Tag Archives: series: im/mortal

im/mortal: Grace

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The offering house was old, and disrepair would have been a kind word to describe its current state.

Like everyone in town, Aiolos had always avoided the place. It was the offering house of a dark god, though its name was long since forgotten. It was whispered that it was the same god still worshipped by the yela, but the blood-drinking race hadn’t been present on this world for a long time. Something had changed, something had brought about the downfall of their old tyrannical rule, although they were unfortunately not gone altogether from the universe. Whispers claimed that they had restyled themselves under a new name and were no longer a threat to daylight people.

Rumor aside, there was no direct proof that the yela were any better now than in the past, but they were gone. That was good enough for most people, but few were inclined to worship any gods associated with the yela, even now.

Aiolos knew only a little of that history, and didn’t care in the slightest. The only thing he cared about, looking at the rotting wood set on a crumbling stone foundation, was getting in to accomplish his purpose. Continue reading →

im/mortal: Revelry

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Cold and damp seeped in around the shutters as the chill winter wind lashed rain harder against the front of the little inn. The few travelers who had not yet sought their beds upstairs huddled well away from the outside wall, hunching over half-empty tankards and pretending that the glow of the fire was enough to ward off the dark and cold that pressed heavily against the worn wooden walls.

Muirne had wrapped herself in a second shawl and eyed the guttering lanterns near the door with resignation as she finished wiping up the bar. It was noticeably colder on that side of the main room, and she was in no hurry to go over even long enough to replace the candles. Still, maybe more light would make the room less dreary than it was, so the innkeeper sighed and moved to fetch spare candles.

The knock that came on the door just as she reached for the first lantern was not expected. Nor was it the desperate pounding she would have anticipated from a traveler still caught out in the storm. Instead, it was firm, assured, steady. Continue reading →

Series Intro: im/mortal

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This is going to be a series of short stories and novellas that I intend to work on in and amongst other things for the foreseeable future, and that I plan to someday collect into an anthology of sorts.

As a reader of fiction and especially fantasy, I have over the years developed an interest in stories that portray relationships between humans/mortal beings and immortal beings of various sorts. This series will be me as a writer exploring various permutations of this idea. My goal is that there will be a lot of variation between the stories in length and tone, since the imbalances of lifespan and (often) power between a mortal and an immortal being lead to a wide variety of different outcomes: some happy and some sad, some good and some bad, some dark and some light.

Most, if not all, of the stories will have a song that I associate with them, and I’ll link to it at the end of the story. In some cases, I’m finding that a song is direct inspiration for a particular story, but in other cases the story is already in my mind and the song serves more as mood music. I’ll also say here that for the most part, these stories will each take place in a separate “universe,” and the reader can safely assume that they are not related to each other unless I indicate otherwise.

I’ll post many of the stories in full here on my website, though for at least some I will post only an excerpt, and the full story will be included in the final anthology. I can’t say right now exactly how many stories there will be in total; I have ideas for at least fifteen, with seven of those being more solid. One story is written and edited, and I am in the middle of a first draft of the second story.

The first story will be posted sometime this week!

As always, please don’t hesitate if you have comments or questions for me.

~Ethelinda