Wednesday, November 02, 2005
PART of my nanowrimo novel's prologue... part of chapter one's in my nano profile. (shrugs) No, you don't get it all. You won't until it's finished...
Introducing the two MCs from the piece in my Nano profile, Essar and Amber... (grins) Yes, I was in an odd mood over writing this.
***
A brilliant cheer lit the gold and green pathways of the West Farthings. Sunlight danced in the flowers as birds made their ways between trees to trees, and filled the air with what could've been called music, of a sort. The gold bathed the deep green trees in light, leaving their leaves to drip a metallic gleam onto the ground, and the rusty ground to puddle up with light.
The air smelt of good fortune amidst the salty scent of ocean water and the distant calls of seagulls across the teal waters. It saturated the very air with well-being, and made one wonder why such a simple world merited such beauty at moments.
For it was beautiful in innocence. Though not untouched by darkness, as was clearly stated in the eyes of girls pushed down by the influential powers of their clique leaders, as was stated by the tear colored eyes of a child as he fell and scraped his knee against a sharp stone, it was still innocent. The ground seemed untouched by bloodshed, the air seemed to reek of flowers and trees rather than flames burning straw houses to the ground.
There was no frantic whinnying of horses pressing against the air as they fought to flee a war ground heavily pressed with smog and the smell of death. There was no high pitched screams of women as their husband was cut down beside them by a merciless bandit. There was no traces of footsteps tinged with blood covering the ground as a child fled a wolf intent on seeing its dinner.
There was no smell of fearful adrenaline in the air as beings fled for their life. There was no pressing horror in the eyes of the women and children as they stumbled off to work under the whips of a slave master cruel and thoughtless. The men didn't struggle under heavy loads as slavery set in.
And no one was out to kill each other just for the sake of two silver pennies.
It was innocent, even if touched by shadows.
And it was in this innocence that Essar Longbarrel was having his seventeenth birthday. At the urging of his mother, he had invited several of the girls from his classes at the local schoolhouse, albeit reluctantly. They all had crushes on him, he reluctantly noted. Every single one of them, a passion for his eyes, his hair... and some of them far worse, he thought with a shudder.
So I have nice eyes, the boy thought helplessly. What's that to them?
Obviously a lot more to them than it was to himself, he noticed dryly as he got another couple of stares from a pair of halfling girls. They were quickly diverted by their boyfriends, however, to the beautiful sight of a tree.
He wondered about this, a lot.
But no, his mother insisted. Such lovely girls! You should be proud to call them your friends, Essar!
Proud? he thought. That one tried to touch me... on... on... a place that should not be touched! And all the squeeing. It's enough to make a well-bred halfling flee for dear life. Flame it, I've tried. They just keep following me!
Why can't they like... that guy!
His mind's eye wandered off towards a guy with a tall expression, dark blond hair, and muscles. Surely he was good looking. Why didn't the girls tackle him, and try to kiss him for ridiculously long periods of time, and try to stick their tongues down his throat?
It wasn't like Essar needed a tonsillectomy. He had gotten one a couple years ago from an elven physician when they had gotten enflamed enough to need removal. So why did those girls keep on trying, and squealing like piglets when they tried?
He tried to tell them...
He had tried to tell his mother, who had said that's nice, and went back to cooking supper. He had tried to tell his father, but unfortunately, as his father was nothing more than a tombstone making an attempt to push up daisies, he had gotten no reply. The girls had tried to exploit this too, catching him talking aloud to a grave with a pencil and paper in case he got any replies. They had said he was going mentally insane and needed tender loving care to recover.
Then tried to kiss him again.
Essar had ran and locked himself in his room for seven days after that.
But no. He still had to invite them to his party because they were such looooooooovely people.
I want to marry a twig, he decided, and sat down beside a tree to try and talk to rocks. Perhaps if the girls decided that he was insane, and couldn't be saved by being glomped to death, they would leave him alone to become a monk, or a priest, or a writer...
"Hi!"
Flame it, he thought. "Hullo, Amber," he muttered reluctantly to the rock, refusing to look up at the girl's face he knew would be there. He just knew it. He knew her voice, even from the shrieking hi she always gave...
She sat down beside him, and he allowed a worse mental curse.
"What'd'ya want?" he mumbled, still examining the rock. It was a pretty rock. It had sparkly spots in it, and he liked shiny objects, and it was a nice smooth black too. It might've made a decent skipping stone, he reasoned, but it wasn't skinny enough to get anywhere. It would just sink in a couple of splats.
But it was pretty, with rainbow like colors deep inset into the shades of silver in the speckles of shimmery rock.
"I'm talking to ferns," she said cheerfully, taking a fern out of her pocket. "This is my fern. It's name is Dragoon."
Essar nodded. "Can't you go talk to your fern somewhere else?"
"Why?"
"...Because I asked you to?"
"No, you just asked me whether I could go and talk to it somewhere else."
"Well, can you?" Essar looked up from the shiny rock and gave the girl a pointed look. She had auburn hair that was closer to red than auburn, and light brown eyes. For a human, she wasn't that bad looking, just a bit big and overwhelming to talk to when he was standing, even if he was tall for a halfling.
He didn't like girls that could look down on him.
For that matter, he reasoned, he didn't like girls at all. They were just too shrieky about bugs and spiders and lizards. And spiders were cute, he thought in that shrieky tone that the girls always took on when they seen his eyes. They were so cute!! And he just knew they were adding two exclamation points and breaking all logical grammatical rules to shriek at him.
"Yes, I can."
Essar waited about five seconds before looking back up at her again from his rock.
"Well...?"
"You just asked me whether I could. I'm quite able to."
"Well, can you, then?"
"I told you I could."
"..." Essar exhaled in frustration, an ellipses hanging in his voice as he stared at the girl. Of course, the beautiful blue eyes he wore didn't look too menacing, merely proving to make him look totally adorably hot, at least, according to Amber. "I invited you to my birthday party. Isn't that enough?"
She frowned. "Of course that's great."
"Then why won't you go away?"
"Oh!" A light suddenly lit up behind her eyes, and he wondered why she wasn't blond. It would've made her look that much more bleached in her personality. "Why didn't you say so?"
"I did!"
"No-o-o-o..."
"I did too." He folded his arms, dropping the shiny rock in the process. As gravity took effect, it smashed into his toe, and he stifled an outcry as it crushed his toenail. She didn't appear to notice the expression that suddenly appeared on his carefully tanned face (though he hadn't tried to get it this shade, and try as he might, he wouldn't burn). For about five seconds he looked as if he were constipated.
He wondered if she thought this was cute too, if she even noticed outside of his beautiful blue eyes.
"No, you didn't."
"I did too."
"No, you didn't. You asked me whether I could go away."
"And you didn't," he stated with gritted teeth.
Amber tilted her head, and gave him a confused look. "You didn't say you wanted me too, you just asked me if I could. Of course I can. But you didn't ask if I would."
Essar blinked. He went through this a few times in his mind, and couldn't get it. Didn't couldn't and wouldn't mean the same thing? What about could and would. Of course they were the same. If she could go away, she would go away. Right?
"Could means I can. Can means I am able to," Amber patiently explained, as if talking to a two year old. "Will means that I will. Would you go away is different than could you go away, because would is indicating that you want me to rather than asking if I am able to go away."
He blinked again for good measure. It made absolutely no sense.
It never got to making sense either as the girl suddenly shrieked, and started batting wildly at her hair. "A bug! There's a bug in my hair! Get it out! Get it out!! GET IT OUUUUUUUUUUUT!!" She leapt to her feet, her fern falling to the ground, now forgotten in light of the rather large looking beetle that had taken refuge in her red hair.
He raised his eyebrows, and flicked the beetle out of her hair, feeling very sorry for the poor bug that it would have to suffer her dreadfully high pitched wailing of distress. It didn't seem right for nature to have to suffer the arts of a terrified girl, even though she had no real reason to fear the harmless bug.
"You saved my life!" she shrieked, throwing her arms around the halfling, and kissing him on the cheek. He shoved her away.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he muttered, and sat back down to stare at his rock. "Now go away and grammarize some other guy. Like perhaps Jaythan Lars?"
She wrinkled her nose. "But you're cute."
"Whatever." He stared ruefully at a blade of grass, and wished it could make him not cute.
"You're hot," she decided cheerfully, and patted him on the top of the head. He wanted to bite her, but felt that it might not be particularly civilized to attempt to take a bite out of one of his fellow teenagers, even if it seemed a particularly satisfying idea. Though he had tried biting someone else before, and they hadn't tasted very good.
Maybe some salt...
The idea seemed almost reasonable. They were out to bite out his tongue, he might as well bite their fingers off... it couldn't be that bad of a trade.
Then he decided that their parents wouldn't be that happy, and might try to marry him off to one of them, and that idea wasn't particularly pleasant feeling at all. But by this point, Amber had vanished, leaving him alone to contemplate blades of grass and various twigs.
He examined the various twigs, and found a cute looking one.
Why couldn't I just be able to marry a twig?
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