There are a few things this week but the two chapters aren't really related to each other.

Sand and Ash 21: Silence

This chapter was the point where I finally realized the “how” of Rutejìmo's fate. And it wasn't just for this book but the next one too, a grand plot that would completely ruin the point of my first novel, which was that Rutejìmo would never be a hero.

Of course, it's kind of hard to see how nearly dying in the desert, passing out at the edge of an oasis, and having an old man give you pity would be consider the first steps of being one, but here it is. I see it now, looking at the book, seeing what he is does in this chapter leads up to the final chapter of the third book.

This also is the chapter that I realized how the “dead” work. Originally, I got the idea for the banyosiōu was from poor descriptions of the caste system in some cultures. The lowest caste were the unclean, those who dealt with garbage and corpses. In my world, it is the ones ostracized from their clan who are responsible for those things.

Of course, that led into why they weren't obvious. Well, that lead into being unseen. The banyosiōu are non-people which means there is societal pressure to treat them as they don't exist. People look the other way in fears of their own clan bonds behind dissolved. They aren't touched because their hands work with garbage and corpses. In effect, they are non-people who cannot be talked to.

But how do you tell a banyosiōu what to do? How do they function in society if they can't be acknowledged or spoken to? Well, we'll see that over the next few chapters.

Flight of the Scions 3: A Simple Lie

The third chapter is where things to from bad to worse for Kanéko. After the explosion of the stables and her father's declaration that she would never be able to work with mechanical devices again, she was pretty devastated. The idea of finding out that you were good at something and then being told you can't do it after some mistake can be rather hard.

In high school, I loved helping the computer lab. I was good at computers and programming. I spent most of my hours in there, cleaning up computers and just being helpful. I was given a chance to become the official assistant which was one of the brightest days of my high school times.

And then something happened. Someone got access to the root password and ruined a lot of machines. I didn't do it and I was sure I didn't show the password to someone who did, but it didn't matter. I took the blame and was banned from the computer lab.

My mother helped get the banned overturned but I was never allowed to officially help the ladies in the lab again. That single moment was the end, the point where I was told I couldn't do something that tied two of my favorite things together: working with computers and helping others.

Of course in my world, I didn't steal computers to keep programming. I had them at home and parents who encouraged me every day. Kanéko, on the other hand, didn't have a PC at home, so she did the only thing she could: she took her tools with the intent of going back to her one true passion when her father wasn't looking. Of course, when she gets caught by her foul-mouthed mother (I love the idea of her mom swearing constantly in two languages), there is only one thing to do: lie, lie, lie.

I also made two more chapters of Flight of the Scions available for subscribers.