WeWriWa: A World Apart . . . Alone

We all know what it’s like to be different, to feel different, to squirm in uncomfortable situations not of our making in a foreign environment. That’s where Kip Terriot, my hero in PRINCE OF DREAMS finds himself after last week’s excerpt. What makes that truth harder to accept is knowing that it places an unbreachable barrier between him and the woman he loves.

Ophelia’s concern reduced him, her encouragement rebuilding where he was weak. The only thing that kept him from acting upon the rightness of them being together was the echo of Colin's litany of all that was wrong, because he had no arguments.

They were different, a difference Kip couldn't explain away or skirt around as if it wasn't important. She was a human female, the daughter of the man he was working to destroy and nothing about that added up to them together in any possible scenario.

As the son of their clan's king, he'd questioned who he was all his life, but never had he wondered about what he was until here in this world. Here, he felt unnatural, not only different but unacceptable. He'd been raised to keep a careful distance from humankind, and when close proximity was unavoidable, to follow strict rules - Don't flaunt your strength, don't display your natural abilities, and don't let them see you aren't like them. He'd asked his mother why, if they were so much stronger, they had to be afraid of the delicate human beings. Not to protect themselves, was her puzzling reply, for they had nothing to fear from Uprights, but rather to protect how the weaker kind would seek to use them or eradicate them out of fear and ignorance as vicious, uncontrollable predators instead of embracing them as thinking, caring beings.

As Ophelia Brady would fear him if she saw his true face and form.

What a wretched place to be. One of my favorite songs sums up the future he sees for himself at this point as he struggles to do the right thing for the both of them.


Or is he underestimating her?

I feel his bittersweet uncertainty this week while bundling up in the freezing temperatures, saying goodbye to friends and co-workers I’ve enjoyed while moving on to a new, uncharted future where there are no guarantees. But then how can you reap rewards without first taking the risk?

Happy change of seasons, fellow Warriors! Go forth boldly in pursuit of your dreams.

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