Chapter 1
Has it really been over two years since the last time I posted a Neopets fanfic here?
I've had a lot going on, and my editor has also been extremely busy, so I'm happy to finally be able to start posting chapters of this fic. Hopefully there won't be any more protracted delays in the future. Getting all of my Neopets fanfic up on this blog has been an important goal of mine for a while.
Anyway. After I wrote Farewell to Lynwood, I found myself wanting to follow up on Lexora--she was too impactful and sympathetic of a character to just relegate to someone else's backstory. I wanted to find some way to reunite her with Suhel so they could continue the friendship they didn't really get the chance to start as children.
I had also been tossing around ideas for further adventures for Isengrim and his pack; I thought it would be interesting to see how they'd interact with a new, much younger Werelupe, especially since (with the exception of younger Terra and Blynn in Worth Fighting For), I realized my Neopets cast didn't contain any children, and I wanted to explore that dynamic.
I also thought it would be really interesting to see what would happen if Isengrim encountered a new, much more sociopathic Werelupe King. In a way, Vakhtang is a little symbolic of me as Isengrim's writer fully abandoning my initial concept for his character; it's as if I took all the dysfunctionalism of Isengrim's former personality and transferred it over to a new character who serves as a great foil for current Isengrim's generosity and nobility. In this story, I feel that Isengrim has fully moved on from his past and has become a full-fledged hero in his own right, making it a satisfying ending to that segment of his character development.
And, after writing The Spirit of Black Keep where Pharazon began to come into his own magically and move forward from the events of Worth Searching For, I really wanted to write him into an adventure where he would have an opportunity to do proper wizard stuff--as well as heal his relationship with Suhel.
Each of those elements on their own wasn't enough to build a narrative... but I found when I put them all together, they worked perfectly. An important thing I've learned in writing long-form fiction is that it's important to have a plotline that has enough going on in it to sustain the reader's interest through a protracted story. Multiple challenges to overcome, character arcs for characters besides the main protagonist, and complications in the journey are essential--otherwise, you'll just have a very thin plot that you're stretching to be tens of thousands of words longer than necessary. It taxes the patience of both the writer and the reader.
That's why, if I come up with a plot idea that I just don't feel has enough to it for me to make a good meaty story out of, I'll hold on to it until I come up with other ideas to add to it. I think that's much better than rushing a barebones plot hook into production and inevitably finding you can't come up with more than two thousand words.
I also had a lot of fun returning to the Haunted Woods for this fic. In canon material, the Haunted Woods generally ends up looking more like the Halloween section of Wal-Mart exploded, but I had a lot of fun envisioning the locale as sort of a combination of Mirkwood, the Appalachians, and the Black Forest--ancient, thick woodland saturated with magic of a quiet and eerie sort.
Anyway, enough rambling from me--on to the fic!
