| Nine Nights in Aiken's Life |
[22 Jul 2009|08:56pm] |
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music |
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Scheherazade - Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov |
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An (x)-number-of-things fic. Started out five, ended up nine. Unashamedly woobie. Aiken bathing in pathos and betterment. I regret nothing.
~:~
Nine Nights in Aiken's Life
I
His hair was unravelled, his clothing shot through the seams, his stomach hung a cave under his shirt. His eyes bright. He looked terrible, and like a beggar, but,
"I'm the King of the Wind," he said hoarsely, and proved it by turning into a bird before her. Clothes fell off, and he picked them up when he changed back, and started putting them back on on her doorstep. "May I stay with you for a time?"
"Of course," she said numbly, and stood aside to let him in.
II
Food before him, barely touched. He was little in the wide chair, and bowed shoulders made him smaller. He stared at nothing, mostly, so she set up her darning and her candles and tried not to look at him. Finally fell into the rhythm of needle through cloth.
"Sewing?" he asked suddenly.
She nodded.
"It's so dark. How can you see?"
"Good eyes." She was still nervous around him, barely answered him.
He nodded, and hunched into the chair. She snuck a look once: he was still watching, two little dots of reflected candlelight.
III
"So you live alone, is it?"
She nodded. Kneading bread, and he sat on the kitchen table, legs bent and arms bent over them. He hadn't left the house once. He hadn't said when he would leave, but it wasn't a great problem - he ate lightly, lighter than she, and took up little space. Slept in that great wide chair, curled up like a child or animal.
He looked better, though: still thin, but he looked less hollow. His eyes were not so much bright anymore as sharp - where before he had only looked, now he saw, and watched.
He did nothing in the day, only watched and slept and ate.
"Why?" he added.
It was the first time he'd shown interest in anything about her. She remembered - he was King of the Wind - but only in surprise. This little thing controlled windlongs?
She told him, the whole long reason, and he sat and nodded, many times, like a little bird.
IIII
Over laundry, once - she was working, and he was in the same room, watching as always - he began to talk.
"Did I ever tell you why I'm here?"
She shook her head.
He proceeded to.
She shook her head again when he finished. "That was the worst-" and remembered who she was talking to. And then finished anyway. "I'm sorry if it'll hurt your pride, but that's the worst idea I've heard to do. You don't go starving yourself for the love of a girl, doesn't matter how pretty she may be."
He shrugged.
"And you don't go telling her family whose that child is. They mayn't even have known it wasn't her couple's."
He shrugged.
"And what, you're good luck anyhow? That's no reason to presume she'd want you back. You're too sure you're amazing, you know."
He shrugged, and smiled. "Maybe it's because I am."
IIIII
On the sixth tenday, she said, "If you're going to live here, could you maybe do some work?"
He smiled, leaned back, and crossed his legs. "But it's so much easier for you to do all of it. And such a lovely sight."
IIIIII
On the seventh tenday, he came up behind her and took the laundry out of her hands, holding it up. "So, what is it, I rub this in the water til it's clean?"
It seemed the King of the Wind had never done laundry before. So she explained.
IIIIIII
They laughed a lot during the day. He still only left the house when she did, but they played - she ducked out of his grip, he raised his hands innocently, she gave him a face and a chore to do. He got to be decent at cooking, did other housework when she was doing her carving she sold, then lazed around on top of furniture never meant to be lazed on and told extravagent stories, mostly about himself. She returned with other stories she'd heard of him, and he denied most of them. Most. There's always something people get right.
IIIIIIII
In the night she mostly kept to herself. She slept alone, she slept alone. He slept alone, on that big chair in the greatroom.
She kept to herself and wondered.
She kept to herself and dreamed.
She kept -
- and finally stood, and went downstairs, and found him awake.
IIIIIIIII
He wandered very little, for a time. For perhaps thirty thousand-days. Aiken just didn't want to leave. Eventually he had to, since the wind always moves, too, and Aiken felt like the wind sometimes, but there were always times when he thought, Tuae forsake this whole world down here, I'm going to start again.
Of course, he had to start again. He had to, even after he'd gone all to pieces. They started things over, and over, and over for him. But it was always nice to feel he had some choice in the matter.
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(1 Sorrover Agent | You've made one, too?)
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| Ren |
[30 Dec 2008|11:09am] |
The nmari and Tuae have more than just Seth and Piotr as agents.
They have Ren. Ren are little Calendaris girls (looking about five) in pink dresses that go around and get things done that T&tn want done. A Ren will go up to whoever's most qualified to do the job and glom onto that person and not go away until the job is done.
The job can be anything. Any whim of T&tn.
Ren have a very short lifespan. When the job is done, they go away (either go back into the path, or disintegrate). They are made half of Tuae and half of nmari.
~:~
The Red Prince had a Ren after him to bring Dracalian over. Queen Ura had a Ren after her to kill her couple (back in nmariside history). Ren prospered in Mirivar. The philosopher Bacs based his loss-and-change mindset on them.
Ren have a reputation of being scary little agents of change. When S&P nudge people into doing something, it tends to be for the good of people. When Ren nudge people into doing something, it's either neutral or chaos-inducing. People are wary of Ren - when a Ren comes into your life, you do what she tells you to and then hope that things will go back to normal, please, right now.
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(4 Sorrover Agents | You've made one, too?)
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| Chapter Eight |
[27 May 2007|11:29am] |
Oh, Massey. Massey, Massey, Massey.
~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~
Chapter Eight
In Which Massey Sorrover Gets Involved
At the moment, Arver Maridecus was nineteen-some hands tall, eleven-some thousand-days old, and captain of the guard at Dovaris. He was also wholly unnerved. Three of these states of being he was familiar with, and knew how to deal with. The fourth, not so much.
Why was he unnerved? Well, there was the small fact that the Prince was apparently no longer quite as alive as most people tended to be. Maridecus had been shaken awake early after greening and blared at by one of the morning guards. The night guards had been ordered away, they said; it wasn’t their fault, the Prince had told them not to be there, and they understood, what with the new concubine and everything. But the guards who’d come this morning had seen the door open, and looked in –
Mari hadn’t believed it. He’d refused to believe it.
So he’d been hurried down halls, up stairs, along corridors, and around corners to the Red Prince’s rooms. The guards had dropped off at the door, and Maridecus had walked in alone.
Oh yes, the Red Prince was dead. That wasn’t something you could mistake, not with him lying there, throat not just cut but tattered –
So, at the moment, Mari turned and walked out of the room.
( Read more... )
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(You've made one, too?)
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| itandra essay |
[12 Nov 2006|11:35am] |
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mood |
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 thoughtful |
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A couple stuff about Itandra, as long as I'm not thinking straight.
Itandra is smallish in stature. She's friendly, and understanding, and outspoken. She talks, a little more than a little and a little more than she needs; she's kinetic - touchy-feely - without being flirty. She beads, and likes nice stuff. She only interested in fighting as a topic of conversation, and not at all in politics. She's afraid of falling off the path, even thoguh she's never been in that kind of situation, and likely never ever will be.
She's the most "girly" character I've ever written, and yet she's not "girly" at all.
She's strong-minded. She's decided. She's comfortable in who, and what, and where she is.
She's very feminine, and still a strong character.
I like Itandra, because she's shown me that. I know cognatively it's possible, and through practice it's possible, but media bullshit and society bullshit keeps insisting all this other stuff, and just.
I'm glad to write Itandra, because she's the aspect of strength that people don't seem willing to call "strength."
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(2 Sorrover Agents | You've made one, too?)
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[29 Aug 2006|01:48am] |
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mood |
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 accomplished |
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Just so I have an internet version of this - here's the full catalogue of pictures of some of my characters. Rather, approxiations of each character. I'll add comments underneath, where and when necessary. Alphabetical order, btw.
( Onwards! And upwards! )
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