A Secret

I am actually quite glad

That one day a moment will come

When all of you

Will be only my past,

Behind me,

And my future will be

White lightning,

An empty tunnel,

A ladder to the sky,

A door in the stars.

For that one brief instant,

At least,

You will all be memories,

Unable to hurt me,

Nothing to care much about, really.

For the Record

I apparently realized this back in 2015 when reviewing Perilous Seas on Goodreads, but it's a good realization so I thought I ought to post it here for future reference.

A character type I really, really like is the mentor figure who realizes what the protagonist's destiny is going to be and takes it upon themself to facilitate that destiny without bothering to reveal it to the protagonist.  Examples: Lith'Rian, Navis, Citan, Deth. . . yeah, this pretty consistently comes up as a theme in characters I like.  Those who do it maliciously (Doc Scratch) don't count - only those who either like or are trying to get on the good side of the protagonist, but still don't want to bother to tell them what's going to happen, for whatever reason.

Nobody ever gives me book recommendations on this blog, but if you happen to know of any books (or, hey, even TV shows, these days) that feature this character type, do let me know, please?

Oh! Oh! Oh!

Over at Steepholm's LiveJournal, he happens to start off a comment with: "I do not know much about dragons."

Inexplicably, the comment does not then continue with a Spirited Away-themed filk of "The Dry Salvages."

I mean, there is even a train in Spirited Away!

I will concede that is perhaps unhealthy to see "The Dry Salvages" every single time I see a river god and trains. But then I have to admit that I have long thought that Miyazaki was a far better match for Spellcoats than he was for Howl's Moving Castle. I think I would actually be pretty excited if Miyazaki made a Spellcoats movie. So maybe I am really on to something here ;-).

Wistful Regret for Those who are Not Yet Here to Regret: Tannoreth

Everyone knows about Fire and Hemlock and "Burnt Norton." I've written about Archer's Goon and 1984, and I've at least sketched out thoughts about The Homeward Bounders and Prometheus Unbound. But it just occurred to me that I've been taking the connection between Dalemark and "The Dry Salvages" to be so obvious (I mean, come on! "I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river / Is a strong brown god"?) that I've never really given it any thought or realized that I've never heard anyone else talk about it. I just briefly skimmed over "The Dry Salvages" - a lot of it is about ocean gods and sailing, a lot of it is about the interaction between the past, present, and future, and the excitement of sudden illuminations, and the intersection of the timeless and time - of course, it would be, given that it is one of the Four Quartets, but there is even a line: "When the train starts, and the passengers are settled."

Possibly it's foolish to even make the connection, given that the four books were written over a very long period of time and seem, in some ways, to be somewhat distinct from each other. Still and all, the resonances exist. And if you're strongly impressed by something such that it helps to form the fabric of the setting of your new work, might it not remain in the setting even over the course of long years?

Not a Curse

There is no slight exhaled breath out in the vault of space.
White needlepoint stars never prick through a midnight blue sky.
Naked long-tressed goddesses can never be seen on the beach.
We do not lie surrounded by green grass to fall asleep.
No faint noise birthed from children's games can ever hold us up.
No quiet wind will ever pull us softly into darkness.
There is no city through which we can make dreams manifest.
There is no cave through which birds fly forever to the river.
There is no river through which water meanders to the sea.
There is no mountain through which earth stretches out towards the sun.
No matches ever light our hearts with thunder-fetching fire.
We do not swing, forever and ever,
Higher and higher.
We climb no ladders.
The milkmaid does not call.
No one picks up the phone.
Human voices do not wake us.
We do not drown.
Problems are salt.
Nothing is an ocean.

Undying in My Mind

I have a lot to say and no time to say it in, but I just want to lay the thought that's particularly wanting to come out:

This year's Yuletide fics on Dalemark aren't all that great (one of them has extremely powerful form but less interesting content, and the one with potentially interesting content isn't all that well-written), but they were good enough to induce me to spend the weekend re-reading Dalemark. Now, Navis is BY FAR my favorite character in Dalemark. Navis is one of my favorite characters EVER. He is (sublimely) competent, sarcastic, romantic, and good, and this is not a combination that you usually get. But one thing that reading these Dalemark fics and then re-reading the books themselves has revealed to me is that, much as I love Navis, I feel like we have enough of his story that I'm not necessarily so eager for fic about it. I mean, I'll read it if it's there, and I'll be happy, in the way that I get happy when I'm reading about one of my favorite characters. But I don't feel like there's that much missing from my understanding of Navis that fic can pleasantly fill in. The books give us practically his entire life story.

But what I really want is Duck fic! Lots and lots of Duck fic! Duck is quite an intriguing character (a very bright star in the sky where Navis is sun) and, unlike Navis, has vast quantities of stuff to be filled in. I want fanfic about what exactly went on between Duck and Eleth and why she decided to claim that the One was Noreth's father and how Kankredin got to them all. I want fanfic about what happens after Crown of Dalemark when Duck has all of his power back - how exactly do Undying spend their time when they're bound as gods - Duck must be; he admits to being the Wanderer - but no one believes in them anymore and they've spent centuries without most of their power - Duck seems to have an even harder time dealing with his situation than Tanamil (maybe that's why he called himself Tanamoril), and I'd like to know how that goes in the modern world. And fanfic about the original Enblith the Fair and how Duck (and Tanaqui? And Robin, maybe, although that's only implied, and the answer seems kind of obvious.) first learned he was Undying and maybe even about the Adon and Manaliabrid, although that seems a bit presumptuous - well, I'd like to know about Manaliabrid in general. We don't get enough of her. But anyway, more Duck! I particularly like the way he doesn't show any emotion except for politeness, except that Mitt irritates him (obviously, Duck knew about the prophecies about Mitt and saw him as the competition; the point of the very first scene in the book, which doesn't necessarily even need to be there otherwise, is that Duck really dislikes Mitt; by the way, in terms of Navis being better than Duck, note the difference between the way he treats Noreth/Maewen as competition and the way Duck treats Mitt) and he's kind of quietly happy when he thinks that his daughter cares about him, and then he gets about as immature as possible when he finds out that she's actually dead (he certainly seems to realize right away that she must be dead, given how incredibly upset he is). There's something very interesting about immortality there, I think. Several of the Undying - Old Ammett and Tanaqui in particular - seem to be able to appear with multiple ages - why is Duck always young? I mean, maybe he is just because that's how he wants to present himself at the times we see him in the book, but then why doesn't he have to shave when that makes Navis suspicious?

WANT MORE DUCK!

Okay, hopefully that lays that a bit.