Today, Traveling With T has a Character Q&A with Tomas. He is one the of main characters in OURSELVES (The Nahan Series). Tomas reveals a few things and leaves us with a few questions!

COUNCIL INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: TOMAS DESARA, STORYTELLER APPRENTICE, END OF WEEK ONE OF TRAINING

1) Experiences shape a person and their path. What’s one experience that kick started your journey?

Oh, man, that’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? If you’d asked me that a month ago, I’d have just stared at you stupidly. Not that I’m looking like a genius right now but, you know. *laughs* I can’t really…I’m not allowed to go into the exact details of the, um, the actual thing that happened because, um…*looks over shoulder* well, you know the legal issues. I’ll just leave it at that. But I can tell you that even before that thing happened, I knew something was up. I mean, I’ve always been kind of different. Louis, my cousin, used to say it was all in my head, that I was just shy or something but I knew. I just knew. I mean, one of two things had to be true – either I was different because I could hear all these weird things or all the Nahan around me could hear them and I was just really bad at handling it. To be honest, there was a fifty-fifty chance either one of those was true.

Shoot, am I even answering your question? I’m sorry, it’s just that since I started my training, I answer, like, a thousand questions a day. I’m constantly answering questions and so I’ve sort of lost the ability to put a period on my thoughts. Just wave a flag or something if you need to stop speaking. I’ll stop speaking now. What’s your next question?

2) Do you believe in love at first sight?

Yeah. *grins* Absolutely. Yeah. It’s funny, you know, like that first question, if you’d asked me this earlier, I probably would have said no. It’s just amazing when I think about how fast everything is changing. Meeting Stell was like nothing I’d ever known before. It wasn’t like it is on TV. It was like…it was like…I saw her and everything made sense. Everything that didn’t make sense just fell away and she was so there. She was just right there and all the things I’ve always been so bad at, like small talk and basically everything having to do with girls, just fell away. Can I change the answer to my first question? I think maybe it was meeting Stell that kick-started everything.

3) Tell me about your best friend.

Oh that’s an easy one. Louis Besson. He’s my cousin. Our moms are sisters and we grew up in the same group. He’s totally cool, which I guess means he’s basically everything I’m not. *laughs* Seriously, I would be lost without Louis. He’s taught me everything from how to dress to how not fail algebra. He can be a little pushy and it would be a huge mistake to try to out-party him but there’s no way I would have had the nerve to apply to the Storytellers if I didn’t know that Louis had my back. That’s what makes this all so hard. I’m doing all this training and learning all these things that are so…that I never even knew existed. It’s all so huge and so scary and I’ve always gone to Louis when things scared me and now I can’t and it’s just…I’m sorry. Could I have a second? *excuses himself, returns in less than a minute*

Sorry about that. I’m so tired. I guess my nerves are a little shot. It’s just…I really miss Louis.

4) I heard that you held a special interest in horror and vampire flicks. Got any favorites?

Well, of course! What Nahan kid didn’t? That’s exactly the kind of stuff Louis taught me. My mom was really uptight about us watching all that stuff because, you know, she thought it was disrespectful and that we shouldn’t engage in it. She thought that by enjoying any of the vampire stuff we were disrespecting all the work the Council does and that we were, I don’t know, buying into the whole undead thing. My mom tends to make everything much more complicated than it needs to be.

But Louis’ mom was totally cool about it. She let us watch anything. *laughs* She even let us dress up as vampires one Halloween. It was hilarious. Louis always liked the dark movies, you know, like Near Dark and Lost Boys. I’m pretty sure he liked Lost Boys for more than just the plot, if you know what I mean. I always liked the TV stuff, the campier the better. Do you remember that show Kolchak: the Night Stalker? That was my favorite. They used to run that on cable late night and we always stayed up for it. And of course, any movie where vampires could fly was an instant favorite. One time, Louis decided he was going to try to fly and jumped off our deck. *laughs* He almost killed himself. And then my mom almost killed him. It was hilarious.

I’ve been out of touch with a lot of the new vampire stuff but Louis promised that next Halloween we’d get a bunch of people together and have a marathon. That’ll be awesome.

5) Any last thoughts?

Um, I don’t suppose you could edit this to make me sound a little more pulled together? No? Okay. That’s fine. My mentors keep telling me not to worry about stuff like that, that I shouldn’t be so self-conscious but that’s kind of hard to do when people are studying me so carefully. I guess I’ll get used to it eventually.

Somebody had mentioned that you guys wanted to talk to Stell too. I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. She’s not, um, one hundred percent on board with the whole Council thing yet. She’s a little *air quotes* hostile about it right now. Maybe just give her some time? Plus she still sounds like she lives up on the mountain, you know, that weird Nahan/English mix. I think the only slang words she’s really gotten the hang of start with F and rhyme with duck. *laughs*

So, if that’s it then, I’ll excuse myself. I have meditation training this afternoon and a bunch of other stuff. *rises and bows* Thank you for listening. Wish me luck with my training.

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Want to read this book? It released Jan 27th- so go on and snag you a copy!

Happy Reading and Bookishly Yours,

T @ Traveling With T