Of Cats and other Dreadful Things

Of the eight PB's I wrote for this month's challenge, I would say that I have two, possibly three, favorites.  The dystopian plot, simply by virtue of the fact that it has so many books in it, easily made it to the mental list of favorites.  Then I would have to say that The Road to Baltimore is a favorite because it combines mystery with one of my favorite periods of history, the War of 1812.  How can you go wrong there?

The plot that I have decided to work on, though, is the last one.  As of right now, its working title is The Cat of Lake Gellara.  I wrote over 3,000 words on it yesterday, and I'm going to introduce the main character right now.

His name is Prince Owen Nientr, and he hates cats.  Why?  Here's a little snippet from yesterday that explains things.

Should anyone have previously doubted the fact that Prince Owen hated cats, they would have been completely assured in their minds of his position on the subject on the fine spring morning of his father’s fifteenth year anniversary of ruling the nation of Sevyim.  His Highness stood in a clump of his mother’s favorite lilac bushes and held a stray cat by the tail.  This said cat had been unfortunate enough to wander into the summer palace grounds the evening before, and Owen, always an early riser, had seen him first thing that morning.
            The prince was not particularly scrupulous about his dealings with any animals except for cats.  When he was five, he had been terribly scratched on the arms and neck by a black cat which had been frightened as a result of having had some stones thrown at it by Owen’s older brothers, Wallace and Damien.  The ensuing trauma of having a black ball of living and clawing fur flying at one with a screech of terror had forever after sealed the young prince as one of the decided brotherhood of cat-haters.
            Now Owen had a personal rule.  Every time he saw a cat he would take out his terrible vengeance upon it.  He was really quite ingenious about coming up with different ways to make cats miserable.  With him it was almost a science.

~ The Cat of Lake Gellara

Thus Owen hates cats.  That gets a bit awkward when Owen meets White Cat, a lady who takes him in when he falls sick in a foreign country.

But what is Owen like personality-wise?

He wants to live a simple life.  Does that sound overused?  Maybe a little, but Owen really does like the country, although he's more into growing things than animals.  He does not like formal situations at all, unlike Damien, the middle prince, who actually enjoys them.  He likes fishing a lot.  Thankfully the king believes that boys should have a chance to run around outside and do boyish things, so Owen does not feel totally stifled by being a prince.  He gets a bit nipped in the bud by his oldest brother, Wallace, but Damien usually takes his side, so he gets along splendidly until his father's announcement, which kind of turns his world upside down.

Owen is a tall young man, blond-haired and blue-eyed like his brothers.  He gets his looks from his mother.  In fact, none of the boys look like the king, which the king thinks is just as well, because he's not considered handsome in the least.  Not that the king minds much about things like that, but he does like his boys to look nice.  Owen is the shortest of his brothers, even later, when they are grown up.  Damien turns out to be the tallest once he hits his growth spurt, but at first Wallace has the upper hand (and upper height), and he pushes his younger brothers around all the time because of it.

Unfortunately, I do not yet have any good pictures of Owen to show you, so we will just have to wait for those.  Meanwhile, I hope you all have a lovely day.

Thanks for reading, and God bless,

Kathryn