September Surprise Story Week: Tristan continued: The Brotherhood Collection: 536 words

[k_a_webb]

 

See the beginning of this story here (LJ link).

Biting his lip Tristan thought of the other book that was in one of the desk drawers. It was a book he had looked at often enough but had never had the courage to open it. Within it was the information on the other people who had found about the Millennium powers, the six other men who had been with his grandfather when they'd first found out about the crystals that would call the children with those powers to a place of their choice. Some days he wanted to read about them but at the same time he was terrified. He wanted them to be better people than his grandfather so he would rather live with his image of them in his mind than find out that they weren't.

He looked back down at the book, returning to the front of the book to look at the list of all the powers that the children could have. The crystal his grandfather had called to those who shapeshifted. Every child who was called to Leonard's house, because he still couldn't think of it as his house, arrived in their animal form. Few children had more than one animal form but those that did had several different forms. Tristan still didn't know why that was and it wasn't something that Leonard had known. The other crystals would call to children with other powers.

'When Kara arrived I didn't know what to expect. I knew that my crystal would call to the Millenium children but I didn't have any idea what sort of children they would be. None of us had any idea what the powers would be, although that didn't stop us from thinking about what they may be. We went to the Internet to check out the list of magic powers that people could have in children and started compiling a list of possibilities. That was before the argument that caused us to go in different directions. When I looked at that list I knew exactly what kind of children I'd want if I had a choice. I wanted the shapeshifters.

'Kara was a fox when she walked into my study. Maybe, if I hadn't been expecting something unusual to happen, my reaction would have been very different. As it was I had been expecting something unusual for over six years. So when she walked in I waited to see what would happen.'

Waiting to see what was going to happen was something that Tristan had done at least once a month during the time he'd been in control of the house. When a new child appeared, however old they were, it was a case of giving them time. A lot of them had been chased out of their homes because they'd turned into animals and the parents had no idea that it was actually their own children they'd chased out. Some times he thought maybe it would have been better to have warned everyone about the Millennium powers before the actual Millennium but the time had passed. The choice was out of his hands because too much had happened for him to ever think of talking to the world at large about the Millennium powers.

© K A Jones 2011

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Comments

[natalief.livejournal.com]

found about the Millennium powers

'Found OUT about the', or 'found the' would work better here.

By the way, are you open to suggestions about wordings that I personally (age 40+ UKian) find strange/jarring, e.g. (from an earlier episode/page) to me "thoughtfully" means 'considerately' but I imagine that you equate it to 'contemplatively'.

edits own edits - apologies

[natalief.livejournal.com]

So as not to re-edit my comment, I am with Stephen King about adjectives and adverbs, especially where they have ambiguous meanings like "thoughtfully". A few carefully chosen shorter words (like 'thinking deeply' or 'with deep though') are easier to read than one larger/longer word with dubious meaning.

I hope I am not overstepping the mark offering my opinions from across the pond and, possibly, an earlier generation!

[kajones-writing.livejournal.com]

Just as a matter of interest - why do you think that I'm from the US?

My personal opinion is that a word isn't ambiguous just because it has several different usages. It's all about context and in this context it means meditatively or contemplatively which is, according to one of the many dictionaries on the Internet, the third meaning of thoughtful. To be honest I'm less likely to use it to mean considerate because there are other words that I prefer.

[natalief.livejournal.com]

Ah sorry if I get that you are from the US wrong. A lot of your writing is more American than English which is not a problem but something I need to take into account as I copyedit for you.

[kajones-writing.livejournal.com]

I've never been told that my writing is more American than English before - I'm not long out of school and college so I'm pretty much still using what I was taught then. Maybe school English has become more American.

[natalief.livejournal.com]

Maybe I am just OLD! ;-p

Feedback

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

>>A lot of them had been chased out of their homes because they'd turned into animals and the parents had no idea that it was actually their own children they'd chased out. <<

That is so sad.

I didn't spot any more typos in this story.

[natalief.livejournal.com]

P.S. You switch from the third person (Tristan/he) to the first person (I) in mid paragraph (the one that begins "He looked back down at the book").

Look, if you don't find my copyedits helpful, just say and I will stop reading/commenting.

[kajones-writing.livejournal.com]

The only place I can pick up a switch from third to first is where Tristan is reading his grandfather's book, which is written in first person. If that's not where you mean then can you show me wherer it is.

If I didn't find people copyediting for me then I wouldn't offer credits for it. Have I done something to make you feel like I don't appreciate it? I haven't made the changes yet because I have to focus on writing at the moment and I'll go back edit posted work when I have some time.

[natalief.livejournal.com]

Oh right. It is not obvious that he is reading the book as there are no change in formatting or quote marks.

[kajones-writing.livejournal.com]

There are marks, but maybe I should have used " instead of this '. I usually only use " for speech.