Pontifex Ursa – Part 6

I want to apologize for taking the last few posts / days off from writing. 

I want to feel bad for taking some time away from slamming my head against my lack of earnings or any sense of momentum. 

I don’t though.  I don’t feel bad for taking some time away.  I don’t feel bad for losing myself in one of my favorite games of all time.  I can’t.

Too much has gone wrong.  Too much is out of my control or ability to influence.  If that’s how I have to cope for a few days, if detaching myself is the only way I can keep going, then that’s what I have to do.

I don’t make any money doing this, despite everything I try to do to facilitate it.  I can’t justify burning myself out over something like that.  It’s hard enough to make myself keep going more days than I would care to admit.

On that front however, I do look forward to writing about giant bears taking on robots.  I like writing about action stars who are also super heroes.  I like writing about giant cities walking along the surface of a planet, waging war against zerg-like buggos.  It’s… fun?  Comforting?  Interesting?  Engaging?  All of the above?

It’s hard to describe, when you get in the mood and the words start coming.  It’s fun to watch the scenes play out in your head.  Honestly?  Most days I feel like my job is less a teller of tales and more a furiously overworked war reporter.  I’m just trying as best I can to describe a tumultuous event, full of emotion and life and struggle and pain.  I have to try and instill both the feelings of those participating and the scope of what is happening, all in something that manages to replicate what I am seeing in my mind’s eye. 

It’s a hard job, and something that I don’t think aspiring authors give enough credence to.  It’s not enough to perfectly describe a robot down to the last nut and bolt.  The reader must feel as though they are riding on the shoulder of the robot as it swings a damaged fist defiantly at its foe.  We have to transport our readers, not just interest them.

At one point, after the release of Prisoners of Azkaban, I was listening to the audio book at my desk.  I was hunched over, entering data, raptly listening to Harry play quidditch in the rain.  I was with him in the air, with him as he fell from his broom, as he hit the mud barely alive.  It was only when the chapter was over that I realized I was sitting on the first floor, next to a six foot tall window, in bright sunshine.  In the middle of summer. 

That’s what you have to do.  Good writing removes us from ourselves, and strands us on the shores of imagination. 

Good stuff.

With further Pontifex…

Pontifex Ursa – Part 6

For Pontifex Ursa is our shield and our sword.  The Pontifex has fought against the worst of humanity to save us from ourselves.  In Its embrace, we are free.  By Its arms, we are protected.  Amen.

– Closing Prayer of Daily Mass for the New Orthodox Church of the Living God

Lilith lay sprawled across the prickly grass of the sparse clearing, gagging and mewling as she crawled blindly away from the retreating metal creature.  I ran down the hill, almost tripping in my haste.  My whole world contained only one thing, and she was coughing up blood on the woodland loam. 

I slid on my knees the last few feet towards Lilith, coming to rest a few inches from her.  I gently eased her up in my arms, grunting slightly at the weight of her.  She smelled of sickly burnt flesh and blood, and my hands shook as I eased her against me, whispering over and over that I was there and it would be alright now.  Everything would be alright.

The hole was huge, easily ten centimeters in diameter.  The edges smoked slightly, and in my shock and terror I still found it in me to be impressed that Lilith was alive at all.  Surely it was the Pontifex’s blessing that kept her going.  I buried my face into her long auburn hair and cried, holding her gently against me, not knowing what I could do for her.  Not knowing if there was anything to do for her. 

Her furred paws came up, grasping weakly at my arms for support, and then the last sound I expected came from her.  A weak, gurgly laugh.  I raised my head, and gently eased her into a position where I could see her face. 

She was smiling?!  Blood running down her chin, the fur on her face matted with dirt and flecks of blood, she had an enormous grin on her face as she rasped out the blood choked laughter. 

Her voice followed the laughter as she saw the shocked horror on my face.  “I always wondered what fighting against The Harrowed would be like.”  She coughed again as one of her hands weakly pawed at the hole in her chest.  “Hurts more than I would like, but it was thrilling all the same.” 

Her voice and her smile grew weaker, and her stirring against me grew weak.  I cried and held her, willing help to arrive.  Wishing someone, anyone, would come to her aid.  To my aid.  I’d finally told her what I felt, and to my amazement had found my affections returned in kind.  For her to be sent to her eternal slumber like this, at the hands of that monstrosity, was more than I could bear. 

One large, warm paw pressed weakly against my face, asking without words for my face to meet hers. We shared a long embrace then, full of passion and pain and regret.  All the things we both wanted to say but couldn’t were exchanged.  We parted, and I desperately drank in her features, willing her to remain.  She grinned weakly up at me, and then lay her head down against my chest.

Her body went still and slack.  I pulled her tighter against me, trying to fight the rising tide of pain and fury which was howling through my veins.  In the end, it had nowhere to go, and before I could burst I let the inferno wash through me, out of me, in a scream which went on and on in the starry night sky. 

I don’t know how long I sat there, clutching Lilith to me, sobbing and shouting, wishing there was something I could’ve done.  Hating myself for not doing more. 

A rumble began growing on the horizon to my East.  At first I couldn’t hear it over my own misery and anger, but within a few minutes it drowned out all other sounds. 

A hulking menace blocked out a huge swath of sky.  Beams of light, brighter than the sun, began to flood the small valley.  I threw up an arm, trying to block out the sudden invasion of brightness, and through my squinted eyes I could see what fresh horror this night had spun.

A new metal monster, easily half again as large as the previous one, had returned for Lilith.  For me. 

I gazed, mouth agape, as it slowly made its way through the sky towards us.

To be continued…

Lilithfully,
Justin