[lj only] progress report (plus an excerpt!)
Iron & Ice
New Words: 949
Total wordcount: 23,043
Mean Things: Love, loss and stabbing with a sword
Darling: There's an excerpt down there...go look!
Embarrassing Fruedian typos: None.
Those wacky Victorians: No Victorians today...just backstory, and a archivist living in Scotland in 1927.
Research topics: Archives in Edinburgh
Authorial angst: Hah! I have avoided The Plot for another day.
TV: My Name is Earl season 2.
Books: Soon I Will Be Invincible (Austin Grossman)
Stimulants: Heavenly Honey tea
Cats: They're spazzy and cuddly, with mood changes roughly every 5 seconds.
Real life: I may be totally insane, but I am so doing it anyway. What is It? You'll just have to wait for that.
Copyright 2007 by Caitlin Kittredge.
The Faerie King
He came from the west, they said, a man taller and darker than any of the Fae on the Shining Isles. He came in their darkest hour, when the goblin hordes were at the walls of Avalon, the great gray palace where the Queens of Air and Darkness ruled their people.
He possessed a blade, or perhaps it was a spear, or a harp…no one who remembers remains. But when he knelt before the queens, they touched him on the forehead and proclaimed him their champion. When the goblins faced him, then fell before the Fae, humbled.
The Queen of Air sent maidens to the King to offer her hand in marriage. She ensured that stags came to his arrows and that his quiver never emptied.
The Queen of Darkness came to him at night, when the moon pointed horns towards the heavens, and she offered herself. She whispered that he would never want, and never be alone facing the dark if he came to her court.
Swayed, the King joined the Queen of Darkness in her obsidian halls, and for a time they lived in the peace of Avalon together. Consumed with jealousy at their happiness, the Queen of Air sent her most favored courtier to the King under the cover of night and as these things will happen, she came to the Queen of Darkness with child, and with a claim on the throne of Winter.
The Queen of Darkness’s heart shattered like the ice which formed on the sacred springs during her half of the yearly wheel. She cast the courtesan into the darkest pits of Avalon’s dungeons, and she went to the court of the Queen of Air, and in full view of all challenged her to answer the insult of the King’s indiscretion.
Battle was joined, and raged all across the Shining Isles. Factions formed and splintered and the Faerie King saw his once-radiant queen consumed by jealousy and hatred. She grew cold, dark, and heartless.
This time, when the Queen of Air made overtures of alliance, the King did not rebuff her.
At last, the two courts met on the pinnacle of Avalon and the Queen of Darkness plunged her blade into the Queen of Air’s heart, answering the injury done not by steel but by the removal of her one love. The Faerie King threw himself on his mistress’s body and offered himself to the Queen of Darkness for half of the year if she would spare her life. He begged her, for what they had once shared, to find mercy in a heart which had none.
The Queens had done their job too well. The King was gifted with magic unique and absolute. Neither Queen could refuse him, and so the Queen of Darkness spared her adversary’s life, and felt the ice on her heart thicken.
And that is why there are Winter and Summer, and why the court which holds the heart of the Faerie King also holds supremacy over the Shining Lands.
New Words: 949
Total wordcount: 23,043
Mean Things: Love, loss and stabbing with a sword
Darling: There's an excerpt down there...go look!
Embarrassing Fruedian typos: None.
Those wacky Victorians: No Victorians today...just backstory, and a archivist living in Scotland in 1927.
Research topics: Archives in Edinburgh
Authorial angst: Hah! I have avoided The Plot for another day.
TV: My Name is Earl season 2.
Books: Soon I Will Be Invincible (Austin Grossman)
Stimulants: Heavenly Honey tea
Cats: They're spazzy and cuddly, with mood changes roughly every 5 seconds.
Real life: I may be totally insane, but I am so doing it anyway. What is It? You'll just have to wait for that.
Copyright 2007 by Caitlin Kittredge.
The Faerie King
He came from the west, they said, a man taller and darker than any of the Fae on the Shining Isles. He came in their darkest hour, when the goblin hordes were at the walls of Avalon, the great gray palace where the Queens of Air and Darkness ruled their people.
He possessed a blade, or perhaps it was a spear, or a harp…no one who remembers remains. But when he knelt before the queens, they touched him on the forehead and proclaimed him their champion. When the goblins faced him, then fell before the Fae, humbled.
The Queen of Air sent maidens to the King to offer her hand in marriage. She ensured that stags came to his arrows and that his quiver never emptied.
The Queen of Darkness came to him at night, when the moon pointed horns towards the heavens, and she offered herself. She whispered that he would never want, and never be alone facing the dark if he came to her court.
Swayed, the King joined the Queen of Darkness in her obsidian halls, and for a time they lived in the peace of Avalon together. Consumed with jealousy at their happiness, the Queen of Air sent her most favored courtier to the King under the cover of night and as these things will happen, she came to the Queen of Darkness with child, and with a claim on the throne of Winter.
The Queen of Darkness’s heart shattered like the ice which formed on the sacred springs during her half of the yearly wheel. She cast the courtesan into the darkest pits of Avalon’s dungeons, and she went to the court of the Queen of Air, and in full view of all challenged her to answer the insult of the King’s indiscretion.
Battle was joined, and raged all across the Shining Isles. Factions formed and splintered and the Faerie King saw his once-radiant queen consumed by jealousy and hatred. She grew cold, dark, and heartless.
This time, when the Queen of Air made overtures of alliance, the King did not rebuff her.
At last, the two courts met on the pinnacle of Avalon and the Queen of Darkness plunged her blade into the Queen of Air’s heart, answering the injury done not by steel but by the removal of her one love. The Faerie King threw himself on his mistress’s body and offered himself to the Queen of Darkness for half of the year if she would spare her life. He begged her, for what they had once shared, to find mercy in a heart which had none.
The Queens had done their job too well. The King was gifted with magic unique and absolute. Neither Queen could refuse him, and so the Queen of Darkness spared her adversary’s life, and felt the ice on her heart thicken.
And that is why there are Winter and Summer, and why the court which holds the heart of the Faerie King also holds supremacy over the Shining Lands.