#celen

We're winding down to the end.  One more chapter to go (and I'm almost finished with it!) before I can work on the next installment which I'm hoping to start sometime next month.  I hope you enjoy ^_^

Stories in the Blackmail series

See, until recently, it didn’t really hit me how bad her situation really is. Most recent chapters, 128 and onward, had me thinking she’s being unreasonable. Taking back Parthevia, yadda yadda, royal blood, yadda yadda... and then I went through those early chapters where Drakon came for her, his fight with Barbarossa and even some bits and pieces from Heliohapt.

Then it just sort of hit me like a freight train.

She never wanted that marriage with Barbarossa to happen. Then her father got killed, and her brother is essentially turned into a hostage. Even as a general in the army she was literally powerless to stop any of it. Then Drakon got mutilated right in front of her, and sure, he may have gotten better, but he still got turned into something different from a human because of her. All that, followed by months and months of torture traveling where everything was out to kill her.

And even now that she finally gets power to fight back, she’s all alone, her support only a mean-spirited brat who may be a Magi, but is still a child.

Her need to stand up against Barbarossa is something I find completely justified, but also incredibly tragic. Both Seren and Drakon had lost everything thanks to that one man, but when things get down to it, there’s just one thing that makes them different. Drakon managed to move past whatever feeling of resentment he may have had and focused on the future instead of the past.

Seren didn’t.

When I look at her, I see a girl who has had her entire world turned upside down. Somebody who wants the best for her country, but simply can’t look past her personal grudges. Somebody who has a good enough sense of responsibility, but is unable to look past the harm that had been done to her family. And it’s only going to get worse.

In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, we’re celebrating the colour green here at Surfing the Sea!

One of nature’s most common colours (after blue), green is associated with the environment and its conservation (hence the phrase “going green”), freshness, vegetables, gardening, and envy. Due to its lush green fields and hills, Ireland is often called the Emerald Isle, and the colour green has…