Spren of Kindness

The Harbinger series by Jeff Wheeler is pretty good.

Okay. This one's a bit old, but it's possibly the most absurd story I'll every get to tell. Time: The last days of Febuary - beginning of April 2020 Place: Several Midwest locations Alrighty. That's the scene. It's our traditional road trip - we always take one because otherwise we'd never see the extended family who live in other states. At the beginning of this, right around Leap Day, everyone knew about Covid, but no one was really concerned yet. So we meander our way down out of the West Coast and leave our lovely mountains behind, and we go to my grandparent's house. This is where things start getting wild. We're unloading our bags at my grandparent's house, and the news is on because it always is there. I walk in and Italy is being locked down. It's getting serious. Then, on Sunday, right before everything in Texas started getting shut down, my dad goes on a bike ride with another guy. Two hours later, we get a call that my dad has fallen off his bike and broken his ankle. So my mom sends us to another relative's house, and goes to the ER with him. This is when I started considering writing a book about this month. My dad is in the hospital and needs surgery, and then the next night, so Monday, everything gets shut down. So we can't go visit him, we can't go anywhere, and we certainly can't go home. So, the country's shut down, my dad can't travel, and no one in the extended family is really prepared to have all (redacted) of us staying with them for an unknown amount of time. Plus the fact that there are multiple high-risk individuals among us. *increasingly chaotic music increases* We talk about flying. My dad can't drive, obviously, but maybe he could fly home and I can go with him to help out if needed? The answer to this is a resounding no, as lockdown intensifies. (The further I go in this story, the more memes and jokes I'm adding. Odd.) This continues for three weeks. At this point, I've read all the books I brought with me (five. Finished them while we were traveling down, actually.), have read a dozen Nancy Drews and can predict the plots from a mile away, read Gone With the Wind because it was there and there was nothing else, read Holes in a single afternoon, and am now fresh out of books and have been for days. Finally, finally, we get the all clear and start heading home. All of us. In one car. With my dad taking up a whole row to put his foot up. Shotgun for me... yay? This is not how I intended to assume said position. (The rule is he who rides shotgun picks the music.) Then blessedly, we get home. Mountains! Trees! Rain! Green! The eternally impending doom of the volcanoes! Ah, it was good to be back. The final part of this tale is that we didn't take our dog with us. He had to stay home because last time, he bit a doorknob. That's another story. So our poor dog has been dog sat, very well and patiently, I might add, for five, almost six weeks as oppose to three. He was very happy to see us. Anyway, that's my story of How I Went Through the Beginning of the Pandemic in a Seven-Passenger Van.

Due to odd but nice circumstances, I read two and a half books yesterday! I finished Story Trumps Structure, by Steven James, and the whole of the third Avatar: The Last Airbender graphic novel series The Promise. They were both pretty good. Story Trumps Structure is a book about writing, not a fiction book, and it made a lot of sense and was pretty inspiring. I also read The Young Elites by Marie Lu. It was... interesting. I'm going to read the next one for sure, though I'm not sure how exactly how I feel about some of the characters. If anyone else has read it, what did you think? I kind of want to discuss it. Almost forgot: I'm starting Romeo and Juliet! I read it a couple years ago but didn't understand half of it, and thus forgot most of it.

I experienced an earthquake once, I was half asleep and I thought it was the Balrog of Moria charging down my hallway.

I can't remember, are nominees allowed to vote?

Well, I found out that my copy of Warbreaker is going to be more battered then I would have done. But I'm not upset because the guy I loaned it to loaned it to someone I also know, and I trust both of them. And hey, it'll be well loved.

Same. I love our mountains, though. Are we going to have a vote?

I think that it's based off the East Coast? I remember being pretty confused on New Years Eve when post dates were saying that we were already in 2021.

I have nothing important to say, but the instant Argent said he was forbidden show and tell, it made me crack up for some reason.

Martin salutes back.

"I'm in. You do what you're best at, yeah?" Maybe he should have taken up whittling or something.

"Taken? Because Subject Seventeen is not in this realm." True. He is not that person anymore. He can't be. "Taken's around here somewhere."

"Yeah, his name's Taken. And I've seen stranger. I knew a guy who went, unironically, by the name Subject Seventeen." Technically he did. The fact that it was him means nothing.

"Her...ate? I think it changes sometimes." Has he lost time again? Nothing hurts. He shouldn't have. "Taken. He's good." He doesn't know enough. Why doesn't he know enough? He's supposed to be good at this.

"I know a few of them. But I'm not... I'm not good with people. I lost a few years, you know?" Oh no. No no no no. That's a sentence than brings questions. Questions aren't good. "Enter's good. Fadran. Queen." Recover. Make it seem casual. "Nath, but he's gone right now."

"Sounds good. Are you looking now or are you going to bring this up later?" He doesn't understand the command structure of this place enough. Is this something that's okay to do?

"Four or five sounds like a good number." That's what the General had always said, anyway. "I'll join. You in charge?"

"An elite squad? I have experience with something like that. How many are we talking?" This is a completely different place. He can chance it.

"Yes. I don;t know if they would be the kind you want." He hasn't met anyone outside the YTP who thought what he could do was good. They just wanted him to try and heal, and live like a normal person. He doesn't know what normal is. "I'm a good fighter with a lot of different weapons. I can negotiate a bit."

"My name is Martin. I'm a soldier." Fadran has a girlfriend? Is it customary to announce relationships on meeting people here? Is he still a soldier? He has no idea. "You were brought into all this as well?"

Martin rounds the corner of the tent and frowns. He hasn't seen this woman before. Enter, yes. But he has no idea who the other person is. "And you are?" No, no, that's not - this is a military camp - I'm not military anymore - Stop it! Well, the words are out there now. Nothing he can do about it except wait for the reaction.

Tom Bombadil is Tolkien. That's my thought.