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rainbowfic2014-09-14 04:15 pm
bookblather) wrote in rainbowfic2014-09-14 04:15 pm
Entry tags:
Midnight 1, Candy Apple Red 2, Ibiza Blue 11: A Lesson in Strangers
Author: Tom and Kat
Title: A Lesson in Strangers
Story: In the Heart andstarikov_chronicles
Colors: Midnight #1 - Profane, Candy Apple Red #2 - Life doesn't always have a happy ending for Tom, Ibiza Blue 11 (Astro- Mezz Blue Bar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPXNae4lJ3Q) for Kat
Supplies and Materials: Bichromatic (for Tom), interactive art, collage, mosaic, beading wire, chalk, novelty beads (spirit-shaming)
Word Count: 2076
Rating: G
Summary: Why you shouldn't talk to strangers.
Warnings: none.
Notes:
Vale was having a perfectly nice afternoon when the girl interrupted.
She came down by the river for no reason at all that he could see. She had no bucket for water or clothes for washing. In fact, all she had was a fistful of flowers and an apron, which she spread out on a rock and sat down upon. She then looked up and directly at him for a moment, her brow creasing.
After a minute she ventured, “Hello?”
Blinking, Vale stared at the girl. Could she really see him? He frowned, wondering what gifts this strange human had and where she had come from. Perhaps he could make sure that no more of her kind would show up.
“Well, hello little girl. Why are you here all by yourself?” He swam over to the girl, grinning in a way that showed off his pointy teeth. Perhaps that would be enough to warn her off.
She stared at him for a moment, then tucked her feet under her skirt and folded her hands over the flowers in her lap. “I needed a nice place to sit,” she said. “And I saw you, and I thought… I’m sorry for interrupting you. It was rude.” Still, she made no move to go.
That made Vale tilt his head slightly. Most humans did not react this way when he bared his teeth. This must be further investigated he decided and pulled himself up out of the water as to sit next to her.
“Never mind that. Where do you come from?”
The girl looked a little confused at that question, which was certainly odd. “I… from home. I was only walking.” She twisted where she sat and pointed back the way she had come. “That way. And then you ride the subway home. What about you? Or is that rude too?”
He pondered how to answer this question.
Then he flung out his arms gesturing to the landscape around them as he answered her. “I’m from here. All of it. Everything you see belongs to me.” It was a thing he was rather proud of and he hoped it showed.
Her eyes got gratifyingly wide. “Everything? Are you a king, then? I read about kings but I’ve never met one.” She hesitated then, for a moment. “Should I curtsey? Or call you Your Majesty?” She sounded sincere, and sincerely impressed.
“Oh no. I’m not the king. That’s Kostya’s job, though he’s actually a prince instead. Something about this being a duchy, but it’s honestly the same thing in the end.” Vale paused for a second as he leaned back to stare at the sky. “Humans are rather weird honestly. So many words to describe one thing. Like how they both call me a god and a spirit.” He said this causally like there was nothing to it.
“Oh!” She said it as if a puzzle had been solved, not as if she was impressed, but her eyes were still wide. “So you’re the god of everything here then. I see.” She’d begun weaving the flowers into a crown as they talked, and she looked down at her work for a moment, then looked back up and said, “Words are important, though. They’re… they help me understand how things are. Are you both a god and a spirit?”
“Both is a good way to say it. Though I prefer spirit. God sounds so..responsible. It’s a face I only wear sometimes.” He stretched out and wiggled his toes as he thought about it some more. “I think I like being a simple land-spirit better than being a god. Gods have to think about other people and what they want.”
The girl looked at him a little dubiously. “And land-spirits only have to think about the land? I suppose that makes sense. Except all the gods I read about don’t care about people. They just… do what they want and people get in the way.” She sounded as if she didn’t like this very much.
“Well, sometimes I do what I want. But I listen to prayers and sometimes grant them because they give me yummy food. And attention. Attention is nice. Though they don’t offer me people anymore. Unless you count Kostya.” Vale found himself rambling again as he was prone to doing sometimes. Then remembering the topic at hand: “I’m a god because I answer prayers. Or because people call me that. All I know is that I am a spirit that happens to be part of something bigger.” He shrugged.
“I wish I was part of something bigger.” The girl sounded wistful. She plaited flower stems for a moment, then asked, “Who’s Kostya?”
Vale grinned. He loved to talk about Kostya. “He’s my prince. He belongs to me as well. He’s also really useful in a lot of ways, but mostly just mine. I like him a lot.”
Then he looked over at the girl. “I’ve told you an awful lot about me. Perhaps you should tell me who you are?”
She blinked, and said, “Oh, my name is Summer. I’m sorry, I forgot. I’m just an ordinary girl, really.” She fidgeted with the flowers in her lap for a minute. “I’m never really sure what to say when people ask me that. I don’t know what they want to know and I always talk too much.”
“Talk too much about what?” He was genuinely curious. “If it’s about yourself, well, I’ve already went on a bit myself, so it’s only fair that I listen to you too.” It also helped a bit that she reminded him a bit of Kostya when he was young and far less sure of himself.
“Things,” she said, unhelpfully. “My family. What I’ve been learning about. I was reading about mythology last night, so I’d probably talk too much about that. People don’t like it when I talk too much. It’s rude.” She bit her lip, then added, “But you asked, so that means it isn’t rude, right?”
He thought on what she said for a second and grinned before leaning back on his elbows. “Well, Kostya likes to talk about whatever he’s just read to me. He does it a lot. It’s a bit adorable when he gets excited over some new magic theory or agricultural improvement he’s read about. Plus I always learn something new.”
Glancing over at Summer, he asked, “So, what is mythology anyways?”
“A body of myths of a collective people,” Summer recited. She sounded as if she were reading it out of a book. Then she gave a little shy smile and said, “Really it means a lot of stories that people tell to explain the world. Like, Greek myths, they tell how the world was made and how winter happens and why people get old and die. Things like that. I think it’s fascinating.”
Vale blinked. He had heard of the stories that people told about his kind, but the way she talked about them--
“Do you believe in these stories?” He looked at her suspiciously as he asked this.
“Not those,” Summer said. “Not all of them. Things like dryads, those are real. But people used to believe in them. And some people still do. My sister’s girlfriend believes in Christian mythology.”
Looking down at himself, he frowned. “Well, I’m certainly real. And the place where the dead go are certainly real as well.” Pausing for a moment, he looked at Summer. “I cannot think of any story that the humans tell is not real in some shape or form. Perhaps I do not hear the right stories?”
The idea that some people didn’t believe he was real bothered him. Had he not answered enough people’s prayers?
“I don’t know,” she said, simply. “I don’t know what’s really real. I believe in what I see, but there’s so much that I don’t see, or haven’t seen. Maybe everything’s real and I just don’t believe in some of it.”
“Well,” said Vale, thinking, “Spirits have stories too. None of us were there when the world was created, so...we don’t know if our story is real either. It’s not the same as the human story either. And I’ve heard some of the stories humans have told of me and some of them are...made-up or have bits that didn’t actually happen. But some of it is very very true.”
He shrugged. “So maybe they’re partly real and partly not.”
“That sounds right,” Summer said, sounding pleased. “I know there are such things as dryads and nymphs, anyway. My sister has a friend who’s an air nymph. And they’re everywhere in Greek mythology. So maybe the gods aren’t real but the spirits are.”
“I’m a god, but real,” Vale couldn’t help but point out. While he did prefer to be called a spirit, he also did not let go of being a god that easily. And while much of his godliness was hidden, there was more to the eye than this little girl could see.
In fact as he thought about it, it irritated him a great deal to not be recognized as who he was and so he decided to prove it to her.
“I suppose you don’t believe in gods smiting people, then do you?” he asked as he stood up, looking around for a likely victim, spotting an innocent woodcutter in the nearby forest.
“Not really,” she said, suddenly sounding a little doubtful. “It seems like it wouldn’t be nice, and Gina says gods… er, God is always nice. Why?”
“I’m not a particularly nice person, Summer,” he said, a toothy grin on his face. “You see that woodcutter there?” He said, pointing to the grizzled old man, struggling to load wood onto his sled.
She bit her lip, and her hands twisted in her skirt, but she said, “Ye-es?”
“Well, with just a snap of my finger,” which he did as soon as he said it, “I can make him have a heart-attack, stopping his heart and the blood in his veins, killing him.” And so the woodcutter did, gasping for breath, falling to his knees, and finally, collapsing to the ground, dead.
Vale grinned over his handy work and watched the girl carefully.
Her hands flew to her mouth and she jumped to her feet, her eyes wide and suitably terrified. “Why did you do that? That was… how could you?” She backed away from him, one slow step at a time, as if hoping he wouldn’t notice.
“You said I wasn’t real. I’m a god as well as a spirit. And I am a capricious god, one who has to be pleased with offerings and praise or bad things may happen. Depending on how I feel, of course.” He was very proud of that fact and it showed as he walked toward the girl.
“I didn’t mean that!” she said. “Of course you’re real, you’re… I just meant… please don’t hurt me!” The flowers fell from her skirt, raining down on the grass.
He smiled sweetly. “Why would I hurt you? Besides, any death of yours would be rather hard to explain and I’d rather not have the rusalka mad at me. An old man is nothing. They die of heart attacks anyday, but...perhaps you could be persuaded to drown yourself? That would only be you hurting yourself.”
And of course, perhaps she would join the rusalka…maybe they wouldn’t mind a new member.
She put her hands over her mouth again and shook her head, frantically. “No, no thank you, I… I have to get back. My sister will be looking for me. Please excuse me!” That was genuine terror in her face and form.
“Then run, girl.” He grinned as he stepped closer, menace in his voice. “Run away and never come near my river again.”
Without another word, she turned and fled, her skirt flying behind her. She didn’t look back once.
The flowered crown she’d been making lay at his feet.
Still far too pleased with himself, Vale picked up the discarded flower crown and put it on his head, grinning and laughing the whole time as he watched her run away.
Title: A Lesson in Strangers
Story: In the Heart and
starikov_chroniclesColors: Midnight #1 - Profane, Candy Apple Red #2 - Life doesn't always have a happy ending for Tom, Ibiza Blue 11 (Astro- Mezz Blue Bar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPXNae4lJ3Q) for Kat
Supplies and Materials: Bichromatic (for Tom), interactive art, collage, mosaic, beading wire, chalk, novelty beads (spirit-shaming)
Word Count: 2076
Rating: G
Summary: Why you shouldn't talk to strangers.
Warnings: none.
Notes:
Vale was having a perfectly nice afternoon when the girl interrupted.
She came down by the river for no reason at all that he could see. She had no bucket for water or clothes for washing. In fact, all she had was a fistful of flowers and an apron, which she spread out on a rock and sat down upon. She then looked up and directly at him for a moment, her brow creasing.
After a minute she ventured, “Hello?”
Blinking, Vale stared at the girl. Could she really see him? He frowned, wondering what gifts this strange human had and where she had come from. Perhaps he could make sure that no more of her kind would show up.
“Well, hello little girl. Why are you here all by yourself?” He swam over to the girl, grinning in a way that showed off his pointy teeth. Perhaps that would be enough to warn her off.
She stared at him for a moment, then tucked her feet under her skirt and folded her hands over the flowers in her lap. “I needed a nice place to sit,” she said. “And I saw you, and I thought… I’m sorry for interrupting you. It was rude.” Still, she made no move to go.
That made Vale tilt his head slightly. Most humans did not react this way when he bared his teeth. This must be further investigated he decided and pulled himself up out of the water as to sit next to her.
“Never mind that. Where do you come from?”
The girl looked a little confused at that question, which was certainly odd. “I… from home. I was only walking.” She twisted where she sat and pointed back the way she had come. “That way. And then you ride the subway home. What about you? Or is that rude too?”
He pondered how to answer this question.
Then he flung out his arms gesturing to the landscape around them as he answered her. “I’m from here. All of it. Everything you see belongs to me.” It was a thing he was rather proud of and he hoped it showed.
Her eyes got gratifyingly wide. “Everything? Are you a king, then? I read about kings but I’ve never met one.” She hesitated then, for a moment. “Should I curtsey? Or call you Your Majesty?” She sounded sincere, and sincerely impressed.
“Oh no. I’m not the king. That’s Kostya’s job, though he’s actually a prince instead. Something about this being a duchy, but it’s honestly the same thing in the end.” Vale paused for a second as he leaned back to stare at the sky. “Humans are rather weird honestly. So many words to describe one thing. Like how they both call me a god and a spirit.” He said this causally like there was nothing to it.
“Oh!” She said it as if a puzzle had been solved, not as if she was impressed, but her eyes were still wide. “So you’re the god of everything here then. I see.” She’d begun weaving the flowers into a crown as they talked, and she looked down at her work for a moment, then looked back up and said, “Words are important, though. They’re… they help me understand how things are. Are you both a god and a spirit?”
“Both is a good way to say it. Though I prefer spirit. God sounds so..responsible. It’s a face I only wear sometimes.” He stretched out and wiggled his toes as he thought about it some more. “I think I like being a simple land-spirit better than being a god. Gods have to think about other people and what they want.”
The girl looked at him a little dubiously. “And land-spirits only have to think about the land? I suppose that makes sense. Except all the gods I read about don’t care about people. They just… do what they want and people get in the way.” She sounded as if she didn’t like this very much.
“Well, sometimes I do what I want. But I listen to prayers and sometimes grant them because they give me yummy food. And attention. Attention is nice. Though they don’t offer me people anymore. Unless you count Kostya.” Vale found himself rambling again as he was prone to doing sometimes. Then remembering the topic at hand: “I’m a god because I answer prayers. Or because people call me that. All I know is that I am a spirit that happens to be part of something bigger.” He shrugged.
“I wish I was part of something bigger.” The girl sounded wistful. She plaited flower stems for a moment, then asked, “Who’s Kostya?”
Vale grinned. He loved to talk about Kostya. “He’s my prince. He belongs to me as well. He’s also really useful in a lot of ways, but mostly just mine. I like him a lot.”
Then he looked over at the girl. “I’ve told you an awful lot about me. Perhaps you should tell me who you are?”
She blinked, and said, “Oh, my name is Summer. I’m sorry, I forgot. I’m just an ordinary girl, really.” She fidgeted with the flowers in her lap for a minute. “I’m never really sure what to say when people ask me that. I don’t know what they want to know and I always talk too much.”
“Talk too much about what?” He was genuinely curious. “If it’s about yourself, well, I’ve already went on a bit myself, so it’s only fair that I listen to you too.” It also helped a bit that she reminded him a bit of Kostya when he was young and far less sure of himself.
“Things,” she said, unhelpfully. “My family. What I’ve been learning about. I was reading about mythology last night, so I’d probably talk too much about that. People don’t like it when I talk too much. It’s rude.” She bit her lip, then added, “But you asked, so that means it isn’t rude, right?”
He thought on what she said for a second and grinned before leaning back on his elbows. “Well, Kostya likes to talk about whatever he’s just read to me. He does it a lot. It’s a bit adorable when he gets excited over some new magic theory or agricultural improvement he’s read about. Plus I always learn something new.”
Glancing over at Summer, he asked, “So, what is mythology anyways?”
“A body of myths of a collective people,” Summer recited. She sounded as if she were reading it out of a book. Then she gave a little shy smile and said, “Really it means a lot of stories that people tell to explain the world. Like, Greek myths, they tell how the world was made and how winter happens and why people get old and die. Things like that. I think it’s fascinating.”
Vale blinked. He had heard of the stories that people told about his kind, but the way she talked about them--
“Do you believe in these stories?” He looked at her suspiciously as he asked this.
“Not those,” Summer said. “Not all of them. Things like dryads, those are real. But people used to believe in them. And some people still do. My sister’s girlfriend believes in Christian mythology.”
Looking down at himself, he frowned. “Well, I’m certainly real. And the place where the dead go are certainly real as well.” Pausing for a moment, he looked at Summer. “I cannot think of any story that the humans tell is not real in some shape or form. Perhaps I do not hear the right stories?”
The idea that some people didn’t believe he was real bothered him. Had he not answered enough people’s prayers?
“I don’t know,” she said, simply. “I don’t know what’s really real. I believe in what I see, but there’s so much that I don’t see, or haven’t seen. Maybe everything’s real and I just don’t believe in some of it.”
“Well,” said Vale, thinking, “Spirits have stories too. None of us were there when the world was created, so...we don’t know if our story is real either. It’s not the same as the human story either. And I’ve heard some of the stories humans have told of me and some of them are...made-up or have bits that didn’t actually happen. But some of it is very very true.”
He shrugged. “So maybe they’re partly real and partly not.”
“That sounds right,” Summer said, sounding pleased. “I know there are such things as dryads and nymphs, anyway. My sister has a friend who’s an air nymph. And they’re everywhere in Greek mythology. So maybe the gods aren’t real but the spirits are.”
“I’m a god, but real,” Vale couldn’t help but point out. While he did prefer to be called a spirit, he also did not let go of being a god that easily. And while much of his godliness was hidden, there was more to the eye than this little girl could see.
In fact as he thought about it, it irritated him a great deal to not be recognized as who he was and so he decided to prove it to her.
“I suppose you don’t believe in gods smiting people, then do you?” he asked as he stood up, looking around for a likely victim, spotting an innocent woodcutter in the nearby forest.
“Not really,” she said, suddenly sounding a little doubtful. “It seems like it wouldn’t be nice, and Gina says gods… er, God is always nice. Why?”
“I’m not a particularly nice person, Summer,” he said, a toothy grin on his face. “You see that woodcutter there?” He said, pointing to the grizzled old man, struggling to load wood onto his sled.
She bit her lip, and her hands twisted in her skirt, but she said, “Ye-es?”
“Well, with just a snap of my finger,” which he did as soon as he said it, “I can make him have a heart-attack, stopping his heart and the blood in his veins, killing him.” And so the woodcutter did, gasping for breath, falling to his knees, and finally, collapsing to the ground, dead.
Vale grinned over his handy work and watched the girl carefully.
Her hands flew to her mouth and she jumped to her feet, her eyes wide and suitably terrified. “Why did you do that? That was… how could you?” She backed away from him, one slow step at a time, as if hoping he wouldn’t notice.
“You said I wasn’t real. I’m a god as well as a spirit. And I am a capricious god, one who has to be pleased with offerings and praise or bad things may happen. Depending on how I feel, of course.” He was very proud of that fact and it showed as he walked toward the girl.
“I didn’t mean that!” she said. “Of course you’re real, you’re… I just meant… please don’t hurt me!” The flowers fell from her skirt, raining down on the grass.
He smiled sweetly. “Why would I hurt you? Besides, any death of yours would be rather hard to explain and I’d rather not have the rusalka mad at me. An old man is nothing. They die of heart attacks anyday, but...perhaps you could be persuaded to drown yourself? That would only be you hurting yourself.”
And of course, perhaps she would join the rusalka…maybe they wouldn’t mind a new member.
She put her hands over her mouth again and shook her head, frantically. “No, no thank you, I… I have to get back. My sister will be looking for me. Please excuse me!” That was genuine terror in her face and form.
“Then run, girl.” He grinned as he stepped closer, menace in his voice. “Run away and never come near my river again.”
Without another word, she turned and fled, her skirt flying behind her. She didn’t look back once.
The flowered crown she’d been making lay at his feet.
Still far too pleased with himself, Vale picked up the discarded flower crown and put it on his head, grinning and laughing the whole time as he watched her run away.
no subject
"God sounds so..responsible."
And holy everything, VALE AND SUMMER TOGETHER. BEING ADORABLE. IN THE MOST THREATENING WAY POSSIBLE.
This made me ridiculously happy. Thank you!
no subject
We had a lot of fun writing it though!
no subject
Thank you!