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The Butterfly Sorceress, a serial novel

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Jimor:
As some of you know, I've been posting a fantasy novel I'm writing as a serial on another forum. It's been going well, getting good responses when people do comment, and seems to have about 50-60 steady readers based on thread views between posts. It just reached the halfway point (4 chapters out of 8, each with 5 parts), and I'm about a chapter and a half ahead in the writing, so I'm pretty sure I'll finish on schedule. Over there, I'm posting twice a week, but I figure if I start here 3 times a week (changing this to Sun/Tue/Thu because of my schedule), by the end it will be pretty close.

Each part averages around 2000 words, which seems to be about right for online reading chunk size. I'll usually be adding them just after midnight Pacific time, so the dates will run like QC days.

Anyway, here we go, and I hope y'all like it.  :-)

Chapter 1, Part 1 (added 8/22/09)
Chapter 1, Part 2 (added 8/24/09)
Chapter 1, Part 3 (added 8/26/09)
Chapter 1, Part 4 (added 8/28/09)
Chapter 1, Part 5 (added 8/30/09)

Chapter 2, Part 1 (added 9/1/09)
Chapter 2, Part 2 (added 9/3/09)
Chapter 2, Part 3 (added 9/6/09)
Chapter 2, Part 4 (added 9/8/09)
Chapter 2, Part 5 (added 9/10/09)

Chapter 3, Part 1 (added 9/13/09)
Chapter 3, Part 2 (added 9/15/09)
Chapter 3, Part 3 (added 9/19/09)
Chapter 3, Part 4 (added 9/20/09)
Chapter 3, Part 5 (added 9/22/09)

Chapter 4, Part 1 (added 9/24/09)
Chapter 4, Part 2 (added 9/27/09)
Chapter 4, Part 3 (added 9/29/09)
Chapter 4, Part 4 (added 10/1/09)
Chapter 4, Part 5 (added 10/4/09)

Chapter 5, Part 1 (added 10/6/09)
Chapter 5, Part 2 (added 10/8/09)
Chapter 5, Part 3 (added 11/1/09)
Chapter 5, Part 4 (added 11/5/09)
Chapter 5, Part 5 (added 11/8/09)

Chapter 6, Part 1 (added 11/11/09)
Chapter 6, Part 2 (added 11/12/09)
Chapter 6, Part 3
Chapter 6, Part 4
Chapter 6, Part 5

Chapter 7, Part 1
Chapter 7, Part 2
Chapter 7, Part 3
Chapter 7, Part 4
Chapter 7, Part 5

Chapter 8, Part 1
Chapter 8, Part 2
Chapter 8, Part 3
Chapter 8, Part 4
Chapter 8, Part 5

(EDIT: put in some line breaks so there wasn't too much horizontal eye scanning for so much text, let me know if it's about right, or needs to go wider or narrower.)

JD:
Read the first bit. Interesting, I'll read more tomorrow.

Jimor:
Chapter 1, Part 1


Belsira started with butterflies.

Each summer morning, she watched as the small white creatures fluttered
on the whispering breeze.  She danced with them across the field behind
her home, running and laughing with pure abandon and delight.  Still too
young for lessons in town like her older brother Tam, she could spend nearly
as much time with her little friends as she wished.

Her favorite game was to crawl up behind a resting butterfly until she was
near enough to observe every detail on its wings as they folded up and
down.  She would watch intently as it fed from a wildflower, then she would
dare to whisper a question.

"How old are you, Sir Butterfly?  I'll be six next month."

He didn't answer.  They never did, but at least they didn't immediately fly away
either, so she continued her game, continued to ask the many questions that
burst forth from her young, inquisitive mind.

One question, however, she asked more than any other as she played with her
field of white butterflies.  Every time she came close and examined one of her
friends, she wondered if she had talked to this one before, since they all looked
alike.

"Where are your colors?" she asked, seeking a solution to her dilemma.

It also didn't seem fair that the blossoms they fed from should be brighter and
prettier than they were.  She could appreciate the beauty of the clouds or of
fresh snowfall on the peaks of the northern mountains in the distance, but
white all the time was just boring.

Maybe there was something she could do?  One day, she went into her parent's
workshop -- they made pottery and other ceramic items for the people of
Aberley -- and borrowed a small jar of red paint and a brush.  Like countless
times before, she stealthily moved near to one of the tiny creatures, and
dipped the brush into the watery paint.

"Would you like to be red today, Lady Butterfly?"

Belsira eased the brush closer, then lightly dabbed the pigment onto the wings
of her friend.

She had been right, the bright red looked beautiful on the little butterfly, but
her pleasure lasted only a moment.  The poor little thing tried to take off, but
instead of floating into the air, it crashed to the ground, beating it's wings to
shreds in the dirt.  Belsira cupped her hands over it to still its struggles so it
wouldn't hurt itself anymore.

Carefully, she pinched its small body between her fingers, then carried it to the
workshop.  She tried desperately to wash the paint out with water, but she
seemed to just make things worse.  But it didn't matter after too long, the
little butterfly stopped struggling altogether and lay still in her hand.  She hardly
noticed the tears running down her cheeks as she took it back out to the field
and buried the tiny body amidst the swaying wildflowers.

"I'm so very sorry, I didn't mean to hurt anybody.  I'll never do it again."

For several days after, she was afraid to approach any of the other butterflies,
afraid that they would blame her for the death of their sister and not want to
play with her anymore.  But when they seemed to take no more notice of her
as usual, she felt emboldened enough to crawl up to them once again to
observe their habits.

Soon, her crime was nearly forgotten even in her own mind, though she
remained careful not to hurt any of her friends.  She found it hard, though,
to suppress the original curiosity, and eventually ended up asking the same
question.

"Where are your colors, little one?"

She knew better than to do more than ask the question, however.  She had
dozens of other questions to ask as well, even though she still never received
an answer.  Where did they live at night?  Did they each have a name?  Did
red flowers taste better than yellow?

One day, as she sat, still and quiet in the field, one of the fluttering butterflies
came near, then landed on her arm.  She stared, enraptured once again by its
simple beauty, feeling honored that it chose to trust her so after her previous
sin.

"You're beautiful.  I still think you'd be even prettier with...," she thought a
moment, "with blue wings, though."  Belsira, lost in the joy of the moment,
pictured her friend looking just so, and within a blink, it was true.

She stared, stunned by the change that had taken place before her eyes,
watched the blue wings open and close as the butterfly rested on her arm,
apparently unaffected by the transformation.  But strangely, she didn't feel
any happier for her long sought wish coming true.  Even the original pleasure
that had come from its alighting on her arm was missing.

Still, she had given her friend its color without hurting it; could she do it again?
She neared another, smiled as the joy of its nearness filled her heart.

"Would you like orange wings, Sir?"  A moment later, it was true also.

But she still didn't feel any happiness at the deed.  She tried again, succeeded.

Nothing.

For the next few days, she tried her trick over an over again.  Each time, she
brought her happiness to bear on one of her little butterflies, each time, she
gave them magnificent new wings, and each time, she felt only emptiness at
the accomplishment.

Lost in her obsession, she barely noticed as her mother came out one evening
to call her to supper.  Belsira noticed a happy blue aura out of the corner of
her eye as she crouched near to one of her little friends, trying to decide which
color she should make this one.

She chose purple, but sensing a new source of energy nearby, she reached
outward instead of inward for the power to affect the transformation this time.
Just like countless times before, the butterfly's wings changed in an instant,
but instead of the dull ache of emptiness, her happiness was intact, strong and
invigorating.

She laughed, startling her newly purple friend into flight, but she didn't care,
she rose up, sprinted after it, giggling and jumping in circles.  She had done
it!  Finally, she noticed her mother standing nearby, arms folded, dark hair tied
back for cooking.  Belsira ran towards her.

"Mama, mama, did you see?"

She saw, but did not smile, did not react in any way to her laughing, dancing
daughter.  She stared blankly ahead, observing, but not sharing the experience
of Belsira's accomplishment.

Her mother's joy from this moment, stolen to paint the wings of a butterfly,
was lost forever.

JD:
Hey, that's exactly what I read. Good stuff dude.

Jimor:
Thank you.  :-)

Took me a while to post that because of manually adding the line breaks. Seems that when I wasn't looking, all the modern word processors got rid of the "save as text with line breaks" option. Fortunately, I found one of my e-mail accounts that does that automatically on sending so all I'll have to do in the future is put in the italics.

The structure I'm using for the story seems to work pretty well as a serial. Each chapter has a flashback part, then 4 current time parts. Whenever I've described this to fellow writers at conventions, I usually get a "Oh God, don't do THAT" response, which has been kind of discouraging and is one of the reasons this has been back-burnered for so many years.

I finally said "fuck it", gathered up what I had written and all my notes and decided to just go ahead and share it online. At least it's gotten me to write, which has always been my biggest holdback. If some people enjoy it, great, if some don't, feel free to let me know why not so I can learn from it all.  :-)

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