cities symphonical earth electronical (Cielshade)

[Shadaras]

So over the summer (so hard not to capitalize), Rikku and I were trying to write a Thing together. Because that works out so well. xD And this is what happened. Sort of. It's born there, at least -- cities symphonical earth electrical, words and movement and fae in the lightning and wires of the concrete forest.

Wreck is a dryad. She was born to the forest and the forest is hers, and always has been. So when the humanfolk come in and razed the trees, and took all the faefolk in (because they were kind, they said, so kind, and they just wanted to help, but they don't know how, filthy humanfolk with their filthy blades and fire). Most of the faefolk were fine, for the most part -- they grew hateful and resigned, or fell in love with the so-shiny world of the humanfolk, but they weren't wholly harmed.

Wreck's full name is Requiem, new-chosen from when she lost her treehome. Her old name is irrelevant. Humans only read her as female if they see her face -- her body is hard and twisted, tough as the oak she was born from, and has no extra flesh, just the muscle and bone. She is brown and bark and defiant, keeps the look of her old flesh even though it is dead now and she only has its echo.

Wreck calls herself so because she lost more than most of the fae when the humans destroyed the forest for their city -- killing her tree, her life, left her epileptic, and the humans tried to fix her (they did, they really did, they meant so well) with their wires and metal tools, but faen brains don't work the same way human brains do, so it left her twisted -- she can't use magic actively, just passively; she's broken, left bitter and scarred by human hands, and yet she can't leave the city (because it's home still, because her roots are still there).

And I have no clue what the plot is but dude I love Wreck and Delta (who is Rikku's but my version of him will be odd and different I'm sure) and the setting. I think the plot is something like fixing Wreck and Delta? Or something. It's kismesis-story, really. Also because it's me it's going to be a story with lots of stubbornness and hope and recreating yourself out of sheer willpower.

[Zylaa]

That is an amazing character and origin and I love your description of the humans really trying to help yet still being so futile and destructive. I can't wait to see what plot you come up with for it.

[Rikku]

<3

I am glad that you are writing this.

[Shadaras]

<3

It's probably going to start off with the whole DEATH TO THE FOREST stuff, because I kind of really want to show Wreck being, well, wrecked. xD Because I've had that scene in my head for a while and it didn't fit with how we were trying to write this originally. And from there, more of a goblinmarket undercity thing, because I'm probably going more almost-steampunk or something, because I have the mental images for that and it's pretty.

[Shadaras]

and then I read Neuromancer and kind of realise that oh right this is totally cyberpunk isn't it.

(which is a good thing; cyberpunk is shiny and cool)

[Shadaras]

So I has a prelude now? Which also manages to be a better synopsis than anything I'd write as a synopsis. And also slowly turns from faerie-tale into actual-story-writing. Or something. xD *has no idea what's going on but is writing anyway*

SPOILER: Click to show

1.
The sky burnt dark with storm, but there was no water in the air – it was clear and cold and still, a breath held in the moment before the sun rises and turns frost to dew in a heartbeat’s time. The sky held his breath for a moment longer, and then he began to sing.

He sang, but his voice was wrong, for it was no longer rush-whispering the susurrus of wind and birds and the little insects that ruled the skies. Instead, he chanted in a voice heavy as a smith’s hammer, as the pull of a bellows, as the hiss of iron quenched in well-water after forging.

From this chant the voices of the forest woke, and they sounded in anxious cacophony, a hundred thousand voices in a hundred thousand songs and more, an endless cry of “What is going on?”, for they had never heard the sky sound like this before, not in all the years, not in any of the traditions of any of the peoples.

They did not receive a response. The sky’s voice just grew to a roar, and the billowing clouds grew, boiling the sky with ash and smoke and steam, until the grand dome could bear it no longer and it broke, broke into a thousand shards of light cast down upon the forest and the seas, and from the center of the shattering there came a single shining object that must have been a star, so brightly did it glow, so enflamed was its trail as it passed through the smoke with a roar and a hiss that overflowed the ears of all who heard, until sap and blood and ichor covered the world and naught was left but the sound of gods coming, at last, to ground.

Where the star landed there was flame and there was fire, and terror and a dance carved into the earth for all of time.

2.
There are three stories told of the Landing.

The first is the story the Humans tell: They came to this world (so sorry, we thought it was uninhabited, we saw no signs of life, is there any way to fix this, is there any way for us to co-exist, we didn’t mean to hurt you...), they built a city (or rather, their spaceship became the city), and as they were building (their technology did almost all the work) they “discovered” the Fae. This, of course, led to an entirely-too-complicated argument about what to do when they can’t leave and the Fae have been irreparably harmed by the coming of Humans to their world. To the Humans, the answer is very simple: They stay here, and they contain themselves to their city, and the Fae can go on around them as if nothing had ever happened.

The second is the story the wildFae tell: The Humans (or the star, or the Burning) came to the world and sowed destruction in their wake. One must never come near the Burning, for to approach it is to court death, to as to be cut from the web that is life, and be alone until Time comes to take you away. And to be alone, they believe, is worse than death. So they run, and they hide, and they whisper stories the Humans would call ghost stories (but the Fae know better) about the Burning, and to be good, or else the Burning will come to you.

The third is the story the cityFae tell: The Humans came, and they brought with them materials never before seen. They cut the earth and broke the web, but they brought something new in its place – they brought a technological (beautiful, elegant, precise in a way they had never seen before) net of wires and electricity (they tamed electricity!) that anyone could ride, and in this net they could do anything, be anything they wanted. And the only cost was to become part of the city, to forsake the wilds, to become kindred to the Humans as much as to the Fae who they are part of by breath and bone and birth.

3.
The name of a Fae is a delicate thing. It is not given, only chosen. It is the amalgamation of experience and jokes and words that the Fae just thinks are beautiful. It comes from possibility, and begets the same.

So when a Fae changes their name, it matters.

When the Humans came, when they cut the ground and burned the earth, the wildFae changed their names in scores. Those who became cityFae, as a rule, changed their names. Those who stayed in the wilds, if they were near the city, also did. One could tell, upon meeting them, where they had been, for they had names such as Inferno or Adamant or Bellowsmoke – names of destruction and metal and fire, names of Humanity forced upon the Fae.

The cityFae, of course, had their own names: Delta and Latex and Coin and Cash and Man and Human names too, betimes. Some Fae born to the city have given-names, names like the humans they live near, names that make the wildFae (and even some cityFae) flinch for they do not accept the name, it is not a name they could have given themselves, and it burns, just a little, in the same way the Human’s names always do.

This is a Requiem. This is a Wreck.

This is the story of a wildFae forced to be cityFae; the story of a Fae the Humans, bless their blacksmith souls, tried to fix and failed.

[Rikku]

ngh

your words are good words yes

[Shadaras]

=D
<3

I am glad you like the words because I have no clue where I am going or plot or ohgods what am I doing. =D

[Rikku]

yeah ditto

's half the fuuuuuun! though considerably more than half the terror

[Shadaras]

So I almost have half a plot now?

By which I mean Wreck and Delta have almost started interacting.

Also I'd post more excerpts but it's really hard when Delta is stream-of-consciousness rambling and Wreck's vocabulary means there are typically at least two curse words in every paragraph.

SPOILER: Click to show

Wreck pushed herself upright, trying not to groan as the movement exacerbated her headache. “So why am I here?”

“Because you need help that I can’t give you.”

“That’s not helpful.” She slowly rearranged herself so that she was sitting cross-legged on the pallet, leaning back against the cool stone wall. It felt wonderful on her skin, especially on the back of her head. “Why am I not in your bedroom, or on the couch, or, ****, even in a pile of pillows in your workshop, if you were so concerned about keeping an eye on me?”

She heard the chair squeak as he shifted. “I want you to meet someone who might be able to heal you, or at least know a way to work around the damage.”

“And that needs to be here...?”

“Computers, little acorn. I can only do so much, and everyone else who you even might trust who does computer work – especially programming and brainware like yours – is going to stay very far away from the fae. Thus, computers.”

Wreck pushed off the bed in one smooth motion, only to stumble as she lunged for Arkaedy’s face. Before she contacted anything – even the floor – the wolf-man stood and caught her. She snarled at him half-heartedly before wincing in pain instead and burying her face in his chest to avoid even the soft glow of his computer’s screen.

“Go back to bed, little acorn.” He stroked her head, leathery pads catching ever so slightly on her short-cropped hair. “I’ll bring you food and water. And I promise, I won’t make you talk to anyone you don’t want to talk to.” He hesitated, then added, “I would ask that you at least let me try and find someone who can help, however.”

She snapped at him, but said nothing at all in response.

Arkaedy gently led her back to the pallet and laid her back down, smoothing the tangled blankets over her back as she sought to burrow deeper into the cushions. “Sleep, little acorn. I’ll be back soon.”

Also I really enjoy that Wreck being a dryad-ish thing means that Ark calls her 'little acorn' all the time.

SPOILER: Click to show

Four hours and forty cycles of solitaire played across the net with servers for cards and on-off signals for what you can see, you finally find something more interesting than card games that should never be taught to hackers who live in the net, and you flip over in your mental bed to stare at the signal coming through to your Omega-Delta-Epsilon account, that relic account from when you’d thought it hilarious to just use old Greek to name yourself and nothing else. You’ve gotten better at account names since, but Delta stuck around, always the most interesting of your names. You’d forgotten anyone else knew about ODE; hadn’t it been a generation since you abandoned that account?

You leave that thought behind before you can even complete it; time is irrelevant in the net, and you don’t need to worry about it anymore. Let those petty mortals deal with the passage of time they crave so much to halt, even as they fritter away all their hours in virtual reality that’s never going to reach the quality of your life in general, never going to match the immersion of living in the sea of data and swimming with the systems, becoming them in every way possible, more ways than the humans can think of. But that’s irrelevant; you have a message, and it’s for ODE, and you’re curious to see who remembers your old name.