' marks erupts into blue-green light. "You use the [Onim]?" / "Well, you didn't think we were going to throw you over the Founders' Wall, did you?" The glyph shattered as the man's hand fell to his side once more, and the blue-green light flowed into the cracks on the wall, outlining the shape of a door on the white stone. . .