Drache Arm Luna – A Tale

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

While here I would normally talk about what...I’m talking about today...I thought it be best to explain last weeks absence and why this is going up on a Friday and totally not a Wednesday like I’ve lead you all to believe is the normal blog day. First off, I’m alive and this blog is alive so any talk (even if it is the hushed whisper of that nagging feeling that you should of read something on a Wednesday but didn’t) of me giving up the blog or shuffling off my mortal coil is scandalous lies. Instead I didn’t blog last week as I took a holiday, not a literal one as my personal life is a bit too hectic for that, but one where I sat back and enjoyed the chaos of the last week of the school holidays.

Now as for why this one is going up later, well it should have been up on the usual day but I had to go and have a panic attack which meant my better half sent me to hospital worried about how bad my breathing had gotten, so yeah...Rest assured I’ll be back up to full speed soon (or what passes for my full speed) There may be weeks where I won’t post a blog but that’ll either be due to my poor time management skills or because I’m nearing the end of a Boy and a Rat, and I really want that finished before NaNoWriMo turns up, as I’ve got a dozy of a project lined up this year...

Anyway, I’ve done something special for this weeks blog, I’ve written a short (emphasis on the short) story set in my Drache Arm Luna story setting, marking it as the first piece of fiction I’ve ever wrote for it (barring a couple of tweets), of course, we need to get the Weekly Briefs out of the way.

Weekly Briefs

Harvey Duckman Presents…Volume 3

We’re now in September, and you know what that means...Volume 3 of Harvey Duckman is round the corner! Yes, Volume 3 launches next month in October, and I’ll of course be sharing pre-order information with you all when I have it. I will tease you all with a five word explanation of the story...
Brennan, Riz, Valarie hate clockworks...Mysterious eh?
Don’t forget, if you write Steampunk, Fantasy, Sci Fi or Horror (or a mix of the genres), then feel free to submit your work to this growing anthology! Click here for submission guidelines.

Creator Chaos

So the new All About Me featuring Kelvin has been released and it seems to have done really well! If you haven’t listened to it yet then what are you waiting for?
Guest Writers have already been contacted to star in forthcoming normal podcasts, so you’ve got some great content to look forward to, we just need to sit down and record them!

A reminder of who the rest of Creator Chaos are:

Me – I don’t think I need to explain myself…

Kelvin Rodriguez – Fans and followers of the #vss365 tag will recognize this fellow and his creations, a master of the pun. He also has a mighty fine singing voice.

Zack Brooks – Author of the ‘Charlie the Cupid’ shorts and ‘The Trials of Amaford” novellas, the audio book version of ‘How Not To Be A Rogue’ is out now! This is a perfect chance to get in on this series, with a great narrator. A great guy and the defacto leader of our rabble.

Pete Hartog – Author of the novel Bloodlines, and currently working on its sequel. A great guy with a great taste in music and a fantastic name. He also has a blog you can find here, give it a read! He’s currently working on a sequel to Bloodlines.

Click here to listen to all the podcasts so far and look out for us on Spotify and Apples Music Service!

Vector Unit Regen Orphan’s War

Still on hiatus, but all being well I should be able to resume it September going forward. It’ll probably be a fortnightly release schedule but I do want to see this story finished.
To catch up on the series so far, click here!

Brief Mentions

Liking what you’re hearing about Brennan and Riz? Click here to look at the short story collection of their adventures so far!
Looking for newer stuff?

Click here to order ‘The Yeti in the Snow’, the standalone Brennan and Riz Christmas story. Only available on Kindle. It may be collected in a paperback version in the future.

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 1 which includes ‘A Walk Through The Pleasure Gardens’

Click here to order Harvey Duckman Presents Volume 2 which includes ‘The Black Cat on the Prowl’

Click here to find me on Goodreads

And now…time for our main feature presentation…

Drache Arm Luna – A Tale

The climb had been difficult but Noire had to see it to the end. He’d left his supply bag a few branches back, in the hopes that no wild beast nabbed it, so unburdened, he made his way further up. He couldn’t have told anyone why he decided to climb that tree today, he just saw how high it went through the canopy, and knew he had to see the view. Daring to look down, he gulped at seeing the speck that had been the foxes burrow, what first drew attention to the tree, it was barely visible through the foliage but there it was. He steeled himself and started again. Today was supposed to have been his Lunar Ascension ceremony, where all the village would come and honour the fifteenth anniversary of his birth, and mark his first step in understanding the Luna Drache, the patron dragon of his nation. He had blown it off though, as it had been forgotten in the rush of the news that the Prime Minster and his council were passing through, on their pilgrimage to the Crucible mountain range, supposedly the site where the Luna Drache first made contact with the native people of this land.

When the leaders arrived, everything else was to be forgotten and their needs attended to. It was their solution to just push his ceremony back to whenever it could land. Noire didn’t want to wait around and pretend to fawn over his erstwhile peers, so he came out to the forest north of his village, where he felt at ease, and knew he could shout out his anger. In deed there was a lot of shouting in the time between his arrival in the forest and him deciding to climb the tree.

His grip slipped and he fell backwards, but was saved by luck, his leg getting caught between two thick branches, he was in incredible pain, but he was alive at least. He just hung there for a moment, testing fate to see if his fortune was just momentarily but the branches held. He didn’t know how long it took for him to right himself and get back to where he fell, but the sun had shifted in the sky, getting lower to the west. It wasn’t quite sunset yet though. Keeping a better eye on his climb, he continued upwards till he reached the roof of the canopy, and pressed on beyond. The view had been worth it. He wasn’t fully clear yet of the other trees, but already he could see a carpet of green spread out around him, leading into the growing hills and the mountains beyond.

He steadied himself and looked around, a flock of small dragonlings flew past on their way to their roosting grounds in the peaks. He turned his gaze back to the south, towards his village, and spotted it easily enough, with smoke coming from the many chimneys, next to it, he saw the farming fields, barren from the recent harvest. This was his home, despite his parents claim that the nation of Lunaris was his home, no matter which house he lived in. Everyone he knew back in the village had settled there from some where else, and then expecting their kids to move on, spreading their community and linking the whole nation to each other. Strength through unity, that was the Lunar Clan’s motto, and was emblazoned on every town hall in every village as far as Noire knew. The tall steeple of the hall overshadowed all the other buildings, making it a beacon for those looking for a home.

Noire could have spent the whole night looking over the serene views but with Sunset imminent, it meant the temperature was also going to drop, and he hadn’t prepared for that, he thought he’d be home already. Taking one last look as the sun’s rays added an ethereal glow to the surroundings, he started to climb back down the tree, finding the decent to be just as tricky. By the time he retrieved his still intact bag, night was drawing near, and he remembered the old stories that his grandfather had told him, to make sure he didn’t play out too late, that of the Dusk Drache Gott, a dragon of night that brought darkness wherever it flew. His grandfather said that it lived as the shadows of the mountains during the day, taking flight when the sun moved. Dusk’s powers waned as the days got longer and it’s power grew in the reverse.

The stories often revolved around some unlucky hunter or cocky teenager, that dared stay out, wanting to see the Dusk Drache Gott, and were driven crazy by it. Being older now, Noire knew better then to believe in the tall tales that he had been told. He knew now why night came, and it wasn’t because of some legendary dragon that pretended to be made of shadows. Still, if ever he was out at this time, he couldn’t help but look in the direction of the mountains, always relieved that he didn’t see movement within the sky. He also knew better then to stay in the forest after dark, besides the crippling cold, as there was a few predators who adapted to the cold nights with thick fur and eyes that glowed in the dark to mesmerise and entrap their prey. Noire cut quickly down the path he trod to enter, keeping a vigilant eye behind him, not wanting to be surprised. He was almost out of the forest when there was movement behind him and golden eyes appeared, multiple sets.

He froze, and he tried to hold his breath otherwise he knew he would be panicking. The beasts got closer, he heard the thundering of their paws as they raced towards him, and then as they raced away from him. His would be predators had ignored him as they raced to get away. From what, Noire didn’t know, what he did know, was that he should probably be running as well. He was still frozen with fear though, especially when he heard the sound, a beating of wings and what light remained was drowned out by the shadow of something...something massive. The temperature drop was quick and he Noire’s body broke his fear as he hugged himself, to get some warmth. Then he looked up, and stared in to the face of something ancient, with large uncaring eyes that didn’t acknowledge Noire or his existence or probably, any existence other then it’s own.

The being then flew on, a strong wind in it’s wake. Noire fell to his knees, the enormity of what he had just seen, it had numbed him more then the cold. It was another hour before he collapsed inside his home, his parents getting ready to organise a search party of their own. Any sense they had of punishing him was forgotten as they looked at him and recognised a primal fear, one that few ever admitted to.

Noire didn’t say anything for the rest of the night, hoping sleep would rid him of the image of that visage looking down, looking through him. The Lunar Ascension ceremony was designed to help move the individual past their childhood, have them lose that innocence, if they hadn’t already, and bring them on the path to adulthood. Noire though, had lost that without needing the ceremony, whatever he’d seen took it and crushed it. Once more the tale of the Dusk Drache Gott came to his mind, and he knew his grandfather hadn’t been spinning a tale, he was warning him, and he also remembered the look on his face, something the young Noire had never taken into consideration before, that fear about the cosmic, about the powers they shared the world with, and how it was now etched on his own face. How could he have forgotten such a look? He knew well how, he didn’t want to see it in the first place.
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Hope you enjoyed that, is this the start of something for my little fantasy universe? Maybe, I noticed that out of all my blog posts, they were very well received, more so then a lot of my other posts...Aside from my Yeti one...Till next time, keep writing!