Amanda Helms

This bit’s from Chapter 3. I suppose I should mention that I’m not going to post the whole novel as I do have hopes of shopping it around for agenting/publication at some point. Plus (as is to be expected, given the nature of NaNoWriMo, there’s a lot of suckage that I don’t want others to see until it’s been edited into pure awesome.

Yes. I am a big fan of positive thinking.

Anyway, here it is.

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RMFW template

The crowd in the banquet hall seemed to press in around Lyra. At least fifty bodies, most of them unknown to her, many of them shooting her calculating glances and then turning back to their own companions to gossip about the baron’s disappearance with the Lady Aelis.

Lyra knew that in situations like this, more of the blame would fall to her than to the baron. She wasn’t in her own home, after all; most of those around her were the baron’s people and therefore more likely to side with him, simply because he was the known entity. And he was prettier than she was, which galled her to admit; that a man was prettier than she, but by the time she hit twelve, she had reconciled herself to being smart rather than beautiful.

And she wouldn’t call herself plain, even, but put her beside a tall, blond man with the smile of a godling, and– Well. It didn’t take much for people to conclude that the persons involved didn’t exactly fit together.

But he was stupid, so he wouldn’t have been her choice for a husband in the first place.

Lyra sighed and fluffed her hair that immediately returned to its straight state. Creams and hot irons had all proved useless in lending her locks even a hint of curl. Cosmetics that applied smoothly to the skin of other women inexplicably clumped around her eyes, nose, and the corners of her lips. Privately, she simply reconciled herself to the statement artifice does not become her, and tried to embrace her features as they were. Or, failing that, to cultivate her other gifts.

A throat cleared at her side, and she turned, pasting a smile on her face, preparing herself to talk of the weather yet again to some busybody hoping to decipher why Lyra’s husband had disappeared with a woman who was most certainly not his betrothed. She had her phrases all set: “How I love that bracing Yaric wind!” (She’d never been all that adept a liar, but this one was becoming second nature to her.) “Oh, my, the sunsets are breathtaking here, aren’t they?” and of course, “Why, yes, I do find it a bit hot for mid-autumn, but I am sure I will get used to it as time goes by.”

It was the last one she still had trouble with, trying to sound sincere.

But the throat-clearer proved to be not yet another Yaric dignitary, but instead the waiter who had seen her in the kitchens, crying over the cake batter.

A memory she had rather forget. The cry had been necessary, she felt, but to be seen at it–

“Would you care for some wine? From what I’ve seen, you’ve had only a single glass, and that strikes me as far too few for one’s betrothal celebration.”

Despite herself, she chuckled and accepted a glass. “Thank you.”

Her eyes drifted from the server to instead scan over the guests. She was simultaneously pleased and chagrined to realize that she could name at least half of them. Then again, her father had always said she had a mind for such details, and a bent for politics. She was wasted as “just a mayor’s daughter,” he had said.

And now she was to be a baron’s wife. Oh, happy day.

“Kendrick of Pirvalle,” she said for no particular reason. She gestured with her wine glass at a man in a green velvet doublet entirely unsuited for the heat of Yaric. The man had a black goatee and spent far too much time staring at the bosom of his companion, a Mistress Yarksdale of– Damn, what was the hamlet again? She was sure it was a hamlet; nothing so very large or important. “Kendrick evidently lost his first wife in childbirth. Rumor is that he wasn’t very upset, as she was horse-faced and prone to complaining of his gambling. Though if he’s seriously thinking of making a match with Mistress Yarksdale, perhaps someone should warn him she’s an even larger gambler than he.”

Though there was no reason for the waiter to stay near her, he lingered a bit, to Lyra’s surprise.

“Is Pirvalle close to your home, then?” he asked. “For you to know a bit of their personalities, I mean.”

Across the room, over the waiter’s shoulder, Lyra caught her mother glaring at her. She withheld a sigh and noted to herself to be prepared for a lecture about speaking at lengths with the servants. Though in their own home they treated the servants more as friends, Corista felt that such behavior wasn’t at all appropriate for an incumbent baron’s wife.

Well, at least after the wedding, her mother would be back in Briggun, and her husband so occupied with using his fingers and toes to count to twenty, Lyra could arrange things as she liked. She ignored her mother’s baleful stare and returned her attention to the waiter. Dark gray eyes, with flecks of blue in them. Unusual. “No, Pirvalle isn’t particularly close to Briggun. But when the . . . match was put forth, I thought it might do me well to research Yaric’s political dealings.”

The waiter’s eyebrows arched. “Wouldn’t that be difficult to achieve from a distance?” And then, seeming to remember his place, he said, “Forgive me. I shouldn’t ask questions.”

“Oh, I don’t mind.” Her gaze slipped away from him again, to note that now she was gaining her own set of stares. Gossip about Edmain with Lady Aelis or gossip about her speaking at length with a servant; she didn’t much care which it was. “My father may have been just the mayor, but he did like to keep in place a system of communication so he could keep abreast of the goings-on around the continent. Couriers, heralds, even just friend and relatives sending letters relating the matters at hand in places they lived or visited. He had a knack for it, I suppose you could say.”

When the silence stretched on too long, Lyra shifted on her feet. Her mother’s glare had turned into a glower, and though she spoke at intervals with guests, Lyra noticed that her conversations led her closer and closer to Lyra’s position. “Pardon me, but I think my mother wants me.” She tipped her wine in his direction. “Thank you for the wine.”

She started to turn away to get her mother’s wrath over and done with, but the waiter caught her arm, though he dropped it immediately. “My apologies.” Though he didn’t sound truly apologetic; more like he simply knew the statement was required of him and so he spoke it. “But you said had. Your father ‘had a knack for it.’ I’m sorry for your loss.” And where the sincerity had been absent from the first, it was present for that.

Lyra’s throat tightened. No, no; she was not going to cry in front of him again, particularly not when her audience had increased tenfold, and particularly not for something that had happened more than five years ago. She would not.

But her “Thank you” sounded choked nonetheless, and she had to admit that her leave-taking was closer to fleeing than a simple departure.

She hated to be undone by kindness.

So one of my favorite threads over at the NaNoWriMo site is the NaNoisms thread. “NaNoisms” are the humorous mistakes that come about as a result of sleep deprivation and constant pummelings of one’s Inner Editor and Inner Critic, beings who are banished during the course of NaNo since the idea is to get the novel out first and edit later.

True to the NaNo philosophy, I haven’t gone back and reread much of what I’ve written. But I have found a couple from rereading my previous day’s last paragraph to reorient myself, and also as I’ve written them:

Light from the scones on the walls caught the unshed tears in her eyes and made them shine.

and

She appeared to them as just shadow in the flickering light from the wall-scones, when they bothered to look in her direction at all.

Yes. I did indeed make that mistake twice. Several pages apart.

Then there was also this:

One of the cookies looked up and jutted a thumb at the table toward the back of the kitchens.

As I wrote for that particular post to the NaNoisms thread, I haven’t included anthropomorphic baked goods in my novel–yet. But yeah, my NaNoisms do reveal a deep-seated love of bakery goods. I am caught out.

The first scene of this year’s NaNo. The one I’m writing after my change on Day 3, I mean. Not horrible, but I’m sure I can edit it into something better. But editing is sacrilege for NaNoWriMo, so that’ll have to wait.
Anyway.
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1.

The charm lay heavy in Gavin’s pocket, a ball of heat that bounced against his upper thigh with every step he took. So far it seemed no one at the baron’s bethrothal party recognized him as the newly arrived charm-seller who set up shop in the Yaric marketplace each day. But then, he didn’t expect them to find him out; he did know a thing or two about setting a glamour, after all.

What did surprise him was that Aelis hadn’t caught him out. She had always been the superior illusionist, and he doubted anything had changed in the fifty years since they’d last spoken directly to one another.

“What are you doing, man?”

Gavin startled and backed away from the curtain, where he’d been peering at the curious group of people evidently deemed worthy enough to attend the baron’s bethrothal party. He turned to face the chief cook, whose name Gavin couldn’t be bothered to remember just now. So he smiled and prepared to talk his way out of trouble.

But before he could get out a single syllable, the chief cook, beefy hands placed on ample sides, lumbered into a beratement. “You’re the new serving boy, aren’t you?”

For a moment, Gavin could only stare at the rotund and sweating cook before he remembered that in his current guise, boy was an accurate term. He nodded at the cook after a considerable delay.

The cook threw his hands up in the air. “Just my luck, the new serving boy is an idiot.” He leaned close to Gavin and pointed back toward the kitchens. “You . . . go . . . to . . . kitchens. Understand?”

“Yes.”

“He speaks! He comprehends!” The cook grabbed Gavin’s arm and pulled him away from the curtain blocking the dining hall from the serving staff. “Since you do understand me after all, quit mooning after whatever spotty-faced cow you found and get back to the kitchens. Have Gerard tell you what to do.”

Evidently Gavin hadn’t mastered masking blank looks in this guise, because the head cook spluttered and slapped at him, which might have been more effective if he weren’t nearly a full foot shorter than Gavin. “Gerard, boy! The head cupbearer. The man ostensibly responsible for directing you. Though he’s doing a piss-poor job of it.” The cook relinquished Gavin’s arm, evidently trusting him to follow behind. “By Elestra the Basket Weaver—may she be blessed forever—I’ve got more than enough to handle, what with the spit boy overcooking the roast, and the new baker’s girl sobbing into the cake batter. I haven’t got time to be watching over wayward serving boys as well when it’s Gerard’s job–

“Gerard!”

The cook laid hold of Gavin’s arm again and wheeled him about to face a dark-haired man with the legs of a stork and the face of a leprous pig. Pushing Gavin forward, the cook said, “Caught your new serving boy shirking his duties, staring at the worthies in the banquet hall. Probably mooning over some unattainable mayor’s daughter. Do something with him, will you? I have to go see whether that wretched girl’s tears are making the cake batter too salty. So help me, if she’s ruined that batter….” The cook bustled off.

Gerard, who did have some height on Gavin, but only a bit, looked him up and down. “I do not recognize you.”

And now Gavin remembered his story and spouted it off accordingly. “I’m new. Last-minute substitute. My cousin Adam, he come down with some wretched sickness—got blotchy marks all over his face and he’s been puking since dawn. His mother reckons it might be croup–”

Gerard lifted a forestalling hand. “Whatever his ailment, I don’t care to hear it.” He turned on his heel. “Follow.”

Gavin trailed after the lanky man to the kitchens, where the chief cook haranged a hapless-looking spit boy but left the sobbing baker’s girl to herself.

As he and Gerard passed the crying girl who stood over a vat of batter, Gavin did a double-take. Since when did baker’s girls wear silk underneath their aprons? He opened his mouth to say something—whether to her or to Gerard or the chief cook he didn’t know—but then she lifted her eyes from the batter and met his gaze. Light from the sconces on the walls caught the unshed tears in her eyes and made them shine. She shook her head in a clear plea for silence.

Gavin closed his mouth. The girl gave him a small smile. An unfortunately long nose kept her from being truly pretty, but Gavin rather thought that when her eyes weren’t puffy and her skin not blotchy from crying, she’d manage striking.

“Boy.”

Gavin turned to face Gerard again just in time to avoid a collision. The other man had stopped at a table whose top was covered with decanters of wine. Gerard frowned. “I believe I see what Kaven meant about you mooning about. You’re to take this wine and serve it in the banquet hall to whoever asks for it. Think you can manage that without staring at girls, crying or otherwise?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Gerard pressed a bottle into Gavin’s hand. “No staring at the worthies. Baron Edmain would likely pay no mind, but we have a lot of visitors, and you never know if one of them might. Now get to it, boy.” Gerard shoved Gavin forward as if he meant to propel Gavin all the way back to the banquet hall.

Boy. Gavin mouthed the word. It’d be some time before he readjusted to not looking old anymore.

Well, as old. The last twenty years of Aelis’ curse were proving stubborn. Gavin just hoped that tonight’s bit of illusion wouldn’t set him back in his progress.

But he’d found the harpy. He couldn’t pass up the opportunity to exact his revenge.

Even with that happy thought, he slowed a bit to see whether he could confirm his supposition about the silk-wearing baker’s girl, but her station by the cauldron of cake batter was empty. Pity. She had certainly been worth a second look.

Behind Gavin’s back, Gerard cleared his throat. Gavin increased his stride.

No matter about the girl; he had a charm to cast, justice to mete, and acting the part of serving boy would make his task all the easier.

This is for making me old, you harpy.

By the time he returned to the banquet hall, he suspected his grin was too broad for that of a mere serving boy, but he found he didn’t much care.

1. Getting in over 9000 words (and not even including the 843 I lost when my computer crashed during a Write or Die session) during the weekend means I’m caught up on NaNoWriMo after switching ideas on Day 3 last week. And if I get in approximately 2650 each day, I’ll hit 75k by the end of the month. Not a record for me (which was last year at 81k-some-odd), but still pretty good, I think, considering the idea switch and that I’m not taking the full week of Thanksgiving off of work, like I did last year.

2. My FREE KitchenAid Artisan Stand Mixer arrived today, just six days after I ordered it last week. Charging groceries and the like to my credit card and paying it off each month can be a good thing. Baking of some sort will have to figure into my weekend so I can test it out. Right now I’m thinking a basic chocolate chip cookie dough recipe, but with dark-chocolate covered goji berries replacing the chips. That way I will get at least some of them out of my kitchen, as they’ve proven to be a snacking food.

That is all. I have a write-in to get to.

Okay, I’ve had a change in NaNo plans. Or a recantation, if you will, in NaNo plans, as I am now back to the story idea I’d planned on doing back in February of this year. Which then changed to another idea I never posted on this blog, which then changed to the siren and werewolves urban fantasy with a Stradivarius thrown in.

The change, however, means that I’m behind in my word count, so I’m here just taking the easy route and plopping in my short teaser synopsis I cobbled together for my profile on the NaNo site.

Plus, I still have few enough words that I’m not sure I’ve come up with anything I’m yet willing to share.

And so, the synopsis for NaNo ‘09, which is a rewrite of my ‘05 NaNo, Disenchantment.

When a charm-maker attempts to exact revenge upon an old flame, a sorceress, he sets in motion a chain of events that causes the sorceress to fall in love with the local  baron (who’s not the sharpest sword in the smithy) and therefore turn the baron’s betrothed into a dog. Which wasn’t at all what the sorceress intended.

Feeling somewhat responsible, the charm-maker attempts to turn the dog back into her human self, but a difficult task becomes even more complicated with the arrival of the charm-maker’s and sorceress’s old master, who has ideas about tearing apart the barony for its black gold, which he wants to send to a far-off  (read: transdimensional) place called Amreeka…

Can’t post anymore. Must write.

It’s a bad sign when I hit writer’s block on the first day. Seeing as I prewrote this post on Sunday, when it goes live I should be a Monday-night write-in, hopefully with a better clue of what I’m doing than on Day 1.

Though I did at least hit my 1667 quota, if not the 2734 I need for my personal goal of 82k (still working on it–supposedly–as I write this).

This is why it’s bad to procrastinate on planning. And this is why I envy Stephen King and his stories that pull themselves out of his navel. That is all.

Okay, at Starbucks, just hanging around until it’s time to head out for dinner theater. Promised myself I’d finally get some planning done, though by “planning” I currently mean freewriting and hoping something decent comes out of it. I have a Grande Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte by my laptop, and a book to read in case I really luck out with planning. But hopefully that won’t happen, as we’re now 10 days away from the start of NaNo, and I still only have a basic plot.

I have thought, though, that my Big Bad is going to be Neptune or Poseidon or a decendent. Motivation on his (or her, if decendent) part can be to get the Stradivarius as the power of the siren spirits inside it can help reestablish the Big Bad’s precendence/godlike status–or become a god in the case of the decendent?

I do keep saying I want to have kids, but there is currently one here who is a babbler, a high-pitched babbler, and [redacted] the child is annoying. Very annoying.

Anyway. Descendent would want to become a god, or Neptune/Poseidon wants to get back to the old status. I’m currently thinking the Big Bad will be a descendent–seems to fit better. Rich, probably, because she’d need the resources to hunt down this Stradivarius in particular.

And I’d turned off my Internet in order to save battery, but I may need to turn it back on–can’t remember what connection, if any, Neptune/Poseidon had with the sirens. Or even which one is Greek. If I’m going to go with sirens, might as well use the Greek version of the sea god, hey?

Or the Big Bad could be Athena or Aphrodite or whoever it was who supposedly sprang out of the ocean foam. Or a descendent, as the drill goes.

Ah, good! Poseidon is the Greek version. I was thinking I like the name better. Which isn’t as much of an issue if I go the descendent route, but still.

Got the Internet going again. Poseidon fathered Orion, looks like, and he raped lots and lots of women. So maybe my Big Bad is a descendent of Orion, a little more happy than being descended from, say, the “Giant Sinius,” and she’s got a sort of nobility complex, so to speak.

Whoops, looks like Orion was a rapist, too. Okay, so my Big Bad has issues with being descended from a line of rapists. Maybe she’s not quite a man-hater, but she doesn’t particularly like them–well, maybe she prefers women all the way around. Hmm.

She’s not directly in this book, anyway. Or at least I don’t think she is. But at least I’m thinking about the backstory. It’ll help the series (oh, am I seriously thinking series before I even know if the first book works?) go more smoothly.

Okay, looks like Aphrodite was the sea-foam goddess, but I don’t immediately see that she had much connection to Poseidon. For that matter, I’m not sure how much connection Poseidon had with the sirens. Though it’s my world, so I can do what I like.

Another issue is what I want to do with whole Greco-Roman bit. If I get into the whole Pantheon, am I saying that all the gods/goddesses are single, with the two names, or that there are (were) different entities?

Right now I’m thinking just the single set. I suppose in the backstory the divergence of the Greco and Roman gods could’ve resulted in split personalities–the whole “followers’ faiths giving rise to gods’ mainfestations” bit that comes up with decent regularity. But I’m not 100% sure about that.

And yet another consideration is how God in Judeo-Christian terms comes into things.

Loud baby is gone now. She was cute when she wasn’t going “Ah ba ba ba ba!” at the top of her lungs.

Anyway. My God. I hate to say that my God doesn’t exist in this fictional world. And Shay sings in a choir. The gospel songs soothe her and that deathsong thing. So there’s a definite place for the Judeo-Christian God–and I hate referring to him like this, since he is my God and I am a Christian and I hate trying to figure out how my faith, exactly, fits in with the things I write. Which is a terrible thing to write–I shouldn’t hate it at all. But it doesn’t come easily to me. I don’t have it in me to write quote-unquote Christian fiction. It’s hard, hard, hard to do well.

Or maybe that’s just an excuse to make myself feel better for not writing stories involving the love of Jesus.

[Redacted as I went into a long discussion about my obligations as a Christian and as a writer to myself, my audience, and the story that had nothing to do with NaNo plot development. Though it may make for an interesting post if I can get some cohesive and coherent thoughts together rather than brain-vomit.]

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And I’ve got another three pages where I delved a bit more into my main character and tried to name my male MC, but three pages single-spaced is a bit much for a single post.

Bear with me, readers-that-be. Next week we’ll actually be into NaNo, so theoretically I’ll have an actual excerpt to post, which should be more interesting.

Theoretically.

It’s a bad sign when I miss my exit because I’m thinking about this recipe. I love King Arthur Flour, both their products and their recipes. I can’t recall a single failure from following their recipes, and though I think I make a pretty good baker, I seem to consistently get the most praise with King Arthur. So when I have a hankering for pumpkin cinnamon rolls, and then the heavens smile upon me and lead me to a King Arthur recipe for pumpkin cinnamon rolls, you can bet I’ll pay attention. And now it’s been over three weeks since I first read the recipe, and these cinnamon rolls have yet to grace my kitchen.

I will remedy that this weekend. And I missed my exit because I was thinking of all the iterations I might try on the recipe: What if I did a sourdough version? Not the best idea since my sourdough baking still leaves something to be desired, and especially since the weather’s turning colder, so the rise would be even slower… hmm. What if I tried adding whey to the dough to give it a bit of oomph? But I don’t have any whey on hand and probably won’t strain yogurt before the weekend–

And I want a nice, gooey filling. Preferably maple. But how to make a gooey maple filling? It’d need butter or other fat, since the dough would absorb the liquid from the maple syrup. Could also add brown sugar, but would that mask the maple taste? Wonder if I could find a filling online that I could modify…

And so on, until

Oh crap, that was my exit!

I am trying not to think too deeply about what this means for me as a writer. I don’t believe I’ve ever missed an exit because I was ruminating about  characters or plot. And I’m also trying not to think too deeply about what this means for NaNoWriMo in particular.

Hey. I do have an idea. And characters. And things the characters will do. Even if those lists aren’t particularly long yet, they’re existent.

Besides, I kind of like to wing it.  More of a challenge for the ol’ imagination. Really stretch it to its limits. Flex my creative muscles.

Cough.

Anyway.

Since I’ve posted previously about my love of pumpkin, it likely doesn’t come as a surprise that I’ve taken to hoarding pie pumpkins. The last few times I’ve gone to the grocery store, I’ve had to resist the sudden leap of joy: They’re still here! I can get one! (ignoring that it’s unlikely they’ll disappear from supermarkets until at least Thanksgiving. And if that happens, it means there’s a pumpkin shortage.*)

Because they’re still sitting on my kitchen counter. Well, I’m down to one intact pumpkin, but still. I have a bit of puree left from my first pumpkin, all the puree from my second, and the third is patiently waiting its turn to be gutted, roasted, and bludgeoned to a pulp.

Some of my current puree will go toward making pumpkin chili for the chili cookoff/Halloween party at my work. Never made pumpkin chili before–and I’ve never participated in the cookoff–but I figure I’ll give it a go. Some of it I’ll add to my morning oatmeal. And the rest for those luscious cinnamon rolls. It’ll make for a lovely Halloween breakfast, a pre-NaNo fortifying treat.

Maybe I’ll miss some exit on Saturday as I panic about NaNo. Or reminisce over the taste of the cinnamon roll; whatever.

*A pause while I clutch my chest in fear and whimper. I must be strong.

As I feel the need to curl up into a ball to allow myself to recover from the astronomical number that will show up on my credit card bill next month (stupid car requiring stupid tires, compounded by purchasing of birthday gifts and sweaters and coat for yours truly that really have been on her to-purchase list for quite some time) I’m just tossing in the NaNo prep I did at the airport while waiting on my flight from DFW to Abilene last week.

I would say I normally don’t have sentences that long, but this is me we’re talking about.

Anyway, here ’tis.

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I realized yesterday that Shay’s mother’s name is Daphne. Which means that it’s Daphne Donovan. There will have to be mocking of that. I think at some point I also had an idea for the antagonist’s name, but I’ve spaced it.

Brian? Bran? Curtis, Martin… dang it, just not feeling any of those. And it’s always so irritating how I can’t really get my head around characters until I’ve named them. Ethnicity of the guy–he’s probably still white. Not that evil people are limited to being white, but I’m afraid that he’ll turn into a stereotype if he’s evil and, say, Middle Eastern.

Ankles are cold. I think I could probably check about standby again at 8:40. Maybe 8:30. Now 8:08.

Tony. Antonio. Blurgh. Antonio’s bad–makes me think of a crappy romance novel. “And Antonio took her in his bulging arms…”

Andrew? Andrew may be a contender for the male love interest. Interesting that I don’t necessarily want to call him the “male lead” or the MMC. Because I’m not 100% sure he is the “MMC.” I don’t know what his airtime will be, so to speak.

Anderson. Not sure I like the surname as first name thing. Griffin. Would be eternally reminded of Cody and Tina’s nephew. No.

Gryffindor. Hah!

Jordon. Gregory. Scott. Mike. Bill. Tim. Thorn. Talon. (Talon’s from the story about the boy who was thought to be in the helium balloon but then turned out to be hiding in his family’s attic. Give me five months and I’ll likely have no idea what this parenthetical means.)

Wonder how many people in this waiting area are supposed to be on the Abilene flight. It’s not terribly crowded here yet, which is good. So far looks like most people are boarding for the Des Moines flight.

Donovan. Ohh, that’s a good contender. Feels maybe-evil.

Caine! I was going to call the villain Caine.

And it can’t be Donovan. That’s Shay’s last name. Headdesk

Ah, the NaNo-speak has returned.

Caine may be his last name, which means I’d still need a first name, but I think he’ll refer to himself as Caine, and have other people call him Caine, so for the moment it’s good enough.

8:16.

Wonder if it’s in me to do an interview with Caine…

Not yet.

Could do some freewriting on the plot, though.

So Shay saves–or at least momentarily prolongs–the life of the werewolf whose heart is donated to Caine, turning Caine into a supposedly prophesied werewolf.

I’m thinking that the original werewolf was initially the focus of the prophecy about uniting the werewolves/bringing out a new era of peace/whatever it is. Should really solidify it. So someone–an agent of my Big Bad–gets hold of Caine and explains the prophecy to him, saying that now the prophecy’s mantle has fallen upon Caine.

Caine… he’s thrilled with not feeling weak anymore. He’s been contending with this heart condition for his whole life, couldn’t run or jump or play or even go up the stairs without getting winded, taking it slow. And now he has a body that can heal itself from almost anything. He’s pretty much impervious to disease, even silver poisoning–which his fellow werewolves are not. So he’s strong, and impetuous, and essentially develops a god-complex. He hasn’t had anyone explain the “rules” to him, so he either doesn’t think the rules apply to him, or he doesn’t even know that the rules exist.

His method of bringing about peace is to kill those who don’t agree with him. That’s the lycanthropy, I guess, controlling him, making his violent tendencies more prevalent. Which isn’t original by any means, but hopefully the heart-transplant thing will make up for that.

8:24. Workers have disappeared from the B6 gate. I assume they’ll show up again before the Abilene flight. One would hope, anyway. Maybe I should do my bathroom break now, be ready to pop over there when they return.

Watching a lady’s bag for her while she goes to bathroom, so that means I can have her do the same when she comes back. Signing off now.

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I still have faith that this will all come together in a cohesive plot. Preferably in ten days (well, nine by the time this post goes live) so I have a clue what I’m doing. Vive la NaNo! Carpe diem! And other foreign-language calls to action!

(I trust my readers are title-readers, but if not, go back and read it.

Done? Okay.)

I had a cold and was traveling to Abilene, TX, for my five year college reunion. That’s why.

The following came about while waiting in the airport Friday morning (I was supposed to arrive in Abilene Thursday night, but circumstances beyond my control as I do not have godlike powers, or even Superman-like powers that would enable me to fly around the world and turn back time, caused me to miss my connecting flight from DFW to Abilene Thursday night). On a second read, it more or less makes sense, and this way I won’t have to worry about getting in a Monday Miscellany post once I’m back home and concerned about things like buying groceries for the week and laundry. Yes, I am lazy.

So. Here it is.

Notes from airport 10/16/09

Sitting in the airport after missing my flight into Abilene last night. Issues with the flight out from Denver to DFW–wound up leaving about an hour and ten minutes later than we were supposed to, and though the flight made up about forty minutes en route, it wasn’t enough for me to make my connecting flight. At least American Airlines cashed out for a hotel room, though my stay at the Days Inn and Suites was hardly what I would call primo conditions. Also I am spending more money than I would have otherwise, just from tipping the shuttle drivers. Not like it’s their fault my flight was delayed and then missed, and of course they have those “Tips constitute majority of drivers compensation and are greatly appreciated thank you” signs.

I can forgive the run-on and lack of plural possessive apostrophe. I have reached the point of frustration where it actually shifts from frustration to a sort of benign neglect/nascent zen-like benevolence toward the world at large. So I tipped the drivers a couple of bucks going from and to the airport.

Shuttle was named RC Express. Maybe it was the tiredness kicking in, but last night as I waited forty minutes for my shuttle to arrive (though the American Airlines desk worker who handled my missed-flight issues had assured me it would be fifteen) I found myself wondering what the “RC” stands for. Royal Crown? Royal Crest? No, I think those are the names of dairies back home.

Righteous… something. Righteous Custard.

It was then I realized the missed flight had addled me more than I thought. “Righteous Custard.” What would that even be? Supercilious ice cream treats?

Shuttle itself looked run-down. “RC Express” in blue lettering across a white van. Dusty all over, minor dents in the door, and a few rust spots. Shuttle driver popped out and asked me where I was going. I knew this and told him.

“North or South?”

“Ummm…” Vaguely remembered seeing on my room voucher one of those directions, but couldn’t remember which, spent several seconds scanning my voucher and wondering why my hotel name with the crucial directional designation had faded from my voucher in the 35 minutes since I’d last looked at it.

Driver came to peer at the voucher with me, and eventually found it. “North. Good. Because sometimes it’s South and we don’t service South.”

I also discovered that the Righteous Custard Express serviced several hotels in the area aside from the Days Inn. This was because we picked up other people who had missed their flight and were also put up in a hotel by American. I tend to externalize my problems and assume that others are dealing with the same difficulties I am–maybe because it makes me feel less alone in the world, I don’t know. There’s likely a philosophical take on it that would reveal the depths of my psyche, but I’m running on around five hours of sleep and still fighting a head cold, so I’m disinclined to spend much time pondering things that may give me headaches.

So yeah, maybe not everyone on that shuttle–six of us all told once we finished hitting up every terminal, during which time my driver found it necessary to pull over to the curb and get out to ask people where they were going. I guess he suspected that, unlike me, his potential passengers took a lackadaisical attitude as to their hotel transport. “What was my shuttle called? Ringling Circus Express? Ranger Cowboy Express? Oh well; I’ll just assume that rather than having to watch for the shuttle myself, the driver will pop out and ask me where I want to go.”

Just realized I never truly finished the first sentence of that paragraph. Maybe not everyone on that shuttle had missed their flight and was relegated to spending the night in a Dallas-area airport. But at least one other was, because I noticed the familiar logo on his voucher. And I noticed the way the shuttle driver also peered at this guy’s voucher, much as he had mine, and I recognized the “North or South?” confusion on the passenger’s face that must have graced my own just ten minutes prior.

Only this guy’s voucher turned out to be for Wyndham Hotel, which, from the outside, looked much nicer than what I knew to expect from Days Inn. Which made me wonder if American had blacklisted me for having bought my tickets off Priceline rather than directly through American’s site. Maybe-fellow flight-misser was even a first-class passenger.

Oh well, thought I, it’s only one night.

And it was only one night, with a complimentary breakfast. Breakfast also required a voucher, procured simply by showing my card at the front desk, otherwise it would’ve been $5.95. Which made me wonder–people who stay at the hotel get the breakfast for free. Do the fine folks of Days Inn truly expect outsiders to come in for their breakfast? “You know, honey, I have a hankering for the tasty reconstituted eggs, dubious sausage, and toast made from Every Day Value bread* from Days Inn. Totally worth the $5.95. Whaddya think?”

The whole spread reminded me of a post by Cheeseslave on what makes real food in America. This wasn’t it.

Because I like to know exactly what I’m putting into my body, while obtaining my “foodstuffs” from the breakfast, I read the ingredients of the little Country Crock spread tubs.

“That’s water,” I thought I heard the waitperson–whose job it was to ask me if I wanted coffee (“Do you have tea?”) and stir the gravy at regular intervals to keep it from forming a skin–say.

“Pardon?” I asked. Surely he wasn’t telling me that if I wanted water, I should open up several of those little tablespoon-sized containers of Country Crock and toss ’em back, like trans-fatty shots.

“That’s water.”

I went for the neutral “Oh.”

It took me another few seconds to realize he was truly saying “That’s butter,” as if I were too stupid to identify what was in the Country Crock tub. Which I’m not, because it’s clearly not butter. Real butter has one ingredient: Cream. And salt if it’s salted butter. Real butter doesn’t have an ingredient list so long I haven’t finished reading it before gravy-stirring waitpeople observe me staring at the packet, think, “Poor lady is unfamiliar with the breakfast stylings of Days Inn and must be informed of what she is looking at,” and so kindly enlighten me.

Anyway.

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*I saw the bag. And I judged. I get judgy when I’m tired.

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From there, my babblings segue into semicoherent rambles about NaNoWriMo and stuff that is theoretically helpful in plot development and character building, but which, if I do post here, I’ll save for my Thursday 300, since it’s more writing-related rather than complaints about missed flights and fake food and musings on the potential meaning of an initialism. Next week’s Miscellany Monday should be more put-together. I hope.