I started this years ago with the intent of telling a story based on experiences in the games Red Baron II and Rise of Flight, both games were well researched regarding the subject of air combat in World War One. The instruction manual for Red Baron II was practically a small history textbook concerning that war and the men who fought over the trenches of the Western Front from the harshness of the conditions they dealt with to their fears and the creation of air combat doctrines still taught to this day. So what happened? Life happened as well as plenty of indirect discouragement from the "my service and PTSD is my personality" crowd. You know, the ones who think their service is an automatic win in any argument even ones not related to their service, the ones who expect hero worship for killing brown people. Repeatedly being told I could never understand kind of killed my inspiration more than working long, hard hours as a housekeeper. I originally pulled on my experiences losing family members close to me and on my experiences feeling excitement and fear as a firefighter while saving lives and property (instead of, you know, taking them) to try to come to something close to what my characters might feel.

The story is set in Kory Bing's excellent Skin Deep universe though it is, of course, very much not canon nor was it ever intended to be. My original plan was to create my own world with its own parallel history, but changed that at the request of a good friend. You know who you are. I did intend to change George's name eventually to something more appropriate for a thunderbird once I had settled on a tribe for him to belong to. I was leaning toward Sioux or Cherokee. Yes, the title was inspired by a Flogging Molly song. Go dance with the angels, but remember the sky above the battlefield really is The Devil's Dance Floor.

I may finish this at some point if I get my inspiration back. It was fun writing at one point.