Talks with Tory Part 2
A Fictional Talk with a Fictional Character!
21st Century Short Stories | Talks with Tory Part 2
Hello everyone!
Welcome to the second Talks with Tory post.
Naturally I had to ask about the journal entries while in Tory’s company. So, we talked about why she was writing them during Emergence (pick up a copy using this link today!) From there, we discuss the book’s name and why she chose it, and I even got a little information about Franklin for those of you curious about their relationship.
When asked why she left such an extensive trail of evidence, she replied, “If we were captured, we were all dead anyway. That journal didn’t leave our software system until I printed them out a few weeks back. If the All-Seeing Eyes could breach our software, it was game over. So, I was like ‘what the heck’ you know? Why shouldn’t I record my exploits.”
“The first book is called Emergence, and I noticed one of your journal entries had a doodle on the side that looked a lot like the cover and several variants of ‘Emerge’. Is that where you got the idea for the book title?”
“Yeah, that’s where the title and cover came from. I started playing with the drawing features at that point and found out I was a bad artist. Still, I found uses for what I drew digitally. The word, ‘Emergence’. It just fits, you know? It really made sense upon reflection, and I knew that had to be the title of the book. We literally emerged from the shadows in that timeframe. We emerged on the world stage a few years later. The word just worked.”
We bantered back and forth over a cup of tea, and I finally had the nerve to ask her about Franklin. I saw a distant glint in her eyes when she finally answered me. “I missed him in that time. I’m sure you’ve seen the pages where I write about him. There is only so much one can stomach in life, and I have had to deal with a lot. I’ve been through a lot. When we were reunited after the events in Rio—I was on top of the world. Everything seemed to fall into place in the time we spent together after that.”
“But it didn’t last long, did it?”
“No. No, it did not. I had work to do. We had work to do. He was the homemaker, and I was the breadwinner in our own ways.”
She asked I leave the rest of that bit of our conversation out since the second book will dive into the details. So, if you want to find out what happens between Franklin and Tory, I highly suggest you subscribe to this Substack and follow me on X.com as I’ll be reading and writing about the sequel to Emergence for the whole month!
Here’s rest of the journal entries I wanted to share this week. The next Talks with Tory will share the conclusion to our interview!
Excerpt 3 from Tory’s Journal:
“Stay true to the path ahead else you will find yourself trapped in the past.”
“Suel” in the Zelu Compendium by Stewie
This man is growing on me more every single day I have the opportunity to read this compendium! It’s a book that covers the vast length of life of a character named Zelu in a fantasy world. Many of the quotes do not come from Zelu himself, but many are recorded as they related to Zelu’s story and life. This Suel character only met a few of Zelu’s lieutenants and never had a chance to meet Zelu, but I love him. He was a great father that commanded respect and loved his children in a way I cannot fathom. It’s such a distant idea that parents could do more than suffer for their children. That is all my parents did. They must have loved me more than I could imagine as I reflect on Suel and his character arc.
Perhaps love is more than just an emotion that I’ve suppressed for decades. Perhaps love is more than the way I think of Franklin. Perhaps—and I can’t believe I’m even writing this—love is being what someone else needs, doing what one must to help another person, and to do these things in a sacrificial way… to love is to sacrifice yourself and all you care about for someone else. Is that all love is? Maybe there is commitment too. To love someone enough to have children with them is certainly a commitment. To love your children until they no longer need you is a commitment, a barbaric one, but a commitment nonetheless.
Suel so loved his children that he journeyed with them despite his age and accepted the help of others with more means. His farm was meager, and the nearest town was destroyed. There was nothing left for Suel save his love for the land. Instead of staying and risking the imperial rule of the people who murdered entire towns, he went on a fatal journey with his children to make sure they would succeed in getting to safety. He gave up everything he had built and accompanied Gormund, Mil, and his children as they traveled to Zelu.
I wonder if he knew what he was doing, if he took any of it on faith, and why he decided to trust his youngest son’s stories of magic and Zelu. Love is trusting and respecting others. It is committing your time and effort and sacrificing many things for them.
I wonder if this is mentioned, I suppose I have to keep reading in the hopes of finding out!
But this character, Suel, he has a lot more wisdom than you might imagine a farmer having. Perhaps it was his wife that instilled the wisdom in him, perhaps not. Either way, I think that I am beginning to see a distinction in ‘past’ and ‘history’, at least in how Stewie writes about them. Suel says one must stay true to the path they are on, or risk being trapped in the past. One could easily say this is the idea of regret and the burden that weighs on someone who wishes to have chosen differently. History doesn’t have that connotation. At least, I don’t think it does.
Excerpt 4 from Tory’s Journal:
“In a battle of wills, the one with the least strength resorts to the most bravado.”
“Zelu” in the Zelu Compendium by Stewie
It has been quite a while since I have had the chance to use another of Stewie’s quotes. I found this one after speaking with Vasil last week. With the acceptance of leadership, I thought it might be useful to skim over some of the books about leadership I have read. Zelu’s sections in the Zelu Compendium are a treasure trove of advice. I marked this quote originally because it was through sheer force of will, persistence, and all that accompanied my teens and early adulthood that led me to where I am now. What I fight now is the summation of a war against the fabric of Absolutist Society. We’re in a battle of wills through direct means and even each and every person connected to us. The society that I despise and one that despises me has a will of its own and it comes for me. It wants me to give up.
It occurs to me that the old lessons of Sun Tzu are at play here in Stewie’s words and in their application from what I’ve seen. Appear weak when you are strong and strong when you are weak. It is something David talks about incessantly and I had not thought about much. Now I think I get it. It makes me wonder. What are we? Are we weak or strong? The people we work with are weak, the ragtag bands of resistance fighters in Africa and South America for sure. But what about this Council? What about Vasil? He appears strong and the Council appears—unknowable. I can’t tell. They are too far into the shadows at this point in time.
Vasil, though, seems to be on top of the world. Is this a sign of bravado as Zelu says? Or, maybe it is merely a sign of a far superior deception. I believe Vasil isn’t stupid enough to fall into the classical laws of power when it comes to being weak or strong, but they aren’t laws because they can be easily broken or reversed.
Then I look at the Absolutists, and it occurs to me, now that I can look from the outside in on their society and regime, they are not all powerful. The All-Seeing Eyes and the Absolutist Oligarchs are not just flawed, their vision is highly limited. I have been using this knowledge to my advantage, especially in South America where I hope to get some of those leaders to work together and create a more unified group, but I have not been realizing the implications.
These people who call themselves Absolutists, and they do have some godlike powers, are seemingly ignorant of what has been going on. This tells me they aren’t gods. They aren’t all-seeing. They’re just as blind as everyone else with the only saving grace of information. Lots of information. The more information the better, the more you can see the better, but unless you see all the information possible are you even capable of “absolute” control?
I think they may put on a strong show that they are working together and in charge of everything, that they see and calculate all factors and know all about us and what we’re up to. I think the Absolutists are afraid of the Council because of their secretive nature and motives. They appear to ignore us and claim everything is under control even though we have a growing network throughout the southern hemisphere. Could they really be fools or so incompetent they don’t see a direct threat to their control over society? I wonder if we are falling into a trap. Vasil is part of the aristocracy, the Absolutists, but he’s been funding us and the Council for a while now.
If it is a trap, my question is why? Why toy with us? Is it an experiment? Are they sowing the seeds for othering more people as scapegoats as Abnormals are extinguished? I cannot shake the feeling something else is going on. If I were in their shoes, I would have destroyed White Tunnels as soon as I knew something was going on. Perhaps I am too close to our operation here and see it more clearly than they do. After all, I have all the information about White Tunnels, they don’t. If they do, they have to be laying a trap by appearing weak. That is a thought that scares me. That’s why I’ve been unable to sleep as of late.
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