Music Lessons 1/2
anonymous
August 8 2009, 23:52:39 UTC
Eugh, it’s another fill for this. First time writing in a very long time, so quality’s probably a little bit lacking.
“Why the hell’d we have to come all the way out here anyways? We should be on the beach durin’ the summer, not’n the mountains. If I wanted to see snow, I’d see it the rest of the year,” Denmark complained.
Norway huffed. “I didn’t ask you to come out here with me. You invited yourself.”
Just as Denmark had arrived at Norway’s house four hours ago for a surprise visit, he had found Norway loading up his car. It took a few minutes of dedicated prodding to get a straight answer out of Norway as to where he was going, but when he found out his neighbor was taking a trip up to Vøringfossen, one of the tallest waterfalls in the country, he had decided on the spot to go along for the ride.
After all, a vacation with Norway was a vacation with Norway, no matter if they weren’t spending it relaxing on a sailboat in the sun. With swimsuits… Norway’s tiny navy blue Speedo from the ‘70s… and plenty of suntan lotion to rub into hard-to-reach places…
Of course, Norway had been too cheap, or practical as he’d say, to spring for a room at the guest house just up the hill from the waterfall, so they were currently camped out in a medium sized tent.
And that was how Denmark had started the day on a quick jaunt to the outskirts of Oslo and ended all the way in Eidfjord up at the top of Vøringfossen in a tent with his best friend for life (if that’s what they called it these days) and a goat. It bleated while chewing on a spare pair of socks that had been left lying around.
“What’s with the goat? It’s gonna crap all over the sleeping bags.”
“That’s for me to know and you to probably never find out,” Norway answered simply. “Now, unless you know how to operate this brand of camping stove, shut up.”
**
Denmark woke in the middle of the night to find both Norway and the goat missing.
He immediately suspected the worst but quickly swept perverted thoughts aside. It was too easy an explanation and with Norway, explanations were never quite so easy.
And there was no way Norway would need to take a goat while going for a piss either.
Now curious, Denmark wiggled out of his sleeping bag and went out the tent flap. And saw a dark silhouette at the edge of the waterfall, standing out against the light of a full moon.
“Norway!” he called over the roar of the waterfall, but with no response.
“Norway?” he tried again as he got closer. His friend finally looked up.
“Go back to bed, Denmark. I’m busy.”
“Busy doing what?”
“Doing what I came here to do.” He was holding a rope pulled taut with the other end going over the fence and into the waterfall.
“But where’s the goat?” Denmark’s eye caught on something at Norway’s feet, a familiar oblong boxish shape. “And why’d you have your fiddle with you?”
The rope in Norway’s hands gave three sharp tugs before going slack. Norway quickly brought the line back in. What had previously been an end fashioned into a rough harness was now hanging limp and bloodstained.
Norway shrugged. “Well, where do you think the squeaky sound of the Norwegian fiddle comes from?”
“…huh?”
Opting to ignore him this time, Norway turned and pulled out another rope from his bag, this one a proper nylon rope. He tied it securely around the nearby tree and attached a climbing harness to it. After stepping into and tightening the harness, he took the fiddle case and slung the long strap over his back.
Re: Music Lessons 2/2
anonymous
August 9 2009, 00:05:40 UTC
Denmark peered over the fence nervously as Norway, braving a deluge that would overwhelm a normal human, lowered himself slowly down. After about 1/4 of the way, the other nation suddenly disappeared beneath the sheet of water.
“Norway…” Worried as hell by this time, Denmark cast a glance over to the backpack left. Poking out of the bag was a backup rope, and there was probably a backup harness too. Quickly, he rigged up another tree and slipped on the harness.
“Goddammit Norway,” he grumbled under his breath, “why’d you make it so hard for me to look out for you?”
And with that, he stepped over the edge.
**
The place Norway had disappeared turned out to be the mouth of a cave just underneath the rushing water. It seemed to wind far back into the side of the cliff.
Denmark unclipped his harness from the rope and slunk to the wall, careful to make himself as unnoticeable as possible in the complete darkness.
After what he had seen left of the goat, he was taking no chances.
Looking ahead, he could just about make out some light at the end of the tunnel, the flickery light of fire. And there were two voices, too low and far away to make out. One was a familiar disinterested tone, the other like nothing else he had heard before. A voice that sounded old as the waterfall and twice as watery. He moved towards the light until finally, he was close enough to peer around the edge of the mouth of the chamber.
Norway’s fiddle case lay opened and discarded on the ground. The fiddle itself gleamed in the dancing firelight as it was tucked under his chin.
And across the cavern from Norway…
The closest Denmark could come to a description was that he was somewhat like a bent old man many hundreds of years old but with something disconcertingly uncanny and toadish about his features. A lipless mouth just a touch too wide, large bulging eyes, a certain wet shine to dappled skin… As the man (Denmark wasn’t quite ready to think of him as anything but a man) got up to reposition Norway’s bow, his knees bent in all the ways they shouldn’t and Denmark could swear he saw pads on the tips of long bony fingers.
The old man would play a line of melody and Norway would follow, and the sound of the two fiddles entwining, echoing down the cavern, traveling like smoke out through the hole of the chimney above the fire. And the music they played was like nothing Denmark had heard before; it was a Norwegian folk dance, but faster and wilder, delirious as it spun on and on, wheeling out of control until it could barely be called music anymore, but rather the raw aural distillation of Norway’s tall mountains and deep fjords, his tundra, his rocky coast, his forests and the untamed things lurking in the shadows of the trees, just beyond the sight of humans.
Denmark was left there standing frozen as he was mesmerized by the music. Too mesmerized to realize when it all had finally stopped and the cavern echoed with silence.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “We should leave,” said Norway, his voice containing none of his habitual iciness; instead, he too seemed to be still caught in the dream he had woven.
They walked back down the passage together, hands side by side but not touching.
Re: Music Lessons 2,5/2
anonymous
August 9 2009, 00:10:26 UTC
**
“What the fuck was that?!” Denmark demanded the next day when they were finally in the car halfway up the road to Oslo from Eidfjord.
“I visit Fossegrimen once a century for fiddle lessons,” answered Norway tersely, trying to pay attention to the violin solo currently playing on NRK. “You pay him a goat and he gives you music tips. What else is there to say?”
“But… but…”
Norway cut him off. “I know you, you’ll annoy me about this for the rest of the car ride. You don’t have to understand everything that goes on in the world, just accept it, and be quiet so I can listen to the radio.”
The second movement of Grieg’s Opus 35 filtered through the speakers. They drove back the rest of the way in silence, though in the back of his mind Denmark still wondered.
Any chance to write about trolls… For the image of Fossegrimen, I used three different books we had around the house when I was a kid. My favorite one had him drawn as a large bipedal toad, so I went with that. And yes, that same book said the squeaky sound of the Norwegian fiddle is the voice of the goat you trade for legendary music skills.
Re: Music Lessons 2,5/2
anonymous
August 9 2009, 09:53:31 UTC
Oh, anon. ;w; That was just beautiful. I think I love Norway even more now than I did before. XD Mythology mixed with fanfiction makes the best combination, methinks. And I just wish I had the skills to draw the image that rose to my mind when you described Norway playing the fiddle... Beautiful.
Re: Music Lessons 2,5/2
anonymous
August 9 2009, 16:28:47 UTC
Thank you! I've been looking for an excuse to use a folktale or two in a story (considering how much they drove folktales into our heads in primary school... might as well get some use out of it) as well as the motivation to actually get a story written, then this prompt came up and Fossegrimen seemed like an obvious choice. One great thing about Norwegian folktales is that, even before you start to get to the viking-era mythology, there's a lot to play around with.
Re: Music Lessons 2,5/2
anonymous
August 9 2009, 16:55:32 UTC
Thanks! Norway seems to work the whole "magic" thing rather well in general, even without having a personification that can see trolls. Visiting Vøringfossen and the area around it definitely helped with writing the imagery; it's kind of unreal stepping outside the guesthouse and hearing the roar of the water and feeling the spray it kicks up. You almost expect to come across a troll lurking somewhere in those mountains.
The poor goat. One of my books had a drawing of a goat tied up by a waterfall looking worried and Fossegrimen sitting in the waterfall and staring at him hungrily. D: I had a particular scene from Jurassic Park in mind when I wrote that bit, though.
“Why the hell’d we have to come all the way out here anyways? We should be on the beach durin’ the summer, not’n the mountains. If I wanted to see snow, I’d see it the rest of the year,” Denmark complained.
Norway huffed. “I didn’t ask you to come out here with me. You invited yourself.”
Just as Denmark had arrived at Norway’s house four hours ago for a surprise visit, he had found Norway loading up his car. It took a few minutes of dedicated prodding to get a straight answer out of Norway as to where he was going, but when he found out his neighbor was taking a trip up to Vøringfossen, one of the tallest waterfalls in the country, he had decided on the spot to go along for the ride.
After all, a vacation with Norway was a vacation with Norway, no matter if they weren’t spending it relaxing on a sailboat in the sun. With swimsuits… Norway’s tiny navy blue Speedo from the ‘70s… and plenty of suntan lotion to rub into hard-to-reach places…
Of course, Norway had been too cheap, or practical as he’d say, to spring for a room at the guest house just up the hill from the waterfall, so they were currently camped out in a medium sized tent.
And that was how Denmark had started the day on a quick jaunt to the outskirts of Oslo and ended all the way in Eidfjord up at the top of Vøringfossen in a tent with his best friend for life (if that’s what they called it these days) and a goat. It bleated while chewing on a spare pair of socks that had been left lying around.
“What’s with the goat? It’s gonna crap all over the sleeping bags.”
“That’s for me to know and you to probably never find out,” Norway answered simply. “Now, unless you know how to operate this brand of camping stove, shut up.”
**
Denmark woke in the middle of the night to find both Norway and the goat missing.
He immediately suspected the worst but quickly swept perverted thoughts aside. It was too easy an explanation and with Norway, explanations were never quite so easy.
And there was no way Norway would need to take a goat while going for a piss either.
Now curious, Denmark wiggled out of his sleeping bag and went out the tent flap. And saw a dark silhouette at the edge of the waterfall, standing out against the light of a full moon.
“Norway!” he called over the roar of the waterfall, but with no response.
“Norway?” he tried again as he got closer. His friend finally looked up.
“Go back to bed, Denmark. I’m busy.”
“Busy doing what?”
“Doing what I came here to do.” He was holding a rope pulled taut with the other end going over the fence and into the waterfall.
“But where’s the goat?” Denmark’s eye caught on something at Norway’s feet, a familiar oblong boxish shape. “And why’d you have your fiddle with you?”
The rope in Norway’s hands gave three sharp tugs before going slack. Norway quickly brought the line back in. What had previously been an end fashioned into a rough harness was now hanging limp and bloodstained.
Norway shrugged. “Well, where do you think the squeaky sound of the Norwegian fiddle comes from?”
“…huh?”
Opting to ignore him this time, Norway turned and pulled out another rope from his bag, this one a proper nylon rope. He tied it securely around the nearby tree and attached a climbing harness to it. After stepping into and tightening the harness, he took the fiddle case and slung the long strap over his back.
“I’ll be back before dawn. Go to sleep.”
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“Norway…” Worried as hell by this time, Denmark cast a glance over to the backpack left. Poking out of the bag was a backup rope, and there was probably a backup harness too. Quickly, he rigged up another tree and slipped on the harness.
“Goddammit Norway,” he grumbled under his breath, “why’d you make it so hard for me to look out for you?”
And with that, he stepped over the edge.
**
The place Norway had disappeared turned out to be the mouth of a cave just underneath the rushing water. It seemed to wind far back into the side of the cliff.
Denmark unclipped his harness from the rope and slunk to the wall, careful to make himself as unnoticeable as possible in the complete darkness.
After what he had seen left of the goat, he was taking no chances.
Looking ahead, he could just about make out some light at the end of the tunnel, the flickery light of fire. And there were two voices, too low and far away to make out. One was a familiar disinterested tone, the other like nothing else he had heard before. A voice that sounded old as the waterfall and twice as watery. He moved towards the light until finally, he was close enough to peer around the edge of the mouth of the chamber.
Norway’s fiddle case lay opened and discarded on the ground. The fiddle itself gleamed in the dancing firelight as it was tucked under his chin.
And across the cavern from Norway…
The closest Denmark could come to a description was that he was somewhat like a bent old man many hundreds of years old but with something disconcertingly uncanny and toadish about his features. A lipless mouth just a touch too wide, large bulging eyes, a certain wet shine to dappled skin… As the man (Denmark wasn’t quite ready to think of him as anything but a man) got up to reposition Norway’s bow, his knees bent in all the ways they shouldn’t and Denmark could swear he saw pads on the tips of long bony fingers.
The old man would play a line of melody and Norway would follow, and the sound of the two fiddles entwining, echoing down the cavern, traveling like smoke out through the hole of the chimney above the fire. And the music they played was like nothing Denmark had heard before; it was a Norwegian folk dance, but faster and wilder, delirious as it spun on and on, wheeling out of control until it could barely be called music anymore, but rather the raw aural distillation of Norway’s tall mountains and deep fjords, his tundra, his rocky coast, his forests and the untamed things lurking in the shadows of the trees, just beyond the sight of humans.
Denmark was left there standing frozen as he was mesmerized by the music. Too mesmerized to realize when it all had finally stopped and the cavern echoed with silence.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “We should leave,” said Norway, his voice containing none of his habitual iciness; instead, he too seemed to be still caught in the dream he had woven.
They walked back down the passage together, hands side by side but not touching.
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“What the fuck was that?!” Denmark demanded the next day when they were finally in the car halfway up the road to Oslo from Eidfjord.
“I visit Fossegrimen once a century for fiddle lessons,” answered Norway tersely, trying to pay attention to the violin solo currently playing on NRK. “You pay him a goat and he gives you music tips. What else is there to say?”
“But… but…”
Norway cut him off. “I know you, you’ll annoy me about this for the rest of the car ride. You don’t have to understand everything that goes on in the world, just accept it, and be quiet so I can listen to the radio.”
The second movement of Grieg’s Opus 35 filtered through the speakers. They drove back the rest of the way in silence, though in the back of his mind Denmark still wondered.
Any chance to write about trolls… For the image of Fossegrimen, I used three different books we had around the house when I was a kid. My favorite one had him drawn as a large bipedal toad, so I went with that. And yes, that same book said the squeaky sound of the Norwegian fiddle is the voice of the goat you trade for legendary music skills.
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At first I myself, like Denmark, was all worried about the goat Norway! ;A; But then to see him playing it with Fossegrimen, the imagery of it.
Lovely~ <3333333333333
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The poor goat. One of my books had a drawing of a goat tied up by a waterfall looking worried and Fossegrimen sitting in the waterfall and staring at him hungrily. D: I had a particular scene from Jurassic Park in mind when I wrote that bit, though.
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Liked it so much, I re-read it twice.
(Anything with Norway and music really appeals to me...)
I'd go into detail about which specific parts I liked, but there are too many. I'd be here all day. I just really liked it. :)a
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