Hmm, sparkles. How the world looks when it's been scoured clean by yesterday's force of nature, perhaps? ;-)
Sparkles "Sparkles is not the name of a bog-beast," said Egwater. She sounded annoyed, and her companion, Repa, knew that part of it was because she'd only gone to bed late last night. She knew that because she'd been woken by Egwater's nocturnal return to her room, next door to Repa's, and Egwater drunkenly falling over what had sounded like every piece of furniture she owned. "Sparkles is the name of... I don't know, a unicorn or something." "You've never seen a unicorn, have you?" Repa had grown up in the forests of Gatten and had had a childhood of learning about forest beasts and all the ways there were to trap them, hunt them, or hide from them depending on their size and temperament. She could easily recall her father or her two older brothers returning home with a rust-beast, longer than she was tall, skewered on long flexible poles and ready to be put over a fire and roasted, or of the townsfolk gathering the children in the basement of the church because a manticore was roaming around outside. Men and women worked together to defeat a manticore, and still there were lives lost. "You wouldn't call one Sparkles if you had." "I saw a picture of one in a book once." Egwater had grown up in the city, a daughter of a minor noblewoman and had had the luxuries of new clothes annually, books, and some parts of an education. Her mother's fortunes had swung a lot over the years and there were some years when Egwater had had good tutors, fine clothes and jewelry, and others when there had been talk of selling her to raise money to keep a roof over her head. It made her oddly grounded and ignorant of the costs of real things at the same time. "But the point is, it is not the name of a bog-beast. They're hulking great ugly things that bathe in mud and eat vileness and exude darkness!" "You've not actually seen a bog-beast, either?" Repa tried not to sound too amused. She'd eaten bog-beast as a child, and knew that it was often served on city menus as Quaggot and commanded a high price. "Does it matter?" Egwater's hangover was starting to break through the sunnier mood she was trying to maintain. "We'll recognise it when we see it, and then we have to deal with. Somehow." "The bog-beast is called Sparkles because it was the pet of Luciandra, grand-daughter of the alleged Queen of Morlake," said Repa. "Morlake surrendered over thirty years ago." "And has been integrated; we're in the same history class, Egwater. But Luciandra and her sisters fled and haven't been found since." "So what?" The companions paused for a moment where the path split, and then took the left-hand fork. The path was hard-packed dirt that hadn't seen rain in months and no grass grew on it. "So we're to contain the bog-beast, not harm it." "What?" Egwater's screech caused birds, green and blue plumage flashing in the sunlight, to lift off from the branches of the trees a little way off the edge of the path and fly to new roosts.
2 comments:
Hmm, sparkles. How the world looks when it's been scoured clean by yesterday's force of nature, perhaps? ;-)
Sparkles
"Sparkles is not the name of a bog-beast," said Egwater. She sounded annoyed, and her companion, Repa, knew that part of it was because she'd only gone to bed late last night. She knew that because she'd been woken by Egwater's nocturnal return to her room, next door to Repa's, and Egwater drunkenly falling over what had sounded like every piece of furniture she owned. "Sparkles is the name of... I don't know, a unicorn or something."
"You've never seen a unicorn, have you?" Repa had grown up in the forests of Gatten and had had a childhood of learning about forest beasts and all the ways there were to trap them, hunt them, or hide from them depending on their size and temperament. She could easily recall her father or her two older brothers returning home with a rust-beast, longer than she was tall, skewered on long flexible poles and ready to be put over a fire and roasted, or of the townsfolk gathering the children in the basement of the church because a manticore was roaming around outside. Men and women worked together to defeat a manticore, and still there were lives lost. "You wouldn't call one Sparkles if you had."
"I saw a picture of one in a book once." Egwater had grown up in the city, a daughter of a minor noblewoman and had had the luxuries of new clothes annually, books, and some parts of an education. Her mother's fortunes had swung a lot over the years and there were some years when Egwater had had good tutors, fine clothes and jewelry, and others when there had been talk of selling her to raise money to keep a roof over her head. It made her oddly grounded and ignorant of the costs of real things at the same time. "But the point is, it is not the name of a bog-beast. They're hulking great ugly things that bathe in mud and eat vileness and exude darkness!"
"You've not actually seen a bog-beast, either?" Repa tried not to sound too amused. She'd eaten bog-beast as a child, and knew that it was often served on city menus as Quaggot and commanded a high price.
"Does it matter?" Egwater's hangover was starting to break through the sunnier mood she was trying to maintain. "We'll recognise it when we see it, and then we have to deal with. Somehow."
"The bog-beast is called Sparkles because it was the pet of Luciandra, grand-daughter of the alleged Queen of Morlake," said Repa.
"Morlake surrendered over thirty years ago."
"And has been integrated; we're in the same history class, Egwater. But Luciandra and her sisters fled and haven't been found since."
"So what?" The companions paused for a moment where the path split, and then took the left-hand fork. The path was hard-packed dirt that hadn't seen rain in months and no grass grew on it.
"So we're to contain the bog-beast, not harm it."
"What?" Egwater's screech caused birds, green and blue plumage flashing in the sunlight, to lift off from the branches of the trees a little way off the edge of the path and fly to new roosts.
Greg - ... sure.
Ooh, I quite like these two! Have we met them before? I don't recall if so, but they seem like they would be hard to forget once you've met them.
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