Poem: King

I don't post poetry here often compared to how much I write it, but this one I wanted to.

Opening a Dialogue; or, It's Been Seven Months Since You Opened My Texts and Your Brother Messaged Me to Say You're Okay but Not Ready to Open Messages Right Now and I Get It but Also I Worry Every Single Day; or, King

1am, I sit hunched over, tears speckling
a page I don't know how to write on.
Loss is something to which I have
become accustomed, this past year
more than ever; in some ways, it
gets easier each time, or at least numb-
ness comes faster. This morning, I
barely cried as I held my dead rat, his
loss a dull ache - but losing you is as
bright and unbearable as ever, a white
flaring pain in my chest. Every time I
approach this poem, the angle seems
to suggest you have died, which isn't
true as far as I know and pray, so I
suppose these words are written into
the universe, that you may one day
read them, and know how much I love
you.

Needing space, I understand; I also
understand being given too much
space, becoming unmoored in it, grow-
ing terrified to accept anyone back
into orbit. I want to promise you that
you can ricochet around me as much
as you need, but I'm terrified my own
atmosphere is so strong the phone
notification will drive you away. More
times than I can count, you have been
my anchor, a rock-solid base, strong
arms to hold everyone's problems. I
know more than anyone how we must
bear our own burdens, but the searing
white pain in my chest tells me to
tell you, I would give up my whole
life to carry your pain for a single
day.

I want to discuss the Sonic movie with
you; the one time I saw you speedrun
the game on an emulator blew my
mind, and I know you'll understand in
a way no one else did my obsession
with Jim Carrey's feral scientist energy.
I want to share Critical Role memes
with you; I'm still thirty episodes behind
but I know all the spoilers, and I don't
want to catch up without you. I want to
thank you, too, for my Christmas pres-
ents, dropped off without a word the
day you left; the Jester fridge magnet
holds my rent agreement in place like
she's holding my whole home together,
and the Fjord bookmark declares the
exact place I got bored of reading a
book on how to write better poetry, an
irony that would be lost on neither of
us.

Maybe my missing you is selfish,
a yearning for your laugh, your solid
presence, your keysmashes at jokes
no one else gets, your beard prickling
on my forehead when you hug me,
your spice-and-warmth smell, your
beautiful gap-teeth - but right now,
what I want more than any of that is
for you to know. That you are loved,
of course. And that you are the funn-
iest person I have ever known. That
you are the kindest, most thoughtful.
That you move through the world
with a quiet confident grace, too
careful to break anything with your
easy strength. That your smile is
the brightest my heart has ever seen.
That I want you back, but more than
that, I want you to be okay. Anchor.
Mountain. Sparrowhawk. Best friend.
King.

Finishing Vol. II

I'm coming to a weird place in Sylv Vol II right now, which is to say, the end - which is to say, not at all the end, but about halfway through in terms of wordcount, but almost the end narratively speaking, which is to say...
Let me explain.

The first full draft of anything like Sylvestus was one 250,000 word novel. Looking at it even then, I knew that it wasn't one novel, though. I write big, and I do believe that there are other stories which could work at that size, but that wasn't the case for Sylvestus. There were too many plot arcs which required too much space and too many resolutions; the entire first 100,000 words were just setting up characters and plots, and while that's fine for Victor Hugo, it's not something I'd be willing to send out into the world; meanwhile, the last 70,000 words was just endings endings endings. No, Sylv was meant to be two novels, so there lay the challenge even before I could start writing Vol I: figuring out how to make that happen.
There was a neat point in the "main" plot which fell about halfway through that first draft, which gave me a starting point, but the rest of it couldn't simply be cut in half and tossed out as it was - like I say, that would be an entire book of character introductions and plot nuggets and then boom, tiger possession, author profile, come back for Vol II. Given that I was so certain that it was meant to be two novels, it was surprisingly damn hard to actually make that the case; I didn't want it to feel like someone had just cut something bigger in half, like this was just a prologue to the real story. I've read novels like that before, and rather than drawing me in and encouraging me to invest in a second purchase like the author/publisher intended, it just left me kinda disappointed and wanting my original money (and five hours of reading) back. Planning out Vol I and Vol II was the most work I've ever put into actually planning story beats in a decade, and it never worked out well for me then. But I knew I had to, and I put in the hard slog of... Like, bad drawings of mountains with vague plot points written on them (idk, we did that in year 5 i think?) and spider diagrams linking plots and characters together, and in the end, bullet point lists, because my brain just really likes bullet point lists, they make things go better. I don't know how much good that actually did, but it at least got me the skeleton of a story: Vol I.

Writing that fucking thing was difficult, y'all.
In some ways, I was going over old territory, and that made it boring. I was re-writing. I tried to copy-paste the bits that could stay the same, but hated my writing from the year before. Alternately, I was completely changing some things, and that was scary. I was either forging new ground with new characters, characters on a completely different angle, plots happening fifty chapters earlier than previous, and all of that was difficult; or I was going over old ground but vaguely trying to make it "better", which was boring (and difficult). Which makes writing Vol I sound horrible, which isn't entirely accurate because I definitely enjoyed it at points, but... Yeah. Sometimes it sucked.
The bits that didn't suck? Those made it worth it. There are two significant sections which are completely new to Vol I from the original story, and those were alternately the most difficult and the most exciting. One was the resolution to a plot arc that had been too rushed and crammed between others in the original draft to get the space it deserved; the other was a large section building on a plot which largely belonged in Vol II, but in being set up this way in Vol I, allows that anticipation to grow from the first book. Does that make sense?

Entering spoiler territory for Sylvestus Vol I: The Fall.

So much of the original draft happened in the second half. Yet so much of the "boring set-up of plots and introduction of characters" in the first half still had to happen.
Chapter one: Sylv steps off the boat. In the original draft, he spends ten chapters just walking around town introducing himself to the powers that will become huge players throughout the book. It was fifteen chapters before Lavi was introduced. Thirty before Nahvo'que is mentioned. I look at that stuff and I'm like, What's even happening in that!? But what's happening there was important enough to 2016 me to spend 100,000 words on it, so I spend days combing through the mush, trying to find the important plot nuggets, digging out shinies that had become buried and forgotten in the trash. Sylv is clever. More clever than me and more clever than the reader. Characters that are mentioned off-handedly in chapter three become the hinge point of chapter sixty. His plans are abstract and should never be clearly defined: there must always be the sense that he's thinking three steps ahead of both the person he's talking to and the reader. The sensible thing would have been to write all these things and plots and names down in an index I could reference when I needed it... But if I do that, I want to like, rip out my eyeballs and scream for a thousand centuries and throw myself into the ocean. I don't know what the curse is, but I can't write that stuff down in neat columns, it just stops the story working. Trust me, I've tried, and it ruins me. This is especially relevant for Sylv: if I try to nail down every second of every one of his plans, it won't work, because he's cleverer than I am. You just have to throw it to him, hold it in your mind, and let it fall into place. So, while I'm studying for a Zoology degree, taking a leading role in a society, rehearsing for shows, volunteering, forging a mess of a social life, drinking too much, and managing severe mental illness, I'm also combing through all this trash I wrote finding the important nuggets and storing them exclusively in my brain and trying to force them into a coherent story.
All of the important stuff in that 100,000 words has to happen, but I have to figure out what that important stuff is, and the trick is, it doesn't have to happen sequentially.
Chapter one: Sylv steps off the boat. In three chapters, he's not only introduced himself to the powers, he's already cracking deals with all of them, setting up the inevitable triple-betrayal he will play, and he's also meeting characters he didn't previously meet until forty chapters in. Lavi swings into chapter six, Nahvo'que is there one chapter later, but surprise! He's actually been there since chapter four, if you were paying attention. There can be no fluff and filler; every moment spent on characterisation must also be building plot, every seeming pause to take in the scenery contains details that will be important later, and right from the start, the tension is building. Chapter one: Sylvestus Atrox Nigrum would die on this island. Nothing Sylv hadn't done before.
That's it. That's the key to the story. There's the hook for the reader. Keep that tension. Don't let it drop. A huge cast of characters, keep them coming, keep the tension high, introduce more plates, keep them all spinning.
It's clever. It's working. It's not perfect, it'll still take months (and it turned out actually to be years) of editing, but the story is forming.

Y'ALL. It was fucking difficult.

But it worked. Eventually. Sylvestus Vol I: The Fall is done, and it's not just the first half of a chopped-up big story, it's not just a prologue, it stands on its own while maintaining arcs which have yet to be resolved, links to the second story in the saga.

Crack your knuckles. Work on Scavengers for a bit. Do some shitty promo videos for facebook.
Start Vol II.

And actually? Surprisingly fucking easy in comparison.
Not easy, because it's writing a novel, and not just any novel, but a good one, and some would argue even more daunting, because it has to resolve everything, it can't skate by on leaving some strings untied, it has to finish the story perfectly, and this time it has expectations, people waiting for it...
But for me, really?
Easier than Vol I. The simplest reason, I think, is that all the good stuff of the original draft was in the second half. And while large sections of story were brought forward chronologically, those tended to be the ones which had been badly dealt with in the first place and needed the revamp. For instance, the betrayal and fall of Aemilius Germanus, the lecherous brothel-owner and rival to inn-owner and smuggler, Modius Capito. First draft, their feud lasts the entire story, but... Well... Not much really happened, until the end, when Sylv did his thing, no Vol II spoilers, and then it was all resolved but actually not really, it was kinda shoved between two bigger resolutions from other plots, which is weird because Aemilius had been a huge player through the story so far but then he just kinda... Vanished. A quick "also Aemilius was swindled out of his money and died penniless idk" footnote with a note to myself to flesh it out later.
If you've read Vol I (and i fuckin hope u have bc otherwise what are u doing here, smh, this was marked as spoilers! buy the book and come back when u've read it), you're probably like, whuuuut, 'cos the betrayal and fall of Aemilius is the entire. Main. Conflict. Of the second half of Vol I.
Yeah. Exactly. All of that feud had to be condensed into Vol I, and the tension had to be built properly, which meant a bunch of other little climaxes, and that involved tying other things together, bringing in new characters or fleshing out old ones, and the tension builds in the bathhouse scene and you don't know which one is going to be betrayed, you hope it's Aemilius but shit it might be Capito, how can you trust Sylv really, he's been driving Capito into the ground bullying Pulex, oh wait is THAT why that was mentioned two chapters ago, and there's the symbolism of the bathhouse when you think about Sylv's conversation with Velleius in chapter sixteen, and then even when it does reach its climax, betrayal and double-betrayal and poison and honey-cakes, hey fuckos, remember, this story isn't about Aemilius, because it's not over yet: it's Nahvo'que time.

... Where was I?

Yeah, so like. All that stuff was new. And fun, but difficult, because it had to work and I was writing from scratch but also rewriting bad stuff, and making a full story with its own resolutions out of... You get the idea.
Then there's Vol II. Starting it was difficult, because effectively I'm doing the opposite of Vol I: then, I had to make 100,000 words of beginnings into a cohesive, quality story; now, I'm turning 70,000 words of endings into a cohesive, quality story. And wait a second, that's only 170,000 words, what about the other 80,000!?
I don't know. I don't know what happened to them. They're in there somewhere. There's so much.
There's stuff in Vol I - plot resolutions - that didn't happen until the end of the original draft. In novel-time, we're talking that if it starts at the beginning of October, this stuff wasn't happening until the next August: when Vol I is published, that stuff - for example, the betrayal of Aemilius - is happening in February. I can't just look at the original draft and pick up where I left off when I finished that story, because although the "main plot" midpoint and ending of Vol I (tiger possession ajayi sacrifice partially freed nahvo'que) happens at the beginning of March, the next chapter in that draft is something that can't happen in March because it comes after something that in my new story-beat plan isn't going to happen until like May...
Oh, yeah, and the Romans only had nine 28-day months in their calendar, and we literally don't know what they did with the remaining hundred-or-so days. Some historians claim they did have three more months we just lost them. Some think they just kind of universally went into a seasonal depression through winter and stopped having months then picked them up again in March. Some claim this caused the invention of leap years. Some claim Julius Caesar fixed it by introducing three more months. Or made it worse! Apparently, even after he fixed the calendar, the calendar-keepers just fucked up for like fifty years before they noticed and fixed it again! If I stick with the canon of Vol I by keeping Sylv set in 43 AD, then some historians claim February doesn't exist yet, but I already mentioned it and the book is published now and oh fuck oh shit what am i doing oh no i can't do this what am i doing why am i what's happening fuck-

... Soooooooooooo, the draft of the first few chapters of Vol II is kind of weak at the moment, because it is just kind of "fuck me i don't know just start writing and the plot will happen". Which, to be entirely fair, did work. We start by picking up one of the plot threads that got left hanging at the end of Vol I, then quickly introduce an entirely new one (actually, the new one gets introduced in that first chapter, but it's one of those subtle clever ones ssshhhh), aaand we're moving.
It moves fast. And it still sucks sometimes and drags and some bits are rubbish and I'm just slogging through trying to get something on paper I can edit and make good later - but compared to Vol I, it's literally a dream. Why? Because I'm almost exclusively going over old territory, and that old territory is good. Unlike with Vol I, I no longer have the desire to copy-paste old bits, even the bits I thought were good at the time; too much has changed, there's too many small details that can be lost and my writing has evolved too much. But I have the beats clearly planned out, and it gives me something to hold onto. It's the closest I've come to having a written-out plan of the story structure - except that sitting down in advance and writing down every single thing that's going to happen doesn't work for me, and the written-out story structure is actually a 250,000 word first draft, y'know.
I've gotten into a pattern writing Vol II: I write ~7500 words in the space of three days as I hit a story beat, a plot climax or resolution, an event from the original draft I liked and have been looking forward to revisiting; and then I write ~2000 words in the space of three weeks as I slog through the connective tissue. The bulk of editing is going to be making sure that it doesn't feel like that for the reader, that the down-time is as enjoyable as the thrilling climaxes, and in making sure that the whole of Vol II doesn't feel like leaping from peak to peak, but at least I'm moving through that first (or, I guess second) draft at a fair pace.
Some things are still taking me by surprise, in a good way; I tweaked one small thing, which is actually one huge thing, just yesterday re-writing an important scene. I did this because the story I am writing now is not the same story, for several reasons, that I wrote several years ago. Sylv is not the same person he was in that draft. I am not the same person writing him. It was a few lines, the fate of one character who has no bearing whatsoever on the story after the climax of their arc. And that difference was everything. That difference is why I love the story I am writing.

I always reach this point, really, toward the end of a story. I rarely start out with the end planned (that just don't make a good story), but by about a third of the way through, I'll have the idea, and by two-thirds I'll have all the major beats between here and there planned out - in my head, if never on paper. I can skip through them, still hitting those hard-slog weeks, but otherwise leaping toward that conclusion, never letting it feel rushed, being respectful of the space it needs to grow, but nonetheless with my eyes set on the goal.
I've got that feeling now, which I guess just feels weird because I'm, in terms of expected word-count, about halfway through. And it won't be completely clear from here - I have no delusions about that. And when this draft is done, there's still hundreds of hours of editing to go, never mind formatting and publishing and promoting... Ugh.
But from my eight years of novel-writing, I am trying to learn to celebrate those victories for what they are: ding dang impressive victories, not just lame stepping stones toward the real (unachievable) goal.
It's scary and it's introspective, especially in this ~globally uncertain time~. Sylv has been a huge part of me for so long, always will be, and I get a little clench of fear at the thought of... Letting him go. So in a sense, it's comforting to know how far I have to go yet.
But every chapter I write, I feel like I'm not only making progress, I'm leaping forward. It's like, if I do another 2000 words today, then tomorrow I'll be closer toward that next big plot point, and that's, what, 15,000 words of content, and then a little filler to tie up those smaller points and introduce this nugget for the very last section, then we're onto that plot point oh that one's my FAVOURITE, we're so close to that, that'll be a lot to write but I'll blast through it, and then it's... Well, then it's really the home stretch, because then it's just that then that then...
Then the end. Sylv's end. The first chapter is the epilogue, after all. Sylvestus Atrox Nigrum would die on this island.

Nothing we haven't done before.

Reading - Each Separate Dying Ember

Today's reading comes from Each Separate Dying Ember, specifically the first few chapters because they're fairly short (i was going to pick my favourite section and do a reading from there instead but i was in a weird headspace about reading my old stuff after the last post, plus there's a lot of complex world-building that'd probs make later chapters just Weird).

I forgot to mention in the video, but it comes with a content warning of gore (not super-graphic, but if you're squicky about blood then it's worth bearing in mind) in all three of the chapters. The book as a whole tackles violent queerphobia and racism, though these are only touched on in the early chapters. The video also features a warning of me doing bad voices, for which I have no excuse other than that the three PoV characters all speak in first person, and I tend to naturally slip a little more into character for them, but not especially well (speech impediment + speech therapy = what am accents).
Regardless, please enjoy! The video and transcript are below, as usual; follow the page at facebook.com/EachSeparateDyingEmber for more content like this, and buy your own copy at bit.ly/dyingember.



Transcript:

Hiya, welcome back! If this is your first video, then I am Tatiana Webb, and I'm just gonna be doing some readings from my books and things to keep people entertained - and hopefully sell some copies, eyy. (laughs) Uhh, if you're tuning back in, great, uh, I know I said I'd take one day off, and then it turned into three days off, I uh just wanted to give everyone a chance to catch up on the content, didn't wanna zip through it too quickly, and like... I have depression. Sometimes you just don't... Do things... For three days.
So, today, as promised, we're gonna be doing a reading from the first three chapters - but they're short chapters - of Each Separate Dying Ember. This was my book published in... Late 2016, early 2017, umm... It's about winged people, y'know, think of that stereotypical idea of an angel except they're definitely not, I don't like that comparison actually but it's easiest to explain, or like the Maximum Ride books - living in a... Kind of modern, semi-dystopian city, the whole world state is a little bit different, some big changes, it was a really fun one for exploring worldbuilding, actually, uh... Yep, so, it's a couple of years old now, still pretty good, I believe the original description was: "it's about bird people fighting racism, capitalism, homophobia, and each other". So, if you're interested in your own copy you can head to bit.ly/dyingember, all one word all lowercase, or find the Facebook page and look out there. Obviously I still have my other novel, Sylvestus Vol I: The Fall, bit.ly/SylvVol1.
Okay, I'm gonna get straight into it, like I said there's gonna be three chapters, this is because there are three point of view characters and their first chapters are quite short, however this probably still will be a longer video than the other ones. I actually probably will take a break, so I'm not doing the really annoying thing with my really loud water bottle like I keep doing.
Okay, we're gonna get into it, Each Separate Dying Ember... Heres we go. Have you noticed, I've got a nice real book this time, so we can have... Turny-page sounds.

Daneel

I see the boy that I shot a week later.

He's standing, leaning casually against the sheer grey stone wall of a building, and he doesn't see me - or if he does, he doesn't recognise me.

He's talking to someone, another boy, grinning - a wicked slash of the lips with a little too much sharp teeth. My body presses against Kamar's automatically - he glances down at me, but he doesn't seem to realise why I'm doing it. He thinks I'm just afraid of the Short-Wings; as my hand goes to find his, he puts his arm around my shoulder and laughs. The sound is short and low.

"Naw, Dany, don't tell me you still afraid of them? You already been through the Prelim - my li'l sister as can shoot a guy don't need to be afraid of no Shorts."

But I don't look at him - I can't take my eyes off the face of the boy. I can't stop picturing those sharp, grinning teeth turned pink by the blood bubbling up through his lips, can't get rid of the image of his bare chest, short but stocky, shattered splinters of bone and blood in the ragged red hole in his chest. Can't make myself stop seeing the look - somewhere between shock, sudden fear, and something like laughter - as he raised his eyes to mine, and bit his tongue at me as he died. You're not supposed to see anyone after that - or at least, there's not much of a chance of it. Hundreds of people can be in a Prelim at any one time, and it's a big city - and I guess if people do pass each other, they don't really think about it, don't really recognise the person they just killed or were killed by.

But I recognise him, recognise his butchered mess of dark hair and his dangerously bright eyes and his grinning teeth. His feathers, ruffled and battered and some of them broken, seem lighter in the daylight - more of the dusty fawn of his child's markings than the slate grey they'll be after the next moult.

He shifts where he stands, reaching into his pocket to retrieve something, and his wings shift in balance, one of them stretching out; beneath them, inside the middle covert, the feathers are thick and pale - unclipped. Almost subconsciously, I feel my shoulders stirring, whole body tensing as if in response to seeing the unclipped Short-Wing on the other side of the street - but Kamar's hand tightens a little on my shoulder when he senses the shifting under his arm, and I look down and away almost guiltily.

I don't tell him why I can't stop staring at the boy.

The Prelim doesn't matter. Nothing you do ever makes it out. Whatever happens, it isn't... It isn't real.

But as I think again of the blood bubbling up from his lips, my eyes are going to the boy again, and I can't look away except to stare at my feet and try to get rid of the image.

Jedekiah

Ezekiel is talking, but I ain't really listening. It's automatic to nod and grunt, and when he gives a little laugh I snort, but I'm thinking about the Prelim and the thought won't go away.

She couldn't have been more than maybe sixteen, and that's pushing it because she looked younger, and all the skin I could see was bare - unclipped, and no tattoos. I'd guess she'd never been in a Prelim before, either - she was scared. Sure, I was trying to slash her throat open, but that's what the Prelim's for and you don't go there unless you're ready for it - but I didn't think I'd ever get beat by a Long in her first Prelim, and not a kid one. All right, Longs can be fierce and they're fast, but they've no stamina and they think too hard - but I guess for her that kind of worked out all right. Still, the look in her eyes when she fired a bullet straight into my chest, I guess she won't be going back any time soon.

It's a little close to the Flats here - still in the middle-ground, but I wouldn't walk here in the dark. Or I would, but I'd keep my hand on my knife the whole time. Ezek's clearly thinking the same; he glances over his shoulder, at the tall Long and his little sister passing on the other side of the street, and shifts uneasily on his feet. He's all right, is Ezek, as long as he's on the pouncing side - but he doesn't like to get jumped. Good job for him we're near Short-Wing territory, and there's still a few hours of daylight left.

"Up for a cast?" I grin, my smile a slash of the lips filled with too much tooth and smirk, and I light up as he deliberates - but I know what his answer will be.

Like I say, Ezek's good when he's pouncing. And if you're doing the pouncing, then it's less likely that you're going to get pounced.

So he nods, and after just a few breaths I crush the light under my heel, and shrug off the wall.

We could cast off right here, but I can't be arsed with the effort of a standing start, so with a tilt of my head down the street I set off, me and him striding almost side by side. He falls behind me automatically; the buildings on either side are tall and the darkness reaches down to us. I click my tongue twice, and he offers back one and pulls up closer next to me. As we move along the street, two Shorts with our wings just raised, mostly curled with the primaries touched by the ever so slightest breeze, the few people remaining on the street fade, almost imperceptibly, away.

But the end of the street isn't our goal; after just a few moments, we step sideways, as one, into a shallow alleyway hidden in the dank darkness of the grey buildings. As we turn, my hands flick up and toss the hood over my head, and in a moment Ezek has done the same. Then, with dark wings and dark jackets, we are the shadows - only visible from the slight movements occasionally perceived flickering in the depths of the shadow.

Like I say, we're not far from Short-Wing turf, so it's hardly ten minutes of quick walking before we're nearer familiar ground - the Steppes.

My gaze turns up to the myriad of buildings staggered above us. Hardly any two are the same height, and each is a slightly different shade of dusky grey or dusty charcoal or off-brown - they could be mountains if the tops weren't all flat and the sides all rigid. That's what we call them: the Steppes. Or the Steps, if you can't spell, but seeing as the Broad-Wings have their own Steps, we try not to get them confused. We have the Steppes, they have the Steps - and the Long-Wings got the Flats.

Each one suits each of us perfectly; they can have them. Our short, strong wings wouldn't be able to handle a gliding flight over those empty plains, and their long, pointy feathers would get stuck in the tightly-packed Steppes - yeah, we stick where we belong. But even though we're in familiar ground now, I don't relax - not a bit. Ezek seems a little relieved just to be out of the way of the Longs, but he knows well enough that we're a hazard to each other as much as we are to them. So we carry on, strides long and intentional, eyes on the ground, faces concealed by hoods and hands in pockets. And our wings, just like everyone else's, remain just out enough to show that we're unclipped - except the people who aren't. They walk with their wings folded tight against their backs, scowling at the ground, not even bothering to try their swag until they get their coverts back.

But even though we can cast off easier now, we don't - not yet. Instead, the two of us keep straight on, passing under the depths of shadow between the buildings until we come to Flixton. Outside the door, Gad is leant back, smoking - easily casual, but with his eyes watching every person who goes past. When he sees us he nods and flicks the ash off the end of his light; Ezek ducks past him and into the door, but I stop, leaning opposite for a moment, sniffing and rolling one shoulder.

I don't even have to ask, but then I already knew the answer. He's on stand, so he'll stay here for the rest of the night - but he'll tell the others where we are. So, with a little click, I duck into the doorway after Ezek, into the warm gloom.

Ezek's already got them riled; within the minute most of the crew have stubbed out their lights, grabbed any kit they need, and trampled toward the stairs. As one laughing, shoving rush we move up; I slip in amongst them, snapping and clicking and hollering, batting Ben on the back of the head and tripping up Micah. With a shout, he grabs at my leg as he falls, and I kick him away with a laugh, bating to keep my balance on one leg. Someone yells as they get a mouthful of feather, and a couple more of the crew have to catch themselves on the walls of the narrow staircase or bate, hard, as everyone falls and pushes and kicks around.

Somehow, we make it to the stop of the stairs - and that's when it really starts.

With the time it took to get up here, the sky's already turned to a deep, infinite cobalt above us. No stars yet, just endless blue.

East and north we turn, a dark mass of feather and limb, more to the centre, where he buildings get thick and the Steppes start to turn into the CBD - still pushing and shouting and laughing, we cast off from the edge of the low building, erupting into the red and gold sky.

On the edge of the horizon the sun's still glowing, just about - you can hardly see it from this angle, with all the Steppes blocking out the light, but it definitely is. All those bright, glimmering rays dance and lance around and highlight rough, tousled feathers and bare shoulders and dark, glossy hair. Kicking off hard, with an eruption of beating wings we launch into the sky. The calls echo across the streets.

This is it: a cast. That's what we prefer to call it, because this - the beginning, the cast itself - is the best bit. The eagerness; the laughing and the clapping and the clicking; the companionship and expectation and challenge.

And as we go we'll toss around and kick about a bit, but as we rise into the sky and leap from building to building we'll start to go silent. Our eyes will glow in the gloom from the edge of rooftops, and our rustling feathers will be heard as we pass, unbidden, overhead, and our gestures will go seen only be each other around the ranks. We will be focused - intent.

Because that's what this is: a cast. A hunt. And that's what we are: hunters. Predators.

And someone's probably going to die tonight.


North

I am going to kill Clay when this is over. I am going to go up to him and take hold of his throat and shake it from side to side until he is dead. No - I'm being foolish.

I can't strangle him. A knife will be quicker.

"Save it for the Prelim," Pike rumbles, and with a nervous sound that isn't really a laugh I push my glasses up my nose. They slip back down almost immediately. I do not have a nose that works with my glasses.

I would save my violent feelings toward Clay for the Prelim, if a) I took part in the Prelim; b) I could actually ever beat Clay in a fair fight like the Prelim; or c) we wouldn't come out of the Prelim in exactly the same scenario as before, except that I had killed him (or, more likely, been killed). Excellent moral dilemma, the Prelim, always a popular with the school debating teams - thank goodness it's less popular around here than down in the other parts of the city. The school I went to was mostly Broad-Wings, and we all kept the same safe and promised opinion about the Prelim. Brutal. Not good. Encourages violence. But well, half of those kids went home and dreamt about their first Prelim anyway, just because... You know. Childhood hypocrisy and the innocence of the given opinion.

Very interesting moral dilemma. Excellent stance for debate on both sides. Unlike this. This is not an interesting dilemma, or indeed much of a debate. Any debate has a very strong opinion on this.

Bad. Baddy bad. Badder than a bad badman with a bad fashion-sense in Badville.

Bad. Adjective. Not good in any manner or degree; having a wicked character or moral; inadequate, incorrect or faulty.

Very clear. People are very clear about bad and this is very very very bad.

"Shut up, North."

"D-didn't say a- a word, Pike."

"You were thinking far too much. It was annoying me."

I open my mouth to try and reply, decide it isn't worth the effort, and push my glasses up again with a sigh. Pike looks up and down the darkened street, each way, then shifts a little uncomfortably, though his wings remain pressed against his sides.

It's mid-June, so his coverts will be growing back soon - but it's clear to see for anyone who knows what a clipped wing looks like, and he still can't fly properly. His plumage is the dark outside and dappled white inside of rough-legged buzzard - common enough that he could get the primaries splinted easily.

Bad? Technically bad, but... It's not as if getting splinted after being clipped has a high rate of moral deviation compared to, say, what we’re doing right now.

Pike, I know, would also feel safer with the full function of all his capacities - but at least there's a fair few of us. Clay got the message a few days ago, and Pike and Bay weren't happy. Pike still isn't, but in the end Bay caved so... Here we are. Except Clay. Pike said it's unsecured, public, and suspicious. And he's clipped. And Clay is otherwise engaged. All in all, not ideal.

But it's not like we're really deep into Short territory or anything. Really, we're still in our land. Just a little near the border. Just really near the CBD and all the trouble and it's getting really dark really quickly and why are we still stood around here we should be going really quickly and oh God oh God oh God—

"Shut up, North."

"S-sorry, P-Pike, but- but-- why d-do I have to c- to carry the p-package, any- anyway?"

Normally I'm not this bad, but tonight...

"Oh," he says blackly, turning to me with a heavy scowl. "Would you rather carry this?"

And he pushes the pistol into my stomach, grip-first, so the barrel's in his palm. I flinch, staring down at the black plastic – it drains the warmth from my stomach through my coat, I swear - and with a grunt Pike takes it back and pushes it back into his belt.

Yes, I would very much rather not be holding a gun - a very illegal, very dangerous, very shoot-y kill-y gun - however I would also rather not be holding... This. In fact, scrap that; I would rather not be here at all. I would like to be back at 31 Hazelcrest Road, finishing my Edgar Allen Poe collection, or even helping Clay to plan something else though really even that isn't looking so great right now. Although compared to here... So I would rather not be carrying the package, close to the border of Short-Wing territory, waiting for someone to turn up who isn't appearing and should have done quite a while ago, on a dark and cold and moonless night way more ominous than it should be in June. But, on the other hand, I would also not rather be holding the gun, or have my wings clipped, or be in the middle of Short-Wing territory, or, I don't know, be in the Disciplines, so really it's not looking that bad although we're all probably still going to die oh God—

Pike tenses, his shoulders tightening in the corner of my vision, and I spin the way he's looking as my feet pull me back against the wall. The others have all turned into the darkness, and several hands move surreptitiously toward their belts. For several seconds, there is silence. Then:

"Be at peace, fratres. If this is a fair deal then you have nothing to fear."

"It is a fair deal," Bay calls from further down the darkness next to me. His voice rings down the street where the other sounds whisper from between buildings.

"Then you have nothing to fear."

Smiling, the figure steps forward and from the shadows across the street emerge six or seven dark-clad figures. They step toward our men, shoulders tense and eyes wary, but the man at the front is still smiling broadly. He shakes hands first with Bay, then Pike, who moves to meet him. Then, he nods to me. I tense, going very still except for a series of rapid hitching of breaths, and Pike gestures me forward - though Bay holds out his hand to stop me after just a few steps. Uncertain, I glance between them; Pike does not override him.

The man raises his eyebrows, and Bay nods first to me, then him. "Money for gear. Nice, equal, and easy."

"But of course," smiles the stranger. He's wearing a suit, black and grey. It looks a bit out of place in the dank streets of the CBD, even in the dark. I wonder if I might see him around our territory proper.

I really don't want to.

He waves forward one of his men, who carries a box, broad and flat but covered with the same black cloth as mine. Bay obviously trusts him because he doesn't ask for it to be opened before they're swapped, and the same for the man - or maybe they both just want to get the hell out of here. I do too. Thank heavens for trust and open honesty. Clay will roll his eyes and tell Pike there was nothing to worry about and everything will be fine.

The man with the box passes it to the man in the suit, who holds it out not quite enough for Bay to reach it.

He drops as a black weight throws itself down upon him.

There is a single moment of shock because it's kind of like, Excuse me, but what the hell just happened? - and then the black mass rises and becomes a dark-skinned boy with shifting, unclipped dark-feathered wings, grinning and holding the knife dripping with the man in the suit's blood.

Which is when the rest of them leap down, not as silent as him because they're all laughing and whooping and jeering and shouting and clicking their tongues, and the men opposite shout out and run and our men start to yell and try to reach for their guns and a few shots echo, almost indistinguishable from the cacophony of yells and cries and the laughs of the Short-Wings that split through the quiet early summer air with that odd chill in it not quite right for this time of year...

Short-Wings. We're Broad-Wings and our business partners are - were - Broad-Wings, so these must be Shorts.

And only Shorts bound from the sky with knives flying and laughter echoing and feet hitting pavement and feathers splattered with scarlet blood black in the darkness.

My fingers fumble on the package. I turn but it's everywhere and there's a sick thundering in my ears. It's so dark and everyone is so indistinguishable from each other that all I can see is a series of writhing masses - men standing around a body kicking and jumping, someone pressing someone with a knife against the edge of a building, a gun being kicked out of its hand and across the street, blood bubbling up between Pike's teeth as his gun goes off, the shot echoing into the sky.

It seems to go on forever.

Bang.

The Short-Wing steps away from him. His chest is bare - stocky, muscled, ink scrawling lazily across abdomen, arms, collar. Around us is screaming and death and blood. Death.

My eyes focus on the calm unfurling of a black fern that wraps itself in a careful dance up his left arm, from his wrist to his shoulder and around to his elbow. It's pretty. There's an arrow on the point of his keel that makes a sharp line up to his throat. Further down, a jagged sun glares out across the desert of his ribs and stomach. There are more - he has taken part in many Disciplines. I want to focus on them but I can't make my eyes keep looking when he starts to move.

He's only carrying a knife - no gun. He doesn't even pick up Pike's when his foot bumps against it. He grins at me, a cheeky, boyish slash of teeth and glittering eyes that shine out in the dark in the way you imagine an animal's eyes must when you point a torch into the darkness and find it staring back at you.

The ringing has quieted. I don't think I can hear anything, actually: everything is quiet. He makes as if to turn away - as if killing me would be so easy it wouldn't even be worth the fun. But then his eyes catch sight of the package I'm still clinging onto as if it might act as a shield, as if it will keep out the screams, and suddenly his gaze is brighter and his smile is fiercer and something like a cackling laugh is bubbling up between his lips.

White noise explodes.

Oh God.

 
I'm gonna pause... While I drink my water.
I'm literally so glad I discovered the pause button, because it means I can just... Drink... Like a person. And it's great.
Yeah, so there you go, that was the first three chapters of Each Separate Dying Ember, uhh... Still pretty dark! I apparently don't write light things, at least as my first couple of chapters of things. Uhhh...
Yeah, if you're interested in Dying Ember... bit.ly/dyingember all lowercase one word.
If there was a bit of a hiccup in the middle of that video I apologise, I really goofed up reading something and I didn't wanna like, go back and repeat it and be awkward, so I just- and I didn't wanna re-record the whole video, so I just paused and then tried to edit it out, um... But I didn't put much effort into it because I didn't want this video to be late... I...
There's gonna be another one of these in probably two days, let me know... What you'd like it to be. Comment, like, share, all that stuff, thank-you very much, hope you had a good time.