Actually don't sue me, I don't have the money for it.
So what's been up? I've heard back from a potential job opportunity, gotten the ball rolling on some writing gigs (about video games!) and came up with a new character for (one of) my novel(s) in progress! This would be: The Tirsadel Saga. Which I have graciously decided to put the prologue of here. Enjoy!
Prologue
Lightning scurried in huge, molten arcs across the dark grey sky. Beneath the roiling cloud mass that blanketed the windy valley, two women wove their way through the shadowy forest. One woman is quite plain; she wears her brown hair in a bun, and her dress is drab and unprepossessing. She is being led by the hand by another woman, strikingly beautiful, who unerringly leads the way forward, never placing a foot wrong. The trees rustle above them in the pre-thunderstorm wind as they trod the spongy loam that makes up the forest floor.
The plain woman doesn’t seem to see her surroundings. Occasionally she trips on an exposed root, or slides backwards on gravely inclines. The woman leading her continues to pull her forward, however; quietly and insistently she drags her charge onwards until they make their way out of the forest. Gone is the earthy smell of rotten leaves and undergrowth, and gone is the sighing of the trees against one another and the whistle of the wind through their branches.
It is colder now, and the wind has picked up, although it now weaves its way through the tall grasses through which they now push. The earth underneath their feet suddenly becomes hard-packed; they must have turned onto a game trail through the rushes. The beautiful woman leading the plain woman pulls more insistently on her hand, leading her faster and faster to their destination.
At last, a surcease of walking. Her hand is released suddenly; she freezes in place, arms outstretched, feet tapping wildly in an arc ahead of her tread. She hears whispered voices, and swivels her head this way and that trying to determine which way they coming from. Her heightened sense of hearing picks up two voices: a male and a female, in heated debate. As she shuffles along towards the voices, hands reach out and steady her, grabbing her shoulders. Her heart jumps into her throat, and she moans in fear. But no, it was merely her traveling companion; her whispered words of comfort and encouragement soothe her anxieties and steady her nerves. She is spun around to face her guide.
The drab woman cries out in pain as something jabs into her left eye, then suddenly the pressure is released. Cautiously, she reaches up with her hands to inspect her face…only to feel the empty eye socket where her left eye used to be. She can feel the fear welling up in her, the coils of snake-like panic writhing in her belly. Then the voice of the woman who led her here fills her entire being, and she is calm yet again. She hears a grunt of pain, then pressure upon the left side of her face, and suddenly…light. Startled, she flails her arms in distress, not knowing what has suddenly pervaded her vision. A hand is placed on her chin, and raises her head upwards.
Her mind tries to make sense of things it has never before experienced. A whole new sense suddenly at its disposal, the plain woman’s mind tries to shut down to avoid shock. In shock, she stumbles, almost falling to her knees but is kept upright by her companion. In sublime awe, she gazes upwards at the boiling, molten sky. A break in the cloud cover suddenly reveals to her a great beacon, lit, seemingly, from within. Its scarred, pitted countenance shone down upon her with the light of a million lamps. Suddenly, she heard a scuffling sound, and more argument. As she swung her head down to see what was the matter, the sudden rush of blood caused her to lose her strength at last, and she fell to her knees.
A shout of anguish and pain cut the frigid night air, and horrible, mocking laughter boomed across the grassy hilltop where she had been led. Opening her eyes again, she looked up, and saw on the ground between three massive monoliths of stone, a boy. Kneeling over him was a beautiful woman, who held his hands in hers. The formerly blind woman crawled on her hands and knees over to the dying young man, and looked at his face. He was handsome, in a boyish way; his mop of dark brown hair was disarrayed now, though, and a trickle of blood crept from his mouth down his chin. She looked at his eyes, and gasped.
