Prologue: Setting Out (Original story)
Nov. 7th, 2023 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainsometimes[The first part of an original story whose worldbuilding I have been obsessed with for years, but whose actual plot has taken much longer to coalesce, and is in fact still coalescing. I'm finally at the stage where I'm ready to put the first installment in public, but not to the post of advertizing it widely. But should you be willing to brave a look, comments are heartily welcome.]
It was the first day of the New Year. I want you to picture this: a bright sunny morning, a blue sky without a single cloud, a northern breeze sending in a welcome fresh cool to greet us, all the travellers. In the city of Meren, placed on the northern shore of the great lake Onemada where the Olo river enters the river, the roads were packed full of travellers standing tight together, all the different travelling parties flowing into one another, impossible to be kept apart in the crowd. In the early dawn the air was shivering with anticipation, and mothers hushed their children when they started talking too loudly.
Then, as the sun rose over the eastern mountains, the best horn-blowers in the city orchestera, who had all climbed up to the city's highest towers - the highest one of them all being the university's observatory tower at the central square - and let loose their fanfares over the city. By their sides in the same towers, the youngest men and women of the city watch raised the city's banner - I hope their ears were plugged, because those horns can be loud!! - and we all who stood in the streets looked up and saw the emblem of the city waving in the wind. I think all of us who weren't young children started to race through their minds once more to think of anything we had forgot to bring. It wouldn't be too late, after all, to send one or two of us youngsters back to our neighbourhood, undo the locks and bring back anything important that could be left behind - it wasn't like we had even made it far from our own street by then. We were not among the elite families who would already be leaving the city walls behind in that moment, as the horns rang out, the first ones to trod the roads that had been prepared as the city's roadworkers best could. It would take hours still before our own party could leave the city, and by then the roads would already be plenty muddy. But at least we had good, solid wagons and carts in our party, drawn by donkeys. My father was a wainwright, and skilled in his trade.
We had had only one day in-between the great festivities of the Vernal Equinox, when the Year Ends, with its processions and feasting and dancing and priest-works and so much else to look at, eat, and do. Just one day isn't much time to get a few hours of sleep and then do our part in the last few intense packing and planning. In Meren it's different each Year, because the city council follows the advice of the astronomers of how many days to put in between the last month of the old Year and the first month of the new Year, all so we can keep track of the stars and the sun correctly. This time the scholars had asked for only one extra day, so that was all we had. Somehow it was enough. You have so much energy when you're younger, and I hardly yawned at all on that beautiful morning. I had wondered beforehand if I would truly feel the drive to set out when I ought to, or if my heart would feel sorrow for the Winter life we left behind. But it was such a perfect day to leave, I could only feel wonder and delight at it all. It was almost like being part of a pretty painting, I remember thinking. Maybe I even said this to my cousin Miro at the time, but if so I don't think she heard me in all the hubbub.
For me as for everyone else in that crowd who was my age, we did this for the second time in our lives. One full Year before, when we were all young children, we had left Meren behind for the great journey north at the start of the new Year, for one hundred and ten months ago. But that time our family wasn't able to leave the city until the second day of the Year, and by then it started to rain in the morning and kept raining for two days. I remember the adults had been irritated or at best resigned over the weather, and while we children had still been excited, the muddy roads and the soggy crowds eventually wore us down, too, and we started whining and dragging our feet. When twilight fell that day we were stuck in the mud with the carts and wagons of strangers around us, we had no time to find a better, less mud-filled spot to make camp, and while we children were able to sleep inside the carts, the poor adults had to huddle outside in the rain to guard our possessions from thieves, barely finding some planks of wood to sit on. Poor grown-ups!
Not the best start to that long journey. But I don't remember many bad things about it. I remember things were hard, which is expected for a child - but not terrible.
But now it was different. I was almost a grown-up myself, I would take much more responsibility and be expected to do so much more this time around. My cousins Miro, Susu and Gofn and me would need to look out for the little ones in the party and keep them in line: my little brother Faisur, two younger cousins and the child of my oldest cousin Karhunta, who was a full Year older than us youngsters. He had of course gotten married last Summer and had a child then. Children are usually only born in the Summer. In the Winter the womb of a woman does not bear fruit (except very, very rarely, and that's a disaster when it happens); and many couples don't even feel the desire for each other's bodies in the Winter. (You might think I'm ridiculous for saying this: isn't it the same everywhere? Well, maybe. I haven't been everywhere yet.)
One hour past noon, our travelling party - led by my father and mother this time around - finally were the ones to step past the easternmost gate in the city walls and begin the great journey for real. I think we all took deep breaths. We started to sing a popular song of the day - a city song, in the Takleya language, and not yet a walking song in our own Beldreni language.
That was the day and time when we set out.
But even though that day seemed so perfect for a new exciting story to begin, I can't truly begin right here. Imagine the wind running through our hair as we straighten up and adjust our heavy packs, the wind at our side and the sun, by then, shining from the south where we could see the lake glittering, full of ships setting forth on their own journeys - imagine all this, but then follow me walking further back in my mind to months before all of this, when I was still leading the Winter life at university. I think I will need to start there.
It was the first day of the New Year. I want you to picture this: a bright sunny morning, a blue sky without a single cloud, a northern breeze sending in a welcome fresh cool to greet us, all the travellers. In the city of Meren, placed on the northern shore of the great lake Onemada where the Olo river enters the river, the roads were packed full of travellers standing tight together, all the different travelling parties flowing into one another, impossible to be kept apart in the crowd. In the early dawn the air was shivering with anticipation, and mothers hushed their children when they started talking too loudly.
Then, as the sun rose over the eastern mountains, the best horn-blowers in the city orchestera, who had all climbed up to the city's highest towers - the highest one of them all being the university's observatory tower at the central square - and let loose their fanfares over the city. By their sides in the same towers, the youngest men and women of the city watch raised the city's banner - I hope their ears were plugged, because those horns can be loud!! - and we all who stood in the streets looked up and saw the emblem of the city waving in the wind. I think all of us who weren't young children started to race through their minds once more to think of anything we had forgot to bring. It wouldn't be too late, after all, to send one or two of us youngsters back to our neighbourhood, undo the locks and bring back anything important that could be left behind - it wasn't like we had even made it far from our own street by then. We were not among the elite families who would already be leaving the city walls behind in that moment, as the horns rang out, the first ones to trod the roads that had been prepared as the city's roadworkers best could. It would take hours still before our own party could leave the city, and by then the roads would already be plenty muddy. But at least we had good, solid wagons and carts in our party, drawn by donkeys. My father was a wainwright, and skilled in his trade.
We had had only one day in-between the great festivities of the Vernal Equinox, when the Year Ends, with its processions and feasting and dancing and priest-works and so much else to look at, eat, and do. Just one day isn't much time to get a few hours of sleep and then do our part in the last few intense packing and planning. In Meren it's different each Year, because the city council follows the advice of the astronomers of how many days to put in between the last month of the old Year and the first month of the new Year, all so we can keep track of the stars and the sun correctly. This time the scholars had asked for only one extra day, so that was all we had. Somehow it was enough. You have so much energy when you're younger, and I hardly yawned at all on that beautiful morning. I had wondered beforehand if I would truly feel the drive to set out when I ought to, or if my heart would feel sorrow for the Winter life we left behind. But it was such a perfect day to leave, I could only feel wonder and delight at it all. It was almost like being part of a pretty painting, I remember thinking. Maybe I even said this to my cousin Miro at the time, but if so I don't think she heard me in all the hubbub.
For me as for everyone else in that crowd who was my age, we did this for the second time in our lives. One full Year before, when we were all young children, we had left Meren behind for the great journey north at the start of the new Year, for one hundred and ten months ago. But that time our family wasn't able to leave the city until the second day of the Year, and by then it started to rain in the morning and kept raining for two days. I remember the adults had been irritated or at best resigned over the weather, and while we children had still been excited, the muddy roads and the soggy crowds eventually wore us down, too, and we started whining and dragging our feet. When twilight fell that day we were stuck in the mud with the carts and wagons of strangers around us, we had no time to find a better, less mud-filled spot to make camp, and while we children were able to sleep inside the carts, the poor adults had to huddle outside in the rain to guard our possessions from thieves, barely finding some planks of wood to sit on. Poor grown-ups!
Not the best start to that long journey. But I don't remember many bad things about it. I remember things were hard, which is expected for a child - but not terrible.
But now it was different. I was almost a grown-up myself, I would take much more responsibility and be expected to do so much more this time around. My cousins Miro, Susu and Gofn and me would need to look out for the little ones in the party and keep them in line: my little brother Faisur, two younger cousins and the child of my oldest cousin Karhunta, who was a full Year older than us youngsters. He had of course gotten married last Summer and had a child then. Children are usually only born in the Summer. In the Winter the womb of a woman does not bear fruit (except very, very rarely, and that's a disaster when it happens); and many couples don't even feel the desire for each other's bodies in the Winter. (You might think I'm ridiculous for saying this: isn't it the same everywhere? Well, maybe. I haven't been everywhere yet.)
One hour past noon, our travelling party - led by my father and mother this time around - finally were the ones to step past the easternmost gate in the city walls and begin the great journey for real. I think we all took deep breaths. We started to sing a popular song of the day - a city song, in the Takleya language, and not yet a walking song in our own Beldreni language.
That was the day and time when we set out.
But even though that day seemed so perfect for a new exciting story to begin, I can't truly begin right here. Imagine the wind running through our hair as we straighten up and adjust our heavy packs, the wind at our side and the sun, by then, shining from the south where we could see the lake glittering, full of ships setting forth on their own journeys - imagine all this, but then follow me walking further back in my mind to months before all of this, when I was still leading the Winter life at university. I think I will need to start there.
no subject
Date: 2023-11-07 11:35 pm (UTC)Starting from right here, LOVE the narrative voice! I already like it so much.
I love how vivid the hubbub is, and how I felt put into the moment of it.
(You might think I'm ridiculous for saying this: isn't it the same everywhere? Well, maybe. I haven't been everywhere yet.)
Okay, I just adore this aside. You have a great way with words!
Oh, the backtrack is interesting. Makes me curious why we saw this day, and intrigue is generally a good way to start.
no subject
Date: 2023-11-10 05:17 pm (UTC)I think one reason why it's taken me so long to really start writing this story in earnest is that it seems to have several different starting points in my head. I finally just decided to embrace that...
no subject
Date: 2024-06-09 11:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-08 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-11-10 05:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-06-09 11:16 pm (UTC)