I finally came up with new titles for Sykajume and Vaejume after a year over back-and-forth over different titles. This mostly came up as an issue when I was speaking to someone from a marketing background and was advised to change the titles to something different – which made a lot of sense as the other three books in the series sound nothing like the first two; so they are now titled A Dawn of Dreams and Dancing Shadows respectively, and I will be starting to put chapters on here for them ASAP.

I’m due to go to Pershore end of August and have something really exciting to look forward to at the end of the month. I’ve also got my mum coming back to Wales with me for a couple of weeks just after that, so I don’t know how much I’ll be posting for that time as I’m going to be totally KOed by it all. I did plan to get a stock of content done through August that I could then just post during September…and yet here we are, steaming through August and I’ve managed one post. Best laid plans and all that. Anyway, I recently discovered Cream Soda and have a new vice to back up the coffee…

New Content that’s been added:
The Wolf and the Mage – a short story I wrote over 10 years ago that was the inspiration to Aengal and Vaejume in the Sirin Chronicles. (Recently edited to tie in with the world of Sirin directly.)
The Lost Chapter – This is something new that I’m working on which looks into the younger Sykajume, long before the main events of The Sirin Chronicles.

All though I do have a few promised posts on wolves in the works, I figured after two…I should probably give it a breather. Unless people want wolf spam…

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{Life aside from writing – TL;DR – Life update & PIP/DWP, existential crisis, etc etc, a brief review of 1984 by Orwell}

Things are still somewhat crazy over here with things going on in the background – I’m still dealing with PIP and DWP (that’s been going on since March), and I’m battling constantly to keep on top of my health issues and depression. I’ve had to deal with a continual existential crisis, brutal self-evaluation and utter despair at the no-hope situation of my life, and it really takes it out of me.  I feel torn constantly – do I share my life as a writer with the world and only show the refined side of everything, or do I share the reality? Some days I feel like I’m fighting fate itself just to exist.

Lately, I seem to be suffering the presumptuous nature of various jobsworths in the system of DWP and ignorant people who simply look at the surface of me and judge me to be fine. I’ve now got to deal with my PIP claim at Tribunal, which will be the 4th time of having to completely rip myself apart and fight to be heard over the report of the under-qualified assessor (who’s job is basically to blatantly lie and screw over the claimant.) So advance apologies if I fall off the world again for a bit – I’ll be sitting in a corner listening to Lullaby by Nickleback on repeat.

None of this particularly helped by my reading of 1984 by George Orwell recently which, considering it was written in the late 40s, is freakishly close to the reality we now live in (all be it nearly 40 years after the fictional prophesied ’84’). It’s like our various governments use the dystopian fiction as a guidebook to ruling a country…

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Original article: A Dawn of Dreams and Dancing Shadows.

The Wolf and the Mage is a short story that I initially wrote over ten years ago and became the inspiration to Vaenel and Aengal in Sykajume. I recently re-edited it slightly to tie directly into the Sirin Chronicles with the corresponding characters and locations – when I first wrote it, it was based in an entirely different world. Influencers for The Wolf and the Mage come from Fenrir in the Norse mythology and from stories and tales of Atlantis.

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Once there was a great wolf that stalked the shadows of the great Rannan Forest, his name unintelligible to the ears of man. Cast down from the heavens and cursed to stalk among the chapel pines and sentinel oaks for all eternity, the beast of darkness hunted any foolish enough to enter the secret depths of the forest, for his appetite was insatiable.

At the meeting of wooden boughs and stone buttresses, the shadow wolf made his den. A forsaken glade where crystal clear water cascaded into shallow pools of the phantom crystal where only the rare astralae plant grew, for nothing living dared to near such a place.

Then one day, the silence of his glade was disrupted by the sound of silver bells and bangles colliding together as the wind whispered through the leaves and carried the fragrance of geranium to him. His eyes searched through the dappled shadows, falling upon a young woman walking alone through the dusk. Her eyes looking straight into his soul and silenced the madness already wakening deep inside, though he feared the ravenous appetite that would surely come as the scent of her blood beneath delicate skin assailed his senses.

A powerful mage often walked alone through the deep forest chapels, especially at sunset when golden light set fire to the dust motes dancing within an idle breeze. She was a priestess in training at the Temple of Stars of Kata Jinja. Enchanted by this latest intruder to his secret world, the shadow beast watched her from afar as she came with each setting sun, foraging for the finest herbs, fruits and seeds, following the rush of water.

Their eyes met more than once, her soul-piercing deep into his own as though she were reaching out to him through a dream in the magic hour of twilight, a vision crossing different realities and different times. With pearlescent, shimmering skin and the piercing eyes of burning gold showing from beneath her mantle of indigo, he was reminded of the ethereal home of his kin, and the children sired from stars.

The power within the mage reverberated around her soul, her presence somehow silencing the wolf’s curse a little more each time she came into his presence. She was often gathering herbs for cleansing and healing the skin, the astringent smell often mingling with the intoxicating perfume of geranium that lingered on her skin.

The wolf, calmed by her presence, began to collect the astralae plants that grew in his glade and left them close by, howling softly through the twilight before melting back into the safe shadows of his forest. His keen ears would pick out the jingling music of her presence and his heart would beat erratically, urging him to turn back.

This vision was the life the mage never had and a great sadness came over him. His mournful howls slashing through the night as he rushed through the forlorn chapel of decaying forest, searching for the lost soul of the mage as his snarls and growls of frustration thundered from the ancient forest and made the mountains tremble. Why couldn’t he remember the truth about the mage?

He remembered the dream of her before his ruination and fall from the heavens. The youngest child of the Sykajume that looked to the stars every night, always finding him even as he hunted through the vast ocean of celestial matter. Was that before or after this dream? Night after night, the dream would come in some guise again and soothe the wolf’s soul, only to awaken to a bleak and vengeful dawn and the stagnation of death all around. All at once he had lived for thousands of years and none at all.

One night a different dream came to him. At last, he had somehow left Rannan Forest and was carefully moving through an overgrown garden of a castle courtyard that was as ancient as he sometimes felt, and collapsed in many places. As he stopped to lap at the cool water of a spring, his ears heard the rustling of someone approaching, and he felt something small collide with his flank as he turned. A young child, too pale for the harsh sun of the castle’s location, was nestling into his fur full of contentment, clutching tightly as though frightened he would vanish.

When he next opened his eyes, he was startled to find the mage had reached the glade. He stood as impulsive rage and defence overpowering the innate strength of the young woman and her control over his curse. He towered above her with his fangs bared, her scent consuming him and the madness threatening to consume him entirely.

The mage never quailed, simply standing resolutely before him with a curious expression in her eyes as she raised a crystalline dagger to the level of her heart. Diamond light filled the blade, splashing into the air like starlight, her fierce soul binding him to the spot as the blade flicked through the air and severed the celestial chains of fate that bound him to the forest and confined him in time.

She fell to her knees before him from exhaustion, beseeching him for help with a curse placed upon her by her own family as her breath ravaged her once strong body. The words came to him across a great distance as he turned back in the direction he had come. In the instance of his liberation, his spirit had rejoiced and he took flight, dashing from the cloying shadows of his prison for the powerful, icy winds of the mountain peaks.

He knew already it was too late to help the mage out, she had already gone. He had seen the ruins of the great temple of Kata Jinja and the black scarring from the flames of an ajukara. For a long time, the great wolf sat watch above Kata Jinja as memories returned to him. He had been cursed twice, first by his own kind, and then by the family of the Sykajuman girl. Somehow that girl had broken the first of his curses and tamed his wild heart, and unable to speak his given name, she had started calling him Vaenel.

Finally moving from his perch by the temple entrance, he walked towards the mighty crystal tree at the far end of the small town that still maintained its faded glow against the dark world and guarded it’s most precious treasure. Dropping down through a gap in the routes, Vaenel found the sepulchre created by the soul tree in the moment of the Sykajuman curse, perfumed by countless geraniums growing within.

The girl’s body was suspended in a capsule of soft golden white light as though she were falling through space, preserved for all eternity by the power of the tree exactly as she had fallen. The curse had formed celestial fate chains that snaked all around the girl’s limbs, biting into the skin as his own had done for so long.

How many times must he lose her soul? They had been cursed never to cross realities again, though the soul that had forced the girl from her body was still searching for him, fighting against the odds and searching the depths of the ethereal realms and insanity to reach him.

The wolf carefully plucked a geranium flower and placed it into the girl’s hand before reaching into the light to join her in one final embrace. He discarded his physical form and gave himself back to the world of dreams and the absence of time. Unbound, he was free to travel the ethereal worlds unhindered and could search for his mage in as many incarnations as it took to save her soul from the darkness.

• Artwork by Scarlet Letter (Pixabay)

Original article: The Wolf and the Mage.

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(Image from Comfreak on Pixabay)

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I’ve been in love with wolves for as long as I can remember. I’ve always been enchanted by them, the way they are, their howls, and what they stand for when the negativity is taken away. My first school project was about them, and the first story I ever wrote also focussed on them. In every book I wrote, I had the same wolf character recycled until I wrote a story I wanted to stay with. For many years the character was known as Fenrir, straight out of Norse mythology; and his story was loosely in keeping with the original tale while also mixed in with a recurring waking dream I’d had since as far back as I can remember – a wolf-god and a young woman of powerful magical abilities, which became the story between Aengal and Vaenal.

I’ve possibly driven my parents to wit’s end every time there’s been a documentary about wild animals on over the years, and I’m continually repeating my frustration that wolves are seldom shown. It was never, then a few years ago they did seem to get the occasional token moment of screen-time, and I think there’s been two, maybe three documentaries specifically about them since. One of those was a short time-lapse film that showed the transformation to Yellowstone since their re-release to the sight, and the effect they have on the habitat. I mean, their presence in the grand scheme of things changed the course of the river, how can you not love them?

As a child, I loved the Jungle Book with Mowgli growing up within a pack of wolves, and the tale of Romulus and Remus being taken and raised by a she-wolf. There is also the she-wolf Asena, which is sort of cool….but also mostly disturbing. Then I found ‘The Sight’ by David Clement-Davies and ‘Princess Mononoke’ by Studio Ghibli which portrayed the wolves as having some level of compassion to humans, and their rage against humans makes sense within the story.

As I grew older, it became a more an involved process to make wolves much more prominent than just my affection for the wolves, and to give more representation for them (“They’re just seriously misunderstood creatures”). In almost every story, wolves are always shown as the bad guys; shown as deceitful or sinful, or pure lustfully evil beasts with an insatiable hunger – The Big Bad Wolf from Aesop’s fables and Grimm’s fairytales.

This is possibly something started by the Biblical references to wolves being seen as threatening and sinful, and it definitely doesn’t help that Fenrir in the Norse mythology was basically the harbinger of the end of the world, with offspring kin Skol and Hati the devourers of the sun and the moon.

But why weren’t any of the other predatory animals dragged into the muck? Why is a lion seen as loyal, brave and courageous, but not the wolf which has a whole host of endearing qualities to rival the lion?

I once asked an ex if he’d ever seen or heard a wolf in the wild as he was from Poland, to which he shuddered and told me how violent and dangerous they were – and yes, they are wild, unpredictable and dangerous, especially when not treated with respect to their nature. The ocean is more fickle and deadly, yet people still dive in and often without a thought – he was implying that a wolf would purposefully leave the depths of the forest to come and hunt you for dinner. It didn’t go down well when I suggested a camping trip, that’s for sure.

Thankfully wolves are starting to get their moment in the light in media, most prominently the direwolves in A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin, and with artists such as Anne Stokes and Lisa Parker creating some truly fantastic images amongst others.

Hopefully one day in the not so distant future, wolves will be in their rightful place next to many of the fantastic, magical and positive creatures. Also, hopefully, I’ll get to one of the wolf conservation sites here in the UK and finally see one in the fur.

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Wolves in Mythology
Famous Wolves in History {coming soon}
The Wolf and the Mage

What else do you want to read about? Leave a comment or drop me a message and let me know! And if you enjoy what you read here, please consider buying me a coffee to help keep the coffee vampire awake and writing =^.^=

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Original article: Why Wolves?.

I now know I need to go back to the beginning and revise both Sykajume and Vaejume. (I know, I know, heresy). This will avoid future plot-holes forming and becoming gaping chasms. There will also be a title change for both of the books so they’re in line with the future books of the series.
Edit: New title for the first two books are A Dawn of Dreams and Dancing Shadows respectively.

I’m also going to change the way people can read The Sirin Chronicles. Instead of my books being available to buy on Amazon and the early stage drafts of my WIPs being available on Tablo, I’m going to bring all the content here – though I’m not 100% certain on the format yet.

Future WIPs:
A Dawn of Dreams  {revision}
Dancing Shadows {revision}
Fallen Star
Ghosts
The Last Carnation
The Anathema

I am also trying to figure out extra content I can offer. I’d love to come up with a video series if that can be done and to do more with artwork. Though I’m not really an artist, all I got is word art and cartography…. What do you think? What would you like to see more of?

If you enjoy what you find here, please consider buying me a coffee to keep the coffee vampire awake and writing. Thank you for all your patience and support. =^.^=

Original article: What’s To Come with The Sirin Chronicles?.

Vaejume are the oldest Jume {Soul Star} of the cosmos and are born of dark matter. They are an integral part of holding the universe together and maintaining balance and order, functioning with other Jume in mysterious and secretive ways. Very little is known about Vaejume as they are seldom seen crossing the heavens above Sirin, and no solid documentation of their purpose has ever been discovered

What is known of the Vaejume is that they work independently to the others of their kind, and are the basic foundations of life. The loss of even one Vaejume would drastically alter the quadrant of space they were overseeing. This may be the cause of transformation upon Sirin with the rise and fall of the Engels and the subsequent Spehirikin race, though we may never understand the full phenomenon of Vaejume.

The Metsaeris of Liretika have theorised that it was the presence of dark matter given out by these Vaejume that created the Spehirikin race and gifted them with their otherworldly powers. There are documents that are dated back to the beginning of the first era that mentions a Vaejume coming to Sirin during a time when esoteric energies and powers were prevalent, and weird and wonderful creatures emerged from the shadows of ancient forests.

Whilst the way in which Jume communicate with each other, or for what reasons remained unknown, it is clear from the records that the Vaejume’s arrival on Sirin was only several months before one of the Sykajume appeared on Sirin and brought the nightmare with it; three years before two more of the Sykajume also came down from the heavens in a storm of meteors and fire that shattered the north of Khalilja. These cataclysmic events towards the end of the first era tie in with the last definitive recorded information of the Vaejume, and the rapid demise of the Lightning Trees and the Spehirikin across Sirin.

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Much like the Sykajume, Vaejume can also possess a corporeal body and be seen by the unelmuns if they chose. One known form is that of a behemoth wolf, Satakhan, first seen in the North Khalilja in the Rannan Forest, close to the Ancient city of Kata Jinja and the neighbouring town of Tenalue that first appeared as the Great War consumed all of Sirin.

Many speculate it is a direct result of this Vaejume’s interference that vexed the Sykajume and wrought the destruction of Khalilja and the subsequent loss of Kata Jinja and the Engels; though others still believe the Vaejume to have been a guardian of the Rannan Forest and Kata Jinja that would prowl the shadows and keep the unworthy away from the city, and the actions of the Sykajume unrelated to the Vaejume.

Seen most commonly by travellers to the area who would pass through the forest on their way to Kata Jinja, the Vaejume was said to stand as tall as the oldest pine trees and never left the shadows of the forest. The people soon found a different path to Kata Jinja that climbed through the Kharina Mountains as the Vaejume’s howls and growling would reverberate through the trees of Rannan and make the ground tremble. It’s fur and flesh were made of shadow, changing every moment and allowing the Vaejume to vanish into darkness with ease, making any shadow of the Rannan Forest a terrifying and dangerous place.

The clearest description comes from a painting that was sent to Liretika with one of the Bastard Engels that matched up to the other vaguer sightings of the time. The Vaejume of the first era stood as tall as the oldest pine trees with a magnificent coat of silver and pewter fur. Black crystalline horns grew from behind its ears to form a jagged crown and grew down its spine; its eyes were a burning gold colour. Around its neck, it had a chain of silver colour that cut into the Vaejume’s flesh and glowed like moonlight. Notes included with that painting mention that is was a type of celestial chain, made of starlight woven with silver that burnt the flesh of anyone who tried to touch it and was unbreakable.

The young Bastard Engel that brought the painting to Liretika talked of the Vaejume’s love of the youngest Aesan that had somehow charmed the great wolf and tamed its heart over many years. Whilst studying in Liretika, he received a letter that mentioned how Satakhan had changed form to that of a considerably less imposing wolf and lived in the palace with the young Aesan and never left her. The letter continued to describe the nature of the Vaejume and the lessons it taught of the Sykajume and other arcane secrets.

When the Annihilation of Kata Jinja came, all sightings of the Vaejume ceased and it is believed Satakhan too perished along with the Engels.

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After the Great War, peace returned to Sirin and the animosity of the races dissipated as the presence of Spehirikin lessened and were almost extinct by the middle of the second era. The apocryphal offspring of Lilin and Tseva that had wandered Sirin since the Dawn of Life faded away and all evidence of the esoteric workings of the Jume became fable as unelmuns slowly forgot the truth of the past.

There are plentiful recordings of the Vaejume all across Sirin, never seeming to reside in one place longer than twenty years. In all of these, the Vaejume’s form is considerably diminished being less than half the original size and similar to the secondary description of Satakhan, and smaller and less fanciful with each new sighting.

The presence of the Vaejume’s horns was gone and the flesh was described as more stable and wolflike with each sighting, and the chain described merely as old and tarnished silver. It is also often described as being ‘faded’, as though the Vaejume was not entirely physical in form. This led to many of the reports of that time to be put down as fantasy created by travellers and no more than a fanciful imagination over a distant wolf.

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The most abundant of sightings came towards the end of the second era when it is also documented that an Engel had been reborn into the world. Shortly before this time, the Spehirikin had also returned to the world, and with them, the old abhorations and hostility, and the Nightmare; the youngest Sykajume that seemed intent on destroying the coexistence of unelmuns and Spehirikin, and Sirin with them.

Both the Engel and the Vaejume were seen travelling together through Khalilja during the time of great division between unelmuns and Spehirikin, though now it’s only discernible feature was its colossal size, standing only just taller than the blue roan water horses of the northern hemisphere.

In comparison to the first documentation of the Vaejume, the beast had no animosity with unelmuns unless he perceived them to be a threat to the Engel he followed. It is also highly documented that the Vaejume at this point could change form into that of unelmun, an event witnessed by few people and described as unsettling to watch. This Vaejume went by the name of Vaenel, an old word for ‘shadow wolf’ and as with many of the mysteries of the Vaejume, it is unclear whether Vaenel and Satakhan are the same Vaejume.

Out of all the recordings of the Vaejume, this was the most documented, and the shortest period of his known existence. Merely a year after the resurgence of his corporeal form, much of Khalilja had been ravaged by the Sykajume known as Raketselka and an immense storm spread out from the depths of the Oraman desert where all three met their demise. What happened within the Adhar Chott is another mystery, though one of the companions of the Vaejume and the Engel appeared in Liretika with a curious artefact – a jagged black crystalline star of celestial matter with ethereal veins tracing throughout the darkness which he called Katzatagyr Saeren.

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The intangible star marked the end of the second era, and with it, the entirety of all Spehirikin as the lightning trees of Sirin vanished entirely with the race. Throughout the third era, not a single sighting – reliable or fanciful – has been mentioned, and even the Katzatagyr Saeren is beginning to fade.

Original article: Vaejume and The Rise and Fall of Spehirikin.