Hi, all. As always, sorry about the dust. Here’s a wee little excerpt from the newest book I’m working on. It’ll look different in the final version, seeing as it’s a pain to format book stuff into blog stuff. The rest of the book won’t be in present tense, I promise. Anyhoo, I hope you enjoy it .
“When the Lantern illuminated the first woman, the first man knew he wasn’t going to get his way ever again and he was perfectly fine with the tradeoff,”
Tirion’s grandfather looks wistfully at his wife, watching her laugh with her friends and family. He turns his attention back to Tirion, a gangly boy of ten, who is trying his absolute best to follow his grandfather’s caravan of thought. It seems like it’ll be important someday.
“Lamplighter knew we’d need something more after awhile, and he gifted us with love to fill in the cracks our selfishness leaves. It takes the goodness of attraction and molds it into something more than the sum of its parts, something that creates beauty over the course of dozens and dozens of years rather than a vapid, steamy few. Mark m’words when you find someone like that someday, Tirion. There’s more to love than making each other happy.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be happy when you’re in love?” Tirion asks, small brow creased in thought.
“O’course you are, Tirionion.” His grandfather cackles, ruffling the boy’s hair. “But sometimes love is doing things the one you love upset or even angry, if it’s for the right reasons. Specifically, for their good. Love is built on trying your damnedest- “
He looks down at Tirion, makes sure his faux pax hasn’t been caught by Tirion’s grandmother and changes tack. “Trying your darnedest to live for someone else rather than yourself. When you promise to love someone, you commit to a lifetime of doing what’s best for them, and they do the same.”
“Is that why you and Grandma have been together so long?”
“Whattaya mean, ‘so long’?” The older man scowls. “It hasn’t been naught but…” He pauses to count the years on his fingers, then switches to decades and counts on his fingers again.
“See? Soooo long.”
“To answer your question: yes,” Tirion’s grandfather smiles. It’s weathered and wrinkled smile, but not weary. “Love’s not a guarantee of happiness, Tirion. In fact, it’s a guarantee of having someone know you, even the parts you’d rather not have shouted from the rooftops. It requires vulnerability, boy. You can’t love someone without giving up who you are when you’re alone.”
“So…I’m not my own person if I fall in love?”
The older man blinks and purses his lips, trying to soften the blow. He decides against it.
“Tirion, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Love sounds hard.”
“It is, bucko. You better believe it. You’ll fight, you’ll cry, you’ll lose more and more of yourself each and every day. Your life as a whole will contain more pain than you ever thought possible.” He prods Tirion gently on the chest with a gnarled finger. “But I promise you…”
He takes another look at Tirion’s grandmother. The boy watches his grandfather’s eyes well up with tears, rolling down his craggy face and onto his white beard. No motion is made to hide the tears as he finishes. “It’s worth it, Tirion. All of it.”
Tirion hugs his grandfather, his head is chest-high on his grandfather where it’d been stomach-level just last year. He doesn’t understand it all, no, but he’s absorbed it as intended. “I love you.”
Sniffing, his grandfather hugs him back tightly. “I love you, too, Tirionion.” He thumps Tirion’s back a few times, then turns him, pointing him across the yard. “Now why don’t you go talk to the Curro’s daughter over there? She’s about your age.”
“Wait, are you trying to make me fall in love with her?” Deep-set stubbornness is written on the boy’s face.
His grandfather roars with laughter so loud everyone at the party glances their way for a moment. “No, no, boy! Poor thing looks as bored as you are. Go on, now, go get into some trouble with her.”
Tirion begins a sentence, but it falls apart at the seams, careening off his lips and falling to the ground, never to be heard.
Because he’s seen her. She’s looking right at him.
She smiles.