This is really the beginning of something... I don't know where it's going yet. But I have ideas or general ideas... anyway, I'd love some feedback if you get the chance. I know it's a lot of reading compared to what normally goes on here.
The girl watched. And she listened. She heard the soft snorts and chuffing, the reedy protest of long grass stalks being trampled. The sun was warmly distant. The girl raised her hand slowly to shield her eyes. Across the plain, large jagged shapes rose up. Grey teeth which enclosed the valley on all sides. Veins of dirt and scrubby grass ran up the teeth, but in the long distance these details were nearly lost to the girl. She knew them well enough that she saw it if she cared to look.
She picked grass idly. It was twisted and brittle in her hands. She braided the grass, and then held the strand to the sun. It seemed like it should catch fire. She wished it did. Instead she stashed it in the pouch slung round her side. She was reclining, and had been for a while. Overhead a shadow flew lazy circles, it four wings languidly making tiny waves in the air. The girl pulled some green leaves from her pouch and rolled them into a cigarette. The smoke drifted up with the cool evening breeze.
The sun was setting. The girl slowly crawled back into a squatting ready position. The greenish hue of the setting sun gave the mountains eerie outlines. The grey stone of the mountains behind her glowed incandescent, like ice lit from within. The girl savoured the color briefly. Then she turned her gaze back to the herd of beasts. They were slowing their movements, had been since the sun began to give way to the embrace of first night. The beasts in the middle of the herd had already gone still. The quiescence rapidly reached the edges.
The girl was on her feet. Had been, for a while. She loped casually down the littered slope to the plain below. The sisters were dancing overhead already, their light suffuse and warm, shifting across the awakening landscape. There was a slight chill damp to the air.
As she reached the plain, she broke into a full sprint, sweat a sheen in the light of the dancing sisters. She pulled a long thin metal blade from a sheath at her hip. The girl leapt upon the back of a beast, one she had marked long ago under that cold and distant sun, and with a smooth practiced moved thrust the blade into the base of the beasts neck. Thick hot sludge poured from the hole, coating the girl. It steamed in the night. She spun the blade, and the beasts head fell off with a wet thump. The body soon followed, the blue glow of its lifelines going dim in a slow waves from neck stump to the rest of the body.
The herd remained undisturbed, but the first night was alive with the calls of birds and insects, and other creatures. The girl was off the dead beast's back now, and using her blade to dig deep into the large head. She studied the eyes, which gazed stupidly, liquidly up at her from the ground. The eyes were shifting, golden lines rapidly moving, the mouth working to make noise, but nothing came out. The girl had reached the braincase. She pulled out a long yellowish gland, but half was still stuck in the beasts head. The girl readed a bottle, then cut the gland, catching the opaque liquid within.
Her concentration was such that she did not hear the skruth eagle as it dove, and remained unaware until she launched forcefully into the ground. The last sensation she felt was the sharp talons digging into her flesh.
The girl awoke with the feeling her head was split in two. Shards of glass dug into her being. Her back was crawling with fire ants. She took a shuddering breath. Again. Again. She reminded herself. Slowly. Again. Each breath felt less like fire than the last. And after an indeterminate amount of time, she was breathing well enough to attempt to move. Fire and glass rained upon her, and she flipped herself over. Thousands of swords in her back as the dirt filled her gashes. She sat up, despite, in spite, of the pain.
Overhead, the stars remained unconcerned, and with some alarm the girl remarked that the sisters had danced across the whole sky, indeed the ethereal light they cast was being replaced with the more solid and reddish light of the second sun. The second day was dawning. The girl had her hands buried in the dirt gripping the roots of the grass. To keep herself from falling into the sky or into the ground.
As the light of the second day intensified, the girl finally felt secure enough to unclench one claw from the ground. She gingerly reached across her scratched dirty stomach to the pouch on her hip. She found some green leaves, and trying to grab them spilled the content across the ground. She closes her eyes. Water leaks from their corners, but only a little and only for a short time. She grits her teeth, and reaches forward and down, putting her hand on the leaves. She grasps them, drops them.
After a few tries, she has them in her hands. She kneads them. A thick oily sap leaks forth. Crystals glimmer in the reddish light. A thick paste is left in her palm. She reaches behind, and methodically, carefully, the girl begins to coat her back. It hurts, so bad that she wants to faint from the pain. But she doesn't. Instead she continues to apply it. A coolness washes over her gradually. She finds that she can move again, though stiffly. Next to her, the remains of the grazer lie in the grass, the sludge now cooled and solidifying. Her nose is filled with the stench of death.
The girl spots her bottle on the ground. It remains unbroken. She walks over and picks it up. The opaque liquid shifts in whorls and loops, almost of its own volition. The girl places the bottle in her pack on her hip, and slowly begins walking back up the grey teeth from which she had came.
The red giant hangs low on the horizon. The mountains distant with the red sun behind form the dragon's maw. The girl collapses next to a fire she has built, extra grass piled in bundles nearby. She massages more of the green leaves, while chewing on others. The bottle sits on a rock near the fire. The girl rubs the oily paste on her back, then takes the bottle. As the soon as dragon's maw closes into the second night, the girl opens her bottle and drinks the liquid. It tastes of gamey, spicy meat, of sweet mulled wine, of bitter poison and fresh water. It tastes like nothing. It tastes like everything.
The girl is lying on her back, dimly aware of pain. But it is unconcerning to her. She is watching the stars sing to each other. They toss lines of song back and forth to each other. She recognizes some of them. Others are so unearthly that they can never be reproduced. She cries silent tears, which create a music of their own. They are discordant and harmonious, adding to a rich tapestry of sound, and she is aware of the songs of all the creatures, the insects and grass. She realizes she too is singing, and has been for a while.
An herbivore stands silent before her. She bows her head to him. He regards her, with one large yellow striped eye, and then another. She raises her head, tries to speak. But only color and music pour forth, greens and blue, a string melody, funereal, and flutes, like birds, dipping and spinning in the sunlight, yellow, green and red and other colors. The world is color and music, and she forgets the herbivore for a moment, or for many moments. Eventually she closes her mouth. The herbivore has gone, and a large glass bead, intricately carved, remains where it was standing. She picks it up and puts it in her pouch, and it chimes, and tolls, like bells, like the approaching sunrise of the new whole day.
The girl awakens after a restless sleep. The herbivore had whispered to her all night, sometimes in the voice of her father, her mother, and others besides. Sometimes even in her voice. It had given her a name. Or rather, it had helped her find her name. meteor, she who sings with the stars and weaves with the color of her voice.
Wearily, the girl picked herself up. The weight of the bead was in her bag. She walked slowly towards the pass in the teeth. All of first day was used up, and much of first night. The sisters were half past done with their twirling dance when she smelled the fires of her village.
She staggered to the square, and fell down besides the embers of a dying fire. She didn't care. She was home.
She woke up on a soft grass mattress. She remembered what the herbivore told her. you will travel to find your home and you will sing of home and remember. And she knew that home did not mean her village, but a world somewhere out in the stars, where she would sing with them, and her song would be carried upon the bright trails that span the sky.
Short story by grizzedram
Read 828 times
Editors' choice
Written on 2013-08-19 at 06:38
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she who sings with the stars
The girl sat on her haunches. The plain whispered below in soft waves. Large herbivore beasts with shaggy black fur lumbered and sent their motions through the ground which the girl felt in her feet. The beasts sensed her presence, she knew. But she didn't move or make to escape. The beasts likewise showed no aggression towards her, they just continued to feed on the brown grass.The girl watched. And she listened. She heard the soft snorts and chuffing, the reedy protest of long grass stalks being trampled. The sun was warmly distant. The girl raised her hand slowly to shield her eyes. Across the plain, large jagged shapes rose up. Grey teeth which enclosed the valley on all sides. Veins of dirt and scrubby grass ran up the teeth, but in the long distance these details were nearly lost to the girl. She knew them well enough that she saw it if she cared to look.
She picked grass idly. It was twisted and brittle in her hands. She braided the grass, and then held the strand to the sun. It seemed like it should catch fire. She wished it did. Instead she stashed it in the pouch slung round her side. She was reclining, and had been for a while. Overhead a shadow flew lazy circles, it four wings languidly making tiny waves in the air. The girl pulled some green leaves from her pouch and rolled them into a cigarette. The smoke drifted up with the cool evening breeze.
The sun was setting. The girl slowly crawled back into a squatting ready position. The greenish hue of the setting sun gave the mountains eerie outlines. The grey stone of the mountains behind her glowed incandescent, like ice lit from within. The girl savoured the color briefly. Then she turned her gaze back to the herd of beasts. They were slowing their movements, had been since the sun began to give way to the embrace of first night. The beasts in the middle of the herd had already gone still. The quiescence rapidly reached the edges.
The girl was on her feet. Had been, for a while. She loped casually down the littered slope to the plain below. The sisters were dancing overhead already, their light suffuse and warm, shifting across the awakening landscape. There was a slight chill damp to the air.
As she reached the plain, she broke into a full sprint, sweat a sheen in the light of the dancing sisters. She pulled a long thin metal blade from a sheath at her hip. The girl leapt upon the back of a beast, one she had marked long ago under that cold and distant sun, and with a smooth practiced moved thrust the blade into the base of the beasts neck. Thick hot sludge poured from the hole, coating the girl. It steamed in the night. She spun the blade, and the beasts head fell off with a wet thump. The body soon followed, the blue glow of its lifelines going dim in a slow waves from neck stump to the rest of the body.
The herd remained undisturbed, but the first night was alive with the calls of birds and insects, and other creatures. The girl was off the dead beast's back now, and using her blade to dig deep into the large head. She studied the eyes, which gazed stupidly, liquidly up at her from the ground. The eyes were shifting, golden lines rapidly moving, the mouth working to make noise, but nothing came out. The girl had reached the braincase. She pulled out a long yellowish gland, but half was still stuck in the beasts head. The girl readed a bottle, then cut the gland, catching the opaque liquid within.
Her concentration was such that she did not hear the skruth eagle as it dove, and remained unaware until she launched forcefully into the ground. The last sensation she felt was the sharp talons digging into her flesh.
The girl awoke with the feeling her head was split in two. Shards of glass dug into her being. Her back was crawling with fire ants. She took a shuddering breath. Again. Again. She reminded herself. Slowly. Again. Each breath felt less like fire than the last. And after an indeterminate amount of time, she was breathing well enough to attempt to move. Fire and glass rained upon her, and she flipped herself over. Thousands of swords in her back as the dirt filled her gashes. She sat up, despite, in spite, of the pain.
Overhead, the stars remained unconcerned, and with some alarm the girl remarked that the sisters had danced across the whole sky, indeed the ethereal light they cast was being replaced with the more solid and reddish light of the second sun. The second day was dawning. The girl had her hands buried in the dirt gripping the roots of the grass. To keep herself from falling into the sky or into the ground.
As the light of the second day intensified, the girl finally felt secure enough to unclench one claw from the ground. She gingerly reached across her scratched dirty stomach to the pouch on her hip. She found some green leaves, and trying to grab them spilled the content across the ground. She closes her eyes. Water leaks from their corners, but only a little and only for a short time. She grits her teeth, and reaches forward and down, putting her hand on the leaves. She grasps them, drops them.
After a few tries, she has them in her hands. She kneads them. A thick oily sap leaks forth. Crystals glimmer in the reddish light. A thick paste is left in her palm. She reaches behind, and methodically, carefully, the girl begins to coat her back. It hurts, so bad that she wants to faint from the pain. But she doesn't. Instead she continues to apply it. A coolness washes over her gradually. She finds that she can move again, though stiffly. Next to her, the remains of the grazer lie in the grass, the sludge now cooled and solidifying. Her nose is filled with the stench of death.
The girl spots her bottle on the ground. It remains unbroken. She walks over and picks it up. The opaque liquid shifts in whorls and loops, almost of its own volition. The girl places the bottle in her pack on her hip, and slowly begins walking back up the grey teeth from which she had came.
The red giant hangs low on the horizon. The mountains distant with the red sun behind form the dragon's maw. The girl collapses next to a fire she has built, extra grass piled in bundles nearby. She massages more of the green leaves, while chewing on others. The bottle sits on a rock near the fire. The girl rubs the oily paste on her back, then takes the bottle. As the soon as dragon's maw closes into the second night, the girl opens her bottle and drinks the liquid. It tastes of gamey, spicy meat, of sweet mulled wine, of bitter poison and fresh water. It tastes like nothing. It tastes like everything.
The girl is lying on her back, dimly aware of pain. But it is unconcerning to her. She is watching the stars sing to each other. They toss lines of song back and forth to each other. She recognizes some of them. Others are so unearthly that they can never be reproduced. She cries silent tears, which create a music of their own. They are discordant and harmonious, adding to a rich tapestry of sound, and she is aware of the songs of all the creatures, the insects and grass. She realizes she too is singing, and has been for a while.
An herbivore stands silent before her. She bows her head to him. He regards her, with one large yellow striped eye, and then another. She raises her head, tries to speak. But only color and music pour forth, greens and blue, a string melody, funereal, and flutes, like birds, dipping and spinning in the sunlight, yellow, green and red and other colors. The world is color and music, and she forgets the herbivore for a moment, or for many moments. Eventually she closes her mouth. The herbivore has gone, and a large glass bead, intricately carved, remains where it was standing. She picks it up and puts it in her pouch, and it chimes, and tolls, like bells, like the approaching sunrise of the new whole day.
The girl awakens after a restless sleep. The herbivore had whispered to her all night, sometimes in the voice of her father, her mother, and others besides. Sometimes even in her voice. It had given her a name. Or rather, it had helped her find her name. meteor, she who sings with the stars and weaves with the color of her voice.
Wearily, the girl picked herself up. The weight of the bead was in her bag. She walked slowly towards the pass in the teeth. All of first day was used up, and much of first night. The sisters were half past done with their twirling dance when she smelled the fires of her village.
She staggered to the square, and fell down besides the embers of a dying fire. She didn't care. She was home.
She woke up on a soft grass mattress. She remembered what the herbivore told her. you will travel to find your home and you will sing of home and remember. And she knew that home did not mean her village, but a world somewhere out in the stars, where she would sing with them, and her song would be carried upon the bright trails that span the sky.
Short story by grizzedram
Read 828 times
Editors' choiceWritten on 2013-08-19 at 06:38
Save as a bookmark (requires login) Write a comment (requires login) Send as email (requires login) Print text
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