An Update... · 9:52am Apr 4th, 2022
... and a change, inevitable as life.
Before I explain that, first, here's another excerpt from Chapter 12 of To Bellenast. I promise, I won't paste the entire chapter in blogs; I write long chapters. Sue me.
“Familiarity breeds comfort, so they say… though I reckon a fire helps more on that front. Where you from, girlie?”
“Neighvarro, for most of my life, but the mountains way east of here, more recently. Near the Celestial Coast.”
The ash-grey Kirin stopped carving for a moment to look at me. “Huh… how about that?”
Pinwheel didn’t inquire further, but glanced at me from time to time while she carved the statue held in her cloven hooves, whittling with her short-bladed knife, various chisels, and tiny files, all levitated one at a time to cut away different portions and then returned to a belt hanging across her chest. I watched while I ate. Over about half an hour, the statue’s form grew more and more refined, and I recognized the long, narrow horn, and the wavy profile of a mane the hue of which too many ponies confused with pink. Only after finishing most of the finer details of the mane and head did Pinwheel use a needle-fine chisel to etch my cutie mark into the figurine, and then she began to sand down the rough edges and filing marks. She smiled, nodded to herself, and levitated the statue over to set it at my hooves. “What do you think?”
The I couldn’t look away from it, at first; even in a rough state, it was an astonishingly accurate rendition of me, considering how quickly the Kirin mare had made it. Even my wings were sculpted with pinfeathers, instead of mature plumage. “Um… it’s really pretty.” Then I began to flush. “I mean, I’ve never—nopony’s ever made a statue of me before…”
Pinwheel chuckled and levitated the statue over to a table in the corner, which was covered with other statues of creatures in various states of final polishing. “I like to make one for every visitor I get; I don’t see most of them again, so it’s a nice way to remember everyone I’ve met. Hope you don’t mind.”
“No, not at all!” I couldn’t help but giggle and smile. “Um… I’m flattered. How long have you been making all these?”
“Oh, since I was… eight or nine, so almost twenty years now!”
She had practiced her craft for longer than my entire lifetime; it was no wonder that the mare was so skilled and quick to carve such fantastic figures. “You know, I think you could make a lot of money, selling these.”
At that, Pinwheel shrugged. “I do, sometimes. Not these, mind; not my personal collection. When I make trips to Bellenast, or anywhere else, really, I do carvings in the markets. Set up a little booth and let anyone pose, get a figurine of a favorite critter, or their pets. Or themselves. Kids don’t much care to sit still long enough for that, but couples usually like it. Still, I didn’t start doing it to make money, just because it was fun.” I immediately envisioned a much taller figurine to accompany mine. “So, did one of those Unity gals snatch you up, dunk you in their vats of rainbow goo, then drop you off in Bellenast?”
Suddenly self-conscious, I folded my wings tightly. “Rainbow goo?” I muttered, then shook my head. “No, um… I mean… I was unconscious, somepony gave me a potion while I was, um… at the hospital in Bellenast. Probably, um… Doctor Claraby, or maybe Orchid Wisp; she’s an alicorn, but she’s not part of Unity anymore. She left, years ago.”
“Oh. And here I thought they took all their newbies all the way to that place in Splendid Valley… what was it, Merry Filly?”
“Um… Maripony, I think, but they didn’t take me there. I guess they keep some of the Potion in Bellenast. How do you know anything about it?”
“A few of those gals showed up a couple years ago, stopped by my cottage… chatted for a while. They were a bit strange, not the best conversationalists, if you ask me, but they seemed nice enough. They drop by every now and then.”
My ears perked. “How often?”
She glanced at one of the windows and shrugged. “Eh. Whenever they feel like it. Some folks around here don’t much like them, but they never did any harm to me. I invited them to stay inside during a blizzard once, so I guess they see me as a friendly face.” Pinwheel rose and went over to her kitchen, and came back moments later with her own bowl of soup, possibly a second helping. “Suppose I made a good impression on them, even if they can’t recruit me. You can seem them flying over the valley, sometimes, when the weather’s clear. Usually after any big storm, too; I figure maybe they’re flying search and rescue or something. You might very well see them once this one passes.”
“That’s… good to know.” Extraordinarily so; if I could catch the attention of one of the alicorns, and they were willing to help me, that could be a means to return to Bellenast within a couple hours, or contact Ivy, at the least. I eyed the mare’s PipBuck and said, “You don’t have a shortwave radio, do you? A transmitter?”
“I do,” said Pinwheel, but before my spirits could rise, she added, “But it wouldn’t do you any good. You’d need to climb halfway up a mountain to reach anyone, and that’s on a clear day. Uruqhart’s uses it sometimes, so I just leave it out in the barn.”
I raised my hoof. “Who’s Uruqhart, and what else is in the barn?”
“A minotaur fellow, from a wee village just over the mountain. Barn’s full of tools and scrap. A wood furnace and gas forge, and a big ol’ power hammer, you know, for whacking on iron and whatnot. Was my grandpappy’s, but I never much cared to use it.”
“Power hammer?” I murmured, mostly to myself; I had an inkling of what such a tool was, but had never seen one. It was an excuse to be in a different building than the Kekalo Prince. I put my hazard suit on once again and made for the front door.
“Now, I can shape a nail or fix a cart harness when I need to, but that’s as far as I go with metal. Wood’s more my game, and—hey, wait, you’re not thinkin’ to go out there in the middle of a blizzard, are you?!”
“And if I am?” I wrapped the grey blanket tightly around myself and looked back at Pinwheel Malaise.
The ash-grey and tourmaline-green Kirin stared in kind. “Well… you’re a wee bit bonkers, is what I’d say, if that’s what you plan to do. I dunno what kind of weather you got way up there in Neighvarro, girlie, but here in the mountains, if you stray too far from a fire in a swirly like this, you’ll freeze solid in about twenty minutes. It’s not just the snow, but the wind. On a calm day, it’s not too bad, but the wind’ll sap your body heat like nothing else, lass, and you don’t have a lot of body to hold body heat with. I don’t keep some extra weight on for no reason, see?”
No matter where I went, it seemed someone else would tell me what I had known for most of my life. “You said there’s a furnace?”
Pinwheel nodded slowly. “Aye, there is a furnace, and I reckon you could light it, with that green torch on your head, but it’s—hang on.” She stepped over to one of her windows, pulled back the thick drapes and hefty shutter, and peered through the glass at what appeared to be a thermometer in a metal cage fastened to a pole projecting from the wall. She closed the shutter and drapes again; every window I could see was reinforced and covered similarly. “Thirty below, should it interest you, and that snow’s deeper than you are tall.”
“I shoveled snow up to my chest for three kilometers on the way here. I think I can dig a trench twenty meters to your barn.” Trying not to grind my teeth, I said, “Look, I’ve been stuck outside during blizzards before, without a furnace nearby. I’m not some clueless city pony. I know how dangerous it is.”
“I never said you were a clueless city pony.” Pinwheel simply continued to stare, then sighed and met me at the door to her makeshift airlock. “Fine. Don’t know what it is you’re looking for, but fine.”
If you've read all of To Bellenast that I've published so far, and if you've paid even the barest attention to this excerpt, you should be able to figure out roughly how Crystal will escape her snowy predicament and return to the story's eponymous namesake; and that word has nothing to do with ponies, I hope you know.
Crystal's story never was about secret plots or unnecessarily complicated double-think, and I think I've telegraphed most of the big events reasonably well in advance. It's in the title: To Bellenast. It's a journey, and now that Crystal has reached her destination, the story will wrap up soon, once she is separated firmly from the foolish machinations of a certain prince, and outstanding plot threads have intertwined into a rope leading onward to her future.
As for the change...
There are a select few persons I know personally who have expressed an interest in reading To Bellenast. I suppose I'm fortunate in that regard; many, if not most, authors of fanfiction probably never share their works with close friends or family. Some of them want to wait until it's finished; some have read to the latest chapter.
One of them was older, and likely never touched an ebook in his long and storied life. I wanted him to read To Bellenast,, to have a glimpse into the lives of the characters I've created... to see what he thought of the story I'd worked on for the better part of a decade... so I printed it, incomplete though it is, because a printed book, even one on plain 8.5x11 paper in a 3-ring binder, in large font, would be an easy format for him to read.
Then I printed it again, because the first time I made some errors, and the printer dutifully showed me those out-of-order pages and non-duplex sections. Don't ask. A printer is a puppet, its strings pulled by a fickle and malicious marionette.
It took a lot of paper and ink, of course, and the process of formatting a story into a physical medium is more difficult than it sounds, or exactly as difficult as it sounds, depending on whom one asks.
None of that matters.
It is the mark of an experienced writer, perhaps, that when one character dies in their story, the other characters don't get the chance to say goodbye. Sure, it may be dramatic, to give the dying hero a few choice words of wisdom to pass on, or a final moment during which to be comforted by their closest companions. It works well on the big screen, if it's done right, but it so rarely is. The one big example I can think of, that I see as being done well, is Tony Stark.
I bring up Iron Man because, in many ways, Crystal, and indeed Carbide, their personalities and quirks, their mannerisms, and other things in To Bellenast are both inspired very directly by Iron Man. Crystal is the tinker obsessed with protecting her friends, but her best way to do so isn't directly, but by building protective enchantments and tech into their suits of powered armor. Carbide, his physical nature, and his voice as I imagine it, is obviously a nod to Jarvis, Tony's virtual assistant throughout all three Iron Man films. Tony's drive, his will to protect, his creativity and intellect, his earnestness, and even his neuroses; most of that shows in Crystal in one way or another, some more direct or blatant than subtle. Iron Man, in miniature. A little Iron Mare, or Iron Filly, depending on whom you ask.
I wanted one person in particular to read that little Iron Mare's story, but he didn't get the chance. Perhaps some of that is because I waited so long to show it to him... but mostly, I think, it's because, unlike in those rare stories that manage to pull off the opposite, and, rather, as in most good fiction, we don't get the chance to say goodbye to our heroes.
Littlepip, Calamity, Velvet Remedy, and Zenith didn't get the chance to say goodbye to Applesnack. Their Steelhooves. Their Iron Man.
I didn't get the chance to say goodbye to my dad. My Iron Man. But, like Tony, he can rest now.
1950 - 2022. He lived a long and storied life, and is proceeded by no fewer than six children across two marriages, plenty of grandchildren, and some great-grandkids, with many more to follow. Being the youngest of the six, I've had the pleasure (and occasional headache) of growing up knowing many of them, if not so closely.
We don't often get the chance to say goodbye... and we can't go back, only forward.
Having said all of that, I must clarify that, because I was unable to devote my full attention to working on To Bellenast or my novel, Daughter of Agera, in the last few months, it will be another couple months yet before I think I will be able to finish and publish Chapter 12 of To Bellenast. I'm to move halfway across Texas at the end of May. Things are sure to be a bit hectic soon before and after, but, rest assured, Crystal's story is still in progress.
So, too, is the story of Martin and Gell. Here's another, short excerpt of that. If you read my last excerpt in a prior blog, you'll remember Gell and Martin. Here's a new character.
“Gell, ah…” I pointed at the cluttered side of the room. “Gell seems to have traveled all over Ageres. She even mentioned Senamii. Have you been there, as well?”
“Senamii? Oh, yes. I went there, five years ago. It was the first place I looked. Since then, I’ve been… well, just about everywhere.” Helena caught me eyeing the disorderly corner and laughed. “You were right on the money about Midansa, though. I’ve been back barely five months, and I haven’t put everything away. I don’t know if I can; I’m running out of room.”
“So I gathered… the first place you looked? What exactly were you looking for?”
Helena lit one last candle, bringing a semblance of visibility to the fascinating disaster that was her sitting room, and indicated a vivid oil painting on the north wall. “What else? Anything, anything at all that might tell me where Gell came from, or where her people may be. I haven’t found much, not on Ageres… small clues, scattered here and there, but very little solid evidence. That is the most significant find I’ve made.”
I stepped closer to the uncannily detailed painting of a creature atop a red cliff that, from the perspective given, looked similar to Gell. Instead of her inky black, it was a light roan. The painter must have looked up at the fantastically high cliff in the landscape at the animal in the middle of the frame. The details were all there: Cloven hooves, a long, almost leonine tail, a gently curved and wickedly sharp horn, like a sword upon the crown of its head, and brightly colored eyes with horizontal, elliptical pupils.
Above the creature, half the sky was covered with a black storm, and it was from beyond those oppressive clouds that a midday sun illuminated the subject, who stood there, gazing down from its great height.
“Is this an artistic interpretation, or… what the painter saw?”
“I believe that is the Great Interior Plateau of Paremon… and the most direct evidence of Gell’s species I’ve been able to find. As for whether the artist saw the creature, himself? He apparently disappeared, about eight years ago, so I couldn’t ask him. I was able to convince his family to part with one of his paintings, though not cheaply. It was the only one of such a creature, and seemed to be the last work he did before he vanished off to wherever he did. Based on the accuracy of the depiction, however, I’m inclined to think he saw it firsthand, and from fairly close. Or through a telescope, if that cliff is as high as I’ve heard.”
I pointed to the creature’s horn first, then the legs. “I’m inclined to agree. Look at the horn. Gell’s looks like it’s made or lodestone, or wrought iron. The texture is the same, and the curvature and profile. And the legs, they’re a bit longer and thicker than you’d find on a horse that size, same as Gell. Her head is wider than a horse’s, too. All those proportions… if the painter were making up some fantastical animal, none of that would match. Well, perhaps some of it, by coincidence, but not everything.”
Helena gave a respectful nod and smile. “You’ve a good eye. All details I noticed when I first saw it, and that was why I absolutely had to have it.”
“Has Gell seen this?”
Helena shook her head, and her mirth left her. “No… I only just brought all this back to Corvand when I returned, a few months ago… and I thought Gell had gone elsewhere. I… to be completely frank, I had believed that she had gone from Galfrein altogether, before I left to look all over Ageres for more like her. It’s been five years, since I last set foot in Meirgrod.” Helena gestured toward one of only two nearby chairs, and quickly relocated the stack of books and odd scrolls that occupied it. “Here, rest your leg; I’ll put on a kettle.”
“Thank you.” I sat gingerly in the chair and massaged my calf while Helena disappeared into the kitchen; fortunately, all the walking hadn’t caused the recently stitched wound to reopen. The squeak of a faucet and the burble of water indicated that the house resided in a portion of the city that was wealthy enough to have running water; being so close to the University, that was to be expected. “You left Corvand to travel the world and search for her kind… but what about Gell? You said she disappeared four years after you met her. Do you have any idea where she went, or why?”
“Where, I have no idea,” she called from the kitchen, “I couldn’t find a trail away, and believe me, I looked. But I suspect it was for the same reason I did, to look for more of her kind. I had hoped she would accompany me, at first, but… I think Gell didn’t like my company as much as I liked hers. Looking back, I think I got on her nerves. She probably wanted to see the world without me constantly nattering in her ear. While I was away from Corvand, exploring the world and meeting all the fascinating peoples I could find, you could say I discovered, thanks to some friends all but shouting it in my face, that I can be… well, I like to think I’ve mellowed out somewhat, over the years, but I called myself batty for a reason.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re certainly animated.”
“Translation: Gell likes Meirgrod for its quiet, and I talk a lot.”
Until next time, when I hope to have significantly more progress or, better yet, a complete chapter to upload.
Here's to lives lived, and lives loved, and moving forward.
