Fire In The Sky (And Ground [Even The Freaking Water!])!

Hello everyone, this is ESB 'Stringfellow' and I am the Man from U.N.C.L.E., and this is...

The Post Where The Author Talks More About His Newest Book!!!



 First, just as a reminder, here is the cover, again:

It is about Fire. And Chaos. Other Elements Also Included!

Today, I want to talk about the lead characters, our heroes and villains. But first, a bit of story background:

As mentioned in the synopsis, this world has magical relics referred to as the Elemental Stones. Each one represents the four major elements of fire, water, earth and wind. In pure it-only-makes-sense-in-a-fantasy-setting, the Stones are the source of their respective element, which basically makes them akin to gods like Zeus or Thor. Their power is truly godlike, and they require guardians to keep safe their power, so they rely on the Elemental Guardians, mortals chosen every generation to protect the Stones. Each Guardian is given a magical item that allows them to channel the Stones' element, giving them immense power.

In time, the Stones and their Guardians faded from public knowledge, becoming mere legends. Regardless of this, new Guardians are still chosen throughout the ages, who adhere to their duties in utmost secrecy. This works out pretty well for untold centuries, until one day a mad warlord decides that he's worthy of godhood...

Now, here are the main characters:

Character 1: Ahila Brigandu

Ahila is a fourteen-year-old girl who is the daughter of Phyros and Hilda Brigandu. Her father, Phyros, starts the story off as the current Fire Guardian, but due to the aforementioned warlord, he is forced to pass the mantle of Guardian to his daughter years before her time.
Ahila spends the entire story struggling with the godly power that was thrust onto her, given only one mission from her father: Keep the power of Fire from falling into the hands of the main villain. As the story goes, Ahila suffers loss, trauma and utter despair. There are times where she feels overwhelmed and desires nothing more than to break down and stay down.
Fortunately for her, she has new friends that help her get through her ordeals, and eventually she gains the courage she needs to face the greatest threat to the Elements.

Character 2: Loki Aeson

With Ahila being the one where heroism is thrust upon her, Loki is the guy who gets dragged into it by pure accident. He is another youth of fourteen, orphaned since he was just a baby and raised by his father's best friend. Loki acts as a foil to Ahila's personality. Where she is serious, he is goofy. Where she is formal and old fashioned, Loki is casual and aloof. Whereas Ahila is a daughter of an all powerful Guardian (and being a Guardian herself), Loki is a normal boy and the son of a knight who went missing and is presumed dead. He has no magic, no special weapon or anything that makes him stand out from others his own age.
However, what he lacks in magical powers or weapons, he more than makes up for with pluck, charisma, a jest and several nicknames for Ahila, such as Fire Queen.
Oh, and also he has this strange ability where he can easily talk to animals. It isn't like he understands them in a way that he hears them speaking his own human language. It's more like an instinctive ability to guess with incredible accuracy what animals are saying or emotions they are expressing. This comes in very handy whenever it comes time for him to translate what the next character is saying...

Character 3: Charcoal

Charcoal is a male horse, partnered with Loki. In the country that Loki lives, horses are everything. The greatest among them are remembered just as often as their human riders, treated with respect and immortalized after great feats of courage and loyalty. It is a shared dream for Loki and Charcoal to become warriors for their king and queen, to join the ranks of the Horse Riders. However, the two have earned some unfavorable reputations. Loki, for instance, is a known prankster and has caused a headache or two over the years. Charcoal, however, is very different from other horses.
How different? For one thing, he is rather wild for a horse bred in a stable. His wild attitude caused him to be too difficult to be tamed by the usual trainer. With Loki's unusual ability to calm even the most aggressive animal, Charcoal fell into his care and the two had been inseparable ever since. Granted, that isn't the only thing that sets Charcoal apart from other horses. He's also a bit short tempered. He also fights dirty, using his hooves to intentionally knock people in the heads if they threaten him.
Above all else, though, Charcoal is a horse without fear. He'll charge mountain lions, armed enemies, anything, without a trace of fear. Where others would shake in their boots at the sight of a dragon, Charcoal would just give it a death glare.
Honestly, I think he's my favorite character of the whole bunch.

Character 4: General Drak

This guy is the previously mentioned warlord. He is the ruler of a kingdom called Helheis, which is a greatly militarized domain. There, the strongest, the most cunning and the most cruel rules. To live in Helheis is to live by an extremist's idea of what it means to be a warrior. They live, breathe and die in the belief that battle is everything. Because of this upbringing, paired with a dangerously large ego, General Drak believes with every fiber of his being that he is worthy of becoming a god.
He always had an inquisitive mind and a thirst for knowledge, equaled only by his lust for more power, which led him to discover that the Elemental Stones are real. After years of research, experiments and planning, General Drak devises a way to steal the powers of the Elements, with his mad ambition serving as the central threat of the story.

Character 5: Sergeant Copper

He is General Drak's second-in-command, the most loyal of the Helheis army. Sergeant Copper serves the purpose of showing how devout he is to his master's cause, easily shifting his worldview on a whim just so it can be more aligned with General Drak's. He is the epitome of a fanatic, willing to lay his life down in order to please General Drak but also fearing for his life whenever he causes his master to become angry. In the end, Sergeant Copper has no agenda or ambition of his own except to continue making General Drak proud of him.
Granted, that doesn't mean that Sergeant Copper is beyond that of mere soldier/follower. He is a high ranking warrior with no sense of mercy, empathy or morals. He is a complete sociopath, having no remorse in killing anyone who comes across his path. He is the kind of guy who sees no difference in killing an enemy on a battlefield and murdering a child who simply got in his way.
Sergeant Copper is sadistic, cold and vicious. General Drak should be lucky that he doesn't have any Starscream habits.

That is that. Those are your main characters, the heroes and villains. Before I finish this up, I think I'll address a few things about them.

First, yes it seems that I have an odd thing about creating heroes who get their start at fourteen years old. I did it with Cyan, now I'm doing it with Ahila and Loki. Please, don't ask why. Just blame it on the things that I enjoyed in my youth that influenced me at the time when I first created these characters. You know, things like Avatar: The Last Airbender or Kingdom Hearts. At least I didn't make Charcoal a magical talking horse. I very much wanted to make a non-magical animal a main character but make sure that he was established as very different from normal animals. He might not be, say, Superman, but he sure as hell is a Batman.

Second, to head off complaints about the villains being one-dimensional, let me just say... I don't care.

Well, I used to care, but then things got really bad in the real world and true, real-life evil has shown us all that real-world villains really are that one-dimensional. We see them making power grabs for no reason but for the sake of obtaining power. We see them doing every cruel trick, short of mass genocide (but only in certain countries), to keep that power. We see real villains, right the hell now, being villainous for no reason other than it pleases them.

So, please don't tell me that my villains aren't realistic (aside from the magic, of course) because gaining power just for the sake of it while crushing innocent lives on the way is happening in the real world as I type this. In fact, in retrospect, I feel that I hadn't pushed the psychopathic zealot enough in this story.

Honestly, if I could go back and add something, it would be a scene where General Drak accidentally kills one of his followers  in a fit of rage/temper tantrum, look at said follower's broken and dying form and say, "Look at what you made me do!" Then, his other followers would nod sagely and agree, expressing that the one who got killed really did do something to earn that fatal blow. And then, to truly seal the death-cult portrayal, the follower would use his dying breath to utter, "You're right, this was my fault." ...And all he did was just stand there.

Well, on that dark and depressing note, I'll see you guys next time. Stay safe out there.

Sincerely, ESB 'Stringfellow'