I’m stepping back from Benhá for a bit. I’ll return with serious plotting soon. In this interim I came back to the Camp-home post from a year or more back to light plot Ron’s story. Unexpected backstory tumbled out and now I need to move forward from there.

A quick refresher if you are just joining us or if reading yesterday’s post troubles your sensibilities… Ron fell in love with Neri despite their families cultural resistance. The couple ran away from their mountain tribes to scrounge a city-life in Gordawn. Tension between the two led to an argument and Neri left the opressive city for the comfort of home. Ron, hurt and prideful, stayed in Gordawn as a pig-cutter. That summer job led to work as a hunter in the fall and early winter. His skill earned him a vacation of sorts and, being close to Camp-home, he has returned to visit his family and explain.

Too shamed to enter his former home along the traditional route—The Trail—Ron trudges a more direct path through the snowy mountains.

This is the extent of my discoveries. Nearly.

Ron’s route takes him close enough to Neri’s tribe’s settlement that he is spotted by scouts. Neri’s tribers capture Ron and haul him back to the settlement to face justice for Neri’s death.

Neri’s twin, Seri, explains to Ron what her tribers know: a hunting party crossed paths with the trade wagon Neri hired on with to return to her settlement. The encounter went bad, people were killed on both sides, and the trade wagon caught fire. The tribers eventually won the fight. When the went among the wreck to claim their fallen tribers and the spoils the discovered the wagon held the burnt bodies of several slave girls. One wore a [necklace|bracelet|trinket] which identified her as Neri.

Ron shares with Seri that he’s seen Neri in Gordawn since that encounter and that Neri can’t be dead. Seri wants to believe him but there isn’t time to convince her people before Ron’s punishment [whatever that is]. Seri frees him and they must make their way back to Gordawn to find Neri.

372 words on day 523

I don’t know what my original intention was for Ron’s return to Camp-home. I envisioned him as a bit of a spearman trudging through the snow to a place that he could no longer call home. Now I’ve got him cavorting with the neighbor’s daughter and running off to the city. Giving Charming a dead body seems to have helped me over the cusp and into the business of conflict.

What I didn’t yet post about Ron’s situation is that Neri never made it home.

Up until I wrote that prior sentence I imagined her dead, but that doesn’t aid my cause so I’ll make her missing. Or both. Dead as far as her fellow tribers believe; missing as far as Ron knows. Driving the plot that way gives me a built in tug-of-war between tribers thinking he’s escaped justice and him thinking he’s on a rescue mission. Plus his tribers can be dubious about helping Ron. Making matters worse is the Gordawn girl he fell in with after Neri left.

Setting up the murder mystery might require a little delicacy. What clue leaves Neri’s tribers convinced she’s dead but Ron convinced she’s just missing? Perhaps Ron has a glimpse of her in town in the late Fall during hunting season? The sighting is fleeting enough and his employment situation dicey enough that he doesn’t/can’t pursue the vision further at the time? Meanwhile, the traders she’d made off with are attacked and killed on the road—probably by her tribers. She’s left some trinket with one of the girls that proves she was among them during the attack.

Where does the story begin then? That’s an assload of backstory to discreetly divulge on the reader assuming I start with Ron’s snowy walk. Though most of it would be naturally part of the evidence discover during conversations following his impending capture so maybe not so tough to impart.

If that is the backstory what is the frontstory? His rescue quest? Their capture mission? Both twined? Her escape? More twining?

411 words on day 522

I’m coming back to this as best I can.

“Why didn’t you come by The Trail? Why would I come by the trail? Why didn’t you; why would I?”

“Why didn’t I?” Ron asked aloud.

“I don’t deserve the priviledge Dan,” he answered himself. And he didn’t. Ron fell in love with a Wolf-runner girl at the Summer Gather. Not a bad thing in Summer; not a good thing in Fall. They met in secret several times in to winter that year. When Ton discovered the lingering romance he called Ron to end it. Ron found Neri sobbing at their favorite rendezvous. Mothers had spoken; nothing more would pass, but Ron and Neri resolved to be together regardless. They left directly for Gordawn, the nearest city.

Their families’–and tribes–reaction planted a seed of doubt. The hardship of tribers living in the wall filled city compounded their guilt. Neri’s germinated quickly and she betrayed Ron the next Spring. Instead of a teary note she left a burning handprint on his cheek then hopped a trade wagon back to the mountains.

Ron caught work with a hog-cutter and stayed in Gordawn all through the fetid summer. In fall, the hog-cutter hired him out to the Mayoral Hunt. The young triber chaffed many of the veterans in the crew, but his tracking and knife skills impressed the only person on the hunt who mattered: Capt. Tantamout. Without going into more detail, Ron earned workless pay till the next full dark moon.

260 words on day 521

At least someone is following his bliss.

The good thing about this excuse is I’ve had a full day. No fluff. No fucking around.

I’m ok with that. You shall be too.

Enjoy!

92 words on day 520

I’ve not yet stopped to consider whether selling t-shirts on The Song made any sense. I figure not everyone can sell fish or shells or some import from upriver. Of course that’s sort of the challenge when you’ve decided on a world showing off both magic and intermediate future tech like hover cars and floating cities. We’ve got 100 story buildings and supersonic passenger jets along side tribespeople living in jungles and homeless living on the streets now. Maybe a floating city and a canoe import aren’t so polar.

But maybe there is something more uniquely Benny then just a shirt?

130 words on day 519

In the whole six degrees of seperation meme Forgotten Follow Friday celebrates the broken link between step five and step six. #FFF admits that you no longer have any clue why you began following the people you list. It is not a listing of people you don’t want to follow anymore or a listing of people you think others should follow. #FFF simply acknowledges people you followed for one reason or another and you no longer know that reason.

Maybe you were foolish early on and followed back anyone who followed you.

Maybe you followed someone because they talked about comic books at the time but they haven’t in so long you wouldn’t realize that now. Maybe it was a shared interest in politics, ice-cream, football, or knitting. Maybe you followed them because you mixed up which account you were logged into at the time.

Who knows. Doesn’t matter. You don’t know why now.

By listing them you call them to mind and let them know their link to you is basically pure social network. They are friends you conjured out of nothingness. Not from school. Not from work. Not from locale.

Enjoy Forgotten Follow Friday!

#fff

I don’t know how to do that, so if what comes next looks no different from what came before what can I say?

This scene is early in the story. Lots of things need to happen so there is less room for interstitial content. Lean.

This is part one of a three part micro-plot for our victim. The entirety of which occurs in part one of the overall story. Unless I can find a twist for later.

This introduces the victim in a way that makes us sympathetic to how his death adversely effects Charming. Not the victim—we want him dead. But the animosity between the two can’t be so extreme that any sensible reader or character would think Charming had a hand in his death. That shouldn’t be a question.

At some point I’d like Charming to angrily but innocently say something to the effect of “I’d like to kill that guy.” The sort of thing anyone would say in anger.

Keeping in mind that her character is still orphan-like at this stage she needs to lose the argument. Not by explicitly giving Jun-kata money for the shirts, but arranging to meet him later.

Jun-kata’s hidden goal throughout is that he had entered into business with Charming because of all the girls that throw themselves at him on The Song, she never did. He has a crush on her. He’s angry because he screwed up the t-shirt thing, but he’s not willing to admit to her that he did—or that he doesn’t have the money to fix it. Pride is his problem. Love is his motivator.

By asking her for more money for the shirts he feels like he’s inviting her to a business partnership of sorts. By resisting, she’s doubting his competency. Of course that pisses him off.

Karl’s role in this is to act as representative of The Song at large. Which finds the entire public argument quite distasteful.

The Pit however will act as barometer for the two arguing. As their anger increases the energy of The Pit will increase.

Charming needs to leave this scene flustered and angry at herself for caving. She can never she that Jun-kata has a crush on her. Her flustered state leads to her first bout of dermatographia.

Charming’s cause worsens because this public outburst not only runs contrary to her desire for acceptance, but also because it contributes to the prosecution’s case against her in the murder trial. All previous harmony Charming enjoyed with her fellow Bennies fractures. Evidence of that is in Karl’s behavior.

544 words on day 517

Charming catches a few neon sparks strobe from cloud to ocean. Sweat beads on her Red Bull. She swirls the slush of the half-frozen energy drink, takes a crystalline swig, and heads back to The Pit to set up her t-shirt stall.

###

“Ah, poop.”

Charming’s Sunday morning Pit neighbor chuckles while reading his pad. He’s not laughing at the feed.

“Hush-up Karl. We don’t all need to sound like fishermen.” Charming absently tugs the cord from her braid and shakes her hair loose. Karl waggles his head in agreement.

The vector of Charming’s consternation, Jun-kata, threads his way around the stalls and through the few customers in The Pit. He’s tall; girls fall for him. He thinks Charming owes him money; she thinks he owes her shirts. He’s a dick. Rebraiding her hair will keep her hands from throttling him. Maybe.

234 words on day 516