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Tuesday 5 May 2020

The Hermit

Collaboration with Frenone for a limited-run tarot set

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
 
 
    All askafroa are protective of their ash tree. Consumed with concern for its health, their spirits and fates intertwined, they are vicious when approached. Few with any sense go near inhabited trees, day or night, for fear of the nymphs' wrath. Treading accidentally upon their roots usually results in the most ruthless ailments, and snapped twigs in curses of entire households.
   But where all other askafroa relished in their devotion to their verdant sanctums, one had grown lonely. Once, she'd adored the isolation; her tree had been enough. But now, she was tired. All thoughts were her own, opinions were her own; there was no argument, no discussion, no sharing or stories. Nothing and no one approached the aggressive little nymph. Even the birds feared her boughs.
   In time, she turned ever further into herself, hiding from her empty life. She dove deeper and deeper into her beloved tree, searching for the comfort that had once filled her so completely. She sank into the bark, slipped into the grain, seeped into the sap, but no matter how deep she receded, she could find no comfort. She found only her own heart, a knot of rotten wood. There was no contentment. There was no love. No joy. She realised she hadn't felt any such thing in a very long time.
   She began to cry tears stolen from the roots, and her voice rasped in sorrow. She hadn't spoken in a very long time, either.
   As her throat ached, she realised at last what she had long refused to face. And she knew, fearfully, how to fix it.
   Humans came on Wednesday. A whole village, each carrying a jug of water in shaking hands. They were pallid as they poured it, one by one, over the roots of her tree. She watched them as she always did from the safety of the branches.
   When the village elder poured the final jug and spoke his hallowed, beseeching words, she held her breath and scurried like a squirrel down the trunk.
   The whole village shrank back. She stared at them closely. They were peculiar, their skin so smooth, free of flaky lichen. But they didn't look scary. They looked frightened.
   She made her decision.
   Bracing herself, gritting her teeth, she reached a twiggy arm up into the branches and pulled one free. It hurt, but it was nothing like she'd been told; snagged hair, not a broken finger.
   Tentatively, she handed it to the elder. It would make a fine and sturdy spear shaft, or a whole quiver of hunting arrows.
   The surprise and gratitude upon their faces warmed her strangely, and she vanished quickly back into the tree, feeling fulfilled despite her loss.
   From then onwards, humans weren't so afraid of the askafroa, and visited often, watering her roots in exchange for strong wood or honeydew for the apiaries, and stories. And she savoured their visits. Despite her kin's disapproving whispers, she had opened her heart.
 
 
 
Words copyright © Kim Wedlock
No part is to be reproduced without my permission. 
Written based on the Hermit tarot card for a collaborative project with Frenone



Wednesday 1 April 2020

The Hierophant

Collaboration with Frenone for a limited-run tarot set

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
 
 
    "The juniper's berries, hot in the third degree, dry in the first, are key in countering poisoning, and are a powerful ingredient in the resistance of pestilence. The ashes of the--"
   "I am a centaur."
   Apollo looked up from the variety of herbs laid out across the sun-lit table and blinked at the scowling young man. "...Yes, Chiron, you are."
   "So what good are the properties of juniper berries among my people? Or music, for that matter? Or archery? Centaur are strong just as we are! We don't need weapons! Nor oracles!" He rose to his hooves and tossed the bowl of juniper leaves across the table, gritting his teeth while offence seared in his deep, dark eyes. He watched the condescending patience ooze from the god's rich bearing, standing as he was, his arms folded across his proud chest while he stared back with an infuriatingly gentle expression on his face.
   "Learning this won't help me to fit in! What value is this to them? To me?! How will the other centaur accept me among them when I don't know their ways, only yours?!"
   "And what are their ways?" He asked calmly. "Lust? Anger? Violence?"
   "Passion!"
   "Unruliness?"
   "No," he glowered, "wildness. As wild as untamed horses! And they are your sons, yet you speak so ill of them!"
   Apollo shook his laurel-wreathed head. "No. I merely speak the truth of them. As indeed do you. You do know their ways. So why do you not adopt them?"
   "Because you, dear foster father, will not allow me."
   "I've held you back?"
   "Yes!" Chiron boomed, storming around the table towards him in a thunder of hooves. "With all your teachings! Filling my head with useless things that will never help me find my place! You are a god, and the centaur are your sons! I am also a centaur - not of your blood, perhaps, but I am one all the same! But I've never been given the chance to prove it! Why would you wish to isolate me like this? Wish to make me so...different? Wish to make me suffer? Handicap me, blind and deafen me to my true culture? My true nature?!"
   "How," Apollo cocked his head, his voice still as soft and deliberate as ever, "can you know your own true nature if it isn't allowed to bloom? You remain here by choice, though you may not wish to admit it. Your door is not locked. You need not come to me every sunrise - but you do."
   "I'm not welcome among my kin! I have nowhere else to go!"
   "You do, once you acknowledge that you can turn around."
   "Enough of your philosophy!"
   "It's simply a truth."
   "Truth, truth, truth," his tail flicked, but he kept his itching back leg from lashing out and kicking the table away, "only the truths you wish me to know! You would turn me into what you want me to be!"
   "I would turn you into what you truly are."
   "And what, exactly, am I?!"
   A gentle smile curled the god's lips, a smile that abruptly froze the centaur's ire. "You, Chiron, are you. I'm simply teaching you how to find it."


 
Words copyright © Kim Wedlock
No part is to be reproduced without my permission.
Written based on the Hierophant tarot card for a collaborative project with Frenone.



Wednesday 25 March 2020

Read Chapters 1-6 Of The Zi'veyn For Free


or download a sample onto your Kindle app or device.
Buy the full book for £2.49/$3.49 on all Amazon stores.

Adult fantasy and grey characters - check out the book reviews on Goodreads!





Tuesday 10 March 2020

Join Me On Patreon! + Free Monthly Short Stories Coming June!

   I'd been playing with the idea for a while, and even went as far as to make my page last April to avoid Patreon's percentage hike if I ever decided to go through with it. And, a few weeks ago, I finally did.
   Writing is a huge passion of mine - you probably noticed - but it takes such a very large amount of time, passion and energy to produce anything I can sell, and I need to live in the mean time. So I decided Patreon might be a good way of both financially supporting my writing a little more, and bringing readers in on the process.

   I want to keep my tiers simple and affordable, so I only plan on having 2 true tiers at this point - $1 and $3 - and a couple of higher-priced tiers later on for one-off rewards that patrons aren't expected to keep supporting (ie pledge once, get the custom reward, then drop back to a lower tier or leave entirely). I'm still working on those higher tiers, but my lower tiers are more important to me anyway.
   Along with the below rewards that distinguish one tier from another, all patrons will get early access to news, cover reveals, and an inside look at the writing/creating process. They may also be subjected to my more personal writing woes. Sometimes a character winds me up, and I just have to vent. I will also need beta-readers from time to time, and patrons will absolutely be my first port of call.


https://www.patreon.com/KimWedlock
Tiers & Rewards
Library Moth - $1 a month
   As of right now, there is only one tier available - Library Moth, $1 a month. This tier gives you monthly access to 1-4 raw snippets from my current work, usually something I wrote that very week, but that are chosen deliberately to avoid any spoilers (and will therefore impact whether I can share them weekly or not). These snippets won't be shared anywhere else, they're exclusive to patrons; no one else will see them until they find them in the books themselves, once released.
   There will also be a desktop wallpaper featuring a quote from my books - meaningful, or funny. These will be emailed out every month.
   This $1 tier is, ultimately, just a way for able supporters to contribute, and can join, cancel, and re-join at any time. There are no hard feelings at all. Money shifts; circumstances change.

Archivist - $3 a month (coming June)
   There will, around June, be a second tier available - Archivist, $3 a month. This tier will give the same rewards as the $1 tier, and will also provide 2-week early access to a monthly short story, which means that the story will be made available to everyone else 2 weeks later, so non-patrons won't miss out on those. These short stories may be book-related (but always written as a stand-alone, so no one will feel like they're missing crucial information), or they may be completely random.
   But - and I'm excited about this - it will also include exclusive access to my research every other month. This can generally be anything. I love to learn, I love making notes, and my research always gets out of control, so I definitely have some things to share. I research for my books, as well as for short stories, and can be about things like the moon, folklore, isolated cultures, crocodiles, wind, warfare, survival, tracking - the list is endless. Anything I need to research, I can share - and, like I said, I always go too far.
   The research won't include notes on how I've used it, it will just be fact, and that can be put to use by other writers, aspiring writers, or even artists creating OCs and cultures. You can read it and learn, or you can apply it to your own creative channels. That's what's so great about learning.

Future Tiers
   Future tiers will be more expensive because they will require a significant chunk of time for each individual, but they will result in one-off rewards such as a critique on a few pages of your own writing, or perhaps a custom short story (with full creative license).
   Because these will be one-off rewards, the patron isn't expected (and is in fact advised not) to keep pledging after that initial month.