Growing up, my Mom always told me to never discount the underdogs. People and circumstances are not always what they seem.
Biographical Sketch of Lotari the Centaur from the River Woods:
Age: somewhere around 150 years
Eyes: gray like storm clouds
Hair: brown and wavy. Usually full of leaves and sticks
Height: from head to front hooves - 6'4"
WHAT IS SOMETHING THIS CHARACTER WANTS?
To be useful (Book 1)
To make a difference (Book 2)
To defend what he's worked hard to accomplish (Book 3)
To stop evil's reign once and for all.(Book 4)
CHARACTER TALENTS:
Knows herbal medicine and Healing skills
Is skilled with a bow and arrow, and can manage a sword quite well.
Plays the flute.
He's a mentor at heart.
MEDALLION: Needle and Thread - because he is called to mend broken relations between creature and humans.
IN BOOK ONE
Lotari (Lot) is called from his safe River Woods surrounding the Kingdom town of Many Rivers to travel with the young girl
Alyra. He fears that instead of helping, he will cause her and the hateful Jerin of Yarholm more trouble. However, the girl child has won his heart and he realizes she might be an important key to the Kingdom of Alburnium defeating the dark one, Darnel. So he undertakes the perilous journey to Aloblase, determined to make sure
Alyra reaches the city safely, even if it means giving up everything he holds dear.
You can find more White Chronicles pictures on my
Pinterest board.
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| "PAW. Did he just say I had paws..."- Lotari (Illuminated by Jackie Castle) |
HERE'S SOME BACK STORY:
It wasn't until I was preparing this book for publication when I realized just where Lotari came from. I suppose, some life lessons are so embedded in our spirits we forget where they came from. So I want to take a moment to share with you the person who inspired Lotari.
In my story Illuminated,
Lotari the centaur is loosely based on my friend Joey who I met during my high
school years.
At around four or five years of age, Joey woke up one day to
that he could no longer walk. He’d contacted some kind of disease that would
render his muscles useless. When I met him, he was still the height of a five
year old and bound to a motorized wheelchair. I never knew his real age, but
think he was in his late twenties or early thirties.
I met Joey in church. He came zipping in, weaving his chair
past groups of people conversing, the whine of his motor drowning out the
muddled conversations. First thing I noticed, aside from his odd appearance,
was his smile. His face wasn’t elated, or excited, but rather content, like one
who’d found the most comfortable spot on the couch.
He wheeled up to the front pew, adjusted his chair, then sat
and waited for service to start. The girl I was visiting with grabbed my arm
and started pulling me toward the front, saying, “You’ve got to meet, Joey. I
just love him.”
And that was generally how the whole congregation viewed
him. Over time, I found out why.
When Joey talked, to get started took great effort. His
small twisted body would tremble and shake as he formed the words he wanted to
say. But once he got started, and when he had something important, and usually
life changing, to say his words flowed from his mouth with hardly any effort at
all.
It didn’t take long before I also totally loved this guy.
He was passionate.
I’d watch him during worship while everyone sang and lifted
their hands in praise. Joey’s arms had little mobility, aside from his being
able to move his arm enough in a forward direction to push the little stick
that moved his chair. But he would always lift his face toward the heavens. And
his face spoke of his utter and complete love for the God he served. Never once
did I ever hear him ask why he was deformed. If he did, it was between him and
God. Never once did I hear him complain about what he couldn’t do. To him, with
God, all things were possible. He believed that, he prayed that, and he lived
that.
He was fearless.
Because of his condition, he was totally dependent on his
mother for all physical care. He wasn’t even able to feed himself. But that
didn’t stop him from calling up his buddy who never seemed to mind loading Joey
up in the van and driving him wherever he wanted to go. And go, Joey did. He’d
talk his friend into driving to downtown Dallas where’s they cruise the back streets.
There he’d strike up conversations with the people he met: prostitutes,
homeless, and anyone else they came across. What did he talk about? He talked
about his favorite topic, God’s love.
He was a friend.
To anyone. Anyone who came to him, from nicely dressed
businessmen, to a struggling teenager, like myself, he made time to stop and
talk, to listen, to hear your heart and impart some kind of wisdom. Joey helped
me to understand God. To understand how to trust God even when things made no
sense. He got me through my first time I’d been fired, and through all the teen
angst experienced in those years. I counted him as one of my very best friends.
So when I was writing my story Illuminated, and Lotari the
centaur popped out of the trees when Alyra was lost in the woods, I knew deep
in my heart that Joey had resurfaced. No, I can’t say Lotari is Joey. Lotari is
a fictional character in my story. Joey was a real, life-changing friend in my
life. But I make that association because I know some people have problems with
mythical creatures. They’re generally portrayed as evil, bad. Just as some
people who are different (physically, developmentally, or other) are avoided, or shunned because we simply don’t know
how to deal with them.
Alyra found a friend in the centaur. Just as I found a
friend in wheelchair bound Joey. My hope is that readers will be touched by
Alyra and Lotari's fictional friendship and start to understand that looks are
deceiving. Don’t shun away from people
who act and look different than you. Why? Because you never know when you’ll
find a friend who will help you manage your way through the dark, scary woods
and get you back on your path. You just never know.
