[Fic] "I Will Follow" -- original fiction, Ashes

[edenfalling]

A bit of backstory for Ashes, a post-apocalyptic epic fantasy novel I have been toying around with for years. The two main characters of that story are Riam Tegera, the binder of Zerlon (last and least of the living kingdoms before the Great Waste), and Morgalen ha le Shani, a magician on an obsessive quest to save her brother and fix the disaster that destroyed the world generations ago. This is a snippet from Morgalen's childhood. (550 words)

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I Will Follow
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Morgalen lurked just inside her brother's workroom, a bare half-step past the door and out of the deeply shadowed tower stairwell. Her hands were clasped behind her back and her chin tucked down so all she could see past the curtain of her dark hair were her bare feet, the scuffed pine boards of the floor, and the clawed legs of the nearest table and bookshelf.

Atnan wouldn't mind if she interrupted, but she hated to waste his time. Best to wait until he reached a pause in his latest research and noticed her without outside prompting. Best not to let herself watch and be tempted into asking questions.

Across the room, her brother sighed and let a book fall shut with a rustling thump. "If only I could be sure," he said, in the abstracted tone that meant he was talking to himself. "I don't see any other explanation, but there are so many details missing. Maybe if I went to look for myself..."

Morgalen heard the creak of a chair scraping backwards over the floor, and then soft laughter.

She looked up.

Atnan was smiling at her, amusement lending warmth to his pale, drawn face and masking the dark circles under his gray eyes. "Hello, Mouse," he said. "Waiting for me again?"

"You promised to help me learn my figures this afternoon," Morgalen said, tucking her hair behind her ears. "And I want to know how the battle of Seysa turned out -- you left off just as Teltin led the cavalry charge from the right."

"You mean you can't work out the ending for yourself?" Atnan asked, his eyes twinkling. "I gave you all the pieces."

Morgalen bit her lip. "The pieces only say what should have happened, Atani. I looked the battle up in the Chronicle -- Teltin lost. I want to know where she went wrong. And I need you to explain fractions. Scholar Ambior talks and talks and makes no sense."

"Scholar Ambior is an old windbag," Atnan said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I don't know why Father insists on keeping her around." He glanced back at the books on his desk. The autumn wind moaned through the fir trees on the mountainside and sent a questing tendril through the open window to ruffle a stack of parchment.

"I can wait until tomorrow," Morgalen assured her brother.

Atnan turned back to her with another smile. "You need to learn to stand up for yourself one of these days, Mouse. I promised you. I keep my promises. Where would the house of Shani be if you and I lost our trust?" He stood from his chair, his knees wavering slightly before he steadied himself with one hand on his desk. "Let's go to your rooms. This old tower is no place for someone as bright as you."

Morgalen bit her lip again. If the tower was no good for her, why did Atnan think it was a good place for him and his own studies? He would be the next binder for the Clan of the Hawk; she would only be the holder. He was so much more important than she could ever be.

"Well, Mouse?" her brother asked, holding one hand down toward her as he stood in the darkened stairwell.

Morgalen wove her fingers through his and followed him into the shadows.

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Inspired by the 8/22/10 15_minute_fic word #149: pine

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In unrelated news, the store I work at is not an independent business; we are owned by a news distribution company, which also owns two other magazine/tobacco/random-product stores: one in downtown Elmira and one in the Arnot Mall. Except the mall outlet is closing at the end of August, which means all its inventory has to go somewhere.

Somewhere, in this case, is defined as "the other two stores owned by STNC." So the smoke shop has been inundated by transfers of all kinds of random junk, which we have to sort and find space for. It's very annoying.

(Fortunately, nobody is getting fired as a result of the mall outlet closing. One person was going to quit anyway and did so, while a couple other people wanted reduced hours and got them. All the mall staff worked somewhat interchangeably at the mall and the Elmira store anyway -- they are much closer to each other than either is to Ithaca -- so they're just being shifted permanently to the Elmira store. So that's a small bright spot.)

Comments

[theodosia21]

I like the ficlet very much! I like how the siblings seem to genuinely care for each other, how Atnan calls Morgalen "Mouse", the mention of "holder" and "binder", and the hint of foreboding at the end.

Thanks for posting!

[edenfalling]

Thank you!

The world of "Ashes" was about... mmm... 85 percent ruined by a magical/mystical catastrophe somewhere between 300 to 500 years ago, and the scattered remnants survive only through a careful system of magical/mystical defense and constant physical/martial vigilance. Basically, the world is swamped by a darkness the people call "miasma," which is kept out of the living kingdoms by the binders -- without them, everything goes. Holders are in charge of the more prosaic defenses of the living kingdoms, since life still exists in the shadowed lands and most of it is either malevolent and/or wants very badly to escape the miasma. The positions originally went to whoever grabbed them, but in many places they've become hereditary to greater or lesser degrees.

Morgalen and Atnan are very close, which is one of the main driving forces behind the plot of "Ashes" -- see, Atnan is trying to figure out the exact causes of the disaster, in hopes that he'll find a way to fix it. Eventually he thinks he's found an answer and heads off on a trek halfway across the world (basically from the northern temperate zone all the way down through the tropics into the southern temperate zone) to the Great Waste where the miasma first poured into the world. Except he never returns and the miasma remains. A couple years later, Morgalen dumps her responsibilities as holder onto one of her cousins, makes herself into a magician (which, in this world, is a mad thing to do since it disconnects your soul from the world and the cycle of rebirth and links it, instead, to a sub-universe from which you draw a particular kind of power, and to which your soul will be pulled at your death), and heads off to find Atnan and finish the ritual he intended to carry out.

She gets Riam to accompany her because she'll need a binder's help for that ritual, and because binders are often also healers and she's sure Atnan must be in trouble. (She refuses to think he might be dead.) The trouble is that Atnan was slightly mistaken about the way to fix the world, and Morgalen doesn't know that.

[theodosia21]

That sounds very interesting! It seems that you have a bunch of original stories you're working on... do you focus on one at a time, and then switch when you get stuck or bored, or do you work on them all more or less continuously?

[edenfalling]

Both! Generally only one or two will be in the front of my mind at any given time -- I can juggle somewhere between two and five stories that I'm actively paying attention to, and a couple of the "up front" ideas are usually fanfiction rather than original stories. And yes, they do tend to fall back to a holding pattern when I get bored or stuck. But all my dozens of ideas are continuously alive in my mind, even when they're way on the backburner, and my subconscious keeps mulling them over and fitting pieces together until something clicks back into gear. And there's no telling which stories will click together and push up front on any given day.

[theodosia21]

Do you think you'll ever try to get some of your original stories published professionally, or self-publish them?

[edenfalling]

Mmm. Someday, maybe. By which I mean that I want to, but I am not sure I'll ever have the work ethic to make that happen (even self-publishing). In the meantime, I just post stuff to my journal.