(no subject)
Title: Blue Sky, Dream Sea (chapter 4)
Email: tori.siikanen@gmail.com
Fandom: Biting the Sun, by Tanith Lee
Rating: Mature (mild sexual situations)
Content: Dreams don't mean anything. they're jumbled reshufflings of the events of the day sorted around while you rest your brain.
Disclaimer: This is an obscure fandom, so it might not instantly click. but if you dig it, get the book. it's good. This post is a glossary to the slang, and this post is the first chapter.
4.
Blue Sky, Dream Sea
Blue Sky is almost Jang Only. They play upper-tonal that gets you both relaxed and garrulous; you have to make a real effort not to get a jug of Joyousness at your table, but that's all because there's no way to get to Blue Sky except through the wind tube, and then when you leave, you jump (buoyantly supported by a cape of float foam, but still, Older People don't like it.)
And so I lay on my stomach and looked through the floor at Four-BEE, imagining that I could see the movements of the people far below, and then rolled on my back and looked at the perfect blue sky above me. It may not have been perfect, beyond the dome--I'd never know. It's always perfect inside.
And my companion stared too--stared with such intense concentration that I blurted, "What are you looking at?"
And he said, "Not what I want to see." And then, abruptly, "Have you ever been to the other cities?"
"No." For some reason, I couldn't get a travel pass to see the other cities. Not a lot of Jang could, but...
"I haven't either. Do you wonder what it's like out there?"
"Sometimes."
"I think I dream about it," he said, and then he turned to me, his face--half of flesh and half silver silk-of-steel. "I never told you. I'm Saz."
"And you are one of the finest lightsword fighters of Ilex Park."
He didn't modestly deny it. "Why hadn't I seen you before?"
"I just got this body," I said. "My last one was female."
He nodded and chose fire-and-ice with cloud cream when the waiter Q-R arrived. I asked for spiced nut beer, and some of Saz's circle arrived just as we were served. They greeted me vaguely. One female actually cut a slab off our nut-steak--"you don't mind, do you?"
"Be my guest," I said, but she was already chewing, the thralldrap. One passed a box of rose cigars, and we watched violet smoke drift up to the dome. Not that I assumed any kind of exclusive hold on Saz (liar) but this was really too much.
"I must go, oomas."
A few ringed hands fluttered in my direction, their talk of star-ball not even nudged. Well, really. I gathered up a float cloak and dived off the platform.
Once home, I made use of the syntho food dispenser, lazed about and got so droad I signalled Kina.
"Look here, old ooma, I had no idea of your intentions. It's all rather a mess," I said. "Sorry I dashed your plans."
"I felt like a promok."
"You should have told me."
"And you wouldn't have done it?"
"It was a mad impulse. I regret it already." The truth worked admirably. "In twenty eight units I'm changing back."
"Well then," Kina sounded heartier at the news. "How about the Dream Rooms?"
The Dream Rooms are considered un-Jang, so naturally we flock there--a giggling mob of gemflower bedecked lunatics, clamouring to dream ourselves as pulsing motes of light.
Though we talked about it once, and Kina told me he dreams of being a kind of fish-man. I didn't have any better ideas, so I used his. I gave the computer reams of instructions, remembering details out of order at the last second. Finally I lay back and waited only a moment before I was there--
Gliding through violet waters with a dome city beneath me, the sprawling capital of the Oceanic Empire. Ours was a cruel and martial society, and I, one of the Hundred Companions, was a Wizard-Warrior of astonishing brutality and ability. I searched valiantly for traces of my quarry--a member of a rebellion, bent on sowing discord and defiance to our might.
There! A sign of his passing! I followed it, and strange creatures swam by my side, playing though platinum milk hair and the wake of my Opal Dawn scaled tail. My opponent laid a trap--his trail led to a cave and a rock blocked the passage when I ventured inside. I cried a word of eldritch power and the boulder became a lace of coral, which shattered under my fist.
Then I met a horrible creature with writhing arms like serpents. The monster tangled me in its limbs, but I managed to stab it with my spear, offending it into quitting my presence. I swam on, relentlessly in pursuit until my head broke the surface to the Kingdom of Air. I gasped the words of the charm that would let me survive the ghastly stuff, and a terrible pain shot down my tail. Stunned by this agony, I was flung unresisting to the awful shore.
Where my quarry--my nemesis--awaited me.
Bravely, I choked out the last embrace of the sea, and staggered to my feet--appalling! And what agony it was, to stand on the stumpy things! The kingdom of Air weighed heavily, my hair near threatened to topple my head off my neck, and the first shambling step shot up my legs (hideous!) like knives...
Toward my quarry, who waited arrogantly for me, his sword gleaming at this hip, matching the half mask he wore to cover the left side of his face--standing with ease on the horrid split things, awaiting me.
"You've come to capture me?"
"I mean to destroy you," I declared, and startled at the hoarseness of my voice, seared by the desert air. I rasped an unutterable Word, and the moisture clinging to my skin seeped inside, comforting me with a trickle of strength. I raised my spear, and advanced on steps of anguish.
Laughable effort. He struck the spear from me easily, leaving me helpless, transformed into naked vulnerability. I attempted a word to draw the water from him, but he flashed a sign with his hands, and the power burst between us like bubbling laughter--no one laughs, in the majesty of the kingdom of Water. Such an action hurts.
"Sir." I spread open hands. "It appears you have me at your advantage." I looked at him, standing eye level to eye, and wondered if the sand I stood on was higher even as the realization of his beauty struck me.
"So it appears," my enemy (gorgeous and terrible, a worthy opponent, and not the rabble that I had mistook him for in arrogance) my enemy looked upon me with admiration. "But did you not know that you could not best me?"
"I believed that I could," I blurted, and blushing, dropped my gaze--
To perceive a hard, powerful chest, contoured by muscle and rib, the faintest dusting of platinum milk hairs, an arrow point at my navel, widening down to--
What?
To a stirring shaft, rising unmistakably from the apex of my legs--
But I was supposed to--
Horror. I looked back at him; helpless--oh, shame! His eyes lingered below to my stirring for him, just as I told the Dream, but my transformation--truant! I spun on the daggerpoint of my toes and fled, back to the sea, don't see me like this, don't--
He caught me. Whirled me by the grip on my arms, fingers curling into the powerful curves, and stared at the full length of my betraying (wrong! Oh, wrong!) body, drawing my gaze down
To where his own arousal stood--
Shocked, I raised my head to look at him, beautiful half-face, half hidden, twice gorgeous, lowering his lips toward mine. The barest silken touch brushed my lips to his, but I woke in the Dream Chamber and it burned, burned as if I'd bitten a flame.
the next chapter is A Fabulist Prince.
Email: tori.siikanen@gmail.com
Fandom: Biting the Sun, by Tanith Lee
Rating: Mature (mild sexual situations)
Content: Dreams don't mean anything. they're jumbled reshufflings of the events of the day sorted around while you rest your brain.
Disclaimer: This is an obscure fandom, so it might not instantly click. but if you dig it, get the book. it's good. This post is a glossary to the slang, and this post is the first chapter.
4.
Blue Sky, Dream Sea
Blue Sky is almost Jang Only. They play upper-tonal that gets you both relaxed and garrulous; you have to make a real effort not to get a jug of Joyousness at your table, but that's all because there's no way to get to Blue Sky except through the wind tube, and then when you leave, you jump (buoyantly supported by a cape of float foam, but still, Older People don't like it.)
And so I lay on my stomach and looked through the floor at Four-BEE, imagining that I could see the movements of the people far below, and then rolled on my back and looked at the perfect blue sky above me. It may not have been perfect, beyond the dome--I'd never know. It's always perfect inside.
And my companion stared too--stared with such intense concentration that I blurted, "What are you looking at?"
And he said, "Not what I want to see." And then, abruptly, "Have you ever been to the other cities?"
"No." For some reason, I couldn't get a travel pass to see the other cities. Not a lot of Jang could, but...
"I haven't either. Do you wonder what it's like out there?"
"Sometimes."
"I think I dream about it," he said, and then he turned to me, his face--half of flesh and half silver silk-of-steel. "I never told you. I'm Saz."
"And you are one of the finest lightsword fighters of Ilex Park."
He didn't modestly deny it. "Why hadn't I seen you before?"
"I just got this body," I said. "My last one was female."
He nodded and chose fire-and-ice with cloud cream when the waiter Q-R arrived. I asked for spiced nut beer, and some of Saz's circle arrived just as we were served. They greeted me vaguely. One female actually cut a slab off our nut-steak--"you don't mind, do you?"
"Be my guest," I said, but she was already chewing, the thralldrap. One passed a box of rose cigars, and we watched violet smoke drift up to the dome. Not that I assumed any kind of exclusive hold on Saz (liar) but this was really too much.
"I must go, oomas."
A few ringed hands fluttered in my direction, their talk of star-ball not even nudged. Well, really. I gathered up a float cloak and dived off the platform.
Once home, I made use of the syntho food dispenser, lazed about and got so droad I signalled Kina.
"Look here, old ooma, I had no idea of your intentions. It's all rather a mess," I said. "Sorry I dashed your plans."
"I felt like a promok."
"You should have told me."
"And you wouldn't have done it?"
"It was a mad impulse. I regret it already." The truth worked admirably. "In twenty eight units I'm changing back."
"Well then," Kina sounded heartier at the news. "How about the Dream Rooms?"
The Dream Rooms are considered un-Jang, so naturally we flock there--a giggling mob of gemflower bedecked lunatics, clamouring to dream ourselves as pulsing motes of light.
Though we talked about it once, and Kina told me he dreams of being a kind of fish-man. I didn't have any better ideas, so I used his. I gave the computer reams of instructions, remembering details out of order at the last second. Finally I lay back and waited only a moment before I was there--
Gliding through violet waters with a dome city beneath me, the sprawling capital of the Oceanic Empire. Ours was a cruel and martial society, and I, one of the Hundred Companions, was a Wizard-Warrior of astonishing brutality and ability. I searched valiantly for traces of my quarry--a member of a rebellion, bent on sowing discord and defiance to our might.
There! A sign of his passing! I followed it, and strange creatures swam by my side, playing though platinum milk hair and the wake of my Opal Dawn scaled tail. My opponent laid a trap--his trail led to a cave and a rock blocked the passage when I ventured inside. I cried a word of eldritch power and the boulder became a lace of coral, which shattered under my fist.
Then I met a horrible creature with writhing arms like serpents. The monster tangled me in its limbs, but I managed to stab it with my spear, offending it into quitting my presence. I swam on, relentlessly in pursuit until my head broke the surface to the Kingdom of Air. I gasped the words of the charm that would let me survive the ghastly stuff, and a terrible pain shot down my tail. Stunned by this agony, I was flung unresisting to the awful shore.
Where my quarry--my nemesis--awaited me.
Bravely, I choked out the last embrace of the sea, and staggered to my feet--appalling! And what agony it was, to stand on the stumpy things! The kingdom of Air weighed heavily, my hair near threatened to topple my head off my neck, and the first shambling step shot up my legs (hideous!) like knives...
Toward my quarry, who waited arrogantly for me, his sword gleaming at this hip, matching the half mask he wore to cover the left side of his face--standing with ease on the horrid split things, awaiting me.
"You've come to capture me?"
"I mean to destroy you," I declared, and startled at the hoarseness of my voice, seared by the desert air. I rasped an unutterable Word, and the moisture clinging to my skin seeped inside, comforting me with a trickle of strength. I raised my spear, and advanced on steps of anguish.
Laughable effort. He struck the spear from me easily, leaving me helpless, transformed into naked vulnerability. I attempted a word to draw the water from him, but he flashed a sign with his hands, and the power burst between us like bubbling laughter--no one laughs, in the majesty of the kingdom of Water. Such an action hurts.
"Sir." I spread open hands. "It appears you have me at your advantage." I looked at him, standing eye level to eye, and wondered if the sand I stood on was higher even as the realization of his beauty struck me.
"So it appears," my enemy (gorgeous and terrible, a worthy opponent, and not the rabble that I had mistook him for in arrogance) my enemy looked upon me with admiration. "But did you not know that you could not best me?"
"I believed that I could," I blurted, and blushing, dropped my gaze--
To perceive a hard, powerful chest, contoured by muscle and rib, the faintest dusting of platinum milk hairs, an arrow point at my navel, widening down to--
What?
To a stirring shaft, rising unmistakably from the apex of my legs--
But I was supposed to--
Horror. I looked back at him; helpless--oh, shame! His eyes lingered below to my stirring for him, just as I told the Dream, but my transformation--truant! I spun on the daggerpoint of my toes and fled, back to the sea, don't see me like this, don't--
He caught me. Whirled me by the grip on my arms, fingers curling into the powerful curves, and stared at the full length of my betraying (wrong! Oh, wrong!) body, drawing my gaze down
To where his own arousal stood--
Shocked, I raised my head to look at him, beautiful half-face, half hidden, twice gorgeous, lowering his lips toward mine. The barest silken touch brushed my lips to his, but I woke in the Dream Chamber and it burned, burned as if I'd bitten a flame.
the next chapter is A Fabulist Prince.