Updates

[Update] August 2017

Faith Hakimian

HEADER

Hey all!

First, thanks for being a part of this first month of blogging! All of you following me here on the site and over on Facebook are such a huge encouragement, and you mean the world to me. I’m definitely looking forward to keeping up with the blog and the stories and seeing what comes of it! Other than that, I just wanted to give you all a quick update on what I’ve been working on the past month, and what’s coming up next.

So! July!

Aside from The Ethan Lindsay Job and Wisp Night, I’ve also been working on the third chapter of my rewrite of The Seven. It’s been going a little slower than I’d like, though I’m definitely making progress and I think it’s getting to the point where the chapter is doing what it needs to be doing to set the stage for the rest of the story. Because of the size of the cast, there’s a lot of introductions that need to be done, preferably in a way that also sets the scene for later as well– you know, basic good writing– which keeps proving a little more difficult than I expect it to, mostly because I have too many ideas and haven’t yet figured out how to narrow them down.

That being said, I think I’m getting close, and once I get this chapter squared away, I’ll have six of my main characters all set to go, and my current idea is to have number seven show up a bit later anyway. This means that I should be able to start digging into more of the plotty and exciting bits shortly, which I am definitely looking forward to. Everything’s better when you get to slay monsters!

For August, I’ll continue chipping away at The Seven, and I expect to be able to finish chapter three and get at least a little way into four as well. All the battling with it last month has left me with a much clearer idea of the beginning/middle/end sequence for the chapter, and once that gets figured out the actual writing tends to flow a bit easier. So, I’m hopeful!

I’ll also keep following the same schedule of “Friday blog, new short story every other week,” with the next story due early next week, so keep an eye out for that! I’ve got ideas for another fantasy standalone and potentially another Tanner and Miranda adventure, both of which have me excited. Additionally, my grand adventure to Armenia begins at the end of this month, so we’ll see how that balancing act goes. Ha.

That’s it for now! Thanks again for coming by, and please be sure to let me know if you’ve got any questions or comments by posting below! I’ll be back on Friday with a new blog. Until then, all the best and have a fantastic week!

Musings

[Blog] Battering Rams

Faith Hakimian

HEADER

I am a huge proponent of brute forcing your way through writer’s block.

Some days, you just want to write. The words are coming and you like them and the story is unrolling before you in all its glory. Some days, you think it’s going to work out like that, only to have it all melt away as soon as you put your hands to the keyboard. You know the ideas are still there. They’re just out of reach. And then there’s the days when you feel like this whole writing business is absolutely nuts, you’re a hack, and why did you ever think you could do it?

And then, sometimes, that last kind of day stretches out into that kind of week. Or even that kind of month– or longer. Writing anything feels like pulling teeth, or pushing on a locked door, or trying to convince your cat that she should come cuddle with you. It’s awful, and it makes you wonder whether it’s worth all the trouble.

Which brings us back to the battering ram method of pushing through writer’s block. As a little background, I do my best to write two hundred fifty words six days a week. I can tell you right now that there are days that sitting down and doing it is the last thing I want to do. Maybe my mind is just wandering. Maybe everything I do manage to get onto the page feels trite and shallow. Maybe the last ten ways I’ve tried to start a scene have fallen flat, and I’ve already got a sinking feeling that Attempt No. 11 is going to do the exact same thing.

The only reliable way I’ve found to get myself past all that is to just sit and write. I can’t guarantee the quality. I can’t guarantee that the scene will suddenly sublimate into something wonderful. I certainly can’t guarantee that it will get easier to write on any given day. But I can guarantee that I keep writing. Despite the horrid, stuck feeling and everything that comes with it, I still have raw words that can be used, formed, and edited. Or I’ve crossed another narrative path off the list, which means I’m one try closer to finding the one that will actually work.

I can hardly take credit for this idea, of course. Many writers far better than myself have said something similar many times before; in particular, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, and Agatha Christie come to mind. It’s also, more or less, the concept behind NaNoWriMo. And I suppose, in some ways, it takes some of the mystery out of writing, making it seem more like mining than anything else.

But that’s okay. Because writing is like mining, and there’s a lot of dirt and much less ore. It takes work– hard work– to create. And I’m not the first person to have that thought either.

Fiction (Short)

Wisp Night

Faith Hakimian

GHOSTLIGHTPATH

It was a wisp night. A fey night. Sada felt it as the sun sank and a new moon left the sky to stars and mist. She could hear it in the muted birdcalls and the way the lake below the cabin lapped against the shore. She knew it by the chill that clung to the edge of the warm summer wind and the fear that coiled tighter in her chest with every minute that passed and did not bring her sister home.

She left the cabin door open until the sun was gone, letting the last orange sunbeams spill onto the packed earth floor in patches. A fire burned low in the hearth, wavering a little and growing red. Sada pulled her shawl a little closer to her shoulders and fed another small log to the flames, then began to prepare a small stew for supper.

The whispering began as the final russet smudge faded on the horizon. It was a soft sound, dark and sing-song. It was too loud to be a breeze and more silent than a voice, and it built images in the corners of Sada’s mind that shattered when she looked too close. It hissed. It hummed. It chanted.

Sada was halfway through chopping a potato into pieces when she heard it. She dropped the vegetable and the knife and clenched her teeth in an attempt to master the dread that roared through her body. She took two measured steps to the window and cracked open the shutters just enough to peer into the gathered host of shadows.

They were there. Two burned at the edge of the path that led down from her door. Three more winked and glowed between the trees or on the lakeshore. More kept themselves half hidden in the fog. One wavered only yards away. They were tiny balls of light, white or pale blue, hovering two or three feet above the ground. The whispering came from them.

Sada hissed through her teeth and pulled the shutter back and latched it shut. Her heart thrummed and pulsed in her throat. She reminded herself that she had known they would come. She forced her breaths to slow.

It would be alright. Eska knew not to follow them. She would not follow them. They deceived but never lied. She could defeat their tricks.

She’s still out here, said the whispers. She’s with us, out here.

Sada ground her teeth. It would be alright, she told herself again. Eska would not follow them.

The path from Trasliy is a long one. There’s a thousand places we can confuse her, turn her.

Sada went back to the table and took the knife and the half cut potato again. In a few strokes, she finished the job and dropped the pieces into the pot that hung above the fire.

She has to come back through the darkwood. How well does she know the way? There are forks she should not follow.

A handful of grain, pinches of herbs and spices. It all went into the pot.

She has to come back through the marshes. What if she misses the road, even by a little? The bog comes so close in places.

A little milk to finish it. It only had to cook. It would be ready when Eska made it back.

An awful giggle pealed through the night, coming from everywhere and nowhere. Sada’s skin crawled and horror pricked her fingers. She waited for the mocking, impertinent whispers to come again. She did not breathe.

She forgot about the cliffside! It’s such a long way down to tumble!

“No!” The word burst through her teeth. A flickering showed between the shutter slats. Sada cursed herself for the betrayal of her panic.

Her leg is in such pain! She should have been more careful!

The vicious laughter came again, louder than before. White cold terror seared her chest. The wisps deceived but never lied.

Sada left the stew and snatched her cloak. She took her staff. She grabbed her lantern from the corner and lit it at the fire. She strapped her dagger to her ankle. She opened the door and slipped out to the night.

The wisps were all around, more than there had been before. They ringed the cottage, wavering, giggling, floating back and forth. Their lights left impressions on Sada’s eyes, but they offered no illumination to the ground below.

“Where is my sister?” Sada lifted her voice above the whispers and the tittering. She shouted her demand. “Tell me where she is!”

The ones who follow the wisps are lost.

Another giggle followed. Sada’s stomach knotted; bile slithered up her throat. She swallowed it back.

“Tell me where I can find her!”

We don’t undo what we have done.

“Take me to her!”

Sada let her words hang in the air, in the mist. She let their meaning echo loud.

You would follow us?

A gleeful mischief clung to the question.

“I would follow you,” said Sada. The words tasted wrong in her mouth. “If you take me to her.”

All the whispering stopped, just for an instant, and the void it left in the night was more terrible than the noise.

This is a new game. We will play it! We will lead, if you can follow.

A feeling of malevolent delight filled the air, and every light vanished. Sada was alone, with only the poor, pale light of her lantern. A second passed. Then two. Then three, four, five. And then, finally, she saw a fickle blue twinkling between a pair of trees a little way away, barely bright enough to be seen against the lantern’s glow.

She followed it. Her feet kept to the path as long as they could, but the wisp was long yards from its edge. It disappeared as she hesitated.

Her stomach dropped and twisted. Her heart leaped up her throat. She plunged off the path and forged through undergrowth and bracken to the place where it had been. When she reached it, there was nothing. And then another wisp flashed and waited farther on, even fainter than the first.

This time, she did not allow herself to hesitate. She followed, leaving the path behind. This light, too, winked away before she reached it, but not too quickly. Another, still fainter than the others took its place, and Sada almost missed it in the lantern light. Before she reached the fourth one, she extinguished her own light and followed all the rest in darkness.

The wisps were easier to see this way. They must have meant it to be so, and Sada would swear that they grew even brighter as they went, until she could have seen them through the lantern light. But she could not relight her lantern, and even if she could, the wisps would not have stayed so bright. That was not their way.

So they went. Sada tripped again and again. Her knees were bloodied. Her palms were ripped and raw. The wisps led her back and forth, never on the path, never over easy ground. They blinked here, they danced there. The route they took twisted all around, back over itself, left and right and sideways, never moving in a simple line. It moved through woods and into wetlands and out of them. It stopped in a stream and beside a bit of boggy ground. It went everywhere it did not have to go.

Exhaustion crept through Sada’s body and lurked in Sada’s heart. She continued even so. She fell and got up. She sank into mud and pulled her feet out again. She numbed herself and followed. The wisps led her one way, then back again the way they had come. They laughed when she realized what they had done.

And then they were gone. There was no warning. They gave no indication. One wisp led her across a patch of soggy earth and into darker forest. The next one never came. Sada stood in a daze, heart beating hard. She had no light, no way, no path to follow.

Her sister was not there.

She swayed and nearly sank down in despair and rage. Perhaps she would have, had her body not rebelled against it, her aching muscles complaining at the thought of bending enough to sit. It was enough to keep her standing. And standing was enough that she could start walking once again.

She had no path, but that was alright. How much more lost could she get than this? She had no direction, but that would come with morning light. She did not have her sister. She had no answer to that problem, so she walked instead, through the darkness, through the forest.

The ground disappeared beneath her, suddenly. One foot touched solid ground. Her other found a void. Sada cried out as she pitched forward, tumbling. She struck the sloping ground on the rough way down. Her shoulder, her hip, her head, her knee. She tasted dirt and blood. The world spun in shadow. She reached the bottom, stunned.

Her pulse beat deep inside her ears. Her chest ached as she breathed. She smelled loam and dirt and mud. Instead of moving, she let herself lie there, sprawled and beaten. She was still there when she heard approaching footsteps. The rush of panic was enough to set her upright. Her hand moved to her ankle and her dagger.

A low, familiar voice called out her name.

“Sada! Sada?”

The sound seemed impossible. It could not be Eska.

“Sada? Are you here?”

It could not be, but it was. The laughter that burbled up her throat broke out of its own accord, and she called out in incredulous response. “Eska?”

“Sada!”

The footsteps came closer, uneven in their rhythm but quickly nonetheless. By the time they reached her, Sada had found her own way to her feet, and when her sister found her she was standing and laughing and full of disbelief. They threw their arms around each other, and held each other tight until it felt right and safe to let go.

“I found you,” said Sada. “I followed the wisps and I found you.”

“You followed the wisps?” Eska’s voice went sharp. “Why would you do such a foolish thing?”

“You were hurt,” said Sada. “They told me. You fell down a cliff.”

Sada felt Eska’s grimace, but her voice was gentle when she spoke again. “I tripped on the road and scraped my shin,” said Eska. “That’s all. I stopped and rested for a moment and then kept going.”

“Then how did you find me?” asked Sada.

“I heard you fall. They brought you to the road– it’s only a little ways away. But you came at it from the cliff, and the fall could have broken you.” Eska hugged her tight again and breathed an easing sigh. “Don’t follow wisps, Sada. Don’t play their games.”

Sada hugged her back just as tight, burying her face in her sister’s hair. “No,” she said. “No, I won’t.” Everything was warm and safe, despite the pain and cold. Her sister was alright. “Let’s go home,” she said.

And Eska squeezed her one more time, and then they went.

Musings

[Blog] Hobbits and Droids

Faith Hakimian

HEADER

There are two stories that may go a long way in explaining who I am and why I write what I write. Or at least, they provide as much of a reason as I’ve been able to find, and it seems fair to blame them for my preoccupation with daring deeds and grand adventures. In any case, I find them enjoyable enough to be worth retelling. Perhaps you will too.

Both happened long enough ago that I’m no longer certain how old I was. That particular detail is lost in the fog, so I’ll just have to make do and say that I was old enough to enjoy a good story, but young enough that I had not yet discovered most of the ones that have since influenced me the most. So, something less than ten.

The first one started with a joke, and a silly one at that. My dad, as he often did, was teasing me. And I, as I often did, was teasing him right back. On this particular day, the final volleys of our exchange went something like this:

Me: “Dad, you’re silly!”

Dad: “Who, me? No I’m not!”

Me: “Are too!”

Dad: “D2.”

Me: “…what?”

At this point, my mom figured it was high time I was introduced to a certain short, feisty, blue-and-white droid. Our family spent the rest of the afternoon watching A New Hope, and I’ve spent the rest of my life wishing I had a light saber. Thus was my introduction to Star Wars and science fiction in general.

My other memory is of a road trip and a book read aloud in the car. We were on our way to visit some relatives, and though a quick search suggests that it probably took us less than two hours to get there*, as a kid it felt a great deal longer than that. Or rather, it would have had my dad not been reading The Hobbit to us. It’s difficult to be bored when Gollum is in the front seat playing riddles in the dark.

That was the day I fell in love with Middle Earth. You can imagine my joy, then, when I found out that there was a whole trilogy besides set in the same world. My heart was still broken at Khazad Dum, of course, and my first reading of The Fellowship of the Ring took far longer than it should have, but that’s a different story. I can still say that that car trip is what kindled a deep and abiding appreciation for Tolkien and his work.

Since those days, my love of all kinds of fantasy and science fiction has only grown. I’ve seen The Princess Bride and Star Trek and Firefly. I’ve read The Chronicles of Narnia through at least twice. The Last Unicorn enchanted me- both the book and the movie. Hugh Howey’s Silo Saga and Pierce Brown’s Red Rising trilogy both kept me up way too late on multiple occasions. All these and a hundred others are all stuck in my head and spilling over into my own imaginings, making them richer and far better than they would be otherwise. I owe a debt to all of these and more, but it all started when my parents introduced me to Star Wars and The Hobbit, which is why those two worlds will always be particularly special to me.

 

 

 

* That is, assuming I remember our destination correctly. If it was farther away, then I’ve underestimated how good my Dad is at reading out loud for extended periods of time, and I already knew he was good.

Musings

[Blog] Going Home

Faith Hakimian

HEADER

“Homeland” is a powerful word.

It’s a word that speaks of ancestry and history; an old word. It’s a word that hints at a bigger story. It’s a word that must be shared, because it belongs to more than you or me. It’s a word that has prompted good and excused evil. It’s a word that demands you pay attention. It’s a word that says it knows a piece of who you are.

It’s why sites like ancestry.com are so wonderful. It’s why, when you visit Edinburgh, you can find a hundred little shops with pamphlets and pins for all the Scottish clans and septs. It’s why you’ll run across ads that claim to tell you where you’ve come from, based solely on your surname.

It’s what the Shire is to a hobbit, and why the scouring of it is so important. It’s what Rannoch is to the Quarians. It’s what Aeneas had just lost, and what he spends an entire epic poem replacing.

And in the fall, I get to visit mine for the first time.

In case my last name isn’t a dead giveaway, I am Armenian–one quarter, on my dad’s side, though the percentage isn’t important. I don’t know who said it first, but my grandfather once told me that as long as I had one drop of Armenian blood, I would be Armenian.

My heritage is something that I have always been aware of on one level or another. My dad taught me the Armenian alphabet when I was a kid, and I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know about that part of myself. But awareness and full ownership are two different things entirely, and the latter has been a little slower in coming.

It still feels strange to say that I am Armenian-American. I’m learning the language, but I definitely don’t know it yet. I’ve studied some of the history on my own, and there are a couple of novels on my to-read list that will (I hope!) help add to my understanding of my people.

Of course, actually visiting, living, and working there for a while is going to give me an understanding that I couldn’t get any other way. Which would explain why I’m so excited. Terrified too, for sure. But mostly excited. You don’t often get to visit your homeland for the very first time.

Fiction (Short)

The Ethan Lindsay Job

Faith Hakimian

WHISKEYHILL

I noticed him before Tanner did. He was a clean cut man in a pale button-down shirt and a look that reminded me of a salesman. Or a politician. It was hard not to dislike him outright, but I did my best. He stopped just inside the door of our rough little bar and scanned the room as if looking for someone. Tanner still hadn’t seen him, so I tapped his shin with my boot and nodded towards the door.

“What do you think?” I asked. “Lost or looking for trouble?”

We were sitting at a table on the far side of the room, nursing a couple of beers, and Tanner peered through the low light and smoke haze. The man was at the bar now, exchanging a few words with the barman, Teddy. Teddy nodded and pointed towards our table, and I made up my mind to have words with Teddy later. My brother turned back to me with a sideways grin. “Well, he’s not lost.”

The man saw us now and was approaching quickly. He waved to catch our attention. “Hey! You’re the Griff twins, right? Soldiers of fortune?”

“Just brother and sister,” I said, “but that’s us. I stood up and extended my hand. I smiled, too, and I think it was even believable. “I’m Miranda.”

Tanner got up and introduced himself as well, and we both waited for the man to return the favor. He did so with a smile so sincere it had the opposite effect.

“Ethan Lindsay,” he said. “My partner and I own a business that ships in machine parts from Earth. Mostly high tech stuff—control boards, simple VIs, some labor ‘droids. All the stuff that doesn’t manufacture well out here on the colonies.”

Tanner and I sank back down into our seats and motioned for Lindsay to do the same. As he did, I would swear that he eyed our half finished beers with distaste, but the expression passed quickly. I grabbed my bottle and took another sip.

“Anyway,” he continued, “it’s all expensive, and I’m sure you know how long it takes for the ships to make the trip from Earth. So you can imagine that we have a vested interest in making sure everything gets where it’s going in one piece once it makes it planetside.”

“Sure,” I said. “And at a guess, that’s what you want to hire us for.”

“That’s assuming, of course, that you do want to hire us,” said Tanner. He spoke in that friendly, conversational tone he used when he was pretending I was the mean one.

“Which I do,” said Lindsay. He chuckled, and I felt with sudden certainty that my first impression had been the right one. “You’re familiar with West Edge, aren’t you?”

“Last town before Dalton, right?” I asked.

“That’s the one. We’ve got a shipment that needs to get out there by early Friday, if possible.”

Less than two days with cargo. I tried not to widen my eyes too much and exchanged a quick look with my brother.

Lindsay went on like he hadn’t noticed. “We have a Rhino available to make the trip, but none of the drivers we’ve spoken to have been willing to go that way.”

I couldn’t blame them, and took another sip of my beer to keep from saying so. And then he asked the question.

“Do either of you know how to handle a Rhino?”

My most recent sip of beer tried to reroute to my lungs, and I almost fell prey to a violent coughing fit.

“That’s not generally one of our marketed skills,” said Tanner. I thought he was being too diplomatic. Though, Lindsay had guts. Most people wouldn’t think of asking a couple of glorified gunslingers to drive one of those behemoths.

“But you can do it?”

Tanner hesitated before nodding. “Not like a full time driver could, but I could get it where it needs to go.”

Lindsay pulled a small datapad from his pocket and slid it to us across the table so that we could read the screen. I found myself immediately grateful that I had not taken another drink. The numbers displayed on the device were substantial.

“I thought you might appreciate seeing the actual amounts. That’s what you’ll receive if you deliver the goods on time.” He left the pad where Tanner and I could both see it, and we both checked it again. The numbers didn’t change. “So, can I count you in?”

I glanced over at Tanner again. “It’ll be tight.” Looking back to Lindsay, I asked, “What happens if we don’t make it on time?”

Lindsay waved, as if to dismiss the question as unimportant. “We wouldn’t be able to pay you the full amount, of course, but you’d be compensated for your time.”

Tanner shrugged and nodded at me, and we both ran through all the ways we could imagine the job turning sideways. None of them seemed any worse than usual.

“We’ll need a small advance,” I said, “and I’ll send you our standard contract. If you’re alright with that, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

Lindsay grinned and extended his hand. “Wonderful. It’s a pleasure doing business with you.”

We spent the rest of the day making the preparations necessary before going anywhere near the Outlands. We checked our gear and bought supplies. We talked with anyone we could find who had been west in the past few weeks. We stopped by the garage that held the Rhino, and Tanner introduced himself to the man who owned it. And then we went back to our boarding house and turned in early in the hope that it would make the morning a little less painful.

We were both asleep within an hour. Within two, I was blinking in annoyance at my comm where it lay on the nightstand, chiming noisily for all it was worth. I grabbed it and shoved it in my ear.

“This is Miranda. Go ahead.” My voice was groggy. I hoped whoever was on the other end would hear it and be filled with shame.

“Hi, Miranda. It’s Ethan Lindsay.” Whatever he was full of, it wasn’t shame. “Our packages have arrived at the garage, and we’re ready for you and your brother to help us load up the Rhino.”

I gaped, and the first three things that came to mind were things I couldn’t say. The pause must have lasted just a little too long, because Lindsay’s voice crackled in my ear again.

“Miranda? Did you get that?”

I cleared my throat. “I got it. I’m sorry, Mr. Lindsay. Tanner and I were not under the impression that our services were required for that.”

The silence on the other end was anything but comforting. The next thing he said wasn’t any better. “We had assumed that was included when we hired your services.”

“I’m afraid not, I said.” My half-unconscious mind cast about helplessly for a moment before settling on a vague reference to our contract and our conversation in the bar. I might have also attempted an explanation on our need to be rested for the run to West Edge, but I don’t quite remember. Whatever I said, it seemed to work.

More or less.

After another pause, Lindsay said something I took to mean that he understood, and my comm chirped as he broke the connection. I pulled it out of my ear and tossed it back onto the nightstand before dropping into the pillow with a grunt. Somehow, Tanner slept through the whole thing.

He laughed when I told him about it in the morning. I glared at him and threatened to make sure that the next client had his contact information instead of mine. He grinned in a way that suggested he didn’t believe me.

I was almost in a better mood by the time we made it back to the garage. We’d had annoying clients before, and we’d survived their worst. Even the Rutherford job. Lindsay was frustrating, but he wasn’t trying to kill us. If I got a full night of sleep, I might not even hate him.

Then we saw the Rhino and the massive stack of crates right in front of it. I muttered something unfriendly under my breath. Tanner looked like he was trying to decide between panic and laughing. He was still caught in the middle when he glanced at me.

“That’s our cargo, isn’t it?”

I growled something unfriendly out loud.

The man who owned the garage was in another corner of it when we came in, but he came over now, waving to us and moving at a half run.

“You want a hand getting this all loaded up? I thought the guy who hired you was going to get it all loaded up last night, but he and a couple of guys just brought it by and took off.”

“Of course he did,” I said. The last vestiges of my good mood were gone.

“We’d appreciate that, man,” said Tanner.

The owner called over a few of his workers, and with their help it only took us half an hour to get the Rhino packed and ready to go. We stashed our own gear and necessities in what little space was left over. We were just about to climb into the beast and start the trek out when Lindsay himself showed up again.

My first impulse was not a charitable one. I fought it down and managed a civil nod. “Everything’s loaded and we’re just about to head out,” I said. “Anything we need to know before we hit the road?”

Lindsay shook his head. “No, nothing new,” he said. “I’m actually here on other business, and I’m a little surprised to see you here. I had thought you would already be on your way. Do you think you’ll still be able to make the trip on time?”

“We’ll do our best, Mr. Lindsay.” I smiled as I answered. Anyone with a shred of human sensitivity would have noticed that it didn’t reach my eyes. “We had to load the Rhino when we got here this morning.”

Tanner came up and stood just behind me, though I wasn’t sure if that was to show his support or to keep me from doing something stupid.

“Ah, of course,” said Lindsay. “In that case, I won’t take up any more of your time. Safe travels!”

He gave us both a short nod and left to go about his business. Tanner and I thanked the garage owner and climbed up into the Rhino. We pulled on the headsets and ear protection we found on the seats and strapped ourselves into the safety harnesses. Tanner keyed in the sequence to bring the engines online, and they came to life with a rumble and a roar. The Rhino rose until it hovered about a foot above the ground, and we were finally on our way.

I only made it to the edge of town before I gave vent to my feelings.

“Tell me you think he’s being ridiculous,” I said, adjusting my mic to make sure it was in place.

Tanner grinned, and his voice came crackling through the headset. “Probably not as much as you do, but I’m the one who slept through the night.”

“Rub it in, why don’t you.”

“I will, thanks.” Tanner grinned again, but reached over to punch my shoulder. “It’ll be alright. For what he’s paying us, we can put up with a quirk or two.”

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” I said, but I didn’t argue any further. It was a good point.

The Rhino made good time. Better than anything on wheels or caterpillar treads would have, and the ride was smoother, too. Plus, given the reputation of the West Edge road, it was nice to have a little armor between us and the outside world. A dedicated band of highwaymen would still be able to break through, but that was what the guns were for. If we were lucky, we wouldn’t have to use them.

We weren’t lucky.

About two hours after we left town, the grassy fields we had been traveling through gave way to rougher terrain, and the road dropped down into a narrow canyon. Rock walls rose up high on either side, and a bend in the road kept us from seeing much more than forty yards ahead. There had been five ambushes here in the last few months. We could have guessed that even if we hadn’t heard the reports.

Tanner brought the Rhino to a halt just before the road began its descent and let it hover there. We both looked out through the windshield.

“We could try to go around,” I said. “The Rhino could handle it.”

Tanner frowned. “Maybe. We’d lose a lot of time, though.” A little bit of static rustled in my headset while he spoke.

“We’ll lose time when we get jumped down there,” I said, “and we’ll probably get shot at.”

“Well, yeah.” He shrugged and paused, then looked over at me with a daredevil twinkle in his eye. “But if they can’t stop us…”

I looked over at him and glared. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not! We’ve got a Rhino. What are they going to do, stand in front of it and hope we stop?”

“Put up a blockade?”

“Sure, and that’s how you’d stop a jeep caravan. But anything that could stop a Rhino would take too long to move in and out of the road. They couldn’t hide it from the Rangers.”

I grimaced. He was making sense.

“You can grab the rifle and cause problems for anyone still looking for trouble.”

“And you’ll just drive like the devil and get us through as fast as you can.”

Tanner grinned wide. “And I’ll just drive like the devil.”

I waited a second or two before responding again, breathing in and out with a heavy sigh. “Fine. But only because I don’t have a better idea.” Before Tanner looked away, he caught the edge of my own hellcat grin.

All things considered, the plan worked well. There was an ambush, and four would-be bandits had set up exactly the sort of roadblock we had expected. The Rhino turned it into matchsticks. What we were not prepared for was the rocket launcher that one of them had somehow managed to acquire. I took him down with a well-placed shot, but not before he got off one of his own.

We were lucky; the missile just grazed us, clipping the back of the Rhino and spinning us sideways before exploding against the rock wall above us. Tanner only barely kept us from our own headlong collision with the side of the canyon, and we still slammed our side against the rocks. I yelled something with four letters at the top of my lungs. The engines whined and screamed. Tanner started giggling through clenched teeth. Smoke began to seep into the cabin, and the Rhino began to falter, but we didn’t stop until we made it out the other side of the canyon.

Tanner brought us down in the shelter of a crooked rock formation, and we climbed out to check the damage. It could have been worse. The Rhino’s left side was all torn up, scraped and dented in at least a dozen places. Its right rear corner was even worse, chewed apart and scorched black where the rocket had caught us. Somehow, the structure was still sound. Even better, our cargo was still intact.

“So, I know you can get it running again,” I said. “How long is it going to take?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Longer than I’d like. Are you going to call Lindsay?”

“I’d rather not,” I said, but I started to make the connection on my comm all the same. “Just get us going again as soon as you can, alright?” I ducked away as much to find a quiet spot to make the call as to avoid the look that Tanner gave me.

Lindsay answered almost immediately. “Miranda? I was hoping to hear from you. My contact in Norberg says you haven’t come through there yet. Is that correct?”

“It is,” I said. “We’re still a little further south. We ran into some trouble and the Rhino took some damage.”

“And the cargo?”

“It’s fine,” I said, and didn’t have to say anything for his relief to be palpable. “Tanner is making the repairs we need to get on our way again. Hopefully we won’t have any more delays.”

“Of course,” said Lindsay, then after a moment he added, “I’m sure you understand that this won’t change the required delivery time for the goods?”

“I never expected it to,” I said. It’s a good thing I only had to make my voice sound friendly. There was no way I would have been able to hide the cold look that flashed across my face.

“Wonderful,” said Lindsay. “Then I’ll expect to hear from you once you get closer to West Edge. I’ll make contact with our buyer and let you know where to meet them. Until then.”

We finished the call. I unclenched my jaw and went to see if Tanner could use my help.

We made our repairs with a combination of spare parts and the creative repurposing of a couple of backpack straps. And thanks to a little luck and a lot of providence, it worked. We were moving again less than an hour later.

The engines had an unsteady sound about them now, which we did our best to ignore. The smell of smoke slowly faded in the cabin, or we got used to it. Little by little, Tanner pushed the engines harder, almost bringing them back up to the speeds we had been going before the canyon. The Rhino devoured the miles, taking us through Norberg and on to Bascow where we had to redo some of our repairs. We refueled in Tupesti when the sun was low in the sky and casting long, black shadows behind everything it touched.

We had hoped to make it before dark. So much for that. There were still a lot of miles to go, and only enough daylight for a fraction of them. I checked our rifle and the pistol in my belt, just in case.

Right as the sun started slipping below the horizon, I got another call from Lindsay. For just a moment, I thought about not answering. I did let him wait long enough to tell Tanner who was calling, and the look of commiseration made it a little easier when I did pick up.

“Miranda? It’s getting a little late, and I understand you and Tanner haven’t reached West Edge yet.”

“That’s correct,” I said. “We’re still on our way. We should reach it sometime after dark.”

A momentary quiet on the other end of the line tied my stomach in a knot. “Our client had hoped to have it by the end of the day. Is that not going to be possible?”

I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek and rephrased my next statement in my head five times until it came out more courteous than not. “We agreed to deliver your merchandise by Friday morning, Mr. Lindsay. That is still our intent.”

“I see,” said Lindsay, followed by “Then it will have to do. Please contact me once you reach West Edge.”

I said I would and ended the call maybe a little more abruptly than I should have. A handful of seconds passed. My rage began to abate, or at least it seemed to. I took a deep breath.

I screamed.

Tanner heard it over the sound of the engines and despite his headset, and the look he gave me was the one that said he wasn’t going to laugh at me until he knew I was alright. And that was when I realized I wasn’t.

“He’s an inept, idiotic son of a mother.” I snarled the words into my headset and looked over at Tanner to see his nod of agreement.

God bless him. He didn’t give it.

I tried again. “He can’t plan ahead, doesn’t take any blame.”

Tanner still didn’t reply, and the fact that I knew he was listening almost made it worse.

“He asks for the impossible and throws a passive aggressive fit when we only almost pull it off, as if suddenly we’re the ones who don’t know what we’re doing. We helped him out! He was up a creek, and we helped him out.”

“For the money,” said Tanner.

I glared. “Fine, for the money, but only because we thought we could do it. And we could have, if he hadn’t changed the rules.”

“So, he’s a sleaze. We both knew that when he walked in the door.” Tanner shrugged. “We deal with jackasses like him all the time.”

“Why doesn’t this bother you?”

“Why is it bothering you so much?”

Several answers came to me, and they were all wrong. The right one followed a moment or two later, and it slipped between my teeth. “We’re good at what we do. We’re really good, and he’s saying we’re not. No one else could have done half as well as us, and it’s like he thinks we’re a couple of two-bit mercs looking to rip him off any chance we get. We’re better than that.”

“Yeah,” said Tanner. “We are.”

I slumped back in my seat and stared up at the roof of the Rhino. I could still taste the bile rising up from my stomach. It wasn’t quite as bad as it had been. “I’m still mad,” I said.

“I know,” he said.

We reached West Edge almost three hours before midnight, and I called Lindsay one last time to tell him we’d arrived. He started to suggest that we hadn’t earned our full payment, but I reminded him of the contract and even he didn’t feel like arguing the point. Our earnings would be transferred into our account by the end of the next day.

“I’ll call the buyer and let him know you’ve made it with the delivery, then. He’s got a warehouse about halfway down Main Street. He’ll meet you there.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Tell him we’ll be there momentarily.”

Whether he did or not, a man and a youth rode up on four-wheelers a few minutes after we reached the warehouse. Tanner and I jumped down from the Rhino to greet them, and the first thing they did was to thank us profusely.

“We didn’t think these were going to get here for another day or two. We appreciate this more than we can say. I hope Lindsay paid you well?”

Tanner found a way to step on my foot before I could express my feelings on the subject.

We ended up using about half of what we earned to cover the costs of repair for the Rhino. It turns out those vehicles aren’t particularly cheap to fix, and there was a lot of damage. Technically, the bill should have been forwarded to Lindsay, but when the owner of the garage tried, Lindsay found a couple of legal loopholes that let him weasel out of it. So, we helped. I can’t lie and say it was our first choice. For better or worse, we’re not that generous. But we did help. And I’m glad we did.

Musings

[Blog] A Tip of the Hat

Faith Hakimian

HEADER

When I was a kid, my family lived about twenty minutes out of town. We drove in for school and church, of course, but the distance limited most other trips to few and far between. Among other things, this meant that when I was introduced to text-based role-playing in the mid 2000’s, I took to it with a wild abandon.

I learned how to role-play on a Redwall fansite called Terrouge. It was part ezine and part forums, and in addition to being the place where I met a number of my dearest friends, it’s at least partially to thank (or perhaps blame) for my love of writing. It certainly did nothing to dissuade it.

For those who aren’t familiar, text-based role-playing (or RPing for short) is when you and a bunch of other people make up your own characters and proceed to write about all the trouble they get into together. At least, that was how we did it on Terrouge and the Vulpine Imperium, our sister site.

Being a pair of literary minded communities, we did it pretty well, too.  Our posts were often long and descriptive. Our characters were usually fun and complicated. We were hardly perfect, of course, and a lot of us were young and still learning to write well, but you can only spend so much time playing with words before you figure out a thing or two.

I haven’t RPed seriously for a few years now, and most of the sites I used to haunt have gone quiet or faded altogether. Visiting the ones that are still up feels a little like going back to your hometown and finding that the house you grew up in has been abandoned. Your family is still around and doing well, and so are the friends you grew up with. It’s just the house that time left behind to turn grey and gather dust. The quiet is a little eerie and a little sad, but only because the memories are so rich and vibrant.

Musings

[Blog] Mist in the Trees

Faith Hakimian

HEADER

It takes more than twenty hours of straight driving to get from my hometown in Idaho down to Santa Barbara, California. When my dad took me down for my freshman year of college, we packed all my things into his car, said goodbye to the rest of the family, and started off in the evening with the intention of making the trip as quickly and with as few stops as possible. And yes, that meant skipping hotels.

We made it a good, long way as we drove through the night. We headed west and south, down through Washington, down through Oregon. California couldn’t have been much farther south when we finally pulled to the side of the road to steal a couple hours of sleep.

It was light when I woke up. We were somewhere in the mountains, on a stretch of highway that ran through a pine forest. The trees were spaced wide apart, and fog hung beneath them, hiding all but the dark trunks from view. And everything glowed gold in the light of the rising sun.

To this day, it’s one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

I suspect, though, that the image would not have been etched so deeply in my mind were it not for everything else that lead me there. The adventure of leaving for college. The weariness from long travel and little sleep. The cold feet and cricked back from napping in the car. None of these things change the aesthetic appeal of the scene, but all of them add some detail, some meaning that fits it to a narrative.

There’s also the fact that it was there for a only a few moments, and then I was gone and it was gone, and I’ll never see it again. Other forests on other mornings might look much the same, and I might even be there to see them. But I’ll never see them while on my way to college for the very first time. That singularity has a value.

The trees and the mist gave something back, as well. Waking up to an empty quarry or a stretch of nondescript plains would have left a weaker impression. Instead, the image was one that has stuck with me, and its momentary beauty left me with a feeling of wonder that could harden into memory.

A part of me almost wishes I could have taken a picture. Another part of me is glad I didn’t. Writing might not recreate it perfectly, but it does well enough– and I’ve got a better chance of explaining why it might have affected me the way it did when I get to use my words.

Updates

[Update] Current Projects

Faith Hakimian

HEADER

Whether it’s because I’m easily sidetracked or because half of my ideas wouldn’t get along with the other half if I tried to stick them all in the same story, I’ve always got several projects going at once. Here are the details on the ones that are keeping me the busiest!

***

The Seven (fantasy novel)
When the Rehk begin to break into the world again, seven people band together to fight back against the most terrible threat any of them have ever faced in the hope that they can banish the monsters once again.

This one started out as my project for NaNoWriMo ’15. I am currently working on the second draft, which involves some serious renovations on characters, structure, and pretty much everything else. It’s also where I’m currently spending most of my writing time.

 

The Tanner and Miranda Stories (sci-fi/adventure short stories)
Out on Earth’s first colony, things can get a little hairy. For mercenary siblings Tanner and Miranda Griff, that just means they’ve got a nearly constant stream of work. The hard part is making sure they don’t get themselves into more trouble than they can handle.

Miranda and Tanner first showed up when I wrote Under Whiskey Hill, and I had no plans to expand on their world. But they were a lot of fun to write, and they definitely had more stories to tell. Basically, one thing led to another, and these two are going to be getting into all sorts of trouble.

***

Besides the above, I’ve also got a couple that are less actively taking up my time, but are still knocking around in my head often enough to merit a mention.

Runner (fantasy novel)
Waking up with none of your memories and a complete stranger telling you that you’re a werewolf is bad enough. Realizing that you’ll have to choose between finding your old life and helping your new friends survive just makes things even more complicated.

I’ve been playing with this concept in one form or another since mid-2010, which apparently is long enough for me to get to know my characters but not long enough to figure out the finer details of the plot. I return to it every couple of months or so to play around with it and tease it towards a more cohesive state.

 

Aralez (sci-fi novel)
The galaxy shrank when we built Aralez, the first of the arc-stations. We could  It was humanity’s greatest achievement, the application of our most advanced technology. But that was long ago, and what was once the hub for settlement and exploration is a quiet backwater. We have no idea why the pirates found it interesting enough to attack and board the station.

I’m still in the process for worldbuilding here. I wrote part of a rough first draft for this one during NaNo ’16, but it’s mostly in a conceptual stage at the moment.

Musings

[Blog] Hello!

Faith Hakimian

HEADER

Hey everyone!

Before I say anything else, thanks for visiting my little corner of the internet! I have so many stories to tell, and I’m looking forward to sharing them with you all– but more on that later. For now, let me just tell you a little about this blog-site-thing and what you’re likely to find here.

Basically, this is where you can find my writing, updates on my writing, and thoughts about writing (and stories) in general. Also, nerdy segues, because I can tell you right now that I won’t be able to help myself, and I wouldn’t want to anyway. Life’s too short to not be nerdy.

So, writing! The stuff I post here will be mostly short stories. Some will be completely self-contained, others might fit into a bigger universe, but all of them will be complete stories in their own right. From time to time, I’ll also put up excerpts and teasers from whatever novel I happen to be working on.

Speaking of novels… this is also where you’ll find information on my various projects. At any given time, I probably have at least three longer pieces in various stages of development. If you want to know what those are and how they’re going, you can find out here!

As for the bloggier bits, that could be anything from talking about the things that get me feeling creative to the most recent books I’ve read. And everything in between. It’s also where I’ll post various life updates and thoughts on any adventures I manage to fall into, which seems to be happening more and more as of late.

Anyway! That’s the shape of the beast. Thanks again for stopping by; it really does mean the world to me. If you’re interested in keeping tabs on my shenanigans, both fictional and otherwise, be sure to follow me here or to like me on Facebook. And that’s all for now! Time for me to go convince the jumble of words in the next document over that life will be better as a coherent story.

Until next time!