Æ (part 001)

Prologue

Piatra-neamt, Romania.

Æ furrowed his brow, his dark eyes gleaming dangerously as he exited his car. The light of the full moon reflected off the polished surface of his black boots as he shut the car door and breathed deeply of the cool night air. He wore a long, dark trench coat over his designer suit, the collar pulled up as if to ward off the cold. The truth was, he didn’t even notice the cold. Powerfully muscled, and nearly seven feet tall, Æ glanced at the night sky, noting that the edge of the moon had already started to darken. His alabaster skin seemed to almost glow in the baleful moonlight and his long, dark hair covered the edges of his face like the hood of a cloak. He couldn’t help but think how much the world had changed and how much this place hadn’t.

Piatra-neamt had been nothing more than a crude fishing village the last time he had been here. The hike into the mountains had taken days. This time, Piatra-neamt was a small city, and the trip into the mountains had taken just hours. Paved roads had given way to dirt ones about an hour before he reached his destination and he thought how out of place his car and clothing seemed out in the desolation of what had once been the mountains of Transylvania.

The ancient stone building that was his destination jutted out of the ground in front of him, like some giant tomb that had burst from the ground in the unimaginably distant past. Gnarled and long dead trees surrounded the building, the trunks and decaying branches leaning away as if afraid of what lay inside. Æ’s boots crunched along the gravel-strewn path leading toward the building, a sound that seemed abnormally loud in the crisp mountain air. A wolf howled somewhere in the distance, the sound echoing off the black mountainsides. Æ’s head spun around and a low growl escaped his throat. Almost unconsciously, his lips peeled back in a snarl and the whites of his teeth flashed as his fangs started to manifest themselves. He hated this place.

Four hundred years had passed since he had last been obligated to visit the Bone Collector. Twelve hundred years had passed since the visit before that. A full lunar eclipse of a full moon on the Winter Solstice was a rare thing. It was the only thing that could compel him to come here. It was the only event that could tell him if the time for the prophecy was at hand.

Æ approached the shadowed alcove of the building’s entrance. A massive, ironbound oak door sat mounted into the rectangular hole chiseled into the ancient stone. He pushed hard on the door without knocking, throwing it open as he peered cautiously into the darkened interior. A charnel house reek exploded from the open door. It was a sick, rancid smell that spoke of things long dead and things currently dying.

Æ

Æ (Pronounced "Ash") is a 5000 year-old vampire. This is his story, maybe...

I am probably twisting the intent of Friday Flash by doing this, but I wanted to try it. This will be a continuing story. I'll be curious to see where this goes.

Yes, I am still posting from the iPad. I didn't post the cover image from the iPad, but the rest of these should be text so it shouldn't matter. I'm still not a fan of the iPad as a blogging tool and I'm also not thrilled with some of the limitations of Quick Office, but I like the device so much, I just keep spending time working on it.

My original intent here was to write a young adult vampire story with some "real" vampires. They should be mean, nasty, soulless beings. It probably won't work out that way since I think Æ is already developing a bit of a soul. I am going to curious to see how the "Æ" ligature appears when I post it.

This whole thing actually started because a student in my class asked me "why don't any cool stories take place in our city." We were talking about Twilight at the time and she had just been to Forks. I told her we'd have to write one ourselves.

Having said all of that, and realizing that I've rambled a lot, on to the story...

It's coming...

The end of the iPad...

So, I think I've reached the end of my iPad experiment. If you look at the dates of my posts, it didn't take very long. That's not to say I won't post from the iPad on occasion. It's also not to say that I won't try using the iPad again at some point in the future. However, at this point in time, maintaining a blog from the iPad is just not practical. This morning, I tried to edit the html for a post so I could include an image. Since the iPad doesn't support all of bloggers features, inserting images included, it only made sense to try and do it manually. I couldn't get blogger to let me access the html. I could probably download an app to allow me to do the things I want, but that shouldn't be necessary. Websites shouldn't require specialized apps to access all the features.

As a result, I'm back to working on my trusty MacBook. That's not a bad thing, although I've gotten really used to working with the iPad. I like the convenience and the form factor of the tablet. No, I wouldn't EVER try typing anything of length on the virtual keyboard, but I do really like the device. If any of you are wondering if the iPad is a replacement for a laptop, I'm going to say a resounding, "NO!" Is it cool and could you use it as your only Internet and communication device? Maybe. I can't. The limitations of the browser and the apps right now are just too great.

Have I mentioned that QuickOffice has all kinds of problems too? The biggest things right now are a lack of support for word count, page breaks and a horrible tendency to "forget" about paragraph indentations. It's great for casual editing of documents, but right now it's just too limiting. The creative process can be tough enough without having to fight with your content creation tools.