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Post by Shadaras on Oct 23, 2012 13:31:29 GMT -5
Pretty title! (It makes me think of flutes and the moon and fae and silvertongued bards.)
Also yes do that that'd be hilarious.
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Post by Rikku on Oct 28, 2012 18:39:55 GMT -5
I know why it's called the land of bone and haze now
:3
(the death god in his skeleton forests, and mists are sacred to him like wine is sacred to Janlis of the Silver Tongue; and so his priests burn offerings, and the smoke is an offering in and of itself. You can see the signs that point to Death - not his true name, he has no true name - you can see the signs that direct you to Death's realm leaking through into our world, sometimes, in scalding hot steams, or misty days when the fog muffles all sound and the ground vanishes beneath your feet.)
(i am so glad i am reading the iliad this helps a lot)
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Post by Rikku on Oct 28, 2012 18:41:32 GMT -5
... I have no idea whether any of my characters even visit Death's realm, but I hope they do, I'm really intrigued by it heh
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Post by Rikku on Oct 31, 2012 5:05:58 GMT -5
Man this thing changes its name a lot! I'm going with this one for now almost entirely because it can then be referred to by its initials.
PaP.
It is a story about moirails.
I am entirely too pleased by this.
Anyway, I wrote an exploratory sort of fic today - getting a handle on my charadarlings, the world, maybe some themes I'm gonna explore - and I'm pretty happy with it! My prince is sort of insipid and boring though, I might think about making him more arrogant. I shall post that shortly.
And then in an hour I'm gonna start writing NaNo proper, I guess!
8 )
8 )
8)
wait that's not it
man
just pretend the gradually-descending sunglasses gag is there, ok
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Post by Rikku on Oct 31, 2012 5:46:07 GMT -5
I think Nisa should be more arrogant and impulsive hm ah well, I can work on that as I go along so here have a thing
The city-state was in upheaval at this time, and it needed its prince. Naturally this was when Nisa decided he wanted a camping trip.
“Why?” asked his closest friend, sitting at the end of his bed and polishing her knives. Tarly had no real need of knives, as her tongue was far sharper, and far more the kind of weapon that was useful in Nisa’s world. Her mind was sharp too, however, or at least sharp enough to know that words couldn’t get you out of everything.
“No real reason! You’re right, it’s stupid,” the prince said, and changed the subject. He had traces of royal-red in his dark hair, when the sun shone right, and it was strange not to see a smile on his face.
Tarly ran the whetstone along the blade and considered. “You’ve never left the city, correct?”
“Except for trips with you I’ve never even left the palace,” Nisa said, scowling. He flicked paint at the canvas, then scowled further.
“Well. Come now. Surely even you can see that that’s far from admirable. It’s not the palace you’ll be ruling, it’s this whole region; you need a broader sense of its history, of its landscapes and nuances, the way farmers talk as they labour in their fields, the way light shines through busy streams – life inside palace walls can only teach you so much, surely, it can teach you to smile and stand straight and be polite but it can’t teach you how to rule.”
Nisa laughed. “Tell my uncle that.”
“Alright then,” Tarly said, standing.
“What? Really?”
“Put in prettier words, of course.”
“Everything you say is put in pretty words already,” Nisa said impatiently, flicking paint at her nose. Then he grinned. “Except when you’re talking to girls you like, ha! Remember that time at the party when you--”
Tarly tossed the knife from hand to hand and raised an eyebrow, icy. “Do you want to go camping or don’t you?”
“Sleep out underneath the open stars,” Nisa said, eyes bright. “You and me! Just think about it!” He sprang to his feet and gripped her hands, and she just barely managed to jerk the knife aside before he slit his palm open. He of course was far too excited to take any notice of this. “A few days away from everything, no one telling us what to do or who to be—”
“No one tells me what to do or who to be,” Tarly said, in some surprise. The court was mainly just confused by her. Those who didn’t think she was Nisa’s lover rumoured that she was some illegitimate sister, which was absurd, they looked nothing alike; Nisa with his royal blood was tall and slender, and pale, besides, from never being outside. Tarly was short and stocky and saturnine in her features, altogether quite different. But they fit together, somehow, like puzzle pieces, like books with the same binding.
Nisa dropped her hands and stood staring at his own as if they were a stranger’s, fingers spread wide for his inspection. “Lucky you,” he said, quietly.
“Well,” Tarly said.
“Alright, lucky’s not the right word. Still.” He curled his fingers into fists and looked at her, solemn and desperate. Nisa was not the kind of man who could feel things halfway. “Tarly, one more day of this, of, of everyone babbling at me about what I should be doing and what I shouldn’t be doing and everyone’s orders always conflicting with everyone else’s - one more day of this and I shall go mad, I swear it.”
Tarly tossed the knife into the air, and caught it, and put it back at her belt. Nisa beamed in admiration. “Then,” she said, “we’d better go camping.”
They went to the ruins of a castle-keep. “Because,” Tarly said, “there’s a lot of history to this place. Andreus, beloved of the Traveller, made this his home once, it’s mentioned in the Andrean Cycle. We stand on grand and ancient ground.” She’d been unrolling their bedmats, but she stopped, now, to smile up at the ruins, rising on the hill above them.
Nisa surveyed them sceptically. There was precious little to suggest grandness about the sight, though ancientness there was aplenty, if there was any more ancientness the walls wouldn’t have been able to stand at all. As it was the ruin was a mess of rotten roofing fallen amongst the half-toppled walls, ivy crawling over them like spiderwebs. Also, spiderwebs.
“There aren’t even any grapes,” Nisa said. He was footsore from the walking, and the day had been warm; that warmth was now seeping away in the clear thin air, though the sky was still blue above them.
“I brought figs,” Tarly said.
“I adore you,” Nisa said earnestly.
“Hush now and fetch some water, will you?”
“Mm,” he said, and bounded off to explore the ruins.
Once she’d set up a reasonable approximation of a camp she called up to him, “Water,” sternly. He looked at her in some surprise before he remembered.
“No look, I’m—” He’d been watching the misadventures of a smallish rat that had made its home in the ruins, but that wasn’t very practical. He yanked a sprig of ivy from the wall and announced, “I’m gathering kindling! Water yourself. There’s a river right there, come on, this isn’t hard.”
She hrmphed and stalked away, returning not too much later with a cup brimming with water; “Here, my prince, you must have a great thirst from our travels today,” she said with all the castely respect that was generally lacking in their interactions, and he took the cup gleefully and splashed it over his face and into his mouth. Then he gagged and spat it out, twisting his face in revulsion. Tarly laughed.
Nisa wiped his mouth with one trailing sleeve. “What on earth was that?”
“I noticed that there was steam rising from the water, and it smelled foul,” Tarly said. “It must come all the way from the land of bone and haze, underground.”
“Oh.” Nisa kicked the cup away from him. “You could’ve poisoned me!”
“You could’ve bothered not to be lazy for once,” Tarly said.
“Yes, well,” he said, starting off down the hill. “Where can we find true clean water, then?”
“Oh,” Tarly said. She paused. “Hm.”
Nisa laughed. “All hail the silver-tongued orator, taught by the best poets in the land, renowned for her cunning and the thoroughness of her plans--”
“But,” Tarly said, raising a finger, “I did bring wine.”
“I shall commission you a solid-gold lyre when we get back,” Nisa said.
They got roaringly drunk by the small fire, telling jokes, swapping stories. Nisa told an amusing anecdote he’d heard about a baron and his servant, and Tarly recited a tale she was working on, a retelling of an old myth. It wasn’t ready to be told to anyone else yet, but Nisa was different.
“... and they misinterpret the omen, you see, as though it were the hawk that signified, rather than the flight of the pigeon,” she finished, “and then I don’t know what happens next, but it involves disaster.”
“All my favourite stories have tragedy in them,” Nisa said, which was a blatant lie.
“In this one everyone dies, horribly,” Tarly said wryly.
“Tragedy and also drinking songs. Your work needs more drinking songs! You should put in more drinking songs.” He grinned sharply and clicked his fingers. “And romance! Haha, every story needs romance! Because of course romance is absolutely essential to a happy life—”
There was a bitter twist to his mouth and a manic energy to the way he was waving his hands, so she confiscated the wine flask, taking another swallow herself. The skin was lined with lead, to sweeten the taste. “You’ll notice that this tale I’m working on doesn’t feature romance at all,” she said.
“Yes.” He smiled at her. “I did notice that. Yes. Thank you.”
“It was nothing,” she said; her turn to lie, because tales without any romance tended not to earn you many coins in the market square. She was good enough to get away with it, though, and it was well worth it for his sake.
The stars were bright by this time, far brighter than they ever were within the confines of the city walls. Nisa fetched out the peasant flute she’d given him years ago when they first met, and played a merry little drinking jig, and then a mourning song, high and ululating. That kind of music fitted this place better. After that they slept.
Or tried to, because barely an hour after they’d each taken to their own bedroll Tarly was woken by Nisa poking at her anxiously.
“Yes?” she said, sitting up.
“I can’t sleep,” he said, “something keeps on—” and then there was a high howling sound like the wailing of wolves. “—doing that,” he finished.
His face was pale and anxious in the dim, and she frowned. Cocked her head, listening. “It’s just wind.”
“How do you know! How do you know it’s not evil spirits,” he hissed, tugging at his hair, which he only did when he was troubled. She gripped his wrists to make him stop.
“I don’t,” she said, “but those ruins are tall, and it’s a windy spot; it makes sense they’d make some unearthly racket like this. It could explain why there’s so many tales about this spot, too.”
Nisa looked at her unhappily.
“... You are a fool and a coward and I offer to comfort you with my embrace only out of deep, vaguely nauseated pity,” she said, standing to tug her bedroll over to his. He laughed sheepishly, wrapping his arm around her, and she tucked her head against his shoulder. Puzzle pieces fitting.
“You are my dearest friend,” he said, then poked at her elbow. “Though sadly bony.”
She laughed. He could always make her laugh, like no one else could.
They slept a sleep free of nightmares or unrest, rare for this place; spirits walk here, it is said, and dance between the fallen walls, and swim in the waters. They say Andreus met death here, and death challenged him to a game of rules for a casket of gemstones worth enough to buy a kingdom - but of course you can’t trust everything you hear in stories. Certainly this kingdom, what one day will be Nisa’s kingdom, stretching from the ocean in the west to the mountains in the east, is united, not fractured and wartorn as people say it was before this game of Andreus’s. But of course, you can’t trust everything people say.
So trust or do not trust this, as you will: the next morning Nisa stumbled across something as they were breaking camp, and cleared the dirt from it, and showed it to his friend, as he showed her everything. It was a skull, human, but encrusted with crystals: a shudder of amethysts sprouting out of the jaw, the eye holes a smooth sweep of obsidian.
“What does this omen indicate, then?” he said, trying to smile.
She stood there for a moment, staring at it; then picked it up and tossed it into the river. It took a long moment to sink beneath the bubbling surface, and then the winds changed and steam rose up once more from the water, masking their view, the bone lost amongst the haze.
Tarly dusted her hand off on her breeches and said, “Nothing of importance.”
I don’t want to be king,” he admitted to her later, quiet, as they walked home in the endless afternoon, and she said, “I know.” And then, “You can be anything you want to be, dearest, I keep on telling you.”
He grinned. “Can I be a shepherd?”
“No.”
“Can I be a singer?”
“Not if my ears have anything to say about it.”
They walked on, and he said nothing more of restless spirits or skulls or omens, trusted her, like he always did. Just as she would always protect him, as much as she could. Lie, if need be, because what’s lying to someone with a silver tongue?
A skull can mean many things, but gemstones always mean death.
most of the things in this story just sort of happened, i i have no idea what this book is but i think i rather love it |
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Post by Zylaa on Oct 31, 2012 16:33:21 GMT -5
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Rikku if I am ever rich and famous I am going to hire you to just write things for me.
You worked in "tragedy and drinking songs!" And I love how you're playing with motifs like "A skull can mean many things, but gemstones always mean death" and and
'“... You are a fool and a coward and I offer to comfort you with my embrace only out of deep, vaguely nauseated pity,” she said...'
I <3 this story
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Post by Rikku on Nov 5, 2012 6:56:05 GMT -5
whaaat I'm meant to be at ten thousand words today
how
(this is my first time experiencing the 'wait what this is impossible how would i ever do this' side of nano, it is actually kinda great i guess)
(but still)
(how do you people manage without always being at least five k ahead, it must be so boring)
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Post by Rikku on Nov 6, 2012 2:00:29 GMT -5
here are the notes on this chapter that I scrawled yesterday before I went to bed.
'So it ends with burns figuring ouw whatever the (whoops censored for NTWf eyes) about nisa, needinh a bogyaguard, and then being lik e’hey i’m visitng my sister. You can come, if you wnat.’ oPening himself up, like. (maybe they have had previous discussin on the risiblings earlier in the chater)'
see what I have to deal with
see
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Post by Rikku on Nov 11, 2012 5:12:09 GMT -5
I'm still like, 8k in
hOW
this has never happened before i am really confused what even
i mean i'm not even distressed, exactly, tbh i'm not giving it much thought either way, which is probably why i haven't been writing much but it's just
kinda odd i guess
hrmph
pokes nano cautiously. hrmmmph.
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Post by Rikku on Nov 13, 2012 19:42:42 GMT -5
I had a dream about a shabby stage magician who felt like my character Dice back when my character Dice was a tallish pessimistic dark-haired man
took me ages to figure out that was who he reminded me of, heh. xD He liked kids, it's adorable. Anyway he got entangled with this blond mob boss, through his sister I think, and it's all '20s-ish and
definitely a strong contender for the second half of my 50k
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Post by Rikku on Nov 13, 2012 23:44:43 GMT -5
okay so, I kinda got a lot on my plate at the moment
well, and also I love NaNo because it's like the most intense form of escapism, but I ... don't actually need to escape? at the moment? wow at the moment my life is actually pretty peachy
got stuffs I need to do though, housing to apply for and skype interviews to prepare for and book book book book book contract holy hell woah an actual contract that I could sign as soon as I want to book business
so I'm gonna drop this, I think. :3 Maybe I can come back to it if this month calms down, I dunno. I mean not that this is a particularly busy period by anyone else's standards, but. my brain is just really not very good at focusing on more than one thing as it is.
so yeah! gonna focus on life things for a bit
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