Ah, Scavenger has yet to come into his magick!

Ok, this makes sense; I don't know why I didn't see it before now.  Fey are tall, dark and thin and possess magick naturally.  Islanders are short, pale and stocky, and possess no magick.  However, look at Scavenger, the Fey red cap.  He's dark complected and has the angular, sharp features of a Fey, but he's short, like and Islander - even shorter actually, more like a dwarf class in a traditional fantasy novel.  By all accounts he is essentially a shortened, stocky, squashed version of a Fey; or a dark, angular featured version of an Islander.  Also, Islanders are naturally magickless people, and Scavenger never 'came into his magick', which makes him similar to Islanders in more ways than just his physical appearance.  He is a red cap, the lowliest of the Fey, barely even recognized as a feeling, thinking being.  Along with others of his kind, he has been relegated to the lowest class of Fey society, forced into doing the dirtiest, nastiest, most undesirable jobs that none of the other Fey will deign to perform.  Since he'll never be able to perform any magick at all, he does the next best thing - he learns as much about it as he can.

Lets have a look at Matthius now.  Matthius is is tall and thin for an Islander, and like Scavenger, he also is an outcast among his own people.  However, unlike Scavenger, Matthius was able to progress in his society through the multi-leveled ranks Roccanism, the religion of the Islanders, ultimately assuming the title of Holy Sir - The Rocca, Beloved of God - much like the role of the Pope in Catholicism.  He becomes the leader in the fight against the Fey and discovers that Holy Water will kill them, which reinforces the strength of their religion.  Also, out of a race of people who have absolutely no knowledge or awareness of magick, Matthius comes to possess a powerful magick that he doesn't understand and doesn't want.  He belongs to the most powerful class of magick wielders... he's an enchanter.  Realizing that he might have something in common with the demon Fey, Matthius is offended to the core of his soul and develops a deep hatred for them.  He eventually loses his faith and abjures his title of The Rocca.  However, upon becoming Rocca, the secret of Holy Water was passed down to him, making him the only person on Blue Isle with the knowledge of how to make it.  Having discovered that Holy Water, the only surviving secret of Roccanism, can be used as an extremely powerful weapon against the Fey, Matthius devotes his life to re-discovering the lost secrets, which he believes can be used to develop new and more powerful weapons against the Fey.

Now, considering the disparities between these two outcasts and their respective races, the obvious conclusion is that Islander and Fey must have interbred generations ago.  But what about Coulter?  He's a regular Islander.  Maybe a little taller than the average Islander, but by no means does he stand out, and he is regarded as perfectly normal by other Islanders - except that he is also an enchanter.  It becomes apparent that Coulter has the potential to be the most powerful enchanter who has ever lived, possibly even more powerful than Matthius.

Now I have to think about Scavenger's role in all of this, based on the fact that Matthius, who was born to a race of supposedly magickless beings, is an extremely powerful magick wielder.  He is also is tall for his kind, resembling a Fey in all appearances except his skin color and facial features.  Might not Scavenger, a Fey who is short for his kind, resembling an Islander in all but skin color and facial features, 'come into his magick' at some point, as Matthius is in the process of doing?

Here's how I imagine the series ending.  Matthius, who hates Fey with all of his being and is loathe to consider that he might be magickal, like them, is eventually consumed by his hatred.  Although Coulter and Matthius are technically on the same side - they're both Islanders, after all - Coulter probably dies while trying to prevent Matthius from doing something horribly stupid.  Most likely, out of his extreme fear and hatred of the Fey, Matthius will try to kill King Nicholas's half Fey children, Gift and Arianna, as he killed their Fey mother, Jewel.  Jewel was the only Fey who ever tried to arrive at a peaceful solution to the problem by marrying Nicholas, the King of Blue Isle, thus uniting the two empires in marriage.  So, Coulter probably dies fighting for the Islanders and defending the rightful heirs to the throne of Blue Isle.  Scavenger, who was outcast by the Fey and accepted by the Islanders, comes into his magick at a critical point when all seems lost.  Since he has studied magick all of his life, when he finally comes into it, he is instantly just as powerful as Coulter - more so, actually, as Coulter didn't have Scavengers intimate knowledge of Fey magick.  Scavenger wields his new found magickal powers to defeat Matthius, saving Gift and Arianna, but he probably dies while doing so.  However, he dies happy, finally having been able to wield magick.

It'll be interesting seeing how different or similar the story turns out.

Some words

I’m in love with someone now, and it pretty much hurts all the time… no, not always.  But it’s a constant pain.  How can I describe it?  It does hurt all the time, but it doesn’t.  Anyway.  I think of ways that I can change who I am, ways that I can not be myself, to try to be a person who she would love, and I always realize that would be fruitless.  It would just be wrong.  Either she loves me for who I am… either we are supposed to be together, or not.  It is what it is.

I despair sometimes because of it, because it hurts so bad.  Most people know what heartache feels like, so I’m probably not saying anything that’s completely foreign here.  But praying does help, because even though the love of God is hard to grasp, it’s there and it’s what we really need above all else.  Even above the love of the person who we love, who we think we need more than anything else.

When she broke up with me, I was basically dead for a while… that is, I didn’t really live, I just breathed and ate and moved and slept.  I walked around a lot.  I cried a lot, which was kind of like living.  I prayed a lot.  I discovered prayer because that’s all I knew to do, was to pray.  I found myself walking around one night, saying the Jesus Prayer over and over again, like it was a tape recorder in my chest just coming out of my mouth, set on repeat.  I wasn’t really conscious of it, I just decided to do it, and I shuffled around for miles and hours like that, saying it over and over, hundreds of times.

What happened was I stopped suddenly after a long time of doing this, and I felt like a curtain had been lifted from my face.  I felt a very soft, very very soft, but growing joy, growing in my heart.  It took about 5 minutes to grow up into something I recognized as ‘not dead’.  It got my attention and I started walking again, saying the prayer, realizing that I was saying it.  And it grew and grew and the joy grew and grew, and then I felt a pain in my heart.  It hurt in my heart, and I had to double over for a second and stop.  It hurt there, and it was joy too.

I walked home like this, full of joy and knowing that everything was ok, with this thing in my heart like a needle, poking it and making it hurt like a dull white hot fire.  But it was a good hurt.  If pain can be described as good, that’s what it felt like.  I walked home like that and went to bed when I got home, lying on my side, spasming now and then with the pain in my heart.  I went to bed with a joyous smile on my face, knowing that God had given me His promise and was counting on me to remember it.

That time has passed and despair is here again a lot, but I remember that promise.  I know it’s possible to feel God’s joy.  That was the greatest gift I’ve ever received, and I believe.

Gibberish

Every now and then lately, the enemy chooses to attack me with a full on, frontal assault.  These attacks are almost always completely unexpected.  At one moment I'll be in a good mood, enjoying the passing moments with a light heart and a skippity step, when suddenly and with no warning my world comes crashing down.  My reaction is invariably, WTF?  WHY?  These attacks always occur at my weak spot too.  Where else to stage an attack?  The weak spot, the spot that's in the process of being hurriedly reinforced.  The strategic spot.  The crack in the defenses.

The problem is age old and boring.  Especially for me, since it keeps occurring over and over... and I think that's because it's such a hard problem to solve.  It's boring and impossible, like algebra.  Yet I've always wished I was good at math; said that I'd trade all of my artistic talent for math talent... go figure.  So this is my weak spot.  Such an easy spot for the enemy to take advantage of and try to insert some corruption, because that's where the pride and ego and self pity and anger and all that crap reside.  But it's also where all the good things are... all those loves that just want to be pristine and real.

So, yeah.  I bet it all of this would make a good war movie/romantic comedy/spy thriller.  A blending of genres.  I could do it, I could write a script for it.  It would have to be a cartoon though.

A dream - possession

I was watching a girl as she was seduced by a demon.  This demon was leading her into a hole in the ground, overgrown and nasty with worms and filth.  The girl was just staring into space with this vacant smile as she was pulled into this hole, thinking that all was right, everything was ok, and that she was meeting with her lover; totally unaware that a demon was about to have his way with her.

Later I was at Brittney's apartment.  We were both supposed to be at work, but we were goofing off instead.  I was in her bed, wrapped up in sheets, as if I had just awoken.  I saw a bus arrive outside through the window, and Brittney said that her ride was here and she had to go.  Somebody from the bus knocked at the door, and Brittney left.  After that, a friend of hers showed up and came in.  He saw me in the bed, and I immediately thought... this isn't what it looks like.  Why am I in bed?  I'm not even dressed.  I was embarrassed and tried to get dressed under the covers.  I explained to the guy that I had to work, so I left hurriedly.

As I was walking to work, I followed the girl who had been seduced by the demon.  She was like a zombie now, and her face was rotting and her hair was made of worms.  Instead of going to work though, I followed her to a carnival.  When I got there, I lost track of her and became frightened.  I walked up to a food stand and ordered a hot dog, which they advertised as being made with 'religious bread'.  Like the sacraments.  I paid seven dollars for one, and then the zombie girl showed up again.  I ran away from her, but she was very fast and ran ahead of me and turned to face me.  She had become this silvery molten metal type creature, and started throwing razor discs at me.  I fended them off with a metal object I had in my hand.  I hit each disc as it came, and one got through and cut me.  At this point I started collecting the discs that hadn't hit me, and I assembled them into one large, incomplete razor disc.  One piece was missing.  I ran back to the carnival and the metallic zombie girl was chasing me.  I hid behind an open door, and the zombie girl ran into the room that the door led to.  I slung the razor disc into the room and heard an incredible scream.  I looked in and saw that I had mutilated an innocent little girl.

Matrix Robes

I'm supposed to start reading soon at church.  I think I might want to be tonsured, so I can get one of those cool Matrix robes.  I told Chey that's probably a rotten reason to want to be tonsured, and she said, "Nah, God finds ways to pull you in certain directions."  That makes sense... I mean, look at my life now.  Still, I want one of those robes.  I can see the upcoming action pic - me in the Matrix Robe with Matrix shades, wielding the Gospels with a kung fu grip.

No time to do it now, I have to get my daily dose of  http://www.wimp.com/hyperkitten/

Maybe after work.