NaNoWriMo Journal Day 25: thoughts and an excerpt

I haven't been keeping up my NaNoWriMo journal here, but I haven't been doing that good at keeping up my word count, either. Some things I'm discovering about myself as a fiction writer:

• If I'm writing anything longer than a short-short, I can't help overcomplexificating things. I have one protagonist, three viewpoint characters (including the protagonist), but no fewer than seven main characters all told. And the plot... well, I find myself setting things up with no idea what the payoff is going to be. I have probably nine fuses lit now, but I'm still clueless what fireworks they lead to.
• I can only get truly engaged with fiction writing when I'm playing with language. Maybe that's from my years of practicing poetry. Crafting plain, straightforward narrative bores me stiff.  Probably that's why some of the Hidden Folk (fairies) in my tale talk in metaphors and prose poetry, and why one of my viewpoint characters writes in his journal under the influence of Lunesta.

An excerpt from today's writing below. A "moogie" is a mythical lizard-like creature. The Hidden Folk always use their full names, which is why Sklorn Scratched is never called Sklorn here.

Sklorn Scratched and Zirst and Hey There

A yesterday, and a yesterday, and two yesterdays ago, when this hill was a valley and this pebble was a boulder, there was a youngster named Sklorn Scratched and a moogie named Zirst and a fox named Hey There. They'd been friends since they were hatched or whelped, and they lived by a lake that loved them, and that had loved their mothers and fathers before them for seven ages.

But one day some nasty, brutish creatures with small lives and hungry eyes came and built boxes to live in by the lake. Now Sklorn Scratched and his people didn't mind sharing the space and the days and the nights and the fish, for there was plenty for all. But the new creatures were greedy, and their sight was as short as their lives. They ate more than they needed, and took more than they ate, and threw their leavings in the lake, along with all manner of nastiness and the runoff from their hard magics. And the lake's heart grew poisoned.

One morning Sklorn Scratched and Zirst and Hey There met to say hello to sunrise, as they often did. But a mist came in off the lake and surrounded them. It wasn't a fun, friendly mist come to play, such as they'd often met before, but one cold with hate and with death in its damp fingers.

"I'm scared," said Sklorn Scratched, "let's go home."

"Let's stay here," said Zirst, "and be very still, and maybe the mist will pass us by, or sunrise will drive it away."

"This mist means to hurt us," said Sklorn Scratched. "Can't you smell it?"

Zirst had to admit he could. "But what if we get lost?" he said.

"You hold on to my tail," said Hey There to Zirst, "and you hold on to his tail, Sklorn Scratched, and I'll lead you." For she could find her way anywhere in the world on the darkest of dark nights.

The others agreed, and Hey There began to take them to their homes. But the mist snaked itself up Hey There's nose and filled her skull, and the map in her marrow became a maze in her brain. She led them over some roots when she meant to take them across a meadow, and they stumbled and were separated.

"Hey There! Zirst!" called Sklorn Scratched.

"Sklorn Scratched! Hey There!" called Zirst.

But no call came from Hey There. The mist had sucked the flesh from her, and she was a lifeless sack of bones.

"Hey There! Zirst!" called Sklorn Scratched again. But there was no answer from either of his friends. The mist had frozen Zirst to the core, then slurped him out, skin and meat and skeleton, and an icy shell was all that remained.

But now the young sun, who still loved our people (and does so yet), had grown strong enough to drive the foul mist away. Then Sklorn Scratched found what remained of his friends. He ran home and told his parents what had happened, and all the people, and the moogies, and the foxes came to return their dead to the living and to mourn. But all that was left of Zirst was ice, and it quickly melted, and they knew he would never get to rest, so they mourned him most of all.

The people held a council to decide what to do about the new creatures who had turned the lake against them. Some were for killing them, and some for driving them away, and some for moving elsewhere, to a land that was still clean and friendly. And these last were the most numerous, for the new creatures were few in number, and the world was large. And so it was decided.

But Sklorn Scratched could not sleep that night. Anger burned in him because of his friends, and he was not satisfied with the decision. He snuck into the settlement of the new creatures, and into some of their homes, and in every home he entered, he killed one of them as it slept. Four he killed that night: a man named Hrogir, and a woman named Ilda, and a lad named Tulu, and a baby girl named Daneen. These were the first humans killed by our folk, and so we recall their names. Sklorn Scratched took their skins to return to the living, in place of Zirst, though he knew it could not bring Zirst rest.

Then Sklorn Scratched took an oath, the oath that cannot be broken, that he would not return to his people, but neither would he abandon them; he would live in the in between, to protect them, and to avenge whatever harms humans shall do to them. And there he still is, and there he will remain, as long as he and we and they shall live.