But Ravel is in its final proofing and formatting phase. If nothing goes belly-up, I'll have it up for download tomorrow, December 17th. And it's going to be free! I'm so delighted to be sharing another story of Aligare that I just want everyone to go ahead and download the thing.
Here's Ravel's cover:
I spent quite a bit of time agonizing over how light should fall on a ball of string.
Let's see, what else ... How about a writing excerpt? Yes, let's do that. Here's a scene from Ravel, the fantasy romance:
They arrived at the river, its surface scintillating purple in the evening dark light, the water and wind-blown leaves murmuring to fill the silence. Llarez knelt and scooped the three water pails full. He held his tail in an upward hook, placing one bucket on it so his feathers' bulk held the handle in place. The novelty held Aster's attention -- that easy way his limbs moved and bore weight. She wondered how much practice it took to carry buckets on one's tail.
They turned back toward home. In the distant fields, grassbugs sang a humming song.
"All right." Llarez looked to her in the dark, his eyes a half-hidden glittering.
"Is there anyplace specific you'd like these when we get back?"
"Really," Aster said quiet, "you've been wonderful about all of this."
"They're not so heavy, truthfully! It's-- Oh. All of this." He lifted one shoulder awkward toward his head, perhaps trying to scratch an itch when he couldn't spare a hand. "Well, Aster, what I mean is ... Let me tell you a tale. I'm not barding right now so don't fuss about owing me one thing, all right?"
"All right."
They kept walking, while Llarez inhaled and readied himself. The river trees stood behind them, the town homes. Llarez began:
"Twenty-six years ago, the winds were gusting and the clouds spoke of change. There was a young fellow named Llarez of Arkiere, a korvi child barely fledged. He used to watch the merchants and messengers coming in to land on the volcano slopes, their quills spread wide and streaking colour into the golden air. It was quite a sight for someone who'd barely seen outside his House's front door! Being that he was a curious child, Llarez asked the rest of Arkiere House where all those travelling folk were coming from.
"Opens, said Llarez's mother. Or Greenway, said Llarez's father. Likely not, his brother Zey piped up -- they were bringing goods from somewhere farther away than that. Villages on the far side of the land.
"Well," Llarez said with a tip of his head. In the dark, Aster could imagine his cloud-coloured eyes prying into the distance. "Even as a child, Llarez knew that three different answers couldn't all be the exact truth. He knew, in that fate-clad moment, that he wanted to go out and learn the answer for himself. So he fanned out his wings and announced, right then and there, that he wanted to wander. When he was bigger, naturally. He wasn't much good at flight, yet, you see -- didn't have enough muscle for it."
Aster imagined she did, in the limited way that she grasped the reality of flying creatures.
"It's a funny thing," Llarez said, "trying to choose what to do. Nothing is solid enough to measure in knucklewidths. Three years after that day, Llarez of Arkiere grew tired of waiting to be sure, and he left. But he grew frightened on his first night alone. He had planned to spend a few eightyears travelling and come back as a well-storied man. But he was back in Arkiere House for dinner not one day later."
Llarez was grinning again, a slow and reluctant motion. Youth showed in his shape, his narrow arc of neck and the lean muscle of his frame. Aster walked beside him in the endless air; she supposed her age showed, too. Perhaps in her own lines of face and frame, marked with a painted trace of new motherhood.
"I've always took it to mean," Llarez said soft, "that the proof is in the porridge. That a person needs to simply try and see how things end. If that fledgling Llarez had sat in his familiar home, he would never have seen what he could do."
"Did he have any way of knowing what the world holds for a traveller? No one ... told him what needs to be done?"
"Oh, his parents told him plenty. And they took him to hear bards spinning tales, at festivals and such." Llarez waved a hand, stirring air in bent circles. "Young Llarez thought that listening to a tale was boring compared to actually seeing places for himself. Imagine that pup becoming a bard?"
Aster smiled watery. "I wouldn't have wagered."
"It takes a while for these things to percolate, I think. I always like a legend better when I've thought on it for a while. So, that's something to keep in mind, I suppose!"
She already had a thought like that in her mind. In the greater Hane household, Aster had woven images of each Legend Creature; she held that memory under countless warm others. Those pictures of mighty Creatures were her first weavings, a crafted wish for the land's guardians to have line and form. Told words couldn't replace the feeling of real shapes, and air touching textures.
Aster had a thought on her tongue now, after her heart had hammered enough. But Llarez shifted the water pails in his grasp and fell quiet, and the Hane home's doorway threw ever more light toward them. She wished so hard to agree with Llarez. But she simply couldn't make herself speak again.
If that scene caught your interest, stay tuned for tomorrow's release of the full, free download! Now if you'll all excuse me, I have paragraph styles to normalize or something like that.
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