LET'S TALK BLOGFEST

Let's talk.

It's a bit early I know. But spirits of storm and lightning are flying and crying in the dark skies above me right now. At any moment, the power may cut out, leaving me without a cyber-voice. And I am on first call. A bleeding child may need me to drive in these heavy rains. And I have promises to keep.

At least my life is not boring.

Today I'm entering FICTION GROUPIE's LET'S TALK blogfest :
http://fictiongroupie.blogspot.com/2010/04/lets-talk-blogfest.html

And no one I know can talk like my protagonist, Samuel McCord. This entry comes towards the chilling finale of RITES OF PASSAGE. Sam is on the deck of the cursed DEMETER, not too long after the time of my PAY IT FORWARD entry of yesterday.

He is staring off into the horizon, trying to see in its silver sheen any hope that he will live to see the next dawn. His new-found love, Meilori Shinseen, has a twin sister, Maija. And like Meilori, she is lovely beyond legend, her spirit warring with ambition and passion. Maija has been toying with the ship's doctor, Jason Stewart.

And so the board is set, the pieces begin to move :

I wandered the decks alone. Much of my life had been spent alone. And tonight, I knew I would meet my fate that way. I always knew that when I died, it would be at night -- and alone.

My past was reaching out from the mists for me. History, it seemed, could kill. If it was my history, that is.

Time was stalking me from the future. And that was a mystery. Would I solve it before all went black? My enemies and my answers awaited me at the "Ball of Death and Mystery." If I died then, it would only be appropriate.

The Will behind the world had placed me here on this ship. I had to believe it was for a good reason. One worth dying for. Trouble was, I felt a thought ahead and a move behind.

An embarrassed cough sounded to my left. I turned. Dr. Stewart, looking gutted.

“Maija,” he said and explained everything.

“What about her?”

“I - I thought we had become --”

“Maija is like the sea. You never know all about her.”

“I was an old fool.”

“Lot of that going around."

“Your lady, Meilori, is her sister. I thought you would have some idea of how -- I mean -- just what I might have done to offend Maija.”

“How do you know you offended her?”

His eyes flinched at the memory. “Because she told me not to come to tonight’s Ball.”

I stiffened. “I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

“She actually does care for you, doctor.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Things are set to get awful ugly tonight at that Ball.”

“Maija knows this?”

“She’s part of it, doctor.”

He paled. “I knew she had a dark past.”

“Her present’s kind of black, too.”

He looked anguished off into the horizon. “I sensed that. Good Lord, how can I be attracted to such a woman?”

“People are never one thing, doctor. There are always several faces behind the mask they show you.”

I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “One of those faces cares, truly cares, for you. Just be glad it exists -- and that whatever you two shared was real.”

He swallowed hard. “But if something criminal is being planned for that Ball, I should be there.”

I shook my head. “No. Let Maija have the knowledge that she saved you, and that in your heart, at least, she is still someone worthy of being loved.”

He smiled as if that heart were breaking. “You are not the typical policeman. You are a romantic."

I put my gloved forefinger to my lips. “Shhh. You’ll ruin my reputation.”

He straightened as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “You’ll be there, won’t you?”

“Yes. I’ll stand in for you.”

He nodded and walked away. I watched him turn the corner about the deckhouse. I sighed, and it felt like blood oozing from an open wound.

Fingers tugged lightly on my sleeve. I caught a whiff of jasmine and spice on the breeze. I turned.

Maija. Odd how she could look so much like her sister and still strike me as appealing as an adder. She looked at me intensely for long moments.

“T-Thank you.”

“De nada.”

“This changes nothing between us, you know. You will still be destroyed by the end of this evening, and I will play my part in it. Play it most wholeheartedly.”

“I would expect nothing less from a future empress.”

She looked hot into my eyes. “Fool! You will hold back against me for my silly attachment to the good-hearted doctor, will you not?”

“I imagine so.”

“It will be your undoing.”

“Probably will.”

“Then why do it?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know any other way to be.”

She studied me. “I shall feel the emptier tonight after what must be done is accomplished. Yours is a face I shall miss, strong without the cruelty of toughness, kind without the bruise of weakness. When I have rid the world of that face, I shall have deservedly earned the hatred of my sister -- and of the name monster.”

“Then don’t do it.”

She smiled with wooden lips. “I know of no other way to be."

She moved with a fluid grace after Dr. Stewart. I wished the two of them some small measure of peace and love before the hell of this evening. I smiled bitter at the realization that I was standing all alone again, drifting silently through the darkness towards my destiny.

And to end with a bit of haunting beauty, echoing Samuel's memory of his love for Meilori, here is Blackmore's Night :