Notes and Stuff

And with that, my fine friends, Kaihi’s story comes to an end. I'd love to continue it, to write about what he did next, but I'm afraid that won't happen.

Although, this world I've developed has quite a bit of potential. Maybe, just maybe, I can milk it a little more. Maybe I can make a couple of spin-offs.

Maybe I can carry on Kaihi's legacy in some way. Who knows? Anything could happen.

“Oh crossed eyes

Staring at the sky

I've been staying up waiting up

With no end

Shadows stalking.”

This story started life as an idea for the storyline of a video game I'm currently developing, both as a personal project and for an assignment. I was brainstorming concepts, and settled on one - a lost fighter pilot trying to make it home. And suddenly I thought to myself, Hey, this would make a great story - and so here we are.

Now, if I'm being honest, this story hurt me - tragedies are a sensitive topic, and when I started feeling sad as I wrote, I knew I was on the right track. I honestly, truthfully considered writing two endings - this one, and a less devastating one. But in the end, this one won through. I still have the draft for the other ending.

Maybe I'll share it one day.

Thanks for reading! As a reward, have some notes and more details about this story.

Some notes on Music

Whilst no songs are directly mentioned (aside from Transatlanticism by Death Cab For Cutie), there is a list of songs I like to believe Kaihi is listening to whenever he mentions that he has music playing. Here is a Spotify link to a playlist with the songs I think he would have: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/32dIzR1zCBhV4EfikGosdc?si=24c2185f144e42ff&pt=003af7bd6e39ac723559dbe50c2047bf

Some notes on Names and Pronunciation

The characters in this story and even the locations and objects have all had their names chosen specifically for them. Here is a list of the names, their pronunciation and the meaning behind each one, according to Google. I have adjusted the pronunciations of some names to better suit the character. In no particular order:

Arkar (Arc-ar) - “Sky” or “Space”.

Fiya (Fee-ya) - Short for Tzofiya, means “Watcher” or "Guardian".

Kaihi (Ky-ih-hee) - “Evasion” or “Avoidance” - Lahav (La-hav) - “Flame” or “Lightning”.

Eliza (Ell-ee-za) - “Pledged to God” - Doman (Doh-man) - “Home”.

Zyla (Zy-la) - “A follower”.

Hodan (Hoe-din) - “Paradise” or “Heaven”.

Mazel (Mah-zell) - “Luck” or “Fortune” or “Celebration”.

Idris (Eye-driz) - “Interpreter” or “To learn”.

Kaea (Kai-ah) - “Call” or “Leader”.

Karikoga (Car-ree-ko-ga) - “Loner” or “The only child”.

Elros (Ell-ross) - “Star Spray”.

Aymar (Eye-mar) - “Noble” or “Famous”.

Avatak (Av-a-tack) - A float made from skin.

Balsa (Bul-sa) - A type of lightweight wood.

Feiwen (Fey-win) - “Refined Soaring”.

Sanan (Sa-nan) - “Loud” or “Reverberating”.

Trpimir (Ter-pi-mer) - “Peaceful” or “Peace-loving”.

Khadra (Cad-ruh) - “Green” or “Blessed”.

Birvydas (Bur-vee-das) - “Scatterer of vision”.

Hiroto (Her-oh-toe) - “Great” or “Large” and “Fly” or “Soar”.

Saman (Say-man) - “Calm” or “Solace”.

Some notes on Characters

There's a few things I'd like to say about certain characters in this book, why they are who they are, and where the inspiration for them came from.

Zyla (Eliza) Doman - Zyla’s a special one. Her and her illness, whilst it is a figment of my imagination, takes plenty of inspiration from my late Grandma. She suffered through a terrible lung disease for over five years, connected to an oxygen machine she carried around with her 24/7. But she still stayed strong, and pushed through everything - the pain, the lack of oxygen, the hopelessness - even when she was lying in a hospital bed, her life slipping away. She loved God throughout all of it, never turning away from him. She's a major role model of mine, and I tried to get her across through Zyla as well as I could. Love you, Nana. See you again, one day.

Kaihi Lahav - Kaihi is nothing particularly special - inspiration for him comes from my own mind. Kaihi's personality, emotions and decisions are how I think I would react if I were in the situation he's in. Although I have no way to test this, I'm pretty confident that I would be sad if my fiancée was dying in the back seat of an aircraft that I'm flying.

Some notes on Aircraft

All aircraft in this story are based on a real world counterpart. Here are some of the more important ones, in order of appearance:

The first aircraft Kaihi flies, the unnamed fighter at the beginning, whilst it isn’t described, is based off the Republic F-84 Thunderjet. It’s also the aircraft that Kaihi’s squadmates fly towards the end of the story. In the story it has much shorter wings, but otherwise is more or less the same.

The enemy fighter that is often encountered throughout the story, whilst also not described, is the Lavochkin LA-15.

The Feiwen Mark Nine ‘Sanan’ is based on the Grumman F9F-8T Cougar. The main differences are the size and vertical stabiliser, being larger and higher up respectively. The armament is replaced with two nose mounted cannons. Its performance is adjusted to fit the story.

The Feiwen Mark Seven, which Zyla names the ‘Mazel’, is based off the Republic XP-72 Ultrabolt. The main differences here are the cockpit size and layout and overall size, being slightly bigger. The armament is also swapped out for two wing mounted cannons. Also, its performance is radically adjusted to fit the story.

This story was originally intended to have pictures scattered throughout. If you want to see these, check the RoyalRoad edition of this story. Simply search 'Caelinth' on Google and find my account, then go to my fictions and click on it. You'll see what I mean :)