The lotus springs from the mud.
Chinese proverb
I wanted to put as my quote "Puella rēginam vīdit, cui melem dedit", but I figured that no-one would know what it meant. It means "The girl saw the queen, to whom she gave a badger". I love my Latin teacher - he comes up with the most awesome sentences. Our worksheets frequently have little instructions that make me giggle, like, for instance, "Translate the following lines into whatever language you think appropriate." :3 He also likes to include the Latin names of obscure animals, like porcupines, orang-utangs, etc. :D It's awesome!
In any case, I'm doing well.
I HIT 50K IN MY NOVEL W00T GO ME!
It was two days ago that that happened - Friday. I ended up writing like 4k in one day. XD Rock! My storyline is only about 1/3 of the way through, though, so I'll be continuing to write for a while now. I'll post a quick exert at the end of this post as well.
I just finished an 11 page essay for my East Asian history class. It was sort of an amalgamation of two essay topics, but really neither, but there's an option to just make up our own topic, so I think I'm fine... I finally thought of a title like five minutes before I printed it off: "From Egg to Cloth: The Impact of Sericulture Upon Historical China". I worked really hard on it. I must have spent like a total of 30 hours on the blasted thing... a few of my points are still weak, but since it was my first research essay, I'm just glad that I've included enough information to support my thesis. My friend Leah says that my writing has a tone that's too pretensious. "But I like my "thus"es and "oft-cited"s!" D:
I only had about five minutes to rejoice the completion of that piece of work before I had to move on to my French homework and my Latin sentence translation, both of which took far longer to finish than anticipated. "Wheelock's Latin", the textbook that we had to translate from, is pretty funny, though. It doesn't intend to be. The first edition was written in the late 1940s, early 50s, so all of the sentences are moral lessons telling us that war is bad. XD It's actually pretty hilarious! Here are some exerts: "What type of harmful crimes destroyed those two states" and "Without brave men doing good deeds, we can never have peace."
In addition, the Lolita meetup at West Ed a few weeks ago was pure awesomeness. :3 My outfit is still incomplete - I need a good winter jacket (ordered) and I need to find some good lace stockings (the ones I'm knitting are taking too long), a cute thing to go in my hair and perhaps a parasol. I feel like an idiot for not having a full-shot photo taken of me alone, though. I love my skirt, but I have no good shots of it! It really shows off my tiny waist. I have one of those figures that people in Victorian England were trying to emulate - skinny, but only around the waist (ie, decent sized chest and hips). With the strings around my viscerae pulled tight, I really do have a wasp-waist, but not a freakish one. :3 I'll have uploaded some photos up on deviantart after I've finished posting this. Go here: http://beboots.deviantart.com/
And here's another exert from my novel! In this scene, Tithonus, our intrepid winged boy-king (who's incognito at the moment, and goes by the name "Cricket" among these mercenaries) has just watched the rest of the men in the group he's with launch themselves off of a cliff to get into the air (they call all fly, as they are all "Kin" and all have wings). Tithonus hasn't flown since he broke his wing when he was six or so, and is sort of panicking. Burdock and Tenebris are the two men that fished him out of the river a few days earlier.
****
He then noticed that they were the last three still remaining on firm, solid ground, and it suddenly became all that much harder to remain calm.
Tenebris and Burdock exchanged a suspicious-looking glance with each other before turning to ‘Cricket’ with a look on their faces that had the boy scrambling backwards instinctively without really knowing why.
He was too slow, however, and was grabbed by his upper arms and almost before he realized what had occurred, was literally thrown over the edge of the cliff. All he could hear over the screaming of the wind whistling by his ears was the suddenly far-away voice of Burdock:
“Just flap your wings, Cricket! And don’t panic!”
Tithonus panicked.
Chapter Fourteen
Advice is least heeded when most needed.
~American proverb
His most gracious majesty, King Tithonus, ruler over all Italium and her provinces, protector of her colonies, son of the late and eminent King Augustus the Great, and lord over us all fell like a stone through the air above Le Forêt.
He would have been screaming in sheer terror had he been able to gather the breath to do so. Instead, he was falling through the air with a silent look of terror on his face, which would have been quite comical if it hadn’t been genuine fear.
Some indiscernible shape wooshed past him and yelled: “Flap your wings, for pity’s sake! Cricket!” Only later would Tithonus realize that it had been Tenebris.
Perhaps it was those almost-lost instincts that once again immerged to save him. Regardless, it was due to that shouting that broke Tithonus from his all-consuming fear of the ground that was coming closer holy -
Cricket flapped.
It was mad flapping, as was the last time he had tried this endeavor. It was inelegant (very much so), but effective. The boy found his fall slowing, then almost stopping.
He was flying.
Well, gliding and losing ever more feathers by the second, but … he wasn’t about to die. Rejoice!
He then discovered that to his surprise, he had somehow kept a hold of his lone possession at the moment - his bedroll. Perhaps that had something to do with the reflexive death grip his hands had on it.
A shadow fell across his face, and he managed to look up. Before, he’d been quite fixated on the ground (still looking tapestry-like, but no longer so innocently), especially now that he was no-longer approaching it at break-neck speeds. But he managed to tear his gaze from that which had nearly killed him - what would have been the sudden crunch at the end of his free fall - to look up. Circling above him were eight winged dots, outlined starkly against the light blue sky. They looked so … graceful. They were truly beings of the sky, these Kin mercenaries.
Tithonus felt small, young and almost painfully clumsy. He was a mere fledgling of the skies, not yet a ruler of it, as they were. Why, they were hardly even flapping, but gliding, skillfully taking advantage of what the wind and sky had to offer. The boy didn’t feel comfortable enough to stop his mad wing-movements just yet. Why, he was even gaining altitude - maybe. It was hard to tell, with so few areal landmarks. The ground seemed a little smaller, though, and the other Kin seemed closer. One of his green feathers drifted by his face as it was carried on the current of the wind to destinations unknown. There was a sheer feeling of space up here. The wind was cold but uplifting against his face, ruffling through his hair as a parent would.
Or, rather, as a parent probably would, because if you’ll recall, dear readers, our intrepid boy-king doesn’t have a whole lot of experience with his own parents to judge properly.
“Shit, you weren’t kidding when you said you couldn’t fly, were you?” Came the voice of Burdock from his upper left, oddly distorted by the wind. Tithonus managed a frantic shake of his head in the negative, in time with the crazed movements of his wings as he kept himself aloft.
Tenebris’ cream-coloured wings swung into view below him, stroking powerfully, as he, too, felt the need to comment. “Yeah, sorry about that. We just thought you were nervous about jumping off a cliff. It’s a surprisingly easy way to get into the air, but many haven’t even tried it before and have to be, well, convinced. You understand, right?”
Understand? They’d almost killed him! But he supposed it had worked - he was flying. It was thrilling once some of the sheer terror had worn off. His right wing ached a bit, but then again, both ached pleasantly with exertion. He supposed it would only get worse the longer that he stayed in the air, though.
The boy would definitely be more wary around these two from now on, in any case. ‘Cricket’ had learned his lesson regarding Burdock and Tenebris: approach with caution, avoid when possible.
“Oi! Are you coming, or not?” A voice from up above wafted down. “The boss wants us in formation! Unless our new recruit isn’t up for it?”
“Of course he’s up for it!” Burdock answered for ‘Cricket’ with obvious challenge in his voice, swinging upwards. Tithonus wasn’t so sure himself, but he made obvious efforts to follow.
I wanted to put as my quote "Puella rēginam vīdit, cui melem dedit", but I figured that no-one would know what it meant. It means "The girl saw the queen, to whom she gave a badger". I love my Latin teacher - he comes up with the most awesome sentences. Our worksheets frequently have little instructions that make me giggle, like, for instance, "Translate the following lines into whatever language you think appropriate." :3 He also likes to include the Latin names of obscure animals, like porcupines, orang-utangs, etc. :D It's awesome!
In any case, I'm doing well.
I HIT 50K IN MY NOVEL W00T GO ME!
It was two days ago that that happened - Friday. I ended up writing like 4k in one day. XD Rock! My storyline is only about 1/3 of the way through, though, so I'll be continuing to write for a while now. I'll post a quick exert at the end of this post as well.
I just finished an 11 page essay for my East Asian history class. It was sort of an amalgamation of two essay topics, but really neither, but there's an option to just make up our own topic, so I think I'm fine... I finally thought of a title like five minutes before I printed it off: "From Egg to Cloth: The Impact of Sericulture Upon Historical China". I worked really hard on it. I must have spent like a total of 30 hours on the blasted thing... a few of my points are still weak, but since it was my first research essay, I'm just glad that I've included enough information to support my thesis. My friend Leah says that my writing has a tone that's too pretensious. "But I like my "thus"es and "oft-cited"s!" D:
I only had about five minutes to rejoice the completion of that piece of work before I had to move on to my French homework and my Latin sentence translation, both of which took far longer to finish than anticipated. "Wheelock's Latin", the textbook that we had to translate from, is pretty funny, though. It doesn't intend to be. The first edition was written in the late 1940s, early 50s, so all of the sentences are moral lessons telling us that war is bad. XD It's actually pretty hilarious! Here are some exerts: "What type of harmful crimes destroyed those two states" and "Without brave men doing good deeds, we can never have peace."
In addition, the Lolita meetup at West Ed a few weeks ago was pure awesomeness. :3 My outfit is still incomplete - I need a good winter jacket (ordered) and I need to find some good lace stockings (the ones I'm knitting are taking too long), a cute thing to go in my hair and perhaps a parasol. I feel like an idiot for not having a full-shot photo taken of me alone, though. I love my skirt, but I have no good shots of it! It really shows off my tiny waist. I have one of those figures that people in Victorian England were trying to emulate - skinny, but only around the waist (ie, decent sized chest and hips). With the strings around my viscerae pulled tight, I really do have a wasp-waist, but not a freakish one. :3 I'll have uploaded some photos up on deviantart after I've finished posting this. Go here: http://beboots.deviantart.com/
And here's another exert from my novel! In this scene, Tithonus, our intrepid winged boy-king (who's incognito at the moment, and goes by the name "Cricket" among these mercenaries) has just watched the rest of the men in the group he's with launch themselves off of a cliff to get into the air (they call all fly, as they are all "Kin" and all have wings). Tithonus hasn't flown since he broke his wing when he was six or so, and is sort of panicking. Burdock and Tenebris are the two men that fished him out of the river a few days earlier.
****
He then noticed that they were the last three still remaining on firm, solid ground, and it suddenly became all that much harder to remain calm.
Tenebris and Burdock exchanged a suspicious-looking glance with each other before turning to ‘Cricket’ with a look on their faces that had the boy scrambling backwards instinctively without really knowing why.
He was too slow, however, and was grabbed by his upper arms and almost before he realized what had occurred, was literally thrown over the edge of the cliff. All he could hear over the screaming of the wind whistling by his ears was the suddenly far-away voice of Burdock:
“Just flap your wings, Cricket! And don’t panic!”
Tithonus panicked.
Chapter Fourteen
Advice is least heeded when most needed.
~American proverb
His most gracious majesty, King Tithonus, ruler over all Italium and her provinces, protector of her colonies, son of the late and eminent King Augustus the Great, and lord over us all fell like a stone through the air above Le Forêt.
He would have been screaming in sheer terror had he been able to gather the breath to do so. Instead, he was falling through the air with a silent look of terror on his face, which would have been quite comical if it hadn’t been genuine fear.
Some indiscernible shape wooshed past him and yelled: “Flap your wings, for pity’s sake! Cricket!” Only later would Tithonus realize that it had been Tenebris.
Perhaps it was those almost-lost instincts that once again immerged to save him. Regardless, it was due to that shouting that broke Tithonus from his all-consuming fear of the ground that was coming closer holy -
Cricket flapped.
It was mad flapping, as was the last time he had tried this endeavor. It was inelegant (very much so), but effective. The boy found his fall slowing, then almost stopping.
He was flying.
Well, gliding and losing ever more feathers by the second, but … he wasn’t about to die. Rejoice!
He then discovered that to his surprise, he had somehow kept a hold of his lone possession at the moment - his bedroll. Perhaps that had something to do with the reflexive death grip his hands had on it.
A shadow fell across his face, and he managed to look up. Before, he’d been quite fixated on the ground (still looking tapestry-like, but no longer so innocently), especially now that he was no-longer approaching it at break-neck speeds. But he managed to tear his gaze from that which had nearly killed him - what would have been the sudden crunch at the end of his free fall - to look up. Circling above him were eight winged dots, outlined starkly against the light blue sky. They looked so … graceful. They were truly beings of the sky, these Kin mercenaries.
Tithonus felt small, young and almost painfully clumsy. He was a mere fledgling of the skies, not yet a ruler of it, as they were. Why, they were hardly even flapping, but gliding, skillfully taking advantage of what the wind and sky had to offer. The boy didn’t feel comfortable enough to stop his mad wing-movements just yet. Why, he was even gaining altitude - maybe. It was hard to tell, with so few areal landmarks. The ground seemed a little smaller, though, and the other Kin seemed closer. One of his green feathers drifted by his face as it was carried on the current of the wind to destinations unknown. There was a sheer feeling of space up here. The wind was cold but uplifting against his face, ruffling through his hair as a parent would.
Or, rather, as a parent probably would, because if you’ll recall, dear readers, our intrepid boy-king doesn’t have a whole lot of experience with his own parents to judge properly.
“Shit, you weren’t kidding when you said you couldn’t fly, were you?” Came the voice of Burdock from his upper left, oddly distorted by the wind. Tithonus managed a frantic shake of his head in the negative, in time with the crazed movements of his wings as he kept himself aloft.
Tenebris’ cream-coloured wings swung into view below him, stroking powerfully, as he, too, felt the need to comment. “Yeah, sorry about that. We just thought you were nervous about jumping off a cliff. It’s a surprisingly easy way to get into the air, but many haven’t even tried it before and have to be, well, convinced. You understand, right?”
Understand? They’d almost killed him! But he supposed it had worked - he was flying. It was thrilling once some of the sheer terror had worn off. His right wing ached a bit, but then again, both ached pleasantly with exertion. He supposed it would only get worse the longer that he stayed in the air, though.
The boy would definitely be more wary around these two from now on, in any case. ‘Cricket’ had learned his lesson regarding Burdock and Tenebris: approach with caution, avoid when possible.
“Oi! Are you coming, or not?” A voice from up above wafted down. “The boss wants us in formation! Unless our new recruit isn’t up for it?”
“Of course he’s up for it!” Burdock answered for ‘Cricket’ with obvious challenge in his voice, swinging upwards. Tithonus wasn’t so sure himself, but he made obvious efforts to follow.