Fables of the Flying City, Episode 7 “On My Blood”

Scene: The tent Ashe and Mari share in the barracks of the AAG

Characters involved: Ashe, Jobrani, Mari

References:   Jobrani Naz’s name comes from on stand-up comedian Maz Jobrani, and they share an affection for shaved heads and goatees. Cloudberries, a too-perfect-not-to-use actual fruit, has a second mention. Aloe vera is, in fact, not really that good for wounds.

Notes: It took a month and a half, but we’ve finally cleared the first day! It was nice to take some time to wander around Ashe’s world a bit and meet some people, but the plot moves a little quicker from here on in.

This is the first real mention of Jobrani’s Consanguine beliefs, a religion that preaches interconnection with other people and uses blood as a metaphor. Part of the problem with creating a fantasy world is that if you want a character to be spiritual, you have to create that spirituality for him. So I stole a few things here and there–mainly from Zen Buddhism, I’ll admit this–and cobbled together something that works for the story and for it’s world.

The same blood that flows through my veins flows through my enemy’s, and in this essential way we are the same. Take away our anger, and we are still living. Take away our blood, and we fall. The anger, the emotion, is fleeting. The blood remains. And in the blood we are one.
–Consanguine

I don’t have anywhere near a full Book of Consanguine, but I do have a few notes of the basic theory of the religion so that Jobrani doesn’t contradict himself.

Mari drawing by Steve Walker