Hello Bite

Day 469

I can’t believe I decided Duoroo would understand politics. I don’t understand politics. How do I write a character that does?

Worse than that, I keep coming back to a Dune-esque sort of dynastic economy and politics. Shit. Hello, bite. You look like more than I can chew. But I’ll roll with it for tonight since I’ve alread pissed away too much time to start over and pretend this didn’t happen.

Duoroo has been cast off by her family. There is an official casting-off process whereby a dynastic family recognizes the abundance of heirs and seeks to mitigate the backstabbing by limiting the playing field to the top tier. Cast-offs are not allowed to ‘take the thrown’ once cast off. They become safe from the dangers of being in that upper tier. If a family were to exhaust it’s upper tier—unlikley—then it would be like a king losing his only born son: it would get messy.

And that’s whats happened or will happen or is being planned (by someone). That someone is having Duoroo collected for manipulation. Despite being cast off now, Duoroo had been part of the first tier—maybe quite close to the top even—but had scorned the life or her family’s business because of her blindness. She forced her family to cast her off so she could be safe. And now, because of that unusual circumstance, someone is looking to exploit that angle.

They’ll exploit it by having in place a plan to kill a larget number of that upper tier in bulk. Something unlikley enough that few would accomodate that sort of thing in their scheming, so someone is the only one to know why Duoroo is still important. Duoroo figures it out though—quickly. She convinces Kraite of the truth and enlists him to help. I suspect the large number of people being killed would be leverage for Kraite. He’s a bounty hunter but not ruthless. Maybe it will be some public event likely to result in innocent deaths as well. Maybe Mallen’s.

This public event could provide a countdown as well as a ‘end of the world’ type disaster.

I must have more than just playing the game however. I must have a real reason for this somebody to be motivated. There must be a payoff more substantial than crown or title. Or the crown must come with a clear personal or professional payoff—maybe just revenge? I hear revenge is motivating.

If I’m going to have politics I might as well have a motivator I don’t understand too!

426 words

A Return to the Drenfennelen River

Day 458

Kraite and Duoroo. And the Drenfennelen River.

I have not written of these two in over a year. Before that last entry another year. But I like these two. I should do them a little more justice than I have.

Kraite, as I recall, is some furry bounty hunter on a mission to do something to capture or kill or generally waylay Duoroo. He is thoughtful but no intellectual. His vocation implies he’s more of a rogue than his personality.

Duoroo is a blind monk with aikido-like skills. Her mind free of knowing what anything looks like she’s developed an encyclopedic memory and a great sense politics though she does not dabble in the latter.

I need a few things: a reason for Kraite to be there, a reason for him to change his mind, a way for Duoroo to accomplish that change, a situation for them to pair up against, some twist that involves Mallen, a little conflict between the two unlikley partners, and a world to put this all in. Reading back it appears that some government in “Theeble” had been paying the monks for healing water that did not heal.

Let’s put Duoroo out of place. She’s a cast-off daughter of an off world dynasty recently swept by tragedy. She is now the sole heir or something like that. Her identity is an open secret among the older monks but not one they ever expected to become a problem. Kraite’s been hired to extract her from the monastery with as little harm or notice as possible.

A Year on the Drenfennelen

Follow all of Kraite and Duoroo’s adventures using the ‘qwain‘ tag.

Duoroo climbed out of the cool forest and into the open clearing.  She felt her irises tighten from the light.  A rush of movement through the air above her turned into an explosive crack in the dry river bed ahead of her.  She dropped to a crouch but got nicked above her right eye anyway.  A careful but expressive huff of breath followed the original sharp echo in her ears as she stood but before she could identify what struck first.  A large close thing blocked the once deep clearing.

“Monk,” the bulky thing stated from just above her.

Its tone didn’t seem threatening, but when Duroo heard its bare feet shift on the rock and its right arm close in on her left side she prepared to fit her movement with its.  She let it place a hand on her shoulder so she could gauge its size and heft.  Once connected, she felt the weight of its arm sag.  She raised both her hands—one on the outside and one on the inside—trapping the arm.  She paced her crouch to be just ahead of its dropping weight and turned some.  She felt it unbalance for a moment then immediately regain that balance without apparent movement.  Strange.

“You’re blind?” the thing asked.  Duoroo didn’t respond out loud, instead she analyzed the bemused voice.  His accent put him off-planet but still of Qwain.

And then I had to go to dinner…

Day 315