Cassidy's life has been lonely and full of heartache. Abandoned as an infant, bounced from foster home to foster home. He's never found a place where he's belonged. Then one summer as his life starts to turn around, something happens that changes everything...

“Her conversation was curiously, completely literal. All figures of speech, metaphors and use of idiom went completely over her head, and she never used any. I know she only read non-fiction and not much of that deeming most non-fiction to be implausible. She described newspapers as lies and fantasy and didn’t read them. I never saw her reading any of the magazines in the waiting room here. I know she’d never been to the cinema nor a stage production, and perhaps most curious of all that she said she had hated listening to stories as a girl. That was the only time she ever referred to her life as a child.”

This tale was inspired by a comment made by ‘Outsider’. Thank you, Dave.

“You are mothers to be.” Gosellyn had explained, “To the Folk, both you and your unbirtht are precious. Don’t be surpriest if you receive an offer of marriage from someone you have never met before, and don’t reject it out of hand. Say you will consider it, and then have spaech with one of us or a member of the Master at arms office if you need advice. We have a lot of men who loes their wife to the fevers a year over. Their year of mourning is now over, and many are seeking a wife and a mother for their children. Your pregnancy makes you very attractive and desirable as a wife to our men, and you will be well come to their families, kin, clan and kith. The Folk value a mother and her children.”

Early in July, men started dying from what we were telt was a virus and there was no cure or immunisation. Men died, boys died, baby boys died, even baby boys in the womb were still born. It was happening all over the country. Then we heard it was all over Europe too, and within a fortnight there wasn’t anywhere on the globe unaffected.

Human Touch

Four years later, I graduated from MSU with a degree in engineering and a unique knowledge of Japanese anime thanks to the revolving door of roommates who insisted that we watch “just one more episode” and they would then leave copies of videotapes. I could have opened my own “Bootleg Blockbuster Video” store.

Or at least I could have refreshed the video store back in Caledonia.

I came home for a week or two and then left for Memphis, Tennessee.

By this time, Mercedes was so disconnected from the world she rarely did more than sit in the empty flat staring at nothing. She had tried to explain how she felt and why to her doctor, but he barely listened and told her she was suffering from depression. He’d prescribed her tablets saying, “These will help you to cope.” There was nobody she wished to speak to, and nothing she wished to do. The tablets, when she took them, disconnected her even further from the world. Eventually, she stopped taking the tablets and could no longer be bothered to eat. She would have died, but for the chance visit of an old acquaintance who called an ambulance. She had been a patient in the psychiatric hospital for four months when she awoke on Castle.

28th of Towin Day 1

Chaunter beckoned Waxwing over to her and asked quietly, looking across the cabin at Flame staring at naught, “How is she?”
Waxwing was the closest they had to a healer, she’d had the emergency healing training, but she was no more skilled to deal with Flame than the others. “She has fully recovert from the deepcaltth, but she is still too deeply shockt by the loss of Irune to be reacht yet. Perchance, Gosellyn or Campion could reach her but…” Waxwing’s words trailed off as she thought of Flame, the young woman who had only just reached agreement with her wife Irune on the voyage north and who had lost her love within a tenner. “Ceël keeps spaeking to her. Neither of us is sure how much contact is being maekt, but Ceël keeps spaeking of Irune’s children and how much they will need her. Her eyes flicker when she hears the names of the children, but that is the only sign of contact so far.”

.

Three hundred or so persons from various places and times on Earth arrive on Castle, and they must begin life anew or die.

Though there are numerous prequels and pages of explanation in my manuscript that occur before this, Hwijje and Travisher and First Incursion were examples of prequel chapters and I am currently working to make the explanations suitable for posting, this is where the series begins. Marcy, chapters 1-6, was posted out of order, early, in order to provide some story first, so that the explanations make sense, even though it would be done the other way around in printed format.

Where necessary or possibly helpful to some, there are notes at the end on word usage.

The story starts in the year 568 after the Fell Year and these 10,000 words or so are not essential reading to enjoy, if you so do, the story. However, much is clearer if you have read them, for they explain what the Folk know of themselves, and to some extent how they think. They also explain some of their history and the structure of the castle they know as the Keep and their nearby settlements. If the language is difficult you have my sympathies, but I’m not going to change it.

I have provided explanations of word usage at the end and will continue to do so as long as I keep posting. If I get that far I shall post the more technical appendices later, things such as the linguistic conventions that govern the language (and the irregular forms), the calendar, tables of sunrise etc., and if I can work out how to do it the maps and schematics for the Keep too. If you don’t like it, and it is a matter of taste, all I can suggest is that you read something else. However, constructive criticism and suggestions are welcome. I may ignore them, but naytheless they are welcome.

This is a little story that I wrote for my Creative Writing Class.

Silvermane had reported her pregnancy late and Elgal had celebrated his virility at impregnating his new and very beautiful mare of the once so proud Magellsi clan immediately. He was blissfully unaware Silvermane had chosen to give herself to him because she’d considered, due to his arrogance and stupidity, he was the stallion most likely to be duped regarding her foal should it prove to be a colt.

I didn’t have any friends at school. I was a loner and more than a bit odd, so other kids tended to stay away from me, and I liked it that way because everything they did, talked about and were interested in seemed trivial and pointless.

Stan had tears in his eyes as he laughed and said, “Sasha has a seven pound splitting axe just inside the door that he uses for firewood on his yard, and is there anyone here who doesn’t believe he’d use it?”

“I counted my arms and legs first, then my fingers. I was amazed they were all there. We turned round and the plaster lath ceilings had turned into dust and kindling and the entire wall was down. It was just a pile of cobbles and broken lime plaster on the floor.

Nineteen-year-old submissive Kathleen was sick of men who only wanted to be her master for sexual reasons, but when she responded to a message from a gentleman on a matching site, she didn't realize how life-changing their relationship would be, and how right it would feel.

I travelled back to Scotland with Dad ‘Oh my bloody backing’ for over three hundred miles.

All are my own, jotted down over the years.
With a shortfall of talent, and I’m sure it appears.
But rhymes that spring up, though truly not art,
tend to rattle around, and just won’t depart.
So I’ll inflict them on BC, and anticipate your tears.

Concerning ℕ, ℤ, ℚ, ℝ and ℂ.

“You saying you believe in ghosts, Geoff?”

“You saying you’ve got the balls to tell Karen she’s delusional, Alf?”

“No, I see what you’re saying. Ellen scares me badly enough. Your missus is…, nah you carry on, Geoff.”

Gladys was smiling at Alf’s strategic withdrawal.

There are too many raptors. They’re dominating the landscape.

I picked the mobile phone up, disabled it and looked hard at the nearly full slurry tank as a wicked idea and smile came over me.

If I live to be a hundred I shall never forget it.

This is how it goes. You say, “I’m a writer.” Then they say, “Really‽” You can hear the interrobang in their voice, the compounded question and exclamation marks that say, “An alien, Eh? I never met an alien before!” Which is an example of their reality. Just for God’s sake whatever you do don’t tell them you’re trans too. The shock will kill them, and you’ll be charged with manslaughter. Society has really got it in for trans aliens at the moment. They’re the new gingers.

One definition of justice is the administration of law according to prescribed and accepted principles. Which means it varies according to who is doing the prescribing and who is doing the accepting, and as all should be aware it changes from one place to another.

Another is that which is handed down by a judge, magistrate or other person or body socially recognised as authorised to so do. Which of means such a person or body can not hand down injustice for that is a contradiction in terms.

I was chopping up an Edwardian oak fire surround to burn to make the tea on. Well you did in those days.