roh morgon

~ musings of a moonlight writer

Fiction Groupie is holding an event called the “Let’s Talk” Blogfest. Participants sign up on her blog, then post a dialog excerpt from their WIP on their own blog.

I heard about this from Chris (one of my friends from FSFW) and immediately thought, “I have the perfect scene. I was just working on it.”

Thanks, Chris, for the heads up!

And without further ado, here is a scene from Watcher (oh, and today is a nine-day, BTW!):

~~~~~~~~~

The first thing I become conscious of is that whatever I’m lying on is not hard.  I cautiously reach out, expecting to feel air, but instead touch softness and fabric.

I open my eyes open and lift my head to look around.  A bed, my bed.  Not a tree branch.

Or maybe it is still a dream, I realize, as I turn and see Nicolas stretched out next to me, leaning on his elbow with his head propped up on his hand.

“Good morning,” he says in a low musical voice, his emerald eyes shining.

As before, words stick in my throat, unable to escape. So this must be a dream after all.

He reaches out and brushes back the hair from my face, then softly strokes my lips.

But that felt pretty real.

He shifts, then leans over and kisses me on the mouth.

Oh, this is definitely real.

I feel my body respond, and then he is crushing me to him.  He holds me tight for a long moment, then slowly releases me and leans back.  He reaches out again and starts working the tangles from my hair with his fingers.

“I was unable to comb all of these out earlier, as you were sleeping on this side.”

“You carried me off the mountain,” I croak, my voice finally breaking free.

“I did,” he says quietly as he continues to pick at my hair.

“You are here.”

“I am.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Since the night you left.  A month ago.”  The pain beneath his words is unmistakeable.

“A month? I’ve been gone a month?”

It’s all a blur of mountains and forests, lakes and meadows, blood and more blood.

He purses his lips, but does not answer. His green eyes watch my face as I feel the wilderness sing in my soul.  He touches my cheek, jarring me back to the present.

“You waited here,” I whisper. “All that time. For me.”

“Yes. I could do…nothing else.” Again I hear the pain, accompanied by loneliness, and wonder how he survived.

Because the only way I did was to give myself to the blood and to the wild.

Once more it calls, and I shut my eyes and remember the colors and smells that caressed my senses, and the wind that softly brushed my skin. Life is so simple out there.  Hunt and run and swim and sleep.  No complicated emotions to manage, no one to argue with, or be disappointed in, or be embraced by, or be loved by.

My eyes grow damp as tears begin to well up beneath their closed lids.

“Sunny.”  His voice is calm and soothing. Feather-light fingers again touch my face.

Startled, my eyes fly open. Yes, he is still here. This is not a dream.

But I need to move, to stretch, to run. My body’s not used to being so still for so long. Slipping out of the bed, I back across the room, watching him. He gets up as well, and part of me starts to panic. I turn to the closet, take out a pair of  jeans and a sweater, and slip them on.  I don’t need shoes–quit wearing them weeks ago.

“I need to go,” I whisper to the floor on my way out.

“Will you come back?” he asks, his voice strained.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” I take a long, slow breath. “Yes. I just need…a little more time.”

Turning, I head for the back door. As I open it, I hear him in the doorway behind me.

“I’ll be here,” he says.

I breathe deeply and step outside, inhaling the pine and other scents that make up the forest, and take off up the mountain at a dead run.

I’ve posted before about the number nine and will likely do so again.

This month’s post revolves around the once-in-a-year occurrence of two nine-days happening within two days of one another.

The first one was on Thursday, April 29.  4+2+9+2+0+1+0 = 18 = 9

The second one is today, Saturday May 1.  5+1+2+0+1+0 = 9

What’s really cool about it this year is that they bracket my birthday. Yes, my birthday is smack dab in the middle of two nine-days! For a nine-freak like me–that is monumental!

So when I realized that, I had to (you know, that OCD thing)  figure out when my birthday last was, or will be again, a nine-day.

Guess what? Just last year, my birthday fell on a nine-day (which was before I was aware of how important nine seems to be in my life).  Now, that might not seem significant (in fact, I doubt that ANY of this is significant to anyone but me), but 2009 was the year I was sucked into the world of Sunny and Nicolas and wrote the novel Watcher and half of its sequel. 2009 was the year I discovered I love to write.

So I think it’s pretty fascinating that my birthday was on a nine-day in a year in which my life took a much-needed change in direction.

The interesting thing about a month and day combining with a year to equal nine is that it only occurs periodically.  Like, every nine years (seriously!).

So my birthday won’t fall again on a nine-day until the year 2018…Sure hope I’m still around then.

But back to nine-days and assorted odd facts relating to them:

The new moon occurred twice this year on a nine-day:  January  14 & February 13. And that’s it for the year.

The full moon will occur only once this year on a nine-day: December 21, which also happens to be winter solstice. This seems to me to be a day that should be paid close attention to.

The only other oddity that I’d like to highlight is one that occurs in the upcoming leap year, 2012. This is  a year that already has a number of people a bit nervous.

So not only is 2012 a leap year, but Leap Day, February 29, has it’s own significance. It is a nine-day!

It is quite rare for a day that occurs only once every four years to also be a nine-day. So rare that it will happen only twice in this century: 2012 and 2048.

2+2+9+2+0+4+8 = 27 = 9.

Let’s all hope the world as we know it, or something similar, is around in 2048, and that someone can do the math to notice that Leap Day is also a nine-day.