I cherish the stories that come to me as an intense vision, such as “Alternate,” “Shadowe,” “Resurrection,” and “Relentless.”
Against that stands the other extreme: those story shards stuck in my head for many years because I’m missing something to pull it together. “Defender” and The Great Wave were stalled for over a decade because I needed to find the correct point of view for the story.
For “The Deceptions of Hu-Havenn,” however, my challenge came differently. My oldest timeline made in November of 1994 included a reference to the tragic death of Hu-Havenn, Heruvael’s mate and Hileko’s mother. I didn’t know her name back then, so I just put in a space for it. But I knew her fate.
Or I thought that I did.
All the hyarmi in Hileko’s day knew her fate. It did not occur to me for decades that they might all be wrong.
It was not until 2017 that I finally gained enough understanding about Hu-Havenn’s past and the actual sequence of events, which allowed me to start writing that story.
Then in December 2017, I wrote this:
“Feels good to be done with it … except I do have a bit of an urge to do a ‘romantic’ illustration of Heruvael and Hu-Havenn next summer….”
That urge never disappeared, but my timing was way off. Still, getting the illustration done five years later than planned sure beats decades of delay with the story! That it should take a few months between finishing the illustration and getting this post up is also ironically fitting.
So without further ado, Heruvael and Hu-Havenn on a lovely summer night.
And then Heruvael walked home with me [...] Under the trees lay mottled darkness against the glare of the full Sister, but he never completely vanished, because of the faint gleam of his power across his coat.
– "The Deceptions of Hu-Havenn"