Chatterbox - The Colors of Klarand

Okay, first of all, I have a shiny new gadget on my sidebar - a word counter for Water Princess, Fire Prince. Currently, it's blue, because I'm writing part one - The Water, when I move on to part two - The Fire, I'll turn it red, and so on. So, keep an eye on it and you can get an idea of my progress. I'll try to update it every day.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the book so far. There's some discrepancies I'll need to clean up later, but for the most part, it's flowing well, and I just entered one of my favorite chapters. After it, I'll have passed where I was in the last computer draft. 

Anyways, onto my chatterbox. The theme this month is Maples. As in the tree. This did throw me for a loop, as I had intended to use my Rizkaland cast and - gasp! - they don't have maples in Rizkaland.

But I did some thinking and have come up with something plausible with Andrew and Karlos. Enjoy!

Via Pinterest

"What is your world like, Fire Prince?" asked Karlos, sitting down on the log next to Andrew. "You keep saying how different it is from our world, but what is it like? How is it different?"

Andrew glanced at the kid and automatically ruffled his hair. "Well, for one thing, snow isn't ... pink."

"It isn't always pink here, either," said Karlos, "Just near the Firefall."

"Also," said Andrew, "Leaves are green. Not ... whatever color they feel like being."

"All year round?" asked Karlos, his eyes widening.

"What do you mean?" asked Andrew. "Do leaves turn green here?"

The boy nodded. "In autumn, and then they fall from the trees. It's lots of fun to play in them."

Andrew nodded, seeing some sort of semblance to logic in that. "Well, they aren't green all year," he admitted. "In fact, in autumn, they do turn other colors. And then they fall from the trees."

"You have a funny world, Fire Prince."

"Except they don't turn strange colors like purple and blue," Andrew continued. "Usually, they're brown, orange, red, or yellow."

"That doesn't sound very exciting."

"But it is, for our world at least," continued Andrew. "My favorites are the maples?"

"Maples?" Karlos repeated.

"Their leaves turn a rich red, with is very pretty," Andrew explained. "And in late winter, you can harvest the sap and turn it into maple syrup, which is really good."

Karlos was silent for several long seconds. "Cool!" he announced, then ran off to pester one of the other men. Andrew sighed and shook his head.

There. I got maples to work in there. I did my best, I really did! Anyways.