FRIDAY!!!!

I love Fridays. I come home from school, sit around, watch How I Mat Your Mother (great show that), consider practicing my cello for the lesson I have the next day,  contemplate the overall general state of life at that moment, and wish that I had a root beer that I could drink in my basement, a big bowl of jelly beans and a very, very good book. The only problems with this Friday are as follows:

• Geneva has weather issues. Very serious weather issues. All December, it's like early fall, we get to January, and it's like we're sudden living at the north pole. Eight inches of snow on today alone, and more in the foreseeable future.  Yes, I love snow, I've put up with it every winter of my life, but when it comes in harsh amounts and we are expeiriencing what appears to be the 2nd blizzard in a row, it gets annoying.
• I have to find a biography n Joan of Arc. Biographies aren't interesting to begin with, but when you try to find one that's "reasonable to your age level" it get nigh on impossible, even when the subject is someone as cool as Joan of Arc.
• My best friend is grounded. The only person my age in the neighborhood full of 5th graders and old people, and he's grounded. I'm stranded in a nice, white winter wonderland. This is going to be one long basement book banger.

Quite thankfully, there is a light. Wings of the Wicked is coming out at the end of January, and I cannot wait. Plus, snow=incredible sledding adventures.  I'm getting out there on my flexible flyer (If you don't know what it is, look it up. Flexible flyers are the best sleds of all time, even if I've probably outgrown mine.) 

Anywho. Have you seen the new Mortal Instruments cover? Abosute sweetness, if I do say so myself. Do have any idea when the movie is coming out? Is there a movie coming out?

You know what I'm starting to find interesting? When I was younger, I'd pick up a book, any book, and it was a straight path to awesome. No matter hat the book, or the topic, or the annoying habits of the characters, I would love it. Now a days, I pick up a book and I think "That was good, could've been better, but still pretty good." There are very few honestly excellent books. It's a great difference from how I view books when I was younger and now. What changes? A book is always a book, but something you may have loved 2 years ago may come across as beyond awful now. When do our tastes begin to change? Why do they change?

Onto writing!

Mauria stood before Nyra, still as a stone and just as unyielding. Nyra had come to hate Mauria in the past few years, even away, Mauria had become a constant plague and worry on her mind. Nyra had known Mauria a long time. Together, they had fought back the armies that had threatened to destroy the culture and people they shared so much with. Mauria had become like a mother to Nyra with everything she had taught her. But Nyra had never forgotten who Mauria as, the real and true Mauria. 
Mauria was a great Journeyer of Old. The supposed last of her kind. The legends of her and others expeditions were great and far surpassed Nyra's and those of the Journeyers of Ne. Some vital spark had been lost when Montoria had ceased to call itself the land of the Journeyers, the Rangers. The Journeyers of old had fought with all they had, they were the fierce gaurdians of all, traveling the lands of the three realms. 
Times had indeed changed though. The Journeyers of new were of an entirely different breed, and in Nyra's eyes, Mauria was the one flaw, the one painful bump that stopped the Blood from continuing on into the future. 
Nyra feared Mauria as much as she loved her. For Mauria was the one threat to the society that held peace. Nyra knew the whispers of legends, Mauria the Great, Mauria the Changer. Where Mauria went, change was quick to follow, no land could live in true peace with her near, so Nyra had called Mauria, her Champion, here to do one thing, and one thing alone. Nyra had thought long and hard on a solution to this problem and had come up with only one answer, a verdict that she did not want to deliver, but truly believed that she must.


"Mauria," Nyra descended from her high throne, her silver skirts sweeping the floor. She let a broad smile light her face, as painful as it would be to do the task that she had set for herself, she still considered Mauria her friend, despite what she may or may not do.


Mauria, as always looked severe, but underneath all that, Nyra could see more. For the first time that she had ever noticed, Mauria looked...weary. As if she had suffered at the hands of all the worlds woes. It made her look almost ancient, despite the 19 years that her body showed. It was all Nyra could do not to gasp as she looked over her old mentor. 


Mauria's voice was as equally enervated as her face. "Nyra." Her words still withheld that quiet gentle timber that it had always been though. A slight smile touched her lips and suddenly, it was all gone, the old lines and heavy burdens that had moments before marked Mauria's face and eyes was gone, youth shined through that same impenetrable shield that Nyra had so often seen Mauria surround herself in. 


"It is good to see you, friend," Nyra touched her brow, her heart, and her lips in the customary gesture of honor the Journeyers shared. Although in this house, Nyra was far superior to the older woman, the hostess always paid homage first, a respect to the power and strength to the comrade, and it had been a habit that Nyra had never been able to break from her years of training under Mauria. Mauria sighed and for the first time, it occurred to Nyra that Mauria may already know what was coming.