"Wyvern Trouble": An "Elf Tears" short

A scene with the main characters as small children won the vote for tonight's blog post, so here it is! It is very short, but hopefully it will give you a bit of a glimpse into the people they will become. I will probably follow this up with mini scenes of the two runner-ups as well: the main characters with the humans and them learning magic.

Wyvern Trouble

 “Can I go see Phen's new wyvern now, Mom? Pleeeeaaase?” five-year-old elf princess Éadra pleaded with her mother. Her green eyes shone with excitement and she clasped her hands in front of her.

“Just let me comb and braid your hair and then yes, you may go,” her mother said with a smile. She finished pulling Learé's hair back into a ponytail and pulled Éadra over before the girl could escape.

“But Mom, I don't want my hair braided,” Éadra complained. “Why can't I wear it in a ponytail like Learé does?”

“Because your twin sister doesn't get sticks and leaves caught in it like you do,” her mom replied.

“That's because she's too busy sword fighting with the sticks to climb trees with me,” muttered Éadra. Learé stuck her tongue out at her and ran off.

Éadra fidgeted as her mother combed and braided her hair, then took off after her twin into the castle courtyards.

When she got out, she saw that Learé had Phen pinned to the ground. “I yield, I yield!” the blond-haired boy was saying. Learé let him up.

“I thought so,” the girl said with a smile.

“What are you doing to him?” Éadra said as she ran up.

“I bet Phen he couldn't wrestle me and win,” said Learé.

“She wouldn't let me not wrestle her,” said the boy.

“How is it I'm always the one with the dirty hair?” Éadra complained.

Learé shrugged. “I'm more careful.”

“So did you bring your wyvern?” Éadra asked, turning to Phen.

Phen brightened. “Oh ya! He's over here. I call him Bitey 'cause he snaps a lot.”

He picked up a glass jar and dumped the miniature lizard inside out onto his palm. True to its name, the little thing nipped Phen's finger. “Ow!” he said, dropping it. The creature scrambled off and climbed up a nearby tree, Phen running after it. “Get back here!” he called, climbing the tree himself. Éadra ran under the tree and looked up at him, watching her friend crawl out onto a branch and reach after his disobedient pet. The sunlight filtered green through the leaves, making the princess have to shield her eyes.

“Do you need help?” she asked her friend.

“No, I've almost got him,” Phen replied. “Just a little farther . . .” But just as his hand closed around the reptile, he lost his balance and fell out of the tree.

Éadra ran up to him. “Are you okay?” she asked, kneeling down beside him.

 “I think so,” said Phen. He brought his hand up to his face and smiled as he saw the wyvern still clasped in his grip. “Got him!” Then he shook a finger at the creature. “Bad,” he said. “Don't do that again.”

Vote for the next post

I am guessing that the people who have viewed my blog so far are all people who have seen me post about it on Facebook, but just in case I'm wrong, (after all, (I can see how many views I have, but not who's doing the viewing), I'm going to post the same thing here that I just posted on Facebook:

I'm thinking that for my next blog post, I will do sort of a mini scene of the main characters to help introduce people to them. I'm going to put this to a vote: what sort of scene do you want to see?
Do you want to see the main characters:
(a) as young children
(b) learning magic
(c) on dates (this has the potential to be cheesy and not as well-written as the others because romance isn't really my genre, but I'm putting it up here for kicks and giggles anyway. I'm curious to see if it gets votes)
(d) as older children living with humans (they are elves, but were raised among humans for a good portion of their life. I will go into more detail about this if this one is picked.)


 Thanks to all who are reading, by the way! :)

Dragons!

Today's post is about a creature no fantasy novel would be complete without: dragons! All in all, they are about what you would expect: large, winged, fire-breathing reptiles. There are a few different species of dragons in this world, but only two feature in my story.

The first are the blue dragons, described in the book as "great, lizard like beasts with shake-necks and bat wings, clinging to the mountain sides and peering down." They have sapphire-blue scales and like to bathe in the lava of their home volcanoes. They tend to mind their own business, but that does not mean they are ignorant of the affairs of other creatures. They are aware of the unicorns' violent actions in previous years and take some convincing when the unicorns plead with them for aid.

The second specious are gold dragons, a subspecies of the blue dragons that Erron created. Erron bred them to have an explosive fire, and hopes to use them to reach the unicorns' otherwise-unattainable hiding place. Because both gold and blue dragons have scales that can only be penetrated by dragon claws (or the explosions caused by the golds' fire), only the blue dragons stand a chance against them.

(Yes, I drew the following picture with a black pencil, but it's supposed to be a sketch of a blue dragon :) )

Map (and an amendment to my last post)

Here is the map I promised. It is very basic, and certainly not to scale, but hopefully it will give anyone interested an idea of where everything is relative to everything else. When I get the professional artwork done for my book, I may try to get a better, more detailed map as well.

Also, in my last post I said that human technology in this story was about equivalent to Renaissance-era technology in our own world, but today I realized that some of their technology is actually more along the lines of the industrial revolution. That's a huge difference, and I apologize for the error. In some ways the humans are still less advanced: they still follow the four humors theory, for instance. This is not our world, and they are advancing in different ways than we did. If when I get it edited I am told that it is too unrealistic (or if a bunch of you comment on here and tell me that it is), I will change it, but this is how it stands for now.

Anyway, here's the map! (I hope you all can forgive me for the poor quality of the images. One day, maybe, I will actually be good with computers. And drawing. But right now my focus is to get the book written and out there; I will be paying someone else for the artwork :) ).

Just what IS this story, anyway?

Someone pointed out to me that I should probably actually explain what this book is about, as well as the title of the blog! Émere forest is the home forest of the two main characters, twin elfin princesses named Éadra and Learé. At the beginning of the book, they and their people are at war with the elf lord Erron. Just one problem: they are fighting completely on the defensive. They can't find his fortress, and they are losing badly. Every spy they've ever sent to find his base either comes back insane or disappears entirely. In desperation, Éadra sends Learé to take their people and seek refuge with a group of unicorns while Éadra gets herself captured in a last-ditch attempt to figure out how to reach Erron's fortress and take the battle to him. Hopefully she can escape and bring word to her twin, and they can overthrow Erron once and for all.

A couple free tidbits about the world in general:

The unicorns are now peaceful, but they were once bloodthirsty warriors. They have promised the princesses that if Learé can help them re-learn how to fight, they will help in the battle.

Elves have limited magical abilities and are stuck in a medieval-type era technology-wise, while humans in this world are gifted with technological invention and advancement and are entering their own Renaissance era. Lord Erron sees the potential of magic and technology working together and wants to unite elves and humans for this purpose. He tried once to get them to participate freely in his vision, but each race was too terrified of the other, so now he is trying to unite them through force. But though he may claim that his motives are for the good of both races, he can't deny that he enjoys the power of controlling this movement as well.

Tomorrow or the day after I will try to get a basic map posted. After that, I will introduce a race of beings that no fantasy story would be complete without: dragons!

Welcome

Welcome to Émere! My name is Kim, and within the next few months I will be releasing my book Elf Tears. Here you will learn random tidbits about the world it takes place in, including facts about creatures, magic, and possibly background to the plot. With any luck, I will also eventually post a teaser trailer for the book. Today I would like to introduce you to one of the first creatures I invented for this world: the flarefox. (Please note that all artwork I will be posting is strictly my own amateur work and not the professional artwork for the finished book.)

Flarefoxes

The flarefox is an intelligent, sapient fox with wings of fire. It is built for the most part like a regular red fox, but it is twice as large and has ears closer to those of a kit fox. 

Flarefoxes exercise a great deal of control over their fire wings. First, they can control their size. When they aren't in use, it keeps them as tiny flames up against its shoulders. When in flight, they spread out so that its wingspan is equal to the length of its body. The foxes can also control whether or not a touch of their wings sets something on fire, and they maintain control of any fire they set.

As a general rule, flarefoxes are peaceful creatures. They will go to great lengths and endure a lot to avoid a fight. However, when provoked, they can be deadly fighters, as the unicorns once learned to their detriment . . .

Before anyone asks, no, I didn't base these on kitsunes. I like kitsunes, but I didn't hear about them until a little while after I'd come up with these creatures. There are, however, several other creatures taken from myths (such as dragons, unicorns, and kelpies) in my story.


EDIT: I should add that I owe a friend of mine for the term "flarefox," as well as for the name of another creature that I may or may not reveal later. He is also an author, and those interested in magic and mystery novels can check out his book here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BIWK6T4