Those of you who’ve known my blog for any length of time know that I’m not afraid of discussing politics. There’s been one time that I wrote a political piece that I censored it myself simply because the topic with grossly hot-button at the time. (Gun control when the Senator got shot in the head) Normally, though, I’m fine with accepting discussion about politics because I believe that more people should do so.

From the title of this, I’m certain that this is going to cause some serious confusion for those who see it, and I honestly have a feeling that people are going to read a little bit and not bother to read the whole bleeding thing before writing to me one way or another.

I got an e-mail today from the website townhall.com. This is a very conservative site, and I believe I got on their mailing list when I wrote their site before. Anyways, the e-mail was to get me to sign a petition demanding that congress pass a law that states that life starts “At Conception.” The idea is to bypass the Supreme Court’s Rowe vs. Wade ruling by taking advantage of the court’s own statement that they cannot and will not determine when life begins, and creating a set point in time that a fertilized egg is alive. Doing so would bypass RvW and outright make abortions legal. Yay for the “pro-lifers,” right?

I have an issue with this. It stems from my belief that life actually never truly starts at any real point. The egg and sperm were alive before they merged into one unit, so therefore life was there before conception. Those cells had to be created by a living being, so therefore life existed before intercourse. At what point is there a time to make a differentiation? There isn’t one. So why is there a petition to create one?

I’ll get back to that topic shortly.

Let’s think of something completely separate from childbirth – boats. Boats? Yes, boats. Ships, specifically. When you look at a ship, say, a cruise ship, you see lifeboats. If you go digging far enough, most likely you’ll find a captain’s yacht. All of these boats are considered part of the ship until launched even though they are independent and are whole on their own. These boats are NOT their own until put to sea, yet no one is demanding that each boat be licensed and labeled independently. Why? Because we accept that they are part of the whole until needed.

Why did I bring up ships when we’re talking about birth? It’s simple: if you ignore the flesh/blood part, it’s no different. The individual boats on the ship shared the same energy and propulsion, or life, until set out separately. For all intents and purposes, the ship is pregnant with these smaller boats until it gives birth to them. These smaller ships are not considered actually independent, or their own lives, until they are under way on their own, and that’s even if they’re still attached to their “mother” ship by a cord!

Let’s move back to living beings now, including life’s “starting” or stopping or lack there-of. What makes an embryo/zygote/fetus different than the boats on the ship? Because it can eventually create an individual life. That said, it’s still a lifeboat until it’s launched, using its mother’s energy to be moved around. It has the potential to be a full life but is, up to this point, not. Does that mean it’s not alive? No, because there was never a disconnect from when it was alive and when it was conceived based on my thoughts about when life starts, or, more accurately, that it never stopped.

So, where does that leave me? I’m personally against abortion as birth control, and not entirely at peace with it when used to relieve the woman of a child conceived of rape, statutory or physically-forced. That means I’m “Pro-Life” and this kind of thing makes me happy, right? Yay for “Life Begins at Conception,” right?

Uh, no. See, I may be against abortions as a whole, I’m also very strongly of the opinion that I do not have the right to tell you what you can or cannot do with your body. And my own take on life is at odds with the assumption that “Life Begins at Conception.” If the egg and sperm weren’t alive, they never would have met and there would be no pregnancy!

Anyways, to sum up my thoughts about why outlawing abortion would, in general, be bad, I’m going to paste it here. This is an actual letter (well, e-mail, but you get the idea) that I wrote to Senator Rand Paul, the instigator of the petition e-mail I was sent.  (Please note, I understand that I didn’t post the body of the e-mail to use as context.  The e-mail itself was almost as long as this entire blog post!)

Since you have deemed your point of view more important than anyone else’s, what do you propose to help support all these unwanted children that are now being forced, as you say, “down our throat?” What do you have in mind to deal with the sudden burst of additional state and federal help required for all these children born without the means to be properly supported? What do you have in mind for their food, clothing, education? And, at what point is birth control considered murder based on this flawed mindset? What about a child conceived in rape, which is not only a gross violation of a woman but becomes a never-ending reminder of the horrible atrocity committed to them? Your position says nothing about these points, and they are NOT SMALL POINTS! All that seems to matter is that more taxpayers are born.

Let’s get something straight to start with: I disagree with abortion. In my honest opinion a person who is “mature” enough to go through with having sex should be “mature” enough to raise a child, though in truth that’s just not necessarily the case. However, even though I disagree with abortion, I also have a full and standing belief that I do NOT have the RIGHT to tell ANYONE that they cannot have one, and I challenge you to point anywhere in the Constitution that says that we do. Yes, I am anti-abortion but pro-choice. I don’t have the right to tell a person that they cannot use drugs, alcohol, smoke, or take a squat in the woods, and I have just as much right to tell them what they can or cannot do with their own bodies. And, let’s face it, even in the womb, it’s still a part of the woman’s body, therefore I cannot, of sound mind and body, tell a woman what they can do with it.

 There are several issues that would need to be factored in when dealing with this kind of “response” to a court ruling that you can’t manage to work around. The first is the costs, mentally, physically, emotionally, and financially. By demanding that all “life” begins at conception, you’re incurring an emotional toll on the woman who may or may not be ready for the child to be born. The child can and most often will be paid for by the government, state and federal, because the number of women who become pregnant without the means to support it will not be able to foot the bill. Then this same child may find themselves emotionally and physically neglected when the woman cannot afford the food needed to keep the child and herself nourished, as well as the emotional toll of growing up being despised and unwanted by the woman who is supposed to be nurturing and caring for said child. At what point does your demand to make life-at-conception cover all, or even any of these costs? Never.

 Another issue stems from the fact most attempts to prevent pregnancy, or birth control, would also become illegal. Many birth control pills and chemical agents trick the body into thinking it is already pregnant, hardening the uterine lining and normally preventing the body from releasing its egg. On the chance that the egg is release, though, and should it become fertilized, when it doesn’t attach to the uterine wall does that make the woman guilty of murder when the egg passes during menses? Or perhaps the IUD Mirena should be removed from the market because its job isn’t to prevent an egg’s release but the egg’s implantation in the lining by irritating the lining and causing it to not accept the egg, fertilized or no. Any woman using this and other versions would be, in fact, murderers to this poorly-thought idea. And the Morning After pill, a drug given to women who find themselves victims of rape and are worried about pregnancy, also becomes illegal because there is no way to be certain that there even is any fertilization or not! What does this leave? The considerably-less effective barrier method or the unrealistic expectation of abstinence, as well as the loss of many, many jobs as the companies who create these birth control methods no longer have a reason to maintain their work force.

Then there are the millions of children in the US who are living in foster care that need our real attention. Why are these children, those in real need of care because they are ALREADY BORN, less important than requiring unborn embryos be forced through to birth? What makes keeping every sperm and egg combination “alive” that much more important than the needs of those already here and living the nightmares that your legislation would be bringing to millions more children? Wouldn’t it be more helpful to save the hearts and minds of those already here by making legislation making adoptions that much easier?

There’s also the very real fact that creating a law that in effect outlaws abortion will not stop people from finding ways to end unwanted pregnancies. Instead of clean, sanitary, reasonably safe locations for these abortions to be done, they will instead be done in back corners where no one can see them, unmonitored, unsafe, and a much greater risk to those who have them. “Falling down steps” or “Accidental abdominal impacts” will become that much more common ways out of the potential legal ramifications of back-lot abortions, and women will die or become forever sterile from these actions! At that point there would be no concern over when life begins because it won’t happen at all.

In conclusion, I feel it’s my Constitutional right to remind you of yours. You should not be pushing a woman-controlling mindset on the people because it’s not your Constitutional right to do so. Please, stop demanding that a woman’s simple right of choice is forfeit simply because you want more voters and taxpayers, or worse, because you’ve decided a religious dogma is more important than the freedom of the people who’ve chosen you to represent them. Do not be “Playing God,” as you so aptly put it, in forcing others to do or not do something simply because your personal belief is that it’s wrong. Write and vote for laws based on the freedom and rights of the people and not on some unquestioning belief that something for you and your family is bad, and work to end the notion that a woman’s choice is subject to laws that tell them that the choice truly isn’t there, because that is your job as a US Senator.

I then signed it and sent it on its way.

So, yes, even though I am personally against abortion, I’m all for supporting your right to do as you please. So, “Anti-Abortion, Pro-Choice.” Sounds counter-intuitive, but, hey, it’s Wulf here.  Since when have I ever made perfect sense?

Lonewulf as he was on 12NOV2011

It’s no secret that I play World of Warcraft.  I’ve actually been playing (almost daily) since June or July of 2009.  I started out as a male Night Elf Hunter and played ONLY a male Night Elf Hunter for about a year. I also had a Druid whose name I was saving for the then-announced Cataclysm, but he’s since become an off-played alt for when I don’t want to do anything important, as well as randomly creating characters to try the starting zones only to kill them off a few days later on way back to my original.  When the Shattering hit, I created a Tauren hunter so I could learn the new hunter’s setup without looking too much a fool on my original character.  I now sit on a half-dozen hunters (yeah, I like hunters, so sue me) of different races and factions, a few priests, a paladin, a pair of druids, and one shaman who is the biggest standout of all my characters because there’s a really weird back story behind it.  All in all, I think I have 16 characters floating around out there.  I play a lot…

Who doesn't like having huge animals around?

Anywho, one of the biggest things I found myself enjoying the most was the social aspect of the game.  There were all kinds of people all over the place!  Some of them were nice, friendly, chatty, while others were elitist pricks.  Being on a Player versus Enemy server (PvE) without it being a RolePlay (RP-PvE) server, I figured there would be little room for me to be roleplaying.  Boy, was I wrong!  I quickly developed friendships with people who were almost as heavy into RP as I was!  Not so much the over-the-top, “Oh my God, you broke character, how dare you shatter my pretend world” type roleplayers but people who would do some friendly introductions and play-bantering.  I had a blast!  I even had a 45-minute conversation with a Game Master (GM, someone who actually has a lot of power in the game, hired by Blizzard to help players out, interact with the world, and institute instantaneous justice when needed) that started because I was trying to get a particular name on a new realm (sadly, that failed) and then progressed to what it’s like being a GM, crybaby players on the forums, and then a little bit of actual light roleplay with the GM to help them understand that roleplaying is all about writing out your actions, thoughts, expressions, and emotions and not so much having some awesome character in mind.  Then again, being a GM, you’re practically a GOD on the game.  A god that can be fired for causing issues, but a god nonetheless. 

Over time, player counts have dwindled some.  Lives pick up, children are born, girlfriends don’t understand that playing video games doesn’t make you a child, etc.  Yeah, I lost a guildmate to that kind of crap.  Some people and their controlling ways.  Back on story, one of my regular light RP friends had been absent for a while and one of our collective friends suggested I write her a “dirty email.”  Mind you, these friends and I, had never, EVER done any adult RP.  We’d just played around with the idea of hidden interests and missed romances, typically done with the understanding that both the other guy and I were married and she didn’t want to get too attached to either of us just to have us disappear.  Respectful lady, she is.  When he made the suggestion, I was on-board in a heartbeat!  A dirty writing?  FUN!!  I tried brainstorming ideas with the guy, but he seemed to want nothing to do with the end product, even going so far as to suggest that it just be my one toon and one of her toons. (For the uninitiated, “toons” would be individual characters)  In the end, I wound up settling on the idea that originally popped into mind – something I can’t actually say here because I’m sure the banhammer’s been weighed over me already…

Almost two weeks and 8900 words later, I finished it, The Scenic Route’s Detour.  As written in my DeviantArt profile -

A World of Warcraft Fiction based on roleplay between several players.
Allessa’s kept herself from romance and intimacy ever since accepting the call to war as the night elf huntress she was, regardless of how much it’s come looking for her. Her two male companions, Lonewulf the night elf hunter and Danada the human rogue, had both become interested in her over the years but she kept both at arm’s length, not wanting to be distracted from protecting those who could not protect themselves.
Today’s just like any other day. they gather, discuss their plans, and keep each other safe. What makes today different, though, is that she’s caught her two friends talking about her. What could they be discussing while she’s away?
Races, Classes, and Settings © Blizzard

And now, The Scenic Route’s Detour

Allessa sighed and shook her head as she neared the inn.  Her long night elven ears could hear her friends as they waited for her at the tavern, and she could tell by the tone of their voices that, whatever they were talking about, it had them both riled up in their own ways.  She slowed her pace to listen to the two men talking, something that felt the opposite of what she should be doing.    The huntress ignored her instincts and let the conversation travel through the air, pulling her long, dark blue hair back over her ear with a gauntlet-covered hand to catch the words from the air.
“I strongly doubt…”
“You’ve no idea…  …I have seen what…”
“…hate to be the bearer…”
“Ha!  …know what to do if…”
Allessa returned to her quicker pace, not wanting to be any more late to this little gathering.  Judging by their voices, the conversation had been started quite some time ago and was something she’d probably need to mediate and quickly.  For being friends, she’d never seen two grown men be so at each others’ throats.  Sure, Danada had gone as far as to use his friend’s identity, risking the man’s very soul merely for a night of pleasure among the Den of Pleasure’s demonic ladies.  It wasn’t as if it hadn’t scored Lonewulf an interesting, albeit short-lived romance with one of the succubi that Danada had left very angry that evening.  Even Danada’s deflowering of a dwarvish princess under Lonewulf’s name caused his friend a payout as the lady’s father paid him handsomely for his silence in the matter, something that he had no problem reminding Danada about whenever he had a chance.  It seemed that, for all of Danada’s dark, self-beneficial mischief and roguish appeal, Lonewulf managed to work it out with his quiet chivalry and always-pleasant charm.  For all the work that Lonewulf did to make Danada’s life less carefree at his personal expense, Danada managed to bypass it and find more things to do.  It was rather humorous, to be honest.

For the rest of the story, click HERE.  (Mature content on DeviantArt is restricted to mature-accepting DeviantArt accounts.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED)

So, I set about hunting down the GameCube game disc that I adopted from my wife. I found it, got all excited and then remembered something: My Wii is broken. The optical drive no longer reads discs. I was further saddened to remember that my wife made me sell the GameCube to afford the Wii. And I don’t have any Wii/Gamecube emulators on my computer. What was I to do?

That’s easy! I pulled out my Donkey Kong 64 edition clear-green N64! You read that right! The same piece of hardware I bought brand-spankin’-new in 1999 (and pissed my parents off with because they had intended to buy it for me for Christmas) was my 2011 hardware of choice!

I learned a few things. First, the AV cables don’t stay soft and supple forever. If you have any way of protecting any plastic/vinyl-covered cables, make sure to do so BEFORE storing your consoles. Second, I learned that my 720P Westinghouse flatpanel differentiates between S-Video and Video. It only took me 20 minutes of arguing with my television and listening to the awesome theme song of DK64 to discover this. How did I discover it? I turned on “Auto Input Select” and it went to what I’d labeled “Cable”. *facepalm* Third, I learned that I’d forgotten to take the batteries out of my Rumble Pack. *double-facepalm* Luckily it’s just some mild surface corrosion on the spring and contact, so I’ll be able to fix it. Fourth, I discovered that big, red start buttons attract the attention of children very well. I can’t tell you how often my son hit Start on me. It was hilarious anyways! Finally, I discovered that I really, REALLY need to replace the analog sticks on two of my controllers. At least I have 2 nice, firm thumbsticks in the back.

I also learned that Nintendo did something that I hadn’t realized until today: They tuned their consoles to work with the typically-fuzzier displays of the time. I remember my games looking nice, the glowing lines flowing and just beautiful. On my new, higher-definition display that doesn’t show the “fuzz” so well. There’s so much jagged imagery that I thought my console was broken! It’s not. The games were just designed for an entirely different light display. the cost of playing classic games on hi-def TV’s, I guess.

Ultimately it didn’t bother me much. I was too busy starting a fresh save file on Ocarina of Time and reveling in my old, senior-in-high-school fun times. Those were the days. No bills, no money concerns, no major responsabilities. Just me, my mom’s older TV set, and my N64…

I’m not sure what it’s been recently, but I just haven’t been able to really write anything that I’m happy with.  I’ll sit down and write for a while and then decide it’s crap and scrap it.  It’s begun taking a conscious effort to NOT just delete an hour or two’s writing because something just felt off with it.  That includes this piece, Dream Stalkers part 5.  I started writing this one three times before I was finally happy with what I started with.  Either the wording was bad or I felt the flow was off or something.  The first one I did, I didn’t even re-read it.  I just said, “It’s crap,” and closed the window, no saves.

The other day was different.  The words just fell into place and I was happy with it from word one on.  I’m not sure what was different about it, but I’m glad it finally worked out!

So, without further ado, the writing that I’m sure some of you have been waiting for, The Dream-Stalkers - Of Dreams and Nightmares!

“Mother, I don’t think you’d ever be that cruel.” Tatiana’s voice was rushed as she worked to get a room ready for herself, the Queen Mother Lasha, and the human-formed werewolf that the queen considered to be her daughter, Elisa. “It doesn’t make sense, not with how hard you work to keep the peace between humans, vampires, and werewolves.”

Elisa, dressed in loose-fitting slacks and a flowing blouse, chimed in as well. “She’s right, mom. You’re nothing but the utmost in niceness, why would you claim to have such a past?”

Lasha sat and watched the girls toil from a corner of the room. Cots were being shifted around to accommodate a third person, something rarely done during any Dream-Stalking. She shakes her head, causing her long, wavy blonde hair to shift about her shoulders, and sighs loudly. “Alright, it wasn’t me, but someone I took into myself.” She closes her eyes as a frown crosses her lovely features. “There was a woman. A vampiress. Strong, but not impossibly strong. She took my husband, then took me.” Her eyes open to see both girls looking in her direction and so forces a smile. “I fought back after several years of watching her…” She stops and swallows hard. “Nevermind that. I fought back against her control and I won. I killed her by drinking almost all of her blood, and I let her bleed out what little life she had left. It was she who wanted that werewolf’s death, but I took in so much of her that it controlled my thoughts for a time.” Lasha’s voice becomes pained but she continues, the sounds of shifting mats silenced for the moment. “I even tried to kill him myself.”

The elder vampire feels a hand on her shoulder. She snaps back to the moment to find Elisa looking down at her, a caring grin matching the sparkle to her deep brown eyes. “But she doesn’t anymore, mom. I’m sure it’s ancient history.”

“I hope you’re right, my daughter, for all of our sakes.”

Tatiana calls out from across the room, “It’s ready. We have to do this quickly. It’ll be dark soon.”

The ladies all lay on separate cots, each looking upwards towards the stone-tiled ceiling of the room. Tatiana sits up and looks at the table farthest from her to her left. “Elisa, I know you’ve never done this, so I’m going to walk you through it. If I tell you to do something, you need to do it when I tell you. Understand?”

The girl simply nods.

“Alright, then. Queen Mother, I–”

A loud sigh escapes Lasha’s throat. “For the time being, I’m just Lasha. I don’t want you putting on airs around this wolf. It’s already dangerous enough without it.”

“Yes mother. I mean, Lasha.” Tatiana mumbles something quietly before speaking clearly enough so the pair accompanying her would easily understand, even in half-sleep. “Alright, I need you both to close your eyes and clear your thoughts. Blank would be best, but if you have issues with darkness, a white box will work.”

“Tatiana!” The heavy wooden door swings quickly as Erik forces his way into the room. The younger-looking man seems distraught as he sees her and is flanked by several yelling youths whom he’d obviously pushed past forcefully. “What are you doing? I heard…” He bows quickly as he realizes that the figure sitting up next to the dark red-haired woman is the Queen herself. “I’m sorry, Queen Mother. I didn’t realize–”

The queen glares at the boy and he freezes in place. “You didn’t think, either. Choose your words wisely or you won’t think until I decide that you may.”

“Y-yes, mother… I…” He looks up at the vampiric girl who was now sitting in her cot. “There’s rumor that you’re going back after him.”

Tatiana sighs loudly, a distressed look crossing her features. “I have to, Erik.”

“You promised me you wouldn’t! And now you’re going without me!” Erik’s words come out stained with anger and betrayal. “Why?”

“Because I told her that she must, my child.” That angry response came from Lasha.

“Erik, I’m here, too,” Elisa piped in. “This isn’t anything to be worried about. Go, rest, and we’ll be back soon. I’ll make sure she’s a good girl for you.”

Erik stands in the middle of the room, his body shaking in irritation. After a moment he simply nods, his face no longer contorted with rage. “Alright. But don’t be long. I don’t like this one bit.”

Tatiana jumps from her cot and runs at Erik. She wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him passionately to reassure the vampire of her intentions. “My darling, I’d never risk losing you. I promised you that my heart yours and nothing’s changed that.” She smiles warmly at him before continuing in a gentle whisper. “Be waiting for me, my love.”

He finally relaxes and happily returns her kiss. “I’d wait the rest of my days for you. Just don’t make me wait that long.”

~*~ ~*~

It took several tries and nearly a half-hour for the Dream-Stalker to find both her Queen and the werewolf. Lasha herself had some previous experience and was easier to locate, but Elisa was not exactly equipped with the knowledge of how to make her own dreams bend to her whims. Finally, though, Tatiana did manage to find the girl in a white box-like room, exactly as she’d been told.

All three stood together in the half-sleep dream world that was Elisa’s box. Tatiana began explaining the process of finding his dream to the young werewolf girl, with Lasha nodding and adding in small bits where she could. The biggest thing she stressed to the were was staying together and imagining herself as invisible. “It will keep him from seeing you until we’re ready. You’ll be the weakest one of us there because you don’t know what you can do in your dreams yet.” Tatiana grins before demonstrating a dream-shift, changing her body’s proportions to match the Queen Mother’s. “Eventually, you can do this, too.”

Lasha laughs openly at the shift. “So that’s how you’ve been getting so many men.”

Tatiana blushes but doesn’t respond in kind as she returns to her normal self. “It’s very important to stay hidden in the shadows, too. Even in dreams, line of sight matters.”

Elisa shakes her head with a frown, then suddenly changes from her human form to her full wolf form. Her dark-brown hair now covers her entire body as fur as her eyes remain the deep, intelligent brown they were before. A moment later, she shifts back to her human form. The change wasn’t perfect, though, as she finds her clothes missing as she changes back. With a grunt, Elisa fixes that issue after a half a moment. “Okay, I think I get it…”

Tatiana extends her hands to the women. “Alright,” she starts, “it’s time to get moving. Elisa, let go of the box and concentrate on my hand.

The box disappears after a short pause, leaving them floating in pitch-black.

“Good. Whatever happens, don’t let go until I tell you it’s alright.”

Lasha giggles out loud, surprising both girls. “This is going to be fun! I haven’t done this in years!” Neither girl can tell if she’s being serious or just trying to lighten the mood. In truth, it was both. The Queen feared for her life but it wasn’t often she could travel freely from dream to dream.

The girls drift on, seeming to meander through the darkness until, after what feels like hours, the dream brightens with thousands upon thousands of specks of light. To someone who didn’t know, they’d think they were looking at the night’s sky during the new moon, but far more colorful. Some were brighter than others, some were so dim that they could barely be seen, and each one seemed to glitter as if looking at it through a series of prisms.

“It’s… It’s so beautiful,” exclaims Elisa, having never been in the dream plane.

Tati looked to the were. “At a distance, yes. Getting closer, not always. Some peoples’ dreams make you want to cry.” The girl pulled both of her accompaniments with her towards the specks, which started to grow slowly as they neared. “From here, we look for different things. The brighter the light, normally, the older the person who’s dreaming.”

The Queen Mother adds in, “The more it twinkles, the more that’s going on.” She reaches for Elisa with her free hand, wrapping it around her waist and giving it a squeeze. “So, look around. Do you think you see his dream?”

Elisa looks around, her eyes wide in wonder, as she tries to identify something that might be obvious. “How do I tell? How can I tell?”

Tatiana glances back for a moment. “It’s a gut feeling. You’ll know it if you see it.” Her voice didn’t seem confident, though. The vampiress usually put a piece of herself into her prey’s dreams but hadn’t had a chance to with the male she was seeking now.

There’s suddenly a pull on Tatiana’s arm as Elisa looks at a speck in the distance. “Is that it over there,” she asks, loudly enough to almost be a shout of excitement.

The trio stops as Tatiana turns to look. “Which one?”

“I don’t know. There was one over there that looked like it had rings.”

“Rings?” Lasha and Tatiana ask together.

“Yeah, like Saturn, but they kept growing… There!”

Elisa points outwardly but it was unnecessary. In the distance a particularly gray mote flashes intensely then radiates a trio of rings that continue growing until they fade away.

“Um… Yes…,” Tatiana responds, curiosity creeping into her voice. “That’s… Different….”

Lasha’s question fills the still air, “Have you ever seen anything like that before?”

“No, Lasha. Never.”

They drift towards the pulsing ball of light, each pulse seeming to reach further and further as they near it. There was little said as they made their way towards it, but Tatiana swore she could hear something. A whisper, faint but not inaudible, seemed to catch her. She couldn’t understand it, but it never got louder and she soon ignored it.

Several minutes later, they stopped just outside of the gray ball. It had grown massive as they came closer and each pulse made a ringing sound. Lasha looked over the sphere and mused, “Whoever this is, they’re not being quiet, are they?”

Tatiana touched the ball. As she came into contact, its glow turned bright white, almost blindingly so, then shifted to a bright silver. “I think this is it.”

“You mean you can’t tell?”

“No, Elisa. Normally I can see inside. This one…” Tatiana paused in thought. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

Lasha asks quietly, “Should we go back?”

“No, Lasha.” It was Elisa’s turn to respond. “We came this far. We have to know if he’s holding them. Or worse…”

Lasha nods, then turns to Tatiana. “Do it.”

“I don’t know about this. It’s really, really strong. It doesn’t feel like a dream…”

“Do it, Tatiana. It’s time.”

Tatiana sighs and turns to Elisa. “Remember what I said. Imagine yourself invisible. You’re a ghost, not real. You’re there, but you’re not there. This is important, and I mean it.” Elisa nods, then seems to fade from view. Shortly after, Tatiana feels a tug at her hand, then the feel of something grabbing it. Once she feels it, she turns and pushes towards the ball of silver light. She closes her eyes and drops her shoulder as she comes into contact with it…

There was virtually no resistance, as if they were walking through a wall of water. The ball, however, changed quickly on the inside to a gray square room, unadorned and lacking in any visible characteristics other than gray and barren. The center of the room was another story. A gray throne, massive yet unadorned and angular, stretched from the ground. Resting on the throne, however, was something she recognized instantly. His white-furred tail twitched as it rested along the arm and down the side of the throne. His lupine head rested on a powerful, half-human and half-wolven handpaw and didn’t turn to look at them and was covered in the same white fur. His snout ended in a black nose, the white fur streaked with silver that flowed around his face and down his back.

It was the ancient werewolf in the same halfling form she’d seen before.

Tatiana looked nervously to both sides and saw Lasha’s eyes fixed on the were. She looked nervous but unafraid. Elisa, on the other hand, was only barely visible as she let go of Tatiana’s hand and sat quietly next to the wall. That’s good, thought Tati, she’ll be a distance away if anything goes wrong.

The two visible vampires stride slowly towards the chair. Lasha had taken on a more regular appearance for her, heels and a very well fitting and stylish black dress. Tatiana was another story all together, choosing the jeans and t-shirt she’d been wearing when she arrived at Lasha’s room. Lasha’s heels made a click-tap noise as they fell on the gray stone. After several paces, the white-furred werewolf finally regarded them.

“I’ve been expecting you, child.” His voice rang out through the room, amplified by the dream.

“I’m only here at my… At her request.” Tatiana gestures at Lasha without using her name.

The were never looked over at the woman. “I knew you would come eventually. And you brought a friend this time.” His tone seems conversational but is tinged with irritation. “Come to join the party, miss?”

Lasha finally looks up at the werewolf she’d asked for. “Not exactly, Wulf.”

His dark blue eyes widen briefly in surprise. “You know my name. I’m impressed, considering you didn’t press for…” Wulf’s words suddenly stop. “That voice,” he whispers angrily as he turns in his seat, bringing his mass to bear. “How dare you come into my dream! I should kill you!” He stands from his seat and starts at a dash towards the vampires, his claws stretching from his fingers as he looks prepared to swipe at the queen…

Lasha had fallen to her knees, her head down in shame. The move seems to catch the werewolf by surprise and he stops short. “What is this? A trick? A game? Stand up so I can strike you down, you wretched creature,” he snarls loudly, his fur shifting from the white and silver to a dark granite. “You deserve death for what you did to me!”

Lasha looks up at Wulf, and Tatiana sees, for the first time, tears falling down her face. “Please, your fight is with me.” Her words quiver with barely-held sobs as she speaks, “Please, tell me you didn’t kill my children!”

“Your children? Your children?!” His dark eyes glare at Tatiana. “This honorless scum sent you after me? You thought to capture me for her?!” A sword materializes in his hand, a long, slightly-curved weapon made of bright silver metal that seems to glow with the colors of the rainbow, and he raises it to strike the red-headed vampiress.

“This is a dream, you can’t truly hurt me-aaugh!” Tatiana’s sentence ends in a scream as she finds herself broadsided in the face with Wulf’s weapon. The strike sends her tumbling to the ground whimpering in pain, not from the strike itself, but from the painful burn that accompanied it. It was as if she was hit with pure sunlight, and her skin burned hot from the touch.

“Please! She didn’t know! Please, Wulf, be merciful to my child!” Lasha was standing now, pleading with the werewolf loudly, her tears and cries no longer withheld.

Wulf stopped his advance on the girl and turned to glare at Lasha. “These aren’t your children! You stole their lives! You were never their mother, only the one who brought their deaths!” The wolf spins around, gathering speed as he raises his weapon level with his target’s throat…

He stops suddenly as a young brunette appears between Lasha and Wulf, the blade stopping less than an inch from her hair as it sings from the gained and then abruptly ended momentum. The dark wolf growls as his chest heaves, his eyes an evil glare at the interloper. “I thought I felt three. Move, or you die, too.”

Elisa trembles with fear as she responds defiantly, “No.”

“No?”

“If you want to kill my mother, you’ll have to kill me, too.” She steels herself with the words and stares into his eyes.

His anger hadn’t receded, but his voice calmed slightly. “Your… Mother? It’s not possible.” With that, he shifts the blade, pulling its sharp edge away from her skin, and touches her cheek with it.

Nothing happened.

Wulf looks Elisa up and down, then asks in a growl, “Who are you?”

The girl forces herself to smile at him. “I am Michelle Elisabeth Connor, though I prefer to be called Elisa.” She turns and looks at Lasha as tears stream down the vampiress’s cheeks. “This is my mother, Queen Mother–”

“I know who she is!” Wulf snaps. “She’s not your mother, no matter what they told you.”

“No. She didn’t birth me. I’m not… I was the survivor of my mother’s litter, killed by a hunting party who thought we were common animals.” Elisa turns towards the ancient were. “Mother’s husband refused to let me be killed. She raised me. She is my mother.”

The blade continues to tone quietly as Wulf drops his sword slowly to his side. “I thought that was rumor.” He sounds far more controlled now, even though he still remains clearly angered. He searches Elisa for any tell of lies. “Why are you here, Michelle Elisabeth Connor?”

“I…” The young werewolf starts quietly. “I asked for you.”

Wulf cocks his head in confusion. “You asked for me,” he asks incredulously as his ears snap back flat against his head, his tail twitching agitatedly.

Tatiana finally appears next to Elisa, the burn still apparent on her face. “Yes. I didn’t know.”

The ancient were turns and steps back towards the throne. “I think you all should leave,” he quietly growls without turning to face them.

“Not without my children!” the Queen mother begs. “Please! I know you, you wouldn’t have killed them!”

Wulf snaps around and glares at the Queen Mother who simply looks to the floor instead of meeting his gaze. “Maybe I should.” At his words, she falls to the ground, wailing at the thought of losing not one, not two, but so many of her children to something that was not entirely of their doing.

“Please,” Elisa asks, “Why would you harm them?”

“You mean to tell me that you don’t know?”

Elisa shakes her head, oblivious to Tatiana’s tending to their mother. “I only know that she took in something dark and evil.”

Wulf laughs, a dark, sinister chuckle that echos through the room. He then glares down at the girl. “Perhaps I should show you, then…”

With that, he grabs the younger werewolf’s arm and starts to pull her towards the back of the gray room. She instinctively pulls away from the grasping claws but is just not quite fast enough. Tatiana, noticing this, jumps at the elder wolf with an angry shout.

“Too slow…” Wulf doesn’t even bother to face the red-headed vampire. Instead, he simply lifts his free arm up and an unseen hand holds Tatiana in the air, stopping with the were just out of her reach. He finally turns to face her, a jovial smile on his face. “I’ve something special in mind for you.” He snaps his fingers, an action that makes the sound of roaring thunder, and a blinding flash causes the girl to vanish.

Lasha screams, a long, pained “No!” as she watches yet another of her children disappear. “Wulf, please! I’m begging you, make this between us!” The grief-stricken woman finally finds her feet and quickly rushes towards Wulf. “I’ll do-erk!”

Elisa watches in horror as the now black-furred wolf catches the slender woman by her throat. He heaves her from the floor with one arm in a quick motion, then, with a loud snarl, throws her down at the ground hard. Instead of slamming into the gray floor in a heap, it shatters like glass and Queen Lasha finds herself now living her own darkest nightmare: falling away from that which matters to her most. She flails her arms as she tries to find something, anything to grab and halt her fall, only to find nothing but inky nothingness, the feel of the air as it whips her hair around her face, and the sight of her daughter shrinking in the distance. Elisa tries to reach into the hole left by her mother but finds herself blinded and deafened by the same thunderclap that took Tatiana away. As she falls backwards and away from what had been the jagged edges of the dream’s shattered floor, she finally sees that it’s returned to its solid state.

Elisa slowly scans the room. It suddenly feels terrifyingly empty without her mother and sister present. As she continues to look around she finds the black-furred, blue eyed werewolf standing over her sitting body. His presence strikes an absolute fear into her heart as his hand-paw reaches down towards her. She tries to slide away but finds her arms and legs unresponsive, frozen in place in fear. Before she can speak, the older wolf’s color shifts to a charcoal gray, then to a lighter gray, then stops at silver with dark gray markings, his dark blue eyes suddenly seeming that much brighter as his fur shifts.

“If you have the courage, let me show you who I am, and who she is.”

Elisa raises a shaking hand and takes his. “Alright,” she whispers, then quickly finds herself hoisted to her feet. She quietly follows as the silvery wolf pulls her towards the back of the room, past the throne, and into a portal that suddenly and quietly appears as Wulf nears the back wall. As the swirling vortex wraps around her hand, she closes her eyes and holds her breath, only to find herself hearing his voice ring out:

“There is no turning back.”

Nerf my GF’s sex drive:
Seriously please nerf my girlfriend’s sex drive, it is way OP it’s not even fun.
At least increase the CD or something. It pops back up so fast I haven’t even left combat yet, let alone had a chance to regenerate my mojo.   Increase the CD so I can at least leave combat and resummon my pet.

For those of you who are uninitiated into World of Warcraft, or MMORPG’s or forums in general, “Nerf” means to weaken or soften (Think nerf foam darts and footballs), OP is Over-Powered (Self-explanatory) and CD is Cooldown (amount of time it takes before you can use it again).    Translation:  This is a joke about how he’s living most guys’ dream…

Now, the forum post itself made me snicker.  I found it funny to see World of Warcraft to “Complain” about sex, or not so much complain as to say he’s over-sexed, be it real or not.

What made it that much better was the response that was made between the forum trolls having their fits:

Seriously? Sounds like you need a buff instead. I doubt she’s that OP. You should stop keyboard turning and use your mouse instead. Make sure you keybind everything. Pressing things at the right moment at the right time is everything!
Get her down to 1% blow your cooldowns and watch the loot drop. After that, you shouldn’t have to enter that instance for a while. Common now!

Again, for simplicity, “Buff” in MMO’s means to make harder, better, stronger, faster.  (Cue the Daft Punk music)

This combination made me laugh very much loudly!  It was a great boost to my slow, dragging day and was just funny to think about!

I’d love to link the actual forum post but, sadly, it’s been deleted by the moderators and the poster was probably given a 48-hour ban if they got a moderator that had no sense of humor.  Luckily I didn’t close it and able to share it with the few of you who get to read it here! 

That’s really it.  I had nothing particularly important to write today.  Oh, and I have another segment of Dream-Stalkers written out.  I’ll post it up soon enough if I haven’t already, I’m not sure…

It’s been a while since I’ve completed a writing piece.  I’m sure that more were hoping for a No Way Back chapter, but this is what wound up coming out: The Dream-Stalker: Vampiress’s Summons!  This would be basically piece 4 in The Dream-Stalkers and it’s not bad, if you ask me.  If flow goes right, there’ll be one more and that’s the end of the sequence.  I’m surprised it worked this well all considering the source of the story: one hell of a painful nightmare.

So, without further ado, The Dream-Stalkers: Vampiress’s Summons!  (After the jump…)

In the months since Queen Mother permitted it, Tatiana and Erik had been spending more and more time in each others’ exclusive company. They enjoyed meals together. They ran together into the night. When the urge hit, they’d steal away into a hidden place and kiss each other until they were both giggling from the feeling of each others’ presence. The one place that they could be anywhere, any time of the day together, though, was in their dreams. Tatiana had taken to completely avoiding her usual hunts and willing humans’ dream tending and, instead, spent her days in Erik’s dreams. Together they fashioned a home, a garden, even a town for them to do all the things that they wanted together. The best part, Erik had said on several occasions, was the feel of the warm sun on their skin, something that a vampire could never have in their long undeath. “It’s exactly as I remember it,” he’d told her.

Today’s dream wasn’t any different. They lay together in the side of a soft, green grassed hill, his hand in hers as they looked up at the bright blue sky. They laughed and pointed out the different shapes in the wispy clouds overhead for what felt like hours at a time. It never bored her, and even excited her when he would stop just laying. He’d roll onto his side, then prop his weight on an arm that he’d fling over her and lower himself to her lips. Those kisses were what she loved the most about their shared dream. Every one of them felt sincere. Even better, they tasted like honey, one of her most favorite foods from her youth, those near 200 years ago.

“That one looks like an old, beat-up car!” Erik laughed as he pointed to an oddly-shaped cloud. “Who knew that a cloud would look so weird?”

Tatiana looked at the cloud that Erik pointed at. While she could almost make out the shape of a very old car, it looked more like just a random blob of nothingness. She smiled and offered him a laugh. She didn’t want him to know that recently she wasn’t seeing many things in the clouds. “I think I see it!”

“Do you know what kind it is?”

She simply shook her head.

“Oh, come on! It’s an old Ford look-alike!”

She squinted at the cloud and tried to see the shape he was referring to. When she did, its shape started to shift. She watched as it thickened and rearranged itself. After a second, the sky went black and the cloud took on the shape of an angry dog’s face. No, she thought to herself, it’s a wolf!

The cloud suddenly dropped from the sky and landed downhill from where she lay on now-black ground. Its silver-streaked white fur seemed to shimmer as the werewolf crossed the colorless slope directly at her. The thing that held her attention, though, was its eyes. The dark blues she remembered had changed to a fiery red that illuminated the smoke that flew out from the corners of its eyes and streamed around his head as if he were at a full run. She tried to reach for Erik but he was no longer there. It was just her and this werewolf in a sea of darkness.

It came to a stop a few feet from her sitting place. She could see his face twisted with anger as it opened its mouth to speak. “You still are here?” it asked in an angry growl. “You’ve yet to accept my invitations.” The rumble of his words echoed throughout the dream, making the words sound as if they didn’t want to end.

Tatiana stood defiantly, the loose fitting light-blue dress she often wore in Erik’s dreams shifting with her body as she did. “I told you, I’ve no intention of coming to you!”

“You’ve yet to accept my invitations.” The creature echoed its previous statement.

Tatiana looked at the werewolf’s halfling form and realized again that it wasn’t truly him. “I thought I banished your memory from my dreams! Leave me be!”

The were lunges at her, catching her by surprise, and rams his claws deep into her stomach. Tatiana lets out a whimper as she bites back against the pain, the blackened dream flashing into a bright blood red. “You can’t banish me! You made me!” His voice lifts to a shrill whine as he throws his head back to laugh, then returns almost to its original tone, but different in that it sounds as if three of him was speaking at varying pitches as he steps in and speaks menacingly into her ear. “It’s time to wake up and finish what you started, little girl…”

She screams in agony as she feels the claws not only press deeper into her gut but also begin to twist inside of her. The pain lasts for only a few unbearable seconds before she blacks out.

Tatiana snaps her eyes open to find herself still laying on hers and Erik’s shared mat. She blinks, happy that it was only a dream, then realizes that she’s still holding onto Erik’s still-sleeping body. The feel of his cool, almost naked skin against hers had become comforting in the past months, but today it felt as if his being there was assuring her that her life was still hers. She takes her free hand and runs it through his hair, then gently kisses his lips before she slips towards the edge of the bed. As Tatiana slides from under him, she turns to hang her feet down from the mattress and holds her head in her hands, propping her elbows against her knees.

“What’s the matter, love? You left.” Erik shuffles in the bed and puts his arm around her from behind. He kisses her head through her hair and then brings his body to straddle hers.

“I didn’t leave. Not intentionally.”

She feels his body tense against hers and knew what he was going to ask. “Was it him?”

Her forehead still in her hands, she whispers quietly into the space between, “Yes…” She lifts her head, dragging her fingers down her own cheeks, before turning to look at him. “I mean, no. It was him, but it wasn’t.”

“That doesn’t make much sense.”

“I know, Erik, I know. I’m trying to make sense of it myself. I think…” She pauses to swallow before she continues, “I think he’s what I fear about him. He’s not under my control, or anyone’s control. What would he do to me?”

The fit body that is Erik’s slides away from her as he stands from the bed. “Nothing, because you promised me you’d never go back there.”

Tatiana turns to face him, her dark red hair drifting past her shoulders, when a loud knock prevents her from speaking on the matter. Her head swivels the opposite direction as she calls out, “Who is it?”

“Tatiana!” The feminine voice sounded urgent.

Still naked, Tatiana leaves the bed and crosses the short distance to the wooden door. She unlocks the antiqued door latch and opens it to find Elisa, wrapped in a flowered kimono, standing at the door, about to hammer it with a balled fist. “Lisa?”

“Good, you’re awake.” The sound of several other doors opening in the hallway and muffled complaints spill into the room as the human-formed werewolf speaks. “Mother wants you.”

“Now?”

Elisa gives Tati an exaggerated look of impatience as she taps her foot. “No, tomorrow. Yes, now! Put something on and let’s go!”

~*~ ~*~

Dressed in something not quite fashionable but easily thrown on, Tatiana, in jeans, loose T-shirt that belonged to Erik, and her soft cotton flats, follows a fast-moving Elisa to the Queen Mother’s private chambers. The sounds of bare feet slapping along polished stone and heavy cotton padding behind echo ahead of them in an odd combination, making the unusually-bright hallway feel like the entrance to a trap to the younger vampiress. The sense of urgency and the persistence from Elisa made Tati wonder what it could possibly be but, at the same time, she knows that whatever the queen wanted would be very, very important. The feeling was verified when Elisa simply pushes through the doors without knocking, something no one would dare do without just cause, and starts to call out. “Mother! I’ve br– Oh!”

The human-formed werewolf stops quickly in front of Tatiana who almost plows into her. Sitting on a dark-stained wooden bench that was well crafted and finely upholstered in a burgundy-colored velvet was the lithe and beautiful, yet uncharacteristically disheveled, Queen Mother Lasha. Instead of her fine dresses and silken robes, she wore black cotton pants and a silver top. While unusually bland for her tastes, they still fit her fit body rather well, showing off a body that had taken many years to perfect. Her hair, normally done up and stylish, today lay flat down her back and shoulders, her natural wave still there but somewhat hidden by centuries of styling. She leans against her bed and simply looks at her folded-together hands, obviously deep in thought, and the sight of their Queen Mother in such a state makes the room feel dark and ominous. Lasha finally looks up after a moment and any doubt that something was troubling her was shattered. “Ah, good. Sit down, please, girls.” She gestures to chairs that are in other areas of the room. Once the both of the younger women are seated, she looks over at Tatiana, then to Elisa, then back at the younger vampire. “Something,” she starts, but then pauses for a moment to collect her thoughts, “doesn’t feel right, Tati.”

The pale redhead cocks her head slightly in thought. “No?”

“Oh, I see that our bonding is affecting you…” The queen’s voice seems distant and clearly distracted as she speaks. “Is Erik appreciative?”

The question draws a slight flush to come to Tatiana’s cheeks. “Y-yes, mother. He says that I don’t need to change, but I can feel that he looks at me differently now.” The young vampiress smiles at the thought of her body’s own changing more into what she always wanted. In the past several months, she’d had a need to replace some of her personal lingerie as her bosom’s size had slowly begun to increase. She’d always wanted to feel more feminine and the enhancement had made her feel more womanly than she ever had before.

Elisa looks at her mother with a confused scowl. “You had me bring her here to talk about her tits?” she asks flatly.

Lasha smirks, then laughs, at the question, and the feel of the room lightens ever so slightly. After a moment of laughter, the queen responds, “No, my daughter. I just don’t want to think about what is really going on at the moment.” The elder vampire straightens up on her bench seat and stretches her neck, letting it rock from side to side. “I think it’s time to discuss what happened that night, Tatiana.”

“I thought we had, mother. I don’t think there’s much more to add to it.”

Lasha sits quietly for a moment, searching the girl’s face for something more. “Alright, then,” she offers in her sweet voice, “why don’t you start from the beginning again?”

“Before that, I have something I need to ask, Mother.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Since we are going to talk about the dreams. I’ve been having strange things in my dreams.” Tati shifts uncomfortably. “It was nothing at first, just images and shadows. But, as time progressed, it began showing up in its full form, closer and closer. Sometimes it… He would interact with the dreams, sometimes he would just be there.”

“He?”

“The werewolf, mother. He keeps beckoning me closer to him. I always ignored him and Erik never seemed to notice. I’d even ask him if he saw the were, but he never did.”

Elisa huffs loudly, obviously becoming agitated. “Is there a point to this? Mother needs us for something.”

“Sorry, I’ll get to the point. In the past month, he’s been in half of my dreams. Sometimes he’s something we… No, I have to deal with, and normally he whispers, ‘Come back.’ Tonight, though, he attacked me. He hurt me.”

Lasha, who’d listened without interruption, chooses now to speak. “What did he say?”

“That I’m supposed to go back. And that it wasn’t really him, it was a memory of him.”

“Then it wasn’t really him. Your dream version of him is the truth of who and what he is to you, so if it were him he would tell you. No, it’s a memory of yours, Tatiana. That said, he has a point.” Lasha looks the younger girl square in the eye. “You’ve been avoiding him and we know he’s out there. He’s not trying to hide.”

Tatiana looks across the room at Elisa, who’s doing her best to feign indifference, but she can feel the were’s irritation like a wave in the air. Great, she thinks to herself, now she’ll think I’m still wanting to have the wolf for myself.

Ignoring the cross-room glance, Lasha continues. “Eventually, though, you’ll have to go back. Now, why don’t we go back into what happened that night, shall we?”

Tatiana sighs, then leans forward and rests her elbows onto her knees. “Well, it started like any normal walking, just the regular entering with some resistance, but not much. He’d only just drifted off because he wasn’t dreaming, so I wove one for him.” The flush returns as she remembers seeing the werewolf naked on the chair. Elisa starts to move, but Lasha waves her back, then gestures for Tati to continue. “He was naked when he entered the dream, not something I planned, and…” Tatiana looks at Elisa, and then to the Queen. “Do I need to tell all of it?”

Lasha smiles when she hears Elisa’s quieted huff. “I’d rather you did, but you can skip parts that aren’t important. Just remember, all the parts of your dream affected his, so anything you thought, or felt, could have been important.”

Tatiana looks to a seemingly-agitated Elisa. “I’m sorry that I have to do this again. I know you don’t want to hear it.” She hangs her head, feeling as if she’s betraying a girl she considers a friend by just discussing it, but then sighs and continues. “He was a stunning example of his kind, and I found myself extremely drawn to him. It almost felt unnatural, but at that moment I didn’t care, I wanted to feel him. I should have left the dream because I wasn’t sure of what I felt, but I chose to continue. No one else had ever found him and here he was, his white fur blending into shades of silvers and grays on that almost-human body…” She looked up to see Lasha smiling at her, a dark smile that hinted that she was enjoying herself, and Elisa looking anywhere but at her.

Tatiana frowned but continued. “Nevermind. When he called out, I felt into his dream, found someone I could become, and told him that I was her. I don’t know who she was, just that she was some long-dead girlfriend or an ex who he was close to and died or something like that. I played with the dream to convince him to let me bite him. When I did, he tried to change into his human self. Something came over me. I wanted…” She looks up at Elisa with a tear in her eye, one she didn’t realize was growing. “I’m so sorry, Elisa, I wanted him. That beast. I wanted his arms round me. I wanted to feel him, to feel his fur around my back! I wanted to take him and have him and it came over me like a fire that I couldn’t put out. I’m so sorry, Elisa!” She’d begun to sob because she knew saying it would hurt a girl she considered her best girl friend ever.

The room was silent for several moments as the young vampiress tried to curtail her sobbing. Then, that silence was broken with Elisa’s, “It’s okay.”

Still sniffling but no longer crying, Tatiana looked into Elisa’s deep brown eyes, something that wasn’t hard to do since the girl had crossed the space and rested her hand on Tati’s leg. “No, it’s not, I–”

“Tatiana, stop it. You’ve punished yourself enough over this. You didn’t know. I may not be happy about it, but you’ve torn yourself to shreds over it.” The human-formed werewolf smiles at the vampire, doing little to hide the jealousy in her eyes but sincere enough to make her next words feel true. “I’ve forgiven you for it already.”

Tatiana’s arms snap out around the brunette’s body as she pulls her into a strong hug. “I’ll never do anything like that with him again, I swear,” the ginger-girl’s sniffling response comes.

“I know, sister.” Elisa pulls gently away from the calming vampiress. “Just remember that if we ever meet him again.” She smiles wide at Tati, the jealousy finally subsided.

“Aw, it’s so nice to see my girls getting along so well!” Lasha smiles as she looks at both of the girls. “We’re going to need that for later, I’m sure.” After a quick nod, she looks back at Tatiana, still shaking from her tear-filled outburst, and adds, “After all, we’re not done yet. Are you ready to continue?”

Tatiana inhales deeply behind closed eyes, then lets it out and nods. “Well, after I bit him, he turned human, but I told him I wanted his half-human form. He turned back into that halfling beast, all black and dark–”

Lasha raises her hand and Tatiana stops speaking. Concern laces her features when she asks, “I thought you said his fur was white?”

Tati nods. “It was, but when he changed back, it was black.”

Lasha’s voice sounds panicky as she asks, “Was it black or did it TURN black?”

The girl raises an eyebrow as she thinks back. “Well… If I remember, he started back in as a silver, but his fur looked like it kind of rippled and changed into a black. Not instantly but within a couple of seconds…. Mother?”

Tatiana stopped speaking as she looked at the queen. Elisa spoke, “Mother, what’s wrong?”

Lasha’s face was contorted in fear, her eyes darting from shadow to shadow. “No… It can’t be… Not him…”

Elisa begins to stand and steps nearer to the woman she calls mother. “Mother, are you alright?”

Lasha jumps from her bench and lifts Tatiana from her seat. She starts yelling, panic now filling her already-terrified voice. “We have to go! We have to find him in his dream! NOW!”

Tatiana stands as her Queen lifts her up. “Why? What’s wrong,” she asks, the dread from Lasha’s voice seeping into her.

“If he finds out who you are, who you were doing this for, he’ll kill them all for sure, if he hasn’t already! We must go now!”

Elisa touches her mother’s shoulder and asks with alarm, “Why would he do that? The war’s over!”

“You don’t understand! Neither of you do! It’s not that, it’s me! I… I demanded his blood! I had him banished! I’m the reason his lover, the woman you took the place of, is dead! I planned to kill the woman he loved, and she and their unborn child both died… Because of me!”

Yesterday’s time made me so very excited.  After all, trimming down a full four minutes from when I started really is something to feel accomplished about.  17:48.64 was the time posted.  That’s an average of about 5:56 a lap.  Not shabby.  I can even give my fastest time yesterday as 5:51.  I was so excited about it that I was dripping with perspiration.  Maybe that was the actual walk, I’m still not sure.

Something felt different today.  Maybe it was my cross-trainers instead of boots.  Maybe it was the slightly thinner shirt.  I don’t know, but I was ready.  I was psyched, pumped, and off I went.  I’m not entirely sure the exact distance, but I broke into a jog early on and made almost the entire length of the building at that jog before I was forced to bring it to a walk by my winded body.  I kept up a solid walking pace and then looked down at my stopwatch program on my cell — I was already ahead of my pace from yesterday by almost a full 30 seconds!   That realization made me kick it up again, this time at about half-way around the other long side.  I propelled myself at a jog and finished the lap at speed, making a time of 4:55.35! The remainder of the walk, I was so pumped about it that I kept up trying to push into a run.  It was successful!  My total time?  16:22.17.  That’s not a typo.  I shaved off 86 seconds!  I’m so excited that I’m dripping with sweat!  Alright, so that joke’s getting old.  How about “panting with joy?”  =^_^=

I’ve noticed a few things now that I’m trying to improve times.  First, if I drink water beforehand it actually makes me feel nauseated halfway through.  Probably has something to do with pushing myself while having a somewhat-full stomach.  I think I’ll have to adjust for that.  Second, breathing seems to be something that I need to re-learn to master for heavier exertions.  When I first started trying for this, I had to remember to breathe!  As I got heavier I got into the habit of sucking in my stomach to make it bounce less as I moved.  While this made it easier to manage, it also left me short of air rather quickly.  Once I got the hang of moving without sucking everything in, I had to get back into controlled breathing.  Breathing based on step counts and not sporadically.  It made keeping a pace for myself that much easier, plus had the added advantage of being able to know just how far I could push myself.  When I can’t maintain a certain breathing count then it’s time to slow it down for a moment and catch my breath, something you can’t do if you’re not actively monitoring your breathing.  Third, the shoes really do make a huge difference!  With my sneakers on it was far easier to keep up a solid pace than it was with my boots.  I’m not sure if that’s due to weight, fit, or flexibility, but it did make a difference.  Lastly, making the mid-way U-turns really helps out with muscle fatigue, specifically in my back, but also in my chest (strangely enough), calves, and ankles.  The driveway around the building has a not-so-friendly slope away from it, making the strain and pressure hit more on one side than the other.  By counteracting the slope by reversing direction, it causes both sides to more evenly accept the wear and tear, making it far easier to stretch it out later as well as helping to maintain a solid pace.

Although I’m feeling a bit worn from the walk/run, I still feel GREAT!  Water plus cool air from a fan equals a much cooler LoneWulf.  Now, sadly, to try, yet again, to get this game to work.  I don’t know what’s wrong with it.  Nothing’s disconnected.  Everything’s configured right.  It just won’t finish setting up.  Grr….

Maybe I should just make that “Get Back to my Walking.”  I have to admit that I did, for a time, stop doing my regular walking.  I don’t have an excuse or a real reason why, I just stopped doing it so much.  I got down to about once every two weeks!  That’s not very good! 

I’ve decided that the only way I’m ever going to actually beat this is to force myself past it.  If I can force myself to wait for hours in one area on World of Warcraft (and yes I’ve done that waiting for Loque’nahak and STILL haven’t seen him living once!), then I can force myself to get up and spend roughly twenty minutes at least every other day walking! 

As you know, I’m doing the bulk of my walking at work.  Why work?  Well, primarily because I’ve already calculated a set distance (0.4 miles per lap around my building), and also because it’s much easier to do speed walking when you don’t have to worry about a 1-year-old jumping from a moving wagon-cart-car-thingie or a dog trying to run across peoples’ yards simply because she smells something.  Honestly a single lap around the big square plus the walk to get there will probably equal the distance I need, I just haven’t measured it yet.  Back on point.

Last time I posted my walking time, I posted a (paw-)blisteringly fast time of 18:23.  Alright, so it’s not really that fast, but it was fast for me.  Today, while implementing my new plan of reversing direction about half-way through, I pulled a time of 17:48.64!  That’s 35 seconds FASTER than the last time I measured the actual time and that’s not taking any “pit stops” or breaks of any kind!  I pulled my shoelaces up tight and moved onward! 

I’m feeling a little accomplished about it.  I remember when I first started doing this and wanting to get my times down to about 15 minutes.  I recognize that that’s going to take some time, effort, and patience and I’m not going to push overly hard at that goal.  However, getting that time down below 18 minutes means that I’m already shaving off time.  While it may only be seconds per lap, that’s continuous and is an improvement!  I’ve noticed my back, while still aching a bit, isn’t bothering me anywhere near as much as it did when I started.  The short elevation changes really aren’t feeling so tedious to climb, and I, in general, feel great with the sweat dripping off me!  I feel like I’m making a push with myself to be better, to not be a lazy slob, and to be able to keep up with my son when he starts telling me that he wants to do things like go riding his bike or play catch or go for a walk around the parks!  Of course, with the weight loss, I’ll start feeling better physically.  As my weight drops, making my walk won’t feel so tiring on my knees and legs.  It’s all in all a win-win for me to keep it up.  Soon, though, I’ll need to start adding further exercises, like sit-ups, push-ups, jumping jacks, as well as reintroducing some weight training to improve muscle tone. 

There is one aspect of attempting weight loss that I’m not going to be any good at: diet control.  See, I have a problem.  That problem is, if I’m hungry, I eat.  If I reduce my food intake, then after a few days I don’t just eat, I gorge.  I don’t stop being hungry even after I’m full and can’t eat anymore.  Eventually I settle, but when I start doing the “correct size” portions in my meals I get insanely hungry after a few days.  Water doesn’t help, it’s like throwing it into a grease fire.  Milk will sometimes stave it for a short time, but then it hits again and is usually more powerful than before.  I guess this time I’m going to reach out to the few readers left.  What should I use to help stave off the sudden vicious hunger other than eating more?  Obviously something healthy, but what?

Well, time to get back to the daily grind.  These tests aren’t going to finish themselves. 

What?

It’s been two months?  Nah, couldn’t have been.  Really?  It has been?  Hmm…  I guess it has…  Well, for those of you still around, hello again.    For those who stumbled across my blog on accident or not so by accident, welcome!

I noticed that I’ve had a few months without a writing addition.  Let’s be real, I’ve had a few months since I’ve had an urge to write.  I’m over 80k words into No Way Back and to be honest it started feeling like a chore.  I was writing because I HAD to get it done.  I could feel it.  I was losing the spark of wanting to write.  Writing was something I was doing like it was a job — a job I wasn’t getting paid for.  Chapter 26 was finished and then…  Nothing.  I wasn’t seeing anything anymore.  The quiet whisper of the words and the hidden sights of the actions just weren’t there.  Obviously when you’re writing that’s not a good thing.  I had become obsessed with getting things right that I started losing sight on getting things write.  (Written, but it made sense when I thought it.)  I tried sitting and forcing myself to write.  Write anything.  Write a poem.  Write my thoughts.  Write about being angry over something or another.  I just couldn’t seem to make the words gel.  I can’t describe how much I hated it.

About a week ago, I was talking with a player I know online on World of Warcraft.  They go by the name of Breiz.  We were just BS’ing and chatting when something brought up the topic of science fiction and writing.  I told them that I write, and was asked what I’ve written.  I offered a link, then another, then another, until finally The Princess and the Were was opened, which I know will make little sense because I never posted it here.  I’ll remedy that soon enough.  The comments I received made me start reading through some of the comments I’d received on my writing before.  I never stopped to think how many of the people who’ve read my work actually gave me some sort of praise.  Then something happened.  I wanted to write.  The visualization of events, the sounds of the characters, the strange languages and landscapes and histories all opened up.  I don’t know what the difference is, but in 24 hours, I’d tacked on another 1300 words for Chapter 27.  It felt right.  It seemed like I was supposed to be writing it.  I don’t know what really the change was, but somehow I felt like writing was right again.

I think the issue I was having was actually rather simple: I’d lost sight of my own goals and lost the interest.  It became a grind, not something I was doing because I had fun with it.  But, the comments I’d received in various forms, the feel of the world materializing around me as I wrote just made it worth doing.  So, for those of you who are looking for Chapter 27, thank you for your patience during my hiatus.  Hopefully things will change a bit here.  I can’t say that I’ll be popping out chapters per week, but chapters in general would be great!

As long as this returned happiness with writing stays, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Looking for a way out.

A few days pass and nothing.

Yesterday, I got to see Mr. Snake again.  It was more or less resting under one of our gates.  I tried to catch it because I don’t want to see the little guy hurt, but it shot into the tall grass that I was trying to mow.  I argued with the grass for about ten minutes before I said “Screw it, it’s not in there,” and proceeded to cut that grass anyway, hoping for the best.  I wound up not finishing the lawn because of a mild scratch to my son’s face.  Yeah, that’s a whole other story…

Anyway…  Today, I go out to finish mowing the lawn and guess who I find?  Mr. Snake, sitting in the exact same spot!  I was prepared this time, though, since it really no longer had the tall grass to hide in, and I had an old cat litter bucket close by.  After a few moments of coaxing, I managed to get it to slide into the bucket, then transferred it to a taller bucket.  Surprise, surprise, it practically JUMPED out of the bucket!  Like, seriously!  It worked its way up the side of the bucket, then Super-Mario jumped out of the bucket!  A few interesting minutes later and I caught the thing again, this time carefully placing it in my metal-mesh fire pit for a photo op!  I wanted to identify the new resident, mostly to see if it was dangerous and needed to be removed.  Last thing I need is a poisonous snake where my son plays.  I showed my little guy the snake, let him watch the thing coil up and look around for an easy escape, but eventually it just settled for poking around the metal square, breathing hard from its exhaustion.

Sniffing for safety

After the photographs were taken, I carefully carried the pit, with the snake in it, to the shed and set the little guy free.  So, what does it do?  Takes off back towards the tall grass I’m trying to mow!  No, little snake, I don’t want you to get chopped up!  We had a discussion, mostly me making tremors on the concrete and chasing it the other direction, until it hid in a pile of stone pavers.  At least it’s safe.

Apparently, so is my son!  The snake I found, as seen in the image, is apparently an Eastern Ribbon Snake, or Thamnophis sauritus for you scientificky-types.  The snake can grow to a maximum of three feet long and feeds on amphibians, insects, and fish, meaning it’s here because of the retaining pond just behind my property.  We’ve got lots of frogs living in our development, something that becomes clear when it starts raining hard and everything is wet, meaning ample food for the guy.  Amazingly, it would have been safe to handle, although somewhat difficult with how quick it is, because they tend to not bite, even when being held.  Should it happen to bite, though, you’ll still be safe because the thing has no teeth, or at least not teeth that can hurt you.  This particular example, if you look, has hazy, milky eyes because it’s about to shed it’s skin!  If it weren’t for my misses, I’d have found a way to safely keep it to watch that.

At one point, the little guy actually lifted himself high enough to find the exhaust vent

So, I’m sure I’ll get the question, “But Wulf, why didn’t you just get rid of it?  Have it destroyed?”  Well, my answer to that is simple: I don’t condone the killing of any creature that’s not in either defense or for food or, in rare cases, because the creature can’t be saved using conventional means and is suffering.  This snake is no exception.  It was merely living its life and happened to be in a bad place at the wrong time.  I know my Kikat will probably disagree with me, and I respect that.  That said, I don’t like the idea of killing things that are beneficial to the ecosystem.  While it seems counter-intuitive that eating things like frogs would be benefiting the ecosystem, if we had too many frogs, then there wouldn’t be enough bugs to pollinate the flowers that become our food.  Everything is inter-connected in one way or another.

So, to close out, I want to say, Have a great weekend, everyone!  Don’t be afraid of snakes: They’re more scared of you.  And, lastly, remember that experiences like this can be once-in-a-lifetime things, so share them with your kids whenever you can!

After our discussion about not going into the tall grass, this is the snake on my concrete ramp for my shed.