Author | Lightnews

Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 1d

There is, apparently, only one "ancestor" in my entire manuscript about legacy and family sins. I have to fix that. The Scion.

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Bobby was somehow connected to this terrible, priest that spoke like a machine, but with none of the warmth. The Earth people had been slaves, created to execute a purpose he didn’t understand.
They had been discarded afterwards, like unwanted tools.
Another certainty formed in his mind, from the shadows that often whispered the darkest commentary to his thoughts: the Prime had been the cause of all this. The mysterious work the Earth people had been created to complete, the final calculations, involved Bobby’s ancestors.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 3d

Write what you know, they say. Well, this is what happens when I talk to women, ok? The Scion.

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The girl nodded and extended her hand. Up close, Bobby could see that he may have been wrong about the bikers being human after all. She had pointy ears, and pale skin. There was a halo around her head - no, not a halo. It was the colourful light scatter of transparent wings behind her. Somehow, they came out through her jacket. He’d have to remember to ask about that, if they didn’t eat him. It mattered little. After stopping a bug monster with crazy earth tumours, a demi-human saviour barely registered.
“Yes, Scion. We apologise for the delay, but you were hard to track. Your mother’s spells were very eff…”
Her eyes were so pretty, wider than they should be, but of the most remarkable deep shade of dark amber, and she was so slender. He recognised the traits from one of the books of folk tales his mother used to read for him. “You… you are a f..”
The girls eyes’ slitted shut and her hand curled into a perfect, flawlessly manicured fist. “Oh, hell no.” was what Bobby heard before she punched him out mid-sentence.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 4d

I have but a peasantly "broom". Forgive my lack of Halloween spirit. The Scion.

Just yesterday, she’d thrown a house elf out the window for making too much noise with her broom. Granted, the chambermaid had wings which allowed her to just fly away in a huff, but that hadn’t stopped Bobby from thinking it was a badass moment. He’d often wanted to throw people out of windows. He’d had nothing but puppy eyes for Idue for the rest of the afternoon.
It had been almost a month since the council, and Bobby had spent most of his time failing to learn magic, and dodging glittering hunting parties of elven socialites who wanted to be seen being seen with the Scion himself.

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Reposted by Silverfell

Soulless Writer @skadixiii.bsky.social · 6d

COPD is caused by damage to the lungs. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the overwhelming majority of deaths of people aged 70 and younger from COPD take place in low- and middle-income nations.

borgenproject.org/copd-underdi...

COPD Underdiagnosis in Latin America: Challenges and Solutions - The Borgen Project

COPD underdiagnosis in Latin America has been an issue that national and international organizations are working to quantify and resolve.

borgenproject.org

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 9d

Thank you! I’m fond of the goblins.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 9d

Please accept my humble substitution of "totally". The Scion gets kidnapped. Again.

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If only they hadn’t been so impossibly strong, he’d have totally wiped the floor with them. A single spell would have incinerated them all.
Except that Bobby was on his elbows and knees, and he couldn’t breathe, and the goblins had little grips like steel vices. In short order, they had him bound hands and feet. His throat was free to gasp, but he was otherwise completely immobilized. Bobby squirmed on their shoulders as they lifted him clear off the floor and rushed through the forest.
These were clearly modern goblins. They wore Baby Gap jeans, and he caught the glow of mobile screens and the glint of original fake jewellery. One had eight oversized rings that spelled “KISS” “THIS” on his fists, and even though their language doubtless derived from ancient tongues that no man had heard in centuries, Bobby could swear that they were saying a lot of “LOL” and “EZ game”.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 12d

I guess breakfast is a Fantasy thing. Belongs to the genre like wizards and dragons, guess. The Scion.

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He made it through the eggs, and was enjoying his second bite of sausage, when his mother completely casually checked in on him. “How are you feeling today? Grandpa was worried about you.”
Bobby finished chewing, took another bite, and carefully chomped his way through that too before replying. “I feel fine so far. Yesterday was strange. I felt like I was fainting, saw some weird stuff just before hitting the ground.”
“You hit the ground?”
“Yeah, must have keeled over on my side and landed face-first.” He massaged his red skin. “My jaw is a little sore.”
Her eyes became slits behind which he could see her machinery of revenge process his words. Had grandpa done something? Callie definitely seemed to think so. Then she smiled, and Bobby assumed it was relief. “What kind of strange things did you see?”
“Eh, you know. Things. Horror movie stuff, nothing to be worried about. No goblins in the kitchen, mom.”
Her laughter rang out clear, sharp, louder than such a delicate frame had the right to project. “In my kitchen? A goblin wouldn’t make it to the door. But I’m glad you checked.”
And just like that, the world was all right again.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 13d

The Scion's magic is not like other magics. Even the elves are skeptical.

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“Arboreon, old friend, you come to us with tales of a creature with a suppression field powerful enough to overwhelm your daughter’s magic. That alone requires the equivalent of a nuclear warhead’s worth of aether. Furthermore, you would have us believe this fiend also possesses the control and precision to carry an unwilling prisoner in full flight at the same time? Through solid brick walls?”
The generals, fed this clear direction from their leader, muttered in agreement, and then kept on muttering what very likely were insulting doubts about the story they’d just heard. Bobby saw them for the complacent, arrogant children they were. He knew, from the deepest, darkest pit of his fears, that this lot would never be any help.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 15d

The Scion is at the end of his first journey as the final confrontation unfolds.

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“Did you think I had forgiven?”. His mother’s tendrils of weaponized matter burst open in something that looked a little like an anemone and a lot like every nightmare ever. The attack wasn’t directed at him, but he flinched anyways.
Idue was there, swords in hand, suddenly appearing where two servitors had been a second ago. She stood in their remains, radiant. Her smile was somehow brighter than her hair, undimmed by the falling dust that servitors became when they died. She bumped his shoulder with the force of a truck, twisted to the right, and was off again to kill things. Surrounded by destruction and chaos, caught in a fight for the lives of all magical creatures Bobby felt more whole than he had in his entire life.
“Let me show you the error of your ways.” His mother, in fine tradition, was still sounding more enraged with every word she threw at her enemy.
The Void Machine’s hall wasn’t safe for servants of the Prime right now. Looking more like a biblical angel than the Prime itself had, Calypso’s halo of magic strands struck the prime in hundreds of places at once. None were quite as fast as the way the Prime moved or controlled reality, but Bobby understood why the creature hadn’t even tried to move. There were too many to dodge, and so the quantum creature had frozen in place.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 16d

Apparently, there is one loaf in the manuscript, and it's a creepy one too. Serendipitous. The Scion.

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PS - you can't take my high away. I got to use the word serendipitous today.

“Hello there! I mean you no harm!” but they ignored him. When he got closer, he could see they had been just two pools of deeper shadow.
He turned to enter the inner garden and his eye caught movement, a swirl like a robe turning a corner inside the main building. Bobby was certain they’d been close enough to hear him earlier, and clearly did not want to be bothered. Still, he’d had enough of being alone.
“My name is Bobby. I think Alistair was my grandfather?”
No response. No sounds either. The cheerful morning air didn’t seem to make it past the gates. The garden was chilly, but not in a dangerous way. It was just dead, and so Bobby followed the phantom swirls of the ghost monks and entered the building.
He walked around and out, circling the small, rectangular building twice to make sure he hadn’t missed anyone. Every time he turned a corner, he thought he saw a figure disappear back into a doorway, or pull back from a window, but every time he looked again, there was no one there.
Still, the signs of habitation were clear. Fread was cooling on the kitchen counter, and he helped himself to half a loaf of it, and the bucket in the well dripped when the wind swayed it.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 17d

The novel contains no romance and zero spice, but when a young man meets a bike-riding elven princess, there can only be one realistic outcome. The Scion.

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This was an Idue he hadn’t met yet. She wasn’t being a teacher and she wasn’t punching him in the face. She almost looked like she wanted to talk.
“W-what do you mean?” was the best he could manage. He felt pathetic even as the words left his mouth.
“I mean I don’t think your shoes could survive the miles per minute of the speedway” Bobby didn’t know what to do with her amused voice and eyebrow. This was in badass rider princess mode. She might be his favourite Idue to date.
“Yeah, I’m not going to stay put while the old guys sniff map glue all day.” She seemed to respond to his unfiltered words more positively than when he tried being cool.
“OK, let’s go for a ride” It was a simple as that.
“But your uncle said…” He wasn’t sure how to put it. Wasn’t she supposed to b e the adult here?
“I’ve been charged with teaching you magic by two old men who don’t want us underfoot. I can do that from outside this place, and you look like you could use a ride. What do you say, Scion?”
There was something in her attitude that made him think of a cat watching its lunch run for its life. He was pleased that he managed to sound marginally in control of himself.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 18d

Listen, I'm not saying maths is evil. Mostly because I'm still scared of how evil my maths professors were. And it's been two and a half decades.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 18d

Take care of yourselves, especially the noggin' - The Scion.

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His mother was gone. Was she? Could this be an episode like at the park? He never got around to asking her about a history of mental illness in the family. Come to think of it, other than Arbie, he knew next to nothing about his family, which weighed heavily on his mind right now. Bobby was alone, and he had no idea who he could turn to. Archie had no mobile, and his mother’s had been on the kitchen counter when… stuff happened. Did it happen, though?
This could all be a relapse into a weird universe that existed nowhere outside of his diseased head. The thought held a dark fascination, because it meant that at least his mother was fine and still taking care of him while he drooled somewhere on a bed, imagining that a monster had kidnapped her.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 19d

"I would also get into a lot of arguments, if I had your mindset" - the flesh of my flesh

Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 19d

Superman is punk rock. My demons are too. The Scion.

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Maybe the creature didn’t actually have a shape as his brain was ready to accept. Maybe the sense of madness its presence incited wasn’t the demon’s fault, but the natural reaction of Bobby’s sense to something that could not be defined by common rules. In short, maybe the demon was imply the ultimate punk rock badass. Terror and confusion were the natural result of limited minds trying to grasp it.
Or maybe it was just evil. Its best friend was a cannibal who looked like a girl.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 20d

One day, I'll enjoy writing well-behaved magic and competent people who know what to do with it. Today is not that day. The Scion.

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Completely dissociated from the crowd, he started rearranging each in his brain, picturing what the sphere might have looked like had it been made right, without that messy offset. He often did this with people’s rugs when his mother dragged along to visit strangers for the holidays.
Typically, however, when he mentally rearranged carpets, they had the good sense to stay put. The orrery did not. Its central sphere started moving in response to his mental organizing. The machine was porous. It was soaking up… something from him.
When the entire thing started spinning around the central sphere, he was pulled out of his daydream. Every planet, every metal circle, every hanging gibbet, anywhere there was an axis, axle, or juncture, turned. The interlocking rings blurred into each other as they spun faster and faster. There was a whine of resistance from the air and several joints started glowing from the heat.
Bobby took a step back, scared. He’d stopped focusing on the damn thing, but he felt that warmth on his skin, the same as when the Mrs Wong creature had attacked him. The measuring device was doing its job, absorbing all the stuff that had created the tumours back then. Bobby didn’t know how to stop it.
Except that wasn’t accurate either. The thing inside him that roared with rage didn’t want to stop it. It wanted to push, and push, and give the device more of what it demanded.
Smoke started rising from every joint in the orrery, which had become a shrill buzzsaw of metal and stone that wobbled on its pedestal. This was definitely more than a single inch.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 21d

Before Bobby ever heard the word "Scion", he was just mad at his family for ruining his life.

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Just as he was starting to find some peace in the familiar patterns of the view, a deep chuckle rolled over the landscape and stole his attention. It was like that, grandfather’s laugh. It actually rolled. It had energy that went beyond sound waves - infectious, lively as it danced through the notes of the beautiful, lazy day in which he had betrayed his grandson.
The old man, naturally, was late. He knew it, and his nephew knew it, but even then he kept Bobby waiting to flirt with a woman half his height and a third his age, which had been set to old movie wizard forever. The girl dithered and blushed, and Bobby snorted. It wasn’t her fault, it was hard not to get caught up in grandfather’s enthusiasm. He looked away so he wouldn’t start smiling, and to let the old man did his thing.
The park was busy today, and the birds were chirping the performance of their lifetimes.
All around, couples walked hand in hand. Some young, some older, all touching shoulders and elbows. He pictured their whispers coiling to form intricate filigrees over their heads, binding them together with slivers of hope, like a tapestry that embraced all.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 22d

Those pesky elves are cosplaying as their dignified fantasy selves again in The Scion.

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“My ward was overjoyed to be given a chance to apologize for her behaviour in person, Scion. But first, let me greet you formally. I am Alcar, and I bid you welcome in Riverwell. My light is your light for as long as it shines.”
His voice was sharp, and his words didn’t quite end where they should have, echoing through the air and dissipating more slowly than was natural. Bobby was entranced by his calm demeanour, and his beauty. He had no wings. Did the males of his people have no wings?
When no one moved, and his grandfather just looked at him, Bobby realized it was his turn to say something. How on Earth do you thank the stunningly beautiful but weird pointy-eared, slender folk who welcome you to their retro, cocaine-themed pad?
It was with no small measure of scorn that his mother’s voice echoed in his ears, tut-tutting one of her earliest lessons. Be polite, listen to what people tell you, no matter how weird it may sound. Often, it is what they want to hear themselves. So, Bobby did as his mother, a lifetime and a million miles away, had taught him.
“I thank you for your hospitality, Alcar. I am Bobby, and my light is your light for as long as it shines.”
Alcar’s expression remained impassive, but the pale man’s shoulders relaxed and Bobby could see that his grandfather was covering a smile. What the hell were they doing here? Why wasn’t everyone running around looking for his mother? Bobby turned to his grandfather, but Alcar wasn’t quite done yet.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 22d

#ifinished The Conjuring 4. A 3 hour story cut down to 2. It takes almost an hour to get to the horror part and then prioritizes family moments over character and plot advancement. It’s a perfectly competent scary movie that says farewell to its heroes but does not scare at all.

Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 22d

#ifinished The Naked Gun. A laugh out loud, outrageous homage to the originals. Maybe more of the team copying their homework than brilliant. Watched it. Enjoyed it. Would not do so again. Great Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson.

Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 24d

Thank you! These characters have been with me for a while. Nice to see I'm not the only one to appreciate them.

Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 24d

I have batteries, twice on the same page. Time to edit a little, I guess. The Scion meets a pharaoh.

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His reluctant host was actually seeing to a customer, which was uncommon enough. However, when bobby walked up to the front of the gas station, questions and morning joke alike died on his lips. Standing on the other side of the counter, mutely but expressively complaining about the price of batteries, was an actual zombie.
It was as human as a desiccated corpse can look. Its lips were sewn shut, and dry muscle stubs that ended in thin tendons twitched in empty, raw eye sockets. It was missing two fingers on its right hand, but there was no doubt it was pointing aggressively at Voulk right now, over the stack of AAs between them. Bobby immediately liked the creature.
Absorbed by the spectacle, he bumped a shelf with his shoulder, and the revenant snapped around to track the boy with a crack of bone and sinew that made him queasy. Then, in the wordless way that only a tongueless corpse can muster, it tilted a curious enquiry at Voulk.
“Don’t mind the human, Amhotep. This is between you, me, and your eighty-year-old tab. Come back with one of those gems you promised back then, or find someone else to scrounge up batteries for your games of Operation.”
The corpse threw up three bandaged fingers in Voulk’s direction. It may have been arcane, Bobby got the feeling that maybe back when Amhotep was alive, they hadn’t figured out that just the middle one would do.

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 26d

I edited an old short story to trim it and present it to some competitions. It's going great, I'm really happy with the progress that started at 3700 words and is now 3947... #WritingCommunity

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Reposted by Silverfell

Rob Bignell, Editor/Author @inventingreality.bsky.social · 26d

#Indieauthor #writingcommunity #amwriting #authorsky #writersky

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Silverfell @silverfell.bsky.social · 26d

Safe? NO ONE IS SA... ah. OK. 67 times? Whatever. The Scion meets the hobos of destiny (tm).

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He ran past rows of houses that had once seemed familiar and safe. The streets of home, neighbours he half remembered, a faceless army that may even help him if he stopped. He almost did, but no one deserved what had happened to the dogs. What had happened to his mother.
His hand was brushing against the stone of a filthy wall, his fingertips scraping grime and lichen from its warm surface, when the homeless man stepped out of the shadows under the railway bridge.
“Your kind doesn’t often come here, kid”
Shadows shifted behind the figure in rags and filthy skin. Of course, a parliament of beggars was going to judge him. Why not? At least they didn’t hate tentacles anywhere. Yet.
It took Bobby a moment to gather his mind back into a state where he could offer a coherent, human reply. How far had he run? Where was he now? What did the man mean, his kind?
His clothes. Of course. They probably didn’t see a lot of teenagers fresh from the closet of an overprotective mother, down here. The words had been rough, but there was no menace in the old man’s voice or attitude. In fact, Bobby looked into his eyes and saw resignation, and a defensive stance. There were at least two other figures in the deep shadows cast by the

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