From FALLEN - Marcus

My last science fiction and fantasy submission for the semester. This time I tried to introduce a lighter element by showing Gabriel having a friend. There are in the Ministers of Grace who have gotten past his appearance and nature. One of them is Marcus, a student from America who was sought out for his manifestation of powers of superhuman strength. He tries to be a good friend, even when it's hard, and calls Gabriel "Batman." There's also a mention of Rachel, who is an English student with the power of empathy, and her agnosticism has not been improved by witnessing what Gabriel has to go through.



Gabriel knew him a mile away. No one could sneak up on him under the best of circumstances, and he heard the heavy tread making its way up the stairs even before the cheerful humming. Gabriel waited there, perfectly still, so still that he might have been a carved gargoyle, but for the ceaseless slow twisting of his tail.

“I swear you do that to freak out the freshmen.”

Gabriel’s head turned over his shoulder. There was Marcus, still half-in his rugby gear, a six-pack of some cheap local beer in one hand and a steaming box of pizza balanced on the other.

“Do what?”

“The whole part-of-the-architecture thing.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “If they’re spotting me, then I must not be doing it right.”

“Don’t stop now, Cameron loves it. He likes to gaslight the kiddies when they talk about seeing some creepy statue coming to life on the battlements.”

Marcus sat beside him on the ledge. Gabriel turned around and watched him dig enthusiastically into the pie. “Why is it always pizza and beer with you?”

“Just properly representing myself as an American. Plus I miss the States. You can’t get a decent pizza in the Irish countryside.”

“You still eat enough of it.”

“Lousy pizza’s better than no pizza at all.” He popped a beer out of the plastic rings and scooped up a steaming slice, then held them out with a tilted head and a raised eyebrow. Gabriel wasn’t much of a drinker, but he accepted the pizza with a nod.

Marcus grinned. “You know, for a hellspawn, you have remarkably few vices.” He cracked open the can and took a long slug. “For my part, I mean to completely undo all the healthful exercise I just got in.”

Gabriel bit carefully into his slice. His teeth were not particularly suited to pizza, but he liked the cheese, and he was glad for the company that came with it. He didn’t even mind the way Marcus teased him, casually throwing around words like creepy and hellspawn as if they were nothing. Quite the contrary, Gabriel was grateful for it. It meant that Marcus was not afraid. That alone made it worth it.

Normal conversation, too, was unusually rare for him, so he was glad to take the opportunity for it when he could. “How was practice?”

Marcus made a face. “Good as it’s going to be. Football’s my game, but they don’t even know what that is here. Rugby’s the closest I’m going to get.”

“I’m surprised they let you play. You have something of an unfair advantage.”

Marcus laughed. “Hey, I never crack that out on the field, okay?”

“How would anyone know?”

“Because I never left anybody a grease spot, that’s how!”

“Didn’t your power first manifest in the middle of a football game?”

Marcus affected an innocent face and tipped his head airily from side to side. “That may have been the case… but that was before I developed my superb level of control. And that kid only spent a month in that body cast, it could have been a lot worse! He was wearing a helmet, you see, so it was okay. You should come to a game sometime.”

“I’m sure Braden would love that.”

“Oh, so perch in some tree and watch me from there. Next one’s Sunday night!”

“Can’t. I go to confession then.”

His friend looked surprised. “You doing that again?”

“Now that there’s somebody to hear it.”

Marcus chewed thoughtfully for a moment. “Oh, yeah. Father… Julien, is it?” He swallowed and grinned. “Should have known you’d be all over that.”

Gabriel shrugged. “I like him. He’s kind. He… he tries hard.”

“All priests walk on water to you.” The young man snorted. “Even old Cortes could do no wrong.”

“Have you met him? He’s not like Cortes.”

“There’s something in his favor.” Marcus made a face. “Well, you seem somewhat less miserable than you did coming back from it, so he must be an improvement somehow.”

The fanged jaw tightened. “That wasn’t Cortes’s fault.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’re just fine at torturing yourself on your own.”

“It’s not about that.” Marcus had never understood Gabriel’s confessional habit.

“I still think you’re too hard on yourself.”

He cast about for something, some words he could use to explain the thing that had always been. “I… I need it, Marcus,” he said lamely. “I need to do it.” The words sounded so pitifully wrong. But they were easier to say than to describe to a normal person the feeling of hell breathing down his neck.

Marcus grinned in that wry way of his. “As they say, God doesn’t make junk.”

It was a kind thing to say, and Gabriel was grateful for it, but… “It’s not so simple. Not for me.”

He rolled his dark brown eyes. “Whatever you say, Batman.”

There was nothing Gabriel could say. Catholicism amused Marcus. Born and raised in a loving and social church community, his version of the religion was more about picnics and volunteering in soup kitchens on Thanksgiving than the powers of hell and mortal sin, even now that he’d seen such things face to face. Nuns wore funny hats, Christ’s love was complete and uncomplicated, and people got credit for doing the best they could. The rest was all slightly absurd.

Gabriel wished he could take it all so lightly. It was the whole of the world he lived in, and for all the burdens it laid on him it was still the source of the only comfort he’d ever known. He loved it as he loved all the good things in his life, with the sad, hopeless love that lived with the knowledge that he would never be worthy of any of it. He had no choice but to walk the path, but that did not take away the thorns.

Marcus sighed at the abrupt plummeting of Gabriel’s mood, sorry but not surprised. He stretched out one arm to laid across the crenellation and regarded the demon as if considering what he was about to say next.

“Gabe… can I ask you something?”

Gabriel nodded once in silent assent, not looking at him.

“What did you do?”

Now he lifted his gaze, and saw his friend’s expression was uncharacteristically serious. “What?”

Marcus shifted uncomfortably under the weight of those eyes, but still he pressed on. “I’ve seen the way everyone acts around you… the way they treat you. You’re scary, you’re a monster. There’s… something bad about you. I mean, I get it. Hell, I’ve seen you tear things apart when we’re out on missions. Nobody has to tell me that part.”

He took another sip of his beer and licked his lips. “But… you do that to fight monsters. To save people from them. But still. You’re always this bad thing for some reason. And I got to tell you, I don’t really know why. It’s like… everybody else knows it, but nobody talks about it. Nobody told me, and… that’s not the Gabriel I know.”

He pressed those white all-American teeth together and swallowed hard. He looked up and forced himself to return that golden stare.

“So… what bad things did you do? Why do you feel so guilty?”

Gabriel rose from his crouch on the ledge and began to pace. “It’s… it’s what I am.”

Still Marcus didn’t understand. He stood up too and followed after. “What is that? Is it… is it the violence? The-the killing stuff? Like they’re afraid you’ll go off on all of us—?”

“Of course they are!” Gabriel spun around so fast that he drove Marcus a step back. “You said it yourself. You’ve seen.”

He stood his ground. He was a six-foot-one running back, but Gabriel’s massive frame dwarfed even him. “Have you even ever done that?”

“Yes, I have! Braden—”

Marcus threw up his hands at him. “Oh, screw that! Braden’s the most badass telekinetic on the planet! He could nail your ass to the wall tonight, much less when you were half your size!”

Gabriel turned from him again, wanting to escape, before the rage welled up, before the truth broke out of him. But Marcus would not let him go.

"I know you, Gabriel. No matter what you or anybody else thinks about you. How could you be damned if you haven’t done anything worth damning you over!?”

“I don’t know!” he snarled. “I don’t know, all right!?”

He turned back around to see Marcus shocked, staring at him. His head shook back and forth, uncomprehending.

“I do everything I can to keep a hold on the monster in me. I don’t do all the terrible things they all think I’m going to do! I confess and I atone and I am so God damned sorry every minute of my life! And still… I know, in my guts, that no matter what, I’m damned.”

But Marcus didn’t see it, his whole life was built on the wide open arms of grace. “You can’t know—”

“I’m something that in a perfect world never would have come to be!”

Gabriel had so rarely spoken of it aloud. He hated it, wanted to disbelieve it with all of his soul, but again and again, he found himself crushed against that stark truth. The truth for which he would spend the rest of his life atoning.

“And all I can do is keep trying, and keep hoping… and I don’t know if I ever can. I don’t know if I can ever make up for it.”

The words felt empty, inadequate. No, he could not make light of it. It meant everything in the world.

Gabriel’s head bowed low on his long neck. Suddenly it was too much effort to hold it up. He blew out hard through his teeth. “I am demon, Marcus. Whatever else, I’ll never get away from that.”

He sank in a crouch back on the wall, not looking at anything. After a moment Marcus settled in beside him, the strength seeming to have run right out of him. “Jesus, Gabe.”

The hawk-like talons flexed and clenched. “Still think I’m just torturing myself?”

“I don’t believe it.”

“Of course you don’t.” How could he ever? How could Gabriel convey to him that he felt it, felt it in his bones, how far off grace was when his very existence was an affront against God? The weight of the shame of that knowledge?

“It’s not always that bad. Right?” Marcus shook his head. “Sometimes you seem okay. Like now… you laughed just now. I can get you to laugh.”

Gabriel stared off into the dark. He was out of words.

His friend’s usually amiable face was twisted in sorrow. “Can’t blame me for trying, man. Can’t stand knowing you’re off somewhere alone and hating yourself.”

His head did not turn, but suddenly Gabriel was struck. “Marcus… how did you know I was up here?”

He forced a laugh. “Wasn’t hard to figure out. Batman's always brooding on ledges.”

Gabriel regarded him with his golden hunter’s eyes. Marcus couldn’t meet his gaze. At last he sighed. “Rachel told me, okay?”

“Rachel?” The demon tried to keep his expression neutral. “How… how did she know? I haven’t seen her—”

“Gabriel. She always knows where you are.”

He shifted his wings against his back, shaking his head in feigned dismissal. “That makes sense, I guess. I— I don’t read like anyone else. I stand out.”

“Gabe. Come on.” Marcus crossed around to Gabriel’s other side so he could look him in the eye. “She thinks about you a lot.”

Gabriel stared.

“And… I know you think about her.”

“Marcus… don’t.”

He leaned against the wall and tried to smile. “So… what is that?”

“I don’t know.” It was the truth.

“I have a guess.”

“Don’t. Don’t say it.” He shook his head helplessly, fangs grinding as he gnashed them together. “It can’t… it can’t.”

His friend regarded him sadly. “But what if it is?”

“Marcus…” He spread his claws. “Look at me.”

Marcus did, and his expression broke.

What I'm working on right now

In an effort to refocus myself on the projects that are important to me, I thought I'd give a rundown of, if not ALL the projects I have in the works, the ones that currently in the forefront of my mind.

The Tailor of Riddling Way, in two forms. There is of course the original audio drama form, but lately I have been working more on the film version that I am making for my Screenwriting grad school class. The story is translating pretty nicely, even working better in some ways because I can show in a visual medium rather than tell everything, and my teacher has given me both positive feedback and very useful constructive criticism. I haven't been posting my film script pieces here because they're not completely different from the audio drama stuff I've already showed you, but when I finish it I think I will post it here in its entirety. It's kind of cool to think that by the end of the next month I will have finished an entire screenplay, even if only the first draft.

I'm also working on my fantasy novel idea, Fallen. I've had this idea since senior year of high school to tell the story of a demon found and raised by a Catholic organization to fight on their side against the forces of hell while struggling to cope with what seems to be the inherent evil in his nature. I've been working on scenes here and there to submit to my Science Fiction and Fantasy study. What I've done has been posted here if you'd care to read it.

Those are the major ones I need to focus on. But there's some other stuff that I've been thinking about lately too.

I would like the first full-length play I write to be Mrs. Hawking. This piece is set in the Victorian era and about a sort of female Sherlock Holmes whose withdrawal from the world and growing distrust for humanity seems to be getting in the way of her good work until she is forced by her well-meaning nephew to take on a young lady housekeeper, Mary Stone, who turns out to be the companion she's been lacking. I love mysteries, I love that period setting, and I love the dynamic between the embittered middle-aged lady and the young woman whose perseverance through her hard luck begins to draw Mrs. Hawking out of her shell. And perhaps it's naughty of me to cast already, but it helps that I am totally imagining crearespero* as Mrs. Hawking and nennivian* as Mary. <3 There are a couple of scenes from this piece posted here.

There's also my short humorous larp idea, Break a Leg. My fourth (FOURTH!) metatheatrical piece to date, this humorous two-hour larp will have eight players as members of a dysfunctional theater troupe whose leading lady has been found suddenly dead two hours before the curtain is supposed to go up. I have already bid it for SLAW in November and Intercon in March, but I am planning on finishing it way before then. It's small enough that I could probably get several runs in beforehand. It will involve an interactive environment and sides for in-game performance opportunities... which I will have to write. :-)

Those are the majors ones. There's other things I plan on working on eventually, and though they are not currently at my mind's forefront, sometimes I noodle on them as well. Imperium, my Ancient Roman larp. Sundan, my Shakespearean-style epic tragedy about a man who destroys himself and everyone around him when the woman he loves marries another man. And a possible project for the next semester of school that is percolating in the dark recesses of my mind...

But these are the ones you can expect to see more of in the near future.

From FALLEN - Father confessor

This is another piece of Fallen that I wrote for school. It builds upon this piece, where Julien offers to hear Gabriel's confessions in hopes of helping ease his burden. But he learns that Gabriel's burden is greater than he'd ever guessed, and he has no idea how he's going to find the way to help him.

~~~

In a few months Julien had another appointment in the rectory besides the office hours he kept. Sundays were long, busy days for the pastor of St. Michael’s, but even this far into the evening his work wasn’t yet done. Instead he came here for his standing engagement late on Sunday nights.

Julien took his place inside the confessional and waited. It was appropriate to allow the suggestion of anonymity with the divider between them, but this particular penitent never entered through the door as the priest did. Often Julien never saw him at all. Instead he preferred to climb his way down from the ceiling and take his place behind that opaque screen to make his weekly reconciliation.

Quiet and closed-off as he was at most times, the priest found him to be shockingly frank and straightforward in the confessional. It was as if his guilt made it almost a compulsion, one that made him crave the structure of the sacrament. Julien did his best to accommodate this in what ways he could, offering all the strict formalities that Gabriel seemed accustomed to.

When he was sure of the creature’s arrival, he cleared his throat to begin. “Good evening, my son.”

“Good evening, Father.” It was always remarkable to hear him speak from the other side of the screen. Gabriel had a fine voice; that never ceased to strike him. But for some indefinable, alien quality, he could have been confessing a human.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” Gabriel went on. “It’s been seven days since my last confession.” It was always seven days; Gabriel came to him once a week, every week, with strict reliability. They had established a routine, the two of them; it was always here, and it was always now.

It had been some time in coming, this arrangement. Julien found he had a great deal to learn about his new penitent before he could minister to him. Cortes already knew him, Gabriel had said. Julien had been resistant to the notion on the grounds that the confessor himself was to be the conduit, not the source, of Christ’s forgiveness. Often the penitent took comfort from the particular priest they spoke to, and of course some were better at counseling than others. But there was no such bond there— instead it was that Cortes had been familiar with Gabriel’s history, had seen the falls and the shadows and the questions that everyone had asked all his life. It was not that Cortes had particular empathy for him. It was that Gabriel would not have to speak of shames that were already understood.

It was all of those things that Julien had to learn. The violence in him, or the potential for it, was terrible, it seemed, and the very idea of it welling up from him left many in frank terror. The incidents of real harm were thankfully few, and not since he’d been quite young, but still they served to prove that when that violence was roused, it was terrible to behold. The Ministers did their best to direct it toward the fight against hell, but the danger always lurked that he might lose himself to it, and if it happened, no one would be able to control him. Gabriel’s own awareness of it was razor-keen, and it did not require Julien’s insight to see how deeply the knowledge cut him.

As for the impression the came from the demon, slowly but surely he was learning to interpret them. They did not come as simple flashes of truth as they frequently did with normal people; instead he had to reach through the thick heaviness that constantly enveloped him. After just a few months at St. Michael’s, Julien was coming to know that feeling very well. It came sheeting off Goran with the fury of rain in a downpour, while in Gabriel’s soul it hung like a heavy, pervasive fog. It had taken some time and study, but he had come to understand that Gabriel’s may have looked different, but it meant the same thing.

Still, at these times he did his best to shut off his perceptions that way. While some things simply came to him, he preferred not to probe in the confessional. It was more right, in such a vulnerable position, to take only what they offered of their own free will. Gabriel in particular he wanted to allow to speak his mind.

And Gariel spoke. “It happened again.”

Julien chose his words carefully. “The… the violent thoughts?”

“Killing thoughts.”

“That is serious.”

“It’s what I am.”

Julien sighed. “Who this time?”

“Amalia Van Doren.”

“Why?”

“She was afraid.”

“I… I’m sorry?”

“She’s terrified of me.”

“That— that isn’t very fair of you—”

Gabriel’s voice grew hard. “She’s never said a word to me. Not in my life. I hate her.”

“She is weak and doesn’t know. You must learn to forgive—”

“I hate her because she’s right!”

“Child—”

“You don’t know what it does. Her pupils dilate. Her heart starts pounding. I can… I can smell it on her. It… it wakes the urge.”

“Child—”

The edge of outrage flattened from his voice, and he sank back into that familiar self-loathing. “I am the monster she thinks I am.”

Julien raked his hair back with his fingers. “Is it growing worse?”

“It’s always like this.”

“I’m sorry,” Julien sighed. “But, child… you have not done it.”

“What?”

“You never hurt Amalia, for all that you wanted to.”

“No,” he concede, his voice almost a growl. “But I would have. If I’d stayed there a little longer.”

“Gabriel, the world is full of things we’re tempted to do.”

“Not like this.”

“When you are overcoming that temptation, you are doing God’s word. What more can any of us do?”

“Most people don’t have this… this thing inside them.”

“What inside them, child?”

“You know, Father.”

“Tell me.” He had to make Gabriel say it.

“The… need for it.”

“There’s violence in everyone. Man is a predator, too.”

“Not like this!” he cried again, snarled it, fiercely enough to make Julien freeze. “Predators are hungry, Father! This is not hunger! I just want to…”

He trailed off, and Julien could hear his teeth gnash, a habit he had often when he was frustrated. Frustrated, or trying to control himself.

The priest swallowed hard. “You haven’t done what you want to do.”

“But I have. Braden still has the scars.”

“You were a child then!”

“Everyone still remembers! If I’d been a dog, they would have put me down.”

“A dog wouldn’t have been able to stop himself.”

Gabriel said nothing, and Julien heaved a sigh, listening to the leathery rustle of his wings. There would be no more discussion through this moment of malaise. They would have to pick this up when Gabriel unburied himself. There was no reaching him now. “Pray with me now.”

He complied, his voice low and tired-sounding. “Lord Jesus Christ, you are the Lamb of God; you take away the sins of the world... Through the grace of the Holy Spirit restore me to friendship with your Father, cleanse me from every stain of sin in the blood you shed for me, and raise me to new life for the glory of your name.”

“Amen,” said Julien. He assigned Gabriel his usual penance, some Bible verses to study and the appropriate passages in the catechesis, with a handful of chores around the grounds that felt spectacularly inadequate to calming a murderous rage. He made the sign of the cross before himself in the air. “The Lord has remembered his mercy, and you are forgiven. Go forth and sin no more.”

“Thank you. Amen.” He heard the deep breath flow through that cavernous chest, hissing through his fangs and growling through his throat. “I wanted to kill you too, Father.”

The young priest’s eyes went wide.

“When I watched you in the rectory. You were afraid of me then, too.”

Before Julien could decide how to respond, he heard the demon climb out of the confessional and begin making his way up the wall. He sat there, listening to the scrape of claws on wood and stone and struggling to think of something to say. Finally he threw open the door and leaped out to catch Gabriel before he disappeared, craning his head back to search the rafters for a glimpse. But it was no use. Julien still had nothing, and he was already gone.

The priest exhaled heavily and pressed his forehead against the dark cool wood of the doorway to the confessional. The sacrament was meant to cleanse and release the penitent, but not so for Gabriel. Despite his best intentions, Julien could not seem to puzzle out what he needed, this tangled tortured spirit, this Gordian knot of a creature. There was no peace to be found in that soul.

Julien collapsed back onto his seat in the confessional. He bowed his head and begged, the heartfelt prayer of a man who knew only heartfelt prayer.

I want to help him, but I don’t know how. Show me the way, Lord, and I will do it.

From FALLEN - Confession with the new priest

This is part of what I wrote for my most recent science fiction and fantasy submission. This is another part of Fallen, this time from the point of view of a young priest named Father Julien Alencon. He is French and gifted with a power he calls "insight," the ability to receive flashes of truth about the natures of people around him. He was chosen to replace the last chaplain at the school of St. Michael's because of his record and his power. This is the beginning of his relationship with Gabriel.

~~~

As the professors held office hours, so did Julien too, working quietly on something or other at a small desk in the rectory until someone would come into to see him. Members of the community could come speak to him there, attending to school business, receiving spiritual counseling, or taking a moment in the confessional for those seeking the delivery of the sacrament. But then, just a few days into this habit, he noticed it again.

It was the presence, the strange tangled presence unlike any he’d ever encountered before. It was Gabriel, unmistakably, and he realized with a start that if he was feeling it now it meant Gabriel was here, somewhere close by but completely unseen. More thrown than he would ever have guessed, he sat stiffly in his chair trying to decide what to do, until after a while the presence receded, and Julien felt he was alone again. He allowed himself a futile glance around the empty hall, casting about for some action to take, and finding none. This went on for quite a few days, the onset of that creeping sensation seizing him up with a fear so base it startled him. He would just keep on with whatever business he was about, assiduously pretending he did not feel like some scurrying prey animal that could sense the eyes of the predator upon him.

That feeling disgusted him. This was not why he was brought here, to cower away from the phenomenon they had enlisted his help to understand. He could not keep avoiding that which he was meant to confront. He had a duty to uphold.

On the fifth day, when he could sense the creature’s approach, Julien laid down his pen and took a deep breath, slowly in and out. He considered a moment, then asked the room at large, “Gabriel? Is that you?”

The silence in response was long enough that Julien began to wonder if he was mistaken, but finally he was answered by that same low, even voice.

“Yes, Father.”

Suddenly he felt profoundly unsure of himself, the fear threatening to freeze him up again. He cleared his throat and clumsily he pressed on. “You know, you’re very welcome to come in. If you’d like.”

The invitation sounded silly even to his ears. Gabriel already was in, for all he knew. He could be anywhere, and the little mouse he was watching would never know it.

Up in the rafters there was a flapping sound, like the whipping of leather. Julien’s gaze snapped to the ceiling. There Gabriel was, emerging from the shadowed high corner of the hall. On all fours he climbed across the broad beam and sprang off on coiled-steel hind legs. With the spreading of his batlike wings he dropped in a controlled fall to touch down gracefully on the floor just to the side of the desk. It took all Julien’s self-possession not to go lurching out of his chair.

Instead, he folded his hands and looked all the way seven feet up to meet Gabriel’s eyes. He did his best to give a pleasant smile. “That’s better, I think.”

The draconian head nodded, once. The slitted golden eyes fixed on him again, as intensely as they had at their first meeting, then turned down to linger on the floor. That small thing softened him somehow, made him seem to Julien suddenly like a shy boy looking at his shoelaces.

Encouraged, Julien went on. “I am glad you came. We haven’t seen one another since our meeting, have we?”

The demon made no answer. The priest struggled to fill the silence. “Is there something I can do for you?”

It seemed at first that Gabriel may not answer again. Finally he said, “I used to come here to make confession.”

“Confession?” Julien’s guts went cold. “Qu’est ce-que— do you, ah… have you something in particular? To confess?” His eyes went to the curved claws, the long muzzle of wicked fangs, and immediately his imagination began to fire. He fought to keep his expression under control; he could not let fear make up his mind for him.

Gabriel’s eyes began to wander around the room, looking anywhere except at the priest. “I used to come every week. Before Father Cortes became too sick.”

That surprised Julien. That was a habit he associated with the little old ladies back in Marseilles. “Ah. I see. Well, I am happy to hear you anytime you wish.”

Again Gabriel had no answer.

“Is… it that all right?”

His face had so little expression it was hard to read, and Julien had not yet learned to parse out what his insight absorbed from this creature. But on impulse he decided to try anyway, casting out and focusing as closely as he could. He could not trace the strands of the tangle, but amid the swirling threads there was an air of something that radiated unmistakably of sorrow. Julien held on to that, that which he could understand, that which could build connection between one soul and another. He knew nothing of demons, but if he knew nothing else, he knew how to reach out to those who were in pain.

“Gabriel? Is something wrong?”

“No, sir. It’s only…” Those golden eyes flicked back briefly, then again away. “Father Cortes knew me already.”

It was an odd thing to say. Julien had not been hearing confession long, but it seemed off somehow, that such a thing should concern him. The sacrament of confession was not to be delivered from a position of personal investment, at least not as far as the confessor was concerned. But he did not want to alienate him now, not when the connection was beginning to form.

The priest leaned back in his chair and spread his hands. “Well, then… perhaps I should too.”

Gabriel actually looked at him then, not like a predator for once, almost the way a normal person would, and nodded. He turned abruptly to the wall and seemed ready to scale it to leave the way he came in, but then he paused, and his sinuous neck turned back over his shoulder.

“He knew what I am, I mean. My history. All of it.”

Julien stood. “I can learn.”

Those long fangs ground against each other. “So I’ll have to talk about it.”

From FALLEN - "The Bell"

I wrote this short piece as a submission for my science fiction and fantasy class. This is a scene from a fantasy novel I have been thinking of writing for quite some time. The idea is that after a great battle with the forces of hell, a team of people from a religious university that trains people with special powers find what seems to them to be a baby demon. A nun named Magdalena speaks up for his life, names him Gabriel, and raises him at the university to fight on their side. Still, he is regarded as a monster by many and struggles a great deal with the question of whether or not he really is one, particularly when he is confronted by how holy objects have the power to hurt him.

This part is inspired in large part by the Night on Bald Mountain segment of Fantasia. I do so love my Catholic ceremony, imagery, philosophy, and issues of guilt. ;-)

~~~

In his explorations of the buildings of the school, Gabriel had gone many times through the rafters of the bell tower. The time at St. Michael’s was often kept with the ringing of bells, from the beginning of the school day at seven in morning and every hour until the day’s end at nine at night. The bells housed in the tower there were a varied assortment, some new, some relics brought in from across the world, burnished bright or tarnished with age, plainly made or ornately designed. He had examined each of them in turn as climbed. Some were for the keeping of time, some were for occasions based on their histories. But there was one among them more special than any.

She was a grand and ancient bell, French-made and rich brass, so artfully cast and engraved that even in the three hundred years since her making she was still sound and lovely. She had hung in Chartres, in Barcelona, even in Rome, before her gifting to the school had brought her to her place of honor in the tower. He had seen her there, and saw the words etched into her flanged edge. Her name was La Voix de l’Espoir, the Voice of Hope. Beneath her name there was an inscription in Latin, Hear me and do not despair.

She did not sound often; she was too old and precious for that, only on occasions of deep significance. They saved her to celebrate Easter and Christmas. To mourn the loss of the beloved dead. To commemorate moments of importance for the institution of St. Michael’s. Today was one such moment. Today a new priest was arriving to be installed as minister to the school, and that meant the holy bell would ring in honor of the beginning of the new day.

Gabriel had risen early to scale the rooftops this morning, but not the bell tower. He had chosen the steeple over the library instead. It was climbed so rarely that it was sure that no one would be there at this early hour. That was as Gabriel wanted it, somewhere out of the way, somewhere he’d be certain to be alone, within hearing distance of the bell. Of course, it was difficult to move out of hearing distance of this bell.

There was no wind that morning, and there was no place higher than the steeple to glide from, so Gabriel had to climb. He was thankful for how early it was, as no one was likely to see him do it. Braden didn’t like it when he scrambled up the walls like a squirrel when everyone was looking on. He also had to take care not to damage the stone façade; it would have been easier to just punch his talons in as he climbed, but he didn’t want to any more damage than he had to. Braden wouldn’t like that either.

It was only a few minutes to seven when he reached the balcony. It was empty except for a few folding chairs, left there by the occasional student who ascended all those stairs to find a quiet lonely place to study. From here you could see the whole campus, the rooftop of almost every other building of the school. Gabriel liked high places; for a brief while, they allowed him to forget what he was.

It was moments to seven. Carefully, deliberately, he leaned over the parapet and braced his claws on the stone. Head bowed, every cord of muscle in his body tensed, he waited.

The bell tolled, and Gabriel shuddered.

One.

He could not recall just how old he’d been the first time he’d heard it, such things did not keep easily in his head. But he’d been at Saint Michael’s as long as he could remember, surely it had happened since his infancy, some Christmas morning, some Easter day. It had to have come early enough that he learned early what was coming, and what that coming meant.

His whole body burst through with the pain.

Two.

The tolling of bells was a common occurrence at St. Michael's, with a number of small ringers in the tower pealing all day long to mark the passage of time. Every day of his life spent at the academy he had heard them call out hour by hour. At their sounding Gabriel had never felt so much as a twinge. But the keepers of the hours were ordinary secular chimes. La Voix was a bell of the church.

The sound sank into him, the deep resonance of a holy instrument, its sacred nature giving it a power beyond the simple enormity of its voice. Its tone was imbued with all the divine quality of any object bearing the auspice of the church-- beautiful, powerful, and utterly unbearable to the hearing of a demon.

Three.

His claws trembled against the parapet, aching to gouge into the stone, but instead he clenched them into fists, so tightly that his talons sank into the scales of his palms. Sometimes in church they rang special hand bells to mark the consecration of the bread and wine. From the rafters were he lurked during mass he had felt the swift punch of their high sharp voices, like the darting of knives in quick succession. Their blows pierced but were brief as they chimed out a few times and were silenced. Gabriel could endure them with no great struggle. But La Voix was huge, La Voix was resonant, and La Voix had received the Baptism.

It was the Baptism of the Bells that gave it that power. Washed with holy water by the hands of a bishop, anointed without by the oil of the infirm and within by the sacred chrism, filled by smoke of a fuming censor. With these sacraments, the bishop’s prayer conferred upon it the power to protect from storms, call the faithful to prayer, and drive demons to flight.

He would not fly. Nor would he howl; not a cry, not a sound. Only the jags of his ragged breath, and the bell.

Four.

Every peal seized him like a vice, yet twisted the joining of his bones until he thought he might be wrenched apart. He clamped one claw over the ridges of brow, as if to hold his skull together. His serpentine neck curled inward, tucking his head nearly to his chest. There were many things the apocrypha suggested about demons that posed no danger to Gabriel. He could hear mass, say prayers, and without fear enter into a church. Magdalena held it up as evidence that he was no monster beyond redemption. Others like Braden were unconvinced— the workings of Hell were of course not fully understood, and never would be. Besides, there were still so many things that branded him unholy. He was burned by the water in the font, he could enter the church but never stand upon the altar, and the pain that exploded in him at sound of the church bell.

Five.

His whole body curled inward on itself. His tail, usually snaking in constant movement, had twisted itself up in contortions. He went to great lengths to ensure he was always alone when the bell rung, because there was no way he could hide what it did to him.

Once it had happened in front of Magda, the night when Rodrigo Cortez had died. It had been some time in coming; he had elected to stop treatment and come back to his place at the school to meet the end. She had come to his room to speak to him, to tell him the end was near, to speak to him of how felt. But when La Voix rang out to tell the world the priest was dead, she saw for the first time the misery it beat into it him with every clang of its clapper.

He remembered the shock and horror on her face, then look of dawning realization as she understood, transforming swiftly into that horrible gut-wrenching pity that shamed him to his soul, to see her reminded yet again that this was his nature, to be ever wounded by holy things. She had darted for the door, given a burst of frantic energy in her upset, but he managed to throw himself in front of it and desperately shake his head, refusing to let her leave. He could not speak in his agony, but the meaning was clear, that she could not stop the bell, not without letting everyone know why. She had spent more than twenty years trying to make them believe he was not a monster beyond redemption. She could not reveal this without giving them one more to reason to denounce him for what he was. So she had stood there and watched, quietly sobbing behind her hands, unable even to comfort him for fear of his agonized thrashing. She could give out the means to tear him down, or she could let him suffer in silence. But she knew him well enough to know which pain he’d rather bear. And so he did, every time, bracing his battered body and counting the strokes.

Six.

His knees buckled and he collapsed onto all fours. He gasped helplessly through the tight locking of his teeth. He could not bear much more, his jaw would crack, his skull would split, his insides would twist apart. He wondered if this was what it felt like to be dying, if the pain was so great that it would actually kill him.

But then at last, there rang the final toll.

Seven.

He almost screamed. He almost writhed and thrashed and struck heedlessly at the stone. He could have torn the balcony to pieces in his pain. But he tensed his every muscle through the bell’s final peal and let it take one last blow through him.

The tremors stopped as the toll faded into silence.

He sank down against his forearms, pressing his snout into the floor. He held still a moment, his breath evening out, the deep permeating ache slowly melting from his bones. Unsteadily he stood and stretched, shrugging his shoulders and spreading his wings as wide as they could go. It was better this way, better to hide it. There would be no more speculation, no more constant sidelong glances wondering at the true depths of his monstrousness. He was debated and prodded and suspiciously regarded enough.

But it was more than only that. He did not want the bell silenced. This was penance. Penance for the thing that he was.
He blew out hard through his still-clenched teeth. He straightened slowly, releasing by inches the tension in his muscles. Unlike his burns and scars, this left no marks that anyone could see, nothing that remained after the ordeal was ended. The pain had disappeared, gone as completely as if it had never been. There was only that strange lingering weakness, soul-deep, that hung in his limbs like a weight before it too faded into nothingness.

Gabriel stepped out onto the ledge of the balcony and spread his wings to catch the wind. Seven in the morning on the day the new priest was to arrive. There was no sense in him remaining up in the library steeple any longer. It was time for church.

He sprang powerfully off the ledge, as lithe as strong as ever, as if the agony of the last few moments had never happened, as if the bell had never rung except for only the clear, true sound echoing in his thoughts.

God, that bell was beautiful.

Writing good literature as a good feminist

I want to bring my feminism into my writing. With this residency, as it was in the last, occasionally something comes up in texts that strikes me as unfeminist. In one fellow student's script, the main female character was leered at by literally every male character in the story. I found this to be an unfair portrayal of men and gratuitously sexualizing to the woman. I could say "I think you overdid it with the leering, it feels unrealistic," because that's a critique of the writing. But because we're not here to judge the social responsibility of the script, it would not have been appropriate for me to say, "I think this is an unfeminist portrayal."

Still, I do actually feel that stronger, more fully realized characterization will necessarily be feminist. So I have a responsibility to myself to monitor my writing for it. Now, I would not say that just because a piece is not Specifically Feminist that makes it Unfeminist. Sometimes the story you need to tell is not going to have those markers we are encouraged to look for As Proof of Feminist Sensibility-- an easy example would be passing the Bechdel Test --just as a matter of course. Doesn't mean it takes place in an unegalitarian world, or is evidence of unegalitarian thought. In an ideal world, we'd all be so feminist that you could just choose in a vacuum what to include and it would always come purely from the demands of the story; respect for people of all genders would be taken for granted. But sometimes this comes about because we are conditioned to not think to include those things, so at times we need to make efforts to be mindful.

So I should make efforts. In Just So, for example, the two fussy, pretentious main characters were modeled off Frasier and Niles Crane, so my first instinct was to make them men. But it occurred to me almost immediately that there was literally zero reason why they had to be. And I've resolved to myself to not just go with male characters by default (as many of us are often inclined), so in a case where it mattered so little I decided to take the opportunity to switch. Now I personally think they're much funnier as middle-aged, out-of-touch society woman than they would be as anything else. Now I have an interesting, unusual piece to my credit-- something funny, with women, where the characters' genders mattered so little that, hey, if you wanted to have them played as men, you totally could. Bechdel would be proud. ;-)

As a side note, during the in-class workshop on a whim I chose two male classmates as my readers. They "played" them as women but didn't affect themselves in any way. It pleased me how smoothly it worked. It also struck me that they would probably be hilarious as drag roles. I love the notion that you could play my little show so many different ways-- straight up, as two middle-aged ladies, gendered-swapped as equally stuffy, pretentious middle-aged men, or dragged with two male actors dressed up as women. Maybe I should add an author's note to that effect. :-)

Of course, sometimes I screw up. Fallen, a piece that has a lot of personal significance to me and one I hope I get to work on in my scifi/fantasy independent study this semester, has a pretty blatant example of what some refer to as "manpain," when a female character suffers and the truly important emotional response for the story's trajectory is not from her but from a male character who cares about her. Perhaps what falls under "Women in Refrigerators" Syndrome in it, when a female character undergoes trauma specifically in order to facilitate the emotional journey of the male character.

But being aware of it, I can work to subvert it. I can acknowledge the unfairness of such a situation. Now, Gabriel is my main character, his reaction IS most important to the story I want to tell, but that doesn't mean I should make Rachel into a less complete being by denying her a reaction to her own suffering. I can make her feelings, her journey because of this terrible thing happening TO HER, important as well. It can be about her too, not just what it does and leads to for my male protagonist. In being mindful about what our storytelling choices can mean, we can tell the stories we want to tell in a way that allows feminism to keep our characters fully realized.