My Friends' Stories

I have most wonderful friends, some of whom are really wonderful writers.
Naturally, I want everyone to read their stories. So...

Oh, yes, just so you know, all of these stories are copy-right protected. DO NOT, by any means, steal them.

Read:

Story Ideas

Random Ideas
How would you feel if you suddenly realized that you just drunk a love potion, and the person you are supposed to fall in love with is standing right behind you? And you are not particularly interested in falling in love with that person...

These two are in love (no, REALLY?) but there's a slight problem: the dude is a crown prince, and she's a common girl. Y'see, in his land, a prince is taught all the usual stuff since childhood - fighting, strategy, literature, some sciences, but at the tender age of 19 they are supposed to wander the land for like 2 years to get a sense of what his future subjects are like. You may say it's a bit unsafe to let a crown prince run around with no protection, but the logic behind is that if his fighting skills are not enough to protect him, then he probably wasn't a good king material anyway. Anyhow, so this particular dude fell in love with a girl he met, who lives in a hut at the edge of a forest. She's increadibly intelligent, but kinda frail, so even if they could somehow get around the fact that she's not noble-born, she still would be out of question, because a queen is supposed to be healthy to bear strong kids. They still have a year, though, before he has to go back, and they prefer not to think about it.
These two have a very different problem - they both are fighters, and before they met officially, they met on the battle field as enemies, and the guy wounded the girl badly. Well, he didn't really know she was a girl, and c'mon, it's a battle. You fight in a battle. Anyway. When they did meet they didn't make any connections to that little episode immidiately. Well, now both of them know now that the dude wounded the girl, but they don't think the other knows and they are not too keen on bringing the subject up. I mean, how do you go about that? 'Darling, by the way, you know the scar I have on my left side?' 'Oh, yes, I believe it's my work'. I mean, c'mon. Anyway, that little detail of their past is eating away at them, and eventually that will have to deal with it somehow.

This one threatened to become a story, because even though I'd rather climb a mountain than write a story, a very nice friend of mine was inspired by it for some time, but then cooled off.
Anyway, the deal is, there was this guy, some Lord's Fool (has been for a long time), and the girl is a woods wanderer, who's being kept a prisoner of sorts in that same castle (as in, 'you can walk around, but you can't leave the castle'). So both of them have problems to deal with (the loss of one's dignity on one hand, the loss of one's freedom on the other). Anyhow, the story is pretty much about their friendship and was supposed to be very psychological, but oh, well.
However, this concept scetch of Natan (the Fool) inspired a froody person Mark Black to write a poem. This one:

Jester, Jester, on the stairs,
Is it true that no one cares?
You give your soul to make them grin,
Just another toy in the bin.
Making jokes to hide the pain,
Dancing in the dying rain.
And as you start to wonder why,
As your dreams float to the sky,
You watch those fools, behind the wall,
And know you're better than them all.
So you share your joke with the moon,
And go inside, to sing another tune.

concept sketch of Thistle, the girl of the story.
character portrait of Thistle.

This story actually is about the two young people who meet during a major war agains (surprise!) Dark One/Force/Whatever. The girl is very much into fighting the Darkness till the end, whatever it may be, and the dude is kinda like, well, if the point of fighting the dark one is to bring peace, is it justified to deny yourself peace by constantly killing and witnessing death? I mean, he's against the Evil, alright, but he's not as obsessed with the fighting as the girl seems to be. She has her reasons, of course.

Spell Illustration
I do some illustrations for Portals' website for really kewl gamers. What I do is I illustrate spells. This particular spell is called "Foam" and envoking it covers everything with a thin layer of soap suds.
This spell is called "Chaos World" and it is my favorite - envoking it causes all five senses to go awry - one may simultaneously feel bitten by a dog, smell roses, taste garlic, see a supernova explode directly over the head, and hear long-dead mother calling for dinner! Yesh!
This spell calls a bunch of pixies from their abode, and makes them think that the person against whom the spell is cast is to blame for interruption in their games. Needless to say, the pixies are vexed.

Comics/Graphic Novel
For quite some time now, I've been involved in a comic book/graphic novel story about an elf and a human, that is called Rose. <deep sigh> Well, so far I'm only in penciling stage, and I guess I will get a chance to finish it only after I graduate from college - only one semester left. But you can look at the character splash page.






All Images Copy-Right Tanya Kozik.

Faery Land My PixiesGoth Art - needs no explanation, I think. If it does, you're not the right person to look at itThe Wheel of Time Art -portraits of my favorite characters and folk fashions.ElfQuest-inspired art. Art inspired by various musicFantasy Characters - portraits I did for various people, as well as portraits of characters, such as Galadriel or Raistlin.Characters Up for Grabs - yep, these are kinda generic portraits that you can use for your RPG - just ask firstStories - concept sketches of story ideas in my head, as well as stories by other people.General Fantasy Art.PhotographyReality Lapse - twisted page where weird things happen. Opinions
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