amaranthh (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
greenling) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rainbowfic2014-08-02 12:53 am
greenling) wrote in rainbowfic2014-08-02 12:53 am
Blue Opal #12
Name: Greenling
Story: Lords of Strife and Cunning
Colors: Blue Opal #12 (Timeless)
Supplies and Styles: Paint by Number (Someone gets married.), Graffiti (Skin-diving) Glitter ("Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love." – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)
Word Count: 842
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Summary: A fairy tale, of sorts, about a knight and a dragon.
Comments, criticism, and questions are all appreciated.
The Isle was a wild place after the Godswar, scarred by magic and paranoia. The mainland had been devastated, and the intercontinental trade that had been its lifeblood beforehand was simply not an option. Cities lived in schismatic fear of their neighbors, and the countryside was ravaged by storms, piracy, and monsters.
This is not a story about politics or monsters.
*
Once upon a time, there was a little village next to a great, dark, looming forest. The village was very poor, as where the forest stood was once the road to the city, but they made do. The people there came from all over the world, but they had survived storms and piracy and war together. They loved the little village, and they feared the woods, venturing in only occasionally to hunt or gather wood. Then one day- as things tend to do- something changed.
In the glaring heat of summer, at high noon, a great beast came from the forest. It looked like a lizard and it looked like a bird, with wings bigger than a ship's sails and spikes of wood all down its back. It roared in anger, flying over the village in a great wide arc that blotted out the sun.
Villagers screamed and ran for their houses, except for one, who watched.
It roared again, and black shoots sprang from the ground, great spiral shapes, in the middle of paths and between the floorboards of houses. The shoots chased pets and scattered birds- and then the beast flew off again to the forest.
For a month, it was all the village could talk about: what was it? A beast of Ge? The creation of some mad priest? A manifestation gone wild and run into a patch of magic? Some people refused to go near the shoots, others cleaned; there was debate about whether to use the wood from the forest to build a wall, or if that would help. There was debate about sending word to the capitol for a ballista, or an army.
She watched.
It came back. The second time, it made a few rounds around the village before it roared, showing off its sharp claws and gnashing teeth. On one low pass, a young boy threw a rock at its head; it pinged off thick piney feather-down and the roaring began again in earnest.
She watched.
When the village's elders met with the local magistrate, she showed up. When they insisted that something be done to get rid of the beast, she volunteered, and after demonstrating her prowess, they acceded that she should try.
She headed out to the forest with an old bastard sword, freshly sharpened, and what light leather armor she could scrounge. The forest was dark and thick, and while the creature looked large with its wings spread, it was much smaller with them folded. It took most of a day to track the beast into its lair, where it was feasting on a smallish boar.
She crept up into the grand cave of wood and earth it had made its lair, and hid behind a prominent root. Its back was turned to her, and she watched.
When it finished, it pushed the carcass to one side and circled around like a cat, about to make its bed. She tossed a rock at the dead boar's skull, which made a thick clunk.
"What!" it roared, standing upright, fangs bared. Shoots curled up from the floor.
"Good evening, Sir Beast," she said from her hiding-spot. "The village has sent a champion."
"How dare you?" replied the beast. "You should not have come alone. I'll rip you limb from limb!"
"My blade is sharp, and your eyes are not. I don't fear you. Why do you harass our village?"
"Arrogant humans! Why did you build your village next to my forest?"
She heard the wavering in its voice, and at once she realized the beast was frightened.
She stayed in the forest for three days before coming back to the village. It took more than one meeting to reconcile the villagers to the presence of even an old, blind dragon, and they never did trust it, but there came to pass a sort of understanding. After a few years, the woman set up a house at the edge of the forest, finding she preferred the company of the quiet and watchful trees.
The two told each other their stories of the world beyond, and spent many an evening hunting boars in the woods. Their wedding was attended by all the beasts of the forest, and a good number of villagers as well, if only for the spectacle.
*
"...And they lived happily ever after."
For a long moment, no one reacted. Gawyn turned the fire with his stick and looked up at his companions.
"It's true. That's why I have scales."
"That doesn't make... how would... okay." Mist's ears kept twitching between perked and flat.
Vaska scratched his chin and shrugged. "Either way- I'm going to have to remember that one."
Can I have a tag for Blue Opal?
Story: Lords of Strife and Cunning
Colors: Blue Opal #12 (Timeless)
Supplies and Styles: Paint by Number (Someone gets married.), Graffiti (Skin-diving) Glitter ("Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love." – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet)
Word Count: 842
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Summary: A fairy tale, of sorts, about a knight and a dragon.
Comments, criticism, and questions are all appreciated.
The Isle was a wild place after the Godswar, scarred by magic and paranoia. The mainland had been devastated, and the intercontinental trade that had been its lifeblood beforehand was simply not an option. Cities lived in schismatic fear of their neighbors, and the countryside was ravaged by storms, piracy, and monsters.
This is not a story about politics or monsters.
*
Once upon a time, there was a little village next to a great, dark, looming forest. The village was very poor, as where the forest stood was once the road to the city, but they made do. The people there came from all over the world, but they had survived storms and piracy and war together. They loved the little village, and they feared the woods, venturing in only occasionally to hunt or gather wood. Then one day- as things tend to do- something changed.
In the glaring heat of summer, at high noon, a great beast came from the forest. It looked like a lizard and it looked like a bird, with wings bigger than a ship's sails and spikes of wood all down its back. It roared in anger, flying over the village in a great wide arc that blotted out the sun.
Villagers screamed and ran for their houses, except for one, who watched.
It roared again, and black shoots sprang from the ground, great spiral shapes, in the middle of paths and between the floorboards of houses. The shoots chased pets and scattered birds- and then the beast flew off again to the forest.
For a month, it was all the village could talk about: what was it? A beast of Ge? The creation of some mad priest? A manifestation gone wild and run into a patch of magic? Some people refused to go near the shoots, others cleaned; there was debate about whether to use the wood from the forest to build a wall, or if that would help. There was debate about sending word to the capitol for a ballista, or an army.
She watched.
It came back. The second time, it made a few rounds around the village before it roared, showing off its sharp claws and gnashing teeth. On one low pass, a young boy threw a rock at its head; it pinged off thick piney feather-down and the roaring began again in earnest.
She watched.
When the village's elders met with the local magistrate, she showed up. When they insisted that something be done to get rid of the beast, she volunteered, and after demonstrating her prowess, they acceded that she should try.
She headed out to the forest with an old bastard sword, freshly sharpened, and what light leather armor she could scrounge. The forest was dark and thick, and while the creature looked large with its wings spread, it was much smaller with them folded. It took most of a day to track the beast into its lair, where it was feasting on a smallish boar.
She crept up into the grand cave of wood and earth it had made its lair, and hid behind a prominent root. Its back was turned to her, and she watched.
When it finished, it pushed the carcass to one side and circled around like a cat, about to make its bed. She tossed a rock at the dead boar's skull, which made a thick clunk.
"What!" it roared, standing upright, fangs bared. Shoots curled up from the floor.
"Good evening, Sir Beast," she said from her hiding-spot. "The village has sent a champion."
"How dare you?" replied the beast. "You should not have come alone. I'll rip you limb from limb!"
"My blade is sharp, and your eyes are not. I don't fear you. Why do you harass our village?"
"Arrogant humans! Why did you build your village next to my forest?"
She heard the wavering in its voice, and at once she realized the beast was frightened.
She stayed in the forest for three days before coming back to the village. It took more than one meeting to reconcile the villagers to the presence of even an old, blind dragon, and they never did trust it, but there came to pass a sort of understanding. After a few years, the woman set up a house at the edge of the forest, finding she preferred the company of the quiet and watchful trees.
The two told each other their stories of the world beyond, and spent many an evening hunting boars in the woods. Their wedding was attended by all the beasts of the forest, and a good number of villagers as well, if only for the spectacle.
*
"...And they lived happily ever after."
For a long moment, no one reacted. Gawyn turned the fire with his stick and looked up at his companions.
"It's true. That's why I have scales."
"That doesn't make... how would... okay." Mist's ears kept twitching between perked and flat.
Vaska scratched his chin and shrugged. "Either way- I'm going to have to remember that one."
Can I have a tag for Blue Opal?
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
ps: your tag has been added.
no subject
Thank you for reading! And the tag!
no subject
no subject
Glad you liked it. :D