Feathered Hearts and Harmonic Resonance Updates · 4:19pm Dec 30th, 2021
Over the years, I’ve found there is an inverse relationship between how much I enjoy writing a clopfic, and how much I can write on it in one sitting. Ironically, but perhaps not surprisingly, the more fun it is, the less time I can spend on it for reasons I’m sure everybody can guess. That’s actually a good sign for the story, for when I enjoy writing something, it tends to turn out quite well, even if it ends up being a bit late.
In summary, the new Harmonic Resonance chapter is now half-done, sitting at just over 4000 words. It’s unlikely at this point I can get it finished in time for New Year’s, but I’ll try have it draft complete this weekend, at least. And when I haven’t been working on that, I’ve been working on the next Feathered Hearts main story chapter, which went to prereads last night. It’s currently hovering right around 10k words and corresponds to the first half of chapter six from the original story.
It’s time for a new introduction folks—but not the Cloven just yet. Readers of my works know that first impressions are rarely correct with my characters, and such is the case here, where a certain griffon is not what he first seemed. I’ll leave that a secret for now, but this chapter will be released over the weekend, and you can expect plenty of surprises, suspense and slowly ratcheting tension as they lick their wounds and try to figure out what by all the crows of the Kingdom is going on. Here’s a teaser, and this time, I’ll give you the chapter opener:
A second flash of searing white was followed swiftly by another massive crash of thunder that bowled Gilda backwards in the air, knocking her head over heels. It left her momentarily blind and deaf, to say nothing of completely unaware of what was going on around her.
At first, she wasn’t sure if she was alive or dead. How many seconds had passed? How many minutes? Was she hit? Was Marco?
Reasoning that she wouldn’t be able to wonder if she was dead unless she was actually alive, she forced her eyes to open, and slowly, her senses returned along with her vision. As it did, badly blurred whites blended with blues, browns and greys that seemed to be whirling around her. Her ears also began to respond, as she could hear the roar of the wind. Distantly, she could also hear somegriffon shouting her name and desperately shaking her by the straps around her neck.
“Gilda! Gilda! Wake up!” a voice she finally recognized as Fortrakt’s was frantically calling to her.
Gilda took a moment before shaking her head sharply. She felt the wind hit her strongly—too strongly. There was also an odd sinking feeling in her gut she knew from experience meant her flight was out of control; she realized just a single but terrifying second later that she was falling uncontrollably from the air, plummeting along with the stricken air coach to certain doom.
The eagless immediately spread her wings in an action as instant as it was instinctive. Her eyes were still swimming in color, so she used her experience as a practiced flyer to right herself until she could finally see, forcing her gaze to focus.
The first thing she locked onto was Marco’s coach doing a near-vertical dive; her sky griffon soldiers at the rear trying valiantly but futilely to keep it from crashing into the oncoming ground. The front part of the air coach had two badly burnt members of her Turma dangling lifelessly in their harnesses with a third missing along with his harness extension, which was reduced to a seared and splintered stub—far too much weight for a single set of sky griffons to lift, no matter how strong their wings were.
“Marco!” Gilda shouted, realizing she had but seconds to act. A surge of adrenaline and fear overriding the lightning-caused concussion she’d received, she immediately dashed forward through the air, towards the front of the air coach. She sensed a windstream coming up beside her, and a glance revealed Fortrakt to be the source to her right.
They nodded at each other as both grabbed hold of the intact front air coach extensions and grunted as they tried to lift their side up even though they weren’t properly harnessed, which caused the yokes to dig in painfully to their backs and shoulders.
Fortrakt squawked with desperate effort as he began to flap his wings with all his strength. Gilda just clenched her beak, a trill of agony escaping her throat as she, too, tried to lift despite the intense pain of the harness digging in hard to her flight muscles, attempting to slow the coach’s descent as quickly as she could. But despite their best efforts, a glance downwards revealed the ground coming up on them fast; the blurred greens slowly transforming to rocky hills and trees.
She could hear the humans screaming inside the coach. Marco’s voice was the most recognizable, but she could hear the others too as they felt themselves falling to their deaths. She could also hear and feel small impacts as the passengers, both humans and griffons alike, were being thrown around inside.
Time seemed to slow down as the ground neared. Gilda’s vision tunneled as she saw individual rocks, blades of grass, and the areas of dirt below. They were almost to the ground, and her gut was telling her they were coming in too fast.
Gilda realized then with a sinking heart that there was no way to arrest their fall fully in time; not without losing the dead weight of the stricken griffons still hanging from the harnesses. She didn’t know if they were unconscious or dead, but even if it was the latter, it would take precious seconds to unhook them.
Seconds they did not have. “If we’re going to crash, we have to cushion the landing! Prepare to spread wings!” Gilda barked, surprised her voice could sound so clear and strong despite the intense efforts she was exerting. “Now!”
Remember that this is just the start of a 10k word chapter. And don’t worry—the next chapter (as in, the first combat chapter!) will follow swiftly given I’m already 5k words into it. That is where the Cloven will appear. So in the immortal words of Corporal Imlay, lock and load and stow the combat-jack, folks. It’s time to go to work. 
For a moment I though Gilda would cut the dead/unconscious griffins lose.
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She may yet. I’m thinking about it.