Draft: Here Come The Young Ones

The family gathered at the stage station leans forward and twists as though choreographed.

Approaching hooves are tattooing a rapid march from down the street of this dusty small western town.

Every window and doorway along the street holds heads that also lean and twist in time with the family.

Someone is coming to town on the stage and they are almost here.

Little red-headed Rua pokes her husband Dothann.

‘What?’

‘How will we know them?’

‘For pete’s sake Rua. We’ll know them.’

‘How? How will they know us?’

‘Think about it, Rua. We know things. So do they. How could we NOT know each other?’

‘We don’t even know what they look like.’

‘Well, we’re about to find out, aren’t we? Here comes the stage.’

The leaners and twisters leave their windows and doorways as the stage passes and follow it down the street. The leaners and twisters from the other end of the eight block street stop leaning and twisting and head toward the stage station.

The ones following the stage get a mite dusty but they don’t care at the moment. Their curiosity is compelling and over-rules their common sense.

The family in front of the stage station stops leaning and twisting and straightens itself into neat rows, blanking faces so that a person could not possibly guess what thoughts might be moving around inside of those heads.

Centered in the back row is big, blond, copper-eyed Danann with his look-alike (but with green eyes) grandson Brann beside him, flanked by the two next largest members of the group – Thann and Kalann both with dark hair and eyes.

Alongside of their husbands are Sass standing next to Thann and Aine next to Kalann.

In front of them are Danann’s little wife Sidhelagh with Brann’s wife Andras, flanked by the couple Caileen and Talorc.

In front of them are Alianora and Drustann with Diann and Corrbed to each side of them.

In front of these four are Rua and Dothann.

In front of everyone is the smallest of the bunch, the elder Mamm.

Off to one side is Merri standing alone, watching the whole street with keen eyes.

The eighteen of them stand in silence, waiting. That they form an imposing triangle might or might not have registered with them. It registers with everyone else. Familiar as the sight has become to the rest of this small town, it is still intimidating when this family gathers itself and makes themselves into their triangle.

That there is something odd about their collective self as well as about them as individuals isn’t generally overly noticeable … but when they show up and stand shoulder to shoulder like this people definitely notice and pay attention.

Something is about to happen and the town turns out full force to find out what it is. This family never gets themselves into this formation for no good reason, as the town has already found out.

Trotting up to the stage station, the horses pulling the stage stop and seem to take one last deep breath before dropping their heads in fatigue.

The horses tethered alongside the stage … well … they immediately give little tugs that disconnect them from their tethers. Two of them go to the doors on either side of the stage and without further ado nimble mouths and teeth open the doors.

Before the occupants of the stage can emerge, the four horses neigh loud enough to wake up anyone who might have been sleeping (although nobody is as everyone is in the street by now) and rear.

They’ve already gotten everyone’s attention without the theatrics, but earn themselves a hearty round of applause. Bowing to their audience, the matching set of four tall perfectly proportioned silver horses regally nod their heads at all and sundry in acknowledgement, restless eyes taking in every detail as they nod in all directions. They are royalty and even though the United States of America doesn’t recognize royalty, these citizens know what they are seeing.

Having allowed the horses their introductory moment, the four young people make their own entrance, stepping from the stage with grace and finesse.

Three girls and a boy stand before the stage station, poised and silent.

For a long long time that silence isn’t broken as each pair of eyes in turn locks gazes with each and all of the eighteen gathered family members, hold them for various lengths of time, and move on to the next.

About the time the townsfolk are starting to yawn, Mamm the Elder’s face produces the most brilliant smile anyone has ever seen, so bright it seems to back the shadows right off the whole street.

Stepping forward, the little lady extends her hands to the four Younglings who have stepped off the stage.

‘Welcome!’

That is all she says, or at least all anyone hears, as the four tall young people have her surrounded and enclosed among them before the word is even out of her mouth.

Dothann pokes Rua as the rest of the family remains silent and still, no expressions on their faces.

‘See Rua? Tell me you don’t know them!’

‘Fine. Of course I know them. Those two red-heads are Marra and Mamm the Younger although I couldn’t tell you which is which. That blonde gal is Soarsa and that dark-haired kid is Colum. They’re obviously kin, look at them with Mamm! You’d think they’d known her for all of the eleven years of their lives.’

The stage driver breaks the spell with an, ‘Ahem!’ and a significant look at Danann and Brann while he points to the boxes and trunks fastened to the top of the stage.

‘Oh. Sorry Brawny. We’ll get those off there and you can get your horses taken care of.’

And so the two big men casually take the trunks and boxes down like they don’t weigh more than three ounces apiece (which the stage driver knows is NOT the case since he himself struggled to get them up there) and set them off to one side close to Merri.

Being as the four Younglings still have Mamm surrounded and are soaking her with tears, Brann and Danann, followed closely by the still-suspicious tall silver horses, walk up to the huddled little group and unceremoniously lift the two tall (but not nearly as tall as Danann and Brann) red-headed girls away from Mamm the Elder and lift them way up over their heads, starting to spin like tops.

The two girls automatically arch their backs and fling out their arms to maintain their balance and let out with a couple of surprisingly musical squawks that sound a lot like quacks.

When the two big blond men cut loose with their deep belly laughs there’s no stopping what happens next.

Those two, when they laugh, make everyone in the vicinity laugh with them. It’s a sort of magical chain reaction and the whole town cracks up laughing while the bulk of the family finally breaks their silent stillness and tromps over to welcome the additions to their family.

Thann, who is as big as Danann and Brann only dark instead of blond, lifts Soarsa over his head so that the new Youngling girls are all three flying in circles quacking to beat the band.

The four tall silver horses are watching the whole spectacle in silence, for perhaps the first time in their lives their attention wholly on what’s going on instead of their eyes constantly roving.

While all this quacking and laughing is going on, Dothann brings a buckboard from beside the stage station. Talorc, Kalann, Drustann, and Corrbed lift and load the heavy trunks and boxes onto it as easily as Danann and Brann had gotten them off the stage, which makes the stage driver pause his laughter for a moment and wonder about his own strength. He’d found those same trunks and boxes almost impossible to manage.

The four tall silver horses nudge dark-haired Colum, who quickly mounts the stallion of the bunch and looks at his new-found family.

‘Which way are we going?’

Danann, Thann, and Brann lead the way, quacking young girls still aloft, down the street a couple of blocks and then down a side street another couple of blocks to Mamm the Elder’s little house.

The buckboard follows them, Colum and the silvers follow the buckboard, and everyone else marches along behind them, waggling their backsides merrily to the delighted entertainment of the townsfolk.

Unseen by any except for the Younglings, a very small figure dressed in brown and green rides atop the collection of trunks and boxes. He is perhaps two feet tall (at the moment) and laughing as merrily as everyone else although only the Younglings can hear his piping laughter. A time or two he stands on the trunks and boxes and dances a jaunty little jig, with waggles and quacks of his own.

Watching him from behind, Colum grins and murmurs, ‘Home, Brownling. We’re going home.’

The dancing Brownie of course hears, turns around, adds a few agile leaps and flips to his dance, and looks to Colum as he at last stands still and clasps his hands over his head in victory.

1)    Mamm the Elder

2)    Danann

3)    Sidhelagh

4)    Alianora

5)    Drustann

6)    Sass

7)    Thann

8)    Caileen

9)    Talorc

10) Aine

11) Kalann

12) Merri

13) Corrbed

14) Diann

15) Dothann

16) Rua

17) Brann

18) Andras

19) Colum

20) Saorsa

21) Mamm the Younger

22) Marra

23) Brownling

24) The Silvers

word count 1591

Stephen Hawking - Black Holes - Science Comes In Handy For Fiction Writing

Stephen Hawking gives us something to think about, indeed he does. Click on his name to take you to one of the articles.

For our purposes, which is essentially a search for possible 'explanations' of some of the stuff presented in the fictional format of the Mamm Books and the rest of the books and stories associated with the SONG series, cold hard facts aren't required. Hypothesis will more than suffice.

There are scores of articles all over the place about this, so why did I pick this one?

I like the photo.

And really, it doesn't matter which of the articles you reference - they're all telling us the same thing.

Hawking's ideas might come in handy for us (which is entirely selfish but oh well) in terms of 'understanding' how certain elements of our books might be possible.

Like what?

Well, like ... what if black holes are 'memory banks' of what has been? All those deposits of energy-borne substance safely tucked away might be available for a withdrawal. What if someone comes up with the access code? Could that someone use the deposit slips (receipts) to replicate whatever the original deposit was, exactly and precisely identical to the original?

I'm thinking at the moment about Danann and Sidhelagh to represent the vague concept that's trying to form itself in my mind. Or when the Mother touches Dunnottar's Grove and Roundhouse, giving the far future exact replicas (or perhaps the originals?) of the far past's actual substance. The miracle is no less miraculous; it's just got a logical, mathematical, scientific basis for being able to occur.

For future reference in stories yet to be written, suppose some of our Characters are roaming around on the Spiral, doing what they do, and the Younglings happen on one of these banks (black holes), get curious, and want to reconstruct something that was once real but has been lost in the mists of mythology? 

It would be kind of like what they do from their Play Pretend Clearing, except those little jaunts into imagination are based on having a knowledge of the dimensions/realms of the times/places/persons/events involved in their adventures via the Clearing. In other words, they can only go to where and when they already know something about. 

Their educations would have included plenty from the past of their time, and their present, and included myths and legends we today have no idea about except for very ancient references and the findings of our archaeologists. That the dimensions of said myths and legends, fictionally speaking, were/are contemporary (embedded, so to speak) to our own realm on the 'timeline' of the Spiral makes them readily accessible to the Younglings.

That's a whole different scenario from them playing around on the Spiral, let alone traipsing along on the PHI Line that runs through the whole thing. They can't get 'lost' but boy can they run into unfamiliar territory. The Spiral covers a LOT more territory than even their extensive educations could possibly prepare them for.

See, this is what happens when somebody out there somewhere comes up with a concept we hadn't really thought about before.

Fictionally, our Characters can have fabulous adventures all over the multiverse as a consequence of one of the ideas coming from the mind of one of the smart people of our world.

The Characters don't have to understand the math or science behind the concept in order to put it to use in their fictional lives. The Younglings can get themselves into predicaments that they have to get themselves out of one way or another - and the same goes for the adult Characters.

Traveling the Spiral can take our Characters all over our planet, our solar system, our galaxy, our universe, and beyond. They have all infinity and eternity to roam around in - past, present, and future. 

Running into one of those black holes with their deposits of energy - which are observable to the Younglings (or others) - would most certainly spark their curiosity. Because these deposits of energy are different. They're not the living, moving, active dimensions and realms the Younglings use to navigate their way along the Spiral. Looking at them does not animate them. They are inert, in a sort of suspended animation, hibernating maybe, while the energy that once made them 'real' is out there in the rest of the Spiral contributing to the larger energy pool.

Something like that.

At any rate, these perfectly preserved but inanimate things would fascinate the Younglings to no end. What/who are they? Where did they come from? When did they come from? How did they get stuck there and why can't they get un-stuck?

The Younglings being the Younglings, they're bound to try to figure it out, and are bound to succeed. And of course they don't go to the adults (who would tell them in no uncertain terms to stay the heck away from those black holes) because they don't want to hear the warnings. They want to find out for themselves what these things are all about.

Yes they know it's dangerous.

They don't, however, know it's lethal.

Reconstructing one of the inanimate ghosts means re-energizing it - and the energy has to come from somewhere ... the nearest energy source would be the Younglings themselves.

This is a different scene from Danann and Sidhelagh resuming their physical forms after three thousand years. The two of them have been 'themselves' for all that time, their energy remaining intact within the Sidhe of the Ages and needing only to make the swap back into the form of energy that is their physical selves. Said energy can't be in both forms at once, you know. 

And so it is for all of the Sidhe. Their physical 'selves' are preserved around the perimeters of the black hole energy banks as de-energized forms while their life energy continues through and out again into the whole of the Spiral. Theirs, however, is not dispersed like most of the rest of the life-force energy but retains its individual identity. The Sidhe are exceptions to a lot of stuff.

Anyway, the de-energized forms the Younglings are looking at and curious about are not Sidhe. The energy required to reactivate them is not the energy of a Sidhe simply switching from one form to another. 

Now, the Younglings are not stupid. They know basically how all this stuff works. They choose one form from among the many they see, something really little and innocuous-looking, to try their experiment on. They figure it won't take much of their combined energy to 'bring it back'.

Luckily for them Brann the Honest tattles on them ahead of time so the Sidhe of the Ages are standing by, Danann and Sidhelagh among them. They let the Younglings proceed but stop them before they can get themselves into big trouble with the Holy Trinity.

Danann and Sidhelagh are there to tell them, remind them, about the consequences of meddling with stuff they aren't supposed to meddle with.

Since this happens to the original lot of Younglings, Danann and Sidhelagh are but Voices in the ears of the Younglings. 

When the Younglings want to argue the point Danann of Perth himself (Danann the Red as opposed to Danann the Gold of Dunnottar) threatens to transform back into his original mortal self and thrash the lot of them. And so he does. He doesn't thrash them but he scares them pretty good; fierce Warrior that he is, he's convincingly intimidating when he wants to be.

So they cease and desist.

Aduan and Loki, however ... ach, those trouble-makers! I have a feeling a lot of those de-energized things have been de-energized for good reason by the Will of the Trinity.

How it is that Aduan and Loki manage to not get themselves de-energized is something I haven't figured out yet but assume it has to do with the Keeping of the Balance.

*laughing*

Aduan and Loki  :  the Keepers of the Balance

Lord help us.

They'll want crowns.

Merri of Dunnottar

Merri has been traveling for all of her life - but now she has come home to Dunnottar, where she can climb into the trees of the Grove and just relax ... if she can find the time!

Corrbed of Dunnottar

Corrbed knows what needs doing and has what it takes to get the doing done. He takes his physical strength for granted and hones his intellect. That's Corrbed!

Rua of Dunnottar

Youngest of the Younglings of Dunnottar (for the time being) this fire-headed sky-eyed little girl is going to steal your heart even while she's giving you heart attacks with her escapades.

God Took A Whole Extra Day ...

He did, I know it. And never told anybody.

He had to have, just to get Dunnottar put together exactly right.

WHOOP! Tomorrow Looks Good!

Starting right now I've got a whole bunch of days off!

I'm trying to be stern with myself about getting to sleep at a reasonable time, but as usual I'm not paying much attention to my own lectures.

A quick check of the forecast informs me that come afternoon it's going to be beautiful.

A walk through my yard on my way to the house after work tonight informs me that the grass hasn't gotten any shorter since the last day I got it mowed.

Put the two together and guess what's on my agenda for tomorrow afternoon.

Since the following couple of days look like inside projects, they look even better to me than tomorrow does - and the reason for that is that it means studio time for me!

There are some horses and ponies patiently waiting for my attention, and some riders anxious to be included.

Because, as a general rule, I tend to work on more than one project at a time I get to consult my list of possibilities and pick one or two others to break up my sketching and painting with sculpting or writing or sewing or twining wire or any of a dozen other options. 

My suspicion is that the writing is the most likely candidate as the Younglings of Dunnottar are at the fore of my thoughts. They want to get on with their adventures but Merri and Dothann aren't even there yet - so first is going to be to write that book to go with the ones for Diann, Corrbed, and Rua. Then we can get on with the getting on!

• Mon

  Jun 1

  Some sun; breezy, warmer74°Lo 58°

• Tue

  Jun 2

  Strong t-storms, mainly later72°Lo 52°

  more

• Wed

  Jun 3

  A morning shower or t-storm64°Lo 50°

  more
• Thu

  Jun 4

  Partly sunny71°Lo 54°

  more
• 
  

Text of SOUTH is done!

I swear.

The Younglings of Dunnottar are having fun as they begin their tour of the local communities.

They're meeting new friends and learning a lot - and they've only just started!

The text of SOUTH is finished, formatted, and edited.

Now all I have to do is decide about illustrations and get the cover done.

I've got a bunch of idea photos picked out and may just do a painting or drawing of the things they learn about in this part of their journey.

That would be twining and plaiting and netting and seafood.

The seafood they got to gather are kelp, fish, cockles, mussels, winkles. limpets, and lobster and I've got the idea photos of all of those, plus nets and a boat or two.

Fitting all that into one design might be a challenge but I do want the cover to show that it's the sea we'll be exploring a little in this book.

For the first time I've made a 'chapter book' with the chapter headings and the whole nine yards. I am not going to put a page in listing them, though. They're easy enough to find.

This will be the format I use for the rest of this little tour series so I'm glad I like it.

I might add chapter sketches but am sort of leaning toward NOT doing that.

These aren't picture books; they're for readers who are a bit older, more fourth or fifth grade level.

Writing for 'age groups' is a strange thing. Kids are as variable as the rest of us. One who is a 'reader' will be able to read books that are far beyond the level of his 'age group' or grade in school - or one who isn't a 'reader' might have trouble with books that are well below his 'grade level'. How's a person supposed to choose the words, sentence structure, length and all that when there's such a variance?

I guess I'll just write the books as they come and see how it all goes.

And my own education continues as I go along with the younglings. I learned a lot about the sea and its 'crops' ... next on the agenda is baskets because that's the specialty of SOUTHWEST which is the next stop of the Younglings of Dunnottar. That ought to be an adventure. The one basket I tried to make didn't turn out at all well.

But I'm not required to make baskets; all I have to do is observe and write things down. Thank God.

And thank God there won't be any more masts for Rua to climb for quite a while now; not until they get to Stonehaven will they be back to the sea. 

WHEW!