EBV3 Excerpt - Dream - Chapter 52 Start

Whenever I read parts of my manuscript now, I try to think of how I'd conceptualize them in my development art project. I just read a part before this where I thought I would show the change in season by a classic change in colour palette, from soft green to orange, to blue grey and in this, I think I would use very bold tones of red in green, like what I used in some of my older paintings. When I work with acrylics I often enjoy the use of bolder, harder colours than when I normally colour things, which I think is kind of interesting. (Of course that's partially because paint kind of infuriates me.) In any case, enjoy this excerpt from Emperor's Blood where we get to see some interaction between Ki and another character. Draft.


Summery fields stretched as far away as the horizon, rows upon rows of potatoes and squash roasting under a warm dry sun. Ki could taste the heat in the air and there was a divine odour of dry greenery that he had always liked, combined with the flavour of ripening apples. Horses grazed nearby in a paddock fenced with white washed boards, chestnut, sorrel and bay, express horses like Snip had been, fine boned but shaggy, small yet swift with feathering on their slender legs. Ki leaned back in the scratchy old grey wooden rocking chair on the veranda of the red painted farmhouse. It wasn’t his farm, the one he had grown up on, but it was comfortable and soothing and nobody was there but him. There was a scruffy black dog resting at his feet on top of an old scrap rug woven of tidbits of fabric and on top of the veranda railing there sat a ginger tabby cat that was washing itself. If Ki breathed in deep enough he could smell a lake nearby and the sand on the road that led to it beyond the orchard trees that shaded the property. In the yard a flock of little red chickens clucked under a fairytale blue sky that had been swirled with clouds.

Nobody there but him and his animals. Ki sighed heavily in relief. This place was paradise. If he never had to leave it he would be extremely happy.

“It’s not real you know.” said a voice from in front of the door. Ki lazily looked over, recognizing his friend the dragon.

“This place? Yeah. I know. It’s too good to be real.” said Ki, slowly rocking the chair, the motion soothing him. The world seemed real enough as the dog looked up at him with big soft brown eyes and wagged its tail. Ki stopped rocking to reach down and pet it and felt reassuringly fine black fur sweep against his fingertips. The dog put its head back down and moaned contentedly as the dragon came closer, its sharp claws clicking against the wood of the porch.

“You have a vivid imagination Vininiska.” said the dragon, sitting down and staring contemplatively at the dog. “Is that a dog? A real dog?”

“Yep.” said Ki, smiling sleepily at the paddock where the horses were and beginning to rock again. Everything was so green and lovely. There were white flowers planted near the pasture and one of the horses was straining to get at them through the fence. “That’s a real dog.”

“I’ve never seen a dog. They’re not something from here you know. We don’t have them.” said the dragon, twitching its tail as it peered at the cat. “And that, Vininiska, is the oddest looking cat that I have ever seen. I can’t help but disapprove of the colouring of it. Shouldn’t it be black? Or grey? Or white? Shouldn’t its fur be longer?”

“Nope. That’s a real cat.” said Ki fondly. “Not like your cats. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t listen. All he does is purr and ask for pets. He’s a good cat. A normal cat.”

“Doesn’t look normal at all to me.” said the dragon, peering at the horses. “Those horses are peculiar as well. What are those little red things? Food?”

“Chickens. They lay eggs. Nice animals.” said Ki. The dragon recoiled.

“You don’t eat them? That’s very strange Vininiska. Very strange.” said the dragon. Ki did not have the energy to glare at it.

“You’re much stranger than the chickens. I don’t even know who you are.” said Ki. “You just appeared one day. Who are you?”

The dragon seemed to grin at him. “Who am I…? What sort of question is that? We met a long time ago.”

“I don’t remember.” said Ki. “Do you know where Hunter is? There‘s nobody I can really ask besides you.”

“The not-dog? I know. Of course I know. I know everything - almost - didn’t you know that?” asked the dragon, quirking its head. Its lips did not move when it spoke; it simply held its mouth open.

“No.” said Ki, running a hand through his hair. In this dream, it was perfect hair, not short ticked drakoon hair that stood up impossibly, but longer, silkier hair like a human’s, like Hunter’s but as black as soot.

“Well. You’re very strange you know.” said the dragon. “Yes but… ah, yes. Hunter. He’s fine. He’s doing better now. For a while I was not sure if he would live, but he came through in the end. He’s actually managed to make himself quite happy, so I would not worry about him. He lives by a waterfall. The one I worry about is you… are you doing any better? It’s been almost four and a half months since you came home to us.”

Ki sat up and in the distance, his idyllic dream of a farm with no problems started chipping away, the details going first, the landscape, then the animals, then the chair Ki sat on, then the smells. The dragon remained, its yellow eyes and pink mouth stark against the colourless world of the dream. Ki had the strangest feeling that it was real, that unlike the farm of his imaginings the dragon was truly there, sitting there with him in his mind, touchable, reachable, like he could have met it in the real world and continued a discussion with it. He wasn’t dictating what it was saying or what it was doing. It had no smell, yet for some reason Ki did not expect it to have any smell. It was not really a creature that should have one.

“I suppose… I suppose I’m getting better.” said Ki hesitantly. “But… you know I don’t really know what better is. Better just feels different to me. Was I ever really healthy?”

“You were when you were born. You were very strong then.” said the dragon, as if it had been there.

“Well. I can run while holding my wings up now without falling over. My tail barely makes me trip at all anymore and I can outrun both of Kelveniska’s sketzine. I can almost write my name. Um. I suppose you don’t care about that.” said Ki.

“Not particularly, but I’m gladdened to hear that you are improving.” said the dragon sighing as it stood up. “I’m afraid I have to go prematurely Vininiska. Be good today. I’ll keep looking out for that human of yours if you concentrate getting ready for the war that’s coming.”

“Wait!” said Ki, standing up. “Why are you going? You’re the only person besides Dansen that I can talk to! What war? Please stay and tell me! Why do I have to get ready for war?”

“This land is always at war with somebody.” shrugged the dragon. “Hasn’t anybody told you that?”

“No!” yelped Ki. “I got deported here just so that I could be a soldier in some war?!

“No. You’re the one who’s going to make the war.” said the dragon, staring at him speculatively, pausing in mid step. “Well, I’d love to stay and talk to you longer, but you’re waking up. Goodbye for now Vininiska. Be good. Be ready.”

Gettin' in the Mood for Drakoon

Sometimes when writing, especially for a weird crew of characters like the drakoon, it's a good idea to do some shorter conceptual writings and short stories to really get the feel for them and their society, as well as that society's mood. If you don't know what drakoon are, read my epic Post for Drakoon which may not entirely tell you what they are but might at least tell you how obsessive I am about them. Well, here's another obsessive post, in the form of a sort of faux quote which may be used at the start of the next book in the Emperor's Blood trilogy, which is appropriately named Kill Copper. From the sheer nature that this post is about drakoon, it shall prove morbid contrast to my last posting on this blog! Keep in mind, this is mood writing. The drakoon are meant to sound mildly psychotic - they are actually cursed to warfare, unlike humans who have a choice to make peace or not. Be happy you're human and that drakoon aren't real. I am!

***


“At first, it’s just an irrational weird feeling you get. You see another drakoon, maybe a young one or somebody you’ve quarrelled with once or twice and you have this really odd urge to do something nasty to them, like shake their neck in your teeth and feel ‘em between your jaws. You kind of wonder then what their blood would taste like and a moment later, ‘fore you know it, well, you do know what it tastes like, ‘cus you’re attacking them. You don’t altogether know why. They could even be a complete stranger, but see, you’ve got your teeth around ‘em and you’re not letting go so it doesn’t matter who they are. You don’t know why you‘re doing what you are. You just want to keep biting them. You don’t need a reason. You just do it. Then somebody clouts you over the head and you remember who you are, but hey, that nasty little feeling stays, just a little, a whisper in the back of your skull that wants you to kill some more, to bite some more heads. Eventually, you can’t deny it no more. Eventually, you start to like it. The only cure is elf’s blood but see, there’s the real problem - there aren’t elves around anymore, so unless somebody bloods you, you‘re just as dead as them you’ve been biting ‘cus the Imperialty‘ll kill you. It’s not nice or fair and no fault of yours, but well, that’s the curse of our species. We’re doomed to it. A blooded drakoon can still get like this, but at least he’s under control somewhat. Mostly.”

- Grand Commander Konara of the First Imperial Sloveniskan Army
to his son Momentaru of Sloveniska on the subject of Kill-Copper.


Kill-Copper. It’s the name given to the mother of all curses, the involuntary instinct made permanent by a very vengeful World Spirit in the brains and minds of all drakoon, an instinct which without the use of Blood Magic, would have seen the drakoon species go extinct within the first one hundred years of its conception. For Kill-Copper, drakoon of every age and bloodline often go insane with the absolutely undeniable urge to kill Rimer’s enemies, with a specific gearing towards Copper Elves. Since these are in short supply, drakoon turn instead of the closest thing to - each other. Only Blood Magic can bridle the instinct, but even that cannot completely control it. Sometimes, drakoon go awry regardless and in many cases, the only cure to that is euthanization. As a result, drakoon live their lives in tight proverbial chains, tied to an emperor through a concept of magic and ‘smells-like-me’ (referring to a drakoon’s ability to detect subtle individual differences in blood DNA which is mixed around via blooding).


***

As you can probably guess, the book Kill Copper will indeed have something to do with this instinct... but then, it's about drakoon!

Not sayin' anymore!

Wild Fire Writing Test

This is a scene that has proven to be rather iconic for the planning of the Ancient Era Copperbane books. This takes place in 'Wild Fire' and it's sort of character interaction between Kayoss Calmbreeze (probably the most well known of my characters) and the Bronze Hunter Derenze. This is set before Kayoss meets Spiira, who is at this time only a foal. This was written in 2007 and my writing style has improved in leaps and bounds since then, so here's the scene, as it was written on March 12th 2007 when I was in high school grade 11. This piece is also unique because it is one of very few literary pieces that is dated.

‘WILD FIRE’ Writing Test
Rosanna P. Brost
March 12th 2007

Winter Hunt Scene with Derenze, Vera and Kayoss Calmbreeze

Kayoss’s hunger was a knot in his abdomen that refused to die away, a ripple that caused him to scramble to his paws and sniff hopefully at the air. Fear made him hesitant as he picked his way through the winter starved brambles, alert for any stirring of movement. He knew it was foolish, that even the demon wouldn’t hunt in this sort of weather, but he wasn’t altogether sure if his enemy would stay home. Perhaps, like Kayoss, he would be out today, hunting.

But the demon and his blasphemy that was most definitely a horse did not hunt for food. Kayoss knew. He’d observed him. No, the demon hunted for no reason at all, except to carve the skins off his prey’s sometimes still half alive flesh and then leave the desecrated thing behind. The hateful sinner would do this deed to Kayoss as well, if Kayoss didn’t continue to be one paw ahead of him. The greatest sin in the world was for a predator to kill without fair reason, and then the killer had to as much of what they caught as possible, out of respect for the dead. The demon did not respect what he slaughtered. Kayoss doubted the thing needed food - if it was starving wouldn’t it of eaten its horse by now?

He slunk through the winter paralyzed trees, the wind making their branches shiver. Kayoss disregarded the spore he left in his path; there was nothing he could do about it. He cursed winter and its telling conditions, wishing for summer when he would surely have less confrontations with the demon. A sound made him stop. Below him, in a shallow ravine was a herd of browsing forest deer. Kayoss’s mouth watered at the sight of them and he made his way around them so that he was downwind of them. Slowly he eased himself towards them, senses fixed on them. Despite himself he found himself licking his jaws in anticipation as he picked out a tired buck. Survival of the fittest. That was another law the demon seemed to disregard.

Kayoss put one paw forward, ready to spring with jaws snapping at his prey and paused. One of the deer was looking straight at him! His eyes widened; had it seen him? Then, there was the most unnerving sensation of being watched… Kayoss scarpered, not caring that it sent his prey scurrying for cover. He dodged behind a tree and heard something hit it with a solid sound. There was a short sound, like a curse and he knew it was the demon. Kayoss swore lustily and ran again, dodging and weaving through the trees as the tempo of horse’s hooves picked up behind him.

The trees were too close together for him to take off and besides, he feared doing it. The demon’s aim with his death sticks was painfully good. Kayoss leaped a log and scrambled around a tree trunk, slipping as he put weight on his right hind leg in the slush. He got up and jumped out of the way only just in time as yet another death stick thudded into the ground. Kayoss charged recklessly down a hill, barely able to stay on all fours as he struggled to keep his footing. He leapt across a muddy creek bed, using his wings as extra propulsion. Behind him the horse followed suit, her senses fixed on his bushy tail.

Kayoss galloped up the embankment, his breath searing in his chest and surging with his panic. He crested it and practically fell down the other side, landing in a patch of soft muskeg. The falcolf ran easily across it and onto the solid vastness of a iced over lake. He sprinted onto it eagerly, hoping desperately for a friendly wind current. Behind him there was a splash and a cry.

Despite himself Kayoss turned and looked back at his enemy, whose horse had gotten stuck up to her chest in the muskeg. She was an unnatural coloured thing with white where tawny should be. The mare pawed and kicked desperately, whinnying to her rider who has fallen off of her back. Beneath Kayoss there was a crackling sound and he looked down. The ice at his paws was melting and becoming thinner very quickly. Cracks were starting to radiate out from it.

The demon was getting up and was running towards him, readying a death stick with his larger one. Kayoss knew he couldn’t fly now. He was a sitting duck - unless… Kayoss leapt in the air and came down with all four paws at the ice, with unexpectedly gave way beneath him. Inky black water incased him and he sank towards the bottom, his hidden gills spreading along his neck. Kayoss opened his mouth, running the liquid through them and breathed. He could stay down here forever.

But he had better things to do than hide in a lake. If he didn’t find the hole he’d made coming in, he'd very well be stuck in it for quite a while, and while he knew he’d be safe from the demon, he also knew the lake to be infested with freshwater pike. Kayoss found the glimmer of dusty light that was his hole and swam to it, grabbing the edge with his paws. It was almost more trouble than it was worth; the ice kept breaking under his hot claws as he sought purchase.

Finally he managed it and trotted away from his hole, shaking out his wings as he did. He paused, remembering the demon and looked over. The creature was staring at him and was much closer than Kayoss’s comfort permitted. Kayoss growled low, displaying his teeth. The demon smiled at him and bowed his head. The falcolf jerked around at the unmistakably Fallan gesture, eyes wide and ears pricked. Kayoss watched then as the strange animal turned and strode away the horse. Remembering that he needed to escape, Kayoss spread his wings and took off, pondering at his enemy's actions.

Was it possible that it might have another side to it that Kayoss didn't know about?

The Post for Drakoon

This is a subject I've been dying to write about, so it's fitting that it's the first true post of this blog. It's my rant about how I developed the culture of my favourite of my species that I have created for my world; my dear shape shifters, the drakoon.

Drakoon are in essence, a beast and a man all in one. Original concepts of them had them coined as rather anthropomorphic crosses between dark haired humans and dragons, the idea for which coming from the old Playstation game labelled The Legend of Dragoon. Drakoon back then were called 'draygoon' and were rather tribal looking things that seemed to hunt a lot of fish. I was just a kid then and I didn't particularly like the look of the fell beasties, so they were scrapped - but only temporarily. I never completely trash an idea; even the anthropomorphism has returned somewhat in the manuscript of Emperor's Blood but only in a certain aspect. Today's drakoon look nothing like the early draygoon. I'd like to note here that the video game took the name 'dragoon' from the military - it was a word used for certain cavalry units - that's right - it had nothing to do with dragons originally, but everything to do with horses. I believe that my drakoon are a better throwback to the original dragoon than the video game ones. My drakoon do ride horses after all and go to battle.

What's not to love about drakoon? They're a bunch of guys with a talent for war who ride around on magic talking horses with magic talking cats, who just happen to have the ability to transform into dragons. Pretty much universally, everyone can agree that dragons are badass, but while drakoon are cool and try to kill each other a lot, there's a lot more to them than that. If there wasn't, they'd be quite boring creatures and I probably would not nearly be as obsessed with them as I am - there are to be five - count it five books in the Copperbane Series which focus on drakoon! They're more important than the humans!

Obviously, I've spent a lot of time with these guys. Of course, seeing as they're imaginary, this means I tend to spend most of my hours staring off into space or getting epiphanies about ways that I could further mess with these creatures of mine. Drakoon are interesting to write and think about. No other creature is both man and beast, all in one. Instead of looking to human cultures for inspiration (though originally I gleaned much from the notion of Samurai) I looked to animal, so that I could make the drakoon seem more different, more original. So many fictional races of people seem like carbon copies of cultures seen here on Earth and drakoon are supposed to not only be completely unrelated to humans, but completely alien as well. (Quite literally.) Many humans haven't the slightest notion of how animals behave and many are only interested in other humans. Well, I'm different damn it! I prefer and understand animal cultures better than human ones.

Do animals have cultures? You betcha they do! In the society of the wolf whose doctrine I follow, the pack is a tight-nit family group led by two wolves called the alphas. Now, here's where it gets interesting - most people are under the mistaken conclusion that the pack is led by the alpha male, but in fact it is led by his wife, the alpha female.* It's her job to rally the pack and before a hunt, it has been observed that alpha female wolves will 'pep talk' the other wolves by dragging a fragment of the prey they are to hunt such as an antler, schooling the pack on how they will attack. After the alphas, there is the betas, male and female respectively depending on pack numbers. While most people believe that it is the alphas who are the biggest and baddest wolves of the bunch, this is not at all true - the alphas are just the smartest. The biggest and strongest wolves are the two betas, who serve as the pack's bodyguards. They're the first to attack in territorial battles and as second in commands, they can give orders in the alpha's stead. After the betas, many people would believe that the subordinates come next with the omega being everyone else's punching bag, but again, this is a misconception! The omega is in fact a very important part of the pack, his or her goal being to disperse tension in the group and their high rank is proven by how betas have been observed to save some of the better meat, the guts, for the omega.



Higher ranking wolves have brighter coloured pelts because they have better diets, eating the liver, heart and other such innards. When it comes to hunting, a wolf pack is a highly synchronized and strategic unit, each wolf taking their turn during the hunt. I have heard rumours that some native hunting techniques were taken from wolves. Whether or not this is true I cannot say, but the idea is certainly a romantic one. Back to wolves, every member of the pack cares for the pups and wolves work hard to impress the alphas so that they can be the pups' 'nanny.' Furthermore, a wolf's howl is further proof of culture in this wildly intelligent species - wolves howl for a variety of reasons, from rallying a hunt, howling for fun and locating other pack members to celebrating the birth of pups and mourning the loss of loved ones.

That's right - wolves mourn their dead.

Think about that game hunters as you go to load your gun to shoot these animals for no good reason. I have nothing but despise for game hunters - if you're going to shoot a healthy wild animal, shoot it for the same reason a wolf kills an elk - because you're hungry and want to eat it. Do not ever shoot your fellow predator, because often times, they're holding the environment together much better than you are and are ecologically far more important than you are. Remove humans from an ecological region and it recovers. Remove key stone predators such as wolves and it collapses completely. Wolves themselves are key stone predators - remove them from an environment and the entire web of life falls apart, as seen in many habitats across the world. Wolves once ranged across more land than even mankind, living on every single continent except Antarctica, a true testiment to their ecological value and evolutionary design. Wolves are perfection, which is the reason they serve as inspiration for so many of the species in my series.

With drakoon though, it wasn't a wolf's superior evolutionary physical design that inspired me, but their great loyalty to their fellow wolf. A wolf pack is tight nit - even more so than some human families and the closest approximation to a wolf in human society as far as I can tell is that of a military unit, or very well bonded team. In my lifetime, I have been lucky enough to have been part of a Scout troop called 1st Pleasant Valley and it was here that I experianced the majestic synergy that can only come when a group works absolutely perfectly with each other. On top of these experiances with the 1st, I have also studied first hand accounts of war, such as Farley Mowat's 'And No Birds Sang' and Tim O'Brian's 'If I Die in a Combat Zone'... (Box me up and Ship me Home!). Mowat's account was of World War II while O'Brian's was of Viatnam. Also of note I have read the world renowned novel 'All Quiet on the Western Front' by Erich Maria Remarque, which is an account of the 'other side' of 'the war' (WWII) - the Germans. No matter the war, no matter the side, I have discovered a common theme. In times of combat, soldiers bond very tightly together and they don't fight for whatever cause their oft-times idiot governments told them to fight for. They fight for each other and their families. They fight to live and kill only because they have been thrown into a situation of 'it's him or me.' Are there soldiers who seriously like to kill? Yes. But they are not at all common.

There is a different kind of culture in the military and drakoon, as warfarers themselves, are alike to this. Tim O'Brian would have me believe from his account of Vietnam that garish nicknames were all too common and that nobody cared about how foul your language was. Soldiers are gutter mouths. Why would anyone care about lingual pleasantries when there are bullets in flight? There are rivalries. There are deep friendships. Military culture is fascinating and seems truly a different world from what we experiance every day.



So; the drakoon. I have spent enough time blathering about their inspirations. Now I will speak of them themselves. Drakoon to me are the species which can never have peace, because while humans have a choice in whether or not they go to war, drakoon do not, no thanks to a fatal element of their mental design instilled by one of the major characters. (Who no, is not Kayoss.) No race is to be more pitied than them, because while humans have the capacity for serenity, drakoon simply do not. That's it. End game. They are the species which simply can not make peace, because it is quite literally not in their natures to have peace. They have been doomed to an eternity of anguish.

Drakoon start their lives brought up with the expectation that they have been born and bred to die in battle, that any other death is dishonourable. Sound similiar? It should! In many ancient warring cultures, from the Spartans to the Samurai, this sort of ideal was just and right. In ancient Rome a man had to serve in the legions for twenty-five years before he became a free man and got to go home. Historically, we humans were lucky if we made forty years of age, not just because of war, but other causes as well. Drakoon are undaunted by disease for the most part and because of their ancient history (far older than ours) they're a lot better than us at managing the ecology of their lands, so famine usually is not a problem. Most die in war, male and female indiscrimately, though their society is in fact gender segregated. My drakoon have the capacity to live hundreds of years yet they seldom ever do, usually dying before their own young has even come of age. They live their harsh, short lives surrounded by propaganda and in turn pass the propaganda down to their children. It would seem that drakoon are a horribly godforsaken race, for their inability to make peace, brother killing brother, yet through a rather grisly type of magic, they have a semblance of order.

Blood magic was based off of extremist ceremonies of bondage from around the world, some of which still take place today. Though based on a biological concept of smell, since drakoon have superior olfactory senses, blood magic is basically something which enforces loyalty upon a drakoon's mind to another higher ranking individual, lessoning his chances of suddenly deciding to sporadically stab the guy or his unit mates for no reason. (It still happens, just not as often as it would without blood magic.) It's through this literal bond of loyalty and brotherhood that drakoon manage to coordinate, something that would be almost impossible otherwise. So it is that drakoon live in tight-nit military units called sxyarne or squadrons, which are almost wolf pack-like in their society, though of course a drakoon is a lot different from a wolf.

The dominant member of the sxyarne is the guy that all the rest of the guys is blooded to. He's the Wing Officer and he's above the infighting and rank jockeying that occurs under him. As leader of the sxyarne, he's dominant male and all the rest of his subordinates do their very best to become his Second and Third, the next highest ranks. The Second and Third have the exclusive honours of sleeping closest to the Wing Officer, carrying the sxyarne's standards and generally serving as the Wing Officer's bodyguards, advising him as well as helping take care of his sons if he has any. They're the beta wolves, the nastiest, smartest members of the bunch and they have fought their way up the sxyarne's totem pole to get to their places just beneath their superior Wing Officer. Because nobody beneath the Wing Officer himself is bonded to anyone but him via blood magic, infighting is the only way to determine who outranks who. Depending on the individual this can get incredibly vicious, with the smarter, more brutal guys ending up on top and the meeker guys on the bottom. Yet everyone in the squadron is important, especially the lower ranking drakoon, because when the father of a youngster isn't around, it's usually the sxyarne's lower ranked guys who watch after the little guy.

Strictly speaking, in most species the young are not exempt from the feuds of their elders. Drakoon, for the most part, are different and like modern first world humans and wolves, drakoon sxyarne cooperate in taking care of the group's next generation. If a guy has guard duty, he doesn't have to worry about his son, because his son, like the sxyarne's other kids, has his father's off duty sxyarne mates to look after him. While drakoon fight a lot, the bonds within a sxyarne are in fact extremely strong and so drakoon treat each other's kids like their own. The Wing Officer's son is not some exhaulted prince, though either the Second or the Third are always watching him - he plays with all the rest of the kids. The sxyarne also, if it's out on campaign, works together to hunt for food though they fight over it afterwards, using the meal as a chance to jockey for rank. (I should note that drakoon are strictly carnivorous here, much like the oft mentioned wolves.) They're surprisingly well regimented in the field and in training. They're also very united in their territorial tendencies towards other sxyarne, no matter their nationality.

There is a hierarchy to blood magic. As two sxyarne will scrap over who gets to use which barrack, two divisions will likewise fight each other and so will two armies of the same nationality. 'Terrestrial' or army drakoon are called zinier and despise in particular the drakoon equivalent of naval marines, the vinier while zinier and vinier are fairly united in their stout dislike of zine, which are the home guard forces.


An army or armada's rank is determined by who made a blood pledge of fealty to the nation's leader, the emperor, first and this is how the military force is distinguished for the duration of the emperor's rule (or rather, his life. He doesn't live long typically either.) For example, in my manuscript Emperor's Blood, the 1st Terrestrial Army is led by Grand Commander Yon, who is allowed to use the 'grand' honourific because he got to pledge loyalty to Emperor Kelveniska first - in fact, he did it before the former emperor was even gone, sneakily doing it while the man was away. Yon got away with his treason though because Kelveniska's predecessor was ill-fated and never returned from his campaign. After Yon, there are no other armies, but Admiral Benjkoi, being one of two armadas, got to Kelveniska next. Since an armada is different from an army in drakoon terms, Benjkoi is thus the leader of the 1st Armada, while his younger comrade and political enemy Ykaren is thus the leader of the 2nd.

After Commanders and Admirals, there are no more ranks bound by regular loyalty or fealty blood magic bonds. Here we enter an elite domain of killers and the drakoon they guard who are revered, for they are the brains of a drakoon country. They are the emperors. Kill them and their offspring and the entire nation shatters. Because of the immense importance of the emperors and their heirs, they are hot targets for assassination from other lands.

Enter the killers of assassins - the sketzine.

Sketzine, or 'crown guard' are the most dangerous class of soldier existing in drakoon society. From a young age, sketzine are raised to outsmart and outfight any comers, learning everything an assassin learns and more. They are true drakoon in their sense of ferocity, fanatically loyal to their imperial charges via the strongest blood magic in existence and with little mental distinction for what makes a countryman. The only drakoon who are not a potential enemy is the sketzine's partner (there's only two per imperial) and their collective charge, who they guard for life and by common belief, into the afterlife as well. Besides having the authority to dispatch pretty much anything that gives their charges a bad look no matter its nationality, sketzine also serve as advisors. Because their entire country is terrified of them, sketzine are also given the honourific of naik - 'feared high rank.' The dominant sketzine is called naik aris or sketzine aris. 'Aris' means simply 'superior.' Though there is small definition between the two sketzine, the aris is typically the smarter one and he shares a blooding scar with their charge's right arm. He is literally the emperor's right hand man.

The imperial family also has a hierarchy sometimes. Because it is in the country's best interest that all of the emperor's heirs survive, precautions are made so that none of the lesser princes, if there are any, are mentally capable of becoming jealous of the Crown Prince's title. This, of course, is assured through fealty blood magic and it is in this way that the emperor can relax in the knowledge that his Crown Prince's brothers will not prove to be rivals, instead supporting him in all his ideas. However, should the Crown Prince die, the next born naturally takes his place. The Crown Prince is not blooded to his father. He remains intact in his natural comprehension abilities because someday he must be able to act independent of his father, if his father's rein does not end with assassination instead. Because the prince's sketzine are the sons of his father's sketzine making them all bonded by natural familial bonds, traitorous acts don't typically occur, but it is not unheard of for a Crown Prince to overthrow his sire, sometimes violently.

If you're imagining a completely militeristic society, you'd be right, but there are also other factions. The females live apart from the males completely, the two genders only coming together for the purpose of reproduction, which for drakoon is something that is not an act particularly enjoyed by either party. Very few species in the real world actually have sex for fun and while it might seem odd, drakoon are a species which falls among the majority of creatures which has sex for the singular purpose of creating offspring. Of creatures which have sex for fun, there are probably only about five species which do it including humans and these are also the species in which homosexuality occurs. Thus, drakoon do not have any concept of homosexuality either, despite their gender segregation. Males and females only stay together for a few years, so drakoon young of different genders grow up apart. Daughters never know the names of their fathers and sons never know the names of their mothers. They never meet. Period. If you're wondering about the prospect of accidental incest since they don't know who is related to who, you shouldn't worry. Even humans have anti-incest fail safes; studies have shown that females find the scents of their male kin more distasteful than other guy's smells. Other studies on guys show that they find photoshopped renderings of females with their own facial structure less desirable than those that are foreign. Drakoon, who have a sense of smell thousands of times better than our own (they can smell tiny differences in blood even) have an easy time avoiding opposite gender kin.

This is the part of drakoon society that I'm really proud of. It's original and unique to me as far as I can gather, so in short, paws off - this idea of extreme gender segregation is my intellectual property, through and through. I have never seen nor heard of anyone else using it. Kindly PAWS OFF. I'm not blathering about this so you can steal my ideas - I'm illustrating my thought process, so that you can formulate your own unique, original ideas, drawing from the model of how I think.

There is one last aspect to male drakoon society and that is the non-combatants or civilians. There are four different social classes of these and they live in blooded sxyarne too. The first class is the veterans, those drakoon who are too injured to fight and these, partially depending on the matter in which they were put out of commission, are well honoured. Next comes the bulk of the civilians, those who lack the temperament needed for fighting, but who have just the right sort of stuff for super important jobs like black smithing and trading. Since they support the military, these drakoon get a lot of respect. The third class of non-combatant is the children or rather younglings - drakoon who are too young to join their sires in combat. They're still in training and are seen much like we humans see young - individuals to be protected because they have yet to prove themselves worthy. The fourth class of non-combatant is the undesirables, or drakoon born with traits which have been deemed unsatisfactory. Because drakoon are extremist in their culture, much like the Spartans, they are likely to kill any malformed young that cannot survive without help in their infancy. Drakoon are highly defensive of their fairly limited gene pool in this fashion. Undesirables are the civilians who survive this and they are very few in number. These aren't males that are blind or deaf - these drakoon have great value still in the second civilian class. These are the albinos whose skin would have them shot and others who carry traits which are genetic. None of the undesirables are allowed to breed.

Female drakoon society is base and wild. Hierarchy is determined without blood magic, by who is smarter and stronger than everyone else. Female clans are typically all related, to familiar attachment provides some stability for groups, but not nearly as much as blood magic provides for the male half of the species. There are no sxyarne; only families. Elders are highly respected in either gender. Though females are actually more lethal to each other than the males, their society is purer and more primal. It is truly survival of the fittest.

One of the greatest challenges that comes with writing drakoon and certainly the most interesting is the fact that they are a people who have not lost their wildness. They are not domestic, though they have order. Even though they will fight each other to the death over matters which seldom make sense, they are also very caring, masters of platonic love. Their love is innocent, without passion or lust. They love only out of loyalty and familial attachment. It is in this sense that to me they become very endearing, honest creatures despite their revolting tendency for war. At a young age, drakoon work to master their own psyche but they are not tame. A drakoon is driven by instincts as strong as those that drive birds to abandon their territories for the long migration. Like an alligator he immediately knows how to kill his prey - it is merely a practice in coordinating muscles to follow instinct's design that makes him seem clumsy when he is little. He snaps and he snarls; he instinctively knows when a prey animal is weak. He knows by scent if you are friend or foe and who you associate with as well as tiny details such as what you just ate. Drakoon, while seemingly ignorant in their military world, are a lot smarter than humans. Humans only ever master one mind and one body. Drakoon master two, the dragon and the elf. Could a human if transformed into a dog instantaneously know how to gallop? I think not. The stories we read of shape shifters immediately knowing how to use their new animal bodies are all lies. If one were to transform into a dog, one would have to begin their training in locomotion all over again and we would surely be overpowered by the amazing depth of a dog's sense of smell.

This is why I love writing about drakoon.

For now, this is all on the topic of drakoon. Look forwards to more in the future. I will now take this time to remind all readers that this is all my intellectual property. Thank you for respecting copyrights. The ideas expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect my own personal opinions and I have employed them for fictional purposes only.



*Spirit of the Wolf by Shaun Ellis with photography by Monty Sloan