Their procession, small as it was, began at Salt’s Mane. It began with them waiting on Rose, whose squad was not letting her depart without many hugs, promises of letters, and the re-pinning of the heroic medal she’d misplaced which they had graciously re-found for her. She would wear it, wouldn’t she? To remember them?
The princess’ cheeks were flushed as she returned their affections. It seemed she’d discovered the true gift of friendship: embarrassment. Poor Lochla...
2023-06-23 15:21:28 +0000 UTC
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“They’re calling themselves the Blood Commoners,” the Captain of the Guard groused, over drinks.
The Blood Commoners, like they were some kind of dramatic and self-sacrificing opposition against the blood nobles. The Raffertys always had been prone to thinking overly lofty thoughts of themselves. Behold, the height of their ambitions: stabbing a few more guards.
“We don’t know who they really are,” said the captain, who didn’t need to know. It wouldn’t change his a...
2023-06-16 02:50:22 +0000 UTC
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“You’re late,” said the Lady. She sat on a bleached trunk of driftwood, one leg crossed over the other. “I’d almost announced your death again.”
Aaron stood before her, panting, the hood of the stag cloak thrown over his back.
“Do you know,” he said, “I think we’ve quite the dragon problem?”
“Not here, we don’t,” she said, standing up. “Come, let me introduce you.”
They were a few miles south of Salt’s Mane, on a beach of sand brackete...
2023-06-09 02:09:13 +0000 UTC
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Aaron gave John the letter from his mother. John gave Aaron its reply, and honey rolls. It might not have been friendship, exactly, but it was at least a truce.
* * *
The investigation into Orin’s humanity continued, amidst the fighting. Aaron found himself in the odd position of personally visiting nearly every place where Orin’s old squadmates—his friends—had died. Reportedly died. And, of course, the place where his Majesty may or may not have been doppeled.
It wa...
2023-06-01 15:07:55 +0000 UTC
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Aaron returned to the enclaves for a third time, with a smile and a new letter and a griffin cloak upon his shoulders, which earned him quite the range of reactions. Mostly the sort that would get him killed long before he got lured into a dark forest, should he keep wearing the thing. Interesting to see which enclavers looked twice upon seeing him, like they’d already expected him to be dead.
“I’ll thank you not to incite a revolt,” King Orin said, and ordered him to take it of...
2023-05-16 02:16:47 +0000 UTC
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“Stop dying,” Rose commanded. “This is an order, not a suggestion.”
“It’s not as if I meant to,” Aaron said.
“Are you going to tell me,” she said, “that you weren’t doing something stupid, either time? Or any other time you’ve been in danger?”
“You can’t going making a question that broad,” said Aaron.
“Being a messenger is meant to be dangerous, but not as dangerous as you’re making it seem,” Lochlann said, entirely failing to tak...
2023-05-09 02:03:06 +0000 UTC
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The Winter Lord came at them. Not as a subtle stalking thing, but with the crashing of something large that didn’t care over much for the little things crushed in its wake.
The kaibyou scruffed her final kitten and shoved it into Aaron’s hands.
“The clearing,” she ordered, now that her mouth was clear. And swiped her claws at him, as if he needed further incentive to start running.
Aaron would have rather made a break towards the coast than the clearing. But...
2023-05-01 18:42:33 +0000 UTC
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Baby update: little girl appears to be doing well; follow up MRI in two weeks to check how well her skull is healing, but she seems to be past any immediate danger and back to complaining about tummy time and other momentous baby concerns. Also I am delighted to announce that 1) new baby is fey-marked, and 2) her primary noises are those of an upset kitten. It is exactly as adorable as you are picturing.
Story note: there is a bit of foreshadowing I’l...
2023-04-24 00:01:21 +0000 UTC
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Mother in law came to help with the new baby.
Mother in law dropped the baby on her head.
Baby has a skull fracture.
THAT IS NOT HELPING.
We are home from the hospital now. Bleeding seems to have stabilized and the doctors are hopeful for a full recovery, but suffice it to say that writing is not a priority for the next few days.
In better news, I got the rest of book two rough drafted during Spouse's paternity leave, and also got a decent...
2023-04-06 00:11:13 +0000 UTC
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The kaibyou ate the rabbit babes bones and all, then licked herself clean with a certain daintiness. She did all this while staring directly at Aaron, which made him simultaneously both more and less inclined to try running again.
When her whiskers were no longer red with someone else’s kill, she stood and began walking. She didn’t waste words on ordering him to follow.
Aaron caught a few flashes of the white calf trailing after them, from a considerably farther dista...
2023-04-02 14:00:03 +0000 UTC
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When he woke, John’s twin was gone and the griffins were back up their tree, probably until nightfall made leaving a safer affair. Waking was good. Waking after a clear delay was less good because… reasons. Reasons like. He was fairly certain a person who stayed down for more than a few minutes had trouble getting back up, and he’d no way of telling how long he’d been down. And. It wasn’t good to be in the Lord of Season’s forest, especially not while he was lying on the ...
2023-03-25 15:59:01 +0000 UTC
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Enclave weaponsmiths were legendary. Or so Aaron had been told by Mabel, at length, when he’d gotten her started on the topic over lunch the last he was in Salt’s Mane. Dragons had been coming to Last of the Isles long before proper humans had arrived, and the griffins had taken some historical offense to the poaching of the reindeer herds that kept their human herds docile and ready for doppeling. And the snatching of their chicks, which made plump enough snacks for growing dragons. Mobb...
2023-03-18 14:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Just a head's up: the first book of Fox's Tongue (chapters 1-48) will be moving to KU just ahead of the official release; that means they'll be taken down from Patreon and Royal Road.
This doesn't affect chapters 49 onwards, or any future chapters, which I'm working hard to get queued up while Spouse is still on paternity leave.
If you're in the $15 tier, make sure you
2023-03-16 19:51:11 +0000 UTC
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Mini-Muffin 2.0 has arrived!
Yes I am already typing over her, why do you ask. Guest-starring chapter 82 in the background.
2023-03-11 23:23:38 +0000 UTC
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“You didn’t tell me you had a brother,” Aaron said, the next he was at Onekin. The trip had been pleasantly uneventful, and made entirely on the feet of horses rather than upon his own sore hooves.
John Baker did not look up from where he was kneading dough with unnecessary force. “Do you have a letter for me?”
“Not this time. Delivered yours, though,” Aaron said. “You didn’t tell me you had a twin.”
“It’s not a thing most find important, dow...
2023-03-11 18:00:02 +0000 UTC
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Aaron arrived at Salt’s Mane rather behind the news of his own death. Which made for an awkwardly pointed conversation with the guards, who’d watched a lone traveler approaching—suspicious enough, that—only to have him introduce himself as a dead boy.
They were of the opinion that he should spend a little time in those cells they’d kept the suspected dragon doppels in. Either that, or significantly more time dead. Aaron was of the opinion that he’d rather decline either offe...
2023-03-04 17:56:43 +0000 UTC
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His first bounding step inside, and there was already a leshy waiting for him. Right in his path, where it looked to have always been, but certainly hadn’t a moment ago. Aaron stopped, his flanks quivering, his tail raised.
There was a heavy thump behind him. Aaron did not turn around. The wind brought crushed grass and the dry-sharp scent of dragons, not that he needed either to know what had landed there. A shame she’d landed in the grass, instead of a few steps nearer the forest;...
2023-02-25 16:53:20 +0000 UTC
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Aaron had a bad feeling. Which was the sort of irony he didn’t much appreciate, really. He was back on the road, with a reply for Connor from his brother, and a letter for Rose that she’d not asked for, and a few other missives on the state of the kingdom and suchlike that were probably more important. He was about an hour south of the Helland enclave, and more than that north of the next messenger station. He was just about even with the outpost that had been attacked. A few more bends i...
2023-02-18 15:24:49 +0000 UTC
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They arrived back at Salt’s Mane with a stunning lack of roadside excitement. Riding all day every day for days on end was, it turned out, rather boring when nothing was stalking you from the sky. Aaron was fine with the lack of imminent death. But it was a weird thing, having the horse under him do all the work, while he sat there getting sorer and sorer, and his sister kept trying to get to know him. As if he wanted to talk about the things that had made them so different.
...
2023-01-06 00:56:54 +0000 UTC
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“So,” Aaron said, casual as can be. “Are you going to out me to our father soon as you open your mouth?”
Because she’d certainly wasted no time in doing so to all those lords and ladies on the committee yesterday. Which was a thing he couldn’t think on too hard, because if he did, then he’d be thinking of the sand clock he was now on. Even if his sister trusted all those people—even if they were trustworthy—they’d be talking. Talking to the less trustworthy,...
2022-12-22 16:08:18 +0000 UTC
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TLDR: I am very preggers, updates will be slow, so Patreon payments are PAUSED. You will still get updates. Just slowly. And for free.
Thank you for your patience, you are all lovely people. <3
…There is not actually a longer version of this announcement. I’m just at the stage of pregnancy where napping for hours is a far more enjoyable activity than anything else, and if this is like my last pregnancy I’ll soon be reaching the...
2022-10-12 00:54:11 +0000 UTC
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They’d stuck a crown on Prince Connor. A little one; no jewels, or anything so gaudy, and nothing near the regalness of the king’s. Just a thin band of gold, worked into the semblance of two dragons coiling over each other. Aaron wondered if it would fit the boy’s twin better, if and when it became Rose’s turn to be next in the succession. If they’d let her be. Or would King Connor have only regents, rather than heirs?
That crown didn’t much suit the boy, was the thing. Conn...
2022-10-04 23:21:53 +0000 UTC
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It went for Adelaide first, which was a thing she probably wouldn’t like him feeling grateful for, but there it was. She jerked her horse’s reins towards the forest. Almost made it, too. But the dragon got there ahead of her, her path predicted, talons broad enough to crush boulders outstretched. They hunted with their hindlegs, a part of Aaron’s mind noted, in a glance over his shoulder before he went back to minding where his own paws were racing. Its forelegs were tucked to its chest...
2022-09-20 00:17:16 +0000 UTC
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Jessica—Jeshinkra—had received a letter. That was how it started. She’d been expecting friends of hers for a visit. Three from her unit, traveling a bit on their way home, leaving the safety of their caravan for a detour to this little town. This was not spring with its dragons, or winter with its lean hungry things. It was summer, the weather mild, and her village only a few days from where the caravan had parted ways with them. Still a risk, but. They were veterans, they were together...
2022-09-04 22:26:42 +0000 UTC
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Just before dawn, Aaron put on his wolf cloak and slipped into the forest through a crack in the town’s gate, quickly closed. There was new growth brushing his shoulders and old decay damp under his paws, and sounds and smells he still didn’t know. There was a strangeness to being outside of humanity’s walls before sunrise. An electric charge down the fur of his spine that kept his nose sniffing and his ears swiveling and made his legs itch to stretch out in a run. There were things to ...
2022-08-31 23:51:34 +0000 UTC
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Aaron was to ride messenger horses on his way back to Onekin, changing for fresh mounts at towns along the main road. Messenger horses were bred for speed, the stablehand said. Ours are particularly excellent at fording the local rivers, the stablehand said. Just watch out they don’t play tricks on you, the stablehand said.
“It’s just while you’re near the shore still, mostly,” the young man worked to reassure him. “And it’s easy as anything to check. You can borrow a comb...
2022-08-25 00:25:44 +0000 UTC
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Also known as "Who's My Half-Sibling Hopscotch". I really think the Queen missed an opportunity here, to complete the circle with a few select liaisons with Unknown Women. Or did she.
2022-08-17 00:01:56 +0000 UTC
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Orin handed him a neatly tied stack of letters as the meeting broke up. Each bore the crown’s seal: a dragon rampant, caught in the spiked ring of a crown.
“As we discussed,” he said, and left it at that.
“You’re carrying his correspondence?” asked his sister, once His Majesty had left the room.
“I’m the go-between for the field investigators and the committee at the castle.” That was to say: for the southern lords not trusted enough to depart the castle’...
2022-08-16 23:56:44 +0000 UTC
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