Kimberly's Ramblings 2: Since You Asked…
Greetings! In the past I've received emails asking about this and that in my "Life Goes On" series, questions about why Goliath is acting this way or Angela is acting like that, or what Demona is referring to when she says this, that or the other thing. I've also received questions about my stories for Christine. Rather than just keep writing the same responses again and again, here are my answers to just a few of the most frequently asked questions, okay? It's not that I don't love to receive and reply to email; I just want to save time, that I can use for writing more fanfic!
First, my stories for the fanfic universe of Christine Morgan: Most of the time, people write in to me with story ideas for more! "What if they did this?" or "Would you consider writing about that?" And I always say: this is Christine's universe, not mine.
I'm one of Christine's beta-readers (not always best at plot and characterization, but really hot on correct spelling and use of grammar), so I get advance peeks at some of her stories, but not all of them. And even on the ones I do get advance peeks at, I know better than to give anyone else hints at what's going to happen next; if I did, I'd lose my sneak-peeking privileges! Now where the gargoyles are concerned, I occasionally suggest minor stuff to her, usually about minor characters. But (1) Never anything about Jericho—he's all hers, and (2) Never anything that would divert the overall series from the course she has planned.
All the stories I've written for her are "fillers" in the timeline she's already established, highlighting some corner of her universe that she either hasn't had time or didn't have the inclination to write about herself. She approves every word of every story, and if she says "no", that means no. That word gets substituted, that scene gets deleted, or that story is never posted. I'm not saying she's a harsh taskmistress (although I suspect she'd love to be called one! ;-) ), since she actually lets me get away with a lot of little ideas. But I always, always run them past her first before committing them to paper/electrons. So, to people who'd like me to write about this or that for Christine's universe: ask her, not me. If she emails me and says she likes the idea, and if it strikes that creative spark in my brain, who knows? It might get written.
Yes, I will admit that I've had bubbling in the back of my brain, an AU version of Christine's universe, that branches off from hers a couple years after the events of Devil's Night. But it will likely never see the light of day/the dark of the archives; there's far too much to write about in the "Life Goes On" series!
Regarding my own series: Of course I always get letters asking about 'what happens next', but my answer to that is usually "wait and see." Right now I'm discussing 'what happened before'; the backstories. Little scraps of history, and bits of biology, that influence my character's actions and reactions. If it was posted in my recently updated "Getting Biblical" or the first "Kimberly's Ramblings", I'm not going to repeat it here. So if your question isn't answered here, read those before asking, okay? And if it's not there either, feel free to ask!
There's Fey, and there's Elves…
Yes, my series has a crossover with Elfquest, as well as another series that shall not be discussed here. I brought the Elfquest connection up back in "The Times They Are A-Changin', Part 2", but never actually spelled it out and named names that would be familiar to fellow Elfquest fans. If you're not an Elfquest fan, feel free to skip over the next few paragraphs, okay? For those people who are fans and have asked what happened, even if I can keep up my current pace of posting a story or vignette every week, it'll be next year at the earliest before any of the details would be able to come out in the series itself. So…
Envision an AU/Worldpool version of Elfquest in which Winnowill, the evil and vampiric elfwoman, was not killed by the Djun and spiritually imprisoned by Rayek. That's what I had in mind; a Winnowill who might have been defeated soundly by the Wolfriders, but was still capable of rising again and causing havoc and misery wherever she went.
In my universe, not only is mixing Fey and mortal magics a dangerous business; so is mixing magic and psionics. The elves of Elfquest are high psionics, capable of manipulating matter and communicating mind-to-mind. In the year 987 in my main 'verse (never figured out what the equivalent year would be in the AU Elfquest 'verse,) the Wolfriders were in the middle of a pitched battle with Winnowill at the same time that the Magus, in my universe, was attempting a difficult spell that would supposedly allow him to speak with angels and ask for Heavenly wisdom (already secretly in love with Princess Katherine but stymied by medieval rules and his low birth, he wanted either advice on how to court her and win over her father, or advice on how to ease the pain of unrequited love.)
The magic spell was botched and breached dimensions to the "World of Two Moons", and when Winnowill sensed it she threw enough psionic energy at it to create a magical/psionic interface between her world and medieval Scotland, that transported roughly ten square miles of Scottish
countryside to her world instead. She didn't exactly plan it that way; the fight was going badly for her, and she was just looking for anything to distract the Wolfriders and their psionic 'magic-users' before they could beat her again.
The hunting party of eleven watchbeasts and a half-dozen gargoyles who were just out of sight of the castle when it happened, got confused by the sudden change in the stellar configurations and the appearance of a second moon, and ended up going the wrong way, further away from the castle instead of returning to it. When the interface was severed and Wyvern Castle and all its inhabitants were returned to medieval Scotland, they were out of the interface zone and were left behind in the other world.
The search party that went out to find the missing ones before the interface ended ran into Winnowill, the 'tall, pale woman' that Lexington mentioned when he relayed the story to Angela back in "The Times They Are A-Changin', Part 2". Looking to gain strength from beings that were ignorant of her powers, Winnowill drained most of the search party of their life energies, but the two known to fans as Desdemona and Othello (now Coldfire and Coldstone) fought her off and knocked her out before she could actually kill anyone, subduing her until the Wolfriders could come for her.
As a combined thank-you for dealing with Winnowill, and an apology for the trouble she'd caused, the healer Leetah and the High One Timmain together crafted an enhanced fertility spell, that they spread to cast on the entire gargoyle clan just before the two worlds separated again. That's why the Wyvern clan had that unexpected breeding season in the next full moon, which resulted in the clutch of eggs from which Angela, Gabriel and the rest emerged. But the two gargoyles who knew it would happen never tried to explain why; they figured, who would have believed them?
What about Sora?
I've also been asked: After the way Sora cried when Yama left for America at the end of "Yama's Path", why didn't she rush out to Yama as soon as he arrived in the village in "Kangeikai"? And why are Miya and the others so quick to accept Di-Mono/Demona as a potential new mate for Yama?
Sora just might have rushed out and thrown herself at Yama, if she'd known ahead of time that he was returning so soon, but she didn't. None of the clan knew that Yama had returned so swiftly, until they awoke that night; Hiroshi's phone call to let everyone know they were inbound came just after dawn. And the villagers who informed the clan that he was back, also told them that he'd brought four new gargoyles with him to join the clan. For such a historic occasion, protocol dictates that the clan leader and clan elders be the first ones to go out and greet the arrivals, not some youngster with no clan title yet. Even if she'd still been Yama's mate, she would have had to wait her turn… and by her own choice, she was no longer his mate.
Sora was in the crowd, when Yama opened the temple gates to let the new gargoyles in, but she didn't have a chance to pull Yama aside and talk to him privately before she saw Miya with the kimono and obi. She saw Miya give the obi to Yama, saw Yama tie Di-Mono's kimono with it, and Sora knows the significance of that act as well as everyone else in the clan. After Miya basically announced for everyone's benefit that she thought Yama and Di-Mono would make a good mated pair… and after Yama apparently agreed with her… Sora left the gathering and hid somewhere to cry for the rest of the night.
Kai, Miya and nearly everyone else in the clan are very disappointed with Sora. Yes, Botan was the one who plotted to persuade her to dismate Yama while Yama was in disgrace and exile, but she was the one who actually did the dismating. And after Yama returned with his honor restored, she at first utterly refused to reconcile with him. Even after he began gently courting her again, trying to start anew, she gave him no real sign of favoring his suit over Botan or Anzu's, until the night of the combat trials. And at those trials she publicly rejected him, after Botan said that Yama's winning the fight was somehow a sign of his cruel barbarian heart.
A fair number of the clan actually sympathized with Sora's choice to dismate Yama in the first place; by keeping his dealings with Taro secret from even her, Yama was hardly treating her as a true mate and equal. But after the second rejection…
Yes, Botan was the real villain behind it all, just as Taro was the real villain in the episode "Bushido", and Xanatos was the villain who tricked Goliath into invading Cyberbiotics' airship back in "Awakenings." But in each case, the one who was tricked into doing something, was still responsible for his/her own actions. A lot of people have trouble accepting this, but being tricked into doing something does not absolve you of wrongdoing; it just means that someone else should take some of the blame… but not all of it.
Yama accepted the disgrace of his actions, and paid the price for them that his clan leader demanded, in full. But Sora either refused to accept how wrong she'd been, or just had too much pride to publicly admit it. The closest she ever even came to it, the closest she ever came to asking Yama to forgive her, was that night at the boathouse before Yama left… and she just stood there.
Considering all that, it's no wonder that Kai and the rest are perfectly okay with Yama finding someone else to court. They don't wish Sora ill, but they do wish better for Yama than what he's been subjected to lately.
Besides, Di-Mono appears to be the same age as Yama, and same-age pairings are the rule in gargoyles society (Yama and Sora's mating was the first such cross-generation pairing in nearly two hundred years.) It may be that most of the clan thinks a more conventional mating would last a lifetime, unlike the last one. And there is still a male of Sora's age left unmated, who is interested in Sora even if she's currently not interested in him.
As for Di-Mono/Demona herself... Yes, she's currently teetering on a house of cards. It can't last forever. But after losing so much over the centuries, and being given a bare chance to have some of it back again, she's desperate enough to try anyway…
And that's all I've really got to say at the moment. Well, yes, there's a lot more I could say, but did you think I was going to give everything away here?
Clear skies,
Kimberly
