Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Deorum (Of Gods)

O K A Y.  Only took me like nine days to get a new computer, so here we go, posting of this story will now resume its daily schedule.  This is Part IV, Parts I, II, and III are also available.  This scene takes place the day after the previous one–Jack is no longer dying of a divine-level hangover, is the point.  Also, please feel free to correct my German, I do not dich the language.

“Hey, Jackie,” Idunn said, already sliding forward a travel cup with an elegant cursive J on the side.  Her handwriting would have made calligraphers weep with envy, although her print letters were angular and sharp-edged as blades.  “How are you feeling?”

“Eh,” he said with a shrug and an expressive hand motion.  “Ich bin gut, aber erschoft.”  Jack’s eyes widened at the sound of his own words and one hand flicked up to touch his lips, a betrayed look crossing his face.

“Didn’t know you spoke German, Jack,” Idunn said in a strange voice—careful and calm, as if bracing herself or someone else against an oncoming onslaught. “Wen haben Sie erfahren?”

“I…didn’t?” he said through his fingers, and felt almost shaky with relief when the words spilled out in familiar English.  “What the fuck?”

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Deorum (Of Gods)

All right, here is Part II of Deorum.  Part I is here, I hope you guys enjoy!

“Jackie, you look terrible,” the girl at the counter said, alarmed.  She had delicate features, with an upturned nose and a light scattering of freckles over her cheeks, and her long brown hair was bound up into a neat crown of braids.  She looked about sixteen, dressed in a pearly grey shirt and a black apron that said simply Idunn’s Coffee.  “What’s wrong?”

“Wish you wouldn’t call me that, Idunn,” he said, and she smiled at him fondly, flashing a slim line of teeth.  She had conceded to the Anglicized version of her name with more grace than some of her other counterparts, which Jack appreciated.  He found the ‘eth’ letter rather difficult, and she despaired of his pronunciation.

“You’ve mentioned,” she said, brushing one hand over her forehead in the habitual movement of one checking for stray hairs.  A pair of stacked gold rings glinted on her index finger, with a third on her thumb.  Her entire family dripped with the things, Jack knew—a scant three was downright restrained.  “You do look exhausted, though.  Everything okay?”

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I’m Taking A Poll

words-writ-in-starlight:

words-writ-in-starlight:

All right, so, those of you who’ve been around long enough may or may not recall that my practice when I hit a round number of followers is to post some original writing (see: Methods of Inheritance and Sabbatical).  And I’m coming up on 400, so I’ll be doing that again!  But!  I have…a lot of original fiction.  A lot of original fiction.  So I’m going to offer a list of options, and you lot can tell me which one you’d like to see!  To vote, you can reply to this post or reblog it, or send me a message, although I’d prefer the ask box over a private message just because it’ll be easier to collate the answers that way.  For the novels, obviously, you’d be getting an excerpt, probably 2-5 pages.  Any short stories, though, you’d get all of.

Polaris: the revolutionary girlfriends with superpowers novel (as yet incomplete).  Like.  There’s more detail, obviously.  But that’s pretty much what we’re dealing with there.  There are a bunch of LGBT characters and a few superpowers and a revolution, thus: revolutionary girlfriends with superpowers novel.  Tag is here if you want more detail.

Falls the Shadow: my best beloved novel about the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, led by Sam, the Horseman of Death and Antichrist.  This one’s complete, but it is H E F T Y at 250K words.  I’m editing it down.  Tag is here, but no one asks me about it, so there’s not much there.  First of a trilogy.

Battalion: the novel where angels happened and fucked everything up, and humans have been fucking them over in response for about 70 years (incomplete).  Yep.  That’s here, and there is exactly one post.

Stories From the Second War: a triad of short stories technically set in the FtS universe, about Heaven’s war against the Nephilim.  Um…they’re dark.  The Nephilim are monstrous.  But I think they might be some of my favorite writing I’ve done.  They are Tell All the Truth (But Tell It Slant) and To Fight Aloud, Is Very Brave (Uniforms of Snow), both from the perspective of the leader of the Nephilim, and The Stillness in the Air (Between Heaves of Storm), from the perspective of her hunting partner.  I’d put all three on here as a set, because I think they work best that way.

Deorum (Of Gods): a short story I wrote for that writing class I hated.  Jack, the main character, lives in a city populated partly by mortals and partly by the gods of the world’s pantheons–Idunn owns a coffee shop, Apollo teaches art at an elementary school, Ninkasi runs a bar, and dark things live in the woods.  Jack attracts more gods than he’s strictly comfortable with, and they all seem to know him remarkably well….  I don’t know if it’s my best work in terms of quality, but I definitely think it’s up there as the most fun.  This is about forty pages, so I’d have to post it piecemeal.  

So…yeah.  Anyone have a preference?

OKAY KIDS.

I have reached 400 followers, but I have a tie, which means that this is SUDDEN DEATH.

Polaris (AKA “revolutionary girlfriends with superpowers”) and Deorum (AKA “Please let Jack sleep”) are tied for the top voted piece.  Please vote for your preference, summaries are above.

The votes are in!  I will begin posting Deorum today.

I’m Taking A Poll

All right, so, those of you who’ve been around long enough may or may not recall that my practice when I hit a round number of followers is to post some original writing (see: Methods of Inheritance and Sabbatical).  And I’m coming up on 400, so I’ll be doing that again!  But!  I have…a lot of original fiction.  A lot of original fiction.  So I’m going to offer a list of options, and you lot can tell me which one you’d like to see!  To vote, you can reply to this post or reblog it, or send me a message, although I’d prefer the ask box over a private message just because it’ll be easier to collate the answers that way.  For the novels, obviously, you’d be getting an excerpt, probably 2-5 pages.  Any short stories, though, you’d get all of.

Polaris: the revolutionary girlfriends with superpowers novel (as yet incomplete).  Like.  There’s more detail, obviously.  But that’s pretty much what we’re dealing with there.  There are a bunch of LGBT characters and a few superpowers and a revolution, thus: revolutionary girlfriends with superpowers novel.  Tag is here if you want more detail.

Falls the Shadow: my best beloved novel about the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, led by Sam, the Horseman of Death and Antichrist.  This one’s complete, but it is H E F T Y at 250K words.  I’m editing it down.  Tag is here, but no one asks me about it, so there’s not much there.  First of a trilogy.

Battalion: the novel where angels happened and fucked everything up, and humans have been fucking them over in response for about 70 years (incomplete).  Yep.  That’s here, and there is exactly one post.

Stories From the Second War: a triad of short stories technically set in the FtS universe, about Heaven’s war against the Nephilim.  Um…they’re dark.  The Nephilim are monstrous.  But I think they might be some of my favorite writing I’ve done.  They are Tell All the Truth (But Tell It Slant) and To Fight Aloud, Is Very Brave (Uniforms of Snow), both from the perspective of the leader of the Nephilim, and The Stillness in the Air (Between Heaves of Storm), from the perspective of her hunting partner.  I’d put all three on here as a set, because I think they work best that way.

Deorum (Of Gods): a short story I wrote for that writing class I hated.  Jack, the main character, lives in a city populated partly by mortals and partly by the gods of the world’s pantheons–Idunn owns a coffee shop, Apollo teaches art at an elementary school, Ninkasi runs a bar, and dark things live in the woods.  Jack attracts more gods than he’s strictly comfortable with, and they all seem to know him remarkably well….  I don’t know if it’s my best work in terms of quality, but I definitely think it’s up there as the most fun.  This is about forty pages, so I’d have to post it piecemeal.  

So…yeah.  Anyone have a preference?