So you’re feeling bad about your writing.

Hey. You. Psst.

Yeah, you. The guy/gal about to mow down your entire manuscript with the backspace key. The one ladling the sweet, sweet gravy of emotional self-abuse over your head as you delete your NaNo account/blog/Scrivener program/gdoc archive.

I’m talking to you.

You’re a smart, talented, funny person (suppress your self-loathing for a moment, sweetie, it’s OK) with a great story idea. Maybe it’s a novel; maybe it’s a short story or a poem or an epic ten-volume saga but whatever it is, you sit down to write. Next thing you know, you’re 4 chapters/3 pages/2 paragraphs/1 sentence in and already picking it over, wringing your hands at how awful it looks.

You give up. Despair comes. You eat an entire bag of candy by yourself in the living room with the lights off and when your spouse/child/mom/neighbor/cat comes in you cover your face and shriek “DON’T LOOK AT MEEEEEE.”

This is not a thing that has to happen.

I know it’s hard to see what your own forest looks like when you’re sitting at your desk, glaring at the trees. I have trees in my words, too. I poke at them and prod them and occasionally bust them into smithereens with hatchets and sometimes I even hate them. I know what it’s like to have a hate-on for your own creation. I understand you.

I also believe that most of the time–the vast majority of the time–it’s worth pushing through and getting that idea OUT of your mind and ONTO the whitespace.

Listen up, because this is important.

You can fix it later.

This part, the creation process, is all about putting the skeleton on the paper.

Your idea might end up with weird fleshy bits and extra butts and a Michael Jackson nose but you’ll have the bones of a story. Once those are in place, you can start the lipo and reconstructive surgery and the hater gravy–within reason–can flow freely once more.

Until then, press on. Give your story the chance it deserves.

More importantly, take it easy on yourself. That awesome idea came out of your brain. Cut it some slack.

Whispers After Dark

I love the enthusiastic celebration of the eerie, the creepy, the surreal and the strange that goes hand-in-hand with Halloween. When I was little I got my hands on a copy of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz. The tales themselves were worth a chill or three to my prepubescent spine but it was the illustrator that took it over the top with gems like this: 

 

Nice image to impress upon a young and fertile mind, no? I had to unfocus my eyes and cautiously check each new page, covering up any pictures with my hand and then–slowly, AFTER reading the passage–spread my fingers apart to reveal the horrors beneath. I think I understood even then that some things are just too brain-meltingly scary to take in all at once. Little bites, my darlings. Little bites.

 

I’m taking this opportunity to dig up (ha, get it? Dig up? Work with me, people) some macabre and creepy stories of  my own, both new and old. Remember Libby’s nightmare? I guarantee you she does…or rather she would, if she were still alive.

 

 

[Excerpt from The Tree, originally posted here 11/30/10]

*  *  *

Libby began to see the fox in her sleep. It invariably darted into the bushes as before, and Libby invariably took off after it, assuming a sleek feline form as she chased it over the hills of Feralas into the misty northern forests. Every dream was identical to the last and realistic down to the feeling of cold, damp grit under her paws as she ran.Wait for me, she called out in the chilly air, and always the response came singing back to her flattened ears.

Come, there is much to be done. Come, the Mother is calling.

Morning would find the druid scrubbing frantically at the pots, the floors, what meager rugs they’d brought out to their home in the wilds. The beat of her heart mimicked the rhythm of her frantic plea.

Mother, hear me.
Are you there?

More than once she caught herself staring blankly north. Always north; this began to feel of supreme significance to her, that if only she could find a proper northern path she would emerge in some hallowed ring of earth, to be greeted by the Mother Herself. Her daily forages took her on paths that drifted inexorably toward the great cliffs that divided Feralas from her northern sister, Desolace.

In a breathtakingly brief span of time she’d convinced herself that it was only right that Desolace held the key to her restoration. It was, after all, her homeland. Where better to connect to the spirits than to the very soil which saw her greeted into this world?

So, when one day the fox appeared on her path, looking expectantly at her with those gold-rimmed yellow eyes, she twitched and fell into the well-worn course of her daily dream.Over the hills, cross the road, under the canopy of enormous trees they ran, sleek black cat tailing bushy red fox, neither winded even at the point they reached the forbidding pillars of the desolate gate.

The lush greenery of Feralas quickly gave way to ruined, ash-like soil as they crossed the border into demon’s territory. They kicked up tiny plumes of gray dust, they bounded over stones and dodged roving guards, they skirted pools of viscous purple fluid that were once ponds teeming with life.

Libby began to slow. The fox took note of this and paused to watch her trot along until she got close, then bounded ahead. They continued in that fashion for an hour before they came upon a deep ravine lined with stunted trees and the corpses of lesser vegetation. Another pool of burbling demonic fluid lurked below. It was there on the shore of that sluggish puddle that the fox came to a final stop and waited patiently for the druid to catch up.

When at last the sleek, panting black cat reached the creature, she had to fight the urge to lie down and rest. Instead she circled the yellow-eyed beast and sniffed tentatively at its fur. She could smell nothing but the overwhelming odor of fel taint from the scummy pond and the sour ashy dust that seemed to lie over everything here.

You have come.

At the sound of that voice, a new and powerful hope sprang up within Libby’s heart. She lay down on the filthy earth and whined with her tail lowered.

You are needed, my daughter.

An unseen hand shoved her forcibly out of shifted form; the cat was now a groveling black tauren with her waist-length braids trailing in the dirt. Her hair and short black fur, matted and wet with sweat, were painted with powdery gray streaks of dust and dirt. It filled her nose and left gritty poison on her tongue.

“Please, Earthmother, tell me how to serve you. I humble myself before you, instruct me!”

You will serve me here, little one. The dead foliage began to groan and rustle, whipping about as though caught in some tumultuous wind.

This place was once a beautiful grove, my daughter. You will purify and restore it.

“Every day of my life, Oh Earthmother, I swear it! Only grant me the means to do so and I will be your humble servant for the rest of my days!”

So be it, said the magnificent voice, and there came a crackling sound from the earth. The sky dumped a torrent of rain on her head and soaked her to the bone in an instant; the little fox fled to a boulder nearby and observed the terrifying scene with its watchful yellow eyes.

Clumps of blackened, twisted briers uprooted themselves and limped along on their stumps; a hollow sapling dripping with violet ooze creaked and groaned as it lifted itself from the earth and set its witchy dead branches toward the prone druid, inching forward one root at a time.

Libby felt fear welling up inside her and cried out for the spirits of the earth to keep her safe. If any heard or answered, she could not tell. Her hooves began to itch. Rising up to her knees, she tried to stand and was unable; a frantic glance revealed gnarled roots growing out of her feet, her legs gone hard and dry up past the ankle. It spread. All at once her entire body itched with searing intensity. She scratched at her skin only to find that it cracked under her fingers, splintering as it slowly petrified from the ground up.

She began to scream.

The foul rain streaming down in buckets filled her screaming mouth and threatened to drown her; it turned the powdered earth into a sinking, stinking cesspool of sticky mud. Her calves and knees began to sink into it. Roots burst out of her legs with painful force and buried themselves in the quickening mud, planting her solidly into the earth from the knees down.

Leaning forward to brace her hands on the earth, she used her last ration of coherence to try pulling her legs out of the sucking mud. She could get no purchase. The ground was too soft and her hands sunk in to the wrists. Meanwhile the brambles had finishing their lurching trek across the stormy ravine; they coiled themselves around her thighs and arms, yanked her hands up out of the mud and twined between her fingers. In spite of her vigorous struggle, they were able to pull her arms up over her head, curling about her face and throat as they did so. When her spine finally snapped erect she was solid from the neck down and could no longer move anything but her eyes.

The animated sapling reached her and sank into the dead mire before her. As the brambles lashed the pair together, the druid’s frozen face and body fused to the dead bark of the tree with thousands of mind-breaking crackling sounds. She was still screaming silently when her braids turned into vines that lashed about in the storm.

Fit for a King

I’ve had a stupid posting block since arriving in Oregon, so brace yourself, I’m posting some random dorky stuff I wrote just to knock the cobwebs loose. Yes, they rhyme:

Fit for a King

Once there was a king who lived so very far away
His crown was made of silver and his beard was long and gray
One day he went to table and upon it was a pie
He set his knife upon it and I will not tell a lie
A flock of buzzards tumbled out and flew up to the sky.

Y-O-U

Life is less boring when you are around,
and when it’s too quiet you’re my favorite sound,
if I can’t have the world, well, I guess that you’ll do,
everything’s just a bit better with you.

Millions of Guppies

Still packing. Still going insane, one box at a time. Ethan’s going to school every day to preserve some sense of normalcy (in this family? Ha!) so my evenings are not only full of packing, but homework. It’s okay. I’ll survive. Just have to keep moving, keep breathing, keep packing–one box at a time.

I kinda envy how little the move is affecting him so far. Even though his dad is about to go out on contract for another year, Ethan’s cruising along, playing games, making friends, and reading books. Not that I’m complaining. Every time he picks up a book of his own volition I squeal on the inside, clamping a lid on my glee as though he were a timid deer in the forest and one wrong move would cause him to bound away with a fwip of his contrary tail. Yes, little boy. You read those books. They’ll be some of your best friends.

Last Friday night I was raiding when bedtime rolled around. See, when I raid, I don’t have time for the usual bedtime story ritual unless I remember to start it an hour before he’s supposed to go to bed. I didn’t remember, and neither did he. “We’ll read together tomorrow,” I told him. “Can I read a book to Mr. Teddy?” he asked.

OF COURSE YOU CAN.

So he took a brand-new copy of Henry Huggins off the shelf (mom and dad bought him a set of Beverly Cleary books this year, which won serious brownie points with me) and proceeded to read the entirety of Chapter 1 to a stuffed animal. These are not short chapters, mind. He read 28 pages without any prodding from me and loved it. I caught him skipping ahead in his reading textbook for fun earlier that week, too, now that I think about it. It makes me happy–I’ve created a Reader.

Last night we read Chapter 2. It’s been 20 years since I read Henry Huggins, but it may as well have been yesterday. The scenes where Henry buys and cares for his baby-making guppies were seared into my memory ages ago. I made up a little song about it and Ethan was delighted:

Henry bought a couple guppies and he took ‘em both home,
They started having babies so they wouldn’t be alone.
He dumped ‘em in a pickle jar and put ‘em on the floor
He filled up every pickle jar and still they made more…

And there were millions of guppies everywhere
Guppies in the living room and guppies on the stairs
Anywhere you looked, there was guppies there
Millions and millions of guppies.

Can you say “a couple guppies in a pickle jar” three times fast? I bet you can’t. (We sure couldn’t, but tongue-twisters are especially hard when you’re giggling.)

Packing

I may be hard at work preparing for a cross-country move, but I still have time to write for Mama Hillary over at Seven Deadly Divas. I like this particular post because it harnesses the mind-breaking power of Jim Carrey in spandex. Go look, you know you want to.

Today’s other activities include reading manuscripts, bleaching the bathtub, hooking up a coffee IV, and birdwatching. The bright pink vincas mom potted for me this spring are bringing in all kinds of pretty bird and bug visitors. Makes it feel like there’s a little Animal Kingdom on my patio.

Government Cheese

Tenacious citizens built shelters from their government stipend, founding the stinky hamlet of Cheese-til-Tuesday. Proud Cheesians weathered the bites of passing transients, the freezerburn of winter, and various molds brought on by a long rainy season; when summer returned, sun-ripened homes swooned in on themselves, bulging at the walls and sweating orange grease. Video of the resulting flash flood of fondue went viral, but not in time to save the ones who stayed to dip their bread.

Recipes and Rhyming Slang

Okay, it’s just ONE recipe, but it’s cheap and tasty. Keep a few cans of clams and tomatoes in your pantry and a bulb of garlic in the produce bin, and you can make my “oh shit we need groceries” clam sauce too. Check it out at Seven Deadly Divas.

Shameless self-promotion: Complete.

Watched “To Sir, With Love” last night with the hubby. I’ll spare you the play-by-play; let’s just say it was a culture-shock in terms of race and gender equality, and the cheese factor was occasionally cranked up to eleven (the slow panning of the camera between weirdly-smiling student faces is just creepy, man). Not to mention the gross nude-lip makeup that was the style at the time.

In one scene, these London schoolkids tell their teacher about the ‘lame’ tradition of the older people in London of giving streets odd names based on a roundabout sort of rhyme. I’d read about something similar in a Terry Pratchett book (Going Postal) and didn’t understand it there, either, so I went to the internet to figure out what the hell was going on. Google is my friend.

I finally found it under “Cockney Rhyming Slang.” You take an existing word, let’s say “look,” and you think of a short phrase that rhymes with that word: “Butcher’s Hook.” Then you snag the non-rhyming portion and it becomes a synonym for the original word; i.e., “Have a butcher’s” = “Have a look.” (The progression being Look = Butcher’s Hook = Butcher’s.)

There’s a ton of off-color examples, of course. Take J. Arthur, for instance (tee hee). Wank rhymes with J. Arthur Rank, hence ”J. Arthur” becomes slang for rubbing one out.  Titties, rhymed with Bristol Cities,  become a fine pair of Bristols. Turns out you might know a little rhyming slang of your own. Have you ever eighty-sixed a project? You might be surprised to find out it’s just a bit of American rhyming slang: Nix = eighty-six. 

Anyway, that’s what this word-nerd learned from yesterday’s Netflix escapades. It’s a bizarre and sometimes funny play on words, and if you like quirky linguistics you might want to look it up.

Going Home

A quiet, peaceful life in a town where nobody knows you is only good until you realize how goddam lonely you are.

There’s a long list of people who want me to pull up roots and settle in Oregon, which is just about as far from here as you can be and still be on the continent. It makes me feel wanted. Their sentiments are echoes of my own stubborn hard-wiring that screams “this is where you belong, this is your home and always will be no matter how long you stay away.” It’s a win-win, right?

But for all those loud supportive voices, there are quiet ones close to my ear that tell me it’s a bloody stupid idea. Why leave Georgia, they say, our safe little orbit where the economy never quite tanks and you can buy a house for a song? Why, when the weather is good (read: hot), living is cheap, and people pretty much leave us alone?

My husband would be happy as a pig in shit to live here for the rest of his days. It’s warm. It’s adequate. It’s comfortable, like old gym shorts. This kind of easy living appeals to him on the most basic of levels. When he says something so innocent as “let’s just stay,” it’s hard to breathe and my eyes start to water. I panic. He may as well be saying “you can’t have this,” because that’s all I hear.

I want my family to be happy, and not just my family on the opposite coast; I have an even greater obligation to the ones I live with. But I can’t give up just because he says “why.” I want it too much. I’m almost positive that once we’ve moved and settled in he’ll be just as content with an Oregon life as he is with the one we have now. Meanwhile the tidal current that’s worn me down to bone, that has me treating the last decade of my life as a phase, that insists I’m never really home even when I’m in my own house, my own bed, will stop. I’ll be positively drunk with relief. His inertia can’t break that tide, only slow it down.

Still, I’m scared. Scared of an eleventh-hour freakout, afraid I’ll give up on what I want rather than walk away from here while he drags his feet behind me. He’ll follow where I lead, though I know he’d rather we stayed.

I’m not being fair. Fair means compromise, only some things can’t be compromised; like moving or not-moving, they are binary options where there are no halves. You move, or you don’t.

And it isn’t fair.

Because it’s not fair, I’m already resigned to what happens later, when my decision gets to be the whipping-boy for anything that goes wrong. I’m willing to risk every annoying, pain-in-the-ass I told you so. Even if I screw it up, if I make bad mistakes, if everything goes pear-shaped, I’m okay with that, because at least then we’ll have an army of family members who have our back.

And I’ll be home.

Fumes and Falsehoods

“Whatever happened to Fiction Friday?” you might ask. Well, I ate it.

Not really. Actually I just ate a metric ton of Mediterranean food and beer, and the garlic fumes emanating from my face are starting to cloud up my screen so I better sum up before I can’t read what I’m typing.

Friday Fiction… is a lie. At leasy, it is right now. I’m not stressed overmuch about it though, because I have plenty of other things to stress about, like packing up everything in my house and arranging to get carpets replaced and culling my belongings for yard sale swag. I’m getting ready to move, and it’s a BIG move, and I’m so excited I could pee. Just a little.

In between changing my pants and pinching myself to make sure it’s not a dream, I pack boxes. I bought 65 of ‘em from Uline, which has a warehouse just a couple hours from here. There’s some guilt in that purchase, I admit–seems like I should’ve tried to get used boxes that people would otherwise throw away–but then, I can always give them away when I’m done with them.

And this way my stuff won’t smell like old people or warehouses or bananas, and whatever other weird things people used to store in there. (“Who stores old people in boxes? Jesus, what kind of freak are you?” Shut up or I’ll put you in a box!) Yep. Nothing but the heady scent of fresh, cardboard-y cardboard.

My other excuse reason is that I’m working on one BIG story and one medium-sized story right now and haven’t had much time for side projects. I’d love to share them, but I can’t. Once I finish Coyote Box I’ll share, but until then this Bika is a busy bee.

Oh, one last note. I’m still posting weekly at Seven Deadly Divas, along with a ton of great ladies who are also awesome friends. See what I’ve been writing here.

Cersei and the Magisters

Ever wonder what happened to Cersei? Me and Claire did, too. Read on; I hope you like it.

* * *

The main Magister’s offices were quiet and creepy after dark, when all the ranking nobles were out having their asses kissed and the peons were getting drunk or lucky or both. Very little of importance had ever happened on the late shift, and that was just how Magister Fardawn liked it. It was half past eleven, which meant he was halfway through a bottle of Suntouched Reserve and well on his way to a content stupor. He would never put his feet up on the desk during daylight hours and risk an asinine punishment–being turned into a pig or snake or some such stupid thing, for example–but it was perfectly safe at this time of night. He tossed a well-worn deck of cards to his partner and waited for her to check for cheats, as she usually did.

Magister Brightwind paused her manicure to riffle through the deck, keeping her nails carefully separated as she passed the cards from one hand to the other. “What did you have in mind?”

“Strip poker,” he said, and grinned at his own joke for what may very well have been the millionth time in a row.

The other Magister let out a noise that was somewhere in between a giggle and a sigh. “You may be the most persistent man I’ve ever met. But yet again, no. Someone might actually need us to do work some day, you know.”

He snorted and took his feet down, bellying up to the big polished table that would be surrounded by middle-ranking assholes in less than eight hours. “I’m sure you can work just as well with your clothes off, my dear.” Taking the cards back he set them on its shining surface and shuffled the deck using only magic. At one time this trick was invariably paired with a raucous “Look, mother, no hands!” but as it came to annoy even himself, the phrase was permanently discontinued.

Forty-two hands later they sat tallying their respective winnings on little leather notebooks designed for taking messages but that had long since been reassigned to poker duty. Deep in his cups but hardly showing it–he had quite a lot of practice, after all–Magister Fardawn interrupted his companion in the middle of a declaration that she would most certainly beat him next time. “Elissa, did you hear something?”

She paused mid-scribble and looked up from her notebook. “Hear something? Like what?”

He put a finger to his lips and they sat still in the semi-dark room, long ears pricked for the sounds of a possible intruder or perhaps even the dreaded Night Shift Surprise Inspection, which was rare but certainly not unheard of. The blonde, broad, besotted man gave up first with a small shrug and was about to suggest a round of strip backgammon when a mighty knock sounded at the main door. It echoed through the empty halls. Magister Brightwind jumped in her seat, startled.

“Er, rather like that. Hell of a lot quieter last go, if I do say so.” He stood up and straightened his shirt while his companion looked up at him, brows drawn together. She was definitely starting to feel the effects of a bottle or three, if the expression on her face was any indication. “What should we do?”

“As much as I would like to say ‘wait quietly and hope they go away,’ it could be something important. Wait here, I’ll be back in a moment. I won’t complain if you indulge in a peremptory undressing.” It was extraordinarily difficult to suppress a giggle at that, and he muffled it against his sleeve as he headed for the door.

Elissa Brightwind poured herself a generous serving from her partner’s unattended bottle and was half-done drinking it when the ruckus started down the hall. Lorannis’s booming voice echoed back to her along with the softer, brighter tones of a female. She rolled her eyes. They ruled the Dead Shift, had for years, and Elissa knew the old lout like the back of her hand. She didn’t need to hear any words to know that this was his damsel-in-distress routine and that whoever might be at the door, Magister Fardawn was trying to charm her pants off and almost certainly failing. A brief look around the room decided her; whatever was going on in the reception hall was a thousand times more interesting than sitting alone surrounded by empty wine and liquor bottles. “Do you need assistance?” she called out, and swayed down the hall not waiting for an answer.

In the carpeted lobby lit by a few floating lamps, Magister Brightwind walked in just in time to see a sturdy redheaded elf crossing the threshold backwards dragging a limp figure behind her, arms locked under armpits. Her drunken mage companion stood close by and watched without offering to lend a hand. Shameless, she thought, and shot him a dirty look. It should be noted that it didn’t occur to her to offer any help of her own.

Once the prone woman was clear of the door, the girl with the flaming red hair straightened up, groaned, and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

“Is she dead?” said Magister Brightwind.

“Whether she is or isn’t, you might be better served taking her to an infirmary,” said Magister Fardawn.

“Please, we need help that no medic can give,” said the sweating girl. There was a long streak of dirt on her cheek and forehead, but neither magister really noticed. Instead they stared at her ruined face and pale eye, then (in the case of Lorannis) mentally checked the fit of her chestplate. Neither of them noticed the tall, lanky elf who crept into the lobby after her, either.

“I still think you’re in the wrong place. Exorcisms are more of a priest’s area of expertise, may I recommend–” Elissa was interrupted mid-sentence once again by her partner.

“Is that… Cersei Dusksinger?”

There was movement in a corner of the room as the tall stranger flinched. Magister Fardawn narrowed his eyes and demanded, “Step forward and identify yourself, please.”

The tall elf cleared his throat, blushed, and pointed a finger to his chest. “Uh. Um. You mean me?”

The redhead took a few steps toward him and stood protectively at his side. “He’s Fenniel Dusksinger, Cersei’s brother. I’m Ysani. Er, Dame Cloudbreaker.”

“You’re kidding me.” Magister Brightwind smirked, and a giggle barely escaped her lips.  “Dusksinger has a brother?  What in the name of the Light happened to her anyways? She looks absolutely dreadful.”

Ysani glanced up at Fenniel, then at Magister Brightwind. “We’re not exactly sure, ma’am. She wasn’t at her post–over at Stonard, you know?–so we checked the swamp and found her like this. Well, dirtier, and… and worse… but more or less like this. Catatonic mostly, sometimes babbling.”

The two magisters exchanged a look, then moved in to peer at the elf on the floor. “Can’t say I’m surprised to see her this way,” said Magister Fardawn, taking off his slim gold spectacles and cleaning them with his shirt.

“Uh…you’re not?” Fenn cleared his throat. “Of course you’re not. Um. Right. Anyways. We just found her like this.” He nodded at Ysani, whose ears reddened slightly.

“She’s largely unresponsive and I believe she may have been under duress for a prolonged period of time? I mean, she’s really messed up and I haven’t had any luck bringing her around. We thought…” Here she trailed off and bit her lip. Magister Fardawn hmmed and nodded, focused mostly on her fitted elementium armor as he scratched his chin.

“You thought…?” said Magister Brightwind, helpfully.

“We, ah, thought maybe that she might be better off, um, re-educated. To erase the trauma so she can recover, you know?”

The magisters exchanged another long look, this time with matching raised eyebrows. They say that people (and even animals) who spend a lot of time together begin to look alike, and there was definitely a resemblance between them now while they wore identical expressions of bafflement.

Magister Fardawn folded his arms across his chest and addressed Dame Cloudbreaker in a most gentle what in the name of the Light are you thinking voice: “Have you a prognosis from a medical professional? A second opinion? A list of witnesses or evidence? Do you realize that your so-called solution might destroy the possibility of any evidence coming to light in the future?”

Ysani’s eyes–eye?–flicked to Magister Brightwind for a moment, then back to Fardawn. “Well, yes, sir. I do realize that.” She paused. It was a very long, awkward pause, in which Ysani stared at Fardawn, both magisters stared at Ysani, and Fenniel avoided eye contact with everyone in the room. Magister Fardawn began a mental count of the silence and once it reached ninety, he shrugged. “All right.”

Fenn fanned himself with the collar of his shirt. “Um, that’s it?”

“Sure. It’s been a slow year. Elissa, would you be a dear and write up the paperwork for us?”

Elissa tilted her head to one side. “Sure.” She reached into her robes and drew out a small pad of paper and pen. “What would you like her to be like after re-education? I always thought she could use a little attitude adjustment, myself.”

“Uh. Well. Um.” Fenn’s fanning increased in speed. “She used to be quite nice. When I was a kid.”

“Mm. Moderate regression, if possible.” While she jotted down notes, Lorannis helped Ysani lift the woman into the nearest chair. Within twenty minutes, Cersei, having been examined for potential of recovery (the magisters agreed that ‘unlikely’ was an adequate guess and made it official in her forms) was taken away on a floating stretcher from the storeroom while Lorannis gave the two visitors a laundry list of instructions for the care of a freshly re-educated soul.

“Just wait here in the lobby to pick her up when we’re finished. Shouldn’t take more than, hrm– three, four hours. Depends on what kind of mess we find in there. I’ll send Elissa back to let you know how it’s going, but don’t leave, because we’re off at seven and breakfast won’t be eating itself. One way or another, she’s your problem at dawn.” He left them sitting with their eyes wide and jaws slack while he caught up to his partner, trying to recall the one specific incident that got the infamous Cersei assigned to swamp duty and finding himself unable to pin it down.

Magister Brightwind waited for him in the white room with the spare set of instruments set out on a tray. “I haven’t done one of these in ages, have you?”

“Nope,” he said, and grinned. “And here I thought it was going to be a dull evening.”