Post by Rikku on Feb 24, 2012 18:29:41 GMT -5
Can’t you feel it?
The hum of it, beneath your skin, beneath your bones, crackling. It’s in every inch of this place, it’s in the tapestries that hang on the walls and the walls themselves, in the shelves, in the books – oh, the books. Rooms and rooms of books stacked up all orderly, and more books besides, scattered haphazard besides beds, tables, lying opened to a certain page in a room that stinks of smoke and sandalwood and strangeness. You could tell tales of the books until your tongue tripped and tired and fell silent and still there would be tales more; this is a storyplace, a safe place. This is where knowledge finds a home.
And in the rooms and halls and walls and corners it is here, in the people (oh in the people), in every lungful of air you breathe and thought you think, in every word on every page of every book – oh, the books. Run your hands along their spines and feel the shiver in your own spine again, the whisper, the promise, it is here, it is here.
There is magic here.
In every breath of this building. Every corner. Every corridor. With every step with every stone there is magic here. So you wonder, you wander, you follow the path that you could’ve sworn led elsewhere, the last time you were here. You walk the corridor with empty frames on the walls where pictures should be and a dusty rug underfoot and lamps that glimmer strangely and it leads elsewhere, leads here, this new place, sister-place, bound by that magic you can feel in your tongue and toes and teeth.
The stones of this place have no magic, except the trickles and traces that worm their way into the foundation of any building if it stands long enough, if it weathers the waves of time and hate and history and still stays standing. It stands, still. It stands strong. There is age in the stones of this place; blood has been shed here. Battles have been lost, and won. People have lived and died and loved in this place. There is history in these stones, and honour, and strength. In the very early morning, in the very late night, you can stand at any place in the castle and listen to a silence that is ages old.
… Which is great, but you were looking for the bathroom. This is all getting a bit inconvenient.
*
“Sleep and listen, oh my dearheart
There is naught but safe words here
See the lake a mirror clearly
Breathe the quiet air
Sit and listen, oh my sweetheart
Dream that you are fine and fair
The world has dimmed all dusk and darkly
There is quiet here.”
Burns gave his cittern one last strum, then looked up at his audience and grinned. It was a confident sort of grin, that one, cheerful and easy, the grin of a man who knew full well that he was charming and clever enough to hold hearts in the palm of his hand if he so wished it.
His audience snorted and flicked at a fly with its tail.
“Suit yourself, wretched beast,” Burns told it, wry. He rested his cittern on the ground and stood up to stretch. “Serenading a horse is a foolsome enough act in the first place. I refuse to acknowledge that I’m bad at it.”
The stables weren’t where he’d have chosen to be, given half a choice. They were cleaner than most, Kestrel knights being responsible folk, but still they smelt thick and heavy with dust and hay and warm living horse-smell, and weren’t exactly the most well-lit of places. Much nicer to be outside where the people were, and it wasn’t like that couldn’t be helpful towards proving himself, too; he could do sword exercises – always joyous – or work on his archery, or talk to people. Never any harm in being friendly. Or – chivalry! Surely there was chivalry that needed doing.
Nice, horseless chivalry.
But no. Knights rode horses, and looked after them, and knew them, as well as they knew their weapons and their comrades and their codes of conduct. And even squires as he was needed to know horses, or they’d be no use at all.
“Doing my best here, hey?” he told it, all murmury and calming-like. Maybe that would help. Talking to the things was meant to help, yeah? So this’d work, maybe. Singing had seemed a logical extension of that before he’d actually tried it, but his voice was more inclined to the robust than to the tuneful, and his cittern-playing … well.
He’d figured out what the knob-things were for, which was an improvement.
“Hey. Here. Good horse. Nice horse. Good Wildfire.” He scratched its nose, cautiously. It whickered. He didn’t leap back in alarm, which he was quite proud of. “Good horse. Whose a good horse? You are. You’re a lovely, excellent horse, hm? Yes indeed. Have some bribery.”
He’d sneaked an apple out of the kitchens, and he produced it now and offered it to the gelding, who looked at it for a second and then – screamed, screamed as only horses can scream, high and shrill with its lips peeled back to show its teeth and its ears flat against its skulls and its eyes rolling, wild. It backed against the wall and stood there, shivering, eyes rolling, ears flattened, lungs heaving in the sturdy barrel of its chest.
Burns looked at the apple, accusingly.
Then he turned and yeah, there it was, and he could understand why screaming would seem a reasonable reaction. It was – something, hard to make out exactly what in the dim light, hard to make out, too, because it couldn’t quite seem to decide; it was the size of a large dog but shaped like a rat, all hunched shoulders and gleamy eyes and long trailing tail, but its legs were all wrong, skittery and strange, and where its mouth should have been there were great gnashy things like the jaws of an insect.
It stayed where it was for a second, hunched small as it could go; then in a twist of naked tail it turned and darted away, and yes, mainly a rat, he’d say, by how it moved, the sneaky speed of it as it ran to get out, ran for shadows that’d hide it. It was fast.
Burns was faster.
His sword was in his hand without him even noticing he’d drawn it, the weight of it familiar as breathing. He ran forward and drove it down, both hands wrapped around the hilt – he knew this dance, this was what he knew, he knew the movement of muscles, how to step and where to strike, he knew this dance. There, between the joints of the spine –
The monster screeched and writhed a bit and died.
Burns stared, grinned. “See, now,” he told his horse, conversational. “The sword parts are easy.”
The rat started to crumple, in death; the insect-parts dissolved into some sort of slime and the rat itself somehow shrunk, deflated, its skin going baggy and too-big on its smaller body. Strange and unnerving in the way that only magical things could be, by his reckoning; couldn’t get much magicker if happy twinkling stars came out and sparkled at him. Things had been going a little strange for a while now, since the magefolk had linked Castle Kestrel with their manor, but this … This went a little beyond strange and entered downright uncanny. And what if things like that wandered into the city? Or other things? Or magic gone all haywire and havoc-causing?
Plenty of chivalry to do, it seemed.
((… This turned out longer than I was thinking. >.> And um. It is okay? Is it okay? Introduces the scene and the overall concept of ‘magic is leaking into Falcorum a bit! We must deal with the mainly amusing effects and also WITH EACH OTHER’, yes? Maybe? Er then again ‘hey some random ratflea monster’ doesn’t exactly scream ASSORTED MAGICAL EFFECTS, does it, I just wanted to have horses. I can have another stab at roleplaystarting if it’s confusing or what-have-you))
The hum of it, beneath your skin, beneath your bones, crackling. It’s in every inch of this place, it’s in the tapestries that hang on the walls and the walls themselves, in the shelves, in the books – oh, the books. Rooms and rooms of books stacked up all orderly, and more books besides, scattered haphazard besides beds, tables, lying opened to a certain page in a room that stinks of smoke and sandalwood and strangeness. You could tell tales of the books until your tongue tripped and tired and fell silent and still there would be tales more; this is a storyplace, a safe place. This is where knowledge finds a home.
And in the rooms and halls and walls and corners it is here, in the people (oh in the people), in every lungful of air you breathe and thought you think, in every word on every page of every book – oh, the books. Run your hands along their spines and feel the shiver in your own spine again, the whisper, the promise, it is here, it is here.
There is magic here.
In every breath of this building. Every corner. Every corridor. With every step with every stone there is magic here. So you wonder, you wander, you follow the path that you could’ve sworn led elsewhere, the last time you were here. You walk the corridor with empty frames on the walls where pictures should be and a dusty rug underfoot and lamps that glimmer strangely and it leads elsewhere, leads here, this new place, sister-place, bound by that magic you can feel in your tongue and toes and teeth.
The stones of this place have no magic, except the trickles and traces that worm their way into the foundation of any building if it stands long enough, if it weathers the waves of time and hate and history and still stays standing. It stands, still. It stands strong. There is age in the stones of this place; blood has been shed here. Battles have been lost, and won. People have lived and died and loved in this place. There is history in these stones, and honour, and strength. In the very early morning, in the very late night, you can stand at any place in the castle and listen to a silence that is ages old.
… Which is great, but you were looking for the bathroom. This is all getting a bit inconvenient.
*
“Sleep and listen, oh my dearheart
There is naught but safe words here
See the lake a mirror clearly
Breathe the quiet air
Sit and listen, oh my sweetheart
Dream that you are fine and fair
The world has dimmed all dusk and darkly
There is quiet here.”
Burns gave his cittern one last strum, then looked up at his audience and grinned. It was a confident sort of grin, that one, cheerful and easy, the grin of a man who knew full well that he was charming and clever enough to hold hearts in the palm of his hand if he so wished it.
His audience snorted and flicked at a fly with its tail.
“Suit yourself, wretched beast,” Burns told it, wry. He rested his cittern on the ground and stood up to stretch. “Serenading a horse is a foolsome enough act in the first place. I refuse to acknowledge that I’m bad at it.”
The stables weren’t where he’d have chosen to be, given half a choice. They were cleaner than most, Kestrel knights being responsible folk, but still they smelt thick and heavy with dust and hay and warm living horse-smell, and weren’t exactly the most well-lit of places. Much nicer to be outside where the people were, and it wasn’t like that couldn’t be helpful towards proving himself, too; he could do sword exercises – always joyous – or work on his archery, or talk to people. Never any harm in being friendly. Or – chivalry! Surely there was chivalry that needed doing.
Nice, horseless chivalry.
But no. Knights rode horses, and looked after them, and knew them, as well as they knew their weapons and their comrades and their codes of conduct. And even squires as he was needed to know horses, or they’d be no use at all.
“Doing my best here, hey?” he told it, all murmury and calming-like. Maybe that would help. Talking to the things was meant to help, yeah? So this’d work, maybe. Singing had seemed a logical extension of that before he’d actually tried it, but his voice was more inclined to the robust than to the tuneful, and his cittern-playing … well.
He’d figured out what the knob-things were for, which was an improvement.
“Hey. Here. Good horse. Nice horse. Good Wildfire.” He scratched its nose, cautiously. It whickered. He didn’t leap back in alarm, which he was quite proud of. “Good horse. Whose a good horse? You are. You’re a lovely, excellent horse, hm? Yes indeed. Have some bribery.”
He’d sneaked an apple out of the kitchens, and he produced it now and offered it to the gelding, who looked at it for a second and then – screamed, screamed as only horses can scream, high and shrill with its lips peeled back to show its teeth and its ears flat against its skulls and its eyes rolling, wild. It backed against the wall and stood there, shivering, eyes rolling, ears flattened, lungs heaving in the sturdy barrel of its chest.
Burns looked at the apple, accusingly.
Then he turned and yeah, there it was, and he could understand why screaming would seem a reasonable reaction. It was – something, hard to make out exactly what in the dim light, hard to make out, too, because it couldn’t quite seem to decide; it was the size of a large dog but shaped like a rat, all hunched shoulders and gleamy eyes and long trailing tail, but its legs were all wrong, skittery and strange, and where its mouth should have been there were great gnashy things like the jaws of an insect.
It stayed where it was for a second, hunched small as it could go; then in a twist of naked tail it turned and darted away, and yes, mainly a rat, he’d say, by how it moved, the sneaky speed of it as it ran to get out, ran for shadows that’d hide it. It was fast.
Burns was faster.
His sword was in his hand without him even noticing he’d drawn it, the weight of it familiar as breathing. He ran forward and drove it down, both hands wrapped around the hilt – he knew this dance, this was what he knew, he knew the movement of muscles, how to step and where to strike, he knew this dance. There, between the joints of the spine –
The monster screeched and writhed a bit and died.
Burns stared, grinned. “See, now,” he told his horse, conversational. “The sword parts are easy.”
The rat started to crumple, in death; the insect-parts dissolved into some sort of slime and the rat itself somehow shrunk, deflated, its skin going baggy and too-big on its smaller body. Strange and unnerving in the way that only magical things could be, by his reckoning; couldn’t get much magicker if happy twinkling stars came out and sparkled at him. Things had been going a little strange for a while now, since the magefolk had linked Castle Kestrel with their manor, but this … This went a little beyond strange and entered downright uncanny. And what if things like that wandered into the city? Or other things? Or magic gone all haywire and havoc-causing?
Plenty of chivalry to do, it seemed.
((… This turned out longer than I was thinking. >.> And um. It is okay? Is it okay? Introduces the scene and the overall concept of ‘magic is leaking into Falcorum a bit! We must deal with the mainly amusing effects and also WITH EACH OTHER’, yes? Maybe? Er then again ‘hey some random ratflea monster’ doesn’t exactly scream ASSORTED MAGICAL EFFECTS, does it, I just wanted to have horses. I can have another stab at roleplaystarting if it’s confusing or what-have-you))
