I watched Dynamo Kiev play AEK Athens last night at the Olympic stadium here in Kiev. We couldn't get tickets directly from the club online, so we ended up getting them via ViaGogo and paying a 500% markup on them. So the tickets cost 150 hryvnia, which is USD dollars is... about $5.50. Which is a bargain in anybody's books, I think. Plus, it was snowing the whole time, so even Marc could have pretended it was very slow hockey and enjoyed it :)
Stumbling Mostlybony was... mostly bony. Wars had been fought over and again on its shores and the poor soil had mounded up around the bones of the fallen until later wars were fought on the treacherous footing of the bones. More bones mounded and stacked and in a hundred thousand years they would have condensed down and chemically transitioned into beautiful, stark white, chalk cliffs. Now though, bones spurs and lengths stuck up out of silty grey soil, threatening to trip and impale anyone who walked here. The sea crashed on the shore, shattered into white spume by ribs and tarsals, flinging salt spray high into the air and poisoning the arable land further away from the beaches. Birds wheeled on thermals above, tattered black feathers drifting loose and raining down on Mostlybony like crocodile tears from an ancient evil. Prince Melric, the Champignon d'Éternité, leaned glumly on the hilt of his sword, and stared out across the struggling land that was his inheritance. To the left was the mound that covered where the sorcerer Bessrabsky was buried alive; to the right was a pile of vertebrae that marked where he'd staked his half-brother out for the crows. Every damn marker in this forsaken land was made of bone, and he was sick of it. You couldn't walk anywhere without losing your step and stumbling, and if you were unwise enough to fall over then the bacteria on the jagged ends of bone remnants would infect any cut with violent sepsis. "I'm thinking of ploughing it," he said casually. Electricity crackled in the air around him and his hair, pale, long and jellyfish-like, stood on end. For a moment he looked like he belonged on the cover of the album for a heavy-metal band. "The stars have foretold," moaned a voice that came from nowhere and everywhere. "Mostlybony will one day be a romantic land where couples lie on greeensward and feel each other bowling balls." "Bowling balls?" Melric's usually morose tones took on an acidic edge. "It's a translation issue," said the disembodied voice. "That's going to be the name of a type of watermelon. We think." "I'm going to plough," said Melric. "We'll have forty years of real countryside and happy people, and after that you can work on the whole bone thing again. Though frankly, there's got to be a better way." "Not cheaper," said the voice. "We get paid for hosting these wars, you know." "What?" Melric straightened up, his eyes flashing attentively. "We don't do it for free. We charge for wars to be held here. There are beautiful places in this world that have never known bloodshed because all difficult decisions are taken here. It brings in millions, every month. We're the richest place on the planet. We have to buy things no-one wants, like Chlamydia and Cholera, in order to keep the money going back into the world economy." "That sounds attractive," said Melric. "How much is mine?" "Technically all of it, unless your half-brother is still alive." Five minutes later Melric stumbled back to his starting spot, wiping blood from his sword-blade. "I'm going on holiday," he said. "For fifty years." "It is foretold," moaned the voice. "The Champignon d'Éternité is become the eternal tourist." "About this 'eternal', business," said Melric, doubt creeping into his voice.
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I watched Dynamo Kiev play AEK Athens last night at the Olympic stadium here in Kiev. We couldn't get tickets directly from the club online, so we ended up getting them via ViaGogo and paying a 500% markup on them. So the tickets cost 150 hryvnia, which is USD dollars is... about $5.50. Which is a bargain in anybody's books, I think. Plus, it was snowing the whole time, so even Marc could have pretended it was very slow hockey and enjoyed it :)
Stumbling
Mostlybony was... mostly bony. Wars had been fought over and again on its shores and the poor soil had mounded up around the bones of the fallen until later wars were fought on the treacherous footing of the bones. More bones mounded and stacked and in a hundred thousand years they would have condensed down and chemically transitioned into beautiful, stark white, chalk cliffs. Now though, bones spurs and lengths stuck up out of silty grey soil, threatening to trip and impale anyone who walked here. The sea crashed on the shore, shattered into white spume by ribs and tarsals, flinging salt spray high into the air and poisoning the arable land further away from the beaches. Birds wheeled on thermals above, tattered black feathers drifting loose and raining down on Mostlybony like crocodile tears from an ancient evil.
Prince Melric, the Champignon d'Éternité, leaned glumly on the hilt of his sword, and stared out across the struggling land that was his inheritance. To the left was the mound that covered where the sorcerer Bessrabsky was buried alive; to the right was a pile of vertebrae that marked where he'd staked his half-brother out for the crows. Every damn marker in this forsaken land was made of bone, and he was sick of it. You couldn't walk anywhere without losing your step and stumbling, and if you were unwise enough to fall over then the bacteria on the jagged ends of bone remnants would infect any cut with violent sepsis.
"I'm thinking of ploughing it," he said casually. Electricity crackled in the air around him and his hair, pale, long and jellyfish-like, stood on end. For a moment he looked like he belonged on the cover of the album for a heavy-metal band.
"The stars have foretold," moaned a voice that came from nowhere and everywhere. "Mostlybony will one day be a romantic land where couples lie on greeensward and feel each other bowling balls."
"Bowling balls?" Melric's usually morose tones took on an acidic edge.
"It's a translation issue," said the disembodied voice. "That's going to be the name of a type of watermelon. We think."
"I'm going to plough," said Melric. "We'll have forty years of real countryside and happy people, and after that you can work on the whole bone thing again. Though frankly, there's got to be a better way."
"Not cheaper," said the voice. "We get paid for hosting these wars, you know."
"What?" Melric straightened up, his eyes flashing attentively.
"We don't do it for free. We charge for wars to be held here. There are beautiful places in this world that have never known bloodshed because all difficult decisions are taken here. It brings in millions, every month. We're the richest place on the planet. We have to buy things no-one wants, like Chlamydia and Cholera, in order to keep the money going back into the world economy."
"That sounds attractive," said Melric. "How much is mine?"
"Technically all of it, unless your half-brother is still alive."
Five minutes later Melric stumbled back to his starting spot, wiping blood from his sword-blade.
"I'm going on holiday," he said. "For fifty years."
"It is foretold," moaned the voice. "The Champignon d'Éternité is become the eternal tourist."
"About this 'eternal', business," said Melric, doubt creeping into his voice.
Find the way through shrubs
This is harder than I thought
I must be older
Everest was easier.
Greg - I'm glad you were able to afford that bit of extravagance :P
Ah, Mostlybony. Seems like it has been a while. So many great details here. I think the black bird feathers drifting down from the sky is my favorite.
And... I think Melric is right to have some doubts coming up at this point :)
Morganna - Everest? I see our narrator has always been an adventurer then :)
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