Sparkatale

Even though it was only a short scene in this chapter, I’m very intrigued about where this storyline with Carmel is going to go. Like I said before, she seems like a reasonable person, and that only showed itself more in this chapter. So I’m not sure what might/will happen to make her decide to join JTG’s side for real. Her hint, “watch the news”, intrigues me… Obviously the Steven thing will be on the news, but like I said before, when Jackson claims he killed Steven out of self-defence he won’t be lying, so I’m really not sure what JTG could be referring to. Anyway, it was also interesting to get a bit of a refresher on the girls’ situations with their families. The info about Clara’s dad was especially interesting. I don’t know, the emphasis drawn to it makes me think he’ll be important to the story sometime in the future. One of the rules of fiction in my eyes is that missing parents are always important :P Except… Well, the one time they weren’t important :P Well, possibly. I’m not 100% sure I believe it. I won’t say just in case, but I assume you know what I’m talking about.

I was glad to see Sara reunite with the rest of the girls. I knew it was going to happen soon, but I didn’t expect it right at the beginning so that was a nice surprise. It was heart-warming to see how happy they were (at first, anyway) to see that she survived. With all the not underserved negativity that’s surrounded Sara since her “death”, I was glad to see that the rest of the girls were fundamentally glad to have their friend back despite what they’d been speculating about her or the truth they learned later on when she and Michael were telling their story. Also, it was really sad but also kind of heart-warming to see Sara’s transformation in character since her not-death. There were hints of it when she appeared towards the end of Snowfall, but this chapter only cemented her change more. I felt sorry for her when she was talking about her popularity fading quickly after everyone thought she died. Even if her quest for popularity is what led her to do some terrible things, it’s still sad to see how she was forced to realise how fleeting it was. It’s an interesting perspective, too, because making a discovery like that isn’t really something people in the real world can experience under ordinary circumstances :P Still, I’m glad she’s decided to turn over a new leaf and try to become a better person. I’m interested to see how her relationship with the other girls’ develops. Right now they still seem wary of her, but I hope as she keeps trying to be a better person they’ll start to trust her more and form a bond stronger than what they had before.

Anyway, moving on, I was surprised at how much information and interesting things were revealed in this chapter. It was really cool to see Stonehaven at last and there were so many details about how that world works and what’s going on and I really enjoyed that, especially since I wasn’t expecting to get so much so soon. Stonehaven itself was a surprise too. Like Snow, I don’t really know what I imagined it to be, but a futuristic magic city was not it :P I thought it would be much smaller. Anyway, overall there’s a lot of information to process in this chapter, and I’ll admit it took a second reading for me to really absorb everything. I don’t think you need to simplify it or anything though. Since this is a sequel (or threequel or whatever it’s called :P) I think people who’ve read this far will be invested enough to take the time to read things over and process it, so I don’t think the large amount of information is an issue, if you were worrying about it. I don’t know if you were, but I thought I should mention that anyway because I know I would be if I were you :P Anyway, I found it interesting that the whole thing about Stonehaven only having two people guarding it turns out to have been a lie all along. That was something I didn’t expect. I totally believed it was just Brad and Michael (and Sara, later) chilling there, all alone :P Of course, it makes sense completely that they’d try and hide the fact they’ve got potentially thousands of extra people, although judging by that ending if they get through this I’m not sure they’ll be able to hide that anymore :/

Anyway, I was glad to learn a bit more about Snow’s seemingly unique magical abilities. I’ll admit that I was a bit confused at first about the difference between magic blood vs magic in blood, but I think I pretty much get that now. It’s interesting that it looks like Ariana and Snow have had magic in their family line without anyone seemingly knowing about it. Also, I felt really sorry for Snow in this part of the chapter :( She just seems so overwhelmed about having this extra-magical gift that no-one can explain fully, especially because it looks like that may be due at least in part to her incestuous conception. I found that fact particularly interesting actually because it’s something you haven’t really delved into before. After all, when Adrian was mentioned in Snowfall it was more focused on what he did to Ariana and how that affects Snow, rather than the fact that she’s also a child born of incest. So it was intriguing and sad to see how the stigma of that affects her when it’s brought to the forefront :(

Anyway, back to the beginning… I left this until last because I’m not quite sure what to make of it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a well written scene and it definitely leaves you with a lot of intrigue and things to think about before we dive into the main story. But as a rule, I tend to be cautious of these kind of “future scene” beginnings because now… Well, now if there’s ever a scene where Snow, Clara, Mary or Michael are in danger (such as the imminent battle with the Coven that this chapter ends on), I know they’ll survive whatever is thrown their way because they’re present in this flashforward. So a lot of suspense that I’d otherwise feel in those scenes will be lost. That said, though, I’m sure you have considered this and have a good reason why you decided include that scene so I feel bad even mentioning it, but it wouldn’t quite sit right with me if I didn’t. I guess it’s not the sort of thing I would’ve done if it were my story, but obviously it’s not and I trust your judgment so I’ll ride it out and see what happens.

And finally, I’m so, so, so sorry for taking so long to get to this :( :( Especially since I said I would weeks ago. The worst part is I don’t have a good reason, it’s just… Right now, I just can’t seem to find much motivation to do, well, anything :/ Still, that’s no excuse, and I’m so sorry again for making you wait this long.

Hey, danke schön for the comment! What? I’ve said ‘thanks for the comment’ entirely too many times at this point. It’s time to mix things up a little bit :P Also, a friend at work is trying to teach me German. I say trying because it’s going about as well as you probably imagine :P Anyway, I’m quite looking forward to delving deeper into Carmel and her newfound partnership with JTG. We’ll get to the how and why she joins JTG before too long, so I don’t want to talk about it too much just yet. Anything I say would be a spoiler anyway :P It’s funny you mention a refresher on the girl’s families because I tried doing something that I should have known from the start was completely stupid. With Snowfall, I tried my best to make it so it was possible to read it and understand pretty much everything without having read Warehouse and I feel I pretty much managed to do that. Well, I tried to do the same thing with this and provide enough background information on the events of Snowfall so a newcomer could dive in without having to go back and read over a hundred chapters worth of material. I’m sure you can see why this was a horrendously stupid idea xD Obviously there was no logical way to do that so that idea died, but I did want to do a refresher on the girl’s home lives. That’s mainly because I plan to focus much more on each of them individually. Snow was very much the main character of Snowfall, but she’s not going to get quite as much focus this time around. The core four girls all share top billing this time so they’re going to share the page time a bit more. And yes, we’re finally going to meet Mary’s parents xD She has them, I swear! As for Clara, I’m not going to say a word. I’d quite like to leave that up to your imagination for the time being. Okay, I’m going to assume you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about when it comes to missing parents not being important. I don’t want to say in case you’re not and then I’ve spoiled it for you, but if you really are talking about what I think then I agree with you. I don’t buy it for a second. I did kind of like it in a way because said parents being important is so obvious that for them to not be came as a surprise. Still, I don’t believe it but I guess we’ll find out.

Sara reuniting with her friends was something I’d been looking forward to for a long time, so I didn’t want to put it off any longer. That scene went through a couple of iterations before I settled on this one and most of those were scenes where the girls were decided more hostile toward Sara than they ended up being. In the end, I felt that they would be so happy that Sara survived that it would temper their anger somewhat and that end in the end they would be, as you say, fundamentally glad to have their best friend back. That doesn’t mean they’re not still royally pissed at her or that they’ve even remotely begun to forgive her, but they are very glad that she’s still alive. I have to say Sara’s transformation has been interesting to write, for sure. As important as Sara has been to the story, we don’t really know her that well. We didn’t see much of the old Sara live and in person, and much of what we know is colored by the opinions of other people that Sara hurt. She really has grown over these past months since her supposed death and she’s not the same person she was before. Like you pointed out, she has the rather unique perspective of being able to see how the town remembers her/how quickly she’s forgotten after her death. That, along with finding a purpose with the Dawnguard have molded the old Sara into something much better. That doesn’t necessarily mean the old Sara is gone for good, though. After all, Sara is a master manipulator. Just sayin’ :P Still, yeah, for right now the girls don’t trust her at all but if Sara’s good at anything it’s winning people over.

Ah, no, I wasn’t worried at all! I mean, why would I be? There’s nothing to be worried about at all. I’m lying, obviously :P I was/am absolutely terrified of that part of this chapter. I spent a lot of time debating whether or not I ought to trim some of it out. So much information is presented in this chapter and I’m still not entirely sure there’s not too much. It was a situation where if I was going to introduce Stonehaven, I wanted to fully introduce it. Here’s what it is, how it works, etc instead of slowly dolling out bits and pieces over time. That would have been pretty difficult to do anyway, so it is what it is. I’m going to leave it be since there’s not much I can do at this point, but I’m still a bit hesitant. Anyway, to be honest a futuristic magic city wasn’t what I thought Stonehaven was going to be either. For a long time, Stonehaven (and that world entirely) was going to be far more traditionally fantasy with a sort of steampunk vibe. Like Snow said, horses and knights wearing armor, that sort of thing. As interesting as I thought that would be, I thought it might be more fun to do something completely different with it. I didn’t want to go full sci-fi and we’re certainly never doing something like going into space, but it was fun to imagine a world that was futuristic, but still had magic and warriors that fight with swords and… holy hell, I’ve just realized I’ve made a bit of a mistake. A futuristic world where magic warriors fight with swords? Yeah, that’s Star Wars, isn’t it? Crap. That wasn’t intentional, but given my obsession with the series I’m hardly surprised I drew parallels to it. Anyway, moving on, yes that whole deal with only Brad and Michael manning Stonehaven was a complete and total lie. Well, it’s a lie now. It wasn’t initially a lie. I’d originally planned for the Dawnguard to have basically fallen apart ages ago and only Brad and Michael were using the resources left behind to fight Sebastian. Obviously things changed. I thought it would be more interesting and I could do different things if the Dawnguard were a fully staffed organization instead of a couple of dudes hold up in a castle :P  

The difference between magic in the blood and magical blood is something I really must make more clear. I was a bit worried I wasn’t being clear enough anyway, so I’ll have to work on that. In essence, the idea was that magic lives in the blood. So, if you have magic of any sort it’s in your blood. Whereas Snow is different, her blood is basically made of magic. She doesn’t just have magic, she is magic. I’ll have to make sure I do a better job explaining it because the difference is quite important. Heh, I think it’s safe to say you’ll be feeling sorry for Snow for a while :P Overwhelmed is likely going to be the best word to describe for the next while. She has this gift (although right now she’d be more inclined to call it a curse xD) that no one seems to understand and that terrifies her. As for her incestuous conception, I’ve never really brought it up before because Snow doesn’t like to talk about it. It’s the one thing about herself that she absolutely hates but can’t change. The fact that she’s the result of something so twisted really bothers her. We’ll explore it in greater detail in the future, but for now yes the fact that she has this magical gift and it’s caused by the most hated aspect of herself is something she’s deeply troubled by.

Okay, so this part… to be completely honest, I went back and forth on whether or not to do the flash forward scene for ages and ages. I came up with the idea over a year ago and I had been planning to go that route for a long time, but once I finished Snowfall and actually started writing this I came to the same realization you did; any characters I mention in the scene obviously survive to that point so there’s no suspense for those characters when they’re in dangerous situations. One of the reasons I wanted to do it was mainly to try something different. There will be a lot of that going on with this story as it continues. I want to… grow? I don’t think that’s really the right word, but I want to try new things and experiment with different styles of storytelling. I’ll try things that won’t work and hopefully a few that will. The idea with this was to present a certain future, one where JTG has seemingly been defeated, something has happened to Clara, and Snow is still struggling to figure out her feelings for Michael. Then go back and tell how we get to that point, but perhaps revealing that not everything you think you know about that future is exactly as it first appears. Or maybe it’s exactly how it appears? Who can say? I wanted to say that yes, this is where we’re going to end up but how do we get there and also is this seemingly brighter future as bright as it first appears. Will that idea work out? I have no idea, but I’m glad you trust my judgment because I certainly don’t :P I’m sacrificing a lot of suspense and drama (at least involving these particular characters) on a big gamble. Is the mystery and intrigue of what’s to come interesting enough to counterbalance the loss of suspense and a sense of danger for those four characters? I don’t know. I guess we’ll see. Regardless, please don’t feel bad about mentioning stuff like this. In fact, please mention it whenever you like. I need people questioning my often questionable decisions, otherwise I’ll never… I still don’t like the word grow here, but that’s all that’s coming to mind right now. It’s one in the morning, so I can’t do much better :P

Hey, come on now, you know it’s perfectly fine :) That’s a completely valid excuse, so don’t feel bad about taking a while. Take all the time you need in the future, and please know that if you ever need to talk about anything at all you know where to find me :)      

I’m so sorry again for taking so long to comment on this :( It seems like I’ve been saying that every time, lately… Uni life is just not letting up for me right now, I’m afraid :( Anyway, I totally forgot that Sienna had promised to help them out if the Coven came a’calling. I feel stupid now :P Here I was, totally expecting an all-out war in the second chapter xD Anyway, regardless of that I’m glad everyone is safe, for now. I don’t feel like the Coven will be out of action for as long as the gang seems to think, though. I mean, sure Umbridge (the Grand Enchanter) is backing off now Sienna’s here, but… I don’t know, I feel like he must have some trick up his sleeve. I mean, if there are nine realms and Divinity and Earth are two of them, presumably there are seven more he can possibly get some help from. I’m worried he’ll come back in force relatively soon and they won’t be expecting it :/ Still, for now I’m glad they are safe and it was nice to finally meet Sienna properly too, since she only had that one brief appearance in Snowfall.

Anyway, back to Umbridge. I’m really curious to learn more about him and the Coven’s history. Although, I don’t care what his real name turns out to be, to me he’s already Umbridge since he apparently is against half-witches and werewolves :P And speaking of that, I’m jumping ahead a bit but I’m really curious about this half-witch girl Sienna and Zoe were talking about at the end of the chapter. At the moment I have two main options I could see as being this half-witch girl out of the characters we know so far – one of whom is more likely than the other with the evidence I have available right now, but I think there’s a possibility it’s the other person too. So I will keep them to myself while I gather more information :P Plus, I could be completely wrong or she could be someone who hasn’t even appeared yet xD By the way, this is just something I’m curious about and you don’t have to tell me if it’s a huge spoiler, but what is the difference between a witch (i.e. Zoe) and someone with magic in their blood who is not a witch (like Michael, presumably). Are witches a different species? Race? Or something else? Are their powers different to the magic in blood people or are they just better at the same magic? I’m not sure what to think right now xD

Getting back on track, I was happy to meet Sienna properly at last after all this build up :P It was really interesting to learn a little of her backstory and I must say I’m really curious to see more. I feel like Sienna’s life and her rise to power is a great off-page story that I’d really like to read about it on it’s own :P I mean, I presume we will learn more as time progresses but if you ever want to write a side story about it I’d be totally up for reading it xD Anyway, Sienna herself is a really interesting character. She seems so wise for her age, which is understandable considering what she’s been through, and she also seems like a really good and kind person considering she took the time and effort to reassure Snow about her powers when they’d only met that same day. I do have a bit of a bone to pick with her, though. It seemed a little odd, I suppose, especially considering how quickly she jumped on Brad for his wanting to kill Snow to save the other eight billion, but overall she doesn’t seem to be treating Michael any differently after finding out what he did to Mary. Now, I’m not saying she was wrong to have reacted the way she did to Brad’s ‘kill Snow’ plan, but it just seems out of proportion with her reaction to Michael’s crime I guess. I mean, if I found out someone close to me had raped someone (regardless of how much of a protective complex they’ve developed) I’d never be able to look at them the same way again. Now, I don’t really know how Sienna treated Michael before, but she seems so friendly and huggy with him in this chapter, so… Yeah, it doesn’t seem to me like she treats him differently. Although I could be completely wrong about that because for all I know she was even more friendly with him before and in this chapter she was super toned down :P Still, I don’t really care how much guilt he feels over his sister’s death. I mean, that probably makes me sound super harsh and I do think it’s sad and all, but it doesn’t really change much for me. He just comes across as the epitome of white male entitlement, I suppose, that he thinks he can make decisions for women and put them through a lot of suffering without even telling them what’s going on because in his mind the ends justify the means. He could just as easily have given Mary the opportunity and power to make the decision for herself rather than put her through such a harrowing experience, so… Yeah, I don’t feel any different about it. Long story short, I need more justice and people calling him out on his actions before I could possibly warm up to him and believe he’s a good person like Sienna apparently does :P That’s this rabid feminist’s opinion, anyway xD I was cheering for Brad so hard when he was getting angry at Michael for acting all saintly over the Snow thing, but then he was cut off and I was like "Noooooooo! Rip into him, Brad!" xD 

Anyway, getting away from that tangent, I’m really curious to see what happens next. I’m especially interested to see how Snow’s possible training with Zoe will go. I’m also really eager to find out more about this Alden guy and why he ran away. There’s so many things I need to know now but I guess I’ll just have to sit tight and wait. Oh, and JTG! I almost forgot. I’m worried for both the gang and Carmel herself now that she’s joined her. I feel like JTG’s hold over her is pretty weak, since if she realises what the news report said about Steven is true and that JTG is lying about the girls (except Sara) bullying Steven, I don’t think JTG will keep her alive for long. I hope she manages to escape JTG safely since she seems like a good person, but I don’t have particularly high hopes :/

Merci beaucoup for the comment! And of course no worries about taking a while :) Obviously taking care of your schooling is much more important than this. Hopefully things ease up for you soon :) Anyway, yeah Sienna’s timely arrival certain prevented any battles happening so early. I did consider having a small skirmish before Sienna shows up and puts a stop to it, but in the end that was just unnecessary. Also, it made the whole thing seem that much more like a Vale Ex Machina than it already does :P Haha, fun fact; the working title for this chapter was Sienna Ex Machina and I almost stuck with it but I felt it was a bit of a spoiler so it had to be changed. But anyway, the Coven and the Grand Enchanter are definitely going to be backing off for a bit. How long? Eh, who can say? They’re certainly afraid of Sienna and rightfully so. The force she brought to Stonehaven is only a fraction of her military, so if she needs reinforcements she can absolutely bring in more. Still, you’re right that there are seven other realms the Enchanter could go to for help and not all of them are loyal to Sienna. At this point, anything is possible so I’ll just let you speculate :P

As for the Coven’s history and whatnot, we’ll definitely get to some of that soon. These last few chapters have felt so much like massive exposition dumps that I really don’t want to include more information than I have to. Still, you can expect to learn more about the Coven soon. In the meantime (and it’s really funny that you mentioned Umbridge :P) it’s safe to think of them sort of like the Deathly Hallows Ministry of Magic. Not everyone there is a racist, pure blood supremacist asshat, but they are currently under the leadership of a whole bunch of racist, pure blood supremacist asshats. Whether or not that’s meant to be a political statement on the current state of the US can be left up to your imagination :P As for the half-witch girl Sienna and Zoe were talking about, well… yeah, I’m going to leave that up to your imagination too. It sounds like you’ve already got some ideas and I’m really curious who you’re considering, but I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see. And about the witches (and again this kind of goes back to earlier where it’s tough to fit in so much backstory and explanation) well, I guess it’s not really much of a spoiler at all. I mean, there’s a conversation later on that explains it, but it won’t hurt anything for me to talk about it now. Witches can definitely be considered a different race, sort of like elves or dwarves in traditional fantasy. They are born with magic and live roughly five times as long as normal humans. Fun fact, Zoe is 73 years old and no, I’m not kidding. The biggest difference between witches and magic in blood people (note to self: come up with interesting name for magic in blood people because you want to look like a competent writer :P) is that witches are born with an affinity to a certain type of magic and they are only really good at using that type of magic. This occurs along family lines for the most part. Zoe, as an elemental witch, is extremely powerful with elemental magic. She’s more powerful than a magic in blood person using elemental magic, but far weaker when using any other type; i.e. illusion, conjuration, transformation, wards, healing, necromancy (outlawed by the Witches Coven), psionics (telekinesis, etc), nature magic, and blood magic (outlawed by literally every government and organization in eight of the Nine Realms. We’ll get around to that bit later :P). Meanwhile, magic in blood people aren’t particularly strong in any school of magic, but are generally competent in all of them. In the simplest terms, people like Michael are jack-of-all-trades types whereas witches are specialists in a singular type of magic and all but useless with all others. Snow, and anyone else like her, is a wild card. Don’t necessarily expect her to follow the rules. Does that explain things at least somewhat decently? Hopefully? Maybe? I hope so because that’s the idea behind the aforementioned conversation happening later and if it doesn’t make sense now it likely won’t make sense then either :P

Ah, Sienna. I’ve been waiting so long to bring her in so it was a lot of fun to finally introduce her properly. It’s funny you mention turning Sienna’s rise to power into a side story :P Sienna, then Princess Sophia, was supposed to be the lead character in a completely separate series that wasn’t connected to this at all. I never did anything with it and when I was figuring out what this magical world was going to be like, I realized I had a lot of backstory and characters that would almost slide perfectly into place. I just had to change Sophia’s name to something else and it worked. All that aside, I actually do plan on writing about Sienna’s rise to power at some point in the future so I’m glad to hear you’d be interested in reading it. It likely won’t be until after ADG and its sequel are finished, however. It would be a fairly lengthy story and although I’ve put UMW and State of Decay on indefinite hiatus, I don’t want to start anything else until I’ve put The Snowfall Trilogy (unofficial series title :P) to bed for good. And then I’ve got ideas for Coven focused stories, Dawnguard focused stories… somehow I feel like I’m going to be writing in this universe for a really long time :P Anyway, we were talking about Sienna and I’m really rambling tonight. She is certainly wise for her age, and given what she’s been through and what she’s accomplished she would absolutely have to be. At her simplest, she’s a people person. She just loves people and everything she does is about making the world a better place for the people that trust and depend on her. As for her reaction to Michael, (and I’m really glad you mentioned this, because I realize that I wasn’t at all clear on this point) at the point she arrived in Stonehaven and met with Michael and the gang on the rooftop, she had no idea what Michael had done to Mary. So in that moment, she’s just really happy to see her cousin. She found out about that after she arrived, but before Snow started eavesdropping on their conversation. Brad let her in on that little nugget as quickly as he could. As a rule, Sienna doesn’t confront people publicly if she can avoid it as she prefers to speak with them privately where she can so she’s not laying into Michael in front of his senior staff. Let Sienna get him alone for a few minutes and rest assured she’ll have some choice words for him. She still believes he’s a good person that shouldn’t be given up on because of this, but she’s still pretty pissed. Brad will be getting some alone time with Michael in the near future as well. I cut a scene from Snowfall where Brad found out about Mary and confronts Michael about it. Unfortunately, he found out from Sara and I sort of had a hard time explaining how he found out when by this point Mary had already promised to keep it secret. Parts of that particular scene will be appearing in the near future. But again, we were talking about Sienna… geez, stay on topic, Serina! Anyway, when she’s talking to Snow, Sienna isn’t trying to apologize for Michael or anything. She’s mainly just trying to make sure Snow has all the information she needs to form her own conclusions. She wants Snow to know exactly why Michael did what he did and the things that have happened that caused Michael behave how he has. But still, you’re absolutely right that his guilt over Riley’s death doesn’t excuse his actions. While I can’t say I was attempting to make any sort of statement about white male entitlement, it does draw quite a few parallels to the point for sure. That said, I was attempting to make a point with Mary with how she’s chosen to forgive him. I wanted to show her strength and her courage. It takes so much more to go through something like that and find a way to forgive than it does to hold onto anger. That Mary managed to do that, to me, speaks volumes about her character. But all that said, I’m quite glad you haven’t forgiven Michael yet. I don’t want anyone to forgive him yet. He hasn’t really done anything to earn forgiveness quite yet. Sure, he apologized but at the end of the day he still feels that what he did was the best thing for Mary. I want Michael to have to earn the forgiveness of not just the other characters, but the audience as well. I have no idea how long that will take, but it’ll likely be quite a while.

Hehe, it’s funny you almost forgot about JTG because I did too xD I was trying to figure out how I wanted to end the chapter when it hit me that I had to include this part. All this magical stuff comes in and suddenly I’m forgetting the main focus of the series. Anyway, JTG’s hold on Carmel is tenuous at best. While Steven and JTG were partners, Carmel is simply a pawn. She’s only working with JTG because she seems to be the only person who wants the same things she wants; justice for Steven. If she finds out that Steven isn’t as innocent, and the girls aren’t as guilty, as JTG has led her to believe… well, JTG does have a history of getting rid of people who are no longer of use to her. I’m just sayin’ :P

Yay! Someone finally told Michael off properly :P And it was not one, not two, but three people in a row xD You’re spoiling me :P Anyway, I was glad to see Snow especially tell him off for his entitled attitude. Listening to him trying to justify his actions makes me feel even more frustrated with him, since it all just seems very hypocritical to me. I mean, he says he wants to save as many people as he can because of Riley’s death, but not only is he willing to rape someone, he’s also completely unwilling to even consider Brad’s desire to, if the need arises, kill Snow to save the rest of the world. I mean, it’s understandable that he doesn't want to, since obviously Snow is someone he loves very much, but it seems hypocritical to me that he thinks he can look down on Brad and take the moral high ground on this issue when he’s perfectly willing to do despicable things to “save” someone. I wonder, if it wasn’t Snow who Sebastian needs but some random Jane Doe he doesn’t know but who has her own life and people who love her, would he be more willing to consider it then? Maybe not, but it would be interesting to find out. Anyway, I was glad to see that after Gwen’s reaction and Sienna’s the gravity of what he did finally seems to be seeping through his skull. It frustrates me that he needs to be told what he did was almost unforgivable, but better late than never I suppose :/ Still, I have never wanted to clonk a character over the head more than I what felt towards Michael in this chapter, which I suppose is really a testament to your writing more than anything else xD

Now, as for this half-witch girl mentioned in the last chapter… since more evidence has arisen, I am now comfortable sharing one of my suspicions – it’s Clara (which I feel probably won’t surprise you xD). She was my number one choice before, but now I am even more suspicious. I mean, with her being drawn to the philosopher’s stone when most mortals apparently aren’t and her talking in more detail about her absentee father to Gwen… And of course, that scene with Zoe wanting to tell her something then thinking better of it :P It all seems to fit together, but at the same time I don’t know what to think. I mean, it feels like you’re heading in that direction, but a nagging part of my brain thinks it’s almost too obvious so you must be leading me that way deliberately, so I’m feeling very confused right now. I mean, you could just be trolling and it really is her and you’re just hiding it in plain sight, but I can’t be sure xD Still, despite those conflicted feelings she’s my number one suspect for now. There’s another character I think it could possibly be if it turns out Clara is not the one, but I’ll keep that person a secret for now :P

Anyway, moving onto Clara and Gwen’s scene, I really enjoyed it and the strong friendship that’s forming between them. It was really sweet and I really want to see what happens between them in the future, especially if I’m right and Clara does turn out to be a half-witch since they’ll be in a similar sort of boat then. Learning about what happened with Gwen and Michael’s mother was really sad :/ It’s depressing that even though she did such a noble thing to give up her life so Gwen could be safe, she eventually ended up resenting her own daughter for it. I wonder if we’ll ever get to meet her and what she’s got to say for herself if we do. I mean, I presume she’s still alive, so maybe it’ll happen one day. Anyway, I really liked getting to learn more about werewolves in this world. I’m especially curious at how someone becomes one of the out of control werewolves. Can well in control werewolves like Gwen devolve into the feral kind, or are they just something different entirely from the get-go? And if they can devolve, what makes it happen? I have so many questions and I don’t know if you’ll even be able to answer them right now, but I’ll put them out anyway just in case xD

As for Jackson’s part in the chapter, the ending was very intriguing. I wasn’t really sure what part Jackson would play in terms of JTG since he never seemed to be the focus of her vitriol, but I didn’t expect her to supposedly completely let him go if he behaves. That said, I feel like things won’t be as simple as they seen. I think it’ll be difficult for Jackson to stay completely away, knowing that his friends are still being terrorised. And I’m not 100% sure I believe that JTG will leave him completely alone regardless. Anyway, I have rambled on for far too long so I should stop now :P There were so many interesting things in this chapter and even though a lot of questions were answered, I have just as many going away as I came in with, if not more xD Overall, it was a really good chapter and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens next.

Muchas gracias for the comment! (Can't stop, won't stop :P) Heh, I thought you might enjoy that part xD It was time, past time really, that Michael was laid into about what he’s done. You know, Michael really is a fascinating character to write. He’s so obsessed with trying to make up for Riley’s death that he’s willing to do whatever it takes to save lives. But that’s his thing. He wants to save everyone. He doesn’t care if they have to suffer, just so long as they’re alive. He doesn’t really comprehend that there’s more to living than being alive. So he can’t accept Brad’s plan because he believes there’s a way to win this thing without anyone having to die. So as to whether or not he would consider killing another random girl to save the world… no, I don’t think so. I mean, he wouldn’t be nearly as ardent in her defense as he is in Snow’s since as you say she’s someone that he very deeply loves, but he still wouldn’t allow it. Probably :P But yeah anyway, up until this point Michael was fairly confident that he had done the right thing. But Gwen especially is starting to change his mind. If there’s anyone that’s going to convince him he’s wrong, it’s Gwen. Obviously she’s this constant reminder of Riley and having her completely turn against him really breaks him down. He’s still not convinced he wasn’t right, but he’s starting to question his decision. I have to say that I’m glad Michael is so frustrating :P Like I said in the last chapter, I don’t want anyone forgiving him yet. I didn’t want him to come out with this sad story about his sister and suddenly that makes it all okay. I don’t want him to be completely unforgivable, but I want him to have to really work for it. It can’t be an easy turn around. If he’s ever going to be forgiven (and especially rebuild his relationship with Snow) he’s going to have to earn it.

Haha, no I can’t say that Clara comes as much of a surprise in this case. I thought she was likely one of the two you were considering. I have an idea of the other, but I’m not going to say anything lest I give you ideas xD Like you said, I’m seemingly guiding things in Clara’s direction and it all fits, but is it a deliberate case of misdirection? That’s the fun thing about writing mystery and keeping secrets; deciding which method of secret-keeping to employ. Hiding in plain sight? Occasionally dropping hints, but keep the meat of the secret to myself? Deliberate misdirection? Regardless, I’ll be quite interested to hear your thoughts after the next chapter. Hint hint, wink wink :P  

I’m really glad you like the friendship between Clara and Gwen :) They’ve been perhaps the most fun to write that I’ve had in a while. I’ve never really written a close, loving, but ultimately platonic friendship and I wanted to. Sure the four leading ladies are all super close, but I didn’t want to focus on just them. Gwen gave me a perfect opportunity to do something along those lines. I just sort of put them in a room together and this really great friendship ends up being born from it. Suffice to say, their friendship is only going to grow moving forward and if Clara really does end up being a half-breed like Gwen then that will only add to it all. Gwen and Michael’s mother is a character that I have plans for, but I don’t quite know when we’ll get to her yet. Heh, when I decide to introduce a new character I tend to write a quite paragraph about them, just to get an idea of what they’re like. Mrs. Ravenswood (I haven’t given her a name yet :P) just got one word; complicated. But yes, she’s still alive and it’s safe to say she’ll appear at some point in the future. I don’t know exactly when as I haven’t planned quite that far ahead, but I’m sure we’ll see her at some point. The opportunity for drama is too much to miss :P As for the werewolves, yes, someone like Gwen can absolutely devolve into a feral. It typically happens right after someone is turned into a werewolf. If the newly turned werewolf isn’t taught how to control their newfound powers, they can quite easily be consumed by it. Joining a pack with other werewolves helps since the new werewolf will have support and instruction from other werewolves. For older, more in control werewolves like Gwen, well… it’s kind of a mental thing. Imagine having a hurricane trapped inside you. You can keep it inside so long as you maintain focus. But if you stop, even for a second, if you lose control and let it out there’s no bringing it back in again. It’s basically a case of giving into something that’s constantly pulling at you, even if it’s just a faint tug. The lure of all that power, the hunger, is always there. The in control werewolves are simply that, in control. If they let go, terrible things happen which are all but impossible to undo. I don’t know if that’s a very clear answer, but that’s how I envision it :P Oh yeah, and questions like that I can absolutely answer. I don’t consider anything to do with how any of the magical stuff works to be spoilers or anything. I just have to find the space to work in the proper explanations without boring everyone to death, so I like to split it up a bit and space things out so I don’t have these massive exposition dumps every chapter. I just seems to me that it would be exceedingly boring :/

It’s funny because I wasn’t entirely sure what I was going to do with Jackson either. Ever since Michael entered Snow’s life, I’ve had a hard time figuring out what Jackson’s role would be. I had a storyline for them, but Michael ruined that so Jackson spent much of Snowfall loitering in the background because I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do with him. Unfortunately I’m still not completely sure what I want to do with him, but I have a couple of ideas. Taking Jackson out of the JTG equation for now let’s me logically keep him in the background until I flesh out the details. Regardless of all that, JTG is playing a very different game than Steven did. Steven wanted them all dead, while this JTG wants the girls punished. She’s not all that interested in Jackson as he was Steven’s target and Steven went rogue. That said, Jackson knows too much and he’s a loose end. Also, this new JTG is more insidious than Steven was. I think I’ll just leave it at that xD Thanks again for commenting! Oh, and if you’re not leaving with more questions than you come in with, I’m not doing my job :P Seriously, that’s sort of been one of the changes I wanted to make. Snowfall was a book of secrets that were kept right up until the very end. With this, I want to introduce new mysteries but then resolve them relatively quickly and introduce new ones. For example, I don’t want to still be dealing with who the half-witch girl is at the end. That’s a mystery for the moment, but we’ll resolve it and then bring in something new. That’s hardly a revolutionary idea, but it’s a radical shift from Snowfall that I wanted to try and I feel like it might make for more interesting reading overall.      

I’m so sorry that I’m so late with all my comments :/ I feel like it’s almost redundant saying that, since I never seem to get any better at being timely, but I’ll still say it. Anyway, I was glad to learn so many interesting things in this chapter. To start with, I don’t know if you remember this or even if I mentioned it (I can’t be bothered going back through all those comments to see if I did :P) but I remember having a hunch when Nikki’s parents were first introduced that something was up with her parentage. I was thinking more along the lines of her mother had an affair or something, but still, one out of two ain’t bad :P I think the reason I thought that was because their descriptions didn’t match hers. It was a long time ago so I’m not entirely sure, but I think that was it. Anyway, that’s getting ahead a bit. I was surprised to see Nikki telling her parents about her abortion. I can’t say I expected that, not this early on anyway. Still, it just shows how much she’s been through and how upset she was that they weren’t there for her both in general and after the shenanigans with Steven. I was surprised to see how her dad reacted, too, but it was heartwarming to see that he, at least, regrets the way Nikki’s been treated and wants to do things right. I’m really curious about Nikki’s biological mother, and who she is. At first I thought she was probably Randy and Julia’s daughter who’d gotten pregnant at a young age and then gotten into drugs or something so she couldn’t raise Nikki. But then, Randy says later that Nikki isn’t his blood, which would seem an odd thing to say if she was secretly his grand-daughter. Also, I can’t remember how old Randy and Julia are (if it was ever mentioned) so it might have been impossible anyway despite that :P Still, regardless of whether her mum is their daughter or not, I’m curious why she couldn’t raise Nikki. For now I suspect her reasons for leaving are similar to what I mentioned above, although I suppose I can’t rule Nikki out as being the half-witch girl for now. I still think Clara is more likely, since from what we know right now it fits better and there was that stuff with Zoe in the last chapter. But, obviously we know next to nothing about Nikki’s biological parents now so I’ll put her as my number 2 suspect for now xD

I really liked Carmel’s part of the chapter. I’ve been looking forward to meeting Steven’s parents for a while now, so I was glad to learn a little about them although so far they haven’t given much insight into why Steven thought they’d disown him if they knew he was gay. Also, it was interesting to learn about Carmel herself, too. Carmel was the other person I had in mind for the half-witch girl, so… In a way, I was kind of right :P I mean, it wasn’t the same half-witch girl presumably, since if Zoe was supposed to be watching over her she didn’t do a very good job by staying in Mistbrook Falls when Carmel wasn’t there, and also she said her mum was the one who was a witch. Still, I call close enough xD

Anyway, onto the last part of the chapter. It was really interesting to get a little bit more insight into why Alana is hanging around Tony and Co (I still need to think of my own nickname for them xD). I was surprised to learn she was in it for financial gains. I mean, since she’s got her own business that seems successful as far as I know, I guess I always assumed she was doing fine. Obviously Kayla and Ariana have more than her since they’ve got Ariana’s inherited fortune, but still. I didn’t realise the situation was dire enough for her to join in with their schemes even before she knew all the murders were going to happen. I wonder if something else went on that I don’t know about and that’s why Alana’s in need of cash… Or maybe she’s lying and there’s something else completely unrelated to money. I do have a crazy theory about why Alana’s really involved and I think it could still be possible, but… It’s just to crazy to share right now because it would be too embarrassing if I were wrong :P Still, maybe I’m rambling on for nothing and it really is just the financial side of things. Anyway, it was really upsetting to learn that Michelle, after all, was the one to (sort-of) kill Sara :( I mean, I suspected she might have been involved in the planning side of things but I didn’t think she’d be the one to actually stab her to apparent death. I thought it was going to be Rick or one of the others in the group rather than Michelle herself. Anyway, the ending certainly surprised me as well. It sounds like Alana knows who JTG is. I mean, it’s a little unclearly phrased so I wouldn’t say I was 100% certain she does know, but if she does I really wonder how she found out. Did she figure it out herself, or did JTG slip up somehow? Anyway, overall this was a really interesting chapter with so many revelations. And I’m sorry again for being so overdue on all my comments :/ I should get to State of Decay in the next couple of days, I just wanted to do this one first.

Also, Gendry and Sons Boat Rentals xD xD

Seriously, there’s absolutely no need to apologize for taking a while to comment. I promise, it’s totally fine. If it takes you a while then it takes you a while. It’s nothing to worry about :) Anyway, yeah I remember you mentioning that you had a theory about Nikki’s parents, but I don’t think you ever told me what it was. You’re weren’t too far off the mark either because something clearly was up with her parentage. I’m glad to see you picked up on the hint with her parents not looking anything like her. I just slipped that in ages ago knowing that I wasn’t going to bring it up for a really long time. I kind of just wanted to see if anyone noticed :P If anyone was going to, it would almost certainly be you. Your guesses have a tendency to be scarily accurate :P Well, to be honest Nikki telling them about her abortion was a surprise to me too because I didn’t intend for her to tell them. It just sort of happened :P It felt like it was time and if all of this other stuff was going to come out then I may as well drop the abortion bomb while I was at it. As for Randy’s reaction, that really came about because up until now all of the dads in this series have ranged from absent to psychotic child molesters. I kind of wanted to have someone with a decent dad, or at least someone who was trying to be a decent dad. Nikki’s biological mother is something I’ll leave up to your imagination for the time being. Nope, I’ll not say a word. I won’t say a word about her father either.

I swear, all of these characters really do have parents. I told you Mary did too; they’re just really hard to locate from time to time. Jackson has them as well, I promise. They’re around… somewhere :P Anyway, we’ll get a better feel of his parents soon and find out why Steven thought they’d disown him if he was gay. This was just meant as a brief introduction to them and to confirm that Carmel was, in fact, a half-witch. Now, I’m not saying anything one way or the other but witches have the ability to be anywhere on Earth within the blink of an eye so Zoe could probably keep an eye on Carmel if she wanted to. Also, I never technically said that the father of half-witch girl in question was the witch. Who’s to say xD Well, me, but I’m not gonna :P

Eh, I’ve officially dubbed them the Dirty Half-Dozen. Please come up with something better. Help me. All is in darkness. Despair is settling heavily upon my spirit :P Well, I’m not going to say a word about Alana’s motivations because of obvious reasons, but that said I am really interested in your crazy theory. Trust me, it can’t be any crazier than the stuff I come up with xD If I could give you a tour of my mind, I’d do so but you’d probably be so disturbed you’d cut all ties with me :P Okay, it’s not that bad but I can come up with some whacked out ideas sometimes. Heh, I’d been waiting to reveal Sara’s “killer” for quite a long while but I never could find a good spot to fit it in. Honestly, at the time it happened I wasn’t completely sure who had killed Sara. I bounced back and forth between a few different options before settling on Michelle. Having JTG do it was a bit too anticlimactic, and Michelle just fit. It very clearly displays just what kind of person Michelle is. She’s willing to murder her own daughter (and her husband, although not directly) because she got too close to uncovering the truth about their dirty little scheme. But even then if it had to be done, she wanted to do it herself. We’ll get around to the reasons why eventually :P Normally I wouldn’t correct a theory, but I fear this one is entirely my fault. I should have been far clearer with my wording there at the end. Alana doesn’t know who JTG is. She knows about JTG due to Tony and Michelle telling her and even then she doesn’t know all the details. What JTG meant by what she said is for Alana to keep her mouth shut about JTG now that she knows she exists. When she says not to mention her name, she means the name Alana knows her by; JTG. So basically don’t go shouting the name JTG around town. Alana getting mixed up with Team Tony (nope, that’s awful too) came as a surprise even to JTG so in essence she’s covering her tracks until she can decide what to do about this unexpected development. We’ve reached a point where so many people are involved that some of them are starting to act outside of JTG’s plans. Obviously, that can’t be allowed to continue. *Cue ominous music* :P But anyway, thanks so much for the comment! And hey, if it takes you and while to get to State of Decay, I’m sure that’s fine. It only took me two years to finish that chapter, so at my current rate you have plenty of time to get caught up before the next one :P

Lol, I couldn’t resist the boat rental joke. It popped into my head and I had to use it somewhere :P

Yay! I’m so glad you continued this story :) Anyway I have to say, Kayla and Ariana really suck at keeping their knowledge of magic under wraps :P I’m not surprised that Snow suspects something xD Moving on, I really liked the way you described Snow’s dream. It was very vivid and creepy :P Oh and I noticed something – the fact the spot where the school was where the big whirling portal was in Snow’s vision – I wonder if that has something to do with the events at school during the storm, when Nikki and Clara were locked away for a while. But then, now I think about it JTG was the one to do that. Never mind :P Still, it’s interesting that the gates of hell or whatever appear to be located near the school. Looks like we’ve got a Sunnydale sitch goin’ on here :P I was also glad (but creeped out) to finally get to see Sebastian in the not-flesh. It was interesting to see his interaction with Emilia, too. I feel sorry for her even though she’s kind of evil. I wonder, was she a normal girl before all this went down, or did Sebastian create her from scratch? If the former is true that just makes her story even sadder :( Still, I’m excited to see what happens there.

Anyway, like I mentioned before, I’m a little over dragons but I thought it was a cool scene with Ancalagon and I’m excited to see what you do with this part of the lore. You seem to have put a lot more thought into it than most dragons in fiction so I don’t think my dragon fatigue will affect me that much :P Still, she seems very interesting and I’m excited to learn more about the dragons in general in this world.

I really liked the second half of the chapter, with Zoe and Snow’s training sessions. The magic in this world seems very interesting and unique, so well done there :) It was really cool to see Snow going through the different emotions, trying to find her trigger. I’m immensely curious what everyone else’s triggers are xD And I’m also glad you didn’t go for the cliché and make Snow’s trigger be love :P Especially since Michael is the one who suggested it. But then, Sara is the one who correctly guessed that Snow’s trigger is really hate, which makes me wonder… She definitely seems to be the one who knows Snow best, anyway. I feel sorry for Snow, though. I have no idea how common it is for the trigger to be a negative emotion (I’d imagine it’s common as they tend to be very intense and therefore bode well for magic-using) but I’m sure she will see this as a failure, even though I don’t think it is at all :(

One thing I did find odd is when Zoe called Fate a ‘bitch’. I’ve found it a little weird when characters referred to her this way before, but coming from Zoe (since she’s this extremely powerful witch and everything) it sounded especially strange. It’s just… It’s hard to explain, but it feels like an oddly mundane insult to use for an almost God-like being :P It just felt out of place.

Anyway, before I go I have to ask - Have you ever played Skyrim? Just that I’m seeing a lot of references to it. But I know that Skyrim itself shares similarities with D&D and other role-playing games so I’m not sure if it’s just a coincidence. Maybe you’re actually referencing D&D and I’m just confusing it with references to Skyrim because that’s all I know, having played D&D only once in my life :P Anyway, I only recently started playing so I didn’t notice before if they are deliberate xD Anyway, this was a very interesting chapter and I'm looking forward to the next one :)

Thanks for much for the comment! Again, sorry to taking a while to respond. We’ve decided to go ahead with the move, so there’s a ton of logistical stuff we’re trying to sort out. On the brighter side, once we’ve finally gotten moved properly I’ll actually have a good amount of free time seeing as I won’t be doing much work save for when I fly back to New York every other weekend. I’m going to be a stereotypical stay at home housewife :P Not gonna lie, kinda looking forward to it xD Anyway, moving on.

Yeah, Kayla and Ariana really weren’t prepared for Snow to ask that question :P One of their worst fears is Snow getting wrapped up in something magical like that once did, so that question just coming up out of the blue really shook them. Of course, they have no idea the extent to which magic exists in this world (and others) so they’re a bit limited in that regard. They likely suspect that Snow may have experienced something strange that would be Fate/Destiny related and aren’t sure how to deal with it.

I’m really glad you liked the dream sequence because it was a big part of the reason why this chapter was held up for so long. It took forever to get it to a point I was happy with. I have to thank Matt Mercer the DM of the D&D web series Critical Role for indirectly helping sort it out. I’ve been watching Critical Role for a while now (If you like really good storytelling, albeit silly from time to time, great characters, and an entertaining cast, I recommend giving it a watch on Youtube) and Matt’s descriptions of his scenes is fantastic and his worlds are so detailed that just watching him has helped me improve. I used his style somewhat in the description of the dream and I was finally somewhat happy with it. Haha, so you caught the Buffy reference! Excellent :P To be honest, the whole dream was kind of inspired by the destruction of Sunnydale although more turned into a hellish wasteland instead of sucked into an interdimensional portal. I’d wanted to introduce Sebastian in some way for a while now, but there was never a convenient time to do it. A dream sequence seemed as good a time as any. It’s kind of tough to basically introduce Satan into the narrative since he can’t exactly go strolling down the street in broad daylight :P As for Emilia, well… Okay, I personally don’t consider this a spoiler, but if you don’t want to know anything about her just skip to the next paragraph. Anyway, here goes. To answer your question, yes. Before Sebastian, Emilia was a normal girl. In fact, when Snow and Emilia met up in the coffee shop the first time? Emilia was still just a normal girl. There was reference to her disappearing for a while before she reappeared in the woods on Founder’s Day. It’s safe to assume whatever happed to her, happened during the time she was gone. I never really intended to give the impression that Emilia was anything other than a thrall that was being controlled by Sebastian. Now, following whatever it is that Sebastian’s done to her, that may certainly be different now.

Lol, yeah I remember that conversation xD My initial reaction may or may not have been; “Well, shit.” :P But no, I agree that dragons have been done to death and if I was going to include them, I wanted them to be something different. I didn’t want GoT dragons or Harry Potter dragons where they’re mainly just fire breathing terrors. I decided to go more D&D in the design of the dragons in that they are intelligent and have the ability to communicate. I went even further and gave them a fully developed culture and society. I didn’t want the dragons to feel like nothing more than a fantasy WMD that can burn whole cities to the ground single-handedly. A fully grown dragon can burn whole cities to the ground single-handedly, but there’s far more to them than that. As far Ancalagon herself, she’s only a adolescent dragon so her power and capability is greatly diminished, although you still don’t underestimate a dragon. Off topic, but my D&D players learned this truth last weekend :P They hadn’t really gone up against anything too terrible yet as they’re still fairly low level. They picked up a contract to hunt down a drake that was harassing a town, despite being warned by the local Captain of the Guard that only an experienced party should hunt this creature. They didn’t listen and went after it as there was a reward of 10,000 gold if they killed it. They were kind of cautious until they saw it was a young dragon and then threw caution to the winds and attacked. Suffice to say, two of the party died permanently and had to reroll new characters. The rest barely managed to escape the encounter. We were talking after the game about how they thought they could handle it because it was young. And I was like, yeah, it’s a baby dragon. But it’s still a fucking dragon. And these aren’t standard D&D dragons either; these are custom homebrew dragons that fit in with the lore. So yes, even a baby dragon will absolutely wreck you if you’re not prepared and they were overconfident and way too cocky. Anyway, enough of that rambling :P

Ah yes, this is the part of this story I’ve been wanting to get to for so long :P I finally get to have magic out in the open. I’m not sure how unique it is as a lot of the spells and schools of magic are quite D&D based, although admittedly with my own changes and tweaks and additions. So the schools of magic are similar in name and purpose, but most of the spells have my own spin on them and some are significantly more powerful. With triggers, I think it’s safe to say you’ll probably learn some people’s triggers and others you likely will not. It’s considered a very personal thing and some people don’t want to share their trigger with others. Then again, I know there are certain characters that people will want to know, so we’ll probably get around to most of them. We’ll see. Heh, yeah that would have been horribly cliché if Snow’s trigger had been love. I wasn’t initially sure what her trigger would be, but I knew for a fact it would not be love. It was going to sadness for a while as I thought it would be interesting to explore that with a character that we know has been suicidal. There are opportunities for a deep dive into that and maybe deal with some mental health topics that aren’t often brought up. I liked the idea, but I felt like that almost deserved its own story and wrapping that into this one seemed like a bit much. So that may come into play in a Coven focused side story whenever I get around to that :P And also, hate just seemed fun xD I liked the idea of a character that hasn’t ever really gotten all that angry in the time we’ve known her, having her trigger be hate. It has its own nuances to explore without being as complex and time-intensive as a mental health storyline. As for Snow… I don’t know. I don’t really know if she’ll necessarily see this as a failure. I mean, she may. I haven’t even started thinking about the next chapter yet so it’s possible she might. I’m sort of thinking more along the lines of the effect it will have on her state of mind. She doesn’t even understand what she is. She’s a child born of incest, which is something we haven’t really gotten into yet. But… I’ll say… yeah, it bothers her. And now that may be the reason why she’s this magical anomaly that no one understands, a demon wants to breed an army with her, and now her trigger for using her powers is hatred. So I think more than anything, Snow is scared and this will just make it worse.

You know, it’s funny. I don’t even know where that came from :P I want to say it started as far back as Warehouse in some of the 3rd person narration and somehow along the way the characters started referring to Fate the same way. Regardless, you make an excellent point and I’m making a note to put a stop to that. At some point I’ll go back and edit the other bits as well along with the rest of the stuff I keep meaning to go back and fix but never find the time to actually do :P Thanks for pointing this out :D

Skyrim? What is this Skyrim you speak of? Nope, can’t say I’ve ever heard of it? Sounds fake to me. *Quickly logs out of Steam account so no one notices the 400+ hours played of the original release edition, the 200+ hours of the Special Edition, and the 58 hours of the VR edition.* But yeah, in all seriousness, I’ve played the heck out of Skyrim. I still play Skyrim. If you’re playing on PC, I highly recommend checking into a website called NexusMods which has a whole host of player made modifications and additional from clothing and weapons and new spells, to fully voiced companions and new quest lines. Just be sure to read the installation instructions carefully if you go messing around with that, and back up your save file! You can break the game pretty easily and corrupt your save. Believe me, I’ve done it :P Anyway, as far as actual references to Skyrim, there aren’t that many that are intentional. The biggest and most obvious would have to be the Dawnguard. Skyrim’s Dawnguard and my Dawnguard are obviously very different entities, but that’s where the name comes from. It was actually a placeholder at first until I came up with something better, but I liked the name and it fit with their mission profile so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to pay homage to the game that’s brought me over 700 hours of enjoyment. But anyway, I’m glad you’re playing Skyrim! It’s definitely a great game to lose yourself in. Just… whatever you do… don’t kill a chicken in town. I’m serious. If you do, may Talos have mercy on your soul :P

Sorry again for taking such a long time to get to this -.- Anyway, this was a very interesting chapter. I really liked seeing more of the magic in this world’s potential and I must say I think you have a gift for writing it xD Anyway, back to the beginning. It was really nice to see Sara comforting Snow about her trigger. Not only was it a heartwarming scene, it also really highlight’s Sara’s development since the beginning of Snowfall. I’m still pretty wary of her at the moment, but I feel like I trust her a bit more now after this chapter xD And you know, she quoted Dumbledore, so that’s gonna win her points :P

Anyway, I really liked the scene where Snow was learning to use her powers. Like I said before, you did a great job with describing their use of magic. You described it in such a vivid way and it was really fun to imagine xD Michael and Zoe’s match was also really cool to read about, not to mention it introduced us to just some of the many possibilities of magic in this universe. And ahem, I’ll admit I was a little worried at the end there until Sara restored them both xD  Overall, it was really cool and makes me eager to read more.

As for the last part of the chapter… Now that had me really worried :/ It may just be the power of magic that’s corrupting her, but with that voice in her head it seems like Sebastian has found a way to worm himself into Snow’s mind… :/ If he has, I am sure he’ll try to use that to his advantage, maybe tempt her to join his side with the promise he can heal Ariana. I may be wrong and it may just be Snow herself thinking that, but that was my first thought after reading that part of the chapter.

Anyway, this is a bit of an aside, but I wonder what JTG’s been up to lately xD It feels like forever since we’ve seen her and Carmel. Although, looking back I realise it’s only been like 3 chapters or so since JTG’s plotline got a bit of focus. Hmm :P For some reason it felt like a lot longer than that xD Never mind. But regardless, I hope we see more of that storyline soon.

Thanks for commenting! :D I must say Sara is probably the character whose growth I’ve enjoyed the most so far. Given that I’d originally planned to kill her off very early, I didn’t really put a lot of time and effort into developing her. She was almost meant to exist as a plot device that the rest of the story revolved around. Now that she’s still around, that clearly had to change. It actually flowed very naturally in that she would have a come to Jesus moment after her near death. Facing your own mortality has to change you and it certainly seems to have changed Sara. That said, I can’t really blame you for not fully trusting her just yet. She’s changed, sure, but no one completely changes overnight. Hahaha, so perhaps there’s a new weapon in my arsenal to make you love Michael! He must start quoting Dumbledore in every scene! I’m sure this will go perfectly :P

I’m really glad you liked the bit with Snow learning to use her powers and Michael and Zoe’s sparring match. That’s been something I’ve been both really looking forward to and also extremely nervous about. I wanted the magic in this to feel… impactful. I wanted the spells to feel powerful and honestly kind of scary. I mean, if you cast Fireball in Skyrim it makes an okayish explosion. I wanted the D&D reaction where whenever someone says they’re casting Fireball, every player looks to see where they are on the map because a nuke is about to go off :P But yeah, it was pretty fun to write that part. I was able to play around with the different character’s classes. There’s a very barebones D&D style system I put together mainly just to help me establish which spells Michael and Zoe would likely have studied. So all of Zoe’s are elemental based whereas Michael’s are more from the necromantic school (although not the “raise the undead” sort of necromancy. That’s… frowned upon :P). Michael does have some Conjuration spells what with his use of glyphs and his Mystical Weapon spell. Doing that really helped me give them both what I hope are unique fighting styles. I really want to have Snow focus on ice magic, but that would be so on the nose that I’m not sure I can do it xD

I spent a very long time thinking about how to respond to this part. It’s a very interesting theory, to be sure. This chapter is called Magic is a Drug for a reason. Magic can be… addicting. For someone like Snow, who’s ultimately been powerless for a long time, it can be even more so. She’s been powerless against JTG, powerless against her mom’s illness, powerless when her best friend was “murdered”, I mean the list goes on. Now she’s suddenly got power literally coursing through her veins and that’s bound to have and affect on her. All that said, if I were Sebastian, sneaking into Snow’s mind and turning her from the inside… it’s a good idea. The thing is that he’s not really going to convince her to join him by offering her a prize. Snow knows what Sebastian is, or at least what the Dawnguard has told her, so she’s not likely to join him  just because he promises to save her mother. I’d imagine he’d need to work to convince her that he’s right and the Dawnguard are wrong. If he could prove he wants to create a better world,  one in which her mother could live happily… well, that’s a possibility. Or he decides to mind rape her, break her spirit and crush her will until she loses the ability to resist him :/ Regardless, your points have actually given me a bit to think about.    

Yeah, the JTG storyline sort of went on the backburner a little bit mainly due to me wanting to get this chapter out there. I’d been really excited to actually get to play with the magic I’d spent a lot of time creating and this was the first opportunity I’ve had to really do so. From here, we’ll be getting back to JTG, dealing with Nikki’s issues, and maybe even figuring out who the half-witch is before too long ;)  

Aww, Snow :/ Like I said before, I really loved the first part of this chapter. It was really nice to see Zoe and her bonding. Zoe is quickly evolving into one of my favourite characters. She seems so kind and patient, which is perfect for Snow right now. Although I have to say, with all the mentoring she’s doing, I’m becoming more and more worried for Zoe’s safety :P I mean, first Snow, now Clara… I feel her likelihood of dying doubles with each mentee she takes on, so I’m getting very scared for her. Regardless, their scene was very well written and moving. I’m excited to see how their relationship continues to develop.

As for Clara… I can’t say I didn’t expect her to be the half-witch, but I was still very excited for this reveal :P And I was quite surprised that Noel knew Clara was a half-witch too. I assumed Clara’s dad never told her and she had no idea, although I don’t really know why :P Anyway, I’m curious to see how Clara’s training goes. I feel the coven are bound to find out at some point, which makes me nervous but also curious because I kind of want to meet them. I imagine them as a league of Umbridge-lookalikes :P I hope we meet Alden at some point too.

Also, after that reveal I’m even more curious about Carmel. Since we know she is a half-witch with her powers bound, and Zoe said it can have a big affect on people. I wonder what’s changed about Carmel as a result, and how things would change if she were to get her powers un-bound.

One thing I was a little confused about though, is the realm of Olandria. Zoe mentioned it multiple times in this chapter but she didn’t explain what it was, and Clara didn’t seem to question it which I found odd. Is Olandria the realm-word for Snow and Co.’s reality? Or is it the world where the coven live? Or both, if the coven are on Earth? But regardless, it’s an easy fix :P

Now, for that ending… Wow. Nope, can’t say I was expecting that :P Fate turning to Mary for help was something I never imagined, but it was probably my favourite twist in this chapter. I’m so intrigued by it and I’m really curious to learn more. Right now, my theory is that the person who died when they weren’t meant to was Miranda, and she was the previous “One” Sebastian was after. I think Fate must have manipulated things so that Tony found her/decided to suffocate her rather than call an ambulance or something. That’s my theory for now, although it may change as I gather more information :P But regardless, I’m very intrigued about where this storyline is going. I wonder why Fate sought out Mary as opposed to any of the other girls. The way she says she “shouldn’t” be there, and with what Fate said at the end, clearly Mary was supposed to die before Fate messed with things. Since she mentioned the dreams and stuff have been happening since the mine, it makes me wonder if she was meant to die then but Fate manipulated things so she survived. Especially since you said your original plan was for her to die then :P Regardless, I’m very intrigued to see what happens next with them. Overall this was a really great chapter, with lots of interesting turns and reveals and a very heartfelt scene there at the start. I can’t wait to read the next one :)

Well, you were certainly correct in your assessment that Snow’s portion of this chapter was difficult to write. Snow in general is difficult to write because, well she’s not in the best headspace right now and it’s not at all an easy one for me to dive into which, actually is part of the reason why I went ahead with it. I needed to face it and it turned out better than I thought it would. I’d had that tattoo bit planned for a long time, including the I have passed through fire part, but it was supposed to be something Snow went and got on her own instead of a magical brand but I liked it being a gift from Zoe. I felt like it meant more that way. Anyway, I’m glad you’re liking Zoe :) I never meant for her to become as prominent of a character as she has, but over time she’s just gotten tied into more and more things that now, here she is. Much by the same token, I never expecting Zoe and Snow to have much of a relationship, but Zoe was the obvious candidate to teach Snow. I’d planned on Michael, but Zoe made so much more sense. But ah yes, the sad fate of the wise old mentor :P They never seem to last very long, do they? xD  

Yeah, that was probably the most anticlimactic reveal in the history of anticlimactic reveals :P That’s why I didn’t hold into that particular mystery for very long. It didn’t make any narrative sense to do so and really because I intend to focus less heavily on Snow this time around and spread the storylines around a bit more, well… Clara needed her particular storyline to kick off. But regardless of it being an obvious reveal, I’m glad you were excited for it :P Haha, it’s funny you mention Noel because when I was writing this I had to stop and think if she knew about Clara :P I knew she did, but I had to stop and think how everything fit together. I need to plan better :P As to the Coven, Umbridge-lookalikes is a pretty accurate description. Not all of them, obviously. I mean, just like the Ministry of Magic, not everyone who worked there thought that those in power were doing the right thing. There’s plenty of resistance to the Coven’s current course, but those in power could definitely be described as Umbridge-like. Maybe even Nazi Umbridge-like to be honest.

We’ll be getting back to Carmel here soon. I kind of put that on pause for a minute to work out some JTG stuff. I realized that I’d created a much greater villain than JTG in Sebastian and gave two of my four leads magical powers. JTG, in contrast, seems less threatening so I had to rework some things and adjust some plot points. As for Carmel herself, we’ll see :P Maybe there’s been no affect at all or maybe she’s a completely different person now. Who knows? :P

Right, yeah I forgot about that :/ Okay, so Olandria is the name of the realm where Sienna’s kingdom is. I think I had Zoe mention it at one point, but then I did some editing because I’d planned for Mary and Fate’s conversation to carry on a bit and Fate mentioned it as well, so I figured it wasn’t necessary to go explain it twice and since Fate was already on a bit of an exposition dump, I left the explanation there. But since I liked the cliffhanger of “and I need your help”, I cut out the rest of their scene and I suppose I never went back and added the proper details back into Clara, Zoe, and Noel’s scene. Oops :P Yep, definitely need to plan better. Thanks for pointing that out for me! I’ll be sure to fix it. For clarity’s sake, this realm, our world I suppose you could call it, is typically called the Nexus… because reasons :P Well, I suppose it’s not really a spoiler to say why. Our realm is the one that connects all the others. Imagine the realms laid out like a subway network with stations linking different areas. Some stations/realms connect directly to each other while others don’t. Our realm is like a hub. It connects directly to every single other realm. The Coven are actually from another realm called Agamarr. It was destroyed a thousand years ago by extreme misuse of unable magics which caused the surviving witches to flee to the Nexus/our world and they’ve been here ever since. Hmm, maybe I should start working on a lore guide or something :P I mean, I’ve got folder and folders of world building for the realms that will probably never actually be used or even mentioned unless the characters ever need to go to some of these places :P

Oh man, I have been waiting to get to this! :P I thought it would be ages because I didn’t really have any logical narrative reason for Fate to interject herself into any of the character’s lives. This wasn’t meant to come about until midway through the third and final part of this trilogy. But deciding not to kill off Mary changed so much. Honestly, I had no plan for Mary. I kept her around but I had absolutely no idea what she was going to be doing. I didn’t want to complicate things further by creating an entirely separate storyline for her that didn’t tie into anything else. Then I hit upon the idea of using the fact that I didn’t plan on her being here as part of her story and tying her into Fate’s shenanigans. They’ve been a really fun pair to write so far and they’re taking the narrative to places that I never really saw it going, which I always appreciate. Anyway, I won’t comment on your theories except to say I can neither confirm nor deny :P The next chapter will open where this one closed, so it’d be a shame to spoil anything here. But I guess I can say that there is a lot more to Fate (and Destiny for the matter) than what Destiny said way back in The Girl and the Warehouse.

But anyway, thanks for much for the comment! I really appreciate it :D I’ll finally be getting back to Cursed no later than this weekend. I’ve already tried once, but these medications I’m on make it really really hard for me to focus. They’re helping where they need to, but it’s really causing issues in other areas and focusing to do something like compose a decently thought out comment is definitely one of them.  

Wow :O So much information was revealed in this chapter and I don’t know where to begin :P Firstly, Fate’s plan is… Not what I was expecting at all. I can’t say I was expecting that at all. Although I had ideas about who died when they weren’t supposed to (although clearly I was completely wrong about that, since it’s actually people surviving when they weren’t meant to), I had no idea what Fate’s actual plan and what she could want with Mary could be. Overall, I’m really intrigued. So much was revealed in this chapter and although it was a lot of exposition, I found it didn’t seem to bother me much because I was too interested to care :P

At the start, I was totally convinced Fate wasn’t telling then truth, or at least she was altering facts to make herself appear in a more positive light to get mary to help her. However, as the chapter went on, she seemed more and more… Human? I don’t know if there’s many other ways to describe it. She just seemed so much more vulnerable and open with Mary, especially when she genuinely encourages Mary to live her life to the fullest. The way she speaks in a frank, yet honest manner drew me to her and by the end of the chapter I was convinced she is telling the truth as she sees it. I still think there could definitely be more to the story but despite the conflicting narrative from Destiny before I feel Fate’s story is the true one. Also, with Mary’s comment that Fate’s hair resembles Sienna’s I can’t help but wonder if there’s a reason for that :P I don’t know what it could be, but it seems suspicious xD

Anyway, overall this was a great chapter. Mary’s storyline is shaping up to be my favourite at the moment, mostly because I have no idea where it’s gonna go and if they’ll be successful in stopping Destiny. I was excited to see Claire (and I imagine Cooper down the line) step back into the story too.

Thanks so much for commenting! Yeah, no kidding a lot was revealed :P Stuff I’d planned on keeping to myself for a long while yet so this chapter sort of locked me into a couple of things that I’d intentionally kept somewhat fluid depending on how to rest of the story turned out. I could change stuff without breaking anything or retconning anything that had already been established. Oh well :P Anyway, yeah you know I think it would have been pretty difficult for anyone to figure out Fate’s plan. Mainly because I hadn’t even started dropping hints or even remotely started putting anything in there that would have led you to that conclusion. I didn’t think I needed to because I wasn’t expecting to be at this point yet. Thanks a lot, Mary xD And honestly, I think it’s time I admit that the person who died before they were supposed to… doesn’t matter. I mean, I’m sure someone out there loved them and they meant a lot to those people, but to the story that person doesn’t matter. Even I don’t know who it was. That line way back in Snowfall was meant to indicate that the Grand Design was beginning to collapse and that Fate had actually succeeded in changing something. Originally, this was meant to worry the reader given everything that was said in Warehouse about the importance of the Grand Design. You were meant to believe, just like most of the characters do, that the Grand Design was very real up until almost the end of the third part of the trilogy. Given the now much earlier reveal that the Grand Design is, in fact, a massive lie that whole narrative point is… well, pointless :P Regardless, I’m glad you’re intrigued. I wasn’t quite sure how the reveal of the fallacy of the Grand Design would go over. It’s not a retcon because it was planned from the very beginning, but it sort of feels like one. On the note about exposition, I seem to have chapters like this fairly often where I do massive exposition dumps. They’re not really intentional, but in this case I didn’t have much choice. Pretty much everything in there needed to be revealed relatively soon and the details of Fate’s backstory is part of what convinced Mary to help her, so… yeah.

I’m really glad Fate’s humanity shone through in this chapter because that’s what I was aiming for. I was worried I hadn’t done too good a job, hence the scene at the end with Fate and Claire. That was included because I was concerned that no one would believe Fate was telling the truth and I didn’t want to leave that unclear. Fate, at least to her knowledge, is telling the truth and I wanted that to come across as clearly as it could. But I guess I needn’t have bothered because you were drawn to her without it, so good :) It’s quite interesting taking a character that was perceived as a villain all this time and revealing that actually they’re not the bad one. It’s kind of difficult too especially when the narrative has established that the character is not to be trusted. I mean, there were a couple of hints but I never actually expected anyone to pick up on them. One was back in Warehouse I think when Ariana was having surgery to save Adrian and Kayla meets Claire and Fate in the chapel. Fate outright tells Kayla that Sara is going to be murdered and Snow will fear that she’s the one who killed her. She also hints at JTG and that if Snow doesn’t see the enemy nearby or something like that she’ll die. I don’t remember the exact wording, but Claire tells Kayla to pay attention because Fate is “trying to help you.” Yeah, I suck at hints :P Additionally, Snowfall opens with this: “It's funny how things happen. Fate so often intervenes in our everyday lives and flips the ordinary on its head. Fate is a fickle friend. It guides us on our paths, forcing us along predetermined lines and controlling our lives whether we want it to or not. Sometimes this leads us to terrible tragedy and heartbreak, but this isn't always true. There are times when fate leads us through the dark times and into the light; such as with the case of Snow Austin”. That was an attempt, poor though it was, to point to the possibility that Fate wasn’t the bad guy and also to show that the Grand Design isn’t just completing certain tasks but that the entire lives of individuals are controlled and predetermined. Again, it was meant to be subtle because I didn’t think I needed to be anything but at that point. So when trying to show that Fate was being forthright and honest, the best thing I could think of was to play up her humanity. It’s interesting because originally Fate was much more distant and cold. Her intentions were the same, but she was still more similar to the Fate from Warehouse instead of the softer, squishier Fate we have now. She was more firm in her idea that her plan is the right one because she’s a god, instead of feeling like she’s not a god because a deity would be better than she is. That seemed to work much better because I couldn’t work out any reason Mary would help that version of Fate. So, Fate became this sort of sad, broken woman who feels like she’s failed and is trying to make it right. I feel like that version will be more interesting to read about. At least I hope so.

Anyway, I’m glad you enjoyed the chapter and are liking Mary’s new storyline. That’s good because I’ll tell you, this has been a really complicated narrative arc to rework and fit into the series in a way I hadn’t intended. It doesn’t have nearly as much planning and polish as the rest does, but actually I think that’s why I’m enjoying writing it so much. I kind of know where it’s going, but it’s not likely to conclude much earlier than I’d originally planned, so I’ve got a lot of space to fill and Mary and Fate are really fun to write. They’re an interesting pair and they’ve already taken the story to places that I definitely never expected it to go. They compliment each other in a weird way. It’s been strange but really fun.

Sorry for taking a while to get to this. I’ve been doing a lot of after hours in the last couple of weeks and it’s really thrown me off :/ Anyway, there were so many parts to this chapter and so many interesting things revealed, so there’s a lot to go through :P Starting with the beginning, I really liked the reveal about Clara’s premonition power. It’s not something I ever expected, although I did find those moments (particularly the one just before Snow’s suicide attempt) a little strange at the time, I thought it was just meant to show her and Snow’s strong bond. Of course, that’s clearly part of why she felt that at that particular time, but still :P It’s one of those things that makes you want to read back and see all those moments in this new light. So good job on the foreshadowing there. Anyway, I’m really curious to see what happens with Clara’s storyline. I assume she’s going to meet her father at some point, but I don’t know if it’ll happen right away or later on. I feel surely now she knows she won’t wait around to meet him, so maybe it’ll be soon, but… I don’t know, I just get this feeling that something’s going to happen to him or Clara beforehand so it gets delayed.

As for Sophia’s scene, I was quite surprised by the reveal that Alana was planted in Tony’s group by Sophia. It makes perfect sense, but for some reason I never thought of it at all when she appeared with them at the end of Snowfall :P Anyway, I’m curious to see where this goes. I’m very worried for Alana, since I feel Tony and Co are going to find out eventually about her telling Sophia, and considering what they’ve done to others who opposed them… Well, I’m getting pretty worried for her safety.

Meanwhile, Zoe continues to evolve into one of my favourite characters :P I really love the relationship building between her and Snow here, although like I said it makes me very worried for Zoe’s safety. Still, I feel like Zoe’s steady, guiding hand is just what Snow needs to help her not feel so overwhelmed with all this magic stuff. I’m also very curious to see what happens when they are back in school. We haven’t heard much from JTG in a while and I feel like something big’s gonna happen once they return to a more “mortal” environment I suppose :P It was sweet seeing Fate and Mary bond a little more too. I wonder if we’ll find out more about what happened with Mary and Sara soon. I don’t know why but that’s what popped into my head when reading that scene, even though Fate and Mary weren’t talking about it at all xD Still, it was interesting to learn a little more about Fate and her own thoughts about the universe. I’m curious what’ll happen with Ariana too. I feel she will somehow survive (or maybe it’s more I hope she will) but it’s hard to say. I’m not sure where you’re going to go with that storyline so I’ll be anxiously waiting to see :P Anyway, sorry again if this comment seems really scattered. Overall it was a really good chapter with a lot of interesting insights into some of the various mysteries, but now I feel I have even more questions haha. Of course, that’s definitely a good thing :P I’m excited to read on and find out more.

Yeah, I’ve been holding onto the reveal of Clara’s premonition abilities for a long time. Those little foreshadowy moments were fun to do, especially since I was pretty sure no one would actually suspect it was supernatural in nature. I wanted to do more of them, but I figured that might be a bit too heavy handed. I’m glad you enjoyed the foreshadowing regardless. To be honest, I’m quite excited for Clara’s storyline myself. She’s the one character that I really have a solid, structured arc planned out for. She’s the one that I know where she ends up and I have the pivotal character development moments planned. There’s some stuff I really want to get to :P It’s kind of the opposite of Mary and Fate where I’m just writing by the seat of my pants, so to speak. I have a rough idea for those two, but that’s as far as I’ve gotten. They’re both fun in different ways.   

To be honest, I had two potential plotlines for Alana being tied up with Tony’s group and at the end of Snowfall, I wasn’t completely sure which one I was going to go with. The other, which I’m now obviously not using so I can tell you, was that Alana was basically helping Tony because she really did need the cash but also because he was blackmailing her. She would have essentially helped Sophia (without Sophia’s knowledge) get her position as a detective. Alana would have done something with the police chief; paid him off, slept with him, whatever I hadn’t planned that far, but so he chose Sophia to be promoted to detective. It was a vague idea that I scrapped pretty early on because it was needlessly complex in an already overly complicated story. That, and the plans I had for JTG changed drastically as well, so a mole in Tony’s group works out better. And by the way, you should be worried… bwahahahaha xD

I’m really glad you’re liking Zoe because I am too. She’s a character that I didn’t spend a ton of time developing because like I said before she wasn’t meant to be nearly as prominent a character as she’s become. She’s ended up becoming a key element in Snow’s training and honestly a good friend and confidant when she desperately needs one. She’s a lot of fun to write. But you’re right that it’s been a while since we’ve seen JTG. I can’t remember if I said why that was before now. But basically, I really felt the need to very heavily change the JTG portion of this. Originally JTG was meant to be the Big Bad of the whole series, but when you introduce a demon from Hell into your plot, someone sending threatening texts becomes a little less intimidating. Or at least I thought so. So, things changed. JTG is still a prominent villain, but the storyline has definitely changed and the role I saw JTG playing in it will be different. That’s the main reason for JTG’s lengthy absence. I had to essentially restructure 2/3rds of the plot. Overall though I’m happy with where it’s gone, more than I think I would have been with the original. Honestly, it was going to be a lot more of what we’d had in Snowfall. As it stands, this should be a little different. Oh wow, I never did get into what happened with Mary and Sara, did I? Wow, I suck lol. That was supposed to come up towards the end of Snowfall but I just double-checked and I completely forgot. Well… shit. I’ll, uh… yeah, we’ll get to that. Anyway, moving on swiftly from my abhorrent forgetfulness, I’m glad you’re enjoying Mary and Fate’s bonding moments. I’ve actually written a fair bit ahead for them since I’m still having trouble writing and they’re flowing really easily for me. They’re developing in really fun and interesting ways that I never anticipated. As for Ariana… to be honest, I still don’t know if she’ll survive or not. I’ve always kept an out for her in my back pocket. I mean, she’s technically already died once, right? And there’s another way out of this that also links way back to Warehouse as well. I just don’t know if I’ll use them or not. Ariana is very precious to me, so naturally there’s a huge part of me that wants to spare her. On the other hand, if I do it I’ll feel like I’m cheating and saving her just because I want to. We’ll see when we get there. Anyways, thanks so much for the comment! Please don’t worry about taking a while. Like you said, it’s not going anywhere. And if your comment is scattered, it’s because this chapter was scattered. That’s mainly where the title came from. This thing is all over the place :P

Oof… This one was hard to read :’( In a good way though, because there were lots of interesting revelations even though I am very worried about Nikki right now. Anyway, I was happy to learn a little about Nikki’s birth parents. I don’t know why I was so convinced Nikki’s mum was randy and Julia’s daughter. Sister makes a lot more sense xD Anyway, I wonder what happened to her. Randy talked about her in past tense but he didn’t mention her being dead, so I wonder if she will come into the story later on. And… Tallahassee, wasn’t that where Carmel used to live? I wonder if there’s a connection there although I’m not sure what it could be. My first thought was that Carmel was somehow Nikki’s half sister, but since I’m pretty sure Carmel is older than Nikki that probably wouldn’t work :P Still, I’m curious to learn more about her mum. And her dad, too. Maybe he’ll never be revealed if he really was just some random her mother doesn’t remember but Randy seemed a little… strange, when talking about Nikki’s father. I wonder if he actually knows who he is, although it seems a bit farfetched. But still, I got a vibe he knows more than he is saying so I’m curious to see if there is more to this story.  Maybe he’s just awkward as an adoptive father talking about his daughter’s biological father, but there just seemed to be a vibe :P

Anyway, onto the next part of the chapter :’( :’( I have to say I’m very worried about Nikki. I don’t think she will die yet - or at least, I hope. Surely not, but then it would be an unexpected twist if she did :/ Still, I think she will probably be alive, but I’m sure an encounter JTG (I assume it was her) won’t her unscathed. If Nikki does make it out alive, I wonder if JTG will let her go or somehow she manages to escape. Maybe Carmel will help her somehow, especially if they are secretly connected through Nikki’s mum. Or maybe it’s all just wishful thinking on my part and Nikki really will be dead :/ I can’t help shake the feeling you’re going to pull a Ned Stark on me xD

Anyway, as for Snow’s dream…. Creepy. That one word sums it all up xD I think you’ve done a great job at the descriptions etc in this part, it was really chilling and definitely left us with a terrifying vision of what might happen if Sebastian succeeds. It was nice (in a weird way) to see more of him too, since we haven’t really seen all that much of him so far. He gives a very creepy and tense vibe so good job there. It was cool to see Snow resisting his offer about Ariana too, and her saying Ariana would be ashamed if she joined even if Sebastian really can save her brought a tear to my eye. Although it makes me wonder what else Sebastian will try to do to get Snow on his side, since she rejected that offer so quickly. I’m kind of worried for Zoe too, because I have a strong feeling that Sebastian is going to try and kill her, probably sooner rather than later, since she’s the one using her magic to protect Snow. I feel like it’s going to happen soon so I am living in a permanent state of nervousness :P

Anyway, overall this was a really great chapter. I’m very anxious to see what happens next, especially with Nikki. Good job :D

Hiya! Thanks for the comment! Yeah, that’s right. Comment. Not review. No, no. Comment. Sorry, I… I may still be traumatized by character limits or something, I don’t know xD Anyway, this was a hard one to write as well, although not just because of the stuff happening in it but because this chapter was just a pain to write. I ended up changing a lot of things and so to me it’s a little bit… I don’t know, off somehow? From my original vision at least. Although maybe that’s a good thing. I’m rambling xD Anyway, I was quite excited about finally getting to talk about Nikki’s birth parents a bit. I’ve only drop the faintest of hints way back in Snowfall so it’s nice to get to be a bit more upfront about them. Randy mainly talked about Isabella in the past tense because he hasn’t seen or heard from her in years. He doesn’t know if she’s alive, where she is, or what’s happened to her in ages. So he’s just speaking of the woman he knew and as such used past tense terms. Hmm, yeah Carmel did just so happen to live in Tallahassee. It’s a decent sized city. Lots of people live there. Almost 200,000 in fact. Doesn’t have to mean anything. It could, but it doesn’t have to. What? Really, it doesn’t. And as for Nikki’s dad, I will say… hmm, how to I want to put this? You will, at some point, learn a little more about Nikki’s dad. That doesn’t mean he’s not just some random dude that Randy never met, but yeah I don’t want to leave him a complete mystery forever. Don’t wanna say too much here because spoilers suck, but yeah you’ll at least get something.

Heh, well you should be worried about Nikki xD I’m not going to say a word here because there’s not much I can really say without giving anything away. I will say that JTG told Snow there was going to be punishment for breaking the rules of the game. And JTG… well, she doesn’t go light on her punishments. Also, I’m definitely going to pull a Ned Stark on you one day xD I already know the character, the book, and the exact moment it happens too. I’m weirdly looking forward to it, even though I’ve greatly enjoyed writing the character in question. Far more than I expected to when I introduced them as well, which I’ve found really interesting.

Snow’s dream was the part of this chapter that gave me the most trouble, so I’m glad you think its okay. Horror (if you want to call it that) isn’t really my area of expertise so trying to craft this creepy and unsettling scene was pretty difficult. But I wanted to show just how twisted and dark Sebastian is and what the world might look like if the Dawnguard should fail. To sort of demonstrate what the stakes of this whole thing is. This is end of the world stuff and I think it adds to the experience if you really understand just how horrific a Dawnguard loss would be. As for Sebastian, he was heavily inspired by the classic vampires. The suave, handsome, seductive type that underneath is truly just pure evil and creepy. To be honest, I went back and forth on Snow’s response to Sebastian offering to save Ariana. I’d planned for that to be a big draw for her and a major point of debate in her mind. Sort of like Anakin going to the Dark Side to save Padme, only to lose her and himself along the way. But in the moment, yeah… she wouldn’t do it. It wouldn’t even tempt her. And it would totally be because of Ariana. It would break her heart to see her daughter do something so terrible to save her. It felt so out of character to see Snow debating this and considering what to do, so that got cut and she just outright refuses him.

As for what else Sebastian will do to win Snow over… eh, he’s probably got a plan. He also, as far as he believes, has plenty of time given his lack of awareness of the Dawnguard having been rebuilt. So he’s not really in a rush. It’d be a real shame if someone were to… tip him off about that :P Don’t take that as a hint, I’m just teasing. Probably :P And Zoe… yeah, I mean she’s definitely in danger. She’s training Snow and she’s an extremely powerful magic user and a resource Sebastian would greatly like removed from the Dawnguard’s arsenal. He’s already tried to kill her once, after all. That said, she is in Stonehaven and the city is extremely heavily defended, so as long as Zoe stays there she’s probably pretty safe. Then again, she is the wise mentor and somehow the villain always manages to get them no matter what :P

Anyways, thanks again for commenting! And for commenting on Claire’s work as well. She won’t admit it, but she poured her heart and soul into that in ways I’ve never seen her do with anything else before. She did a really good job and I’m so proud of her deciding to post it. She’s been debating it for a while, but because Fictionpress is so huge she was a little nervous to post it there. Sparkatale’s a smaller community, so when it came back up she decided to put it out there. So thanks for doing that for her :)

Sorry for taking so long to get to this :/ This was a very intriguing chapter. All of the girl’s secrets (except Mary’s) have been brought to the forefront, which I wasn’t expecting to happen so soon :P I’m glad Nikki survived, although I am very surprised that JTG is almost stepping out into the open here. Usually she’s so secretive but like Snow said, it’ll only be a matter of time before everyone hears of what happened and given how much news the Steven thing got too, surely most of the town will realise what’s going on. Maybe she’s decided that too many people know now so there’s no point hiding anymore. Still, I’m feeling very worried for Sophia. I don’t think JTG would be happy to let her continue investigating closely with the group so I worry she may be a target, and might even get killed like Dennis did.

It was sad to see Nikki find out about her parents working with Tony. I must admit I’d forgotten about that. I suppose it’s better than her being in the dark, but still it must hurt even more for her given she and Randy have only just started to improve their relationship. Although I think if I remember right they weren’t working with him by choice (at least not about all the murders) so maybe that will come to light soon. I wonder if we will learn more about their plans if she does confront Randy. And I’m pretty sure I have said this before but I’m also really curious to see what Sara will do when she finds out it was her mum who tried to murder her. Even though most of the info in this chapter was stuff I as a reader already knew, it’s fascinating to see all the different characters finding out these things and I’m excited to see where they take their lackeys.

It was interesting to get more insight into Sophia’s thoughts on JTG. I don’t think JTG is a group – I mean, maybe Carmel isn’t her only lackey and there could certainly be more people she’s manipulated into working for her, but I think JTG herself is probably a single person pulling the strings behind it all. Who they are, though, I have no idea :P Well, I have 1 suspect in mind, but I don’t have nearly enough evidence to be remotely sure and it’s pretty much just a guess, so I don’t want to say yet because I’d be embarrassed if I was wrong xD

Anyway, overall this was a really great chapter. It’s fascinating to see all the different secrets coming out (although I know there are many more still :P) and I’m really curious to see what will change and where the girls’ storylines will go. Great job :D

Hey there! No worries about taking a while, of course :) Whenever you get the chance. You know, I was somewhat tempted to have Mary bring up her secrets during this conversation, but I imagine she’s having trouble figuring out how to talk about the fact that she’s befriended one of the creators of the universe :P I’m sure she will eventually, but it seemed unnecessary in this moment and Mary… she’s quite vexed by Fate and doesn’t really know what to make of her. As for JTG being so brazen, well it’s safe to say she always has a plan. There was a good reason the message left on Nikki’s mirror wasn’t signed JTG. In fact, if anyone were to investigate the Sorrento’s home, the only evidence they might find would be fingerprints or hair left behind by Carmel. So sure, it’s going to get around that someone seems to be targeting this group of girls, but the name JTG is still only known to select few. So while it was a bit of a risk, she made sure to cover her tracks and if there is any evidence, well… that would point back at Carmel. Heh, well you should be worried about Sophia :P She’s in a tricky spot right now, clearly. I’m sure JTG isn’t particularly happy about her throwing a monkey wrench into her schemes. If she tries to change the game, who can say what would happen? xD

I don’t think Nikki even knows where to start with the situation with her parents. It’s all way too much for her to deal with right now. You’re correct that they weren’t involved with the murders and aren’t really working with Tony by choice, so that’s a small point in their favor. You might even find out why they’re working with him before too long. Not completely sure when I want to drop that little tidbit in there though. As for Sara, yeah that’s a thing I’ve got to get to. I’m both looking forward to it and not. There’s so much sadness in this book and that’s going to be a difficult scene no matter Sara’s response to it. Yeah, actually that’s the biggest issue I have with this chapter. It’s largely a repeat of what you already know. I find it very difficult to make those sorts of scenes interesting, but I’m glad you enjoyed seeing the characters finding stuff out :)

Sophia’s really just spitballing ideas at this point :P To her, it seems like more than one person running things, but perhaps she’s just using other people like Carmel. Who’s to say? :P I’ve got to say I’m extremely interested in who your suspect is. I haven’t really put many hints at all about who JTG is at this point. None, really. So I’m curious what you’ve picked up on. You have a surprisingly good record of guessing my secrets xD

Anyways, thanks so much for commenting! I’m glad you enjoyed, especially since this one gave me hell when writing it. It’s a bit of a transition chapter as we’re kind of wrapping up this introductory arc and moving into the next phase. I hate writing transition chapters :P And as for what will change… There’s a change coming and it’s all Claire’s fault. She made me do a thing that I had zero plans of doing, but she got it in her head so now I have to. I’m not upset about it and honestly it makes a bit of sense. It just adds a layer of complexity I didn’t plan on. We’ll see if you can guess what it is when it starts coming out.

Oof, so many exciting things happening here xD Poor Carmel. I can’t imagine how terrible she must feel, trapped into her situation with JTG. Even though she seems to be resigned to her fate here I hope she does escape her clutches somehow, and maybe work with the girls to bring JTG down. I don’t think it’ll happen anytime soon, but... Someday, I hope she manages to escape this.

As for the middle part of this chapter, I’m very excited xD I can’t believe Kayla and Ariana found out about Snow’s magic. I mean, she disappeared right before their eyes. There’s no way she’ll be able to worm her way out of that :P I didn’t expect them to find out for a long time, and I’m really excited to see what happens next as they find out about the Dawnguard, Sienna and Divinity etc too. And given how perceptive they are being about someone being after the girls, I imagine the whole JTG story will be exposed to them sooner rather than later. Which makes me extra worried, because JTG said they were going to hunt bigger prey… I have a few suspects of who she means by that. Sophia is my main suspect and like I said I’m feeling very worried about her safety, but I suppose she could also mean Tony and Co, or potentially Ariana and Kayla, especially now they are on the verge of finding out the truth. I’m really curious to see how they will be involved in the story going forward.

As for the ending, it was really great to see more of the Coven and be introduced to Newcastle, however briefly. I was picturing a large castle hidden in a forest somewhere (*cough* Hogwarts) so it’s not quite what I expected which is nice :P It was very intriguing and I’m excited to see what happens next, and what the Coven plans to do. SO many interesting things are happening in these last couple of chapters and I feel a big confrontation is on the horizon, both from the JTG plot and this one, so I’m going to be very anxiously waiting to see what happens next xD

Carmel’s situation really is quite sad :( She’s trapped now and there’s not much of a chance for her to escape unscathed. Well, at least for now. Someday, things could definitely change. Anything’s possible after all and Carmel's pretty tough. If she sees an opening, she'll defintely take it.

Hehe, yes now we’re getting to some of the stuff I’ve wanted to get to for a while. This bit here and the next few chapters are ones I’ve been really looking forward to writing. Kayla and Ariana finding out about Snow’s magic has been planned for ages, and I’m super excited to finally get to explore it. You’re pretty much correct that Snow clearly can’t talk her way out of this one. She used very obvious magic right in front of them, so… unless she blinks away and never comes back, she’s going to have to have a difficult conversation. Of course, that’ll all depend on where she’s blinked off to. Blinking requires a destination to be focused on by the caster, and it has to be a place familiar to them (a condition I included to limit blinking’s usefulness to some degree) Snow didn’t focus on anything, so who knows where she’s ended up :P As for them finding out about JTG… it’s certainly possible. Magic might distract them for a moment, but they’ll come back to that conversation at some point. Still, those two are pretty formidable. JTG herself even once said she didn’t want to face the Austins directly. With their considerable resources and fierce personalities, JTG might just be outmatched. That said, I’m going to keep quiet about who JTG is targeting next. Whoever it is, they’re probably in for a bad day xD

I’m glad you liked seeing Newcastle and more of the Coven. Yeah, I’m trying to subvert the norms when it comes to magic in this, especially with magic in this realm. Olandria, the realm where Divinity is, would be far more like what you were expecting. That realm is far more traditionally fantasy inspired. For this, I wanted everything here to be definitively urban fantasy or even future-fantasy with the Dawnguard. So Newcastle became a modern university campus, just built on a magical floating island in the middle of Central Park :P I mean, because where else would the Coven put it? They’re kind of egotistical like that. Just wait until you see the Triskelion, Coven HQ :P As for the Coven’s dastardly plans, you’ll get a hint of that before long. Them witches be scheming xD

But anyway, thanks again for the comments. I really do appreciate them. I’m glad you’re looking forward to what’s coming next. I am too for a sizable portion of it, so I hope I manage to meet both of our expectations :P Regardless, I hope you’re doing well. Talk soon! :D

Sorry for taking so long to comment :/ Feel I say that every time :/ Anyway, I was glad to see Ariana and Kayla have a large role in this chapter. I’ve missed them so was nice to see that. Even though they were discussing things we already knew, with them finding out about Snow and the dawnguard, and Snow finding out about Destiny and Fate and their shenanigans. Even though it wasn’t new information, I think you delivered it in an interesting way and it was cool to see all their reactions. It also serves as a good recap, since it’s been a while since I read the prequels xD Anyway, I’m really curious to see what Ariana and Kayla do now they know about Snow and her powers, plus Sebastian’s obsession with taking control of her. I mean, they aren’t the sort to wait in the background at Stonehaven while Michael and Co sort it out. I wonder if they will get involved with the Dawnguard, or accompany Snow on her training maybe. And oof, don’t play with my heart like that xD Kayla asking Snow if magic could cure Ariana’s illness it was such a gut-wrenching scene. I think with everything that’s going on, with all the magic and JTG etc that very human tragedy of her incurable illness sort of gets left behind and forgotten about, and yet its probably what is causing Snow the most pain right now, especially since there’s still no way out of Ariana dying even with her new magic power. Oof, that was a rambling paragraph xD Sorry for making you try to make sense of it :P

Anyway, onto the second half of the chapter. I enjoyed Fate’s dream and getting more info on what happened between her and Destiny. I was surprised when reading this that I actually ended up feeling a little sorry for Destiny. I like how you have portrayed their conflict. Like… It’s clear that both of them care deeply for the humans, even though they express it in such different ways. Like, Destiny’s grand design is obviously stifling and I think Fate is right to rebel against it, but it’s obvious she is just terrified of the humans destroying themselves like they did before and that’s why she clings so much to the grand design. It’s cool to see this greyness and moral complexity to one of our antagonists, especially since the other main magical villain is more straight up evil. Not that I think it’s a bad thing story-wise for Sebastian to be purely evil though – plenty of stories (like Harry Potter, for example) have similarly irredeemable villains and are still incredibly compelling, but it’s nice to see that contrast between the different storylines in this book.

As for the ending, I have no idea what to think of Fate’s revelation about Mary :P It’s all very curious. I’m not sure at all who/what could have created her, since Fate says she and Destiny can’t. It’ll be interesting to see where that storyline goes, because I haven’t got a clue at this point xD

Overall, this was a really great chapter with lots of interesting revelations. I know I sound like a broken record, but sorry again for taking so long :/ For this comment, and borderworlds, and replying to your PM -.- My brain has been so fuzzy lately. I’m tried many times to type these comments and the PMs up, as well as write my own story, but my words keep getting stuck no matter what I do. Still, I’ll do my best to comment/reply as soon as I can, hopefully in the next few days. I feel sitting down and making myself type this helped me get a bit of spark back somehow, so I feel I should be more productive over the next few days. We’ll see.

Hiya! Thanks for commenting :) Yeah, I’ve missed Kayla and Ariana too so I’m glad you’re happy to see them again. I do plan on giving them more page time than they got in Snowfall as things progress, it’s just really difficult for me to write them. Every scene they’re in is overshadowed by Ariana’s impending death and Kayla’s overwhelming sadness. It hurts to bring them in, but I suppose I have to find a way to deal with that. I’m glad you weren’t too bothered by the rehashing of information. I was a little worried about that, especially since we just had a chapter like this one where the girls fill each other in. There’s been a lot of scenes just repeating information recently, but they’ve kind of been necessary :/ As for what Kayla and Ariana will do… well, yeah you’ve got a good point. They’re not the type to just sit around and wait, especially when their daughter is in danger. We’ll find something for them to get up to. Heh, yeah that scene there… that was a tough one. You’re absolutely right that Ariana’s illness causes Snow the most pain, and in fact is probably the thing she’s the most afraid of. She knows there’s nothing she can do. In a way, she’s very glad to have JTG and Sebastian to worry about. She can push her mom’s illness to the back of her mind. Sometimes I wonder how she would be doing if she didn’t have those problems to deal with. Far more broken than she already is, I’d imagine :( Also, if that paragraph was rambling, how do you ever make sense of anything I type ever? That was all quite well structured if you ask me.

I’m actually quite happy that you sympathized with Destiny a bit there. You’re meant to. I have a hard time even thinking of Destiny as one of the antagonists. I mean, she is, obviously, but she’s not evil in the slightest. I like to think of Fate and Destiny as parents, with the lesser races as their children. Destiny is that overprotective mother that won’t let her kids do much of anything and smothers them, while Fate is much more laid back and realizes that children can’t be protected from the difficulties of life forever. But you’re right; I absolutely wanted to contrast Sebastian and Destiny in that way. Sebastian is Chaotic Evil while Destiny is more… Lawful Neutral perhaps? Lawful Evil might fit too as she’s willing to do very bad things to keep the Design going. She’s a bit harder to fit onto that chart, but anyway. I didn’t want any of my three villains to be too similar to each other. I also wanted to explore just a completely irredeemable character like Sebastian as I rarely write them. I usually prefer a degree of moral complexity to them, but with a demon it gave me the opportunity to really dive into a truly evil character while Destiny is the antagonist that you can kind of see her side of things. JTG’s just out there being a sneaky asshat :P

Haha, well if you did have a clue where Mary comes from I’d be awfully surprised at this point. Mary is… well, yeah, please see chapter title :P I will say that answers to this are a long way off, unfortunately. Given that even Fate isn’t sure what Mary is or where she comes from, finding those answers won’t be an easy task.

Hey, please don’t worry about taking a while to comment. It’s totally okay, I promise :) Never feel like you owe me anything and take all the time you need. I’m not going anywhere :) I’m sorry to hear you’ve been having such a hard time getting the words to come :( Been there before and its tough, but I’ve also found that sometimes just sitting down and forcing myself to do it really can help clear it up so I’m glad that seems to have helped a bit. Anyway, I hope you’re doing well and that you have a wonderful rest of your weekend. You ever need anything, you know where I am. Talk soon :)  

I really liked the flashback at the first part of the chapter. It was really cool to see the Dawnguard in their heyday and get a short description of how they fought off the demons in the past, even though it was only short. I really liked the way the whole scene was portrayed - It felt very grand and cinematic, especially when Zora pulled out her lightsaber – ahem, I mean her sword xD I’m curious to learn more about her (I assume she’s Michael’s ancestor) cos she seemed cool :P I hope she appears in more flashbacks.

I also felt this opening tied in well to the rest of the chapter. It felt like you were drawing a strong parallel between what happened in the past. There was Zora and Co. watching the demons approaching and charging into a fight, while Sebastian’s minions are starting to close in on Snow in the present. It felt so creepy watching her trying to navigate through school with everything that’s happened recently while the thralls get closer and closer. Given how suspicious Snow seemed to be at the end, I wonder if she’ll figure out Emilia, at least, is a thrall after this chapter. Her personality change is quite jarring and I wonder if it’ll make Snow act on her plan to leave school and focus fully on her magical studies sooner rather than later. It does seem like she’s different from the rest of the thralls like Mr Winston though. They don’t seem to have changed as drastically so I wonder what’s different about Emilia. Her going to talk to Jackson seemed ominous too. I hope he doesn’t get dragged back into the fold.

It was only a brief part of this chapter but I have to say I’m also very curious about what will happen if Snow does decide to tell Kayla and Ariana about JTG. It makes sense that she would as it’s going to be a whole lot harder to hide it from them after everything that has happened and I’m curious to see how they will react and what they’ll do. I expect JTG will retaliate too, which worries me, but she’ll be facing a much more formidable team with Snow’s mums on board.

Sorry this comment is so scatter brained :/ My brain has been very scrambled lately but finally I was able to stay concentrating long enough to type this comment out. Hopefully I’ll get to your PM soon too. Sorry again for being absent for so long. I hope you, AJ and Claire are doing well!!

Hey, thanks for the comment :) I’m glad you enjoyed the brief little dip into the Dawnguard’s history, short though it was. I didn’t want to dive too deeply into past events and stray too far from the point of this flashback. There were a couple of points to it, and you already picked up on one of them being the parallels between the past and the looming threat of Sebastian in the present. As for Zora, yes she is a distant ancestor of Michael’s. And who knows? We might see her again at some point in the future… or the past… whatever, you know what I mean :P Heh, Claire said the same thing about her sword xD What’s sad is that the inspiration for it wasn’t even a lightsaber. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen The Shannara Chronicles, but one of the characters in that show had a sword that unfolded out of the hilt with this flash of golden light. Which is cool, except once it unfolded it just looked light a normal sword and didn’t have any sort of magical effect afterwards. So at first I gave the sword a permanent golden glow and then eventually changed it to just a beam of magical light… not thinking that it basically became a lightsaber :/ Oh well, I’m sure we’ll never, ever see that sword ever again ever so I’m sure it’ll be fine.

Really, it’s weird sometimes how things change while you’re writing. The bit with Snow thinking about leaving school wasn’t planned until I had to actually have her sit down in a class. And while I’m writing it I couldn’t help but think how pointless it all was. Why is she wasting time with this? How can I possibly continue with any sort of popularity based storyline given what’s happened? Learning about magic and Sebastian would have to change all of that. Now, will she do it? Will her parents let her? Well, it’ll certainly be a conversation they’ll have, that’s for sure. As for Emilia, she’s definitely different than the other thralls. She has magic for one, which typically thralls do not. Thralls are just mind controlled slaves. So Emilia is, shall we say, a different breed. And her talking to Jackson… I’d say that was much more a jab at Snow that anything else. Her basically saying hey, remember me? I’m the girl he cheated on you with. Who’s the most attention getting girl in school now? That doesn’t mean Jackson won’t end up getting dragged back in because of it though… xD

As for what will happen should Snow tell Kayla and Ariana about JTG, well… I mean, have you met them? xD I don’t think JTG is ready to handle those two. She’s actually said as much before. Their resources alone make them a tremendous force to be reckoned with. And JTG’s targeting their daughter, so… good luck, JTG :P

Hey, no worries! You’re just fine, I promise :) Honestly, I didn’t find the comment to be scatter-brained at all. I’ll admit, I was about to check on you if I didn’t hear from you soon because I was starting to get a bit worried, but then you edited Gifted, so I knew you were still alive at the very least. Anyway, we’re all doing just fine over here. Still tired and still trying to figure out this whole parenting thing, but overall things are good. Honestly? Best they’ve been in years. But anyway, I sincerely hope you’re doing amazing and are having a great start to the holiday season. Seriously, how is it November already? What the…? Anyway, talk soon :D

Sorry for taking such a long time to get to this. For some reason, I had it in my head that I’d already commented on this chapter, but obviously I was wrong :/ Anyway, I thought this was a great chapter. Ariana and Kayla are here breaking my heart again :P Ariana’s regret and guilt over not telling Snow felt very real and devastating :/ I agree with Kayla that they had no way of knowing she’d later get caught up in all this magical stuff, and that they were doing pretty much all that they could at the time. I was surprised to see Fate present herself to them – I thought she’d keep herself hidden a while longer. I’m excited to see what role they play in the story going forward now they’re all caught up :P Their conversation about Ariana and her illness had me curious, too. I’m not sure where you’re going with her illness which adds another layer of uncertainty to everything (which is good in my opinion xD). At times I feel certain that they’ll find some way to save Ariana in the end. But then after all the emphasis on magic not being able to cure illness etc at other times it feels like she will in fact end up dying in the end so I can’t make up my mind. I hope it’s the former but I really don’t have any idea where it’s going to go at this point.

Oooh, so that’s who that girl was towards the end of Snowfall :P Safe to say, I never guessed that Fate was behind it all along and posing as Snow’s daughter from the future xD But it makes a lot of sense. Anyway, overall I really enjoyed this part of the chapter and I feel it gave us an even clearer depiction of Fate and what drove her to finally break away from Destiny’s plan. It seems clear that in the original grand design, Sebastian’s plans must be achieved and humanity ends - since Snow died, and she seems to be crucial to stopping him. And although saving Snow doesn’t guarantee humanity will survive, Fate’s giving them the best chance they have by helping her survive.

It was cool to get a little bit more info on the Witch’s Council and politics going on there. The way Alison described the Grand Enchanter had be wondering if there is a reason behind his change In behaviour. My first thought was that maybe he’s one of Sebastian’s thralls, but then I’m not sure if that would make sense. It seems like the other thralls (other than maybe Emilia) are ordinary humans and I don’t know if Sebastian’s power would work on a witch. Perhaps there isn’t a magical explanation al all, and it’s something more like he’s just gotten more and more paranoid over time, for reasons yet to be disclosed. I hope we meet him (and any other powerful witch people in the council :P) soon.

Anyway, I will end this comment here before it gets more rambly. As always I feel like this comment was very frazzled xD Sorry again for forgetting about this one. I’m trying to get my head together but it hasn’t been working well so far :P Talk to you soon!!

And by the same coin I’m sorry for the delayed response to this! Been in New York and I’m just settling in for the flight home so I have a moment to actually stop and type this. But anyways, yeah that’s what Kayla and Ariana do best these days isn’t it? Break hearts? Those two never get any easier to write, which is one of the reasons they don’t appear that often. They just insist on hurting me so :P Then again, I do plan on including them more as things progress so I’m just going to have to toughen up I suppose. Honestly, I didn’t originally plan on Fate revealing herself to them this early either; yet another thing that changed with Mary’s survival and her subsequent connection with Fate. But given all the other changes, it made sense for her to go ahead and have this conversation with them while she can. She doesn’t know how much time she has and what opportunities she’ll have to drop in on them, so she just went ahead. You know what’s funny? I’m not sure where I’m going with Ariana’s illness either. I think I’ve said this before ages and ages ago, but I keep shifting back and forth between saving her and letting her die. Obviously the part of me that’s so deeply attached to her wants to spare her, but at the same time if I do save her in the end I can’t help but feel like it’ll just be a cheap cop out that ruins the drama and the whole point of this plot which is that life is fleeting but maybe, just maybe, love can be eternal. Or maybe since this is Kayla and Ariana we’re talking about I should have said forever.

Yep, that was Fate in disguise xD Can’t say I would have expected anyone to pick up on that. There was a tiny hint that something was off when Snow saw her in the drug store. The lady behind the checkout counter’s name was Rose, as in the same Rose from way back when, and she was the only other person that could see Fate there. Not really much of a hint, but I didn’t really want it to be either. Hmm, well normally I would neither confirm nor deny, but you might just be onto something about the original grand design. The Dawnguard might be able to bind Sebastian again, but killing him… no. That’s something they would absolutely need Snow for. I don’t want to say too much, but… yeah, I’ll just leave it there.

There’s definitely a reason for the Enchanter’s change in behavior, though I’ll keep quiet for now on what that is. I will say that while witches (and magical beings in general) cannot be made into thralls, witches are not immune to Sebastian’s power so such a thing is certainly possible with other forms of mind control and manipulation. And we’ll definitely see him sometime in the future. Whenever I, you know, actually sit down and write something again. Surely it’ll be soon. Surely :P

But anyway, thanks for the comment! No worries about missing this one and I don’t think the comment was rambly at all! And if it is, it’s definitely way better than this reply so I think it’s fine. And I wish you luck on getting your head together xD If you figure out how, I beg you please let me know the secret. I’m desperate over here. Anyway, I’m going to end this here because it’s very late and I’m tired. I’ve been in New York for the past week helping my parents get ready to move. They sold their house up there and they’re moving down to Texas with us. Not next door or anything, but up closer to Dallas with Mom’s side of the family. But since we recently moved across the country, they figured I’d have a good idea of how to handle it all so I’ve been helping them get everything ready. As such, I haven’t seen my wife and daughter in a week and I’m really desperate to get back to them. So, you remember when I said I was going to end this and then proceeded to ramble on for another ten minutes? Good times xD Hope you’re doing great. Talk soon!