Category: Jason

Emyr’s Dreams – The Shell

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on April 14, 2026

There is a baby lying in a crib. He has been named Emyr. His mother, Anwen, folds laundry in the kitchen. It is almost Emyr’s first birthday though he does not yet understand the concept of time or age or birthdays. He will learn that in due course. On this day Emyr is a happy child. He lies, eyes closed. Long dark lashes curling upward, away from his cheeks. He smiles as he sleeps. Afternoon sun dapples warm and carefree across his soft face. Light and shadow dance over his eyelids. The child is aware of layers of crimson and veridian and indigo. Their crystal shapes fold and swirl and merge into each other.

There is music in the dappled motion. From somewhere in the house, the baby hears his mother singing. An old song born from her mother’s song with deep, rich autumnal notes that rise up through the home and gently fold themselves around the child. The boy wriggles his feet to enjoy the soft embrace of the duck yellow hand me down baby grow as it stretches across his body. New notes emerge. His notes. The first notes of a new song, finding their way. Still small but strong and certain. Emyr feels safe. He feels love and comfort. Harmony and melody and rhythm are slowly coming together.

The Final Battle

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on March 23, 2026

by Jason

This is part of the final battle sequence (!) These Peck scenes will be intercut with scenes where Emyr confronts Gloam and The Herald, Jynn and The Fang fight S’Uba.

Peck stepped over the threshold and realised that Emyr had vanished. This was not the plan. There was a moment of panic and then the nexus caught hold of Peck and carried her out and away from The Circle. The universe opened up a new conduit, just for her and catapulted her across the stars. Shifting chromatic patterns propelled her down a long narrow tunnel. The universe opened itself and expanded in every direction, revealing layers of sound and energy she had not sensed before. The tunnel she travelled down pierced the fabric of the universe, crossing into another realm where it passed through layer after layer of primal song till the stars blinked out and Peck flew on through an electric darkness. There were no reference points for her to cling to. If it had not been for the nexus force that still gripped her body Peck would have though she had stopped moving all together.

Coygan by Jason

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on January 19, 2026

51°45’16” N 4°29’12” W

Making

The day we died felt odd, deceptive. It was disorientating to say the least. Though by that point, none of us really cared what was happening. For some time, the tides had felt thicker and sluggish, the sea had become something else. Something strange. We were dazed, as used as we were to the tidal whims of our home, this felt different, it crept up on us sideways and left us confused. Life continued in a fashion – we fed but with no great urgency or joy, just opened our mouths and let in the not so nourishing waters. An act that felt so normal and, at the same time, so very different. We continued as long as the burnished light rippled through the glas water. But by the time the light had shifted and lost its golden hue we knew that something was wrong: a part of us had been ebbing away, a drop at a time, but for how long we weren’t sure, as if we had been slowly pouring some vital part of ourselves into the veridian tides.

By the time the light completely disappeared, we were all dead.

We sank to the ocean floor, shells cracked or chipped as they hit the bottom. Our soft parts started to wither, revealing bone. Some of us were broken apart and what little remained was scooped up by a band of desperate heliwrs. We don’t think we gave them much sustenance: a group of them are on the other side of the hill. Listen to us, “the Hill,” apologies we are getting ahead of ourselves, we’ll get to that bit in a moment. Many of us fell on that day and the days that followed. Layer after layer and slowly, inevitably, our world calcified becoming something quite, quite different. We came to know a new way of being – the way of stone.

Where once there had been the soothing ebb and flow our world we were now rigid, static, and seemingly lifeless. We were prisoners held under ossuary guard, hardening and strengthening with the passing of the ages. Yet our awareness seeped out into the strata, permeating the solidity surrounding us, we slowly came to a new understanding in the darkness. An understanding that we were utterly alone in the rock. An understanding that hungry forces churned and kneaded what lay beneath us, moulding it to its own ends.

All we could do was wait.

S’Uba

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on December 2, 2025

by Jason

S’Uba watched The Fang trace slow circles around the perimeter of the chamber, starlight glinted off their glass-like scales as their large, sinuous bodies moved in the opposite direction to the shifting walls. The Herald glowed with his kind’s petty defiance and close to him the Collectoris looked as if they wanted to fly away. The Many disappearance was unfortunate, that would need to be dealt with, again. Their defiance had grown of late, but it had been knocked out of them before. And as for the human, it gazed in dumb wonder at the scene. It is a miracle that that thing is still conscious, thought S’Uba. Dumb little creature. The others seem to think it is somehow special! Another one of their saviours. Look at it, practically dribbling with ignorance. Barely conscious. Ridiculous to hold these specs of matter in any regard what so ever. Anyway, these are the performers at my disposal. Very well, let the concerto begin…

Emyr learns a lesson by Jason

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on September 9, 2025

This is Emyr’s “mirror moment.” It will take place during the sequence in The Haven when Emyr is being trained by The Herald and the Sirens, just before The Many attack the music shop and kill Mags. There are parts of this that you may have read before…

Things to ponder…

Do you think this is a convincing mirror moment?
How does Emyr come across in this scene?
How do The Herald and Carol come across in this scene?
Does the emotional content feel real/true/consistent?
Is the scene repetitive?
Any other thoughts…?

The Herald’s form reflected the pastel glow of the Haven, “Your mother…”

“Aah yes, my mother, my oh so special mother! Who, as you would have me believe, birthed me for one express purpose,” Emyr’s body tensed as he tried to hold his anger in check. “And you! You have been some kind of protector, always hiding in the shadows, just out of reach. Except you couldn’t seem to stop the nightmares, could you?”

“Sweetheart,” Carol stepped in between The Herald and Emyr. “There are limits even to…”

“Oh, fuck off Carol!” furious spittle flew from Emyr’s mouth. “And what have you been doing all these years eh? Guiding me? Pushing me? Herding me towards some uncertain fate! All because my stupid mother heard some fucking space whale singing in the ether! Oh my god! Do you hear yourselves? Do you? And to top it all off, none of you, none of you, really know what you’re doing or are even sure that this was going to work!”

“Do not speak of your mother in that tone,” The Herald’s face glowed with a fierce fire. “I will not allow it.”

The Canvas

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on August 9, 2025

Listen, can you hear that?

The rain is coming down again. Softly, like that song Ben and I once danced to, the soft crackle of needle on vinyl, whispers from the past. I can feel the early waters swelling, clean and fresh, rising up to greet us with silver finned cheer. Just like every morning on the water. It arrives with promises, with hints flashing in the depths and whispers riding in on the currents. It is reliable, dependable, predictable as an ancient clock tick, tick, ticking away in a forgotten school hall, a faithful and reliable old care taker. That dry and dusty hall, where I first saw Ben’s awkward smile and dreamed of holding his hand, has long since welcomed the lap, lap, lapping of the waves.

I can hear the young fisher men, their banter boldly bristling back and forth along the quayside flashing and bright, like the fish they hope to catch on the hooks that they’re now casting into the deep waters.

Emyr Travels

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on July 8, 2025

By Jason

The five sets of melodies, harmonies and rhythms rode in on the tide. They curled up and off the incoming waters, peeling away from the white crests to be caught by the breeze and reverberate around the rocky walls. In the cold Welsh air, the five songs found each other and finally embraced. The cliffs and the land welcomed them, embraced them and made them felt safe so that, slowly, they could become one song. At first Carol and the other sirens in the cove simply stood and listened. Marvelling at the new song with its intricate form, watching it grow in confidence, letting it fill with vibrancy, colour and light. As the new song started to shimmer in the night air the sirens stood along the darkened shore and braced themselves.

One by one, feeling the strength of their sisters’ shared music, they started to pick up the notes and phrases and repeat them. Singing them back to the cliffs and the water and the sand, adding to the melody with their own, weaving a strong song for Emyr. The music grew and when it was ready the sirens held onto the song like it was a lifeline. The sirens spun the song round the cove, looping it through the air high above their heads. It thickened the air around it, and when the sirens had given it enough momentum, they cast their song through the portal in the cliff face, up into the inky night sky and out into the universe, towards the Circle.

Death of the Emissary

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on June 17, 2025

By Jason

You realise darling, I am older than I ever thought I would be. This is a fact that amazes me even now. I have outlived the Five Mothers, the Bahamut who ventured out onto the Celestial Ocean to contact you, forging this universe as they travelled.

I doubt they would recognise me now.

If they saw me now, what would they think?

I am not one of them. Not now. I have changed. Some would say I have evolved; others would be less kind. I think they would be afraid of me. I am so different now. Old, decrepit, deformed. An alien to their eyes. Maybe even an abomination… Before I touched your Artefact, as I watched the pod mothers swim in circles around it, I knew what exactly would happen. I sensed the possibility with every atom in my being. The greater part of me wanted it, ached for it. It pushed me toward change, recognising the importance of the process. I am still surprised by exactly how much I wanted this though. Surprised at how important it was to me back then and how stupid I must have seemed to my pod sisters. Not stupid in wanting to grow and see and develop. But, stupid in that ultimately it won’t have made any difference.

You are dying.

I have seen your end. I feel it. I know it and I hate it.

I still think you beautiful.

Wise.

Even now you seek to comfort me. Trying to prepare me for the time when…

Some Peck & Noah Scenes

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on May 27, 2025

By Jason

Scene 1: This scene is from the start of the story – we’ve meet Peck and Jynn for the first time and this is a memory/flashback scene of Peck in school where she first experiments with tainted/atonal music.

Scene 2: Peck is unconscious after the clock shop attack, this a dream sequence where she speaks to The Many.

Scene 3: Peck is in the Circle, S’Uba is holding court. We have had a scene with Emyr’s point of view in the Circle, this is Peck’s turn…

Sirens on the Move.

Published by Jason Davies-Redgrave on April 29, 2025

Scene 1

The oldest music is birthed in the oceans, both earthly and celestial.

The sentient races of the universe knew that their oldest songs come from the ancient oceans. From the expanses of water that continuously shape each of their worlds and the vast celestial ocean that holds these worlds in their orbits. Even today, some of the women of these sentient races, the Sirens, can still hear these symphonies.

Symphonies that swell and blossom and grow in the cold depths. Shifting rhythms born where the masses of fresh water collide with the swirling salt waters of the far north. Melodies waxing and waning in the gravitational forces that pull at the very heart of the sea. Creatures from the depths find new chords and notes hurl them to the surface so they burst through and dazzle atop the churning waters like flecks of burning light.

The oldest songs are about crossing the sea. The Sirens have never lured sailors to their deaths. That’s just patriarchal nonsense. They have more important things to do than that. The Sirens are custodians. They herd the songs; they keep them alive and in motion. For a still song is a dead song and will soon be forgotten. Occasionally, if called to by the Five Families or some other need, the Sirens can add their own song to the tides…