Elizabeth Culmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
edenfalling) wrote2015-11-20 12:43 am
edenfalling) wrote2015-11-20 12:43 am
Entry tags:
[Fic] "A Dream of Heat" -- original, Intarre
Summary: Tom Redding endures a test in the desert of Mur. (325 words)
Note: This ficlet is a direct sequel to A Dream of Snow and will make more sense if you read that one first.
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A Dream of Heat
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The desert of Mur was a harsh land, vast plains of rock scoured clean by wind, baked by sun in summer and shrouded by ice in winter. What little life survived its undifferentiated hostility clung to scraps of shadow in the shallow crevices cracked open by centuries of ice and stinging dust: lichen, flowers, deep-rooted grasses, and the small insects, rodents, and birds that fed on them. Large predators kept to the edges of the desert, leaving its parched and barren heart populated by nothing larger than an occasional enterprising weasel or hawk.
Except, of course, when the Masters of the Black Tower set a test.
Tom shook his canteen once more, in case he had somehow misjudged his remaining store of water. But it remained as near to empty as before.
He watched the encroaching sunrise with resignation. The gray twilight of false dawn had fooled him into thinking he could hunt by sight, but either thirst was clouding his eyes or he still hadn't mastered the trick of compensating for the lack of color and the difficulty in judging depth and distance against the desert's monotony. He had had no luck hunting by sound in the darkness the past two nights, nor had his traps born fruit. He still wasn't certain what, if anything, this test was meant to teach -- or if it had any purpose beyond humbling students who had grown perhaps overproud after three years of training.
As the first true rays of sunlight struck slanting across the horizon, raising glitter from the hard stone under his feet, Tom sighed.
Another meal of bindweed, then, and a day spent trying to sleep despite the fever heat that assaulted even the deepest shadows by the time the sun reached zenith.
He wondered if Tab would visit his mind again today, either in a lesson or taking initiative of her own.
This time, he might shape a dream for her.
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Inspired by the 8/10/15![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
15_minute_ficlets word #233: scavenger
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I don't even particularly like this ficlet, but I am trying to make myself write and finish SOMETHING after a drought of over a month, so. Here is something.
Note: This ficlet is a direct sequel to A Dream of Snow and will make more sense if you read that one first.
---------------------------------------------
A Dream of Heat
---------------------------------------------
The desert of Mur was a harsh land, vast plains of rock scoured clean by wind, baked by sun in summer and shrouded by ice in winter. What little life survived its undifferentiated hostility clung to scraps of shadow in the shallow crevices cracked open by centuries of ice and stinging dust: lichen, flowers, deep-rooted grasses, and the small insects, rodents, and birds that fed on them. Large predators kept to the edges of the desert, leaving its parched and barren heart populated by nothing larger than an occasional enterprising weasel or hawk.
Except, of course, when the Masters of the Black Tower set a test.
Tom shook his canteen once more, in case he had somehow misjudged his remaining store of water. But it remained as near to empty as before.
He watched the encroaching sunrise with resignation. The gray twilight of false dawn had fooled him into thinking he could hunt by sight, but either thirst was clouding his eyes or he still hadn't mastered the trick of compensating for the lack of color and the difficulty in judging depth and distance against the desert's monotony. He had had no luck hunting by sound in the darkness the past two nights, nor had his traps born fruit. He still wasn't certain what, if anything, this test was meant to teach -- or if it had any purpose beyond humbling students who had grown perhaps overproud after three years of training.
As the first true rays of sunlight struck slanting across the horizon, raising glitter from the hard stone under his feet, Tom sighed.
Another meal of bindweed, then, and a day spent trying to sleep despite the fever heat that assaulted even the deepest shadows by the time the sun reached zenith.
He wondered if Tab would visit his mind again today, either in a lesson or taking initiative of her own.
This time, he might shape a dream for her.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 8/10/15
15_minute_ficlets word #233: scavenger---------------------------------------------
I don't even particularly like this ficlet, but I am trying to make myself write and finish SOMETHING after a drought of over a month, so. Here is something.