A.    The title came from the fact that the couple (Damali and Carlos) were "hunted" by several forces.

A.    Vlak came out of my experiences with corporate America (LOL!) -- which seemed so similar to old world Rome.

A.    Kamal is an outgrowth of being a mirror image of Marlene--as spiritual as her, cosmic, sensual, but more primal (the opposite of Marlene's contact with Neteru Council elders.)

A.    The triangle was necesary to show the young Neteru (Damali) that even the elder Guardians had "a life" prior to her... much like young people have to finally come to terms with the fact that their parents had a profound life before they arrived on the planet (smile.) This is also the beginning of the separation between Damali and her mother-seer (not as family, but her total dependency on Marlene's sight/gift, as the young woman grows up and comes into her own.)

A.    I had to do character bios for each character just to start the legend anyway, and then as I was searching for content for the website, this vast amount of data I already had in my files seemed to make sense.

A.    I wanted to take the team to spiritual places inhabited by The Diaspora... Bahia is legendary as one of those cosmic places.

A.    The fake Neteru in this tale is "an embittered, angry woman," who has just cause--but whose inner spirit is killing all around her. I see so many women of color who have just cause to be angry and bitter, who have reason to rampage... but that negativity is not the solution--that was the theme behind it all.

A.    I never named her so that any name could be placed there. This is the only character that I did that for.

A.    Again, like the character bios, I had to have a full rule-set developed ahead of time to keep me (as the author) straight. In building a complex world, it's easy to violate your own rules--so to have it written down keeps one from making major errors.

Q.    What message would like readers to receive about the compassion Carlos had for the pretend Neterus’s situation?

A.    His compassion is a level of community love that understands how a person got to where they are--but still requires that they move forward. In truth, the "pretend Neteru" was a very injured party. But that was then, and this is now. Carlos's caring shows how her fate came to be; his feeling her pain shows the depth of the hurt; his working out a solution was his attempt to make her move forward--because forward progression is the only way.