Tag Archive | giraffecall: mini

Goat-riders, Stone-riders, a story of Reiassan for the Jun Giraffe Call (@lilfluff)

Jul2

For [personal profile] lilfluff‘s prompt. Reiassan has three seasons: wet, hot, and cold. A dohdehr is essentially a large domesticated weasel.

Lannamer in the short hot season was stinky, crowded, and loud. People lived atop each other in stacked apartments, hardly reaching the land or the síra, hardly spending time with the goats that had been their ancestral cornerstone, with the animals they’d lived beside and with.

Epyena was sick of it. She was tired of the constant politicking and the constant noise, the people everywhere and no place for the gods. She needed to get out of the business-and-Army hustle and bustle, before she became just another cog in the endless machine. She was moving to the mountains.

She got together three of her like-minded compatriots, two cousins and a child of industry from her days at University, spent half of her family-gifted stipend on land and goats, and headed East. They would raise goats and ride them, raise dohdehr and hunt them, raise the short-season crops their ancestors had raised and eat like true goat-riders, and not soft stone-riders.

That was the plan, at least. They moved in the end of the hot season, so there was no planting to be done until the next rainy time. The house on the land was old, decrepit, the roof half fallen-in; they pitched tents inside the walls, making jokes about living the true life of goat-riders. Until the goats started eating the tent-walls.

Then it was time to repair the roof of the stables, a skill none of them had gone to college for, and the roof of the house, even harder. Engineering was a nice theory, but it didn’t do as well getting tiles on the roof.

The day the dohdehr ran off with what little they’d managed for dinner, Epyena broke down crying. Her goat-rider ancestors, she feared, had been horribly stupid. Only the stone-riding made any sense.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/364714.html. You can comment here or there.

Mid-rainy Festival, a story of Reiassan for the Giraffe Call (@inventrix)

Jul1

For [personal profile] inventrix‘s prompt.

Reiassan has three still-unnamed seasons: Cold, Rainy, and Hot.

A kehlag is a small furry domesticated animal; a dohdehr is a a weasel/ermine like creature with soft fur. In the interest of not calling a Rabbit a Smeerp, I will probably call them cats and fishers (or weasels) in the long run, like the pahziht and pyahz are goats and horses.

The rainy season was at mid-point, and many of the animals were beginning to give birth. Much to the distress and consternation of her five-year-old daughter Oniarya, Upunbina (the Mayor of a small northern Callennan town) was every bit as focused on her new child as the mother goats were with their kids, the mother dohdehri with their kits, the mother kehlagyi with their kittens: nobody wanted to play with Oni, and nobody wanted to let her play with the little ones. It was going to be the worst festival ever.

She carried around a rag doll her grandmother had made for her, pretending to feed it, pretending it was a baby, but she didn’t really want a baby; her new sister was loud and messy on both ends. The kittens were cuter, less loud, softer, and when the kehlagyi weren’t so distracted with all this child-stuff, they often slept on Oni’s bed in the cold season. But now they wouldn’t play with her at all, and her bedroom had three mice and a noise she was afraid was something bigger. Maybe a monster.

Not only that, her parents were so distracted with all this baby-stuff, between the goats kidding and the baby sister and the rest of it, that they hadn’t even mentioned the mid-rain festival. Oni had been born there, five years ago. It was her favorite thing ever, less grown-up than the frost-break festival, less boring than the mid-cold festival. And now the day was here, the day was finally here, she had dressed all by herself in her best festival tunic, her favorite one, with the lines of purple and orange embroidery along the hems, and her parents were nowhere to be seen.

They had forgotten. They were off doing something else, they were busy with the stupid baby or the stupid goat kids or the stupid dohdehri who had bitten Oni last week when she tried to pet a kit. They were all stupid.

“Oni?” A little mewling sound followed her mother’s voice. “Oniarya, are you hiding again?”

“No,” she sulked. “I am playing castle in my closet.” She peeked her head out.

“Well, come on out, honey. Your father and I were just finding you the perfect festival present.”

“Present?” They hadn’t forgotten! She popped out of her closet, braids flying, hands outstretched. “I’ve been a good girl and I braided my own hair and I buttoned myself and…”

“And you’ve been very patient. Here, she’s just weaned.” Her mouth passed down a tiny little kehlagyi-kitten, its swirling spots buff-and-brown. “This is for you. She’s all your responsibility now.” She took on the Grown Up Voice she used when doing Mayor work. “Now that you have a little sister, you need to be the adult. This little one will help you remember that.”

“And we’ll help you remember her, and teach you how to take care of her.”

Oni cradled the kitten, holding it close, its tiny claws tickling her skin. This was going to be the best festival ever.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/363562.html. You can comment here or there.

Pride, a story of Bithrain (Reiassan) for the giraffe call (@lilfluff)

Jun28

For [personal profile] lilfluff‘s prompt. The Callanian language does not have an “f” sound.

Cairifan had learned early in his career that too much pride was a useless hindrance.

Pride in a job well done, yes. Pride in your people, yes. In your land, yes. Pride for pride’s sake would get you killed, sacked, jailed, or all three.

It had been easy enough when he had been Mayor of one of Bithrain’s biggest coastal cities. It had been harder when the Callennan overran the city, but then all he’d needed to focus on was putting out fires and keeping his city intact.

It was harder now. Cairifan bowed low to the Callennan officer overseeing his city. Not his city, anymore, not with the invaders everywhere, but Goulunder was still his home. “Your Ladyship.” He was glad he was not married. He would not want to describe this to a wife.

“Kairipan. You have the reports?” Her accent was clipped and short, making her sound angry even when she wasn’t.

“I have them, your Ladyship.” He set the slate down, the numbers written in Bitrani script and notated with pictured. Cairifan spoke about a hundred words of pidgin-Callenian. That number was increasing daily. Yesterday, he had learned “submit.” Again. He had trouble with that one.

She perused the slate, her finger hovering over the words and numbers. “Why so few goats?”

“Our herds have not been rebuilt yet.” He was not a livestock-herder. His people never had been; in between wars, they had hired Callennans to do that work.

“Tch. I will send someone to help. You will need more goats.”

“I? We?” He swallowed a lump of hope that was as dangerous as pride.

She leveled a look at him that he had no words for. No polite words, at least. From another man, it would have been a challenge. From her, he didn’t know. “You are a clever man, Kairipan. And this place is not my home.”

Her hand on his arm he understood well. He’d had secretaries before; he’d put his hand on their arm like that. Cairifan was very glad he was not married.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/360148.html. You can comment here or there.

Wild Horses, a story of Reiassan for the Giraffe Call (@inventrix)

Jun28

For [personal profile] inventrix‘s prompt.

“She’s playing with the horses again.”

Kakaya leaned out on the porch, watching their oldest daughter in the pasture behind their home. Her braids bounced on her back as she ran back and forth with the tiny, goat-like creatures, the biggest hardly bigger than their dog Guard.

“I worry that they’ll bite her.” Pokas had settled onto the porch as well, using the bright daylight to work on his carvings. Their high-valley house gave them access to the best wood for his work, but the herd of horses that shared the field and nearby forest-edges made him nervous.

“Their bite’s hardly as bad as a goat’s, and she’s been bitten by Loudmouth before. She’ll be fine.”

“But shouldn’t she be playing with other children? When I was her age…”

“I knew you then, Po. You can’t fib to me. When you were her age, you were off in the woods, playing with the trees.”

“The horses won’t give her a livelihood, the way the trees gave me.” He frowned to realize the goat he’d been carving had turned into a horse, with the long curved neck and the strange back legs. “And she’s been skipping her lessons again.”

“Well, that can’t stand. I’ll go get her.”

“Hunh. It looks like you don’t have to. She’s coming back.. and is that Loudmouth’s harness?”

“Can’t be. Maybe from when we had her kids?” Their daughter was heading into their goat pasture, leading two tiny horses in two tiny harnesses. They were prancing, turning their heads – but neither were attacking her. And they looked finer than the others, prettier, their spots almost symmetrical.

“I thought,” their daughter announced, “like we were learning about in class? Breeding goats for size and prettiness? These two are very pretty. They might pull a baby cart…?”

Kakaya and Pokas shared a look. Kakaya won the exchange, although both were picturing tiny horses for the rich country-visit set. Perhaps their daughter’s strange obsession with horses would provide, as Pokas’ with the forest had.

“That sounds like a wonderful idea, dear.” Pokas set his carved horse down behind himself. It would be a good winter gift for her.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/359896.html. You can comment here or there.

Hand-Shaking, a story of Rin & Girey for the June Giraffe Call

Jun28

For [personal profile] kelkyag‘s prompt(s)

This comes after everything posted in the Rin/Girey timeline.

There was a great deal of hand-shaking going on, and a good deal of bowing, and more than a little bit of staring.

Callennan weddings appeared to involve a good deal of talking. This part of the ceremony, where a Bitrani temple would be full of silence and reverence, was instead full of a good deal of milling about and chatting, sometimes directly interrupting the ceremony.

There were a thousand things on Girey’s mind, very few of them directly related to the wedding. Arinyanca’s parents had been talking, and when they weren’t talking, they were sending pointed looks. Her Uncle – and then some other relatives who she called Uncle as well – had been making his own set of pointed looks. In the heart of what passed for Callennan diplomacy, Girey would not be able to pass as “Girey of Tugia” forever, no matter how many times some rude Aunt or cousin suggested that “All Bitrani look the same. That nose, that silly hair.”

As a matter of fact, while Elin pledged her strength and her bow (That wasn’t in the priests’ book of vows), her saddle and her tent to her new groom, another probably-an-aunt was sniping about his hair.

“How do they do anything at all with that? No wonder they keep it short; it wouldn’t hold a braid for anything.”

He had grown up in the heart of Bitrani politics; Girey didn’t even show that he’d heard. But Rin did. Just a smile, a very sharp smile.

She shifted her hand so that she was holding his, the glittering band around his wrist clearly obvious. “Aunt Alunyez. Have you met my companion, Girey of Tugia?”

The look on the old woman’s face was worth every snipe about his hair.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/359573.html. You can comment here or there.

The Goat-Bride, a story of Reiassan pre-history, for the Giraffe call

Jun27

For [personal profile] clare_dragonfly‘s prompt.

Long ago and far away, when the Callanthe people had a different name and roamed far different hills, there lived the woman who was mother to the women and men who would not marry. She was called the Goat-Bride, and in her honor, every year, there are those who stand before the gods and swear their troth to their goats.

They will bear or seed no children, save those born to the festivals. Their home is the goat-pasture and the goat-tent. They stand with the herds when everyone else must stand with their family, and they sleep with their spear and their blade.

They serve as the first to fight and the last to fall, they serve as the spine of the people. There is no shame in standing as Goat-Bride or Goat-Groom. But when the first to do so stood there, the times were different.

Kyerzha stood to one side of Stinky, watching the tribe watch her.

“It’s time.” Daryas was one of the strongest men in the tribe. “The people need babies, to give them strength”

“The people need the goats, to give them feet, to give them wind, to give them food and milk, wool and leather.” She turned her back on Daryas.

“It’s time.” Talgub was one of the cleverest hunters in the tribe. “The children are the future of our tribe.”

“The herd is our future, and its kids, as much as our children. The goats need watching when they come to term; they need guiding when they are ready to be bred” She turned her back on Talgub.

“It’s time.” Puhntozh was the oldest and wisest of the tribe. “Every goat must bend its neck to harness and every tribesmember must bend to responsibility.”

“There are goats we do not ride, but set to stud. There are goats we do not use to pull a plow but instead use for milk. There are those we do not use for wool, but ride them into battle.” She turned her back on Puhntozh.

“You turn your back on your tribe.” Kesaku was her mother, and she was angry.

“I turn my back on the road that leads no-where, to the road that leads somewhere fruitful. That is all.”

And that was all, though it took her family many years to understand.

more here

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/358759.html. You can comment here or there.

Change of Power, a story of Reiassan for the June Giraffe Call @Rix_Scaedu

Jun26

To [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s prompt. Set two three rulers before the Rin & Girey stories.

The preparations for coronation were excessive, intensive, exhaustive, and boring. Ankahbena nursed her youngest child while, around her, half of the palace fluttered around like goat kids out to pasture for the first time. Three tailors worked on the Imperial robes, around her, around Iladeta, fitting over her bare breast.

Ankahbena had been a mother for far longer than she’d been an Empress. Her grandfather had fought his battles young and then enjoyed a very long life; four heirs had died before her, while she had served in his Army and taught at his University, married and given birth to children and seen them off to the Army as well.

“Mother.” Her oldest son bowed deeply in front of her.

“Aby.” She shifted Ila, brushing away a maid with her free hand. She could still do this for herself, if nothing else.

“I asked Ukyenna if she would accept a marriage contract, if you and Father, and her parents, are amenable.”

“Ukya…?” She had seven sons, three daughters, and, to date, four grandchildren. She had a long piece of paper with all of their important information written down. She could not remember Ukyenna anywhere on the list.

“She’s a distant cousin, descended from a younger sister of Empress Ellanasia. She’s very pretty.” He sounded a bit defensive, there. “And very smart. And… she understands the palace.”

“Ah.” She studied her most ambitious child for a moment. “You think she will make a good mother to the next Emperor.”

“I do.” He tilted his head in submission. “But the choice is yours, Mother.”

She snapped her hand, trying not to hit the tailor who was still trying to fit the inner sleeve properly. The choices were all hers, now. And if her sons followed tradition and cloistered their wives, in a decade she would be the only woman in the nation with any choice. “Let me meet this girl.” Maybe she could talk some sense into Aby.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/358030.html. You can comment here or there.

Rub a Coin, a story of Reiassan for @anke, for the mini-giraffe Call

Jun26

For [personal profile] anke‘s prompt. A tien and a vieg are two units of currency, roughly a penny and a dollar (A vieg is worth a loaf of bread).

“Rub a coin.” Gettar passed over a tien coin to Polla. “Rub a coin, and toss it in the holy fountain.”

His little sister rubbed the coin between two fingers until the metal and the inlain stone were warm to the touch, despite the cooling days. “Why?”

“If you rub it while thinking of something good, the stone holds the thought, and takes it to the gods.” He rubbed his, his lips moving in the way they did. Cantya. Polla knew he was thinking of Cantya, the tanner’s daughter with the eyes like coal. She was all he ever thought about, lately.

Talgya. She mouthed the word as she rubbed the coin warm, and again as she tossed the coin into the fountain. Talgya. It might work.

~

The kids were throwing tien coins and pieces of bone into the fountain, their faces twisted in concentration.

“Rub a coin.” Polla passed the vieg to Talgya. “Something my brother taught me, when I was under-goat tall. “Think of your wish, and the sira in the coin will send it to the gods.”

“Does it work?” The veteran took the vieg, pinching it between two fingers of the hand she had left. Polla knew what she was thinking, like she’d always know who was on Gettar’s mind. It was easy. Gettar. Bring him back to us.

She pinched her own vieg. Getta. Senan. Attorora. Bring them back to us. Bring them home.

She tossed the coin into the fountain, high over the heads of the children. “It brought you home, every time.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/357686.html. You can comment here or there.

Run for it, a story of Reiassan for the June Giraffe Call

Jun25

For [personal profile] ysabetwordsmith‘s prompt. Set in the same era as the Lyuda stories.

The rain started an hour before dark, and three hours out of camp. Krynia and Engot had shared a look, then another, and then they’d spurred their goats into a run up the side of the mountain.

There was no going back, not for either of them. He was a deserter, now, and she – well, they’d call her worse than that, if they found her. Losing her commission in the priesthood would be only her first problem.

So they ran, on stolen goats, into the storm, seeking a shelter, anything, anywhere. “Look at it in this light.” Engot’s Bitrani was not the best, but it was clearer, still, than the Callenian Krynia could manage without divine intervention. “The storm this bad, our tracks covered. Nobody will search.”

“Nobody will find our bodies.” She muttered her answer into her cloak, in hopes that he wouldn’t hear her. The storm provided, cracking thunder across their path. “Your country is wet.”

“So is yours.” Then there was nothing at all to say for a while, just the steady thumping of their goats’ hooves on the dirt road and the loud cracks of the lightning. Night fell with little change, the sky already black with clouds. Krynia risked a tiny pull on the sira, enough to make a small globe of luminescence to light their path. She hoped the gods would forgive her. She could not worship them if they died here. She could not worship them if she was killed for heresy.

“Here.” Here, in the deep back hills of Callenia, Engot was as much a stranger as she was. But in every corner of this land, you could find the sturdy wayfarer’s cabins of those who had come first. And this one, though the roof was beginning to fall, was still mostly intact. “This will be enough for tonight.”

“Tonight.” She knew he couldn’t see her smile, not through the gloom, the rain, and her hood and veil. “And then…?”

“Once we go through this pass, we’re out of land that the Emperor’s Army patrols. Then…” she couldn’t see his smile, either, but she could hear it. “Then we do as we please, Krynia.”

“As we please.” It was a new thought, but a nice one.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/357130.html. You can comment here or there.

June Mini-Giraffe Call: Reiassan

Jun25

The June Mini-Giraffe Call is CLOSED!! (Although, if your name is Eseme or Cluudle (or you want to donate ;-), you may still prompt. I understand job busies)

For the next 36 hours, leave your prompts on My Reiassan ‘verse.

Reiassan has a landing page here (and on LJ)

Because this is a mini-Call, there will be mini-perks!

* For every $10 donated, one prompter chosen at random will get an extra 500-word story – up to 3!
* If the call reaches $30, I will write to second prompt from everyone.- reached!
* If the call reaches $60, I will post a setting piece chosen by the readers and write Callenian poetry.reached!
* If the call reaches $90, I will throw a party! For 2 hours on a Saturday, you can ask anything and everything! With photos!
* If you donate, as always, you have sponsored 100 words continuation on any Giraffe story for every $1US donated, and I will write to at least one additional prompt of yours.

* For every prompter I will write 50 words on an extra story. For every linkback, 25 words. Every donation, 75 words!

At least 1/2 the proceeds of this Call will go towards hiring crowdfunded art or editing for the Reiassan e-book.



Donate below

Art by Djinni!
I also take payment by Dwolla

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/356644.html. You can comment here or there.