Finally, the fifth book in the Thread of Souls series is published and available! The ebook and paperback are on Amazon. The books typically spread out to third-party sites at later dates, we don’t have any control over when places like Barnes & Noble make them available.
We are so excited to see some reviews already up on Goodreads!
“The detail and depth of world-building the authors poured into this narrative, including expanding on Taliesin’s backstory and history in even greater detail, was a welcome return to this epic fantasy series.” – Author Anthony Avina
“I can’t stop reading them. This one was also great. Deep Hollows is the fifth book in Thread of Souls Series, and in my opinion, it just keeps upping the ante.” – Dani V.
If you haven’t checked out any of the Thread of Souls series yet, we currently have the Phantom Five ebook available for free for the next few days.
It’s an exciting time! We are closing in on the publication date of June 10th for the fifth book in our Thread of Soulsseries. Titled The Deep Hollows, this book takes us past the halfway point for the octology.
Here it is!
We are really excited to depict a scene from the Deep Hollows on the cover. A location readers will be well-familiar with given how often it’s been mentioned across the first four books. Aside from a brief glimpse in Phantom Five, this is the first time the characters will actually venture through the great underground.
The blub on the back reads:
In the fifth installment of this gripping series, rebellious cleric Taliesin is captured by a ruthless bounty hunter and forced back to the cult he escaped two years ago. Now serving a new goddess, he’s deemed a heretic among his people.
Stripped of his allies and separated from his beloved, Taliesin’s survival hinges on his wits and magic. His destination: the heart of the cult, the underground city of Berenzia. Here, secrets lurk that could unravel the cult’s plans. But to uncover them, Taliesin must confront not only the expectations of the disappointed family he left behind, but also the sinister ruling priestesses. If Taliesin cannot overcome the ghosts of his past, he will never escape the cult’s clutches.
It was in April 2023 that we made the decision of leaving social media. This wasn’t a decision we took lightly. After all, we had business profiles that we used to promote our books and engage with the TTRPG and writing community. However, social media was taking a mental toll. Even though we stayed out of any discourse, it’s very hard to avoid seeing a string of negativity, threats, bigotry, and griping even with a quick look.
We left Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Pinterest. We previously gave our six-month check in. Here is our one year check in on how we are doing after leaving social media.
Improved Mental Health
Leaving social media has done wonders for our mental health. We are happier and feel more positive. The problem with a lot of social media is that you read so many negative stories, or see someone ganged up on by a bunch of strangers online. Even when you take no part in it, those memories still circle around all day.
I equate it to “doom scrolling” or watching the news too often. Because 99% of the things you see or hear will not affect your life at all. And yet you are exposed to them, and it makes you feel stressed. But when you remove that source of stress, you are able to clear the room for more positive thinking.
More Time
Social media does take up a lot of time, especially if you are self-promoting. You worry about trending topics, algorithms, engaging with others, and posting consistently. When we took that away, we had so much more free time!
Now we spend that time playing board games together, reading books together, and spending time outdoors.
Should You Leave Social Media?
That is up to you. For some, social media is their entire business and livelihood. It’s how they feed their families. And that is great. But for most, it’s simply a pastime. We saw far more book sales generated from our website here and ads on Amazon over social media. It no longer became worth it to us.
We would never go back to using it. And we are very happy that one year ago, we made the leap to give it up.
Hello! It’s been a couple of weeks since our last blog. There is a reason for that. We went to C2E2 in Chicago and caught Covid-19. We’ve been off work and sick. The worst part has been the lack of taste, which we are finally getting back! It’s good to start to feel like ourselves once again.
We’ll get back to normal 2x-3x weekly postings this week. We’ve got Thread of Souls: The Deep Hollows sent off to our ARC readers and our book cover artist. With a publication date of June 10th, we are just ironing out the final details to get it out for everyone to read!
The fifth book in the epic fantasy Thread of Souls series is on its way to you! Aside from some minor tweaks as we do our final reviews, the book is finished being edited.
The book will be available to purchase on Monday, June 10th.
It will initially be available in ebook and paperback format. Audiobook and hardcover formats will come at a later date.
Across the next month leading up to that date, the book will be formatted, the cover designed, and all final tweaks made. It’s been a year and a half of hard work to bring this book to life. It’s been with us as we moved to a new city and then as we moved again across the country. We are so proud of it and can’t wait to share it with you!
To hold you over until its official release, we do have our three excerpts from the book. One from Ruuda’s POV, one from Jade’s POV, and one from Taliesin’s POV. We also have the back of the book summary. Again, this may have some final tweaking before official publication.
In the fifth installment of this gripping series, rebellious cleric Taliesin is captured by a ruthless bounty hunter and forced back to the cult he escaped two years ago. Now serving a new goddess, he’s deemed a heretic among his people.
Stripped of his allies and separated from his beloved, Taliesin’s survival hinges on his wits and magic. His destination: the heart of the cult, the underground city of Berenzia. Here, secrets lurk that could unravel the cult’s plans. But to uncover them, Taliesin must confront not only the expectations of the disappointed family he left behind, but also the sinister ruling priestesses. If Taliesin cannot overcome the ghosts of his past, he will never escape the cult’s clutches.”
This is the first in a series of posts on designing dynamic and unique TTRPG boss fights for your campaigns.
Opening up this new series exploring how to design effective boss battles, we will talk about adding “minions” to the fight. No, not the little yellow guys or the fish from Megamind. We’re referring to allies that support the main boss. Here are some examples:
An army captain supported by foot soldiers.
A giant spider supported by offspring.
A dragon supported by elemental worshippers.
Minions can be the defining factor in how engaging and challenging TTRPG boss fights are. They give your players something else to have to worry about and focus on. They also help to flesh out the world and cement that your villain isn’t alone. Here are some of the reasons minions will help your TTRPG battles feel more epic:
Quick Rewards: It can take many turns for your party to take down the big boss. Being able to also defeat weaker enemies in the meantime keeps morale up.
Added Challenge: Depending on how many minions you add and how powerful they are, you can increase the difficulty of the fight.
More Dynamic Rounds: Let’s face it, it isn’t really fun to have all the heroes take a turn before your villain gets to, even if they get legendary actions. Minions add in more bad guy turns to keep up the intensity for everyone involved.
Prolonging the Fight: No one wants their villain to go down in one round. But if you have a very strong party that unleashes all their most powerful attacks in the first round, that is a possibility. Minions prolong the fight by adding in more targets and more overall HP.
If you want to add minions into your fight, consider who would support your villain. These could be fanatic supporters, simple servants following orders, or even monsters with little intelligence other than to kill.
Have fun in those fights! And stay tuned for more in this series.
There has been trend in our popular media over time. From movies, TV, games, comics, and books. It began as presenting our main characters as flawless good guys. They always did the right thing. They always had good manners. They were kind, but they weren’t realistic.
In rebellion against that, the anti-hero came out. The hero that still liked to murder. The criminal who would fight the bad guys as well as the good. A subsection even morphed into following villain stories altogether. While more realistic, they aren’t hero characters to be admired and modeled after. If taken too far, it glorifies violent behavior. (Note: these can be done right but often aren’t!)
But now we are seeing a shift to a more appropriate middle ground. A hero who is a good person, but also a flawed person. Not in the way that they will shoot someone in the face for crossing them, but flawed in the way that they make mistakes, struggle internally, and let down people who count on them. This is a much more relatable character because they are not perfect superhumans. But neither do they glorify the worst of humanity.
When I see inexperienced storytellers or TTRPG players want to play “murder hobos” or write about a “hardened mob boss” because they say it’s cool, I am left scratching my head. What is cool about that?
In fact, I think good characters are far more interesting than evil characters. And in my research on this topic, I found others that have summed up my whirlwind of thoughts quite well.
“I just think goodness is more interesting. Evil is constant. You can think of different ways to murder people, but you can do that at age five. But you have to be an adult to consciously, deliberately be good – and that’s complicated.” – Toni Morrison
I’d always found goodness to be more interesting than evil, though I was aware this wasn’t the most general view. To my mind, it took more work and more courage to be good, an opinion continually reinforced by my own shortcomings. ” – Dick Francis
The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.” – Ursula K. LeGuin
I suppose that is why I like to write about, read about, watch, and play good characters. Far from perfect, certainly. Capable of violence, certainly. And tempted to do wrong while sometimes failing to win that battle. But also marked by compassion, by caring about others, by valuing life, and by still trying each morning to be better than they were the day before. To me, at least, those are the characters I love.
They also mark some of my favorite fictional characters.
The Doctor from Doctor Who, always wanting to understand and to help. But who is still flawed because he will cross the line in using his power.
Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, an advocate for peace and diplomacy. Who is flawed because he struggles with taking risks and accepting his bloodline.
Megamind from Megamind, a supervillain who didn’t want anyone to really get hurt. Who is flawed because he lies.
Danielle from Ever After, whose kindness and mercy persists even under the worst circumstances. But who is flawed because she carries on a deception for too long.
Luz from The Owl House, who never judged and always wanted to make friends. But who is flawed because she is too reckless.
We talk about the differing opinions about the amount if detail in books and give some tips for your writing!
If you search for writing tips online, it doesn’t take long to find widely differing viewpoints on how much, or how little, description is needed to make a good book.
“I don’t care about the color of the sunset! This book describes way too much!”
“I can’t picture any of the locations. There needs to be more detail.”
“Stop it with the sappy ‘eyes like glittering moonlight’ descriptions.”
“I love sappy descriptions! I live for them!”
“I don’t care how the character looks. I’m only interested in their soul.”
“If I don’t know what this character looks like in the first two pages, I’m making up my own appearance for them.”
It’s confusing, right? One thing that is clear is that reading preferences vary significantly. Some people like a great deal of description and like to know every little detail. Others prefer to get right to the action. So how do you navigate this when writing your book? Presumably, you want to sell your book so you want to appeal to a large audience. How can you balance your writing style with what people want to read?
Know Your Genre and Age Group
One thing that is helpful is to know your genre and age group. And this includes subgenres, as well! Reading books in your niche and knowing about the fanbase that reads them will be helpful to you. I’m a big supporter of fanfiction. Look at what people write fanfics about. That will give you a good idea of what fans actually like.
Here are examples:
Young adult supernatural – Typically likes a mild amount of description. Prefers description of characters over deep world building and environmental details. Adolescents are more emotionally driven, so the characters are paramount to them.
Adult epic fantasy – Usually these are fans of books like Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, or the Witcher. More detail and rich descriptions are appreciated. Keeping a balance between character and world detail is key.
Adult romance – Sensory descriptions work well for this fanbase. Touch, smell, taste. The world and environment are more of a background to the immediate moment and character sensations. Like muscles and flowing locks of hair.
Young adult horror – Less detail is better for the characters and the world. Descriptions should focus on the scary stuff and setting the mood. To keep suspense, the plot needs to keep rolling forward and not get bogged down with flowery language.
How is Your Pacing?
When editing your story, pacing is important to pay attention to. How slow is the writing? How fast is the writing? Is it slow and fast at the appropriate moments?
If you think the pacing is off, the problem could be too much (or too little) description. When I want the narrative to take a pause, and give the readers a moment to breathe, I start describing things. I set the scene. I play into the senses. And when I want the narrative to feel heart-pounding, I use very little description.
A good balance of both optimizes your pace across your story.
Be True to Yourself
At the end of the day, you want to write a story that you want to read. If you are not happy with it and feel that it isn’t “you”, then it’s not worth it. Be as flowery as you want to be, and be as to-the-point as you want to be. It’s your story, after all.
We presented you with two earlier excerpts from the fifth book in our Thread of Souls series. One from Ruuda’s POV, and one from Jade’s POV. Here is our third and final excerpt on our way to book publication!
Keep in mind the book is still in the final editing stages, and things may be changed.
All content is protected under Tal & Ru Travels LLC.
Enjoy!
TALIESIN
.
.
.
What’s happening?
Pain was the first thing that woke Taliesin’s fuzzy, drugged consciousness. He felt himself dragged across rough stone. He tried to command his body to move but couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t focus.
Where was Ruuda?
Where were his friends?
What had happened?
Water ran across his face and he reflexively turned to the side. His entire body ached and burned. The burning was terrible. It wouldn’t stop.
Ruuda . . . His thoughts wandered, fleeting, like leaves swept away in a current.
More water splashed over his face. He couldn’t breathe. That panic allowed him enough concentration to open his eyes. He was faced with the inside of a burlap sack. It was heavy around him. Salt, he realized. The bag was full of salt, and it stung his beaten and bloody body. Rain came in through the burlap, soaking his clothes and running in rivulets over his face.
Ruuda! I need to escape! I need to get to her.
He flexed, but his arms were bound behind him. He tried to cry out but found his tongue blocked by a gag. Taliesin thrashed once.
Then the jura retook him, and all faded into blackness.
When he came to, the bag was no longer moving. He felt warmth and smelled beer and roasted vegetables. Music played nearby.
A female voice spoke. “Really? That’s Taliesin Ostoroth? You must have been paid a lot!”
A harsh, deep male voice responded, “That I was.”
I know that voice! Taliesin thought. His mind tried to claw its way back to consciousness, fighting against the jura and the wounds. The man on the ship. Hajiadal.
“What about the others? I heard he was with a group,” the woman inquired.
Taliesin heard his captor gulp down a long drink and put the glass down with a clink. Hajiadal replied, “They were staying at the Sanguine Vestibule. I hired assassins to take care of them. He brought his dark dwarf pet to the ship, though. She was surprisingly tough, I’ll give her that. In the end, my demon chased her off. She must be dead by now.”
A chorus of impressed grunts sounded.
Taliesin opened his eyes.
Fuck it all, I’m still inside the sack!
As he kicked out, he closed his eyes to protect them from the salt.
“Oh!” Hajiadal chuckled. “You’re already awake? You’re hardier than I thought.” A kick connected with Taliesin’s side. “Stay quiet. I’m enjoying a drink.”
Laughter followed.
A drink?! You’ve got to be kidding me.
Taliesin screamed through his gag at the indignity.
“I said be quiet!” Hajiadal roared. A much rougher kick followed his words, and Taliesin curled up at the assault.
As the dark elf cleric stayed still, breathing through the pain, his mind drifted again. His memories floated past, and he watched them all as one watching carriages cross a road. Ruuda on the ship with him, her fiery hair soaked in the rain. The travel through the Eleste Highlands and its rugged terrain. His new friend, Jasita Yolarin, giving him a timid smile. All his travels flashed before him in reverse order. The terrible dragon and blizzard at the Citadel, a passionate night in a mountaintop cave, the six months of imprisonment, that night at the An’Ock Coliseum, escaping the Gloomdwell, traveling down the Amakiir River with Ruuda at his side, and leaving the . . . leaving the . . .
The Deep Hollows.
That’s where Hajiadal is taking me. Back underground. Back home.
A wave of anxiety clenched his gut at this thought. But he did not linger on it long. His mind was already slipping away, and he let the jura take him.
.
.
.
More dragging awoke Taliesin. This time his mind was sharp, the fogginess of the drugs gone. He was still inside the sack, and he could no longer smell or hear the interior of a tavern. It was very quiet. The only sound was Hajiadal’s rhythmic steps.
Taliesin made a noise of complaint through his gag.
The dragging stopped. A long sigh followed.
“Awake again, I see,” Hajiadal stated. “Well, I suppose I could do with some conversation.”
A rustling noise preceded the top of the bag opening. Strong hands wrapped under Taliesin’s shoulders and pulled him free. The Deathwalker took in a deep breath of fresh air through his nose.
“You’re heavier than you look,” Hajiadal complained. “Walk a bit and give my arms a break.”
As he was set down on his knees, Taliesin quickly took in the area. It was a long, cavernous tunnel, featureless and dark. They were in the Deep Hollows already.
His gaze moved up to his captor. Hajiadal’s strong form leered over him, a smug smile on a square-jawed face. Shaggy white hair hung down to his shoulders. He wore dark leather armor. Taliesin noticed his own buckler shield strapped to Hajiadal’s back. The man was quite the contradiction to Taliesin himself who was smaller, more slender, unarmed, and with torn clothes and dried blood all over him.
Taliesin grunted through his gag, glaring up at the man.
Hajiadal leaned over and pulled the gag free, letting it drop around Taliesin’s neck. “What do you have to say?”
“Fuck you!”
“Anything else?”
“Who are you?” Taliesin demanded. “Who hired you?”
“That’s confidential.”
“How did you know so much about me and the group I came into the city with?”
“That’s confidential, too.”
Taliesin’s jaw tightened as he fixed the other man with an irritated look.
“You don’t need to worry about them,” Hajiadal stated, patting the hilt of his sword. “They’re all dead by now. Even your fire-haired dark dwarf.”
“She’s stronger than your demon.”
Hajiadal rolled his eyes, picked Taliesin up in one fluid movement, and threw him over his shoulder. Keeping the bag in his other hand, he continued to walk.
“Not ass first!” Taliesin protested.
“You are really full of complaints for someone so small.”
Taliesin craned his neck around in an attempt to see their direction, but viewing the tunnel upside down only made him dizzy. He looked back where they came from. The corridor went into darkness.
How long have I been out?
“When we fought on the ship, you said ‘she’ about the person you’re working for,” Taliesin began. “Who is ‘she’? My mother? High Priestess Maiathah? Ella Rinn?”
Hajiadal glanced back at him with a raised eyebrow. “How many people have you pissed off?”
“Plenty more.”
“Are any of them men?”
Taliesin thought of the high elf, Aust Mastralath, that he and his companions fought in the Gloomdwell. A servant of the dark god Ragseev. He’d had an army at his disposal. Taliesin had been the one to take Aust’s powerful interplanar orb from him through a spell. He was sure that man was furious at him. At all of them. Especially if he learned that the orb was destroyed.
“I’m not afraid to challenge people,” Taliesin at last answered his captor. “It’s not a bad thing to make enemies of some people. People like you.”
Hajiadal chuckled. “Not afraid of a challenge, indeed.” He sat Taliesin on his feet and appraised him. “I beat you to shit on that ship. Look at you. You’re a mess.”
“What’s your point?” Taliesin surreptitiously pulled at his wrist bindings, but they did not budge.
The other man’s red eyes narrowed. “I’ve heard you can heal wounds. Heal yourself. I want to see.”
A sardonic laugh escaped Taliesin. “Even if my hands were free to cast a spell, I’m not going to perform for you.”
Hajiadal was on him in an instant, shoving him roughly to the ground. The breath was knocked out of the cleric, and pain shot through his hands from landing on them. Hajiadal wrestled one boot and sock off Taliesin’s foot. He pulled out a knife and pressed it against one of Taliesin’s toes. The cleric froze, giving his opponent a wide-eyed stare.
Hajiadal smiled, though it looked more like a predator bearing its teeth. His voice was low and dangerous as he spoke. “If I cut this off, I’m sure you’ll heal it.”
Taliesin did not move, afraid to provoke the man further. The knife pressed against his skin just enough to draw a dot of blood. Taliesin hissed, his fingers flexing instinctively to heal himself. But with his hands bound, he couldn’t finish the movements of his spell.
Hajiadal withdrew the knife. “I thought so. Let’s go.” He grabbed Taliesin’s elbow and began to pull him along.
“Wait! I need my other boot!” The cleric hobbled on one leg, looking over his shoulder at his boot.
“Where you’re going, you won’t need clothes.”
That drew Taliesin’s attention. He gaped at his captor for a moment, struggling for words.
He’s lying, he told himself. He’s trying to scare you. He’s taking you home to your family.
“I can’t travel the Deep Hollows without my boot,” the cleric pressed.
Hajiadal let go of his elbow. “Fine. You have ten seconds to get it on. Ten . . . nine . . . seven . . . four . . .”
In a panic, Taliesin hurried to his shoe and slipped it on in an ungraceful display. His sock was balled up against his toes and his dark pant leg wasn’t tucked in. But he had it on, and that was all he cared about.
Smirking, Hajiadal shoved the burlap sack at him. The salt had all fallen out at this point, stained with Taliesin’s blood. “Carry this. I might want to put you in it again.”
“How am I supposed to carry this with my hands bound?”
Hajiadal slipped the bag over the top of his head and then laughed at his own humor. “Let’s go.”
Taliesin stared at the inside of the sack, rage burning his blood. He could still smell the scent of jura, part of the trap set for him on the ship. It reminded him of home. Of the cultivated land around House Ostoroth’s manor. But none of the memories were good.
“I can’t see,” Taliesin spat venomously. “I will not walk like this.”
“Start walking.”
“No.”
Hajiadal laughed derisively, and that was the limit of what Taliesin could take. Following the sound of the laughter, the cleric charged forward and rammed his shoulder into his captor. They both tumbled down to the hard ground. Taliesin couldn’t see, but he attacked Hajiadal in any way he could. With his knees, his elbows, and kicking his feet. The other man growled and quickly regained control. He flipped Taliesin over onto his stomach, and a hard blow cracked the side of the cleric’s head.
Taliesin’s body went limp, dazed and sick from the strike.
Without a word, Hajiadal picked him up and slung him over his shoulder. The burlap sack fell off, and it was left behind as the man strode down the tunnel. Taliesin watched it with blurred vision until it vanished into the darkness.
This is an autobiographical post. The names of people and places may be changed.
We decided to write autobiographical posts about the colorful life we have lived. There will be tales of sleeping in a campervan on the beach, of defending a bird’s nest from a snake, and of running away from wolves while sick with bronchitis. There will be tales of diagnosis with PTSD and ADHD and how it changed our lives, of meeting biological family, and of job loss. It’s a tale of overcoming challenges, of finding out who we are, of love, hope, cats, and of a marriage that’s gotten stronger through it all.
Autobiography Post 25
We adopted Gamora at the start of 2016. We’d had Danaerys about half a year at that point. She was wild and rambunctious, so we thought it would be best to get another cat for her to play with. Our only stipulation was we wanted the new cat to be between 1-3 years old.
We visited a few shelters before finding our Gamora. A family that had had some internal upheaval needed to get rid of some of their cats. They told us her name was Cleopatra, which is strange because on the official documents her name was written as Esmeralda. And they gave us a purple harness saying she was harness trained. That didn’t seem to be the case, either.
Despite the mysterious origins of Gamora, we fell in love quickly. She was playful, talkative, and a lap cap. She was great at jumping and climbing, which Dany was not.
It took a long time for them to get along. We used several different integration strategies. But ultimately, a move to a new house forced them to share territory. Now, they are good friends.
Gamora the Explorer
Gamora loves the outdoors. We try to take her out on her harness, or without her harness under supervision, whenever possible. She loves to explore and even doesn’t mind the snow for a limited period of time. Dany hates the outdoors, so it’s been something fun and special to do with Gamora by herself.
Gamora the Needy
One of Gamora’s quirks is how needy and clingy she is. She seems to have separation anxiety, even if we are just outside without her. She will climb over everything to get to us. She’s grown quite famous for climbing door screens, meowing as loud as she can in protest at the situation.
Once, when we were integrating the cats, we used a baby-style gate to separate two rooms. Gamora was by herself on one side. She hated that we were not close to her. She climbed up and down the gate, meowing constantly. Finally, she jumped a literal eight-foot vertical jump to bypass the baby gates and land on the nearby couch. We were stunned by her athleticism. And quite vexed that she was an unstoppable cat.
Gamora the Tuna Thief
Once, I believe in 2017, I was preparing dinner for Dorian on his way home. Back then, he worked a later schedule than me, so I would get the meal ready. I was making a tuna and zucchini lasagna. Gamora loved the smell of tuna, so I had to usher her out of the kitchen a few times.
I turned my back on the tuna to start the oven. When I turned back around, Gamora had consumed one of the two cans I had out. I called Dorian.
“Gamora ate the tuna. I only had my back turned for a second!”
He laughed. “I’ll pick up takeout on my way home.”
Gamora the Escape Artist
The most infamous story of Gamora was when we were living in Colorado Springs. We had a three-story townhouse. The bottom floor was partially under the ground, as is the style in that area. Our townhouse had no air conditioning (also typical in that area of older builds) so we slept with the window cracked. The screen was there, so we weren’t worried about anything getting in or out.
At dawn, Gamora climbed off the bed and was smelling the screen. I was still halfway asleep when I heard Dorian shout.
“Gamora got out!”
“What?” I asked, frowning.
“She got outside!”
I twisted around to see she wasn’t by the window anymore. And that the screen had been pushed open. We hadn’t heard anything, meaning the screen had been broken at the edges this whole time and we’d had no idea.
Dorian pulled on his boxers and a shirt and leaped upstairs. I flung open the window and shouted for our cat. I realized then I was topless. Luckily, no one was outside. Quickly closing the curtain again, I yanked on some clothes and gave chase.
I heard Dorian shouting out on the front lawn. “Gamora! Gamora!”
As I raced into the living room, he walked back through the front door with a perplexed Gamora in his arms.
“Thank goodness!” I gasped. “Where was she?”
“Just outside the window.” He was out of breath. “She was just sitting there. I don’t think she knew what to do.”
We’ve always been so relieved that we didn’t lose her that day. Gamora is many things. She’s a talker, always meowing even when she’s in a room by herself. She’s energetic, running and jumping and sometimes tripping us with how excited she is. She is a troublemaker, always wanting to get where she should not and waiting until you turn your back to rebel. She’s also a loving cat, happier sleeping in your lap than doing anything else.
