Will Hawkins

No, I moved from the Seattle, Washington area to Bazil in 2008 because of money. I was retired and living on Social Security, Retirement Income and rents paid by students with whom I shared a large house. With the financial problems of that time, I was unable to make the house payments and had to sell all my possessions and move to someplace where my restricted income could support me. Jose was living in an apartment on the beach in Salvador at that time, but he wanted to build a house so I moved to Brazil to add my income to his and we together bought this property. Using our combined incomes he started to build our house and we moved into it together in an uncompleted state. He has continued to build on the property and now the house is about 80-90% complete. Right now he is visiting family back in Portugal and will return in mid-November. We have a farm hand and his son living in and taking care of me and the other animals while he is away. Life is not perfect though even at 85 I am in good health - sort of - just a few minor ailments. But I have all my teeth and all my hair, no known deadly diseases and most of my brain, so I am hangin' in there.

True, Mata Atlantica is not very specific - it is a strip of Bahia that lies between the Atlantic Coastal sands and grasses and the tropical forest which is further inland. To locate our property start at Salvadore and drive about 90clicks North along the coastline on Highway 100 then turn inland through Camacari and on perhaps 5clicks more. There is an area there where a developer has dammed up several small rivers forming finger lakes with hills to each side, We own a plot of land of about 4hectares spread across a hillside of one of those lakes. The reason I call the area the Mata Atlantica is that while it is legally a part of Bahia, the word Bahia carries a connotation of tropical rainforest to many people and our property is not the big trees with Tarzan swinging on vines that many people think of when you mention the common name for the area. Our house is located on the hillside marking the edge of the river/lake which points at the rising sun. The lake upon which we live runs nearly East-West. From my bedroom, I watch as the rising sun comes directly into my window. Yes, I go to sleep early, perhaps 8 pm and wake up at around 5 am, This is because our field hand goes to work early to miss the heat of the day. While it is not tropical here, the daytime temperatures are about 80℉ this time of year - Spring - and the sunshine is quite strong. So far as I know the dirt road that cuts our property in half does not even have a name and we do not have an official address here. We have to have mail delivered to General Delivery at the Post Office in Camacari. On our side of the road, in addition to the house, there is a stable with one horse, a barn with a family of goats and two cows, a chicken house with one hen and a rooster with a cracked voice, five guinea fowl of indeterminate sex but no babies so they must be all male or all female (you have to be a guinea fowl to be able to tell one from the other) and a kennel currently occupied by a mother and three remaining babies. She had ten pups but we have found homes for all but three. I accuse Jose, my partner of keeping a zoo on the property. On the uphill side of the road, there is a large pasture for the horse and two cows. Okay, now you know all about my estancia. Any questions?

I suppose I am fortunate that the only real scars are from an appendectomy, but I have a number of broken bones that have set crooked starting from when I was a newborn and my aunt squeezed me enough to leave greenstick fractures in several ribs. S another example, I have a toe that was broken in a slip on some icy steps which I have ignored for much of my life until I moved to Brazil. Here everyone takes their shoes off when they come into the house and when they go outside they wear sandals and I have had several people ask me about the misalignment of my toes/ Its no big deal really, but does require a moment's explanation every time someone notices it.

I am having a problem with your story, Jams, you keep shifting pronouns. Is Nessa male or female and how many persons are represented by the guardian angel? You use plural pronoun and verb forms for her.

I am an enthusiastic reader and make comments about the story from time to time -- my only problem is that comments I make, or the questions I ask come six months too late and James is obviously not reading the comments any more.

Why the sudden change to plural nouns and verb forms when talking about Lóránt? Are you sneaking in a clue of some sort?

I keep forgetting you are from Scotland until I see reminders like 'arse'. But that's okay, the brogue doesn't come through the computer screen and most of what you write is understood even by a Yankee like me. It may be that my understanding is genetic as I have been told some of my ancestry is mixed Irish and Scottish, though nobody in my family ever spoke with a brogue or a lilt.

Oh, James, I am still here too, lurking around at the bottom of the list. Not making any comments but enjoying the reading.

Just remember, you are the author and the twists that there may be in the storyline are yours to command. The rest of us sitting out here in computerland are merely readers and enjoyers of your work. You are the boss.

May I recommend a name for the diary? If so, I would recommend the name, Belinda, it means beautiful and the reason I recommend it is that when I was a child I had a stuffed doy that I named Beloved Belinda. Belinda was one of the very few females that ever shared my bed. I slept with her for years until she finally fell apart. But all that is at least 75 years behind me now. Okay, on to the next scene.

I checked out the Chest, your website. Certainly an interesting method of introduction. I will follow along with the story of Nessa for a while, just to see where it is leading. This is a different path for me, I am usually not into fairies, though my partner accuses me of being a big one. At my age it is more likely that I am a troll than a fairy, Let's modify that statement and say I have not read many stories about fairies before. So this is an exploration for me. Will you be my guide, James, into this new continent?

I find Nessa's diary entries a very intriguing method for an author to present a story. It gives him the ability to see inside the head of his principal character. Something that is lacking in the normal dialog or exposition method of writing. Good start and I am looking forward to following along with this tale for a while, just to see what develops.

I opened and started reading this story -- even though it is an older one -- because I have read other stories by Comicality and enjoyed them very much. I will not be adding many Comments as a result of my reading as I am sure authors do not check, unless they have an alert posted, on Comments about stories posted this many years ago. If the author does check by accident, I will receive an alert and will start commenting more often. From the Comments I read above, I conclude that this is a story developed from a previous series using two of the side characters mentioned here, but that the emphasis on Ariel and Tyler is a different trace. My one comment at this time is that Ariel is really deeply into love and lust with Tyler and I can only hope that as the story continues he does not get too badly emotionally hurt as he seems to be a sweet boy.

If Olek marries and has a male offspring that really muddies the waters about Eric's inheritance because then there would be an heir with direct lineage while Eric's claim would be by marriage only. But I don't know enough about the inheritance of titles to say for sure!

The history of my country, the US, is rife with events of prejudice and hatred starting from a time even before we were a country up to the shoddy treatment of war prisoners in Cuba during the Middle East Wars of just yesterday. We damn Hitler's Germany for their treatment of Jews, prostitutes, and homosexuals during the WWII era when we were doing the same thing to thousands of US citizens of Japanese, Germa, and Italiens extraction at the same time in our own country.

This is only the first of the attacks that Peter and Eric can anticipate. There are people like these three radical Islamists in every town in the US. People who are just as sure they are right and the majority of the world is wrong. People who rely on sayings in a book nearly 2000 years old that talks about plagues in Egypt, floods that covered the entire surface of the earth, creation that took only six days and on and on, ad nauseam.

The next time some trivia fiend in your life asks what King of England served the shortest reign in history, just give him an evil leer and answer, why Edward VIII if course! (326 days). Hey, wouldn't Grandma curtsey, not bow on meeting the King and Queen?

Just remember guys, no matter how old you get, I will always be older than you! I just celebrated -- sort of -- number 85. But I am still cute, I have all my teeth and all my hair, though it is quite white, I do notice a little less swagger to my walk of late!

If the garbage collection in Marakova is based on recycling with costs adjusted appropriately one might be surprised how well the American areas clean up. Little things like assessing a charge on plastic grocery bags so homeowners get used to bringing their own bags to carry groceries home can contribute to neatness.

For the information of dummies like me, a donkey and a burro are the same animals, the word burro is just a slight corruption of the Spanish word for donkey. Isn't it interesting the things you can learn from the internet!

Well, DQ, you have some gossip that I do not! I was not aware of the Anderson Cooper -- Benjamin Maisani split. Ah well, the course of true love doth ne'er run true. I have often wondered about Cooper's white hair -- it is so very white. That is unusual in a man of his age. (51 in 2018)

I think Anderson Cooper is an excellent choice for a media man to make the introduction of Petro and Eric as a couple. Down here in Brazil where I am living now CNN is one of the few news channels that is broadcast in English so I watch it nearly daily. Yes, Anderson Cooper is gay and out which may be important to represent a country like How are we going to refer to it? as Makarovia -- though to me that name sounds much like macaroni!!!! I have seen him on CNN interviewing victims of hurricanes and floods, fires and other disasters and he has struck me as a sensitive interviewer, just the type to make the forthcoming wedding the important part of the interview rather than the uranium mines.

I am loving the progress that Eric is making and hopefully Petro will catch up. He has been isolated all his life up to now by his skin disease, but he is the Prince Royal of his country and needs to appear as such to the world. It ain't gonna be easy, but with Eric's support, I feel he can do it.

Drpaladin is totally correct, Olek is the King of Makarovia and should be addressed as Your Majesty, his wife, Anna is a Queen Consort and is also Petro's mother. She should be addressed as Your Majesty as well, but whether she can assume the rule depends upon the laws of Makarovia Petro is the heir to the throne, his title would be Prince Royal and he may be addressed as Your Highness, Prince Petro of Makarovia. Now after Petro and Eric get married the lineage becomes more complicated. I am not sure because never in history has the Prince Royal, the heir to the throne of a country, married a man, but I assume Eric would become Prince Consort of Makarovia and be addressed as Your Highness. When Olek dies or abdicates Petro can inherit the title Of King and Eric as his husband becomes King Consort, I guess. But thankfully that is something for the author to straighten out. 😖

Peter's full title would be His Highness, Peter, Prince Royal of Markovia. Is Queen Alla both Olek and Peters mother? I believe she was presented to us as the Queen Mother. If Olek were to die or abdicate then she would become the Dowager Queen Mother as she is not married to Peter who would become King. Are you sufficiently confused, I know I am. If Peter becomes King and he and Eric are married then Eric would become Prince Consort unless he is awarded a title by his husband. That's quite a promotion for a boy from the south!