This is rather late I know. Sorry.
I reached the 50,000 word mark on the 27th and still have about 10,000 more words to go before I reach the end of the book. When I started writing I had a title for it but half way through November I realized that the title I had come up with did not fit the book anymore, so I'll have to come up with another one. For now it is called the Nightin book (because it is about a family whose last name is Nightin) or more accurately the First Nightin book, sense this is only book one of a series of fiveish books.
Journey is the youngest of ten brothers and is my LEST favorite of all the Nightin family. If I could get ride of him I would but the family demands his continuing on the way he is. So I have to be satisfied with locking him in a dungeon in the beginning of second book, and there I will leave him till half way through the fourth book. And if you're wondering what a Thylacine is you should Google it, I did not make it up.
“This mighty animal first came to this continent on a pirate air ship as a oddity for the captain's wife who had been left at home.” The man droned on, Journey beginning to doubt if he wasn't really a mechanical man after all. He sounded so precise and stiff and the words came so unnaturally out of his mouth it could have been bits and pieces of a conversation put together to make a different sentence it sounded so awkward.
“The pirate was known then under the name of Lear Foxcroft and his ship was the fastest thing in the air at that time.” He droned on. The tall man seemed to have gotten side tracked on the history of this pirate Lear Foxcroft and his fast ethermarauder flown under the name of Misery Drum. Journey again searched the room with his eyes. It must have been the twentieth or thirtieth time but still there was no sign of this Thylacine and he began to doubt if this was little more than a lesson in the history of the creature instead of an actual demonstration of it.
“Lear Foxcroft deposited a pair of these creatures with his wife a little over thirty years ago and they became pets to the very fashionable young lady. People admired them and they became quite popular among the higher class of people in that city as a pet or show animal. But one day,” The man paused in mid sentence as if something new had suddenly caught his attention. Journey shifted his weight impatiently. The abrupt ending rankling his patience even though a moment before he had been a little irritated with this strange man for droning on about the animal instead of showing it like Journey wanted. The man seemed frozen in place. His long wavy hair, the only thing on him that moved, stirring faintly in a slight draft.
“It was the day Lear Foxcroft himself retired from pirating.” He picked up again suddenly, but his words did not connect. He had skipped over the last sentence entirely. Journey frowned as much as to show his disapproval as in an effort to catch up with where the story had jumped to. The young man’s reaction seemed to make no impression on the tall man in the top hat though, because he continued on as if he had not just dropped his last sentence.
“And it was the day of his young son's seventh birthday. The Thylacine had been blessed with a litter of young ones of their own and Lear Foxcroft made the mistake of giving his boy one of the young as a birthday present. Before this time the Thylacine were known to be gentle, obedient animals if well trained and the Thylacine of Lear Foxcroft were the best trained animals around. But, when that boy went into the pen with his father, the animals turned on him and instead of going for the father, attacked the boy. Lear Foxcroft pulled his son out of there with only a few bites and scratches. Safe, but for the terror of the animals that stayed with him for the rest of his life. That incident broke the Thylacine's popularity. No more were they a treasured pet and animal to show of as proof of your wealth and high standing in the society of that city. Now they were a despised creatures to be killed and exterminated.” The man in the top hat grew more adamant. His voice began to lose the mechanical sound and he began to sound more like a narrator reading a vivid and exciting book rather than someone supposed to be giving an audience the history of the Thylacine.
“Lear Foxcroft himself shot all the animals he owned and his example was taken by almost all of the rich and well to do family's of the city. Some Thylacine were exported,. A few were sold. A very small number were even turned out into the mountains around here to fend for themselves. They were dropped like an out dated hat. Tossed like a wilted rose from the button hole. Forsaken and forgotten faster than it had taken them to grow so popular.” His voice had grown almost sad. A single, silent tear hung delicately at the corner of one eye, despite the still stony appearance of his features.
“Now,” he started again he voice reverting back to it's former mechanical tones instantly as if he had not sounded almost human just a second before. “The Thylacine is almost extinct and lives mostly in the dark jungles of the Amazon were it was first found. Some do live in the remotest parts of the mountains around here but so far only a very few have ever been seen. It is supposed that most of the few that were released died and that those that did survive might have crossbred with some of the other creatures native to this climate.” Here the man fell silent and the show seemed done, not that it had been much of a show. Journey started to leave, reaching for the door handle disappointed with the way the room had turned out, but a sudden scraping of the wooden crate on the floor made him turn back to see what had moved. One of the wooden crates that lay strewn about the floor had been moved. He knew that from having studied them so often when he first came in and during the strange man’s little speech The object had been empty before, he was sure of that, but now he could see a long thin tail protruding out of it like a dead snake.
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