Storytime: As the Phoenix Reborn (Prologue)
I said I’d write something for As the Phoenix I Am Reborn, and I did -- sort of. At least I started, but I could not keep it simple, and the story idea I mentioned a couple of entries ago was the result. Yet again things changed, and instead of writing several ficlets and posting them separately, it’s becoming a short story. The key word, however, is “short”. I must not get carried away. If I like Kai’de then I can write more about him, but for now I want to present this one excerpt from his life. So in the end the story, if I ever can settle on how to write it, is more originally inspired by than based on the music.
As the Phoenix Reborn : Prologue
Tor’s hooves leave deep imprints in the damp sand, and I turn him away from the water’s edge and towards drier ground and the uneven path that leads to the dark shapes at the top of the hill. The salt scent of the sea clings inside my nose, and its voice fills my ears. It’d been the last thing I’d heard the night before camped out at the forest’s edge, the roaring of the great waves lulling me to sleep, and first thing I’d heard this morning.
The journey had been long and hard, drawn here by some force I couldn’t quiet understand nor explain, and here we hoped to find answers, good or ill. Uncertain as we were, however, we’d taken our time getting ready this morning as if wishing to postpone the inevitable. So as I saddled the black stallion and packed our supplies, she stood and stared out at the water, burnished like a flat polished rock that stretched away to the horizon, holding and returning the reflection of the morning sun. I joined her there where the land sloped gently downwards and watched the sunrise, turning the sea golden, then green, and finally the deep blue of the nighttime sky. The world seems deceptively simple and peaceful at times like that.
Atop the ridge tall grass billows like a vast, golden sea. As we cross the clearing the shapes resolve into the slowly crumbing ruins of a great structure, a remnant of the days when the clergy held sway upon this part of the land. But that was long, long ago. Now over the remains of stone walls ivy climbs, and from the uneven flagstones a great tree rises at the entrance to the ruins, reaching up with gnarled limbs and draped with fragrant cream colored blossoms. The bell tower holds its shape still, soaring above the broken roof, but the annex to the temple is a fractured shell and lies open to the elements as if an earthquake had broken it apart. Yet amazingly most of the main building is intact, and it’s to there we head.
The grass that fights its way between the cobblestones crunches under my boots when I dismount, and I hold out my hand to help the fiery haired girl down. There is nothing to stop us from entering, the hinges having rusted away years ago and the wooden doors rotted to mulch, and Tor’s shod hooves ring upon the cracked and discolored marble. We walk past walls stained by time and a soft dark green moss, tumbling columns, cracked urns, and arched alcoves. Daylight streams in through windows that once held elaborate stained glass images, homage to whatever god was once worshipped here, but the chipped and ruined statues seen thus far give no indication what deity that might have been. Time has taken its toll.
As we walk, I’m aware of a slight feeling of irritation, something unsettling at the very rim of my consciousness. It’s a faint buzzing or humming, thin and insubstantial but there and very subtly getting stronger. Focusing on this sound, I’m taken by surprise when abruptly the girl stops, her odd sunset eyes wide and fixed upon the altar. I feel something else now, the same stirring of energy as when I’d first found her, and I place a hand upon her shoulder, quieting the power. She doesn’t look at me though. Never taking her eyes from the altar before them, she raises her arm and points to the marble figure behind the raised platform.
“Rai’hari,” she says.
I should have guessed.
I really hate it when the Gods are involved.
__________
Yes, it’s extremely descriptive, and thus it’s hard to identify with any of the characters, but I wanted that distance, yet at the same time I decided upon first person in order to keep it from being too impersonal. After looking this over, however, there’s something I still don’t quite like about it, something that gnaws at me possibly about the flow.
Trying a quick Fifteen Minute Ficlet as a writing exercise might be a good idea right now. I feel a bit rusty.
As the Phoenix Reborn : Prologue
Tor’s hooves leave deep imprints in the damp sand, and I turn him away from the water’s edge and towards drier ground and the uneven path that leads to the dark shapes at the top of the hill. The salt scent of the sea clings inside my nose, and its voice fills my ears. It’d been the last thing I’d heard the night before camped out at the forest’s edge, the roaring of the great waves lulling me to sleep, and first thing I’d heard this morning.
The journey had been long and hard, drawn here by some force I couldn’t quiet understand nor explain, and here we hoped to find answers, good or ill. Uncertain as we were, however, we’d taken our time getting ready this morning as if wishing to postpone the inevitable. So as I saddled the black stallion and packed our supplies, she stood and stared out at the water, burnished like a flat polished rock that stretched away to the horizon, holding and returning the reflection of the morning sun. I joined her there where the land sloped gently downwards and watched the sunrise, turning the sea golden, then green, and finally the deep blue of the nighttime sky. The world seems deceptively simple and peaceful at times like that.
Atop the ridge tall grass billows like a vast, golden sea. As we cross the clearing the shapes resolve into the slowly crumbing ruins of a great structure, a remnant of the days when the clergy held sway upon this part of the land. But that was long, long ago. Now over the remains of stone walls ivy climbs, and from the uneven flagstones a great tree rises at the entrance to the ruins, reaching up with gnarled limbs and draped with fragrant cream colored blossoms. The bell tower holds its shape still, soaring above the broken roof, but the annex to the temple is a fractured shell and lies open to the elements as if an earthquake had broken it apart. Yet amazingly most of the main building is intact, and it’s to there we head.
The grass that fights its way between the cobblestones crunches under my boots when I dismount, and I hold out my hand to help the fiery haired girl down. There is nothing to stop us from entering, the hinges having rusted away years ago and the wooden doors rotted to mulch, and Tor’s shod hooves ring upon the cracked and discolored marble. We walk past walls stained by time and a soft dark green moss, tumbling columns, cracked urns, and arched alcoves. Daylight streams in through windows that once held elaborate stained glass images, homage to whatever god was once worshipped here, but the chipped and ruined statues seen thus far give no indication what deity that might have been. Time has taken its toll.
As we walk, I’m aware of a slight feeling of irritation, something unsettling at the very rim of my consciousness. It’s a faint buzzing or humming, thin and insubstantial but there and very subtly getting stronger. Focusing on this sound, I’m taken by surprise when abruptly the girl stops, her odd sunset eyes wide and fixed upon the altar. I feel something else now, the same stirring of energy as when I’d first found her, and I place a hand upon her shoulder, quieting the power. She doesn’t look at me though. Never taking her eyes from the altar before them, she raises her arm and points to the marble figure behind the raised platform.
“Rai’hari,” she says.
I should have guessed.
I really hate it when the Gods are involved.
__________
Yes, it’s extremely descriptive, and thus it’s hard to identify with any of the characters, but I wanted that distance, yet at the same time I decided upon first person in order to keep it from being too impersonal. After looking this over, however, there’s something I still don’t quite like about it, something that gnaws at me possibly about the flow.
Trying a quick Fifteen Minute Ficlet as a writing exercise might be a good idea right now. I feel a bit rusty.