Mel's Inktober 13 - Reid Swimming

One of the great things about owning an indoor pool is Reid can swim anytime he likes, whatever the weather. 

While he loves swimming outdoors best, he'll take any form of water that's big enough to cover him up.

And he finds something rather comforting about swimming in a somewhat warm pool in the middle of the night or the middle of a terrible storm. Don't worry, that part of the castle is in a sheltered area and that glass is super thick, though it still grants an awesome view.

That pool is just big enough to share with the public. But anyone who's not family or a close friend must pay a small fee to use it, and there are lifeguards on hand at all times as well as bodyguards. No one is ever left totally alone in the pool or the lake, least of all the kids. Pretty much the only ones who don't have to pay up are the Wiles, the Windwillows, the Byrnes, and Kaylee Drummond.

Swim times vary as far as Reid's concerned. Sometimes he'll swim for an early morning workout, sometimes he'll swim when he has a hard time sleeping, and many times he'll swim just because he's in the mood and he's got a little time to spare. But there's not a single week in which he does not take at least one big dip and none of those dips last less than an hour.

Even his own bathtub is deep enough to totally submerge himself, so he can still relax underwater. To him, it's absolute heaven to lie at the bottom of the tub, surrounded by hot water (but not hot enough to scald him) with a thick quilt of bubble bath on top, and if he has a shell with him, he doesn't have to worry about coming up for air anytime soon. He has to pretty much make himself get out.

He learns to love swimming so well for three reasons. One: he learned to not be afraid of the water after he almost drowned when he was five. That would be a traumatic experience for anyone of any age and no one would have held it against him if he never wanted to go anywhere near deep water again. It takes several decades for his uncle to conquer his own crippling aquaphobia.

Since Romulus is a pretty good swimmer, the reason he's so terrified is because he lost several loved ones to drowning, so he can still go in the water; he just doesn't want to if he can help it. That proves not to be the case for Reid, although he understands how his uncle feels and Romulus won't forbid him or any of his own children from swimming, just as long as they're careful. But Romulus does ask Reid not to use the shell too much in the indoor pool, because he just about had a heart attack when he found his nephew way down at the bottom.

Tallis is somewhere in the middle. He doesn't get wet nearly as often as Reid does, but he's less afraid of the water than Romulus is and he'll often join Kyla or Malachi in a swim. Sometimes he'll play with his nieces when they're taking a dip and they always have some fun with Uncle Tallis, a lot more fun than they would ever have with Aunt Ann.

Reason number two why Reid is such a dedicated swimmer: it's one of the few places where he can totally escape Tyrell, because Tyrell can't stand getting wet outside a shower and he'd sink like a rock if he tried. So, the water becomes Reid's personal haven.

And reason number three: he just loves it. It feels like he simply belongs there, so even after he and Tyrell finally make up, he still takes advantage of any opportunity to get good and soaked. It relaxes him so and provides wonderful exercise at the same time.

Later, all three of his kids learn to swim just as well, although Troy is the most devoted to the wet sport. And, of course, Kaylee Drummond learns to swim so well because of Troy and Reid, among several others. Despite Kaylee's mother and sisters frequently denouncing the sport as unladylike, Reid just tells her that's pure nonsense and she sees for herself how well many of the ladies in Reid's special circle fare in the water: Lara, Angela, Anna, Grace, Sara, Joanna, Mara, Tracy, Opal, even Cecily. Because Cecily and her family spent so many years next to the ocean and are so big about sailing, they saw the practicality in learning how to swim, too. "One way or another, it couldn't hurt," both Cecily's parents said.

While Reid has many other interests and passions, it's safe to say swimming tops the whole list. 

Mel's Inktober 12 - Malachi Swimming

Something a bit more uplifting. In my world, fauns are fabulous swimmers (as are centaurs and unicorns, although dwarves are prone to sinking like stones) and Malachi is as fabulous a swimmer as any.

There are a few ponds not far from his home, and he's got free access to the giant lake by the castle as well as the big indoor pool; he's permanently exempt from the little usage fee. Once in a blue moon, he's lucky enough to visit the ocean itself.

All his life, Malachi was never afraid of the water. He was always careful, of course, but his face spent more time below the surface than above it, and he can beat all the Lactantiuses at holding his breath.

It's because of him that Romulus, Tallis, Kyla, Reid, and Mason have all learned to swim so well. And yes, all of his children are skilled swimmers, too, as is his wife. When it came to training for the Royal Army, knowing how to swim was a must, so Jonathan, Sam, and Fritz all passed that part with flying colors. Even Caleb and Mara would do well in a race or could save someone from drowning.

Sometimes Joanna will get good and soaked alongside her husband, and sometimes he prefers a private dip.

For a while, he was resistant to the idea of a water mask. He claimed he didn't really need to see where he was going and that keeping his eyes closed kept him more relaxed and focused anyway, and Kyla used to agree with him. But when at last they donned a mask, they took everything they'd said back.

Either way, just like Reid, whenever Malachi goes into the water, he takes his sweet time to climb out and every centimeter of him will be sopping afterward.

Caleb Silas Windwillow

This will most likely be my last artwork of 2023, and this had been one of my planned drawings for FanX in 2022.

In hindsight, I regret biting off way more than I could chew. Printing costs didn't come cheap on top of everything else, I had to pay extra for speedy shipping, and I spent a lot more than I earned back and have earned since. So, I really could have used someone else's help, someone who was a bit more savvy about all this stuff. Make sure you have a partner if you're considering an art convention or publishing a book. Trust me, a little assistance goes a very long way.

Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't have been able to afford to go back to FanX this year anyway, and I'm not holding my breath for next year, or the year after that.

That said, the one thing I don't regret is the artwork itself. This really pushed me to put out some of my finest work yet, to take my art a few steps further, to be braver about tackling shadows and more detailed backgrounds. Making art is the fun part. Selling it is another matter. And over the last couple of years, the Windwillows have really grown on me. They've easily climbed the list of my personal favorites, they help me blow off steam, and they just make me feel good in general. You could say they're part of my "happy place."

This is now just as much their story as it is Reid's story, which I don't mind. It's always exciting when you discover a character with loads of potential and everything just clicks.

Malachi is probably my most favorite of them all, but Caleb, his son, isn't too far behind.In a nutshell, Caleb is my personal take on those annoying characters who defy their families, like Percy Weasley from Harry Potter and Baatar Jr. from The Legend of Korra. While I never really liked Percy, I sort of liked Baatar Jr. (I found him rather attractive, anyway) and I appreciate how they both come to their senses after a long, hard struggle, but then they just sort of disappear from the story afterward. Their redemption arc falls a bit flat.

So, I'm doing it the other way around with Caleb. He's one of the characters to undergo the most development: he starts out good, then becomes bad, and then becomes good again and even better. He goes through a lot, part of it is his own doing, and part of it is just plain unfortunate luck. But he learns a great deal of humility and kindness in the process.

If he gets shattered into pieces, those pieces are put back together into something better than before.

In the beginning, he was a genuinely sweet buck, very precocious. He had a tendency to show off but he always meant well, and his bark was always worse than his bite. He got along famously with his three younger siblings, especially his youngest brother, Jonathan. Jonathan looked up to him almost as much as he looked up to their dad, and Malachi was both boys' hero.

Then, as the years went by, Caleb began to change, and not exactly for the better. He suffered a lot of bullying for being a faun, he saw how his father was attacked after becoming the first faun High Priest, and he had to fight tooth and nail in school as well as the business field. At least his father's money enabled him to go to a highly prominent university, and he was one of the first fauns to graduate from there with top marks. After school, he decided to become a politician, with his heart set on the Royal Council.

All that would have been well and good...except he wanted to virtually get Daire back on track and take all the credit for himself. He deeply resented the fact that it was humans who were in charge of everything (even though the Lactantiuses aren't mere humans) and he believed fauns didn't get half the recognition and respect they deserved.

On top of that, he dared to badmouth Their Majesties at every opportunity, believing he was untouchable due to his family's friendship with Their Majesties (ironically enough) and how lenient Tallis and Ann were about that stuff. He didn't sprinkle any sugar when putting Tyrell down, and he gave Reid as hard a time as anyone else did.

While it's true that rulers must be humble and you don't have to particularly like the people in charge, it's also true that you must be careful about what you say about them out loud. It's an especially bad idea to insult royalty.

When I worked in a deli, I didn't like my boss at all, but I never felt comfortable when I overheard trash talk of him in the break room, while one of my coworkers dared to mouth off to his face. I thought, "Whoa, buddy, you're skating on thin ice here. He's still your boss, after all. You should do what he says and not make more trouble than you have to."

It also amazes me how passionate people get about politics, for good and bad. I'm surprised those people haven't ranted and raved themselves into a hospital.

Even Reid is the first to admit Caleb is playing a dangerous game with fire, while Beowulf must give the pretentious stag more than one "friendly warning."

Romulus is pretty much the only member of the royal family Caleb actually likes. Caleb keeps insisting that, if anyone must be King, Romulus is loads more fit for the job than Tallis is, and the stag's also nice enough to admit Kyla is superior to Ann, if not by much. As for Tracy, Ren, and Opal, Caleb just leaves them alone, neither singing their praises nor slinging mud at them.

As smart as he is, Caleb can be almost hilariously idiotic, too. His ego overrides his better judgment, and he gets mad whenever people fight back or his actions prove to have consequences after all.

Then it gets tragic when we see how far he and Jonathan have drifted apart. Part of this had to do with their aunt Tamara, who's pretty much the only member of the family Caleb respects anymore, as well as the only one who actually gets along with Caleb for a change.

In a nutshell, Caleb wants nothing to do with Jonathan anymore, he finds Jonathan's antics childish and ridiculous...but that doesn't save him from burning up with jealousy when Jonathan falls in love first and gets married first, as well as when Jonathan starts getting closer to Reid. Not only do Jonathan and Reid become the best of friends, but Jonathan starts to see the boy as part of his actual family, which means Reid is essentially taking Caleb's place.

And that's something Caleb will not stand for.

Caleb starts acting nastier toward Jonathan, and even nastier toward Herminia and Reid. It all culminates in him telling Herminia to her face that she's no sister of his, and telling Reid to his face that he has no place with them and it's a big waste of his time and energy to even try.

That heartbreaking bit of dialogue in Disney's Tarzan would fit the scene to a tee: 

"Because you never give him a chance!"
"Give him a chance? Jonathan, look at him! He will NEVER be one of us!"

As hurt as Reid is to see how much Caleb (seemingly) hates him, it's when Joanna actually agrees with Caleb, whereas Malachi is too stunned to say a word in Reid's defense at that time, that Reid's trust in all of the Windwillows except Jonathan and Herminia is shattered.

That's what happens in my Christmas novel, Christmas With the Windwillows. 

What makes it especially heartbreaking is that Reid latched onto the Windwillows as much as he did because they were among the select few to show him any real kindness. With all the bullying he was getting on one side and all of the neglect on the other, it's only natural he would be drawn to the creatures who treated him well for a change.

Then he finds out the hard way they don't feel the same for him as he feels for them...or, more accurately, they don't want to feel the same way. They're too afraid of taking it that far, too worried about what other people will think, and their bad experiences with humans in the past don't help.

For that matter, when asked what Reid ever did to him to deserve such treatment, Caleb can only claim (as if he's trying to convince himself above all) that this just helps to "even the score" a bit. He thinks being bullied in his youth somehow makes it okay for him to bully Reid. Besides, it's not as though Reid can't understand what true hardship is, right?

Jonathan doesn't hesitate to bawl Caleb out big-time for this, calling this the stupidest thing he's heard his big brother say yet, and that Reid has been through a whole lot more than Caleb realizes.

Beyond that, Jonathan tells Caleb to his face, "Reid's more family than you are. I'd rather keep his company these days than yours."

So, Caleb is a pretty outrageous hypocrite as well as a jerk. He only comes in second place to Aunt Tamara, and if nothing else, he has the excuse of being younger and not knowing as much as he believes he knows.

Tamara has no excuse whatsoever for doing what she does, to the point where Malachi himself is on the brink of washing his hands of her forever.

But then Caleb proves he's not utterly heartless. When the heat cools down, it starts to dawn on him just how awful he's been to Reid and the others for no good reason at all. Though he won't admit it, his conscience starts to get the better of him.

When Reid stops Tyrell with Jonathan's help, when Tyrell gets exiled and later retaliates with a war, it's as big an eye-opener for Caleb as it is for everyone else. Though he survives, all of his delusions are shattered once and for all. He, himself, becomes utterly broken in every imaginable way.

For a while, he considers killing himself. But he changes his mind after Tamara nearly kills herself, and Malachi does everything he can to help both his sister and his son.

Tamara blames herself for ruining Caleb, which is one of the biggest reasons for her suicide effort. To show how much he's learned already, Caleb frankly admits his aunt didn't make him do anything, he's responsible for his own choices, and he can't bear the thought of losing her. He still cares about her if no one else does.

As for his dad, he becomes a little boy all over again. He needs Malachi's help, and Malachi doesn't wait to be asked.

As for Reid, Caleb knows it's not enough, but he apologizes just the same. After Reid becomes King, Caleb lives in terror that Reid will now punish him for everything (Reid still would have had the authority to punish him long ago if he so desired) and while Reid is briefly tempted to see the stag squirm, he decides to be more mature about it and tell Caleb he's far more interested in fixing things than breaking them further, that what he needs the most right now is a friend. It's hard to be the new King, so a little support will go a long way.

So, Caleb and Reid eventually become great friends, and ultimately brothers. Now Caleb can see in Reid what Jonathan saw in the beginning, making him all the more ashamed of himself.

Years later, when Tyrell comes back and everyone else is giving Reid a hard time, Caleb again demonstrates the extent of his character development. He frankly acknowledges how the naysayers feel and he's downright terrified at the sight of Tyrell (he actually runs away when he first sees him again) but at the same time, he sympathizes with Reid and tells him he'll support him no matter what.

For a little while, Caleb is a better friend than Mason and showing even more support than Malachi is, since Malachi is very much torn himself.

Many years after that, when Kaylee comes along, she develops a special bond with Caleb, although she gets along famously with all the Windwillows. Caleb treats her the way he feels he should have treated Reid in the beginning. He's nothing but nice, he often joins her for a walk or swim, they're always eager for a hug, and above all, he supports the girl wholeheartedly through her problems with her dysfunctional family, her romantic feelings about Troy, and her big humiliation at Sheena's hands.

So, it's no accident that he does the honors when she marries Troy, since he takes Malachi's place as the High Priest. Sure, Malachi remains as involved with the Church as ever, but now the torch has been passed. Outside the Church, Caleb is a certified therapist; he did get his opportunity to join the Royal Council, but he turned it down, feeling it wasn't the place for him. Now he finds a lot more fulfillment in helping people instead of stepping on people to get ahead.

This delivers the killing blow to Kaylee's relationship with her maternal grandmother. Not that she ever liked the old woman or feels like it's a loss at all...but oh, boy, does Grandmother Flan raise a stink upon discovering a faun somehow has the authority to place the seal on a marriage. Her irrational hatred of fauns and her insane belief that this marriage can't possibly be valid drives her to call her own granddaughter a harlot, for all ears to hear.

Kaylee, staying surprisingly calm, calls for a couple of soldiers to take the old lady away, and they're already on their way anyhow. Flan can't believe she's being kicked out of the ceremony, but everyone ignores her screams and Kaylee assures everybody she's just fine.

For the next several years, Flan refuses to let it go. She refuses to apologize for what she did to Kaylee and somehow believes Kaylee's the one who should apologize. She keeps asking when Kaylee and Troy are going to get "a real priest" to do this all over again, and until then, Kaylee better not have any children if she knows what's good for her.

Kaylee just shrugs it all off. She's already expecting her first baby anyway, she knows Caleb has as much authority as anyone else, she likes Caleb, and she already knows even if they held a second ceremony, Flan still wouldn't be satisfied. If anything, Flan will then give everyone grief about how long it took for this correction to happen and she'd still hold Kaylee and Troy's two years of "living in sin" against them.

So, Kaylee cuts her loss with this specific family member and moves on with her life.

For the cherry on top, she asks Caleb if he would like to be the godfather to all her children, of which she has a grand total of five. Caleb couldn't be more honored, and he later gets the honor of crowning her as Daire's new Queen.

So, yeah, that's all I have to say about Caleb's part of the story for now. Believe it or not, this barely scratches the surface.

As unpleasant as Caleb may appear in this picture, I can assure you there's more to him than meets the eye. One of the reasons why I like the Windwillows so much is because, like Beowulf, they would have no trouble carrying separate stories by themselves.

And like I said, I'm proud of the quality of my FanX art if nothing else. I think this one turned out great, too.

Until next time, much love and best of wishes to you all, and here's to the New Year!