May20

BLAKE & CHRISTIANA: Aya Miyagi II

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Genre: Romantic Fantasy

Aya Miyagi : Part I

Aya Miyagi : Part II

“Tell me what I need to know.” he said coldly.

She sighed. “The Old World is a world that exists simultaneously with ours. It is a world inhabited by people who choose to embrace the old ways. All breeds of humans, elves, dwarves and other creatures co-exist in harmony with each other. The leaders of each realm signed treaties, an indestructible oath, which states that they are not to meddle in each other’s’ affairs. The occupants remain in their own territories and interactions with people from other kingdoms were limited. They would trade certain goods but that’s it; only merchants, minstrels, and messengers were allowed inside the walls of each realm. Armed men who come in groups are forbidden to come near the fortress. For a long time, war was unheard of.

“The Old World is not a version of the medieval world as written in history books. It’s neither a modification nor a reflection of this world. To its inhabitants, the Old World is real, just as our world is real to us. It is a world where magic exists. Something that’s forgotten by the people of the new world.

“The Old World is by no means, a perfect world. Their world has their monsters just as we have ours. And if you must ask, which world is fictitious and which is one real… Well, I have an answer for you that’s pretty simple. This,” she looked around the luxurious suite “ is real.”

“And this…” she tapped long graceful fingers on the book, “ is fiction. Says so right here on the cover.” she finished with a satisfied smirk.

Blake’s icy tone remained unchanged. “Don’t you think the world you created is pretty unfair? Don’t people get to choose which world they want to live in? ”

“They can. They have. Everyone is where they are right now by choice. People see what they want to see, remember only what they choose to remember… The mere fact that you are here right now and that you perceive this word means that this is the world you chose. You’ve selected the New World from the very moment your energy was embedded into your mother’s womb.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Blake struggled to digest the information. “ So that’s it then? I was born into this world and have no choice but to remain here?”

She rolled her eyes. “To say that he was ‘born into it’ is perhaps the most pathetic excuse that a person could make for the current state that he’s in. Why should being ‘born into something’ be a hindrance to achieving something or becoming anything? We either accept or refuse our destinies, Mr. van der Merwe. And when we find that the road set for us is not to our liking, we could always defy fate and carve our own paths.” she proceeded in her melodious tone. “If you really wanted to be somewhere, you’d be there. And if you really wanted to be something, then that’s exactly what you’d be right now… and no chain or walls or set of laws could stop you… not in this world or the other. ”

When he didn’t speak, she continued. “There is something… a part that I didn’t bother to write down… It’s just too complicated and might confuse readers. Besides, it was completely unnecessary. No characters in the book really needed to cross over from one world to the other. The whole plot was set in the Old World. You’d know this, if you’d even bothered to read my book.” her voice dripped with honey and sarcasm. “The Old and New Worlds are separated by the Chasm. To some the Chasm may be a bridge that they need to cross, a gaping hole, a tunnel, the edge of a cliff, or an ocean that they have to swim. The experience differs with each individual. A person cannot speak for another. To some, it may even be as subtle as stepping into a thin layer of air separating one world from the other… or waking up to a dawn after a seemingly perpetual darkness.”

“How do you cross this chasm?”

“You don’t.” she stated matter-of-factly. “Like I said, no one’s ever really crossed the Chasm. Not in my story at least. ”

She hesitated as if to consider the desperation that was already evident in his face.

“But I did have this idea which I scratched off because it was just too much of a cliché. Anyway, it was about a good wizard forging a key to be given as a gift to a human who saved his life when he wandered off into the New World… blah, blah… I completely removed it from the story line. It wasn’t a key to any door really, just a key. You know, for symbolic purposes. And when one possesses it, and if the desire is truly strong…” she shrugged dispassionately, “It takes you from here to there, and vice versa. Yeah, I know, it’s been done before and quite frankly, it sounds ridic –”

Blake held up the key. The magnificently molded metal dangled in front of her face. Blake was both fascinated and disgusted by her reaction. She had the look of an inventor who had just witnessed her masterwork come to life.

“Why do you do this?” Blake suddenly found himself deeply angered. “What gives you the right to play god… creating worlds of your own, wiping away an entire clan by the brush of your pen, taking lives just for the drama of it all… Why?”

“It’s supposed to be fantasy…” she spoke gently, “Figments of my imagination.”

“Well you have a deadly imagination!” he said, looking agitated and confused, “It’s all just too much…” he ran his fingers through his hair in frustration.

“When you write a novel”, her voice flowed rhythmically in the air , “You come at it like you ought to approach life. You don’t hold anything back, not on the first try… Just as you don’t write the sequel while working on your current book. You don’t save your ideas for the future; you don’t hoard words. You put it all in — guts, blood and fire. You describe the sky like you’re never gonna get to see it again…like you could actually touch, taste and smell it even if the laws of the universe says you can’t. You don’t worry about the rules, or let yourself be weighed down by the shackles of man-made conventions… coz deep down, you know you’re in your turf… you’re free… and no one – absolutely no one can touch you.”

Blake caught a glimpse of the fire smoldering from beneath her now seemingly detached gaze.

She took a deep breath. “Have you ever had that feeling… that deep yearning to go home… Don’t get me wrong, it’s not some suicidal thing. It’s not even a feeling of depression or dissatisfaction… but a dull ache, a profound and overwhelming desire to transcend into a new world. A certain sense of readiness. Like your soul is prepared to start a new life… to move forward… even when it’s still confined within this body.” Blake was pulled in by her words. With each syllable she grew more and more ethereal… like she was wreathed by some strange mystic force. “Well, I’d feel that way from time to time… at the most random moments. I could be at home reading a book, outside having a drink, sometimes in bed… Those moments, I believe, that the Chasm is real. And that something’s trying to call me from the other side. It’s like my soul remembers something, from another time, another place… And it’s wandering, wondering… ‘What am I doing here?’. I go higher and higher, circling the vast immensity of the heavens only to find myself plummeting back into this world, weighed down by the burden of fear. If the Chasm were real, then it would take a tremendous amount of courage to cross it. You have to leave everything behind… everything you’ve ever had, everything you’ve ever known, everything you ever were in this world. That’s the most difficult part, I believe… And that’s why I write these stories.”

“Well, in that case, can you write her back to me?” his voice rang with hope. “Maybe there’s some way you can bring all those people back to life… Write a miracle… some magical happy ending.”

She cringed. “Happy endings aren’t exactly my strong suit. Besides, there is one interminable rule in the Old World and that is ‘What is written cannot be undone.’ Particularly prophecies. If that’s truly the case then there’s nothing to worry about. The real Wolf Warrior would drink the potion, slay some monsters, march off into King Charles’ kingdom save our maiden fair and all would live happily ever af…” she trailed off and for a moment, the air was heavy with the unspoken fact that if what she said was to happen, then Blake would lose Christiana to someone else.

“I need to go to her.” the muscles in his jaw tightened. “ I can’t just trust any guy to save her.”

“You can’t!”

“Why the hell not?” Blake grew angry. “ Coz it’d ruin your precious story?”

“Have you gone completely insane? You have everything you need in this world. You’re filthy rich, you’re a freaking rockstar… You’re Blake van der Merwe! If you go there, you’d be dead.”

“If I don’t find her, I might as well be.”

For a moment, she was speechless. “Oh dear god, could love really make a person so stupid?”

“I take it that you’ve never been?”

“I prefer not to talk discuss my personal life, Mr. van der Merwe.” she replied in a steely tone.

“Ah. No wonder.” he grinned sardonically. “ Judging from this hero you wrote about, you set your standards pretty high. Men like that don’t exist, you know.”

“Yes, that’s probably why we’d have to make do with you.”, she replied evenly.

“There’s something else…” her dulcet tones cut in before he could speak. “ I may have conceived the idea of the Old World in my mind, created it and everything in it, breathed life into the characters, even laid out their paths for them. But there is no telling whether they would take that path or go on a completely different route. As much as I tried to accurately define everything to the best of my very limited potential, there will always be things that are too grand, too complex for my mind to conceive.”

Confusion showed in his eyes.

“What I’m saying, Mr. van der Merwe, is that there’s no telling what awaits you there.”

“So even if I read this book, there’s no guarantee that everything’s gonna go exactly as written there?” he looked at the book as though it were the devil’s work, “I thought you just said that what’s written cannot be undone.”

“I’m talking about the end. It’s the means that I have no control of. Prophecies have an odd way of fulfilling themselves. If it was prophesied that a kingdom will fall, it will. Even if a disastrous battle was successfully evaded, a massive tidal wave could occur and wipe out the entire kingdom. Either way, the prophesy is always fulfilled.”

“I see.” Blake said thoughtfully, suddenly too aware of the enormousness of the situation. “Can’t you at least try to write something in my favor or maybe just try not to imagine any morbid plots?”

“I’ll try. I promise you, I will. But let me explain something, Mr. van der Merwe… They say the writer is the master of his creation. It is, after all, his mind that gives birth to the idea, his hand that guides the pen to form every line, every curve of letters and words until somehow the meaningless clutter of nonentities merge to construct a masterpiece. In my case, that idea couldn’t be farther from the truth. Each story has a life of its own. Characters take on their own personalities. And you are taken to an entirely different direction than one you have started in. The writer is, in truth, the slave of his story. It haunts you, nags at you… It lingers at the back of your mind humming beneath all the nonsensical clamor of everyday life. It stays with you, consuming all of you, mind, body and soul… Until you write it down, only then will it leave you in peace.

“Then you can sit back, read your work… you marvel at your own magnificence and you’re thunderstruck, absolutely blown away that you could have written something like that. In the end, we let ourselves believe that these stories were born out of our sheer brilliance. It’s better for our enormous egos. “ she smiled sweetly, apologetically, “I can’t control the way in which my stories go Mr. van der Merwe, not if I’m being utterly and completely honest with myself.”

Real helpful, Blake thought. Humorlessly, he wondered what she would do if he were to drop dead in front of her at that very moment. Decide on which shade of red to perfectly describe my blood, no doubt.

For the rest of the night, they spent their time working together in the hotel suite, dissecting the book, drawing maps and formulating an epic plan of rescue.


© The Eclectic Eccentric Shopaholic 2013. All rights reserved.

May20

BLAKE & CHRISTIANA: Aya Miyagi I

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Genre: Romantic Fantasy

dear reader,

hi… long read ahead.lol ^^ need to warn you that we pressed fast forward (skipped the continuation of chapter 10) i haven’t written that part yet to my satisfaction. i tend to write like this, in fact, i already have the ending.lol but the stuff in between needs work ^^ so this week, we’ll have to make do with this, chapter 11, i suppose. hope you don’t mind. thanks in advance. ^^

“Aya Miyagi : Part I”

“I know you’re not here to rob me. So if you’re going to rape me or murder me, I prefer that you spare me your psycho speech and just get it over and done with.”

Damn, the woman’s got balls. She never fought. She never screamed. And for a while Blake thought he saw a bit of Christiana in the proud way that she held her chin up. “That is not the way to talk to kidnappers, you know.” he warned.

“Not that we’re kidnapping you.” Mute quickly interjected, “We’re not. You happened to be a guest at the van der Merwe Hotel, then we broke into your room. So basically, this isn’t kidnapping.” Mute paused then looked at Blake. “Is it?”

Mute’s expression changed. “Jee-zus, man!”

“Could you give us a few minutes?”

Mute looked helplessly from his friend to the woman bound to the chair. Their eyes were locked into each other’s’… both held a determined expression, their gazes unwavering. “Sure, ah… I’ll just..” Mute made his way towards the bar.

“I just have a few questions for you, Ms. Miyagi.” he began, “My name is —“

“I know who you are.” luminous cat-like eyes sparkled with hard brilliance, “I’m not a fan of your music.” The mellifluous quality of her voice softened the sting of sarcasm.

Blake studied her face. She was pretty, almost angelic… with clean, perfectly chiseled features, and a small nose that sat above a delicately shaped mouth. Her shiny black hair was a striking contrast against her fair complexion. Her eyebrows were fine and straight and lent an air of otherworldliness about her… or that of nonchalance. But it was her eyes that told him she was flesh and blood real. They were intelligent and inquisitive, fathomless pools of black. For such a sweet looking girl, she sure is blood thirsty.

“Well, I’m not a fan of your book either.” , he retaliated.

“Is that why you kidnapped me? You hated my book?” irritation vibrated beneath the mockery.

“I’m not kidnap—“ Blake had learned early on that an argument with a woman is a near impossible task with predetermined results. He sighed in frustration then went over to place the silk scarf back into her mouth. She wriggled furiously. Calmly, methodically, he relayed to her the recent events of his life… from Christiana, to the island, to the Fire fish, to the battle and the dragon, to returning to the present, and finally, to how he had come to find her. The expressions in her eyes ranged from that of dread, agitation, resentment, and growing interest.

At last, Blake removed the scarf over her mouth and prepared himself for the inevitable outpouring of expletives, the begging, wheedling and threats to sue.

“I believe you.” she said softly.

“I know it sounds crazy but –“ Blake stopped. “What did you say?”

“I said I believe you.”

“Really?” The serenity and certainty in her words and expression caught him off guard. “Damn. You’re crazier than I thought.”

“I’m crazy? I’m crazy?” her voice was like honey pouring pleasantly in his ears. “You’re a grown man claiming to have been to a fictional world, where elves, dwarves and dragons exist! Besides, I’m entitled to be crazy.” she raised her chin indignantly. “I’m a writer.”, she said as though it explained everything. “And now that you’ve mentioned it, yes, I am crazy. I’m a crazy person with an inflated sense of confidence…enough to believe that people would be willing to read, even pay for, my words. I dare to dream of such things that only gods are allowed to possess.”

“And what’s that?,” he wanted to know.

“Immortality.”

Damnit but how could she be so calm? Blake was awestruck.

“But if you must know…” she continued smoothly “It was the part about the Fire Fish that convinced me that you’re not just some crazed fan who read my book more times than he should have. That part about the Sea Dragon was never in my novel. It’s an idea that I’m currently working on for the second book… Yet you knew about it.”

Blake suddenly felt that their situation had been weirdly reversed. He hadn’t read the book, only skimmed through it. “Well, how did you know that I didn’t just sneak into your house and went over your stuff?”

“That’s the thing, you see… I’ve never written it down. Not in my laptop, not on paper, not even on a napkin at the bar. The only place I’ve kept it is here in my head. Yet you’ve described the creature so vividly… so utterly, perfectly well… In fact…” her jet black eyes lit up in such a way that told him she saw having a moment of sheer genius. “Untie me?”

He looked at her warily.

“Come on, do I look like I’m capable of escaping?”

Her eyes sparkled in a mystifying way and her honeyed tone was teasing. From the looks of her, she seemed capable of anything. He untied her hands. Blake watched amusedly as she grabbed a pen and paper and started scribbling.

He took a peek.

fan-like scales simultaneously lifted in slow graceful motion and then settled back to form a solid sheath around the beast

“Are you writing down notes?” he asked, completely disconcerted. “Christ. Didn’t you just hear me? A whole tribe just died! You got blood on your hands, lady.”

“It was supposed to be fiction!” her lovely elegant tones were raised in indignation.

“It was real for me!” Blake shot back, barely able to keep the hurt out of his words.

“I know…” her voice filled with empathy. She put down her pen. “Sometimes, it feels real for me too.”

Their eyes met.

“So, why did you write about me?”, he spoke after a while.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Your book, The Wolf Warrior. What made you write about me?”

She looked at him as though he had just said something absolutely ridiculous. “With all due respect, Mr. van der Merwe, you’re not exactly my idea of a hero.” she scoffed but her voice was silk. “ In fact, it’s me who should be asking you…” she reached for the copy of her novel on the table and opened up a page to face him. “What the hell were you doing in my novel?”

Cautiously, Blake took the book from her hands and read it.

He slammed the hardcover against the table. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

She raised a delicate eyebrow. “Is that jealousy I hear?”

Sullenly, he again picked up the book and read out loud, “There is nothing more magnificent than a Daluyong warrior in his peak. The Wolf Warrior, son of the wise chief Palos, stood tall and strong… animal vitality rippling from beneath every inch of his brown skin… a product of generations of mighty warriors… carved by divine hands, his body was sculpted in the way men are meant to be built… a bronze god in full splendor. Really?”

“A lot of women read my book.” she shrugged. “It’s a typical story of girl meets boy… Wolf Warrior saves the fair maiden from the sea…”

“But I was the one who saved her!”

“Yes, yes…” she waved him off impatiently, “ And you screwed up my story. Now, will you let me finish?”

He quieted.

“So, the two fall in love…” Blake flinched as she said the words. “And then… comes the conflict. While the hero was away on a quest, King Charles’ soldiers come to take the lady and the gold… There’s a battle, naturally, and the whole tribe dies…” Again, Blake winced. What were fictional characters to her, were real people to him. “Anyway, all these things… the death of his clan, the loss of his lady… this fuels our hero’s desire for vengeance… gives him a reason to fight and rise against the evil monarch. And that, Mr. van der Merwe is where the story begins…”

Blake shook his head. “Why do you have to write stories like these… Why so much death? Couldn’t you write about stuff that are… I don’t know… happier?”

“Blood sells.” she said simply. And for a while he looked as though he was going to burst into flames.

“Tell me what I need to know.” he said coldly.

continued here


© The Eclectic Eccentric Shopaholic 2013. All rights reserved.

May20

Carpe Diem: Daily Haiku 108

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temperance

to have kissed your lips
just to be denied of it
ah how torturous

to have known your touch
to settle for another’s
surely this is hell

embers of longing
need only a breath of wind
to ignite the flames

恵

Temperance is not something i know very well ^^ i don’t usually deny / deprive myself of things because they tend to build up, escalate, and the desire grows bigger and stronger, to monstrous proportions. in some weird way, i have learned early that the less i ignore my cravings, the better i become at curbing them :) but i understand too the importance of restraint… how they make us appreciate better the beauty in things. it’s just not my best virtue

May16

Friday Fictioneers: 100-words Story Challenge XXVIII

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“Every Friday authors from around the world gather to share their 100 words based on the photo prompt and offer constructive crit and encouragement to each other. This creates a wonderful opportunity for free reading of very fresh fiction! Readers are encouraged to comment as well.”

Copyright – Sarah Ann Hall

Copyright – Sarah Ann Hall


The light I carried illuminated the tunnel’s dark walls with a sickly glow.

The only sound, the echoes of my footfalls as I hurried to meet her.

She’s been waiting for a very long time.

I felt it in the air… despair mingled with crosscurrents of rage.

Shapes and shadows coalesced to create her form… wizened, hollow…

I quavered, “Eugenia, my father wanted to say… how sorry he was for not coming that night. But it was my mother that he loved.”

Relief hummed beneath her mournful tone, “I forgive him.”

I watched as she crossed over into the light.