They say it’s easier to make a habit than break one. I’m going to try to breathe three times on a three count.
Dreaming of Vacations
I wanna go thunderstorm viewing. How do I do that?
Hobbies
Can you do it as one of several hobbies?
Ride bycicles? Yes
Ride motorcycles? Yes
Ride horses? Not if you live in a city
Fly planes? No
Ride the river? If you live near a river
Ride the slopes? If you live reasonably near the slopes
Ride the lightning? Once
Amazon KDP
Amazon is making some changes to printing costs. I don’t know how this will affect us.
ME: Headcanon
At the end of the First Age, after the fall of Angband, Sauron was said to have truly repented. He was ordered to return to Valinor to suffer judgement, but his pride quailed. He would not endure a long imprisonment, and so turned away.
Many of Morgoth’s servants were given the same choice and some returned. Balrogs of Morgoth came back to Valinor, and their fire and shadow was burned away in the light of heaven. They were imprisoned for an Age and spend a thousand years learning new lore and new power. At the end of that time, their new masters sent them to Middle Earth to serve again, and wreak the destruction of their new master.
But since pride was their weakness, they were not to fight him themselves. They had to work through the free peoples.
Five there were, and with the lore of Valinor, they returned as wizards.
Two went east and lost themselves.
One strayed into Mirkwood and became a friend of the small creatures.
One recalled much of ancient Morgoth’s lore, but the Valar had burned away his aptitude for the dark powers. So he set about finding new forms of power and fell again into arrogance.
The last did not. He remembered Morgoth’s powers of illusion but made them gentle. He created fireworks instead of fireballs, and he served the free peoples. Only once did he unfurl his true power when he was tested against on such as he had been, a Balrog of Morgoth in Moria. In humility, he triumphed as in pride, he had once fallen.
Gandalf defeated his own history, and when he was given a chance to remain in Middle Earth as a power, he returned to Valinor as he had once before.
Thursday
Life is hard. I imagine most of you are going through it day in and day out.
Good luck. I’m rooting for you.
Twilight in Heaven: Chapter 18
Previous chapters to the right
Updated Wednesdays and Fridays
Chapter 18
No one was home when I broke into the Hemlin-cousins’s house again and searched Osret’s room. He was a filthy Celestial who needed take his dishes back to the kitchen. I didn’t find the sword or money.
Moving down, I skipped the other bedrooms for the moment and cased the great room. The door fragments had been picked up, the cutlery put away, the furniture righted. They’d mopped about half the floor, moving lights and tables to the kitchen side. I looked around with a blank mind.
The room was just a big, rich room. Men lived here. It had hardwood floors and thick, overhead beams with irregular grain, but what told me it was men was the furniture. Girl-chairs tend to have thinner frames, smoother edges, and painted bits. They’re easier to move when your friends need help. This was a house full of boy-furniture with thick log frames, overstuffed cushions, and wider seats. The cousins had couches but no loveseats. They didn’t have piles of blankets and pillows tastefully spread around.
That got me thinking of food, and when I looked at the kitchen, I noticed a pile of stuff in front of the pantry. They had been mopping, but the pile struck me as suspicious. At a block, I pushed into the pantry and started eating their ambrosia while I pulled the shelves down and poked the ceiling. One of the floor-boards was loose, so I pried it open with a steak knife. I found dust and old rice, but couldn’t see to the end of a crevice. The crevice was maybe wide enough for the sword. I got a candle and was crawling around on the pantry floor when the two remaining cousins came home.
Apseto, the one who had found it in the lagoon, and Nurim, the wiry, always moving man, walked through their front door in a conversation long since given to argument. As they walked into the great room, they shoved their heavy, over-built couch in front of the flimsy main door.
“I’m just saying,” said Apseto. “I think it’s time we got out of this.”
“I don’t think we can,” said Nurim.
“I think we can,” said Apseto. “The crazy guy died in a sword-fight with the Messenger. Osret’s been arrested, but he’s solid. He’ll go silent. We just…wait.”
I peaked around the edge of the pantry door. They both had guns, lots of guns, with knives, armor, and boots. Nurim was carrying a pair of Thelucidor 37s, fast-action word-of-gods famous for their ability to burn large amounts of ammunition very quickly. Apseto had a breaching rifle, some kind of stupid revolver in a quick-draw holster, and another iron, a hold-out pistol, stuffed down the back of his pants in case he suddenly needed another hole in his butt. Their armor had abs, covered in unused tie-downs and spare magazines.
I had the Drowning Breath.
Death upon you, let’s just go!
Nurim was saying, “Yes, Osret’s solid, but the Messengers–” and he didn’t finish when I pushed the door open and walked out.
They looked at the naked blade in my hand and their guns in sheaths. Everyone stayed very, very still for two or three long breaths.
And Nurim asked, “What can we do to make you go away?”
“I want the saber.”
“It’s in a notch in the beam over your head,” Apseto answered.
I didn’t look up. I kept the Drowning Breath between us and used my left hand to feel around. My fingertips only grazed the base of the wood. I could climb on some boxes, but that would be treacherous footing, hard to initiate from.
“Put your hands on your heads,” I said.
They did.
And at that moment I realized they weren’t going to draw. They would try to shoot me if I started something, but I could see it in their eyes, their hands, their faces, they just wanted me to leave.
Without looking, I stepped up on a hard case, fumbled around the beam, and finally found a little groove. I’d looked right at it and never seen it. Inside that I found the forgery of Hasso, took it, and stepped off the box of food. I sidled sideways toward the door. They rotated with me but kept their hands on their heads. They had a small armory between them, and all the thoughts in my head were screaming for death and murder. I wanted one of them to draw just to be done with everything.
They didn’t.
“I didn’t kill your cousins,” I said.
Apseto didn’t react, but Nurim shook his head. He wasn’t arguing; his head-shakes meant disbelief, incomprehension, befuddlement. It looked like he was waking up.
“Okay,” he said, meaning nothing.
I got my back to the broken doorway, stepped through, and ran.
Before Flanderization
Athena had the best origin story of the Greek gods.
BH Free eBook Promotion
BH will be free June 1st through 3rd to celebrate moving to a new apartment.
It has a dishwasher.
Not BH, the apartment. BH has no dishwasher.
Also, for anyone following KN or more abstractly TiH, now you can get the first one.
Fast and the Silly
Watching F7, and these are some of the most comic-book shenanigans ever seen.