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edenfallingThis is sort of by way of an apology for all my whining about the weather. I can't think enough to write anything new, but I dug this out of my archives.
It's kind of the first third of an original story. Not quite my usual style -- it's present tense and uses WAY more description than I usually do -- but it wanted to be written this way.
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Blessed Are the Meek
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The princess in her high tower looks despairingly over the castle compound to the wild, wild sea. She is indifferent to the constant commotion in the muddy yards and resolutely ignores the marble monstrosity built by her great-grandfather, who knocked down several neighborhoods to expand his holdings. The rain drifts down in a fine drizzle, insinuating itself into places an honest driving rain would scorn, and dampens the princess's fine golden hair as she leans out of her wide window -- it is high enough to lack iron bars.
"Woe is me," sighs the princess, whose name is Eilonnua, "for I am to marry a man I detest. Is there no hero to save me?" And the left corner of her mouth twitches, and she almost laughs as she stares out of her wide window, desperately following the flight of the gulls that wheel and shriek over the castle compound. With all the freedom of the air, they remain, circling, tethered by the lure of food. And beyond them rolls the sea, gray, cold, and unbearably heavy as it whispers and roars to its food, the rain.
Eilonnua withdraws from the window, but the rain follows her into the circular room, comfortably settling into the faded tapestries and slicking the heavy wooden chair and table where a three-pronged candelabra burns, merrily wasting light and winding the world closer to emptiness. The massive book on the table lies carelessly open, revealing brilliantly illuminated scribbles. Nearby are several sheets of paper, with awkward sketches of various illuminations, and several worn charcoal sticks. The embroidery hoop holds plain white linen; no sketches have been transferred, let alone given flesh and color.
Eilonnua flips the stiff pages absently, letting them fall with a peculiar rasping, rattling sound, their gilded paintings clicking softly against one another. In a week, she will marry the second son of a duke, which marriage will hopefully bind Dannimun ever more tightly to Shann, island to island, until perhaps, only perhaps, the people will finally come to be just that: the people. Singular, under her grandfather, the king.
Really, she should not be here, in this tower, with this book and these candles, but the court revolves around her mother and her grandfather's foreign wife, with the king doddering through like a stubborn goat as her father withdraws, further, ever further, into a sideways world where his values are made manifest. Who has eyes to notice the princess, when in her eighteen years she has never done anything memorable? Indeed, who would even recognize her, without her state gowns, surrounded by her relatives? Withdrawing is laughably easy. It is always so easy, to hide in full visibility, to cover the impossible with a simpler explanation.
Eilonnua leans out the window again, notices how surprisingly narrow the sill is, how straight and far the tower falls to the muddy yard below. The gulls circle, mocking her. She glances briefly at the monstrous palace that squats in hideous ostentation across the busy yard. A death will not change the mud in any way, but blood might almost improve the palace; certainly nothing could increase its ugliness.
The left side of her mouth twitches again, tightly. There are many ways to arrange accidents in the palace, if one knows it intimately. And even God never said a marriage lasts past death.
Eilonnua licks her fingers and pinches the three candles into darkness. In the gray light, she slips from the tower room, ghostly in her silence.
---------------------------------------------
The young girl, seven years old, stands stiffly beside her beautiful mother, clutching her baby brother's hand with pale fingers. The vast hall, mirrored, gilded, and tapestried, is cloaked with people, laughable in their ostentation. Her grandfather sits on his throne, alone; his advisors respectfully, resentfully, huddle at the base of the dais.
The strangers stand in a perfect arc facing the king, eight bare-chested, long-haired men cupping a woman in a net of safety. The woman, tall and brown and weathered, intricate patterns of scars visible where her stained leather clothes deliberately uncover her skin, stands loosely and easily. She wears the room, the tension, like a second skin, drawing all eyes. She will not bow to the king.
Surprisingly, the old man laughs. "Well then, woman, who are you, that you think yourself my equal?"
The woman hesitates a beat, translating, and then smiles, even as her companions shift, unfolding their arms and watching the guards less subtly. "I am Adannu kem Immuraet, who was wife to Guydarosh, who was sister to Thuyim, who is mother to Guydaemon. You are Lirr, who was a son, who was a husband, who was a brother, who is a father and grandfather.
"I am nobody. You, also, are nobody. When the gods wake, we will vanish like smoke. One dream does not bow to another." She lifts her left hand and traces a pattern on the air, and the eight men mutter in their heathen tongue.
The court falls silent, and the young girl turns away as the guards circle the strangers. The woman is mad, is proud, is dead. The meek survive, and the hidden snakes, but never the proud. But her father climbs to the dais and whispers long and long into the king's ear. The old man frowns, and frowns, but finally sighs and waves his son away.
"You live," he says, and the woman shrugs, as if it does not matter.
---------------------------------------------
Eilonnua sits in her bedchamber, perched lightly on the window seat, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her brown velvet over-dress, delicately embroidered with tiny golden flowers, falls neatly to either side, but her golden-tan under-dress is wrinkled and tucked under her bare feet, to keep off the chill of the stones. She rests her head against the hard stone frame of the window and stares across the muddy yard, upward to her tower refuge. The gulls have gone elsewhere this day; there is no food here.
"Here you are," her mother says, sweeping into the chamber. As always, the crown princess is perfect, from her honey-blond hair to her delicate feet, which carry her in a smooth glide through life. Her over-dress is deep blue, embroidered with silver vines and neatly caught in front with silver clasps; it contrasts well with the violet under-dress and her violet eyes.
---------------------------------------------
And from here we would go on through the story of Eilonnua's arranged marriage to Deshan. Plus some more backstory on her early life, her family, and the political mess her country is currently in. Which is all part of a larger story cycle I work on in my spare moments of inspiration. Someday I will get around to finishing this one. (I know what happens, more or less; the trouble is actually putting words to the page.)
---------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, I did talk to the college people, only to discover that I need to talk to different people who actually have the answers I want. Grrr. So I went to the library and took out some books on military history, which is always useful to keep in mind when writing fantasy epic things. 'Cause war is messy, and knights in shining armor? Very inefficient way to manage an army, really. The horses in particular are mad expensive.
*hugs her wonderful nonfiction tightly*
It's kind of the first third of an original story. Not quite my usual style -- it's present tense and uses WAY more description than I usually do -- but it wanted to be written this way.
---------------------------------------------
Blessed Are the Meek
---------------------------------------------
The princess in her high tower looks despairingly over the castle compound to the wild, wild sea. She is indifferent to the constant commotion in the muddy yards and resolutely ignores the marble monstrosity built by her great-grandfather, who knocked down several neighborhoods to expand his holdings. The rain drifts down in a fine drizzle, insinuating itself into places an honest driving rain would scorn, and dampens the princess's fine golden hair as she leans out of her wide window -- it is high enough to lack iron bars.
"Woe is me," sighs the princess, whose name is Eilonnua, "for I am to marry a man I detest. Is there no hero to save me?" And the left corner of her mouth twitches, and she almost laughs as she stares out of her wide window, desperately following the flight of the gulls that wheel and shriek over the castle compound. With all the freedom of the air, they remain, circling, tethered by the lure of food. And beyond them rolls the sea, gray, cold, and unbearably heavy as it whispers and roars to its food, the rain.
Eilonnua withdraws from the window, but the rain follows her into the circular room, comfortably settling into the faded tapestries and slicking the heavy wooden chair and table where a three-pronged candelabra burns, merrily wasting light and winding the world closer to emptiness. The massive book on the table lies carelessly open, revealing brilliantly illuminated scribbles. Nearby are several sheets of paper, with awkward sketches of various illuminations, and several worn charcoal sticks. The embroidery hoop holds plain white linen; no sketches have been transferred, let alone given flesh and color.
Eilonnua flips the stiff pages absently, letting them fall with a peculiar rasping, rattling sound, their gilded paintings clicking softly against one another. In a week, she will marry the second son of a duke, which marriage will hopefully bind Dannimun ever more tightly to Shann, island to island, until perhaps, only perhaps, the people will finally come to be just that: the people. Singular, under her grandfather, the king.
Really, she should not be here, in this tower, with this book and these candles, but the court revolves around her mother and her grandfather's foreign wife, with the king doddering through like a stubborn goat as her father withdraws, further, ever further, into a sideways world where his values are made manifest. Who has eyes to notice the princess, when in her eighteen years she has never done anything memorable? Indeed, who would even recognize her, without her state gowns, surrounded by her relatives? Withdrawing is laughably easy. It is always so easy, to hide in full visibility, to cover the impossible with a simpler explanation.
Eilonnua leans out the window again, notices how surprisingly narrow the sill is, how straight and far the tower falls to the muddy yard below. The gulls circle, mocking her. She glances briefly at the monstrous palace that squats in hideous ostentation across the busy yard. A death will not change the mud in any way, but blood might almost improve the palace; certainly nothing could increase its ugliness.
The left side of her mouth twitches again, tightly. There are many ways to arrange accidents in the palace, if one knows it intimately. And even God never said a marriage lasts past death.
Eilonnua licks her fingers and pinches the three candles into darkness. In the gray light, she slips from the tower room, ghostly in her silence.
---------------------------------------------
The young girl, seven years old, stands stiffly beside her beautiful mother, clutching her baby brother's hand with pale fingers. The vast hall, mirrored, gilded, and tapestried, is cloaked with people, laughable in their ostentation. Her grandfather sits on his throne, alone; his advisors respectfully, resentfully, huddle at the base of the dais.
The strangers stand in a perfect arc facing the king, eight bare-chested, long-haired men cupping a woman in a net of safety. The woman, tall and brown and weathered, intricate patterns of scars visible where her stained leather clothes deliberately uncover her skin, stands loosely and easily. She wears the room, the tension, like a second skin, drawing all eyes. She will not bow to the king.
Surprisingly, the old man laughs. "Well then, woman, who are you, that you think yourself my equal?"
The woman hesitates a beat, translating, and then smiles, even as her companions shift, unfolding their arms and watching the guards less subtly. "I am Adannu kem Immuraet, who was wife to Guydarosh, who was sister to Thuyim, who is mother to Guydaemon. You are Lirr, who was a son, who was a husband, who was a brother, who is a father and grandfather.
"I am nobody. You, also, are nobody. When the gods wake, we will vanish like smoke. One dream does not bow to another." She lifts her left hand and traces a pattern on the air, and the eight men mutter in their heathen tongue.
The court falls silent, and the young girl turns away as the guards circle the strangers. The woman is mad, is proud, is dead. The meek survive, and the hidden snakes, but never the proud. But her father climbs to the dais and whispers long and long into the king's ear. The old man frowns, and frowns, but finally sighs and waves his son away.
"You live," he says, and the woman shrugs, as if it does not matter.
---------------------------------------------
Eilonnua sits in her bedchamber, perched lightly on the window seat, her arms wrapped around her knees. Her brown velvet over-dress, delicately embroidered with tiny golden flowers, falls neatly to either side, but her golden-tan under-dress is wrinkled and tucked under her bare feet, to keep off the chill of the stones. She rests her head against the hard stone frame of the window and stares across the muddy yard, upward to her tower refuge. The gulls have gone elsewhere this day; there is no food here.
"Here you are," her mother says, sweeping into the chamber. As always, the crown princess is perfect, from her honey-blond hair to her delicate feet, which carry her in a smooth glide through life. Her over-dress is deep blue, embroidered with silver vines and neatly caught in front with silver clasps; it contrasts well with the violet under-dress and her violet eyes.
---------------------------------------------
And from here we would go on through the story of Eilonnua's arranged marriage to Deshan. Plus some more backstory on her early life, her family, and the political mess her country is currently in. Which is all part of a larger story cycle I work on in my spare moments of inspiration. Someday I will get around to finishing this one. (I know what happens, more or less; the trouble is actually putting words to the page.)
---------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, I did talk to the college people, only to discover that I need to talk to different people who actually have the answers I want. Grrr. So I went to the library and took out some books on military history, which is always useful to keep in mind when writing fantasy epic things. 'Cause war is messy, and knights in shining armor? Very inefficient way to manage an army, really. The horses in particular are mad expensive.
*hugs her wonderful nonfiction tightly*
