Ssissiatok (Cissy) was a character that I originally created for The Drache Girl.  When I went back and wrote Brechalon, I inserted a little scene for her and then when I wrote The Dark and Forbidding Land, I gave her a nice juicy part.  I really enjoyed writing her– so much so, that I created a whole new bunch of lizzie characters in The Young Sorceress and the other books that are now a big part of The Sorceress and her Lovers.

Here is a scene from the Drache Girl, showing the everyday interaction between human (Yuah) and lizzie (Cissy).

Yuah spent the remainder of the day in the most rewarding and pleasant role that she had ever had—that of mother.  She scarcely paid any attention to the comings and goings of Iolanthe and the other members of the household.  She cuddled and hugged.  She played peek-a-boo.  She dismissed Cissy when she checked in at three.  She skipped both tea and dinner, having a snack brought up to the nursery.  Finally that evening, she dressed Augie in his pajamas, and put him to bed.  Before she retired to her own room, which was just on the other side of the wall from Augie’s crib, she crossed to the bed on the opposite side of the nursery and kissed an already sleeping Iolana on the forehead.

Yuah’s own bedroom was the type of room that she had dreamt of having as a child.  Of course, growing up as a servant in the Dechantagne household, she had seen such rooms many times.  Wallpaper with an intricate pattern of pink roses between golden bars covered all the walls, reaching from the golden pattern on the ceiling to the gold floral carpeting on the floor.  Pink lace curtains on both the windows matched the pink lace draped above the big brass bed and above the large oval mirror of the vanity.  The intricately wrought bedstead matched both the small brass chair in front of the vanity and the small stand in the corner which held the wash basin and pitcher.  Cissy followed her into the room and stood quietly by as Yuah removed her new dress.

Though Cissy, like all the reptilian aborigines was referred to as a lizardman or a lizzie, she was in fact a female of the species.  Her silly little skirt was the primary indicator of that fact, for most humans remained ignorant of how to determine gender among their cold-blooded neighbors.  It also, like the medallions worn by the male lizardmen, indicated to the local militia and the new police department that she was in the permanent employ of human colonists, and so was allowed the freedom to stay within the confines of the colony overnight, unlike the laborers at the dock or those working on the streets.  She was slightly less than six feet in height, several inches taller than Yuah.  The skin of her face was a deep forest green which continued down her back, punctuated with darker stripes just below her shoulders.  Beneath her long powerful jaw, on her dewlap, and extending down her front, it was a lighter, pale green.  Cissy, like Tisson and Sirrek, and unlike most of the twenty or so other lizardmen on the property, had been working for the household for almost two years, earning Iolanthe’s trust and her husband’s too, for what it mattered.  Cissy even seemed to have won over Terrence, and that was saying something.

When Yuah had taken off her dress and handed it to Cissy to be hung up, she then turned and held on to the brass bedstead, so the reptilian maid could unlace her Prudence Plus maternal bust form corset.  Stepping out of that and the rest of her underclothes, she put on her nightdress and sat at the vanity to comb her long brown hair, while Cissy put the corset away in the closet and put all the rest down the laundry chute in the hallway. 

“I think that will be all, Cissy,” said Yuah.

“Yes.”  The maid turned and exited the room, her long, armored tail, the tip of which was about a foot off the ground, seemed to stay long after she had made her way through the doorway.  Back in Greater Brechalon, servants were required to respond with a “yes, miss” or a “yes, ma’am”, but the locals were unable to comply with this necessity having for all practical purposes, no lips.  They were quite capable of “yes, sir” but the royal governor had decided that having no form of address at all was preferable to a masculine one for the ladies.

Climbing beneath the blankets of her large bed, Yuah felt more alone than at any time of the day.  Her husband had been gone for almost eight months.  When he had left, her pregnancy was only beginning to show.  Now a beautiful young son lay in the room next door, having never seen, nor been seen by his father.  It was a long journey to Brech—almost two months travel time each direction.  So eight months was not an unreasonable time to be gone.  On the other hand, eight months was long enough to make clear that Terrence wasn’t breaking any records in an effort to return home.

The next morning, Cissy was again present to help Yuah get dressed.  Today she decided on a teal dress which featured a very tight bodice and a plunging back.  The butterfly sleeves of white lace matched waves of lace which trailed down in layers over the smooth satin skirt.  A very large white bow accentuated the bustle, and tiny white bow-shaped beads ran in a single line down the front, from the relatively high neckline, all the way to the floor.  She chose long white gloves to accentuate the dress and a matching teal hat, shallow with a very wide brim, trimmed in blue, yellow, and white flowers.  By the time she had finished her makeup, Cissy had dressed Augie and taking her son in her arms, Yuah made her way down the sweeping staircase and into the dining room.

Professor Merced Calliere is an important supporting character in the first half of Senta and the Steel Dragon.  He appears more in book 1 and 3, but has smaller parts in books 0 and 2.  Here is the professor withe the rest of the family at breakfast in The Drache Girl.  I named him Merced after the river and so decided that his nickname would be Mercy.  Calliere is a made up name too.

Yuah thought she had made it up early this morning, but everyone was already seated at the long dining table.  Professor Merced Calliere, dressed in a white summer suit that his wife had no doubt purchased for him, sat at the head of the table and was already scooping forkfuls of eggs and sausages to his mouth.  At the opposite end of the table, his wife, the royal governor, sipped her morning tea.  The bright red dress she wore was clean in style and far simpler in cut than Yuah’s teal dress.  It featured no lace or brocade or beading what-so-ever, but the material which covered Iolanthe from the top of the neck to the wrists and down to the floor was so smooth, and so fine, that Yuah would have bet it cost a fortune, and was probably imported all the way from Forlond. 

Each side of the table had four place settings, though for breakfast, not all of them were filled.  Yuah took her place to Iolanthe’s right.  The two seats to her right were empty.  At the far end, next to her father, and perched on a stack of books in her chair was little Iolana.  The pretty little girl, dressed in bright pink, had her blond hair carefully curled into dozens of tiny ringlets, which framed her aquamarine eyes, tiny freckled nose, and bow-shaped mouth.  Directly across from Yuah sat Mrs. Colbshallow.  A handsome, though rather worn woman in her late forties, Mrs. Colbshallow had been the family cook for the Dechantagne household.  Having journeyed to the new world, she found herself in the rather queer position of being a human servant in a land where servants were lizardmen.  Since she clearly was above the level of the lizzies, she had sort of automatically assumed the place of family member.  While she was still in charge of all the meals, she only engaged in the actual work of the kitchen when it suited her.  Next to her was her son Saba, in a neatly pressed blue police uniform, with large brass buttons.  The lanky boy who had been a step-n-fetchit for the Dechantagne home had grown to a handsome six foot three nineteen year old.  His thick blond hair and flashing moss green eyes were a welcome sight for most girls in Port Dechantagne.  Though he lived in a small house down the road, he often took meals with his mother.  Next to him was another empty seat, and then next to that, to the professor’s right was seated Macy Godwin.  Another staff member elevated to family, Mrs. Godwin had served as a governess and head maid at the Dechantagne family home in Shopton.  Now nearing sixty, Mrs. Godwin had settled in to serve as the grizzled aunt neither the Dechantagne nor the Calliere family had.

One of the lizardman waiters placed a plate of eggs, sausages, black pudding, baked beans, sliced tomatoes, and toast in front of Yuah.  Balancing Augie in the crook of her left arm, she picked up her fork and used the side of it to cut the eggs into bite sized pieces.  The local lack of chickens did nothing to lessen the humans’ appetite for eggs and the local countryside obliged.  There were many birds in Birmisia, as well as dinosaurs, and quite a few animals that seemed to fall somewhere in between the two groups.  Wild eggs had proven to be the most abundant food source offered by the new land.  Early on, the colonists had scavenged them for themselves, but this had given way to trading with the local lizardman tribes for them.  Now, with the exception of manual labor, eggs were the largest source of wealth for the reptilians.

“I believe there is something wrong with your dress, dear,” said Mrs. Godwin.

“Oh?” said Yuah.

“Yes, it’s missing the back.”

“Perhaps you have it on backwards,” offered Mrs. Colbshallow.

“I happen to know that both of you saw this dress at Mrs. Bratihn’s,” said Yuah.  “You’ve just been waiting until I wore it so you could play at being blinkered old ladies.”

“It does show rather a lot of skin, for a day dress,” said Iolanthe.

“Backs are all in, in Brech,” said Yuah.

“I think it looks very nice,” said the professor.

“Oh shut up,” snapped Iolanthe.

Hey, finally a character I haven’t already written about.  Amadea Jindra is one of two women that Radley Staff becomes involved with (in the looser sense of that word) while on the ship to Birmisia.  Other than book 0, in which she makes a very brief appearance, Miss  Jindra appears only in this book of the series so far.  Amadea’s first name I made up as a female version of Amadeus– as in Mozart.  I don’t know if it actually is a name or not.  Here she arrives in Birmisia to be met (sort of) by Zurfina.

Stepping out of the S.S. Arrow’s mid-deck hatch and onto the gangplank, Radley Staff looked around at the peninsula on which Port Dechantagne was built.  He was amazed at the growth of the little colony.  When he had left, a little more than three years ago, it was nothing but a few barracks buildings in a clearing in the woods.  Now it was a real town.  From where he stood, he could see hundreds of buildings, warehouses, apartment blocks, businesses, and the rooftops of more building off between the redwoods.  A large, dark cloud hung amid the white clouds, formed by hundreds of fireplaces and stoves.  The smell of wood smoke overcame the smell of the seashore.  He stopped for a moment and enjoyed the scene.  Someone behind him cleared her throat.  He turned around to find Miss Jindra, in a shimmering white and teal day dress with waves of white ruffles down the front.  She wore a matching teal hat with a lace veil and carried a parasol, though she seemed unlikely to need one.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I didn’t mean to hold you up.”

“That’s quite all right, Mr. Staff.  I’m surprised you haven’t debarked yet.”

“I waited to avoid the rush.”

“I’m afraid I was expecting more,” she said, looking with a raised brow at the nearby buildings.

He followed her gaze.

“Really?  I was thinking just the opposite.”

He turned back around to face her and started.  Miss Jindra was just where she had been, but a second woman stood directly behind her—a woman who hadn’t been there only a second before.  Though her hairstyle was different, Staff remembered the charcoal circled grey eyes and the wry smile.  He had thought he remembered her scandalous dress too, but what she had on now went beyond the bounds of decency.  Black leather covered only the lower half of her breasts, leaving her two star tattoos clearly visible.  The dress reached down only to the top of her thighs.  Two thick straps attached to a tight leather collar, which seemed to be holding the whole thing up.  Forget fitting a corset beneath this ensemble.  One would have been hard pressed to fit a piece of lace in there.

“Well, Lieutenant Staff, I do declare,” said Zurfina in her unforgettable sultry voice.

“That’s Mr. Staff,” he corrected.

Miss Jindra spun around, getting a piece of her voluminous dress caught on a spur of the railing.  There was a loud ripping sound as a four-inch tear was opened in the beautiful teal cloth.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” said Zurfina, placing a hand on each of Miss Jindra’s shoulders.  Looking around the olive-skinned woman’s head, she said in a loud whisper.  “Too long a dress.  Bound to happen sooner or later.”

“What exactly do you want, Zurfina?” asked Staff.  “I’m flattered, but surprised that you came to meet me.”

“Oh you are a pretty boy, but it’s your friend I’m here for.”

“Miss Jindra?”

Miss Jindra started to speak.  “I don’t…”

“Don’t spoil the moment,” said Zurfina, placing a finger on the woman’s mouth.

“Perhaps I could bring her around to your home later,” said Staff.

Zurfina flashed him a smile that was only slightly more than a smirk.  Then suddenly she was gone.  Miss Jindra, her voluminous white and teal dress with matching teal hat and her parasol, were gone too.  There was nothing to indicate that anyone had ever stood on the gangplank behind him, except for a single teal colored thread, clinging to a spur in the railing.

For a moment, Staff thought about finding Miss Jindra and rescuing her.  On the other hand, she had never expressed a need or a desire for his protection.  He didn’t really know her all that well.  She was only a dinner companion, assigned by the ship’s purser at that.  And it was not as if he had any knowledge of how to deal with a sorceress or knew Zurfina’s address.  So he shrugged and continued down the gangplank, across the dock, and into the street beyond.

Smedley Bassington is a character that developed as I was writing Senta and the Steel Dragon.  I had a place for a wizard in book 3, and so he filled that spot.  I liked him when I wrote it and so I expanded his role in book 5 and expanded his back story which I added to book 0.  He is still definitely among the ranks of the minor characters in the series, but a particularly important one.  I already posted part of Senta’s duel with Bassington on my post about Bessemer.  Here is his arrival in Birmisia, as witnessed by Saba Colbshallow.

Saba strolled back across Bainbridge Clark Street, just in time to see the professor walking back to his vehicle from the ship’s loading area, along with a stranger.  The man was tall with a dark complexion.  His slightly graying hair was cut fairly short and parted in the middle, while his squinty eyes peered out from behind horn-rimmed spectacles.  His nose was turned up just enough that one could look directly into his nostrils.  His wide thin-lipped mouth and a heavy lantern jaw made him seem toad-like.  About five foot ten, he wore a black pinstriped suit and over it, a long black rifle frock coat that reached to his knees.

Saba could feel the stranger’s eyes upon him for just a moment, as the man evaluated him.  Then the stranger seemed to freeze in place.  His head turned quickly to the right, and Saba looked to his left to follow the man’s gaze.  They made three points of a triangle—Saba, the man in black, and the twelve-year-old sorceress’s apprentice.  Senta and the stranger stared at each other for at least ten seconds, though to Saba, it seemed like much longer.  Then the girl got up from her crate and skipped south.  She turned to look back twice, as if she was worried about being followed.

The man in black watched her, giving no more notice to Saba or anyone else in the street, and then he climbed into the passenger seat of the steam carriage.  Professor Calliere hopped into the driver’s seat and was soon off, honking to warn dockworkers both human and reptilian to get out of his way, driving north in the direction of his workshop.

Yuah and Honor are just so perfect together, it’s only natural that they become friends.  I had originally planned to write them getting to know each other in The Voyage of the Minotaur, but I didn’t get it worked into the story, so I did it in The Drache Girl.  Of course later, I wished I hadn’t because I could have worked it into The Dark and Forbidding Land. In any case, they do become friends.  Here is the beginning of that relationship.

“Mrs. Dechantagne, how lovely to see you.”

Honor Hertling was dressed in the same sturdy brown and white clothing as her neighbors.  Her sleeves and the front of her dress were stained with dirt, and she wore a beat up pair of men’s work gloves.  Twenty years old, with large, sad eyes, a small nose, and raven hair, she was not classically beautiful, and not just because of the ugly scar that ran across her left cheek to her chin.  She was cute though, in an indefinable way.  Yuah reached out to take her gloved hand.

“Oh, sorry,” said Miss Hertling.  She pulled her hand away and removed the glove, then grasped Yuah’s hand firmly.  “What a lovely dress.”

“You like it?  A little bird told me that you might not approve.”  Yuah was suddenly aware that she was using one of Iolanthe’s expressions.

“Mein sister and her friend.”  Miss Hertling’s accent suddenly became thicker.  “I am thinking that the Drache girl likes to stir up trouble.  Would you like to come in for some tea?”

“Thank you.”

Tossing her gloves onto a potting bench near the garden, the young woman opened the door.  Yuah parked the blue baby carriage in the yard and lifting little Augie out, followed into the house.  The structure was very small and consisted of three rooms.  The front room, only about eight by twelve feet, served as parlor, dining room, and kitchen, as well as any number of other functions for which the Dechantagne household would have had individual rooms.  From the cast iron stove at one end of the room to the shelf filled with canned goods at the other, the room was impeccably clean.  A single bookcase contained a dozen volumes and was home to two small porcelain vases holding cut flowers.  Bright light shown in through the lace curtained windows.  Augie began to fuss as Yuah stepped inside.

“He’s probably hungry again,” she said.

“If you would like to nurse him now, you may sit in the rocking chair, while I make our tea.”

Yuah set the swaddled baby on the chair as she went about the fairly arduous task of freeing her breasts from the many layers of her clothing.   Though two of her three undergarments had been fashioned with breast-feeding in mind, the gorgeous teal dress had not.  By the time Augie was able to begin suckling, he was red-faced from crying and his mother was nearing exhaustion.  Yuah pulled the suddenly quiet baby close to her body, now bare from the waist up, and reached with a free hand to accept the cup of steaming tea.  Miss Hertling turned the lock on the door, which consisted of a small piece of wood with a single nail holding it to the doorjamb. 

“I wouldn’t want Hertzal walking in on you,” she explained.  “I think he might faint.”

“Isn’t he working at the dock?”

“Yes, but sometimes he comes home for lunch.”

“Thank you again for your hospitality.  I suppose I would have had to walk all the way back home, or find a spot beside a tree.”

“That probably wouldn’t have been a good idea.  I’ve seen velociraptors eating out of people’s garbage twice this week.  I doubt that one or two would chase down a full-grown person, but they always seem to multiply.  I hate to think of one of them getting after a baby.”

Yuah pulled Augie even closer.  “I hope you have notified the police.”

“I have.  The militia too.  They keep chasing the beasts off and they keep coming back.”

Yuah turned Augie around to give him the other breast.  He cried for just a moment as she shifted his position, and then happily went back to feeding.  She brushed his thin brown hair back away from his face. 

“I don’t want you to think that I disapprove of you or your clothes,” said Miss Hertling, pulling one of the dining chairs forward to face the rocking chair, and sitting down in it.  “I just think that it is very important to preserve our traditions.”

“There is nothing in the scripture or the Magnificent Law that prohibits the wearing of colorful clothing.”

“Yes, I know.  But my sister and I come from Freedonia.  You must understand that in Freedonia, the Zaeri face extinction.”

“You don’t really mean that do you?  Extinction, as in death?”

“Murder is being committed and sometimes it’s sanctioned by the government.  Those Zaeri who stay are being discriminated against and forced to move to specially designated areas.  Laws are being passed that limit Zaeri rights and create special Zaeri taxes.  Those Zaeri who do leave, find themselves unable to return.  Things are only going to get worse, too.  King Klaus II has publicly called the Zaeri an unclean race.”

“That’s abhorrent.”

“Yes, but that’s the way it is.  My parents were killed and my brother, sister, and I were chased out of our home.  But they couldn’t destroy what we are.  We are still Zaeri and we are still alive.  I think it’s important that we remember who we are.  We should maintain our traditions.”

“I suppose I can understand your feelings about it,” said Yuah.

“Things must be strange for you though,” mused Miss Hertling.  “I hadn’t really thought of it before.  You are one of only a handful of Zaeri from Greater Brechalon.  You must feel as different from us, from the Freedonians, as you do from the Kafirite Brechs.”

The Twins Hero and Hertzal Hertling are such solid parts of Senta and the Steel Dragon that I was surprised when I went back over The Drache Girl to find out they’re not in it as much as I thought.  They have some very key scenes, especially Hero, but don’t appear nearly as much as they do in book 2.

This is a pretty key scene in the book, and revolves around Senta and Graham, but as usual Hero and Hertzal are there to round out the cast.

When the four had finished their tea, Senta set four silver ten-pfennigs on the table and they left the bakery café.  No other patrons had come in while they had been there, and the seven diners who had been seated when they arrived were still seated.  The town square still looked completely abandoned.

“I’d like to go over to Mrs. Bratihn’s,” said Senta.

“Oh, come on,” pleaded Graham.  “I want to go to the dinosaur pen.”

“Why don’t you two go ahead, and we’ll join you,” suggested Senta.

“I really don’t want to go to Mrs. Bratihn’s,” said Hero quietly, looking down at her own black coat and brown dress.

“Why not?”

“I just don’t.  Can’t we go to the dinosaur pen with the boys?”

“Go ahead with them,” said Senta.  “I’ll stop at Mrs. Bratihn’s and be along in a few minutes.”

Hero nodded, and hurried off to catch up with Graham and her brother, who were already several paces away.  Senta turned and crossed the town square to the Dress Shop.  Mrs. Bratihn called out from the back when the bell rang over the door and a moment later came out to the front.

“Good afternoon, Senta,” she said.  “Why aren’t you at the train station dedication?”

“It was boring.  You?”

“Well,” she laughed.  “I guess I find that sort of thing boring too.  Lawrence is there, and he can tell me what happened tonight at dinner.  So what can I do for you?”

“I need another new dress.”

“That’s the third one in a month.  At this rate you’re going to be a better customer for me than Mrs. Dechantagne.”

“I’m going to buy lots of dresses,” said Senta.  “I want a whole closet full.”

“That’s wonderful, dear.  What did you have in mind?”

“Anything that’s not black.”

“I had a bolt of lavender silk come in on the Arrow.  I was thinking of making something stylish to put in the window—something with some darker purple velvet.”

“Miss Jindra has a purple dress that is really nice.  You can see her shoulder blades.”

“Yes, all the women want to show off their shoulder blades now,” said Mrs. Bratihn.  “It’s very daring.  We could make one like that for you.”

Senta reached around to feel her back.  She wondered how her shoulder blades would look.  Stuffing her hand into her pocket, she pulled out a wad of bank notes and peeled off enough to pay for the dress.  She had not even come close to spending her first month’s stipend, and now she already had another.

“Do you need to measure me again?” she asked.

“No dear.  I doubt that your measurements have changed appreciably since last week.  I do want you to look at some dress styles though, so we can be on the right track.”

Mrs. Bratihn went into the back of the shop and returned with her huge dress stylebook.  They sat looking through the pages and picking out things that they thought ought to be added to a dress, as well as things they thought ought never to be added to a dress.  Senta was aided in this by a very distinctive idea of what she wanted.  The more it looked like the dresses worn by Mrs. Government and Mrs. Dechantagne, the better the dress was as far as she was concerned, and the less it looked like those ladies’ dresses, the less she liked it.  Within ten minutes, the two had hashed out enough details for Mrs. Bratihn to get started.

Waving goodbye to the dressmaker, Senta stepped out into the cold and made her way across town square and through the great gate.  She turned west down Second Avenue though a section of some of the first houses built in the colony.  Though they were less than four years old, they seemed primitive compared to the more recent construction.  Most were tiny, one room cottages.  There were few people about here too, though Senta saw a man shoveling snow, and a woman shaking out a rug on her front step.  When she got to the corner of Bainbridge Clark Street, Senta turned right and began skipping down the hill.

She was nearing the docks when she saw four lizardmen walking away from the area.  The speed at which they were moving could very well have been called running, so slow was the normal speed of reptilians during the winter.  Then she heard shouting ahead, and she stopped to listen, but before she could discern the nature of the disruption the voices stopped.  She continued on her way, but no longer skipping.  When she reached the shipyard, everything seemed quiet. 

She stepped around the corner of an equipment storage shed that stood on the left hand side of the street and she saw her three friends.  Graham was sitting on the cold ground, his legs sticking straight out in front of him and his chin resting on his chest.  Hero and Hertzel were standing next to him.  Senta lifted up the front of her skirts and ran the last fifty feet to stand beside the three.  Tears streamed silently down both sides of Graham’s face, which was deep red.  A purple welt was beginning to form around his left eye.

“What happened?”

Hero and Hertzel both looked at her, but neither spoke.

“What happened?” she asked again.

“Nothing,” said Graham.  He slowly got to his feet.  “Nothing happened.”

“Those lizzies didn’t attack you?”

Hertzel shook his head, but Graham just stomped off to stand with his back to them, a dozen feet away.

“If it wasn’t the lizzies, then what happened?” Senta asked, this time looking directly at Hero.

“There were…” she paused and looked at Graham’s back, but he didn’t move.  “There were three men.  They had some of the lizzies kind of pushed into this spot.  They were threatening them.  Oh, maybe they were just teasing them, but…”

“But what?”

“They said they were going to cut their tails off.”

“Wankers,” said Senta.

“Yes, well, Graham jumped in and told them to ‘sod off’.  Then one of them…”

“One of them what?” said Senta, her voice taking a menacing tone.

“One of them hit him.”  Hero’s eyes welled up.

“Which way did they go?” growled Senta.

Hero did nothing but look stricken, but Hertzel immediately pointed toward Seventh and One Half Avenue, and the apartments just beyond.

“I’m going to rip their hearts out.”

“No,” said Graham.

“Don’t worry.  I’m going to…”

“No, you’re not,” said Graham, louder than before. 

He stomped back over to where the other three stood.  Fresh tears streamed down his face and a little trail of snot flowed from his right nostril.  It made a bubble when he breathed.

“All right, I won’t kill them,” said Senta.  “I’ll just teach them a lesson.”

“You’re not going to do anything!” shouted Graham, pointing at her, his finger so close to her face that it made her start.  “I don’t need you to stick up for me!”

“I just…”

“I don’t need anyone to fight for me!  Especially not a girl!”

He walked several steps away.

“And you’re not my girlfriend!” he shouted and broke into a full run, not stopping as he ran south and out of sight around some buildings.

The three friends stood looking at the place where Graham had disappeared.  Then, as if some magical spell had been broken, people began to appear on the street.  First a few could be seen at the top of the hill, coming down Bainbridge Clark Street.  A moment later half a dozen more people walked down Seventh and One Half Avenue.  Within ten minutes, the streets of Port Dechantagne were as busy as they ever were.  Hero came and put her arms around Senta’s shoulders.  Neither of the girls seemed to know what to say, and of course, Hertzel never said anything. 

“What’s going on here?”

Police Constable Eamon Shrubb had walked up next to them without them even noticing.  He looked down at the two girls and the boy, and his brow furrowed with concern.

“What’s going on here?” he said again, but this time in a softer voice.

Senta sighed.

“Tell him what happened,” she told Hero, and she began walking back up the hill the way she had come.

I mentioned a while ago that I based Eamon and Dot Shrubb on a young couple that I briefly knew.  What I didn’t mention was that neither was in my original outline.  I included Eamon’s name in a throwaway line about Saba Colbshallow having badge #1 and Eamon having badge #2 of the Port Dechantagne police department.  Once I had included him, his wife and their relationship, and the relationship between them and Saba just fell together.  Eamon has a pretty big part in The Drache Girl, both in his own right and as a sounding board for Saba.  Dot has a fairly important bit too.  In this scene we meet Dot for the first time and learn a bit about their relationship.

He arrived back at the police station office to find Dot Shrubb in a pretty pink dress that highlighted her copper-colored hair.  She was a thin, but pretty girl, of seventeen who had arrived in Port Dechantagne a year ago, without any family, and had stolen the heart of Eamon Shrubb the first time he laid eyes upon her.

“Saba,” she said, in the nasal voice of someone who had been deaf all her life.

“Looking for Eamon?” he asked, keeping his face toward her, so that she could read his lips.

She nodded.

“You two were fighting again.”

She punched the palm of her left hand with her right fist.

“What about?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then made a rocking baby motion with her arms folded.

“You’re expecting?”

“Huh?”

“Baby.  You’re going to have a baby?”

She nodded, smiling.

“Then why were you fighting?  Doesn’t he want a baby?”

“Name,” she said.

“Kafira,” Saba muttered.

At that moment, Eamon opened the office door.  He paused about halfway inside, looking at his wife the way a munitions expert looks at a bomb that didn’t go off as intended.  She looked at the floor.  After a moment, the constable stepped inside.

“You nesh berk,” said Saba.  Eamon looked at him in surprise.  “You take your wife home and see to her.  I may not have two and a half months experience being married, but even I know you don’t fight with a woman who’s expecting.”

“She wanted to name the baby Yadira.”

“What’s wrong with that?” demanded Saba.

“Come on!  That’s the worst name in the world.”

“My mother’s name,” said Dot.

“That happens to be my mother’s name, too,” said Saba.

“Oh, yeah.  I forgot about that,” said Eamon.

“It’s not like Eamon’s a brilliant name.”

“I don’t want to name it Eamon either.  If it’s a boy I want to name it Darsham, and if it’s a girl I want to name it Daria.”

“Darsham Shrubb?  Why don’t you just name it ‘kick my ass on the way to school’ and have done with it.”

Eamon ballooned his cheeks out and rolled his eyes back to think for a moment.  “It doesn’t sound that good when you put it all together, does it?”

“Here’s my advice, Mr. I’ve-been-married-two-and-a-half-months.  Take the rest of the day off and take your wife home.  Make her a cup of tea and rub her feet.  Then let her decide what to name the baby.  You can go get a kitten from Mrs. Gyffington, and name it Darsham, or Daria, or whatever the bloody hell you want to name it.”

“That’s right,” said Dot, taking Eamon by the arm.  Then she said, “Rub my feet,” leading Saba to believe that she had missed most of what he had said.

“You don’t mind if I take the afternoon?” asked Eamon.  He turned his head slightly, so that his lips were not visible to his wife.  “If I rub her feet, she’ll be all rumpy-pumpy.”

“Go!”

The two left the office, arm in arm.  As soon as they were gone, Saba stepped back through the supply room and into cell number one.  Setting his helmet beside the cot, he lay down and took a nap.

A lot of people tell me that Graham is their favorite character in Senta and the Steel Dragon.  He is pretty cool.  He falls into that place in the story that best friends usually do, though in this case he’s a boyfriend (or not-boyfriend, depending on which book it is).  Graham first appears in book 1, and has a small part in that story.  He has a relatively small part in books 4 and 5, but in books 2 and 3, he really gets the spotlight.  Some of my favorite parts are quiet moments when Graham and Senta get to just enjoy each other’s company.  This is one such scene from The Drache Girl.

“Do you have a last name?” wondered Graham.

He sat beneath a willow on a large rock ten feet from the frigid water of Battle Creek.  Hamonth was almost over and the chilly winds had, for now, stopped.  It was still cold enough for a steady cloud of steam to make its way up from the cups of tea, Senta had poured from the pot she carried in her picnic basket.

“You know I do,” replied Senta.  “You’ve heard it a hundred times.”

“I guess I wasn’t paying attention.  What is it?”

“Zurfina says that if you are famous and powerful enough, you don’t need more than one name.  It’s like kings and queens, and Magnus the Great.”

“My Da says everything deserves a name, and people deserve a last name.”

“He does not.”

“Huh?”

“I bet he never said any such thing.”

Graham shrugged.

“Did he say it or not?”

“No.”

“You just said that he said it?”

“Yes.”

“I knew it,” said Senta.  “You just go around saying ‘My Da says this’ and ‘My Da says that’ and he never said any such thing.”

“No!”

“No?”

“I only say that he said things that he really would say, but he just might not have.”

“I always knew you were dodgy.”

Graham shrugged again and took a sip of his tea.  Then his brow twisted in thought.

“I bet you do the same thing,” he said.

“What?”

“You’re always going on about how ‘Zurfina says this’.  I bet you make it up too.”

“No.”

“No?”

“Never.”

“She actually said that bit about not needing a last name?”

“Word for word.”

“Oh.”  He sipped his tea again.  “So do you figure you’re famous and powerful enough, then?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you famous and powerful enough that you don’t need a last name?”

“No, I guess not,” said Senta.  “I don’t think I like it though.  I never knew anyone else with it.  It’s Bly.”

“Oh, right.  It’s not that bad.”

“It’s better than Dokkins.”

“No.  My Da says Dokkins is one of the finest names in Greater Brechalon.” Then he added.  “And he does say that too.”

Senta stood up; balancing on the large rock, then bent down at the waist and sat her teacup where she had been sitting.  She stretched her arms out to either side and balanced herself, as she stepped in her bare feet from one rock to another.  She made a circuitous route back to the picnic basket and opened it up.  She pulled out a warm potpie in a small ceramic bowl.  She held the pie out in her left hand and a fork in her right and balanced her way across five more rocks to where the brown haired, freckled boy sat and handed both to him.

“You know you’ve got a hole in that dress?”

“Yes,” said Senta, sadly.

She looked down at the yellow dress.  Though the upper portion was shapeless and tube-like, matching her still shapeless body, the bodice was brilliantly decorated with yellow brocade and beadwork.  The skirt portion draped out appropriately, especially in the back, where with the aid of a bustle, it spread back almost three feet.  Unfortunately all around the hem, it was worn from trailing along the ground, and a small hole had been burned into the material about five inches to the right of Senta’s right knee, when she had been warming herself by a wood stove.

She made her way back to the picnic basket and took out her own potpie, and then stepped back over to her rock.  Holding her potpie in one hand and picking up her teacup in the other, she crossed her legs and sat down, allowing her dress to cover the rock, so that she seemed to either be hovering above the ground or to be standing but very short.

“This is pretty good,” said Graham, indicating the potpie.  “What’s in it?”

“Pork and stuff.”

“What kind of stuff?” he demanded.

“Nothing weird.  Potatoes and beets and carrots.”

“Okay.”

They had been having a lot of picnic lunches lately, though the weather would soon be too cold.  Graham had held to his promise to take her to lunch the other day, but one trip to Mrs. Finkler’s was about the limit of his budget.  Senta liked making things for Graham, anyway.  They spent almost all their free time together, especially when, like now, there were no ships in port.  Something was beginning to be different though.  Graham was just, well he was just Graham.  The only time he seemed to notice that Senta was a girl, was when he was pointing out that she had a hole in her dress.  She thought that he must notice Hero was a girl, with her dark eyes and her long, long, long dark hair.  Senta ran a hand through her own hair.  It had grown long, but it wasn’t wavy and it wasn’t thick.  It was thin and pale looking.  And she had a hole in her dress. 

Senta decided right then and there that she would go to Mrs. Bratihn’s and get a new dress.  It would be a beautiful, colorful dress that would make her look like a woman.  Then she would find out if Mrs. Bratihn had an old copy of Brysin’s Weekly Ladies’ Journal, so that she could look through it and find a new hairstyle.  It would be something with waves or curls, something beautiful enough that all the boys would notice—even Graham.  Maybe she would find a hairstyle mysterious enough that Zurfina would want to copy it.  She was sure that she could magic her hair into the new style, she magiced it clean all the time.

“More tea?” she asked Graham.