[updates] just posting, and a fiction piece;
I had intended to post this picture I took of the candles we lit during Earth Hour, but I've been a mite scatterbrained as of late so that's going to have to come later.
Also, finished The Gaudi Key this morning.
He longed to live again, to inhale the hesitant scent of young flowers struggling to grow, whilst leaves stretched towards a kinder sun. To feel his breath mingle with the air, its warmth a fact of simply being, rather than a reminder of what he’d left behind.
Here, upon the battlements of the Break, he lifted his eyes to see only how cold and ice blanketed everything in sight. How it turned the once lush hillside into a graveyard where sunlight was always harsher; it’s mad-white gaze watchful and ceaseless upon the bared skeletons of great trees.
Once, he had been young, one of the Chosen. He had walked up these same steps, across these same stone bridges in high summer, listening to the Wise One speak of the Old Ways and how these had paved the way for tradition and their way of life.
The King must die when the cold comes, the Wise One had said. He must take his best men and go down the hill. There they will wait and watch and guard the Break until Life is ready again, nourished by his bones and his sacrifice. Only when the sun returns with green leaves can he come back: older, stronger, and much, much wiser from his descent to the Underworld. This is Our Way. It has been this way for generations.
He let his gaze wander down, past the walls, past his men and the gate. He let it gaze out into the empty wood, as if retracing the long-covered footprints of his youth.
On the first night of his first Death, he had stumbled out, half-drunk from the wine they had brought with them from the city. The sweetness of the drink and the smoke from the lone fireplace in the central hall had been too much. The heat a punishment, an illusion of what was denied to him for a season.
Let him go, he had heard the older ones say while he’d brushed past the bravest of his comrades, all of whom had offered themselves to join him for this first trial. Let him go, the older ones had said, and his comrades did.
Past the gate, he remembered stumbling between and past shadows, each darker than the next until falling flat on his face, he looked up to see nothing but night and the yawning, endless mouth of what he had committed to.
Lying on the cold ground, the clammy fingers of winter’s chill seeping into his clothes, he stared upwards beyond the steeped fingers of branches to see a hint of starlight, a sliver of the moon’s pale blue. Hours, it seemed, he lay there, still and numb at first. Wondering. Remembering.
The King must die so that the land must live, the Wise One had told him long ago.
The King must descend to the Underworld, for there the dark ones wait for the cold winds to fling open the gates so that they may come and steal what is precious to the kingdom when it is most defenseless.
The King must go down the hill to the Break, a guard to the living.
He returned to the gate and the firelight and his people, shivering but renewed. And when Spring came they rode back to the city and he set his sights on the faces of the children who ran alongside their company, intent on memorizing each adoring gaze.
He was King. And he had returned to Life.
Ten winters had passed since that fateful year out in the snow. He was older now, and his Death and the ritual that accompanied it was long carved into his bones, its meaning flowing hot his blood, both duty and privilege. Though none of the dark ones had stepped forth to challenge him, he remained vigilant. And while he longed for Spring, he reminded himself: Soon, soon.
“My lord,” he turned his face slightly to one side to acknowledge the speaker, though his eyes still focused on the white snow, the dead trees. “My lord,” the man continued. “There is someone approaching the gates.” Turning, the king felt his lips settle into a worried line, but the soldier, young as he had been years ago, straightened and merely repeated the news.
“Come,” the King said then, brushing past the boy. “Let us go see.”
She was seven the year they called her to the Temple, two of her brothers flanking her left and right as the sky arched overhead, filled with stars. The Temple of the Sky was a sacred place, a house of gods whose doors opened only in evenings and where only the worthy were permitted to enter.
At seven she was named successor to her mother’s legacy, a priestess destined to read what was written in the sky: nuances of clouds, maps of starlight and the pull of the moon upon the water.
It was a curse meant for the brave, for those willing to succumb to the forces unseen and later accept exile from everything they loved.
At seven, she understood that the day could come when another would take her place and she would be sent out to wander beyond the plains, beyond where the sea was warm and the scent of salt reminded the body that all living things carried within it a sea.
_______________________
Personal Notes:
- Original prose, WIP, fantasy.
- Inspired by concepts tackled in "The Golden Bough" and an old project long since relegated to the back-burner.
- Consider: Worth continuing? Y/N?
"Seriously," Hana sighed, exasperated. She was hip-deep in paper and books and not very happy about it. "Z, your sense of humor, it astounds me."
Snickers made the rounds from left to right and she turned her face up to the three peering down at her. "Can you imagine something else?"
*
There was something about the child that bothered Paolo, and the morning they woke up to pack and move on up the mountain the thought continued to gnaw at the empty space over his shoulder, right behind his ear; like a voice that had forgotten the words to say a perfectly important piece of information.
When they returned three days later, just before sunset, high from immersing themselves with nature, he and the others stared in both awe and horror as that same little girl scaled the wall and roof of the hut, a shackle on each wrist as great thin, black, batlike wings unfolded from her shoulderblades, her lower body replaced with nothing more than air.
Also, finished The Gaudi Key this morning.
He longed to live again, to inhale the hesitant scent of young flowers struggling to grow, whilst leaves stretched towards a kinder sun. To feel his breath mingle with the air, its warmth a fact of simply being, rather than a reminder of what he’d left behind.
Here, upon the battlements of the Break, he lifted his eyes to see only how cold and ice blanketed everything in sight. How it turned the once lush hillside into a graveyard where sunlight was always harsher; it’s mad-white gaze watchful and ceaseless upon the bared skeletons of great trees.
Once, he had been young, one of the Chosen. He had walked up these same steps, across these same stone bridges in high summer, listening to the Wise One speak of the Old Ways and how these had paved the way for tradition and their way of life.
The King must die when the cold comes, the Wise One had said. He must take his best men and go down the hill. There they will wait and watch and guard the Break until Life is ready again, nourished by his bones and his sacrifice. Only when the sun returns with green leaves can he come back: older, stronger, and much, much wiser from his descent to the Underworld. This is Our Way. It has been this way for generations.
He let his gaze wander down, past the walls, past his men and the gate. He let it gaze out into the empty wood, as if retracing the long-covered footprints of his youth.
On the first night of his first Death, he had stumbled out, half-drunk from the wine they had brought with them from the city. The sweetness of the drink and the smoke from the lone fireplace in the central hall had been too much. The heat a punishment, an illusion of what was denied to him for a season.
Let him go, he had heard the older ones say while he’d brushed past the bravest of his comrades, all of whom had offered themselves to join him for this first trial. Let him go, the older ones had said, and his comrades did.
Past the gate, he remembered stumbling between and past shadows, each darker than the next until falling flat on his face, he looked up to see nothing but night and the yawning, endless mouth of what he had committed to.
Lying on the cold ground, the clammy fingers of winter’s chill seeping into his clothes, he stared upwards beyond the steeped fingers of branches to see a hint of starlight, a sliver of the moon’s pale blue. Hours, it seemed, he lay there, still and numb at first. Wondering. Remembering.
The King must die so that the land must live, the Wise One had told him long ago.
The King must descend to the Underworld, for there the dark ones wait for the cold winds to fling open the gates so that they may come and steal what is precious to the kingdom when it is most defenseless.
The King must go down the hill to the Break, a guard to the living.
He returned to the gate and the firelight and his people, shivering but renewed. And when Spring came they rode back to the city and he set his sights on the faces of the children who ran alongside their company, intent on memorizing each adoring gaze.
He was King. And he had returned to Life.
Ten winters had passed since that fateful year out in the snow. He was older now, and his Death and the ritual that accompanied it was long carved into his bones, its meaning flowing hot his blood, both duty and privilege. Though none of the dark ones had stepped forth to challenge him, he remained vigilant. And while he longed for Spring, he reminded himself: Soon, soon.
“My lord,” he turned his face slightly to one side to acknowledge the speaker, though his eyes still focused on the white snow, the dead trees. “My lord,” the man continued. “There is someone approaching the gates.” Turning, the king felt his lips settle into a worried line, but the soldier, young as he had been years ago, straightened and merely repeated the news.
“Come,” the King said then, brushing past the boy. “Let us go see.”
She was seven the year they called her to the Temple, two of her brothers flanking her left and right as the sky arched overhead, filled with stars. The Temple of the Sky was a sacred place, a house of gods whose doors opened only in evenings and where only the worthy were permitted to enter.
At seven she was named successor to her mother’s legacy, a priestess destined to read what was written in the sky: nuances of clouds, maps of starlight and the pull of the moon upon the water.
It was a curse meant for the brave, for those willing to succumb to the forces unseen and later accept exile from everything they loved.
At seven, she understood that the day could come when another would take her place and she would be sent out to wander beyond the plains, beyond where the sea was warm and the scent of salt reminded the body that all living things carried within it a sea.
_______________________
Personal Notes:
- Original prose, WIP, fantasy.
- Inspired by concepts tackled in "The Golden Bough" and an old project long since relegated to the back-burner.
- Consider: Worth continuing? Y/N?
"Seriously," Hana sighed, exasperated. She was hip-deep in paper and books and not very happy about it. "Z, your sense of humor, it astounds me."
Snickers made the rounds from left to right and she turned her face up to the three peering down at her. "Can you imagine something else?"
*
There was something about the child that bothered Paolo, and the morning they woke up to pack and move on up the mountain the thought continued to gnaw at the empty space over his shoulder, right behind his ear; like a voice that had forgotten the words to say a perfectly important piece of information.
When they returned three days later, just before sunset, high from immersing themselves with nature, he and the others stared in both awe and horror as that same little girl scaled the wall and roof of the hut, a shackle on each wrist as great thin, black, batlike wings unfolded from her shoulderblades, her lower body replaced with nothing more than air.