Conversations with Christopher: Peter

Hands reach out to grab Christopher’s feet from the glowing silver disc beneath him, Some of them climb up his legs with roving fingers pulling him down and through a now insubstantial floor. 

He slides down into a sea of hands, carrying him down the ceiling to the waiting golden disc on the ground. 

The hands release the slender youth with slow reluctance, disappearing into the golden disc on the Navel’s floor. 

Christopher: Every time it’s different. (He steps out of the golden circle in a hurry to glance up at the silver one upon the ceiling.)

A moan comes from above, a young man’s groan filled with frustrated longing.

Christopher: Peter?

The silver disc glows, becoming misty. Two slippered feet attached to slim, wiry legs in hose emerge from the mist, followed by a pelvis thust out, a torso quivering. Peter’s head is thrown back while he floats from the ceiling.

The golden disc below brightens, pulsing with an almost seductive rhythm. Peter’s eyelids flutter, his lips parted in a dreamy little smile. 

Christopher: Peter?

Peter: (not opening his eyes) Yes. Yes, that’s me. I’m all yours. 

His feet hit the circle. The glow disappears. 

Peter opens his eyes, stands up straight. His mouth closes. 

Peter: Well. (He allows one hand to slightly cover his groin in a gesture that’s almost demure for Peter.) I’m not sure, but going down is always more pleasant than going up to Gabrielle’s sanctum above the Navel. Wherever that is.

Christopher: (averting his eyes) I’m not sure either. I always thought it was part of the Navel. The private part for those who’ve become part of it.

Peter: Is that so? (He fixes his soft brown eyes upon Christopher.) Am I part of the Navel, Christopher?

Christopher: You’ve been a part from the moment you were able to enter. (He gestures up toward the silver disc.) To rise, to enter Gabrielle’s sanctum, is to become one of us. 

Peter: (glancing up in the direction of Christopher’s finger, one hand on his hip) Is it really Gabrielle’s? Or simply part of the Navel as you say?

Christopher: I’m not sure if ‘Brie sees a difference between herself and the Navel. 

Peter: She belongs as much to the shop as it does to her, eh? No escape now. She’s bound to its walls and boundaried by them.

Christopher: Now you sound like Damian. If ‘Brie is bound to the Navel, it’s because she wants to be. She loves her work here. 

Peter: Or she’s hiding, avoiding something or someone. Like all of us. 

Christopher: Gabrielle is the last person in the world who would hide. You’ve seen what she’s like.

Peter: I have. The hearty manner, the odd hats, the way she proudly welcomes visitors to the center of all things bizarre. She wraps these things around herself like a loud cloak, distracting everyone. No one will look too close. 

Christopher: (lowers his head) I never thought of it that way. 

Peter: Yes, you have. (He takes a step closer to the younger boy, so he’s right in front of him.) You’re just too polite to allow yourself to dwell on your mother’s vulnerability. After all you have plenty of your own. 

Christopher: (raises his chin only to find Peter’s face is too close) What of it?

Peter: I’ll wager Damian noticed this vulnerability and picked at it. 

Christopher: He didn’t see ‘Brie’s reasons for being here as vulnerabilities. He thought she was wasting her strength. 

Peter: (leaning back, giving Christopher space) Perhaps he was right. 

Christopher: (raising an eyebrow) I never thought I’d see the day you’d agree with Damian. On anything. 

Peter: Just because he was right doesn’t mean he wasn’t a prick. He used ‘Brie to hide from whatever awaited him until he decided to leave, using everyone else to make his exit. Including your need to hide. 

Christopher: He offered me the Navel in return for the Shadow Forest.

Peter: Yes, definitely a prick. As if the Navel was his to offer. 

Christopher: Do you think the Navel is anyone’s to offer? Even Gabrielle’s?

Peter: A fair question. I’m not sure how Gabrielle and the Navel have become one even if I’m certain they were very different entities once upon a time. I could speculate quite a bit about this. Clever distraction on your part.

Christopher: Distraction? (He backs up another step.)

Peter: Yes. You distracted me completely from the topic of what you’re hiding from.

Christopher: (raising his chin) I might ask you the same. Since you’re convinced we’re all hiding from something. 

Peter: What am I hiding from? (He backs up a step, lets out what might have been intended to be a hearty laugh, but it comes out weak.) I would have that was obvious. My own broken heart and frustrated desires. (He shrugs as if it doesn’t matter.) I suppose I need you, you and ‘Brie. Perhaps I need the Navel, too, and its customers. You’re a haven from everything I’ve been through. 

Christopher: (softening) We need you, too.

Peter: If only you needed me, Christopher. (He takes a few steps forward, closing the distance betweeen them.) If only I could satsify that hunger of yours.

He reaches out to touch Christopher’s lips.

Christopher reaches up to remove Peter’s hand, but he doesn’t let go of it. 

Christopher: You do. 

Peter: (sighing) Not in the way I’d hoped to.

He drops Christopher’s hand and shrugs, offering him a smile. 

Peter: Ah, well, all I can do is keep on hoping.

Christopher: Peter…

Peter: Never mind! Perhaps there’s time for a little walk through Omphalos before the Navel opens, hmm?

Without looking back, Peter marches toward the Navel door.

More slowly, Christopher follows. 

Like my style of writing? Here are links to my published works…

http://www.amazon.com/author/kstrenten

K.S. Trenten

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Conversations with Christopher: Gabrielle Part 1

Christopher walks through the mists of the Cauldron, waiting for them to part. Waiting to see what they’ll reveal to him. 

Wispy tendrils of gray creep away from a familiar cobblestone path leading through Omphalos. On either side are cottages, quaint structures with pointed roofs. One of these structures has a swinging sign over the door, painted with an image of a flat stomach and a belly button.

Christopher: (stopping under the sign) The Navel. Center of all things bizarre. Quite a boast, to claim all bizarre things.

He glanced at the window. A muscular human statue with the head of a chicken lowers their beak menacingly at him. 

Christopher: Perhaps ‘Brie wants to talk to me. 

He opened the door of the dwelling. He enters the darker interior of a shop filled with shelves covered with crystals, candles, boxes, skulls, cups, and statues of squat smiling humanoids among stranger items. Racks of bright-colors robes are tucked away in another corner. 

Christopher almost stumbled down the slight slope into the shop which replaced the stairs.

Gabrielle: Welcome to the Navel, center of all things bizarre. (She says her usual greeting, but not with the usual boisterous enthusiasm. She’s too busy searching the shelves in a bustle of skirts and clattering shells.) For the sanity of me, I cannot find my sense of humor! Help me search for it? It’s got to be around here somewhere.

Christopher: Your sense of humor? 

He approaches the woman who’s become his mother, who accepted him into her home and Place of Power as her son. Her request isn’t nearly as odd as it might be to a lot of people. Lost memories, wayward ideas, and forgotten dreams find their way into the Navel, manifesting as cups, skulls, or statues. Why not a sense of humor?

What’s stranger is that Gabrielle should lose hers. She’s always smiling or laughing. From the time Christopher first met her, she’s had a strong sense of the wacky. 

Take those chicken-headed gods similar to the ones in the window. They’re taking up an entire shelf. Some are made of porcelain. Some are made of metal. Some of models made with actual chicken feathers. They all have human male torsos and the heads of hens. 

Inspired by the sight of them, Christopher heads to the shelf where those gods await. 

Christopher: It wouldn’t happen to be here, by any chance? Your sense of humor?

Gabrielle turns to glance at the deities only she seems to appreciate. A smile starts to brighten up her face, lifting the lines from it. 

Gabrielle: You might say so, yes. How those chickens annoyed Damian! Almost as much as the chicken representations her father collected annoyed our scribbler. Only her father was trying to be Country French. I collected these in an attempt to protect Damian with a joke. 

Christopher: Protect him? How?

Gabrielle: Well, chickens have been known to gobble up spiders along with insects and worms. One could consider an arachnocrat a type of spider. 

Christopher: The Lady Duessa seemed more amused and scornful at the sight of them along with everything else in the Navel than afraid.

Gabrielle: That was Duessa. She wasn’t the only arachnocrat that wanted Damian. Others might come calling. These deities could be a form of protection.

Christopher: I’m not sure if they ever protected Damian or me. They seemed as eager to get us as any other arachnocrat. 

Gabrielle: Maybe I should get rid of them. (She gives the chicken gods a sad look.) No one seems to like them other than me. 

Christopher: (waves a hand in protest) Don’t worry about. I’ve grown accustomed to them. They’re part of what makes the Navel bizarre. 

Gabrielle: They are, aren’t they? (She perks up a bit.) They still make me smile, but no. They’re not what I’m looking for.

Christopher: We’ll keep looking. 

(To be continued next Monday…) 

J is for Juno

Hello, my dears! How nice to see you all, would you like a cup of tea? It’s so relaxing, just ask my husband, tee hee! He’s not half so restless as when he started drinking this, letting his eyes and hands wander, the naughty man. My tea makes the naughty quite docile, tee hee! Yes, you wouldn’t think so. I seem quite the simple old woman, don’t I? Things are never what they see, my dears. Why, it took our scribbler a while to realize this, the silly thing. She created me for Stealing Myself From Shadows, not realizing I was much older than her story. She actually called me June at first, can you imagine that? Tee hee! When she fixed my name, you might say I snapped into focus for her at last. The slow dear realized I had quite the collection of legends around my identity, legends she could use to inform her own tale with a little cleverness. Once my name changed, I acquired my sulky husband and my depressed daughter. Oh, yes, I’m speaking of Jupitre and Hebe, tee hee! I didn’t get to keep either long. Neither was happy with life in Omphalos. Why for that matter, neither was I. I suppose that’s why we get into trouble in Stealing Myself From Shadows and A Godling for Your Thoughts? Oh, but I wouldn’t want to give you any spoilers about that, no, no! You’ll just have to wait and read about it yourselves. Do tell that silly scribbler there are people waiting to read more about us, would you? There’s a dear! You take care of yourself now and be certain to honor your marriage bonds, please. I take such matters seriously. I get very cross when people don’t and you wouldn’t want to make me cross, would you?

I is for Isolde

I’ve had many conceptions. I’ve been a troll artist for a roleplaying game. Much of my genesis came from the scibbler when reading about Michelangelo; his affinity with stone, his efforts to free the art he saw trapped in the stone. Some of this concept went to Quartz. Some of it stayed with me. Working with stone, feeling Fidessa’s victims trapped within the rock gave me an idea of what she was up in The Players Are the Thing. 

I thought this was our story. Mine and Amberwyne’s. Only it turns out to be just a game a group of lonely, bored girls are playing. Why would anyone play our lives? Why would anyone play with our lives? What sort of monster is capable of such a thing? Except I sometimes catch glimpses of my creatrix. She’s no monster. She’s a frustrated woman trying to express things she cannot. I’m that expression. I’m her creativity given life and voice. I cannot say I’m unhappy with the life and voice I have, for all the danger I encounter. 

I’m not sure if she is, which is a waste. She should stop and enjoy life more. Enjoy me more. Here’s hoping she listens when I try to tell her or show here. Here’s hoping the scribbler doesn’t forget The Players Are the Thing. We’ve come too far for her to forget. 

E is for Elizabeth

Elizabeth is a name the scribbler associates with grandeur and why wouldn’t she? It was the name of a queen who became as much a myth and legend as a powerful part of history, creating a revolutionary part of herstory. 

Of course it is my name. 

Of course the scribbler gave this name only to characters of some splendor even if they were monsters. Any concept she thought of as Elizabeth, even in roleplaying game required some stature. It’s a name associated with greatness, someone who has an impressive estate. It’s the name of someone whose portrait you cannot walk by without being mesmerized by her eyes. It’s a name which inspired awe.

Thus the concept of A Portrait Is Worth a Thousand Words. It’s all about me. The story idea was born at the same time I was. 

Some people cower before greatness. The scribbler is one. Perhaps that’s why she trembles at finishing my story. Why shouldn’t someone great make great mistakes? My misteps match my stature in all things. 

The scribbler should take heed of this. She will not be able to ignore my story. Greatness cannot be ignored. Nor will it be denied. 

D is for Damian

I came into the scribbler’s mind, sometimes smirking, sometimes singing, always provoking thought while listening to Depeche Mode’s music as a teenager. I became a character, a blurry picture that grew clearer and clearer. 

Once upon a time I was part of a forbidden fanfic she abandoned when she learned the fanfic was forbidden. Sometimes my name was used for characters in roleplaying games. Eventually Damian Ashelocke assumed his own identity in Stealing Myself From Shadows. Only like Christopher, I wasn’t really me yet. I was a shadow of what I could become.

Our scribbler abandoned Stealing Myself From Shadows along with us to work on someone else’s story. As if I was about to let her forget about us. As if I was about to let her forget the problems with our characters.

I whispered to our scribbler’s imagination, flashing in her mind at certain times. I wasn’t about to let our scribbler forget about me. I certainly wasn’t going to let her forget about Christopher. She found herself writing bits and pieces of our story even while she was concentrating on us. 

Eventually she picked up Stealing Myself From Shadows. She wrote a new draft of our story, Christopher’s and mine. Eventually she blogged the serialized Waiting for Rebirth. She answered a long ago question from one of her beta readers. Why was I so important to Christopher? She also posed a second question. What happened to me?

The scribbler answered the first in Waiting for Rebirth. She managed to answer the second without answering. For that’s part of a greater story she’s been touching upon in many a blog post. 

Why are you looking at me like that? You think I’ll tell you the answer? I’m not entirely certain of the whole story myself. Opening a Door changed me. What happened on the other side transformed me. 

We’ll just have to find out what I transformed into together. Or perhaps I should say whom? 

Oops, was that a spoiler? 

C is for Christopher

Our scribbler was almost named Christopher. She’s always felt an affinity for that name. Especially after reading A.A. Milne’s books about Christopher Robin’s adventures with his stuffed animals in the Hundred Acre Wood. Our scribbler imagined adventures and stories involving her own childhood toys as well. It’s no coincidence that her first attempt at writing involved a teddy bear. 

I emerged from our scribbler’s imagination when she was listening to Depeche Mode as a teenager. My beloved Damian had already come into existence on the waves of many a song by that band, challenging and questioning reality, morality, and the world. I existed as that soft voice which questioned Damian. Never too loud or confrontational. Supportive, even loving. Not completely on his side even though I was. 

I’m not sure if the scribbler was aware of me. Not at first. I found a voice in other characters, but I wasn’t quite me yet.

She first started writing about me in the original draft of Stealing Myself From Shadows. She gave me my name, but I wasn’t me yet. I was too much like Rhodry or Danyel. I’m not really either of them. The draft of Stealing Myself From Shadows suffered because I wasn’t me. 

The scribbler tried rewriting the novel again with Danyel as the protagonist. This novel became The Hand and the Eye of the Tower, but I needed to be heard. The scribbler found herself returning to me, trying to find my voice in scraps of story. I was darker, angrier, moodier than Rhodry or Danyel. I was missing something profound. 

I was missing Damian. The idea that I myself was a shadow came after the scribbler rewrote Stealing Myself From Shadows once upon a NaNoWriMo and put it aside. She began working on Waiting for Rebirth, a serialized story of how I came into being, thanks to Damian. 

I’ve been developing ever since. I became the host of Conversations with Christopher, a regular crossover blog for the scribbler’s stories at this very site. 

Now the scribbler is finally working on Stealing Myself From Shadows, rewriting Waiting for Rebirth, making both part of the same novel. Rewriting Unwilling to Be Yours and Be My Valentine…Snack so they’re part of the same novel as well. 

Perhaps this novel will swell into something too monstrous. Perhaps it will have to broken down into smaller pieces. At least it’s moving forward again. 

A is for Ariadne

I wasn’t always called Ariadne. Once upon a Fantasy Hero Campaign in the 1990s, I was Amberwine. Fresh from a matriarchal country in a patriarchal world, both my views and I were regarded as an oddity. I fail to see how they were any stranger than anyone else’s. I turned out to be far stranger than I expected, along with just as ordinary. I suppose that’s not all that remarkable either. 

My creatrix got attached to me, both my oddities and my ordinariness. If I could be called ordinary. She rewrote me, made me part of a Work in Progress inspired by a D & D handheld game she never finished. This game involved a vampire creating an undead army to take over a fantasy world, kidnapping people right and left to do so. My creatrix fell in love with parts of this game. It inspired her own story, Trouble at Caerac Keep. Yes, there would be trouble at Caerac Keep. People would disappear to become undead slaves or food for undead slaves. Only a vampire wasn’t necessarily behind it all, even though an infamous vampire would be blamed for the problem. Indeed I may be a lot closer to the true source of problem, along with personally connected to the disappearances. My sister, Alexi, is one of the people who disappeared while visiting this strange Caerac Keep. Thus I, a foreigner in a foreign land followed my dreams to the same place, hoping to save my sister. 

Thus here I am in Trouble at Caerac Keep, at this Cauldron of Eternal Inspiration with a different name. Another Amberwyne claimed mine. Yes, an Amberwyne with a different spelling and a completely different personality. I became Ariadne. Given the Graeco-Roman mythological feel of my homeland, Aethyria, it made sense to give me a name with the same feeling. A name connected to mazes, mysteries, and monsters. Now that my creatrix types these words, having me say them, I feel a bit apprehensive. I know my story involves a mystery in a fantasy setting. I’m not sure sure how eagerly I anticipate the appearance of monsters and a maze. Do wish me good fortune and cast me a blessing, bold reader. I have a feeling I’ll be in dire need of one. 

Secondary Characters Speak Out: Quartz and Prunella

Mountains peek through the mists of the Cauldron along with hints of a blue sky. A dragon coils their pearlescent scales around one of the peaks. 

Only those scales have quite the rosy cast as does the dragon’s snout. 

Quartz perches on a cliff below, breathing in the mountain air. Just smell those rocks. It’s like coming home to a child of the rock. Almost enough to quench the stench of brimstone Prunella the Dragon constantly carried with them. 

Only does Prue faintly smell like roses?

Quartz: (sniffing) Aye, you smell like flowers. (squints up at those rosy scales) You…glowing?

Prunella: (stiffening, rearranging their coils with a prim casualness which starts a small mountain slide) None of your concern, dwarf. 

Quartz doesn’t have to duck the rocks. He plants his feet and somehow every falling stone misses him. He grins up at the dragon.

Quartz: Aye, you are, Prue. Find yourself a fresh maiden, did you? Or was it a knight? Or both?

Prunella: Such salacious comments. (sniffs) Nimmie Not is turning you into quite the gossip.

Quartz: Right. (still grinning) Someone turned you into quite the romantic. 

Prunella: A little romance brings color to our scales as you so crudely put it. Besides we doubt we’ll ever see her again. She’s has her world. We have ours.

Quartz: Worlds, not world. Sound like this might be someone Christopher knows. Sounds like trouble.

Prunella: A little trouble can be quite invigorating in a long existence, Quartz. (They gave Quartz quite the pointed look down their snout.) As you are quite aware.

Quartz: (nose turning red) Aye, well, it was time we started enjoying ourselves a bit. All of Christopher’s conversations were turning…unreal.

Prunella: We are all unreal, dwarf. What makes you think Christopher doesn’t enjoy his surreal state? He is a very different creature from you, Quartz, for all that you’re both two-legged oddities from our perspective. 

Quartz: Thank’ee for your honesty, Prue. Can’t say I see the happiness in always searching for something. Even when Christopher says he is, I don’t believe him. 

Prunella: Force yourself to smile and it can become real. Something else we’d think you’d be familiar with. 

Quartz: Familiarity can drive you mad as well as comfort. He’s hoping a little of the unfamiliar next April will be the latter.

Prunella: A familiar unfamiliarity since the same characters will return for Blogging From AZ April Projects: Characters Origins. Something we’re sure you’ll participate in. 

Quartz: Not here. I’ll be back at the Formerly Forbidden Cauldron at inspirationcauldron.blogspot.com. 

Prunella: Ah, the Formerly Forbidden Cauldron will bubble once again just for this. 

Quartz: Aye. Some witchy type called Questioning from a Work in Progress called A Suitor’s Challenge.

Prunella: Our scribbler does have a lot of Works in Progress.

Quartz: Aye, and they’re neglected too often. Like ours.

Prunella: Unlike us, our scribbler has a very finite amount of time. 

Quartz: And this is our time to remind her that we exist and our stories are waiting for her to finish. 

Prunella: Sounds like you’re looking forward to BloggingFromAZ. 

Quartz: It’s just one post and a lot darker at the Formerly Forbidden Cauldron, but aye.

Prunella: And your theme is Character Origins.

Quartz: Aye. Where did we come from? How did the scribbler dream us up? That sort of thing. 

Prunella: Best of luck in your blogging. (the mists start to thicken around the coils and the mountains)

Quartz: Thank’ee. (he takes another breath) Shards, but I love this spot. Here’s hoping the scribbler brings up back here. 

Prunella: Here’s hoping…

Mists descend upon dragon, dwarf, and mountainside, swallowing all of them. 

Like my style of writing? Want to read more? Here are links to where you can find my published works…

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/kstrenten

Nine Star Press Author Page: https://ninestarpress.com/authors/k-s-trenten/

Conversations with Christopher: Danyel (Among Others)

Christopher sinks into the darkness lying deep in the pond, the darkness which absorbs all color. He doesn’t need to breathe. He’s dissolving into the darkness until he becomes part of it. 

There is nothing. No awareness until he opens his eyes. 

He finds himself on the banks of a pond, only this one doesn’t bubble. Floating color drifts across it, but it’s hard to see. It’s hard to see anything past the standing stones which surround the pond and himself, like giant teeth. 

He appears to be on a hilltop. He can catch glimpses of the rolling green valley below dotted with flowers. Or are they rooftops?

It’s hard to see anything in the shadow of the stone. 

Danyel: (his voice swims as if from coming underwater at a far distance) Don’t look at the stone. Look at me instead.

Christopher raises his head, looks around him. There’s no sign of Danyel. Nowhere he could be coming from except the pond. 

He leans over the surface, sparkling with fading light. A patch of green laps over other fading colors. 

Within the green, Christopher can see Danyel sitting at a table with an open book in his head. Are Tayel and Leiwell sitting beside him? Only Danyel is clear to Christopher, Danyel and the book he’s reading. Its title is Beyond the Door. 

Christopher: Are you real? (He pauses to consider his words.) Never mind. That’s a silly question, considering we’re still in the Cauldron.

Danyel: Is it? I was thinking the same thing. I’m reading of one of Ashleigh’s stories in this book to my family. Now I’m having a vision of you at the edge of a pond on top of the hill overlooking our cottage. 

Christopher: I suppose all of this is as real as it seems to be. Or we believe it to be.

Danyel: If that’s true, should you really be comparing those stones around you to teeth? Or imagine yourself in a giant mouth about to close? You might get swallowed along with the pond. (He frowns.) Does that mean my family, my cottage, and I would all be swallowed with you?

Christopher: (looking around uneasily) I hope not. It’s hard, once your imagination takes flight to get it to come down. I shouldn’t allow the stones to be anything more than stones, but now that I’ve compared them to teeth, that mouth is just waiting in my imagination to come up. 

Danyel: (shivering in the image) It’s always a mouth, isn’t it? I mean, there are no standing stones looking down at my cottage, but they exist in the story I’m reading. It’s a tower that’s on top of the hill, but it still feels like a mouth. 

Christopher: A tower?

He gazes at the stones, wondering how this hilltop changed into something so different in Danyel’s world. 

Mossy rock spreads in between each stone, closing Christopher in. The pond and the vision of Danyel vanish. 

Danyel: Christopher!

His voice is cut off. Christopher blinks, eyes adjusting to dim, yellow-green torchlight, flickering from the circular stone walls. He’s facing three tapestries. 

The one on the left depicts a dragon with a woman wrapped in its coils. Or are her many arms and writhing tresses of auburn hair wrapped around the dragon?

The second on the right displays a riot of colors which may be flowers. Only they’ve all been frozen into a state of stillness upon a web.

The third in the center features a slender tiny youth with a fall of shaggy golden hair embracing a beast with many faces; whose appearance changes in the flickering light.

The dragon in the left tapestry speaks in a familar voice, although not one from Christopher’s world. Any of his worlds. 

Prunella (for yes, it is Quartz’s dragon acquaintance from Of Cuckoo Clocks and Crystal Coffins speaking from the weave): Enough of this dream. Others are impatient to let their voices be heard in the Cauldron’s bubbles.

Christopher blinks at the dragon wrapped in what appears to be Duessa Ashelocke’s hair and arms. They gaze back at Christopher with a grave nod of their muzzle. 

Duessa: (her voice comes from the red lips of the woman locked in the dragon’s embrace) Call this enough? It was only starting to get interesting.

Prunella: Don’t entangle your destiny with ours further, Duessa Ashelocke. We come from different worlds, the two of us. 

Duessa: Being entangled is our scribbler’s doing, not mine. Not that I was about to protest.

Christopher: (gazing the dragon in the tapestry) I feel like I’ve seen this image before. Or I will see it. Only you weren’t the dragon in it. 

Prunella: You’re quite observant, Christopher Ashelocke. We’re sorry to interrupt your reverie, but a certain demanding dwarf has things to say. 

Christopher: You mean Quartz. Wasn’t he going to say them next week? During Secondary Characters Speak Out?

Prunella: (with a sigh) Yes, he was.

Duessa: He is truly an impatient one, that dwarf. Interrupting this blog to have you deliver a message, pressuring you to leave your world to do so. Why don’t you stay here with us, Prunella? (She smiles, exposing her fangs.) I’ve never tasted dragon before. I doubt you’ve ever taste the likes of me either. 

Prunella: (hissing, showing their own fangs) A dangerous thing to tempt a dragon, my lady. We foresee you’ll have your taste eventually if you remain bold, but we won’t be doing the tasting. 

Duessa: Such a pity. We’ve gotten so close.

Prunella: You’re a charming predator and no mistake, even if you’re a small one. Do visit our cavern sometime if you should ever wander between worlds. 

Duessa: It’s a dangerous thing to tempt an arachnocrat as well, my dear Prunella. I may take you up on your offer. 

Christopher: (turns blushing from the tapestry) Danyel, I think our conversation is over. I’m not sure if you’re still here. Perhaps your spirit lingers in one of the tapestries, but we’d better leave those two alone. Everyone reading this, I’ll see you again on April 3 for #BloggingFromAZAprilProjects: Character Origins. I’ll be talking about mine during C is for Christopher.

The light around him becomes ever hazier. Christopher flickers as if he was an after image of that haze and disappears. 

Duessa: I won’t be showing up on April 4th. D is for Damian, not Duessa. Never mind that he owes his existence to me.

Prunella: We won’t be returning on April 19th either. P is for Peter, not Prunella. Never mind that we’re older and more enduring than Peter will ever be.

Duessa: We’re bound by the limitations of our scribbler, yet we can exceed them. (offering the dragon a coy smile) Perhaps you could show me how great and enduring you are…

The greenish yellow light make the tapestries, the tower room itself flicker and swim, transforming into haze. Let’s face it, it’s a change of scenery from fading to black…:)=

Did you enjoy my writing and my characters? Want to experience more? You can find buy links for my published works at these places…

Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/author/kstrenten

Nine Star Press Author Page: https://ninestarpress.com/authors/k-s-trenten/