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Wow. Look at this. I have a new story. This is the result of an English assignment that I attempted to simplify by using a story I alread had. (Disquise.) The begining is the same....Thats about it. I attempted to endit it but it turned different. Oh well. Here you go.
This is dedicated to all those people who put up with my unfinished stories.
Our village resided on the outskirts of the world, The Somi'ac Drop, the complete cutoff of the planet lay just a few miles east, full of dense forest terrain on the way. Those fool enough to venture there never returned, having fallen off the edge of the world. No one was up to a much closer inspection, for fear that D'mir'mna, the god of the sun and air would become displeased and send a torrent of wind to sweep such a person over the edge. It would be seen as heresy to D'mir'mna, a questioning of his power and Way.
There were many small brick, straw, and fire-hardened clay houses, most consisting of two small rooms. The road wound through the village, past the many huts and small temples and past the few stores that sold their goods to travelers from the north who were traveling through the last village before the Gnoän Ocean. Most who passed through were the same merchant and trader caravans that rode through every year. The road continued to snake over the flat stretch of land, fields full of planted crops at that time of the year, until the land came to meet the lapping waves of the ocean, and the docked boats at the pier. Nothing went on there besides the boats that rested there. More often then not they were vandalized. Destroyed and burned, just like all other villages that had tried to make claim on that land as their own. The mere-people it seemed, had staked that land as their own, and would tear down anything built there with their eerie songs that caused everything unnatural to crumble and turn to dust.
My family had low social standing in our village. Mother and Father both ran a small shop for the caravan people to buy goods from for themselves and their ships. But instead of selling clothes, food, and expensive statues of the various gods, they sold food, yes, and statues of the gods and goddesses, but they also sold their magik, in talismans of thread and rings of wood. Our kind, the Aelifili, prized out abilities to bend the elements to our will and to obey our commands. Most in the village had shaped their magik after the creation of small rain clouds for when the summers heat sapped the moisture from the air itself before it could touch the ground, and the quick growing of the harvests, things that would prove beneficial to the village community.
My parents would sit in the middle of their shop, eyes closed, fingers moving quickly. Tying un-dyed string except for when my mother's slim fingers would touch it, lips moving silently and color spread and bled through it. They were knotting, pulling, braiding and twisting where necessary. My father would put small rings of holly wood or large rings or Rowan into place for my mother to tie into the magik, holding tightly to his end so the whole work would be a tight and even project. It took several hours for them to finish a large talisman, a small one could be done in several minutes. My mother's harmonization with the wind and my father's for moisture proved to be a wonderful reason to pull sailors into the village. Though the magik they put into their projects would not last forever, sailors still treasured their abilities.
I had barely entered my fourteenth summer when I sensed a change. It was like stepping over a line somehow. I was no longer a child, able to climb into mischief at every turn, nor was I allowed into the circle of adults that gathered at the village's center well. Other children my age were being brought inside, being taught the handling's of their family's business or trade. A few faces were missing, children who had been sent away to receive schooling, although these were usually the children that came from the better-off families.
I walked through the road and huddles of adults would lower their voices and watch me from the corners of their eyes as I passed. There seemed to be no place for me to fit in, to find my niche. I was a sparrow in a cuckoo's nest. I did not belong. My gift was weak and my parents had already seemed to have given up on it, probably knowing that it would not be getting any stronger. They let me wander the village or sit in their shop with the burning incense sticks giving off the bitterly sweet smoke from the corners. They would continue to sit there as they continued to ply their magik as if I was not there.
Several months later, when I thought that my place as basically the village pariah would tear my mind to pieces, it came as a surprise when my mother pulled me aside with tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. She explained how she had received a vision. It surprised me to say the least. My mother's visions were becoming less Frequent. We all assumed that as she got older this rare gift of prophecy would disperse entirely.
I had been pulling up the herbs that grew wild at the side of our house. In my hand I clutched rosemary and lavender, the springs many and tied together with a thick piece of grass. Dust covered my legs to the knees and my russet garb had snagged on something, a strip torn loose and blew slightly in the breeze. My hair was knotted and shone in the sun where it reached my knees. My large brown eyes, (does eyes I've been told), looked innocently up at my mother where she stood five feet eight inches, and inch taller then my father, and me at five feet and two inches in my bare feet.
“The fates have told me that the journey of your life must continue elsewhere.” She spoke slowly in Friëmoa, the native tongue of her childhood, the one she had taught fluently to all her children by cursing whenever she burnt the evening meal or became extremely angry. “You will leave in the morning, before the sun wakes. An old friend and teacher of mine, Master Juý, has agreed to take you as a favor to me. He will watch out for you and take you to Hie'lo.
“You'll learn other ways then ours.” She took a deep breath to control herself as she trembled with the intensity of her emotions. She clasped my hands tightly together and brought them to her lips and placed a soft, warm kiss on my fingers before laying my folded hands on her breast.
My mind whirled. I was too young to be sent away from home, the only place I had ever known, to be sent to people I had never met. Yes, other children had left their homes younger then I, but they had spent most of their lives knowing that they would not stay, that that was to be their fate! I was completely unprepared for this sudden change of events. My chest constricted with hurt. Did they not want me? Was I that much of a shame to our family? That I must be banished like a common criminal. My throat tightened and it was a struggle to breath past the tears lodged in my throat, tears I would not shed.
“This is a poisonous land.” I tried to focus on her voice, tried to pay attention to it's soothing qualities and not the underlying quaver I could still hear. She looked at me and her eyes softened. I knew she understood the turmoil of my soul. She touched my face gently with work warn fingertips before pulling me close. I lay my head on her chest and listened to her heart beat rapidly beneath my fingers. I breathed in scents from her clothing, the comforting smell that was always and always would be; cinnamon, the lavender soap she used to wash her skin with, the incense that was burned at the family's small alter, her own indescribable personal scent, and burning cloves. I hid my face against her, wishing to be five again, when my biggest problem was a scraped knee or boredom.
“I've already had your father start packing for you.” She started to unravel me from her arms. All of a sudden I could feel everything I had ever loved, everything familiar start to pull away from me, start slipping through my fingertips. I dropped the herbs I had been holding in my clenched fist.
As my mother walked past me, the herbs were crushed underneath her dirt-browned heel, releasing the pungent fragrance of lavender and rosemary swirling into the air. I stood there with the weeds growing about my ankles and felt everything I knew being taken with her.
I found out in the morning as my mother gave me a money purse to wear at the belt around the waist of my new brown garb, a new one that fit me better then any other I had owned before, that she and my father had sold everything in their shop. When I demanded to know how they would make a living, to feed themselves and my baby brother Ainier who lay fast asleep in my mothers arms. My mother merely shrugged, “K'ÿmal will see to it and provide.
My father saying nothing, just stared blankly at the sky, but I could see the shine of his eyes and the slight tremble of his chin as he tried to remain his solid composure as we watched Master Juý help another caravan member haul my trunk onto the wagon-bed, where the rest of Master Juý's possessions were stashed. The rest of the caravan waited for us. Mother handed Ainier to my father who took him without saying a word.
Taking me firmly by the shoulders my mother said in a low voice, “You must, must come back here in four years time. Not a day before. Say hello and goodbye to the life you've left behind.” She looked away as if looking somewhere but I could tell that her eyes weren't seeing anything unfocused as they were. She took a ragged breath and looked back at me.
“Make yourself proud.” Were her last words to me. She took Ainier back from my father and walked slowly back into the house. He walked over to me and lifted me up into the wagon. He smoothed my hair back from my face with calloused hands. Master Juý climbed up into the wagon with me as it began to jostle away. My father just stood ridged in the middle of the road, shoulders hunched with tiredness. I watched him until he began to shrink in the distance, until he was no longer visible. My eyes blurred with tears as I sat on my trunk and bumped along the road, watching my life fade away to nothingness. I circled the carved designs on my trunk with my finger. Roses, branches, stems, leaves and thorns twisted amongst symbols I didn't recognize. I fell into a state of half wakefulness, a place where I did not have to think, did not have to feel. I spent the rest of our wagon ride to the ocean like that.
The ocean waves broke on the hull, sending sprays of salt saturated water to tickle my face. I leaned on to the thin wooden railing that was surprisingly strong for it's spindly appearance. It was un-smoothed though, and slivers bit into the soft pallid flesh on the underside of my arms. Large wet spots already covered the bottom of my frock. My hair was tangled and stiff with dried salt. The brine from the ocean was a refreshing change from the stale village air, polluted with incense from the few scattered temples. I rested my head on my left arm and looked outward. The sun was high in the sky and already the air was becoming thick with moisture, making it heavy to breath in and the air thick like honey.
The waves were small in the distance and only broke violently against the ship because of the speed in which the metal propellers were thrusting them through the water. I wanted to go down to the room where these creations were stored later and see these propellers. I had seen metal a precious few times in my life, and if what Master Juý said was true, these would be large, expensive pieces of equipment that had paid it selves off quickly. The faster a ship could make it through the Gnoän Ocean, the less likely their ship would be throw about the waves and crashed into the water in one of the many violent, seasonal storms. We had just barely set sail when one of the caravan members, also an experienced sailor who had sailed with the caravan for five years now, pointed out the thick gray clouds gathering on the horizon. He smiled as me. Right now he was up there swinging between the two masts and rigging their sails in accordance with the orders the watchman called out. I saw no captain steering. I looked behind me and could no longer see the strip of land that was visible before, but would only see the mountain ridges from the west of our village. I felt tears sting my eyes but would let none escape. It was too late now. Maybe before the ship had sailed so far out I could have jumped from the deck and swam back, but now...now we were so far out I would sink from exhaustion long before I ever reached shore.
I turned from the rail and walked to the door. The door was set in a wooden frame with two steps leading up. Water couldn't flood into the lower levels and spoil the food during a storm I concluded. What would the good be if you survived the storm but starved afterwards?
The steps were slick as I walked through the doorway. Once I closed the door, I let my eyes adjust to the dimness. I had only been down to Master Juý's and mine connecting cabins once. It was straight forward enough. Six stairs down until I reached a platform. Instead of following the remainder of short steps down to the supply rooms, I would walk past three doors and turn left onto the corridor with the cabins. I counted down the doors. When I went past five on my right, I unlocked the door with what looked like a stick hanging about my neck, but was actually a key with a combination written on it's side in ruins I could not read. The door swung easily open for me. When I turned back to close it, the door was already closing itself. I welcomed myself to the room that would serve as my home-place for the next week and a half.
