watched me eat as if I might sneak out of it

[idiosyncreant]

In honor of it being Tuesday and having actually accomplished something Monday, here's an opening bit of the story I've been working on.

 

Leslie's muscle shirt was very flattering, so the line, “Lindy, you should really go see Morgan,” caught me out. About five hundred miles from that topic, mentally, adding a few yards of embarrassment when our eyes met and his eyebrows were up like waiting crossing-guard arms.

“That would be a bizarre thing to do.”

“Mm?”

“Our territories are registered against each other, Leslie. The last time we met it was at mutual knife-point.”

“I knew that when I said it.”

“And hasn't he taken up with some new girl recently?”

“What's that to you? If she's gonna whine he can drop her or you can leave, either way you need to see him. He's getting big on the scene, Lindy.” Leslie brushed my arm with the back of his fingers, “He's going to eat up allies, and you want to be one. Keep him out of the Triumv.”

I moved out of range, ran fingers from my roots through my hair, as if detangling the snarls, really detangling my thoughts.

The knife-point thing wasn't a joke. One of the crawlers had gone overlines and his toughs were after her. By the time I was there, he was coming down to them and I had to flash steel to get them to back off. We'd circled a moment before I grabbed her and ran.

“I don't know what happened between you two, but I can't see it being quite so bad to patch up as having a border open to slavers.”

“Just when do you think I'll be free to jaunt into Blackfall, then?

“You're a magician. You'll get there. But what set me off is rumors of his birthday party they're getting ready. You show up there in a sexy dress and there will be no explaining to do.”

“How...? I don't know what you think I can do to convince him.”

“You can't convince him. No one could do that, I don't think. But you can give him some more reason why not.”

I looked away from Leslie's earnest eyes, green and small so that every expression looked pointed. I don't know how he managed to stay so tan in deep winter, but I wouldn't have put it past him to strip for a bit on the roof every day just to keep up appearances. He looked warm, while in my own muscle-shirt, indoors and trying to look tough, my skin was all fine bumps.

“Will you go to the mall with me and tell me if the dresses are working?” Leslie's grin, brows up again, was a cheering response. “Thank you for keeping an eye out for me, Leslie. I know you're right—but you don't know how difficult it will be to do this.”

“Course not. The whole thing is a mystery.”

“To me, too,” I half-murmured, rubbing my chilled arms. “Who knows, maybe even Morgan wonders what happened. Is the party the seventh?”

“And at his guard,” Leslie affirmed, after a moment of surprise. Of course I knew Morgan's birthday.

“Let me check over the block, then let's go.”

I went into the Chamber of my guard, covered with maps on different scales by the previous magician here. The largest I had blanked out most of the tags (outdated or trivial) and added only a few of my own. I fingered a little nub – one of a dozen all marking major intersections in my turn—and closed my eyes. A few people walking down the street, one even lurking at the corner. Good signs. The others looked much the same.

This surveillance wasn't top-notch, but it was cheap and used little energy from me except when actively looking. I had corresponding weaker hubs in brads on the toolbelt. I was apparently the first in Coldstep City to think of mounting spells on the bottoms of signal lights—a little bit of climbing and sauter, I didn't think it was a big deal, but I'd seen magic types sneaking looks at the system.

I picked up my knife and billy club to put where they belonged in my belt and went out to face shopping my old best friend's birthday party. Where “old best friend” meant “scary mage lord traitor”.

Comments

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

oo! oh yay! Is so exciting to actually get to read some of what you're always talking about! Oo oo oo! I ARE HOOKED.

no srsly. like where's the rest of the story right now READ IT I MUST. World exposition done in a shown-not-told way that avoids being confusing, intrigue, old romance, hot dudes in muscle shirts...I mean really, what else can I ask for? :-D

[idiosyncreant.livejournal.com]

Well, I have a first draft done now!

If you want to I can send it to you, but I'd like critique on how it's working overall, eventually. I've been posting it as I finished sections to the Writer's Digest critique forum, so some of the sentences have been fixed, at least.

I liked the opening myself. ^-^
I started out and then began typing it in and fixed a part of it and went "omigosh, what is this funny-teen-chick voice and how did it find me?"
I love Cabot's character voices (though I don't read much of her stuff) so I was immensely pleased.

[jade-sabre-301.livejournal.com]

ooooooh, I'd love to a) read it and enjoy it and b) offer whatever kind of critique you're interested in, if you'd like me too. Or I could just do a). Either works. ^_^

Oh, I LOVED the first few Princess Diaries because of Mia, because Cabot does such awesome characters. The plot wore thin after several volumes, but I still love Mia. (Partially because my friends and I also used to sit around school coming up with lists of hot fictional guys we would date. Uh. It occurs to me we still do this ANYWAY.) :-D