Hi, Aidi here. Today I’m chatting with Tasmae from the Mind Over Series by Karina Fabian.

[Aadi] Who or what are you? What are your vitals? (age, sex, species)

[Tasmae] I am Tasmae, the Miscria of Kanaan. I am female. My husband, Deryl, who is from your world, says I am perhaps 22. It’s immaterial to my world.

[Aadi] What part do you play in the story?

[Tasmae] At the time of this book, I am pregnant with our first child. Am also being called by my planet to act as a conduit of enormous energy. To do so will save my world, but kill me and my child. Of course, Deryl does not want this to happen. I don’t wish to die or to have our child die with me, but I was born and trained for this very task. I am a Miscria.

Deryl, however, discovers that if I complete my mission, I will not save one world, but destroy two. After that, we work together to find a way to save both worlds and our child.

[Aadi] How would you describe your book?

[Tasmae] Fantasy.

[Aadi]  Tell me about where you live? Who do you live with?

[Tasmae] I live on Kanaan, with my people. Deryl is my husband, and he has named our unborn child, “Hope.” It’s cute that he gives her a name. Psychic people do not need names – we know each other and communicate that knowing to others. But he is human, and she is half-human, so I indulge him.

Although the people of our village are mostly Kanaan, we do have other sentient beings. The unicorns live nearby and provide transportation. Again, “unicorn” is the word given them by a human, Deryl’s friend Joshua. They don’t look like anything you call unicorns, but they do have a horn and horse-like bodies.

Sometimes, we work with the Bondfriends – humans who are psychically paired with everyn, a dragon-like creature. That word came from the Barin. The Barin are people like us who live on another world.

They also have a verbal language. They periodically invade our world. Deryl has learned that they are trying to colonize our world because theirs is dying. This is something else we try to fix. I do not want to live with the Barin.

Sigh. I just realized how many words there are on my world that my people don’t need.

[Aadi] What’s the most important thing in your life right now?

[Tasmae] We have to find a way to put both planets back into stable orbits. They are going to crash into each other. In the past, Miscria have been able to repel them, but as I mentioned before, to do so would kill me and my unborn child, and Deryl says, I would destroy both worlds. Barin has become too weak to be repelled as in the past.

[Aadi] What do you hope nobody ever finds out about you?

[Tasmae] I do not understand. If I told you this, then people would find out, and what would be the point of hoping?

[Aadi]  Read any good books? What were they?

[Tasmae] Books are a human creation of words. The closest we have are the remembrances, which Deryl says is closer to virtual reality. They are sentient plants that absorb and store the memories of specific Kanaan.

They are all “good,” but not all are easy. The remembrances of the Miscria can be disturbing and dangerous. It is easy to lose oneself in a remembrance, and not just temporarily. In Mind Over Psyche, Deryl had to save me from one I had to experience for my training.

[Aadi]  What type of places do you hang out in?

[Tasmae] I am a Miscria, but for many years, I didn’t know that was my calling. It was thought that I would be a warrior, so my childhood was spent in sparring yards. I still prefer to go there to exercise and let off steam. It’s not easy for me to accept a passive role while others protect me.

[Aadi]  Last question. What annoys you more than anything else?

[Tasmae] My husband’s insistence on keeping his human habits even though he is Kanaan. As cute as it is that he wishes to name our child, there are times when he expects my world to conform to meet his expectations.