Original Story: News from the Sea
May. 13th, 2012 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrOur internet went down so I just sat and typed, though I wrote the last little bit this morning and did some minor editing.
Title: News from the Sea
Summary: A short strange little fantasy storylet. Gen, G, no content notes. 1400 words.
A grey shroud of ash covered everything, the sky orange with dust even in the usually harsh sunlight of midday. It was very cold, soon the seasons would turn and the ash falling from the sky would be joined by true snow, but still the cities burned.
Ankord was the first to go, it's bright lights and bustling port called to the wraiths like moths to a flame. Out of the sea they came, at first, then from the sky and out of of the ground, the muddy silt of the delta warped and twisted into the cold smooth curves of an incomprehensible foe.
I did not see them come to Ankord. I visited that city once, many years ago, but by the time the wraiths arrived I was long gone, following my own strange calling across the desert and to the south, to visit my mother's people in the tent cities of the western plains. Perhaps it was some instinct of self preservation that called me hence, for the plains people were amongst the few whose cities were left to stand. Of course, some would argue that their temporary collections of tents and livestock pens do not deserve the name of city. Perhaps this is why they were spared.
I first heard hints of the great undoing when I was still in the middle of the Empty Desert, taking shelter in a large cave with some fellow travellers against a sudden sandstorm. It was a bird who told me, a brightly coloured parrot with long scarlet wings who entertained us all with songs and impressions and news from the northern coast. She arrived in the cave in the nick of time, her feathers weatherbeaten and covered in dust. By that time there were four of us in the cave already: myself, two married plainsmen travelling north to look for work, and a woman all in black who kept to herself and spoke to noone.
"What ho, good parrot!" said Sunny, one of the plainsmen, when the bird fell into the cave. "Are you well?"
She coughed and shook the dust from her feathers. "Well enough," she said. "Though I would be better were it not for this storm. May I join your party until it subsides?"
"Of course!" said Will, Sunny's husband, and I agreed. The woman in black said nothing, but then again she never did.
"Thank you, thank you," said the bird. "Well then I should introduce myself: I am Rose, of the northern Redtails." And then there were introductions all around. The woman in black surprised us all by speaking, though she said only the word "Meeta", and whether that was name or greeting none of us could tell.
"Pardon my rudeness, Lady Redtail," I said. "But don't your people usually pass this way in Spring? It is nearly Autumn now."
She gave an embarrassed little laugh, high and trilling. "Yes, I am running very late this year, I'm sure I will never find a mate. But I was delayed by business, you know how it is."
We all nodded in understanding. There is always an element of unpredictability with any business venture, but things had been especially chaotic of late: shipments vanished, investors nervous, crops ruined by drought or flood. We were all affected by it, in a way it was responsible for us all being there, in that cave. Little was I to know that this chaos was but a taste of what was to come.
We were a happy little party in that cave, for as long as it lasted. I had come with my wares upon my back, including much in the way of food and wine, and Will and Sunny had brought many fine rugs and furs. For a cave in a storm our little refuge was quite homey. Rose, as I have said before, provided songs and news, and I was glad to have her.
Being from the south west, Sunny and Will had little use for news of the north, though they found Rose's tales of the cities and forests of the coast quite fascinating. (I could have told them the same information, of course, but I am no storyteller, and half the joy is in the telling) After ascertaining that Rose knew little of my most recent home city of Joif I did not press her for news, and it was only after a few hourss that she finally told us what she knew of Ankord.
"Ora," she said to me (for that is my name), "Have you ever been to Ankord?"
"Yes," I replied, "though not for some years. I found it a pretty, friendly sort of place. A wide variety of dried fish, and you can get a good price for spices."
"I will remember that if I ever have any to sell," said Rose drily. Parrots are not known for their interest in trade, at least not of physical objects. "I was there at the end of last Winter," she said. "It was a strange place. Too few trees for my liking, and too many people. No offence to any of you of course."
"None taken," I said. "I too thought the city lacking in trees, it is unfortunate that humans of the north feel the need to cover every inch of their cities in stone."
Will and Sunny nodded. "Although," said Sunny, "I think that were I to live in the forests where the Redtails keep their Winter nests I would find the number of trees too many, and the number of people too few."
"Too true too true!" laughed Rose. "And certainly it was not much stranger than any other human city in that regard. What I really found odd was the ocean. It was not blue, but black, and the locals seemed to fear it. I had heard that Ankord was a great city for fish, but there were hardly any in the markets, and the port was almost silent. The gulls said that the fishing folk have caught hardly any fish, and those that they do catch are strange creatures from the ocean's depths, white and bloated or covered in spines. And that is for the fisherfolk who return to show their catch, many do not. Even the gulls are afraid to fly out too far to sea."
"But you were not?" said Sunny. Rose had tried to present herself as a brave adventurer, not afraid of anything, but it was easy to tell that many of her stories were inflated with false bravado. Sunny liked to tease her about it.
"Of course not," blustered Rose. "Though an eerie feeling made my heart quail, and the sea filled my poor beak with a sour scent. But as I have said before, I was already running late, so could not tarry long to investigate."
"Of course," said Sunny.
"What I saw was enough," she said. "I flew up as high as I could fly, so high that the city was like an inkblot below me spreading out around the river. The sea around the city was a seething mass of darkness, the waves tipped with grey instead of white. Beyond the shallows the water swirled with unnatural currents, and strange shapes cut through the waves with disconcerting force. Something is out there, in the ocean, but I know not what."
I shivered. That did not sound like the happy port city I remembered. A gloomy silence settled over the group.
"But it is too late in the evening to dwell on such dismal thoughts," said Rose. "How about I sing a song?"
"Oh, yes please," said Will. "Do you know any about horses?"
"Do I ever!" said Rose. "Let me sing you the Ballad of the Lonely Stallion, I think you'll like that one. Let me see, how does it begin..."
I decided that Rose had probably been exaggerating the situation in Ankord for dramatic effect and thought no more of it. Not until I reached my mother's clan and reports began to filter in about what had happened to Ankord in the weeks since Rose had left. But by then I had my own reasons to believe that something dark was coming from the hidden places of the Earth, and that the days of Man's ascendance might be coming to an end.
Part 2
Title: News from the Sea
Summary: A short strange little fantasy storylet. Gen, G, no content notes. 1400 words.
A grey shroud of ash covered everything, the sky orange with dust even in the usually harsh sunlight of midday. It was very cold, soon the seasons would turn and the ash falling from the sky would be joined by true snow, but still the cities burned.
Ankord was the first to go, it's bright lights and bustling port called to the wraiths like moths to a flame. Out of the sea they came, at first, then from the sky and out of of the ground, the muddy silt of the delta warped and twisted into the cold smooth curves of an incomprehensible foe.
I did not see them come to Ankord. I visited that city once, many years ago, but by the time the wraiths arrived I was long gone, following my own strange calling across the desert and to the south, to visit my mother's people in the tent cities of the western plains. Perhaps it was some instinct of self preservation that called me hence, for the plains people were amongst the few whose cities were left to stand. Of course, some would argue that their temporary collections of tents and livestock pens do not deserve the name of city. Perhaps this is why they were spared.
I first heard hints of the great undoing when I was still in the middle of the Empty Desert, taking shelter in a large cave with some fellow travellers against a sudden sandstorm. It was a bird who told me, a brightly coloured parrot with long scarlet wings who entertained us all with songs and impressions and news from the northern coast. She arrived in the cave in the nick of time, her feathers weatherbeaten and covered in dust. By that time there were four of us in the cave already: myself, two married plainsmen travelling north to look for work, and a woman all in black who kept to herself and spoke to noone.
"What ho, good parrot!" said Sunny, one of the plainsmen, when the bird fell into the cave. "Are you well?"
She coughed and shook the dust from her feathers. "Well enough," she said. "Though I would be better were it not for this storm. May I join your party until it subsides?"
"Of course!" said Will, Sunny's husband, and I agreed. The woman in black said nothing, but then again she never did.
"Thank you, thank you," said the bird. "Well then I should introduce myself: I am Rose, of the northern Redtails." And then there were introductions all around. The woman in black surprised us all by speaking, though she said only the word "Meeta", and whether that was name or greeting none of us could tell.
"Pardon my rudeness, Lady Redtail," I said. "But don't your people usually pass this way in Spring? It is nearly Autumn now."
She gave an embarrassed little laugh, high and trilling. "Yes, I am running very late this year, I'm sure I will never find a mate. But I was delayed by business, you know how it is."
We all nodded in understanding. There is always an element of unpredictability with any business venture, but things had been especially chaotic of late: shipments vanished, investors nervous, crops ruined by drought or flood. We were all affected by it, in a way it was responsible for us all being there, in that cave. Little was I to know that this chaos was but a taste of what was to come.
We were a happy little party in that cave, for as long as it lasted. I had come with my wares upon my back, including much in the way of food and wine, and Will and Sunny had brought many fine rugs and furs. For a cave in a storm our little refuge was quite homey. Rose, as I have said before, provided songs and news, and I was glad to have her.
Being from the south west, Sunny and Will had little use for news of the north, though they found Rose's tales of the cities and forests of the coast quite fascinating. (I could have told them the same information, of course, but I am no storyteller, and half the joy is in the telling) After ascertaining that Rose knew little of my most recent home city of Joif I did not press her for news, and it was only after a few hourss that she finally told us what she knew of Ankord.
"Ora," she said to me (for that is my name), "Have you ever been to Ankord?"
"Yes," I replied, "though not for some years. I found it a pretty, friendly sort of place. A wide variety of dried fish, and you can get a good price for spices."
"I will remember that if I ever have any to sell," said Rose drily. Parrots are not known for their interest in trade, at least not of physical objects. "I was there at the end of last Winter," she said. "It was a strange place. Too few trees for my liking, and too many people. No offence to any of you of course."
"None taken," I said. "I too thought the city lacking in trees, it is unfortunate that humans of the north feel the need to cover every inch of their cities in stone."
Will and Sunny nodded. "Although," said Sunny, "I think that were I to live in the forests where the Redtails keep their Winter nests I would find the number of trees too many, and the number of people too few."
"Too true too true!" laughed Rose. "And certainly it was not much stranger than any other human city in that regard. What I really found odd was the ocean. It was not blue, but black, and the locals seemed to fear it. I had heard that Ankord was a great city for fish, but there were hardly any in the markets, and the port was almost silent. The gulls said that the fishing folk have caught hardly any fish, and those that they do catch are strange creatures from the ocean's depths, white and bloated or covered in spines. And that is for the fisherfolk who return to show their catch, many do not. Even the gulls are afraid to fly out too far to sea."
"But you were not?" said Sunny. Rose had tried to present herself as a brave adventurer, not afraid of anything, but it was easy to tell that many of her stories were inflated with false bravado. Sunny liked to tease her about it.
"Of course not," blustered Rose. "Though an eerie feeling made my heart quail, and the sea filled my poor beak with a sour scent. But as I have said before, I was already running late, so could not tarry long to investigate."
"Of course," said Sunny.
"What I saw was enough," she said. "I flew up as high as I could fly, so high that the city was like an inkblot below me spreading out around the river. The sea around the city was a seething mass of darkness, the waves tipped with grey instead of white. Beyond the shallows the water swirled with unnatural currents, and strange shapes cut through the waves with disconcerting force. Something is out there, in the ocean, but I know not what."
I shivered. That did not sound like the happy port city I remembered. A gloomy silence settled over the group.
"But it is too late in the evening to dwell on such dismal thoughts," said Rose. "How about I sing a song?"
"Oh, yes please," said Will. "Do you know any about horses?"
"Do I ever!" said Rose. "Let me sing you the Ballad of the Lonely Stallion, I think you'll like that one. Let me see, how does it begin..."
I decided that Rose had probably been exaggerating the situation in Ankord for dramatic effect and thought no more of it. Not until I reached my mother's clan and reports began to filter in about what had happened to Ankord in the weeks since Rose had left. But by then I had my own reasons to believe that something dark was coming from the hidden places of the Earth, and that the days of Man's ascendance might be coming to an end.
Part 2
no subject
Date: 2012-05-14 07:06 am (UTC)It reads more like the first part of a first chapter than like a short story, though; now I want more!
General things: love love love your characterisation. You managed to pain most of them with few descriptions and some bits of dialogue, especially the bird! And I really like your prose! Like the "She gave an embarrassed little laugh, high and trilling." bit.
I also love the hints of worldbuilding! It really makes me want to read more about it all.
I would maybe cut "These birds travel across many continents to reach their summer breeding grounds, and are a common source of news.
The bird's name was Rose"
The first phrase's info you give afterwards in the conversation, in a much nicer manner, and I think the introductions would make more sense if you used them to give everyone's names, including Rose's.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-14 07:19 am (UTC)Your suggestions are spot on. That repetition is an artefact of the very linear way I wrote the story, and I missed it when proofreading later. This being avery easy fix I shall edit the story now, thanks!