Recently I have returned to an old manuscript and am reworking it into the first-person present tense. As I celebrate Good Friday and anticipate Easter, part of that story came to mind.
During this scene, the protagonist Clarissant is running from the dictator villain, Jardine, and is desperately hunting for any means of escape. She has heard rumors of a powerful being called the Light and plies one the Light’s allies, Linnae, on how she might acquire the Light’s protection:
“Will it—can it protect from Jardine?”
Linnae settle son the edge of my bed. “I don’t know. That’s the Light’s choice.”
I bite my lower lip, considering whether I should even expend any more time or energy on this pursuit. Yet my chances of survival are already incalculably low. “Can it protect me from the d-dar-dark . . .”
“The darkness?”
I shiver but nod.
“Yes and no. He won’t hide you from it, but enable you to overcome it when you ally with him.”
Ally with the Light? Jardine would be even more furious. But if he finds me now, disposal will occur anyway. Does it matter if I’m disposed for failure to report or an alliance with the enemy? The end is the same. “Can I? Ally with the Light?”
“Depends. The Light can’t abide darkness. He expels it from his presence, even as the lamps expel darkness from this room.”
“But . . .” My words fail, the line of hope I’ve clung to now severed. The Light has no use for me, will never have any use for me. I’m a child of darkness, forever.
Linnae lays a soft, tawny hand over my rough, white one. “The Light didn’t want to expel us, so he hid his light and walked among us.”
“Us?” I lift my head, her words trying to reconnect my broken hope.
“Everyone is born a child of darkness. But the Light became like a child of darkness. He wasn’t of the darkness, but became like it so he could walk among us.”
“But he’s still light—I’m still expelled.”
“That’s why he gathered all the darkness to himself and dispelled it by allowing it to extinguish him.”
I suck in a breath. “He was . . . disposed?”
Linnae nods.
My mind struggles to connect the seemingly incompatible lines. Darkness expelled. The Light like darkness, but not darkness. Darkness extinguishing the Light. I shudder. How dark the world must have been when that happened! “But if the Light is gone, then how. . .?”
“The Creator of light from which the Light had come ignited him again, and now he does the same for all who ally with him.”
Amen. It is so.
(For the first chapter of Clarissant’s story, click here.)
Showing posts with label character blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label character blog. Show all posts
Friday, April 2, 2010
Friday, March 7, 2008
Out of Town
This week, I'm out of town, visiting my sister's family before heading to the UTCH conference tomorrow. So in a way I'm on vacation and except for work like this blog--
Yeah. Can you believe it? She just ejected the escape pod, never saying a word to me or anyone else...
Oh, pardon my interruption. My name is Cora Remain. I don't know if Chawna has talked much about me, but we've been working together the last two years on my story, which we've tentatively called Mark of the Vine. Chawna has done a good job on it thus far and we're into tweaking it. Or so she tells me. I'm not the writer. In fact, I don't like writing at all, especially speeches--though these days I seem to be writing many of those. But that's another story.
As I was saying, Chawna didn't tell me that she was going to launch on me in this way. I had fully planned on having another chat with her this coming Galaday. But when I tried to get a hold of her, not only did I discover that she jumped ship, she ejected without my story! But she does deserve it, I suppose. She has been piloting through some pretty dangerous asteroid fields, not only for my story but also two others, from what I hear.
And that's why I really got on here. If Chawna needs a vacation so badly that she feels it necessary to abandon ship in order to escape the orbit of work, the least I can do is man the helm until she returns. After all, she's flown to my aid at the weakest distress call I have sent for nearly two years.
But don't worry. She'll be re-enter some time next week--if her messages are reliable. With a fiction writer that's always a bit hard to tell.
Yeah. Can you believe it? She just ejected the escape pod, never saying a word to me or anyone else...
Oh, pardon my interruption. My name is Cora Remain. I don't know if Chawna has talked much about me, but we've been working together the last two years on my story, which we've tentatively called Mark of the Vine. Chawna has done a good job on it thus far and we're into tweaking it. Or so she tells me. I'm not the writer. In fact, I don't like writing at all, especially speeches--though these days I seem to be writing many of those. But that's another story.
As I was saying, Chawna didn't tell me that she was going to launch on me in this way. I had fully planned on having another chat with her this coming Galaday. But when I tried to get a hold of her, not only did I discover that she jumped ship, she ejected without my story! But she does deserve it, I suppose. She has been piloting through some pretty dangerous asteroid fields, not only for my story but also two others, from what I hear.
And that's why I really got on here. If Chawna needs a vacation so badly that she feels it necessary to abandon ship in order to escape the orbit of work, the least I can do is man the helm until she returns. After all, she's flown to my aid at the weakest distress call I have sent for nearly two years.
But don't worry. She'll be re-enter some time next week--if her messages are reliable. With a fiction writer that's always a bit hard to tell.
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