haruspex

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But he could not, for lack of courage.
Posts: 6
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2017 3:47 am

haruspex

Post by But he could not, for lack of courage. » Sun Sep 24, 2017 5:17 am

My eyes stung.

I had a mug of stuff in my hands, more a metal tankard really, filled up with some Duergar drink that was made of fermented fire lichen and cave fisher blood.

It was my third glass, I thought, but the bottle was empty.

I couldn't feel my tongue, but that was alright.

I looked around, and maybe my jaw was a little slack, but that was alright too because I was covered in stone dust, and nobody expected anymore than that from a builder anyway; I saw the orog bards in the corner droning out those ugly, pulsing rhythms that made your teeth hurt and to where you could feel it not just in your ears but your chest-

And I sunk down, right into the fuzz of all that stuff I had drank, and the sound, right into the fuzz where the senses did not just dull but they ceased to exist and it felt good because for a minute, more than a minute, you did not have to feel anything.

I did not have to feel the ache in my arms from working and building for a Tyrant and a Master that never saw me or the freshest scar I had over my face from losing another fight, I did not have to feel the sharp pain in my back from that too-fast truncheon or the fact my purse got cut (again) and how was I going to eat for the rest of the cycle?

When I woke up the orogs were gone and so were my shoes.

I walked outside anyway, hardly like I wore anything other than forgotten pieces of zurkhwood, and I stared up to the caverns and the stalactites hovering what felt like a million miles over me.

All the distance and the air brought the idea of darthien into my head, the same head that pounded and throbbed and screamed with all those bad but familiar feelings that happened when I did this sort of thing, and a little piece of me wished that I could be like them, that I could live in splendorous spires of gold atop these things called "trees" and then I could stare at the moon and dance under it, and be beautiful and smiling just like them.

I looked at my hands, gnarled things of coal still stained by thick stone-dust, pointed by ragged and dirty nails.

I looked at my bare feet, and smelled the sharp, repugnant Andunorian smell that was the only smell I had really ever known.

I picked a stone from the ground, a heavy one that could fit very neatly into one hand; it had a sharp edge on it, and I thanked whatever god I figured was listening for the gift.

"I am not going to lose again," I told myself, even aloud for good measure, and for a moment I felt more beautiful than all the golden towers and moons in the world.

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But he could not, for lack of courage.
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Re: haruspex

Post by But he could not, for lack of courage. » Thu Sep 28, 2017 2:12 am

"Yeap," he said, relaxed in that old chair of his, a wooden thing stained black with soot, "that Sunland ain't really no good if'n y'ask me." He took a long draw of fungal beer, exhaling with a ragged cough to punctuate things.

"Why?" I asked him, cocking my head just a little bit to the left.

"See boy," now he'd leaned forward, jaundiced eyes flicking up to mine after another tiny swig of that beer, "s'the same up there as it is down here. Ain't no love 'sept in them tales, ain't nunna that chiv'ulry... every man's a bastard deep down. No matter if 'e got skin like ink or like snow."

I felt my face scrunch up in that involuntary, weird way it does when I did not know what something was.

"What is snow?"

For a minute, the old half-Orc stared at me as if I were the biggest fool in the world, jaw slightly slack and eyes narrowing by a few hairs. I think he realised where he was in a minute though, because he just gave a guilty glance downward and spoke again.

"S'like ice that falls from the sk- ceilin'. Stays on the ground, s'real soft-like," his voice fell very low just then, into an almost reverent whisper; it were as if he were speaking of some great secret, or about a particularly strange dream.

Then he looked away, staring into some far off point, some distant thing only he could see.

"But that don't make it no easier," he rumbled out, after a long time of silence that was only interrupted by a few chuffed swigs of the drink in his hand. "It ain't ever is."

My eyes went to that same far off point, and with lips pursed I said "life is naut easy, I am coming to realise."

He laughed. It sounded bitter, hard, ugly, just like the rest of him. Just like the rest of us.

"No," and he set the empty glass down now, a little shake of his head with the motion, "it sure as the Hells ain't."

We stayed there for a while, quietly contemplating the words we had said to each other both before and now. Then he moved, slow at first, but eventually rested those yellow eyes on me all the same.

"Think s'time y' go home now, boy. Make sure y'father don't need no help 'fore you go and waste half the damned cycle with me."

And off I went back home, dreams of snow and cruel, bright things that feared no sun bouncing about in my skull.

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