[Fic] "Clockwork" -- original
A businesswoman gripes. (3 definitions of 'spring')
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Clockwork
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The problem with portable clocks was that they had to be small, and then you couldn't use unspooling weights to power them. Instead, you had to use springs, and nobody had yet found a reliable way to regulate the unwinding of a spring. They could regulate weights and pendulums to a nicety, but not springs.
And so the smallest clocks were still large enough to dominate a mantel or a sideboard, none of them were of any use on the road where bumps and jolts and tilts threw their regulators off, and even the Grand Panjandrum would be forced to rely on the sun to tell the hours while riding in his palanquin.
All of which was no use whatsoever in helping Ayutha decide whether she had traveled long enough for it to be lunchtime on this miserable day, when the sky had the indecency to blanket the world in gray and snow though it ought to be warm enough for planting.
Oh, to hell with it all. She reigned in the horse, guiding him and her wagon to the side of the road, and hopped off her perch. The horse she tethered and gave a small measure of barley in his feedbag. The wagon she dusted, brushing the gathering snow from the canvass strapped over its belly. And for herself, she pulled a slice of dried cod, a chunk of biscuit, and a canteen from her bag.
The springs and gears and carved wooden pieces would be safe enough under cover. The horse would tend to itself well enough. And despite the hideous, unseasonable weather, Ayutha figured she could still reach Hajiju by sundown and deliver her cargo to the clockmakers who'd ordered it. May it be of more use to them than to her.
And when she was finished and paid, and she returned home, she was going to strangle Ojambi for leaping at this contract, money or no money. There were reasons she ran the business instead of her husband, and his ignorance of trade routes and weather patterns was currently a glaringly obvious one.
Still, Ayutha mused, tucking away her bag, dusting the wagon, and rehitching the horse, she wouldn't mind the free clock she would earn from this venture. And Ojambi was always good at helping her to unwind after a journey. Perhaps it wasn't such a pity that some things in life were still unpredictable, like spring-driven clocks and April weather.
They made the certainties of homecoming and love that much more sweet.
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Inspired by the 4 April 2004 15minuteficlets word: spring
Totally random and unconnected to anything else... at the moment. Though it may turn out to be somewhere in the same world as Ekanu, though perhaps not in the same time period. Actually, you know, the more I think about it, the more reasonable that sounds...
ETA: Yes, this is set in the same world. Ayutha lives on the continent of Chida, which is in the southern hemisphere; her country, Besmodu, is in the temperate regions rather than the subtropical parts. (Ekanu's stories so far take place on the continents of Arina and Yanomy, which are both in the northern hemisphere; on the Gwynorae archipelago, which lies between the two aforementioned continents; and in Vinaeo, which is on the northern coast of Ohiyesa, a mostly tropical continent that lies generally northeast of Chida.)
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Clockwork
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The problem with portable clocks was that they had to be small, and then you couldn't use unspooling weights to power them. Instead, you had to use springs, and nobody had yet found a reliable way to regulate the unwinding of a spring. They could regulate weights and pendulums to a nicety, but not springs.
And so the smallest clocks were still large enough to dominate a mantel or a sideboard, none of them were of any use on the road where bumps and jolts and tilts threw their regulators off, and even the Grand Panjandrum would be forced to rely on the sun to tell the hours while riding in his palanquin.
All of which was no use whatsoever in helping Ayutha decide whether she had traveled long enough for it to be lunchtime on this miserable day, when the sky had the indecency to blanket the world in gray and snow though it ought to be warm enough for planting.
Oh, to hell with it all. She reigned in the horse, guiding him and her wagon to the side of the road, and hopped off her perch. The horse she tethered and gave a small measure of barley in his feedbag. The wagon she dusted, brushing the gathering snow from the canvass strapped over its belly. And for herself, she pulled a slice of dried cod, a chunk of biscuit, and a canteen from her bag.
The springs and gears and carved wooden pieces would be safe enough under cover. The horse would tend to itself well enough. And despite the hideous, unseasonable weather, Ayutha figured she could still reach Hajiju by sundown and deliver her cargo to the clockmakers who'd ordered it. May it be of more use to them than to her.
And when she was finished and paid, and she returned home, she was going to strangle Ojambi for leaping at this contract, money or no money. There were reasons she ran the business instead of her husband, and his ignorance of trade routes and weather patterns was currently a glaringly obvious one.
Still, Ayutha mused, tucking away her bag, dusting the wagon, and rehitching the horse, she wouldn't mind the free clock she would earn from this venture. And Ojambi was always good at helping her to unwind after a journey. Perhaps it wasn't such a pity that some things in life were still unpredictable, like spring-driven clocks and April weather.
They made the certainties of homecoming and love that much more sweet.
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Inspired by the 4 April 2004 15minuteficlets word: spring
Totally random and unconnected to anything else... at the moment. Though it may turn out to be somewhere in the same world as Ekanu, though perhaps not in the same time period. Actually, you know, the more I think about it, the more reasonable that sounds...
ETA: Yes, this is set in the same world. Ayutha lives on the continent of Chida, which is in the southern hemisphere; her country, Besmodu, is in the temperate regions rather than the subtropical parts. (Ekanu's stories so far take place on the continents of Arina and Yanomy, which are both in the northern hemisphere; on the Gwynorae archipelago, which lies between the two aforementioned continents; and in Vinaeo, which is on the northern coast of Ohiyesa, a mostly tropical continent that lies generally northeast of Chida.)