[stylist] Trials of an honorary Dragon. chapter 24 (new chapter)-comments

[James H. "Jim" Canaday M.A. N6YR]

Helene,
I've not been able to follow all the changes and 
chapters but I read this one.  meet the blind 
month has been extremely busy around here!

here's a few comments on this chapter:
Ever so often I would reach out

"ever so often" has the sense of very frequent, 
like maybe  the character reached out on 
alternate steps or nearly every step, that 
frequent.  "ever so" is a great phrase for 
emphasis and I must remember to use it ever so  much more often.

"every now and then" or just "now and then" has 
the sense of an  infrequent, irregular pattern.
she's walking with cane in one hand, and crutch 
under the other arm.  do you mean the crutch hand 
is what she reaches out with?

in three or four places the explanations or 
history of the peoples and why they do things got 
a little tedious and I wished for a little less of that.
"riming" I think you mean a different word there.
jc
Jim Canaday M.A.
Lawrence, KS

At 07:32 PM 10/22/2009, you wrote:
>Chapter 24
>Painful passages by Liza Bronze
>
>I woke up on a hard wooden surface.  My body felt stiff and painful.
>It was completely dark.  I could tell from the cold and feel of the
>wind on my face that I was outdoors somewhere.
>I touched the wooden surface to find I had been sleeping on a bench.
>It seemed familiar from somewhere so I reached out a hand to the left
>to touch a metal rimed litter bin.  There was grass to the left, Grass
>to the right, and in front was a sandy slope going down.
>I knew where I was then.  I was at Stilosarka central park.  As if to
>confirm this I heard a noise, which I guessed to be the sound of
>ducks.  I often came here to feed the birds.  I must have drifted off
>to sleep on my way to meeting up with Nadia.
>At the thought of Nadia, I had a horrible memory of me fleeing with
>her and Katrina.    As soon as we got to the dragon’s private
>quarters, Nadia began to shrink.  She was growing feathers.   The next
>thing I knew it was no longer Nadia at all but a raven.
>No, that couldn’t be right.  I brushed the unpleasant memory away.
>Nadia must be with Tan Darth.
>I felt my braille watch to discover the time was three am.  If I
>hurried now I could see Nadia before I went into work.
>There was something about my job that I should remember, but I
>couldn’t think what.
>  I got up, pulling out my cane, and made my way carefully along the
>path, out of the park.  Ever so often I would reach out a hand to my
>left to feel for my next landmark.  My hand touched the intricate
>pattern on the wrought iron gate at the entrance of the park.  My feet
>touched cobblestones.  I crossed over, feeling for the brick wall on
>the other side of the road, then along a couple of streets. It was so
>quiet in the street that I could hear absolutely nothing, even after I
>turned up my cochlear implant as far as it would go.
>By the scent of the blossoms I guessed there should be a wooden fence
>on my left.  I felt a sense of relief when my hand touched the rough
>untreated wood.
>I was about to turn into a gravel driveway when I sensed someone
>following me.  I could not hear or see them, but I could smell a faint
>trace of lavender perfume and I could sense someone watching me.
>I walked straight past the gravel driveway.  At the end of the street,
>I turned to cross the road, heading back for the railway station.
>There was a bench there where I could sit and wait until it was time
>to get to work.  Normally Tan Darth flew me to Keraina so I could
>catch the train into work, which would be less suspicious if someone
>was watching me, but that was out of the question right now.
>  There was no way I could use the ladder going down, since my body
>felt so tender and I was afraid of falling.  I wasn’t sure how I could
>possibly have got to Tan Darth’s roof anyway.  It was a matter that I
>had only just considered.  Walking was hard enough with my crutch on
>one side, and my long cane on the other, but the lift operator would
>not be around at that time of night.  I would just have to wait on the
>bench.
>My various aches and pains seemed to remind me of their presence more
>insistently while I waited.  Especially my eye, there was obviously
>something wrong with it.  I also had more time to think how badly my
>life was going now.
>
>I am experiencing living hell.  I'm not just referring to the physical
>pain from my eye, or my various injuries.
>Physical pain was nothing compared to the emotional pain I felt.
>Like when I was trying to entertain the guests at Nadia and Sunniva's
>birthday party.  I tripped over something and all the children were
>laughing at me, including Nadia.  Now that really hurt.
>I felt confused at the thought of the party since I had no
>recollection of when that happened.  It seemed one of the clusters of
>memories that I felt so desperate to push away.
>It seemed Nadia had changed.  Where had my sweet little Nadia gone?
>She had been refusing to wear her cochlear implant. I tried to accept
>that, hoping it was just a phase she was going through.
>Nadia's also decided to take up a vegan diet. Not that I have anything
>against her following a vegan lifestyle. My dear sweet husband Vinny
>is also Vegan.  If only she didn’t take her veganism to such extremes.
>  I gave her a lovely model dog for her birthday.  I thought she would
>be really pleased with it, but she didn't even thank me for it.  She
>just asked me if it was vegan.
>Nadia seems to really resent Vinny.   She said some really hurtful
>things about him.  I can't understand how anyone can fail to like
>Vinny.  He is the nicest man I’ve ever met.  He really helps me accept
>my sight problems, and the fact I now need a long cane all the time
>since I have so many blind spots.   I would never have coped with any
>of that if Vinny wasn't there to support me.
>It seemed that Nadia blamed him for the lack of time I could spend
>with her, but he's got nothing to do with that.  Every time I visit
>Nadia it puts her at risk.  Both Madrella and Beria are on to me.
>There have been so many close calls.
>If that wasn't bad enough there was my mother to deal with too.   I
>used to think that it was just a matter of getting mother away from my
>abusive father.  I thought she would be pleased, but she isn't.  She
>keeps asking me when she can visit father in prison.  I took her to
>stay with the Parvesh witches, but she complained almost constantly
>about my mother-in-law and her bossy ways.  I tried inviting her to
>Nadia's birthday party but she pulled her hand away.
>
>
>
>
>I smelt the lavender perfume more strongly now.  A hand touched mine.
>I started as I felt the fabrics of a tunic brushing against me.
>"Sorry to make you jump like that. It's Katrina here.   Are you ready
>to go yet?" a pair of hands asked using tactile sign language.
>"Ready to go? Ready to go where? What are you doing here anyway?" I
>asked in confusion.
>"I‘ve been following you to make sure you were ok.  You were very
>upset after your appointment with the eye doctor, and you were
>diagnosed with Glaucoma
” Katrina explained.
>After that a tide of unpleasant memories came flooding back to me.
>I would not have seen Nadia at Tan Darth’s place 
>since she had left months ago.
>I remembered that awful party that should never have happened.
>I had wanted to make things up to Nadia, but the party went wrong
>right from the start.  There were supposed to be two powerful witches
>there, but Van’s human companion wouldn’t stay for the party.
>“This is too bad; I wanted to spend some time alone with my dragon.
>The witch clan that I am staying with produce children in plague like
>proportions.  I wanted a brat-free break with my dragon, so you are
>just going to have to call the whole thing off,” she stormed.
>Van’s human companion must have left straight after putting the
>protective charms on her dragon’s property.
>I couldn‘t possibly call off the party.  I’d already told Nadia I was
>throwing a party for her.  Plus there were physical problems with me
>not being able to see the screen of my large print Mincom any more.
>Then after struggling to run that dreadful party, my sister Madrella had come.
>
>“So where is Nadia?” I asked Katrina.
>“I can’t say.  I can assure you thought that Nadia is ok.  The girl we
>took with us wasn’t Nadia.  It was Wendy Krum.   My aim was to get
>Madrella and Beria away from the real Nadia as far as possible.  I’m
>waiting for a phone call right now, telling me where Nadia is, so I
>can take you to meet her before she goes up north with me.  She will
>be safer there," Katrina told me.
>"No, I’ve already had to be separated from Nadia while my wounds were
>healing.  I would worry too much if she was too far away.   She's
>getting resentful enough as it is.  If I abandoned her altogether she
>would never forgive me," I told her.
>“She’ll get over it.  You won't be abandoning her anyway, just having
>a break. Right now I can tell that your nerves are getting really
>frayed.  Lapses in memory are always a bad sign.  Your eye condition
>isn‘t helping things either," Katrina told me.
>“I’m going to go completely blind now aren‘t I?” I asked Katrina.
>  “Not necessarily, although that could happen.  It would have been
>less likely to happen if your mother-in-law had booked you an
>appointment when she first noticed your sight deteriorate.  She
>noticed months ago, but unfortunately she was too fatalistic to
>consider the possibility that something might be done about your
>sight, so she helped you improve your blind skills instead,” Katrina
>explained.
>I remembered that, my mother-in-law had been very insistent that I
>improve on my long cane technique and other blind skills.  She bought
>me a braille watch as an extra wedding anniversary present.  She said
>I would definitely need it in the future.  I'm not sure if she was
>referring to my delicate eyes or whether she could forecast the
>future.   I greatly resented her over bearing approach to my life, but
>as far as long cane skills go, I'm now very glad mine have improved.
>  “This fatalistic approach is typically Nazdonian, particularly
>amongst the older generation,” Katrina continued, “They accept
>whatever life throws at them as being fated to happen that way.  It’s
>one of the reasons that there are so many disabled people in Nazdonia.
>The rate of blindness is particularly high in comparison to the rest
>of the world.”
>“I thought that was because of the lack of modern medicine,” I commented.
>“Well that’s part of it, but there are a number of other reasons
>besides.  People assume in a nation with so many witches, that the
>witches would be bound to make everyone perfect.  It doesn’t happen
>that way since magic is more likely to make things go wrong, then put
>things right.  My husband does a lot with his weather magic to help
>the local villagers, but this is an exception rather then a rule.  In
>general witches keep themselves to themselves.  There is a lot of
>inbreeding amongst the witch clans.  For example, the high incidence
>of blindness in the Parvesh clan is due to inbreeding and so is the
>high incidence of Deafness in the Krum clan.  Plus some of the less
>scrupulous witches use their magic to blind others with.  They even do
>it to their own family members.”
>I went quiet after that, hoping for a change of subject.   Madrella
>hadn’t even bothered to use her magic to blind me with.  She had
>simply used her fists.
>At that moment I heard Katrina’s mobile phone ring.
>“I’m sorry Liza; I’ve got some really bad news for you.  It’s about Nadia
”
>
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