E is for Emma

Strange to be speaking in first person. My story, Your Name Is Emma was an exploration in second-person narrative. Fascinated by the character depth in certain online serialized web series using this method of storytelling, the scribbler decided to try it herself. Thus Emma was born. That’s me. The girl in the black hat squashed down her head and the baggy sweatshirt hunched over a notebook, a book, and a coffee in the corner of my favorite café. I’m also a ghost. Strange. I hid behind books, trying to lose myself in beautiful prose when I was alive. Now no one can see me. The coffee house is starting to change. More families and people with noisy smartphones (are they really that intelligent?) are starting to invest the place. I can no longer drink coffee or even hold the mug which contains it. I cannot even pick up a book and read it unless someone else does. Or I possess someone. Unfortunately that attracts the Soul Takers. They may appear as missionaries selling salvation, salespeople selling anything. I’m the only one who can see their death’s head grins, their sharp teeth, the glowing fires of hell in the sockets where their eyes should be. They can also see me. I’m trying to avoid them, best I can. Only I keep coming back to this coffee house. Or Esther. The girlfriend whom I never appreciated when I was alive. Like so many things. I’ve got so much unfinished business. Like my own story. I wish the scribbler would return to Your Name Is Emma. I wish a lot of things.

D is Danyel, Dyvian, Not Tayel

Shadows spreads to envelop my blog. Danyel stands, small and fragile-looking, but one of his hands glows with a warm green energy. Tayel is at his side, his exact likeness, a slight androgynous boy with a head of touseled silvery golden waves. Violet-blue eyes too big for a face just like Danyel’s glare back at the darkness, only Tayel are filled with silvery light.

Danyel: No, he’s no longer called Dayel. Our scribbler changed his name so readers wouldn’t have as hard a time telling our names apart. That doesn’t mean he has to leave.

Tayel: A single letter shifts yet not my purpose.

The darkness swirls like a whirlwind in slow motion only to dissolve and part, revealing Dyvian standing in the center. Dressed in a black velvet tunic and trousers with a ruby ring upon his fingers. Moon-pale hair caught back with a little dark ribbon, revealing high cheekbones, a generous mouth, and coldly prismatic eyes flashing with bits of color which are muted, diminished as they swim in his irises.

Dyvian: What is purpose in the face of the darkness? Don’t you long for the shadows’ embrace? Thrilling you, terrifying you? Can’t you feel their power? For I have always been the ally of a god, little ones, even when I was first conceived.

Danyel: Seraphix isn’t a god. Not yet. There’s some question whether Their original self, Serphamis was truly the God of Balance. Even if you were Their Voice, Their Vampyre.

Tayel: Names changes yet motivations remain, even when they’re obscured.

Dyvian: (smiling) Be very grateful that’s not true, little one, considering what the Vampyre planned to do to both of you.

For a moment he leers, seeming to sprout fangs, eyes turning blood red. Danyel and Tayel shrink back.

Dyvian: Be glad my intentions toward you are far less dark in Tales of the Navel.

Tayel: Less depraved, no less dark.

Dyvian: You are certainly darker, little Tayel. Even before your name changed, you were changing.

Danyel: (stepping slightly in front of his twin) Tayel has never been dark, even if he scares us at times. I already said why our scribbler changed his name from Dayel to Tayel. She was just trying to be considerate and so is Tayel! He may have secrets, but he keeps them because he’s tryig to protect the rest of us.

Tayel: (looking away) Consideration has seldom been my concern. Clarity and closeness are. Only the dark see darkness in others.

Dyvian: You could be speaking of yourself, little one as much as I. The truth is you are no longer the same any more than you belong with the letter D.

Tayel: (glowering at Dyvian. No matter what your eye seeks, no matter what your Voice calls for, or how often you grab for the bright innocence nearby, I shall stand in your way.

Dyvian: Mine wasn’t the seeking eye, nor the grabbing hand. We’re drifting from our topic, my dears, which is our origins. Two roleplaying games or interactives stories where I hunted you in the name of my god.

Danyel: Only now we’re in Tales of the Navel, a series of stories which may not be ours, even if we are major characters in it.

Tayel: Born from shadows, we could not replace that shadow. Once more he rises to eclipse us.

Dyvian: How prettily you put it. Alas, it’s not my shadow you speak of.

Danyel: It’s not that pretty, what we’re saying. Nor is it fair. We stole Christopher’s story from him.

Tayel: (letting out a low growl) No. He gave his story to us. We’re his creations, moving to his purpose.

Danyel: Why do you always speak as if Christopher was up to no good? It’s not that simple.

Dyvian: No, it isn’t. Not with Christopher. Not with me. Too often you forget this when it’s me.

Tayel: Forgetfulness is a bliss offered to those more fortunate.

Danyel: We forget nothing. Just because you’re no longer a vampyre coming after us doesn’t mean you’re not coming after us.

Tayel: Strike against what we hold dear and you’ve offered a challenge we cannot turn away from.

Dyvian: How possessively you speak of a man who isn’t truly your brother. You presume a great deal, wrongly, if you think my love for Leiwell is any less than yours.

Tayel: Your love drains the will and blinds conviction. Danyel: You play the devil with him. You’re trying to tempt Leiwell with something, lure him away from us.

Dyvian: Well, well. How gratifying to learn you are as jealous of me as I am of you. In past incarnations, Leiwell always betrayed me for your sakes. What do you think he’ll do this time, hmm?

Danyel: He’ll do what he feels is right. He always does.

Tayel doesn’t answer.

Dyvian: Will he? And just what is right? What does he think is right?

Danyel: (crossing his arms and glowering right back at him) What do you?

Tayel: Righteousness is blind. The heart tries to see what is obscured by feeling.

Dyvian: Often I believed I was doing the right thing. What my god wished.

Danyel: Did you?

Tayel: Justifying depravity in the name of right is a mere veil you wrap around your eyes.

Dyvian: While you see more than you ever wished to. Tell me, little one, do you believe in Leiwell as much as your more innocent twin? Do you have faith in him?

Tayel doesn’t answer.

Danyel: Tayel?

Tayel won’t look at his brother.

Dyvian: (softly) Some things never change. No matter what incarnation we’re in. This is why you cannot hold onto Leiwell.

Danyel: (turning on him with an almost savage fury, the glow in his hand fierce) I can. Can you?

Tayel: Everthing shifts and changes including our faith and our grip.

Dyvian: Fine. (spreading his cloak) We’ll see whose is stronger and tighter.

The three end gazing at each other as the mists come between them, the darkness swallowing Dyvian while the gray fog claims Danyel and Tayel. The twins grip each other hands tightly before they disappear.

C is for Caerac

Eh, what’s that? Why are you bothering me? Can’t you let a dead man rest in peace? Who am I? Why, I was once Caerac, hero, adventurer, and founder of a Keep! I made my way across lands swarming with monsters, living by the strength of my sword. I gave other humans the shelter to build shelters of their own, driving back the kobolds into their den and facing them there. Why, my companions and I were famous! With the treasure we won, I founded Caerac Keep, creating a little shelter and a home in a monster-infested land. Well, yes, I took that treasure from others I killed, but they were monsters! Who are you calling a murderer? Who knows how many the monsters would have murdered if I hadn’t struck first? And why shouldn’t I take their treasure after they nearly killed me? I was a hero, I’m telling you, a hero! Why else would a Keep be named after me? All right, I was the one who named it, but still I earned every bit of glory I won in life. What do you mean, how did the scribbler come up with my concept? Are you suggesting she just needed a name for her Keep? That I’m just a plot device for the protagonists in Trouble at Caerac Keep, a dead man they can raise and question? There wouldn’t even be a Caerac Keep if not for me. Now go away. Stop banging on my sarcophagus. Let a dead man rest in peace.

B is for Briar

Long has our scribbler held a passion for dark fairytales. She was writing them herself in high school. She found herself captivated by Tanith Lee’s Tales of the Flat Earth and Red As Blood when she discovered them in college, on the shelf of a used bookstore in Santa Cruz. One of the things she’d enjoyed about Carmilla was the fairytale nature of the dream Laura had, a dream Carmilla claimed to share. She still wonders if Mircalla might not have told the truth about that dream, perhaps Mircalla did dream of Laura when she was a child, an ideal she clung to as she grew up. There is a certain similarity to the vision my Rose had of me while she was an infant, a vision which drew my princess close to me in Fairest. Our scribbler’s favorite anime is Revolutionary Girl Utena, a surreal series about ritualized dueling at a school and becoming a prince, regardless of your gender, all of which was grounded in a fairytale in its participants were caught in. Our scribbler’s favorite manga, Tokyo Babylon could be regarded as a fairytale, a cautionary tale about an innocent boy devoted to saving others, never noticing the danger reaching out for him from the sakura. Puella Magi Madoka Magica, another favorite anime of our scribbler’s has certain dark fairytale elements in the price young girls pay for a single wish. When our scribbler got a submission call for f/f fairytales, inspiration blossomed within her imagination. The quote, the myth from Revolutionary Girl Utena returned to her: “Princesses who cannot be saved by the prince become witches.” What if the witch who cursed Sleeping Beauty had once been Snow White? What if Snow White became a witch because of what the wicked queen did to her and the passion the two of them once shared? From this concept, Fairest was born. I was born. Our world and our characters have evolved greatly since that moment. Two editions of Fairest were released. A story for my lost Quartz, the seventh dwarf is being revised in Of Cuckoo Clocks and Crystal Cofiins. We began with a cycle of curses and love. I don’t think we’ve strayed too much from that concept, judging from Nimmie Not’s behavior in Of Cuckoo Clocks and Crystal Coffins along with various blog posts. It’s the heart of our stories. It still beats even when we try to rip it out of our chests. It still beats.

A is for Amberwyne

Once upon a Fantasy Hero roleplaying campaign, my name belonged to someone else. I claimed it during a Changeling the Dreaming roleplaying campaign as a sidhe childing whom made everyone’s jaw drop with her odd way of thinking. Indeed I’d suffered severe damage, being ravaged of my power by a leanhaun I loved. Some of this conflict along with myself made its way into The Keep, an online interactive fantasy roleplaying/writing project with lots of yaoi and yuri. This was where I met Rhane. In The Keep. I was the manifestation of her lost innocence, taken on physical form due to her abuse from vampires and a leanhaun. The leanhaun, Fidessa stuck around, too, becoming an enchantress with a penchant for curses and playing with me in The Players Are the Thing. She’s the ultimate villain in the roleplaying game Rhane is playing in, while I am Rhane’s character. You may have noticed our scribbler had a passion for roleplaying games. A lot of us (her characters) were created for roleplaying games. Only she got attached to us, writing stories for us. The Players Are the Thing is a work in progress involving not only her former roleplaying characters, but a roleplaying game itself. Our game gets entirely too real when the Game Master’s dice are cursed by her own villain. Fidessa learned she was nothing but a plot device in some disillusioned woman’s roleplaying game. She is not amused. She decides to show Beatrix (the disillusioned woman) just how unamused she is. It’s up to me and the other characters to save our players from themselves and their dice, undoing ‘Dessa’s mischief. I was already cleaning up a lot of her messes. My friend, Isolde and I are were coping with her curses, traps, and monsters she’d scattered across our land. I wasn’t entirely sure what ‘Dessa was up to. Once upon a time I was very close to her, her student, lover, and companion until I learned what she’d done to Isolde and her mentor, trapping living souls in marble to make their scupting a more “genuine artistic process”. I ended up leaving ‘Dessa with Isolde after freeing the souls. Since that event, it’s been one curse or trap after another Fidessa has been leaving. We’ve been lucky to have Rhiannon warning us of what my former mentor is up to, although Isolde insists we can’t trust Rhiannon. Isolde doesn’t trust anything she’s learned from Rhiannon and ‘Dessa. She doesn’t want to believe we’re just characters in a roleplaying game. I wasn’t so surprised. I’d been dreaming of Rhane, seeing visions of Rhane. My bond with my player is much closer than Isolde’s is to hers. This gives me a much better chance of reaching out to Rhane through her daydreams, warning her about Fidessa and her dice. All of this, the plot of The Players Are the Thing has evolved over time. All this came from our scribbler’s love, not only for her characters from roleplaying games, but of roleplaying games themselves. There’s been a lot of jokes between players about cursed dice. There’s been a lot of difficulty for women in roleplaying games with alternate sexualties, wanting to play alternate sexualities within them over the years. This has resulted in women forming their own roleplaying troupes like this. Our scribbler wished to show some of this, along with how roleplaying games could be a creative, helpful process. Yes, Beatrix’s dice may be cursed, but I’m helping Rhane to enjoy life again, to channel the richness of her creative inner life into the foundation of a happiness which will last. The Players Are the Thing are the culmination of all of this. I share a bond with Rhane many may find questionable, for I am not real. Just because I’m not real doesn’t mean I can’t help. This is my conflict, my struggle, and my goal in my story; to help my player once I become aware of her. To help everyone to be a little happier, to grow and change to meet the conflicts which await us in the campaign ahead.

#BloggingFromAZ: Character Origins

Formatting is really hard now at this blog. It takes me a very long time to do what I can in a fraction of the time at inspirationcauldron.wordpress.com This is why I'm doing my blogging there these days.

I will return in April to Blog from AZ along with my characters. This year the theme is Character Origins .

Stop by and check it out!

Blogging from A to Z April Challenge: NEW GRAPHICS TEAM MEMBER SEARCH

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