*takes a deep breath*
Sep. 24th, 2008 09:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gmtaslashTitle: Phases (working title) Draft Part One
Author: Trojie
Rating: PG (blood, fighting)
Notes: Okay, here it is. A section of very raw original fiction. Please, any comments, on style, on continuity, on things you didn't understand, I want them.
When they run through a village, Shan keeps his eye on Sig. Of all the Ronahb, he's the youngest, the closest to Shan's age. He's the closest thing Shan has to a friend, and for all he's known him and fought with him nearly every winter of their lives, Shan still doesn't trust him to watch his own back in a fight.
Sig catches Shan's eye and grins. He's riding hard, lying almost along his horse's neck, and he's covered in mud and blood and horsehair. Shan lengthens his stride to try and match the horse. He's all but flying along the ground. The village is only a mile away now, and anticipation is building. Villages mean food, and Shan is hungry, oh, so hungry.
Later that night, a great bonfire sends its smoke to the sky, a beacon. The Ersom villages dot the landscape like mushrooms, often just a few families and their few toastrack-thin shoveldeer, but this one had been fat. They even had sheep; some thick-fleeced breed. Tasty, whatever they are.
Shan buries his teeth in a haunch, grabbing a mouthful before being shoved away from the carcass by his packmates. He grins, savouring the moment, and catches Sig's eye again, this time from across the fire. The kid has half a loaf of bread in one hand, a horn of something, probably that fermented horse's milk muck they drink so much of, in the other. Gulping down the sheep's meat, Shan goes back for some more. He has to fight for it, admittedly, but at least it's food.
Food is scarce, moontide changes are hard, and the pack need to be moving even further north. They need to be at the stones for the next full, for the ringtide. It's better to be further north for full, anyway; the moon is closer there, and the closer you are to the moon for a change, the easier it is. More moonlight is less bone-ache. It eases you through. So they're parting ways with the Ronahb.
Their leader, Neala, doesn't like it. She's arguing with the Boss-dog, and the Boss-dog doesn't like to be argued with.
Shan finds himself standing on the outskirts of the campfire, with the rest of the pack. They're fourlegged, tonight. When the Boss-dog needs his backup, he likes it with claws. So desite the fact that it's a waxing gibbous night, and frosty to boot, Shan and the others dutifully made the change. Shan's legs ache where they're hitched up in tighter angles than they would be were he twolegged, and his jaw aches too. The change pushes his nose and jaw forward and lengthens a mouth into a muzzle. Shan is glad his teeth stay the same, at least.
The Ronahb are ranged on the other side of the campfire, furclad men as hard and implacable as the roots of great trees, cold eyed women, and in amongst them, eyes glittering with just as much intelligence as the humans, their horses stand. The horses of the Ronahb tribes worry Shan. They're too bright. And they kick, too. Shan catches a glimpse of Sig, leaning on the flanks of the great grey stallion that looks to him, watching the altercation between leaders.
'You cannot leave us without werewolf trackers before the snows come!' Neala snaps. 'We need to hit at least one more village before we will have enough supplies to last this winter!'
'We must go in the next two days,' insists the Boss-dog. 'We must follow the moon or be left behind by the moontides. We have already wasted time with your ransacking and pillaging - the Priestesses already gather to call upon an eclipse. If we do not make Westermere by next full, there will be no place for our pack at this year's great Solstice.'
What the Boss-dog doesn't say that missing the Solstice means missing the ringtide. Missing the ringtide means madness. Werewolves hover on the edge of madness as it is; missing the ringtide would be like deliberately catching rabies. Neala knows this; hunting with the werewolves in the winter is traditional after all, she's done this for years. She's fighting hard, though. Shan's having a few suspicions as to why.
'My trackers have found the spoor of ponies on the northeast trail,' she says in a more conciliatory tone. 'Help us find the village they come from, and I release you from the hunting pact in two days, whether or not conquest is ours.'
'My paw on it,' says the Boss-dog, extending a blunt-fingered hand. Shan yawns. Compromise as always. They will help to track and then they'll make for the Solstice. He looks up and finds that Sig has gone already. But Shan feels a presence behind him, and presently someone curves past him, almost seductively. Shan relaxes; seductive means top bitch, and this pack's top bitch is his sister.
'So, mutt-pup,' says Lia, baring fangs in a grin. 'Tobb thinks she's fighting too hard. You're a thinker. Got some thoughts for me?' Her yellow eyes are smiling wickedly. Lia fought her way up through the pack's bitches by being as unpredictable as a spring storm. You never know if she'll fight, or deal, or charm her way through something. But she's a good mate for Tobb - though she's the only one who calls the Boss-dog that - and they're strong leaders. Shan hasn't starved yet, at least, since they took charge.
He's flattered that his sister still wants his opinion - he knows he'll never be as useful as a fighter as some of the other dogs, would rather be a thinker anyway. The werewolves don't have that many thinkers. Muscle is easier to keep track of than mind when you change your shape so often.
Shan grins back - fourlegged is a good shape for a grin anyway, and it's not like the Ronahb can tell what they're saying - and says 'I think her next village is maybe looking to be a tough one.'
'You been keeping an ear on her human trackers, like a good pup?'
'You don't trust me? I'm hurt. What she's not saying is her pony-spoor shows shoe-prints.'
'Warriors?'
'Defenceless villagers don't have the coin to buy iron for shoes. I'm thinking smugglers. Smugglers need guards or their spoil gets taken by the excise-men.'
'Her twenty horsemen won't cut it?'
'Against a smuggler village? In winter? When they have all their stash in one place cos the passes are frozen solid and nothing can be got out? You tell me.'
'So she needs us,' says Lia smugly. Lia likes to be important. 'I'll tell Tobb. We're with her for the last two days, we'll hit the village ... but if she's thinking on leaving us to catch the arrows and running with the spoil by herself, she'll be surprised.' Lia bares her fangs again. This time her grin is less friendly. 'Good work, mutt-pup. Good work.'
***
Two days later, and Shan is twolegged again, crouched in the shade of a shallow-rooted tree and not paying too much attention to the lichen-floored track he's guarding, when a horse's bubbling snort alerts him to someone's presence. It's Sig, looking so completely at ease that Shan is almost jealous.
'You look nervous,' Sig says, laughing at Shan's expression. He slithers down off the horse and comes to lean against the bole of the tree.
Shan shifts position and looks up reproachfully. 'You stink, horse-boy. Be glad the Ersom don't go in for tracking dogs. They'd find us in a heartbeat.'
'I am glad. And you smell just as bad - like wet dog.'
'I am a wet dog,' says Shan, and stands as well, feeling sore joints pop under the strain. 'Now shut up and listen.'
The horse snuffles in Shan's hair and snorts, sending a gob of saliva to drip down the werewolf's ear. He glares.
'Sorry,' says Sig insincerely.
Just then the howl goes up, and ripples in the trees further down in the valley indicate the charge of the raiders.
Guarding is something Shan does a lot in these raids; finding the boltholes and stopping them up. On cue, after the noise of fighting has gone on inside the palisade for a few minutes, the soft thumping noise of someone running frantically on the path becomes audible. There are also people trying to sneak through the trees; Shan motions Sig in their direction.
With a sarcastic salute to the werewolf, Sig melts back into the brush. The horse goes with him. Shan crouches. He'd change, but he's not expecting trouble from a bunch of Ersom villagers, and another change would just add to the ache in his bones. So he readies himself twolegged instead.
A couple of villagers burst around the corner, plainly panicstricken, reeking of fear and fire. Shan is amongst them in moments, the smell of blood overpowering everything else. They weren't expecting him, and it is over quickly. Movement in the trees shows Sig coming back towards him, licking blood off a dagger and looking pleased.
'Get them?'
Shan just nods. There'll be time for celebration when the Boss-dog tells them it's done. About to sit down and clean his hands off properly, he suddenly hears another set of footsteps. These are measured, unhurried. There's an edge to the scent that the breeze is carrying; an edge of copper and feathers. Sig raises his eyebrows and flares his nostrils, asking if Shan can smell anyone else coming. Shan shakes his head and straightens up; out of the corner of his eye he can see the Ronahb shrug and swing himself up on the horse. The urge to change is stronger now; this is worrying. There's no smell of fear coming round the path.
A woman appears. She looks from Shan to Sig and then back again, and quirks an eyebrow. She's dressed in a black feather cloak, and her hair is tangled with copper amulets and yet more feathers; a Droy priestess. She's still walking forward, not even slightly intimidated by the blood-spattered werewolf and the Ronahb tribesman in front of her, and not appearing to notice the bodies at her feet. They instinctively part to let her by.
The old-blood and metal stink that clings to her as tightly as her cloak does has Shan too bewitched to notice the smell of fire.
When he does notice it, it's only to feel a surge of relief, thinking that they've fired the village, and that soon he will hear the howl calling him in to feast. But he doesn't look, too busy watching the priestess slink through the trees and away. It isn't til she's out of sight that he looks around, and realises a few things.
The village yet stands.
The fire is in the forest.
There are men in the uniform of the Excise spreading out, venturing under the canopy, and those bright flashes in their hands are swords.
Those yelping screams are the pack, those terrified whinnies are the Ronahb.
Shan doesn't even move, isn't aware of anything until a sudden rush of air alerts him to the fact that Sig has grabbed him and swung him up over the withers of the horse. They are galloping away, heading along the same trail the priestess followed through the trees, away from the Ersom village. Shan isn't exactly at home on horseback, and kicks and wriggles until he finds himself hauled into a sitting position and with Sig growling fiercely in his ear;
'Stop scratching me.'
Shan sits still after that. He's never been on the horse before. Never been on any horse, actually, and especially not a Ronahb horse. He feels mildly uncomfortable.
The forest thins quickly, and before the horse runs out of gallop, they run out of tree-cover, coming out into shrubby tundra. There's a chill in the air, and the sky overhead is becoming leaden grey with stormclouds as well as with smoke from the burning conifers near the village, which make a dull orange beacon several miles to the south.
***
NOTES: 'Ronahb' is pronounced 'Ro-naav' and no, I cannot give any reason or linguistic justification for it other than I like the sound of it.
The terrain they're in is boreal forest, heading into tundra.
I'm working on a skeletal structure for my werewolves, too.
And if anyone's read 'A Hat Full Of Sky', well, Sig and the horse are like Miss Level. One mind, two bodies. All the Ronahb are like that. I'm still working on the mechanics of the pairing-up process, but yeah. Shan hasn't quite twigged the full depth of the relationship between Sig and the horse.
Author: Trojie
Rating: PG (blood, fighting)
Notes: Okay, here it is. A section of very raw original fiction. Please, any comments, on style, on continuity, on things you didn't understand, I want them.
When they run through a village, Shan keeps his eye on Sig. Of all the Ronahb, he's the youngest, the closest to Shan's age. He's the closest thing Shan has to a friend, and for all he's known him and fought with him nearly every winter of their lives, Shan still doesn't trust him to watch his own back in a fight.
Sig catches Shan's eye and grins. He's riding hard, lying almost along his horse's neck, and he's covered in mud and blood and horsehair. Shan lengthens his stride to try and match the horse. He's all but flying along the ground. The village is only a mile away now, and anticipation is building. Villages mean food, and Shan is hungry, oh, so hungry.
Later that night, a great bonfire sends its smoke to the sky, a beacon. The Ersom villages dot the landscape like mushrooms, often just a few families and their few toastrack-thin shoveldeer, but this one had been fat. They even had sheep; some thick-fleeced breed. Tasty, whatever they are.
Shan buries his teeth in a haunch, grabbing a mouthful before being shoved away from the carcass by his packmates. He grins, savouring the moment, and catches Sig's eye again, this time from across the fire. The kid has half a loaf of bread in one hand, a horn of something, probably that fermented horse's milk muck they drink so much of, in the other. Gulping down the sheep's meat, Shan goes back for some more. He has to fight for it, admittedly, but at least it's food.
Food is scarce, moontide changes are hard, and the pack need to be moving even further north. They need to be at the stones for the next full, for the ringtide. It's better to be further north for full, anyway; the moon is closer there, and the closer you are to the moon for a change, the easier it is. More moonlight is less bone-ache. It eases you through. So they're parting ways with the Ronahb.
Their leader, Neala, doesn't like it. She's arguing with the Boss-dog, and the Boss-dog doesn't like to be argued with.
Shan finds himself standing on the outskirts of the campfire, with the rest of the pack. They're fourlegged, tonight. When the Boss-dog needs his backup, he likes it with claws. So desite the fact that it's a waxing gibbous night, and frosty to boot, Shan and the others dutifully made the change. Shan's legs ache where they're hitched up in tighter angles than they would be were he twolegged, and his jaw aches too. The change pushes his nose and jaw forward and lengthens a mouth into a muzzle. Shan is glad his teeth stay the same, at least.
The Ronahb are ranged on the other side of the campfire, furclad men as hard and implacable as the roots of great trees, cold eyed women, and in amongst them, eyes glittering with just as much intelligence as the humans, their horses stand. The horses of the Ronahb tribes worry Shan. They're too bright. And they kick, too. Shan catches a glimpse of Sig, leaning on the flanks of the great grey stallion that looks to him, watching the altercation between leaders.
'You cannot leave us without werewolf trackers before the snows come!' Neala snaps. 'We need to hit at least one more village before we will have enough supplies to last this winter!'
'We must go in the next two days,' insists the Boss-dog. 'We must follow the moon or be left behind by the moontides. We have already wasted time with your ransacking and pillaging - the Priestesses already gather to call upon an eclipse. If we do not make Westermere by next full, there will be no place for our pack at this year's great Solstice.'
What the Boss-dog doesn't say that missing the Solstice means missing the ringtide. Missing the ringtide means madness. Werewolves hover on the edge of madness as it is; missing the ringtide would be like deliberately catching rabies. Neala knows this; hunting with the werewolves in the winter is traditional after all, she's done this for years. She's fighting hard, though. Shan's having a few suspicions as to why.
'My trackers have found the spoor of ponies on the northeast trail,' she says in a more conciliatory tone. 'Help us find the village they come from, and I release you from the hunting pact in two days, whether or not conquest is ours.'
'My paw on it,' says the Boss-dog, extending a blunt-fingered hand. Shan yawns. Compromise as always. They will help to track and then they'll make for the Solstice. He looks up and finds that Sig has gone already. But Shan feels a presence behind him, and presently someone curves past him, almost seductively. Shan relaxes; seductive means top bitch, and this pack's top bitch is his sister.
'So, mutt-pup,' says Lia, baring fangs in a grin. 'Tobb thinks she's fighting too hard. You're a thinker. Got some thoughts for me?' Her yellow eyes are smiling wickedly. Lia fought her way up through the pack's bitches by being as unpredictable as a spring storm. You never know if she'll fight, or deal, or charm her way through something. But she's a good mate for Tobb - though she's the only one who calls the Boss-dog that - and they're strong leaders. Shan hasn't starved yet, at least, since they took charge.
He's flattered that his sister still wants his opinion - he knows he'll never be as useful as a fighter as some of the other dogs, would rather be a thinker anyway. The werewolves don't have that many thinkers. Muscle is easier to keep track of than mind when you change your shape so often.
Shan grins back - fourlegged is a good shape for a grin anyway, and it's not like the Ronahb can tell what they're saying - and says 'I think her next village is maybe looking to be a tough one.'
'You been keeping an ear on her human trackers, like a good pup?'
'You don't trust me? I'm hurt. What she's not saying is her pony-spoor shows shoe-prints.'
'Warriors?'
'Defenceless villagers don't have the coin to buy iron for shoes. I'm thinking smugglers. Smugglers need guards or their spoil gets taken by the excise-men.'
'Her twenty horsemen won't cut it?'
'Against a smuggler village? In winter? When they have all their stash in one place cos the passes are frozen solid and nothing can be got out? You tell me.'
'So she needs us,' says Lia smugly. Lia likes to be important. 'I'll tell Tobb. We're with her for the last two days, we'll hit the village ... but if she's thinking on leaving us to catch the arrows and running with the spoil by herself, she'll be surprised.' Lia bares her fangs again. This time her grin is less friendly. 'Good work, mutt-pup. Good work.'
***
Two days later, and Shan is twolegged again, crouched in the shade of a shallow-rooted tree and not paying too much attention to the lichen-floored track he's guarding, when a horse's bubbling snort alerts him to someone's presence. It's Sig, looking so completely at ease that Shan is almost jealous.
'You look nervous,' Sig says, laughing at Shan's expression. He slithers down off the horse and comes to lean against the bole of the tree.
Shan shifts position and looks up reproachfully. 'You stink, horse-boy. Be glad the Ersom don't go in for tracking dogs. They'd find us in a heartbeat.'
'I am glad. And you smell just as bad - like wet dog.'
'I am a wet dog,' says Shan, and stands as well, feeling sore joints pop under the strain. 'Now shut up and listen.'
The horse snuffles in Shan's hair and snorts, sending a gob of saliva to drip down the werewolf's ear. He glares.
'Sorry,' says Sig insincerely.
Just then the howl goes up, and ripples in the trees further down in the valley indicate the charge of the raiders.
Guarding is something Shan does a lot in these raids; finding the boltholes and stopping them up. On cue, after the noise of fighting has gone on inside the palisade for a few minutes, the soft thumping noise of someone running frantically on the path becomes audible. There are also people trying to sneak through the trees; Shan motions Sig in their direction.
With a sarcastic salute to the werewolf, Sig melts back into the brush. The horse goes with him. Shan crouches. He'd change, but he's not expecting trouble from a bunch of Ersom villagers, and another change would just add to the ache in his bones. So he readies himself twolegged instead.
A couple of villagers burst around the corner, plainly panicstricken, reeking of fear and fire. Shan is amongst them in moments, the smell of blood overpowering everything else. They weren't expecting him, and it is over quickly. Movement in the trees shows Sig coming back towards him, licking blood off a dagger and looking pleased.
'Get them?'
Shan just nods. There'll be time for celebration when the Boss-dog tells them it's done. About to sit down and clean his hands off properly, he suddenly hears another set of footsteps. These are measured, unhurried. There's an edge to the scent that the breeze is carrying; an edge of copper and feathers. Sig raises his eyebrows and flares his nostrils, asking if Shan can smell anyone else coming. Shan shakes his head and straightens up; out of the corner of his eye he can see the Ronahb shrug and swing himself up on the horse. The urge to change is stronger now; this is worrying. There's no smell of fear coming round the path.
A woman appears. She looks from Shan to Sig and then back again, and quirks an eyebrow. She's dressed in a black feather cloak, and her hair is tangled with copper amulets and yet more feathers; a Droy priestess. She's still walking forward, not even slightly intimidated by the blood-spattered werewolf and the Ronahb tribesman in front of her, and not appearing to notice the bodies at her feet. They instinctively part to let her by.
The old-blood and metal stink that clings to her as tightly as her cloak does has Shan too bewitched to notice the smell of fire.
When he does notice it, it's only to feel a surge of relief, thinking that they've fired the village, and that soon he will hear the howl calling him in to feast. But he doesn't look, too busy watching the priestess slink through the trees and away. It isn't til she's out of sight that he looks around, and realises a few things.
The village yet stands.
The fire is in the forest.
There are men in the uniform of the Excise spreading out, venturing under the canopy, and those bright flashes in their hands are swords.
Those yelping screams are the pack, those terrified whinnies are the Ronahb.
Shan doesn't even move, isn't aware of anything until a sudden rush of air alerts him to the fact that Sig has grabbed him and swung him up over the withers of the horse. They are galloping away, heading along the same trail the priestess followed through the trees, away from the Ersom village. Shan isn't exactly at home on horseback, and kicks and wriggles until he finds himself hauled into a sitting position and with Sig growling fiercely in his ear;
'Stop scratching me.'
Shan sits still after that. He's never been on the horse before. Never been on any horse, actually, and especially not a Ronahb horse. He feels mildly uncomfortable.
The forest thins quickly, and before the horse runs out of gallop, they run out of tree-cover, coming out into shrubby tundra. There's a chill in the air, and the sky overhead is becoming leaden grey with stormclouds as well as with smoke from the burning conifers near the village, which make a dull orange beacon several miles to the south.
***
NOTES: 'Ronahb' is pronounced 'Ro-naav' and no, I cannot give any reason or linguistic justification for it other than I like the sound of it.
The terrain they're in is boreal forest, heading into tundra.
I'm working on a skeletal structure for my werewolves, too.
And if anyone's read 'A Hat Full Of Sky', well, Sig and the horse are like Miss Level. One mind, two bodies. All the Ronahb are like that. I'm still working on the mechanics of the pairing-up process, but yeah. Shan hasn't quite twigged the full depth of the relationship between Sig and the horse.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 10:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 10:53 am (UTC)'Ronahb' is pronounced 'Ro-naav' and no, I cannot give any reason or linguistic justification for it other than I like the sound of it. And there's always Rohan, of course. :D
Right, here are my rambling and probably incoherent thoughts on the writing:
- 2nd person present tense is a fairly common style, but from my own efforts I've come to realise that you need to be careful with your verbs. Passive tense makes it more distanced and dreamlike, so I think stream-of-conscious writing works better when the verbs are predominantly active. Sentence lengths are important too. Long sentences make for hard reading when they're next to each other, so separate them with short sentences or break them up themselves. The section of 'The old blood-and-metal stink... away from the Ersom village' is doing it about right, I think.
Specific bits:
Shan just nods. - this annoys me for some reason, I think it reads better as 'Shan merely nods' or 'Shan only nods' or just 'Shan nods'. Something about the 'just' doesn't seem right.
Sig raises his eyebrows and flares his nostrils, asking if Shan can smell anyone else coming. - to me this sounds like Sig is the werewolf because of the nostril-flairing, and the wording of the second part means I'm not sure if Sig has spoken to Shan or not. If he's asking through the eye-brow raise, maybe use 'Sig raises his eyebrows, silently asking if Shan can smell anyone else coming'.
I think the last sentence is too long and has too much going on. Perhaps rearrange it as 'There's a chill in the air, the sky overhead becoming leaden grey with stormclouds and smoke, and a dull orange beacon lies several miles to the south where the conifers near the village are burning.' (I would also question 'dull'. Fire is rarely dull. :D)
This was long and I'm procrastinating on my work. I hope that helped, and I hope to see more soon. :D
no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 09:25 pm (UTC)Your concrit will be incorporated into the working draft :)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-25 05:34 am (UTC)I get paranoid about writing in the present tense but for some weird reason I absolutely cannot write my own fiction in the past tense. Huh, me too (although it's been that long since I wrote original fic...)
no subject
Date: 2008-09-25 10:59 pm (UTC)Incoherency ftw.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 11:38 pm (UTC)My only real complaint is that it's not clear to me how the werewold transformations work; perhaps you'll get to it later, but I'm a bit confused - clearly, they can change at will, but there's also a time when they must change and... it's not a problem yet, but as the story goes on, I think you should make it clearer soon.
Also, one line looks incomplete:
He feels mildly uncomfortable, but
The forest thins quickly,
I also have another comment, but I'm asking that in a PM. Should be in your inbox in a few minutes.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-24 11:44 pm (UTC)