(no subject)
Title: Clouds and Secrets, Part 1
Email: tori.siikanen@gmail.com
Fandom: Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun
Rating: PG
Content: no good idea goes unpunished, so imagine what happens when you go off on impulse...
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.
13.
Clouds and Secrets, Part 1
"Enter previous design, change body type: Isis," I said, and examined the base design long and thoroughly, adapting and adjusting to just the right lengthening of the legs, a little more curve to the lips, and a touch more fierceness to the cheekbones. Groshing! I got into it right away and sang a little of a new Jang love-song while waiting for the flyer, experimenting with standing on one leg, then the other.
The right seemed a touch weak.
I got off at Jade Tower and spent a little more time picking out a set of ten rings, opting for thin bands of gold, and paid - oh, how I paid! Laughing, praising, clapping my hands and so forth, and I swayed my way towards Home.
"Attlevey," a handsome male said to me.
"Attlevey," I said, and sidestepped. It was nice to know that I'd designed another derisann body, even though I wasn't at all on the market...
"Messages for you," my Q-R guardian chirped, and I kicked off my sandals and sank into the white furred floor. I let them follow me around the house as I rifled through the wardrobe, looking for better clothes than Limbo's.
I discarded a soft rose satin of glass tunic as Junaya called to make sure I was all right. Then Fisk, as I discarded the sapphire, violet, and black smoke gowns - inviting me to go somewhere, the location more spectacular and expensive every time she called back. Oh, Fisk. My circle and Saz's looked to meld, but circles tend to not go much higher than a half-dozen or so, and there'd be Jang in tears sooner or later. She was scared of being cut out. Dammik would probably evaporate without even noticing - where was Dammik, anyway? Had he even been at Junaya's party?
I didn't have time to signal him, though, not with what I had planned for Saz...
A message from a strange female waited patiently for Fisk's exhortations to please call her back, while I tossed gowns on the floor. Not the scarlet. Bronze silk of air? No. Silver-water crochet? No. White cloud of gauze?
I held it up to my bosom, studying it and the strange female. Wait... midnight sky hair, Opal dawn eyes... not a strange female, precisely. She was at Junaya's party and flitted from me to that floop Yana like one of the gem-wings that romped in the garden. Now on the prowl for me?
Too late, ooma, I thought, and then the graceful female started speaking.
I laughed aloud until I wiped my eyes. "Much too late."
I held the white cloud of gauze gown up again. It screamed my intentions, but...
The newly female Kina's message was coming to an end, and I caught a flash - Saz had also called, but he hadn't left a message.
Cloud of gauze it is, then. He'd know me. I'd designed the body that way on purpose - a feminine version of my last body, with slim curved strength. He'd be at Ilex Park. I would meet him there, and he would know me, and he would know why, and we would waste no time--
Wait should I bring a picnic? Or perhaps ask him to dine at Blue Sky - he might be hungry. Or he could decide to whet his appetite on me. A dozen layers of fabric scraped to a thin film floated to the floor, only the tips of amethyst enameled toes peeked out. Too dark? What if he hadn't got his rings? We could buy more.
I wittered until I'd taken a silver-water cordial, but it didn't settle my nerves. Walking helped, though, and so I eschewed the slidewalks and waterways in favour of the Jade-treed paths that wound all through Four-BEE, a web of paths that bound us all in useless leisure...
Yes, ooma. Resent them. It's as fine a distraction as any.
Males admired me as I practiced my gliding, string-of-pearls walk in towering golden sandals, letting the cloud of gauze gown flirt with the dome-generated breeze, heavy agate beads in my hair beating a tattoo against my thighs and calves. I swayed past their attleveys and antics, mysterious, distracted...
Followed.
I pretended delight at a flower-wing, and flung up a (bare-fingered) hand. The tiny android insect obediently lighted on my fingers. It was green as a new leaf on the underside, metal-blue sky on the other, shot with black stripes and lilac-violet spots like eyes on its three-tailed wings. Groshing tiny thing, made to decorate the world.
I swept a curtain of braids away from my left shoulder and snuck a glimpse behind me as I hefted it back into the air.
Five Jang males packed behind me in a flying wedges, the flanks trailing the most insumatt male. Honestly, he was derisann--tall, with the slightest pearled tinge to porcelain skin, slim and muscled--marvelous specimen. Violet-black hair, Lilac eyes, and girdled in an amethyst mesh kilt belted with ambers.
What a waste. Fisk should have been here to console his rejected heart. Or Kina - I grinned at that thought, shattering what mystique I'd been carrying.
An Older Person - quite soolka, really - looked at me, past me, and at me again, smiling indulgently. Probably thinking fondly of the old Jang days of courtship and chase. I smiled back, and this thread of the park-web anchored into the dueling greensward of Ilex Park. Stupid to call it a greensward when the grass was purple. The blades bent under my sandals, crushed stems releasing lemon perfume. My own (microscopic) garden smelled of violets and the blades were scarlet - not expansive enough to be called a greensward, whatever the colour--
Onk. I'm babbling to myself. Get a grip on your graks, you promok--whoops, don't have them any more, ha, ha...
And there was Saz, dueling.
My body pounded as if I had just fought, had leapt from Junaya's waterfall once more, from the ziggurat of the Zeefar Monument. Saz, ooma-kasma derisann Saz, twinned blades whirling as he grinned. His opponent moved fast enough with only one and a small shield, dancing as light footed as my mad fencing glare. I edged forward through the watching circle.
Saz's partner wore his hair short, exchanged glamorous height for speed and agility, steady-footed strength and nimble steps. He'd slitted eyes like a dragon's his skin bronze and dappled nearly like scales, his hair a shade lighter than that. He'd designed his nose to look broke, jutting like an arrogant cliff. Better than beautiful, he was interesting.
He led with his shield, I realized. The shorter male thrust it outward when he wanted to advance, but didn't carry his leg forward until after the shield was where he wanted his body. I would have exploited it already, and if I noticed, Saz was only politely ignoring it until he wanted to end the bout.
The pair in front of me parted; I stepped in the gap. A breeze caught my gown and lifted the hem in kissing fingers. That didn't distract Saz; he'd look at the flowing distraction when he had time for it.
And when he did, he recognized me.
He stared until his opponent managed to set off the array to his right arm, rendering it useless. The crowd gasped, and applauded this upset, glancing round to see what distracted him, found me. By the time they turned their stares back Saz had had enough. He stepped into that shield gap and knocked his good blade straight into his opponent's "heart."
Broken Nose's harness twitched his nerves and sent him to the lemon-scented grass, and only then did I remember - it was right here that someone died, rorls upon rorlsago.
The crowd roared for Saz. Saz stared at me until my smile wilted into discomfort. What was wrong?
But as soon as the win registered, Saz's arm sprang to life and he helped his foe up, clasping wrists with him before walking over to me.
The anxiety I had nursed on silver-water cordial woke up and wailed in my belly. I tried to read his emotions on half his face - the left half masked in gold today, the surface of it engraved in whorls.
He came to me and kept coming until I had to tilt my head back to see him. He said nothing, content to examine me.
What could I--
He settled his hands on my shoulders. I'd thought this body strong? Farathoom, what a fool.
"You got a new body."
"Hours old," I said, "but the right foot's unacceptably weak."
He threw back his head and laughed. Mirth melted the fear in my gut, and it growled.
We nearly bashed our heads together, glancing down. But then...
"Me too," he said.
More? Yes, ooma. Clouds and Secrets, Part 2
Email: tori.siikanen@gmail.com
Fandom: Tanith Lee's Biting the Sun
Rating: PG
Content: no good idea goes unpunished, so imagine what happens when you go off on impulse...
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.
13.
Clouds and Secrets, Part 1
"Enter previous design, change body type: Isis," I said, and examined the base design long and thoroughly, adapting and adjusting to just the right lengthening of the legs, a little more curve to the lips, and a touch more fierceness to the cheekbones. Groshing! I got into it right away and sang a little of a new Jang love-song while waiting for the flyer, experimenting with standing on one leg, then the other.
The right seemed a touch weak.
I got off at Jade Tower and spent a little more time picking out a set of ten rings, opting for thin bands of gold, and paid - oh, how I paid! Laughing, praising, clapping my hands and so forth, and I swayed my way towards Home.
"Attlevey," a handsome male said to me.
"Attlevey," I said, and sidestepped. It was nice to know that I'd designed another derisann body, even though I wasn't at all on the market...
"Messages for you," my Q-R guardian chirped, and I kicked off my sandals and sank into the white furred floor. I let them follow me around the house as I rifled through the wardrobe, looking for better clothes than Limbo's.
I discarded a soft rose satin of glass tunic as Junaya called to make sure I was all right. Then Fisk, as I discarded the sapphire, violet, and black smoke gowns - inviting me to go somewhere, the location more spectacular and expensive every time she called back. Oh, Fisk. My circle and Saz's looked to meld, but circles tend to not go much higher than a half-dozen or so, and there'd be Jang in tears sooner or later. She was scared of being cut out. Dammik would probably evaporate without even noticing - where was Dammik, anyway? Had he even been at Junaya's party?
I didn't have time to signal him, though, not with what I had planned for Saz...
A message from a strange female waited patiently for Fisk's exhortations to please call her back, while I tossed gowns on the floor. Not the scarlet. Bronze silk of air? No. Silver-water crochet? No. White cloud of gauze?
I held it up to my bosom, studying it and the strange female. Wait... midnight sky hair, Opal dawn eyes... not a strange female, precisely. She was at Junaya's party and flitted from me to that floop Yana like one of the gem-wings that romped in the garden. Now on the prowl for me?
Too late, ooma, I thought, and then the graceful female started speaking.
I laughed aloud until I wiped my eyes. "Much too late."
I held the white cloud of gauze gown up again. It screamed my intentions, but...
The newly female Kina's message was coming to an end, and I caught a flash - Saz had also called, but he hadn't left a message.
Cloud of gauze it is, then. He'd know me. I'd designed the body that way on purpose - a feminine version of my last body, with slim curved strength. He'd be at Ilex Park. I would meet him there, and he would know me, and he would know why, and we would waste no time--
Wait should I bring a picnic? Or perhaps ask him to dine at Blue Sky - he might be hungry. Or he could decide to whet his appetite on me. A dozen layers of fabric scraped to a thin film floated to the floor, only the tips of amethyst enameled toes peeked out. Too dark? What if he hadn't got his rings? We could buy more.
I wittered until I'd taken a silver-water cordial, but it didn't settle my nerves. Walking helped, though, and so I eschewed the slidewalks and waterways in favour of the Jade-treed paths that wound all through Four-BEE, a web of paths that bound us all in useless leisure...
Yes, ooma. Resent them. It's as fine a distraction as any.
Males admired me as I practiced my gliding, string-of-pearls walk in towering golden sandals, letting the cloud of gauze gown flirt with the dome-generated breeze, heavy agate beads in my hair beating a tattoo against my thighs and calves. I swayed past their attleveys and antics, mysterious, distracted...
Followed.
I pretended delight at a flower-wing, and flung up a (bare-fingered) hand. The tiny android insect obediently lighted on my fingers. It was green as a new leaf on the underside, metal-blue sky on the other, shot with black stripes and lilac-violet spots like eyes on its three-tailed wings. Groshing tiny thing, made to decorate the world.
I swept a curtain of braids away from my left shoulder and snuck a glimpse behind me as I hefted it back into the air.
Five Jang males packed behind me in a flying wedges, the flanks trailing the most insumatt male. Honestly, he was derisann--tall, with the slightest pearled tinge to porcelain skin, slim and muscled--marvelous specimen. Violet-black hair, Lilac eyes, and girdled in an amethyst mesh kilt belted with ambers.
What a waste. Fisk should have been here to console his rejected heart. Or Kina - I grinned at that thought, shattering what mystique I'd been carrying.
An Older Person - quite soolka, really - looked at me, past me, and at me again, smiling indulgently. Probably thinking fondly of the old Jang days of courtship and chase. I smiled back, and this thread of the park-web anchored into the dueling greensward of Ilex Park. Stupid to call it a greensward when the grass was purple. The blades bent under my sandals, crushed stems releasing lemon perfume. My own (microscopic) garden smelled of violets and the blades were scarlet - not expansive enough to be called a greensward, whatever the colour--
Onk. I'm babbling to myself. Get a grip on your graks, you promok--whoops, don't have them any more, ha, ha...
And there was Saz, dueling.
My body pounded as if I had just fought, had leapt from Junaya's waterfall once more, from the ziggurat of the Zeefar Monument. Saz, ooma-kasma derisann Saz, twinned blades whirling as he grinned. His opponent moved fast enough with only one and a small shield, dancing as light footed as my mad fencing glare. I edged forward through the watching circle.
Saz's partner wore his hair short, exchanged glamorous height for speed and agility, steady-footed strength and nimble steps. He'd slitted eyes like a dragon's his skin bronze and dappled nearly like scales, his hair a shade lighter than that. He'd designed his nose to look broke, jutting like an arrogant cliff. Better than beautiful, he was interesting.
He led with his shield, I realized. The shorter male thrust it outward when he wanted to advance, but didn't carry his leg forward until after the shield was where he wanted his body. I would have exploited it already, and if I noticed, Saz was only politely ignoring it until he wanted to end the bout.
The pair in front of me parted; I stepped in the gap. A breeze caught my gown and lifted the hem in kissing fingers. That didn't distract Saz; he'd look at the flowing distraction when he had time for it.
And when he did, he recognized me.
He stared until his opponent managed to set off the array to his right arm, rendering it useless. The crowd gasped, and applauded this upset, glancing round to see what distracted him, found me. By the time they turned their stares back Saz had had enough. He stepped into that shield gap and knocked his good blade straight into his opponent's "heart."
Broken Nose's harness twitched his nerves and sent him to the lemon-scented grass, and only then did I remember - it was right here that someone died, rorls upon rorlsago.
The crowd roared for Saz. Saz stared at me until my smile wilted into discomfort. What was wrong?
But as soon as the win registered, Saz's arm sprang to life and he helped his foe up, clasping wrists with him before walking over to me.
The anxiety I had nursed on silver-water cordial woke up and wailed in my belly. I tried to read his emotions on half his face - the left half masked in gold today, the surface of it engraved in whorls.
He came to me and kept coming until I had to tilt my head back to see him. He said nothing, content to examine me.
What could I--
He settled his hands on my shoulders. I'd thought this body strong? Farathoom, what a fool.
"You got a new body."
"Hours old," I said, "but the right foot's unacceptably weak."
He threw back his head and laughed. Mirth melted the fear in my gut, and it growled.
We nearly bashed our heads together, glancing down. But then...
"Me too," he said.
More? Yes, ooma. Clouds and Secrets, Part 2