kayeaton | second draft || [written]

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second draft || [written]

All right, I've got to know: Are there any publishing outfits here? In a town this size, the chances seem slim, but for all I know, there's a paper no one's mentioned to me. I've got a story or two started, and if I could see them in print, I wouldn't mind dropping my asking price to zero cents a word. It won't hurt them to sit in handwritten piles in my apartment, of course, but stories are always better when they're shared.

It's strange to think that it's May here. It was November back in Manhattan, and that meant a lot of gray skies and windy days, and some rainy ones. Thanksgiving was coming up; between Julius and I, a whole turkey is a waste of a bird, but we were going to have something nice for dinner nonetheless. And in the meanwhile, it would have been a whole lot of pounding on typewriters and talking, no doubt.

At least I left near the start of the month. Just in case time here doesn't run faster than every other world's time, he's got a few weeks to plan out a story or two about the drunken scientist or the mutant hillbillies, and from there...well, ideally, he'd show up here one of these days, too. And if not, he's written plenty on his own before; he's not about to starve to death just because I'm not there to do my share.

I do miss him, though.

((OOC: And just in case you're curious, when she says drunken scientist and mutant hillbillies, she is, uh. Completely serious.))

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The ones I've been working on, or the ones Julius writes? The drunken scientist stories are pretty self-explanatory.

Suppose so. I mean the ones that you ain't finished yet.

Those ones. Well.

[Pause for consideration. Kay's not used to talking about stories with people she doesn't know very well.]

One's about a hunter who's cursed for shooting a deer he shouldn't have. The other is about a woman defending her planet from invaders, mostly.

Huh. Why shouldn't he've got that deer? And why're the invaders invading?

It lived in a forest that belonged to the gods. And her planet is in control of most of the others in the solar system, which makes it a good target for anyone hungry for power.

Huh. That's a good one. What does the curse do?

Then where'd the invaders come from? Outta the solar... system? [And ain't that a bitch and a half to pronounce. He says it again to make sure she understood him, though he's not quite clear on what, exactly, he's saying himself.]

Transforms him into something, I think. Probably a stag, but I wouldn't mind holding out for something less cliche. I've got most of the transformation written out, but I've got to figure out the what of it still.

The--the solar system, yeah. They're a race from far beyond the stars, and no one on her planet's seen anything like them before.

Stag'd be good, if'n there's some folk to hunt him. It'd make it harder for him to outsmart the gods, then, though.

Huh. And themfolk want her shit cause why?

All right, we'll go with a stag. I'm not sure he's going to outsmart the gods, though.

Oh, for the natural resources, mostly. And the opportunity to conquer. It's not a particularly important story, though--I might scrap it.

Then what's he gonna do? Stand around and be sorry?

Naw, it sounds interesting. She's like the head princess in charge?

Only if I wanted the story to work like sleeping pills. He might lose--maybe he ends up slain in the end.

Sort of. They don't really go in for royalty there, exactly. She's more like--like a clan leader, you know. Got her position by being the strongest fighter, could lose it to someone wily if she doesn't stay on her guard.

Aw, but that's what always what happens when you go against the gods. Don't cross Min-Terris or she'll make you old, don't piss off Cade-Cholera or she'll make you wish you was old, you know. I like the one where Kethe screws Ver-Istenna and gets away with it.

Oh, that's good. So the invaders are coming-- what happens next?

...Wait, wait, who're all these gods? [Mildmay, you've managed to distract her entirely--none of the names're familiar, and she's curious.]

Well, she's a shoot-first kind of girl, so she's got her gun at the ready when they show up, even though they're interested in trying to pay her people off first. Haven't written too much further than their first standoff, though.

Er, well... [You can almost hear Mildmay counting everything off on his fingers:] Min-Terris' the goddess of things past; Jeanne-So-Contrary pissed her off once something fierce, and that was the end of her... And Cade-Cholera's the goddess of death and sickness and rot. Vir-Istenna's the goddess of keeping things right and true and all that, y'know, enforcing the rules, so of course Kethe goes to fuck with her. Kethe ain't quite a god or a saint, he's sorta between the two. He stands for... mystery. [Someone is still a terrible liar.]

So she ain't at war? It's just her against all them other fuckers?

Huh. Never heard of any of them. So d'you pray to them, or are they just myths at this point?

Well--it's war, but it's not a simple war, exactly. They want to pay off the people in charge, have it be as bloodless as possible, but she's two parts patriotic and one part bloodthirsty. So that's not exactly going to work.

Anyway, this is silly, talking over these things when we're two rooms apart. Come out into the living room, I'll tell you in person.

[And so Mildmay crawls out of his room, looking a little wary-- which isn't exactly news, but it's presumably worth stating. He sits on the sofa rather carefully, holding Jashuki out before him to rest his hands on.]

[As an Awesome Icebreaker, he says:] The gods're both. Depends who you follow. Some you can't really pray to, some you can, you know. [Shrug.]

And it sounds like you got the makings of an alright story. What's her name?

[Kay has likewise been holed up in her study most of the day, writing and saying hello to people by turns. She takes a seat in a chair, tucking her legs beneath her, and sets her notebook and pen on a side table. She might well need to take notes.]

So who do you follow, then? [How this works, exactly, still isn't exactly clear to her.]

Asirre. Right now, her name's Asirre.

Kethe. [And that, at least, isn't a lie, so hopefully it doesn't sound too suspicious.]

Good name. So how's it start? [Tell him a stoooory, Kay, he wants to hear a storyyyyy.]

Kethe--he's of what, mysteries? What kind of mysteries?

It starts with a messenger come to see her in her council chambers. Something's touched down on the city green, and for all they might be spacecraft, no one has ever seen anything like them. So Asirre goes to see for herself.

Mysteries-- not mysteries like The White Lady or whatchamacallit, but... trickery and the septad-night and all that. Things nobody knows. [That's close enough to the truth for now, presumably.]

[Mildmay frowns, or as near to as he can anymore, which means crinkling his eyebrows, basically.] Spaceship?

[Hers is a blank face, at least for a moment. Then she smiles.] Afraid I don't know enough about the White Lady to know the difference.

[And then it's Mildmay's turn to look confused--or she assumes that's what that expression means, considering the way he repeats the word "spaceship."] A spaceship. Say you wanted to leave your planet, go and visit another, that's what you'd use.

[Mildmay thinks about it for a second, trying to remember what Gideon called it...] A mystery cult? That's what the Cult of the White Lady is. Deals with suicides or something, I dunno. [Mildmay makes the hand signal for warding off hexes almost by reflex.] The guy I knew who was in it wasn't much for talking about it, obviously.

Huh. That problem don't come up where I'm from much, I ain't never heard a word for it before.

[Kay nods, furrowing her own brow at his gesture.] Oh--I see. Er--what's this? [She tries to mimic it, not quite getting it right.]

We haven't quite managed it where I'm from, either, but it's nice to write about.

[Mildmay makes the hand signal again.] Wards off hexes and bad luck, like. The Lady's vicious bad luck, is all I know. She's got fucking mazes and shit.

Is it? What's so bad on your planet y'all need to go snooping around others?

[And Kay mimics it again, this time a little more accurately.] Huh. Interesting superstition.

It's not that Earth's bad--well, some parts of it aren't great, but that's probably true everywhere. It's the opportunity to see someplace new.

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