Infiniverse Insider: The Imagery of The Ashen Touch Trilogy

Infiniverse Insider:

The imagery of The Ashen Touch Trilogy

INTRODUCTION:

When I was writing The Ashen Touch Trilogy, I realized very early on that I was dealing with the part of the Infiniverse most entrenched in imagery and myth. The use of imagery during The Ashen Touch Trilogy is what makes it not only one of my most complex works, but also my most contrasting. The imagery of classic myth, epic battles, and life or death choices are set against a heady mix of tunes ranging from The Beegees to Marvin Gaye, with a side helping of Candy Crush and The Furies wondering what the fuck to make of a Chicken McNugget. All in all, bringing classical and religious imagery into this series was essential, but also refreshing as I got to make it my own. 

I thought, given the importance of the imagery throughout Sephy’s story, as well as the fact I did a crap ton of research going into this series, that I would explore some of the images and themes in the story, how I attached or subverted them when it came to particular scenes or characters, and how I decided to twist or use classic imagery to my storytelling advantage.

So, buckle up and put on your boogie shoes, we’re heading back down to Mortaria for some literary adventure.

APPLES AND POMEGRANATES:

This one is pretty obvious if you know your Bible and or The Myth of Persephone and Haedes. The Apples and Pomegranates in this series are used to represent temptation and the forbidden. Lucifer and Thane first meet in The Othrysian Orchard, and the very first scene with Luce and Thane together sees Luce biting into an Apple during an intimate encounter with her lover. Lucifer also smells of apples, as she is not only tempted by magic herself but represents Thane’s temptation as she discarded her family and followed Lucifer into the Underworld.

Xion smells of Pomegranate, something I implemented for one reason, and that is because the relationship he and Sephy pursue is also forbidden, which to Sephy I think makes it all the more irresistible. Lucifer also used pomegranates to teach Xion to control his inner demon, training his patience by getting him to remove the seeds one at a time by hand.

Xion and Sephy shouldn’t be together for risk of producing a half-demon, half-God child, a watered-down version of Lucifer who is the child of Hecate and Moloch. These connections throughout the series are both a cause of continual tension, as well as a foreshadowing of the way that Sephy and Luce both suffer from very different kinds of addiction.

For Lucifer, her vice is obviously Alchemy and the darker side of magic which is inherent in her lineage, but when it comes to Sephy we find it more difficult to concisely put our finger on what underlies her habits of drinking, vicarious sex, and avoiding close connection.

This, as it turns out, is down to self-destruction blooming from her guilt and low self-esteem which she desperately tries to hide, a tendency which only gets worse as she learns about her past.

Sephy’s character ARC is completed when she is exposed to the destruction of something she dearly loves at the end of the series, showing her not only that she cannot run from love, but that there is enough out to destroy her happiness without her adding fuel to the flame. (Pun intended.)

SNAKES AND SPIDERS: 

Again this one is pretty obvious, but Snakes are super important not just because Gorgon and the Gorgonians have features of snakes, but also because Lucifer is related from the source of their power, The God of Ancient, Moloch. Snakes frequently show up in the series, especially when Lucifer or Thane are involved. Spiders, also, were used in this series and the premise for human phobias, particularly Arachnophobia, which is one of the most common fears by percentage. I wanted to look at why this is. 

Why do spiders and snakes trigger phobia in humans significantly more than wasps, or moths, or ants? 

I wanted to give the phobia of spiders and snakes a grounding in the ancient past specific to the lore of the series, to make it a kind of evolutionary defense mechanism that humans have developed against the Phobias, which look like spiders and can also make anyone nearby suffer their worst nightmare via lucid dreaming. The same is true of the Gorgonians, and It makes sense to me that with them being so easily able to camouflage the human body would evolve a kind of aversion to anything looking like the demon Kindred as an early warning system. This is also a defense mechanism against their masters, Barbas and Gorgon, and helped me reinforce the fact that these Demon Lords, their Kindred, and the Gods of Ancient who created them have shaped the history and state of humanity as it is presented in the Ashen Touch Trilogy. This is mainly because while many of the characters in this series are barely mortal technically, humanity and what it means to be human are one of the key themes explored during the main storyline.

OBSIDIAN, OPAL, ONYX, AND MARBLE:

Obsidian is a key material for the Ashen Touch Trilogy, it being the material which forms the Obsidian Shard, which is the namesake of the third book in the series. Obsidian works as a dark tether where, in later Infiniverse books, you might find Amethyst as a light tether. Different crystals have different magical absorption qualities, for example- Fire Opal might be used to trap the powers of a Demi-Goddess who had inherited her father’s ability to convect and summon the eternal flame- (The Opal Blade.) More importantly, this material comes into contrast with the white marble which forms the skeleton of the Indicatus courts, which brings me to a major aesthetic feature of The Ashen Touch Trilogy.

The key monochromatic contrast is, of course, presented to the reader first and foremost by The Indicatus Courts, whereby this divide is clear and concise, reflecting Yama’s black and white view of the world. Muerta also displays this color scheme, her skin being made up like bones, but she always wears flashes of color, showing the way her personality is growing and changing since she left her husband. As we progress through the storyline, we see the fall of the courts and the way they are covered in a grey layer of ash, a mirror of how the moral dilemma of right and wrong become blurred over time for each of the Characters.

The placement of black and white throughout this series is super important for particular characters too, with Haedes’ tether being an Onyx Hourglass- black and opaque, that prevents him from being able to see when he will die. In this way, more than any other, he is truly mortal.

The contrast between black and white is also used by me when I’m writing Lucifer in particular. Her hair changes throughout her character arc from Platinum Blonde to Black, and then settles into a silvery grey at the end of the final book. This represents her fully accepting the two halves of herself, both light and dark, and realizing that through effort she can find a balance. The lingering darker tones in her personality also represent the fact that her addiction is a permanent part of her, and that though she might overcome it, it will always be a part of her.

ROT AND GREENERY:

The use of rot and greenery within this series is something that extends back past the current storyline and into the relationship between Haedes and Demi, Sephy’s mother. The backstory for this is yet to be published, but it’s there, and the floral imagery is incredible. You also have this amazing contrast between Sephy as seen in Xion’s dream (inspired by Morpheus of course) and her actual rebirth where she is little more than a reanimated corpse, clawing her way out of her own grave. In Xion’s dream, Sephy can be seen as in a fairytale, lying within the grasp of Nirvana’s natural magic. (Nirvana is a location from The Aetherial Embrace Trilogy), elevated by his feelings for her. However, nothing about Xion and Sephy’s relationship, or Mortaria, ever lives up to this fantasy vision- which is again one of the things Sephy learns. Love is messy and fragile, and that is what gives it it’s value.

Between Haedes and Demi, similar imagery is utilized, whereby Demi’s gardens at the Exilia are a labor of love on Haedes’ behalf, as greenery does not naturally flourish in Mortaria. The natural landscape of Mortaria is also very much representative of death. No cycles or seasons, no day or night, but simply tepid temperatures and nothing to help regulate any kind of mortal circadian rhythm.

CONCLUSION:

To conclude, I want to just say that this post only barely scratches the surface of the imagery that went into this world and the story within it. There are so many other images that have importance that I could refer to, such as crosses, cages, ravens, hourglasses, urns, pyramids… the list is endless. However, I hope this gives you a view of how I construct my stories, and how imagery and metaphor can often be interpreted in several different ways. That is for the reader to decide, and that’s one of the reasons I love writing. I am trying to build something with layers, so that on rereading you might discover something that you didn’t see before or a new facet through which to view the stories. The imagery in my books also crosses storylines, so if you think you see linking imagery between the trilogies, you’re probably correct. That’s very much my style, and I’m enjoying getting ready to tie them all together in book ten!

Anyway, I’d better get back to writing, after all… I have a whole Infiniverse just waiting for me to Discover.

Stay Magical,

Kristy Nicolle x

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