Weekend Writing Warriors: Rescue Operation

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors (click the logo above for links to other participants) and Snippet Sunday (click the logo below.) I am still posting from the beginning of Rescue Operation, and this is a direct follow-on from last week. Roi is the first speaker.

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Source: Hubblesite.org
“Oh, no,” he gasped aloud. “He can’t be that stupid. The Council can’t be. Is he trying to start a revolution?”

Lelani, the oldest of his three wives, hardly lifted her wrinkled face from the wire and beads that would become a new hair ornament, but Keishala turned toward him, lowering the musical score she had been studying. “Roi,” she said, “it can’t be that bad. You’ve only been gone for a month. And Zhaim’s competent enough, even if you don’t like him.”

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But none of them except Roi know yet what Zhaim has done.

Science Fiction Romance Brigade Presents: Both Sides Now

It’s Saturday and time for Science Fiction Romance Brigade Presents, a blog hop where we share about 200 words from something we’ve written. For rules and links to other participants, click the logo above.

I am still posting from Both Sides Now, a WIP that blends science fiction, adventure, politics and a touch of romance. Kevi is checking out Doc’s limited selection of drugs. While Coralie has been nursing Kevi while he was unconscious, the only time she has seen him awake was while he was helping Doc treat the injured child, Nonie.

Kevi took a closer look, and then shook his head. “I’ve seen home first aid kits with a better selection of drugs. Not your fault, Doc, but I think I’d better check out what grows in the area. Even willow-bark tea is better than nothing.”

“Not until your feet are recovered enough for shoes.” Kevi raised his eyebrows and Doc had a sudden feeling that he was going to learn just how bad a patient the R’il’noid could be, but they were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming from the hay maze.

“Willow bark tea?” Coralie said as she entered the room. “What are you talking about? Doc, that casserole was supposed to be supper!”

“My fault,” Kevi said meekly. “I was awfully hungry. Is the little girl doing all right?”

Doc had known Coralie since she was a child herself, and it hurt to see her flinch back at the sight of another man in the room. “Coralie, you know Kevi,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t introduce you earlier, but I was afraid Kevi was going to collapse. He has some medical training—more than I do, actually—and I was showing him what drugs I have.”

Jarn’s Journal Year 10 Day 213

Year 10 day 213

Photo Source

I couldn’t get the taste of that pig out of my memory.

My people do eat meat, though they make sure the animals live a happy life first, and are killed quickly and without fear. The People follow an animal to its exhaustion – hardly a death without fear, but I do eat the meat they bring in. Still, I cannot bring myself to hunt a healthy animal.

If one is attacking me, or injured so badly that I know it will die soon, I feel justified in using my abilities to give it a swift, painless death and then eat it. But hunting? My skills as a hunter are not up to giving a clean death, and I cannot help but feel it would be a misuse of my mental talents to kill a healthy animal that means me no harm.

That leaves scavenging, usually a sick, old, or very young animal, as these are what most wild predators target.

Perhaps a very young pig?

I teleported to one of the areas where I knew the wild pigs were common, on the northern continent. The acorns and pistachios are ripe and abundant, and the pigs are eating them greedily. I opened my mind to pig, alert also for any feeling of pain or fear. There – for an instant I was paralyzed, feeling the leopard’s fangs at my neck. The years must have hardened me, for I came out of the paralysis almost at once, to end the young pig’s life and teleport it to me. It would not have lived long, I saw, the leopard’s fangs had almost pierced its spinal cord.

I teleported the carcass to Rainbow, together with dates, nuts, and honey. We will eat well tonight, and for days to come if I freeze most of the meat.

Peonies From Heaven

“Peonies from Heaven” is the Fair theme this year, with special awards given those entries that follow the theme. I thought you might like top see the theme quilts and one wall hanging. I regret to say it was raining so hard Tuesday, when I took these photos, that the horse show was cancelled.

(In case you don’t know, peonies bloom in Alaska when the flowers are hard to come by almost anywhere else in the world, so peonies grown in Alaska are entering the global cut flower trade.)

The one on the left used peony fabric. The smaller one on the right used the theme colors.

This one had peony fabric, but not in the fair colors.

And the wall hanging, about 16″ square.

P.S: My apologies for leaving out two of the fair-themed entries. I went back again today, and got photos.

The quilt on the right has fair theme and colors

And this one got a theme ribbon for fair colors.

Quotes from Mercedes Lackey

These are the contexts of the quotes tweeted from @sueannbowling from July 31 through August 6, 2014. All but the last are from Beauty and the Werewolf, by Mercedes Lackey.

“I don’t hold with making a man desperate.” Eric, the gamekeeper, when taking Bella out to help him catch a poacher who is taking only skins, leaving the meat to rot.

“It took a good teacher to make a good teacher.” Bella, wondering who has taught Sabastian, who is teaching her.

“Women are more practical. And we have no problem with being called cowards.” Eric has asked what Bella would do if someone came at her with a knife, and her answer is “run.”

“No wonder he bullied people, if he had been bullied himself.” Eric has been giving Bella an edited version of his childhood.

“Children became what they lived with.” Bella’s thought, but true.

“You deserve to be more than anyone has allowed you to be until now.” Sebastian speaking to Bella, just after he has asked her to marry him.

“Nobody ever tells us anything.” Sue Ann Bowling, Homecoming. Flame, after Roi has vanished and she doesn’t know why.

Weather Update 8/5/14

We had another .34” of rain before midnight, and I heard thunder several times. That puts us at 1.38” for the month, so we’re still pushing the seasonal record. I’ll try for a few more quilt photos today, though the current weather is drizzle and fog.

North Pole Weather 8/4/12

The sun will rise this morning at 5:01, and set tonight at 10:53. We now have almost 3 hours of nautical twilight.

It has remained rainy. We didn’t quite set a new record for July, though we only missed it by .18“. We beat the June and July combined record by over 2”, and the greatest 48 hour total for July though, so you could say we’ve had a damp summer. August? 1.04” so far, so we’re definitely still in the running for the wettest summer of all time.

It used to be a truism that it always rained during the Tanana Valley State Fair, which started last Friday. Yesterday was warm and sunny, but the rest of the week looks questionable. I’m keeping my poncho in the car. I did get to the quilt show Saturday, in spite of the rain. I might show some more photos later.

Weekend Writing Warriors: Rescue Operation

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors (click on the logo above) and Snippet Sunday (click on the logo below.)

I am still quoting from Rescue Operation, this time from Roi’s POV after his return from solving the problem of the planet convinced its health problems were an attack by others.

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Source: Hubblesite.org

Roi Laian stretched, feeling the interface lounge accommodate to his motion and gently massage his body as he shifted position. He opened his eyes, briefly interrupting the computer’s download to his brain as he absorbed what he’d already received. Plenty of decisions he wouldn’t have made if he had been here, but nothing really disastrous. Still, it was good to be back.

He glanced out the window wall of his office, taking in the rolling pastureland dotted with grazing horses. Swim, ride, or work out in the controlled-gravity gym? After he’d checked out the situations Zhaim had indicated were resolved, Roi decided, and reactivated the full computer connection.

The Horizon situation first, he decided, but he was only a few minutes into that when he jerked upright on the lounge.

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I don’t think he’s favorably impressed by Zhaim’s solution.

Science Fiction Romance Brigade Presents: Both Sides Now

It’s Saturday and time for Science Fiction Romance Brigade Presents, a blog hop where we share about 200 words from something we’ve written. For rules and links to other participants, click the logo above.

I am still posting from Both Sides Now, a WIP that blends science fiction, adventure, politics and a touch of romance. Here Doc (really a veterinarian but the only doctor the horse nomads have) is getting acquainted with my hero, who he thinks of as Kevi. He’s just told Kevi that his white hair, unusual on a young man on the planet Horizon, has already been dyed darker, and another rescuer has left dark contact lenses—if Doc can remember where they are.

Kevi gave him a startled look, peered into the mirror and nodded in approval. “Black hair, and with brown eyes my skin color won’t be looked at twice. Better gray my hair a bit. Thanks, Doc. You guys are incredible, especially considering what I suspect you’ve heard about me.”

There they were. Doc found the right box and handed it to Kevi, who carefully examined the lenses before inserting them. When he turned, blinking to settle the lenses in place, his coloring looked normal. He might be a little darker than average for Horizon, but nobody would give him a second look.

“Now,” the R’il’noid said briskly, “exactly what do you have in the way of medical supplies? I’ve got a hunch that kid still needs some work from the rape, but not without anesthesia or at least tranquilizers. And I can’t do it until I can use my hands better—a couple of the bones probably need to be broken and reset.”

In reply, Doc unlocked the cupboard where he kept the few drugs he had managed to scrape together. “That’s it. I’ve got my surgical kit, and some boiled rags for bandages. And a little cautery powder, but only a little, and it’s not very effective.”

Jarn’s Journal Year 10 Day 211

Year 10, Day 211

I’ve added my observations of the shore of the northern ocean and its floating ice cap to the world map I’m building up in the computer. I find I’ve mapped more that a third of the way around this world. The eastern coast of the ice-covered mountains is a good 55° west of the lake where I live; the spot where I decided it was too cold to continue this year is nearly 105° east. Close to halfway, and while there were a number of river mouths and deep inlets, the only though connection to the ocean so far is the relatively narrow strait broken by the volcanic island. Perhaps the isolation of this northern ocean is the answer.

The proof will have to wait for next year. For right now, Rainbow is hinting she would like another of the wild pigs from the northern continent, not to mention the nuts I found last year as well as dates and figs. The fruit and nuts are no problem. The pig ….

They’re mostly eating acorns now—I checked. If they taste like what they eat, as the warthogs do, they should be quite tasty. But I will kill one only in self-defense, like the first time, or if it is badly injured. Perhaps I could rob a predator of its kill?