Weekend Writing Warriors: Homecoming

It’s Sunday again, and time for Weekend Writing Warriors (click on the logo above) and Snippet Sunday (click on the logo below.) Today I’m posting 8 sentences from my first published book, Homecoming, available in all formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iUniverse.

Photo Source

This follows on from last week, when Derik explained to Roi what a poltergeist reaction was and why he was vulnerable to them. Most R’il’noids are blocked as babies; Roi was missed because no one realized he was part R’il’nian.

Roi perked up a little. “Does that mean you can stop me from doing it again?”

“Yes. My guess is you’ve done a pretty good job of blocking yourself, as a result of that earlier episode you mentioned. You just didn’t get the keying quite right. I’m going to have to go into that original block and help you change the keying, and for that I need to know exactly what happened – which means you’ll have to share what’s evidently a very unpleasant memory with me. And you’re strong enough I’d better do it with you under hiControl, which will temporarily knock out all of your esper abilities. If Nik’s right about how you’re moving, that’s unfortunately going to bring back the paralysis, at least temporarily.”

Poor Roi. And poor Derik, whose head still feels like it’s about to explode.

Weekend Writing Warriors: Homecoming

It’s Sunday again, and time for Weekend Writing Warriors (click on the logo above) and Snippet Sunday (click on the logo below.) Today I’m posting 8 sentences from my first published book, Homecoming, available in all formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iUniverse.

Last week, Roi admitted that the attack on Derik and Nik was not the first time he had an uncontrolled reaction, and he thinks he killed an overseer the first time. Now Derik is trying to explain to Roi what happened and why. Kharfun syndrome, by the way is a minor flu-like disease in humans which is paralyzing and eventually lethal if untreated in R’il’nians and some R’il’moids, and has left Roi totally paralyzed.

NGC 2074 (Photo Source)

“Roi,” Derik said, “what happened was a poltergeist reaction. They’re normal in crossbreds, especially around your age. It’s caused by the strength of esper powers increasing at a faster rate than the judgment necessary to control them, especially around puberty. The results can be pretty undesirable – as you demonstrated today – so esper children are normally blocked against using their abilities except in strictly limited self-defense. Then when they’re mature enough to use those abilities responsibly they’re taught to take over control of those blocks. I blocked Coryn when he was a baby, and his esper training for the last couple of years has mostly been on gaining control over those blocks. You got missed on the blocking, for the same reason you weren’t inoculated against Kharfun syndrome – nobody knew you were R’il’noid. Understand so far?

It’s an explanation, at least, but can they stop Roi from doing it again?

Weekend Writing Warriors: Homecoming

It’s Sunday again, and time for Weekend Writing Warriors (click on the logo above) and Snippet Sunday (click on the logo below.) Today I’m posting 8 sentences from my first published book, Homecoming available in all formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iUniverse.

This is a continuation from last week, when Derik joined the boys at the table where they are all eating (or rather cramming in food) to counter esper shock. A little creative punctuation has been used to adhere to the 8 sentence limit.

V838 Monocertis September 2006. (Photo Credit)

Roi’s head was down and he looked miserable.

“Do you understand what happened?” Derik finally asked.

“Something in my head lashed out at Nik and you. It wasn’t deliberate; I thought I’d fixed it so that wouldn’t happen again, but somehow it did anyway. I’m sorry, really I am, but I don’t understand why it happened.”

“Again?” Derik said sharply.

Roi seemed to pull in on himself even more.  “I think I killed a man once, an overseer,” he said tonelessly.

So it wasn’t intentional, but what can they – or Roi – do about it?

 

Weekend Writing Warriors: Homecoming

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors (click on the logo above) and Snippet Sunday (click on the logo below.) I’m still blogging the same scene from Homecoming, available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iUniverse. This is a direct follow-on from last week, when Derik realizes that the mental (and to some extent physical) explosion they had suffered was only a fraction of Roi’s potential.

V838 Monocerotis Dec 2002 Photo Credit

[Derik] had told Kaia that a self-trained esper was always cause for concern, but he’d never expected anything like this! None of them had, and as far as he knew none of Roi’s owners had even suspected Roi’s esper abilities. “I’d have thought he’d have reacted to Florian at some point,” he said shakily. “Nik, can you make it back to the table if I help you? Vara’s got some food there, and the boys are already converging on it.”

Coryn and Ander were both shoveling in food and taking turns feeding Roi by the time the two men made it to the table. Derik considered suggesting Roi and Ander change into dry clothes, but it didn’t seem very important in the heat of the summer noon. His own head was still pounding, and he envied the two older boys their resilience.

By the way Derik, Nik and Kaia have been named as Roi’s guardians in the absence of his father, Lai. Nik has also been trying to straighten out Florian, who was a little too much for his parents to handle. It’s a complicated relationship, and you’ll have to get the book to understand all the nuances. It’s pretty reasonably priced as an ebook.

Weekend Writing Warriors: Homecoming

It’s Sunday again, and time for Weekend Writing Warriors (click on the logo above) and Snippet Sunday (click on the logo below.) Today I’m posting 8 sentences from my first published book, Homecoming available in all formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iUniverse.

Continued from last week: Nik is speaking to Derik.

Photo Source

“And you’re dead right about the muscle tone. He’s moving his body entirely by telekinesis and levitation – no muscle control at all. I didn’t catch on because he wouldn’t let me into his mind, I didn’t think he was capable of that kind of esper control, and I was giving him some electrical stimulation to keep the muscles from wasting too much until he regained control. Five months without that – he’s a mess physically.”

“And he’s obviously not properly blocked,” Derik added. He was thinking faster than he could move, stunned by Nik’s insistence that they’d caught only a fraction of the boy’s possible reaction. Like Lai and Nik, he had assumed that the boy was a latent – carrying almost the full suite of R’il’nian genes, but expressing only a fraction of them. He’d caught only a fraction of the reaction – not nearly as much as Nik.

And even that fraction was enough to flatten Derik.

Weekend Writing Warriors: Homecoming

Photo Source

It’s Sunday again, and time for Weekend Writing Warriors (click on the logo above) and Snippet Sunday (click on the logo below.) Today I’m posting 8 sentences from my first published book, Homecoming, available in all formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iUniverse.

This is a continuation from last week, and Derik is speaking. Intense esper activity lowers blood sugar, by the way, so “esper shock” (hypoglycemia or insulin shock) is a constant danger for espers. Derik is responding to Ander’s dumping Roi in the pool when things went south.

“Good thinking. Now get some food into him. Get his blood sugar up,” Derik replied. He straightened up cautiously to stagger past Vara, on her way to the service pillar, and dropped to his knees by Nik’s side. “How bad?” he asked.

“Broken collarbone, some bruises, and one hell of a headache, but I suspect every esper on the island shares that. Derik, he pulled most of it. It was a brainstem reaction, and the instant he was aware of it he pulled it.”

So it wasn’t deliberate on Roi’s part, just lack of control.

Incidentally, last week’s image was of V 838 Monocerotis, taken April 30,2002. This week’s is the same star taken May 20 the same year. I’ll have more shots taken in September and December the same year, as well as one from 2006.

Weekend Writing Warriors: Homecoming

It’s Sunday again, and time for Weekend Writing Warriors (click on the logo above) and Snippet Sunday (click on the logo below.) Today I’m posting 8 sentences from my first published book, Homecoming available in all formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iUniverse.

I hadn’t planned to do more than two snippets from the scene where Roi’s mind threw Derik and Nik for a loop (literally) but it turns out that section will give several 8-sentence bits. This is the third of the sequence. And we’re still in Derik’s point of view.

Sorry I’ll be late responding and commenting today; I’m at a cousins’ reunion in Oklahoma.

Photo Source

“What happened?” Vara demanded, one hand massaging her temple while she clung to the wall with the other.

“Poltergeist reaction, I think,” Derik replied. “We’re all in esper shock, Vara. Can you get some food out here?” At least the table was still standing, and he needed its aid on a second attempt to rise. “Ander,” he called as he clung to the table and waited for the world to stop its whirling, “why are you two so wet?”

“Figured the water might shock Roi out of whatever state he was in.” Ander called back, “so I jumped into the pool with him. Scared him, though, so I got him back out in a hurry.”

The images for the next few weeks are all of the same star, over time, as it shows various stages of a “light echo.” This first one is of V 838 Monocerotis on April 30, 2002.

The blurb for Homecoming:

Snowy is a slave, a dancer. His first priority is keeping himself and his friends alive, and this means hiding the odd abilities that could get him killed. How can he cope with being totally paralyzed and sent to school with a group of telepathic bullies?

Lai is the last survivor of the R’il’nai, the species that has kept the Jarnian Confederation going for a hundred thousand years. He is in mourning for his Human lover, Cloudy, but now it seems there might be more R’il’nai somewhere beyond the borders of the Confederation. Can he find them? Should he?

Marna was on an isolation satellite when a plague wiped out all the rest of the population of her planet. Now the life-support system of the satellite has failed, and Marna must try to return to a planet where no other intelligent creature is alive. Is the plague still there? Can she survive? Does she want to?

Weekend Writing Warriors: Homecoming

It’s Sunday again, and time for Weekend Writing Warriors (click on the logo above) and Snippet Sunday (click on the logo below.) Today I’m posting 8 sentences from my first published book, Homecoming available in all formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iUniverse.

Today’s snippet is a direct follow-on from the one last week.

Image source

[Derik] found himself lying on his back in the ruins of the chair, with the noon sun beating though his closed eyelids. Hysterical sobbing, intermixed with his own name and Nik’s, was coming from the direction of the pool, and he rolled his head to the side and forced his eyes open.

Vara was coming out of the door, her face white with shock. Nik was huddled on the ground next to the house wall. Derik tried to scramble to his feet, but the ground seemed to be spinning and tilting under him. He managed to pull himself to a sitting position and located the boys: Coryn with his head in his hands, sitting on the edge of the pool, and the other two sprawled on the patio, sopping wet. Roi was shaking violently, but all were breathing. He looked back toward Nik, and gasped with relief as his half -brother made an abortive attempt to rise.

At least they all survived, but what happened?

Weekend Writing Warriors: Homecoming

It’s Sunday again, and time for Weekend Writing Warriors (click on the logo above) and Snippet Sunday (click on the logo below.) Today I’m posting 8 sentences from my first published book, Homecoming available in all formats from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and iUniverse.

Roi, paralyzed and beginning to realize he is no longer a slave, has just returned from his first semester at boarding school. But has he understood what Nik, who has just arrived, tried to tell him before he left?

 

Nik, Derik ’pathed, unable to keep all of the anxiety out of his mind-voice, shouldn’t he have better muscle tone by now?

Nik looked up, startled, and walked briskly across to join them. “Here, Roi,” he said as he placed one of his hands on the boy’s and wrapped the other around Roi’s upper arm, “try to lift my hand.”

Derik was uneasy, but couldn’t analyze why. Nik’s face changed as Roi lifted his hand. “Here,” he said sharply, “let me see exactly what you’re doing.”

“Nik, don’t,” Derik started to say as his own awareness blossomed into real fear, but it was too late. He was thrown backward, chair and all, while Nik went flying toward the house wall and a volcano seemed to erupt inside his head.

What happened?

Wif k’Roi Laian (A to Z Challenge)

Wif is the son of Roi and Feline (feh-LEEN), conceived when both were forced into a sex show as slaves. As a result of this episode and its aftermath, Feline was not quite sane and was extremely possessive of the child. Roi carries the Coven gene and is barred by the Genetics board from having any other offspring, but Wif did not inherit this from his father and as an adult has numerous offspring. He looks strikingly like his grandfather, Lai, except for an eye color that matches his father’s: gold with flecks of metallic gold. In our time, that of the upcoming trilogy, he has become the Guardian of Earth.

He appeared briefly as a baby in Homecoming (where he played an important role as a catalyst) and again when he is three and a half years old at the end of Tourist Trap. I am letting him speak shortly after the end of Tourist Trap.

I rode my pony all morning, even when we cantered! And I wasn’t the least bit tired. Well, my legs were just a little stiff. But this afternoon Daddy said we’d go in the canoe on the river, because he wanted to show me some fish like we don’t have on Central. I had to promise not to jump up and down, though.

I don’t know why Mother didn’t want me to come to Falaron. She never wants me to do anything that’s fun. Even my pony back home. She kept screaming about how dangerous it was, even with Flame leading me. I like auntie Flame better’n Mother, but Daddy says I mustn’t tell her that. He says I have to be polite to her. Even Grandma Marna says that. Grandma Marna made Mother let me come, though.

Oh, look at that bird! It just swooped right down and caught a fish in its feet. Talons, Daddy says.

Flame and Penny are leading my pony and Daddy’s horse along the bank. There’s a path there. I like Penny. She doesn’t scream like Mother. She says I ride really well, and she showed me how to put on my pony’s bridle. Not the saddle, though, I can’t reach that high.

I wish Penny’d come back to Central and be my Auntie, like Flame. I asked her if she would, after lunch, but she just turned red. So did Daddy. Did I say something wrong?

I’m doing my A to Z blogs from my books, both characters and background information. For characters I’ll introduce them quickly, say what point of time they’re talking from since their situations change drastically through the books, and let them talk. The format of background information will vary according to what I’m talking about. Bold type indicates that more information has been or will be available in another A to Z post. All of these blogs will be scheduled to go live just after midnight Alaska time.