Archive | December 2012

#Lexember post Six Conlanging objects in the Cālenyan world – Art and needle-art (also maps)

Dec10

The Cālenyena have had a uncertain relationship with art all along.

Their original word for drawing and their word for map indicate this fairly clearly:

Drawing is tyek, with the grammatical beginning meaning “without use.”

Map is tenek, a very similar word but with the beginning indicating “with use.”

“Lately,” in the era of the Rin/Girey story and later, art has begun to be more often “tek,” often with a prefix or suffix meaning some sort of art. But the words that have evolved from “tyek” still have the y sound in them.

For instance: benyentyek, bentyek, art-with-a-needle, embroidery.

(and if that isn’t a tidy way to pull together a request for “map” and “embroidery,” I don’t know what is. 🙂

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/428747.html. You can comment here or there.

And Then

Dec9

This is mostly an intro to an idea (or a ship). Yoshi and Viddie are Cynara’s children; Kishmish is Shiva’s daughter by Nikita, Sigruko is Viddie’s half-sister on their father (Leo)’s side, and Ariel and Amy are 2 of Zita’s daughters.

Even the Boom family tree requires diagrams!

Yoshi was not certain what to think about Ce’Rilla sh’Orlaith.

He had, on meeting her, thought she was the sort of slightly stuck-up girl that he didn’t really need to bother with. But she was fiercely protective of her “younger brother,” Sam, a quality Yoshi could appreciate, and she navigated her first year with a grace he could envy.

Of course, that was her first year. He’d noticed her get Kept but not paid much attention, noticed her get released some time later, and noticed her get Kept again, some time later. It was the Addergoole soap opera (for those of them that could remember soap operas); everybody watched it.

That was Ce’Rilla’s first year. In her second year, she met Yoshi’s little brother.

–

Ce’rilla was not sure what to think about Yoshi cy’Drake.

She would probably have accepted his collar with more grace than she’d taken any of the collars she’d ended up with in her first year, she thought. He was handsome, cheerful, and polite, and the girl he kept Ce’Rilla’s first year seemed pretty happy with him, as much as someone could be happy being collared.

Other than that, she hadn’t either noticed or paid attention to the older boy. There were lots of older boys, and the ones that weren’t directly involved with her Keepers weren’t people she needed to worry about. Just getting through the year was proving tricky enough.

That was her first year. In her second year, she met Yoshi’s little brother.

–

Viðrou was pretty sure Sigruko and Yoshi, Kishmish and Amy and Ariel meant well. Well, he was certain about his brother and sister, and decently convinced that his cousins were trying to help him.

He knew that Yoshi’s first year had messed him up. He knew that Ruki had come back quiet and thoughtful about a lot of things. He knew it could be rough, and he knew, by now, that the rough usually involved a collar. And he knew all about collars.

He was pretty glad he had his big sister and big brother here (He could have gone either way with the cousins. They were some pretty scary women). He knew that having your family or crew at your back was the best bet, always.

And then he met Ce’Rilla cy’Valerian.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/428481.html. You can comment here or there.

Not Being stupid, a drabble in re. many drabbles

Dec8

(Most recently this by Rion in response to this by me)

I always did well in history. Professors told me I was an eager student.

Luke was still chewing over that one – and trying hard, hard, not to imagine Mystral as Laurel’s eager student, what had Mike been doing to his head? – when she kissed him.

Luke had kissed Mystral before, of course. They had a daughter together, after all. But this… this was different.

And as the images in his head shifted like flip-cards from Mystral with Laurel to Mystral as she’d been in his bed, years ago, she dropped the bomb.

“I’d love you all the same.”

Luke’s wings flared widely, and his mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

That, that he hadn’t been expecting.

Liking him around? Yes. There were reasons to like a man like him, a Mara like him around. Even Mike thought he was decent company.

Wanting to live with him – well, they had a daughter together. And she liked his company, and the world had fallen to pieces.

But love.

Love.

His wings flapped. His mouth opened and closed.

Some day, Wil had said to him, you’ll be ready. And when you are, lovely man… don’t be stupid about it.

Maureen had said something similar to him, a few years back.

Mike said it all the time.

“This is me,” he informed Mystral carefully, “trying hard not to be stupid. Mystral… I love you.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/428067.html. You can comment here or there.

#Lexember post Five – Conlanging objects in the Calenyan world – Meals

Dec8

So, we’re back on food today!

To start with, in the comments of the last post, I came up with the word for table:
geten-upēk becomes getupēk, food-blanket, table.

And then, a bit more history.

The proto-Cālenyena were a semi-nomadic culture, which ate mostly gathered foods and goat products (meat, milk, cheese, yogurt).

The story they tell about their primary starch crop, a parsnip-like root vegetable that is a stem-tuber, in style like a potato, is that their goats found it growing along the banks of a river.

More likely, considering the name, was that a proto-Bitrani captive found the plants, realized they were edible, and began cultivating them.

The name, belenuza, likely comes from the proto-Bitrani osani á sibellan, earth-around-apple, although there are scholars that argue parallel linguistic construction, and those that argue it came from cazenbelun, a {west coast} word for a type of celery, with a declension meaning “down.” However, nobody’s ever heard anyone in the {west Coast} discuss “down celery.”

… That aside, the Cālenyen word for “meal” is one that seems to be their own word. Lōk and pēku seem to have originally referred to “food that requires something done to it” (originally lyōk) and “food you can eat right away;” some culinary awareness must have seeped in over the years.

Possibly with the belenuza.

getupēk, food-blanket, table.
belenuza, potato-parsnip (or earth-apple)
Lōk, meal

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/427975.html. You can comment here or there.

Meme Time

Dec7

The last time I did this one, I was still writing with E.

Pick a character I’ve written and I will give and explain the top five ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/427089.html. You can comment here or there.

#Lexember post Four- Conlanging objects in the Calenyan world – Eating

Dec6

People wanted to know what the Cālenyena ate with, on, and at.

Cālenyen eating words evolved from sitting-around-a-cookfire eating to sitting-around-a-large-platter eating. Original tools for eating were small knives sharpened on one side, zēzupēk, zēpēk, food-knife.

They discovered the concept of a forked stick for picking up larger amounts of food; this became a pūtupēk, pūpēk, food-spear.

(most of the Cālenyen innovations were originally stolen from another culture.)

“Today,” in the reign of Emperor Alessely (I think this should probably be spelled Alesulē), a properly set eating arrangement will involve:

zēpēk, in a pair
pūpēk, only one
gazē (From the Bitrani savia), a deep-bowled spoon
tōrēk, from tōrupēk, “food-field (of battle),” a wide round platter on which dishes are arranged to be shared.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/426961.html. You can comment here or there.

History, a drabble in response to a drabble in response to a dr….

Dec6

Addergoole, year 39-ish. Luca Hunting-Hawk, Mike Linden-Blossom (VanderLinden). In response to this Addergoole bit by Rion, in response to this piece by me, in response to this piece by Rion.

“I have conditions.”

Luke supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised by that. He recognized the parallel. He recognized the tone of voice, too.

Shit, Mike, where are you when I need you?

He listened to her conditions with growing worry. He didn’t know how to be any more direct than he was being. He didn’t know how to say it to her, what he needed to say.

When she got to the end: “…that you won’t make me live in it alone. …At least some of the time,” his heart nearly broke. And he wanted to say, like some teenaged student, “well, duh.”

He coughed, instead. “I’ve only built houses twice before, Mystral. For the mothers of my first two sons.” Ké hadn’t let him build her a house. In this day and age, old man, we can buy an apartment just fine.

He kept talking, before he could convince himself to stop. “I wouldn’t build a house I didn’t plan to share. And I wouldn’t build a house for you without your input.” His wings flared. This wasn’t, yet, real. This couldn’t, yet, be real.

He met her eyes. “You have to remember that I come with history,” he warned her. “Those other two houses.”

And the women he’d built them for. And the sons, all three of his sons. He was very glad Chavva was a girl.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/426563.html. You can comment here or there.

Are you her? A drabble of Cya/Boom

Dec6

After Find Me a Boy, between Year 40 & 41 of the Addergoole School

“Come on, kid. You’re coming home with me for a while.”

It surprised Cya less than it ought to when the boy got up and grabbed his bags without question or argument, when he followed her to her car – the solar panels on the roof were mostly for show, but it ran pretty well, whatever the method – and got in, buckled himself in, even. It did surprise her how little luggage he had – one bag, and one small suitcase. And it surprised her when he started talking.

“So, you’ll take me away from here?”

He waited until she was buckled in to ask it. It sounded a bit strange, to her ear, like he was quoting a formula she didn’t know.

If he hadn’t already been in the car, she might have ducked in to ask her old Mentor. Since he was there, she went with honesty.

“If you agree to be mine, yes.”

This was not the script. This was not how things normally went. She hadn’t even lain down the first of the mind control Workings yet.

“So if I agree to Belong to you, you’ll take me home?”

“To my home.” He wasn’t running away. What the hell?

“Then I’m yours.” Okay, this was the weirdest thing yet. And he didn’t sound angry, more resigned.

“Yes, you are.” She flipped three levers and turned two dials, and got the car moving down the road. She could do this in her sleep, after all these years. Once, she’d been told afterwards, she had done a bit of it in her sleep.

She was falling into that long-drive trance, eyes on the long stretch of road and her mind running over the supplies at the Ranch, when he finally spoke again.

“Are you her?”

That could mean a lot of things. “Depends on who she is.”

“The Valkyrie. The chooser of the dead.”

“Oh.” She laughed a little bit. “No, that’s my niece.”

“Oh.” He didn’t sound relieved, maybe a little disappointed. She’d have to tell Ruki she had a reputation. “Then are you the other one?”

“Maybe. Who’s she?”

“They say every year, a pretty redhead shows up and chooses one guy, and takes him away from it all.”

“Oh. Well, that’s me.” She glanced over at him. “And you came anyway?”

“I lost it all.” His shoulders slumped forward a bit. “He challenged me, and he took it all.”

“Aah.” That explained some of it, then. She lapsed into silence, and so did he.

Her dash clock told her forty-five minutes had passed before he spoke again. “When you kill me… would you bury me somewhere warm? Cremate me, maybe?”

“When I… what?”

“That’s what they say. You take them, and then when you’re done with them, you kill them. Us.”

“And you came anyway?”

“I lost everything,” he repeated. She supposed it was a kind of answer.

“Sorry to disappoint.” What the hell were they saying about her? The last time someone had called her a serial killer, the world had still had large police forces. “But I’m not going to kill you.”

“Oh.”

And he was, she thought, the first person to ever look unhappy when she told them she wasn’t going to kill them.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/426249.html. You can comment here or there.