On the People Who Inhabit My Current Obsession

I didn’t create the characters. They unionized and demanded a narrative.

Every story begins with a question.  This one surrounded the idea of having power and the cost of holding it.  The kind of love that saves you and the kind that ruins you slowly.

I didn't set out to write this story, but rather I tripped over it.  And when I looked up, they all stared at me and waited for me to understand them.  I'm trying, guys!

There's Lashka who wasn't meant to be important.  That's really the first thing that I feel needs to be understood.  Girls like her aren't chosen.  They're not marked for destiny or whispered about being the chosen one in prophecies.  And yet, somewhere along the way, something ancient and watching decides that she's worth noting.  Not because she's special, but because she refuses to cooperate with his wishes.

Then there's a certain kind of danger in certainty.  Mac Alasdair doesn't question himself.  He refuses to hesitate.  He's built his entire identity into something that's difficult to undo.  He believes in control, in purpose, in the clean power of logic.

And then he meets something that doesn't fit into his understanding of the world.  He calls it an inconvenience, but he's lying.

Magic, in this world, isn't a gift.  It's negotiation between the veil touched, the light holders, and all overs.  The use of magic is a negotiation.  It asks something of you, then something more, and then something you can't get back.

The power changes the shape of a person.  Sometimes it's subtle but other times it's all at once until you become someone who can no longer be recognized by the people that they love.

It would honestly be so much easier to write this if it wasn't a story about love.  But it is.  It's not a gentle or easy kind of love.  It's the type that complicates things and forces choices.  It asks you "Who are you willing to become to keep it?" and most importantly, "Who are you willing to lose?"

I'm still writing up the world and the people who live in it.  

If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the crackle of something burning.  You can see shadows around you changing shape as if they are listening.

It has the quiet, terrible certainty that once this story begins, it will refuse to end cleanly.