The Cough of Doom, Shinies and WiPpet Wednesday

The Cough is still here.  I am a terrible patient—arguably an impatient patient—and I hate being ill.  Worse, I like my sleep and the damn thing keeps waking me up so I'm coughing and crabby.  Work has calmed down slightly so I've had more free time, but there's nothing like trying to bring up a lung to put you off writing smut.

However, it does mean I've had enough free time to do another pin-up for Sunday.  And how did I manage that?  Well, it turns out that I seem to forget to breathe while I'm doing postwork so I don't cough so much.  Who knew there was an advantage to a bad, albeit involuntary, habit?

Still, something arrived to cheer me up today: this little guy, also known as Nanase Haruka from the anime Free! (also known as "that swimming anime I made my friends watch the first episode of and they enjoyed it, and therefore are now slightly frightened").  He was supposed to be my NaNoWriMo reward but his release date was put back twice and he eventually shipped seven days ago.

Plus, he can always lend a hand or eight.

Aside from being a fan of both seasons of the anime, you can probably see why I bought him...

It's expensive to buy models like this in the UK (most Nendoroids will set you back £45-£60, for example), but it's significantly less expensive to preorder them from America, even factoring in shipping.  This is why I've only just started buying things without needing a trip to the US in the first place.

Thinking about it, I probably ought to break out my Love Hina Mutsumi Otohime figure at some point.  I've had her ever since I first went to Otakon, but she's never left her box...

WiPpet Wednesday

WiPpet Wednesday is K. L. Schwengel's genius work-in-progress blog-hop.  You can check out other people's and join in yourself right here.  (Go on, do it, you know you want to.)

Although I've written some of chapter 6 of The Reconstruction of Kirill since last week, it's still a pathetic amount and I still feel guilty about it.  Soooo you're getting another section of The Rose Queen instead.

Since today is the 28th January 2015, You're going to get 11 paragraphs from the second chapter because 2+8+1 is 11 and the 2 from the year is the chapter.  And just for spite's sake I'm going to post this at quarter past the hour, so not only will the 015 part not go to waste, it'll also be posted at 20:15.  \o/

When we'd left our dashing hero, he'd just discovered that his pretty quarry wasn't quite so very... female as he'd been expecting and, worse, there seems to have been more to that previous excitement than meets the eye...

(Again, unedited.)

This, if Fayth was brutally honest, was not how he’d expected their meeting to go.  For a start he thought he’d be a chick.  A lady.  A pretty and biddable girl he could happily spend the return journey with because he’d have no interest in her whatsoever.  Not—not—

“Well?”  The Rose Queen repeated irritably, shifting from one filthy bare foot to the other.  “You’ve come to stare too, have you?  You know, I really don’t care so long as you don’t get in my way, so...”  He dropped to his knees beside the small balls of root, pressing his fingers back into the soil and smoothing over the patch he’d been working on before he’d been interrupted.

Fayth had prepared a speech he’d intended to use on the girl of his imagination; it went straight out the window.  Stepping the few steps forward to close the distance between them, he leaned down and caught the Rose Queen’s elbow, pulling him to his feet again.  “Listen to me,” he muttered, ignoring the way the Rose Queen glared at the hand that kept a firm hold on his arm.  “You need to come with me.”

The black-haired man drew himself up to his full height, only a little shorter than Fayth.  “Did you miss that discussion I just had?  I’m not some—some whore who’ll go with the first person who asks—”

“How many cameras are there in here?”

“What?”  For one instant Fayth was sure he saw a flash of fear in those stunning eyes.

“Cameras,” he hissed, squeezing a little harder.  “How many, and where?”

It took a moment for the Rose Queen to answer.  When he did, it was with perfect, cold composure, his face a stony mask.  “Enough, and plenty are pointed right at this tree.  If you try anything, you’ll be caught.”

“Because they came running not five minutes ago when someone tried to assault you, didn’t they?”  He thought it was a perfectly reasonable comment, but the Rose Queen stiffened beneath his touch.  “Don’t worry, beautiful, I’m not going to touch you, but you need to leave with me right now.”

“You missed the part where I can’t leave?”  The Rose Queen asked bitterly.  “Are you new here?”

“You could say that,” Fayth grinned, enjoying the way the Rose Queen’s eyes widened.  It was a big risk, but the man’s apparent exhaustion made him think it might be worth it.  More than the lies he’d had lined up would be, at any rate.  “I’ve been sent by Kaeder Pynes to bring you home.”

Ooooh, mysterious there, Fayth.  *wiggles fingers*