Two-Cats-Aaron-Kite PDF
Preview Two-Cats-Aaron-Kite
Aaron Kite Two Cats TWO CATS by Aaron Kite is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 US License Based on a work at www.kiteanic.com Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.kiteanic.com The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the internet or via any other means is probably highly redundant. Electronic versions of this work may even be available at that same address right now, who knows? Actually, you'll probably want to go there, just in case ... see what I'm giving away for free. I'm crazy like that. So, long story short, if you want to distribute a copy of this book I won't try to sue you into oblivion ... just be sure to use one of the copies I put together instead of going to all that trouble scanning a paper one. Probably easier for you as well, come to think of it. Wow, I'm such a nice guy. You're welcome. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, food, drink, drugs, and just about everything else in it are the product of the author's imagination. Any character's resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is either coincidental, or it's ... well, or it's because I based it on a friend or acquaintance who's cool with that sort of thing. Bottom line, if you don't know me, it's not you. And I don't know that many people. While the author is in fact the creator of www.kiteanic.com, he refuses to take responsibility for comments, third-party links, and other material posted to his website, least of all his own work. He's very irresponsible that way. Personally, I blame Buddhism. Remember ... there is no spoon – all this pain is an illusion For Mom and Dad, who never got tired of hearing about it. I'm blessed. Acknowledgements Many thanks go out to Chris (who helped me with it several times over morning coffee), Mike (who helped me with it over some vietnamese noodles), Huushiita (for remaining patient as I stared at my laptop for hours), and Jeanette (for helping me push the snowball down this hill to begin with). And, a special thank-you to the Unicorn Crew. (for reminding me not to forget about the important things, like beer) TWO CATS 1 Prologue Scars. I shall talk about scars. Err, write, I suppose ... not “talk” as such. Damn, I've made a mess of the first page already. This is quite a bit harder than I thought. When my father wished to “rough up a page” as he called it, he’d leap upon the very first thing he felt like talking about, moving from that subject to the story that he wished to tell. As a child, I didn't understand the need for that device, watching in boyish fascination as he put words to parchment with his cleverly wrought quill, periodically dipping his free hand into the large bowl of drying sand and scattering the fine mix of granules over the page. While waiting for the ink of his words to mix with the sand - heating up and slowly etching the words forever on the fireproof pages of his journal - he would often attempt to teach me some small tidbit of his own writing process before beginning work on his next page. Sometimes I listened in rapt attention, sometimes I found myself too enthralled by the wisps of smoke curling up from the page to hear a single word he spoke. I do recall him talk- 2 Aaron Kite ing about beginning though - that moment when you first set out to put marks on a page, when you realize you have to get over the idea of a large, white sheet of nothing, just sitting there, mocking you. I didn't quite understand what the big deal was at the time, the simple act of beginning to write. Sitting here now, in his chair, at his desk, I very quickly found myself in perfect understanding of what he tried to tell me that day. I've been sitting here for hours, several candles lit to keep me energized and awake, hand poised over the first page of parchment as if about to write something, yet dramatically failing to do so. This is the first journal I've ever undertaken to write my- self, and so many things need to be considered. One thing I've learned from reading my father's eighteen journals, as well as the multitude of others that compose the family library, is that you cannot assume the person who picks up your tome knows everything that you do. You need to give details, pro- vide context for the story you're trying to tell. Where might this book end up, after all? How much do I need to explain? Does it sit on a shelf beside dozens of other tales written by other Lords, or does it stand alone? Does the person reading it have the context of the other books I've written to lean on? Or has this, the first of my memoirs, been parted from its cousins lining the bookshelves of our family library? Is it even being read by a fellow resident of my native city, Harael, someone already familiar with our way of life and our customs? Or has it fallen into the hands of a Lord from a far- away land, someone unfamiliar with Thieves’ Rule or the nu- ances of our style of government? As you stare at your empty page, all of these questions pile up at once, a hundred starving guests clamoring at the en- trance to a great feast, all leaping forward at once and in so
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