Month: April 2023

Alyssum: The Voices of the Shattered Sun – Chapter Two

/ birdjericho

Glacialis

The Shattered most often spoke to him in broken sentences. Fragments of ideas. And rarely did they provide useful commentary. But that night, as Aeo climbed the frozen Mount Falas alone, one of the Shattered—a voice he did not often hear—told him a story. A useful story.

[No one travels across the Falas Mountains during the night. Especially in the midst of torrential snow fall. Even those with a sense of urgency to cross rarely stepped foot above the treeline after sunset. No one who knows better. Whenever a traveler was said to have disappeared, it was the mighty frozen winds that were ever suspect.]

[But that was not always the case. Something sinister lives in the crags and caverns of Falas. And once upon a time, everyone within leagues of the mountain knew it.]

[Despite this, here walks a lonely figure. Shivering in the cold, blindly treading upwards and away from the village of Olvaren. A little boy. A stupid one. A sensible human being would do well to drag him back to the village, away from hypothermia and death. He wears no coat or jacket, but the rags of a slave. He wears thin leather soles, the only thing keeping his feet from the snow.]

[He’ll never make it by himself.]

“Sh-Sh-Shut up,” Aeo growled above the howling wind.

The Storyteller continued.

[There’s no going back, though. Not with the bruises on his arms. The swelling black eye. They mark him. They prove he no longer belongs at the Inn. He belongs nowhere, save walking hand-in-hand with Death. Death on his own terms. He isn’t yet aware of the choice he’s made. Either he makes it to freedom on the other side of Falas, or the Goddess will take his life from him. It truly is as simple as that.]

The frigid wind hit Aeo’s face like a thousand glass needles, and he wasn’t sure whether his toes still existed. And the moment he tried to blow warmth into his frigid fingers, the cold sapped it away in an instant.

It doesn’t matter, Aeo thought to himself. I’m not going back.

[Despite the lateness of the hour,] the voice continued in his mind. [And despite the absence of the moon, the snow reflects enough light to give the boy clarity. He started his journey on the merchant’s trail. But where that trail might have gone, the boy could no longer tell. The howling blizzard surrounding him blinds him to almost everything. Especially to any creatures that may dwell in those frozen cliffs.]

Aeo forced his own thoughts above the voice he heard in his head: how do you know these things? Are you here with me? Why aren’t you helping me?

The Storyteller did not elaborate.

[What did the merchants and soldiers used to say about the creatures of the mountain? Wolves, packs of them, roam the hills in search of prey. Long-haired bears live close to the once-thermal rivers, smart and patient enough to wait for a fish to jump upstream. Eagles with the most discerning vision make homes atop the trees, soaring down from lofty heights to catch food. And every so often, hunters—the ones that braved the trek and camping through the night—would take aim at moose and deer that lay trapped between the impenetrable tree line. All of these, partakers of the bounty of the mountain.]

[All these creatures of creation stood for symbols of the goddess Tiathys’s power. They reflected her diverse attributes of strength, cunning, endurance, and wisdom. At least, that’s what Her priests used to teach. Holy men had once spent time in Olvaren. They have since discovered themselves unwelcome, in the village and its nation. And all the inhabitants of Antiell are the worse for it.]

[For, according to tales, there used to live in these very mountains a creature. A terrible monster, perhaps the most terrible of Tiathys’s domain, and a consequence of their transgressions against Her. The monster was known as a mephandras. Standing twenty feet tall on its hind legs and terrible in temperament, the mephandras was (for lack of any other comparison) a feral wolf with bitter scales and spikes in place of fur. Its long-toothed maw could rend almost anything to pieces, be it stone, steel, or flesh. Worst of all, they wore a cruel disposition, boasting an intelligence that no other beast but man could claim.]

[The mephandras prowled the uppermost climbs of Falas, devouring every traveler that dared to climb to the top. And every few decades, when the mephandras would descend from the mountain in search of sustainance, desperation would seize upon the villagers of Olvaren and the call would sound. Hunters from all over Antiell would go forth to hunt the beast. Each was promised untold wealth and fame if they killed the creature and brought back proof of their kill.]

[Unlike every other guild call, there was no guarantee of restitution should the hunter die to the mephandras. But still they came.]

As Aeo heard these words, a wolf howled somewhere off in the distance. He ignored it, pressing on into the trees.

[Only a few short years ago,] the Shattered whispered. [A troupe of intrepid hunters lured a mephandras to its demise. A feat of unrivaled courage, and one of the few successful hunts recorded by the Guild. Though they lost a score of hunters in the process, they used cunning and forethought to entrap the beast, setting off a series of loud fireworks to herd the mighty wolf into a terrible position. Cornered by sheer cliffs and three dozen of the best hunters in the land, the beast roared in defiance. And while the ears of the hunters bled at its power, it could not escape.]

[In seconds, the deed was done: a single explosive charge placed above some hours earlier made the whole of the mountain to fall upon the unsuspecting creature. When the smoke and dust cleared, the creature lay silent and unmoving. The hunters refused to take the chance that it might wake and rend them asunder. Keeping their distance from the unconscious brute, they filled its hide with so many arrows and spearheads, they might have brought down an entire herd of elk instead. They even utilized one last explosive, placing it upon the crown of its great head and detonating it from a distance. When the smoke cleared from the explosion, the corpse’s head (as well as a large chunk of its right shoulder) was no more, become nothing more than spatter on the rock.]

[A sure kill. And at last, an end to their troubles. It took days to harvest even a portion of the creature’s oily meat, hide, and colossal bones, which were quickly promised at great value to the province’s eager merchants. A festival was held to celebrate the hunters that culled the great beast, and their triumph might have brought prosperity to everyone in turn.]

[The tale might have happily ended there. Unfortunately for the hunters, they had not performed their due diligence. They were not aware: their prey was not a lone wolf. Few are the creatures who bond more fiercely than the mephandras, and its mate was quick to realize its absence.]

Even as Aeo completely lost feeling in his fingers and toes, lost in the midst of the mountain blizzard, he couldn’t help but think: a mate? Was the first one a girl or a…?

As if in response:

[Even larger than its slain companion, and much older, the female mephandras tracked the hunters from the mountain within the space of a day. Upon the discovery of its beloved’s remains at the cliffside, Olvaren heard a single low howl from the mountain. And in mere moments, into the midst of the impromptu festival the mephandras charged, rending the hunters who had slain its mate asunder. Bereft of their weapons, they became as chaff before the female’s harvest. Dozens were torn apart in mere moments, their blood and viscera staining the driven snow. As truly a bloody banquet as the male mephandras had become… so too did that very mortal band become carrion for the crows.]

[The mephandras bucked and heaved and howled, tearing through the ramshackle buildings and storefronts of the village marketplace like a child through so many wooden blocks. The villagers of Olvaren, suddenly lacking the entire Guild’s worth of hunters, retreated to the town hall, locking themselves and their families in the cellar. To their surprise, however, the great wolf did not pursue them inside. And though it spent some minutes clawing at the ironwood doors of the hall, it soon relented. Perhaps the mephandras wasn’t interested in carnage for its own sake. It returned to the bones and partially-dried pelt of its beloved in the village square, where it proceeded to sorrow and mourn quite violently.]

[Every pitiful counterattack the villagers attempted did nothing to steal the creature’s attention. And though countless arrows were fired from the roof of the hall, none found purchase into this great queen’s hide. For three days and three nights, the creature continued to mourn, howling and raving in utter despair. And for three days and nights, the villagers dared not leave the safety of the hall. When the mephandras finally became too tired to continue grieving, it took the largest of its mate’s unmarred bones in its mouth and dragged it away, quietly departing. Where it wandered, no hunter remained to hunt it, and no villager cared to follow.]

[The mournful beast never returned for the remainder of the now-frozen carcass. What spoils remained barely covered the costs necessary to repair the damage wrought to the village. Few survived the mephandras’s slaughter, and those that did never hunted again.]

Aeo had long since stopped paying attention. In fact, he couldn’t focus on much of anything, as there was nothing to focus on. He had passed beyond the treeline, and all he could see was cast in white and gray. There was no road, no trail, no landmarks that he could identify. Only the frozen mountain lie before his feet, each step he took plowing through two feet of crunchy, long-fallen snow.

The Storyteller concluded its tale:

[Perhaps twelve or so years have passed since that time. But the scars of that hunt linger on. The boy himself had seen the beast’s claw marks carved quite clearly on the door frame of the old hall, during his supervised walks with his master. And while hunters are still hired to hunt mephandras every few years, not a hide nor hair of one has been spotted for a decade.]

The singular voice then became a series of voices, all commenting at once:

[Perhaps the mephandras are all gone. Perhaps Falas is no longer as dangerous as the hunters all claim. Perhaps the female mephandras will find the boy. Devour him. Put him out of his misery. Perhaps it would let the boy ride on its back and carry him over the mountain to freedom. Wouldn’t that be something? Why would it do that?]

The boy raised his hands to his face. He couldn’t feel a thing. His teeth had long since passed chattering. Every step he took was uncertain, since he’d long lost feeling in his legs.

I’m not going back. I’m not going back.

[Then you will share the hunters’ fate,] whispered the Storyteller, and the voice fell silent.

A howl echoed across the snow, just barely audible above the frigid wind. The boy didn’t hear it, as the cold consumed his awareness. Then a second howl cried out much louder to the boy’s right side. This snapped him out of his frozen trance, and for the first time in several hours, the boy’s feet stopped walking. The world didn’t seem to stop with him.

He waited. He watched the few fir trees dance back and forth, the giant snowflakes falling in large clumps as stars from the sky. Something watched him in the trees. He didn’t know how, but he knew it. Or maybe delirium had set in.

A shadow passed between the cliffs, perhaps fifty yards away. Too dark to tell. The boy wasn’t afraid. His fear had frozen away. He simply stood like a pole buried in dirt. His eyes felt tired, somehow burning when the rest of his body solidified. He’d been climbing for such a long time. Perhaps the shadow would let him sleep.

It approached. The image of a wolf. A mephandras. It had to be. Its jagged fur, locked between interlocking plates of hard chitin, whipped in the wind, and its deep-throated growl echoed wide across the snow.

The thought repeated until the last: I’m not going back.

The rigid boy suddenly felt a terrible weight. His knees could no longer sustain themselves. He felt the world spin, and its frigid surface collided with him. The snow gave way for him as if he belonged there all along. His perception darkened to match the night sky. Just before he allowed himself to fade away, an unfocused collection of thoughts wedged themselves in his mind’s eye.

Fur. Scales. Teeth. And, for some reason, a man with dark eyes.

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Alyssum: The Voices of the Shattered Sun – Chapter One (Full)

/ birdjericho

(Excuse the “re-upload” of the first half of Chapter One. It has been edited in its entirety and includes the second half of the chapter. I’ll also be publishing the fully edited story as it completes to the Alyssum page here.)

Incendium

“Oi! Stupid boy! Wake up!”

A gruff tone, then a terrible force thrust itself into the boy’s stomach. His breath escaped, and he clenched inwards with a groan.

“Oh no you don’t. Get out of bed. Now.”

A collection of pinpricks slapped his shoulder, and his eyes snapped open. A broom. That meant Harthon, his master, was standing over him, and Aeo knew better than to ignore him.

“You’ve got chores to do, Snapper. Get to it. Don’t make me smack you with something heavier.”

The gears in Aeo’s mind slowly gained traction. He sat up in the dark, quick enough to convince his Antielli master that he wasn’t disobeying him.

“Uh… aye, master.”

He drifted out of utter drowsiness, side-to-side like a sailor out to sea. He couldn’t help it. Despite the rudeness of the early wake-up call, it was like the boy’s mind swam in deep waters. Aeo rubbed his eyes. The closet was dark. He knew the sun had yet to rise, but there was little hope of further slumber. He stood from his small cot, but just as abruptly ran into something. The large muscular form of his master had not departed. Harthon still towered over him, holding out a crooked broom with an impatient and disgusted scowl.

“Oh.”

Aeo took the broom.

“Lazy Adian,” Harthon replied. He took the boy by the scruff of his shirt and hauled him out of his sleeping spot in the closet. “Come on, go. Rooms, and then floors. Don’t youdare let me catch you nodding off.”

“Aye, master.”

The voices had made him dream again. In his dreams, he was no longer in the village of Olvaren on Mount Falas. Instead, he stood upon a vast and barren valley of sand and rock, beneath a fierce noonday sun. He had seen sunlight drenched upon his skin, and its warmth had filled him, soothing and powerful. It certainly wasn’t a memory. Not his own, anyway. The region of Falas held no such promise of warmth, especially the village. The sun would shine brightly on Olvaren for perhaps a week or two out of the year before disappearing behind months of deep fog and overcast skies.

Sometimes the boy could convince himself that the valley of sand in his dreams were his memories. Distant ones, perhaps, and disconnected from his present life. If they were, they were proof that he’d ever been someone else… someone who wasn’t a slave. He couldn’t afford to think like that. So Aeo did his best to ignore the dreams, though they came night after night. He shook them off like rain when Harthon woke him each morning, and instead he focused on his many chores.

That morning, the Gray Pale Inn smelled like cheap ale and sawdust. Stale cheese, old tallow and grease. Except that morning, there was something more. Something awful. Oh, right: the fetid scent of an overfilled stable. Even with the back door sealed shut, the stable’s reek poisoned the air just beyond the dining area. A horrible stench. Aeo didn’t know anything about horses, but the old mares must have contracted some horrible disease in order to smell so foul. Not that Harthon cared. The patron had paid in advance for his whole team of five horses to be wedged into a meager space designed for two.

Aeo would be cleaning the stable after the patron departed that afternoon, and he would gratefully do it. Cleaning the stable was the only time he was ever free of the inn itself.

[What an idiot. And your master is an idiot as well. They’ll deserve each other when the poor beasts die. Such fragile creatures.]

Don’t say that about Harthon, Aeo thought in response to one of the familiar voices in his head. What if he hears you?

[That oaf would never listen to shattered men. We would sooner address dogs.]

Out of curiosity, Aeo thought a question in response: Wait, do you mean dogs can hear you if they want?

The Shattered did not answer his question. They rarely did.

That’s what the voices called themselves, the Shattered. Or, at least, it was the word they most often repeated. They were talkative at times, but they were rather picky about the words they whispered. Sometimes they seemed responsive, while other times they completely ignored Aeo’s presence and simply commented on events in passing. He had learned long ago that there was no need to speak to them out loud. They responded just as readily to Aeo’s waking thoughts than any words he spoke aloud.

The Shattered spoke in his mind. They never seemed to leave, at least for very long. There were many of them. Some came and went, unfamiliar and fleeting. A few remained as Aeo’s constant companions. But none of these ever shared with him their names (if they had any to share), and never explained why they spoke to him at all. Aeo never told Harthon about them. Never tried to, never wanted to. And he had no intention of doing so. If he were careful, the clever boy could spend two hours cleaning the stable, and he would have time to converse with the voices in his mind without interruption.

Some of the voices responded more often than others. He named these, according to their usual demeanor. Aeo pretended he could reason with the friendly ones. Ask them important questions. Like where he was born, what the world outside the Grey Pale Inn was like. Why they forced him to dream about sunlight, sand, and stone every night.

[You’re just as much a fool as your master,] would come the inevitable reply. [Wallow in the filth where you belong, slave.]

Aeo called that voice “Mean.” He didn’t like Mean very much.

[Relax, and think of brighter things,] another voice would sometimes say. [Life will find a way to repay you.]

Aeo called that voice “Kind.” He liked Kind a lot.

Every morning, Aeo began his day in the Grey Pale by cleaning the rooms of travelers who departed during the night. They were the worst chores of the day, especially if Harthon stopped him from getting enough sleep. By the time Aeo finished, the vaguest crests of daylight would begin to peak over the horizon, and weary breakfast-goers would begin to trudge through the inn’s front door in search of sustenance. Aeo would be expected to appear immediately, prepared to take their orders while Harthon attended the kitchen. Around 6 o’clock, the inn got busy. The merchants always said that Olvaren sat right in the middle of an important trade route between the war-torn nation of Adia, the Republic of Antiell, and the Free-States of San’Drael. Aeo didn’t quite know what that meant, besides the fact that the inn seemed to fill itself day and night of its own accord. As the only reputable tavern in Olvaren, Harthon’s establishment was the center of commerce in the tiny mountain village. Day in and day out, stranger after stranger would walk through the door. Tired travelers, irritable hunters, entire families, guildsman looking to get drunk, and nearly all of the unfamiliar faces trying to cross the mountain and leave Olvaren behind as quickly as possible.

“Hurry up, boy,” Harthon would say, every hour on the hour. Aeo’s master always seemed to know when Aeo needed a new chore to perform, and was always there to goad him onto the next one. If he slowed his pace, Harthon would catch the boy’s ear with something. A bare hand, a broomstick handle, an ale flagon, the base of a hefty wrought-iron candlestick. Once, when Aeo was six years old, Harthon had even thrown a clothing iron at the boy’s face. When patrons inevitably asked about it, he said simply: “It’s not my fault the stupid boy likes to run headfirst into walls.”

Aeo didn’t complain. It never did him any good. But he didn’t know why Harthon liked to hurt him so much.

[At least you know how to take a hit,] said Kind. [Not many do.]

Harthon was a wretched giant of a man. Six-and-three-quarters feet tall, and Aeo’s owner of seven long years. The hunters called him “a true son of Antiell,” whatever that meant. Aeo couldn’t remember a father besides him, but he didn’t think the man deserved the title. In his opinion, Harthon hardly deserved the bulging muscles and height that granted him his authority, much less the fame and high praises sung by his fellow guild hunters. Before owning the Grey Pale Inn, Harthon had been a master hunter in Olvaren, and before that, he had served as a mercenary for the Antiellan army. The swords, pelts, and trophies that hung above the Grey Pale’s mantle had all been collected by him personally, including several sunborne banners from the Second Adian War. Though Harthon had left the hunt behind, the hunt hadn’t left him; he had simply changed his prey, and now Aeo was his daily target. Aeo would sooner have risked sneaking up on a starving bear than dare to catch Harthon’s ire.

“No slacking, Snapper,” Harthon would often say to him in passing, even when it was obvious Aeo was working. “If you want to keep eating.”

“Ay, master.”

Aeo did, of course. Though Aeo was a full nine years old that winter, he was much shorter than the other Antielli children his age, and considerably more gaunt.

Sure, Harthon may have been a brute. But he was decidedly more than just a mound of bitter muscle. The vindictive reactions to Aeo’s simple presence were matched only by the unusual friendliness and charm he exuded in front of guests. Even Aeo could admit how convincing his heel-turn appeared to complete strangers. As the social center of Olvaren, gossip and news came to the Grey Pale in droves, and Harthon set himself as its apex, spreading the day’s rumors and slander like butter on bread when working the counter. Few topics were off limits to him and those who let him bark. The promiscuous escapades of some young hunter and his mistress from Lincades? The strange religion of some backwater San’dorian merchant? The poor financial decisions of some poor sod he hardly knew? All free rein.

Always with the name-calling, too. He never called people by their real names. Especially not Aeo. “Snapper,” he always called Aeo. He wasn’t sure why. “Useless” was a popular one. “Good-for-Nothing.” “Red-Eyed Bastard” was reserved for rare occasions. He had once deigned to explain to the boy what the word “bastard” meant. Considering he’d never met his birth parents, Aeo wasn’t certain the title applied to him.

[Oh, it does,] whispered Mean. [Bastard child of a bastard lineage. The incestuous union of two branches, long-burned and drowned in tears.]

Aeo didn’t understand what any of the Shattered were talking about most of the time. Mean, least of all. And since no one else seemed to hear them, he had no intention of telling anyone about them. No sense making himself seem more odd than he already was.

Aeo was always to blame for something. Everything bad that occurred in the Grey Pale was his responsibility, his fault. If the patrons were unhappy with their “luxury accommodations,” the boy would get an earful; he was the one who cleaned the rooms, after all, and not Harthon. If a patron in the dining hall slipped or fell because of spilled beer or melted snow, the boy would be slapped; it was his fault the floors weren’t spotless and dry, not his master’s. Even if each incident occurred while he served drinks, took orders, or washed linen. Or swept. Or dusted the furniture. Or cleaned the dishes, wiped down the tables and chairs, counted inventory, or performed any one of the other two dozen daily duties. Perhaps the only thing the boy wasn’t allowed to do in the Grey Pale was cook anything. Once, Harthon had allowed it. The resulting “omelet” had caught fire immediately, and the boy was viciously throttled for letting the smoke choke the upstairs guests.

Goddess help him if heever spilled trays of food, or tripped and spilled drinks. At this, he would invariably hear Harthon laugh:

“What an Adian vyshti!”

This would regularly elicit laughter from the older patrons. What was a vyshti?Aeo didn’t know. Some old military slang Harthon never cared to explain. Adopted from his tour in the Second Adian War, supposedly.

The old hunters would call Aeo “Red-Eye” due to the crimson color of his Adian irises. And they said it to his face. It was the dirtiest insult they could muster, though perhaps a bit obvious. He’d grown to hate the ruby hues that stared back at him when he caught glimpses of himself in the wash room mirror. So much so, that he started averting his gaze. The second tell-tale sign of his Adian nature was his hair. He hated it, too, his bushy carrot-colored hair that made him stand out like a fiery carnival clown. Antielli boys and girls enjoyed brown or blonde hair themselves, and he envied their green and blue and pale brown eyes. So plain and neat and normal. Why couldn’t he be like them?

[You’re a spectacle, boy. Take it personally. Take offense. Be weirder for it, I dare you.]

One of the Shattered often “admired” Aeo’s physical appearance like this. Aeo called the voice Weird. He ignored Weird.

There were other Adian slaves in Olvaren, owned by other retired hunters. All with red hair and red eyes. But Aeo had never met them. He wasn’t allowed to “fraternize” with other slaves (whatever that meant), nor was he even allowed outside without Harthon’s direct supervision. “The boy is a scab,” Harthon would tell patrons, in no uncertain terms. “He’s a filthy Adian snapper, and he doesn’t deserve freedom. Not with polite society, not with other Antielli children, andcertainly not here in my inn.”

He spoke that way to a priest of Tiathys once. After Harthon told him off, Aeo never saw the priest again.

About one in the afternoon every single day, the woman of the house would usually show herself. Ariste was her name. His master’s wife, and his “last and greatest conquest.” Harthon always called her “Good-for-Nothing,” too. And thanks to him, the whole village knew about her. Her drinking problems. Her constant maladies. Her “sexual infidelities.” How the respectable innkeeper put up with this poor excuse of a wife, no one in the village knew.

Besides Ariste’s drinking problems… Aeo never knew what Harthon was talking about. Just as Harthon kept Aeo on the hook for his supposedly lax nature, he tormented the woman for every flaw and imperfection. Because of this, Ariste never offered to assist her husband with the day-to-day operations of the inn. In fact, if she could help it, not a day went by that she wasn’t completely inebriated.

Just like Aeo, Harthon would slap her in public every once in a while. For forgetting to purchase firewood, for ignoring the dirty windowsills. Or even for just not being around enough. Despite the large gold ring on his finger, Harthon didn’t treat Ariste well. Yet Ariste never retaliated. She never yelled, or cried out when he hit her. She would simply slither down from upstairs, refill her wooden flagon with beer, and disappear back into the attic as quickly as she could. And though Aeo was swamped with work and worry, he didn’t blame her. She knew, just as Aeo did, how useless it was to complain or argue against the master of the Grey Pale.

[Few are they that find it,] whispered Kind. [That memory of belonging. Shards of glass, shattered as we.]

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, Ariste would stumble downstairs to find the boy sleeping in his cramped little storage room. She would wake the boy with a start… but instead of hitting him, scolding him, or punishing them like Harthon, she would proceed to sob uncontrollably in the boy’s lap. She never said a word. She just… cried. For an hour or two at a time. Her presence so soaked in alcohol, it would make Aeo drunk just by the smell of it.

The boy never knew why she did this. And he never knew how to react to this behavior of the very grown woman. He never knew what to say, so he said nothing, and just… waited. After long enough, Ariste would fall calm. Quiet. And slowly, she would return upstairs without a single word, leaving Aeo to return to sleep dumbfounded. Three or four times that winter, it had happened.

It was proof, really. Proof that Ariste hated Harthon just as much as he did. She just never acknowledged it, not in public. By the next morning, Ariste would resume her apathetic attitude towards the boy, as if she’d forgotten the moment ever occurred. Besides those odd moments of mourning in the dark, she didn’t even acknowledge that Aeo existed.

To be fair, it was she that never spoke to him. If Harthon was meant to be Aeo’s father, Ariste was just as much his mother.

[He’ll be like us one day,] laughed Weird. [She’ll be like us one day. You’ll be like us, too.]

The end of Aeo’s long list of duties would approach as the sun fell behind the Falas Mountain every evening. The floors covered themselves nightly in slop and dirt as the crowds packed inside, and he cleaned them, even though each long night of song and dance would give him regular migraines. A flimsy mop served as his constant companion. Despite the raucous noise, Harthon would get busy enough that the boy would doze off, using the mop as an excuse in case he ever got caught. Sometimes Aeo would get dinner, if the crowd grew thin enough for Harthon to remember. More often, though, his master would just forget to cook him anything, engaged as he was with an entire trade route of patrons.

Both during and after the dinner rush, so long as the orders continued to flow unabated, the boy was more of an afterthought… for better or for worse. Afterwards, Aeo would sometimes discover an unpeeled potato, a leek, or a handful of radishes sitting upon his bed in the closet. A meager apology for forgetting him. He couldn’t cook them, of course. So he’d simply munch on the raw vegetables without a second thought.

Once patrons stopped entering and started leaving, Aeo would stumble back into his closet to sleep. Without effort, he would drift into the Shattered dreams, his only real escape from his life in the Grey Pale. And then the cycle would repeat. Three o’clock every morning, he’d start it all over again, kicked in the stomach by Harthon. So the pattern had been for the last year or so, as if set in stone. Harthon never let it vary. Needless to say, the lack of sleep was starting to get to Aeo, and he rarely felt well.

Maybe my eyes are red because I don’t get enough sleep, Aeo thought to himself once. Maybe that’s why think I’m lazy.

[The eyes of our bloody crusade beg to differ greatly,] growled Mean.

The thing was… Harthon never slept either. Not when Aeo did, anyway. He ignored Aeo at night just to throw him out of bed every morning. And he had no memory of Harthon ever taking so much as a nap. What madness drove the man to such a high level of productivity, the boy couldn’t fathom. He never even got sick, and he never took breaks. Maybe he just ran on cruelty and coin. Maybe slapping the boy gave him some kind of infernal strength. Maybe the rudeness towards his wife let him subsist, sleepless.

Day after day, Aeo thought to himself: This can’t last much longer… right? He’s got to slow down some time. But the man never did. In fact, it seemed he only became more ruthless.

The idea of freedom had occurred to the boy at times. The idea of running away, running for Adia. But he couldn’t simply run to the nearest nation. All he knew was that the Antiell-Adia border was out there somewhere, far to the west. And the rule was that if he somehow managed to cross it, he could be free. Simple as that. Maybe if he did run away, if he escaped the Grey Pale at eleven or twelve o’clock at night as the patrons were leaving, he could get as far as the highway or perhaps the next town before Harthon would notice his absence.

The only way to escape slavery was by climbing. Climbing up the mountain, up through the canyons and forests and desolate wastes on the other side. There was another country behind the mountain, a high one, of sand and wind and stone. The Land of the Eternal Sun: the nation of Adia. His home. Maybe that’s why the Shattered showed him visions of the long desert, night after night. If he could find a way to climb over the barren side of the mountain without freezing to death, he could be free of Harthon and the Grey Pale and Olvaren. He would never have to work in the filthy tavern again.

But he never dared to try. Not even once. The fear of being caught kept him caught. The cold frightened him too thoroughly. No Antielli trader would dare carry an Adian slave back to their hated enemy, so that wasn’t an option. He would never make money, certainly not enough to convince a random traveling scholar or mercenary. The traders spoke of the desolate nation of Adia as if it were weeks away, and the boy was certain he couldn’t hide for weeks and weeks without a plan. Assuming Harthon didn’t catch wind of his intentions beforehand, of course. There was no telling how many hunters from Olvaren would go hunting for him if he fled. They ‘d probably hunt him for free, even, just to gain Harthon’s favor. And he could not imagine the punishment that would await him. He’d be beaten within an inch of his life, surely.

No, there was no way. Maybe when he grew up, he could buy his freedom like other slaves. Or maybe he’d just live the rest of his life and die within the confines of the Grey Pale.

[You wouldn’t be first or last to fall in service to mediocrity,] the voices would say. [Accept your fate. The sooner you do, the sooner you will become us.]

* * * * * *

“Get out of bed, boy! Now!”

Another kick to the stomach. It knocked another dream of the sun right out of him.

“Uhhn.”

He lifted himself out of bed as best he could. But it did not feel like three in the morning.

“You didn’t clean the kitchen at all!” Harthon shouted, right in his ear. “It’s filthy, you vyshti, there’s crumbs and dirt everywhere. If I start seeing rat droppings in the inventory because of this, I swear I’ll make you eat them. Now get back out there and clean it right!”

Harthon struck him on the head rather sharply with the handle of the broomstick before throwing it in his lap. Then, just as quickly as Harthon’s massive form had appeared, his master thundered out of the closet. Aeo ignored the sharp pain, peering over his shoulder and out of the tiny window. Only darkness stared back at him. Honestly, he’d probably only been sleeping for a few minutes at most.

Harthon would return twice an angry if he didn’t hurry. Aeo obeyed his master’s command, slipping on his thin shoes and standing. But not without striking his head against the shelf above his cot first.

“Shak!” he swore.

Harthon never let him swear in front of patrons. But he could swear in private all he liked.

Slipping his shirt over his head and grabbing the broom, Aeo stumbled out the door of his closet into the dining area of the inn. All was quiet and dark, save for a few moldering candles still lit in the candelabra above the tables. Aeo crossed the room and ducked into the kitchen without making a sound; he wasn’t normally afraid of the dark, but he was afraid if it concealed his master.

Harthon was not there. Odd. Still, there was no telling when he would come downstairs to check on his progress. He never slept, after all.

The kitchen seemed larger cast in foreboding shadow. With the light of a single lantern burning dimly above crates of potatoes and carrots, he began to scrape the floors with the broom. From what he could see of the floors and the counters, it wasn’t half as bad as Harthon complained… besides the smell. But the kitchen smelled like rotting produce and dirty dishwater all the time. At best, he could see a few stray dust bunnies and chopped vegetables pressed up against the baseboards beneath the bar and sink.

The boy sighed. He could feel his eyelids pushing down on themselves. He pressed on, jamming the broom into the space between the floor and the side of the counter. If he hurried, he would be able to return to sleep in no time.

After a minute of concentration, though… he couldn’t hold on. He was simply too tired. Brush after brush after brush, the rhythm alone was rocking him to sleep. Worse, the rhythm wasn’t actually cleaning anything, shoving the dirt and crumbs around. He shook himself from his daze.

Snap out of it. Come on. Don’t be dumb.

[You don’t know what tired feels like,] said Mean. [Not in the slightest.]

[Poor little thing,] whispered Kind, as if examining Aeo from further away.

Aeo thought to himself: I just want to go back to sleep. Leave me alone, okay?

When the voices remained silent, the boy knelt down to get at the debris underneath the stove. For some reason, it was Harthon’s pet peeve to have anything noticeable beneath, even if he himselfput it there. Sure enough, Aeo saw a few stray crumbs in the darkness. Maybe that’s why he exploded at him.

Warily, he placed his hand on the stove. It was cold. He lowered himself to his belly and shoved the business end of the broom underneath.

Then, as if on cue, everything went completely dark.

“What? Master, what are you—?”

Harthon was nowhere to be found. Aeo turned his head towards the hanging lantern. Or, more accurately, to where its light had been. The light had died; probably burned through the wick.

He growled and stood to his feet. He couldn’t sweep if he couldn’t see.

Aeo began to fumble his way through the kitchen drawers beside the oven. He needed matches. Matches, matches. Where were they again? Naturally, matches were extremely off-limits. But the thought of waking Harthon just so his master would relight the lantern filled him with unimaginable dread. He rubbed the still-pulsing goose egg on the grown of his head. He didn’t want another bruise.

Shak, where does Harthon keep the matches? In here?

Blindly, he lifted his arms and found the edge of the cupboard door above the stove. In the dark, he could make out the silhouettes of two dozen square boxes of differing sizes. He only needed one specifically.

No. No. Not that one. Not this one.

At last, a tiny one reached his fingers. He slid the lid open, and within were fifty thin spruce sticks coated in white phosphor. At last, he found the matches. He’d never lit one himself, but he’d seen Harthon do it hundreds of times. Just strike the phosphor against the box until it lights up, and relight the lantern. Easy.

The boy crossed the room, careful not to stub his toe against any of the scattered crates. Cautiously, he clambered up on top of the first row of potato crates, careful not to actually step or kneel on any of them. Up above, the lantern was still smoking, a few red embers still smoldering within the tiny wick. He could only hope the lantern still had oil; he’d gotten lucky with the matches, but he had no clue where Harthon kept the lantern oil.

He took out a single match, and slid the phosphor tip against the rough surface of the box.

Strike one: nothing. Strike two: nothing.

Strike three: “Oh!”

In a poof of smoke, it burst alight. He quickly thrust the match into the lantern wick, but… it wasn’t lighting.

Wait, what? Why not? Oh, right. The wick.

He fumbled around the lantern until he found the knob. He spun it, and additional wick emerged from within the brass casing. The lantern lit right away, much brighter than before.

“Good,” the boy whispered with a sigh of relief.

Then, just as Harthon had done many times, the boy shook the match to make it go out. And it didn’t go out.

“Huh?”

He shook it again.

The flame grew bigger.

He couldn’t drop it. He’d catch something on fire, for sure, and probably himself! He shook and shook, but the flame burned all the hotter, dropping closer and closer to his fingers. All at once, he felt the heat and dropped the match.

But the fire remained. The small candle-like flame attached itself to the boy’s finger like a drop of water.

“Ah! No, no! Get off!”

He shook his hand in a panic. The flame grew bigger, spreading up his finger and onto the back of his hand. It felt warm, just like the dream of the sun, even as he imagine the flame devouring his skin like tissue paper.

“Get off!” the boy cried, spinning to jump off the potato crate.

He spun too fast, flying off the potato crate. As he swung to keep his balance, his arm struck the lantern straight off of its hook, and with a clatter, the iron light crashed behind the crates. He had no time to recover it, though; he had to extinguish his arm! The fire had already spread from his hand, catching his shirt and lighting the cloth.

“No, no, no!”

The flames were so large, they actually helped him find the sink on the other side of the room. He pumped the handle desperately, and his hand finally met with a torrent of groundwater. The flames extinguished. He tossed water onto his forearm, smothering the flames latched to his sleeve… at last, those flames went out as well.

He imagined his skin melting like cheese, wrinkling and peeling like a decaying tomato. He felt the charred flesh, up and down, again and again… but there was no charred flesh. No pain. No damage at all, not even a burning sensation left behind. His sleeve was charred and stiff, but his arm was fine.

His mind was racing.

How did…? Why doesn’t it hurt?

He then smelled smoke. Was Harthon cooking something?

Then he saw light. Dim at first, but then quickly rising. The potato crate, partially filled with straw, had caught the lantern’s flame.

“Ah! No, no!”

As Aeo stood there in shock, he heard the Shattered speak:

[It might have been the match you so carelessly discarded,] one of them whispered. Weird, maybe.

[He really is quite dull,] agreed Mean.

“Shut up!” Aeo cried in response. “Shut up! Help me put it out!”

As if they could.

Then, Aeo heard the last thing he ever wanted to hear:

“What in Hell’s name is going on in here, boy?! I thought I smelled— holy shit!”

In blind panic, Aeo twirled around to look at the kitchen doorway. Standing there was his master Harthon, his jaw unhinged as he stared at the building inferno.

“You little b-b-bastard!” Harthon screamed. Aeo had never heard him stutter before. “Water, boy! Get the bucket, get it now!”

What bucket?

“Move!” Harthon cried, charging towards the sink. “Move, you idiot!”

Apparently, there was already a bucket in the sink, which Aeo only noticed as Harthon shoved him to the ground. In desperation, the old hunter pumped the sink handle like a monster, filling the bucket as quickly as the ancient system allowed. Which wasn’t fast, truth be told. As he pumped, Harthon filled the room with obscenities.

“You red-eyed bastard!” he roared, trying to kick at Aeo while pumping water; Aeo was well out of range. “What have I told you about matches, vyshti! If the inn burns down, I’ll kill you! I swear I will!”

Aeo responded with the only excuse he had:

“I didn’t mean to…!”

He didn’t know what to do. As if tried to help Harthon, he’d probably be smacked. And if he tried to put the fire out, he’d get roasted. Helpless, Aeo simple laid upon the stone floor, watching the fire burn faster and faster. As if capable of sentience, the flames climbed from the crates of food to the blackening wooden walls of the kitchen. One of the crates at the top of the pile had been filled with thatch, to better protect the pile of hand-sculpted ceramic platters inside. The heat from within it was so intense, Aeo could hardly stand to face it.

But stand to face it, he did. It felt like the dream. The dazzling dream of the sun.

In that moment, a thought rose to the forefront of his imagination. An intoxicating thought that he had never before contemplated. Though he knew he shouldn’t wish it, he wanted the fire to rise higher. Burn brighter. More fiercely. Consume everything. Make it all go away. He almost felt tempted to reach out to it. Take its brightness with his bare hands. Burn his arm again, and it to spread further, like a glittering snake sliding across his skin.

Harthon’s shouts droned in and out. He wasn’t paying attention to them. No, he was listening to the voices: a mesmerizing pattern of crackling echoes, an uncontrollable dance of infernal light. He didn’t want it to end.

Somewhere in the midst of this hallucination, Ariste had entered the room. Unlike Aeo, she did not stop to merely observe. In fact, as she raced past him to smother the flames with her coat, he realized he had never seen her so… alert. Finally, with the water bucket filled, Harthon threw the paltry gallons into the conflagration. To everyone’s shock (and Aeo’s slight delight), the flames did not calm. Instead, they devoured the water like oil, making the fire erupt with a heated whirlwind, bursting upwards towards the ceiling.

“You did this!” Harthon shouted at Aeo, no longer able to control the situation. “This is your fault, you piece of filth!”

Aeo, still mesmerized by the blaze, almost had the audacity to ask Harthon why he thought so. But Harthon did not give him the chance to speak. Grabbing the boy by the collar, the great hunter yanked Aeo out of the kitchen. Then, with a single arm, he cast Aeo into the dining room like a limp ragdoll. The boy collided against one of the dining room tables, smacking the edge of his eyebrow against the solid hardwood.

“I’ll strangle you for this, boy, you hear me?!” Harthon screamed, repeating himself. “I’ll kill you if this place burns down!”

Then, he spun on his heels and grabbed his wife. And with just as much force, he threw her towards the door of the inn.

“Go and get the constable!” he screamed. “Don’t you dare come back without help!”

With no further instructions, Harthon scrambled back into the kitchen, pumping yet more groundwater into the wooden bucket. Aeo felt immediate agony as his right eye fell blind from blood. He struggled to stand, unable to find his balance before Ariste herself recovered. All of a sudden, her felt her hands lift him up, helping him recover.

“Aeo,” she whispered, already sobbing. “I’m sorry, my little boy, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for everything.”

Aeo couldn’t think, hearing only the crackling of fire and Harthon’s screaming. Ariste continued breathlessly. He had never heard her speak like this.

“You have a choice, Aeo,” she whispered to him, even as she tenderly held his face. “Help me get the constable. Or leave this place. Leave it all behind. I’ve never had a choice, Aeo. But you do!”

Aeo froze. He didn’t know what to do. He stared at Ariste with his single good eye and witnessed a completely different person.

“Go, Aeo!” she said, shaking his shoulders. “Go! Don’t come back! Run for Adia and don’t stop until you cross the border, you hear me? Go!”

His feet then outran his thoughts. His feet slipped upon the snow outside the inn, but they did not stop running. And it took several minutes of running to realize that this was exactly what he wanted all along.

He would never be hit again. Never screamed at again. Never abused again, or kicked again. He would be free, for Ariste had freed him. He looked back once, to see if Harthon or Ariste had seen him make the choice. Harthon was still inside the Grey Pale, screaming. And Ariste was running out into the dark, heading in the opposite direction.

He didn’t look back. And in his mind, over and over, he thought to himself:

I’m never coming back. I’m free.

Backstage Tales: “Abridged Classics”

/ birdjericho

I came across this comic on Facebook the other day:

In order to fully support this wonderful silliness, I present a few more “Abriged Classics.” I’m not incredibly clever with these, but I thought I’d have some fun anyway. Also, forgive the low-quality, it’s kinda what I was going for.

I knew my incomplete literary degree would come in handy one day. If only I had known how… I would have avoided it entirely. HA.

My 100+ Hour Tale: Rimworld

/ birdjericho

I want to tell you a story.

It is a true story. True as science fiction can get, anyway, one that happened for me in real-time. It is an organic story, described through the utter RNG (or random number generation) of a singular game called Rimworld. As a player, I am responsible for most of the specific details I will use to tell this story. But the system itself is the one that assembled the parts together, and I got to experience them in gameplay the same way I’m describing them in writing. Rimworld itself is described by its developer as a “story generator,” and to be sure, it is a magnificent one.

(By the way, I play a massively modded version of Rimworld. So if any of the details here seem far-fetched, it’s because some wonderful modder made a mod. Check out the Steam Workshop for Rimworld if you don’t believe me!)

There once was an old woman named Kat.

Of course, I call her old because out in the Rimworlds, those far-flung frontiers of civilized space, you’re just as likely to die in the cradle than survive for the fifty year time span that Kat did. The raiders of her village had described the ruins of the old manor house as abandoned but rich with loot. Unfortunately for Kat, it only looked abandoned. The moment she took a step into the manor’s ruined garden, in an instant, she felt a searing pain behind her eyes, and all faded to black.

Then she woke up, several hours later. She was chained to a bed in a dimly-lit stone chamber. No doubt inside the manor ruins. She then gazed upon the terrifying form of an eight-foot tall woman clad in the largest suit of power armor she had ever laid eyes on.

The woman spoke:

“Ah… you’re awake. Praise the Lord for His mercy; you shouldn’t have come looking for trouble here.”

Captured by Christians. Of all the people to encounter on the Rim, it had to be Christians.

Still, at least these Christians were heavily armed and armored, not at all like the flimsy weaklings that ranted and raved on glitterworld street corners. And they must have known how to assemble a heater, as Kat had never experienced the comfort of an HVAC system since her previous employer’s ship crash-landed on this miserable planet many years before.

The massive woman in power armor introduced herself as Jade. She was married to a man named Jacob, and though the husband was the de facto “leader” of the family, it was the mighty preaching wife that was most obviously in charge. They had three children at the time: two sons Virgil and John (young boys of the same age, but one biological and one adopted, in that order), as well as an adopted teenage daughter named Estelle.

Kat might have introduced herself. But she did not speak. She was a mute, and had been since childhood. It did not stop her from writing her responses on paper, but she didn’t appreciate the attitude when Jade tried to force her to speak. It was bad enough that Jade was at fault for knocking Kat unconscious and imprisoning her. But now she had to insult her with a high-and-mighty attitude as well?

Okay, let’s be fair: Kat wasn’t much of a catch herself. She was an alcoholic, an addict, and a bad one. There were reasons for her inebriation, though.

She had a fantastic, nearly eidetic memory. Some would consider this a blessing. She did not. While her talents never faded away, neither did the terrifying memories of the past that haunted her present. She was tortured, abused, and humiliated to serve a raider gang that didn’t honestly care if she lived or died. Worse, her parents had been the leaders of said gang. Her only source of comfort as a child were the chickens and cattle that the gang kept for milk and eggs, as well as the hounds they bred for combat.

She escaped that old life by hitching a ride on a starship, becoming a janitor to make ends meet. While most passengers aboard starships sleep the years away under cryogenic suspension, Kat never got to experience this; she had to travel the long way. Her duties demanded that she remain awake for the entire voyage across the Rim. While her passengers aboard the vessel peacefully slept and ceased aging, they did not sense the passage of time. But Kat did. By the time the vessel’s journey ended, the timid young lady had grown old, too old to ever have a biological family of her own.

Her troubles did not end with lost time. Her employment as a janitor came to a crashing halt quite literally when her ship exploded in orbit above a particularly dreadful Rimworld, one undergoing a severe ice age. In order to survive, she returned to the skills that she thought she had left far behind her: making tools of war for mindless, bloodthirsty raiders.

And once again, she turned to her true passion, spending time with the only beings who truly understood her: the beasts and critters that called the Rimworld home.

Jade made one thing absolutely clear: if Kat wanted to live, sobriety was non-negotiable. As punishment for raiding their home, she would never sip another drop of alcohol again, so long as she was under their custody. She would be locked in her cell without booze until she “overcame her demons,” after which they might release her.

Though Jade towered over Kat like a mountain, and could probably have torn the 50-year-old woman in half with her bare hands, there was no separating Kat from her only source of comfort. Without speaking a word and without giving a reason, Kat started tearing her cell apart.

Under normal circumstances, under more brutal supervision, this little tamtrum would have been ignored, or (more likely) a death sentence. Not so for this little Christian family in the wilderness. They couldn’t afford it. Outside the walls was a violent polar tempest, with a temperature that did not rise above -45 degrees farenheit (-42.7778 C) during the summer months. The family, horrified at this woman’s resolve to drink, relented. They allowing her a single alcoholic beverage per day, which they promised to brew. But in exchange, Jade required service, one they were having difficulties providing themselves. As it turns out, the family had “inherited” the manor after the previous royal inhabitant had been murdered by deserters of his own faction. They left many treasures behind, including rare and exotic lifeforms, ones they could train and use to defend themselves against the many dangers of the Rim.

In exchange for food and shelter from the bitter cold, Kat would promise to tend to their rather… unique menagerie of animals. At last, Jade was speaking reason. At this offer, Kat eagerly agreed and joined the familial colony. Better life with religious nutjobs than freezing to death in the cold.

The colorful assortment of wildlife Kat was now responsible for included:

  1. Zora and Emu, the family’s two megalochelys. These ancient tortoises had been resurrected by some uber-rich magnate and left to multiply on the Rim wherever they might.
  2. Nakri and Odah, the family’s pair of great wyrms. Not quite mythological “dragons,” but powerful in their own right. The wyrms were flightless lizards of massive size and strength that could tear through steel like butter with their razor-sharp claws and teeth. Odah, the male, was the decidedly easier of the pair to deal with, and the better trained. The female Nakri was pregnant (or “gestating”) for eighteen months after Kat joined the family, and every month until she gave birth, she would get more and more difficult to handle.
  3. Frankie, the family’s pet Yorkshire Terrier. A terrific yappy dog and a great cuddler. Kat never had a complaint about him.
  4. The family’s pet Siamese cat named Bernard. The family did not have him long for reasons that shall become apparent, unfortunately.

From day one, Kat realized that living with the family was going to be difficult. She did not accept the god they believed in, or their ceaseless evangelizing. Even with all of their happy singing and dancing, their optimistic outlook in the face of annihilation… Kat didn’t share it. She couldn’t, and didn’t want to believe in some invisible thing that allowed her life to proceed the way it did.

Jade and Jacob were insistent, naturally. Pushy. They convinced her to read the stories and learn the doctrine, and with nothing but free time now available to her, she did so. But the pain in her heart was too much to bear to strangers. She remained mute and stoic, even as her alcohol withdrawls became painful and relentless. More than once, when the headaches hit their peak, she would wander the halls, hounded by Jade who would try to comfort her with scriptures and preaching. Kat only resented her more for the trying.

“We both hunger and thirst,” Jade would say. “We are naked, buffeted by suffering, without a home. Working with our own hands, we bless those that hate us, and suffer those who despise us. Our reward is not here, in the Rim. It comes after. This is why we live the way we do.”

This was not the answer Kat ever wanted to hear. That was not a guarantee that offered hope. Jade tried three separate times to calm Kat down, and every one of them failed. Jacob, in the end, eventually stepped in, putting aside the religion and offering words of actual comfort and direction.

(True story, even though Jade’s “social” score was near 14, she failed each and every time to comfort Kat because their “ideoligions” did not match. You can be the most professional and eloquent speaker and just not have the right ideas to convince or comfort people. This game be brilliant like that.)

One day in the middle of winter, Jade departed alone, promising to return after helping a nearby tribal village solve a “research issue.” Research, with a bunch of cannibals? Really? What good would that do the family, honestly?

Jade was always looking to help people, even her enemies. Every time a merchant approached the manor, if they owned slaves, she would purchase a single slave just to set them free. When raiders attacked the manor, psychopathic monsters that Kat knew personally, Jade would knock them unconscious with a single strike from her massive plasteel fist… just to resusitate them and send them back home with nothing more than a headache and a stern word. She would offer her skills to the most meager of purposes, even when provided with little evidence that she would receive anything in return.

This bothered Kat. But she remained as silent as ever. It was Jade’s life, her family’s decision to make, not Kat’s. It was their supidity, not hers. And they made many such illogical decisions.

Speaking of one such decision, it was around this time that Jade’s family grew larger. Jacob had been researching archotech that would allow them to create new life in a laboratory setting. Human life. Though their new son had been only a few cells in size, Allen would be “born” from the growth chamber in the ten days it would take for Jade to return; they would have a brand-new infant in less time than it took to sneeze, and all without the pains of pregnancy. Turns out the family really took the whole “multiply and replenish the earth” line from their fancy book very seriously.

Though the thought of a vat-born child made her a bit nauseous, she decided that if the technology had to exist at all, at least it existed in the hands of this relatively-reasonable family instead of raiders and cannibals. Or worse.

Despite Jade’s absence, those ten days were not enjoyable for Kat. Her withdrawal symptoms had reached their peak. And in the midst of an alcohol-deprived panic attack, Kat suddenly saw falling stars out her window. But they weren’t shooting stars. They were drop pods. A machine army, come to demolish what remained of the old manor, and no doubt murder everyone inside, including her.

She could have run. But she didn’t. Though she may have disliked Jade, disliked the family in general… this was not a fate she thought anyone deserved. She took up her double-barrel shotgun and went to defend Jacob and the children.

Explosions then rocked the manor. Estelle died first; she thought her training against target dummies would translate to military-grade combat intelligences. She severely underestimated her defensive position and was down in a single explosive shot. Virgil tried to be a hero, to get his unconscious sister to safety. A second explosion killed them both. John died next; though more reserved and cautious, the burning ruins of the manor collapsed upon him, crushing him to death.

Jacob and Kat, unaware that all three children had died within seconds of each other, and they themselves completely taken by surprise, huddled together in the center of the manor in hopes that their meager automated defences would hold. They did not. A giant centipedal robot barreled through the wall (flanked by four others), firing an explosive round at Jacob. His protective shield belt took the majority of the impact, but they did little to protect his legs. His legs shattered, he could not move, flee, of fight against the massive killing machine advancing towards him.

The real tragedy was the one happening in the center of the room. Allen had just been born, moments before his siblings perished. Jacob screamed at Kat to save the baby. But one thing was clear: she could not save them both. If she tried to save Allen, it would take too much time to run back through the burning manor. Even then, she could not cross the flaming ruins with a guarantee that they would both survive. And to be fair… Jacob had experience. So, instead of saving the child, she saved the one she knew she could. She grabbed Jacob, leaving the baby to howl in his nursery alone as the machines continued to disassemble the manor around them. And Jacob, legless and semi-conscious, could do nothing as Kat dragged him away into the blizzard, having chosen to save the father and not the son.

Kat did not apologize for her decision, and she never did. Though in her panic, she had brought no medicine with her. She was no doctor, but she knew enough. When they had escaped far enough from the threat, Kat bound Jacob’s wounds, applying tourniquets with the very clothing she wore.

And in that moment, Jade returned to the burning manor with all the fire and fury of a mother in mourning. She had heard the explosions from a mile away, and had come running. Mounted atop the great wyrm Odah, wielding a charge rifle and her signature siegebreaker power armor, Jade and her monsters tore the mechanical abominations to ribbons.

In seconds, the fight was over. If Jade had been there, perhaps her children would still be alive.

Though half the the manor house had been disassembled by the machines and the other half set on fire, when the smoke cleared… Jade uncovered a miracle: the roof of the nursery above Allen’s crib had held firm. Right in the center of the carnage, surrounded by machine corpses, was a crying newborn baby, untouched by the machines. They had not identified him as either a threat or a target. Perhaps it was because he was vat-born.

Jade found Jacob and Kat huddled together in a cave some distance away for warmth. She did not have to ask what had happened. And Kat did not feel the need to blame Jade for absence. She did not have to; life on the Rimworlds was difficult, unfair. Brutal and sinful, filled with a thousand horrors built upon the corpses of a thousand more. To point it out would be cruelty.

Jade and Jacob managed to find the bodies of Virgil and Estelle, and constructed caskets for them. John’s body, on the other hand, did not survive the inferno or the collapse of the manor. Funerals were held for the children. All of them… save for Allen, their single surviving miracle. Still they spoke of a loving god, and still they clung to their scriptures and doctrine.

But Kat could not fault them, for Kat had found her own resolve. Though she still faced months of alcohol withdrawls and never-ending nightmares, she had faced down certain death and emerged victorious. She even managed to save another person’s life, and perhaps two, in the midst of it all. If she could stare those killing machines in the eyes and survive, what was a simple lack of alcohol to her? Where was the power and pain, in all those memories she hated so?

They were nothing. Nothing the right application of food, sleep, passion, recreation, and time couldn’t cure.

She never did speak again. Not after the many tragedies that had befallen her throughout her life. She never did fully embrace the faith that Jade and Jacob had chosen for themselves. But she sat and listened whenever they sung their songs and danced their dances. And she learned to love little Allen, that singular miracle, even if she couldn’t tell him so. Instead, she shared her love with the animals and beasts as she tended to them, training them to defend the loving family that had adopted her.

In fact, she was so inspired by the family’s resolve, she personally tamed one of the mightiest beasts of the tundra in an act of pure inspiration: a great big black bear she decided to name Da Vinci. Though Kat would remain mute, she had no need for words when Da Vinci and Nakri and Odah could roar them for her.

My Rimworld Review Score: 10/10.

This game is an unequivocal masterpiece. If you like simulation games, don’t miss this one. There’s no end to the stories you can experience.

Reviving the Kanawha Nuka Cola Bottling Plant: A Fallout 76 Short Story

/ birdjericho

Forgot to post this when I made it!

I liked my Nuka-Cola Bottle Plant short story so much, I decided to try my hand at voice acting and narrated it on top of some gameplay from Fallout 76. I love listening to old radio shows, and the “holotape message” format is one of my favorite storytelling tools in video games. Also, I hope my “slight” southern drawl isn’t too terribly cringy to listen to.

If there’s anything that Bethesda knows how to do, it’s environmental storytelling, and I absolutely adore that aspect of playing Fallout. I wrote the short story before the Wastelander update came out in 2020, and I was thrilled to discover that the events of the update led you here, to the Nuka-Cola bottling plant. It’s in that rusty and delipidated factory that the player helps the overseer of Vault 76 create a vaccine for the Scorched plague, a monumental accomplishment that the Responders and all of the previous inhabitants of Appalachia failed to accomplish before it wiped them out.

But how come a pair of vault dwellers can just waltz right into the Nuka-Cola plant and start up the machines up without weeks and weeks of heavy maintenance? Well, maybe the Responders got to the factory first, just a few years ago!

Of course, in my story, all of the ingredients in the tanks are used up, so there’s no way it can be canon. Oh well. At least it was fun to create!

Alyssum: Voices of the Shattered Sun – Revised Portion of Chapter One

/ birdjericho

I thought it might be fun to revise the first section of chapter one and get it out there to share. As with all things, I’m simply waiting for April 18th and my next doctor’s appointment. If I can get specific assistance with my ADHD, I’m going to be able to write so dang much I won’t be able to keep up with it. The fact that I’m already editing and writing without a specific medication speaks volumes about the effectiveness of the antidepressant/antipsychotic I’m currently taking. Vraylar has been amazing, if not for the jumpy legs and muscle spasms. A small price to pay for productivity!

Also, the creepy voices only Aeo can hear are incredibly fun to write. I can’t wait to tell the story of why they exist in the first place.

“Oy! Stupid boy. Wake up.”

A gruff tone, then a terrible force thrust itself into the boy’s stomach. His breath escaped, and he clenched inwards with a groan.

[Go away. Leave us alone. I don’t like pain. It’s unpleasant.]

“Oh no you don’t. Get out of bed. Now.” A collection of pinpricks slapped his shoulder, and his eyes snapped open. A broom. That meant Harthoon, his master, was standing over him, and Aeo knew better than to ignore him. “You’ve got chores to do, Snapper. Get to it. Don’t make me smack you with something heavier.”

The gears in Aeo’s mind slowly gained traction. He sat up in the dark, quick enough to convince his Antielli master that he wasn’t disobeying him.

“Uh… ay sir.”

He drifted out of utter drowsiness, side-to-side like a sailor out to sea. He couldn’t help it. Appropriate; despite the rudeness of the early wake-up call, it was like the boy’s mind swam in deep waters.

The voices had made him dream again.

In his distant thoughts, he was no longer in a village on Mount Falas. Instead, he stood upon a vast and barren valley of sand and rock, beneath a fierce noonday sun. He had seen the sunlight upon his skin. And its warmth had filled him, soothing and powerful. He didn’t know where the images came from. They certainly weren’t memories. Not his own, anyway. Life in the mountain village of Olvaren held no such promise of warmth. Olvaren was a place the sun shined brightly for perhaps a single month out of the year before disappearing behind months of deep fog and overcast skies. Sometimes he could convince himself that the valley of sand actually were his memories. Distant ones, ones that promised he’d ever been someone else. Someone other than a slave. But he knew they weren’t, and that he wasn’t. He could not recall anything beyond the sunlight.

Aeo rubbed his eyes. The closet was dark. He knew the sun had yet to rise, but there was little hope of further slumber. He stood from his small cot, but just as abruptly ran into something. The large muscular form of his master had not departed. Harthoon still towered over him, holding out a crooked broom with an impatient and disgusted scowl.

“Oh,” the boy whispered, taking the broom.

“Lazy Adian,” Harthoon replied. He took the boy by the scruff of his shirt and hauled him out of his sleeping spot in the closet. “Come on, go. Rooms, and then floors. Don’t you dare let me catch you nodding off.”

“Ay sir.”

The Gray Pale Inn smelled like cheap ale and sawdust that morning. Same as every morning, really. Along with something… else. Something awful. Oh, right: the fetid scent of an overfull stable. Even with the back door sealed shut, the stable’s reek poisoned the air just beyond the dining area. It was a horrible stench. Aeo didn’t know anything about horses, but he had little doubt that some of the old mares had contracted some kind of illness to smell so foul. Not that Harthoon cared; the patron had paid in advance for his whole team of five horses to be wedged into a meager space designed for three.

[The patron is an idiot. And your master as well. They’ll deserve each other when the poor beasts die. Such fragile creatures.]

Don’t say that about Harthoon, Aeo thought in response to one of the familiar Shattered voices in his head. What if he hears you?

[You’re a bigger fool if you think that oaf would ever listen to us. We would sooner address the dogs and the pigs.]

Aeo thought a question in his mind in response: Do you mean animals can hear you if they want?

The Shattered did not reply.

That’s what they called themselves, the Shattered. Or, at least, it was the word they most often repeated. They were talkative at times, sure. But they were rather picky about the words they whispered. Aeo never told Harthoon about them. Never tried to, never wanted to. His master, or anyone else. He had learned long ago not to speak to them out loud; they responded to his thoughts as he thought them. The Shattered never really faded from his mind. There were many of them. Some came and went, unfamiliar and fleeting. A few of them never departed, but none of these ever told him why.

Aeo would be cleaning the stable when the patron departed, and he would gratefully do it because then he could talk to the Shattered. Cleaning the stable was the only time he was ever free of the inn itself. Free to think, and free to dream. If he were careful, the clever boy could spend two hours doing an hour-long task, and he would have time to converse with the voices in his mind without interruption.

When Aeo was alone, he could pretend to reason with them. Ask them important questions. Like who he was, where he was born. Why they made him dream about the sun and sand every night. At the very least, he could try.

[You’re just as much a fool as your master. Wallow in the shit where you belong, slave.]

Aeo didn’t like that particular voice, though it haunted him often.

Every morning in the inn began by cleaning the rooms of travelers who departed during the night from the inn’s few luxury rooms. “Luxury” was a stretch; at least the sheets were regularly laundered. Though early traffic was rare, Harthoon insisted that the luxury rooms be available at all times, even at three in the morning. By the time Aeo prepared these rooms for new patrons, the vaguest crests of daylight would begin to rise from the horizon, and weary breakfast goers would begin to trudge through the inn’s front door in search of sustenance. Aeo would be expected to appear in the same instance, prepared to take orders while Harthoon attended the kitchen and bar. The merchants always said that Olvaren sat right in the middle of an important trade route. Aeo didn’t quite know what that meant, besides the fact that the inn filled itself with a regular crowd of its own accord. Day after night, stranger after stranger would walk through the door, becoming regulars. Tired travelers, irritable hunters, entire families, guildsman looking to get drunk… most of them trying to cross the mountain and leave Olvaren behind as quickly as possible.

“Hurry up, boy,” Harthoon would say, every hour on the hour. The old man always knew when Aeo had finished a chore, and was always there to goad him onto the next one. He made it common practice to catch the boy’s ear whenever he got within range. Sometimes a broomstick handle increased that range, or an ale flagon. Once, he had even thrown a clothing iron at the boy; it left quite the bruise.

Aeo hated it. He didn’t know why Harthoon liked to hurt him.

[Yes you do. But at least you know how to take a hit. Not many do.]

Harthoon was a wretched giant of a man. Six-and-a-half feet tall, and his owner of six years. A true son of the Republic of Antiell. Aeo couldn’t remember a father besides him, but he didn’t think the man deserved the title. In his opinion, Harthoon hardly deserved the bulging muscles and height that granted him his authority, much less the fame and high praises sung by his fellow guild hunters. Before owning the Grey Pale Inn, Harthoon had been a master hunter in Olvaren, and before that, he had served as a mercenary for the Antiellan army. The swords, pelts, and trophies that hung above the Grey Pale’s mantle had all been collected by him personally, including several sunborne banners from the Second Adian War.

Though Harthoon had left the hunt behind, the hunt hadn’t left him; he had simply changed his prey, and now Aeo was his daily target. Aeo would sooner have risked sneaking up on a starving bear than dare to catch Harthoon’s ire.

“No slacking, Snapper,” Harthoon would often say to him in passing, even when it was obvious Aeo was working. “That is, if you want to keep eating.”

And Aeo did, of course. Though Aeo was a full nine years old that winter, he was much shorter than the other Antielli children his age, and considerably more gaunt.

Aeo was always to blame for something. If the patrons were unhappy with their “luxury” accommodations, the boy would get an earful; he was the one who cleaned them. If a patron in the dining hall slipped or fell because of spilled beer or melted snow, the boy would be slapped; it was his fault the floors weren’t spotless and dry, no matter how much water the clouds above let fall. Everything bad was his responsibility. Even if it occurred while he served drinks, took orders, or washed linen. Or swept. Or dusted the furniture. Or cleaned the dishes, wiped down the tables and chairs, stored and sorted supplies, or performed any one of two dozen other daily duties.

And Goddess help him if he ever spilled food on the floor or tripped and spilled drinks.

“What an Adian vyshti,” Harthoon would jeer, often to the delight of the patrons.

What was a vyshti? Aeo didn’t know. Some old military slang Harthoon never cared to explain. Adopted from Adia, the nation of Aeo’s birth. His actual home. Supposedly. A place he would never remember, somewhere Harthoon would never let him forget. They would call Aeo “Red-Eye,” due to the crimson color of his irises. The dirtiest thing they could say about him, as well as the most obvious. Such an insult would often elicit laughter from the hunters in particular, and he had no idea why. He’d grown to hate the ruby color when looking at himself in mirrors. So much so that he started averting his gaze. It was worse than just the eyes, though. He hated his red hair as well, his bushy carrot-colored hair that made him stand out like a fiery carnival clown.

Antielli boys and girls enjoyed brown or blonde hair themselves, and he envied their green and blue and pale brown eyes. So plain and neat and normal. Why couldn’t he be like them?

[You’re a spectacle, boy. Take it personally. Take offense. Be weirder for it, I dare you.]

He ignored that advice.

After noon passed on, the boy would then sweep the inn’s kitchen and dining area, paying close attention beneath the tables and chairs. Then he would wipe down all those tables and chairs with filthy rags and dirty water. Scrub as he might, the inlaid stains and dirt never really went away. For all the years the Grey Pale’s furniture had served guests and patrons, the boy was certain he could have stopped cleaning them; they’d all been stained with enough alcohol to make them impervious to any further staining. By the time he’d finished these tasks, the lunch rush would begin, and Harthoon expected the boy to seat and serve every patron that entered the doors. Once the lunch rush died down, the boy’s next responsibility during the afternoon involved hauling cartons of fresh milk, cheese, fruit, and bread into the storeroom from its daily delivery. He had stolen a small bit of bread once, deciding to blame the rats. Unfortunately, Aeo was a terrible liar. Harthoon struck him with a frying pan, and he ended up with quite the bruise on his shoulder.

Perhaps the only thing the boy wasn’t allowed to do in the Grey Pale was any cooking. Once, Harthoon had allowed it. The resulting omelet had caught fire immediately, and the boy was promptly throttled for letting the smoke choke the upstairs guests.

At least once a week, when Harthoon would smack Aeo’s head or shout a harsh word at the boy, some new visitor to the inn would invariably pity Aeo’s position at the Gray Pale. Whenever this happened, if Harthoon were within earshot, he would make it a point to address the criticism: the boy was a dirty Adian scab that had no place in Olvaren. Not with polite society, not with other Antielli children, and certainly not as a free citizen. Not even free to wander outside the inn, as a matter of fact. There were other Adian slaves in Olvaren, owned by other retired hunters. But Aeo had never met them. He wasn’t allowed outside without a leash and Harthoon’s direct supervision. It’s why he enjoyed cleaning the stables so much, for the freedom of silence and solitude they offered. It was as close to the outside as he would ever get.

Harthoon may have been a brute. But he was decidedly more than just a mound of bitter muscle. He was also astoundingly two-faced. His vindictive nature to Aeo’s mere presence was matched only by the friendliness and charm he let exude in front of guests. Even Aeo could admit how convincing his heel-turn looked. As the social center of Olvaren, gossip and news came to the Grey Pale in droves, and Harthoon set himself as its apex, spreading the day’s rumors and slander like butter on bread when working the counter. The promiscuous escapades of some hunter and his mistress? The strange religion of some backwater merchant? The poor financial decisions of some poor sod he hardly knew? Few topics were off limits to him and those who let him bark. Always with the name-calling, too. He never called people by their real names, especially not Aeo. “Snapper,” he always called Aeo. “Useless Boy.” “Good-for-Nothing.” “Red-Eyed Bastard” was reserved for rare occasions. He had once deigned to explain to the boy what the word “bastard” meant. Considering he’d never met his parents, Aeo wasn’t positive that title applied to him.

[Bastard child of a bastard lineage. The incestuous union of two branches, long-burned.]

Aeo didn’t understand the voices most of the time. And since no one else seemed to hear the Shattered, he had no intention of telling anyone about them. No sense making himself seem more odd than he already was.

About one in the afternoon every single day, the woman of the house would usually show herself. Ariste was her name. Harthoon always called her ‘Good-for-Nothing,’ too. Thanks to him, the whole village knew about her. Her drinking problems, and her “sexual infidelities.” The ones Aeo almost certainly knew didn’t exist. How the respectable innkeeper put up with this poor excuse of a wife, no one in the village (except Aeo) knew.

Just as Harthoon kept Aeo on the hook for his supposed lax nature, he tormented the woman for her imperfections. Ariste provided little assistance in the day-to-day operations of the inn, rarely caring to place a mask of sobriety upon her visage if she could help it. Just like Aeo, Harthoon would slap her in public every once in a while. For forgetting to purchase firewood, for ignoring the dirty windowsills. Or even for just not being around enough. Despite the large gold ring on his finger, Harthoon didn’t treat Ariste well.

Yet Ariste never retaliated. She never yelled, or cried out when he hit her. She would simply slither down from upstairs, refill her wooden flagon with beer, and disappear back into the attic as quickly as she could. And though Aeo was swamped with work and worry… he didn’t blame her.

[Few are they that find it. The memory of belonging. Shards of glass, shattered as we.]

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, Ariste would stumble upon the boy attempting to sleep in his cramped storage room. She would kneel on the ground before him, waking the boy with a start, and proceed to sob uncontrollably in the boy’s lap. Embracing him as she cried, her presence so soaked in alcohol, it would make Aeo drunk just by the smell of it. Three or four times that winter, it happened. The boy never knew how to react to this behavior. Never knew what to say. He knew Ariste hated Harthoon just as much as he did. She just never showed it in public. By the next morning, Ariste would resume her apathetic attitude towards the boy, as if she’d forgotten the moment ever occurred.

Besides those odd moments of mourning, Aeo didn’t speak to her. Though, to be fair, it was she that never spoke to him. If Harthoon was meant to be Aeo’s father, Ariste was just as much his mother.

[He’ll be like us one day. She’ll be like us one day. You’ll be like us, too.]

The pinnacle of Aeo’s long list of duties would begin as the sun fell behind the Falas Mountain every evening. The floors covered themselves nightly in slop and dirt as the crowds packed inside, and the long night of song and dance would give him a mighty nightly migraine. A flimsy mop served as a constant companion, and despite the raucous noise, the boy would often doze off with it in hand as an excuse in case he ever got caught. Sometimes Aeo would get dinner. More often, Harthoon would “forget” to cook him anything, busy as he was cooking for an entire village of patrons. Both during and after the dinner rush, so long as the orders continued to flow unabated, the boy was more of an afterthought. At times, Aeo would discover a raw potato or leek sitting upon his bed in the closet, and he would waste no time devouring the vegetable without a second thought.

Then, at ten o’clock, despite the maddening noises of accordions, fiddles, and screaming, Aeo would stumble clumsily into his closet to fall asleep. Without effort, he would drift into the Shattered dreams, his only escape from his life in the Grey Pale. Then the cycle would repeat, at three o’clock every morning, and he’d start it all over again. For so the pattern had been set in stone for the last year or so. Harthoon never let it vary.

Maybe my eyes are red because I don’t get enough sleep, Aeo thought to himself once. Maybe that’s why they think I’m lazy.

[The eyes of our bloody crusade beg to differ greatly.]

Harthoon never slept. Not when Aeo did, anyway. He ignored Aeo at night just to throw him out of bed every morning. What madness drove the man to such a level of productivity, the boy couldn’t fathom. Maybe he just ran on cruelty and coin. Maybe slapping the boy gave him strength. Maybe the rudeness towards his wife let him subsist, sleepless.

The idea of freedom had occurred to the boy at some moments. The idea of running away, running for Adia. But he couldn’t simply run to the nearest nation. All he knew was that the Antiell-Adia border was out there somewhere, far to the west. And if he ever managed to cross it, he could be free. Maybe if he did run away, if he escaped the Grey Pale at eleven or twelve o’clock at night, he could get as far as the highway or perhaps the next town before being noticed. But he had heard traders talk about the desolate nation of Adia as if it were weeks away, and the boy was certain he couldn’t hide for weeks and weeks without being discovered. There was no telling how many hunters from Olvaren would go hunting for him on Harthoon’s behalf. He could not imagine the punishment that would await him then.

The only way to escape slavery was up. Up the mountain, up through the canyons and forests and desolate wastes on the other side. There was another country behind the mountain, one of sand and wind. The Land of the Eternal Sun: the nation of Adia. His home. Maybe that’s why the Shattered showed him visions of the long desert, night after night. If he could find a way to climb over the barren side of the mountain without freezing to death, he could be free of Harthoon and the Grey Pale and Olvaren. He would never have to work in the filthy tavern again.

But he never dared to try. Not even once. The fear of being caught kept him caught. The cold frightened him too thoroughly. No Antielli trader would dare carry an Adian slave back to their hated enemy, so that wasn’t an option. He would never make money, certainly not enough to convince a random traveling scholar or mercenary to smuggle him away. Assuming Harthoon didn’t catch wind of any plan before it hatched, of course. He’d be beaten within an inch of his life if he tried.

No, there was no way. Maybe when he grew up, he could buy his freedom like other slaves. Or maybe he’d just live the rest of his life and die within the confines of the Grey Pale.

[You wouldn’t be first or last to fall in service to mediocrity.]

Alyssum: Voices of the Shattered Sun – Aeo’s First Class

/ birdjericho / Leave a comment

This was one of the scenes I imagined first when coming up with the plot for my fantasy novel. Magic (or magick) in the world of Alyssum is pretty straightforward, as far as the etymology is concerned. You’ve got all your classics: thaumaturgy, abjuration, conjuration, and the like. But then you have individuals who are “shattered,” either psychologically or in arcane ways, that defy conventions in neuroatypical manners. Hearing voices is pretty commonplace for them, and the voices of such “Others” are rarely friendly, often blamed for the many misfortunes that have befallen the world since the Shattering (a worldwide cataclysm that left an arcane wound in the surface of the world hundreds of miles long, dozens of miles wide, and filled with darkness and terror from which no one has ever ventured and escaped).

For Aeo, his magick is bipolar, and even slightly schizophrenic. When the anger and obsession of mania comes along, triggered by negative memories, the normally-directionless voices in his head become decidedly murderous. And when sadness and depression appears, the voices become hopeless and despondent and want the world to go away. This changes the way he can influence his magick, often in contradictory ways that are probably not going to help him a whole lot during his adventure. For instance, he’ll soon find himself stuck alone in a terrible blizzard, and his sadness will warp his fire magic into useless ice, threatening his ability to survive.

Of course, he’ll (slowly) reason that making an igloo is a great way to not die during such circumstances. 😀

As an abused ex-slave, Aeo’s got a lot of baggage to unpack. Fortunately, he’ll learn to cope, and his friends will help him do just that. He’ll discover that there’s a reason he can hear the shattered voices, and it has a lot to do with where he came from and who he’s meant to become. That his differences are how the Goddess Tiathys intends for the young boy to save the world.

I want my novel’s Everspring Academy to be more than Hogwarts, and I want the survival aspect of the hero’s journey to be different than The Hunger Games or The Hobbit. Yeah, racial prejudice sucks, but I want to use it in a constructive way in a story, and demonstrate that even obviously-neuroatypical people can solve problems and be heroes. I’m excited to begin the challenge proper once my own mental health solidifies (and yes, even though my draft is ~175 pages now, I realize it’s totally just a start).

Nineteen energetic students and a single timid one entered the spacious open-air amphitheater, each quickly and quietly finding a seat before the center stage. Aeo’s physical senses met the combined sight and scent of a thousand rainbow-colored flowers growing in the meadow beyond. The bright sandstone walls of the semi-circle amphitheater appeared more temple than classroom, adorned as they were with gleaming weapons, thick armors and shields, and shiny arcane artifacts. The afternoon daylight streamed through the shade of green and blue hanging curtains as a delicate breeze made a series of wind chimes dance and sing some feet near the entrance.

Aeo paused, soaking in the view. This was his classroom? Aeo had heard of the concept of “school” before, certainly, though one did not exist in Falas Village. But he had no idea learning could be experienced in a such a luxurious place. It was a paradise, one he did not feel worthy to exist in. And this was the most basic magick course offered at the Academy. An Introduction to Energy, taught by one Elder Naal.

Leon had insisted he start simple, and Aeo had no desire to disappoint him. But besides the splendid classroom, the introductory course felt… off. Perhaps it was the fact that Aeo stood a foot taller than every other student around him, which was saying something for the scrawny four-foot-tall Adian boy. The oldest students gathering before him couldn’t have been older than six years of age, while a few of them were still babbling toddlers.

It was bad enough that the bright-white apprentice robes Leon forced him to wear were so awfully hot, itchy, and ill-fitting for the humid atmosphere of the Everspring. Now he had to endure a rigid schedule where everything was new and foreign and terrifying… and, apparently, appropriate for tiny, tiny children.

He scowled at his predicament, and at himself.

First day here, and you’re already years behind.

One by one, each student took a seat on comfortable pillows in the koilon before the half-circular stage. Aeo didn’t hesitate to sit as far back as he could, choosing a lone pillow in the corner of the amphitheater farthest from both the entrance and the stage. Harthoon (his former master) would probably have had a heart attack had he known the street value of the flamboyantly-embroidered pillow placed upon the amphitheater’s stone steps. But all of the other children had no qualms about leaping and landing upon the plush pillows with delight, so Aeo allowed himself to sit.

Aeo remained silent, watching the others congregate. He could easily differentiate between the Antielli boys and girls (with their short rounded ears, thick brown or ruddy-colored hair, and mostly hazel eyes) and the Ashanti boys and girls (with their signature long and pointed ears, wispy and delicately-hued hair, and their stunningly pale and reflective eyes). No other student had Aeo’s bright red irises and curly crimson hair. There were no Adians in this classroom besides him. And the children had very much noticed. Aeo could feel their obvious whispers floating around between cupped hands. A few blank stares met his own, and he felt his cheeks turn as red as his hair.

Aeo and the other children did not have to wait long for the teacher to appear. From the entrance came a mighty bellowing voice:

“Oy dear children! Welcome!”

Into the amphitheater strode a jolly and rotund fellow dressed in the flowing tan-and-green robes of an Academy instructor. Elder Naal, no doubt, an Antielli man himself. Adorned with a mighty white beard that descended from his lips like a bushy cloud, his hawkish eyes and balding crown of graying hair reminded Aeo of the cranky, ale-sodden scribes that had visited the tavern in Falas from time to time. Fortunately, there was little about this instructor’s demeanor that could compare to those ill-tempered Antielli monks.

“Take a seat, take a seat, get comfortable,” he declared, though everyone had already done so. “Today’s lesson is certainly one you’ve all been waiting for! No more note-taking, no more practice drills… that will come again later, of course. Today, it is time for the real thing!”

“Master Naal?” asked an eager young girl sitting up front. “Does that mean you’ll show us actual magick?”

“Better, my dear,” Master Edin’Rao Naal said, clapping his hands together as he stood before them. “Today, you will be showing me some magick instead!”

Eyes widened in joy and excited whispers rose. Aeo felt a pit form in his stomach.

“Now, now, everyone, contain yourselves,” Master Naal said, lowering hands to hush the children. “I know that some of you are already very skilled at simple focus magicks, while some of you still have yet to demonstrate the knack. This is okay! Today, no matter your level of skill or natural talent, you will all improve together!” He paused, perhaps a bit dramatically. “Now. The tools I’m about to show you can be dangerous. Lethal, in some cases. But powerful in the right hands, and perfect for practicing magick with the right supervision!”

Master Naal turned and moved to the table at the rear of the stage. From within a beautifully-adorned wooden box, he produced a pair of bright-red leather armbands. They were oddly beautiful, sturdy pieces of aged leather adorned with metal rivets, decorative steel ornaments, and silver buckles. In the very center of the wrist was an inlaid gemstone that shone with a delicate green light, not entirely unlike the crystalline lamps that lined the Academy’s hallways.

“These, children,” he said, lifting an armband in each hand. “Are enmap bracers. Does anyone know what enmap means?”

One Ashanti boy with incredibly pointy ears (even for an Ashanti) immediately lifted his hand.

“It means energy manip— uh, man— man-ee-pull-ay-shun.”

Master Naal gave the boy a deep bow.

“Very good, Jhote, very good pronunciation! Yes, enmap stands for ‘energy manipulation,’ the weaving of energy into magick. It is the crystallized aether of the bracer that does the heavy lifting, so to speak, allowing you to practice your forms without getting tired. For little ones such as yourselves, you’ll find that when you put these on, you’ll have no problem casting your very own magicks with very little effort! Would one of you like to come up and help me demonstrate what they can…? Oh, Jhote! Yes, come right up, my boy.”

The same Ashanti boy rose without even raising his hand, standing before Master Naal filled with excitement.

“Have you ever used an enmap bracer before?”

“Ay sir,” he said, his accent thick. “I practice with my brother in his class.”

“Very good! Then you’re probably a natural! Go ahead and hold out your arm for me, my boy.”

Dressed in smiliar robes as Aeo, Jhote rolled up his thick sleeve and held out his arm with a big grin on his face. With a flick of his hand, Master Naal released the bracer into the air, and it flew onto the boys arm in a flash. The three leather straps of the bracer all tightened simultaneously, though perhaps a bit too tightly for the boy’s immediate liking. It was too big, wrapping from the boy’s wrist to beyond his elbow and forcing the boy’s arm to straighten.

“Ha! Apologies, Jhote! You’ll get used to the tightness. It’s a necessity until you get used to the intensity of the magick. Your other arm, my boy, if you please.”

Jhote held out his other arm, and Master Naal performed the same trick as before; with a snap, the other enmap bracer wrapped onto the boy’s forearm, tightening and buckling on its own. The Ashanti boy looked at the oversized bracers on his arms in wonder.

“Comfortable?” Master Naal asked. “Good! Perfect! Now, as to their function. As Jhote said, ‘enmap’ is short for ‘energy manipulation.’ That’s what these bracers allow the user to do: manipulate the aether within the crystals and control the weave in simple focus magick. What is focus magick, everyone?”

Aeo had no idea. Several hands went up, and Master Naal pointed.

“Master?” called an Antielli girl in the middle of the classroom, her hair tied up in a tight bun. “It’s magick you have to concentrate on.”

“Yes, that’s right, Holda,” Naal said. “Yes! Concentration, and what else? What’s the second important part of focus magick?” He waved his finger as if pointing at the answer. “Remember, it’s there in the title itself.”

“Focus!” chimed several staggered voices.

“Yes, marvelous, that’s right! Magick requires concentration and focus, a vision of the effect you desire to create.” Master Naal pointed to the details of the bracers upon Jhote’s arms. “You see the wellspring crystals? Enmap bracers are an aetherically-charged focus that provides the power for the spells you wish to cast. There are few focus magicks that can’t be improved by practicing with enmap bracers. Unfortunately, they are rather… well, they’re rare. And expensive. So expensive, in fact, that this is the only pair the Academy allows the evocation college to use. So, if you please, take great care when using them!”

“Can I try them now, Master?” Jhote asked, already waving his hands about in a practiced stance. “I’m ready!”

“Of course, my boy! Today, I want you all to come up here, one at a time. Tell me what magick specialization is your favorite, and we’ll see if we can’t make the bracers produce what you imagine. Sound good?”

Cheer arose from the students. Master Naal then flicked his hand once more, and the bracer upon Jhote’s right arm suddenly unlatched and flew into the instructor’s hand.

“I’ll be wearing the other one, you see,” he explained, securing it manually to his own arm. “To keep everyone safe. No telling how much trouble you children could get into with both bracers! Regardless, I expect quite the show from just the one!”

The nervous whispers turned into enthusiastic chattering. Aeo did not add to it. He simply hid his hands in his lap and looked down at the floor.

Jhote began the presentation. Abjuration was his favorite field of magick, just like Leon’s. So Elder Naal urged the boy to imagine a bright light, as bright as the sun, and to imagine it appearing before him. The white-haired boy held out his hand, biting his tongue in concentration. The effect emerged in less than a second: a sphere of bright sapphire light slowly emerged within the palm of his hand, not entirely unlike the luspheres that floated above the refectory in the Great Hall. It hovered there for a moment before “sliding” out of his fingers, falling and fading away before the magick could hit the ground.

Jhote stared at Master Naal so thrilled, he was breathless.

“Fantastically done, Jhote! Very good! Can you feel the ease with which the energy flows through the bracer? Isn’t it brilliant? Who’s next?”

The next student was an Antielli girl with curly blonde hair in the front row. She went up while Master Naal removed all three buckles of the bracer from Jhote’s arm with a quick gesture. As the boy sat down, Master Naal magicked the bracer onto the girl’s forearm, and she wasted no time discussing what she had in mind. Her animis was liquid thaumaturgy, so Master Naal produced a small vial of water from the table on the stage. The girl must have practiced this skill many times before, as the water within the vial immediately leaped into the air and formed a small sphere, defying gravity above the palm of her hand. It then snaked around the bracer like a watery serpent, weaving itself in between her fingers before zipping right back into the vial with nary a drop wasted.

The pride beaming from her face was unmistakable.

“Brilliant, Bevelli! What fun! Aren’t these bracers amazing? Their power makes it feel as though all your practice has finally paid off. Next!”

One by one, each student in the class rose and took to the stage. Some created arcs of electricity between their fingers. Some illuminated the already brilliantly-lit classroom in blinding colorful flashes of light. One Ashanti boy (whose mother worked as one of the Academy’s chirurgeons) demonstrated healing magick, restoring the natural color to a small bruise on his own knee. Another transmuted a small glass marble into a cube shape, then into a pyramid, and then into a multi-pointed star. The student sitting right next to Aeo, a white-haired Ashanti girl whose hair draped lower than her waist, then took the stage and created a spectacular fireworks display, showering the entire front row in dazzling but harmless indigo sparks. She described it as an “emergency flare” magick that her parents had taught her in case she ever got lost.

With every demonstration, the other students cheered all the more. Even as Aeo became more and more sullen.

“Excellent, everyone! Excellent work,” Master Naal said at last. “You all have mastered your animi with such ease! With enough practice and focus, performing magick can one day become as simple as these bracers make it now!”

The whispers escalated, the students whispering to each other as they marveled at their experiences. And for the briefest moment, as Master Naal removed the bracer from the Ashanti girl’s arm, Aeo convinced himself that he’d been forgotten by everyone in the room. Master Naal even seemed to confirm it as he turned in place to return the bracers to their ornate container.

“And, at last, we come to our final student,” Master Naal announced without turning around. “Our brand new arrival from Antiell. Have you all introduced yourselves to Aeo yet?”

Every eye in the classroom then turned to look at Aeo. He turned as beetroot red as everything else about him. The boy without a last name. The Adian. The whispers became intense. Some of the other boys laughed. Three of them in particular, a trio of nearly-identical brown-haired Antielli boys, pointed at him and snickered. If Aeo had known the spell for turning invisible, he would have cast such an enchantment immediately. Unfortunately, bracers or not, the only magic he knew how to cast had murdered his slave-owning master; not that anyone knew that but himself. He refused to look at the stage or at anyone else, so he tried to stare at the sandstone wall beside him instead.

“Well, Aeo?” asked Master Naal. With reluctance, Aeo forced himself to look past everyone. Master Naal had returned to face the class, now wearing a peculiar pair of thin black gloves in combination with a single enmap bracer. “Would you care to come practice what you’ve learned?”

Aeo didn’t respond right away, sinking further into his seat. The laughter at his expense increased. What a shame… a ten-year-old redhead, scared of a bunch of six-year-olds. Of course, he couldn’t simply ignore everyone. Aeo felt his body lift from his seated position, and he found himself stepping to the front of the sandstone amphitheater. His knees wobbled as he climbed the stage steps and his bottom lip was already trembling. There was no way he could remember the stance or the incantations Leon had taught him. No way at all.

“Very good, my boy,” Master Naal said cheerfully (or obliviously), clapping a great hand on Aeo’s shoulder. Aeo nearly crumpled from the gesture, and giggling rose from the Antielli girls in the front row at the sight of it. “Now, as Master Sirelu advised me, you have quite the animis for fire thaumaturgy, is that right?”

Aeo nodded in the slightest way possible, his gaze transfixed on the ground.

“Here, Aeo. Your arm, please.”

Master Naal held the bracer to the Adian boy. For the first time, Aeo got a good look at the piece of arcane armor; it really was quite a work of art. The buckles and decorations gleamed in the sunlight, the sienna ayvasilk weaving around the edges spun into perfect embroidered patterns. Crafted of beautiful red-hued leather, the bracer appeared as aged and refined as polished oak, not to mention the silent beauty of the viridian gemstone set into the bracer’s wrist. Aeo rolled up his sleeve, and before he could even watch, he felt the bracer slide up his arm and latch on like a coiled serpent. Master Naal hadn’t been wrong about the lack of comfort, and he felt the blood flow in his arm constrict.

“There we are, excellent. Now, Aeo, stand about three arm lengths away from me and lift your arm. Cup your hand out, just as Master Sirelu taught you.”

So Leon had told Master Naal about his practice. All the more the fool for thinking Aeo even wanted to show off. Aeo closed his eyes for a moment and obeyed the instructor, his hand cupped upwards. Same as before… nothing felt inherently different. His thoughts trailed to the thought exercise Leon had taught him: he imagined all the heat from his toes rising to his legs, then up his waist and stomach, through his chest and down his arm towards his waiting hand.

All was concentration for about fifteen seconds. But nothing happened. Not a single spark, and no heat. Everything fell terribly quiet.

“Need assistance, my boy?” asked Master Naal.

The same three boys that had laughed before began whispering to each other. Aeo couldn’t help but look at them, and they shared three very unfriendly smiles. Whatever heat that should have been descending down Aeo’s arm was instead ascending to his head, turning his cheeks even further crimson.

Aeo’s head shook, tearing his attention back to his hand.

I can do this. I can!

But he couldn’t. He strained again to produce even a candle’s worth of flame on his fingertips, as he had done but days before by himself. He might as well have been holding his hand out to Master Naal for a piece of candy. A hard peal of laughter shot from the corner of the amphitheater. The three boys. They weren’t stopping. At this point, they knew they were distracting him. This made them laugh all the more, and the class had begun to follow along.

To his credit, this was not lost on Master Naal.

“Come now, everyone,” he said, not pointing to anyone in particular. “Let’s not be rude. Give Aeo a moment, the bracers can take a moment to get used to.”

Nothing was working. It couldn’t. Perhaps it best he bow out as graciously as possible. He should have taken the bracer off and returned to his pillow. He should have. But he didn’t.

His attention was no longer on his hand. It was directly at the three boys.

You need to make them stop, thought an Other in his mind. Make them stop.

Somewhere inside the inner workings of his physical brain, a nerve was struck. It was the boys’ eyes, their jeering laughter, their gestures that struck a deeply-rooted instinct. It was an instinct Aeo had never fully explored, not willingly, out of fear of constant punishment. The phrase ‘Adian bastard’ floated through his head plain as day, plain as if one of the boys had said the words aloud.

Then, a horrifying contemplation. Words that did not belong to him, but to the many unseen Others just beyond his natural comprehension. Words that he had never heard spoken with his ears, but many times spoken in his mind, though never nearly as loud. They spoke over each other, hissing, all desiring the same awful things:

Remove their twisted grins. Their maniacal eyes. They deserve to die. Incinerate their bodies as you did the wolves. As you did your master. Offer them as sacrifice to the star, to the heart of the sun. Refuse their existence a single day more!

Oh, how he could hear them, and nothing more! Aeo’s awareness of the opulent classroom faded, and his physical vision blurred. His focus was a wish, one granted by the enmap bracer hugging his arm. Or so he thought. So lost he was to internal voices, he didn’t immediately realize that the mocking faces of the three boys had begun to transform into looks of horror.

Then… everything happened at once. Too much at once. Someone yelled from across the room. Something bright enveloped his left arm. He felt no pain, no discomfort.

Aeo’s concentration on the three boys broke. He looked to his arm. His entire hand as well as the enmap bracer had erupted into magnificent effulgent flame, radiant, burning with ferocious ruby-red flames too bright to see. His eyes began to track the whipping tongues of fire upwards, and he calmly noticed that they had begun to consume the green curtains above the stage.

Interesting.

Then, someone else yelled from across the room. His gaze lazily drew off of the stage towards the entrance of the amphitheater. It was Master Naal; somehow, he was no longer on stage.

“Aeo, stop, my boy! Please! Control yourself!”

Stop. Control. What a pair of words.

Aeo’s gaze returned to the ruby-red flames now engulfing the white sleeve of his Academy robes. This was right. So right. For the first time in his life, he couldn’t imagine anything he wanted more than to pour this power into the world. Little he knew was more satisfying than the primal animis that roared from his hand and the bracer.

With this power, you can do anything. You can stop the staring and the whispers. You can make people stop laughing. Stop them from screaming. You can make them disappear. Where is the other bracer? You need more power. How much more powerful could you become with the other?

Someone was still yelling at him. Then several voices. A strange sensation took control of his left hand, of the bracer. An unseen force trying to take it away from him.

No! Stop! That will make the fire go away!

He resisted it. Nothing would make this end. He would let it consume him first. He would burn down the entire Academy! He would end his life before letting the fire die! He would—

BLOOP.

All sound ceased. With a familiar and delightful popping sound, a violet sphere of magickal light engulfed Aeo’s hand and most of his arm like a playful bubble. In a single second, the entire ruby-red conflagration died. All of Aeo’s weight had been held up by the molten string of aether, and it all so suddenly vanished, he could do nothing but collapse to the floor.

As quickly as the bubble appeared, Aeo’s hearing returned. The sounds echoing in the sandstone amphitheater had not simply died. The roar of the flames had only deafened to it all. In fact, once the roar of the fiery magick ceased, the room became filled with the cries of frightened children, as well as the shouts of other masters attempting to calm them. To his slight confusion, some of the voices seemed to belong to the three Antielli boys, all of them crying and shouting from fear. He hadn’t harmed them, despite wanting to.

Thank the Goddess, his own internal voice thought.

Aeo strained to focus. His energy, consumed in the flames, barely gave him the power to turn his head towards the direction of the voices. Someone was coming, deep footfalls upon the stone approaching him. To his surprise, it wasn’t Master Naal that appeared.

No, it was Leon. Where had he come from? Wasn’t his office on the other side of the Academy?

“Aeo!” he cried, crouching and smothering the flames that had not yet died on the hems of Aeo’s charred robes. With a flick of his wrist, the violet bubble about Aeo’s arm vanished, and the enmap bracer unbuckled. It then shot off of Aeo’s arm like a rocket, clattering some distance away. Aeo felt Leon embrace him and pat his face, but he had no energy to ask what had happened. “Aeo, can you hear me? Speak to me, Aeo, say something! Come now, blink if you can hear me!”

Aeo attempted to blink. It was more of an eyelash flutter. Animis sickness, all over again, all of his energy thoroughly drained. If he’d been able to see it, the once-shining green gem set into the bracer had long since stopped shining.

“Master Naal, call the Sanareum please! How could you let this happen? How long was his outburst?”

“About fifteen minutes!” shouted Master Naal’s voice from across the room, who seemed to be directing his fellow thaumaturgists in extinguishing the flames that licked the ceiling. But he didn’t sound angry, or even displeased. He sounded excited, even as he worked to extinguish the flames that had caught the first eight rows of pillows on fire. “I’ve never seen its like before! I could hardly approach him to ward his hands, even with a bracer on! I daresay, Master Sirelu, we have a master flame thamaturgist on our hands! I’d stake my life on it!”

“Not now, Edin, please!” Leon shouted angrily. “Call the Sanareum, now!”

“Ay lae’dra!”

Fifteen whole minutes? No. No, it couldn’t have lasted that long. It was over so quickly, and so suddenly. There’s no way.

Leon placed his hand on the boy’s forehead, confident that the last of the embers clinging to Aeo’s robes had cooled.

“Goddess, Aeo… this is my fault, isn’t it? Had I known your first lesson at the Academy would be about that damnable bracer, I would have had you skip class. Just… just rest now, all right? We’ll, eh… take things a bit slower from now on.”

Had Aeo not expended every drop of physical and magickal effort attempting to immolate his fellow students, he would have audibly agreed.

“And in the meantime,” he growled, staring at the entrance to the classroom. “Elder Naal and I are going to share a few words.”

Pip-Boy 3000 Mk. IV Quantum Re-Paint

/ birdjericho / Leave a comment

After wasting so much time simply wanting to assemble a complete costume like this, I am finally putting together my Fallout Vault Dweller cosplay to attend Fan-X in Salt Lake City this year. It has taken so much out of me just waiting for my mental health to improve, never mind all of the painting and creation practice with other props. I’m thrilled with the results so far that I just had to share all my progress pictures. Now with commentary!

This is my finished, Quantumized Pip-Boy 3000 Mark Four!

It all started with the prop itself that I had purchased with the Collector’s Edition of Fallout 4. I’ve had this Pip-Boy since Fallout 4 came out, and I had always intended to repaint it and include it into some form of cosplay. The dream is finally becoming a reality.

Paired with it is my ancient iPod Touch (4th generation, I believe). I started by scratching the crap out of the shiny new plastic; the original prop greatly lacked for wear and tear.

And then I started with my fantastic blue color. It is Vallejo Game Color Turquoise paint (which you can find here). I used the same color as the base for my plasma rifle Quantum recolor.

And then came the disassembly to color the whole thing properly. I actually disassembled it a few times because I made the mistake of assuming I could simply not paint some of the ugly brown. This ended up not being true; the prop’s assembly wasn’t good enough to conceal any of the khaki color.

And then came the delightful purple. I don’t know if this color quite matches with the deeper Quantum violet, but I wanted my Pip-Boy to be a bit brighter and more inviting… at least until I settled on the right grime. For this, I used Vallejo Violeta Azul (which you can find here).

And here’s the finished base color (you can still see exposed tan color in some spots). At this point, I grinded off the striped yellow “caution” bars from the buckle with my dremel tool; to be honest, they were kind of tacky and didn’t match what I had in mind for the finished look.

I then tried my hand at painting racing stripes… or, at least, some candy-yellow lines to add a bit of soda-jerk flavor to the device. Admittedly, it only kinda worked. But after all the weathering and details, you can hardly tell how poor the application is. 😀

And then I added stickers! I had purchased some Nuka-Cola Quantum stickers for my thermos some years ago that I had accidentally ordered as opaque instead of transparent. Not liking how they looked on my thermos, I removed them… but I kept them because I knew I could do something with them in the future. How right I was! It definitely has that kitchy 1950’s soda parlor appeal now.

The stickers aren’t perfect, but they definitely sell the “Quantum-ness” of the recolor. And in the end, that’s all I care!

And then it was time to make it DIRTY. I used a three-pack of Distress Oxide paints (the brand of which you can find here; they don’t sell the specific trio I used on Amazon, but they do at Joann’s Fabrics) to rust the crap out of the Pip-Boy.

Note to self: wait until the paint is completely dry before applying the matte sealer! I was finding that my Pip-Boy was still wet for at least two days afterwards because I didn’t wait long enough for the rust paint to dry. Oops. At least the finished product looks dirtier because of it.

I have since improved upon the paint job of my plasma rifle by adding highlights. I can’t wait until this all comes together. Tomorrow, I am starting the assembly of my leather armor. I’m planning on using actual aluminum and painted pig leather, riveting it all together, and finishing it up with the same distressed paints. I hope to update soon with progress on the armor!

My Name Is Lenn – New Chapter Three Addition

/ birdjericho

The tricky thing to these flashbacks is to show Lenn as making both a semi-rational decision and a cruel one in leaving Aria behind. I want to show that there is serious danger outside the village, obviously, but that the potential danger of humans is above even the known danger of the village elder. I don’t know how much of that I can demonstrate in a single book. I’ll keep playing with it.

“You’re an idiot, you know that?”

“What?” Lenn rested his head against the sheet metal wall, his chin and thought process tilted in confusion. “What do you mean? All I’m saying is that if I go alone, if something terrible happens on the way… then it won’t be both of us that dies. That’s not stupid.”

Aria rolled her eyes.

“Sure. It wouldn’t be. If you were a gatherer and knew exactly where to find the caravaners on your own. But you’re not. And you don’t.”

That’s not what she meant. And he knew that wasn’t what she meant.

“Well, neither do you,” Lenn snapped back. “My leg isn’t completely useless, Ari. If I go at my own pace, by myself, I can stay hidden better than both of us together.”

She frowned at him.

“Besides,” he continued. “How hard can it be to find a place called ‘The Pipes?’ Great big half-buried concrete, next to the river? I’ll get down there in a few days and be right back up. Once I find one of the caravan teams, I’ll probably just ride back with them. I won’t even have to worry about going uphill on the return trip.”

“That’s if you find them at all, Lenn.” Exasperated, she folded her arms. “Please, asha, be reasonable. You can hardly walk on your own, much less carry a backpack with enough supplies to reach the city. Once you’re there, what then? What if the Pipes aren’t that easy to find? The gatherers haven’t seen a caravan in years. What makes you think you can find them before Wakèya decides to move everyone?”

“He’s not going to move everyone for a while. You know that. If they move now, the children are as good as dead. The mothers too.” Lenn picked at the rust flakes on the wall. “The gatherers said it’s right down the mountain, half a day past the denvi tunnel, first thing you see when you reach town. Right by the river. I’ll know it when I see it.”

“Oh. You will, huh? And what if they aren’t even there?”

“Well, it’s not like they’ve been washed away.” Lenn chuckled. “No water, remember?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“Look. I’ll make us a home in one of the pipes and be right back up to find you. I’ll even mark places for us to hide on the way, like the Gatherers do.”

“And if hiding doesn’t work? You’ll outrun the rats and crows all the way down the mountain and back?”

“That’s right. If I don’t, I’ll get eaten and you won’t. That’s how this works.”

“You’re—”

She drifted off. A small part of her wanted to call him an idiot again, as she always did. But that small part of her was merely the child she once was. Taken for granted once. But no longer; he was only doing as he promised. What all good dení men promise to do for the ones they love. And she knew it.

“What if the village is gone when you get back?” Aria practically whispered.

“It won’t be,” Lenn said, wrenchingly certain. “I promise you. Olem, the moment it starts raining, the old man’ll give up moving anyway.”

“You say that like…” Aria let the sentence drift off. She rested her head upon her chin, closing her eyes. “It’s been a whole season, Lenn. The barrels are practically empty. Even the mothers are scared. I don’t think Wakèya is going to wait much longer. Hearing him speak this morning… something’s changed. I just know it.”

“Uh-huh,” Lenn grunted, wrinkling his nose. “The old man, changing. I’ll believe it when he changes his mind about me.”

Aria just shook her head.

“It’s not just him,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “It’s everyone else, too.”

Lenn frowned at her.

“What do you mean, everyone else? Did… something happen?”

Aria swallowed dry, hiding her face with her long tawny locks.

“It’s just… something I felt today. The way the other mothers were looking at me. Some of the children.”

Lenn moved closer to her, to speak quieter. Though a dozen yards from the walls of Seí, even Grandmother’s old home no longer felt safe. It hadn’t for years.

“Did they say anything to you?”

Aria’s head shook, and a moment passed before she parted her hair to match Lenn’s stare.

“Not to me,” she said simply. “But… they were staring. Whispering. Not about the usual.”

Lenn and Aria were anything but the usual. While neither of them could afford to be particularly unusual on the best of days, and were well adept at avoiding it, such attention was now specifically unwelcome.

Lenn took Aria’s hands in his.

“I thought you said you were going to avoid them,” he said.

“I was, I didn’t say a word to anyone,” she said back, breathless. She pressed her hands over her abdomen. “But I… I don’t think I can help it anymore.”

Lenn’s eyes shut tight. He tried to think of something. But he’d spent the last month thinking so hard, he couldn’t bring himself even to pretend to have answers anymore.

“I’ll get the food from now on,” Lenn said, his eyes pacing the tiny table between them.

“We both know you can’t do that.”

“I sneak into the larder. They can’t take my hands if they don’t see me; they owe us that food. And I’ll teach the lessons from now on. At least until we leave.”

“If I’m not in class, the school is done.” Her voice sounded as if reciting a memorized verse. “If I stop working, I’ll disappear, and the school will too. I’ll never see the children again. I’ll… never see you again.”

“What? What are you saying? Who told you this?”

“Wakèya did. This morning, he said—” She paused. Aria’s stare was blank, almost resigned. “He said if anyone was caught being idle, or ignoring their duties, anyone… they would be reassigned. To digging the wells.” Again, she paused, though this time considerably longer. “He was looking directly at me when he said it.”

“But… he can’t do that,” Lenn whispered, barely containing his disbelief. “The mothers—“

“Even the mothers.” She paused. “Even mothers.”

Though Aria’s expression did not change, she was trembling. A tear fell from her eyes as she blinked.

“Vysht’kai!” Lenn swore out loud. Though he held Aria’s hands, he tore one away to slam a fist against the wall. It echoed through the dark night around them. “Lukhan take all of them! They can’t do this. They can’t do this to us!”

“They’re already doing it, asha,” Ari whispered. “You can’t stop them. They know. Wakèya knows, Lenn. We didn’t listen. In a few days, he’ll know for sure—”

“No, Ari,” Lenn said firmly, kissing her hands. “No. No, they don’t know. They think they do, but they don’t.”

Aria had stopped watching him. He lifted her chin until their eyes locked once more.

“I’m the one they want, asha. You know that. They’re making your life hell because of me, they hate you only because of me. This is just one more reason. That’s all.”

“What if that’s enough reason this time?” she asked, everything but her voice unstable as the wind. “Something is different, asha. You didn’t hear him. You didn’t hear him speak to me.”

Aria began to cry, bitterly whispering.

“Why is he doing this to us, Lenn? Why is he trying to take you from me? Why?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Lenn said, his own voice now shaking. Aria moved closer, crumbling apart, and Lenn embraced her. “It’s never mattered. Let him have the school. Let him have it all. We’re leaving. We’re leaving, okay?” In her hair, Lenn smelled sundried apples. Sundried apples to his juniper. “Tomorrow night. Gather up the things we need, and… and don’t tell anyone. Not even the children. Okay?”

“Together,” she whispered back. Perhaps more question than statement. It was all Lenn could do to nod, again and again, the muddled beating of his heart matching hers.

“Together,” he said.

And in that moment, he almost changed his mind.

My Name Is Lenn – New Chapter Two Content

/ birdjericho

To be completely honest, this is my first foray into anything that resembles romance in my fiction. It’s kind of exciting to get to that point, that my characters are believable enough in my head that they can love each other. That might sound strange to other writers more familiar with romance, but I’ve literally had to craft these two to resemble something compatible to my mind. All in all, I didn’t want the “hopeless princess in a tower” for Aria, and I didn’t want the “hopeless self-pitying boyfriend” for Lenn.

I hope I do them justice in the final product.

Midsummer Eve, by Edward Robert Hughes (1908)

“What do you know about them, anyway?”

Aria was looking directly at him. Great. Like always, he hadn’t been listening when she started.

Lenn looked about the kitchen before angling his well-worn crutches towards the old cobble stove. It wasn’t the first time he’d been distracted by his “trick” leg and an empty stomach, and it wouldn’t be the last. Unable to kneel, he bent as far forwards as his whittled wooden supports would allow. The cast-iron lid was thick, cumbersome. But he hoisted it, held it up as he struck a piece of red phosphorous, the tip of an old denvi matchstick, against the rough stone. It erupted into flame, and he tossed it into the tinder pile waiting within.

“Who? What are we talking about?”

“The wophetun,” Aria said.

Lenn shrugged, watching the tiny flame grow within the rocky vessel. Satisfied, he cautiously let the lid fall.

“I know they don’t like being called that,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because that’s Wakèya’s word for them, remember?”

“Fine,” Aria said, her eyes rolling a bit; it always annoyed her how much the rest of the village preferred their own language. As if to spite them, she switched the conversation to English: “The caravaners, then.”

“I don’t know much,” he said, switching to English himself. “Only know what Grandmother told me about them.”

Leaning one crutch against the stove and himself on the other, he opened the rickety cupboard door. Three clay vessels, each crafted by a skilled hand. He lifted them all, uncorked them, shook them. All empty, save for a single small spill of vegetable oil remaining within the smallest.

“I talked to one of them, once, when I was little. He liked my crutches. Grandmother let me trade with him, gave me some paper and pencil lead for some of Grandmother’s cherry jam. Seemed like a decent dení.”

“But would they help us?” Aria asked. Lenn caught a glimpse of her, and she appeared uneasy. “Would they take us in, if we asked?”

“Yeah, I’m sure they would. They protect whole families on the trail, so I’m sure they would be able to take care of just the two of us.”

Beside the stove was a small satchel, a wrapped piece of linen Aria had brought home for them both after the morning lesson. With a wince, he stood on his own two feet for a moment, careful not to let a single flake of the cornmeal within the bundle fall to the dirt floor. It wasn’t a lot of food. But it was enough to combine with the last of oil. Before the stove became too hot, he mashed the mix together with his bare hands, playing with the misshapen lump like a child with a mud pie.

“We would need to offer something to them in return, though.”

“Hmm.”

Aria stood and lighted across the kitchen, her light-blue dress floating gracefully about her as she did so. Compared to Lenn, she was a feather in the wind, a beautiful petal from an apple tree. Her earthenware complexion spoke volumes on how much time she spent walking back and forth between their little hovel-of-a-home and the village, though not strictly out of the pleasure of it.

Many years ago, the elders had forced her Grandmother to build her home away from the cramped and defensible confines of the village walls. When Grandmother died of heart failure, Aria’s brother Xande had claim to her home (their mother and father having long since passed on themselves). And when Xande died, Aria claimed the home in turn. She “inherited” Lenn too, in a similar way. They weren’t family, not really. He was just a stray. She had every right to kick him out and move on with her life. She should have done as the mothers always suggested, though never to her face: “She should get rid of that ugly, crooked thing before he buries her.” Many years before, they had hated each other’s guts. But they had been bratty little children, then. Now, at the age of sixteen, she loved him. And at the age of seventeen, he loved her. In his condition, Lenn was glad to have a roof—any roof—over his head. That he shared that roof with the one he called “asha” meant more to him than oxygen.

Not that he could admit that to anyone else in the village. To the gatherers. To Elder Wakèya. According to their rules, he was not hers to claim. But they lived far enough away that maybe, just maybe, their rules wouldn’t apply; after all, Lenn was just an “ugly, crooked thing,” barely dení at all. Maybe they could just ignore everyone else.

“What are you thinking?” Lenn asked, noticing her pensive expression.

She knelt down and opened a small wooden box beside her Grandmother’s old things, beside the old threadbare quilt and dried pieces of old card-stock paper, handwritten notes on gardening and all things green. It took her only a moment to rummage through the pile of moldering memories.

“Maybe they would accept this?” she asked.

Lenn looked, and nearly choked on his own spit. In her hands she held out Grandmother’s prized possession. The one thing Grandmother never showed to any other dení in their village, long as she lived: a massive emerald gemstone, large enough to fit neatly in Aria’s outstretched hands. It had belonged to Grandmother’s parents, many decades before: a symbol of their vows. Shining deep within its many polished facets was the most beautiful viridian hue. A flawless denvi masterpiece.

Lenn would have smacked it out of her grasp if he knew for certain it wouldn’t somehow shatter.

“Asha, are you mad?” Lenn began to laugh, immediately leaning to take the gem away. “I said offer them ‘something,’ not the most valuable thing we have!”

“Aya! You keep those filthy hands to yourself, you animal!” She smacked his arm and jumped back, far enough that Lenn couldn’t chase her without his crutches. She shined the flawless gemstone with the hem of her dress as though he had actually dared to tarnish its reflection with his filthy fingers. “It was just a suggestion!”

“Uh-huh! A bad one!” Lenn said, grinning at her reaction. “I was thinking of working for them for a while. Cooking, cleaning, fixing things. They used to accept labor in return like that. They probably still do.”

“Better working for them than Wakèya,” Aria said with a sigh, returning the gem to its box. “What about teaching? Maka knows it’s the only thing you’re good for.”

“Hey now.” Lenn motioned to the small lump that had begun to spit on the cobble stove. “I can do more than that. What’s it look like I’m doing?”

“You look like you’re making a mess,” she said, walking right up to him.

Before he even had a chance to mock her in return, she leaned in close. She tugged at his shirt to pull him down and she kissed him. He paused, balancing on his good leg and simply allowed himself to enjoy her lips. She did the same. Gentle, longing. Privately, almost, even though no other dení in their right mind would dare wander beyond the village walls after sundown.

They dared the moment to last longer. Dared it to set them both free. But even in the shadows of their own home, they couldn’t belong to each other. As they separated, Aria’s eyes fell to the floor, even as he yearned for her gaze to match his.

“Se’k ondia,” she whispered to him in Denaye.

I love you. The third time she had ever said it aloud. And the second time she had meant it.

“Se’k ondia, asha,” he whispered back in Denaye.

I love you, my living heart. The third time he had ever said it out loud. But perhaps the thousandth time he had meant it.

“I’m scared,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. Her eyes fell on the small cornmeal cake upon the cobble stove. “I don’t know why, but… this feels like the end.”

“It isn’t,” Lenn said. He embraced her back, careful not to dirty her dress with his corn-and-oil hands. Her hair always smelled like sundried apples; just another thing he’d always loved about her. “It isn’t at all. When we find the caravaners, we’ll pay them to help us find a place of our own. A peaceful place. We won’t have to worry about gatherers, mothers, elders. Nobody. Nobody but us.”

“You’ll find us a beautiful place to live, right?” Asha rested her head on his chest. “With tall trees? Wildflowers. Clean, rushing water.” She raised up to look into his eyes. “And smiling happy children.”

“The happiest,” Lenn said with a chuckle. “I promise.”

“You better keep that promise, nanol’kani.”

Crooked little boy: a mixture of words that only she could get away with calling him.

Normally.

Lenn’s arms immediately uncurled, and he gently caressed his beautiful asha’s face with a single greasy and stale-smelling hand. She cried out in horror, shoving him away. Though he caught himself from collapsing by hanging onto the crooked cupboard, he thought he might have ruined the moment. That is, until she grabbed him by his arms to keep them from rising and gave him a second swift kiss upon his lips.

“You’re lucky I love you so much, saika!” she said.

What she used to call him: idiot.

“Ke’s phodi,” Lenn said back with a smirk.

He knew it only too well.