The linkback story has been updated here with 250 words, or 5 linkbacks:
2 @lilfluff
1 Ysabet
1 Kelkyag
1 Rix
If I missed or mis-counted you, please let me know!
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/410769.html. You can comment here or there.
This is a continuation of The July Linkback Story by ![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imaginaryfiend‘s request.
~
It wasn’t that far to Addergoole. It had seemed farther, on the way home, but then again, on the way home, he’d ridden in silence. Phelen and Rozen spent the ride cracking inappropriate jokes, Baram laughing along and sometimes grunting in a word or two. And, in something that was new, they talked to him, too. Included him.
Included him in everything except an explanation of what was going on. That, Rozen was keeping close to his chest. “You’ll see,” is all he’d say on that matter – and Bowen noted that, in their rather cramped motel room that night, they all made sure he slept in the middle.
If he’d wanted to get away, that wouldn’t really have stopped him. He was pretty sure they all knew it, too. He was tempted to prove it, to show them that’s Aggie’s little sheep bitch… but he decided to stay, to show them that he wasn’t afraid. He was cy’Fridmar, after all, like them.
And then they were driving back into the school where he’d been held captive for a year, and nothing could have stopped him from panicking and clawing at the door, wondering why it suddenly wouldn’t let him out. It was only when Rozen stopped the car that he realized what he’d been doing, and sat back in his seat, embarrassed.
Rozen and Baram said nothing. It was Phelen, a puddle of black shadows in the back seat, who just nodded, like he understood. “Breathe. And remember that it didn’t beat you. The school did its best to fuck you up, but in the end, you won.”
It was a nice pretend game, but Bowen knew the truth. His cheeks flushed. “It’s not like I got out on my own.”
“People don’t get out of being Kept on their own.” Rozen’s rumble sounded amused. “It’s the whole idea.”
What would you know? He wasn’t suicidal, so he didn’t snap at Rozen. Again, it was Phelen who nodded, like he was reading his mind. He might be, for all Bowen knew.
“Just because we didn’t get stuck under the collar doesn’t mean we don’t have some idea what it’s like. You did what you had to, and you survived.”
“But it’s good to remember who helps you out.” Rozen twisted to pin Bowen with a glance.
He found he was squirming. “I helped her with Aggie, didn’t I? I owed her, so I made it right.”
“You did?” Rozen turned back to the road, but Bowen thought he sounded surprised. “Hunh. Good for you. But did you ever say thank you?”
Bowen wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, but the way Rozen sounded, he thought there was more going on here than his debt. “I don’t think I did,” he admitted. “Is that where we’re going? Why, I mean?”
“Yeah.” He grunted softly. “First stop on the trip, at least. You’re going to thank the girl for what she did.” He drove in silence for a while, through the wheatfields that had led to so much misery. “It took guts to do what she did. Most people wouldn’t go up against an upperclassmen, especially one with a powerful crew.”
Bowen hadn’t thought about it quite like that before. “I guess it did. Hunh.” He stared at the wheat. “Why would she do that?”
Next to him, Phelen laughed. “You’d have to ask her, but I can bet you I know the answer already.”
It was Baram who mumbled out an answer. “She thought it was right.”
Next:
What Was Right (LJ)
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/388514.html. You can comment here or there.
For eseme‘s free 500-word continuation of Summer on the Half-Shell
“And that’s the last touches. For real this time.”
He stepped away from the painting and caught Summer as she stumbled. “Hey, you’ve been a champ. You should do this for the art classes; they pay pretty well.”
She leaned in his arms, not minding the warm or the support, or even the silly-swooning-girl feeling of him catching her. “Petie, nobody but you could get me to hold still for that long. Nobody but you could get me to hold still for more than two minutes.”
He kissed her neck, just under her ear. “Normally, having you holding still while nearly-naked is the last thing on my mind.” His arms slid up her torso, but, on automatic pilot, she deflected them.
“Wash your hands first.” She blushed, as she channeled her mother, and tried to deflect that line of thought as well. “Do I get to see it now?”
“After I wash my hands.” He guided her up to her feet. “If you don’t want me to get paint marks all over you, maybe you want to put a shirt on?”
She tugged her strip of silk around her a little more tightly. “Maybe I want your fingers all over me?”
“Well…” He grinned crookedly. “You have been a good girl…”
And that ruined the mood. She slipped her shirt back on. “Can I see the painting now?”
He caught the change in tone even if he didn’t see her face. “Sum… shit.” He dried his hands on his pants. “You know…”
“That I am not your pet.”
“You know that’s not how I think of you.” He touched her shoulders, and frowned when she pulled away. “Sum…”
“I know what you say. And I know that, when you act like that, it belies everything you say.”
He sighed, clearly put-out and possibly a little guilty. “Do you still want to see the painting, at least?”
“Of course I do.” She mirrored his frown back at him. “Just because I don’t like it when you talk to me like that, doesn’t mean I don’t like you.”
“It feels like it when you beat up on me like that.” He stuck his hands in his pocket, stuck his lip out, and looked at her through his lashes.
She withstood the look for a heartbeat, another, another. She had a younger sister. She’d dealt with the sad-puppy look before.
But her sister wasn’t Petie. She gave in, laughing, a little chuckle at first, until he started laughing, too, and then she was guffawing, and then he was hugging her, and everything was resolved.
“I’m sorry.” If he muttered it into her hair, well, at least he said it.
“It’s all right.” If it were a lie, at least it wasn’t I’m sorry too.
“The painting?”
“Yes, please.” She took his hand, as if everything was going to be fine. For a few moments, it could be.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/387349.html. You can comment here or there.
For ysabetwordsmith‘s continuation of Poison, a Bug Invasion story
The symbiotes had been talking about poison.
Paula couldn’t always hear everything; sometimes her symbiote shut her out. But this conversation just kept going on, so she could fill in the parts she missed easily enough.
%*&^ …and it tastes like the nectar… ^&*%
%*&^ …but it deteriorates their neural processes… ^&*%
%*&^ …the HomeLand sun never left one feeling this relaxed… ^&*%
%*&^ …too much can cause failure of the organs. It kills them. Look at this one; it is killing it. And it keeps drinking. Its symbiote should stop it. ^&*%
%*&^ No no no no no no no no, no no! ^&*%
%*&^ …It is poison for us as well? ^&*%
%*&^ Not poison. Pleasure. Sweet Pleasure. Pleasure that must keep going. ^&*%
%*&^ No no no no no no no no, no no! ^&*%
And so it went. Fallon’s symbiote was further gone than Fallon was, chittering angrily at anyone who got close. It, not Fallon, was going to be the one who tipped his body over the killing point.
“Addiction.” She wrested control of her body back from her symbiote – it was easier, the more sugar she ate. It got jittery. “Do you have addiction?”
Eli’s symbiote blinked Eli’s eyes at her. “We don’t have that word.”
“You wouldn’t. It isn’t a hive word, it’s an individual problem.”
“Is it why you eat poison?”
“We eat poison for pleasure. I have told you that already. It is why we don’t stop eating poison when it’s killing us.” Or gambling. Or shopping. Or hoarding.
“This addiction makes you… Keep doing pleasurable things?”
“Or things that are normally useful. Eating. Storing for winter.”
“Why do you have addiction?” Eli’s symbiote was becoming uncomfortable – its eyes were twitching – but so was Eli. His hands were jittering and his shoulders beginning to shudder. She recognized the symptoms – the subconscious found tiny ways to take over.
She couched her next words carefully. Eli had less control than many of them, and he was generally twitchier and more secretive. “I don’t know what happens that makes people more likely to be addicted. Nobody’s entirely certain. Some people think it’s upbringing, or neurochemicals, or some combination.”
“Nerochemicals…” The symbiote went off on a long string of the bug language. Paula’s brain-rider provided imperfect translation; all she could tell right now was that the bug was very upset.
Finally her bug took over.
%*&^ You are reading what she is saying incorrectly. ^&*%
%*&^ If their brains are different then they are buhdeparp… ^&*%
That word had no translation Paula could understand. Outside? Sideways? Beyond? Beyond what?
%*&^ You see that this is not true. They are within. Held to their families. They have no buhdeparp ^&*% Paula’s voice was very calm, very soothing, as her symbiote tried to convince Eli’s of… something. That their addicts weren’t beyond something?
%*&^ But they do not know. If they are truly different… ^&*%
%*&^ They are not. ^&*% This time, Paula could hear the bleed of thoughts. If they were, perhaps this would mean freedom.
Freedom? For their jailers?
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/383029.html. You can comment here or there.
For anke‘s continuation (won in the drawing in June) of The Goat-Bride.
This story is set in the early days of the Callennan life on Reiassan.
The book landed on the table with a meaty thump.
“This is not the way it will be.” The Emperor of the Callentate of North Reiassannon-land, Eszhettozh, son of Emanek, stared at his second eldest grand-daughter. “This is not the way it should be.”
“This is the way it has always been.” His grand-daughter stared back at him, her gaze as level, her voice as firm. She set her hand on the book of their people’s stories, as if to draw strength from the síra of a rock or tree.
“And this is not how it will be this time. You are my heir. Your mother and your sister and brother have died. You are the next child of my eldest daughter’s loins. This is the way it is.”
“Then allow my mother’s brother to inherit. I will go to the goats, to be their bride. Such is the way it has always been.”
The stared at each other, the grey-bearded Emperor and the long-braided young grand-daughter, alike in stubbornness, alike in calm.
This is the way it has always been, said the girl, knowing full well that the first Goat-Bride had argued, instead, this is the way it will be now.
This is the way the road goes now, said the Emperor, knowing full well that his throne had been built on tradition as well as on arms. And they glared at each other, knowing full well that both could not win.
“I will go to the goats.” []’s voice did not crack.
“Then who will be Empress in your stead? I will live long, but not even the mountains live forever.”
“My mother’s brother should be Emperor,” the stubborn girl repeated. “He is next in line.”
“The grandmothers will not stand for another male. They have declared it so.” Some forces even the Emperor of the Callentate must bow to, and the elder women of the Tribes (even if they were no longer Tribes) were a force the way the ocean and the rain and the mountains were forces. They could not be budged quickly, and to try was to waste energy better left on learning to traverse their whims.
The Emperor did not expect to find his own granddaughter such a stony force as well. “Your mother’s brother cannot become Emperor,” he repeated. “You are my heir, and cannot go to the goats.”
“I will be a Goat-wife. The gods have witnessed it.” [] did not stop her foot, but she nodded her head firmly. “The sword and the goat shall be my home and my family. Someone else must rule.”
“But you are my heir. You must take the throne.” Back and forth they would have kept going, neither more willing to bend than the rock they stood on, had not the youngest of the Emperor’s advisors stepped up.
“The Callentate has many children. Let the Emperor’s third child take the throne.”
“She is old,” dismissed the ancient man. “She will not rule long.”
“Then her third child, who is a girl. Let her rule.”
Emperor and grand-daughter goat-wife shared a look. “Your first child cannot inherit. Your first child’s first daughter cannot inherit. Let your third child’s third child take the throne.”
“So let it always be.” They had come to a place where they could smile, and they did so, like the sun lighting on the ocean.
And so it was, until the days came for change again. But that is a tale of another day.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/379267.html. You can comment here or there.
This is the linkbacks, etc. incentive story for the June mini-Giraffe-Call. I will post 25 words for each linkback, 50 for each prompt, 75 for each donation.
This is set in Steam!Callenia, some 750 years after the Rin & Girey tales.
“Are you sure that’s what the aetherometer reads?” Alsoonalla leaned over the seat back separating she and Teriana from the boys. “East?”
“I’m sure, Soon.” Onton shook his head, shook the aetherometer, and looked back at the road. Their goats were making a fair clip on the paved roads near the city, but once they hit the mountains, it might be a different story entirely. “Due East. It’s reading a deep vein of the good stuff.”
“I’ve never heard of any veins of wild aether in the Eastern mountains.” Teriana flipped through her notebook, finger running down the edge of the script. “Some small bits of the earth-energies, of course, although most of that is further south. But nothing of what we’re looking for.
“Well, if you’d heard of it, it would have been tapped by now. That’s part of the problem.” Doanisad had his own charts – old mining charts, older priestly documents. The aether, what had been called síra in the ancient days, had been pulled and torn and mined from every inch of this continent. There was little left, and what there was was hidden.
Doan’s father and mother were historiologists, scholars of the past. Teri’s were miners, using concentrated aether to pull ore from the hills. Soon and Onton were dabblers, avoiding a career in the priesthood by studying at University. For nine years, ever since that incident with the goat and the stone necklace, they had been working and plotting together.
The culmination of their friendship, their Ninth-Year thesis, was the aethometer Onton was currently pointing down the road. In theory, and in the controlled environment of the classroom, it had done exactly what it was supposed to. For some students – most, perhaps – that would be enough. But not for the Dreadful Four, the Stone-Eaters, the Back-Room Brigade. Not for them.
“I understand the theory behind the device and the project.” Teri defended herself, as always, with an affected upper-class accent far more formal than Onton or Soon’s. “I’m simply doubting your ability to read it properly.”
“The dial was of your design.” Soon and Onton would put up with Teri’s airs. Doan saw no point in that.
“Then I would be able to read it, of course. I was casting no aspersions on my abilities.”
“Of course you weren’t. We all know that…”
“Rock!” Onton interrupted the growing argument with a quick and ostentatious swerve to one side, guiding the goats around a large boulder and, of course, showing off his own skill in handling a carriage.
For a moment, they were all too distracted holding on to argue.
Then Soon clucked her tongue. “The roads in this district are falling apart.”
“It’s not a militarily important route.” Onton frowned at the road.
“Really, at this point, what is? We’re not at war on the continent anymore.”
“This year.” Doan ran a hand pointedly through his blonde hair – mark of the southern Bitrani people, who had been conquered and re-conquered.
“All right, all right. I surrender.” Teri held up both hands. “Could we please not fight? Doan, I believe your ability to read a dial unquestionably.”
Soon settled back into her seat, smoothing her hair with both hands and not looking at anyone. Onton did much the same, pulling his driving gloves straight and clucking at the goats. Doan stared at his charts for a moment, and then, reluctantly, nodded.
“I know, it seems beyond strange.” He ran a finger over the glass face of the dial. “But it’s East we’ve been pointed, and it’s East we’re going.”
“Roughly,” Onton warned.
“Directly,” Doan countered.
“No, I mean…” He steered the carriage hard to the left. “The road’s getting really rough. We’re definitely out of safe territory.”
“Oh… oh!” Teri grabbed the arm-rest and braced herself as they hit a particularly rough patch. The four-goat team seemed entirely unconcerned, prancing along as if they were in the meadow at home. Goats would, of course, cheerfully pull a cart up a mountainside, never mind the riders behind them.
“Pass me the crossbow under your seat?” Doan reached a hand back towards them, his eyes on the roadside. Soon set one in his hands, carefully, and took the other herself.
“I’ve got the right, Doan, you take the left. Teri, if you would watch our rear?” Unsafe meant bandits.
Bandits, and deserters, and other, less savory sorts. There was always a rebellion going somewhere. There were always dissatisfied northerners, or southerners, or easterners. Soon sighted along her crossbow and watched for danger.
“Oh!” It was Teri who squeaked, half an hour and a thousand bumps and jolts later. “Uh-oh!”
“Teri?” Doan turned first. Soon kept her eye on a bush that seemed to be moving improperly for foliage.
“It’s…”
“Just me.” Their cargo was moving, and a deep, rumbling voice was coming from underneath the tarp. “Have no fear, I’m not a bandit.”
“No…” Teri’s voice was rising higher. “No, you’re not. You’re worse, aren’t you?”
“Now, that’s unkind. Sir, if you wouldn’t mind putting down that crossbow…”
“I don’t think I will. Teriana?”
“I know him,” she confirmed. “I mean, we’ve met. More than once.” She gestured with one hand, flicking her fingers as if trying to dislodge something unpleasant. And, slowly, the tarp rose, exposing a hat that nearly covered the face of their stowaway.
Wide-brimmed and purple, with bands of yellow and gold decorating its brim, it was not the hat of any but the most affluent bandit, and it was not a stealthy sort of hat. Nor was the face underneath, the beard smooth and braided, the nose long and prominent, the lips glossed, the sort of face you expected to see on a bandit, or, really, anywhere in the outlands like this.
Of course, it bore quite a resemblance to Onton’s face, but none of them would mention that, not yet. It wouldn’t be polite, not until one of them said something.
“I know him,” Teri repeated. “Not willingly.”
“That’s a fine thing to say!” The man sat up, revealing a felted waistcoat in a brilliant shade of plum. “After all I’ve done for you.”
“I’d hardly say any of that was done for me, Beelang.” She was putting on airs again. She must be very upset by their guest. “Any more than a harness is for the goat’s benefit.”
“Teri…”
Doan waved the crossbow, and Beelang fell silent. “That’s enough.” Doan shifted his grip, but didn’t move his aim of their guest. “Leave Teriana alone, and tell us what it is you’re doing in our wagon, on our expedition.”
“Well, that’s a problem. You see, I can’t do both at once, because I’m on the expedition of yours, if that’s what you’re calling this little jaunt, with the express purpose of not leaving Teri alone. After all, she can’t just bound off into the wilderness with no chaperon!”
“This isn’t an Empress’ reign, and she’s not a wedded wife, anyway.” Soon wasn’t looking at their interloper, yet; she was still watching the road. “Doan, can you truss him up? I think there’s something in the bushes over there, and I don’t want the distract…” She ended her last word with an arrow shot into the bushes.
“Hey, hey!” Beelang’s complaint was cut short as Teri gentled him across the skull with a blackjack. She caught him before he could slump out of the cart, while Doan was still gaping and the wounded-whatever in the bushes was making startled, unhappy noises.
“Give me the rope,” Teri snapped, which finally goaded Doan into action.
“You hit him pretty hard, didn’t you?”
“I hit him precisely hard enough to render him unconscious… I hope.” She tied their unwelcome guest up with tidy, strong-looking knots. “Soon, whatever did you hit?”
“Well, I’m hoping desperately that it’s not a wild goat. That would go poorly. Or a mountain lion.” She hopped down from the cart, still pointing her crossbow into the trees. “Onton, if you wouldn’t mind…?”
“Coming.” He passed Doan the reins and followed her, a long metal spear in one hand and its aether-storage pack in the other.
“Oooh, oww…” The sounds had gone from animal to human, or a clever facsimile of such. Soon moved even more cautiously. “Bitter water and rotten stone!” That was probably human. She nodded Onton forward, minding his flank. There could be more than one.
“By the whirlpool of Tienebrah, they shot me!”
“You threatened me.” Soon kept her crossbow pointed levelly at the sound of the voice; Onton flanked the invisible complainant slowly.
“I’m hiding in a bush. What sort of threat is that?”
“The sort you learn to pay attention to.”
“I don’t want to know where you grew up, do I? Ow, whirlpools, you really shot me. This was supposed to be a frolic, just a spot of fun. Nobody was supposed to get hurt!”
His consonants were awfully soft, his vowels long and trying to be two or three sounds. “Are you Southern?” What was taking Onton so long?
“No.” Suddenly the whining was gone. There was someone coming up on her right, and where Onton had gone there was a rustling and shaking in the bushes. “I’m Bitrani.”
She swung the crossbow to her left, fired, and dropped it, drawing her longknife. “Ware,” she shouted, as the whining Bitrani dove out of the bushes at her.
“You have a funny idea of a frolic.” He was shot, at least, his somber waistcoat pierced with half of her bolt, but that wasn’t stopping him from coming at her with a back-curve blade.
“You have a funny idea of a school project. Fully armed, carrying munitions. Does your advisor know your brought explosives?” He was going for her throat; she was suddenly glad for the hidden armor in her collar.
“Of course she does.” An armpit wound would distract him. She stabbed quickly. “The roads are dangerous, you know.”
“Behind you, Soon, down!” She dropped and whirled as a sword went singing over her head. The sword was followed by a loud thump and a spurt of blood, the spray coloring her sleeves red and splashing over her face.
“Blasted mountains.” Her first attacker sat down hard. “You killed him.”
“He had his weapons inches from Soon’s face. It seemed reasonable.” Onton wiped his blade on the dead man’s tunic – very dead; his head was several feet away. “I’d suggest you surrender now before it appears that you’re threatening an Imperial Princess.”
“And if I kill your precious Imperial Princess?”
“Well, it appears that she’s pierced you once already with an arrow. You’re probably going to leave a trail, and Soon’s been known to poison her arrows. That means you’ll make it maybe a day’s travel before I catch up with you, at which point…” Onton’s voice dropped an octave, and his eyebrows furrowed. Suddenly, he sounded like a much older man. “I will destroy you utterly, and make you beg for it while you bleed.”
“I didn’t realize you two were going to the grassy hills.”
“You didn’t realize anything about us.” Onton’s voice was still rumbly, giving no indication that he and Soon were, in fact, doing nothing at all on the grassy hillsides. “I’m sure your capture will give you plenty of time to think about rectifying that.”
“Capture? What?”
“Surrender, and I’ll see that the poison in your wound is treated, and that you’re well-cared for. Attempt to harm us…” He left the threat unspoken. Since he’d entirely fabricated the poison, Soon was impressed he was leaving anything at all up to the imagination.
She cleared her throat. “The same,” she added, in a regal, grown-up voice of her own, “goes for anyone else hiding in the brush.”
Nobody came forward. The man at the end of Onton’s blade sighed. “I surrender. You were supposed to be a bunch of students.”
“Then why attack us?” Soon took the leather thongs from her purse and began trussing the man up, mindful of his wounds.
“Well, for what you were carrying.”
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/356901.html. You can comment here or there.
June Linkback
Incentive Story: East to the Blue (LJ)
Most Recent Update
July Linkback
Bowen’s Summer (Lj)
Most Recent Update
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/375127.html. You can comment here or there.
This is the linkback incentive story for the July Giraffe Call.
Bowen et al are characters in Addergoole.
Bowen’s Change (and his father’s) are as sheep.
Summer after Year Five
Bowen had been home for a week when his cy’ree showed up.
It hadn’t been a comfortable week, all things considered. His father had been – well, Dad. The way Dad always was, kind of sheepish.
Sheepish. Ha. He’d yelled that at him, his second night home. Bowen had been yelling a lot, since he got home. “How can you just go along with what you’re told? How can you be such a goddamned part of the herd?”
And all Dad had managed was “we are what’s in our nature.”
Which was a pile of crap. Bowen had been mutilated by a rabbit. But he wasn’t going to tell his father that. Instead, he’d shouted at him.
“Be a goddamned ram, then. Grow a pair.”
They hadn’t talked much since then. It was going to be a long summer if it kept on like this.
And then the doorbell rang.
At first, Bowen was afraid it was his friends from high school. He almost didn’t answer the door; he didn’t have anything to say to those guys. He couldn’t even begin to talk about school, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to those morons anyway.
But the doorbell rang again, and again, like someone was mashing on the button. Grumbling, fantasising about punching Jack or Eddie or Judy or whoever it was until they stopped ringing the damn doorbell, Bowen hauled himself out of his chair and yanked the door open. “What do you… oh. It’s you. Ah.”
He wasn’t really sure what to say other than that. It wasn’t every day two of the biggest baddies in the school – and one of the creepiest guys, just for good measure – showed up on his doorstep. Then again, they were his cy’ree.
“What’s up?” He tried to sound casual, but this was Rozen and Baram at his front door. And Phelen, he mentally amended. Forgetting Phelen could be a fatal mistake.
“We’re going on a field trip.” Rozen’s tone left no room for argument. “Grab your stuff, tell your folks we’re leaving.”
His father probably wouldn’t notice. “How long?”
“Enh, couple weeks at the most. I’ve got a thing starting in August and Phelen’s got babies to worry about.”
“Come on in, if you mean me and mine no harm.” He’d learned that phrase his second week in Addergoole. It was a useful phrase. Even if Baram did laugh.
“Not now, at least.”
“Not today is fine,” he allowed. You never really got a free pass with the big dogs. Bowen was okay with that; some day he was going to be a big dog. A ram.
“Dad, going out with my friends. I’ll be back in a week or two.” He called it from his room as he threw socks and underwear and a couple T-shirts in a bag, the word friends slipping off his tongue with only a tiny hesitation. They were cy’ree. That was better than friends, right?
“So, where’re we going?” He plopped into the back seat of Rozen’s big car, wondering if he ought to be being more cautious.
“I told you, field trip. First stop Addergoole.”
Yeah, he really should have been more cautious. “Um, man, I… Just drop me off here, okay, I’ll walk home.”
The big man laughed. They all laughed.
“Come on, kid, do we look like the Addergoole Gestapo to you? Relax, nothing bad’s going to happen. There’s just a couple people I want to see before we head off to stop two and three.”
Rozen’s grin was wide, white, and a little bit scary. Bowen eyed the door, but Phelen had a shadow wrapped around his ankle. “Relax, man. You’re not in any trouble.”
“Cy’ree,” Baram grunted.
Bowen leaned against his seat. “Cy’ree.” He wasn’t going anywhere, he might as well trust them.
~
It wasn’t that far to Addergoole. It had seemed farther, on the way home, but then again, on the way home, he’d ridden in silence. Phelen and Rozen spent the ride cracking inappropriate jokes, Baram laughing along and sometimes grunting in a word or two. And, in something that was new, they talked to him, too. Included him.
This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/371274.html. You can comment here or there.
This is the donation-level perk for the June Giraffe Call.
Callenan poetry falls into several different categories, but the largest division, describing all else, is spoken vs. written poetry.
Written poetry originated with the priesthood, and before them with the gods-chasers1 of the original Home Valley. The Callenian language, written, lends itself to artistic forms and decoration.
In the early days of the written word, the god-chasers would mark short prayer-poems, often calling out to longer spoken-poem works, onto the skin of the tribe’s Riders, onto the leather of their saddles, and onto the fur of their goats. As time went on, the artistic forms became more complicated; the holy texts of Callenia are written in formed poetry.2
Spoken poetry existed long before the written, and was first used to pass on stories and lessons from one generation to the next. In the style of epics, spoken poetry tends to rely heavily on repetition, rhyme, and a strong rhythm to carry mnemonic cues.
One common form of spoken poetry, dating back to the original Tribes of the Valley and continuing even into the Steam era, is called an “around;” usually consisting of seven parts, and often of seven speakers, the poem moves “around” a cycle of life, and around the seven mountains that ringed the Home Valley.
Examples of similar works in English poetry include the country song “Don’t Take the Girl3,” where a repetitive chorus means something slightly new in each verse, and the children’s rhyme “The Farmer in the Dell4,” where each verse builds on the next.
Hear now I tell you when I last went home
The Reeve5‘s oldest daughter, she danced all alone
Her lover had left her, gone off to the fight
They burned up his body and gave her his knife6.
Hear now I tell you when I last went home
The Reeve’s oldest daughter, she danced all alone
This poem continues for six more verses, detailing the soldier’s courtship of the Reeve’s oldest daughter, their eventual consummation, and the soldier’s inevitable return to the front.
The final verse calls back to the first verse:
Hear now I tell you, when you next return
To the Village I left, to the place I call home,
Dance with the daughter, hear of her plight.
They’ve burned up my body and sent home my knife
Hear now I tell you, when you next return
The Reeve’s oldest daughter will dance all alone.
1. The Callenan left the original gods when settling Reiassan. See http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/365239.html
2. For examples see http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?showtopic=1001
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don’t_Take_the_Girl
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farmer_in_the_Dell
5. A Reeve is the political and law-enforcing head of a small village or town, appointed by the Emperor
6. Bodies in wartime are burned, although bodies in peace-time are often buried in stone tombs. A soldier’s widow, lover, or parents would be given his war-blade as a memorial.
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I’m going to start the linkback story for today’s Giraffe Call, so here’s your chance to pick the characters I’ll write about.
Tell me your favorite Addergoole characters you’d like to see in a story!
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