Assignment

So long ago, in English class, I seem
to now recall within my addled head,
the words of my professor, like a dream,
who wrote these words upon the board. They read:
The weeks have come and gone, and in their wake,
we’re left the fruits of study, plucked and peeled,
now comes the time to show what you can take
from all we’ve learned. What knowledge is revealed
when you must demonstrate what you can learn?
So write a sonnet, write your very best,
for if that “A” you truly wish to earn,
then you must pass this extra, little test:
these last two lines must end your written feat
or else I will not count it as complete.

Donagut's biggest pet peeve is being called by his first name. It's Fydorian, and he hates it. As far as an opposite of a pet peeve (a soft spot, maybe? It's the best I've found...) I haven't really thought about it. Obviously, he loves booze, but that's not really the same thing. This has never been explored, but I'm going to say that he has an ironic soft spot for kittens.

We've seen that Lady Nasina's pet peeve seems to be discourteousness, or at least not extending the same courtesies to everyone, especially her spiders. She seems to have a very developed (perhaps over-developed) sense of equity and fairness. Her soft spot seems related to this, because it was when Denner went the extra distance to be "fair" and learn all sides of the story in "World Wide Web" that Lady Nasina started taking to him. So I guess "fairness" is a soft spot?

So...many...****...options. I'm not sure if this qualifies, because it does trigger her fairly deeply, but when Kithkin around her use the Thoughtweft, it really pisses her off. This hasn't been explored in any story either, but Orida's soft spot is for music, particularly Opera. This is likely tangentially related to the pet peeve, because the Opera would need to be sung aloud, so it was a moment where she was "in on it," so to speak.

Being looked at in the eyes. Seriously, don't do it. And don't ever wink at her. For a soft spot? Man, those are a lot tougher. She does like pearls, especially black pearls, apparently.

I

Ellia

Specifically, I want to write some more stuff about the Dominia Cabal, and explore that era of our lore a little bit more. I have learned that old-walkers are difficult to write for well, but they can be very fun, and I really like the cast of characters we've established for the Cabal. I have a vague, vague, REALLY vague idea for a story featuring The Scientist from that time, so she's on the list.

Jinsen/Kimberley

These two sort of go hand-in-hand, so I'm putting them both in here at number two. Before Ruwin went on sabbatical, he and I started discussing some long-term plans for the Jinsen/Kimberley storyline, and because Ruwin placed them in my charge for the time being, I have spent at least some time thinking about what I would like to do with them. I don't know when I'll be able to get to it, but I do have some quasi-solid plans for the pair of them.

Tryst

Tryst has some really fascinating hooks that make her an interesting character, and I have some ideas for some stories involving her that I think might work pretty well. Not to give away too many trade secrets, but Orcish and I have batted around some of those ideas, and we have something that I think will work, but it needs some work to really take shape. Hopefully someday soon!

Raiker Venn walked into the library. His library. Along each wall, towering multiple stories upward, were rows upon rows of books. His books. Books of verse written across hundreds and thousands of years and too many planes to remember, this library held every collection of his work that he had ever written. It was, simply put, a legacy. His legacy.

It was a legacy of brilliance, of creative and tragic genius celebrated by critics and commoners alike. Each collection, each poem within each collection, a finely-crafted masterpiece both on and off the page. Each work was a perfectly blended amalgam of rhythm and rhyme, of suspense and sorrow. How much ruin and heartbreak saturated those pages? How many tears had been shed for the words he had written. Raiker smiled warmly at the thought.

But that smile faded as his eyes fell on the furthest bookcase. These were the collections that Raiker liked least. He strolled over to them, purposefully, his ornate cane keeping time with his step. He ran a finger across their spines, scanning their titles with hard eyes as he recalled the details of their contents, the natures of their tragedies. His upper lip curled into a sneer as he thought about them. They seemed to stare at him, accusingly, like the vacant eyes of an audience too simple to understand his masterpieces. But these were not his masterpieces.

Raiker Venn had often thought about discarding these collections. He thought of destroying the books, and perhaps, in his darkest moments, the planes they represented. But he never did. These were his work, and while he was not proud of them, they had been brought about by his hand. Perhaps the dimness of their flickering candles made the starlight of his other works shine all the brighter. Perhaps they darkened his entire collection. Either way, he wrote them, he published them, and he had to live with them.

Even if their subjects did not.

Lamentably, these were not Raiker's earliest work. Early, to be sure, but he had written far more brilliant work before these came about. No, these represented a dark era in Raiker's career when he had, sadly and frustratingly, mistaken scale for depth. On the plane of Ronoka, an entire town had disappeared, and Raiker's collection, The Vanished Village, chronicled the strange event. The collection was well-received, but completely misunderstood. People found the incident mysterious, not tragic. On Maron, an entire empire crumbled nearly overnight. Unfortunately, the only ones left to read Raiker's Extinct Empire were those who had been, by said empire, oppressed, and the collection was praised as a litany of joys.

But the worst of all, the collection Raiker hated like a murderous child, was The Perished Plane.

Despising himself, Raiker pulled the book from the shelf and flipped to the end, the very last poem in the collection. With a grimace, he read the lines he had written back when he had, apparently, forgotten how to write.

Kanzenshi falls, her every story done,
The fate of all is as the fate of one,
For generations, when a soul would die,
It fluttered free in bliss until it found
Another vessel, where it then would fly,
And sprouted wings, no longer jailed in ground.
But one by one, the fliers came to learn,
That those who passed would no longer return.
The word soon spread, the panic did as well,
And all Kanzenshi was, in chaos, tossed,
The world descended into frightened hell,
And quickly, all remaining souls were lost.
A world is lost when not a soul draws breath,
When each has fallen to their final death.

Raiker slammed the book shut again, and only barely resisted the impulse to throw it across the room. What had he been thinking? Oh, the poem was tragic, sure. But who would ever read it? There was nobody left on the plane to experience the tragedy. The entire thing was a complete waste of time! Raiker Venn took a deep breath to calm himself, replaced the book, and walked away, his back to the shelf full of regrets.

His regrets.