Fic: The Root of the Problem
Title: The Root of the Problem (this isn't actually the title. It's more the name of the section--the actual project never got one. I'll figure it out later)
Rating: G?
Summary: "The Problem took root when Lasara declared Igna's secession from the Confederacy...."
Notes: Something I wrote back in February. It's not often that I do stuff in completely original universes--it's a lot of effort for me, cause I don't want to make contradictions and stuff. But anyway, this was going to be multi-part. We'll see how that goes.
Anyway, this came out of a mythology project I had to do...which was to create your own. Since I'd been doing Chinese mythology at the time, the structure started out very Asian. Many of the names started out as Latin, although there is some German and Celtic mixed in there for the Hell of it. And it I continued, it would probably end up focusing more on the politics of what's going on than some sort of adventure the main character has. A sort of Forrest Gump thing, where he takes part, and it sort of seems about him, but it's more about the time he lived in.
The Problem took root when Lasara declared Igna's secession from the Confederacy.
Of course, roots are not the beginning, the Seed is. And to get to the Seed, we have to go back some nine hundred years, when the Conflict was simply an Exasperation.
As with all conflicts, there is an Us and a Them. We are Igni, from Igna, and They are Irran from Irra. Simple, right? We are people born from Fire, with tanned skin and dark features. They come from the Water, with white-blonde hair and sea-green eyes.
There are several stories about how the Conflict-not even enough to be called a war-started. Some say one of Us sucker-punched one of Them after he was cheated out of a fish sale. Others say a blacksmith from Here hit an apprentice from There who was being argumentative. But no matter the story, two facts are constant: They instigated and We delivered the first physical blow.
So We decided that this was enough, and marched on Them. It wasn't so much an army as a mob of angry farmers with torches and pitchforks tramping across a desert, through a mountain range, and into enemy lands. Just in time for the rainy season. So We left after a few people died of pneumonia or some other disease that comes with large amounts of water. After which They decided to march on Us.
And so a mob of angry fishermen tramped through a mountain range, across a desert, and into Our pass with no range weapons. They were horribly defeated, and Outsiders decided they had enough. While this may not have hindered either Us or Them, the Outsiders were actually a group of many peoples whose economies had suffered.
Us and Them reluctantly agreed to join a confederacy with the Outsiders and proceeded to steadfastly ignore each other (and everyone else) except to argue. Marriage outside of the respective peoples was out of the question-two groups of hot-headed, proud traditionalists.
Because of the fact that we are born from Fire, there is a stronger connection to the goddess Ignatia (hence the name of our people). Thus, whenever the Confederacy declared Ignatia's high priest, he was always Igni. The same went for the high priest of the water goddess, Irragare-he has always been Irran. It was as simple as that.
A week before the Problem really took root, the Confederacy declared a new high priest after the previous one had died. All of Igna swelled with pride as Marus prepared to step forward and accept the position. But when the name was announced, the man called was not Igni.
It was like a slap in the face. We all knew that the rest of the Confederacy were frustrated with Igna, and would take action. However, we thought that the Council would argue with Lasara, our head, for a little while and force some small legislation on us. This was far beyond that, though. We were being brushed off, all but blatantly told we were not needed.
Which led to the Problem, which is really too complicated to put into one sentence. The most simple way to put it was that the Problem was that they had a problem with us, which would eventually backfire onto everyone else. This is what happens when you insult hot-headed, proud traditionalists as badly as they did to the people of Igna.
The moment the news about the secession got out, we prepared to leave the city. While trade would probably continue eventually, for the time Igna would become isolated, as if to convey our feelings: if they didn't need us, we didn't need them. The adjustment would be strange-about forty to fifty percent of Igni were smiths of some sort-but it was an adjustment people were willing to make.
We had arrived a week before the announcement with the normal flow of travelers. Now most everyone were Igni who had been semi-permanent residents. I was on one of dozens of river-boats, and the banks were crowded with carts and carriages and people carrying their belongings on their backs. The journey on the river would take us South, into the mountains surrounding Igna, about a week. However for many others the journey would split off from the river and around the mountains, into the desert-it was three weeks journey on foot.
Marus was silent in what our captain thought was a wise meditation. However, after five years apprenticing under him, I knew it was actually a well-disguised moping. Despite all our pride, there was an ever present childishness in all Igni. Hundreds of years worth of interbreeding within your own community eventually brings about genetic pitfalls. This was one of them.
The problem with Marus’ silence was that, after the first exploration, I had very little to do. While this was no rowboat, it certainly wasn‘t a ship. Our section of the cabin was big enough to hold a small table and two roll-out beds. The deck was maybe seven or eight feet at the bow and stern, and the sides were four feet. The captain, Borran, was not Igni-really, Igni had little experience with anything larger than a dory-but rather from some southern province. His hair was an interesting shade of reddish-brown and he had a great shaggy beard. He had little formal education, but when he was talking about sea-faring (or in this case, river-faring), he could completely loose me in what he was saying.
I eventually convinced him to teach me how to steer, so he wouldn’t ever have to leave the boat go on its own. Apparently, he worked a twenty-hour day.
“You get used to it,” he said. “You just have to break yourself in, another hour every week or so.”
I ended up spending the rest of my time sitting on the deck and staring into the water. I found it was rather interesting watching the reflection of the sky and the other boats, and knowing it could be broken at any time. When that happened, I could see fish swimming by, and then away when the boat got too close.
About noon on the fourth day we heard someone shouting for Marus from the shore. He rode a brown horse that was quite obviously running out of energy. On his chest was a coat of arms-one of Lasara’s messengers.
“It’s Irra,” he called. “Amaran resigned from his post-they’ve declared independence. They feel that what happened with Ignatia’s High Priest would eventually happen to them, and they aren’t going to wait around for it to happen to them. Lasara is going to Irra to meet with their headman-emperor now-and she requests that you go to.”
“Tell Lasara that I will join her,” Marus called back. “But you might want a different horse. That one looks like it might collapse soon.”
The messenger laughed and turned his horse. The boat had come to a near halt, and Borran was working at turning it around. He cut off another boat, and angry shouts sounded across the water.
“Shut your gobs,” he yelled back. “You don’t own this river.”
I might have laughed and cheered, but I was too busy thinking. Amaron was the High Priest from Irra, and for him to resign was a very bold move. The rest of the Confederacy would no doubt panic about both Irra and Igna’s secessions, feeling that things would be torn apart. However, both the Irran and Igni were proud people, and not go back without a fight. Neither would yield before the other did, in a strange battle of wills. I wondered whether this meant there would be a war.
“Hey, Barron,” I said.
“Hm?”
“How long till we reach Irra?” I asked
“Well,” Barron considered for a moment. “We have to backtrack a day or so, and it’s about nine days from there.”
I groaned.
---
Rating: G?
Summary: "The Problem took root when Lasara declared Igna's secession from the Confederacy...."
Notes: Something I wrote back in February. It's not often that I do stuff in completely original universes--it's a lot of effort for me, cause I don't want to make contradictions and stuff. But anyway, this was going to be multi-part. We'll see how that goes.
Anyway, this came out of a mythology project I had to do...which was to create your own. Since I'd been doing Chinese mythology at the time, the structure started out very Asian. Many of the names started out as Latin, although there is some German and Celtic mixed in there for the Hell of it. And it I continued, it would probably end up focusing more on the politics of what's going on than some sort of adventure the main character has. A sort of Forrest Gump thing, where he takes part, and it sort of seems about him, but it's more about the time he lived in.
The Problem took root when Lasara declared Igna's secession from the Confederacy.
Of course, roots are not the beginning, the Seed is. And to get to the Seed, we have to go back some nine hundred years, when the Conflict was simply an Exasperation.
As with all conflicts, there is an Us and a Them. We are Igni, from Igna, and They are Irran from Irra. Simple, right? We are people born from Fire, with tanned skin and dark features. They come from the Water, with white-blonde hair and sea-green eyes.
There are several stories about how the Conflict-not even enough to be called a war-started. Some say one of Us sucker-punched one of Them after he was cheated out of a fish sale. Others say a blacksmith from Here hit an apprentice from There who was being argumentative. But no matter the story, two facts are constant: They instigated and We delivered the first physical blow.
So We decided that this was enough, and marched on Them. It wasn't so much an army as a mob of angry farmers with torches and pitchforks tramping across a desert, through a mountain range, and into enemy lands. Just in time for the rainy season. So We left after a few people died of pneumonia or some other disease that comes with large amounts of water. After which They decided to march on Us.
And so a mob of angry fishermen tramped through a mountain range, across a desert, and into Our pass with no range weapons. They were horribly defeated, and Outsiders decided they had enough. While this may not have hindered either Us or Them, the Outsiders were actually a group of many peoples whose economies had suffered.
Us and Them reluctantly agreed to join a confederacy with the Outsiders and proceeded to steadfastly ignore each other (and everyone else) except to argue. Marriage outside of the respective peoples was out of the question-two groups of hot-headed, proud traditionalists.
Because of the fact that we are born from Fire, there is a stronger connection to the goddess Ignatia (hence the name of our people). Thus, whenever the Confederacy declared Ignatia's high priest, he was always Igni. The same went for the high priest of the water goddess, Irragare-he has always been Irran. It was as simple as that.
A week before the Problem really took root, the Confederacy declared a new high priest after the previous one had died. All of Igna swelled with pride as Marus prepared to step forward and accept the position. But when the name was announced, the man called was not Igni.
It was like a slap in the face. We all knew that the rest of the Confederacy were frustrated with Igna, and would take action. However, we thought that the Council would argue with Lasara, our head, for a little while and force some small legislation on us. This was far beyond that, though. We were being brushed off, all but blatantly told we were not needed.
Which led to the Problem, which is really too complicated to put into one sentence. The most simple way to put it was that the Problem was that they had a problem with us, which would eventually backfire onto everyone else. This is what happens when you insult hot-headed, proud traditionalists as badly as they did to the people of Igna.
The moment the news about the secession got out, we prepared to leave the city. While trade would probably continue eventually, for the time Igna would become isolated, as if to convey our feelings: if they didn't need us, we didn't need them. The adjustment would be strange-about forty to fifty percent of Igni were smiths of some sort-but it was an adjustment people were willing to make.
We had arrived a week before the announcement with the normal flow of travelers. Now most everyone were Igni who had been semi-permanent residents. I was on one of dozens of river-boats, and the banks were crowded with carts and carriages and people carrying their belongings on their backs. The journey on the river would take us South, into the mountains surrounding Igna, about a week. However for many others the journey would split off from the river and around the mountains, into the desert-it was three weeks journey on foot.
Marus was silent in what our captain thought was a wise meditation. However, after five years apprenticing under him, I knew it was actually a well-disguised moping. Despite all our pride, there was an ever present childishness in all Igni. Hundreds of years worth of interbreeding within your own community eventually brings about genetic pitfalls. This was one of them.
The problem with Marus’ silence was that, after the first exploration, I had very little to do. While this was no rowboat, it certainly wasn‘t a ship. Our section of the cabin was big enough to hold a small table and two roll-out beds. The deck was maybe seven or eight feet at the bow and stern, and the sides were four feet. The captain, Borran, was not Igni-really, Igni had little experience with anything larger than a dory-but rather from some southern province. His hair was an interesting shade of reddish-brown and he had a great shaggy beard. He had little formal education, but when he was talking about sea-faring (or in this case, river-faring), he could completely loose me in what he was saying.
I eventually convinced him to teach me how to steer, so he wouldn’t ever have to leave the boat go on its own. Apparently, he worked a twenty-hour day.
“You get used to it,” he said. “You just have to break yourself in, another hour every week or so.”
I ended up spending the rest of my time sitting on the deck and staring into the water. I found it was rather interesting watching the reflection of the sky and the other boats, and knowing it could be broken at any time. When that happened, I could see fish swimming by, and then away when the boat got too close.
About noon on the fourth day we heard someone shouting for Marus from the shore. He rode a brown horse that was quite obviously running out of energy. On his chest was a coat of arms-one of Lasara’s messengers.
“It’s Irra,” he called. “Amaran resigned from his post-they’ve declared independence. They feel that what happened with Ignatia’s High Priest would eventually happen to them, and they aren’t going to wait around for it to happen to them. Lasara is going to Irra to meet with their headman-emperor now-and she requests that you go to.”
“Tell Lasara that I will join her,” Marus called back. “But you might want a different horse. That one looks like it might collapse soon.”
The messenger laughed and turned his horse. The boat had come to a near halt, and Borran was working at turning it around. He cut off another boat, and angry shouts sounded across the water.
“Shut your gobs,” he yelled back. “You don’t own this river.”
I might have laughed and cheered, but I was too busy thinking. Amaron was the High Priest from Irra, and for him to resign was a very bold move. The rest of the Confederacy would no doubt panic about both Irra and Igna’s secessions, feeling that things would be torn apart. However, both the Irran and Igni were proud people, and not go back without a fight. Neither would yield before the other did, in a strange battle of wills. I wondered whether this meant there would be a war.
“Hey, Barron,” I said.
“Hm?”
“How long till we reach Irra?” I asked
“Well,” Barron considered for a moment. “We have to backtrack a day or so, and it’s about nine days from there.”
I groaned.
---