A matter of priorities.

As night began to fall, Acacia spirals down to land on the icy mountain side. It was a good place to study the undead and learn their patterns. The fae guard had been patrolling and watching on the shore of Anar as they protected their home. The pattern thus far had been that a small group headed each night for Anar, walking into the water and heading under it making their slow way across the river bottom, As the dawn broke each morning they had turned back. Each day they had made progress, finding faster routes over the stones and deep trenches. The guard had reported to her the movements that they had noted and they seemed mainly focused on heading into Sylvhara.

Standing in the chill waters that welled up from deep with in the mountain, she watched, studying them closely. Malada had warned that the obelisk had started to throw lightening a well. Undead skeletons, Could this be Eccho up to some new trick? People kept suggesting Dinnin, but he employed demons for his tasks, as well as offering to help with them for a price. Whoever it was, there was a reason, and there had to be a solution. She knew that the rangers and others had held the line, and at great cost.

The icy water rushed past her ankles, as she studied them looking for a pattern. Her stomach turned as she studied these animated bits of death. It was the signs of their life that made them so repugnant to her. She stilled her winds as she felt them fluttering with the the urge to be gone from here, These skeletons were different than the ones she had fought in Anurum. It was the bits of clothing and flesh that clung to their bones, it was clear that they had once been living and were now dead. The other difference she noted was the eyes. They glowed green, something about the color tugged at her thoughts but she just could not place it.

Serendipityes trilled as a skeletal hand grasped the edge of the rock face. Acacia intent on studies of the ruins and the monolith, did not look up but merely responded “hmmm?” Serendipityes flew into her line of sight, “Undead, here now!”  Acacia looked to where she pointed, pulling on the weave a purple glow surrounding her as she pulled strongly, focusing on the skeletal warrior who hand pulled himself over the cliff face and was headed her way.  The sword caught the last light of the setting sun, causing it to flash a dull red, broken by the patched of rust and nicks that  covered the blade. The blade had areas of blackness as if it had been burned. What she had heard flashed through her mind in a split second, they had burned them, yet they just kept coming. The chilly water she stood in, swirled around her legs, The current seeming stronger, as if the water itself wishes to fight this undead being.  Before it could bring its sword to a ready stance, Acacia comanded in a clear voice, “Eilimint na Cruinne, ordaímse duit, Tabhair amach as an cloch sin a mhian liom.” (Element of water, I command you, freeze and dance your tiny flowers about us). It was one of the first spells she had learned, and the water lept to do her bidding,  a squall of snow and ice rising from the water and rushing to surround the warrior in a binding wall of snow, as ice slowly formed over the bones and rotting flesh that made his creature. She heard Sere’s shout of “Another comes, there are several  of them”  She had not brought her bow or staff, and the crystal dagger she wore seemed useless. Acacia lifted from the ground and took flight, moving out from the cliff face and she continued to pour mana from the weave into the ice storm. As she flew, one of the skeletons swung his sword and managed to strike a glancing blow on her leg.  The undead warriors turned and moved to the edge of the cliff, all of their green eyes turned to her. The ice of the storm grew thick on them, freezing them into place.

From her airborn vantage, she kept pouring power into the spell until the ice was thick and growing opaque. They had never scaled the cliffs before, but yet they had come after her.  Looking down, she looked where the others far below were headed, Along each path was a place of Magic, nodding to herself as she lifted further, This was something they would have to deal with at the root of the problem. Fighting them by herself would be a waste of effort for the best she could hope would be to slow the tide, not stop it. The monolith had to be removed, and that would require all working together.

It was a matter of priorities, First the Illithid and then this. With a nod to Sere to follow, she headed home to Anar.

 

 

A matter of rules.

A Sonnet is a poem of an expressive thought or idea made up of 14 lines, each being 10 syllables long. Its rhymes are arranged according to one of the schemes – Italian, where eight lines called an octave consisting of two quatrains which normally open the poem as the question are followed by six lines called a sestet that are the answer, or the more common English which is three quatrains followed by a rhyming couplet.

I have been feeling rather philosophical about rules. I tend to think of them as the frame work on which we create our artwork, but lately I have been thinking of them more in terms of creating a Sonnet. You have a set of rules that must be followed or it is not a Sonnet. Within the structure of those rules, you have absolute freedom to do what you will, and it is still a sonnet. Others will either like or dislike it, but all know it to be a Sonnet.  When you do not follow the rules, it can still be a poem, but it is not a Sonnet.

I have been feeling lately like I was told that we are all here to write Sonnets. I was made to learn the rules, and when I tried to bend or push them, I was told no. We only allow Sonnets.   Now, I find that I am still feeling constrained to write Sonnets, while others get to write Haiku and other still get to write freeform verse with no rules at all.

There is a bit of frustration that comes when it get hard to write a Sonnet, when you see how easy it is to write a haiku in comparison, and people tell you to ignore those writing free form as no one respects them anyway.  Yet, there they are shouting free form verse as you are quietly trying to write your Sonnet.

I have been trying to be more accepting of the fact that perhaps we are all writing poetry. However, when we are creating a group piece, and three people are writing Haiku, someone else is doing only rhyming couplets, and our loner shouting their free form verse, It makes it impossible for me to do what I set out to do, write a Sonnet.

Why is it that they have to be allowed to write their poetry because otherwise they will not have fun?  Why is their fun more important than my ability to have fun?