It was impossible to point to any particular motion that was definitely non-human.*
Ransom had the sense of watching an imitation of living motions which had been very well studied and was technically correct: but somehow it lacked the master touch. And he was chilled with an inarticulate, night-nursery horror of the thing he had to deal with - the managed corpse, the bogey, the Un-man.*
Today's Word Count: 3127
Novel Progress: Chapter 14 and Chapter 15.
Current Emotion: *dead*
The company was bid to wait, admire the view if they so desired, while elves - for they were elves, Grace learned - set about filling the space with tables and chairs. They did not stop there, bringing in harps and setting them down beside flutes. Grace leaned against a pillar far from the edge and watched them work. The elves seemed almost like automatons, every gesture perfectly measured and executed, never a doubt or a fumble. It was almost entrancing, like a dance, and it would have been beautiful if not for their faces. Every one of them seemed to be wearing a porcelain mask, free from flaws - no blemishes, no scars, no lines - but also free of expression, save that perhaps of supreme serenity. It was uncanny, and unsettling, as if they were not truly alive. It felt, to Grace, like they were inhuman. Not in the way that the dwarves were, strictly speaking, inhuman. The elves did not shock her with every glance, her senses screaming elf at every evidence of their race. It ran deeper like that, the difference between her and them stronger, the divide wider, like the leap from here to the far side of the valley. She looked at them and had no idea what she saw, her senses dumb in the face of this void.
It made her skin crawl, to be honest.
33367 / 50000 words. 67% done!
* C.S.Lewis, Perelandra
Today's Word Count: 3127
Novel Progress: Chapter 14 and Chapter 15.
Current Emotion: *dead*
The company was bid to wait, admire the view if they so desired, while elves - for they were elves, Grace learned - set about filling the space with tables and chairs. They did not stop there, bringing in harps and setting them down beside flutes. Grace leaned against a pillar far from the edge and watched them work. The elves seemed almost like automatons, every gesture perfectly measured and executed, never a doubt or a fumble. It was almost entrancing, like a dance, and it would have been beautiful if not for their faces. Every one of them seemed to be wearing a porcelain mask, free from flaws - no blemishes, no scars, no lines - but also free of expression, save that perhaps of supreme serenity. It was uncanny, and unsettling, as if they were not truly alive. It felt, to Grace, like they were inhuman. Not in the way that the dwarves were, strictly speaking, inhuman. The elves did not shock her with every glance, her senses screaming elf at every evidence of their race. It ran deeper like that, the difference between her and them stronger, the divide wider, like the leap from here to the far side of the valley. She looked at them and had no idea what she saw, her senses dumb in the face of this void.
It made her skin crawl, to be honest.
33367 / 50000 words. 67% done!
* C.S.Lewis, Perelandra