Excerpt from forthcoming novel Avim's Oath, Part 6 of the Okal Rel Saga by Lynda Williams, an SF series filled with larger than life characters that uses them to explore human extremes through story-telling. Release is slated for fall 2010 from Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy of Calgary. The following scene occurs in the first chapter and introduces a new character: the loose canon - Alivda.
Amel groped for a way to explore the huge feelings of inadequacy Perry had raised in him and was spared by the flamboyant entrance of a young woman dressed in a tank top and work trousers.
"Amel!" the new arrival cried, her bold features blazing with possessive intensity.
"Diff!" He rose to receive her as she dove for him, swinging her up in his arms. "Look at you!" he exclaimed, holding her aloft with perfect balance as he admired her grinning face, damp with sweat. "You’re all curves and muscle!" he added with a dash of naïve surprise. He had been out of circulation for months, during which she had sprung into adulthood with all the violent suddenness of a Vrellish child, despite her Demish good looks.
Diff, whose full name was Alivda, adjusted her grip on Amel’s forearms, cuing him to shift his weight and dip for lift as she arched herself upward in a handstand, their palms on each others' shoulders, until her body made a straight line above his.
"Stop showing off, Alivda," Perry snapped. "You too, Amel. After two decades of messing around with half-measures, you’re about to take your place as a peer of Fountain Court. Act the part!"
"Sorry!" Amel eased Alivda down again, trying to look contrite.
"Lighten up, Gramma," scoffed Alivda with an insolent teenage sneer, reminding Amel of the friction between Perry and her granddaughter when baby Diff had been a hyperactive toddler. Back then, Perry had resorted to caging her whenever her mother, Ayrium, was away. Even Ayrium, as protective as a lioness about her daughters, had agreed to let Amel take Diff with him on his envoy trips rather than continue to inflict Diff and Perry on each other. Now, although he hated to face it, Amel could see the truth in Perry’s face: his baby dragon, as he liked to call Diff, was getting out of hand again.
"Life isn’t all fun and games," Perry chided her granddaughter.
"Really?" Alivda snapped back. "Then why doesn’t Vrenn let me lead the irregulars? I’ve got the grip. And the skill."
Amel thought of Vrenn as the man Perry would have married if the grim, ex-Nersallian hadn’t been too Vrellish for monogamy.
"The grip, maybe, but not the discipline," Perry said testily. "Vrenn has discharged her from fleet service," she added to Amel, "for dereliction of duty."
"It was ward duty!" Alivda complained, as if Vrenn had assigned her to slop out latrines. She, too, appealed to Amel. "Vrenn had me flying ward duty out of Blind Eye Station for two weeks straight, just to punish me for disobeying his signals in a shake-up with a rogue Vrellish ship." She stopped, then added in a tone as hard as hullsteel. "I nailed the rogue. My tactic worked."
"Vrenn needs to know he can trust you to —" Perry began.
"Vrenn’s a frustrated Nersallian wannabe admiral!" Alivda lashed back, feet planted and hands on her hips, looking solid as a rock despite her slim build. "He just likes giving orders and being obeyed."
Perry’s face drained of blood. "Get out," she said.
"Perry —" Amel tried to intervene, but she pushed away the arm he extended toward her.
"No problem," Alivda assured him coldly. "I’m getting used to rejection. Starting with my nervous sire, the Ava of the whole venting empire, who won’t give me any recognition beyond ‘love child.’ Why not gramma and Vrenn, as well?" She flashed her wide, bright grin, a sharp glitter in her blue eyes. "I think it’s wonderful you’re going to take your place as a liege of Fountain Court at last, Amel! I see great things in your future."
"Now she thinks she’s a seer," Perry muttered under her breath.
"Exactly!" Alivda tossed her bright head. "A seer knows the future, which is much better than being a clear dreamer, forever looking back into past lives." She grinned at Amel. "So yes, I’m predicting you can cope with Fountain Court!" She winked at him. "Because I’m going to come help, as soon as I wrap up a few things around here."
"You will always be welcome in my hearth," said Amel, unable to withhold the invitation despite misgivings. "But I do have Erien to help me," he pointed out.
"Right, Erien," Perry muttered. "The Reetion-raised kid who provoked a title challenge that would have seen the Red Vrellish charging through Killing Reach on the way to invade Rire if Horth Nersal had lost on the Challenge Floor? That Erien."
Alivda broke the awkward silence by pulling Amel into a sudden hug.
She released him with a last squeeze of his hand and flashed a smile as bright as Ayrium’s — except in Alivda’s case the effect was more laser-like. "Don’t let Gramma Perry get you down," she told Amel in parting. "She’s getting old and regretful and tired of the slog out here."
When Alivda was gone, Perry sighed and rubbed her forehead. "She’s right, damn her."
http://www.scrollinspace.com/article.php?story=20100730012039828