Repentance Quoting

I know it, my last excuse for a belated blog post was absolutely horrible, so I'm going to make up for it by posting again, and perhaps with something a little more interesting. For those of you who suffered through the last one, you have my congrats and my apologies. Just forget that one.

It was early this morning, 9 PM, when I was flipping through the pages of "The Deadliest Monster" by Baldwin when I was supposed to be doing more constructive things such as exercising or studying. Since I had picked it up last week however, I hadn't been able to put it down! The excellent work was full of information, and one thing in particular that interested me...worldviews. Seeing the perspectives of others. I still find it interesting and even amusing to see what others see.
As I began the final chapter, the rain distantly spattering on the window just outside as the gray clouds hung low overhead, I ran into an odd quote, from a fairly well-known man,

"Shall I sue for mercy? Come, come, let me be a man to the last." -Lord Byron, on his death bed

This struck me, and I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow in curiosity at the statement. It was no secret that Byron was no believing man, rather was a sort of pre-humanist, I suppose, believing that humanity was really a good, noble race. As assumption that is entirely wrong, I'm afraid. That in itself wasn't what really I found interesting though...Lord Byron was hardly the first man to refuse faith on his death bed. It was when he claimed he would be 'a man to the last.' That was so ironic it was almost funny...for that he was. A mere man, unfortunately, to the last, without fail. He had the chance, and freely admitted it, to plead for mercy, to beg forgiveness before his death. And refused. Apparently he considered himself good enough, 'man enough,' to go to whatever afterworld he believed in at any rate.
What an irony, and a common one, sadly. What a wretched evil it is to be "man to the last..."

A Gray Day...Nothing Interesting.

I can so totally see future novel ideas coming out of this one...

http://www.freewebs.com/mphds/Link%20vs%20Dark%20Link.jpg

Hmm....now this looks like a place I wouldn't mind traveling. Ach, too bad its already used by some game...doesn't anyone think up their own original work anymore? Maybe it'll make a good setting...

http://nexusx.wanadooadsl.net/ayudas/Warhammer_World_Map.jpg

Now this looks like an absolutely KILLING villain...

http://images.absoluteanime.com/final_fantasy_vii/sephiroth.jpg

Yeah, this is how my mind works...a few cool pictures, a good, epic fantasy music piece, and I can already see a novel coming. Sad, isn't it?

...I sighed at myself, at about 10:30 PM at night, as I looked over the hastily sketched schedule in my mind and how much of it had passed the day uncompleted. School, finished. Optional studies, put off until tomorrow. Exercise, somewhat. Writing, little or none. Music, a little, enough to keep in shape. A little bit of extra reading, and at last, my copy of "Screwtape Letters" by C.S. Lewis had finally arrived, to my joy. Read about a quarter of it that afternoon. All in all, a fairly good, but unproductive day...which meant it was a bad day.
With a slow sigh, I closed the book, and shook my head, sitting up on the bed. Argh, all the fire in my work seemed to have merely died, or vanished. I was just slugging along with the bare minimum again, to my disgust, instead of pressing ahead like I could be doing.
I smiled wryly. Don't tell Brett and Alex Harris.
I should be writing, I mused inwardly as I pounded out "Croatian Rhapsody" and "Amaras Scroll One:Overture" on the slightly old and out-of-tune piano, making yet another mental note to work on it in the near future. Why was it my work seemed to have just slowed?
Maybe I needed a new story outlook. Perhaps that was it, grab some entirely new plotline or idea that would catch on fire again, an idea from any random picture of piece of music even...
With a grunt, I dismissed the idea. Unless it could be worked into a current story, I wasn't even going to try to start any more. Three current manuscripts at a time was my limit, a series novel, a short novel, and a weekly-posted blog story. More than enough.
I sighed and got up from the piano, and was about to disappear into my small little sanctuary of a room when the family dog crept by, under my piano stool. Hearing the quick tapping of claws on the floor, I glanced over quickly at the small animal, my sister's dog mostly, I suppose. Just before slinking around the corner it turned, as if caught in the middle of some mistake, and gave me a look.
I grinned. "Boo."
The dog abruptly vanished, like the wind. I chuckled and turned, disappearing into my room.
Maybe I just needed a break...like a long, serious one...not just these weekend day or two of absolutely nothing, but a whole week...ach, what I wouldn't do for a car and license, and a chance to just disappear on South Mountain for a week, with a tent and a few notebooks for drawing and a hiking trail.
Again, I shook my head. That wasn't it. You couldn't just go and take a break when you felt like it. Deal with it, Alex! I growled. Life is hard! No, I didn't need a break, per say...however nice it would be.
"Maybe I'm just slacking it off." When I tried to come up with an outline for the next chapter in "The Black Gate," my mind had nothing but a blank. A writer's hated enemy, a blank mind. Better a mind that's exploding with too many ideas than a blank one.
Ach, what was wrong? Disgusted, I made for the door, deciding to go walk outside for a bit. Enough of this, perhaps it would wear off by tomorrow. As I strode out of the back door and glanced up at the lazy, gray and low hanging sky, it seemed to come down even further. A glimpse of spring would be nice too.
Maybe I'll have it all back tomorrow morning, I mused.

The Greatest Legend...On The Screen.

The glinting figure, crouched low in the light saddle as he flew out of the canyon and out onto the vast Hyrule Field below, wore a look of urgent concentration...and a little cold rage. He never had been one to grow angry or fume and fight madly even in the hottest battles...but the hard, grim, deadly anger towards evil he bore was always chilling. Especially when the figure wore a Triforce, birth-marked onto his left hand, and also usually held a sword in that hand.
The golden and green flats of Hyrule Field, north of Kakariko Village, seemed to radiate the warm, glorious feeling of the Hylian countryside. Trees wafted lazily in the sunny breeze, and the flat plain seemed mostly abandoned. The glittering spires of Hyrule Castle, which could usually be seen from anywhere in Hyrule, sparkled in the distance, to the west...from underneath a cloud of twilit shadow.
The green-clad rider galloped out hurriedly onto the plains, where sitting upon one of the smaller rises was sitting what he had been chasing, the raider of the village. The Moblin chief.
Moblins in general were usually somewhat like goblins, only they rode across sunny plains in broad daylight, unlike the horrid green skinned monsters that preferred to lurk in the darkness. Bearing clubs, bows, and arrows tipped with fire, they had become, sadly, common foes upon the grassy countryside.
However, Link this time rode faster than even usual to battle the chief...they had met before. When it was another, more familiar village that the chief had raided.
As he rode up within twenty yards of the great Moblin chief, he slowed and stopped, Epona as always perfectly still and unstrained. The chief of the riding Moblins was even bigger than the usual ones, and his covering in iron armor certainly added to his size...and as was their way, the moblin rode with his red banner in front, its blood red color waving in the sunlight atop the hill crest.
Link stopped, his cold, unmoving gaze never straying from the red-eyed face of the enemy three times his size and riding what was some twisted kind of a massive boar. Naturally no horse of any kind would allow such a moblin to sit on it. The boar, that was twice as big as Epona alone, snorted.
Link looked up and his gaze was shocked a little when he saw what he had been chasing. The young boy, a young, blue-eyed, ragged child from the village, had been knocked unconscious...and roped to the top of the moblin's banner. He hung tied to the rough wood, like a prize...
The moblin, seeing Link's slight shock and returning cold, grim anger, laughed heavily underneath his clanking armor, and beckoned with one metal hand.
Link nodded coolly. He drew his sword. "Let him go."
The moblin only laughed again, and suddenly kicked his heels into his pig-like mount, causing it to roar and leap away, surprisingly fast. Though Link held his decent sword in hand, the moblin king used his massive mace atop his growling mount, a far worse challenge.
Link was about to give chase, galloping hard after, when the sound of a raw horn ripped through the air, causing the very countryside, pretty as it was around them, to shudder with the sound. Link whirled about. That had come from the moblin king, blowing his horn...
...The sounds of pursuit, a moblin force that had been hiding on the far end of the valley, suddenly reached his ears. It had been a trap. When half a dozen more moblin riders, all riding their tusked boar mounts, Link's face twisted for half a second in surprise and anger. An unexpected play.
He said not a word, but suddenly kicked Epona into a gallop, and took off, flying across the plains, in pursuit of the moblin chief. Fire arrows whistled overhead as the pursuit broke cover of the trees and rode out onto the plains, in pursuit of the lone, swordsman rider.

...As I watched the clip for about the sixth time, he had to sit back in satisfaction. The world setting, perfect. Flawless, creative, beautifully illustrated, and most importantly...cunning and unexpected. How many people had ever seen a castle covered in a shade of twilit cloud? The characters, perfect. The cast was incredible, from Link, to the Dark Lord Ganon, to the legendary Princess Zelda. Personalities portrayed to a point, and that was putting aside the host of others. And naturally, the storyline was purely epic. Knights and knightly heroes were nothing new to fantasy, of course, but...Link was hardly a knight, any more than Zelda was an ordinary princess or Ganon a typical overlord. Not many princesses stood in front of their castle doors with a sword in hand when their last home was invaded, and not many a sorcerer villains could be executed with a sword, flung into a twilit world in another dimension, and left to be unmade...and STILL come back alive, let alone more powerful than ever! Original, AND classic! Two thumbs up for the Legend of Zelda!
After making yet another mental note on the prices of replicas of The Master Sword and how much it would cost me on some future date, and sighed grimly and got up. Enough fan fiction. Back to work.
And that, ladies and gents, is may one and only page of fan fiction for the year. Though normally I don't care for fan written fiction, I'll make an exception for the awesome-est story of the decade. This once.