But no longer?
I want to work in publishing before I try to get published. Doesn't stop me from writing. I just don't show it to anybody.
I need test subject, WAHHHAOHHAHAHA (best imitation of Ming the Merciless).
I wrote, I got published in zines and then real magazines. Even got into two anthologies. I figured out I could make more farming or doing consulting environmental engineering piece work than writing, so I rationally stopped wasting my time. Better to argue that compliance with NAAQS can not be guarantied to the 99th percentile based upon an average emission rate of area sources, better money.
Poor Poor Hannah Elizabeth. Not enough lighting and thunder in those English storms. Thunder storms, are GREAT for the lover's dance, the feeling of flesh to flesh, as the waves of cold rain sheet across warm flesh, the smile of a beloved one glowing with each flash of lightening, the deep rumble of the thunder flowing into flesh, shaking and touching within. I spent years in LA, it does not thunder, you don't feel that sweet cold wind that precedes the storm. Sort of sucks.
Oh, why did Clever Man deserve the Ice, a hard thing to say. I suppose, if you were in the place of Ice and Pain you'd have a long time to ponder such things. He was a warrior of no great imporantance, skilled but not a great warrior of the old legends. He was born, I suppose, in the 1700's when our nations were at their peak. We'd taken the lands of the Hurons and almost all of the other smaller nations on our borders, we reigned from the English colonies on the east, to the western edge of the great lakes. Most of our traditional foes, had sided with the French, and the French were in retreat. We'd cast our fortune with the English and the colonist, and the folly of that decision had not yet proven to be unwise. Clever Man was known to be clever, I suppose that's obvious in the name his elders gave him, yet there wasn't something right in his soul. No, when the battle was joined, ol CM seemed to be always at the right time to pick off the stragglers and wounded, or the clever ambush point. Oh, he didn't run from battle, no, but he never lept to battle without hesitation or fear. That might not seem like much of a sin, but I suppose that's enough to send a good NDN warrior to hell. The caution, the hedging of odds, might not have been fear, but it wern't bravery. So come one minor battle, he was leading a group of ten and five good warriors, brave men against thirty and six Hurons. Ol CM, he'd studied the land, and figured where the Hurons would try to retreat to a place to defend when the battle cry was raised. He sent some of the strongest of arm but not strongest of mind to rush the Hurons, and he and his ten would ambush from a high position. A good strategy, but not a brave strategy. So the plan was started, the Hurons retreated towards split in the hills, we waited to start the volley with good colonest rifle. Yet, a random shot from a French musket, fired by a panicy Huron, traveled up into the hidden position, and passed cleanly through his heart. He barely had time, to wonder how he was going to turn this battle into another coup to brag to the great chiefs, and he was dead before his body hit the ground. He was in the ice, before his friends had taken his body back to grave area to return his flesh to the world. He was very surprised to awaken in the ice, thinking that his earthly glory was enough to earn him a place in the land of sweet rain and green forest. Earthly glory, never is enough.
I don't know if any have read the series "Heroes in Hell". A long time ago, my work was found wanting and while I got paid a small amount for my work, it was found wanting for a variety of reason. I suppose the main one was that it wasn't that good, but there were others. Mainly, I refuse to share in the EuroAmerican complete hopelessness of Hell, NDN Hell can be escaped, or you'll be dead trying. Well, the series recently started up again, so again I'll try to improve with age and steal from other souls and once again, turn the page.
The Princess of Nowhere
She thought of herself, as a Princess. In the up above place, she had actually been a princess, of a kingdom long forgotten, eclipsed by its neighbors. She had been the middle daughter of a Great King, of a land that would have not been a village in a latter day. She had servants, fine fabrics, foods her servants could not imagine, and the men. Fine Princes from lands as far away as Egypt and Babylon found their way to her father's kingdom, to try to win the hand of the beautiful princess, the clever and demure princess, and the princess that would someday murder her husband.
In this place, she had been many things. When she first arrived, in the darkness and the smoke, in the foul cities of the infernal sea, she had been a whore, a thief, a beggar and sometimes a merchant. She had no rank, no loyal followers, nothing but the tainted cotton on her back and the sharp dagger in her hand. She had died, many times in those days. Killed, starved, skewered by damned soul and demon. Things had been done to her, which the Princes could never have imagined, in Hell such things were not worth noting. With each blow, with each wound, with each attack, she learned. She had been a vapid student in her father's house, but here all that could be learned, was learned. When great warriors came to visit her shop or brothel or whatever demeaning actions the Darkness required of her, she learned from them. Fallen warriors they may have been, but still willing to trade a lesson with the sword for a drink of foul mead or unsatisfied coupling. She wallowed in the filth, but she did not become filth. Always, she had a plan, a purpose. She learned the skills of the spear, of the sword. She learned to kill quickly, became less of a whore and more of a foot soldier in one of the senseless armies of Hell.
As a soldier, she learned strategy. She had been in Hell almost a thousand years, when she slew her first demon fighting for a fool of a general in a meaningless battle. Meaningless, except she had slain a demon with her weapons of bronze and crude iron. With that, she discovered the secret of demon's blood, how it made her weapons sharper, her skin more immune to injury, it freed her mind of fear. It would be another century of before she'd tasted that darkfire blood again, but it became easier each time after. She could find a minor demon minion in most battles, and take from him that which gave him power in this place. Power, is the only thing worth fighting for in Hell.
Soon, the generals began to take note of her, until she became a general, and they feared her. The demons too learned, still at times she fell in battle, only to reborn in foul hellcity far her home desert of the infernal sea. Sometimes she would be back in a year, sometimes a decade, but always she returned. Now, she was known as a General of Hells' armies, her weapons were now of silver and steel, her armor the finest in the land. Finest in hell is still crap, but it was the very best crap.
She learned that there are weapons in Hell that are not fragile, that would not break at the most in opportune times. The great Hellbeast that inhabited the eternal desert north of the infernal sea, the things like scorpions of nightmare, with venom that caused flesh to rot in painful fire, with claws that cut through the finest Roman bronze or Byzantine steel. The hellbeast which were mindless demons sent to torment those foolish enough to venture into the endless desert, carried armor and weapon beyond the works of man. The blood of the great Hellbeast was as demon blood, it burned away weakness, pity and doubt. The armor of their skin, would turn any blade, the twenty claws they carried were sharper than any sword known to the world. At first, she sent her men to capture the smallest of the beast, until the men that remained preferred her wrath to the certain death of the endless desert.
By the end of the second millennium of her time in Hell, by her hand and her hand alone she had obtained her armor and weapons. First, taking the smallest of demon scorpions, wounding and waiting until the heat and her relentless pursuit vanquished them. Armed with hellbeast armour, their weapons and her skill, she took larger foe, gained better claws and thicker shells, until only the greatest nightmares of Hell remained for her to conquer.
She had never seen a demon such as this one, where they were creatures of vice and corruption this one seemed somehow, wrong for hell. Its skin was a red, not uncommon for demons but not the bright fresh blood of the demons she knew. It was almost a pleasant tone, of nearly dried blood of old kills. He wore a small pair of wings, that sprouted from his upper arms. Sparkling feathers the seagreen color of the forgotten sea of her childhood, small dancing wings that fluttered and fanned the demon as if they were captured birds attempting to be free.
He had a human face, with eyes that reminded her of the princes that had courted her in her childhood, not the brute her father had traded her as part of his expansion of empire, not like the brute she had killed in manner foul and slow. He had eyes of the bluest sky, her mind strained to remember that sky, not like the foul clouds that covered Satan knows what in the sky of Hell. He looked at her, his silly little wings fanning the heat off of her flesh as his blue eyes looked into hers, and through her. He smiled. “Oh my pretty little princess, time to awaken and see what the day holds”. At first, she thought he was mocking her, surely he was as this was Hell and no day was worth the awakening. She became aware of the chains that bound her to that great soft bed, “Ah”, she thought, “just another demon attempting to take my flesh”. The demon smiled, showing human teeth and red lips, “Oh, my princess, forgive these crude chains, but I was afraid you’d find a way to remove my head from my body before we had a chance to talk. While, it is not the prettiest of heads I know, it does cause me discomfort to have to reattach it to my shoulders.” It smiled, and looked to a point past her eyes, “Ah, but this shall not do, to have our little princess dress in nothing but air and sweat, this shall not do at all. How do I dress you, with the chains that save my poor head, what to do, what to do.” The demon paused, as if thinking, “Ah, a simple solution. I have fine clothing for you, yet I cannot place it on you without removing the chains. So, you give me your word as princess, or as Queen of the endless dessert, or just by your name. Give me your word, that you’ll hear what I am going to do for you, before you find a way to remove my ugly head. Give me your word, that you’ll not strike without fair warning, and I will remove the chains so that you may dress. Pity though, to cover such a form as yours with mere silk and silver, but I am sure that it would be appreciate, yes my guest?” The demon moved a hand to unshackle her bounds, before the Princess has said a word.
Edited by coltom, 06 August 2012 - 08:31 AM.
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I used to want to be a writer
