Valkyrie's Page of Wonder

May 27, 2007

Confusion

May 26, 2007

Fallen Angel - Familiar Faces

The warm summer sun pours through the open window of Xannon’s room and splays across his face. Today was one of the few days he’s had off since he started work at the town watch six months ago. He still stayed at the inn, not having made enough money to get his own place. Plus he liked working at the bar at nights. It let him get to know the people of the town.
So far there had been no direct attacks on the city, a feeling that he never had in Hirogei. Peace was something that came naturally here. If only he could forget the life he lost and the love that was taken from him.
Xannon rolls out of bed and starts getting dressed. Since this was his day off from the town watch, Skuld makes him work downstairs in the morning instead of at night. Xannon didn’t mind too much, it allowed him time at night by himself to ponder his roll in his new world.
“How did things end up like this?” Xannon asks his reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Does someone hate me or am I just that unlucky?”
He finishes getting ready and heads down to the bar to begin work. As he straps on his apron and sets up behind the bar, a familiar face enters the bar.
“Gatomon?” he asks himself, “What is she doing this far south?”
Gatomon walks up to the bar and notices Xannon she studies him for a moment then asks, “Do I know you? You look kinda familiar.”
“I don’t believe we’ve met before. But, I do have one of those faces that look like everyone. What can I get for you?”
“Indeed… I’ll take a glass of water to start. The trip here from Hirogei is not an easy one and my mouth is parched.”
“So I’ve heard. Are you here for a reason or are you just passing through?”
“I’m trying to find someone. We heard some reports about a swordsman with magical skills showing up here a couple of months ago and we’re hoping to recruit him into our ranks.”
Xannon stifles a laugh before asking, “Which ranks would those be?”
Gatomon holds up the amulet around her neck, “The forces of Bast. This amulet is given to those who have shown great dedication to the goddess.”
“Ah, I see. So how goes the war? I thought the front lines were little further north than this.”
“They are, and yes, I’m in enemy territory, but there are some things worth risking your life for, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I agree there are things worth that, such as family and friends. But I wouldn’t risk my life just because someone told me to do something dangerous for no reason.”
“There are reasons for everything. Just because we are not told those reasons doesn’t give us the right to disobey orders.”
“If your commanders cannot trust you with the reasons for sending you into danger, how can you trust that they aren’t sending you for the wrong reasons?”
“Faith. You have to have faith in your superiors. Faith, in case you didn’t know, is believing in something when there is no evidence.”
“I know what faith is, but I have no faith in your Bast. Her actions toward me have destroyed what little faith there was.”
“Whatever she did, she did for a reason. The gods test our faith, and it seems that you failed.”
“Well, I don’t think your magical swordsman will want to join your goddess either.”
“Why’s that? Does he have something against her too?” Gatomon asks, confused.
“Something like that.”
“Perhaps if I could talk to him I could convince him to join. Do you know where I could find this swordsman?”
“That would be me,” Xannon states. “And like I said, I don’t want to join you or your goddess. This town is free of divine influence and we would like to keep it that way. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Under what authority?” Gatomon asks, visibly disturbed.
Xannon pulls aside his shirt revealing the symbol of the town watch, “Under authority of the town watch. You can leave peacefully, or I have you escorted out of the city. It’s your choice.”
“I will take my leave now,” Gatomon says, getting up and heading toward the door. “What name should I include in my report to Bast?”
“Lucky,” Xannon says. “Yeah, lucky she didn’t recognize me.”
“Lucky? Hmph. Very well. We will be watching you, Lucky. Perhaps one day you will change your mind.”
“I kind of doubt that, Gatomon.”
Gatomon stops and turns, “How do you know my name? I never told you.”
“Guess, I’m just lucky.”
“Yeesh, that was close.”
“Uh huh,” Gatomon replies, turning back around. “Bast is always watching over us. Always watching.”
Gatomon leaves and Xannon begins clearing off the bar.
“She wasn’t watching over her…” Xannon mumbles to himself.
“Something wrong?” Skuld asks from behind him.
“No, just having a little conversation with a priestess of Bast.”
“Did you tell her to leave? I don’t like having any priests or priestesses in my town.”
“Yes, I told her to leave.”
Despite the fact that Gatomon had gone, Xannon still felt her presence. Still felt Bast’s presence. Was she trying to apologize for what was done? Did he really care?
“Leave me alone, Bast. You took everything from me. There is nothing you can do to make me forgive you for that. I swear that one day; I will make you pay for your crimes. One way or another, you will pay.”

Distinguishing Characteristics

May 25, 2007

Stick Figures? Figures...

This weeks update has been delayed to introduce my new, uber-high quality, ultra fancy shmancy webcomic starring my characters from the Prophecy series. And now I bring to you Issue #1(In mint condition no less):

May 15, 2007

Morons...

To the idiot who just tried to run me off the road:

Having your turn signal on doesn't give you the right to change lanes. It it merely an indicator of your intentions. It in no way tells other drivers to move out of your way. You yield to them, not they to you. It was bad enough that you were moving over multiple lanes, but why did you insist on getting into my lane, into my exact spot in my lane, when the one right next to me was WIDE OPEN. And then, to top everything off, after I swerve off the road to avoid YOU hitting ME, you throw up your hands like it was my fault! People like you need to be shot, beaten, drugged, and left in the woods with the hungry bears.
Take your "The road is mine, get out of the way" attitude and stuff it! I may on occasion say that myself, but never have I intentionally changed lanes INTO someone expecting them to slow down or get out of the way. I always wait for space for my car even if I have to slow down to get behind someone or speed up to get in front of them.

--Rant Off--

Well other than that, I'm doing pretty good. Work is still work. Looks like I'll be doing an overnight service call, moving thing this weekend in Orangeburg, SC, which will suck. I still don't see why we are moving them. Why don't they just move everything themselves, and then call us over to make sure everything works. At least then they would only need one person, not three.
Sure they are one of our biggest service contracts, but since when does moving to a new building come under the contract? And if its not under the contract, why are they getting us to do it? Moving is not our job.
I'll let you know how things go with that. But for now it's time for work...well, past time but I had to rant about that stupid driver.

May 11, 2007

You know you play too much WoW when...

You pass by a wooden store sign and try to get the WANTED: quest from it.

You see an orange parking sticker with a white number and think its time to feed your pet.

May 08, 2007

Game Night

We had our game night this past Sunday and it went pretty well. We didn't have a lot of people show up, but we did make just enough burgers. Last Sunday we had invited the Pastor to the party and he said yes, so that morning at church we confirmed that he was coming and gave him directions. He's a very nice guy with good memory too. He learned everyones name super fast. Even picked up other peoples names during someone else's conversation.
James and Casper showed up and we had fun playing video games. Might have to do it again someday. James dominated in whatever boxing game he brought over, as well as in Dead or Alive 4. Casper and I were just about even in those two. We decided that Casper doesn't have too much musical talent at the moment after seeing him booed off stage repeatedly in Guitar Hero 2. I did pretty good but my arm and wrist are still recovering from hitting those chords. We even played Soul Caliber 3 but they got decimated by my experience, same happened with Halo2, but James managed to give me a run for my money.
Chris couldn't show cause they couldn't find anyone to watch the kids for them. Which is too bad cause it would have been fun doing a 4-player Halo2 match.
Kris showed up later after she got off work and ate and talked with Ann. Ann's parents were also there and played board games and card games with the pastor. We actually taught Pastor Mike and James how to play Parcheesi. But only Pastor Mike actually played.
Everyone who hadn't already seen the ferrets and their room loved them both. James especially, who had had a pair of ferrets before but had to give them up when he moved. He got in the room and played with them, and let them dig at his shoes, climb all over him. Kinda wish I had gotten pictures now.
All in all it was a good day. No one from Ann's work showed up, which is too bad, they missed out on a lot of fun times. Maybe they'll be able to make the next game night. I'll let you know when that is.

May 04, 2007

Loss

Saddness...eyes water...short breaths...can't breath...can't talk...arm feels numb...grief...river of tears...sobs...comforting touch...friendly voice...soft fur...innocent Rain...referred to the great physician.

They tug at your heart strings when they are alive and seem to rip out your heart when they go. She was the hardest loss for me so far. I can't explain why. Perhaps becuase we helped her go. Could we have done more? Was it the right thing to do? No matter how much consolation I get, the questions will still bother me. I just pray we did the right thing and Rainbow will greet us with open paws when we meet again at the Rainbow Bridge.

We Will Meet Again by VAST

Where have you gone
My love, my friend?
Somewhere without the rain
I feel afraid now
I feel alone
Will we meet again?

Can you recall what we once knew?
Somewhere without the pain
I feel afraid now
But not alone
We will meet again

I can't hear your voice
But you know I feel your soul

I can't hear your voice
But you know I feel your soul

Where have you gone
My love, my friend?
Somewhere without any pain
I'm not afraid
Now I'm not alone
We will meet again

May 03, 2007

Ferret Update

We took Rainbow to the vet today along with Aki and Taitou because she had lost use of her back legs and wasn't eating. We started feeding her baby food yesterday to keep her going. The doctor at Aidmore said that could be a tumor, broken bone, insulonoma, and cardiomyopathy, then referred us to Highland to perhaps get an ultrasound of the heart. Before leaving we got a blood glucose test done and the results were normal, ruling out insulonoma.
When we got to Highland, Dr. Walker checked her out and said that an ultrasound of a heart that small would require a cardiologist, but didn't recommend it anyway in this case. What he did recommend was an x-ray to check for broken bones in the back. When that revealed no broken bones, he decided it was either lymphoma, bruising, or a blood clot. If not one of those the prognosis wasn't too good. But, he prescribed prednisone as an anti-inflammatory, which would combat all three possibilities since it's also a mild chemotherapy drug and would shrink the lymphoma.
We are to give her the pred for 10 days and if conditions don't improve we are to contact him again. Hopefully the pred will work its wonders and Rainbow will start eating , walking, and be her happy "Gimme the gravy" self again. I'll keep you posted on any major changes her health.

Early this morning while we were feeding Rainbow we noticed a big red spot on Lupi's back leg. It looked like a burn of some kind. Kind of like if you slipped on a smooth surface and got a skinned knee or something. We took a picture and the doctor at Aidmore said it was probably a "hot spot" where someone was licking or chewing on him.
If we keep putting the Neosporin on it, it should help and eventually go away. Getting the A/C fixed probably won't hurt either. The guy to do that should be here shortly.

May 01, 2007

Gotta love work

Being a small business can be a good thing sometimes. But other times it can really cause problems. For example, today I opened the store at 10:00am like I always to expecting our sole technician to show up in a new minutes. At 10:30 I call him to check and make sure hes not dead and it turns out his power went out overnight so his alarm didn't go off. Ok, fine, I can deal with that, its happen to me when I was going to school. Managed to miss half of my 2 hour class that day.
But then one of our out of state service contract people call saying that they can't access that one piece of uber important software that I know very little about. I say OK i'll call our guy here and get them to give you a call. Hang up with him, call the tech, get voice mail. Ok, so I leave a voice mail and go on about my lovely morning. About five minutes later he calls back complaining that customer are leaving because he can't do his job. I explain the situation and inform him that I will call the tech again. I call again, actually get him this time, tell him whats going on and am about to give him the number to call when he says he doesn't have a pen but will be in the office soon. Alright whatever, I'll tell him then. Five minutes pass, another call from the customer this one from the Receptionist saying they have a guy who can't access the program. I say, yeah, I know I'm handling it. That was about...ten minutes ago. Still waiting on the both my onsite tech and my bench tech.
And then I got to spend 30 minutes on the phone listening to the lady talk about her PC problem which could have been summed up in two sentences: "My PC won't load windows. When it was working, I couldn't connect to the internet." Holy crap, she wanted to recount her entire PC problems which involved Gateway Support, the Geek Squad, Charter Tech Support, of which none of them knew they were doing.
Anyway...back to work. Everyone else has shown up now.

Fallen Angel - Visitation

Sarah dances across an open field followed closely by Xannon. She giggles and twirls happily. Xannon stops and watches her, smiling at how beautiful and carefree she is.
The sky starts to grow dark and Xannon tries to run to her side. No matter how fast he runs he can’t seem to catch up to her. Sarah continues to dance unaware of the darkness. A tiger appears from a dark corner and begins to prance around Sarah, then without warning it lunges at Sarah and slashes her across the chest. Xannon calls out but no words escape his mouth. He watches in horror as the tiger literally tears Sarah to shreds.
Stepping over the fallen remains of Sarah, the tiger spots Xannon and charges.
“Sarah!” Xannon yells out, sitting straight up in bed, covered in sweat.
He breathes heavily for a few moments, as the images play through his mind. Resting his head in his hand he reaches over and checks the time.
“Three in the morning…”
He swings his legs over the edge of the bed and rests there a moment.
“Not much point in trying to get back to sleep now.”
He gets up and heads for the shower to clean up. Sarah being attacked by the tiger had been haunting his dreams since he arrived. Usually it just woke him up and he went back to sleep, but lately it’s seemed more real, as if he could smell the blood. Those nights he would be scared awake and usually stayed awake the rest of the night, scared that whatever that tiger represented was waiting for him in the dream world.
Xannon exits the shower and gets dressed for work. His day normally started with the morning watch at sunrise, but on the days he couldn’t sleep he would head out of the city to a rocky outcropping that overlooked the valley to the west. He quietly makes his way down the hall and down the stairs to the outside. As he pushes the door open the cool night air chills his face and arms. He pushes through and starts toward the town gate.
“The tiger again?” the guard at the gate asks as Xannon approaches.
Xannon nods and the guard opens the small door beside the gate. As he makes his way to the boulder where he normally sat, a familiar presence enters his mind. He can tell at once that it’s Bast.
“Why do you torture me?” Xannon asks.
“I am only here to help you,” Bast answers.
“Like you helped Sarah?”
“I helped her as much as I could. Her wounds were fatal.”
“The body is just a shell, Bast. They taught us that at school. A shell can be healed, fixed, repaired, and even brought back.”
“I never said the wounds were bodily. There are forces at work here far beyond your comprehension.”
“Then help me to understand. Tell me why she had to die.”
“She had to die for reasons you cannot understand, no matter how many times I would try to explain. But you must understand that she, just like you, is destined for great things. All I can tell you is that one day, you will be reunited.”
“In life, or in death?”
“That decision will be yours to make.”
Xannon feels her presence leave and he left alone on the mountain side over looking the valley below. The sun had not yet risen but cast enough ambient light to make the valley visible. Far below the animals had begun to stir from their slumber. Xannon watches the animals and thinks about what Bast had told him: “One day, you will be reunited.”
“How long must I wait for that day, Bast? How many days, weeks, months, or years must I suffer with this pain?”
Another presence descends on the area and Xannon looks around but sees nothing. The presence seems sinister, full of anger and spite. The presence felt nearly like Xannon felt; full of hatred and anger. As the presence continued to permeate the area, Xannon began to feel a connection to it.
“She lies…” A voice whispers.
“Who’s there?” Xannon asks, turning to look for the source of the voice.
“She let her die…”
“What do you mean?”
“She had a choice and she chose to kill her…”
“What choice did she have?”
“She could have chosen to end the war, but instead she chose to kill her and drive you away.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why would she do that?”
“Because she would have lost. She chose to kill her to have a second chance of winning the war. I can tell she was here. Trying to win you back no doubt, but you made quite an exit, there is no chance for you to go back. What are you going to do now?”
New thoughts rushed through Xannon’s mind. Was this new voice telling the truth? If it was it changed his entire view of Bast.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I don’t gain anything by lying. The truth will set you free to make your own choices. You know now that Bast will sacrifice others for her own ends. Yehova is no different.”
“What about you? Do you sacrifice people for your own ends?”
“Of course, but I find ways to sacrifice their people and not mine. I must leave you now, but one day I will send my servant to your village, you can choose to join me then.”
“Who are you?”
The presence fades and Xannon question is left unanswered. The sun begins its rise over the mountains shining light into the houses of the town. Confused by the double visitation, he heads back into town.