fic: A Curious Creature
notes: my holiday project for writing group. we had sense prompts and had to include all five: the smell of hot oil, the taste of blood, the feel of keys in your pocket, the perseid meteor shower, and deafness. thanks to dear-tiger for squee, beta duties, and the title.
It happened the night the stars fell out of the sky, that she was cursed with longer life.
This is the punishment the gods demand, she was told. You will be denied a quick death. You will be denied an honorable death.
The priests chanted and sang and the blood from their sacrifices ran in thick rivulets down the side of the altar as the stars sprayed in arcs across the roof of the sky. She looked up, wondering what stories those stars would tell, ignoring the voices of the priests and the flickering light of the torches and the imagined approval of the gods.
They painted her eyelids and her tongue with blood. She licked her teeth and bared them at the priests, bloody and feral, her mouth filling with the hot taste of the copper plates on the temple door.
She had wanted to know their secrets, the designs hammered into those plates. She had licked them once, trying to understand. She had wanted to know so many things, chief among them the secret to immortality, the near knowledge of which had brought the priests to call down their curse.
Her people valued the glorious, violent death achieved in battle, or the sanctified death achieved in ritual sacrifice to the gods. The most honorable deaths were early, and bloody.
But she had wanted to live forever. It was the priests' idea of dishonor to prolong her life.
She was banished from the village once the ceremony had finished. She was allowed a shift but no sandals, for the priests were not so barbaric as to turn her out naked. She strode away from her people with her head high and the fading taste of sacrificial blood on the back of her tongue, out of the fading night and into the dawn.
She traveled at night, under cover of the stars and the moon, when she could not be seen and in places where she could not be compelled to speak. She slept in caves. She felt no hunger, no desire, and as the years passed, she forgot that she ever had. She followed the wolves and the deer north as they ran, tracking them over the mountains and across farmland and scrubland and desert, crossing from one district to the next, one country to the next, over boundary lines she could not see and cared little for in any case.
She forgot her name, her people, her place of birth. She was a shape moving across the land, burrowing into caves, sleeping, watching the sky, listening for creatures treading the earth. She forgot that she had been cursed. She forgot why. She knew she had been a woman once, but she no longer knew what that meant.
But she remembered that she had wanted to live forever.
Many years and even more miles from the place where the priests had painted her tongue with blood and cursed her, she came across a man in a robe who stirred something in her. He was dusty and smelled of sweat and an unfamiliar eagerness, and as he came up to her, his hand raised, his voice soothing, she knew what she wanted from him. She did not know his language, nor did she remember hers, and she could not tell him in words that while she did not know how long she had lived, she did know that life was finally coming to an end.
She put her palms on his temples and her mouth over his, and she breathed in his warm breath, tasting his past and his future. She tasted love for a god and admiration for other men, the call to save the heathen and the security of a man who knew his path. She tasted peace and fear and chills and warmth, and she tasted the sun on his face and the dirt under his sandals, and she tasted the thudding of his heart and the murmuring of words she did not understand.
Most importantly, she tasted the life he had yet to live, decades stretching in front of him, and she felt her own dying years replenished as she swallowed his.
She sucked everything from him until he was empty of life and emotion, and she let him fall. She was full, for the first time in years so numberless she could not count them, and she was satisfied that she would not yet die. She would have been grateful if she remembered how.
The man had carried in the pocket of his robe a ring with three iron keys hanging from it. She stripped his rope belt to threads and hung the ring around her neck, to keep her company with its jingling as she passed through the caves under the hills. She did not have pockets in her shift, but if she had, she might have filled them with keys.
This was her land now, this land on which she had found the man in the robe with so many years ahead of him, years which now filled her. Bands of men and women crossed it from time to time. She could taste them from a distance, could taste that they loved and hated and wanted and needed and felt sorrow and joy. She could taste their futures in them, the years they had not yet lived. She knew those years unspent would sustain her when she used up her own.
She took the ring of keys from around her neck and hung it from a rock spur protruding from the wall of her cave. It made too much noise as she walked. Men and women could hear her coming, and if they were prepared for her, she could get nothing from them.
There came settlers as well, who tasted like an eagerness to stop that the roving bands did not share. These settlers told stories as they sat around their fires at night, cooking meat and caring for their weapons. Some nights she crept close to hear. She remembered that she had once been curious about the workings of the world and of men and nature, and she learned that if she spent too much time in her caves, in the silence under the earth, she would forget how to listen, and she could turn her ear to the wild creatures that crept through the caves or scurried through the brush, but she would hear nothing.
She did not like this loss of her hearing. She came to desire the sound of men and women talking, the taste of their joys and sorrows and loves and hates, the smell of them as they crossed her land or gathered in the settlements they built, the sense of the years they had yet to live. She was overwhelmed the first time she ventured into one of their towns, surrounded as she was by so much life, so much potential, so many things to nourish her. She learned to take what she needed, to taste as much as she dared, and to go.
She did not remember happiness, but she remembered curiosity, and she remembered satisfaction, and she remembered the will to live. The things men and women ate did not fill her, and while she might sense the pleasure a man with his hair in a long braid might feel as he chased pieces of meat around a wide metal bowl over a fire, the hot oil smell of his cooking stirred nothing in her. She preferred the thin scent of his determination and the sour taste of his homesickness and the knowledge of the many years he had left, years to be spent in a land not his own until she took them from him.
On nights like the one in which she was cursed, she would stand outside and watch the stars streaking across the sky. She did not remember the buildings of the village, or the words of the priests, or the taste of blood on her tongue. She did not remember her own name. But she knew how to stave off her death. She knew how to feed her curiosity.
And so she would stay in her caves, emerging from time to time to watch the stars, or to taste the love or desire or rage inside a person's heart, or to eat the years they might still live, or to listen to the stories men and women told each other. She did not remember how to be human, but she was still a curious creature, and just as she had when she licked the copper plates on a long-gone temple's doors, she still wanted to understand.
It happened the night the stars fell out of the sky, that she was cursed with longer life.
This is the punishment the gods demand, she was told. You will be denied a quick death. You will be denied an honorable death.
The priests chanted and sang and the blood from their sacrifices ran in thick rivulets down the side of the altar as the stars sprayed in arcs across the roof of the sky. She looked up, wondering what stories those stars would tell, ignoring the voices of the priests and the flickering light of the torches and the imagined approval of the gods.
They painted her eyelids and her tongue with blood. She licked her teeth and bared them at the priests, bloody and feral, her mouth filling with the hot taste of the copper plates on the temple door.
She had wanted to know their secrets, the designs hammered into those plates. She had licked them once, trying to understand. She had wanted to know so many things, chief among them the secret to immortality, the near knowledge of which had brought the priests to call down their curse.
Her people valued the glorious, violent death achieved in battle, or the sanctified death achieved in ritual sacrifice to the gods. The most honorable deaths were early, and bloody.
But she had wanted to live forever. It was the priests' idea of dishonor to prolong her life.
She was banished from the village once the ceremony had finished. She was allowed a shift but no sandals, for the priests were not so barbaric as to turn her out naked. She strode away from her people with her head high and the fading taste of sacrificial blood on the back of her tongue, out of the fading night and into the dawn.
She traveled at night, under cover of the stars and the moon, when she could not be seen and in places where she could not be compelled to speak. She slept in caves. She felt no hunger, no desire, and as the years passed, she forgot that she ever had. She followed the wolves and the deer north as they ran, tracking them over the mountains and across farmland and scrubland and desert, crossing from one district to the next, one country to the next, over boundary lines she could not see and cared little for in any case.
She forgot her name, her people, her place of birth. She was a shape moving across the land, burrowing into caves, sleeping, watching the sky, listening for creatures treading the earth. She forgot that she had been cursed. She forgot why. She knew she had been a woman once, but she no longer knew what that meant.
But she remembered that she had wanted to live forever.
Many years and even more miles from the place where the priests had painted her tongue with blood and cursed her, she came across a man in a robe who stirred something in her. He was dusty and smelled of sweat and an unfamiliar eagerness, and as he came up to her, his hand raised, his voice soothing, she knew what she wanted from him. She did not know his language, nor did she remember hers, and she could not tell him in words that while she did not know how long she had lived, she did know that life was finally coming to an end.
She put her palms on his temples and her mouth over his, and she breathed in his warm breath, tasting his past and his future. She tasted love for a god and admiration for other men, the call to save the heathen and the security of a man who knew his path. She tasted peace and fear and chills and warmth, and she tasted the sun on his face and the dirt under his sandals, and she tasted the thudding of his heart and the murmuring of words she did not understand.
Most importantly, she tasted the life he had yet to live, decades stretching in front of him, and she felt her own dying years replenished as she swallowed his.
She sucked everything from him until he was empty of life and emotion, and she let him fall. She was full, for the first time in years so numberless she could not count them, and she was satisfied that she would not yet die. She would have been grateful if she remembered how.
The man had carried in the pocket of his robe a ring with three iron keys hanging from it. She stripped his rope belt to threads and hung the ring around her neck, to keep her company with its jingling as she passed through the caves under the hills. She did not have pockets in her shift, but if she had, she might have filled them with keys.
This was her land now, this land on which she had found the man in the robe with so many years ahead of him, years which now filled her. Bands of men and women crossed it from time to time. She could taste them from a distance, could taste that they loved and hated and wanted and needed and felt sorrow and joy. She could taste their futures in them, the years they had not yet lived. She knew those years unspent would sustain her when she used up her own.
She took the ring of keys from around her neck and hung it from a rock spur protruding from the wall of her cave. It made too much noise as she walked. Men and women could hear her coming, and if they were prepared for her, she could get nothing from them.
There came settlers as well, who tasted like an eagerness to stop that the roving bands did not share. These settlers told stories as they sat around their fires at night, cooking meat and caring for their weapons. Some nights she crept close to hear. She remembered that she had once been curious about the workings of the world and of men and nature, and she learned that if she spent too much time in her caves, in the silence under the earth, she would forget how to listen, and she could turn her ear to the wild creatures that crept through the caves or scurried through the brush, but she would hear nothing.
She did not like this loss of her hearing. She came to desire the sound of men and women talking, the taste of their joys and sorrows and loves and hates, the smell of them as they crossed her land or gathered in the settlements they built, the sense of the years they had yet to live. She was overwhelmed the first time she ventured into one of their towns, surrounded as she was by so much life, so much potential, so many things to nourish her. She learned to take what she needed, to taste as much as she dared, and to go.
She did not remember happiness, but she remembered curiosity, and she remembered satisfaction, and she remembered the will to live. The things men and women ate did not fill her, and while she might sense the pleasure a man with his hair in a long braid might feel as he chased pieces of meat around a wide metal bowl over a fire, the hot oil smell of his cooking stirred nothing in her. She preferred the thin scent of his determination and the sour taste of his homesickness and the knowledge of the many years he had left, years to be spent in a land not his own until she took them from him.
On nights like the one in which she was cursed, she would stand outside and watch the stars streaking across the sky. She did not remember the buildings of the village, or the words of the priests, or the taste of blood on her tongue. She did not remember her own name. But she knew how to stave off her death. She knew how to feed her curiosity.
And so she would stay in her caves, emerging from time to time to watch the stars, or to taste the love or desire or rage inside a person's heart, or to eat the years they might still live, or to listen to the stories men and women told each other. She did not remember how to be human, but she was still a curious creature, and just as she had when she licked the copper plates on a long-gone temple's doors, she still wanted to understand.