I have a new blog where I'm going to be posting my nonfiction animation writing. It's called The Ink and Pixel Club. You should check it out.
I may post more fiction stories here someday, but for now, all of my writing energy will be going into The Ink and Pixel Club.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Monday, March 03, 2008
The Last Battle: Mid-Story Scene
A scene I wrote a couple of days ago. It takes place during a flashback that explains how Kata and Santok met. I've also got a timeline going to figure out what happened when before the events of "Last Battle". Everything is changeable, but as of now, Kata is currently 23. Santok is 41, though that may not be his biological age in human terms, since beastmen may age differently than humans. Cyra is 42 and Rayna is 16, which I need to change in an earlier scene.
“What spells do you know?” asked Santok, once the fire was burning steadily.
“None,” Kata replied. The question was a little surprising. Surely he had noticed by now that she wasn’t a caster.
“None?” Santok looked genuinely shocked. “You really never learned any?”
“Of course not!” Kata was starting to feel defensive, though she didn’t understand why. “I’m not a caster and I never trained to be one. I don’t have the talent for magic.”
“Ahh.” Santok was nodding his head, his eyes closed.
“I misunderstood,” he said, his eyes returning to her. “In Keltaria, we are all taught basic magic. Some take a greater interest in it and go on to become mages or healers, but everyone knows a few simple spells. I had assumed it was the same in your land.”
Now it was Kata who nodded in realization.
“So anyone can cast a spell?” It was in contradiction to what Kata has always been taught and had always believed. Magic was something you were born with, something that you discovered you had and chose whether or not to nurture. She had never even considered the possibility that it was something she might be capable of.
“Oh yes.” Santok spread his hands wide. “Magic resides in every living thing. We tend to think of it as something mysterious or divine, but magic is really just an energy that lets you achieve feats you normally could not.”
“Like what?”
“You have seen battles before. Have you ever wondered how a gravely injured knight can find the strength to lift his sword and keep on fighting when by all rights, he should be unable to stand? Magic. A doe fleeing a wolf and escaping in a last burst of speed that seems to come from nowhere? Magic. A single blood lily growing from earth that the roughest weeds cannot survive in? Magic. You have almost certainly used magic before without ever realizing that you did.”
Kata considered this idea for a while. She wasn’t certain she believed it, but she had never really discussed magic with spellcasters before. Was it possible? Could magic really be nothing more than an inner strength that could be tapped without the words and gestures she had always believed it required?
“Here,” said Santok. “Hold out your hand.”
Santok put his own hand out at almost full arm’s length, palm up. Hesitantly, Kata did the same. Santok nodded in approval and drew his own hand back.
“Now concentrate on the center of your palm,” Santok instructed. “Try to draw your energy there.”
Kata focused on the middle of her hand, staring hard at the skin, the tendons, and the veins underneath.
“Am I doing it right?” she asked uncertainly.
“You will know if it works. It can help to imagine a situation where you might naturally use magic, or think of something or someone you feel strongly about. Keep concentrating. I am going to tell you the word for the spell.”
Kata tried to increase her concentration. She thought of particularly tense moment of fighting she had experienced, time when she might have easily died. She thought of her home, her parents, some of her fellow knights, all the same things she thought of when she needed to remind herself why she was willing to fight and die.
“Pa’roh,” Santok recited, and looked expectantly at Kata.
“Pa’roh,” repeated Kata. Nothing happened.
“Put more emphasis on the second syllable. ‘Pa’roh.’”
“Pa’roh.” Kata felt a slight tingle in her palm, but she couldn’t be certain it was anything more than her own wishful thinking.
“Good. Make the pause in the middle shorter and roll the ‘r’ a little. ‘Pa’roh.’”
“Pa’roh.” This time the sensation was unmistakable. She could feel a rush of something indefinable toward the center of her palm. A tiny, worried voice inside her was warning her that Santok could be making her set herself on fire, but she ignored it.
“Don’t lose your concentration. You are doing very well. Again.”
“Pa’roh.” The rush came faster this time.
“Again.”
“Pa’roh.” A small circle of blue light began to glow in the center of Kata’s palm. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened in a smile.
“Keep concentrating. Say it once more.”
“Pa’roh.”
The circle of light slowly rose up from Kata’s palm. As she watched in amazement, it formed into a tiny glowing blue ball. The ball began to grow in size. When it stopped, it had a diameter about the length of Kata’s hand. It floated just above Kata’s hand, shining a bright pale blue. Kata stared at it, delighted. Santok smiled and clapped his hands softly.
“Excellent. You learn fast.”
“It’s incredible,” Kata breathed. She still couldn’t believe that she had actually cast a spell.
Santok held out his own hand.
“Pa’roh,” he said. His sphere of light formed almost instantaneously. It was larger than Kata’s, reflecting the size of hand. It also glowed a deep red orange, a strong contrast to Kata’s blue sphere.
“They are sometimes called ‘spirit lanterns,’” Santok explained, “though most people simply refer to them as ‘lights’. That spell is thought to be one of the oldest true spells in existence. It is also the first one taught to children.”
“So it’s used as a light?”
“Sometimes. Certainly in old times it would have been very useful as an easy to control light source that gives no smoke or heat. But nowadays, there are more sophisticated light spells that are used more frequently. But it is a simple spell that requires little energy. And it is very easy to manipulate.”
“Manipulate how?”
Santok didn’t answer. He stared intently at his glowing orb. It shuddered and then changed from a red-orange to bright green. Kata laughed.
“How do you do it?”
“Just concentrate on the center and think of the color you want it to be.”
Kata focused on the orb’s center. It took a little longer than Santok’s had, but slowly, the sphere went from blue to a green matching Santok’s. He smiled his approval.
“You can also move it,” he added. He pointed his fingers upward and the ball rose into the air. Tilting his hand from side to side, he made the ball sweep left and right. Kata copied his movements. It was awkward at first, but before long, she could make the sphere move pretty much however she wanted, well away from her hand. Santok showed her how to shrink the ball by bringing her fingers together and make it larger by spreading them apart.
“When did you learn this?” Kata asked once she had become adept at controlling the ball.
“I was a young child,” responded Santok. “Keltarian children nearly always learn it from a parent or an older child rather than in formal instruction. I learned it from my brother.”
Santok’s gaze grew distant. Kata had never heard him talk about his family before. She realized that she hadn’t really thought about him having a family before now. Of course she had realized that he must have had parents and maybe even other relatives. But she had always seen him as a hard, tough soldier, not someone who might think longingly of home and family.
“Children learn magic at different speeds,” Santok continued, bringing his attention back to the sphere and returning it to its original orange hue. “Some can summon a spirit lantern after only a few days; others take far longer. But there is a lot of incentive to learn. Many children play games by knocking them into each other, and if you cannot cast the spell, you get left out.”
“Did you ever do it?”
“What, knocking spirit lanterns together? Of course not. I stayed well away from frivolous games like that.”
Santok turned away and sat down, his back to Kata and the fire. Kata looked down at the sphere, feeling embarrassed. Up until now, she had merely tried to keep tensions neutral herself and Santok. But now, she honestly felt upset about having upset Santok, and not just because it might take the rest of their journey together difficult. She didn’t want to upset Santok or have him upset with her. She liked talking with him far more than she thought she would. It wasn’t just that he was the only person she had to talk to. She genuinely liked his company.
Kata was about to go and apologize to Santok when a large orange sphere zoomed at her from the right and slammed into her blue one, sending spinning away from her. Kata looked over at Santok. He hadn’t turned around or stood up, but Kata could see him glancing over his shoulder and sweeping his hand around. Smirking, Kata whisked her sphere away from another attack by Santok’s and whirled it around to knock his off its course.
“What spells do you know?” asked Santok, once the fire was burning steadily.
“None,” Kata replied. The question was a little surprising. Surely he had noticed by now that she wasn’t a caster.
“None?” Santok looked genuinely shocked. “You really never learned any?”
“Of course not!” Kata was starting to feel defensive, though she didn’t understand why. “I’m not a caster and I never trained to be one. I don’t have the talent for magic.”
“Ahh.” Santok was nodding his head, his eyes closed.
“I misunderstood,” he said, his eyes returning to her. “In Keltaria, we are all taught basic magic. Some take a greater interest in it and go on to become mages or healers, but everyone knows a few simple spells. I had assumed it was the same in your land.”
Now it was Kata who nodded in realization.
“So anyone can cast a spell?” It was in contradiction to what Kata has always been taught and had always believed. Magic was something you were born with, something that you discovered you had and chose whether or not to nurture. She had never even considered the possibility that it was something she might be capable of.
“Oh yes.” Santok spread his hands wide. “Magic resides in every living thing. We tend to think of it as something mysterious or divine, but magic is really just an energy that lets you achieve feats you normally could not.”
“Like what?”
“You have seen battles before. Have you ever wondered how a gravely injured knight can find the strength to lift his sword and keep on fighting when by all rights, he should be unable to stand? Magic. A doe fleeing a wolf and escaping in a last burst of speed that seems to come from nowhere? Magic. A single blood lily growing from earth that the roughest weeds cannot survive in? Magic. You have almost certainly used magic before without ever realizing that you did.”
Kata considered this idea for a while. She wasn’t certain she believed it, but she had never really discussed magic with spellcasters before. Was it possible? Could magic really be nothing more than an inner strength that could be tapped without the words and gestures she had always believed it required?
“Here,” said Santok. “Hold out your hand.”
Santok put his own hand out at almost full arm’s length, palm up. Hesitantly, Kata did the same. Santok nodded in approval and drew his own hand back.
“Now concentrate on the center of your palm,” Santok instructed. “Try to draw your energy there.”
Kata focused on the middle of her hand, staring hard at the skin, the tendons, and the veins underneath.
“Am I doing it right?” she asked uncertainly.
“You will know if it works. It can help to imagine a situation where you might naturally use magic, or think of something or someone you feel strongly about. Keep concentrating. I am going to tell you the word for the spell.”
Kata tried to increase her concentration. She thought of particularly tense moment of fighting she had experienced, time when she might have easily died. She thought of her home, her parents, some of her fellow knights, all the same things she thought of when she needed to remind herself why she was willing to fight and die.
“Pa’roh,” Santok recited, and looked expectantly at Kata.
“Pa’roh,” repeated Kata. Nothing happened.
“Put more emphasis on the second syllable. ‘Pa’roh.’”
“Pa’roh.” Kata felt a slight tingle in her palm, but she couldn’t be certain it was anything more than her own wishful thinking.
“Good. Make the pause in the middle shorter and roll the ‘r’ a little. ‘Pa’roh.’”
“Pa’roh.” This time the sensation was unmistakable. She could feel a rush of something indefinable toward the center of her palm. A tiny, worried voice inside her was warning her that Santok could be making her set herself on fire, but she ignored it.
“Don’t lose your concentration. You are doing very well. Again.”
“Pa’roh.” The rush came faster this time.
“Again.”
“Pa’roh.” A small circle of blue light began to glow in the center of Kata’s palm. Her eyes widened and her mouth opened in a smile.
“Keep concentrating. Say it once more.”
“Pa’roh.”
The circle of light slowly rose up from Kata’s palm. As she watched in amazement, it formed into a tiny glowing blue ball. The ball began to grow in size. When it stopped, it had a diameter about the length of Kata’s hand. It floated just above Kata’s hand, shining a bright pale blue. Kata stared at it, delighted. Santok smiled and clapped his hands softly.
“Excellent. You learn fast.”
“It’s incredible,” Kata breathed. She still couldn’t believe that she had actually cast a spell.
Santok held out his own hand.
“Pa’roh,” he said. His sphere of light formed almost instantaneously. It was larger than Kata’s, reflecting the size of hand. It also glowed a deep red orange, a strong contrast to Kata’s blue sphere.
“They are sometimes called ‘spirit lanterns,’” Santok explained, “though most people simply refer to them as ‘lights’. That spell is thought to be one of the oldest true spells in existence. It is also the first one taught to children.”
“So it’s used as a light?”
“Sometimes. Certainly in old times it would have been very useful as an easy to control light source that gives no smoke or heat. But nowadays, there are more sophisticated light spells that are used more frequently. But it is a simple spell that requires little energy. And it is very easy to manipulate.”
“Manipulate how?”
Santok didn’t answer. He stared intently at his glowing orb. It shuddered and then changed from a red-orange to bright green. Kata laughed.
“How do you do it?”
“Just concentrate on the center and think of the color you want it to be.”
Kata focused on the orb’s center. It took a little longer than Santok’s had, but slowly, the sphere went from blue to a green matching Santok’s. He smiled his approval.
“You can also move it,” he added. He pointed his fingers upward and the ball rose into the air. Tilting his hand from side to side, he made the ball sweep left and right. Kata copied his movements. It was awkward at first, but before long, she could make the sphere move pretty much however she wanted, well away from her hand. Santok showed her how to shrink the ball by bringing her fingers together and make it larger by spreading them apart.
“When did you learn this?” Kata asked once she had become adept at controlling the ball.
“I was a young child,” responded Santok. “Keltarian children nearly always learn it from a parent or an older child rather than in formal instruction. I learned it from my brother.”
Santok’s gaze grew distant. Kata had never heard him talk about his family before. She realized that she hadn’t really thought about him having a family before now. Of course she had realized that he must have had parents and maybe even other relatives. But she had always seen him as a hard, tough soldier, not someone who might think longingly of home and family.
“Children learn magic at different speeds,” Santok continued, bringing his attention back to the sphere and returning it to its original orange hue. “Some can summon a spirit lantern after only a few days; others take far longer. But there is a lot of incentive to learn. Many children play games by knocking them into each other, and if you cannot cast the spell, you get left out.”
“Did you ever do it?”
“What, knocking spirit lanterns together? Of course not. I stayed well away from frivolous games like that.”
Santok turned away and sat down, his back to Kata and the fire. Kata looked down at the sphere, feeling embarrassed. Up until now, she had merely tried to keep tensions neutral herself and Santok. But now, she honestly felt upset about having upset Santok, and not just because it might take the rest of their journey together difficult. She didn’t want to upset Santok or have him upset with her. She liked talking with him far more than she thought she would. It wasn’t just that he was the only person she had to talk to. She genuinely liked his company.
Kata was about to go and apologize to Santok when a large orange sphere zoomed at her from the right and slammed into her blue one, sending spinning away from her. Kata looked over at Santok. He hadn’t turned around or stood up, but Kata could see him glancing over his shoulder and sweeping his hand around. Smirking, Kata whisked her sphere away from another attack by Santok’s and whirled it around to knock his off its course.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Concerns - "Lost History" and Writing in General
"The Lost History of Sathyriel" is finished, at least as far as a first draft goes. I am trying to work on editing it. I thought this was going to be the easy part. This was generally the case when I was writing non-fiction pieces on animation for one of my many fake jobs. Getting the rough, awkward first draft out was the hard part. Editing it, refining it, shortening it to fit the required word length was simpler and more enjoyable. For some reason, I couldn't seem to write anything without putting out a first draft, being completely unhappy with it, scrapping most of it, and writing something better. But I guess there's a difference between writing and editing a one to five page non-fiction article over a couple of days with clear key points that had to be hit and writing and editing a 44 page fiction story where the first draft alone was written over the course of several months with no guidelines, no particular goal in mind aside from telling the story. A pretty big difference.
I don't know what I ultimately want to do with "The Lost History of Sathyriel", or even "The Last Battle". I've thought about the possibility of publication, but I have a lot of doubts about it. It's hard for me to even consider showing it to people I know, let alone total strangers. I'm not confident that it's worth publishing. I'm highly aware that the whole thing - "Lost History", "Last Battle", and whatever else comes out of this concept - is based off of a story that I've been kicking around for probably over ten years, and that does not necessarily mean it's a good story. I'm very self conscious about the fact that the main character is pretty much an idealized version of me.
I feel like I really need a fresh pair of eyes on the story. I need someone to tell me what's working, what isn't, whether "Lost History" even makes sense on its own (because I don't know if or when "Last Battle" will be complete), whether it's worth pursuing. I managed to convince myself while I was writing that the important thing was just to get it out, not to worry about its quality or worthiness. But now that it's out, I just don't feel like there's anything compelling me to stay with it. There's no touchstone, no one part I can look at and say "that's what everything else needs to be like."
There are some problems that I'm aware of. I'm currently looking at the first segment, the one I wrote last year, and what's jumping out at me most is Talshak. I don't feel like I have a good handle on him and who he is. What is he like and why is he that way? How did he and his clan end up allying themselves with Keltaria in the first place? What are his ultimate goals? He's obviously quite brutal and sadistic with his enemies, but how is he with people serving under him? With his own clan? Is he overconfident? Willfully ignorant? Smart? Slightly insane? It's not stuff that's necessarily going to be in the finished story, but I feel like I need to figure it out for him to feel real and consistent.
My bigger problem, though, is the question I keep coming back to: why am I doing this? Why do I want to write? I heard it suggested that for both writing and any other art, there's either a kind of pure, raw need to write independent of any outside influence or a baser, crasser, desire to be published, make money, gain fame and fortune. I've felt both of these things on occasion, but neither lasts long enough or stays strong enough to keep me going through a slump. Anne Lamott talks about writing as a gift to someone you care about. I, meanwhile, am afraid that nothing I write is good enough to share with those people. Ultimately, though a inner urge to take what's inside of you and make it exist independent of you can spark it, I believe that all creativity is a form of communication. And my biggest problem has always been believing that the things I am writing now are worth communicating. There are a lot of other concerns hanging over me right now, the biggest probably being the house being a continued mess. Compared to these concerns, or more enjoyable pursuits like video games, writing seems like a waste of time.
This is more me thinking out loud than coming to some kind of morose conclusion. I do want to keep writing. I just don't know how I'm going to do it and feel like it's worthwhile beyond just imposing some kind of purpose on my life.
I don't know what I ultimately want to do with "The Lost History of Sathyriel", or even "The Last Battle". I've thought about the possibility of publication, but I have a lot of doubts about it. It's hard for me to even consider showing it to people I know, let alone total strangers. I'm not confident that it's worth publishing. I'm highly aware that the whole thing - "Lost History", "Last Battle", and whatever else comes out of this concept - is based off of a story that I've been kicking around for probably over ten years, and that does not necessarily mean it's a good story. I'm very self conscious about the fact that the main character is pretty much an idealized version of me.
I feel like I really need a fresh pair of eyes on the story. I need someone to tell me what's working, what isn't, whether "Lost History" even makes sense on its own (because I don't know if or when "Last Battle" will be complete), whether it's worth pursuing. I managed to convince myself while I was writing that the important thing was just to get it out, not to worry about its quality or worthiness. But now that it's out, I just don't feel like there's anything compelling me to stay with it. There's no touchstone, no one part I can look at and say "that's what everything else needs to be like."
There are some problems that I'm aware of. I'm currently looking at the first segment, the one I wrote last year, and what's jumping out at me most is Talshak. I don't feel like I have a good handle on him and who he is. What is he like and why is he that way? How did he and his clan end up allying themselves with Keltaria in the first place? What are his ultimate goals? He's obviously quite brutal and sadistic with his enemies, but how is he with people serving under him? With his own clan? Is he overconfident? Willfully ignorant? Smart? Slightly insane? It's not stuff that's necessarily going to be in the finished story, but I feel like I need to figure it out for him to feel real and consistent.
My bigger problem, though, is the question I keep coming back to: why am I doing this? Why do I want to write? I heard it suggested that for both writing and any other art, there's either a kind of pure, raw need to write independent of any outside influence or a baser, crasser, desire to be published, make money, gain fame and fortune. I've felt both of these things on occasion, but neither lasts long enough or stays strong enough to keep me going through a slump. Anne Lamott talks about writing as a gift to someone you care about. I, meanwhile, am afraid that nothing I write is good enough to share with those people. Ultimately, though a inner urge to take what's inside of you and make it exist independent of you can spark it, I believe that all creativity is a form of communication. And my biggest problem has always been believing that the things I am writing now are worth communicating. There are a lot of other concerns hanging over me right now, the biggest probably being the house being a continued mess. Compared to these concerns, or more enjoyable pursuits like video games, writing seems like a waste of time.
This is more me thinking out loud than coming to some kind of morose conclusion. I do want to keep writing. I just don't know how I'm going to do it and feel like it's worthwhile beyond just imposing some kind of purpose on my life.
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The Lost History of Sathyriel, Part Eight
It's done. 44 pages. 16,541 words. I actually finished writing it yesterday, but I held off on posting it so I could check for typos.
Of course, it isn't "done." I have to edit, make sure everything's consistent, rewrite some part, maybe change some stuff around. But draft number one is finished and that's what I always find to be the hard part.
Comments and such.
The world came back to Joren gradually. First it was the heavy, medicinal scent of ground herbs and thick, syrupy potions. Then he could feel the hard wooden chair he sat on and Anaskida’s feathery head brushing up against his cheek. He could hear her wings rustling and the soft footsteps of the healer who had remained in the back room with him. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
Cyra was still lying on the bed before him. She hadn’t moved and her eyes weren’t yet open, but her breathing had a more regular rhythm to it. The dark energy was all but gone from her body. Only a faint trace of it remained, crackling around the scar on her cheek. Joren suspected that whatever choice Cyra made, that scar would never heal. It was not uncommon. Many of Joren’s former patients had such lingering scars, reminders of their ordeal and hopefully of what it had taught them.
The remaining healer had just noticed that Joren was stirring. Her grip on a small glad bottle she was carrying tightened visibly. She started to say something, but apparently thought the better of it.
“You’re awake?” she whispered. She was trying to keep steady eye contact with Joren, but her eyes kept falling back to Cyra.
“Give her a little time,” Joren said quietly, recognizing where the healer’s real concerns lay. He leaned back heavily in the chair.
“Can I get you anything?” asked the healer, still keeping her voice low.
“Just some water, if you would.”
The healer went over to the small table, picked up a wide, shallow cup, and filled it from a bucket of water. She brought it over to Joren, who thanked her. He drank about half of it, and then offered the rest to Anaskida, who took several delicate sips. Evidently unsure of what else to ask, the healer tried to busy herself with the soiled bandages, occasionally stealing a glance in Cyra’s direction. Joren sat and waited.
If the room had not been so quiet, they might have both missed the sound. It wasn’t so much a moan as an exhale with a slight tone to it. Were Joren and the healer not waiting for even the slightest sign, they might have dismissed it. But both of them looked up as soon as they heard it. They waited, hardly daring to move.
Cyra took another deep breath, quietly this time. She stirred, her body shifting slightly to one side. Then, she opened her eyes.
Joren smiled quietly to himself. The healer gave a squeal of excitement. The door to the front room flew open and almost immediately, the small back room was filled with a crowd of people. The elf general who had greeted Joren upon his arrival came in first, followed by several soldiers. The general in particular looked relieved and kept murmuring something Joren didn’t catch. The healers crowded in next. Both they and the soldiers began talking all at once and soon it was impossible to make out any one conversation. Close after the healers shoving her way through the crowd came the head healer, the one the general had called “Tolla”. Even over the din of the soldiers and the healers, Joren could hear her yelling at everyone to stand back and give Cyra some breathing room.
Joren slid out of his chair and held out an arm for Anaskida to climb onto. He could just smell the faint aroma of what was probably a stew hot off the fire and he was starting to realize how hungry he was. Once Anaskida was back on his shoulder, Joren made his way through the crowd. Some of the soldiers and healers stopped him to thank him or congratulate him. He gave them quick thanks and moved on.
About halfway across the room, Joren felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw Tolla standing next to him. Her face looked nearly as serious as it had when he had first seen her, though maybe a little less severe. Without a word, she gave Joren a short, deliberate nod. Joren smiled and bowed slightly. Tolla turned and started pushing her way towards Cyra’s bedside again.
As he reached the door, Joren turned and took a last look into the room. The crowd was starting to spread out and Joren could just see Cyra. She had turned on her side and was looking straight at him. The noise in the room was still too loud for Joren to hear much and he doubted Cyra had her full voice back yet, but he could still make out the words from the shape of her lips.
“Thank you,” Cyra said to him.
Joren, smiled, nodded, and left in search of the stew.
Official History
The Keltarian forces were defeated late in the spring of 709 at the Battle of Kelja Reik. Cyra herself slew Talshak, effectively ending the Keltarian occupation and uniting the kingdom of Sathyriel. The capitol was moved to what is now known as Drey Fandhil. Today, Kelja Reik lies abandoned and Talshak’s castle is a crumbling ruin.
General Marehnu was killed during the Liberation of Isudra, a key battle that established a crucial stronghold for the rebel armies. His strategies were instrumental in the success of this and other major battles. He is one of the seven generals honored by the memorial at Generals’ Square just inside the gates of Drey Fandhil.
Tolla of Millshaven was a well-respected healer who saved many a life during major battles of the war. After the war’s end, Tolla was knighted and highly decorated for her services. Lady Tolla served as head healer of the Sathyrian army, and then went on to found the Whitecrest Healers’ School. Under Lady Tolla’s guidance, the school has become a highly regarded institution, which gives aspiring healers a strong education in the fundamentals of healing magic.
After a severe injury during the Liberation of Isudra crippled her left leg, Peren of Aeshur Keep spent the rest of the war analyzing intelligence. When the war ended, Peren left the military. She traveled to Drey Ossar, a former dragoncaller village where Peren’s own ancestors one lived. Peren befriended the local Mosa dragon clan and began a study of dragon and dragoncaller cultures. Today, thanks in part to Peren’s work, Drey Ossar is a well-known center for dragon studies.
Lusaya, the white dragon who raised Cyra, fought in many major battles during the Sathyrian Independence War, frequently alongside her adopted daughter. She is now one of the leaders of the Vaar dragon clan. Her image is Cyra’s family crest and one of the symbols of Sathyriel itself. She is not a frequent visitor to the castle, but Cyra often travels up to the Vaar clan weyr to visit with her.
The wandering hero Joren Roosdrahm never settled in any one place, even after the war. He continued to travel the kingdom healing those in need with his unconventional magic techniques. Though the exact circumstances are not known, it is generally accepted that Joren once healed Cyra or someone close to her, for the queen always held him in very high regard. Cyra offered Joren an official position at the castle, but he declined. He did come to speak at the Whitecrest Healers’ School on at least three occasions. His fame caused many young healers to seek him out and ask him to take them on as apprentices. Of the likely hundreds of potential students he approached him, Joren took on only a handful. Only six are known to have finished training under him.
Joren passed away in the summer of 721. His age and the cause of his death are both unknown, but those who knew him agreed that he was quite elderly. Cyra went to visit him in Orkanholt shortly before his death and may have been present when he died. By his own request, Joren was cremated and his ashes were scattered at an unknown location. His six students were summoned to Drey Fandhil by Cyra, who bestowed upon them the Order of the Golden Falcon. Joren’s students continue to carry on his legacy and pass on his teachings to those who wish to learn. The Order of the Golden Falcon is only awarded to healers who were trained by these six healers or by Joren himself and is a highly respected honor.
Of all Cyra’s visible battle scars, perhaps one of the most mysterious is the one running from the far corner of her left eye down her cheek to her jawline. No one seems to know exactly how Cyra got this scar and Cyra has never explained it. It is commonly referred to as “the Queen’s tear” and numerous stories – both realistic and fanciful – have been told to explain how it came to be.
Of course, it isn't "done." I have to edit, make sure everything's consistent, rewrite some part, maybe change some stuff around. But draft number one is finished and that's what I always find to be the hard part.
Comments and such.
The world came back to Joren gradually. First it was the heavy, medicinal scent of ground herbs and thick, syrupy potions. Then he could feel the hard wooden chair he sat on and Anaskida’s feathery head brushing up against his cheek. He could hear her wings rustling and the soft footsteps of the healer who had remained in the back room with him. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
Cyra was still lying on the bed before him. She hadn’t moved and her eyes weren’t yet open, but her breathing had a more regular rhythm to it. The dark energy was all but gone from her body. Only a faint trace of it remained, crackling around the scar on her cheek. Joren suspected that whatever choice Cyra made, that scar would never heal. It was not uncommon. Many of Joren’s former patients had such lingering scars, reminders of their ordeal and hopefully of what it had taught them.
The remaining healer had just noticed that Joren was stirring. Her grip on a small glad bottle she was carrying tightened visibly. She started to say something, but apparently thought the better of it.
“You’re awake?” she whispered. She was trying to keep steady eye contact with Joren, but her eyes kept falling back to Cyra.
“Give her a little time,” Joren said quietly, recognizing where the healer’s real concerns lay. He leaned back heavily in the chair.
“Can I get you anything?” asked the healer, still keeping her voice low.
“Just some water, if you would.”
The healer went over to the small table, picked up a wide, shallow cup, and filled it from a bucket of water. She brought it over to Joren, who thanked her. He drank about half of it, and then offered the rest to Anaskida, who took several delicate sips. Evidently unsure of what else to ask, the healer tried to busy herself with the soiled bandages, occasionally stealing a glance in Cyra’s direction. Joren sat and waited.
If the room had not been so quiet, they might have both missed the sound. It wasn’t so much a moan as an exhale with a slight tone to it. Were Joren and the healer not waiting for even the slightest sign, they might have dismissed it. But both of them looked up as soon as they heard it. They waited, hardly daring to move.
Cyra took another deep breath, quietly this time. She stirred, her body shifting slightly to one side. Then, she opened her eyes.
Joren smiled quietly to himself. The healer gave a squeal of excitement. The door to the front room flew open and almost immediately, the small back room was filled with a crowd of people. The elf general who had greeted Joren upon his arrival came in first, followed by several soldiers. The general in particular looked relieved and kept murmuring something Joren didn’t catch. The healers crowded in next. Both they and the soldiers began talking all at once and soon it was impossible to make out any one conversation. Close after the healers shoving her way through the crowd came the head healer, the one the general had called “Tolla”. Even over the din of the soldiers and the healers, Joren could hear her yelling at everyone to stand back and give Cyra some breathing room.
Joren slid out of his chair and held out an arm for Anaskida to climb onto. He could just smell the faint aroma of what was probably a stew hot off the fire and he was starting to realize how hungry he was. Once Anaskida was back on his shoulder, Joren made his way through the crowd. Some of the soldiers and healers stopped him to thank him or congratulate him. He gave them quick thanks and moved on.
About halfway across the room, Joren felt a hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw Tolla standing next to him. Her face looked nearly as serious as it had when he had first seen her, though maybe a little less severe. Without a word, she gave Joren a short, deliberate nod. Joren smiled and bowed slightly. Tolla turned and started pushing her way towards Cyra’s bedside again.
As he reached the door, Joren turned and took a last look into the room. The crowd was starting to spread out and Joren could just see Cyra. She had turned on her side and was looking straight at him. The noise in the room was still too loud for Joren to hear much and he doubted Cyra had her full voice back yet, but he could still make out the words from the shape of her lips.
“Thank you,” Cyra said to him.
Joren, smiled, nodded, and left in search of the stew.
Official History
The Keltarian forces were defeated late in the spring of 709 at the Battle of Kelja Reik. Cyra herself slew Talshak, effectively ending the Keltarian occupation and uniting the kingdom of Sathyriel. The capitol was moved to what is now known as Drey Fandhil. Today, Kelja Reik lies abandoned and Talshak’s castle is a crumbling ruin.
General Marehnu was killed during the Liberation of Isudra, a key battle that established a crucial stronghold for the rebel armies. His strategies were instrumental in the success of this and other major battles. He is one of the seven generals honored by the memorial at Generals’ Square just inside the gates of Drey Fandhil.
Tolla of Millshaven was a well-respected healer who saved many a life during major battles of the war. After the war’s end, Tolla was knighted and highly decorated for her services. Lady Tolla served as head healer of the Sathyrian army, and then went on to found the Whitecrest Healers’ School. Under Lady Tolla’s guidance, the school has become a highly regarded institution, which gives aspiring healers a strong education in the fundamentals of healing magic.
After a severe injury during the Liberation of Isudra crippled her left leg, Peren of Aeshur Keep spent the rest of the war analyzing intelligence. When the war ended, Peren left the military. She traveled to Drey Ossar, a former dragoncaller village where Peren’s own ancestors one lived. Peren befriended the local Mosa dragon clan and began a study of dragon and dragoncaller cultures. Today, thanks in part to Peren’s work, Drey Ossar is a well-known center for dragon studies.
Lusaya, the white dragon who raised Cyra, fought in many major battles during the Sathyrian Independence War, frequently alongside her adopted daughter. She is now one of the leaders of the Vaar dragon clan. Her image is Cyra’s family crest and one of the symbols of Sathyriel itself. She is not a frequent visitor to the castle, but Cyra often travels up to the Vaar clan weyr to visit with her.
The wandering hero Joren Roosdrahm never settled in any one place, even after the war. He continued to travel the kingdom healing those in need with his unconventional magic techniques. Though the exact circumstances are not known, it is generally accepted that Joren once healed Cyra or someone close to her, for the queen always held him in very high regard. Cyra offered Joren an official position at the castle, but he declined. He did come to speak at the Whitecrest Healers’ School on at least three occasions. His fame caused many young healers to seek him out and ask him to take them on as apprentices. Of the likely hundreds of potential students he approached him, Joren took on only a handful. Only six are known to have finished training under him.
Joren passed away in the summer of 721. His age and the cause of his death are both unknown, but those who knew him agreed that he was quite elderly. Cyra went to visit him in Orkanholt shortly before his death and may have been present when he died. By his own request, Joren was cremated and his ashes were scattered at an unknown location. His six students were summoned to Drey Fandhil by Cyra, who bestowed upon them the Order of the Golden Falcon. Joren’s students continue to carry on his legacy and pass on his teachings to those who wish to learn. The Order of the Golden Falcon is only awarded to healers who were trained by these six healers or by Joren himself and is a highly respected honor.
Of all Cyra’s visible battle scars, perhaps one of the most mysterious is the one running from the far corner of her left eye down her cheek to her jawline. No one seems to know exactly how Cyra got this scar and Cyra has never explained it. It is commonly referred to as “the Queen’s tear” and numerous stories – both realistic and fanciful – have been told to explain how it came to be.
Friday, February 15, 2008
The Lost History of Sathyriel, Part Seven
I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't subtitle this "Cyra talks to her Psychologist".
Part Seven, two days worth of writing, over 2,400 words, and finally the end of this scene. This is really the centerpiece of the whole story, so I knew it would probably run long. There's some interesting stuff in this part. As with magic, I feel like it was better not to spell everything out completely and I hope that works. I also realize that Cyra does a lot of not talking over the course of this scene, but I think that makes sense with where her mental state is.
We're definitely entering the home stretch. Part Eight or Nine should be the end.
Comments blahdy balh.
Cyra didn’t say anything for a while. She continued to stand with her back to Joren. He waited.
“What did you see,” she asked slowly, “when you looked at me?”
She turned her head slightly to look at Joren. His eyes met hers with a calm, steady gaze.
“Pain. And sadness. It’s a kind of dark energy; looks like something between lightning and water. It was concentrated around that scar on you cheek.”
Cyra brought her left hand up to her cheek. She traced the scar with a shaky finger.
“It’s nothing,” she said self-consciously.
“That may be,” Joren admitted. “Sometimes the apparent source of the energy is just a particularly painful wound. Or it could be completely meaningless. But still, that much negative energy isn’t good. It prevents the body from healing.”
“What causes it?” Cyra asked with a little hesitation.
“Any number of things. I’ve actually seen people who were so frightened by whatever had happened to them that they weren’t able to take the healing and recover. It can be anger, fear, sadness, or something else.”
“What do you think is causing it with me?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out. Like I said, it can be all kinds of things, so I can’t really know.”
“But what do you think?” Cyra turned so she was almost facing him. Her blue eyes watched him expectantly. Joren sighed.
“I don’t like making guesses. But if I had to, I’d suppose something happened that you hadn’t experienced before, something you weren’t prepared to deal with. And now you’re not certain if you can go back and face it again.”
Cyra just looked at him. She didn’t move. She didn’t say anything. She just stood looking at Joren for what seemed a very long time. The, slowly, she walked over to the rock Joren was leaning against and sat down near it. Joren sat too.
“I’ve been fighting for a long time,” Cyra began, her voice soft. “Even before the war I was always wrestling with my brothers and sisters. I still have scars from those days.”
“Your dragon family,” Joren said, just to make sure he understood. Cyra nodded.
“So it’s not like I’ve never been hurt before. I’ve been in plenty of battles where I could have died if something had happened just a little differently. But this….”
She trailed off and sat silent, hugging her knees to her chest. Joren said nothing, waiting for when she was ready to continue.
“It wasn’t just the pain,” she said at last. “It hurt more than anything, but I could have dealt with that. But, I guess it just never seemed that…. personal. He….”
Joren looked as her quizzically. Cyra winced, as if even saying the name was painful.
“Talshak. He didn’t just want to stop the rebellion or kill me. He wanted to hurt me. He seemed convinced that once I was…gone, the rebellion would fall apart.”
“Do you think that’s true?” Joren asked, trying to make it clear by his tone that he didn’t expect any particular answer.
“I don’t know. I didn’t think it was, but now I just don’t know. Talshak said it was total chaos when I fell on the battlefield, that everyone either ran or surrendered. And the people from the village, the ones who organized the people to help with the fight, he said they were executed.”
Joren bowed his head solemnly.
“War has its price, even a just war,” he said. “I imagine you’ve seen more than your share of death.”
“Of course I have, and I always felt bad when our people died. But this time, it just felt like they died because of me.”
“Not all of your fights have been victories. I don’t know the details of every battle, but there will always be time when you can’t win no matter how hard you fight. When that’s the case, soldiers die, even under the best command.”
“I know. It isn’t that. Before, I always felt like all of us were fighting for something bigger: freedom, our own kingdom, the ones we cared about. But now, I just don’t know. Maybe they just fight because I convince them to, or because they think I can make life better for them somehow. It just wasn’t supposed to be like that.”
“What was it supposed to be then?”
“All I wanted at first was to kill the dragons who killed my parents. After my mother told me what happened to them, it was all I could think about for the longest time. I wasn’t even thinking about Talshak at first; he wasn’t there when my village was destroyed. I just wanted revenge.
“After a while, I just started thinking about it differently. I guess I just realized that my parents weren’t going to come back even if I killed everyone responsible for them dying. I started thinking about my family, and how they always had to be so cautious and stay so close to the weyr. The older dragons used to tell stories about the old days before Talshak, when dragons could fly anywhere they wanted without being afraid. They talked about the other clans and how some of them were gone because of Talshak and the rest might be too. We didn’t have any way of knowing if they were all right because we couldn’t travel that far safely. So I still wanted to make Talshak pay for what he’d done. But more than that, I wanted to make life better for my clan.
“And then when we started fighting the Keltarians and trying to get them out of Vaar territory, we kept meeting people who thought I was some kind of hero because of the sword and because we were winning battles. Honestly, I just didn’t know how bad the odds were back then. I didn’t understand how amazing it was that we were even surviving, let alone beating back the Keltarians. I just figured we could use the help so I let people join us if they wanted to. So I was getting to know them and I started realizing how bad things were for them too. And I thought that they had just as much right to be free as may clan did. So we started talking about what it might be like if we could get the Keltarians out for good and have our own kingdom.
“I always thought that the idea of being a free country was what brought everyone to the fight and kept them going. I though I was just the leader because I was there from the start and the sword made a good symbol. It wasn’t ever supposed to be about me. Now I even hear some of the generals talking about me being queen of our new country.”
“And you don’t want that?” Joren asked.
“No! I never asked for any of this. I don’t want all the responsibility. I don’t even want it now. The war shouldn’t hang on whether I survive or not. The people – they’re the ones doing the fighting and winning the battles. They’re strong. They shouldn’t need me and they don’t.”
“So you want to show them that they don’t need you?”
“No, that’s not it. I want them to understand that, but it’s not…it’s not what I want.
“I always thought that when all of this was over, if we actually won, I’d just go back home. It would be like it was before all the fighting, only better because nobody would have to be afraid anymore. But now, I just don’t feel like I have that choice. They look at me and they see a leader, a human, maybe even a future queen. And maybe they’re even right. I used to think my job was just to win the war, but what if it’s more than that?
“It just all feels like too much. I can’t be queen. I don’t even know if I want to. But I can’t just go home either. So I thought maybe it would be better just going…there.”
Cyra was looking up at the stars. Joren did the same. As he watched the distant lights he started to see something. Around each star there was a faint outline, a soft glow in a particular shape. As Joren continued to focus, he could make out various forms. Some were people, some animals, some were even plants. Some even appeared to be stones and water and other things. They weren’t constellations; every star had its own image surrounding it. Then Joren noticed something else. There were thin, near invisible beams of light coming down from the stars. Each star saw sending several of these beams of light down to the darkened world below. Stranger still, there were other beams of light coming up from the waking world into the sky. Joren followed the path of one and watched as it ended with the formation of a tiny new star. Every trail of light coming up into the sky did the same. Some of the new stars shone more brightly than others, but the birth of each seemed to make the night sky a little brighter.
“It’s beautiful,” Joren said softly. Cyra said nothing as they continued to watch the stars. Joren nodded silently to himself. This was definitely progress. He now fully understood the geography of this place: what lay below, what waited above, and where it was that they stood. Understanding the places he found himself in seldom pointed directly to a solution, but it usually helped.
“So,” Cyra said after a long silence, “is this the part where you take me back?” There was still a slight hesitation in her voice, but it was not as strong as it had been when she had first asked the question.
“I’m not here to take you back,” answered Joren, still looking up at the stars. Cyra’s eyes widened in surprise.
“You aren’t?”
Joren shook his head.
“I’ve never dragged anybody back kicking and screaming. Not sure it’s even possible. Sometimes I’ve had to lead people back because they couldn’t find the way on their own. But you seem quite clear on where to go if you want to get back to the world.
“At this point, there’s really not much left for me to do. You aren’t confused about your situation. You know what your choices are and what will happen in basic terms when you choose one or the other. I could spend a lifetime sitting on this mountain and talking to you, but I still wouldn’t completely understand what it is to be you. You’re the only one who knows that and you’re the only one who can make the decision.”
“So it’s my choice then. I can either go back and get better and keep fighting, or I can go up there and….die.”
It was the first time she had said the word, the first time she had admitted aloud what it was that she had considered doing. It was a good sign to Joren. People who just talked about “leaving” or “going away” were more likely to do so than people who called it by it’s true name.
“It’s your choice.”
“What would you do, if it was you?” Cyra asked. Joren sighed.
“Like I said, guessing doesn’t suit me and I can’t make this decision for you.”
“I know. I just want to know what you think.”
Joren didn’t answer right away. He looked up at the stars again and took a deep breath.
“I think you’re frightened, both from what happened to you and what you think might happen in the future. And I think that’s a very reasonable way to feel given your situation. It’s a very heavy burden for anyone to bear. You feel like others see you as something greater than you are and you feel like you can never live up to that image they have of you. Maybe it’s true; maybe you aren’t who they think you are. But I think it’s also possible that you are greater than you believe you are. There are people who depend on you in the world, yes. But there are people ready to support you too. There are people who gave their strength to send me to you.
“I know you are strong. It takes strength to live survive what you’ve been through for as long as you have. If I thought you were weak, I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving the decision to you just yet. But you are strong, so I trust you will make the right decision for you and not be influenced by other worries.
“I’ve never been a fighter myself, but we healers see nearly as much violence and war as soldiers do. I know war is a hard thing and likely much worse for the ones fighting it. But I’ve also learned that wars aren’t always won by great heroes who do things others can’t. Wars can because of a single lowly soldier, or one particularly fast horse, or a shield that held or broke, or one very small thing that no one even realizes was the reason the battle went the way it did.”
Joren paused for a moment. Cyra was watching him intensely.
“I don’t know how it works for you,” he continued, gesturing up at that sky. I don’t know if you get to see what happens after you die, whether the last battle is won or lost. But from the little I know, I think it would be very hard not knowing if you could have been that one small thing that made the difference.”
Cyra didn’t say anything. She looked up into the sky, then back down to the earth below. Joren stood.
“I think now is the time for me to go,” he said.
“You’re not going to stay until I decide?” Cyra asked, confused.
“As I said, the decision is yours now. I think you deserve to be alone when you make it.”
Cyra nodded. Joren took a few steps towards the edge of the plateau.
“Joren?” Cyra called. He stopped and turned to her.
“Yes?”
“If I decided to die, what would you tell everyone?”
Joren thought it over for a just a moment.
“I would tell them that we both did what we could, but the wounds were too great for you to go on.”
Cyra smiled at him, a small, slightly embarrassed smile.
“Thank you,” she said.
Joren nodded. He didn’t turn away from her this time. He took a step backwards, then another, then the last one off the edge of the plateau. He smiled up at Cyra looking down after him as he fell back down towards the waking world far below.
Part Seven, two days worth of writing, over 2,400 words, and finally the end of this scene. This is really the centerpiece of the whole story, so I knew it would probably run long. There's some interesting stuff in this part. As with magic, I feel like it was better not to spell everything out completely and I hope that works. I also realize that Cyra does a lot of not talking over the course of this scene, but I think that makes sense with where her mental state is.
We're definitely entering the home stretch. Part Eight or Nine should be the end.
Comments blahdy balh.
Cyra didn’t say anything for a while. She continued to stand with her back to Joren. He waited.
“What did you see,” she asked slowly, “when you looked at me?”
She turned her head slightly to look at Joren. His eyes met hers with a calm, steady gaze.
“Pain. And sadness. It’s a kind of dark energy; looks like something between lightning and water. It was concentrated around that scar on you cheek.”
Cyra brought her left hand up to her cheek. She traced the scar with a shaky finger.
“It’s nothing,” she said self-consciously.
“That may be,” Joren admitted. “Sometimes the apparent source of the energy is just a particularly painful wound. Or it could be completely meaningless. But still, that much negative energy isn’t good. It prevents the body from healing.”
“What causes it?” Cyra asked with a little hesitation.
“Any number of things. I’ve actually seen people who were so frightened by whatever had happened to them that they weren’t able to take the healing and recover. It can be anger, fear, sadness, or something else.”
“What do you think is causing it with me?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out. Like I said, it can be all kinds of things, so I can’t really know.”
“But what do you think?” Cyra turned so she was almost facing him. Her blue eyes watched him expectantly. Joren sighed.
“I don’t like making guesses. But if I had to, I’d suppose something happened that you hadn’t experienced before, something you weren’t prepared to deal with. And now you’re not certain if you can go back and face it again.”
Cyra just looked at him. She didn’t move. She didn’t say anything. She just stood looking at Joren for what seemed a very long time. The, slowly, she walked over to the rock Joren was leaning against and sat down near it. Joren sat too.
“I’ve been fighting for a long time,” Cyra began, her voice soft. “Even before the war I was always wrestling with my brothers and sisters. I still have scars from those days.”
“Your dragon family,” Joren said, just to make sure he understood. Cyra nodded.
“So it’s not like I’ve never been hurt before. I’ve been in plenty of battles where I could have died if something had happened just a little differently. But this….”
She trailed off and sat silent, hugging her knees to her chest. Joren said nothing, waiting for when she was ready to continue.
“It wasn’t just the pain,” she said at last. “It hurt more than anything, but I could have dealt with that. But, I guess it just never seemed that…. personal. He….”
Joren looked as her quizzically. Cyra winced, as if even saying the name was painful.
“Talshak. He didn’t just want to stop the rebellion or kill me. He wanted to hurt me. He seemed convinced that once I was…gone, the rebellion would fall apart.”
“Do you think that’s true?” Joren asked, trying to make it clear by his tone that he didn’t expect any particular answer.
“I don’t know. I didn’t think it was, but now I just don’t know. Talshak said it was total chaos when I fell on the battlefield, that everyone either ran or surrendered. And the people from the village, the ones who organized the people to help with the fight, he said they were executed.”
Joren bowed his head solemnly.
“War has its price, even a just war,” he said. “I imagine you’ve seen more than your share of death.”
“Of course I have, and I always felt bad when our people died. But this time, it just felt like they died because of me.”
“Not all of your fights have been victories. I don’t know the details of every battle, but there will always be time when you can’t win no matter how hard you fight. When that’s the case, soldiers die, even under the best command.”
“I know. It isn’t that. Before, I always felt like all of us were fighting for something bigger: freedom, our own kingdom, the ones we cared about. But now, I just don’t know. Maybe they just fight because I convince them to, or because they think I can make life better for them somehow. It just wasn’t supposed to be like that.”
“What was it supposed to be then?”
“All I wanted at first was to kill the dragons who killed my parents. After my mother told me what happened to them, it was all I could think about for the longest time. I wasn’t even thinking about Talshak at first; he wasn’t there when my village was destroyed. I just wanted revenge.
“After a while, I just started thinking about it differently. I guess I just realized that my parents weren’t going to come back even if I killed everyone responsible for them dying. I started thinking about my family, and how they always had to be so cautious and stay so close to the weyr. The older dragons used to tell stories about the old days before Talshak, when dragons could fly anywhere they wanted without being afraid. They talked about the other clans and how some of them were gone because of Talshak and the rest might be too. We didn’t have any way of knowing if they were all right because we couldn’t travel that far safely. So I still wanted to make Talshak pay for what he’d done. But more than that, I wanted to make life better for my clan.
“And then when we started fighting the Keltarians and trying to get them out of Vaar territory, we kept meeting people who thought I was some kind of hero because of the sword and because we were winning battles. Honestly, I just didn’t know how bad the odds were back then. I didn’t understand how amazing it was that we were even surviving, let alone beating back the Keltarians. I just figured we could use the help so I let people join us if they wanted to. So I was getting to know them and I started realizing how bad things were for them too. And I thought that they had just as much right to be free as may clan did. So we started talking about what it might be like if we could get the Keltarians out for good and have our own kingdom.
“I always thought that the idea of being a free country was what brought everyone to the fight and kept them going. I though I was just the leader because I was there from the start and the sword made a good symbol. It wasn’t ever supposed to be about me. Now I even hear some of the generals talking about me being queen of our new country.”
“And you don’t want that?” Joren asked.
“No! I never asked for any of this. I don’t want all the responsibility. I don’t even want it now. The war shouldn’t hang on whether I survive or not. The people – they’re the ones doing the fighting and winning the battles. They’re strong. They shouldn’t need me and they don’t.”
“So you want to show them that they don’t need you?”
“No, that’s not it. I want them to understand that, but it’s not…it’s not what I want.
“I always thought that when all of this was over, if we actually won, I’d just go back home. It would be like it was before all the fighting, only better because nobody would have to be afraid anymore. But now, I just don’t feel like I have that choice. They look at me and they see a leader, a human, maybe even a future queen. And maybe they’re even right. I used to think my job was just to win the war, but what if it’s more than that?
“It just all feels like too much. I can’t be queen. I don’t even know if I want to. But I can’t just go home either. So I thought maybe it would be better just going…there.”
Cyra was looking up at the stars. Joren did the same. As he watched the distant lights he started to see something. Around each star there was a faint outline, a soft glow in a particular shape. As Joren continued to focus, he could make out various forms. Some were people, some animals, some were even plants. Some even appeared to be stones and water and other things. They weren’t constellations; every star had its own image surrounding it. Then Joren noticed something else. There were thin, near invisible beams of light coming down from the stars. Each star saw sending several of these beams of light down to the darkened world below. Stranger still, there were other beams of light coming up from the waking world into the sky. Joren followed the path of one and watched as it ended with the formation of a tiny new star. Every trail of light coming up into the sky did the same. Some of the new stars shone more brightly than others, but the birth of each seemed to make the night sky a little brighter.
“It’s beautiful,” Joren said softly. Cyra said nothing as they continued to watch the stars. Joren nodded silently to himself. This was definitely progress. He now fully understood the geography of this place: what lay below, what waited above, and where it was that they stood. Understanding the places he found himself in seldom pointed directly to a solution, but it usually helped.
“So,” Cyra said after a long silence, “is this the part where you take me back?” There was still a slight hesitation in her voice, but it was not as strong as it had been when she had first asked the question.
“I’m not here to take you back,” answered Joren, still looking up at the stars. Cyra’s eyes widened in surprise.
“You aren’t?”
Joren shook his head.
“I’ve never dragged anybody back kicking and screaming. Not sure it’s even possible. Sometimes I’ve had to lead people back because they couldn’t find the way on their own. But you seem quite clear on where to go if you want to get back to the world.
“At this point, there’s really not much left for me to do. You aren’t confused about your situation. You know what your choices are and what will happen in basic terms when you choose one or the other. I could spend a lifetime sitting on this mountain and talking to you, but I still wouldn’t completely understand what it is to be you. You’re the only one who knows that and you’re the only one who can make the decision.”
“So it’s my choice then. I can either go back and get better and keep fighting, or I can go up there and….die.”
It was the first time she had said the word, the first time she had admitted aloud what it was that she had considered doing. It was a good sign to Joren. People who just talked about “leaving” or “going away” were more likely to do so than people who called it by it’s true name.
“It’s your choice.”
“What would you do, if it was you?” Cyra asked. Joren sighed.
“Like I said, guessing doesn’t suit me and I can’t make this decision for you.”
“I know. I just want to know what you think.”
Joren didn’t answer right away. He looked up at the stars again and took a deep breath.
“I think you’re frightened, both from what happened to you and what you think might happen in the future. And I think that’s a very reasonable way to feel given your situation. It’s a very heavy burden for anyone to bear. You feel like others see you as something greater than you are and you feel like you can never live up to that image they have of you. Maybe it’s true; maybe you aren’t who they think you are. But I think it’s also possible that you are greater than you believe you are. There are people who depend on you in the world, yes. But there are people ready to support you too. There are people who gave their strength to send me to you.
“I know you are strong. It takes strength to live survive what you’ve been through for as long as you have. If I thought you were weak, I wouldn’t feel comfortable leaving the decision to you just yet. But you are strong, so I trust you will make the right decision for you and not be influenced by other worries.
“I’ve never been a fighter myself, but we healers see nearly as much violence and war as soldiers do. I know war is a hard thing and likely much worse for the ones fighting it. But I’ve also learned that wars aren’t always won by great heroes who do things others can’t. Wars can because of a single lowly soldier, or one particularly fast horse, or a shield that held or broke, or one very small thing that no one even realizes was the reason the battle went the way it did.”
Joren paused for a moment. Cyra was watching him intensely.
“I don’t know how it works for you,” he continued, gesturing up at that sky. I don’t know if you get to see what happens after you die, whether the last battle is won or lost. But from the little I know, I think it would be very hard not knowing if you could have been that one small thing that made the difference.”
Cyra didn’t say anything. She looked up into the sky, then back down to the earth below. Joren stood.
“I think now is the time for me to go,” he said.
“You’re not going to stay until I decide?” Cyra asked, confused.
“As I said, the decision is yours now. I think you deserve to be alone when you make it.”
Cyra nodded. Joren took a few steps towards the edge of the plateau.
“Joren?” Cyra called. He stopped and turned to her.
“Yes?”
“If I decided to die, what would you tell everyone?”
Joren thought it over for a just a moment.
“I would tell them that we both did what we could, but the wounds were too great for you to go on.”
Cyra smiled at him, a small, slightly embarrassed smile.
“Thank you,” she said.
Joren nodded. He didn’t turn away from her this time. He took a step backwards, then another, then the last one off the edge of the plateau. He smiled up at Cyra looking down after him as he fell back down towards the waking world far below.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
The Lost History of Sathyriel, Part Six
OK, this part is going to be pretty long, so I'm just going to post what I've got, even though I haven't come to a break yet. This is the real meat of this part of the story and I am rather enjoying writing it. I hope it's going to continue to be enjoyable, as it's mostly just two people talking for the rest of the scene. One of the things I like about writing this section is that I don't entirely know where it's going. I know how it ends and I know some key points I have to hit along the way, but the conversation mostly just plays out as I write.
Comments blah blah.
There was no way for Joren to know how long he had been scaling the steep rocky face of the mountain. Time seemed to follow different rules in this place. There had been times when what seemed to him no more than the duration of an eye blink had been nearly a day in the waking world. Other times he had spent what seemed weeks exploring a place and awoke to find mere moments had passed since he had first tackled the injury. He had learned to simply disregard the passage of time here and concentrate on the task at hand. The only measure he needed to worry about was the amount of oma he had left.
Joren grunted as a foothold he had been testing proved too shallow and his right foot slipped. Calmly, he shifted his weight to his left foot and his hands and felt for a more secure foothold. He had to admit that he was not enjoying the climb. Physical exertion was not his strong suit, even when his physical body wasn’t really involved. He could have made it easier on himself. Sprouting wings or summoning a wind to carry him up the mountain would have been much easier and faster. But Joren had always made it a policy to work his way through whatever obstacles his patients threw at him without aid. It seemed more honest, and it often told him something about the problem he would be facing.
Slowly, Joren continued to make his way up the mountainside. The going was no easier as he neared the top and he nearly fell more than once. Still, he persevered, pulling himself up inch by inch, keeping focused on the summit. Finally, he grabbed hold of a ledge above him, pulled himself up, and beheld the top of the mountain.
The mountain’s peaked was slightly leveled off, though the ground was still more jagged than smooth. Rough stones and little spires of rock jutted out here and there. The whole plateau was bathed in moonlight. Above was nothing but wide-open night sky. On the mountain top there was only Joren, and Cyra, standing a short distance away from Joren, her back partly turned to him.
Joren was quite accustomed to his patients looking very different when he encountered them in this world. Here, people appeared the way they saw themselves. The elderly could regain their younger bodies; the young often grew older. The infirm often appeared strong and healthy and the well ones at times were sick, injured, or even mutilated. Joren himself looked quite similar to his physical appearance, save for the white-blue glow of his skin. Joren had seen any number of strange alterations to the way people looked when he tired to heal them. But he had never seen a change quite as dramatic as Cyra’s appearance.
Cyra’s skin was white, far paler than the skin of her physical body would be, even awash in moonlight like this. If he looked hard enough, Joren could make out faint traces of scales here and there. Her hair had become numerous slender spikes arcing back from her head. Probably the most dramatic new feature was the wings. They were dragon wings, with dark blue membranes between the long white digits that each ended in pale claws the color of bone. They were unfurled, but lowered so the bottom edges rested on the stone beneath her. She was looking up into the sky. If she had noticed Joren, she did not seem to care.
Joren would have continued simply watch Cyra until she took notice of him, but the strain of scaling the mountain could not be held back any longer. With great effort, Joren pulled his lower body up onto the plateau. He made no effort to hide either himself or his exhaustion. He flopped onto the hard ground, rolled over, and lay on his back, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. The stone beneath him was rough, but just feeling that it was stable and holding his weight was enough to comfort Joren. He checked the remaining oma as he lay resting. From the time he had first battled the dark energy of Cyra’s wound up to now, he had used up almost two-thirds of what he had gathered. It was more than he would have liked, but not so much that he was worried he would need to leave right away. Feeling his strength slowly returning, Joren sighed contentedly and opened his eyes.
Cyra was crouched down next to him, looking at him. Her face was what Joren had expected from the changes to her body: neither human nor dragon, but something in between. The top of her head sloped down into a short snout, much shorter than a dragon’s. She had two small nostrils that alternately flared and shut as she breathed. Her mouth was closed, but Joren had a feeling he would not want to see it opened at him in anger. The scar that had brought him here was still on her cheek, dark against the white of her scaled skin. Her deep blue eyes stared down at him in puzzlement.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Joren Roosdrahm,” he replied as he sat up with a grunt. “I’m a healer.”
Cyra frowned and rose to her feet.
“I’ve had healers working on me. Lots of them. Why are you here.”
“I’m here because the other healers have done the best they could and it hasn’t been enough. So they sent for me to try something different.”
Cyra had turned her attentions back to the sky, gazing out into the stars.
“So I’m dying,” she said quietly. She did not sound surprised, or even all that concerned.
“Possibly.” Joren leaned on one hand as he up and stretched his arms.
“And you want to take me back.”
Cyra’s gaze fell from the starlit sky to the ground far below. Joren followed it, peering down at the darkened earth where he had begun his climb up the mountain. At first, it looked like nothing but a great void, but as his eyes adjusted, Joren could make out familiar shapes. There were trees and buildings and lakes and rivers. He could even see other mountains, though the one they were atop seemed to tower above all of them. The whole waking world lay stretched out beneath them, tiny when viewed from such a great height.
“Is that what you want me to do?”
Cyra whirled to face him, her eyes nearly sparking with anger and indignation.
“Of course it is! Why wouldn’t I want to be healed?”
Joren held up his hands and took a small step back.
“I didn’t mean to assume anything. If you wish to go back to the waking world, we can do it right now.”
“So that’s it?” Cyra’s brow was furrowed with skepticism and there was a slight hesitation in her voice. “You just come and get me and then I’m healed?”
“Possibly,” Joren said again. “Though I suspect it may not be quite that simple.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Joren began, leaning back against a particularly large rock, “most cases I treat could be solves by any good healer. They don’t require anything more than basic healing magic or a few potions and bandages. I just happen to be the healer who’s around right then, so I do what needs to be done. But when people call for me specifically like you friends did, it’s usually because the standard magic and potions and other methods aren’t working. By all rights, the person should be improving, but the body just doesn’t seem to be accepting the healers’ work for some reason.”
Joren paused. Cyra had her arms folded across her chest. She wasn’t looking at him.
“So what do you do?” she asked.
“I try to find out why they aren’t getting better,” Joren explained. “I trained under several different masters – eccentrics all of them – and I learned a different method of healing. I can see certain things: connections between living things, positive and negative energies, sources of pain. It helps me to find the root of the problem. And I can connect with people like I’m connecting with you. I try to help them so they can start to heal.”
“Do they ever die – the people you’re trying to heal?”
“Yes.” Joren’s voice was solemn, but steady. “Sometimes they’re just ready to die or they’re too badly hurt to help by the time I get to them. Then I just try to make them comfortable. Sometime the best thing I can do is to help them to accept that they’re dying, though it’s often little comfort to those left behind. And sometimes I try my best to heal them, but it just isn’t enough.”
“Do you feel bad when they die?” Cyra was almost completely turned away from Joren, but he could see she had her hand up near her mouth.
“Oh yes. Even when I know going in that all I can do is help them die a little more peacefully, it’s still hard. I tell myself I did what I could and mostly I do believe that. But I always do wonder a little if there was some way I could have done more, given more, if that would have made a difference. And talking to the people who cared about the one that died, that never gets any easier. I have a not entirely deserved reputation for being able to heal people no one else can and it leads to some unrealistic expectations. I try to just take it when they get angry at me for not being able to help. I try to think about how much pain they’re in and that I’m just the most convenient target for all the anger they feel. But even when they don’t blame me at all, even when they’re the ones telling me I did all I could, it’s never easy. It could well be the hardest part of what I do.”
Comments blah blah.
There was no way for Joren to know how long he had been scaling the steep rocky face of the mountain. Time seemed to follow different rules in this place. There had been times when what seemed to him no more than the duration of an eye blink had been nearly a day in the waking world. Other times he had spent what seemed weeks exploring a place and awoke to find mere moments had passed since he had first tackled the injury. He had learned to simply disregard the passage of time here and concentrate on the task at hand. The only measure he needed to worry about was the amount of oma he had left.
Joren grunted as a foothold he had been testing proved too shallow and his right foot slipped. Calmly, he shifted his weight to his left foot and his hands and felt for a more secure foothold. He had to admit that he was not enjoying the climb. Physical exertion was not his strong suit, even when his physical body wasn’t really involved. He could have made it easier on himself. Sprouting wings or summoning a wind to carry him up the mountain would have been much easier and faster. But Joren had always made it a policy to work his way through whatever obstacles his patients threw at him without aid. It seemed more honest, and it often told him something about the problem he would be facing.
Slowly, Joren continued to make his way up the mountainside. The going was no easier as he neared the top and he nearly fell more than once. Still, he persevered, pulling himself up inch by inch, keeping focused on the summit. Finally, he grabbed hold of a ledge above him, pulled himself up, and beheld the top of the mountain.
The mountain’s peaked was slightly leveled off, though the ground was still more jagged than smooth. Rough stones and little spires of rock jutted out here and there. The whole plateau was bathed in moonlight. Above was nothing but wide-open night sky. On the mountain top there was only Joren, and Cyra, standing a short distance away from Joren, her back partly turned to him.
Joren was quite accustomed to his patients looking very different when he encountered them in this world. Here, people appeared the way they saw themselves. The elderly could regain their younger bodies; the young often grew older. The infirm often appeared strong and healthy and the well ones at times were sick, injured, or even mutilated. Joren himself looked quite similar to his physical appearance, save for the white-blue glow of his skin. Joren had seen any number of strange alterations to the way people looked when he tired to heal them. But he had never seen a change quite as dramatic as Cyra’s appearance.
Cyra’s skin was white, far paler than the skin of her physical body would be, even awash in moonlight like this. If he looked hard enough, Joren could make out faint traces of scales here and there. Her hair had become numerous slender spikes arcing back from her head. Probably the most dramatic new feature was the wings. They were dragon wings, with dark blue membranes between the long white digits that each ended in pale claws the color of bone. They were unfurled, but lowered so the bottom edges rested on the stone beneath her. She was looking up into the sky. If she had noticed Joren, she did not seem to care.
Joren would have continued simply watch Cyra until she took notice of him, but the strain of scaling the mountain could not be held back any longer. With great effort, Joren pulled his lower body up onto the plateau. He made no effort to hide either himself or his exhaustion. He flopped onto the hard ground, rolled over, and lay on his back, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. The stone beneath him was rough, but just feeling that it was stable and holding his weight was enough to comfort Joren. He checked the remaining oma as he lay resting. From the time he had first battled the dark energy of Cyra’s wound up to now, he had used up almost two-thirds of what he had gathered. It was more than he would have liked, but not so much that he was worried he would need to leave right away. Feeling his strength slowly returning, Joren sighed contentedly and opened his eyes.
Cyra was crouched down next to him, looking at him. Her face was what Joren had expected from the changes to her body: neither human nor dragon, but something in between. The top of her head sloped down into a short snout, much shorter than a dragon’s. She had two small nostrils that alternately flared and shut as she breathed. Her mouth was closed, but Joren had a feeling he would not want to see it opened at him in anger. The scar that had brought him here was still on her cheek, dark against the white of her scaled skin. Her deep blue eyes stared down at him in puzzlement.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Joren Roosdrahm,” he replied as he sat up with a grunt. “I’m a healer.”
Cyra frowned and rose to her feet.
“I’ve had healers working on me. Lots of them. Why are you here.”
“I’m here because the other healers have done the best they could and it hasn’t been enough. So they sent for me to try something different.”
Cyra had turned her attentions back to the sky, gazing out into the stars.
“So I’m dying,” she said quietly. She did not sound surprised, or even all that concerned.
“Possibly.” Joren leaned on one hand as he up and stretched his arms.
“And you want to take me back.”
Cyra’s gaze fell from the starlit sky to the ground far below. Joren followed it, peering down at the darkened earth where he had begun his climb up the mountain. At first, it looked like nothing but a great void, but as his eyes adjusted, Joren could make out familiar shapes. There were trees and buildings and lakes and rivers. He could even see other mountains, though the one they were atop seemed to tower above all of them. The whole waking world lay stretched out beneath them, tiny when viewed from such a great height.
“Is that what you want me to do?”
Cyra whirled to face him, her eyes nearly sparking with anger and indignation.
“Of course it is! Why wouldn’t I want to be healed?”
Joren held up his hands and took a small step back.
“I didn’t mean to assume anything. If you wish to go back to the waking world, we can do it right now.”
“So that’s it?” Cyra’s brow was furrowed with skepticism and there was a slight hesitation in her voice. “You just come and get me and then I’m healed?”
“Possibly,” Joren said again. “Though I suspect it may not be quite that simple.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Joren began, leaning back against a particularly large rock, “most cases I treat could be solves by any good healer. They don’t require anything more than basic healing magic or a few potions and bandages. I just happen to be the healer who’s around right then, so I do what needs to be done. But when people call for me specifically like you friends did, it’s usually because the standard magic and potions and other methods aren’t working. By all rights, the person should be improving, but the body just doesn’t seem to be accepting the healers’ work for some reason.”
Joren paused. Cyra had her arms folded across her chest. She wasn’t looking at him.
“So what do you do?” she asked.
“I try to find out why they aren’t getting better,” Joren explained. “I trained under several different masters – eccentrics all of them – and I learned a different method of healing. I can see certain things: connections between living things, positive and negative energies, sources of pain. It helps me to find the root of the problem. And I can connect with people like I’m connecting with you. I try to help them so they can start to heal.”
“Do they ever die – the people you’re trying to heal?”
“Yes.” Joren’s voice was solemn, but steady. “Sometimes they’re just ready to die or they’re too badly hurt to help by the time I get to them. Then I just try to make them comfortable. Sometime the best thing I can do is to help them to accept that they’re dying, though it’s often little comfort to those left behind. And sometimes I try my best to heal them, but it just isn’t enough.”
“Do you feel bad when they die?” Cyra was almost completely turned away from Joren, but he could see she had her hand up near her mouth.
“Oh yes. Even when I know going in that all I can do is help them die a little more peacefully, it’s still hard. I tell myself I did what I could and mostly I do believe that. But I always do wonder a little if there was some way I could have done more, given more, if that would have made a difference. And talking to the people who cared about the one that died, that never gets any easier. I have a not entirely deserved reputation for being able to heal people no one else can and it leads to some unrealistic expectations. I try to just take it when they get angry at me for not being able to help. I try to think about how much pain they’re in and that I’m just the most convenient target for all the anger they feel. But even when they don’t blame me at all, even when they’re the ones telling me I did all I could, it’s never easy. It could well be the hardest part of what I do.”
Monday, February 11, 2008
The Lost History of Sathyriel, Part Five
A short part, but one I feel the need to separate from the next. More lost italics: all of the dialogue is italicized to indicate that they're speaking Rannak. Rannak, incidentally, is NOT the dragons' native tongue; it's the language humans and dragons use to speak to each other. The word "Rannak" comes from a very old dragon word meaning "compromise". Most human speech sounds very high and fast to dragons, while human usually find dragon speech very slow and tonally based. Rannak is an attempt to split the difference.
Comments as always
Peren never had trouble finding the dragon. Even though the creature was doing her best to follow Peren’s instructions and remain hidden, her trail of crushed plants and broken tree limbs was easy to pick up. Day or night, her brilliant white scales stood out in sharp contrast to the dark trees and thick undergrowth surrounding her. So it was only moments after leaving the farmhouse that Peren came upon the spot where the dragon laid waiting.
Even curled up with her head resting near the tip of her tail, the dragon was impressively large. She seemed impossibly big and out of place against the backdrop of trees. She would have towered over any animal that lived in the wood, had any of them dared to come that near.
The dragon was quite still, possibly in an attempt to keep from being noticed. Her pale blue wings lay folded against her sides, gently rising and falling as she breathed. Her eyelids, always kept low over her dark eyes, closed and opened in languid blinks. Only the deadly sharp claws of her front feet truly moved, scraping at the ground in a nervous, repetitive motion. She did not look up us Peren approached, not even when Peren was standing no more than a few feet away.
“Great Dragon, I am honored in your presence,” Peren recited. At least, she thought that was what it meant. The little Rannak Peren knew had been taught to her by her father who had learned it from his mother. She in, turn, had learned it from her mother, who had learned it from her father. Peren’s great-great-grandfather had been born to dragoncallers, but had left the village at a young age and settled in Ormel. Each generation since had shown a little less inclination to fully learn Rannak and ended up with a little less knowledge to pass on to new generations. Peren herself had only ever learned as much of the rough, throaty language as her father had insisted on teaching her. It was only when she had joined the resistance and dragons had gone from rare creatures that you be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of soaring away in the distance to comrades in arms fighting by her side that Rannak had gained any real significance for her. Other soldiers were impressed by Peren’s ability to roughly figure out what Cyra and the dragons were talking about. It had helped Peren to stand out, but it had never been necessary before now and Peren was starting to realize how painfully inadequate her Rannak really was.
“My daughter?” the dragon asked, as far as Peren understood it. She raised her head a little, but did not look directly at Peren. They had talked several times now, yet the dragon had never looked straight at Peren or fully opened her eyes. Peren wasn’t sure if this was how the dragon always behaved or just a sign of her worry.
“Forgive me, please,” Peren began, fumbling for the right words. “I have mistake. You mother. Cyra your daughter.”
“My daughter?” the dragon asked again. There was more to the question, but it was beyond Peren’s understanding. Her best guess was that the dragon wanted to know about Cyra’s condition.
“Cyra rest,” said Peren. “Cyra not awake. Healer works now.”
“Daughter lives? Peren was surprised by the seeming frankness of the dragon’s question, though she couldn’t be certain that she had the intent of the translation right. The dragon’s repetitive scraping at the earth gouged deeper and deeper lines into the soil.
“I not know,” Peren admitted. “Healer works hard. Healer works good. Good healer.”
“Last healer,” the dragon added, and Peren could not mistake the meaning this time. The dragon knew full well that they were out of time and options. Joren was their last hope.
“Yes. Forgive, please.” Peren didn’t know the Rannak for “sorry”, or even if it was any different than “forgive”.
The dragon’s claws stopped ripping at the ground. Slowly, she rose to her feet, lightly shaking out her wings. Peren swallowed nervously. She didn’t want to have to try and convince the dragon to stay hidden in the woods again. It had been hard enough the first time and now Peren could see why the dragon wouldn’t want to be separated from her daughter. But the dragon made no move to leave. She raised her head to the sky, her long neck arcing gracefully. Opening her mouth, the dragon let out a soft, high-pitched cry. She held the high tone for a minute, then let it drop slowly, lowering her head along with the pitch. She fell briefly silent, and then repeated the cry again.
Peren could feel her knees trembling involuntarily as she watched the dragon. She had heard a dragon call to other dragons before. Those had all been near-deafening roars you could hear over an almost unbelievable distance. This cry was far too soft to carry very far and it was much different. Though there was nothing to translate, Peren had very little doubt of what the dragon meant.
At first, Peren just stood where she was, watching awkwardly. It felt like she was intruding on a private moment, and yet something in her did not want to leave the dragon alone. She took a tentative step towards the dragon. The dragon took no notice and continued on with her keening cries. Peren took another step, then another, until she was right at the dragon’s side. She gingerly reached out her hand and touched just the fingertips to the dragon’s side. The smooth scaled trembled briefly at her touch, but the dragon did not move. Gaining confidence, Peren laid the whole of her hand on the dragon. The dragon lifted her head and let out another cry into the night. Peren could feel the sound rippling through her whole body. It was almost overwhelming and Peren nearly pulled her hand away. But even through the heavy reverberation, Peren could sense the dragon’s sadness more clearly than ever before. Without thinking, Peren raised her head and echoed the dragon’s cry. It was a poor imitation; Peren lacked the knowledge and the lungs to do the sound justice. But she cried out as accurately and sincerely as she could.
The dragon stopped. She turned her arrow shaped white head until the heavy-lidded eyes came as close as they ever had to looking right at Peren. Peren could only see a sliver of the dragon’s eyes, but they were darker, darker than the darkest night sky. A small prickle of fear ran up Peren’s spine and she wondered whether she had done the right thing.
In answer, the dragon raised her head and howled out her cry again. Peren did the same and so they continued. The dragon let out her long, mournful cry of grief and worry for her daughter and Peren joined in with her. At last, the dragon lowered her head and did not raise it again. She laid back down on the forest floor, resting her head near Peren.
“I thank you,” the dragon said softly.
Peren may not have fully understood, but she knew what the dragon meant.
Comments as always
Peren never had trouble finding the dragon. Even though the creature was doing her best to follow Peren’s instructions and remain hidden, her trail of crushed plants and broken tree limbs was easy to pick up. Day or night, her brilliant white scales stood out in sharp contrast to the dark trees and thick undergrowth surrounding her. So it was only moments after leaving the farmhouse that Peren came upon the spot where the dragon laid waiting.
Even curled up with her head resting near the tip of her tail, the dragon was impressively large. She seemed impossibly big and out of place against the backdrop of trees. She would have towered over any animal that lived in the wood, had any of them dared to come that near.
The dragon was quite still, possibly in an attempt to keep from being noticed. Her pale blue wings lay folded against her sides, gently rising and falling as she breathed. Her eyelids, always kept low over her dark eyes, closed and opened in languid blinks. Only the deadly sharp claws of her front feet truly moved, scraping at the ground in a nervous, repetitive motion. She did not look up us Peren approached, not even when Peren was standing no more than a few feet away.
“Great Dragon, I am honored in your presence,” Peren recited. At least, she thought that was what it meant. The little Rannak Peren knew had been taught to her by her father who had learned it from his mother. She in, turn, had learned it from her mother, who had learned it from her father. Peren’s great-great-grandfather had been born to dragoncallers, but had left the village at a young age and settled in Ormel. Each generation since had shown a little less inclination to fully learn Rannak and ended up with a little less knowledge to pass on to new generations. Peren herself had only ever learned as much of the rough, throaty language as her father had insisted on teaching her. It was only when she had joined the resistance and dragons had gone from rare creatures that you be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of soaring away in the distance to comrades in arms fighting by her side that Rannak had gained any real significance for her. Other soldiers were impressed by Peren’s ability to roughly figure out what Cyra and the dragons were talking about. It had helped Peren to stand out, but it had never been necessary before now and Peren was starting to realize how painfully inadequate her Rannak really was.
“My daughter?” the dragon asked, as far as Peren understood it. She raised her head a little, but did not look directly at Peren. They had talked several times now, yet the dragon had never looked straight at Peren or fully opened her eyes. Peren wasn’t sure if this was how the dragon always behaved or just a sign of her worry.
“Forgive me, please,” Peren began, fumbling for the right words. “I have mistake. You mother. Cyra your daughter.”
“My daughter?” the dragon asked again. There was more to the question, but it was beyond Peren’s understanding. Her best guess was that the dragon wanted to know about Cyra’s condition.
“Cyra rest,” said Peren. “Cyra not awake. Healer works now.”
“Daughter lives? Peren was surprised by the seeming frankness of the dragon’s question, though she couldn’t be certain that she had the intent of the translation right. The dragon’s repetitive scraping at the earth gouged deeper and deeper lines into the soil.
“I not know,” Peren admitted. “Healer works hard. Healer works good. Good healer.”
“Last healer,” the dragon added, and Peren could not mistake the meaning this time. The dragon knew full well that they were out of time and options. Joren was their last hope.
“Yes. Forgive, please.” Peren didn’t know the Rannak for “sorry”, or even if it was any different than “forgive”.
The dragon’s claws stopped ripping at the ground. Slowly, she rose to her feet, lightly shaking out her wings. Peren swallowed nervously. She didn’t want to have to try and convince the dragon to stay hidden in the woods again. It had been hard enough the first time and now Peren could see why the dragon wouldn’t want to be separated from her daughter. But the dragon made no move to leave. She raised her head to the sky, her long neck arcing gracefully. Opening her mouth, the dragon let out a soft, high-pitched cry. She held the high tone for a minute, then let it drop slowly, lowering her head along with the pitch. She fell briefly silent, and then repeated the cry again.
Peren could feel her knees trembling involuntarily as she watched the dragon. She had heard a dragon call to other dragons before. Those had all been near-deafening roars you could hear over an almost unbelievable distance. This cry was far too soft to carry very far and it was much different. Though there was nothing to translate, Peren had very little doubt of what the dragon meant.
At first, Peren just stood where she was, watching awkwardly. It felt like she was intruding on a private moment, and yet something in her did not want to leave the dragon alone. She took a tentative step towards the dragon. The dragon took no notice and continued on with her keening cries. Peren took another step, then another, until she was right at the dragon’s side. She gingerly reached out her hand and touched just the fingertips to the dragon’s side. The smooth scaled trembled briefly at her touch, but the dragon did not move. Gaining confidence, Peren laid the whole of her hand on the dragon. The dragon lifted her head and let out another cry into the night. Peren could feel the sound rippling through her whole body. It was almost overwhelming and Peren nearly pulled her hand away. But even through the heavy reverberation, Peren could sense the dragon’s sadness more clearly than ever before. Without thinking, Peren raised her head and echoed the dragon’s cry. It was a poor imitation; Peren lacked the knowledge and the lungs to do the sound justice. But she cried out as accurately and sincerely as she could.
The dragon stopped. She turned her arrow shaped white head until the heavy-lidded eyes came as close as they ever had to looking right at Peren. Peren could only see a sliver of the dragon’s eyes, but they were darker, darker than the darkest night sky. A small prickle of fear ran up Peren’s spine and she wondered whether she had done the right thing.
In answer, the dragon raised her head and howled out her cry again. Peren did the same and so they continued. The dragon let out her long, mournful cry of grief and worry for her daughter and Peren joined in with her. At last, the dragon lowered her head and did not raise it again. She laid back down on the forest floor, resting her head near Peren.
“I thank you,” the dragon said softly.
Peren may not have fully understood, but she knew what the dragon meant.
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