(no subject)
Title: Gemwings among Orchids, Part 2
Email: tori.siikanen@gmail.com
Fandom: Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun
Rating: PG
Content: Parties in books are never successful - anyone ever notice that?
Disclaimer: This is fanfic. You should read the original books. They're good. This post is a glossary to the slang, and this post is the first chapter.
12.
Gemwings among orchids, Part 2
I couldn't really get lost in Junaya's garden - it's not large enough. It's cleverly designed down a steep valley, with interesting little hideaways, and every one of them was polluted with Jang.
It doesn't matter. He didn't really die. But what moved them to do that violence in the first place, what made them actually go through with cutting each other, striking each other, thrusting the point of a real steel sword into another's body?
And why did I not feel the horror inside that I was acting outside? Some part of me only watched myself pound down the path, leaping up the hanging stairs two at a time, wondered at my nausea, and didn't feel a thing.
Did they hate each other?
Or did they just not think that it mattered? I didn't know - all I saw was the end.
No, not the end - for that slight male with the dark hair and the opaque clothing had been exiled. Exiled? To where?
The desert?
Oh, awful. How utterly drumdik. It didn't bear thinking about.
I made a beeline for the Joyousness, poured a goblet for each hand, quaffed one, then the other. Ignorant Jang cheered my display of merry excess; one filled both my goblets again.
To their approbation, I drained them both, cast the goblets into the ruby-iris patch, and leapt into a sea of dancing Jang, giddily swaying to the seventhbeat harmonic music spiked with upper-ear to enhance merriment.
And I didn't think about the look of rage on that males' face.
Not enough, not enough. I swerved out of the mass of dancing, dashed nimbly alongside the serpent-pool, passing those who bobbed along in its currents, gathered my strength under me and sprang from the waterfall's edge, soaring with arms outflung, pointing them together in the instant flight became falling...
..And hit a bare patch of water as swimmers scrambled out of the way, still screaming as I rose up from the water and broke the surface, soaked and shocked and trembling with the need to run, run somewhere, but nowhere was far enough--
A shout. An outflung hand. Saz, leaning over the plasgranite slabs of the lagoon's edge, and then he hit the water like a knife and surface in front of me, water dripping like diamonds off his silk of bronze half-mask.
He jerked his head toward the entrance to the snaking path before eeling towards it, and I followed, sliding over a rapidslide that twisted blindly into sickening drop to the bottom. It was nearly enough. Then the rapidslide gave out to free-falling water and I saw just enough to know that the pool was empty of Jang--
I landed badly, shocking my held breath out of me.
We went down into shockingly warm water, and Saz grabbed me around the waist, kicking up to the surface, holding me while I kicked and struggled to get away, to get free, to run--
Then his mouth was on mine, giving me his air.
I tugged back in surprise, but his hand cradled me, and he breathed. I calmed, passing the breath back to him.
We'd only be under an instant. We rose calmly, breathing the same breath back until we broke surface and I gasped in fresh, holding steady while he kicked and held me up and took his own breath before touching his lips to mine.
The barest touch--
"Ooma!" Fisk shrieked behind me. "Have you gone zaradann?"
I brought my knees up, jacknifing away from Saz, but tilted too far back and went under the water, flailed back upright.
"He went in with no oxygen injection," Saz said over my splashing. "Nearly drowned himself."
"Exactly what I mean! The thralldrap frightened the wits out of everyone, leaping off the cliff like that! Kina's above with a hypno spray after screeching something about the crystal promenade--"
"I dove, Fisk," I sputtered. "It was a wild impulse."
"Well you better march up here and show everyone that you're all right. Really, ruining Junaya's party like this! You promok." She stomped off, face nearly as red as her hair.
I turned around in the water, and Saz looked at me. "Sorry about that."
What was he apologizing for? Keeping his head? Kissing me? Nearly getting caught by Fisk? "Don't give it a thought, old ooma. Shouldn't have went over like that. Lucky you'd had your oxygen."
"Oh, I didn't. I know how to swim without it," he said airily. "What was that?"
"I saw... it doesn't matter, I'm being a floop."
"The duel," Saz said.
He was still holding me. I was just fine, but one arm banded about my waist, and--was that-- "You've seen it."
"Of course, lo these many vreks ago."
I shifted enough to wedge my hip on his, tilting discreetly away. "Why did they--"
"No one knows, ooma. That scrap is all we have, passed from hand to surreptitious hand. All we know is that the winner was exiled for the rest of his life."
"They said," I whispered. "It's--I mean, how insumattly drumdik, out there--did he get new bodies? No, they wouldn't do that, the Vixaxn Committee love to say no--he got old out there, Saz, old and wrinkled and weaker and left out there to dry up--"
"He went Out There," Saz stopped me. "Out there, he could see the sky."
A flash of purple flowered branches, violet petals snatched by a hard wind--I saw it in my mind for an instant, sand gritting over my tongue--and then Saz's mouth again, coaxing mine open, the polite, inquiring dart of his tongue.
Shock at the base of my skull like a flare of sunlight. He--he just--
I pulled away, but gently. Saz released me, and the water pelted cold against my waist, wrenching a shiver from me.
"I apologize," Saz said. "That was ill-done."
"It's all right," I said. It was jubilation. I hid behind a small but cordial smile. "I had better go."
"You'd better."
I swam away to the side, made my appearance up the terraces, and made glad faces at everyone while I kissed Junaya and then unobtrusively left.
I was pelting down the slide-walks to House when impulse struck and I leapt from the Crystal Promenade again.
I really shouldn't do that. It hurts.
Continue, to Clouds and Secrets, Part 1
Email: tori.siikanen@gmail.com
Fandom: Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun
Rating: PG
Content: Parties in books are never successful - anyone ever notice that?
Disclaimer: This is fanfic. You should read the original books. They're good. This post is a glossary to the slang, and this post is the first chapter.
12.
Gemwings among orchids, Part 2
I couldn't really get lost in Junaya's garden - it's not large enough. It's cleverly designed down a steep valley, with interesting little hideaways, and every one of them was polluted with Jang.
It doesn't matter. He didn't really die. But what moved them to do that violence in the first place, what made them actually go through with cutting each other, striking each other, thrusting the point of a real steel sword into another's body?
And why did I not feel the horror inside that I was acting outside? Some part of me only watched myself pound down the path, leaping up the hanging stairs two at a time, wondered at my nausea, and didn't feel a thing.
Did they hate each other?
Or did they just not think that it mattered? I didn't know - all I saw was the end.
No, not the end - for that slight male with the dark hair and the opaque clothing had been exiled. Exiled? To where?
The desert?
Oh, awful. How utterly drumdik. It didn't bear thinking about.
I made a beeline for the Joyousness, poured a goblet for each hand, quaffed one, then the other. Ignorant Jang cheered my display of merry excess; one filled both my goblets again.
To their approbation, I drained them both, cast the goblets into the ruby-iris patch, and leapt into a sea of dancing Jang, giddily swaying to the seventhbeat harmonic music spiked with upper-ear to enhance merriment.
And I didn't think about the look of rage on that males' face.
Not enough, not enough. I swerved out of the mass of dancing, dashed nimbly alongside the serpent-pool, passing those who bobbed along in its currents, gathered my strength under me and sprang from the waterfall's edge, soaring with arms outflung, pointing them together in the instant flight became falling...
..And hit a bare patch of water as swimmers scrambled out of the way, still screaming as I rose up from the water and broke the surface, soaked and shocked and trembling with the need to run, run somewhere, but nowhere was far enough--
A shout. An outflung hand. Saz, leaning over the plasgranite slabs of the lagoon's edge, and then he hit the water like a knife and surface in front of me, water dripping like diamonds off his silk of bronze half-mask.
He jerked his head toward the entrance to the snaking path before eeling towards it, and I followed, sliding over a rapidslide that twisted blindly into sickening drop to the bottom. It was nearly enough. Then the rapidslide gave out to free-falling water and I saw just enough to know that the pool was empty of Jang--
I landed badly, shocking my held breath out of me.
We went down into shockingly warm water, and Saz grabbed me around the waist, kicking up to the surface, holding me while I kicked and struggled to get away, to get free, to run--
Then his mouth was on mine, giving me his air.
I tugged back in surprise, but his hand cradled me, and he breathed. I calmed, passing the breath back to him.
We'd only be under an instant. We rose calmly, breathing the same breath back until we broke surface and I gasped in fresh, holding steady while he kicked and held me up and took his own breath before touching his lips to mine.
The barest touch--
"Ooma!" Fisk shrieked behind me. "Have you gone zaradann?"
I brought my knees up, jacknifing away from Saz, but tilted too far back and went under the water, flailed back upright.
"He went in with no oxygen injection," Saz said over my splashing. "Nearly drowned himself."
"Exactly what I mean! The thralldrap frightened the wits out of everyone, leaping off the cliff like that! Kina's above with a hypno spray after screeching something about the crystal promenade--"
"I dove, Fisk," I sputtered. "It was a wild impulse."
"Well you better march up here and show everyone that you're all right. Really, ruining Junaya's party like this! You promok." She stomped off, face nearly as red as her hair.
I turned around in the water, and Saz looked at me. "Sorry about that."
What was he apologizing for? Keeping his head? Kissing me? Nearly getting caught by Fisk? "Don't give it a thought, old ooma. Shouldn't have went over like that. Lucky you'd had your oxygen."
"Oh, I didn't. I know how to swim without it," he said airily. "What was that?"
"I saw... it doesn't matter, I'm being a floop."
"The duel," Saz said.
He was still holding me. I was just fine, but one arm banded about my waist, and--was that-- "You've seen it."
"Of course, lo these many vreks ago."
I shifted enough to wedge my hip on his, tilting discreetly away. "Why did they--"
"No one knows, ooma. That scrap is all we have, passed from hand to surreptitious hand. All we know is that the winner was exiled for the rest of his life."
"They said," I whispered. "It's--I mean, how insumattly drumdik, out there--did he get new bodies? No, they wouldn't do that, the Vixaxn Committee love to say no--he got old out there, Saz, old and wrinkled and weaker and left out there to dry up--"
"He went Out There," Saz stopped me. "Out there, he could see the sky."
A flash of purple flowered branches, violet petals snatched by a hard wind--I saw it in my mind for an instant, sand gritting over my tongue--and then Saz's mouth again, coaxing mine open, the polite, inquiring dart of his tongue.
Shock at the base of my skull like a flare of sunlight. He--he just--
I pulled away, but gently. Saz released me, and the water pelted cold against my waist, wrenching a shiver from me.
"I apologize," Saz said. "That was ill-done."
"It's all right," I said. It was jubilation. I hid behind a small but cordial smile. "I had better go."
"You'd better."
I swam away to the side, made my appearance up the terraces, and made glad faces at everyone while I kissed Junaya and then unobtrusively left.
I was pelting down the slide-walks to House when impulse struck and I leapt from the Crystal Promenade again.
I really shouldn't do that. It hurts.
Continue, to Clouds and Secrets, Part 1