Book Cover Idea -- Again...

I...didn't like the second image. Gah. Here's attempt the third. Again, something totally different. Not quite done yet, but so far, I like this one the most.

Book cover idea

I still hate the last image, but Jan gave some good advice in the comments and she gave me an idea. If there's one thing I can draw, it's animals.

Here's what I've got now. It's rough. I work digitally, so I do a rough scribble in one layer, then a sketch overtop that's still pretty loose on another, then a detailed drawing over both of those on a third layer. Then I paint that. This is at the stage of sketch.  It's Claw and Rachel from V is for Victory. I've tried to incorporate both bear and cat, though at the moment he looks more cat than bear. He'll have very thick bear like fur in the painting. If it works. When I draw animals, I often use these schleich toys I collect as references. Makes it really easy to mix up different animals together to form a new one.

Any comments would be welcome.

I suppose I should include writing news, since this is a writing blog... >.>  One of my books, FINDING THE CHOSEN, is being assessed at a major publishing company right now, so hopefully I'll soon have a sale.

Oh! By the way, there are three sylphs in the last picture.  Honest.

I shouldn't be allowed near a book cover...

This isn't really done because I HATE IT! Ahem... >.>

So far, this is all I've managed to mangle for a book cover for the Alphabet Soup free ebook.  Comments/criticism/offers to do it for me are appreciated.

Z is for Zen

The beautiful blonde woman sat cross legged on the grass in the garden, her hair tumbling down her back to the grass. She looked very peaceful and zen as she sat there, her eyes closed and her hands resting on her knees. She wore a simple linen dress that did nothing to hide her beauty, as well as a baby sling strapped so the infant was nestled against her chest.

Rolf leered at her from the edge of the grass. “She’s gorgeous,” he said. “I want her.”

Beside him, Lal nodded, but looked nervous. “What are you, mad? There are battle sylphs all over the Valley.”

“Not right here or right now,” Rolf said with a belch and a scratch of his gut. “Besides, there’s nothing wrong with appreciating a beautiful lady. I’ll just go an’ make my acquaintance with her.”

“But she’s got a baby with her,” Lal protested. “She’s got to have someone already.”

“Nah, Gabralina’s single. Everyone knows that. She’s babysittin’.” Rolf smoothed back his greasy hair and hitched up his pants. “Watch an’ learn, boy. I’ll have her eatin’ out of my hand.”

Dubious, Lal watched as his friend sauntered over towards Gabralina. She blinked up at him as his shadow fell across her. 

“Can I help you?”

“Hey, gorgeous,” he leered. “How about we go an’ get naked so we can get to know each other better?”

Gabralina recoiled. “I...uh, no, thank you.”

His grin widened. His teeth were hideous. “Come on, sweetheart, spend some time with a real man.” 

He bent over her and the sling strapped to her chest exploded. Miniature black battler tentacles flailed out of every gap in the fabric, battering at the man, while hate as strong as a bit of dandelion fluff washed over him. 

Howling, Rolf ran for his life, Lal chasing after him and wailing. The sound of a raspberry followed them both.

Gabralina stared after them and then looked down at the baby battle sylph. “Aww, Razz, you’re so clever,” she cooed. “Such a good baby, yes you are! Yes you are!”

Razz blinked up at his babysitter sleepily, blew a faint raspberry in reply, and jammed his tentacles into his mouth. Sucking on them and happy, he went back to sleep, ready as always for battle.

Y is for Yellow

I can't believe this is all I could come up with for yellow....

“Yellow is the colour

Of your slinky tongue...”

“Tongues aren’t yellow,” Heyou said helpfully.

“Can tongues be slinky?” Dillon asked.

Blue sighed and tried again.

“Yellow is the colour 

Of your tiny teeth.”

“I thought you wanted to write her a poem, not get her to murder you.”

Blue sighed and threw down his rather battered piece of parchment and quill. Both of them immediately fell over the side of the ledge the three battlers were sitting on. It was debatable which would get to the ground a hundred feet below first. Blue morosely watched them fall.

“Why does poetry have to be so hard?” he asked. “All I want to do is write her a loving poem about her favourite colour.”

“Maybe you’re putting too much effort into it,” Dillon said. “Why not just bring her something, like maybe yellow flowers?”

“Nuh uh. I’m not getting her anything she can turn around and hit me with.”

“Poetry’s easy,” Heyou assured him. “All you have to do is make it rhyme.” He stood up on the narrow ledge and cleared his throat.

“When I see you, lover,

I can barely hack

How yellow is the colour

Of the stripe upon my back.

It’s too bad you hate purple, 

For that colour is the best

For I am such a pansy

And an utter wretched mess.”

Blue pushed him off the ledge.

“Well,” Dillon said after a long moment. “At least it rhymed.”

Blue shoved him off too.

X is for Xenolith

The battlers were in the air, playing with the air and fire sylphs in the winds. Even the healer was out there, flitting around them all faster than they could react. Below them was a lake and the water sylphs tumbled in it, leaping into the air and crashing back down with fun loving splashes.

Stria stood on the hill overlooking the lake and watched. She appeared to be a small, mostly featureless mud creature, her head wide and flat, her mouth broad, her nose nonexistent. She watched the other sylphs do what she couldn’t and the earth elemental rubbed her hands together with a wide, toothy smile. She couldn’t fly through the air or swim in the water, but she’d never felt the lack.

Instead, she dove. The earth elemental fell forward and dropped into the ground as if it were no more solid than the water in the lake or even the air overhead. Blind but fully aware of the feel of stone against her mantle, she flew downwards, a long, sleek shape undulating through the gaps that formed the rocks as if they weren’t there.

The earth felt like returning home. Everything around her was right as she dropped down past layers of shale covered in earth, down to the bedrock and below, to deep stone that had never seen the surface and wouldn’t for thousands of years.

Stria kept dropping, letting the heart of the world pull her towards it and easing her travel. It would be harder to swim back up, but the depths  so sweetly called for her.

She passed through the roof of a cavern that had no connection to the surface. She saw crystals in it, growths as large and strange as a madman’s dreams, and then she hit the floor of the cave and was falling happily through the stone again.

It wasn’t a single, solid piece. She dove through plates, feeling how they were sandwiched on top of each other and the different stones that made them up, all formed by varying processes that couldn’t help but fascinate her, and as she went down, she listened to the earth sing to her. 

Stria laughed, singing back in the same rhythm with her own, small voice. There was so much more down here than there was on the entirety of the surface and she longed to explore it all, to dive until the rock around her became liquid, where the continents of the world floated on a sea of magma. She could feel that massive sea, but it was deep, deeper than she could go and return for, much as she loved it, she was an outsider here and the energies of the world wouldn’t sustain her. She needed her master for that and this was one place where he could never follow her.

She could, however, bring part of this world back to him, tokens of her love that he crafted into marbles for her as a token of his.  Stria cast around for a trinket to bring back and there were so many. Finally, she settled on a rock that she easily slid loose from the bed it lay in. It was a simple, ordinary rock, but she could feel where an entirely different type of stone lay inside, a present waiting to be discovered.

With her prize in her grasp, Stria swam back up towards the surface of the world, leaving the endless depths and the singing of rock behind her. She surfaced, no longer sleek and fast, and stomped her slow way back to her master’s home. Hers too, she supposed, except where she’d just been felt more like home. Except for the fact that her master was here. Because of him, she’d always come back.

Stria opened the door and went inside, tracking dirt as she always did. Her master wasn’t back yet and she set the rock on the kitchen table. She felt tired, but it was a good tired. She looked at the ordinary rock she’d brought back and tapped it with her finger.

It split in two, revealing the other rock that had formed inside of this one so long ago, hiding inside it like a new life inside an egg. Stria ran her blunt fingers over the surface of the grapefruit sized diamond she’d found and went with a happy sigh to check on the status of her marbles.

Xenolith - a fragment of a rock inside another rock.

W is for Welcome

Galway brought his family to the Valley in the summer, months later than he’d originally hoped, but he’d wanted them to have a house to come to in this place he wished for them to call home and it took that long to get one made. Given the sheer number of dwellings that needed to be built, it still would have been waiting if he hadn’t told Stria she could do whatever she wanted in its creation. The temptation had been too much for the earth sylph to resist and she’d made for him a house six times larger than anyone else’s on her own time. It was bizarre to the point of caricature, but he didn’t think his large family would mind moving out of their former, tiny little cottage and into it.

He went and got them, and the excitement at seeing the new house went a long way towards making up for the long winter and spring where his wife and children didn’t know if he were alive or dead. Iyala, however, had assured him that he would not be doing that to them ever again. Given the new position in the Valley’s Council that Galway had been offered, he was sure that was a promise he could keep.

“Dad, it’s so huge,” Nelson gasped, staring in amazement at the mushroom shaped monstrosity while his various younger brothers and sisters crowded around him. Half of them ran squealing to explore, the others looked more dubious. 

A boy stood by the entrance to the house, hands in his pockets and watching all of them with bright-eyed interest. He was a beautiful lad, even in the plain tunic and pants he wore. Leon had suggested that they put the battle sylphs into uniforms so that people would be able to recognize them, but Galway was of the opinion that wasn’t necessary. He could tell what the lad was, though, he thought with a smirk, he hadn’t known when he first encountered him back in the woods.

Nelson and a few of the other boys saw Heyou and looked at him with the immediate suspicion of teenagers. Iyala did as well and glanced at her husband.

“Who is this?” she asked, with a tone to her voice that said she already knew the answer.

Galway smiled. “Meet your newest son.”

Iyala shook her head, but she was used to her husband bringing home foundlings and most of the youngsters running around them now were adopted. She loved them all and he didn’t think it would matter to her at all that Heyou was a battle sylph.

Nelson puffed up his chest and stalked towards his newest sibling, who was grinning back at him in a way guaranteed to make a boy want to fight to see who was the leader. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Heyou. Who are you?”

“Nelson. I’m the oldest so I’m in charge. You have to listen to me.” The younger boys watched, eager to see what happened.

Heyou grinned even wider and Galway could feel his delight through their bond. He hadn’t ordered Heyou not to hurt anyone, but he trusted the battler not to and he knew that Heyou was aware of that. “Nah.”

Nelson blustered, all indignant at the slight, and within seconds, he and Heyou were pummeling each other while the other boys circled them and shrieked encouragement.

Iyala sighed, leaning against her husband. “This does seem to be the sort of welcome we give, isn’t it?” she mused, sounding more than a bit amused.

Galway put an arm around her shoulder. “It is.” He chuckled. “Come, my dear. Let’s leave them to work it out amongst themselves. There’s something I should probably tell you about Heyou.”

V is for Victory

Even after years of effort, most of the shale plains were still dead.

A slight smirk on her face, Rachel sauntered across the grey ground, shale sharp enough to cut bare feet crunching under her boots.  She ignored the sound of it as much as she did the periodic grey bush, or the endlessly deep blue skies that stretched overhead toward the distant mountains.  Instead she focused on the line of horses and riders on the road leading south from the Valley she’d been born in, all of them over a mile away and small.  There were a lot of them.  It was a large delegation, though of course it always was when the queen rode.  Rachel made a very unladylike sound.  They also moved too slowly when the queen rode.

A heavy footstep sounded, a massive form lumbering up behind the slim girl, and though he looked as though he was nothing less than a monster, with thick fur and heavy limbs, his body lethal and corded with muscle, Rachel leaned back against him, pressing her back against his warm fur while she reached up, her fingers scratching the thick skin of his heavy neck.  He rumbled in contentment and a long, pink tongue kissed her arm.

Rachel smiled and turned towards him, burying her face in the long, blue fur of the creature, who was in the shape of something that was a mix of a cat and a bear and so large that her cheek pressed against his shoulder and his head towered over her.  It didn’t matter what shape he took; she’d always know him because he’d been with her for as long as she’d been alive.

“That’s my Claw,” she cooed and heard his deep, rumbling purr.  She scratched under his chin, working both her hands into the deep fur of the ruff beneath his broad, flat head, and moved them up to the small, upright ears.  Pulling his big head down, she pressed her cheek against his.  

Claw was her battle sylph, a shape-shifting spirit brought from another world and bound to her on her tenth birthday.  For three years she’d been able to feel his emotions, and she felt his nervous happiness now at being out here with her, away from the protection of the rest of the hive.  For her entire life before he was given to her, Rachel had been drilled on the importance of being gentle with Claw, of never forgetting the horrors he’d gone through before her birth, but she knew what he liked and as she reached up higher to massage his ears, his head bowing nearly to the ground to let her.  Rachel leaned against him while she rubbed his ears, invoking more of that great purr.

“You want to run with me, don’t you?” she cooed, feeling his almost sleepy submission.  She could just order him, but a co-conspirator was so much more fun than a servant.  

Yes, he sent, his voice a whisper in her mind.  Claw only spoke to her.  

“You want to run with me all the way to the forest,” she continued, her hands still scratching.  He started to tense and she hugged him with her entire body. “so you can pick apples from the trees for me.  Don’t you, Claw?”

He hesitated, not wanting to disobey the order to stay near the convoy, but that order hadn’t come from the Queen, who he couldn’t disobey, but instead the lead battler, who theoretically he could.  He didn’t like to, but Rachel had been convincing her battler to do things he didn’t want to since before he’d been bound to her.  

“Imagine those trees, Claw,” she whispered. “All green with bright red apples. You know how much I love apples.”  

He groaned and she knew she had him. Rachel grinned and pushed herself away from Claw, her long black hair swinging to the small of her back as she ran around to his side.  Claw lifted a foreleg and she used it and a double-handful of clasped fur to pull herself up onto his back.  His back was broad, well padded with bright blue fur, and she spread her legs to straddle him, grasping his fur again with both hands.  A thrill of exhilaration filled her.  Claw felt her emotions with his empathy and tossed his massive head up, snorting.

Rachel leaned over to his ear.  “Run,” she whispered.

Claw ran, his talons digging into the ground and pushing him forward as he raced across the dismal ground, broken shale kicking up with every footstep.  For all his size, he was incredibly fast and Rachel laughed in delight as her hair streamed behind her.  Claw charged across the ground, muscles bunching underneath Rachel’s legs as he picked up speed, galloping parallel to the convoy on the road.  They were still distant, but they’d been traveling for several days now and at the speed he was going, Claw would reach the border and the forests she longed to see in an hour.  Rachel could hardly wait, even as she loved the feel of the wind in her face and the strength underneath her.

The Queen suggests that we rejoin the convoy, Claw told her, a bit uncertainly.

Rachel smirked.  Her mother would never give Claw an order.  She gave them rarely enough as it was, but to Claw?  She considered him too fragile to command.  To Rachel, Solie just didn’t know how to be a proper commander.  

“Don’t you dare!” Rachel laughed, leaning over him, her face close enough to his fur to smell the battler.  He always smelled faintly reminiscent of tall grasses and clean winds.  “She can make me be all stuffy later.  For now we’re having fun!”  She slapped his neck, urging him to greater efforts, and with a sigh he redoubled his efforts.  They flew across the sands, Rachel drinking down the adrenaline of it as surely as Claw fed off her energy to fuel his run.

Her mother wouldn’t order Claw, but over at the convoy Rachel disdained to ride with, someone broke free from them, heading on a trajectory that would intersect with her own.  

“Faster!” Rachel shouted.  Claw could outrun just about anything.  Battler strength increased with age and he was older than more than half of the Valley’s flight.

Claw made a herculean effort, but it wasn’t a battle sylph running to catch them.  Instead, a beautiful blonde woman rode a mare at an angle to cut them off, the white horse galloping across the shale towards them as though it wasn’t dangerous for an animal’s feet.

The moment Rachel grew close enough to recognize the woman, she knew the race was lost.  Still, she pulled her lips back from her teeth in a snarl, refusing to give up.  “Fly!” she shouted at her battler.

Obedient, Claw changed shape.  In his natural form, he was a black cloud filled with lightning, with ball lightning for eyes and jagged lightning teeth.  He could carry passengers inside of his mantle, but Rachel disdained riding that way.  She couldn’t see anything and Claw knew her preferences.

His form flowed underneath her, fur shifting and becoming hard and scaly.  The handfuls of fur she gripped turned into curved spikes jutting out of his shoulder blades, easy to grip, while massive wings erupted outwards, spreading to show thin sails of skin.  His bulky head pushed outwards, his neck growing long and supple, and his entire body grew sleek and thin.  Rachel pulled her knees up, her shins resting now along the length of his massive, reptilian wings.  

Claw leaped into the air, his wings down sweeping and throwing him up as he did.  Used to it, Rachel whooped as she felt the air pressing her down against his spine.  Inspired by storybooks, the massive dragon flew into the air, his entire body still coloured a gorgeous, iridescent blue.

Below them, the ground grew tiny at a furious rate.  The white horse reared, forelegs pawing at the air while the woman on her back looked upward, her hand shadowing her eyes, her hair blowing all around her.  Rachel just laughed and waved as they flew past, still gaining altitude. She didn’t bother to shout anything.  Anything she said would have just been lost in the roar of the wind and the heavy beating of Claw’s wings.

She’s coming, Claw told her, his mental voice clear in her mind.

Rachel looked back, one hand braced on Claw’s spine, the other gripping the spike he’d grown for her.  She saw the woman and horse standing on the ground behind them, the more distant convoy still trudging along even farther back, and then the horse was changing.  Annoyed, Rachel watched her turn into a pearlescent white dragonfly, her wings sparkling in the sun like the sun shining off a thousand sparkling droplets of a waterfall.  She went straight up into the air, her master sitting just behind her head, and came after them.

I’ll never outrun her, Claw said.

“Well, try!” Rachel snapped, furious.

Claw did, his wings beating rapidly as he flew for the forests, his head stretched out before him and his long tail streaming behind, his legs held along his body.  He put all the strength he had into it, but there was no outrunning Autumn.  Battlers were quick, but Autumn was a healer sylph, halfway to metamorphosing into a queen before she crossed the gate, and she was fast.  No one could outrun her when she put her mind to it.

Still, she had her master on her back, and Gabralina had to be at least as old as Rachel’s mother.  Rachel started grinning.  “Shake her loose!” she called to her battler, even as she leaned her body down against his, gripping the sides of his spine with her legs as tightly as she could while she hung onto the spikes.  A moment later, the spikes changed to tentacles that wrapped around her forearms.

Claw barrel rolled and dove.  The height he’d gained he shed in seconds and pulled up, rocketing along just above the grey surface of the plains before angling his wings into a sudden, warmer pocket of air and shooting back up into the air in a different direction.

Rachel laughed ecstatically, dimly aware that if Claw hadn’t secured her, she’d likely have been thrown off his back.  It didn’t matter.  The wind was roaring in her ears, deafening her until she couldn’t hear her own laughter, and her stomach was flip-flopping as she was pushed against him, then away as he turned abruptly, banking, then against him again as he leveled out.  She didn’t understand physics, but she did understand adrenaline, and she loved this.

“Faster!” she shouted, almost forgetting about the healer and the woman chasing them.

I’m not sure I can go faster, Claw said, his voice mournful as he beat his wings furiously, climbing upwards at such an angle that Rachel hung along his back, his tentacles the only thing keeping her from falling along the length of his body and off.  Rachel ignored his tone.  She could feel his emotions and under all the nervousness and uncertainty, he was having fun.  As long as she could keep him from thinking about after, when her mother inevitably gave one of her lectures, he might actually realize he was enjoying himself.

Claw climbed, until the air started to turn cold as winter around her and the ground was so far below them that even the convoy was next to invisible, everyone small as ants.  Autumn followed them, her wings a blur as she climbed after them, gaining.  Claw was barely moving at all, it seemed, going almost straight up but so slowly where the dragonfly could just hover and rise, following them.

“I said go faster,” Rachel hissed.  His tentacles around her forearms were starting to ache and she couldn’t get any purchase with her feet.

I am, he protested, and then he turned over and dove.

Rachel gasped, her scream torn from her by the same wind that filled her eyes with tears she had to blink away just so that she could see.  This was speed!  Claw had his wings and legs tucked close to his body as he dove, the air roaring all around them.  Rachel couldn’t hang on.  Only Claw’s tentacles wrapped around her arms kept her from coming off him and even with them the rest of her body came off of his, and she felt weightless as she hung there, both of them plummeting towards the ground that was rising towards them so fast.  

They blew past Autumn, racing past the healer and her master so fast that Rachel was barely able to acknowledge them before they were gone.  She didn’t care anyway.  This was exhilarating, better than she could have imagined, and she knew already she wanted Claw to do this with her again, so many times again.

I like this, Claw admitted shyly.  It’s fun.

The ground was rocketing up towards them, the details of the rock and sand coming into focus with amazing speed.  Rachel sucked in her breath, hard though it was to breathe at this speed, and then Claw angled his wings, the sail coming away from his body just enough, and they pulled up, their flight leveling out no more than fifty feet above the ground, and suddenly they were shooting along above it, still at that incredible speed, and Rachel was howling with excitement and laughter, her body still parallel to Claw’s, stretched out from their speed in her own flight.

The acrobatics Claw had taken had changed the direction they were flying in.  Rachel barely had time to realize they weren’t heading in the direction of the forest anymore but towards the convoy with her mother in it before they were on it.  She saw horses rearing and neighing in terror on the ground, their riders fighting to control them, while the black clouds of battle sylphs flew over them, roaring and getting out of her and Claw’s way as fast as they could.  They nearly clipped one, and Rachel felt her own battler’s embarrassed misery at that.  She only laughed.  

“Head to the forests!” she shouted, though she wasn’t sure he could hear her past the roaring of the winds.  They’d slowed a bit, but they were still moving with incredible speed.  They’d be in there before her mother got her horse under control enough to even think about yelling at her. 

Just when Rachel was sure of her victory, Autumn blew past them.  She’d swapped her dragonfly form for a giant hawk, her wings long and pulled back, and she went by them so fast that the air itself exploded in a massive booming crash that even the greatest storm would have envied.

U is for Undone

It's a complete accident that I ended up posting this on Valentine's Day. Heh. Hope you enjoy it!

 Solie finished the week’s audience with a sigh, tired and restless for all that the audiences went well. It just felt as if she’d been doing nothing but meeting with people from within the Valley and without, listening to their entreaties and requirements and handing down her judgements. She didn’t mind the work. It was her duty and she accepted that, but sometimes it felt as if it were draining her and she only wanted to get away. 

 She walked to the back of the throne room, where a door was built flush with the wall and indistinguishable from it to those who didn’t know it was there. Her battle sylph guards followed her as she pushed on the side of the door and it opened smoothly and silently to show a corridor beyond, one kept clean and simple in contrast to the opulence of the throne room. It led to similarly simple offices belonging to her and the members of her Council. Opulence wasn’t a requirement back here, where the majority of the administration of the Valley was done. It was kept clean and spartan instead, with the walls themselves as angular as the earth sylphs could bring themselves to make them.

 Solie didn’t pay more than a glance to the closed door into her office. She certainly had work to do, but definitely no desire. Not now. She felt itchy and uncomfortable, tight in her body and distracted. She frowned at the door and continued on, headed to the very end of the wide corridor, where a set of stairs led up.

 Her guards left her at the bottom of the stairs. They accompanied her in the throne room and even in her office, as well as wherever she went outside, but she drew the line at them following her into her apartment without a very good reason. There was only one sylph allowed free range in there and Solie took the stairs two at a time, her skirts held up so she wouldn’t trip over them. Skirts weren’t mandatory in the Valley for women, but she liked the feel of them swirling around her legs. 

 Most of the time she did, at any rate. Now they felt constrictive and the minute the door at the top of the stairs closed behind her, Solie stripped off her robes of office, dropping them over the arm of a chair as she crossed the room, undoing the laces of her dress. It slithered down her body and off and she turned her head from side to side so she could feel the luxurious wealth of her red hair against the skin of her back while she undid the knot that closed the wrap which held her breasts. They came free with a sigh of relief and she pushed her smallclothes down and off as she headed towards the gardens, as bare as the day she was born. 

 Doors unique to the Valley in that they were made of pure glass led out onto the lush grass of her walled garden, the roses in full bloom and scenting the air as she took a deep breath and stretched her hands over her head, turning in place and feeling the soft breeze against her skin.

 She felt the thud of Heyou’s boots hitting the ground near to her and completed her turn, her arms behind her head and her breasts outthrust as she smiled at her battler. She hadn’t needed to call him. He could feel her emotions as well as she did, regardless of the distance between them, and he’d known what she wanted. 

 He rose from his crouch, his eyes never leaving hers as he came towards her. Between the first and second step, he shifted to his cloud form, letting himself be intangible so that his clothing fell to the ground. Between the third and fourth, he was in human shape again, as naked as she, his length already erect and straining for her.

 She stepped into his arms, feeling his arms go around her as his mouth dropped to press against hers. Her breasts pushed against him, and she felt the sudden burn of her need all the way down to the core of her sex.

 She wanted to get away, wanted away from this place that she loved so much but that sometimes pushed her down with its needs and responsibilities. She wanted to be free, to be wild, to be able to let everything go.

 Heyou understood, just as he’d always understood. He balanced her and supported her, but he was always her opposite, the wild thing that even she couldn’t tame. She’d have him no other way and she sighed as his arms went around her and her s curved about his neck. She didn’t have to tell him what she wanted. He knew. 

Heyou’s mouth brushed kisses against the side of her throat, his hands flat and warm against her spine, and with a breath of a laugh, they were in the air, her battler carrying her up and away from her home and kingdom and sometimes, what felt to be her prison.  He took his natural form to do so, but even as she lay within him in the darkness of his warmth, she felt his touch all around her, a hundred hands on her flesh that all belonged to him, all cherishing her.

They flew for a time, fast and high, and then he was descending, and as her heart leaped up into her throat at the feel of it, he shifted again, his arm around her waist and his long, dark hair tangling with her red, a shadow against her flame as he landed them both on the ground.

They were atop a plateau beyond the edge of the Shale Plains, surrounded by green with moss thick as a bed on the ground they stood upon. A warm breeze tickled across her bare skin and the music of the birds filled their ears, singing of love and life and want.

Solie pulled Heyou to her and kissed him again, his head tilted to the side and his mouth warm and wet against hers. She kept her eyes closed, her hands flat against his cheeks as she just kissed him, feeling every inch of his soft lips and the tip of his tongue slipping against hers. He drew her tongue into his mouth, sucking on it as he brought his hands up along her hips and side, to stroke the swell of her breasts and cup their weight, his thumbs curving to press against her hard nipples and send her rising up on her toes with a gasp. That broke the connection between their mouths and his arms wrapped around her, pulling her hard and fast against him, breast to chest, hip to hip, his mouth back where it belonged, pressed against hers.

His love flowed through her, and his lust, his utterly masculine desire for her that made the heart of her sex wet and aching for him. She twined her fingers through his long hair, her soft moans the only utterance she could make as she kept kissing him, not wanting to breathe unless it was through him. Not wanting to exist without him. His hands skimmed up her back again and suddenly she felt his energies flow over her, the barest edge of his power sparking across her skin.

The pleasure of it was incredible and her back arched as she cried out. He chuckled and moved his kisses to her neck, the same electricity sparking between his lips and her throat while his hands moved down her back to cup the firm globes of her backside, sparkling with energy that arched across the fine hairs on her skin and - oh gods - down to the lips of her arousal between her legs. 

It was too much, not enough. She wanted more of this, she needed something else. He was close to her, his body flush with hers and his emotions deep in her mind, but he wasn’t close enough, not nearly.

Solie rose up on her toes and hooked her right leg around his body, pulling him against her as hard as she could while she gripped his head and continued with that wondrous, fiery kiss. That pressed the thick, satiny length of him hard against her pelvic bone, and with a groan, he pulled her up enough for it to slip in between the folds of her sex, find her, and pierce deep into the burning core of her.

Solie threw her head back and wailed as Heyou filled her. His breath stuttered against her neck and he pulled her close, his tongue laving the groove at the base of her neck above where her collarbone lay as he began to move, sliding slick wet and burning in and out of her.

It was phenomenal, a direct attack against the tension that had been building in her as she dealt with work and the frustrations that it brought. Heyou thrust into her and every rock of his hips sent a spike of pleasure both of them could feel in the core of her soul. 

She felt his love too, his all consuming desire for her, his passion, his readiness to sacrifice everything he was to her, and that feeling only inflamed Solie’s passions higher. She clung to her lover, no longer able to tell whether she was herself or if she was him as his love and lust filled her as surely as his phallus did, one feeding the ache of her body, the other the needs of her soul.

They moved together, burning with heat, kissing, loving, and Solie felt the bliss in her coiling into a knot in her belly that drew in every last bit of tension, every doubt and random thought, everything in fact but her indomitable love for the being that held her, and then that knot undid itself and exploded outwards in a wave of pure pleasure that shocked her to her toes.

Solie cried out again, her entire body quivering, and Heyou held her through the wave of her climax, his hips moving against her once, twice, three more times before he followed her into pleasure that her empathy let her feel as a renewal of her own joy. 

Exhausted and satiated, the two lovers slumped to the soft moss below them, a smile on both their lips as they pressed them together in another, lingering kiss.

I haven't forgotten about U

I'm working on U, honest. It's turning out to be longer than I can do justice in one evening of writing, so U will be coming out later. Until then, I hope people are happy with a teaser.

By the way, I am paying attention to everyone's comments and suggestions, even the one about me providing the cover art for the novellas. I'm vaguely terrified at the concept, but I am considering it.

Right now, my focus is in finishing the Alphabet Soup. Then I have a novella I've sold to edit. Then I'll work on the alphabet soup free ebook. I'm sorely tempted to suggest that anyone who can do art provide pictures for it and I'll try and include them in the ebook. No recompense other than your name on it, of course.

Then I'll figure out what novellas to print. I still have to talk to my agent about it, but I would like to get a couple of pieces out. I'm almost resigned to the idea of writing a baby battler story for one and have told my brain to muse on ideas for it, but I do have an existing novella that I'd like to get out there, one titled LORD OF WINTER that I really like.

Just as I was typing this, I got a comment from a reader saying that she hopes I won't forget the sylph world as I try to get other works out there. I don't think I can. I never originally saw any books past THE BATTLE SYLPH. Then I figured THE SHATTERED SYLPH was it. And so on and so on... I have too many ideas to retire it completely, but I have other ideas as well, and the muse is a demanding bastard.

At any rate, I am writing (even if I did forget my power cord at work again. At least my brilliant husband got my powermac working again). Here's the teaser. And yes, as I promised, there's gonna be sex.

OoO

U is for Undone

Solie finished the week’s audience with a sigh, tired and restless for all the audiences had gone well. It just felt as if she’d been doing nothing but meeting with people from within the Valley and without, listening to their entreaties and requirements and handing down her judgements. She didn’t mind the work. It was her duty and she accepted that, but sometimes it felt as if it were draining her and she only wanted to get away. 

She walked to the back of the throne room, where a door was built flush with the wall and indistinguishable from it to those who didn’t know it was there. Her battle sylph guards followed her as she pushed on the side of the door and it opened smoothly and silently to show a corridor beyond, one kept clean and simple in contrast to the opulence of the throne room. It led to similarly simple offices belonging to her and the members of her Council. Opulence wasn’t a requirement back here, where the majority of the administration of the Valley was done. It was kept clean and spartan instead, with the walls themselves as angular as the earth sylphs could bring themselves to make them.

Solie didn’t pay more than a glance to the closed door into her office. She certainly had work to do, but definitely no desire. Not now. She felt itchy and uncomfortable, tight in her body and distracted. She frowned at the door and continued on, headed to the very end of the wide corridor, where a set of stairs led up.

Her guards left her at the bottom of the stairs. They accompanied her in the throne room and even in her office, as well as wherever she went outside, but she drew the line at them following her into her apartment without a very good reason. There was only one sylph allowed free range in there and Solie took the stairs two at a time, her skirts held up so she wouldn’t trip over them. Skirts weren’t mandatory in the Valley for women, but she liked the feel of them swirling around her legs. 

Most of the time she did, at any rate. Now they felt constrictive and the minute the door at the top of the stairs closed behind her, Solie stripped off her robes of office, dropping them over the arm of a chair as she crossed the room, undoing the laces of her dress. It slithered down her body and off and she turned her head from side to side so she could feel the luxurious wealth of her red hair against the skin of her back while she undid the knot that closed the wrap which held her breasts. They came free with a sigh of relief and she pushed her smallclothes down and off as she headed towards the gardens, as bare as the day she was born. 

Doors unique to the Valley in that they were made of pure glass led out onto the lush grass of her walled garden, the roses in full bloom and scenting the air as she took a deep breath and stretched her hands over her head, turning in place and feeling the soft breeze against her skin.

She felt the thud of Heyou’s boots hitting the ground near to her and completed her turn, her arms behind her head and her breasts outthrust as she smiled at her battler. She hadn’t needed to call him. He could feel her emotions as well as she did, regardless of the distance between them, and he’d known what she wanted. 

He rose from his crouch, his eyes never leaving hers as he came towards her. Between the first and second step, he shifted to his cloud form, letting himself be intangible so that his clothing fell to the ground. Between the third and fourth, he was in human shape again, as naked as she, his length already erect and straining for her.

She stepped into his arms, feeling his arms go around her as his mouth dropped to press against hers. Her breasts pushed against him, and she felt the sudden burn of her all the way down to the core of her sex.

She wanted to get away, wanted away from this place that she loved so much but that sometimes pushed her down with its needs and responsibilities. She wanted to be free, to be wild, to be able to let everything go.

Heyou understood, just as he’d always understood. He balanced her and supported her, but he was always her opposite, the wild thing that even she couldn’t tame. She’d have him no other way and she sighed as his arms went around her and her arms curved around his neck. She didn’t have to tell him what she wanted. He knew. 

U's kinda slow....

I did intend to write U today. I really did. Then I realized I forgot the power cord to one machine at work, I seem to have broken the other one (can't get it to boot) and I was out most of the day anyway. So argh, grr, snarl. I hadn't quite decided what to do with U anyway. It did occur to me that I haven't written any smut for the Alphabet Sylph Soup, so when it does come out, there's gonna be sex.

Anyone know how to get a mac powerbook that just thinks about turning on at the grey screen where the apple appears to get its finger out and actually boot? I did something dumb. It looked like it got stuck installing an update so I did a hard reboot.  I shouldn't be allowed to touch machinery...

Here, have a painting. I'm quite proud of this one, and yes, this does mean I have a working computer, but I prefer to type on my laptop, rather than my big machine. I get to lounge in my comfy chair and get creative that way.

I am pondering on how you readers want more sylph stuff, or anything I write. If I tried self publishing a novella (not sylph) for about .99 cents as an experiment, would people read it? It would be an ebook of some sort.

Hi

No U tonight. I know that the snippets are coming a bit more slowly, but my muse is being elusive and I'm working on other things. I also seem to be getting into more thoughtful concepts the farther I go and those are a bit harder to rattle out.

There is more coming, however. I definitely intend to finish the alphabet.  Perhaps I'll even try and turn it into a free E-book when it's done. Would anyone want to see something like that?

T is for Temptation

His love had died and he didn’t know how he’d ever get over it.

Nameless like everyone else in the hive, save the Queen and her consorts, he’d howled his grief essentially alone. His brothers had sympathized and comforted him as much as they could, but most didn’t really understand. Most of them held themselves pure while hoping for the love of the Queen. Only a few could find it in themselves to find affection and companionship with one of their own. Those who did find that understood what he’d lost, and clung to each other in desperate denial that it could happen to them.

He should have thought more that it would happen to him. He and his love were both battle sylphs. They took the fight straight into the crevices below the hive plateau, they hunted monsters in the darkness and up in the skies. They even ventured into the jungles on the flatlands, fighting against enemies that lived to destroy and consume them. Always there was the risk that one of them wouldn’t come back.

Why did it have to be him? Why did it have to be his sarcastic, opinionated, noble love that was killed? He’d have accepted a thousand deaths to see his love survive, but no. A moment of distraction when a beast he hadn’t seen leaped out of a fissure at him, a start of surprise as he was pushed out of the way by the being he loved most in the world, and suddenly he was alone.

It’ll get better, his brothers promised him. This is what we do. We fight and we die. There’s honour in it. He sacrificed himself for you.

Yes, he knew that. He knew it and he hated himself for it. It should have been him.

You’ll find someone else, they said. Maybe even the Queen will notice you!

Never. It would never happen. He was small and young and the Queen was known for growing bored and driving away even the mightiest of battlers once she was done with them. The only one who’d wanted him was gone now and he felt so painfully, horribly alone.

He started to avoid his brothers, finding the sight of them a painful reminder. He took to guarding the far end of the fields, talking to no one and wondering if this was to be his future now. This horrible sense of something missing that he didn’t know how to get back.

The misery wasn’t enough to make him miss seeing the gate. 

It opened in the middle of one of the fields, hovering over the ground and humming, driving the elementals nearby away with its non-colour. He charged right in, flaring his hate in warning, but there was no life to it. It was  something like a door instead and after he made sure it wasn’t about to attack or explode, he circled it instead, staring through it with growing fascination.

It led somewhere, someplace strange and closed in, like the inside of a hive, but there were no sylphs there. Right underneath the gate, he could sense the pattern of a female, something so like a Queen that it shocked him. An unbound Queen, which shocked him more.

His love’s cynical, suspicious, dead voice sounded in the back of his mind, bringing a familiar wave of pain that stopped his instinctive urge to dive through the gate.

Careful. Looks good enough to have something with teeth hiding behind it.

He hesitated, looking more closely, peering not just at her, so appealing but so different from what he’d lost, but also around her.

There was something there. Off to one side, nearly hidden, certainly easy to miss if he hadn’t been so cautious, there was a male presence. He felt the confidence, the courage, the strength, and the cynicism. Different indeed from the female, who reeked of fear and a desperation that drew at him terribly.

This male reminded him of his lover.

Ever after, he didn’t know what drew him through more. The woman tied down on the altar or the man behind her with the knife. He did go through, however, chasing something he had no words for, and the man’s arm came down, sealing his imprisonment with a single stab of the blade.

“Black!” the man shouted.  “Your name is Black and you’re mine!”

Yes, Black thought, floating over the ruins and staring at him. Yes, he was.