A quick note about my free fiction: this is raw draft with little editing. I don’t know where the story is going, or if it’ll even get completed on the blog. But it’s fun to do.
The clips from this story stay up for a limited time and then they will turn back into a pumpkin. Those available at the time I’m writing this are:
A quick note about my free fiction: this is raw draft with little editing. I don’t know where the story is going, or if it’ll even get completed on the blog. But it’s fun to do.
The clips from this story stay up for a limited time and then they will turn back into a pumpkin. Those available at the time I’m writing this are:
The station needed a lot of work. Mouse had been right about it needing a lot of upkeep. Jadz fell into the easy rhythm of pulling maintenance records for each area of the station and just getting to work.
“Have you eaten anything today?” became a frequent question from Mouse, who often showed up with a wrapped sandwich in hand which she tossed at Jadz with a wink. “Don’t stay too much passed your shift.”
A quick note about my free fiction: this is raw draft with little editing. I don’t know where the story is going, or if it’ll even get completed on the blog. But it’s fun to do.
The clips from this story stay up for a limited time and then they will turn back into a pumpkin. Those available at the time I’m writing this are:
“How many people are here now?” Jadz thought this might be a good time to change the subject.
“The station is meant to be run with minimal crew since it would be mostly astronomers. There’s usually one United officer here, and they generally sleep a lot, along with a communications person to help run things. Right now, we’ve got seven astronomers, me, and you.”
“Does that make you the communications officer?”
“You got it. See how I did that? I communicated my position to you without actually telling you in words.” She wiggled her eyebrows and grinned. “I’m good.”
“I see that.” Jadz took a moment to enjoy the revelry of a new friend before putting her hands on her hips trying to take the same commanding stance her father had for many years. “But I don’t want my story being communicated to all the astronomers here.”
Mouse overlapped her hands on her heart and fell backwards on the bed. “Oh, you wound me!”
“I’d rather have them keep their eyes on the stars rather than me.”
“Oh, see? You’re sharp. Yeah, you’re going to do just fine here.” Mouse sat up, then stood. “Well, I guess there’s nothing left for me to do here. I’m sure you want to unpack, settle in, and explore the three centimeters of space we have here. Don’t worry, I think I can find my way out.”
Jadz watched Mouse as she started to leave and found herself wishing the other woman wouldn’t leave. It was nice to have someone to talk to. “Hey, Mouse, he was a commander.”
Mouse opened the door before turning. “See? I knew it. You’ll tell me more. I’m good at communicating.”
After Mouse had stepped backwards out into the corridor and shut the door, Jadz found herself smiling. This place might be at the end of the universe, but it was exactly where she needed to be.
A quick note about my free fiction: this is raw draft with little editing. I don’t know where the story is going, or if it’ll even get completed on the blog. But it’s fun to do.
The clips from this story stay up for a limited time and then they will turn back into a pumpkin.
Let’s proceed, shall we?
Deep Space Omega (#3)
by Dawn Blair
Pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged, Mouse settled in to be more at home here than Jadz felt she was doing in trying to put her scant belongings away. It didn’t help that she had an observer.
“So, tell me about that last boyfriend, the one you’re running from.”
“I’m not running,” Jadz lied. “Look, my mom always had two pieces of advice for me: don’t pick in high school, and don’t pick on a starship. She said both ponds of choices were far too small to find true love in considering how vast the universe was.”
“And I take it that you didn’t listen.”
“No, I wish I had though.”
“So who’d you pick in high school?” Mouse leaned forward with a wide, eager grin on her face.
“Tsk, no one. I’d been with most of those kids since elementary school, preschool days for some. My parents never got transferred. I remember watching some of my classmates eat paste or Tersilian worms, and not always separately.”
Mouse blenched, her face pulling like she might vomit at the thought.
“Let’s not forget the huffing of scented markers. There was this one kid, Lalmin… he stuck two, one in each nostril, up his nose and kept them there until he passed out. I was one of the lucky ones that got to help roll him to the infirmary. Yeah, not the people I wanted to date. I knew way too much.”
Mouse shook her head, but it was in total agreeance with what Jadz was saying. In that moment, Jadz decided she liked Mouse, even if the girl was a bit inquisitive.
“That brings us to,” Mouse said, holding onto her legs and rocking slightly back and forth, “who you picked on the starship, if you didn’t pick in high school.”
“Yeah, that doesn’t matter. He was just a guy.” Jadz shrugged.
“Just a guy doesn’t send you fleeing all the way out here. No, you had to get away. Was this before your first transfer, or why you left your second posting?”
“First,” Jadz said, not really sure why she was answering these questions at all. Did she really want to talk about it?
“So what was his name?”
Jadz sighed. “Yeah, I really don’t want to talk about him.”
“Hmmm, ranking officer, huh?”
Jadz wasn’t thrilled that Mouse could obviously read the situation like a book. Did she have mind reading powers or maybe it was in Jadz file.
Mouse laughed. “This is a small space startion, but if you think your story of unique, think again. That lug who was just in here, I’m married to him. I’d rather be out exploring space, but what can I say? I do have a thing for astronomers. He loves it out here. Most people don’t stay long; they get cabin fever. I’ve met a lot of people and heard a lot of stories. In the universe over, love messes people up.”
A quick note about my free fiction: this is raw draft with little editing. I don’t know where the story is going, or if it’ll even get completed on the blog. But it’s fun to do.
The clips from this story stay up for a limited time and then they will turn back into a pumpkin.
Let’s proceed, shall we?
Deep Space Omega (#2)
by Dawn Blair
The quarters were like most Jadz had seen before: bed, table, desk and chair. Except this room had something different. There was a man inside, seated at the desk. His cheeks flushed red as he dropped the tablet he’d been holding and stood up. He saluted. “Sorry… ma’am. I should have been done before you arrived. I only learned you were coming in early a few moments ago.”
Jadz watched him look for insignia on her collar, knowing he’d find none. “It’s fine, lieutenant. I’m a civilian, so I’m just happy to have United issued equipment.”
An expressive look of relief went through his face and he gave a genuine smile. “Let me know when you’re settled in and I’ll come back and finish.” He scooted around toward the door and left.
“That’s right. You don’t want to stay in my presence,” Mouse said, waving toward the closed door. “I’ve only been on him for a week to get your computer and accounts all set up. I don’t think he really believed anyone was coming until we got the inbound flight manifest. Well, here you are. Home, sweet home.”
Mouse sat down on Jadz bed as if to wait while Jadz unpacked. “Your record said this is your third transfer in less than two years.”
Jadz bit down on the inside of her lip, wondering if she’d been a topic for conversation and scrutiny before even arriving. At length, she responded, “Yeah.” No point in denying it.
“Didn’t have any red flags in your file, or signs that you’re disruptive and need to be sent away from the human population. Way I see it, you either are running from your last boyfriend or you really have a thing for astronomers. You wouldn’t come out to the Big O if it weren’t one of those reasons.”
“Big O?”
Mouse held up her arms to indicate everything around them. “This place, the DSO.”
“Ah, Deep Space Observatory.”
Mouse laughed, clearly mocking Jadz. “No. Deep Space Omega. That’s what we call the O around here. You are at the last spot in the world, no, the universe. Nobody comes out this far. Nobody. Heck, we once had space raiders try to overtake the station. They came aboard to take us over and they hightailed it out of here leaving us with supplies.” She scoffed again. “Imagine that, feeling so sorry for the people you just tried to raid that you take pity on them.”
I have been living with the main character of my Sacred Knight story, Steigan, in my head since 1994. People laugh when I tell them I have a tote full of notes and drafts which weighs 41 pounds! What they don’t realize is that there’s hardly a notebook or scrap of paper in my house that doesn’t have some sort of note in or on it that has some reference to my Sacred Knight series. Seriously, it’s everywhere!
I am pretty much use to it, though I do have the moments of frustration when I’m looking for notes on another story and only find things for Sacred Knight.
Recently, the point of how long I have lived with story really got driven home!
This is a span of 26 years I’ve been working on this story. Not so much for the surrounding stories, like Tangled Magic, thank goodness. I’m merely talking about the Sacred Knight portion, Steigan’s story. 26 years.
A couple weeks ago, my youngest son (who is in his early 20’s) and I were looking for the draft of one of my children’s stories. We found a bunch of diskettes where the story could be stored as well as papers.
When I started digging into the papers and searching the files on the old diskettes, I kept running into more of my Sacred Knight story. Old manuscripts which I thought were all contained in my tote. That’s when I really started realizing how long I’ve worked on this story.
I’m sure I mentioned before that this story has gone through several incarnations too. It started off as a fantasy romance, then took a tailspin and became a young adult book, then a comic, and finally landed as the epic fantasy it is today. When it was a romance, the title was Some Kind of Kiss. I had completely forgotten about that until I ran into a file on the disk that was labeled “Steigan.” Then I laughed and realized that’s how the “SK” came about which I eventually started thinking about as “Sacred Knight.”
One of those weird and wonderful ways that life works.
In one file, I found the original name I had for Lucinia. If you’ve read Quest for the Three Books, then you are familiar with the woman who “adopted” Steigan and her bustling, mothering fashion. Originally, she wasn’t his adoptive mother, but merely the wife of the owner of the inn.
I thought it might be fun to pull out an old scene I wrote which has Lucinia’s original name on it. I didn’t remember this scene, but I do recall a later time where I where I was trying to think of the wife’s name and couldn’t. I threw in the placeholder name of Lucy until I could find the name. Then I was developing the backstory between Lucy and Arlyn and it was Arlyn who kept calling her Lucinia. A quick search and replace later, all the Lucy’s were changed to Lucinia.
Now that I’ve found the original name, I really like the fact that my brain rejected it so hard I forgot it (grin).
I do remember writing this scene though and it’s fun to see the things that stayed, or how they shifted positions (like Dragzel, who I had forgotten was initially Steigan’s pet. Did you know that Ellis was originally LS which stood for Little Steigan and that is why Ellis now has Dragzel? Fun trivia.)
If you’re interested, take a peek now.
The Room Above the Inn
(Excerpt from an old draft of Sacred Knight)
By Dawn Blair
Before Steigan opened the door, it was flung open and a robust woman bustled in. She walked right into him and, though Steigan tried to grab her, fell backwards.
“Oh, my!” She stood up, brushed herself off, and pulled brown hair fallen from her bun out of her face. “I’m awfully sorry. My, what a hard chest you have.” She knocked her hand against his metal breastplate before he could stop her. “Oh, my.”
“Are you okay?”
“My, do you have armor under there?” She reached for his cloak.
Steigan stepped away from her. “Please, ma’am. If you’re all right, I should be on my way now.” He looked around to see how many people in the tavern room were watching them. This was drawing more attention to him than he liked.
He caught a whiff of stew and his stomach began to growl.
“Oh, my. A growing boy. Don’t tell me Sim let you go away hungry. Let me guess. ‘No money, no service.’” She pursed her lips. “Come on now. We’ll take care of that.”
Steigan wanted to pull away and scream. He did neither, not with his head starting to feel so light and his stomach filled with only hunger. “I just came in to talk to Sim.”
She dragged him into the kitchen, where she spun around to face him. She placed her hand on the countertop where several knives hung within her reach. “You. I know you.”
“Please just let me leave.” Steigan tried to step back, but the woman refused to let him get more than an arm’s length away. “This whole thing’s been one big misunderstanding.”
“Shh!” She swayed from foot to foot, at first keeping her hands near her face. Then, she reached out to push the cloak back. Her fingers touched the blue and gold armor, then she lay her whole hand against it.
“Really, I should be going.”
“I know.” She pointed a finger towards him. “I had a dream about you. That’s it.” She stretched to the tips of her toes and clasped her hands together. “I remember now.”
Steigan pulled the cloak back around him. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I have to be going.”
She grabbed his arm. Her short nails scratched him. “You can’t. I have to help you. I will help you.”
The woman reached for a muffin and slathered it in butter before handing it to Steigan. “You must be starving.”
Once Steigan took the muffin from her, she puttered around the kitchen gathering more food in a trencher. “My name is Larcina. I’m Sim’s wife. Do you remember your name?”
Steigan swallowed the bite. “Remember?”
“Yes, remember. There hasn’t been a dominus in the north for over five hundred years. Certainly you’ve been awaken. In my dream, you’d been laid to sleep by Saint Steigan and told to wake when the time was right.” Larcina picked out some chunks of meat from the stew and put them on the floor. She pointed at Dragzel. “For your creature.”
Steigan took Dragzel off his shoulder and placed him on the floor before taking the trencher. “Blessings to you.” He nodded. “My name is Steigan. I am from the south. I live in New Lilinar.” Lived came to him as an afterthought. It was hard getting use to the destruction of New Lilinar since for him it had happened only today. By the goddess, what was he doing here? Why had he ever wanted adventure?
Larcina went to stir the stew pot. “If you are willing to work, I am certain I can convince Sim to let you stay with us as long as you need to. You aren’t afraid of a little hard work, are you?”
“No, ma’am. But why are you doing this? Why are you so willing to help me?”
“Good. For your work, you will receive room and board. I can’t offer you one of our inn rooms because we must always keep some open in case the Holy Reverend comes traveling through, but I can give you the upstairs loft. I think you will find it to your advantage as long as you keep quiet.”
“Why? Why are you doing this?” he repeated.
Larcina lit a candle. The first thing we must do is hide your armor.” She kicked aside a rug covering a trapdoor in the floor. “If you’ll just pull that ring…”
The door was heavy and if something was pushed over it, it would be impossible to open from the inside. Finally it rose and fell back on the hinges. Steigan took a candle and tried to look inside. “A storage cellar?”
“A good place for you to keep your armor hidden. Sim has problems bringing up barrels from down there and if you could oblige us by getting the barrels, he’d have no reason for going down there. You armor would never been seen.”
Steigan started down the steps. Blackness quickly encroached and even the candle he carried wasn’t helpful. A light dusting of cobwebs brushed against his face once he was completely under the floor level. He rubbed then away with his hand and continued on.
“While you’re down there, why don’t you get a barrel of strickleberry ale?” Larcina called down.
The musty basement had a dirt floor and walls. Barrels were stacked against two of those walls and on a third were shelves that looked to hold canned vegetables and fruit.
Steigan unfastened his cloak and draped it over the barrels. He began removing pieces of his armor and stacking them on barrels to keep them off the floor. He’d be down here polishing the pieces ever day, he thought, to keep the rust away.
Once out of the armor, he grabbed a barrel and relized there was no way he could carry it out unless he put the candle down. Reluctantly, Steigan set the candle on a shelve. Balancing the barrel on his shoulder, he looked towards the top of the steep stairs.
From above, an angry voice boomed, “He is not staying, Larcina. He’s a vagabond. Fates, woman, you can’t take in every stray that comes knocking at the door.” Steigan knew instantly it was Sim’s voice he heard.
Neither Sim nor Larcina was in view, but through the cracks in the rough floorboards, he could see shadows of where they stood. Steigan half expected the trapdoor to be slammed shut at any moment.
“You’re letting your imagination run away with you,” Steigan whispered to himself. “What are they going to do, lock you in here?” Even trying to laugh it off as a ridiculous idea, he couldn’t get past the seriousness of it.
As Steigan emerged with the barrel, he saw Larcina standing with her hands folded against her chest. She was biting her lip and glaring at Sim. They both paused to glance towards Steigan. He set the barrel down. “I have to go back for the candle,” Steigan explained, pointing toward the cellar.
“Actually, we need another barrel brought up,” Larcina said. “The Holy Reverend is coming in tonight. Do you mind?”
Steigan looked toward Sim. “No, not at all.” Steigan started back down the stairs.
“This isn’t a good time to take in strangers, Larcina. First he shows up and now news of the Holy Reverend coming. I don’t like it. Something’s going on.” Sim said.
“He’s only a boy. He’ll cause no harm and I doubt he’s caused injury to another.”
There was silence again as Steigan brought up the second barrel then returned for the candle. He closed the trapdoor and secretly breathed a sigh of relief to be out of there.
“I have to go check on the rooms.” Sim turned on his heel and left.
Larcina turned back to her countertop where she had several balls of dough sitting on a heavy covering of flour. Diced vegetables were stacked in neat piles and little spice tins were scattered about.
Steigan leaned against the counter. “I take it this is not a normal trip for the Holy Reverend.”
She pounded one of the dough balls. Flour exploded, dusting all of her tins. “This isn’t a Traveler’s Moon. It’s too dangerous. Besides, this isn’t really a good time.”
I am bringing back my free fiction. As always, this is raw draft with little editing. I don’t know where the story is going, or if it’ll even get completed on here. But it’s fun to do.
As before, the clips from this story will stay up for a limited time and then they will disappear (turn back into a pumpkin). I’m making these sections really short this time, less than 500 words so that they will be quick and easy to read. This one doesn’t even have a cover right now, so it’ll be short and sweet each time.
A speedy note about this story: I am writing Deep Space Omega as a sci-fi romance. When I’m done, I’ll be putting a pen name on it, mostly to help my readers differentiate my work. Some writers use pen names to hide work they don’t want to admit having done. I plan on being fully open about it. Yes, I already know what name I want to use, but I’m keeping it secret for now. I don’t know how long this work is going to be. Already it is approaching the original length I thought it was going to be, but I have just barely gotten into the story. I’m starting to really enjoy these characters and it’s been fun spending time with them and getting to know them. Unfortunately, I can also see a larger romance series building (somebody help me!).
Let’s do this, shall we?
Deep Space Omega (#1)
by Dawn Blair
As Jadz walked through the corridor connecting the two airlocks, she thought about how thin the passageway sounded, as if it might crumble under her feet. She stopped, feeling the sway beneath her. Her lips and forehead tighten as she decided this would be the first thing she fixed.
Emerging from the faulty tunnel onto the space station, a bright young-faced brunette with hair pulled back in a messy bun greeted her. “Jadzine?” she asked hopefully.
Jadz quickly realized the woman could only be a couple years younger than her, despite her young appearance. “Jadz,” she lightly corrected, trying not to offend. First impressions at new assignments were so critical.
The woman nodded. “I’m Mouse. Okay, really my first name is Maripsa, but everyone calls me Mouse. So, I get it.” She bobbed her head around and even gave a little roll of her eyes as she spoke with excitement. “We’ve got your quarters all ready.”
“Permission to come aboard then,” Jadz asked, holding out a little card toward Mouse.
Mouse, who had already started leading the way, glanced back over her shoulder and gave a dismissive wave. “We’ve already got your information. As for permission, you got off the ship bringing you here, didn’t you?” She laughed. “We’re a lot less formal here.”
Steely letters backlit by neon blue light on the gray metal wall read, “Deep Space Observatory.” Jadz wondered if anyone coming this far out would really have any doubt about what orbiter they had landed on. This wasn’t exactly a tropical paradise destination for tourists. There were only two reasons to be this far out: punishment or silence.
Jadz returned the card to the front pocket of her pants. “Yeah, about that corridor… why hasn’t anyone fixed it? It feels like it’s going to fall apart under your feet when you’re walking through. It needs reinforcing badly.”
Mouse grinned from ear to ear. “Why do you think you’re here? It’s about time we get a decent engineer around here.”
“Mechanic,” Jadz corrected her again. She wouldn’t start people thinking she was more than she was.
Paying her no attention, Mouse gestured as she turned down a branching hallway. “Crew quarters are this way. We’re all on the same deck. Hopefully you’re good being close to your coworkers.”
“I was raised on a starship. Close confines like that even in space might as well be a prison”
“Never heard a United lifer talk like that,” Mouse laughed as she gave another wave for Jadz to follow her into a room.
Tomorrow sees the release of the ebook version of Tangled Magic. It has developed so much since I was running it here on the blog as Onesong. In fact, it still continues to grow and change as I discovered another scene that I wanted in Walk the Path, the coming sequel to Tangled Magic. It’s fascinating to watch a story expand and deepen.
While Tangled Magic is still a day away from release, you don’t have to wait to get a story fixed. Let’s get you to Palladium.
Chapter 42 has now turned back into a pumpkin. If you missed it, click on the banner above to go to the current posts for my blog. There’s another free story or story excerpt somewhere around my blog – I try to post something new every week. Hunt the story down, read, and enjoy!
This excerpt is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
I’m trying to write and my faithful dog, Merlin, would rather have me petting him. This is a good problem to have. I’d rather have this than a lot of other dramas I see people inviting into their lives. Why a person would want to create that kind of stress is beyond me. I’d rather keep my life simple and let my characters have the drama.
Okay, I won’t go getting up on my soapbox today. The sun is shining, something we haven’t had a lot of the last month or so. I like my light. I couldn’t live somewhere that didn’t have a good amount of sunlight. Now if only the snow would melt off.
I discovered Merlin shedding today. Both him and my black cat, Coville, are trying to get rid of their winter coats. I tried telling them that it’s a little premature on their part; we still have more cold winter ahead of us. But do you think they listened? Nope! I think they both had the sun of their black fur and got a false sense of the warmth.
I hope my tulips are smart enough to keep their heads down for a while longer. The snow hasn’t melted yet and there’s more in the forecast. A little sun doesn’t equal spring! Even though I am also craving it very badly. I must wait too. Bring on summer. I had someone comment to me this last week that “didn’t the weather know that it was supposed to go Thanksgiving, Christmas, summer?” That’s almost a true story for Idaho weather, but I find it’s more like cold, cold, warm-ish, cold, cold, cold, flip switched, blazing hot! And I use to be one of these people that preferred the blazing hot to the cold. Not so much since I had heat stroke many years ago; hot weather saps my strength fairly quickly, but I will still take it over the cold. Everyone is always telling me that when it’s cold they can put on more layers, but when it’s hot they can’t take anything else off. I reply that I can always go jump in a pool but I hate being the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man!
Well, enough chatting about the weather. Feel free to let me know what it’s like where you live in the comments below. Meanwhile, let’s get you to the story.
Chapter 41 has now turned back into a pumpkin. If you missed it, click on the banner above to go to the current posts for my blog. There’s another free story or story excerpt somewhere around my blog – I try to post something new every week. Hunt the story down, read, and enjoy!
This excerpt is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Ah, yes… in the post of my weekly chapter last Friday, I did mention that I would talk about why I’d been absent. Look at how well I dodged that!
Hehehehe!
Okay, well, if you figured from the not so discrete announcement, I’ve been busy getting Tangled Magic up. I had so wanted to let it have a longer pre-order time, maybe get some hype worked up for it. But after finding it delayed for nearly a year, I couldn’t do that. I just didn’t want to wait any longer.
So, I finally had to draw the line in the sand and say that I was getting it done.
Read it before the Sacred Knight story starts towards its conclusion with The Missing Thread (more on that to come!)
In case you are wondering, this story has changed significantly since it here on the blog under the working title of Onesong. Which, honestly, it should because the chapters I release here are merely work in progress to keep me moving. By the time I make them into a book, they should be worked out and cleaned up. It’ll be familiar, but (hopefully) delightfully different.
