50k words, here I come!

3

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 03:57:39 GMT

4702 / 50000 words. 9% done!

Okay, I'm still behind on the word count. It's the fourth day, and I'm not even above 5k words yet. Noooo...

By the way, take a look at my profile. It contains some rather... well, not exactly vital things to know about, but it would help to read it just the same. If you want a summary, it's the closest you'll get to it. The profile will be added to from time to time.

Anyway, the next segment, in which the plot pretends to advance, but really doesn't.

“You aren’t exactly being the model perfect guest, you know,” she retorted. “What kind of guest takes over a host’s pillow without asking?”

“My apologies, my dear. But, you see, I’m very tired, and it is physically impossible for me to remove myself from the vicinity of your pillow.”

Ariel wrinkled her forehead and took a long sip of wine. Her head felt dizzy, but it was only the sting of a mind heavy with a clear alertness that she only developed after a few drinks. Whistling, she mentally opened her doors and swallowed back clots of nausea. Her center felt at peace, and Ariel felt ready for anything the dragon throw at her, and ready to shoot back at him.

“You could have just said, ‘I am unable to get up,’ but instead you were long-winded. (“You should talk,” he taunted, but she ignored him.) I should let you know, it’s not very late. Not even midnight. I’m prepared to argue for the property of my pillow for a very long time, if necessary,” she announced. “And, I don’t believe you. I think you’re just lazy.”

“That is true, as well. But unfortunately, I am not trying to spite you.” The newly known male creature dipped his head back in what Ariel realized was a sophisticated, elongated stretch.

“I don’t understand,” Ariel admitted.

“I apologize.”

“I think you’re a liar. No an obnoxious one, but an inconsistent bender of truth.”

“How poetic. A bender of truth? You aren’t the first to call me that splendidiferous title.”

“I think you just made up a word.”

“Maybe.”

There is too much sarcasm in my bedroom, Ariel decided. It was tempting to contribute to the level of sarcasm, but she remembered to calm herself, and recessed back into a state of calm.

“You’re rather small for a dragon, aren’t you?” she couldn’t resist asking.

“Do you think so?” the dragon responded in a mellow, honeyed tone.

Well, Ariel thought. It—I mean, he—is quite considerate in any case.

“Aren’t dragons supposed to be at a little more… fearsome sort of size?” she wondered. “Excuse the personal question. I’ve never met a dragon before, much less one on my pillow.”

“How many dragons do you know if? How many have you seen in person?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve lost count of the ones I’ve seen in movies.”

“I see.”

“I know, I know. I don’t have any right to make assumptions when I know nothing about dragons. But can you blame me for relying on stereotypes? I have nothing else to work with,” Ariel said guiltily.

The dragon said, “Hm,” but in a rattling crow.

“I don’t blame you,” he said.

With that, Ariel took a deep breath and attempted the dangerous. With a hop, she stood up and walked to the head of her bed. The dragon didn’t move at her sudden positioning, not a flex, not a stiffening of the limbs or a flutter. If Ariel still had suspicions of drunken hallucinations or clandestine druggings, they were pushed away now. His body heat radiated off in sheets of warm fuzz, tickling her bare skin and rolling across the cloth of her garments. This was a very real body, one that appeared to be a dragon. Perhaps it was an enchanted, mutated lizard of some sort? That would explain the vocal chords and the unusual appearance. But what kind of lizard spoke like this? It was an intelligent being that Ariel spoke to.

“Aren’t you worried about being stepped on? Or, do you have the ability to fly? I confess, I know nothing about your kind.”

“I’m so portable in this size,” he retorted with a sign. “It’s convenient.”

I think, Ariel thought, that this is the most absurd conversation I’ve ever had. If this is a dream, I wonder what my morning tomorrow will be like.

She moved to sit on her bed, her hips parallel to the edges of her pillow and her legs dangling over the edge of her queen sized mattress. This time, the dragon turned his head along with her course, oval pupils pulsating and irises glowing with specks of gold. A purple flash shimmered down his tail.

Settling herself, Ariel had a realization and dared another question. “Were you following me today?”

“Why do you ask that?” the dragon gurgled.

“You’re as good as anyone else to ask. I think I was being followed by flashes of light as I came home from work, today. And,” Ariel pondered aloud, “Now that I’ve spent so much time in your infinite and wonderful company, I’ve noticed that your scales, if that is what they are, gleam in a rather similar way. It would add up, in a very fictional, novelistic way. I, the unsuspecting heroine, am followed by a mystical being, who comes to warn her of her destiny and the dangers ahead in her life. Does that sound about right?”

“It sounds utterly silly.”

“Well, so what’s the real story then? What’s the reality of our little situation?”

“At the moment, it’s none of your business.”

Ariel pouted, against her better judgment. “I think you sitting on my pillow makes it my business.”

“Then you’ll have to figure me, my dear.”

“But were you following me? Were you?”

“It would be convenient for me to say yes, so shall we assume that I was following you?”

Ariel thought, I shall be angry tomorrow, in the morning. For now, it is the weekend, and I need to rest, to relax, to stay calm. It’s my job to be calm, to stay centered. Work now, even though you’re not being paid.

“I’m going to go get a cup of water,” Ariel told the dragon. “I want to go to sleep as well, so after I finish my cup of water, I will go to the bathroom. When I come back, I will want my pillow back, and I would greatly appreciate it if you would please relinquish my pillow.”

Perhaps Ariel was just drunk, but the dragon seemed to smile. His nostrils flared up, but in the shape of amusement, and bladed teeth sparkled in the electric light.

“All you needed to do was ask politely,” he replied, wrinkling her pillowcase as he stretched out his claws.

“Thank you,” Ariel said politely.

Clutching her glass, she scooped up the wine bottle neck. She took a quick glance back at the dragon, who had laid his head down on his hunches, looking for all purposes and appearances like he was preparing to fall asleep.

The short walk to the kitchen was too ordinary. There were no quick bursts of light, no sparks of color, and no sudden epiphanies of destiny as she half-hoped for. Duza’s paintings along the living room walls were stationary; the furniture merely stayed in place. The apartment floor boards creaked a little, but then again, they always did. Duza waited for the dream to follow her out of her bedroom, but the apartment persisted in its reality, in its stubborn insistence on remaining normal. (Even personifying the apartment and its intentions didn’t make the experience of walking any less lacking in magical atmosphere. Imagination fails Ariel tonight.)

She downed two mug-fulls of water, and the walk back was just as uneventful as the one away from the bedroom.

When she crept back into the room, the dragon still lay on the surface of her pillow. She changed into cotton, striped pajamas, wondering vaguely if stripping in the presence of a mystical, but very male dragon would be deemed improper but too tired to care. Tossing her clothes on the floor, she turned around, and only to face a dragon-shaped imprint on her pillow. Ariel blinked, and felt the radiating body warmth coating the top of her head and rolling down to her hair tips. Looking up, Ariel’s mouth gaped slightly as the dragon winked at her from the ceiling, his limbs curled along the painted panels and his neck extended at a perfect right angle from the ceiling. It was a peculiar experience, staring at the reptilian, angular face, upside down. Two rose of shark teeth glittered, and the head rose, curling away in between two front claws.

In the end, Ariel ended up sleeping in her own bed, her head cradled by her very own pillow, her blanket kept warm by a dragon whose tail swished back and forth along the ceiling, soft sparks of fire trailing with each movement, like shooting stars along a white cloud.

2

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 06:46:24 GMT

3274 / 50000 words. 7% done!

I'm already behind on the word count. Third day, and I should be at 5k words, but alas, I am not. Oh well.

Here we go. In which there is much snarky dialog.

The sun set leisurely, drenching the room in blue, slowly diminishing light. Ariel sets her bottle of wine on her dresser and walks across her bedroom to draw the window curtains. This will not do.

As a child, Ariel had read novels of fictional worlds, where humans were only humans with pink and earth toned colors, no rainbow hues or antlery appendages. Strange humans, who seemed naked to the prepubescent Ariel even when they were clothed. In these worlds, there were no witches and wizards and winged beings. Thrilling worlds, with a hardy and admirable ability to survive solely on electricity. Even better, such magically impossible worlds actually did exist at one point in history.

Yet, the writers of such miraculous environments made dragons a myth there as well. It made sense—if there were no unicorns, then why would dragons exist? But in the back of her mind, the young Ariel could hardly imagine a world without magic, and she could not even begin to picture real, live dragons. It made sense to her that dragons should appear in an impossible world.

Running her fingers along her violet-patterned curtains, Ariel took a deep breath. There must be something in the wine. Maybe Duza had picked up the bottle from the Club, and it just happened to be the wrong one to nab. Perhaps she was just seeing things. It had been a long, tiring day at work, after all. Or… Or maybe Duza had gotten a strange present for her? But that thing on the pillow appeared to be breathing. Green wisps of steam shot out of its nostrils.

This will not do…

“Aren’t you going to say something at all, my dear?”

When it spoke this time, Ariel paid attention to its breathy, harshly tenor toned voice. The sound rang with the timbre of vocal chords, so she deduced that the dragon probably did move its jaws to speak, instead of mind read as her childish self had always hoped.

“And why do I need to say anything?” Ariel replied, playing at the dangling curtain ends. Was that too impertinent a response? It was only the size of her regular, old pillow, but dragons were dragons, and no one can know what a technically nonexistent creature can do when vexed. She turned around slowly to face it.

The dragon had lifted its head, revealing a long, flashing blue neck, dizzying in its curved length. It made a hypnotic image, with its reptilian and feline combined head floating above its body, resting on a pedestal of a neck. But unlike snakes, it held itself perfectly still, a lifelike statue, poised in attack.

Steely eye-lashed lids narrowed halfway, watching. A talon tapped against another, clinking in brilliantly sounding chimes.

So, Ariel reflected. Am I going to be killed?

The dragon snorted, its neck jerking in an undignified spasm. “Surely,” it purred, “you have some sort of opinion about finding a member of the supreme and mystical draconian species presiding in your room? Don’t pretend not to. You humans always have an opinion. You treat it like it’s your god given right.”

Apparently, it was not going slash her throat. Instead, it was going to insult her people?

“What does it matter to you whether or not I have an opinion?” she put forth, slowly, handling each word with care.

Blinking in a droop, the dragon’s head drifted in her direction. “My own vanity, of course,” it answered honestly. “I am very much interest in the sort of reaction my beautiful presence has on lower beings. I hope very much that you contribute to the increase of my ego.”

Was it being sarcastic?

“I think I need a drink,” Ariel announced.

The dragon nodded towards the bottle of peach wine. “Please, do whatever pleases you.”

“How considerate of you,” Ariel noted.

Grabbing the bottle, she took a carefully positioned seat at her computer desk chair.

“I would say,” she continued. Her casual, conversational tone surprised her, but pushed that thought down. “I would say,” she tried again, “that my natural hair color is no business of yours, and I thank you to not make such obnoxious and ignorant comments as that again.”

“That is unfortunate,” the dragon commented.

“Well, you asked for my reaction.”

Maybe it was the alcohol that loosened her tongue, but Ariel felt no shame in her impertinence, which the dragon probably thought she had enough of.

“Since we’re having this conversation, however,” Ariel continued, “I suppose I should let you know that my hair has no natural color. Or, if it did, I’ve long since forgotten what it was.”

She tried not to lean backwards as the dragon’s head drifted closer and closer. It notched its head at an angle. Oval pupils floated within crystalline irises, swirling with so much light that it was impossible to identify its color.

“So,” it remarked, flaring its nostrils, “You’re a shifter of some sort, then?”

“I change my hair color by force of will, if that’s what you mean.”
There was an idle wine glass on her desk, and she filled it to the brim with wine. She tried not to slurp as she sipped.

“Aren’t you wondering what’s happening?” the dragon questioned. A spiked, coiling tail Ariel hadn’t noticed before unwound itself from the dragon’s body, dangling off the side of her bed. It tapped in beats of three against her bed sheets.

“I don’t need to wonder. I am aware of everything I need to know about the current events,” Ariel answered. “I am spending the night in, with my favorite drink in the world. I didn’t expect myself to have company while I got myself quietly drunk, but then again, unexpected things usually happen when alcohol is involved. You appear to be a dragon, and a rather pompous, self-centered one at that. How you got here is a mystery, and I admit, I am seriously considering whether your presence is genuine, or if that bar boy slipped something into my coffee.”

The dragon snorted wisps of purple steam. Its scales gleamed a deep blue as it rearranged its limbs.

“If you prefer to think that you are hallucinating, I certainly will not stop you,” it cackled. It clicks its jaws, not in malice, but contemplation. “However, I can assure that my presence is very, very real.”

“Your assurance is no proof of anything,” Ariel responded.

She raised her glass to her lips, and the dragon reminded her that the chair was really only scant feet away from the bed. It drew near, extending its neck to a length that Ariel would never have guessed. With pointed ears pricked forward and eyes slit with dizzying alertness, the dragon brought its head to her face and breathed out, enveloping Ariel in a gray mist.
An acid green tongue, pointed and glistening, darted out, dipping into her glass. There was no splash.

“Peach,” the dragon observed, “And especially pungent too. I quite approve of your drink.”

“Thank… you?” The glass still pressed on her bottom lip. She lifted it to the light and gazed
through it. “Your saliva isn’t poisonous, is it? I’m not going to get some awful, bizarre disease?”

“No. You may choose to believe or not to believe me, though.”

Ariel glared at the dragon and took a long gulp.

“You see? You are still alive,” the dragon pointed out.

“Or so I think.” Ariel set her glass down and looked at her hands. They hadn’t changed. “What if it you turned my wine into a potion, and I am now under a spell?”

“That could have happened,” the dragon agreed. “But I don’t believe I did anything other than taste. But at least you’re questioning me now. I was getting worried.”

“I’m worried too,” Ariel announced. “What the hell are you doing on my pillow? Are you clean? Did you fart on it? Do dragons fart?”

“You have a comfortable pillow. That’s all.”

It was clear that the dragon was not going to slash her throat. Ariel wasn’t sure if something had happened to her drink, but all the dragon seemed to want to do was talk.
Ariel crossed her legs and finished her glass of wine.

In the end, Ariel could except that she was hallucinating. Maybe the Zebra Association was one of those groups who took revenge on people who didn’t agree whole heartedly with their ideals.

“And why, pray tell, are you hogging my pillow?”

“I’m bored.”

“Eh?”

“I’m bored. That’s it. Very simple.” It scratched at the bottom of its neck with its right hind flank. “My homeland hasn’t been very interesting lately. No one’s throwing wars, no one’s trying to make war with us. Everything’s perfect. I couldn’t stand it. So here I am, in a human world, biding my time in observation.”

“Sounds like a thrilling story,” Ariel noted.

“Thank you.”

Ariel wanted to cross her eyes at the dragon, just for fun, but decided against it. Instead, she said casually, “So, are you male or female?”

“For our purposes, let us assume that I am the male gender.”

“Our purposes? What the hell are our purposes? And why do they belong to both of us?”

“None of your concern.”

“I think it’s certainly my concern if you’re hogging my pillow.”

“You’re really hung up about that, aren’t you? Don’t worry, my dear lady.” (Keep your hand unfisted. It wouldn’t do to punch a dragon, Ariel.) “I assure you that I am as sensitive with my hygiene as the next soccer mother of your world. You need not concern yourself with the state of the pillow.” With that, the dragon adjusted a slender limb and closed its eyes.

“Well what am I going to do when I want to sleep? Go on the couch?” Ariel whined. She didn’t feel it was appropriate to whine like a child. This new dragon friend seemed an easy going sort, except when he was asking for her opinion.

“If you wanted to be a good hostess, then I suppose that would be the best option.”

The dragon annoyed her, Ariel realized.

Day 1

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:38:51 GMT

1560 / 50000 words. 3% done!

Not as many words as I hoped. I was going for 2,000, but it's a school night, and I really need to go to bed.

By the way, at this point, I still haven't come up with a suitable title for my NaNo novel. I have some options, but I'm still feeling them out.

Here we go:

The black coffee seemed to wink at her, but Ariel shut her eyes and took a deep breath. Clearly, she needed something strong, so she ignored the cream and sugar.

The young man offering the coffee toppings pouted at her refusals.

“Well, can I get you anything else then?” he pressed. “A shot of vodka? A candy cherry? Whip cream?”

“Why on earth would I want whip cream in my coffee?” Ariel asked him. She lifted up her mug and breathes in the fumes. The barstool she sat on has a white, velvet cushion, and it suited her very comfortably. Making a mental note of this, Ariel openede her eyes and took a sip of coffee.

“Are you sure?” the young man tried again. “Well, all right then. But please, have you heard of the Zebra Association?”

“Look, I’m only here to pick up dinner,” Ariel cut in, but he cuts in quicker.

“I sincerely believe that the Zebra Association will serve you like no other. Please, take a card. You see our mascot? The blue zebra, a subspecies of the grey zebra, thought to be extinct for centuries until a group of scientists discovered a thriving colony underground, at the African provinces. Like the blue zebra, the Zebra Association was believed a done and dying organization of struggling oldtimers, but just recently, we have revived ourselves. We strive to ensure justice to the common people, to ensure that nobody ever goes extinct...”

A few droplets of spit flew from his mouth at “extinct” and landed a few inches from Ariel’s resting mug. She tapped her fingertips and carefully moved her mug to the side.

“Please, miss.”

Ariel blinked as the young man bowed, holding a small, glossy business card to her with his right hand.

“Please consider the Zebra Association! Our meetings take place right here, at this very bar…”

With a sigh, Ariel took the card and slipped it into her jacket pocket. She downed her coffee in one gulp.

“Is there anything else I can possibly do for you?” the young men asked, his face insistent and eyes bright in the aftereffects of speechmaking.

“You may enquire in the kitchens after my pasta,” Ariel gave in.

“Yes, yes, anything.”

Ariel rolled her eyes at the ceiling as he retreated. All these people, all these youths joining political organizations and not actually being political, only used to recruit more members. But, they lack the confidence to recruit from the sidewalk, to preach to people who truly need inspirational speeches of hope, and instead merely grasp the first new face they see in places containing citizens without a need for extra hope, and might already be in another political organization already.

Somebody, she mused, needs to train these people. Somebody needs to guide these misguided young minds and tell them that in the end, there is no purpose anyway.

The young man returned, carefully placing a packaged meal before her. “You know,” he commented, taking out a plastic bag from behind the bar, “Your hair is blue, just like the bountiful, flowing hues of the Blue Zebra. Perhaps this is a sign that…”

Ariel wanted to tell him, “Your attempts at seductions are wasted effort. You may think yourself young, dashing, and articulate, but in actuality, you are merely a generic face with the ability to talk for long stretches of time. In other words, you are no different from the last misguided youth who accosted me only half an hour ago. Besides, using sex appeal to advertise your association is amateur. Try again with a younger lady. Now, goodbye, and try not to get involved with a real political squabble.”

Instead, she smiled and replied, “Thank you for your service.”

The pasta was prepaid, so she took the plastic bag and hopped off the stool. Her red, leather boots squeaked on the ground, and she pretended not to hear the young man’s last propaganda as she left the restaurant.

Downtown was bustling, as it usually did early evening on a Friday night. Ariel looked away from protesters waving glossy, neon green signs outside a local law firm. As she passed a an old fashioned mechanical toy store, she sidestepped a group of running, dark-haired children and then again to make way for their furiously huffing caretaker. The evening had grown a little warmer, so she took off her black gloves.

Stopping next to a barber shop (closed for the weekend), Ariel allowed herself a few minutes of vanity. The shop windows were wide, and in the summer light, they reflected with the clarity of a silver mirror. She examined her blue-tinged hair, wild and wavy in the wind, and decided that magenta would be her next hair color. Turning her chin, she noticed a smudge in her lipstick, but decided against retouching it. Her apartment was not that far away.

A light glimmered next to her reflection’s elbow, and Ariel cautiously fingered the air it appeared in. She felt nothing.

Just like the wink in the coffee, she noted.

“I got another one,” she announced as she unlocked her apartment door.

Duza, her roommate, sitting at the couch, looked up in interest. Even Duza’s five snakes, twisting at her head, swiveled around in hissing interest. Flipping a magazine page, she raised an eyebrow.

“Which animalian operation recruited you today?” Duza asked.

Kicking off her boots, Ariel joined her in the living room, dropping the pasta bag onto an oak table.

“The zebra with blue stripes, this time,” she answered. Briskly, she wiped off her lipstick with a napkin and opened the box.

“Can I see it?”

Ariel handed Duza the card. Receiving it with green-tipped fingernails, Ariel’s Gorgon girl roommate giggled at the gaudy yellow font and the clashing colors.

“I should add this to my collection,” Duza remarked, but a small, red garden snake whisked it from her fingers. It sunk within the other snakes, camouflaged in Duza’s ruby hair.

“Do you want me to get it back?” Ariel offered kindly.

Waving a hand, Duza answered, “Don’t bother. They were getting hungry, and you know how they can be.”

“That’s the fourth business card they’ve taken though. One of these days, they might take something important, you know.”

“But, they’ve only taken cards you got from other people. And who needs theme?” Duza grinned in triumph and took a fork.

They made a rare pair, the human and the Gorgon girls. Although it was not unusual for two members of different human subspecies to coexist, Ariel and Duza were one of only five sets of cohabitants, in which one of them also housed an additional species on their body. Sometimes, Ariel did feel like she had more than one roommate. Duza’s snakes certainly ate their full share of food.

“I think I was being followed today,” Ariel remarked as they finished the pasta with a glass of peach wine.

Duza sighed and looked at Ariel with resigned eyes. “You should be more careful. The cafes you hang out at aren’t always as safe as they look on the outside.”

“You give them too much credit,” Ariel shot back. “Political organizations aren’t so organized that they’d follow potential recruits home. I would have been able to lose them if it political people were stalking me.”

A blue snake rested its head on Duza’s shoulder and flickered a tongue at Ariel.

“Nothing can happen to me,” Ariel insisted. “Having no political affiliation does have its benefits.”

“Yes, the benefit of being no danger to anyone. I disagree with that. You’re a danger to everyone, because nobody knows what direction you’ll go,” Duza commented, stroking the head of the blue snake.

Smiling, Ariel hummed. “A little guessing couldn’t hurt. No, I was being followed by somebody who knows how to stay hidden. But, don’t worry. If somebody wanted to kill me, I’m sure they would have found a loophole.”
Duza glared at her. “Don’t say things like that.”

“I’m sorry.”

Sighing, Duza took a last swig of wine. “Well, speaking of organizations, I’m off to organize a party for the big boss. Why can’t I have regular workdays instead of Friday gigs?”

“It’s your own fault for choosing the unconventional vocation.”

“Oh yes, I remember now. Do you want to come? Ladies always get in free on Friday nights.”

“And that’s why there will be too many people at your club tonight.” Ariel shook her head. “I’m sorry, I think I’ll get pleasantly drunk by myself tonight, on this very couch. The toilet’s right there, in case I lose control without you.”

“Suit yourself.”

When Duza left in a shower of black heels and black eyeliner, Ariel decided to take the wine into her bedroom. Unfortunately, there was a dragon sleeping on her pillow.

“But I’ve only had one glass of wine so far,” Ariel said out loud, and wondered why she had voiced it out loud.

Her statement woke the dragon, and it raised a scaled, long-lashed eyelid droopily. Its size was hardly frightening, for it just big enough to cover the entire expanse of her pillow, but only that. It gleamed in its purple-tinted scales, illuminating the silver talons decorating its claws.

Ariel nearly dropped the bottle of wine when it spoke.

“That,” it proclaimed, revealing a mouthful of small, ivory-pale fangs, “is not your true hair color.”

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:15:02 GMT

This is the NaNoWriMo writing journal for dawnsama. At the moment, this LJ is still under construction. In fact, the username might change too... We'll see. I'll be using this LJ to read other NaNo LJs, so if you have one, please friend me! (Or, I'll friend you...)