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Today in the News

October 23rd, 2019

Dateline: 23 Octembus 2136 Shadow Valley, Shadow County, Monatya Byline: Aurora Lynne Skye

Let’s see here, I suppose I should probably go back to the beginning, and say the Royal Family weathered the winter well, and all the youngest of the kids and grandkids enjoyed their first snowstorms. When spring arrived in the mountains, her Majesty began training the newest group of kids to express interest in learning about plants, animals and mushrooms in the Valley. No one was hurt over the course of the spring and summer. And of course, there was the annual celebration of the Miracle on the Mountain, and I took part in both sessions of Camp during this time.

Summer was quiet, in that no one was hurt more than usual, but I suspect the King and the Just were keeping the incident at Coronation early this past summer quiet… but I don’t know much more than something happened. Her Majesty keeps saying she doesn’t want to talk about it, though she seems to be recovering from the shock of whatever it was finally. And the King has suggested I shouldn’t worry about it until she is ready to tell me about whatever it was.

But the rest of the summer was fairly quiet for the adults, and even the kids had an easier time for a few months. As far as I know, nothing happened, and the garden was flourishing, so her Majesty was happy with that detail. Summer passed, and we got a couple little storms, though there wasn’t much rain from either of them. I found out later Princess Alanisetta was asked about them by her Mother, but she had nothing to say about them, because they weren’t hers.

However, when the mushrooms began, the Queen was happier, though the lack of rain didn’t help the season for her. And now, she too is beginning to worry about the weather having taken back all the bright promise of the new autumn. And that is about all I can remember about what has been going on for the Royal Family.

But it isn’t all of what has been going on for me, or for others in the Valley.

Things have been very busy for me for the past few months, because the Queen has me working on rewriting the first of her chronicles. It seems I forgot to mention most of the family in the original telling of the story, and I only told half the story on the same hand. So I have been busying myself with writing the new parts, and weaving them into the existing tale of the first of her stories to be published. I am pleased to be able to report I am nearly 300 pages into the rewrite, so perhaps it will be done in time for the next round of holiday greetings from the Royal Family.

But if I don’t get to work on it for the entire month of Novem, then it might not get done this year. After all, I am committed to working with Nano in Novem, so I probably won’t be working much on her Majesty’s rewrite for the month next month. Fortunately, she knows about it. So I won’t be in much trouble with her. And I work harder–she says, anyway–than any of her other employees, so it hardly matters when I don’t have enough time to get all of it done.

However, I have also been working on many other pieces, so perhaps I will be able to finish one within the next few weeks. The two stories I began for the two Camp sessions this past spring have become multi-book serieses, so they will take more time to untangle the complications which arose during the writing of those stories. This too has kept me at my keyboard for weeks at a time, though I have other responsibilities in working for the Queen, other than simply being her chronicler. I also help with monitoring her garden, though there have been a few things happen which she didn’t like, so I had to correct them.

The one good thing which came out of this summer was the fact there was no worries about a bad fire in the area; no smoke in the air all summer. But now, this has people on edge again; after all, such good fortune isn’t always from a good source, I have heard it said. And even here, power is being shut off occasionally, as an attempt to regulate how bad the fires can be. But I don’t know how much good it does; after all, starpol is a natural form of power and no one I know of can control the wind, other than Princess Alanisetta. I could wish she would bring more storms, but the risk with storms is lightening, and the additional growth the moisture would bring. So we simply have to wait and be patient, I suppose.

I know, it seems like I am flittering from subject to subject in this post, but it is hard to remember all of what has happened over the past few months. The celebration of the anniversary of the fire in Rockport has come and gone, and along with it, the annual reaffirmation of the Miracle on the Mountain… but that was months ago now, as I said before.

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