Babbling and more Eli and Oona!
Soooo let's see. Wednesday I went to class, did some really cool maskwork, then zipped over to Janet's house for an SNL Nostalgia night. We watched my 'Best of John Belushi' dvd and ate popcorn. I slept over Janet's, and that Thursday we watched episodes of Legend of the Seeker and Serenity. ( LotS was okay, the writing was really easy to make fun of but the story was solid and the characters were neat, and the effects were pretty damn good. ) Then Janet and I went to my house and we ran around in the woods until nightfall, at which point we realised how dark it had gotten and so we sprinted through the dark forest, terrified because it was dark and creepy. It was pretty cool because we stopped at one point, seeing the glittery orange of a campfire through the trees and the laughter of a bunch of boys.
Theeeeen Janet slept over my house, we watched TV, hung around, then Janet went to a Thespian Officers meeting and we met up at the first Football game of the season! We, the TRS Fighting Indians VS The TRE Raiders. Our band was great, and Janet is one of our four mascots (Super Maroon, which I'm sort of kinda in the preliminary stages of doing a small webcomic about.) BUT SADLY, as it tends to be our streak, we lost 10 to 40. Our team is very talented, but we're lacking something, sadly. I do hope we win at least a few games this year, it'd be nicer than the two we won last year.
And now for something plotty involving Oona and Eli! Getting kind of addicted to these two.
Also, I think I'm gonna start titling these little snippets of plot from these two 'Stories My Father Told Me', because thus far anything I've written with them had evolved into Eli telling Oona a story. Plus, Oona's parentage is a little ambiguous. I'll probably write more, and someday I think I'll put them all together in an order that qualifies as an actual story. :D
It was midnight over the rolling hills of Breezei's capital city. Stars spread across the velvet black of the sky and below, fires burned and people settled in for the night. Somewhere in the middle, between the city and the stars above was a ship.
It hung far above the city amongst the clouds, the massive derigible that kept it afloat was made of a midnight purple material, and it was connected to the sides of the ship by a thick rope netting that latched to the rails of the boat. The ship itself was fairly quiet ondeck, a few lamps glowed warmly, but other than that, it was dark. At the wheel of the ship was a bear of a man with rusty hair and beard, wearing a linen shirt and leather boots and pants. He was asleep, snoring with his hand beneath his chin, elbow propped dangerously on the wheel.
Down the stairs, through the galley and past a staircase that lead into the storage deck were the crew's quarters. Little more than a series of cubicles sectioned off by hanging red curtains. Some were dark, one or two were empty, but the remainder had faint orange glows lit up behind the fabric.
Inside one of these lit cubicles lay Eli Cavretch, stretched out with his head against the wooden wall between the crew quarters and the galley, his fingers laced on his stomach, peering out the little notched window at the night sky. His quarters were scarce, a bed just big enough for him, a chest at the foot of it, and a little set of drawers with a lamp hanging above it on the wall.
Eli was a man of limited taste, he liked things simple and he liked them with as few complications as possible. Some men liked to drench their lives in velvet and silk, lavishing themselves and their companions in riches and finery. Eli didn't see the point in any of that, he was fine with a roof over his head and some food in his belly. He knew, more than many people, that the little things in life were the things worth living for.
In that respect, it was strange that the little thing in Eli's life was the most complicated of them all, and it came in the form of a six year old little girl with aquamarine skin, blue ringlets in her hair, and wide, navy eyes. There was a large gap between her two front teeth, a set of gills that lay flat and shut off against her neck, and ears that twisted back and grew pointed at the top. She was tiny and thin for her age, wearing a massive nightgown that was several sizes far too large and pooled around her feet as she skittered across the wooden floor of the crew's cabin.
Oona.
The little girl looked rather frantic, and she quickly trotted through the curtain to hover at the edge of Eli's bed.
"Uncle!" she hissed. "I had a nightmare! It was real scary and I don't wanna go back to my bed!"
Pulled from his reverie, Eli sat up and grumbled to himself. He pulled Oona up onto the bed and she curled herself against his bare chest. "One of these days you're going to have to stay in your own bed. There's nothing in here to frighten you, you big baby. What's it about this time?" Despite his harshness, Eli curved his arm beneath her legs and tucked her against him, leaning back with the blanket over his legs. There was a tenderness in his action that belayed his words.
"It was real scary... I was drowning, an' I know I can't drown but I was! An' it was real dark an' all the water started to disappear and then it was all gone, but I was still drowning!" She shivered, clinging closer to him, if that was even possible. She had a vicegrip on his side and it was a smidge uncomfortable.
"Relax, relax. Look see, no water, no darkness, s'light in here and you're all dry." He couldn't figure where Oona's nightmares came from, seeing as she loved water and never had any trouble with it outside her dream world.
"Tell me about my mother, Uncle. Please?"
He couldn't stop the grumble. This was always the story she wanted to hear after a nightmare. "Fine, but you go to sleep after, alright?" she nodded fervently.
There was a long pause, like every night he told this tale. He knew that, one day, he'd stop telling her this tale, and she'd stop requesting it because she'd know it by heart.
"The day I met your mother, I was travelling with this Gypsy caravan across the islands of Aquantis..."
Eli, eight years younger than his current 33, clean-shaven, face youthful and full of lust for adventure, not unlike how his future self would look, with the addition of a beard.
The caravan was all bright colors and jovial folk, they were performers and travellers, going port to city and city to port to make a living and enjoy their time in this life. Eli didn't indulge in the entertainment, but he did bring a profit to the caravan from his own trade, which he claimed was heavy-lifting but in reality was his adeptness at pick-pocketing. But nobody asked questions and he didn't cause trouble, so there was a silent agreement.
On one particular evening, a group of children wandered too far from the campsite, and were attacked by a Riverfly as they played in the shallows. ( "What's a Riverfly, Uncle?" "S'a bit like an overgrown Mosquito. Size of a wolf, slithers around in the muck beneath the riverbed, leaps out onto land and flies to chase it's prey. Big teeth, don't interrupt." ) They don't usually attack humans, but these were little kids and food had been scarce.
Eli had been the one to jump to the rescue, slicing his stiletto across the slick flank of the creature, distracting it long enough for the children to get away.
Except now the Riverfly was after him, and Eli bolted through the underbrush of the swampy island, covered in muck and bleeding from various cuts and gouges along his arms and chest. He ran for a very long time, until he reached solid land and then he kept running until the Riverfly gave up and slunk back to it's hovel.
And now, Eli was separated from the caravan, fatigued and vision fading, he limped his way through a section of forested land until he reached an open grove, alit with fading sunlight and with a little spring tucked beneath two tall oak trees.
He collapsed at the edge of the spring.
When he woke up, he was enveloped in cool, soothing water, and he was breathing. Breathing beneath the water. His body, battered and depleated of energy, hung gently in the arms of a woman with delicate features and long, wavy purple hair. She whispered and ran her hands over his wounds and the water healed them. She kissed his mouth and he breathed clear, pure air. ( This is usually the bit he glances over and ignores, because Oona is far too young to know any of THAT and even Eli knows this.)
There are some things he keeps private, moments shared, things learned, because Oona might want to know everything, but some things are for him and him alone.
They talk for a long time beneath the cool shade of the trees; she is a Naiad, a water Nymph who is the spirit of this spring, and used her own magic to heal him and replenish his energy. She is intelligent and funny, sharp of mind and wit, gentle of tongue and even gentler of touch. The two become great friends. They eat the starfruit that grows in this area, he teaches her how to use a knife and gives her one of his scarves to tie back her hair, she teaches him how to read the ripples. They spend long hours climbing trees and swimming in her spring, for Eli has never experienced joy like this, growing up in the sands of his homeland. He tells her this. She says she knows. She doesn't elaborate.
She says her name is N'nena. It is beautiful, just like her.
Eventually, his wanderlust gets the better of him and he returns to the caravan, promising to come back and visit. And he does. He visits all the time, without fail over the course of two years.
During a dry period on the island, she asks him to stay for good, this time. He shakes his head. He can't, he never could stay forever. His place is in the sky, he says. For such a simple man, she thinks, he is quite poetic. Sadly, she agrees, and he leaves again.
Days later, something draws him to return to her spring, and it is gone. Dried up, the two oak trees are withered, the starfruit has rotted.
Things he doesn't tell Oona happen, he falls to his knees in grief because without their home, a nature spirit is truly dead, he cries for the first time since his mother died and his father left. He places a large stone on the bank of the dried spring to remember her. ( This is where Oona has fallen asleep. Eli brings her back to her bed and tucks her in, ruffling her hair and returning to his own bunk. But he continues to think. )
She has died, and somewhere at the bottom of the dried up spring there comes a strangled, infantile cry. Eyes red, he wrenches past the watergrass at the bottom, cocooned around something lying in a shallow puddle. Blue, crying, naked. A bizarre little child who, when she opens her sobbing eyes, stops crying to look up at him. Her eyes are a mirror image of his own, and that terrifies him. These are things he leaves out of the story.
Being the good friend of N'nena he was, Eli takes the baby to care for her. He doesn't mention the orphanage or his theory that the baby IS N'nena. He also doesn't mention Martek smacking him for such a stupid idea. It's more probably that the baby is Eli's, even IF there has never been a recorded example of humans and Naiads reproducing.
"Get it through your thick skull," the Blacksmith says. "That kid is yours, sure as the day is long."
And well, the eyes do look pretty similar...
Eli shook his head. He's been thinking too much, and that's the last thing he wants to do. He puts out his lamp and crawls into bed, and for the first time in a long while, he misses N'nena. It's hard for him to think the L word, let alone say it, and maybe this is the closest he's ever gotten to loving somebody before.
Well, there is a bit of a soft spot for Oona, but that's a whole 'nother debate. He shakes his head, he's gotta stop this nostalgia bullshit. It's been too long, and he's too old to care that much anymore.
He rolls over, and in his dreams it is starfruit and ripples.
Oh! And BTW, this is my little concept thing of a Riverfly. Something that terrifies me is the idea of evolved insects, so I've based this mofo on a what if situation. A lot of the creatures in this world come from the idea that animals NOW have evolved and become something new altogether. Riverflies are 'If Mosquitos Evolved and Became Semi-Aquatic'. Skeeters already lay their eggs in water and such, so it seemed like a plausable outcome. They've gotten a bit amphibious, and they've got that Porpoise sort of snout with the spine on the end. They are carnivores.
Theeeeen Janet slept over my house, we watched TV, hung around, then Janet went to a Thespian Officers meeting and we met up at the first Football game of the season! We, the TRS Fighting Indians VS The TRE Raiders. Our band was great, and Janet is one of our four mascots (Super Maroon, which I'm sort of kinda in the preliminary stages of doing a small webcomic about.) BUT SADLY, as it tends to be our streak, we lost 10 to 40. Our team is very talented, but we're lacking something, sadly. I do hope we win at least a few games this year, it'd be nicer than the two we won last year.
And now for something plotty involving Oona and Eli! Getting kind of addicted to these two.
Also, I think I'm gonna start titling these little snippets of plot from these two 'Stories My Father Told Me', because thus far anything I've written with them had evolved into Eli telling Oona a story. Plus, Oona's parentage is a little ambiguous. I'll probably write more, and someday I think I'll put them all together in an order that qualifies as an actual story. :D
It was midnight over the rolling hills of Breezei's capital city. Stars spread across the velvet black of the sky and below, fires burned and people settled in for the night. Somewhere in the middle, between the city and the stars above was a ship.
It hung far above the city amongst the clouds, the massive derigible that kept it afloat was made of a midnight purple material, and it was connected to the sides of the ship by a thick rope netting that latched to the rails of the boat. The ship itself was fairly quiet ondeck, a few lamps glowed warmly, but other than that, it was dark. At the wheel of the ship was a bear of a man with rusty hair and beard, wearing a linen shirt and leather boots and pants. He was asleep, snoring with his hand beneath his chin, elbow propped dangerously on the wheel.
Down the stairs, through the galley and past a staircase that lead into the storage deck were the crew's quarters. Little more than a series of cubicles sectioned off by hanging red curtains. Some were dark, one or two were empty, but the remainder had faint orange glows lit up behind the fabric.
Inside one of these lit cubicles lay Eli Cavretch, stretched out with his head against the wooden wall between the crew quarters and the galley, his fingers laced on his stomach, peering out the little notched window at the night sky. His quarters were scarce, a bed just big enough for him, a chest at the foot of it, and a little set of drawers with a lamp hanging above it on the wall.
Eli was a man of limited taste, he liked things simple and he liked them with as few complications as possible. Some men liked to drench their lives in velvet and silk, lavishing themselves and their companions in riches and finery. Eli didn't see the point in any of that, he was fine with a roof over his head and some food in his belly. He knew, more than many people, that the little things in life were the things worth living for.
In that respect, it was strange that the little thing in Eli's life was the most complicated of them all, and it came in the form of a six year old little girl with aquamarine skin, blue ringlets in her hair, and wide, navy eyes. There was a large gap between her two front teeth, a set of gills that lay flat and shut off against her neck, and ears that twisted back and grew pointed at the top. She was tiny and thin for her age, wearing a massive nightgown that was several sizes far too large and pooled around her feet as she skittered across the wooden floor of the crew's cabin.
Oona.
The little girl looked rather frantic, and she quickly trotted through the curtain to hover at the edge of Eli's bed.
"Uncle!" she hissed. "I had a nightmare! It was real scary and I don't wanna go back to my bed!"
Pulled from his reverie, Eli sat up and grumbled to himself. He pulled Oona up onto the bed and she curled herself against his bare chest. "One of these days you're going to have to stay in your own bed. There's nothing in here to frighten you, you big baby. What's it about this time?" Despite his harshness, Eli curved his arm beneath her legs and tucked her against him, leaning back with the blanket over his legs. There was a tenderness in his action that belayed his words.
"It was real scary... I was drowning, an' I know I can't drown but I was! An' it was real dark an' all the water started to disappear and then it was all gone, but I was still drowning!" She shivered, clinging closer to him, if that was even possible. She had a vicegrip on his side and it was a smidge uncomfortable.
"Relax, relax. Look see, no water, no darkness, s'light in here and you're all dry." He couldn't figure where Oona's nightmares came from, seeing as she loved water and never had any trouble with it outside her dream world.
"Tell me about my mother, Uncle. Please?"
He couldn't stop the grumble. This was always the story she wanted to hear after a nightmare. "Fine, but you go to sleep after, alright?" she nodded fervently.
There was a long pause, like every night he told this tale. He knew that, one day, he'd stop telling her this tale, and she'd stop requesting it because she'd know it by heart.
"The day I met your mother, I was travelling with this Gypsy caravan across the islands of Aquantis..."
Eli, eight years younger than his current 33, clean-shaven, face youthful and full of lust for adventure, not unlike how his future self would look, with the addition of a beard.
The caravan was all bright colors and jovial folk, they were performers and travellers, going port to city and city to port to make a living and enjoy their time in this life. Eli didn't indulge in the entertainment, but he did bring a profit to the caravan from his own trade, which he claimed was heavy-lifting but in reality was his adeptness at pick-pocketing. But nobody asked questions and he didn't cause trouble, so there was a silent agreement.
On one particular evening, a group of children wandered too far from the campsite, and were attacked by a Riverfly as they played in the shallows. ( "What's a Riverfly, Uncle?" "S'a bit like an overgrown Mosquito. Size of a wolf, slithers around in the muck beneath the riverbed, leaps out onto land and flies to chase it's prey. Big teeth, don't interrupt." ) They don't usually attack humans, but these were little kids and food had been scarce.
Eli had been the one to jump to the rescue, slicing his stiletto across the slick flank of the creature, distracting it long enough for the children to get away.
Except now the Riverfly was after him, and Eli bolted through the underbrush of the swampy island, covered in muck and bleeding from various cuts and gouges along his arms and chest. He ran for a very long time, until he reached solid land and then he kept running until the Riverfly gave up and slunk back to it's hovel.
And now, Eli was separated from the caravan, fatigued and vision fading, he limped his way through a section of forested land until he reached an open grove, alit with fading sunlight and with a little spring tucked beneath two tall oak trees.
He collapsed at the edge of the spring.
When he woke up, he was enveloped in cool, soothing water, and he was breathing. Breathing beneath the water. His body, battered and depleated of energy, hung gently in the arms of a woman with delicate features and long, wavy purple hair. She whispered and ran her hands over his wounds and the water healed them. She kissed his mouth and he breathed clear, pure air. ( This is usually the bit he glances over and ignores, because Oona is far too young to know any of THAT and even Eli knows this.)
There are some things he keeps private, moments shared, things learned, because Oona might want to know everything, but some things are for him and him alone.
They talk for a long time beneath the cool shade of the trees; she is a Naiad, a water Nymph who is the spirit of this spring, and used her own magic to heal him and replenish his energy. She is intelligent and funny, sharp of mind and wit, gentle of tongue and even gentler of touch. The two become great friends. They eat the starfruit that grows in this area, he teaches her how to use a knife and gives her one of his scarves to tie back her hair, she teaches him how to read the ripples. They spend long hours climbing trees and swimming in her spring, for Eli has never experienced joy like this, growing up in the sands of his homeland. He tells her this. She says she knows. She doesn't elaborate.
She says her name is N'nena. It is beautiful, just like her.
Eventually, his wanderlust gets the better of him and he returns to the caravan, promising to come back and visit. And he does. He visits all the time, without fail over the course of two years.
During a dry period on the island, she asks him to stay for good, this time. He shakes his head. He can't, he never could stay forever. His place is in the sky, he says. For such a simple man, she thinks, he is quite poetic. Sadly, she agrees, and he leaves again.
Days later, something draws him to return to her spring, and it is gone. Dried up, the two oak trees are withered, the starfruit has rotted.
Things he doesn't tell Oona happen, he falls to his knees in grief because without their home, a nature spirit is truly dead, he cries for the first time since his mother died and his father left. He places a large stone on the bank of the dried spring to remember her. ( This is where Oona has fallen asleep. Eli brings her back to her bed and tucks her in, ruffling her hair and returning to his own bunk. But he continues to think. )
She has died, and somewhere at the bottom of the dried up spring there comes a strangled, infantile cry. Eyes red, he wrenches past the watergrass at the bottom, cocooned around something lying in a shallow puddle. Blue, crying, naked. A bizarre little child who, when she opens her sobbing eyes, stops crying to look up at him. Her eyes are a mirror image of his own, and that terrifies him. These are things he leaves out of the story.
Being the good friend of N'nena he was, Eli takes the baby to care for her. He doesn't mention the orphanage or his theory that the baby IS N'nena. He also doesn't mention Martek smacking him for such a stupid idea. It's more probably that the baby is Eli's, even IF there has never been a recorded example of humans and Naiads reproducing.
"Get it through your thick skull," the Blacksmith says. "That kid is yours, sure as the day is long."
And well, the eyes do look pretty similar...
Eli shook his head. He's been thinking too much, and that's the last thing he wants to do. He puts out his lamp and crawls into bed, and for the first time in a long while, he misses N'nena. It's hard for him to think the L word, let alone say it, and maybe this is the closest he's ever gotten to loving somebody before.
Well, there is a bit of a soft spot for Oona, but that's a whole 'nother debate. He shakes his head, he's gotta stop this nostalgia bullshit. It's been too long, and he's too old to care that much anymore.
He rolls over, and in his dreams it is starfruit and ripples.
Oh! And BTW, this is my little concept thing of a Riverfly. Something that terrifies me is the idea of evolved insects, so I've based this mofo on a what if situation. A lot of the creatures in this world come from the idea that animals NOW have evolved and become something new altogether. Riverflies are 'If Mosquitos Evolved and Became Semi-Aquatic'. Skeeters already lay their eggs in water and such, so it seemed like a plausable outcome. They've gotten a bit amphibious, and they've got that Porpoise sort of snout with the spine on the end. They are carnivores.