Ask Them What They Mean By Choice

Today marks the anniversary of Roe v Wade, a time when 9 men fabricated a constitutional 'right' where none existed, and still doesn't through a straight forward reading of the Constitution, to kill another human being because of where he currently presided. This was not an issue that We The People had a say on, in fact there has never been a majority of Americans who agree with the unfettered abortion access that Roe v Wade and later v Dalton forced upon our society. Pro-abortionists know this. They know the majority of Americans don't like the idea of killing other human beings. So they have built their 'right' around an elaborately concocted game of creative symantics. They don't finish sentences; instead of pro-choice to kill your offspring they are just 'pro-choice'. You can be pro-choice about a lot of things. Pro-choice for school options, pro-choice for gun ownership, pro-choice for states to control welfare or not. But in other causes people aren't afraid to stand up and say what 'choice' they think should be availible. They reinvent words; in the 70's the term 'pregnancy' was redefined by the medical community to begin at implantation instead of conception so that products that cause early term abortions could be marketed as 'contraceptives'. They lie about the order of things, calling it a 'reproductive freedom' or a 'reproductive choice', when reproduction has already taken place and choice happens before action. But mostly they just do everything they can to avoid the clinical term 'abortion' much less what abortion really means.
I'm about 8 weeks pregnant. I have reproduced 3 times. I have 3 offsprings. All of my offspring are human, they have human DNA, they are members of the human species, and they are distinct and unique individuals who did not exist before their conceptions, currently exist, and will never exist again upon their deaths (in their full physical beings). As a placental mamal I have a biological duty to care for my offspring until they can be born, as a human being, made in the likeness of my Creator I have an ethical obligation to not kill another human being who is not offering me mortal harm. As a member of a civilized society I have a societal obligation to care for my children until they are of legal age, or until another can be found to care for them. And as a Christian I have the moral obligation to protect and raise my offspring in a proper manner. The only thing I don't have is the legal obligation to care for my youngest child. In fact that 'pro-choice' crowd thinks I should have the legal option to kill my youngest offspring because he is currently in my womb, exactly the place he is biologically supposed to be.
And not only that but they are advocating for my 'right' to kill very young offspring in the most horrific wa imaginable. We haven't agreed with drawing and quarting as a valid means of execution for even the worst criminals for hundreds of years, yet pro-legal-abortionists think I should be able to tear my baby limb from limb just because he is in my womb. We would be beyond horrified, riot in the street if the state executed a serial killer by immersion in a burning acid, yet pro-abortionists think I should have that right too. And if a murder was due to be executed by stabbing his head with scissors and sucking out his brain, or crushing his head between a jagged vise, everyone in the country would be clammoring for a stay of execution, yet the pro-abortionists think that's fine and dandy if the victim is an innocent child.
They are not 'pro-choice', they fight at every turn informed consent laws that wish to make sure women have real choice; they fight to close down pregnancy centers who offer support and help, because they lead women away from abortion. They are pro-abortion. They are pro-murder-your-unborn-child-in-as-henious-a-way-as-can-be-found-if-thats-what-you-want.
My 8 week old baby has human dna, a beating heat, human blood, human tissue, eyes, hands, fingers. It also, at 8 weeks, has just completed growing the only things needed to feel pain: nerve pathways, nerve endings, and a working hypothalamus. It has not yet higher order brain operations, neither did you at that age, but it does have everything it needs to feel pain. So when a pro-abortionists talks about how most abortions are early term, they are still refering to most abortions happening to innocent human beings who will feel excutiating pain, pain beyond their ability to understand, just pain, and then death.

You can't be 'pro-choice' without being 'pro-abortion'. That's like saying you could be pro-choice to rape and not be pro-rape. We aren't talking about ice cream flavors, sports teams, or even politicians. This isn't a debate any thinking human can be neutral in. You either think it's ok to kill innocent human beings, or you don't.

I don't. No human has the moral or ethical or biological right to kill an innocent member of the human race, much less a member of their own family. And I don't think they should have the legal right to do it either.
I am pro-choice for reproduction, no women should be forced to reproduce, nor should any man. Do whatever you wish to avoid reproduction and I'll be happy to fight for that right. I'm pro-choice for adoption, no parent should be forced to care for a child they can not, they should have a right to turn that child over to another who can care for it. But I'm not pro-choice for abandoning your child, no parent should have the right to simply abandon their unwanted or can't-be-cared-for child where someone else can't care for it, like in a dumpster. And I'm not pro-choice to kill your child. No parent should have that choice, no matter how old their child is. I can't kill my 3 year old kid, I can't kill my 21 month old toddler (and let me tell you, she's far more a 'drain' on my bodily autonomy than my 8 week old!) And I damn well shouldn't be able to kill my 8 week old fetus either.

If you think it should be legally acceptable to kill your own offspring, say that, at least then you're being honest. Because clinging to a 'pro-choice' or bogus 'reproductive freedom' lable just makes you for murder AND dishonest.

Disney Princesses

(So I wrote this way back in Jan and forgot it was on my computer waiting to be uploaded to my blog. Enjoy.)

I’m getting caught up on some blog ideas I wanted to post during Christmas when I was just too busy to do so. Over the season I read three different blogs on how horrible Disney princesses were as role models for our daughters to watch/enjoy/look up to. (I’m guessing someone was getting too many princess gifts from relatives) First I want to note that I’m not a ‘pink’ girl. I don’t do princess. My mother used to complain that, even as a young child, I refused to let her dress me in “cute girl clothes”. I never had a roomful of Barbies, never dressed up like Cinderella, Belle, or Sleeping Beauty. And I preferred to watch National Geographic’s and the Discovery Channel to cartoons, Disney or otherwise, when I was a child. So this isn’t from someone who is just overlooking faults because I like them.
It’s no surprise feminists dislike Disney princesses, and their reasons seem fairly consistent: the females need a man to complete them, they fall in love too quickly, they are ‘loved’ for their looks, they are weak, submissive, painfully willing to overlook negatives in their men folk, etc. They all get it, Sleeping Beauty falls in love after a single short interlude and needs a man to kiss her to save her (Snow White ditto), Ariel gives up everything to chase a man she’s only seen before and he falls in love with her because she’s beautiful, Cinderella likewise falls in love in a few hours, needing a man to save her from her abusive situation, and Belle stays with a man despite the fact that he’s abusive….
Which is, I suppose, all well and good if your knowledge on human behavior doesn’t extend past the 1970’s.
But, no offense to both friends and family who share such views (okay, maybe some teasing, but no offense meant) I’d rather my children recognize social interactions didn’t spring into existence fully formed as they are in our current generation. I think it’s good and proper to teach children history, even in the passive sense of books and movies. I think all works need to be looked at in the sense of the time they are placed or written. I don’t think Huckleberry Finn should be edited to say ‘slave’ or ‘African American’ instead of the ‘N’ word for the modern audience, or that The Whipping Boy should be banned because it depicts child abuse. And I don’t think children are too stupid to understand complex concepts such as societal changes if they are explained to them. In fact I think they can and will find great enrichment in considering not only other cultures but other times.
Let’s take Beauty and the Beast, it seems to be the Disney heroine that gets picked on the most because the modern feminist sees Belle as staying with an abusive partner.
Given the guns and clothing Beauty and the Beast is probably set in the mid 1700’s in France. A time and place where peasants still had few legal rights, and even fewer consistently enforced, especially when they were up against a noble. There was no standardized legal system and nobles taxed their towns and farmers into poverty while they indulged in excess at Versailles. Women were under the lordship of their fathers or husbands, and arranged marriages were still common, although the lower classes did sometimes marry for love (considered trite by the upper class, which arranged marriages for money and social power). Books were becoming more popular but literacy among the lower class was still rare. War was common and the kings of France were generally considered to be more interested in their mistresses and parties than ruling.
So here we have Belle, daughter of a struggling inventor. They appear to own their own farm, but they are clearly peasants, not aristocrats. Belle is a wonderfully brave, progressive, and strong woman given this. She reads for one, a rarity for the time and place. She shuns the advances of the catch of the town, a brutish man who is only interested in her for her looks.
Meanwhile her father trespasses onto a royal’s property and gets tossed in his dungeon. Neither a harsh nor unexpected punishment, the Beast would have been within his rights to mount her father’s head on the spike of his gate. Then Belle, instead of staying home worrying while a group of the local men go looking for her father, goes out to seek for him herself. She then trespasses onto the property as well, finding her father in the dungeon.
Now at this point in time the Prince would be just as within his rights to toss her in there with her father. Instead he graciously, if somewhat moodily, allows her to take her father’s place. Allows her to serve her father’s sentence, also, not a horribly unusual concept for the time. Children could be sold to pay off debts, servants sent to prison in their master’s steed, peasants conscripted by their lords to fill their needs as servants or vassals. It’s an odd concept now, because our legal system is based on personal responsibility, the person who does the crime does the time, but even now the concept of a loved one confessing to try to save another isn’t unheard of.
So now, instead of making Belle stay in the dungeon the Beast gives to her a private chamber, says the servants will see to her, and tells her to come to dinner, in essence marking her more of a guest held in ransom than a jailed prisoner. A very noble and gentle gesture when, at the time, no one would have said boo if he’d taken her forcibly to his bed.
She then turns down his dinner invite and, instead of breaking down her door and having her beat for insubordination he asks, repeatedly, for her to reconsider. Later that same night he finds her trespassing in his private chambers and, again instead of striking her or having her beat for disobeying his one direct order to her, he shouts at her to get out.
Belle, “promise or no promise” then steals a horse (a death penalty offense at the time) and runs away. Legally it’s no different than a prisoner escaping jail or a legal indentured servant/slave running away. Yet, even after this grievous sin the Prince protects her from the wolves, not only putting his royal person in danger for her safety but actually acquiring injury. She get’s scolded, rightfully so, for his injury and her transgression and she bravely, if somewhat disrespectfully, sticks up for herself and calls him on his temper (something that historically would have gotten her in a lot of trouble, you didn’t speak to royalty like that!)
Just a few days later the Beast, after seeing that Belle’s father is sick and lost in the woods, releases her from her own bond and let’s her go, despite his growing attachment for her. Then we see the local stud trying to coheres her into marriage by threatening her father with commitment to a sanitarium, which, given his current sickly condition would certainly be a death sentence. She refuses again his marriage proposal, showing that while she may be willing to serve an indefinite jail term for her father, she’s distinctly not willing to enter into a likely abusive marriage even to save her father’s life (see that as good or ill it certainly counters feminist’s primary objection to Belle).
When the villagers attack his castle the Prince finds himself in a fight with Gaston, Belle’s would be suitor. Of course the Beast overpowers him easily, after being roused from his depression by Belle’s arrival, but, when the killing blow is ready to fall, the Prince hears Gaston’s cries for mercy and leaves him alive (until the craven gets unintentionally knocked off the tower after stabbing the Beast in the back). Put that largess against the rule of Louis XV, who rarely pardoned criminals destined to die, and whose courts put even petty criminals to death in gruesome, torturous, public means.
Finally we see the happy couple in a celebratory dance, with the understanding that they married (Belle is wearing a crown in the last picture). So let’s talk about that for a moment. We consider marriage to be the end, the culmination of a relationship. You met, get to know each other, flirt, fall in love, get married. But then marriage was very much the beginning of the relationship (with the exception of some lower class that did marry for love). We say ‘we’re just as in love as the day we wed’, but in a society that arranges marriages one may be meeting one’s spouse for the first time day of (or only know them a short time previously) the marriage. You are expected to fall into love after the marriage as you get to know each other. Belle and the Prince share an immediate ‘spark’, completely in line with the time the Prince likes the way Belle looks and acts on first blush, enough to build a lifelong marriage on. While we have this abysmal divorce rate, history and other cultures teach us that almost any two reasonable people can make a marriage work. Love is a choice and an action, we choose to love after we’ve seen abundant evidence that there is physical attraction, mutual interest, and common ground, which leads, unfortunately, to the notion that, if those prerequisites fade or change, then love (and therefore marriage which in this culture is the culmination of love) can be lost. But in most of history something else was considered a prerequisite for marriage, good breeding, a dowry, social standing, or just the relative ages of the two to be married, then the choice to love and its subsequent actions, were based on the prerequisite of marriage and the social requirement to remain in that marriage. People made it work.
So, let’s recap: Belle is hardly a simpering example of feminine weakness. Instead she displays courage and strength, intelligence beyond normal, deep respect and empathy for her father, she’s disrespectful of royalty, but then the peasants of France were, despite the consequences, prone to riot and disrespect. And finally she’s willing to happily base a marriage on more than most women of the time would have obtained, a previously known mutual attraction to a wealthy, kind, and merciful Prince.
So, let’s recap: the Beast/Prince is anything but abusive, showing remarkable restraint, grace, and mercy. For royalty he’s remarkable sympathetic and lacks the violent, self-indulgent, ego-centric character of most upper class at the time (characteristics, ironically, that the at-best-middle-class Gaston that Belle rejects portrays), and is prone to listening and taking the advice of his servants.
I don’t like Disney in general for several reasons, and strongly prefer their older work to most of their newer stuff, but (with the exception of Ariel who is a bad role model regardless of how you look at it, runs away from home, makes deals with evil sorcerers, seeks a romantic interest outside of her own species, etc) how is this a bad role model for young girls?
For goodness sakes people, ultimately it’s fantasy but they’re set in what? Snow White’s about the 1100’s, Sleeping Beauty is a bit later, maybe 12-1300’s given the armor of the knights we see, Cinderella is maybe 1500’s, Beauty and the Beast is in the 1700’s, Hercules (Meg counts as the ‘princess’ in that movie) is in maybe 800-500 B.C., Aladdin is probably set in the 1100-1300 era, Robin Hood is in the late 12th century, you get the point. Use it as a good teaching moment on history and multiculturalism and let the kids enjoy their princesses and princes, Disney or otherwise.
But then maybe I’m just old fashioned.

Sometimes, kids hurt themselves

So it started over at Free Range Kids the other day with a dad frustrated that his kid's school had roped off a 3 foot dirt incline because someone had fallen, then it's over at The Stir, a mom with an accident prone 4 year old afraid of a DCFS visit over a black eye. And, I'll admit, I've been a little nervous that some moron would call DCFS upon seeing summer bruises on my son, because, as I'm sure we can all attest to, such moronic busy-bodies exist. How is it that we as a society have come so far from normal that bumps and bruises are 'troubling' and not a normal part of growing up? Bruises, scrapes, cuts, strawberries, splinters, knots, and the occassional black eye, broken bone, or stitches is just proof of a full and outgoing childhood. When I occassionally meet grown ups who have never had a broken bone or stitches I am baffled. How did they reach adulthood without passing through those necessities of play? My brother broke his arm in a pillow fight. I broke my wrist falling from a bike (as well as a toe playing a massive water fight at camp, a couple of fingers in random events, my nose during a baseball game, and my foot in track, I've had more than the average number of broken bones I admit, but still, not abnormally so). My brother got his first stitches after a bike crash when he was about 6. My first batch waited until a bad spill involving a barbed wire fence in 4th grade. But those are major injuries, that I hope my too little ones wait a few years for, but the standard 'ok who's bleeding on my floor' cuts from thorns or rocks and the standard bruises from running into stuff start about the same time they start walking. How could they not?
Kids are not china dolls, they aren't butterflies, and they have these wonderful things called bones that do an awesome job of protecting the delicate bits. Now I'm all for helmets on bikes, anything you can go faster than you can run on common sense should dictate some form of protection. But let's start remembering that those bruises, scrapes, and so forth are badges of growth and not to be ashamed of or hidden. Mentally tell those idiots who think kids should be raised in giant bubbles to go jump off a cliff in one, and stop worrying what might happen if one of them sees evidence of kids being kids.
Go collect some bruises with your kids, I bet you'll have fun doing it. :)

Intentionally Misunderstanding

I was over at www.myobsaidwhat.com the other day, a place for women to submit some of the more 'winning' quotes from OBs, L&D nurses, nurses, midwives, and the occassional anestisiologist or pediatricians concerning infertility, pregnancy, miscarriage, birth, post-partum, breastfeeding, or early parenting. Despite what the occassional troll has to say MOBSW doesn't demonize the medical community, nor even OBs (who the majority of quotes come from), but it does allow a place for women to vent on those members of the profession(s) who *should* be demonized. But it's also a place to see one of, what I believe to be, the hallmarks of the politically correct era, intentional misunderstanding. Now I'm not talking about the submitters, it's a little hard to misconstrue an OB saying 'oh stop yelling, you obviously know how to open your legs' while he forces a woman's legs apart while she's yelling 'stop! That hurts, stop!' (Somehow it's not molestation/abuse if your attacker is in a white coat).
No, I'm refering to the occassional doctors, nurses, and laymen who intentionally misunderstand a comment made so they can be righteously offended by something a commenter has said. Usually it crops up on an especially horrific quote where the ob/rn/midwife/other is being even more inhuman than usual so there are lots of comments along the lines of 'what a complete &*!@! Doctors like this should lose their license and get tossed in a jailcell with a 400lb man named bubba!' (I'm not specifically quoting anyone here) And after a few dozen women have expressed their extreme displeasure at OBs LIKE THIS ONE, some OB (thankfully the sight almost never draws she-who-should-not-be-named...if you don't know who I'm talking about consider yourself lucky) comes on and chews us out because 'not all OBs are like this and I am always very respectful to my patients, they all love me, etc'.
We all know there are wonderful, respectful, and caring OBs/etc out there, that's why we said 'like this' rancid goat when we were commenting.
Now surely professionally aren't the only ones who do this. Sometimes it's a layman who has taken offense. These usually come in references to forced c-sections, inductions, or breastfeeding quotes. Some jerk OB is overheard saying 'there's nothing wrong with this baby, I just need to leave by 5 tonight.' As they are wheeling away mom for an 'emergency' c-section, usually after poor mom has been told she *must* have a c-section *now* or she's putting her baby's life in peril. So, of course, there are a bunch of comments along the line of 'this is why our c-section rate is so high, doctors should have to document a real, medical need for the c-section along with collaborative proof and insurance/people should refuse to pay for unneeded c-sections.' And then someone will come back with 'i'm so tired of everyone being so judgemental against women who have had c-sections! My c-section saved my son's life!'
the problem is hardly limited to such situations. Regardless of what you read, listen to, or who you converse with today it seems almost impossible to get through a full day without someon taking something out of context just so they can be offended. I know, I know, to the cuurent PC mentality nothing is more sacred than being victimized. Victimhood is to be claimed whenever and wherever possible, and if it isn't possible victims are free to re-interpret anything said to them to support their inherient victimhood status (unless you are a white married Christian male, then you can only be an offender, and anything said towards you that is offensive is either your fault for misinterpreting what your victim actually said, or you deserved because whoever said it was just defending themselves.). I get that, as much as I hate PC bs, I do understand the mindset (however insane, yes, go ahead and feel offended if you think PC-ism isn't insane) that mindset is.
What I don't understand is why the people who are misquoted/understood *on purpose* seem to fall all over themselves apologizing. Why do people bow down and take such nonsense? I mean, I assume most of the time people know what they said, and most people I've met (there are exceptions) rarely go around being offensive. So I've got to assume that 99% of the time they meant what they said and were only intending to offend...the specific group they described. So why in the world do they go tripping over their words to apologize to someone *not* within the specific group they were talking about.
If I say 'i think all people named Alyssa are jerks!' Then someone named Alyssa is free to feel offened, and if they could show to me they aren't a jerk I would be proven wrong and should (and would) stand up and apologize. But if someone named Alyma came back with 'well *my* name starts with an 'A' and I'm not a jerk, you are being a judgemental bigot by assuming all people with 'A' names are jerks'. They don't have any standing to object, I wasn't talking about them, in fact I especially excluded them by defining those named 'Alyssa'. Not only do I not feel obliged to apologize to Alyma, I'm far more likely to amend my original statement to include 'and apparently one person named 'Alyma' can't tell the difference between a 6 letter name and a 5 letter name.' And I'm not overly sarcastic or anything, but someone trying to make me into an offender just so they can be a victim isn't getting any sympathy from me. So why the heck are they getting it from so many others?

wow, it's september

So I couldn't remember when I had posted last so I checked my blog and...oh, wow, april writer's challenge? Boy and it's already. Um...okay, sorry guys. Apparently I've been ignoring my blog a little more than I realized.
Mostly I've been busy crafting. Lots of sewing recently. But I'm starting to come back around to a writing mood, so I should find some time to post something soon. If nothing else maybe I can get my laptop to an internet hotspot and post one of the 3 posts that have been sitting in there for months (and months). That and I need to finish a guest post I've been asked to do. For now though, why don't you wander on over and surf some of my favorites? In no parituclar order: http://myobsaidwhat.com http://www.jillstanek.com http://freerangekids.wordpress.com http://www.evolutionaryparenting.com http://realchoice.blogspot.com http://firstthings.com/blogs/secondhandsmoke/ and http://www.crappypictures.typepad.com there you go, a random assortment of blogs I read on a semi-regular basis, have fun!

April Writer's Challenge- Dialog

So I had a comment on my last piece, the writing challenge prologue for my friend Eric's blog, from another writer/blogger ( http://doingthewritething.wordpress.com/ ) I was surfing over at her blog and noticed she had an April writer's challenge to do a dialog piece. She had a very touching and image-provoking piece up as her entry, a list of email entries, and I immediately know exactly who/what to do for a dialog piece. The submission guidelines are simple, a dialog back and forth of any kind with JUST dialog, no tags, no asides, no descriptions. The goal is to create two or more distinct characters just through dialog. It's actually a goal I've played with for some time, and argued over with creative writing teachers as I tend to keep up with dialog better than they perceive the average reader does. Which is to say I rarely feel tag lines such as (s)he said, so-and-so replied etc are necessary. I tend to make the introduction at the beginning and assume my reader can keep up with the back and forth of conversation. I do, however, tend to like motion or action asides and tonal descriptions like 'he leaned against the wall' or 'she said with pity in her voice', so trying to find a scene where just the dialog would be sufficient to portray the depth of emotion of the scene was somewhat difficult. But a situation from book three of Tiger came to mind as uniquely appropriate. I'm resisting the urge to explain the situation as, well, that would kind of circumvent the point of the exercise, so, hopefully, the dialog is more or less up to the challenge ;) .... here you go!

"Tiger, you shouldn't be standing there. That window exposes you to a hundred rooftops."
"I've lost a husband and a child in the last week Richard, an assassin's arrow is not my primary concern."
"You don't have the luxury of being just a mother or wife, you know that. The nation lost it's Prince Consort and one of it's princes, it needs it's Empress. Come away."
"I can see the city square from here. It's where they hung him."
"He's not there. The servants have his body Tiger; they are readying him for burial."
"I know. I've already been to see him, and I saw the marks on his neck. He was still alive when they hung him this morning."
"I inspected the body. The noose broke his neck. It was a clean death."
"Clean death? Richard, he wasn't a man grown to care of such things, nor a warrior to expect such. He was a child of five, there is no such things as a 'clean death' for one so young."
"Come away from the window Tiger."
"Why? The Grey Wolf doesn't need an assassin's arrow; they've destroyed me. With one fell swoop they widowed me and placed me in an impossible position. They judge me as a mother for letting him die, or they judge me as a ruler for saving his life. 'One must never trade two lives for one'. I had no choice, but my people will fault me all the same, and who can blame them? What kind of mother won't move the world to save the life of her child?"
"They won't fault you. They too have lost children and loved ones to this fight. You share their pain, and so they will follow wherever you would lead."
"Tell that to my nobles, already they plot."
"They're nobles, that's what they do. You knew this war was unpopular when you started it. Too many have made their fortunes in the grey market to appreciate your attack against it."
"Thank you Richard, 'I told you so' was exactly what I needed to hear right now."
"That's not what I meant and you know it. I lost a son and a grandson as well."
"I know. I'm sorry. It's not your fault."
"Thank you, it's the first time you've said it."
"You were watching over Lily, and my husband should have been more than capable. It's too much Richard. The economy struggles, the nobles grumble, the people bleed, and that tiny body. I didn't need to see him hung to see it in my mind. I can see him swinging there, right there on the announcement post of the square."
"Another reason to come away from the window. He's gone Tiger. And you withdrawing your blockade would not have stopped it. It may have delayed it, but you know he was dead as soon as they took him, one way or another."
"No, I don't. I could have withdrawn. The Grey Wolf has returned prisoners of war in the past, has honored ransoms and seen captives home. All I had to do,"
"Was break one of the most sacred rules of your throne and throw away your honor as a ruler. Your people need you. They need their Empress, not a broken mother. There will be time to weep, Tiger; there will be time to grieve; you will have a chance to mourn, but right now you must put on your mantle as ruler and go to your people. Right now their grief will have to be enough for you."
"It's not as easy as you make it sound."
"Easy? I've lost a wife and a daughter in service to you, and now I've lost a son and a grandson as well. Life is never easy, but it's still your choice to follow through or to give up. And you've been through too much to give up on your obligations. Come, your people await your words. Stir them to righteous anger instead of depressed grief. Your family's blood has wet the ground, but you can still win this war."
"I have no righteous anger right now Richard."
"Find it. You have other children Tiger, would you forsake your duty and force the mantle of leadership upon Lily while she is yet so young? And in the midst of a war? Stop this maudlin and pull yourself together."
"Ever the poet,"
"Tiger,"
"No, you're right, I know that, brutal as always, but correct. Bring me my formal attire, I will need the trappings of my rank about me to manage. But I shall."
"Your servants await with it in the outer room, my Empress."
"I hate it when you do that Richard. Go, be with my children, give them what comfort you can. I shall have to be enough for my people this day."
"You will be Tiger."

March Writer's Challenge

For those of you who normally read my blog this is an unusual entry, it's a prologue to a (hypothetical) second book in my Ten Nations world. It's an entry (short fiction) into my friends March Writer's Challenge that can be found here:ericswett.wordpress.com look at the March 1st entry. So, without further procrastination, here is the prologue to Balhook Chaos:

Prologue

“You bungling, maligned, interfering, drunken bastard of a mageling!” Shacree banged into the room already at full volume and flung the handbill at the table. “I thought we had an agreement about this!” The servants wisely scattered but Matthew, Head Mage of the Mage Council, narrowed his eyes and glared back at the furious intruder. His guest simply leaned back and smiled at her.
“Shacree, long time no see.” The elaborately dressed gentleman smirked at her. She stopped her advance on Matthew to turn a murderous glare at his guest.
“You, I told you I’d kill you if I saw you again.”
“Yes, but I assumed it was just one of those threats you’re so well known for.” He returned her glare with an unperturbed smirk. Shacree snarled and changed directions.
“Shacree, stop.” Matthew commanded. Per usual she ignored his command, but it did distract her attention and she once again turned her steps to Matthew.
“This?” She pulled out a second handbill and crumpled it before throwing it ineffectively at Matthew. “We agreed you would stop putting out wanted posters for me.” She growled.
“That was back when you were still being reasonable.” Matthew told her.
“You’ve made me unemployable.” The words came out between gritted teeth and the temperature in the room went up several degrees.
“I told you I needed you at the Palace.” Matthew picked up the second handbill from some eggs and dropped it onto the floor.
“About that.” She pointed one gloved finger at Matthew’s guest. “You force me back to the Mage Palace while Talgis Bloodeyes is here? I’m not your bloody assassin Matthew.”
“That was a long time ago Shacree, and you’ve yet to carry out your threat, besides a little bird told me you were showing more restraint these days.”
“More like a meddlesome winged man.” Despite the tone of the words Shacree’s temper seemed to go down a few notches at the reference to her old traveling companion. “Is he here?” Her voice softened marginally.
“No, I see him every few years, but mostly he’s busy. Af’Raiell comes by more often, but he left a few months back. Are you ready to talk now?” Matthew motioned to a seat. Shacree glared sullenly, took a few steps, and leaned against the wall.
“I’m not sitting at the same table as that.”
“I’m wounded.” Talgis murmured.
“Not nearly as much as you’re going to be if one of you doesn’t start explaining what was so bloody damn important it required setting every bounty hunter in the area on me.”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” Matthew rolled his eyes. “What bounty hunter is going to come after you?”
“What do you want Matthew?” Shacree’s voice dropped into the longsuffering tone Matthew knew meant she was ready to listen.
“Talgis came across something disturbing in his travels.”
“He’s a pirate Matthew, everything he comes across is disturbing, if not before than shortly thereafter.”
“Haven’t you heard? I’m retired now.” Talgis input with a smile.
“Then why are you still wearing that ridiculous hat?” Shacree glowered at him. Talgis swept the broad brimmed red hat with its gaudy plumage off his head in a mocking solute to the temperamental woman. Then, ignoring the usual proprieties of the breakfast table, he set it back on his head at a rakish angle. Shacree’s glower deepened.
“I’m Prince Bloodeyes now, with my own island and everything, and Admiral of a fine fleet. I leave the pirating to my captains. The hat is an affectation.”
“Good to see your manners haven’t improved.”
“Nor yours.”
“Matthew, if you have a point, make it.” Shacree resolutely turned her eyes from the aging pirate.
“The government of Balhook Island has radically changed in the last few years; they went from something of an awkward republic to a dictatorship.”
“Mageling, I am not an ambassador, I don’t care what one small island chain is doing with their government.” She said without much patience and as much scorn as she could muster. Matthew ignored the jibe.
“No, but you are a mercenary, and you have experience with chaotic magics. Talgis’s report makes me suspect there is something in your area of expertise manipulating things.” He told her. Shacree snarled and started pacing, fast, quick steps like a caged animal.
“I’ve had quite enough of that to last the rest of my life. We killed most of the Centiums along with their Master not ten years past, how much of a chaotic problem could you possibly be having?”
“You didn’t kill all of them, and the Mage Council has had nothing but trouble the last ten years. As much as we tried to keep it quiet what happened has become common knowledge to the Mage community. Not all of it.” He added quickly as Shacree’s eyes narrowed on him dangerously. “The knowledge that a living, if questionably successful, mix between a person and Centium was discovered had fueled a whole new round of chaotic mages with aspirations of greatness.”
“yes, I’m sure your battle mages are very busy; still lacking anything that had to do with me.” Shacree took a deep breath, stilled her anxious pacing, and leaned once more against the wall. “Matthew, none of this merited dragging me away from a successful job with wanted posters. Az’ might be right about my patience, but it’s still short, and being in the same room as him isn’t helping.”
“I’ve noticed it’s getting a bit warm in here.”
“Deal with it.” Shacree said shortly. In truth the temperature had risen to uncomfortable levels but Talgis made no move to doff his elaborately brocaded silk jacket, nor Matthew his mage robes. Talgis did dab at his brown with a handerchief, which he then tucked back into his sleeve.
“I need you to go with Talgis to Balhook and see what’s going on. You can take care of it if there is something untoward there.”
“Matthew, I’m not sticking my head back in a hornet’s nest. I have absolutely no reason to go gallivanting off to see if some dictator is employing chaos, chaotic beings, or mixes to oppress his citizens. I’m no more a philanthropist than I am an ambassador.”
“No, but again, mercenary.”
“I don’t work for mages.” Shacree growled out. “Get Bladesworn to do it, that sword of his gives him just as much ability as I do to find chaotic magics.”
“Hardly, it only detects chaotic creatures, and they have to be fairly close, which you know.”
“Regardless, his mission is to kill them, mine is to avoid them. Or get Az’Raiell, he can’t be so busy begetting that he wouldn’t welcome a good fight with chaos.”
“Crass Shacree. He’s only taken the one wife, despite attempts to persuade him otherwise, but he is too busy re-founding the government to be dragged away, as is his brother, and Wynter is helping them. And none of them owe any allegiance to me. Even Bladesworn is unlikely to go just because I tell him there might be chaos there.”
“How ironic, since I’m not going to go just because you tell me to either.” Shacree pushed herself off the wall with a thrust of her shoulders.
“But I’m not a mage.” Talgis rejoined the conversation. “I can hire you.”
“I don’t work for those I’m planning on killing either.”
“Stop with the posturing.” He smirked again. “You’re not going to kill me. I’m a pirate. I did what pirates do; you lost. You were young. I was young, and you’ve had well over three hundred years to track me down and kill me if you actually wanted to.”
“About that, you were saying you’re not a mage?”
“Okay, so I’m mageborn, but I’m not now nor have I ever been a practicing mage, not even a Hedge Mage. I’ve never apprenticed, and I’m not vested with the Council. I’m a magic user, but I’m no more Mage than you are.”
“Technicalities.”
“Important technicalities I think.” Matthew told her.
“Besides, how you would like to be able to enter a port again?” Talgis smiled and popped a bit of sausage into his mouth.
“Given that it’s your fault I’m blacklisted you mean?”
“I didn’t burn down that ship, you did that. But yes, I have a certain amount of persuasion in the area. I’ll let it be known that my ships will accept you. I think you’ll find the other captains will stop being so unreasonable shortly thereafter.”
“I don’t have much use for ships.”
“Everyone has use for ships on occasion, if not for themselves than for merchandise. Matthew tells me you still own that stud farm. There are places you could sell a good horse for ten times what you’ll get in the Ten Nations if you’ve got a ship to transport it.” He pointed out.
“Not mentioning anything I care about yet, at least, not more than I care about avoiding Centiums.”
“It’s unlikely there are actually Centiums on the island, unless they’ve been summoned there by a chaos mage. More likely it’s a chaos mage manipulating the local Night Faeries.”
“I. Don’t. Care.” Shacree stressed each word separately.
“I’ve got something you want.” Talgis stood and strapped on his buckler and sword with exaggerated care. “I’ll give you satisfaction, provided of course that Matthew has a healer standing by.”
“Talgis, she’ll kill you.” Matthew exclaimed.
“No, I don’t think she will.” The retired pirate gave Shacree a knowing look, watching her size him up.
“No, I suppose I won’t.” She breathed.
The temperature in the room suddenly dropped to near freezing, and Shacree’s flame red hair took on a corona of real fire. At the same moment as Matthew shouted ‘not here!’ Shacree swept out her hand and table, dishes, and most of the other furniture in the room exploded as she superheated then tore them apart with her fire.
Matthew warded himself against the flying debris and scrambled backwards to the far corner of the room. Talgis raised his arms across his chest and his natural magic flared in a flash, deflecting the debris as well as Matthew’s wards.
Talgis drew his wide cutlass to meet Shacree’s bastard sword. Her one handed swing drove him back several paces, but he held her sword with his. They clashed swords for a few quick blows. Tlagis was good, but he had no chance of beating Shacree, nor even standing against her for more than a few moments. He gave ground willingly, and she pursued him with a psychotic grin on her face.
The sharp ring of steel on steel faded as they fought, replaced by a blunted clang. Shacree’s blade radiated heat in waves and left tacky gouges in his blade. The heat coming off her made Talgis’s face hot and tight, an odd counterpoint to the still-freezing room.
She slipped around his guard to draw first blood; her burning sword searing the wound shut even as it cut a neat slice from inner elbow to outer shoulder. Talgis let out a startled shout, more in surprise at the burn than in pain.
The flinch was all the opening she needed. In three quick strikes she laid him open from left shoulder to the bottom of his right ribcage, across to his left hip, and then sliced deeply into his thigh almost to his knee. The room filled with the scent of burned flesh as he stumbled away with a cry and ended up on the floor as his leg gave out. None of the wounds were life threatening, especially given the lack of blood from the burns, but the spill was a deadly mistake. For a moment, with Shacree’s fire-filled eyes glaring down on him and her sword decending, Talgis was afraid he’d misjudged her and she was going to deliver the killing blow. Shacree’s face twisted as she felt the sudden rush of fear through him and the gibbering in her mind, more muted than it once was but forever there, leapt to the forefront.
Kill! Kill! Spill the blood; crack the marrow! Lap the blood; suck the marrow! Kill!
Shacree snarled and jerked her sword around before she killed him through unintentional rage. Instead she swung the sword in an ark and drove the point through his hand as he tried to scramble away. Talgis aborted a guttural scream and grabbed at his wrist above his skewered hand. He panted, nostrils flaring, and grimaced in pain as she put a booted foot to his chest and pushed him flat.
They stared there, for a long few seconds as they eyed each other. Shacree drug herself back into control, pushing the insanity to the back of her mind. She let a bit of it trickle through into a twisted upturning of her mouth that approached a smile only in the most technical of senses. The pirate paled at the grin and stilled, waiting for her next move.
Shacree winked at him, and his overly gaudy hat burst into brilliant flame. A startled, strangled cry slipped out as Talgis desperately batted the flaming hat off his head with his free hand. It landed in a pitiful pile of ashes nearby and he looked up at her in shock.
“My hat? You have me at your will and you burn my hat?” His voice sounded wounded.
“You have a mage healer waiting outside the door by now, or will in the next minute, in the long run the loss of that ridiculous hat will be more painful.”
“You’re psychotic, you know that, right?”
Shacree grinned again, jerking her sword out of his hand with enough twist to snap bones and aligned it with his neck.
“Tell me why. Why is this so important that you’ll risk life and limb to get me to go?” She said quietly. Talgis drew his hand to his chest and glared at her for a moment, before forcing out a deep breath.
“My son is my ambassador to the island nation; he negotiates trade arrangements for my ships. Eight months ago, after a very disturbing letter, I lost all contact with him. I want my son back.” He told her. Brief emotions flickered over her face, and then the temperature in the room rose as the heat waves from her sword faded. She sheathed it.
“Fine, but you’ll be paying me more than shipping rights.” Shacree stormed out of the room nearly as violently as she entered, nearly running into the healing mage Matthew had called to attend to Talgis. “Be ready in the morning!” She shouted over her shoulder, ignoring Matthew’s call to return.