Sasha Distan

When Dalton answers one question and his friend, co-worker, and room mate throws a drink over his head, his first thought should be to worry if one or other of them will be getting fired. But Dalton has more pressing questions to answer, like where he's going to sleep, and what the hell he did wrong.

"I went to get paint, and I went to that big bookshop, y'know, Saga Books. And they had coffee and places to sit, and I thought what we really needed was to be more like them..." Yes, I'm back. Yes, it's really me. Yes, I wrote something little, and I though I'd share. Ma thought it was a good idea, but that's not the only reason. Hello, It's been a while, how are y'all? I missed you guys - you know who you are. So, I'm a parent now. Here are the facts you get, these and no others. He's ten months old, his birthday is in October, you can call him Goblin, or Goblin Boy, we do. He is the best thing that has ever happened to us. By miles. I love him more than I ever thought possible. A lot has changed since I've been away, everything and nothing in a way. I have less time than I thought I would, turns out little Goblin's take up a lot of each and every day. I had to give up my horse, Copper and his field-mate have been loaned to a lovely pair of girls who adore them. I miss it, but it wasn't really my choice. I had to sell the truck, the car seat didn't fit safely in it, I bought a Honda CRV, still rugged, but just a bit more sensible. I tiled the upstairs bathroom, I still haven't painted the hall. Dashi is huge now, 17 months and still super cute. He loves his little brother, and goblin loves him too. Life is really really good. So how've you all been? PS: points for guessing the quote, no Googling allowed.

I've been gone for a pretty long time. Hi guys... remember me? When I bowed out back in March, it was because we were getting prepped to move house. We bought a three bed semi-detached with a little garden and had to leave the big wild - we didn't go far, but houses in very rural Sussex are deeply expensive. We moved the day before my birthday, so I get to say I bought myself the most expensive birthday present ever! So we bought a house, got some chickens, and in April I finally got the thing I'd waited my whole life for: Dashi is now not quite 6 months old, a gorgeous little lurcher pup bred by friends of ours from the farm. I got to choose him when he was only 3 1/2 weeks old, and he is the most adorable creature. His mother is a rabbit dog, and Dashi is going to be trained up to be a fast little hunter too. He's already damn quick. So we've been busy, but I'm sorry to say, but I'm not back. This is not me returning happy and triumphant, even though I am deeply happy and triumphant. Dashi is sleeping by the back door, I'm sat on the sofa, and we are content. Cris got a better job, one he likes better, involves more high level coding and more money. Plus he likes his co-workers. I finally finished re-writing the key stage 3 scheme of work for school (it only took 4 months!), and spent an inordinate amount of money on an enormous american double door fridge freezer. But I'm not back. And here's why: We're about to become parents. Not dog parents, but real full on actual parents. Soon, really soon. And we're both sort of terrified, and excited, and amazed. So I'm going to work on being prepared for becoming a parent, and maybe someday I'll be back again. Thank you for everything. Thank you for being there for me, for reading, responding, and enjoying the work. Thank you for being patient, and kind, and a million other things. And now you'll have to excuse me, because I have to go fight the instruction manual and build a crib. love Sasha xxx

can you imagine the two of them trying to navigate this situation without an empath? Hel isn't ready for a lot of what's going to happen to him, neither is Aki... it's gonna be fun!

all American Songbook stories are one-shot shorts. sorry.

A spirit animal has some similarities in senses to a shifter/were, but they won't be quite as acute. Also Hel has nothing to anchor what his senses are telling him, so like a person who can't read, he doesn't understand the information being delivered to his brain. You don't need to read the others in order for this story to work, they are in related universes, but there aren't any direct crossover characters or events (yet). Not that I don't think you'll enjoy the BCOH stories - they are very different!

thanks very much. Are there any number of years which will be enough to prepare a person for parenting a teenager? I can teach them, but I want it to be many years before I have to parent one of them!they have the skills... but will they create more problems for themselves before they fix them?

thanks very much.you hit it all pretty much spot on there - and they've both got a lot of work to do.

hey, some guys haven't got much skill at showing their emotions... he's not had a lot of practice, and now he's got a lot of work to do. and yes, he is one lucky SOB, and he's going to work that out soon enough.

Thank you hun. I think Hel is a lot more innocent than Aki or Ishca realise. He's just a kid, he's only just started to hit puberty, and his consideration of Peter as "just human" shows both his inexperience and his desperation to cling onto this 'new world' in which he has found himself. To accept he's no longer human, he needs to see them as less somehow. Aki will fix him... he'll have to.

that was never going to be the best conversation in the world. Aki is going to have to tread carefully, which is going to be hard is dust-covered work boots.

“So he’s on his way?” Aki sighed down the phone. “Safely tucked away on the train, with half a metric ton of sugar and all his homework finished off. He should be arriving in a couple of hours.” “Thank gods for that.” Aki didn’t realise how tense he’d felt, not really knowing if Hel would try to stay with Peter and James, or want to come back to him. Ever since Ishca had made him realise he was a parent, he’d missed the noise of Hel around the house, and it would be good to have the teenager h

yeah, yeah... I'm alive.

Thank you very much, do come and stay in Kurt and Tahryn's universe a while. They come in fabulous paperback too.

oh most certainly! I wouldn't want to dream that my rapist had the face of the boy I was falling in love with anymore than Jesse did!

I've never written about anyone (or anything) getting castrated, and I'd quite like to keep it that way.

you're very welcome, and always so insightful!James is not the world's most observant werewolf, but he's got a good heart. Hel might think his world is ending, but he'll have help to pull through.

he's just a kid, one who's been through hell already. serious talking to's about a lot of things are on the menu for his new parents i think.

teen crushes suck at the best of times, eh? James and Peter handled it pretty well, though Peter didn't actually see anything of course, so it's easier for him. Hel's going to think about knocking in the future!

you think Hel's going to be less of a dork when it comes to the time when he finds someone who might like him back? We're all dorks then!

oh no doubt!

so hitting the nail on the head there! Hel really hasn't got a clue what's going on, but the feeling of wanting to be close to another shifter is getting all mixed up with his hormones and a really big crush. it's gonna be bumpy for him.

I did grin to myself rather a bit and went "tra la la la" What Gary says: Me too! Being a teenager is lovely and it sucks. Generally if the spirit and the body are passed out together, he'll wake back up in whichever shape his mind wants to be in, so it's 50:50 whether he'll wake up wearing a solid body or not.

The little blue wolf yawned hugely, and Hel blinked in the dim light of his tiny box room as he lay curled up in the space of his chest cavity on the bed. Both the bed and the room were much smaller than the ones he had at Aki’s house. His home… every time he said ‘Aki’s house’ his internal voice spoke moments after James’s remembered words, correcting him in the way he described where he lived. Hel both loved and hated that the voice in his head was sounding more and more like James each day, b

it's monday. I'd better get you guys a new chapter!