Rogue Ink: *Special Weekend Edition*

Hi Readers,

Before we dive into this week’s episode, we must gush about Organic Ink.

What is it?

50 authors. 1 mission: to free your mind and take you on a wild ride through the lens of poetry.

These fifty (50!) authors remind you of your childhood, bring comfort from the hardships of life, fiercely spur emotions, and tell tales of old. All lovers of poetry will find a favorite here.

That’s pretty awesome, but what did our Scribe contribute?

I’m glad you asked that. This is Ran, son of Sarn, in case you were wondering. Well, way back around the time our Scribe, Melinda, lost her sister, Carolyn to complications of diabetes, she started a blog and fell in with some very talented poets.

Those were dark days for us because Melinda wasn’t writing much about me or Papa. Instead, Melinda went a little crazy and wrote a quest story, which she named Quest, and she wrote in—wait for it—Shakespearean sonnets.

Yes, you read that right. Only our Scribe would be crazy enough to write an epic fantasy story in sonnets instead of paragraphs. Quest follows Heneth, a grieving man, who sets out one day from his treetop village for one last walk through the enchanted forest.

Little did he know what adventure awaited him. Quest takes place in the past when Shayari was wilder; its inhabitants were more magical, and anything was possible.

The first 10,000 words of Quest is featured in Organic Ink vol. 1. Check it out now. You can pre-order Organic Ink for $2.99 until June. 30 then the price goes up, so grab it now.

Before you put away your wallets, I have good news! Rogue Skies is finally on Amazon! Hit that pre-order button and snag it for 99 cents:

And now for what you’ve been waiting for. Return with us to the boiler room as we continue our special newsletter feature starring me, Papa, our Scribe, Uncle Miren and a bunch of other people in:

Dragonish Problems, Part 8

Missed an episode? Catch up here: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7.

A scream of ultimate agony pierced the sudden quiet, and we all turned to stare out the gaping hole in the boiler room’s wall. A book the size of a mini-van had smashed through it just minutes before. Oh, and it had eaten our dragon, but she’d deserved it.

The Newsletter-Dragon had caused a lot of problems, and I was glad something had caged her because she needed a time-out. The now dragon-free boiler system hissed and wheezed and gurgled as it struggled to make heat. It was a weird boxy thing with pipes funneling water in and steam out to heat the apartments in the complex, and it sounded more than a little strained.

I leaned into Papa’s leg and pulled his cloak around me because it was cold in here and getting colder because of the giant hole in the wall.

“What was that sound?” I asked because someone had to.

We were all wondering who had screamed. If someone needed help, I wanted Papa to help them.

“Maybe it was the dragon.” Uncle Miren toed the pages of the book that had eaten her.

We all waited for a scream or a snarky rejoinder, but none came. Maybe the dragon really was gone.

“Is it planning on eating anyone else?” I asked because I still needed an answer to that question.

I craned my neck to see around Papa. He liked to stand between me and potential sources of danger, like all the debris the book’s explosive entrance had thrown our way. A thin, green-glowing sphere held chunks of drywall, cement, broken bricks, and several rhododendron bushes that book had shoved into the boiler room when it had smashed its way in.

Papa was the tall silent type, who listened more than he spoke. Don’t get me wrong. If Papa has something to say, he says it, especially to me, but he was content to let me do the talking while he did the shielding. At least that’s how I interpreted the slight smile he was wearing.

When no one piped up, I glanced at Auntie Sovvan for an answer to my question. She and Papa were twins, so if you feminize Papa’s features and erased his scars, you got my aunt’s rather confused face.

“I don’t think so,” Auntie Sovvan said finally, but she moved away from the giant book just in case she was wrong about that.

In fact, seeing her here raised a bunch of questions, namely, “where have you been? Did that book eat you too?” I asked.

The last time I’d seen my aunt outside the pages of our books, there had been some giant, flying books and she and the Newsletter-Dragon had come to rescue us from them.

I know. The Newsletter-Dragon is a tricky one. Sometimes, she’s a help; sometimes, she’s a hindrance, and sometimes, she’s the problem. Who knew which one she’d be tomorrow.

A thoughtful look crossed Auntie Sovvan’s face as she considered my question. “Huh. I think it might have.”

“If you can get out, then that dragon can.” Uncle Miren backed away from the book imprisoning said dragon. “How do we send it back to where it came from?”

“Why are you looking at me? I didn’t bring it here.” Auntie Sovvan waved away all such notions.

“Then who did?” Papa asked before I could.

“I did.”

We all regarded the metallic angel squatting in the corner. We’d forgotten about her in the kerfuffle. There was a pile of debris in between her and us, which made it hard to see anything but her head, shoulders and coppery wings.

“And who are you?” Uncle Miren beat me to the question. No fair.

I tugged on his cloak but stayed inside Papa’s protective shield. “Hey, that’s my question,” I said when Uncle Miren glanced at me. Papa’s shield had engulfed him too.

Uncle Miren shrugged. “Does it matter who asked as long we get an answer?” He directed that last part to the aloof metallic angel who had yet to speak.

“Well, no,” I said, but I wasn’t sure about that, so I bobbed up on my toes and stared at the angel too.

“Changes come in three,” she said as she rose from her crouch.

Behind her, everything got really wavy and smeary like the world outside the hole in the wall was melting.

“What’s happening?” I tugged on Papa’s pant leg when he didn’t immediately answer me.

Find out next week. We’ll have more on Rogue Skies too. See you then.