Season of mists and mellow
The return of the school master’s bellow
And the post-summer holidays ‘Hello!’
As now life resumes again.

Time to start wearing a sweater
Time to feel cooler and wetter
September’s climate is better
Than summer’s hard blazing heat.

Apples on trees ripen brightly
Brambles grow blackberries rightly
Beech nuts and cobnuts fall nightly
September’s own proffered feast.

The sense of well-being is assuring
With this month the year is maturing
And winter we’re not yet enduring
Indian summer may come.

E.M. Swift-Hook

“A people who move not through space-time, but through the limitless dimensions which lie outside and between time and space.” 

Fun. 

Playing with impossibilities, as the concept bounced within, [^] modulated the parameters one chose to create new variations. Liberally hiving energy through the Concept’s limitations, perceiving the expansion patterns and wondering where the limits might expire. One’s engagement intensity peaked as a promising parabola extruded through multiple frequencies, tiering their continuity in a brilliantly original manner, so an alternative hierarchy of perceived order shimmered into reality. 

Delight. 

[^] released the unfinished concept and harmonized oneself with this new perception, strimming the drifts of ungainly chaos from the extreme boundaries one had created until the whole seemed honed to a viable core, budding into a new authenticity.

>>that seems to be very unstable, my kin{0ne}, you might try at least anchoring it in some known tier, offer some link to actuality. If not, you know it is gone<< 

The harmonization broke unexpectedly through the strain of focus in which [^] held the Concept and the whole wavered, releasing tendrils of minor tiered realities that slipped away diminishing the whole. [^] surveyed the remains with brief regret. No matter. One could play afresh. One snapped the energy away and the concept ceased. 

[+] exuded regret. 

>>that was beautiful, you could still replicate it and strive to stabilize the dimensionality. maybe make it less extreme. you are so much for always pushing the limits<< 

Amusement. 

>>that is where the beauty lies, [+] , spiraling up out, on and over the edge of possibility<<

>>except [v] would call that a waste of energy<<

But there was no reproach in [+] ‘s demeanor, one’s every perceivable parameter, arced back into affection. [+] shared the same disregard for tradition as [^].

>>waste is only ever in not doing what can be done<< 

[^] returned, shaping the communication with a prim trimming more appropriate to the narrow mode [v] always adopted, than one’s own open and thriving manner. 

Brief patterns of wicked appreciation resolved and dissolved between them. They were close kin, extended into the same dimensionalities on many axes and many expressions of energy, being and Consciousness. 

>>we should be Working, my kin{0ne}<< 

Regret. 

But [+] was right by Duty and [^] harmonized that between them, before shifting focus through multiple tiers and frequencies to relocate one’s Consciousness at the Work. It was impressive to perceive. Despite the ever greater restrictions on the energy that was being gleaned from the open tiers in the Symmetry, the 0nes were lavishing it here in a manner [^] found strangely unsettling. 

Desperation. 

Not one’s own, but there, percolating as a taint through their fellow Weavers. Most would be oblivious to it, focused on the Work, but arriving into the event, [^] observed it and, from their close resonance, felt [+] perceive it as well.

>>>>THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. HERE IS YOUR PLACE<<<<

The communication was brusque and intrusive, lacking any real attempt at polite harmonic modulation, just thrusting into Consciousness with disregard for the impact. It was rude enough to be a deliberate insult, but [v] simply assumed one had every right to do so. This Work was under [v]‘s Authority. [^] and [+] were serving on that, constrained by Duty. But [^] and [v] held very different views of the purpose of Authority, which created an ongoing dissonance between them. 

Annoyance. 

>not now, my kin{0ne}< [+] cautioned gently, soothing the disruption and discontinuity that the intrusive surge left in [^]‘s Essence with deft weaving. >this is too important to all 0nes, they will not back your breach with [v] over something they would consider trivial when set beside this Work< 

[+] was right, of course, and [^] modulated back and offered a humble apologetic mien, which [v] harmonized as brusquely as one had slammed in one’s last communication. 

>>>the Work is priority under Duty<<< [v] declaimed, exuding arrogance and self-importance , dismissing the apology as if [^] was a newly budded sentience, still acquiring skills and not a fully extended individual, and a highly talented Weaver capable of encompassing and coordinating more in a single perception, than most 0nes could begin to imagine as possible. The lack of resonance was creating a strain in the Work and as [v] showed no sign of compromise, [^] had little choice except to submit, or risk a real danger of damage to the foundation of the Work. 

>focus, my kin{0ne}. Let it go, and focus. remember we do this for [=], not for Duty< 

>wisdom from you [+], as always< 

[=] was resonance bonded with [+] and [^] although they had not chosen to bud a new conceptual sentience from their bond. [=] was an Explorer and the one chosen to pass through a minute fissure to the tier that the Nexus they now wove would access. [=] was lost to them until it could be established.

For the sake of their bond{0ne}, [^] tried to focus. A gently soothing ripple harmonized between the two kin{0nes} as they began strimming and weaving with the others. Every 0ne seeking a suitable frequency in the dimensionalities open to each, striving to place the anchors where they could both meld in and draw out energy to power the Nexus they were creating. It was more difficult to find viable tiers; even [^] whose reach was amongst greatest of any 0ne, rooted each anchor with ever more difficulty. 

Something was amiss with the resonance here. Not just this Work, but through all the Symmetry. A memory bubbled within [^], recalling the content of the last harmonization one had shared with [=].

>>we are becoming infected by Entropy, my bond{0ne}<< insisted [=], with a welded mix of sadness and anger. >>as an Explorer I see it more than you Weavers. I experience the tiers and return to Symmetry and each return confirms again my perception. the greed of the 0nes to encompass and draw in ever more of energy into the Symmetry is having the opposite effect. each new fissure in the tiers, supposed to bring in more energy, is opening us to parasitic reflux. I have perceived it, I have recorded it, but the Influencers will not receive my concepts<<

Swirls of antipathy and frustration curled between them. In empathy, [^] harmonized and soothed, but one’s own equilibrium was not easy to maintain. If what [=] perceived was as it seemed, then all 0nes stood in danger of ultimate dispersal – of becoming eventual victims of Entropy.

E.M. Swift-Hook

‘Wondrous Strange’ is the Fortune’s Fools origins story for Durban Chola. Read the whole story in The Quantum Soul anthology.

It seems that nature’s aged somehow
Grown pale and brownly edged
The days have fluttered past and now
All the chicks are fledged
Ripe seed pods burst along the way
And spray their content green
While those who walk the path each day
Will see a changing scene
As yet the trees stand proudly leafed
And there’s no red and gold
Tween summer’s heat and winter’s grief
The year is growing old

©️Jane Jago

Bonjour my little love muffins,

It is one, the beloved and multi-talented Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV, world-renowned author of the classic ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’ and patient teacher who, via the medium of this ‘Thinking Quill’ seeks to inform, educate and excite – via the vulgar coils of the Interwebs  – the hearts and minds of a growing band of Readers Who Write.

Today, my Muse and I feel sportive and light and do gambol about in the water meadows of imagination in a harmony so perfect that to speak it is to mar its unsullied beauty.

Therefore, mes estudas, follow us quietly making your footsteps as gentle as the bleating lamb and as soft as the breast of the turtledove lest you dishonour the music of my life with your vulgarly large boots….  Ah yes, my children, follow in silence and  listen with care, for today we discuss the pinpoint of blue-hot flame that is literary erotica in all its fine forms.

How to Start Writing a Book – The Write Sex

It must be understood that the act of fornication, in its multiplicity of guises, is the engine that drives humanity to live out its mundane day-to-day existence in the hope that a glimpse, a scent, a touch, or a taste will donate to any given moment that sexual ecstasy for which it strives. Equally we must always take into account the sensibilities of our gentle readership and the rules that govern what may be said and what should only ever be hinted at.

We are, mes estudas, above the simply biological. We may not discuss the precise size and thickness of the male appendage, any more than we should even hint at the width/narrowness, hair/baldness of the female docking station. No. You may leave it to your reader to understand that tab A is most usually inserted into slot B (with occasional excursions into orifices C and D).

Your task as a purveyor of fantasy is to bring a flush to the cheek and a heaviness to the stomach of literature in such a way that the reader experiences those selfsame heats and twinges. A properly written scene of sexual tension should leave its reader panting lightly and susceptible to the merest breeze of sensuality.

Do not grasp your unfortunate victim by the genitalia and wrestle him to the ground with the sledgehammer blows of sexually obvious language. No. And again no. Rather scent the air with tender sensuality and slowly bring your reader to a climax only by the tenderest touches of the fingertips of perfect prose.

Build your scenes of human love with care, lest they tumble around your ears leaving you like a pubescent boy with damp pyjamas.

Oh yes, my students, who hang on my every word with the sort of open-mouthed excitement more usually generated by a pole dancer at an adolescent birthday party, lead your readership along the paths of sensual gratification by all means. But do so with the siren song of your creative juices, not by lassoing them with a string constructed of pubic hair and bodily secretions.

To finish this lesson. I offer a small extract from my own greatest work wherein our hero first feels the gentle tug of his feminine companion’s sensuality.

They came out of the desert into the fertile valley of the big river, just as the sun was dropping. Buchtooth kicked her camel until it knelt and leapt off the saddle throwing her clothing off as she ran towards the water.

“Come on Fatswhistle you ugly bastard, get off your frigging camel and get into this water. You smell worse than him.”

Fatswhistle followed his companion in a much more leisurely fashion. He was just removing his cracked leather boots when she threw herself into the water. Her back was broad and freckled and as she dived, the white globes of her arse were displayed to Fatswhistle’s suddenly interested gaze. He removed his clothing at a rather accelerated pace and hurried after her into the brown water.

She was singing tunelessly and washing her long carrot-orange curls when he waded over to her and sat down. The river mud felt like silk under his buttocks and he picked up one of his own feet and looked between his toes. He watched his companion from under his eyelids finding her heavy breasts surprisingly exciting as they dipped in and out of the water. He scooted closer and put out a tentative hand. She snorted and wrung the water out of her hair. Emboldened, he touched the freckled skin on her shoulder. She jumped and swore, dunking him under the water until he saw stars..

“Gerrof.”

Farewell for now dear students!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Rupert booked them a holiday. 
It sounded romantic, until Laura found out that the Camel Trail has nothing to do with camels and everything to do with cycling. Seventeen bloody miles of cycling.

There was worse to come. She learned that the next day they were to pedal thirty miles from Padstow to Fowey. 

Breakfast time, bright and early, and Laura was nowhere to be seen. Rupert went to wake her, with an indulgent smile on his big red face.

The note read ‘Camel Trail gave me Camel Toe. Gone home…’

As far as I know they never spoke again.

©️Jane Jago

His smile became feral and he pulled her out of the seat into his lap. ‘Are you talking about something like this’ he whispered as his hard, scarred, soldier’s hands reached inside her robe to caress her naked skin.
‘Oh yes. Something very much like that. Only fiercer…’
He responded by tearing her robe from her shoulders and burying his face in her small breasts.
‘Will I ever get enough of you?’ he groaned.
She bit him, hard, by way of a reply.
A good while later they lay entwined and he idly ran his hand up and down her slender back.
‘Goodness me, Princess Ida. You do fuck remarkably enthusiastically for a lady of quality.’
She snickered and looked through her eyelashes at him. ‘My Lord will have his joke at the expense of a poor innocent girl’ she replied in a very good approximation of the voice of a empty-headed excessively genteel city girl. Then she pushed him onto his back and lay across his body so they were nose to nose. ‘Why have I never wanted anybody but you?’ she mused in a soft voice.
‘Got me beat. Must be innate bad taste on your part. You could have had any man for the crooking of your little finger. But you chose a paid assassin twenty years your senior. There’s just no accounting for the female of the species.’
‘Ain’t that the truth. Are you glad?’
‘That’s a stupid question if ever I heard one. I’m more than glad. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. You are intelligent, and funny, and vicious enough to be a match even for me. Plus, I love you almost beyond reason. But why are you making me say that now?’
‘Because I have something to tell you, and I don’t know how you are going to react. I was softening you up.’
He laughed, then with a lightning twist of his hips he reversed their positions before grinning down at her.
‘Out with it.’
‘I’m pregnant.’
For an instant he neither moved nor breathed.
‘Do you mind saying that again?’
‘I’m pregnant.’
‘That’s what I thought you said.’ He shook his head like a dog coming out of the sea. ‘That’s unexpected, after all this time. I’m sure I’ll be happy about it when it has sunk in. For now, why were you unsure of my reaction?’
‘Well. We are right in the middle of the most dangerous thing we have ever attempted. And I’m essential to the plan. So I thought you might think pregnancy would mess up the plan, or that I should go home and wait for the baby like a proper wife would. Or a thousand other things…’
‘Silly. Pregnant or not we’re in this together, like we’ve been in everything since I threw you onto Ali’s bed and screwed both our brains out. I love you, you silly woman. And we’ll just work around junior.’
She gave a great sigh of relief and wound her arms around his neck. ‘I should’ve trusted you shouldn’t I love? It just knocked me for a loop. We’ve been together twenty years and not a sniff of a pregnancy.’
‘Indeed. But one can’t predict these things. Do you think we’ll be crap parents?’
She laughed shakily. ‘Possibly. But any child of ours will probably inherit all our our worst character traits, and need our sort of crap parenting.’
‘It will, but we’ll love it anyway, won’t we?’
‘Yes. We will.’

From Billion Dollar Mountain by Jane Jago

The face smiled, belying the words it spoke.
“We have decided it’s not in our commercial interests to allow you to continue to use those chips in your tech.”
Targena drew a sharp breath.
“Is there nothing we…?”
“The decision’s been taken at the highest level and is final. All future shipments are cancelled.”
A moment later the smiling face vanished from the screen.
Targena sighed then picked up her phone and spoke into it.
“You have your funds, professor.”
It took less than a year to develop a superior chip and wipe the smile off that face for good.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in a modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules. You can listen to this on YouTube.

The Tribune breezed into the room like a beak-nosed hurricane. She rather wished that she could see her new partner’s face when the formidable Decimus Lucius Didero lifted her in his brawny arms and kissed her on both cheeks. She wriggled and kicked and he put her down.
“Llewelyn,” he grunted, “you take care of my little foster sister.”
Dai looked as if he couldn’t think what to say. Julia was very sure this was not the way he usually saw Romans interacting. The Tribune grinned.
“She will grow on you, and she can’t help being Roman any more than you can help coming from a place where they make up songs about everything and shag sheep. Now. I’ll assign you a contubernium of praetorians.”

Julia winced inwardly knowing how that would sound to the Briton and was not surprised that Dai’s looked furious although he said nothing. Decimus smiled a wolf’s smile.
“Calm down, you and Julia will still be in command and you can keep your own posse too, if you can trust them all. It’s just that my lads can get away with doing things you and yours never could. And they don’t have to wait for anybody’s permission. I’m thinking that by the time your boss has consulted all the people who are paying her, our bird could easily have flown the coop,”
Once again, Dai kept his mouth shut and Julia could see the knowledge that Decimus was right, openly warring with his loyalty to the force to which he belonged. She gave him a sympathetic look and he actually smiled back at her, a thin smile to be sure, but definitely an upward tilt of the lips. The Tribune, who she knew would have missed nothing, grunted at them, but it wasn’t an unfriendly sound.

“Right. Listen carefully. There are some things you need to know but I’m not supposed to tell you. Privileged information, praetorian confidentiality and that kind of merda. Well I’m not having it. My little sister doesn’t go to war unprepared.” He pointed a thick finger at the pair of them. “You need to know about your corpses. Bellicus and Docca were in big trouble. They were being targeted by a betting syndicate who try to get players taking money to fix Games. And I don’t mean any of your little Londinium locals, I mean the big boys from Rome. Those people do not play nice when someone says ‘no’. They also don’t take kindly to anyone poking a nose in their affairs, no matter who it might be.

“More of a worry, though, is this Luca. He left Rome under a cloud. It was either exile or death. He chose exile. You don’t need to know precisely what he did but you do need to know that at least six very powerful families had reason to want him punished. Whether or not they succeeded at arm’s length, I don’t care to speculate. Just be aware that he was very good at making enemies. The interesting thing is he was supposed to stay in Gallia Lugdunensis where Daddy has extensive estates around the town of Lutetia, under a form of house arrest. But clearly he didn’t and I heard today his wife didn’t either. We have no idea where she is right now.”
Julia looked at her old friend.
“That explains a lot. That old cunnus Marius looked as if he was eating merda when he had me in his office and sent me on this mission. He about halfway forbade me to bring Edbert and the dogs.”
“I hope you ignored him.”
“I did.”
“Good. You’ll need them. But you will also have an apartment here. Inns are insecure at the best of times. This is starting to smell bad.”
Julia opened her mouth to object, then thought better of it. Things were indeed smelling bad. She began to formulate a thought, but before she had time to work it through, Didero turned his attention to Dai.
“You’ll move your men in here for the duration of this case.”
Again, Julia could see the flare of pride in the Briton’s blue eyes being quickly damped by rational thought. She realised, at that moment, that she was dealing with a man who lived in a steady state of war with his own passions, a very Celtic trait. Somehow that thought just made him more intriguing.
“As you will, dominus,” Dai said. “And I see that would be safer. We’ll be in the barracks?”
“They will be, yes. They can share with the men assigned to you and Julia. I’ll arrange your accommodation too.”
Dai bowed his head.
“Dominus.”

Dying to be Roman by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

The statue’s flat, fish eyes followed her wherever she went. She was afraid, but he was cold marble. How could he hurt her?

Yet his fixation with her even disturbed the other statues who creaked and groaned their disapproval.

“Leave her,” Zeus growled, but his sea brother sneered.

“I want.”

“You may not.”

“Stop me…”

The statue of Poseidon was presumed to have fallen from its plinth and it lay on the floor broken into a thousand pieces. Only its eyes were alive and they rolled across the floor to lay at her feet, looking up her skirt.

She screamed….

©️Jane Jago

It was a long time later, when the wagon ground to a halt, that Avilon opened his eyes, aware his mind had regained most of its normal sharp-edged clarity. Outside he could hear the sound of a camp being established: poles being thumped into place and the muted thud of pegs being driven into the ground. Above the babble of voices he caught the occasional dog bark, burst of laughter, the crack of a whip, a strange light clattering noise that was almost musical, and the sound of running feet and hooves.
The old woman had got up and was searching around in the various boxes and bundles that filled the rest of the wagon producing an assortment of small pouches and a large water skin. Then she began mixing the contents of the pouches with some water in an all too familiar bowl. Avilon cursed silently, the old hag was going to try and drug him again and short of strangling her with the chain that linked his wrists together, there was nothing he could do about it. And that was an unworthy thought, she was clearly trying to help him in her own way.
So far, he had no real evidence that his captors held any truly hostile intentions towards him. If anything these people had seemed to be trying to look after him – at least by their primitive best methods. They had not killed him when he was helpless – and they certainly seemed to be concerned enough with his welfare to set someone to treat him with their available medical skills. The chains, uncomfortable as they were, could even be explained as a reasonable precaution after what they would have seen as his unprovoked assault on one of their own. But he had no wish at all to submit to more of their brain-numbing drugs.
Avilon cleared his throat.
“Do you speak any Standard?” he asked, pleasantly surprised that this time his voice seemed a little hoarse but otherwise fine.
The old woman looked up from her work and muttered something in her own language.
“Perhaps you could find someone who could understand what I’m saying.”
The woman looked at him and gabbled some more, then gestured to the bowl she was preparing and nodded towards him. Avilon sighed and shook his head.
“Look, I don’t need any more of that. I am feeling a lot better and can assure you that I’ll recover much faster now if you don’t make me drink more of it.”
She obviously did not understand anything he was saying. The woman pointed at the bowl again and said something in a very firm tone of voice before busying herself with mixing once more.

From The Fated Sky part one of Fortune’s Fools Transgressor Trilogy by E.M. Swift-Hook