let me hear your voice tonight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexseanchai) wrote2013-08-19 10:54 am
alexseanchai) wrote2013-08-19 10:54 am
Blog Tour: kajones_writing
Introducing Kayleigh of kajones_writing. She's doing a blog tour and I'm her third stop: stops one and two are at untonuggan here and lynnoconnacht here.
I warn you that the story Kayleigh is allowing me to share with you contains discussion of character death. I find it intriguing nonetheless. This isn't from a collection of hers I'd previously read, and hey, look, the Beginner's Guide link below shows me where to start. \o/
I hope you enjoy the story.
Blog Tour
I’m Kayleigh, I’m a writer, and I’m trying to make my dream come true - to make a living from my writing - by crowdfunding. Three years ago I didn’t know what crowdfunding was, but I was lucky enough to find the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
crowdfunding community on Livejournal, where I started learning what it was possible for me to do. Since then I’ve experimented, to find what works for me, as I’ve been crowdfunding myself for the last two years (last month was my two year anniversary, which is part of the reason I wanted to do this), and, even though I’m not making much, I love it.
Since last year I’ve lived with my boyfriend of over seven years, but life never seems to give us a break. After the stress of last year, with moving and family issues, I was hoping that this year would be easier. Instead he’s dealing with some very painful medical issues that mean he can’t work, so my aims have changed. This year was going to be the year where I built up my audience, as last year I had to take an unplanned hiatus, with the aim for next year being to start getting a regular income. Now my aim for this year is to help as much as I can with both the groceries and the rent, especially as we’re coming up to a particularly difficult month, as we pay rent every four weeks.
With this aim in mind I’ve been working to make my work easy to get into, by creating the Beginner’s Guide to the Many Worlds of K. A. Jones, and making the crowdfunding side as understandable as possible, with my Crowdfunding Brochure. I do write a lot, because writing is the one thing I’ve always been good at, and it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to dedicate my life to - I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was six and I never changed my mind. So, if you like what you read here check me out at kajoneswriting.co.uk (my website), or I have mirrors on both LiveJournal and Dreamwidth under the name kajones_writing, and if you’d like to host your own story then email me at k_a_jones@live.co.uk or PM at either mirror journal.
The following story is from the Brotherhood collection. I hope you enjoy it.
***
Natasha: Going with Tristan
Lucas pulled Natasha aside and, as their eyes met, she knew what he wanted from her. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, even though she’d been hoping that he might chose someone else. Nodding, she ran a hand through her hair, half glad that she’d be away from whatever was going to happen to the house with Daniel there, and made her way over to Tristan. She was glad that he was going to be okay, because she’d liked him, and she liked him even more after how he’d brought a stop to the fight between Lucas and Kara. When someone, Natasha thought it was probably Simon but she didn’t stop to look, passed her two bags full of clothes she took them, grateful that Lucas had thought ahead enough to gather things for her as well.
“When I get a chance I’ll send the rest of your things to you,” Lucas said, “but I don’t know when exactly it will be.” He bit his lip. “With Daniel’s arrival… the house is going to change in a way I never expected and I’m not sure what my next step’s going to be.”
“I know what Daniel’s is going to be.” Tristan’s voice made them both jump. “He wants Kara back and he’ll do anything he can do to make that happen, even bring someone who’s been dead for a very long time back to life.”
“There are necromancers?” Natasha asked, not wanting to believe what Tristan was saying.
“Yes. I felt the same way when I first heard about them, but they’re very rare, and most don’t even know what they are. When Kara returned I decided it would be a good idea to keep an eye on Daniel’s group, so when he found the necromancer I knew about it straight away. I also knew it wouldn’t be long until Daniel made his move, although I had no idea it was going to be this soon, because I was hoping I’d have a chance to prepare you for it, Lucas.”
“He’s going to bring Conrad back.” Lucas sighed. “What should I expect from Conrad?”
“From what I read he was always going to take over the house when Grandfather decided it was time, but I don’t know if Conrad would have been happy to wait for Grandfather to move on. When I met him he was a boy. The magic will make him a man, because that’s what he would be now if he survived, and I have no idea what he’s going to be like as a man. I do suggest that you make him a friend rather than an enemy, Lucas.”
Lucas nodded. “What do you know about Daniel?”
“Daniel never wanted Kara to come back to the house, but she was uncomfortable with him. He had the same sort of instabilities as Miriam and she saw them, I think because she knew what to look for, and in the end she walked away in order to protect herself. She’d mentioned the house to him, thinking he might want to come here for some guidance. I was thankful she never told him where it was or how to find it until he worked out that it had something to do with her abilities and learnt them.”
“Learnt them?”
“Apparently it’s possible, but it’s not something I’d suggest anyone in the house did. Daniel was already unstable and learning how to shapeshift made him much worse… I’m certain he would never have made the same choices if he hadn’t learnt another power.”
“Okay.” Lucas shook his head. “We need to get you out of here before Daniel realises that you’re still alive, but I should be able to visit you in the future. I want to know everything you know.”
Tristan smiled. “The easy way to do that would be to read my journals, because the one thing I realised very quickly was that writing everything down was the only way to keep track of things here. In the last five years the number of new arrivals has increased ten-fold and when I managed to get in touch with a couple of the other houses they told me it was exactly the same there. It won’t be long until there are too many shapeshifters to fit into this house, which is something I’m sure Grandfather never thought would happen, otherwise he would have bought a bigger house… especially as I think his plans were to turn the children he raised in this house to believe they were better than any of the normal humans and eventually turn them into an army.”
“I guess we were fortunate that he died.”
“Just be aware that if I got that from Grandfather’s journals then I’m sure that Daniel will too and he may well decide that the plans have merit.”
“Keep him safe, Tasha,” Lucas said to Natasha, reaching out and squeezing her shoulder. “We’re going to need him. If I can I will visit, but…” He looked around the house as he sighed. “There are going to be shifters who’ll want to follow Daniel into a war, and once I might have been one of them, but there are going to be others with no interest in the path he wants to take and I think those people will need protecting from his fervour.”
“Talk to Hale,” Natasha replied. “I think he’s seen the future that follows today, but we didn’t know that today would happen, so we didn’t quite believe it was really going to happen. Tristan would never have tried to take over in the way it appears that Daniel will and it’s going to change everything, Luc.” She shook her head at the memory of the future she’d seen in Hale’s crystal. “Keep me informed, please.”
“I will. Let me know if you need anything and I’ll get it to you.”
Nodding, Natasha turned let Tristan lead her out of the house, still amazed at how good their healers really were. She knew how much practice they had on the many injuries all of them got during their training, but being able to save someone who must have been moments away from death was something they’d never had to do before. It was good to know, even though she wished the day had never happened, although some good had come from it. Lucas should never have done something as stupid as tell Kara his plan was to kill Tristan. Kara would never let that happen and he should have known that.
Thankfully Tristan had been the sensible one, again. Considering what she’d been through it wasn’t a surprise that sometimes Kara reacted before she stopped to think about what she was doing and for the first time Natasha understood why the girl had always been a loner. If she’d had to deal with something like that… she shuddered as she thought about it… there was a chance she would never have been able to deal with it all. Being thrown out of her own home had been hard enough, even though she knew that her parents had thought she was an animal that had found her way into the house. Like all the children at the house she’d looked up her own missing person’s report. Once she’d picked up the phone to ring them and tell them she was alive, but in the end she couldn’t do it. She was still too angry with them, even after nearly twenty years.
“Where are we going?” Natasha asked, hoping he knew because she hadn’t thought to ask.
“I set up a place not long after I found out what Daniel was doing, because I knew there was a chance I might end up running for my life.” Tristan sighed. “I never thought I might have been so close to dying before I had a chance to leave the house. I was just so focused on what Lucas was up to and what he might end up doing that I took my eye off what Daniel was doing. If I hadn’t I would have dragged Lucas into the office before he could tell Kara what his plans were, because it caused the distraction Daniel needed to be able to enter the house without any of us noticing, and now…”
“Now there’s someone in charge of the shifter house who might decide to take over the world.”
Laughing, Tristan glanced over his shoulder at her, and she smiled at him. “That’s a bit melodramatic, Tash, but there’s a chance he’ll at least try to take over the UK, especially as we’re the only country, so far, that has seen any Millennium Children.”
“Are you sure?”
“Becoming the leader of the shifter house after Grandfather died made me study in more detail exactly what the Millennium Children are and how the crystals work. Grandfather never bothered, because I don’t think he cared as long as he gathered some of you together, but I realised that it was something I needed to know. That was when I found out about Dexter, how the Brotherhood was originally created, and why the Brothers eventually decided to work apart.”
kajones_writing. She's doing a blog tour and I'm her third stop: stops one and two are at untonuggan here and lynnoconnacht here.I warn you that the story Kayleigh is allowing me to share with you contains discussion of character death. I find it intriguing nonetheless. This isn't from a collection of hers I'd previously read, and hey, look, the Beginner's Guide link below shows me where to start. \o/
I hope you enjoy the story.
I’m Kayleigh, I’m a writer, and I’m trying to make my dream come true - to make a living from my writing - by crowdfunding. Three years ago I didn’t know what crowdfunding was, but I was lucky enough to find the
crowdfunding community on Livejournal, where I started learning what it was possible for me to do. Since then I’ve experimented, to find what works for me, as I’ve been crowdfunding myself for the last two years (last month was my two year anniversary, which is part of the reason I wanted to do this), and, even though I’m not making much, I love it.Since last year I’ve lived with my boyfriend of over seven years, but life never seems to give us a break. After the stress of last year, with moving and family issues, I was hoping that this year would be easier. Instead he’s dealing with some very painful medical issues that mean he can’t work, so my aims have changed. This year was going to be the year where I built up my audience, as last year I had to take an unplanned hiatus, with the aim for next year being to start getting a regular income. Now my aim for this year is to help as much as I can with both the groceries and the rent, especially as we’re coming up to a particularly difficult month, as we pay rent every four weeks.
With this aim in mind I’ve been working to make my work easy to get into, by creating the Beginner’s Guide to the Many Worlds of K. A. Jones, and making the crowdfunding side as understandable as possible, with my Crowdfunding Brochure. I do write a lot, because writing is the one thing I’ve always been good at, and it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to dedicate my life to - I decided I wanted to be a writer when I was six and I never changed my mind. So, if you like what you read here check me out at kajoneswriting.co.uk (my website), or I have mirrors on both LiveJournal and Dreamwidth under the name kajones_writing, and if you’d like to host your own story then email me at k_a_jones@live.co.uk or PM at either mirror journal.
The following story is from the Brotherhood collection. I hope you enjoy it.
Lucas pulled Natasha aside and, as their eyes met, she knew what he wanted from her. It wasn’t exactly a surprise, even though she’d been hoping that he might chose someone else. Nodding, she ran a hand through her hair, half glad that she’d be away from whatever was going to happen to the house with Daniel there, and made her way over to Tristan. She was glad that he was going to be okay, because she’d liked him, and she liked him even more after how he’d brought a stop to the fight between Lucas and Kara. When someone, Natasha thought it was probably Simon but she didn’t stop to look, passed her two bags full of clothes she took them, grateful that Lucas had thought ahead enough to gather things for her as well.
“When I get a chance I’ll send the rest of your things to you,” Lucas said, “but I don’t know when exactly it will be.” He bit his lip. “With Daniel’s arrival… the house is going to change in a way I never expected and I’m not sure what my next step’s going to be.”
“I know what Daniel’s is going to be.” Tristan’s voice made them both jump. “He wants Kara back and he’ll do anything he can do to make that happen, even bring someone who’s been dead for a very long time back to life.”
“There are necromancers?” Natasha asked, not wanting to believe what Tristan was saying.
“Yes. I felt the same way when I first heard about them, but they’re very rare, and most don’t even know what they are. When Kara returned I decided it would be a good idea to keep an eye on Daniel’s group, so when he found the necromancer I knew about it straight away. I also knew it wouldn’t be long until Daniel made his move, although I had no idea it was going to be this soon, because I was hoping I’d have a chance to prepare you for it, Lucas.”
“He’s going to bring Conrad back.” Lucas sighed. “What should I expect from Conrad?”
“From what I read he was always going to take over the house when Grandfather decided it was time, but I don’t know if Conrad would have been happy to wait for Grandfather to move on. When I met him he was a boy. The magic will make him a man, because that’s what he would be now if he survived, and I have no idea what he’s going to be like as a man. I do suggest that you make him a friend rather than an enemy, Lucas.”
Lucas nodded. “What do you know about Daniel?”
“Daniel never wanted Kara to come back to the house, but she was uncomfortable with him. He had the same sort of instabilities as Miriam and she saw them, I think because she knew what to look for, and in the end she walked away in order to protect herself. She’d mentioned the house to him, thinking he might want to come here for some guidance. I was thankful she never told him where it was or how to find it until he worked out that it had something to do with her abilities and learnt them.”
“Learnt them?”
“Apparently it’s possible, but it’s not something I’d suggest anyone in the house did. Daniel was already unstable and learning how to shapeshift made him much worse… I’m certain he would never have made the same choices if he hadn’t learnt another power.”
“Okay.” Lucas shook his head. “We need to get you out of here before Daniel realises that you’re still alive, but I should be able to visit you in the future. I want to know everything you know.”
Tristan smiled. “The easy way to do that would be to read my journals, because the one thing I realised very quickly was that writing everything down was the only way to keep track of things here. In the last five years the number of new arrivals has increased ten-fold and when I managed to get in touch with a couple of the other houses they told me it was exactly the same there. It won’t be long until there are too many shapeshifters to fit into this house, which is something I’m sure Grandfather never thought would happen, otherwise he would have bought a bigger house… especially as I think his plans were to turn the children he raised in this house to believe they were better than any of the normal humans and eventually turn them into an army.”
“I guess we were fortunate that he died.”
“Just be aware that if I got that from Grandfather’s journals then I’m sure that Daniel will too and he may well decide that the plans have merit.”
“Keep him safe, Tasha,” Lucas said to Natasha, reaching out and squeezing her shoulder. “We’re going to need him. If I can I will visit, but…” He looked around the house as he sighed. “There are going to be shifters who’ll want to follow Daniel into a war, and once I might have been one of them, but there are going to be others with no interest in the path he wants to take and I think those people will need protecting from his fervour.”
“Talk to Hale,” Natasha replied. “I think he’s seen the future that follows today, but we didn’t know that today would happen, so we didn’t quite believe it was really going to happen. Tristan would never have tried to take over in the way it appears that Daniel will and it’s going to change everything, Luc.” She shook her head at the memory of the future she’d seen in Hale’s crystal. “Keep me informed, please.”
“I will. Let me know if you need anything and I’ll get it to you.”
Nodding, Natasha turned let Tristan lead her out of the house, still amazed at how good their healers really were. She knew how much practice they had on the many injuries all of them got during their training, but being able to save someone who must have been moments away from death was something they’d never had to do before. It was good to know, even though she wished the day had never happened, although some good had come from it. Lucas should never have done something as stupid as tell Kara his plan was to kill Tristan. Kara would never let that happen and he should have known that.
Thankfully Tristan had been the sensible one, again. Considering what she’d been through it wasn’t a surprise that sometimes Kara reacted before she stopped to think about what she was doing and for the first time Natasha understood why the girl had always been a loner. If she’d had to deal with something like that… she shuddered as she thought about it… there was a chance she would never have been able to deal with it all. Being thrown out of her own home had been hard enough, even though she knew that her parents had thought she was an animal that had found her way into the house. Like all the children at the house she’d looked up her own missing person’s report. Once she’d picked up the phone to ring them and tell them she was alive, but in the end she couldn’t do it. She was still too angry with them, even after nearly twenty years.
“Where are we going?” Natasha asked, hoping he knew because she hadn’t thought to ask.
“I set up a place not long after I found out what Daniel was doing, because I knew there was a chance I might end up running for my life.” Tristan sighed. “I never thought I might have been so close to dying before I had a chance to leave the house. I was just so focused on what Lucas was up to and what he might end up doing that I took my eye off what Daniel was doing. If I hadn’t I would have dragged Lucas into the office before he could tell Kara what his plans were, because it caused the distraction Daniel needed to be able to enter the house without any of us noticing, and now…”
“Now there’s someone in charge of the shifter house who might decide to take over the world.”
Laughing, Tristan glanced over his shoulder at her, and she smiled at him. “That’s a bit melodramatic, Tash, but there’s a chance he’ll at least try to take over the UK, especially as we’re the only country, so far, that has seen any Millennium Children.”
“Are you sure?”
“Becoming the leader of the shifter house after Grandfather died made me study in more detail exactly what the Millennium Children are and how the crystals work. Grandfather never bothered, because I don’t think he cared as long as he gathered some of you together, but I realised that it was something I needed to know. That was when I found out about Dexter, how the Brotherhood was originally created, and why the Brothers eventually decided to work apart.”