<![CDATA[ORIGIN - Elsewhere]]> https://origin.boreal-nights.space/ Sat, 24 Oct 2026 17:16:04 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[FIRE & STONE]]> https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=12644 Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:33:23 -0500 https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=12644 Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:
violence
gore





They weren't losing. The leadership of the nation of Kalizal was not losing. They'd survived generations of outright warfare with their neighbors, the people of Alv. They'd build their cities of black rock on the faces of dormant volcanos, and used the deadly, shifting shale of the upward paths as their defense. Their walls were imposing black obelisks that stood out against the smoke-filled air of this world, appearing like monoliths as one drew close, warding against any attack. The ballistas, the trebuchets, the boiling and flaming oil, the rock-falls... they had numerous defenses to rain down on those damn Alvian raids.

Alv... The raiders. The steppe-folk, all black chainmail and deer-mounted bowmen, throwing-bombs and spears. They were notorious for their lightning assaults, their decimation of trade routes. Nobody could remember how long the two nations had been at war on this dying world, this place of black rock and pluming lava. Nobody could remember how the wars had started.

Kalizal had prepared an assault to end all assaults: a war-party of their own. One that would ride down their mountains, a rare descent from their fortresses of steam and churning smoke. Their soldiers would leave the safety of their walls, the thump of their machinery, and encircle the Alvian capital of Alvar at dawn, when the raiders were likely to be only just returning. They'd prepare, and... Well.

"They were already dead," the scout panted. One of the few who'd seen it. One of the few who'd made it back inside of those precious walls.

The military leadership hadn't understood, at first. Disease? (they'd asked.) A flood, a fire? "Th-they were... eaten, s-sir."

Eaten. They were processing this when the horns began to blow, discordant and deafening, filling the city. The walls all went on alert at once. The leadership--suspecting an Alvian counter-attack--rushed to the walls.

What they found was... monsters. Beasts the likes of which this rocky world had never seen. Monstrosities with scything limbs and glowing eyes, slavering jaws--sometimes more than one--and a savagery unmatched by even the Rock Wolves to the north. The beasts tried the walls. Some of them made it over--climbing, flying. They wreaked havoc. By the time the ballistas and soldiers could take each out, circles of massacred soldiers and civilians were piled in circles of blood around their corpses.

The rest of the beasts circled back, stymied by the walls.

Kalizal's own army, still returning from the field, caught the monsters from behind. It didn't matter. The gates were closed, and could not open. While many of the beasts were cut down, the soldiers were forced to retreat. And the monsters followed them. No scouts could reach them, and the leadership--watching with dismay as many of the beasts peeled away from the walls to hunt (there could be no other word for it--it was no real battle)--had to assume the army was either dead, or fled.

But they were not losing.

They had been at war for generations. Their livestock, bred from the creatures of the volcanic fields; their underground farms, lit by lava-light... these had kept their cities alive for years while under siege. The black, smooth walls still stood. The burning oil still poured, and mined rocks still rained down. The beasts had fallen, one by one, though far too many yet remained.

All they had to do was survive. All they had to do was trust in their walls.

* * * * *


"So yeah you're gonna go under the walls," said the scrawny, overly-tall Valkhound before Gravedigger. It was picking its teeth, its perpetual grin widening. "Don't try to just come up and fight them. There's, like, a lot." It laughed, a raucous sound, and gestured to the distant city. "Make us openings. We'll use them! Some of us will die. It'll be GLORIOUS. We'll fucking wreck them first, 'course. Then, uh. What was it."

The beast paused, wracking its brain, consulting the orders it was meant to pass on. Loose orders, though; there was no real hierarchy here. Just demons, unleashed. "Oh, right. You have big ears." A long forelimb reached out, a claw aiming to gently flick one, just in case Gravedigger didn't know where his ears were. "Listen for stuff that might be important. Important buildings. Leaders. Dig it all down from underneath. Uhh. Leadership. Important machines. Whatever." It pulled a bone from its teeth at last, tossing it aside, and licked its jaws with a too-long, glowing tongue. "And destabilize the walls. Dig those down if you can. They can hold out awhile. But honestly... do whatever. Don't die. Kill shit." It nodded wisely.

Enter: Gravedigger, a creature purpose-built to destroy Kalizal.

The city wasn't losing... yet.


@Gravedigger]]> Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:
violence
gore





They weren't losing. The leadership of the nation of Kalizal was not losing. They'd survived generations of outright warfare with their neighbors, the people of Alv. They'd build their cities of black rock on the faces of dormant volcanos, and used the deadly, shifting shale of the upward paths as their defense. Their walls were imposing black obelisks that stood out against the smoke-filled air of this world, appearing like monoliths as one drew close, warding against any attack. The ballistas, the trebuchets, the boiling and flaming oil, the rock-falls... they had numerous defenses to rain down on those damn Alvian raids.

Alv... The raiders. The steppe-folk, all black chainmail and deer-mounted bowmen, throwing-bombs and spears. They were notorious for their lightning assaults, their decimation of trade routes. Nobody could remember how long the two nations had been at war on this dying world, this place of black rock and pluming lava. Nobody could remember how the wars had started.

Kalizal had prepared an assault to end all assaults: a war-party of their own. One that would ride down their mountains, a rare descent from their fortresses of steam and churning smoke. Their soldiers would leave the safety of their walls, the thump of their machinery, and encircle the Alvian capital of Alvar at dawn, when the raiders were likely to be only just returning. They'd prepare, and... Well.

"They were already dead," the scout panted. One of the few who'd seen it. One of the few who'd made it back inside of those precious walls.

The military leadership hadn't understood, at first. Disease? (they'd asked.) A flood, a fire? "Th-they were... eaten, s-sir."

Eaten. They were processing this when the horns began to blow, discordant and deafening, filling the city. The walls all went on alert at once. The leadership--suspecting an Alvian counter-attack--rushed to the walls.

What they found was... monsters. Beasts the likes of which this rocky world had never seen. Monstrosities with scything limbs and glowing eyes, slavering jaws--sometimes more than one--and a savagery unmatched by even the Rock Wolves to the north. The beasts tried the walls. Some of them made it over--climbing, flying. They wreaked havoc. By the time the ballistas and soldiers could take each out, circles of massacred soldiers and civilians were piled in circles of blood around their corpses.

The rest of the beasts circled back, stymied by the walls.

Kalizal's own army, still returning from the field, caught the monsters from behind. It didn't matter. The gates were closed, and could not open. While many of the beasts were cut down, the soldiers were forced to retreat. And the monsters followed them. No scouts could reach them, and the leadership--watching with dismay as many of the beasts peeled away from the walls to hunt (there could be no other word for it--it was no real battle)--had to assume the army was either dead, or fled.

But they were not losing.

They had been at war for generations. Their livestock, bred from the creatures of the volcanic fields; their underground farms, lit by lava-light... these had kept their cities alive for years while under siege. The black, smooth walls still stood. The burning oil still poured, and mined rocks still rained down. The beasts had fallen, one by one, though far too many yet remained.

All they had to do was survive. All they had to do was trust in their walls.

* * * * *


"So yeah you're gonna go under the walls," said the scrawny, overly-tall Valkhound before Gravedigger. It was picking its teeth, its perpetual grin widening. "Don't try to just come up and fight them. There's, like, a lot." It laughed, a raucous sound, and gestured to the distant city. "Make us openings. We'll use them! Some of us will die. It'll be GLORIOUS. We'll fucking wreck them first, 'course. Then, uh. What was it."

The beast paused, wracking its brain, consulting the orders it was meant to pass on. Loose orders, though; there was no real hierarchy here. Just demons, unleashed. "Oh, right. You have big ears." A long forelimb reached out, a claw aiming to gently flick one, just in case Gravedigger didn't know where his ears were. "Listen for stuff that might be important. Important buildings. Leaders. Dig it all down from underneath. Uhh. Leadership. Important machines. Whatever." It pulled a bone from its teeth at last, tossing it aside, and licked its jaws with a too-long, glowing tongue. "And destabilize the walls. Dig those down if you can. They can hold out awhile. But honestly... do whatever. Don't die. Kill shit." It nodded wisely.

Enter: Gravedigger, a creature purpose-built to destroy Kalizal.

The city wasn't losing... yet.


@Gravedigger]]> <![CDATA[BITE OF THE BLACK WOLF]]> https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=10537 Wed, 12 Jan 2022 12:45:36 -0600 https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=10537 A silhouette stood against the pale sky of a desert and barren land, its colors dreary and dull, monochrome ashen and shade. He was looking down upon the Empire from a vista atop the Black Tower, named for him, the Black Wolf of Verin. It was his to control, his to oversee, his to do with as he pleased, and this included any captives that found their way into the Wolf's Jaw: his own personal dungeon for savages and others of that ilk. The thought of them curled his lip. That such blights plagued them even yet!

The Wolf was clad in deep black armor that rose into points where it could—from fingers to shoulders, toes to thighs—and a stylized wolf-like helmet with a large grin of fangs. Draped about him was a long cloak with a plush collar of real fur. Beneath the openings of his helmet, one could spy his pale skin and the sharp ice blue eyes that spied back. At present, as he faced the bleak Verinen landscape, his hands were clasped behind his back and he was lost deep in thought. Behind him was a room full of waiting souls, but none dare disrupt their thinking prince.

The Black Wolf of Verin, a man clad in black armor with a long cloak
The Black Wolf of Verin


Finally, he turned to view them, cloak twirling with an exaggerated swoosh. They were at the top of the tower in a circular room, its windows and doors barred by the soapy sheen of magical barriers. In its center shimmered the glowing circle that the witches had painted and enchanted, and now sat kneeled around at sparse intervals with some empty spaces that suggested some had been removed. Now there were seven of them, shivering and waiting and sneering as the Black Wolf stepped toward them. Heavy boots clicked against chiseled obsidian floors, mock claws scraping the shine from its polished surface. He stopped before the lifeless body of a recently culled witch who had dared defy him; a few other bodies lay pushed against the walls.

"Mmm," he hummed after a drawn breath, "Now that we have all taken a moment of reflection, let us begin anew. Your mission is the same: summon a beast for me that may feed my hunger for answers." Though his voice was deep, it did not have the growl of an elder or seasoned man; he was still young, roughly in his early twenties. Despite that, his eyes were empty of the shining wonder many young men held, empty of the life long ahead of them. He had been tempered and beaten into hardened indifference toward his fellows, and searing distaste for all others; but of witches? Their vile and wild nature disgusted him, much in the same way that of animals did, whose fur and leathers he'd sport with all the pride of an accomplished exterminator.

The guards in the room stepped back into the recesses afforded to them within the walls for safety as the circle in the room sparked to life, the remaining witches' hands outstretched over its inner ring. The prince did not fear magic like others did, however, and he remained to stare down the center of the circle through the holes in his helmet. Magic could be controlled because witches could be controlled—and he was good at control.

Clouds of dense magic erupted from the circle with pops of lightning arcing throughout. Its color changed from blue to green to, finally, pink. The bulk of the activity was a spitting aura dead center where a shadow was starting to form.

The prince clenched a fist and stepped forward more, over the body fo the dead, until the claws of his boots dared touch the magic ring. Finally, finally—! As the shape became solidified—indeed, some kind of beast was soon to be standing on the black stone before him—he could feel the rise of adrenaline in his blood, the ambition, often greedy, as was wont of his father, the truth and power of Verin blood! It was here, in the hunt and control of the witches, they would conquer Let!

With all the loudness of thunder directly bursting in one's ears, the magic ceased with a powerful force that tumbled the witches backward, but the Black Wolf remained standing as his cloak billowed back to his ankles. As the glittering smoke cleared, the darkness of a beast was soon to be realized, and for a moment, he waited for its form to clear even more—except it was just that, a cat-sized black shape.

No, it was a cat.

"What..." he began to chide the witches but paused. No. Their magic was undisputed. If his will had been this, then this is what was willed forth. No matter. He would not question it. Indeed, magic was savage and disgusting, so he would not suffer its unknowns or why it might summon itself in the shape of a cat.

"WHERE IS THE PHOENIX KNIGHT?" burst his voice as he stepped forward again, into the circle, towering over the tiny creature who had been thrust forth onto the surface of the moon of which she lived, where the air was thin and smelled of blood and smoke.
@Wilder]]> A silhouette stood against the pale sky of a desert and barren land, its colors dreary and dull, monochrome ashen and shade. He was looking down upon the Empire from a vista atop the Black Tower, named for him, the Black Wolf of Verin. It was his to control, his to oversee, his to do with as he pleased, and this included any captives that found their way into the Wolf's Jaw: his own personal dungeon for savages and others of that ilk. The thought of them curled his lip. That such blights plagued them even yet!

The Wolf was clad in deep black armor that rose into points where it could—from fingers to shoulders, toes to thighs—and a stylized wolf-like helmet with a large grin of fangs. Draped about him was a long cloak with a plush collar of real fur. Beneath the openings of his helmet, one could spy his pale skin and the sharp ice blue eyes that spied back. At present, as he faced the bleak Verinen landscape, his hands were clasped behind his back and he was lost deep in thought. Behind him was a room full of waiting souls, but none dare disrupt their thinking prince.

The Black Wolf of Verin, a man clad in black armor with a long cloak
The Black Wolf of Verin


Finally, he turned to view them, cloak twirling with an exaggerated swoosh. They were at the top of the tower in a circular room, its windows and doors barred by the soapy sheen of magical barriers. In its center shimmered the glowing circle that the witches had painted and enchanted, and now sat kneeled around at sparse intervals with some empty spaces that suggested some had been removed. Now there were seven of them, shivering and waiting and sneering as the Black Wolf stepped toward them. Heavy boots clicked against chiseled obsidian floors, mock claws scraping the shine from its polished surface. He stopped before the lifeless body of a recently culled witch who had dared defy him; a few other bodies lay pushed against the walls.

"Mmm," he hummed after a drawn breath, "Now that we have all taken a moment of reflection, let us begin anew. Your mission is the same: summon a beast for me that may feed my hunger for answers." Though his voice was deep, it did not have the growl of an elder or seasoned man; he was still young, roughly in his early twenties. Despite that, his eyes were empty of the shining wonder many young men held, empty of the life long ahead of them. He had been tempered and beaten into hardened indifference toward his fellows, and searing distaste for all others; but of witches? Their vile and wild nature disgusted him, much in the same way that of animals did, whose fur and leathers he'd sport with all the pride of an accomplished exterminator.

The guards in the room stepped back into the recesses afforded to them within the walls for safety as the circle in the room sparked to life, the remaining witches' hands outstretched over its inner ring. The prince did not fear magic like others did, however, and he remained to stare down the center of the circle through the holes in his helmet. Magic could be controlled because witches could be controlled—and he was good at control.

Clouds of dense magic erupted from the circle with pops of lightning arcing throughout. Its color changed from blue to green to, finally, pink. The bulk of the activity was a spitting aura dead center where a shadow was starting to form.

The prince clenched a fist and stepped forward more, over the body fo the dead, until the claws of his boots dared touch the magic ring. Finally, finally—! As the shape became solidified—indeed, some kind of beast was soon to be standing on the black stone before him—he could feel the rise of adrenaline in his blood, the ambition, often greedy, as was wont of his father, the truth and power of Verin blood! It was here, in the hunt and control of the witches, they would conquer Let!

With all the loudness of thunder directly bursting in one's ears, the magic ceased with a powerful force that tumbled the witches backward, but the Black Wolf remained standing as his cloak billowed back to his ankles. As the glittering smoke cleared, the darkness of a beast was soon to be realized, and for a moment, he waited for its form to clear even more—except it was just that, a cat-sized black shape.

No, it was a cat.

"What..." he began to chide the witches but paused. No. Their magic was undisputed. If his will had been this, then this is what was willed forth. No matter. He would not question it. Indeed, magic was savage and disgusting, so he would not suffer its unknowns or why it might summon itself in the shape of a cat.

"WHERE IS THE PHOENIX KNIGHT?" burst his voice as he stepped forward again, into the circle, towering over the tiny creature who had been thrust forth onto the surface of the moon of which she lived, where the air was thin and smelled of blood and smoke.
@Wilder]]> <![CDATA[GOD OF THE SEA]]> https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=10479 Tue, 30 Nov 2021 21:07:20 -0600 https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=10479
ELSEWHERE
Kaiale - V-Chaos-Five

It had happened so fast.

Swept, suddenly, from his life of training and violence, of shadowed cavern and stifled air, by a creature made of elegance and threat. Her power had crackled even from a distance, the sort that resonated with creatures of Baokrish's kind. A few words had been exchanged with Master Vargas--nothing more--and the Leviathan had given his final few sentiments: encouragment to perform well, assurance that the beast had been given all the training that this nest could provide, and an urging for Baokrish to enjoy himself (and was that envy in his eyes?). He had already given Baokrish weeks of warning to clear up unfinished business... but now it was real. Now, Lord Dhracia's eyes fell upon him, upon this newest creation. And after an appraisal, there came agony.

Flesh bubbled, popped, melted into black Oil. Bones softened and fell away. Muscle purged itself of solid cells. In a matter of seconds, Baokrish was reduced to nothing, his consciousness... erased.

Yet something lingered. A vague few sensations: the ruffle of fur, the sweep of air, heat to cold and back again. His mind didn't exist, yet, to make sense of it... but when he woke, Oil bubbling up to solidify once again, he would remember it.

As black slicks twined into tendon and bone once again, as mere shadow became sleek hide and pointed teeth, Baokrish was remade. Lord Dhracia did not linger. In the sweep of power that surrounded her, an intoxicating rush, she left Baokrish with but one gift: the promise of destruction. A few flawlessly chosen words to urge him toward his purpose here: to find what lived, and to bring it death.

A final sweep of shadow, and Baokrish was left alone. And now, finally... as had long been promised, as had been whispered to him all his life, he was unleashed. The breakers crashed dark against a night sky, their cold tide frothing around his body. Stars he had never seen now wheeled high overhead.

The God was at last given his Sea.

________


In the distance, along a yellow thread of shoreline that gleamed with the light of all three moons, tiny firelights twinkled with warmth. A promise: a target, if Baokrish would have it.

Within lived the people of Soani'ka--the village that called itself Ocean-Blessed. This would be up to their new God to decide: were they blessed, or were they cursed? The gatherers had long since retired to their homes, simple buildings shaped from driftwood and carved slate. The fishing fleet was all in dock, each family crest furled with the sails. Some were single-hull, but a few twin-hulled catamarans took larger dock spots along the outer edges. Carvings along their masts and figureheads suggested creatures of the sea: many of them bore tentacles, but some were monsters that seemed to echo a dream of Baokrish.

A simple people. Not without defenses, but they were no warriors. Their daily lives were drumming on, oblivious to the doom that had been deposited at their doorstep.

Captain Sea-Eel's ship had been rebuilt, and his family had gone back to sea. They had taken with them a new young apprentice: Toani, a Gatherer who wanted to explore. The girl had wounded herself a few days prior, but it was nothing serious, and the medicine woman Aonae had seen to her injuries.

Perhaps by morning, the fleet would be out among the waves, out in Baokrish's domain--if he were patient--to be torn asunder and wrenched into the deeps, splintering and screaming. Or perhaps he could decimate these ships where they lay docked, and leave his victims without recourse, starving and trapped on barren land, left to worship him in desperation.

Assuming, that was, the God of the Sea even gave them his attention.

The entire world was at his claw-tips.

Kaiale was his, now, to do with as he pleased.

________


Baokrish has been unleashed. His first actions in this new world should take place in this thread, and GM-tagged for, but he is utterly free to do as he sees fit. While the village is visible close by, there are a number of island chains leading to open ocean that can be explored if he so chooses.

@Baokrish]]>
ELSEWHERE
Kaiale - V-Chaos-Five

It had happened so fast.

Swept, suddenly, from his life of training and violence, of shadowed cavern and stifled air, by a creature made of elegance and threat. Her power had crackled even from a distance, the sort that resonated with creatures of Baokrish's kind. A few words had been exchanged with Master Vargas--nothing more--and the Leviathan had given his final few sentiments: encouragment to perform well, assurance that the beast had been given all the training that this nest could provide, and an urging for Baokrish to enjoy himself (and was that envy in his eyes?). He had already given Baokrish weeks of warning to clear up unfinished business... but now it was real. Now, Lord Dhracia's eyes fell upon him, upon this newest creation. And after an appraisal, there came agony.

Flesh bubbled, popped, melted into black Oil. Bones softened and fell away. Muscle purged itself of solid cells. In a matter of seconds, Baokrish was reduced to nothing, his consciousness... erased.

Yet something lingered. A vague few sensations: the ruffle of fur, the sweep of air, heat to cold and back again. His mind didn't exist, yet, to make sense of it... but when he woke, Oil bubbling up to solidify once again, he would remember it.

As black slicks twined into tendon and bone once again, as mere shadow became sleek hide and pointed teeth, Baokrish was remade. Lord Dhracia did not linger. In the sweep of power that surrounded her, an intoxicating rush, she left Baokrish with but one gift: the promise of destruction. A few flawlessly chosen words to urge him toward his purpose here: to find what lived, and to bring it death.

A final sweep of shadow, and Baokrish was left alone. And now, finally... as had long been promised, as had been whispered to him all his life, he was unleashed. The breakers crashed dark against a night sky, their cold tide frothing around his body. Stars he had never seen now wheeled high overhead.

The God was at last given his Sea.

________


In the distance, along a yellow thread of shoreline that gleamed with the light of all three moons, tiny firelights twinkled with warmth. A promise: a target, if Baokrish would have it.

Within lived the people of Soani'ka--the village that called itself Ocean-Blessed. This would be up to their new God to decide: were they blessed, or were they cursed? The gatherers had long since retired to their homes, simple buildings shaped from driftwood and carved slate. The fishing fleet was all in dock, each family crest furled with the sails. Some were single-hull, but a few twin-hulled catamarans took larger dock spots along the outer edges. Carvings along their masts and figureheads suggested creatures of the sea: many of them bore tentacles, but some were monsters that seemed to echo a dream of Baokrish.

A simple people. Not without defenses, but they were no warriors. Their daily lives were drumming on, oblivious to the doom that had been deposited at their doorstep.

Captain Sea-Eel's ship had been rebuilt, and his family had gone back to sea. They had taken with them a new young apprentice: Toani, a Gatherer who wanted to explore. The girl had wounded herself a few days prior, but it was nothing serious, and the medicine woman Aonae had seen to her injuries.

Perhaps by morning, the fleet would be out among the waves, out in Baokrish's domain--if he were patient--to be torn asunder and wrenched into the deeps, splintering and screaming. Or perhaps he could decimate these ships where they lay docked, and leave his victims without recourse, starving and trapped on barren land, left to worship him in desperation.

Assuming, that was, the God of the Sea even gave them his attention.

The entire world was at his claw-tips.

Kaiale was his, now, to do with as he pleased.

________


Baokrish has been unleashed. His first actions in this new world should take place in this thread, and GM-tagged for, but he is utterly free to do as he sees fit. While the village is visible close by, there are a number of island chains leading to open ocean that can be explored if he so chooses.

@Baokrish]]> <![CDATA[WE ARE MASTERS OF GRAVITY]]> https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=10164 Thu, 08 Jul 2021 12:18:38 -0500 https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=10164

As promised, the plasma shadow clawed its way back into the nest to retrieve something from its hoard. She materialized in the voidlight of Draco, nourished by the sick, thudding heartbeat of the oilstone spire; each time rejuvenated by its presence, its energy hers to wield. She would need it, and Master Vargas, too, for the journey they were undertaking today.

Lord Dhracia made no extravagant entrance, no flash of heat this time nor crack of black lightning; the Master's absence would be noticed, but that was as far as she wanted anybody to know of what transpired. Instead, she silently sought out the monster, her material holographic and illusory until she found him and became full-bodied. Not intending to startle him, she waited until Master Vargas was aware of her. “Are you ready?” asked Lord Dhracia.



@Vargas time for a feel trip
]]>

As promised, the plasma shadow clawed its way back into the nest to retrieve something from its hoard. She materialized in the voidlight of Draco, nourished by the sick, thudding heartbeat of the oilstone spire; each time rejuvenated by its presence, its energy hers to wield. She would need it, and Master Vargas, too, for the journey they were undertaking today.

Lord Dhracia made no extravagant entrance, no flash of heat this time nor crack of black lightning; the Master's absence would be noticed, but that was as far as she wanted anybody to know of what transpired. Instead, she silently sought out the monster, her material holographic and illusory until she found him and became full-bodied. Not intending to startle him, she waited until Master Vargas was aware of her. “Are you ready?” asked Lord Dhracia.



@Vargas time for a feel trip
]]> <![CDATA[HUNGER OF THE HUNDRED]]> https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=10071 Sat, 19 Jun 2021 21:36:19 -0500 https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=10071

Qaqqaqpijjairli Sikittoktaseq
Kylm Tribes, The Surface of Let


Freezing rain draped itself across the mountain coastline in sheets of icy white. Dotting the sea cliffs were huddled groups of tents, aglow from fires within. They circled a main, larger tent, intended for the community as a whole to fit within. Littered throughout their camp were large, monstrous whale bones, and often the rib bones were curled over their most central paths with hide stretched across them to form covered walkways. Currently, their camp seemed decorated more festive than usual, with brightly colored flags and painted idols, and paper lanterns strung between bones and tents. Dogs and children scurried along with flower leis around their necks, joyous and excited. Adults, too, seemed merry despite the bleak and chilling weather. Though they mostly were gathered in familial tents or close to them, many of them were heading to—or already inside—the community tent at the center of the village.

It was, in truth, a small village compared to others; less advanced and nomadic, this tribe relied heavily on their environment, however harsh it may seem to outsiders that lived in the comfort of warm farmland and sun-dried valleys.

At least, it was. They had all seen better days, from the frozen coasts of the Kylm Tribes to the warring borders further inland—and while they had survived so far, it was not easy. Their struggles were mounting and they had turned, finally, to magic. If it could help them, it could shift their dynamic dramatically. The Kylm Tribes often had shamans or the like, but the magic that they were seeking did not exist in their culture. Not yet.

Their Chief had sent for a witch, and he had arrived recently; the festivities were for him, and although they had a sparse feast prepared for him in the community tent, it was not much. He refused their kind offerings, inviting their children and dogs in from the rain to eat in his stead.

He did not arrive in complete silence. Whispers and murmurs bubbled through the village like the winds through grassy hills: was this necessary, and was this safe? Were they to be damned for asking fate for such a gift, the gift of food they could no longer find themselves? They were a whaling village, mostly; and while they only took one or two whales a year, it was enough to sustain them both in goods used and goods sold. However, the magic that fed them all was drying up. It was receding, escaping, and leaving them all to starve and to die. The oceans were scarce, the forests were bare, and the weather was sweeping up the ghosts left behind.

The witch had answered their call for help, and despite their hesitations, they were grateful.

He sat beside the Chief, who had welcomed him with a thick fur coat, ashen and black; it puffed around his shoulders and was long enough to cover his woolen pants and brush his feet, where he had also been gifted thick boots to complement his new coat. Again, it was nothing they could spare, but they would not leave him to freeze. At his side rested his walking stick, slightly taller than himself when standing, and tucked within the crook of his arm now as he sat, looming over him and the Chief as they talked quietly together while the rain hissed against the tent.

Although he had been given a hat for his head, he had refused this particular gift. His head was bald and heavily tattooed, and these symbols were significant for him, so much so that he did not want them covered. His eyebrows and medium-length beard were thick and black, frosted at the edges by the cold that bit through the air. This actually complimented the fading ice-blue of his eyes, a stark contrast to the black obsidian stone that cut through the middle of his forehead and split at his nose bridge, arching like fractal scars across his cheeks.

Outside, a wave of sing-songy cheer rose like chanting, and the Chief pushed up from his spot beside the fire. The witch followed, leaning heavily on his walking stick to stand, and nodded to the Chief to lead the way.

The rain had let up—it was time.

As the witch followed the Chief to the docks of a lake tucked between two mountainous cliffs, he noted the number of villagers that had begun to follow them. By the time the lake was in sight, the entire village was amassed behind them. The Chief made an effort to convey that the dock was slippery and dangerous from the rain, and the witch nodded his understanding before taking a final look at all the lives that hinged on his ability to do something he had never done before: summon food.

And not just any food, but an entire whale.

Truthfully, when their request letter had reached the hidden gorge and the other witches laughed or scoffed at it, he could not deny the desperation in which they had written and struggled for translation; but they didn't need it. They were starving. Dying. It was evident that this was their last hope and their last resort. He would not condemn them without at least trying. And how would he know if it could be done, if he did not try?

Icy eyes were stuck solemnly on the sunken faces that stared back at him. If he could not do this, he would not only fail himself and these people but Let, too. His face upturned to the distant sun that speckled through the dense, dark clouds; and not too distant, a looming planet that had always beckoned them with the promise of another civilization, another chance, but it was always just out of reach. Everything felt like that, now. Where once their moon had thrived and flourished, it was now gasping for air—for life—just like the rest of them.

He gestured to the Chief to give him space, and the ancient Kylm man retreated back to his villagers, clearing the entire dock for the witch to work freely without worry of harming any of them.

As the clouds cleared above them and more sunlight dappled the clear waters of the lake, the witch could not help but frown. The idea was that they would pull a whale from the sea and trap it within the lake, where either the freshwater would kill it or the whalers themselves. And as he thought of this, he took a moment to glance at the lake shore where they were already piling into boats with harpoons and rope. His focus returned to the water before him and he closed his eyes, holding his walking stick with arms outstretched; he fell into a deep meditation, the obsidian on his face crackling with energy—and the sounds around him fell away, replaced by the thunderous rumbling of silence.

A whirlpool began to twist its way into the lake, drudging up dirt and muck from the bottom, clouding the otherwise crystal clear waters.

"By my name, Onrinaun, I beg of thee," he whispered, voice fighting the pull of magic and water that began to spray around him, "answer me." Icy eyes opened to view the whirlpool, coat billowing in the rush of air that began to encompass the entire lake. He reached blindly with his magic, coursing through the entire freezing ocean beyond, and closed his eyes again to focus more. "Winged One, the Father, can you hear me?" he breathed, pleading, "Do not let these people die..."

---

White wings rustled against his back; someone was calling to him. Tamulus lifted his eyes and looked into the sky, lazily gazing at the planet on their horizon. It was not the molten chill he felt when Lord Dhracia had called to him, but instead, it felt... coldly warm, and sad. A witch, perhaps? His brow crinkled into a frown and he set down his tools to take wing. He could not pinpoint the location of this sensation, but it was far from him, from the Vaa. Was it one of those captured...? No, it felt new and dangerous, reaching too far into shadows it should not know exist, and should not have to know if he could help it.

---

Onrinaun took one final, deep breath, and poured all of his magic into the waters of the lake.

Find it. Find it. Find it.

His eyes squeezed at the effort, and the faint image of a whale indeed bloomed within his mind's eye. It was dark, shadowed, as if very deep within the ocean and very far away—except... Glimmering on its head was a stone. Blue. A stone? He hesitated, and the whirlpool groaned against itself in the sudden lapse of magic.

It wasn't... it couldn't be.. one of the animals, one of theirs...?

But the magic was cast, and he could not pull back now; there was a shake within the earth, a growl of air and rock clashing, and the whirlpool erupted into a geyser as a body was thrust into it, disrupting the flow of water and churning it like a storm would the sea. The boats crashed against the shore, whalers struggling to right them and fight the sudden white-capped waves that assaulted them, cries and gasps of villagers rose to fight the sound of the storm, but Onrinaun was focused solely on one thing: the Lapis Lazuli.

As things settled, he was speechless. Why...? He had not expected this to work, but he would not abandon an entire people without first confirming such a thing was impossible, but...!

"No," he croaked, swallowing his own disbelief in a gulp of pain. "I'm sorry," he said beneath his breath, falling to his knees, catching his face within the palm of his free hand while the other gripped his staff. He sobbed. He sobbed for the creature he had summoned; it would be intelligent, like him. They would kill it all the same. They were starving.

"I'm so sorry," he choked, tear-streaked face again turning to the sky. "Save it, Tamulus. Please." And the toll of such magic claimed him, cracking his stone, and he crumpled into a fetal position on the frozen dock. He would sleep deep in the regret of damning one creature to feed the hundred; but was that worth it, for a village to live? An animal was fine, there could be more of them, but this one? It was as unique and forbidden as he.

---

Whale would find herself emerging from her chrysalis into a pull of strong magic, a whirlpool encasing her beneath the dark waters, and expelling all others away from it; if she had the time to panic, it would be suffocating, strange—until finally, the roaring of twisting water would cease and she would find herself in a derelict lake, choppy water smoothing as magic faded around her.

And above her stretched an endless sky, dotted with puffy clouds; she would find the sun to be blinding, and warm, a warmth she had not known in the caves. The air was crisp and fresh and clean, rejuvenating, even. In the sky was the looming sphere of a planet, but she would not know what this was—and as she might marvel at the mountains and sky and sun, the sharp cry of those surrounding her would break the illusion that this was a miracle.

The whalers had overcome the surge of breaking, angry water and rowed their boats out to the epicenter of it all, where indeed, a whale had been summoned. They cheered and chanted in a language unknown to Whale, and before any of them could spear her with a harpoon, they simply marveled at her presence. It had worked! It had worked, and they were saved!

One of the whalers yelled something, and the others repeated it at once—and loosed their harpoons toward Whale, trapping her within an already inescapable prison—would she scream out to them, plead for her life, fight back?

On the dock, the Chief had hurried to their fallen witch, but upon finding him alive, and only unconscious, his eyes turned toward the lake where red was beginning to cloud the clear and beautiful water. The villagers behind him had begun to chant, all moving together in some sort of waving dance, fluid like the sea. They were so thankful. They sang of Onrinaun like he was a new god. He'd be carved into their history and lauded for this gift he had given them.

---

Tamulus faltered in flight as the sudden burst of magic rippled across Let—through her sediment and through her air. Every hair on his body rose and he felt the cold fangs of fear sink into his heart. What had just happened? He pulled in his arms and beat his wings heavily, sparks of lightning crawling across his body as he flew as fast as he could.
@Whale]]>

Qaqqaqpijjairli Sikittoktaseq
Kylm Tribes, The Surface of Let


Freezing rain draped itself across the mountain coastline in sheets of icy white. Dotting the sea cliffs were huddled groups of tents, aglow from fires within. They circled a main, larger tent, intended for the community as a whole to fit within. Littered throughout their camp were large, monstrous whale bones, and often the rib bones were curled over their most central paths with hide stretched across them to form covered walkways. Currently, their camp seemed decorated more festive than usual, with brightly colored flags and painted idols, and paper lanterns strung between bones and tents. Dogs and children scurried along with flower leis around their necks, joyous and excited. Adults, too, seemed merry despite the bleak and chilling weather. Though they mostly were gathered in familial tents or close to them, many of them were heading to—or already inside—the community tent at the center of the village.

It was, in truth, a small village compared to others; less advanced and nomadic, this tribe relied heavily on their environment, however harsh it may seem to outsiders that lived in the comfort of warm farmland and sun-dried valleys.

At least, it was. They had all seen better days, from the frozen coasts of the Kylm Tribes to the warring borders further inland—and while they had survived so far, it was not easy. Their struggles were mounting and they had turned, finally, to magic. If it could help them, it could shift their dynamic dramatically. The Kylm Tribes often had shamans or the like, but the magic that they were seeking did not exist in their culture. Not yet.

Their Chief had sent for a witch, and he had arrived recently; the festivities were for him, and although they had a sparse feast prepared for him in the community tent, it was not much. He refused their kind offerings, inviting their children and dogs in from the rain to eat in his stead.

He did not arrive in complete silence. Whispers and murmurs bubbled through the village like the winds through grassy hills: was this necessary, and was this safe? Were they to be damned for asking fate for such a gift, the gift of food they could no longer find themselves? They were a whaling village, mostly; and while they only took one or two whales a year, it was enough to sustain them both in goods used and goods sold. However, the magic that fed them all was drying up. It was receding, escaping, and leaving them all to starve and to die. The oceans were scarce, the forests were bare, and the weather was sweeping up the ghosts left behind.

The witch had answered their call for help, and despite their hesitations, they were grateful.

He sat beside the Chief, who had welcomed him with a thick fur coat, ashen and black; it puffed around his shoulders and was long enough to cover his woolen pants and brush his feet, where he had also been gifted thick boots to complement his new coat. Again, it was nothing they could spare, but they would not leave him to freeze. At his side rested his walking stick, slightly taller than himself when standing, and tucked within the crook of his arm now as he sat, looming over him and the Chief as they talked quietly together while the rain hissed against the tent.

Although he had been given a hat for his head, he had refused this particular gift. His head was bald and heavily tattooed, and these symbols were significant for him, so much so that he did not want them covered. His eyebrows and medium-length beard were thick and black, frosted at the edges by the cold that bit through the air. This actually complimented the fading ice-blue of his eyes, a stark contrast to the black obsidian stone that cut through the middle of his forehead and split at his nose bridge, arching like fractal scars across his cheeks.

Outside, a wave of sing-songy cheer rose like chanting, and the Chief pushed up from his spot beside the fire. The witch followed, leaning heavily on his walking stick to stand, and nodded to the Chief to lead the way.

The rain had let up—it was time.

As the witch followed the Chief to the docks of a lake tucked between two mountainous cliffs, he noted the number of villagers that had begun to follow them. By the time the lake was in sight, the entire village was amassed behind them. The Chief made an effort to convey that the dock was slippery and dangerous from the rain, and the witch nodded his understanding before taking a final look at all the lives that hinged on his ability to do something he had never done before: summon food.

And not just any food, but an entire whale.

Truthfully, when their request letter had reached the hidden gorge and the other witches laughed or scoffed at it, he could not deny the desperation in which they had written and struggled for translation; but they didn't need it. They were starving. Dying. It was evident that this was their last hope and their last resort. He would not condemn them without at least trying. And how would he know if it could be done, if he did not try?

Icy eyes were stuck solemnly on the sunken faces that stared back at him. If he could not do this, he would not only fail himself and these people but Let, too. His face upturned to the distant sun that speckled through the dense, dark clouds; and not too distant, a looming planet that had always beckoned them with the promise of another civilization, another chance, but it was always just out of reach. Everything felt like that, now. Where once their moon had thrived and flourished, it was now gasping for air—for life—just like the rest of them.

He gestured to the Chief to give him space, and the ancient Kylm man retreated back to his villagers, clearing the entire dock for the witch to work freely without worry of harming any of them.

As the clouds cleared above them and more sunlight dappled the clear waters of the lake, the witch could not help but frown. The idea was that they would pull a whale from the sea and trap it within the lake, where either the freshwater would kill it or the whalers themselves. And as he thought of this, he took a moment to glance at the lake shore where they were already piling into boats with harpoons and rope. His focus returned to the water before him and he closed his eyes, holding his walking stick with arms outstretched; he fell into a deep meditation, the obsidian on his face crackling with energy—and the sounds around him fell away, replaced by the thunderous rumbling of silence.

A whirlpool began to twist its way into the lake, drudging up dirt and muck from the bottom, clouding the otherwise crystal clear waters.

"By my name, Onrinaun, I beg of thee," he whispered, voice fighting the pull of magic and water that began to spray around him, "answer me." Icy eyes opened to view the whirlpool, coat billowing in the rush of air that began to encompass the entire lake. He reached blindly with his magic, coursing through the entire freezing ocean beyond, and closed his eyes again to focus more. "Winged One, the Father, can you hear me?" he breathed, pleading, "Do not let these people die..."

---

White wings rustled against his back; someone was calling to him. Tamulus lifted his eyes and looked into the sky, lazily gazing at the planet on their horizon. It was not the molten chill he felt when Lord Dhracia had called to him, but instead, it felt... coldly warm, and sad. A witch, perhaps? His brow crinkled into a frown and he set down his tools to take wing. He could not pinpoint the location of this sensation, but it was far from him, from the Vaa. Was it one of those captured...? No, it felt new and dangerous, reaching too far into shadows it should not know exist, and should not have to know if he could help it.

---

Onrinaun took one final, deep breath, and poured all of his magic into the waters of the lake.

Find it. Find it. Find it.

His eyes squeezed at the effort, and the faint image of a whale indeed bloomed within his mind's eye. It was dark, shadowed, as if very deep within the ocean and very far away—except... Glimmering on its head was a stone. Blue. A stone? He hesitated, and the whirlpool groaned against itself in the sudden lapse of magic.

It wasn't... it couldn't be.. one of the animals, one of theirs...?

But the magic was cast, and he could not pull back now; there was a shake within the earth, a growl of air and rock clashing, and the whirlpool erupted into a geyser as a body was thrust into it, disrupting the flow of water and churning it like a storm would the sea. The boats crashed against the shore, whalers struggling to right them and fight the sudden white-capped waves that assaulted them, cries and gasps of villagers rose to fight the sound of the storm, but Onrinaun was focused solely on one thing: the Lapis Lazuli.

As things settled, he was speechless. Why...? He had not expected this to work, but he would not abandon an entire people without first confirming such a thing was impossible, but...!

"No," he croaked, swallowing his own disbelief in a gulp of pain. "I'm sorry," he said beneath his breath, falling to his knees, catching his face within the palm of his free hand while the other gripped his staff. He sobbed. He sobbed for the creature he had summoned; it would be intelligent, like him. They would kill it all the same. They were starving.

"I'm so sorry," he choked, tear-streaked face again turning to the sky. "Save it, Tamulus. Please." And the toll of such magic claimed him, cracking his stone, and he crumpled into a fetal position on the frozen dock. He would sleep deep in the regret of damning one creature to feed the hundred; but was that worth it, for a village to live? An animal was fine, there could be more of them, but this one? It was as unique and forbidden as he.

---

Whale would find herself emerging from her chrysalis into a pull of strong magic, a whirlpool encasing her beneath the dark waters, and expelling all others away from it; if she had the time to panic, it would be suffocating, strange—until finally, the roaring of twisting water would cease and she would find herself in a derelict lake, choppy water smoothing as magic faded around her.

And above her stretched an endless sky, dotted with puffy clouds; she would find the sun to be blinding, and warm, a warmth she had not known in the caves. The air was crisp and fresh and clean, rejuvenating, even. In the sky was the looming sphere of a planet, but she would not know what this was—and as she might marvel at the mountains and sky and sun, the sharp cry of those surrounding her would break the illusion that this was a miracle.

The whalers had overcome the surge of breaking, angry water and rowed their boats out to the epicenter of it all, where indeed, a whale had been summoned. They cheered and chanted in a language unknown to Whale, and before any of them could spear her with a harpoon, they simply marveled at her presence. It had worked! It had worked, and they were saved!

One of the whalers yelled something, and the others repeated it at once—and loosed their harpoons toward Whale, trapping her within an already inescapable prison—would she scream out to them, plead for her life, fight back?

On the dock, the Chief had hurried to their fallen witch, but upon finding him alive, and only unconscious, his eyes turned toward the lake where red was beginning to cloud the clear and beautiful water. The villagers behind him had begun to chant, all moving together in some sort of waving dance, fluid like the sea. They were so thankful. They sang of Onrinaun like he was a new god. He'd be carved into their history and lauded for this gift he had given them.

---

Tamulus faltered in flight as the sudden burst of magic rippled across Let—through her sediment and through her air. Every hair on his body rose and he felt the cold fangs of fear sink into his heart. What had just happened? He pulled in his arms and beat his wings heavily, sparks of lightning crawling across his body as he flew as fast as he could.
@Whale]]> <![CDATA[[Read Only] The Medicine Woman]]> https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=9756 Sun, 04 Apr 2021 15:53:35 -0500 https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=9756
The Medicine Woman


Old Aonae laid the back of her fingers across the man's brow.

The room was hot, smoky, and smelled of sweat and sick; his brow was no different, soaking wet and burning hot. In her strange tongue, she spoke. "Kio ok'elo," she said. "Bad fever." The shepherd's eyes rolled to face her--exhausted, all weeping whites. She thinned her lips. Worn fingers reached for the bucket; the rag was soaked, twisted, streams of fresh water pouring away. There had been a storm, days ago. The Water-Bearers had gathered much rainwater and in this, at least, old Haleho was lucky. He would not die to dehydration, at least, or uncleanliness.

She wiped his face, and left the rag laying across his forehead. Her earth-brown eyes flicked to the single, dusty, warped window. 'Can I risk letting fresh air in? Or will the chill kill him?' she wondered. She settled for a compromise. "I will give you some fresh air--but not much. If it gets too cold you must close this, yes-? But the fire should keep you warm, for now. There is an herb I must gather from the slopes higher up. Rest, and I will bring it."

She knew that Haleho was badly-off when he did not argue with her. Any other day he would have been respectful, humorous, and certainly urging her never to go up the mountain on his behalf. But he was half-mad with fever, and any relief would seem worth it--if even he were capable of considering the risk, right now.

With the window wedged a little open, Old Aonae pushed out the door, letting it fall shut behind her. For a moment she squinted out, giving her ancient eyes some time to adjust.

The herd of Slatewalkers in the muddy pen were hungry and unkempt. She didn't know how to care for the beasts, really, but she knew enough to walk over and scatter some of their dried grass across the pen floor. It would keep them from starving, at least, but it wouldn't clean the mud from their coarse grey fur. They were low-slung creatures, woolly and with reptilian gaits, with fatty meat. They gave milk, when appropriate, and in all were the only livestock that Soani'ka tended to keep. With a herd of perhaps a dozen animals, Haleho kept maybe a fifth of the village's stock. And like the other herders, he kept his farm well outside--and above--the village itself. The animals stank, and they did not like crowds.

The Slatewalkers fed, Aonae turned her gaze down below. She was adjusting her old dress, the pants beneath, preparing herself for the trek ahead. It would be a dangerous one, and so without really realizing it, she was bidding Soan'ika farewell--just in case.

The village was cozy, a few dozen wooden homes--most with little figureheads and carvings of squid and fish; even Haleho, way up here, had an octopus across his doorway. Steam rose from the Water-Bearers' cauldrons, and Aonae was fairly sure she could see a few Gatherers out on the mudflats, spears dipping into the tidal pools. The ships had gone out early, and so the sea--sparkling its light through the village--was empty of them, from here. The scraggly, marshy fields on the village outskirts stood nearly bare, as always; the low-slung trees in the orchards didn't grow much, and the soggy farms were home only to scattered vegetables and salty grains. The seafood was far more reliable; the farmers were hopeful idiots.

With a grunt, Aonae turned, and looked the other way.

The mountain slope stretched forward and up: it was precarious, at the best of times, with shifting slate shelves and slippery mud slopes. But here and there a flower or herb sprouted from the muck, and it was a variety of these--at a much higher elevation--that she was after. "Bastard things," she muttered, for the damned flowers refused to grow at sea level. Minerals or air--she didn't know--but it meant that the trek to gather one was dangerous.

And it was a trek she now had to make.

_____________________


An hour had passed.

Huffing, puffing, panting. Her dress and leggings were mud-soaked, her cloth shoes completely slippery and drenched brown--but she didn't dare take them off for fear of the sharp edges of the black shale shards. At times she had to drop to all fours, hands gripping the stones and feet scrambling to propel her upward. "If the damned leaves dried properly," she complained to herself, irritably, "I wouldn't be up here. Imagine-! At my age, climbing the Mountain!" Huff, puff, grunt.

The medicine men and women of the village were few, rarely more than a couple at a time. There was a younger man living in Soan'ika itself that she'd in part helped to train, so if she did die up here she was relatively confident that they'd be in good hands. Well--"Unless they need a poultice," she muttered. "Tal'ule is terrible at wrapping a good poultice."

It seemed only an old woman, grumbling bitterly, but this old woman was almost a half a mile up a rocky, muddy mountain slope and climbing. Her gait was hurried, exhausting even, but it was a necessity: that kia ok'elo of Haleho's would be the death of him, perhaps within a day, if she did not return with this herb. A miraculous thing the "bastard thing" was, too; she'd never had a fever that hadn't quickly responded to a Pe'lo plant tea.

_____________________


Two hours. Old Aonae had slowed. She was tired: her arms and legs sore, the old woman cursing herself for not making this trek more often. It was only now that she realized how terribly out of practice she was: and the higher she climbed, the harder it was to catch her breath.

But she would go on; feet slipping, hands too, and with stumbles more often now, she didn't give up.

Haleho was counting on her.

_____________________


Three hours. Her slippers had been cut through, and she'd at last thrown them aside. Her old feet and wrinkled hands were cut in many places, and she'd drawn her own flint knife and cut away strips of dress (that's what it was there for, after all: spare cloth) and wrapped both palms and feet before continuing. That short pause, with a few long draws from her canteen, was all the rest she'd allowed herself.

But now, at last, she needed another rest: and with gasping breaths she set herself on the next dry stone she found, and sat there trembling with exhaustion.

She gazed out across Kaiale. "Home," it meant--the word they called their world. Mostly vast ocean, with her village and its archipelago merely a little blink below. To her left stretched the single vast, dark continent of Kaiale: the place they called the Bad Dream, the place none of them ever ventured. It was a world of cracked, dried dark mud that stretched on for a hundred miles--maybe more; no one had ever gone to the other side, so far as she knew, and returned. When it stormed, the earth flooded and anyone caught out there was almost always drowned, but the water was too full of mud and too churning to be hospitable to a small boat--and the big ones weren't to be risked on such a venture. Anyway, from up here, one could observe easily that there was only darkness, lifeless and hostile, as far as the eye could see. There was no point in going that way, for any of them.

Aonae twisted around to look up, behind her.

That was almost as bad. Sheer hills, each stretch every bit as rocky and muddy as the last. "Damn it," she muttered, and pushed back up to continue.

And noticed, as she did, that--from behind the mountain's peak--a fog was rolling in.

_____________________


By three and a half hours, the fog's blanket was nearly complete. She was cursing, old Aonae, swearing up and down at whatever gods now struggled to obscure her sight of the lifegiving herb. Her hands and her feet throbbed. Her muscles shook, and her watery eyes squinted in the dimming light.

She slipped. She fell. She cursed, but it was breathless. She gasped for air. She began, for the first time, to truly worry for her survival up here. This was like trudging through a nightmare, like fighting with every slipped grip and stumbled step to advance deeper into it.

Had it been foolish, to come alone? Should she have sent someone younger, someone stronger-? No; I know this mountain best. And someone else might mistake the Pe'lo. The plant was far too easy to miss.

It would be cliché to say that she found it just as she gave up. Old Aonae never gave up, anyway, no. But she was weary beyond belief. Shaking, drops of blood soaking through the bandaged feet and joining with the mud below. Fingers trembling as their weathered skin reached for the twist-leafed little herb growing fuzzy and dull green from a crevice between two rocks. The dainty white flowers she left alone. She took two leaves--and then, as if in afterthought, she took two more. Enough in case a third dose was needed. And her mind was on her feet--on the mud seeping into her cuts, on the fever that might hit her in a day or two if she gained an infection from this.

Yes; foresight. Now... for the journey down.

Old Aonae turned, and peered down the steep and muddy slope. She was already so terribly weak and tired... and going down was infinitely harder than going up. "Eh, can't live at the top," she muttered, a mere croak accompanied by a shrug.

She pulled her thick but tattered dress closer around her, against the chilling mist, and started the journey.

_____________________


Again, she fell. It had started perhaps a third of the way down--maybe a quarter--it was impossible to tell, really. She couldn't see more than a dozen meters, and that was when the fog cleared away. It was clouds, she knew that--clouds curling around the mountain and passing her by--but did that matter? Fog was only lazy clouds drifting to the earth, after all--so the stories went.

The first fall hadn't been bad. A slide gone out of control, a short tumble that had luckily landed her in nothing more than mud. She'd sat up, and with presence of mind granted by long years of experience, patted her pouch to be sure it (and the Pe'lo) were still there. She then tested her limbs, and found nothing broken. Back to her feet, then. Back down through the falling light and the churning fog, with the world become nothing but rocks and mud. Brown, and gray. Gray, and brown. Why does something so dangerous have to look so damn boring? old Aonae thought.

The second fall had been a little worse, but not by much. Her foot had slipped in the mud and she'd fallen into a rock. Her shin was bruised, and cut, but nothing more. Cursing, she'd pressed on. Should she just sleep here-? The weather wouldn't kill her, not if she covered up with a little mud, and Haleho would last until morning... well, probably. And you know you'll never forgive yourself if he don't. Come on, you're tougher than Slatewalker wool. Let's get down there, Aonae had urged herself.

A third fall left her sliding farther than was easily ignored: a long, long slip, on her back, sometimes head-first as the mountain took her and tumbled her down its mud slope. She'd hit her head hard enough to draw blood and to daze her and picked up half a dozen scrapes and cuts and what was at least a sprained wrist.

At least it wasn't her leg, she reasoned, and pushed up weakly to carry on down.

It had been a foolish choice--she knew that. The climb up had weakened her more than she'd expected. And the more battered and tired she became, the less her muscles kept her stable, the more she fell...

And fall, again, she did. This fall was by far the worst, leaving her with a gash up one side of her calf that stung like wasps and left her crying out and balling fistfulls of mud into her fingers as she waited for the worst of the pain to pass.

She wrapped it, eventually, though it wasn't clean. Mud would stop the bleeding, at least.

And then she carried on.

_____________________


She had looked out at what they called The Bad Dream. Then she had trudged through her own. At last, the ground suddenly evened out--became just a little drier--and she smelled smoke. "Thank you, sky and sea," she muttered, more with relief than with reverence, though both were definitely there. Only now did she realize how much the fear had begun to grip her--now, as the worst of it faded, as she felt her heart slamming in her ancient chest.

She swore, and stomped her feet out (and winced at the pain) along the dry earth as she followed the twisting scent of smoke. The few muttering, groaning sounds of the penned Slatewalkers confirmed her direction.

_____________________


Old Haleho woke to the sounds of clinking: of carved stone spoon against carved stone cup. There was a strange scent in the air--something like hot, wet grass or leaves, something mysteriously herbal. And mud--there was the stench of mud, too.

Aonae suddenly appeared, her face looming where before he'd seen only the slate-covered roof above, thatched beneath with straw. Weathered, weary, muddied and even bloodied, her ancient face was yet sharp with focus. "Drink," she commanded, and raised the cup to his lips. He obeyed, choking only a little where he lay--and it seemed to him that a strange, cool lassitude at once overcame him. It was as though the pain were simply... flowing away, the aches in his joints fading.

"Am I-... dying..." he croaked out, and coughed again.

Aonae chuckled. "You're going to be fine," she reassured him. "And I'm sleeping here tonight. Not because you need it, but because I have done enough of climbing for one day," she added, and turned to make herself at home.

_____________________


Outside, night had fallen. Below, the village lay still, quiet, with a thick blanket of fog near-obscuring it from vision, and from the sky.

The Slatewalkers in their pen had gone silent with the darkness, and now their eyes shifted skyward. Each great pupil gleamed with the reflection of the sky: with the light of the twin blue moons and then, as the third moon passed across them both, with its lurid orange gleam.]]>
The Medicine Woman


Old Aonae laid the back of her fingers across the man's brow.

The room was hot, smoky, and smelled of sweat and sick; his brow was no different, soaking wet and burning hot. In her strange tongue, she spoke. "Kio ok'elo," she said. "Bad fever." The shepherd's eyes rolled to face her--exhausted, all weeping whites. She thinned her lips. Worn fingers reached for the bucket; the rag was soaked, twisted, streams of fresh water pouring away. There had been a storm, days ago. The Water-Bearers had gathered much rainwater and in this, at least, old Haleho was lucky. He would not die to dehydration, at least, or uncleanliness.

She wiped his face, and left the rag laying across his forehead. Her earth-brown eyes flicked to the single, dusty, warped window. 'Can I risk letting fresh air in? Or will the chill kill him?' she wondered. She settled for a compromise. "I will give you some fresh air--but not much. If it gets too cold you must close this, yes-? But the fire should keep you warm, for now. There is an herb I must gather from the slopes higher up. Rest, and I will bring it."

She knew that Haleho was badly-off when he did not argue with her. Any other day he would have been respectful, humorous, and certainly urging her never to go up the mountain on his behalf. But he was half-mad with fever, and any relief would seem worth it--if even he were capable of considering the risk, right now.

With the window wedged a little open, Old Aonae pushed out the door, letting it fall shut behind her. For a moment she squinted out, giving her ancient eyes some time to adjust.

The herd of Slatewalkers in the muddy pen were hungry and unkempt. She didn't know how to care for the beasts, really, but she knew enough to walk over and scatter some of their dried grass across the pen floor. It would keep them from starving, at least, but it wouldn't clean the mud from their coarse grey fur. They were low-slung creatures, woolly and with reptilian gaits, with fatty meat. They gave milk, when appropriate, and in all were the only livestock that Soani'ka tended to keep. With a herd of perhaps a dozen animals, Haleho kept maybe a fifth of the village's stock. And like the other herders, he kept his farm well outside--and above--the village itself. The animals stank, and they did not like crowds.

The Slatewalkers fed, Aonae turned her gaze down below. She was adjusting her old dress, the pants beneath, preparing herself for the trek ahead. It would be a dangerous one, and so without really realizing it, she was bidding Soan'ika farewell--just in case.

The village was cozy, a few dozen wooden homes--most with little figureheads and carvings of squid and fish; even Haleho, way up here, had an octopus across his doorway. Steam rose from the Water-Bearers' cauldrons, and Aonae was fairly sure she could see a few Gatherers out on the mudflats, spears dipping into the tidal pools. The ships had gone out early, and so the sea--sparkling its light through the village--was empty of them, from here. The scraggly, marshy fields on the village outskirts stood nearly bare, as always; the low-slung trees in the orchards didn't grow much, and the soggy farms were home only to scattered vegetables and salty grains. The seafood was far more reliable; the farmers were hopeful idiots.

With a grunt, Aonae turned, and looked the other way.

The mountain slope stretched forward and up: it was precarious, at the best of times, with shifting slate shelves and slippery mud slopes. But here and there a flower or herb sprouted from the muck, and it was a variety of these--at a much higher elevation--that she was after. "Bastard things," she muttered, for the damned flowers refused to grow at sea level. Minerals or air--she didn't know--but it meant that the trek to gather one was dangerous.

And it was a trek she now had to make.

_____________________


An hour had passed.

Huffing, puffing, panting. Her dress and leggings were mud-soaked, her cloth shoes completely slippery and drenched brown--but she didn't dare take them off for fear of the sharp edges of the black shale shards. At times she had to drop to all fours, hands gripping the stones and feet scrambling to propel her upward. "If the damned leaves dried properly," she complained to herself, irritably, "I wouldn't be up here. Imagine-! At my age, climbing the Mountain!" Huff, puff, grunt.

The medicine men and women of the village were few, rarely more than a couple at a time. There was a younger man living in Soan'ika itself that she'd in part helped to train, so if she did die up here she was relatively confident that they'd be in good hands. Well--"Unless they need a poultice," she muttered. "Tal'ule is terrible at wrapping a good poultice."

It seemed only an old woman, grumbling bitterly, but this old woman was almost a half a mile up a rocky, muddy mountain slope and climbing. Her gait was hurried, exhausting even, but it was a necessity: that kia ok'elo of Haleho's would be the death of him, perhaps within a day, if she did not return with this herb. A miraculous thing the "bastard thing" was, too; she'd never had a fever that hadn't quickly responded to a Pe'lo plant tea.

_____________________


Two hours. Old Aonae had slowed. She was tired: her arms and legs sore, the old woman cursing herself for not making this trek more often. It was only now that she realized how terribly out of practice she was: and the higher she climbed, the harder it was to catch her breath.

But she would go on; feet slipping, hands too, and with stumbles more often now, she didn't give up.

Haleho was counting on her.

_____________________


Three hours. Her slippers had been cut through, and she'd at last thrown them aside. Her old feet and wrinkled hands were cut in many places, and she'd drawn her own flint knife and cut away strips of dress (that's what it was there for, after all: spare cloth) and wrapped both palms and feet before continuing. That short pause, with a few long draws from her canteen, was all the rest she'd allowed herself.

But now, at last, she needed another rest: and with gasping breaths she set herself on the next dry stone she found, and sat there trembling with exhaustion.

She gazed out across Kaiale. "Home," it meant--the word they called their world. Mostly vast ocean, with her village and its archipelago merely a little blink below. To her left stretched the single vast, dark continent of Kaiale: the place they called the Bad Dream, the place none of them ever ventured. It was a world of cracked, dried dark mud that stretched on for a hundred miles--maybe more; no one had ever gone to the other side, so far as she knew, and returned. When it stormed, the earth flooded and anyone caught out there was almost always drowned, but the water was too full of mud and too churning to be hospitable to a small boat--and the big ones weren't to be risked on such a venture. Anyway, from up here, one could observe easily that there was only darkness, lifeless and hostile, as far as the eye could see. There was no point in going that way, for any of them.

Aonae twisted around to look up, behind her.

That was almost as bad. Sheer hills, each stretch every bit as rocky and muddy as the last. "Damn it," she muttered, and pushed back up to continue.

And noticed, as she did, that--from behind the mountain's peak--a fog was rolling in.

_____________________


By three and a half hours, the fog's blanket was nearly complete. She was cursing, old Aonae, swearing up and down at whatever gods now struggled to obscure her sight of the lifegiving herb. Her hands and her feet throbbed. Her muscles shook, and her watery eyes squinted in the dimming light.

She slipped. She fell. She cursed, but it was breathless. She gasped for air. She began, for the first time, to truly worry for her survival up here. This was like trudging through a nightmare, like fighting with every slipped grip and stumbled step to advance deeper into it.

Had it been foolish, to come alone? Should she have sent someone younger, someone stronger-? No; I know this mountain best. And someone else might mistake the Pe'lo. The plant was far too easy to miss.

It would be cliché to say that she found it just as she gave up. Old Aonae never gave up, anyway, no. But she was weary beyond belief. Shaking, drops of blood soaking through the bandaged feet and joining with the mud below. Fingers trembling as their weathered skin reached for the twist-leafed little herb growing fuzzy and dull green from a crevice between two rocks. The dainty white flowers she left alone. She took two leaves--and then, as if in afterthought, she took two more. Enough in case a third dose was needed. And her mind was on her feet--on the mud seeping into her cuts, on the fever that might hit her in a day or two if she gained an infection from this.

Yes; foresight. Now... for the journey down.

Old Aonae turned, and peered down the steep and muddy slope. She was already so terribly weak and tired... and going down was infinitely harder than going up. "Eh, can't live at the top," she muttered, a mere croak accompanied by a shrug.

She pulled her thick but tattered dress closer around her, against the chilling mist, and started the journey.

_____________________


Again, she fell. It had started perhaps a third of the way down--maybe a quarter--it was impossible to tell, really. She couldn't see more than a dozen meters, and that was when the fog cleared away. It was clouds, she knew that--clouds curling around the mountain and passing her by--but did that matter? Fog was only lazy clouds drifting to the earth, after all--so the stories went.

The first fall hadn't been bad. A slide gone out of control, a short tumble that had luckily landed her in nothing more than mud. She'd sat up, and with presence of mind granted by long years of experience, patted her pouch to be sure it (and the Pe'lo) were still there. She then tested her limbs, and found nothing broken. Back to her feet, then. Back down through the falling light and the churning fog, with the world become nothing but rocks and mud. Brown, and gray. Gray, and brown. Why does something so dangerous have to look so damn boring? old Aonae thought.

The second fall had been a little worse, but not by much. Her foot had slipped in the mud and she'd fallen into a rock. Her shin was bruised, and cut, but nothing more. Cursing, she'd pressed on. Should she just sleep here-? The weather wouldn't kill her, not if she covered up with a little mud, and Haleho would last until morning... well, probably. And you know you'll never forgive yourself if he don't. Come on, you're tougher than Slatewalker wool. Let's get down there, Aonae had urged herself.

A third fall left her sliding farther than was easily ignored: a long, long slip, on her back, sometimes head-first as the mountain took her and tumbled her down its mud slope. She'd hit her head hard enough to draw blood and to daze her and picked up half a dozen scrapes and cuts and what was at least a sprained wrist.

At least it wasn't her leg, she reasoned, and pushed up weakly to carry on down.

It had been a foolish choice--she knew that. The climb up had weakened her more than she'd expected. And the more battered and tired she became, the less her muscles kept her stable, the more she fell...

And fall, again, she did. This fall was by far the worst, leaving her with a gash up one side of her calf that stung like wasps and left her crying out and balling fistfulls of mud into her fingers as she waited for the worst of the pain to pass.

She wrapped it, eventually, though it wasn't clean. Mud would stop the bleeding, at least.

And then she carried on.

_____________________


She had looked out at what they called The Bad Dream. Then she had trudged through her own. At last, the ground suddenly evened out--became just a little drier--and she smelled smoke. "Thank you, sky and sea," she muttered, more with relief than with reverence, though both were definitely there. Only now did she realize how much the fear had begun to grip her--now, as the worst of it faded, as she felt her heart slamming in her ancient chest.

She swore, and stomped her feet out (and winced at the pain) along the dry earth as she followed the twisting scent of smoke. The few muttering, groaning sounds of the penned Slatewalkers confirmed her direction.

_____________________


Old Haleho woke to the sounds of clinking: of carved stone spoon against carved stone cup. There was a strange scent in the air--something like hot, wet grass or leaves, something mysteriously herbal. And mud--there was the stench of mud, too.

Aonae suddenly appeared, her face looming where before he'd seen only the slate-covered roof above, thatched beneath with straw. Weathered, weary, muddied and even bloodied, her ancient face was yet sharp with focus. "Drink," she commanded, and raised the cup to his lips. He obeyed, choking only a little where he lay--and it seemed to him that a strange, cool lassitude at once overcame him. It was as though the pain were simply... flowing away, the aches in his joints fading.

"Am I-... dying..." he croaked out, and coughed again.

Aonae chuckled. "You're going to be fine," she reassured him. "And I'm sleeping here tonight. Not because you need it, but because I have done enough of climbing for one day," she added, and turned to make herself at home.

_____________________


Outside, night had fallen. Below, the village lay still, quiet, with a thick blanket of fog near-obscuring it from vision, and from the sky.

The Slatewalkers in their pen had gone silent with the darkness, and now their eyes shifted skyward. Each great pupil gleamed with the reflection of the sky: with the light of the twin blue moons and then, as the third moon passed across them both, with its lurid orange gleam.]]> <![CDATA[[Read Only] The Seafarers]]> https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=9711 Sun, 14 Mar 2021 16:26:59 -0500 https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=9711
The Seafarers


Four calloused fingers lifted skyward. The light of the moons glimmered across the sea, and the sky was measured against a squinting, watery blue eye.

"He is three fingers above the horizon," the big fisherman called at last, pulling away and turning to the bow. "An hour until dawn."

Laughter, from the next ship: abrupt, buoyant as the boats themselves. The other ship's captain was more slender--less the swarthy, heavy older fellow; more the athletic and bright. "You will still not say the name of the moon-?" he asked. Arako'ma. Many of them would not; the orange moon--one of three--was the moon of Apocalypse, filled with bad omens. To call its name might call down disaster. Ahh, but sailors across the universe held with superstition, didn't they-? "You superstitious old man," he laughed, but it was good-natured.

The heavier man grunted. His ship was of two hulls, as a catamaran. His sails--unfurling now, his crew working the rigging--were flame-colored, ochre and rust, flower petals crushed by the Weavers until his family's crest was embedded forever. "Torch-lamp," with a legacy of leadership. The light in the dark; the lantern at the prow. "Maybe I am old because I am superstitious," he retorted back, just loud enough to be heard across the water gulf between the docked ships. His black eyebrow was arched. Humor hid behind the blank face.

"Sea Eel." That was the younger sailor's name; he was captain of his own vessel, and his brothers, his young son, their own sons and daughters, worked his sails and nets and lines. Good swimmers, all of them, sleek and quick as silver eels in the water. Their sails were blue--dyed with the highland flowers and the mushrooms the medicine women sometimes brought from the high peaks. A squiggle-drawn eel was their crest, as a flame was Torch-Lamp's.

There were thirty or so such ships, in all. Sails in a rainbow of shades, each with a story. And those stories were told in the carvings along the hulls of each: carvings traced at times by drunken, reminiscing fingers, lovingly and with respect, no matter what the family name. And these ships were setting out, now, not to return until dusk.

There were rules, at sea. Kaiale's oceans were lifegiving, but not forgiving. They gave their bounty, but without the mercy of second chances. The carvings on the hull-sides were battle scars; each held stories of trumph, of survival. The sailors were heroes. The shipbuilders were their armorers; the sailcloth Weavers wove their banners of war. The enemy was the storm; the enemy was a lash of lightning from the sky, or a rogue wave to overturn a ship--a family's lifeline and pride--to swallow men into the deep dark, never to be seen again.

______________


But to think like that was a grim trap! The seafarers--sailors and fishers, men and women both--greeted each day with a sharp eye but a bright spirit. Songs rang out over the frothing breakers, and as the dim blue sun's first gleam joined the sparkle of moonlight across the sea, the fleet cast out.

Fish had been few, these last weeks. Rumors could only guess at why. A storm elsewhere. A sickness among them. A punishment from a god. They did not know; but the Gatherers found enough molluscs and crabs to keep the village from going hungry, for now. That did not mean the fishermen would give up, of course. And so, three at a time, the ships glided out to bounce atop the waves, up and down across the crashing expanse and into the strait that would lead them to the ocean.

Rules... there were rules to the sea. Rules for the village. Soani'ka--that was their name; their village, their unifying vision. "Ocean-Blessed," it meant, and so they believed themselves to be, but they were not fools.

No one was to go to sea alone. That was rule one. There was strength in family--but strength in groups. Two other ships must always be near one, so that aid could be close at hand if there was an accident out on the waves. So it was in threes and fours, but as a largely unified fleet, that the ships slipped out for the bay.

On shore, the villagers working the dock or the flats that day, or gathering water for the boilers, lifted hands to shade against the rising sun. They watched the last hints of the vessel's shadows--the flecks of a great fleet--vanish against the horizon.

______________


Their shape were varied; Captain Torch-Lamp had always loved that about the ships. A catamaran, or a single hull; two tall triangular sails, or several square; one of the ships was an oval, even! The families always experimented, improved, and were proud of their designs--and those unsuitable? Well, the sea told them quickly enough that those experiments were failures, and they were not repeated.

The light grew bright. The rush of wind was strong, and salty, and itchy on the skin. The taste of the sea was strong on their tongues. Chants went up: shanties, sang back and forth between the crews, laughter as this group or another shouted down another with their louder song.

The Sea-Eel drew up alongside. And Captain Sea-Eel was hanging from a sail, dramatic with his irreverent flair, as always, peering against the sun. "YOU ARE SLOW TODAY," he shouted over, and his men laughed. The Torch-Lamp's crew responded with loud, shouted insults ("MAY THE SEAS SPIT ON YOUR MOTHER!") and rude gestures. The mockery ran both ways, and the ships were soon in competition, racing one another against the wind. "I WILL BET ONE THIRD OF YOUR CATCH THAT WE WILL BEAT YOURS, TODAY!" called Captain Sea-Eel.

Captain Torch-Lamp's eyes narrowed against this challenge. He was going to ignore it, until his sailors began protesting against Sea-Eel's words, goading the other crew. At last, he shook his head. He pulled a bit of fish jerky from his pocket, and chewed it slowly before offering his reply, ignoring the jeers from the other vessel. "AGAINST HALF OF YOURS," he shouted at last, "IF WE BEAT YOURS." Cries went up. The challenge was laid. Behind both ships, Captain Mountain-Storm simply shook her head, her brown sails fluttering in the strong wind.

______________


They reached the place where the sea-eagles dove and shrieked, and there they cast out their nets, each throw sending a spray of water to dance like diamonds scattered in the blue light. Laughter and song rang across the sea, the boats stopped or slowly circling atop the rocking waves.

Noon drew close. Clouds drew in. The brow of the horizon knotted with grey. "WE MUST HEAD BACK IN," came the calls. Every sea captain present knew what the clouds meant. It was darkening. It was growing colder. The wind was picking up.

A storm was coming.

And it was the sort of storm that might lose them more than one ship. Soani'ka could not afford to lose her entire fleet.

Half-filled nets were pulled in. Torch-Lamp and Sea-Eel only halfheartedly counted their catches, and even then only to halfway; glances were cast to the thinning line of sun, and both captains shouted for their crew to double-time it. Never mind the counting. Haul in, and survive. Be swift, men! Be swift.

______________


The ships raced the storm. The storm was winning. The waves were ten feet tall and more. The ships crested tall breakers, and crashed down the other side, some sideways. The sheets of rain behind them were black curtains, grey fog pluming higher than their sails from the strike of drops on roaring sea.

The first crack of thunder came far behind, but ominous. They were going as fast as they could. Full sail, racing the wind. Rain wiped from foreheads. Eyes wide.

They made the strait when they lost a ship: Sea-Eel's vessel, thrown on its side, its single hull unable to remain upright. Torch-Lamp turned in time to see it: the ship, lit by his own prow-lantern, twisting atop a high wave, shifting, toppling. Sailors falling. Their screams were lost to the storm. Mountain-Storm came in close behind, and Torch-Lamp's crew was turning, both ships closing as fast as they could for the capsized vessel. No one else saw it--they kept on, powering for Soani'ka. Too far. Too dark. Too fast.

Lightning lanced the sky. Terrified faces, glimpsed from the decks, the sea. Ropes were thrown in. A woman dove in. Rescue, arms gripping arms. A tunic, snagged in pale-fingered fist, heavy body pulled aboard, chest pumped clear of water. No orders could be given, for nothing could be heard; they simply did what they knew must be done. They did what they knew to do. This was not their first storm, and together, they saved the fallen crew. Captain Torch-Lamp found Sea-Eel himself, gripped his forearm, pulled him up. There was fear in both men's hearts. "I THOUGHT I'D LOST YOU."

"A FOOL TO COME BACK," said Sea-Eel. 'To risk your own family,' said his eyes. "THANK YOU." The last were pulled aboard. Faces glanced back, grim, at the sinking ship. What could be recovered would be--later, later. There was no place for that now.

The storm was here.

It chased them to the dock. It battered boats against the shore. There was damage, but only the one had been lost.

The crew of the Sea-Eel--the family--would sail with Torch-Lamp and Mountain-Storm tomorrow, and beyond. Sail with them, until they could built their boat anew. This was the way they were.

"WE DID NOT HAVE TIME TO COUNT OUR CATCH. TO SEE WHO WON," Captain Sea-Eel lamented loudly, to drive some of the loss away with humor.

Torch-Lamp clapped him across the back, with a smile, and he gave him the traditional answer to all such boasts and challenges: the final words always shouted forth after a winner was declared. "IT ALL GOES TO SOANI'KA."

The lights of the village beckoned.
]]>
The Seafarers


Four calloused fingers lifted skyward. The light of the moons glimmered across the sea, and the sky was measured against a squinting, watery blue eye.

"He is three fingers above the horizon," the big fisherman called at last, pulling away and turning to the bow. "An hour until dawn."

Laughter, from the next ship: abrupt, buoyant as the boats themselves. The other ship's captain was more slender--less the swarthy, heavy older fellow; more the athletic and bright. "You will still not say the name of the moon-?" he asked. Arako'ma. Many of them would not; the orange moon--one of three--was the moon of Apocalypse, filled with bad omens. To call its name might call down disaster. Ahh, but sailors across the universe held with superstition, didn't they-? "You superstitious old man," he laughed, but it was good-natured.

The heavier man grunted. His ship was of two hulls, as a catamaran. His sails--unfurling now, his crew working the rigging--were flame-colored, ochre and rust, flower petals crushed by the Weavers until his family's crest was embedded forever. "Torch-lamp," with a legacy of leadership. The light in the dark; the lantern at the prow. "Maybe I am old because I am superstitious," he retorted back, just loud enough to be heard across the water gulf between the docked ships. His black eyebrow was arched. Humor hid behind the blank face.

"Sea Eel." That was the younger sailor's name; he was captain of his own vessel, and his brothers, his young son, their own sons and daughters, worked his sails and nets and lines. Good swimmers, all of them, sleek and quick as silver eels in the water. Their sails were blue--dyed with the highland flowers and the mushrooms the medicine women sometimes brought from the high peaks. A squiggle-drawn eel was their crest, as a flame was Torch-Lamp's.

There were thirty or so such ships, in all. Sails in a rainbow of shades, each with a story. And those stories were told in the carvings along the hulls of each: carvings traced at times by drunken, reminiscing fingers, lovingly and with respect, no matter what the family name. And these ships were setting out, now, not to return until dusk.

There were rules, at sea. Kaiale's oceans were lifegiving, but not forgiving. They gave their bounty, but without the mercy of second chances. The carvings on the hull-sides were battle scars; each held stories of trumph, of survival. The sailors were heroes. The shipbuilders were their armorers; the sailcloth Weavers wove their banners of war. The enemy was the storm; the enemy was a lash of lightning from the sky, or a rogue wave to overturn a ship--a family's lifeline and pride--to swallow men into the deep dark, never to be seen again.

______________


But to think like that was a grim trap! The seafarers--sailors and fishers, men and women both--greeted each day with a sharp eye but a bright spirit. Songs rang out over the frothing breakers, and as the dim blue sun's first gleam joined the sparkle of moonlight across the sea, the fleet cast out.

Fish had been few, these last weeks. Rumors could only guess at why. A storm elsewhere. A sickness among them. A punishment from a god. They did not know; but the Gatherers found enough molluscs and crabs to keep the village from going hungry, for now. That did not mean the fishermen would give up, of course. And so, three at a time, the ships glided out to bounce atop the waves, up and down across the crashing expanse and into the strait that would lead them to the ocean.

Rules... there were rules to the sea. Rules for the village. Soani'ka--that was their name; their village, their unifying vision. "Ocean-Blessed," it meant, and so they believed themselves to be, but they were not fools.

No one was to go to sea alone. That was rule one. There was strength in family--but strength in groups. Two other ships must always be near one, so that aid could be close at hand if there was an accident out on the waves. So it was in threes and fours, but as a largely unified fleet, that the ships slipped out for the bay.

On shore, the villagers working the dock or the flats that day, or gathering water for the boilers, lifted hands to shade against the rising sun. They watched the last hints of the vessel's shadows--the flecks of a great fleet--vanish against the horizon.

______________


Their shape were varied; Captain Torch-Lamp had always loved that about the ships. A catamaran, or a single hull; two tall triangular sails, or several square; one of the ships was an oval, even! The families always experimented, improved, and were proud of their designs--and those unsuitable? Well, the sea told them quickly enough that those experiments were failures, and they were not repeated.

The light grew bright. The rush of wind was strong, and salty, and itchy on the skin. The taste of the sea was strong on their tongues. Chants went up: shanties, sang back and forth between the crews, laughter as this group or another shouted down another with their louder song.

The Sea-Eel drew up alongside. And Captain Sea-Eel was hanging from a sail, dramatic with his irreverent flair, as always, peering against the sun. "YOU ARE SLOW TODAY," he shouted over, and his men laughed. The Torch-Lamp's crew responded with loud, shouted insults ("MAY THE SEAS SPIT ON YOUR MOTHER!") and rude gestures. The mockery ran both ways, and the ships were soon in competition, racing one another against the wind. "I WILL BET ONE THIRD OF YOUR CATCH THAT WE WILL BEAT YOURS, TODAY!" called Captain Sea-Eel.

Captain Torch-Lamp's eyes narrowed against this challenge. He was going to ignore it, until his sailors began protesting against Sea-Eel's words, goading the other crew. At last, he shook his head. He pulled a bit of fish jerky from his pocket, and chewed it slowly before offering his reply, ignoring the jeers from the other vessel. "AGAINST HALF OF YOURS," he shouted at last, "IF WE BEAT YOURS." Cries went up. The challenge was laid. Behind both ships, Captain Mountain-Storm simply shook her head, her brown sails fluttering in the strong wind.

______________


They reached the place where the sea-eagles dove and shrieked, and there they cast out their nets, each throw sending a spray of water to dance like diamonds scattered in the blue light. Laughter and song rang across the sea, the boats stopped or slowly circling atop the rocking waves.

Noon drew close. Clouds drew in. The brow of the horizon knotted with grey. "WE MUST HEAD BACK IN," came the calls. Every sea captain present knew what the clouds meant. It was darkening. It was growing colder. The wind was picking up.

A storm was coming.

And it was the sort of storm that might lose them more than one ship. Soani'ka could not afford to lose her entire fleet.

Half-filled nets were pulled in. Torch-Lamp and Sea-Eel only halfheartedly counted their catches, and even then only to halfway; glances were cast to the thinning line of sun, and both captains shouted for their crew to double-time it. Never mind the counting. Haul in, and survive. Be swift, men! Be swift.

______________


The ships raced the storm. The storm was winning. The waves were ten feet tall and more. The ships crested tall breakers, and crashed down the other side, some sideways. The sheets of rain behind them were black curtains, grey fog pluming higher than their sails from the strike of drops on roaring sea.

The first crack of thunder came far behind, but ominous. They were going as fast as they could. Full sail, racing the wind. Rain wiped from foreheads. Eyes wide.

They made the strait when they lost a ship: Sea-Eel's vessel, thrown on its side, its single hull unable to remain upright. Torch-Lamp turned in time to see it: the ship, lit by his own prow-lantern, twisting atop a high wave, shifting, toppling. Sailors falling. Their screams were lost to the storm. Mountain-Storm came in close behind, and Torch-Lamp's crew was turning, both ships closing as fast as they could for the capsized vessel. No one else saw it--they kept on, powering for Soani'ka. Too far. Too dark. Too fast.

Lightning lanced the sky. Terrified faces, glimpsed from the decks, the sea. Ropes were thrown in. A woman dove in. Rescue, arms gripping arms. A tunic, snagged in pale-fingered fist, heavy body pulled aboard, chest pumped clear of water. No orders could be given, for nothing could be heard; they simply did what they knew must be done. They did what they knew to do. This was not their first storm, and together, they saved the fallen crew. Captain Torch-Lamp found Sea-Eel himself, gripped his forearm, pulled him up. There was fear in both men's hearts. "I THOUGHT I'D LOST YOU."

"A FOOL TO COME BACK," said Sea-Eel. 'To risk your own family,' said his eyes. "THANK YOU." The last were pulled aboard. Faces glanced back, grim, at the sinking ship. What could be recovered would be--later, later. There was no place for that now.

The storm was here.

It chased them to the dock. It battered boats against the shore. There was damage, but only the one had been lost.

The crew of the Sea-Eel--the family--would sail with Torch-Lamp and Mountain-Storm tomorrow, and beyond. Sail with them, until they could built their boat anew. This was the way they were.

"WE DID NOT HAVE TIME TO COUNT OUR CATCH. TO SEE WHO WON," Captain Sea-Eel lamented loudly, to drive some of the loss away with humor.

Torch-Lamp clapped him across the back, with a smile, and he gave him the traditional answer to all such boasts and challenges: the final words always shouted forth after a winner was declared. "IT ALL GOES TO SOANI'KA."

The lights of the village beckoned.
]]> <![CDATA[[Read Only] The Gatherers]]> https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=9705 Thu, 11 Mar 2021 16:15:26 -0600 https://origin.boreal-nights.space/showthread.php?tid=9705
The Gatherers


The rain had let up some time in the early morning, leaving the soft gray haze of an afternoon drizzle. This was tossed by the ocean winds, and touched by the salt of the sea. It was cool, crisp, and it left a slight crust as it dried, so that Toani had to continously pause and scratch at her own skin.

She grimaced, fingers picking beneath the leather spear-sheath wrapped around her forearm. She brushed the hand over her loose sackcloth clothes, then squinted out over the water. She liked the feeling of mud on her toes, but the wind--it was always itchy. When she spoke, her language was something other--something flowing and alien, melodic, all vowels and brief halts mid-word. "Bad weather," she called, to the older boy picking his way along the mud flat behind her. 'Kio tao.'

The other gatherers were ranged around them, all of them spread as they used the sticks and spears to pick through the low-tide rocks. The boy--some eighteen or nineteen, and towering over the younger girl by a couple of rangy feet--laughed. "It is good weather," he protested, holding a palm up to catch the drizzle. "No storm, just enough light, not too wet..."

Toani's grey eyes again cut out over the sea. She shook her head, expression bitter for one so young. Then she looked down again, shaking her head, focused on her task.

The little spear--strapped to her forearm--prodded into the mud, here and there. Other Gatherers were plucking out the occasional crablike creature, or flipping stones to pick out the molluscs hidden underneath. Each find was dropped into a canvas sack. "If I have to be itchy, I would rather be itchy at sea."

The boy behind her sighed. It was a point of contention, always; Toani wished to join the fishermen, but her family held no line of boats, no history of carved hulls and family-crest sails. "You know the fish have not been good..."

She nodded, scowling. "...And the shellfish have been many. And I have been trained for Gathering. And my family has no boat. And there is no place--and, and, and. I hate the mud! It stinks, and I sink. And the crabs bite my toes," she added irritably. But she did not hate the mud--not really. It was only that she loved the sea more.

Buhano laughed quietly behind her. "Stop digging your toes in. You walk with anger," he observed. "They feel you coming."

It was a common argument between them, in part because she (the apprentice) only had he (her guide) to complain to. Bu was the only one who listened, but then, there wasn't a lot to do out here on the mud flats except to talk--or sing. The soft rush of the gray sea was loud enough, here, that talking would soon be difficult--the Gatherers were veering toward it, their route taking them to the very lip of the ocean breakers.

Beyond lay the vast expanse of sea: waves beyond waves, the sea glittering dimly in the light of the low-hanging, cloud-wreathed blue sun.

"Let them feel me coming," Toani muttered. "If they will not let me sail, I will at least bring the most crabs."

"Then a new lesson for you. You are not supposed to use your toes as bait, apprentice," Bu said solemnly, and Toani turned, throwing an empty shell his way.

His good-natured laughter rang across the flats.

_________________


The Gatherers worked along the shoreline, farther and farther, their tawny skins sun-stained and salt-weathered. The tides came in, and so did they, trudging with full sacks back to the village. The homes, all slate- and driftwood-made, were nestled along dreary brown shore in the shadow of the fog-swept mountain. The mountain, legend said, had dragged this island up from the sea back when it had choked smoke and wept molten stone, but now it had slept for millennia.

The moons curled lazily behind the clouds, drifting like ships at sea--even as the ships themselves came into dock, each bearing the unique carvings that told its story, and the colored sails that marked its owner's family.

The nets were hauled in, glittering full of silver scales; and the molluscs were being sorted; and the village huts plumed with chimney smoke as night fell.

This was a quiet place, a peaceful place.

This was Kaiale.
]]>
The Gatherers


The rain had let up some time in the early morning, leaving the soft gray haze of an afternoon drizzle. This was tossed by the ocean winds, and touched by the salt of the sea. It was cool, crisp, and it left a slight crust as it dried, so that Toani had to continously pause and scratch at her own skin.

She grimaced, fingers picking beneath the leather spear-sheath wrapped around her forearm. She brushed the hand over her loose sackcloth clothes, then squinted out over the water. She liked the feeling of mud on her toes, but the wind--it was always itchy. When she spoke, her language was something other--something flowing and alien, melodic, all vowels and brief halts mid-word. "Bad weather," she called, to the older boy picking his way along the mud flat behind her. 'Kio tao.'

The other gatherers were ranged around them, all of them spread as they used the sticks and spears to pick through the low-tide rocks. The boy--some eighteen or nineteen, and towering over the younger girl by a couple of rangy feet--laughed. "It is good weather," he protested, holding a palm up to catch the drizzle. "No storm, just enough light, not too wet..."

Toani's grey eyes again cut out over the sea. She shook her head, expression bitter for one so young. Then she looked down again, shaking her head, focused on her task.

The little spear--strapped to her forearm--prodded into the mud, here and there. Other Gatherers were plucking out the occasional crablike creature, or flipping stones to pick out the molluscs hidden underneath. Each find was dropped into a canvas sack. "If I have to be itchy, I would rather be itchy at sea."

The boy behind her sighed. It was a point of contention, always; Toani wished to join the fishermen, but her family held no line of boats, no history of carved hulls and family-crest sails. "You know the fish have not been good..."

She nodded, scowling. "...And the shellfish have been many. And I have been trained for Gathering. And my family has no boat. And there is no place--and, and, and. I hate the mud! It stinks, and I sink. And the crabs bite my toes," she added irritably. But she did not hate the mud--not really. It was only that she loved the sea more.

Buhano laughed quietly behind her. "Stop digging your toes in. You walk with anger," he observed. "They feel you coming."

It was a common argument between them, in part because she (the apprentice) only had he (her guide) to complain to. Bu was the only one who listened, but then, there wasn't a lot to do out here on the mud flats except to talk--or sing. The soft rush of the gray sea was loud enough, here, that talking would soon be difficult--the Gatherers were veering toward it, their route taking them to the very lip of the ocean breakers.

Beyond lay the vast expanse of sea: waves beyond waves, the sea glittering dimly in the light of the low-hanging, cloud-wreathed blue sun.

"Let them feel me coming," Toani muttered. "If they will not let me sail, I will at least bring the most crabs."

"Then a new lesson for you. You are not supposed to use your toes as bait, apprentice," Bu said solemnly, and Toani turned, throwing an empty shell his way.

His good-natured laughter rang across the flats.

_________________


The Gatherers worked along the shoreline, farther and farther, their tawny skins sun-stained and salt-weathered. The tides came in, and so did they, trudging with full sacks back to the village. The homes, all slate- and driftwood-made, were nestled along dreary brown shore in the shadow of the fog-swept mountain. The mountain, legend said, had dragged this island up from the sea back when it had choked smoke and wept molten stone, but now it had slept for millennia.

The moons curled lazily behind the clouds, drifting like ships at sea--even as the ships themselves came into dock, each bearing the unique carvings that told its story, and the colored sails that marked its owner's family.

The nets were hauled in, glittering full of silver scales; and the molluscs were being sorted; and the village huts plumed with chimney smoke as night fell.

This was a quiet place, a peaceful place.

This was Kaiale.
]]>