Work-in-Progress Wednesday: I’m thinking of calling it From the Ashes of Angels

So one way the many ways that I procrastinate and avoid getting down to the actual work I need to do is that I write on other projects.

What I tell myself:  “I will just work on this other project for a little while to warm myself up.  Then once I’ve got the creative juices flowing, I’ll switch over to my main project.”

What actually happens: [ type type type on other project ] “I can stop any time.  I *will* stop in just a moment.  Just another paragraph…” [ type type type ]  “Oh, man!  I have to go to [ work / an appointment / the gym / something else ]!  Where did the time go?? … Darn.  Looks like my main project isn’t going to get any attention today.”

There is one thing that gives me comfort for this bad procrastination habit… I’m not the only one who does it.  Brandon Sanderson, who writes massive epic fantasy novels, said in an interview I heard that he is “schizophrenic” when it comes to writing, as he will jump back and forth between several projects at a time.

That made me feel a little better.

BUUUUUUUT it didn’t get me to my NaNoWriMo word count goal over the weekend!

However, it did yield this.

This is meant to be the opening scene of the novel *after* I write Soldier of Dorsa.  So two novels from now.

[ In case you’re confused, I’m currently writing The Redevelopment of Drea and Kasey, then I’m going to get back to Joslyn and Tasia with Soldier of Dorsa, and THEN I’m planning to tackle *this* project, a paranormal romance that I’m thinking about titling From the Ashes of Angels.  Anyway.  Here it is… hope you like it… ]

~ EXCERPT ~

There was nothing particularly remarkable about the bridge spanning the canal.  It was a very old bridge across a very old canal, but then again, it was a very old city.  No one in the city knew how old the bridge was; they walked across it every day and rarely — if ever — wondered at its existence.  Especially this time of year, with the temperatures dropping further each day, the people crossing the old stone bridge that spanned the canal walked swiftly, their heads bent against the wind and their hands shoved deep inside their winter jackets.  If they thought about anything at all, they thought about reaching their destination as quickly as they could.

The morning had been foggy to begin with, but around the city’s canals, it was even foggier.  It wasn’t a pleasant fog, the kind that makes buildings and bridges and canals look soft and romantic.  It was a cold fog, a decidedly winter fog, the kind of fog that seeps through layers of clothes to make the skin damp and the body chilled.

In the center of the unremarkable stone bridge stood an unremarkable woman — at least, nothing was remarkable about her at first glance.  She stood with her back towards the people hustling across the bridge to work or to school; her gloved hands rested lightly on the bridge’s edge, which was about as high as the bottom of her ribcage.

The woman gazed into the dark waters of the canal below, apparently lost in thought.  She leaned forward over the bridge’s edge just slightly, as if she might have dropped something in the canal below and was trying to see if it could still be rescued.

If any of the people crossing the bridge noticed her at all, and since their heads were all down and their eyes were half-closed against the wind they might not have, it’s possible they wouldn’t have recognized her as a woman but might have mistaken her for a man.  Her straight black hair wasn’t especially short; it fell to her jawline and was pushed back behind her ears.  But there was something about her — maybe it was in that jawline, maybe the expression on her face, or the way that she stood — that made her somehow androgynous.

How long had the woman been standing there?  She seemed almost an outgrowth of the bridge itself.  She wore black boots, charcoal-grey pants, a long black woolen peacoat, and black gloves.  In this way, she blended in against the damp grey stones of the bridge, and she didn’t move at all.  She didn’t shift her weight from foot to foot, she didn’t tap her gloved hands against the edge of the bridge, or push her hair behind her ears to keep it in place.

She was still.

And for all anyone on the bridge knew — and they didn’t know — she might have been standing there for hours.  Or days.  Or years:  Perhaps she was simply a very lifelike statue.

A man approached her.  He had a smile on his face, but like the fog, it wasn’t a pleasant smile.  And just as the fog only deepened the morning chill, so did the man’s smile.  Anyone who saw it would’ve described it as predatory, dangerous, too knowing.

Like the other people on the bridge, the man was dressed for winter.  His jacket was black and puffy and fashionable, and the white plaid scarf around his neck was also fashionable.  It looked soft, probably cashmere.  The man’s hair was black and cropped short; his skin was a ruddy brown complexion.  Someone who saw him might have guessed that he was Middle Eastern or Indian or Pakistani or Moroccan.

Or possibly Italian.  It was Europe, after all; he could have been an Italian man with a deep tan, although such a tan seemed unlikely at the beginning of winter.

“Good morning, Ying,” said the man with the dangerous smile to the woman standing on the bridge.

“Is there something ‘good’ about your morning, Cyrus?” the woman replied.  Even as she spoke, she did not move.  Not even her eyes flitted in his direction.

He laughed.  Just like his smile, his laughter had the effect of making the air colder rather than brighter.

“Why shouldn’t there be something good about it?” he said.  “I found you, didn’t I?”

“Yes.  You found me.”

Cyrus glanced around, taking in the stone bridge, the buildings that belonged to Europe’s past, the people hustling by.  “This is an odd place to be, even for you.  Especially this time of year,” he said.  “I thought you preferred the tropics during the winter months?  Bali.  Hawaii.  Trinidad.”

“I like it here.  It’s been quiet,” Ying said.  “And the cold hasn’t bothered me in years.”

He laughed at her joke, and this time he seemed genuinely amused.  Cyrus ambled over to where Ying stood overlooking the canal, rested his forearms against the stone ledge and leaned forward.  He was a slight, wiry man, and bending forward made him look even smaller next to Ying, who was relatively tall for a woman.

“How old is she now?” he asked.  “It must almost be time again.”

“It is.”

They both spoke English, even though it wasn’t either one of their native tongues.  Cyrus’s English sounded almost British in intonation and cadence; Ying’s English was more American or Canadian.  But Cyrus wasn’t from England anymore than Ying was from America.

“It’s almost time for something else, you know,” Cyrus said.

There it was again — that hint of something dark and dangerous underlying his tone.

“Not for me it isn’t,” Ying said.

“I think you might find yourself persuaded to join us,” Cyrus said.  “What was it the old Greek said?  ‘Give me a place to stand and a lever and I will move the whole world.’  Anything can be moved with the right leverage, Ying.  Even you.”

At long last, Ying stirred from her stillness.  She turned her face towards Cyrus.  And even though her flat expression hardly changed, any ordinary person would have been terrified by her countenance.  Looking at Ying’s face at that moment would have been the equivalent of looking into the heart of a tornado, or a raging fire, or a devastating avalanche.

Cyrus was not ordinary by any measurement, and yet in that moment, even he felt uneasy to see Ying’s face.

“Do not threaten me, Cyrus,” she said, and her voice was as flat as her face but just as frightening.  “Do not threaten me and do not threaten her.”

Cyrus looked away, tried to grin away his unease.  “You mistake persuasion for threats.”

“I mistake nothing.”

Cyrus straightened and turned to face her.  He dropped any pretense of mirth.  “The time is coming when you will need to pick a side,” he said.  “You know that this is true.  You know that there will come a moment when remaining neutral will be impossible.  I offer you a place on the winning side, where both of you will be sheltered from the coming storm.  You say not to threaten you; I say do not be foolish enough and arrogant enough to think that you will survive without us.”

Ying looked away, returned her gaze to the canal.  “The Romans built this bridge the first time, though historians don’t remember that.  Caesar held this whole area after his Gallic Wars.  Do you know what year that was, Cyrus?”

“I’ve never been one to pay much attention to mortal history,” he said dismissively, though anyone who knew him well — and Ying knew him very well — would have detected his discomfort.

“It was about fifty BC.  This city was Rome’s northernmost and easternmost European stronghold in Gaul, for a time.”  Ying turned her terrible face to Cyrus again.  “I didn’t see them build this bridge.  I was a child in China at the time.  The bridge has been rebuilt a few times over the years; the last time was in the fifteenth century.  Where were you in the fifteenth century, Cyrus?”

“You know where I was,” he said testily, but there was no mistaking the way his words were edged with fear.

“So I do.”  She looked away again, and Cyrus let out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding.  “You take my point, I hope.  This bridge and I have lived parallel lives.  We were born at almost the same time.  We have had several incarnations; we have lived to see the rise and fall of empires.  We have weathered storms, Cyrus, and yet here we both still stand.”  Ying raised her hands, her palms towards the sky, and for a moment she resembled an orator with a well-honed stage presence addressing a large audience.  She placed her palms back on the stone ledge a moment later, and the effect dissipated like the morning fog.  “I will be like the bridge.  Armies can cross me and I will have no opinion of any of them.”

“This time it’s different,” Cyrus insisted.  “This time it’s choose a side or die.”

Ying laughed.  It was a ringing sound, like a fork against a crystal wine glass.  But it was also brittle and bitter.  “Choose a side or die?  I should be so lucky as to die.”

“You play at a dangerous game, Ying.”

“As do you, old friend.  Take care not to lose your game this time.  As you point out, the stakes are higher now, aren’t they?”

He looked as if he wanted to say more, to find a way to have the last word, but he feared that what he wanted to say to her would only put his life in danger.  And unlike Ying, Cyrus valued his life.  He valued it deeply and guarded it jealously.  He pushed off the bridge and turned to go, shoving his hands back into his winter coat like everyone else.

He left Ying standing there in the center of the bridge, silent and still as the stones themselves, gazing into the canal as the city gradually woke around her.