AUTHOR: Phy DATE: 8/20/2003 03:50:00 PM ----- BODY: It occurs to me that Brindy requires more thought before I venture any further. Kish (who has temporarily lost his longterm memory of who he is due to the Eidolon "rolling up the window" to prevent a breakdown) meets Brindy almost immediately after his experience with the Eidolon in the cave. She quickly determines that her former captor is now in her hands. Somehow or other, she decides to stay with Kish but immediately separate themselves from the main force of the Trindle pirates. Where do they go? How do they get there? What is revealed? When do they start to meet the other three? What is their reason for being, and what do they do next?

I'm going to have to get past this before I do much else, I think. -------- AUTHOR: Phy DATE: 8/18/2003 03:21:00 PM ----- BODY: She paused when she noticed me.

She was the most beautiful woman that I could remember (which doesn't do her justice, as I couldn't remember any others, just that I *had* known others). Her eyes were deep and clever and I had the crazy feeling that she knew me. She moved with deliberate silence, her hair tied back out of her face. The effect was of a very capable woman.

She froze when she saw me looking at her, but her gaze wasn't frightened, wasn't alarmed. No, it was more than that. Looking deeper, I could see that she had been so frightened for so long that she didn't care anymore.

She clearly didn't expect to see me, but having been noticed, was just as clearly waiting for me to make the next move waiting expressionless, silent, relaxed. She may as well have been a deer, but I sensed immediately that she was far more dangerous than that, not prey, but huntress.

It was a captivating moment. My vision shimmered and I suddenly saw her on horseback, laughing and giggling and galloping through a ford in a small driver, sending spray in the air like jewels. I saw her at night, then, one hair pulled back while she cooked something over a stranger's fire, intent on her preparations, then she was framed by more intimate firelight, as if in a small space, and she was backing away, clutching a blanket to cover herself. The effect was a sliding from innocent joy to discovery to the twin feelings of desire and selfishness overwhelmed me. My revulsion and horror tasted like ash on my tongue, blackness that consumed me from the inside out.

I could feel my emotions playing out on my face - curiousity, then a shy smile, then a grin, then surprise, shock, and horror.

I remember gasping once (a stuttering, convulsive thing) as tears burst from me, unbidden, burning my cheeks.

I don't remember pitching forward into the stream. --------