"There are very few monsters within the Inner Circle, which is why civilization has thrived here." Meshua tucked the map away in her coat and tilted her head back to gaze up at the moons. "Honestly, I'd rather have to deal with monsters. People are worse."
"Worse?" Elwend said in astonishment. "How are people than monsters?"
"Because monsters you can kill and be done with," Rivveld murmured as she dissembled and cleaned out her blunderbuss. "People...you kill them, and more of them come after you. Sometimes with bigger weapons than before." She finished reassembling her gun, then held it up and sighted down the barrel. "People are complicated."
"And Palelanders are incredibly simple," Therin sniped as he returned with his pouch full of herbs. "What does that tell you?"
"That you're a petty siisha with a superiority complex?" Rivveld replied.
"Why you--" Therin's eyes flashed and he reached for his scimitar.
"Ah-ah-ahh," Meshua said, lighting her pipe. "Play nice, you two. Take it down a few notches."
Therin settled for glaring at Rivveld and Rivveld settled for ignoring him.
"'Siisha'?" Elwend murmured quietly to Meshua. The felid smiled.
"Not a pretty meaning, boy, and one you're better off not knowing. Now get some sleep. Long day ahead of us."
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Sythe
Forsythe Lambert is your typical mythology geek. She's into roleplay games, mmos, and buys at least a dozen comicbooks for every paycheck. She's spent most of her life wishing she lived in another world.
Forsythe's parents are very nice, very loving people. But they're also very normal, so Forsythe's withdrawal from society in her final year of highschool is a bit of a last straw. Not to mention her eccentricities and dislike for hanging out with other girls. So, to fix it, they've offered to pay for her entire college education--if she spends the first year at an all-girl's college and make some friends. How hard could it be, right?
Riiiiiight.
Meanwhile, down in Haydis--supernatural prison for supernatural baddies--Medusa has gotten loose. Again. And Roben is going after her.
Roben is half-not-quite-human, half-cerberus. The offspring of a damned union between Lilith, the wife of Haydin, and Cerberus, the guardian of the gate of Haydis, he is only one of many--Lilith is the type to lay eggs, and Roben's brethren number in the dozens. However, he is one of the few who are actually a benefit to society. Roben has taken up vigilante hunting.
When denizens of Haydis escape, it's up to people like Roben to track them down, and either end them or bring them back. Now, he's got to bring Medusa back. Preferably before she regains her power in the world above and begins creating new followers.
Though Roben has some difficulties moving in the world above, one of them being that half of his face is a canine skull.
So some preparations are in order.
Forsythe wasn't expecting much out of her year at girl college, and she got a lot more than she bargained for. For starters, she ended up joining a sort of cult that's more serious than she thought it was. Forsythe just thought she and some fellow myth geeks were going to sit around talking legends. But it's turned into some sort of Medusa-worshi, and Forsythe is starting to get genuinely scared--especially when snakes start behaving strangely around her. Her own pet snake Formaldehyde is getting weird--performing something like a dance in his tank at night when he thinks she's asleep.
Then things take a turn for the downright wrong. Because Medusa herself shows up, and then everything just goes to hell. A few of the girls more caught up in the cult sacrifice themselves to her, and the rest hole up in the gym with Forsythe and as many weapons they can muster. Medusa retreats into the worship chamber to digest her meals and leaves some sort of mutated serpent creatures patrolling the school grounds. Things seem to be looking up when the attractive new janitor busts in with guns ablaze and turns out to be some sort of paranormal investigator, but something's changed--for one, his face isn't human anymore.*
He gets flung into the gym during his battle with one of the serpents. It dies before it can hurt anyone, but their saviour is currently unconscious, and no one wants to help him. So Forsythe steps up to the plate to do what she can.
When Roben comes too, he's looking up into the face of a plain young woman with a very scared, yet determined look on her face. And she isn't screaming. Which is such a nice change.
Together they manage to kill Medusa and save the school, but Forsythe gets bitten in the process. When she comes to, she's waking up in an infirmiry in Haydis--in the middle of turning into a gorgon.
Roben: technically a Lilim. Offspring of Lilith and Cerberus, the guardian of the gate of Haydis. He's not ugly, per se. He just doesn't have the sort of face women are attracted to. Great body. Half dog-skull face. He possesses minor abilities in the arts, the most prominent of which is throwing fire. He's trying to get better at shapeshifting so he can possess a more humanish face. He's ruthless when it comes to hunting down escapees, and he's pretty good at it. He's developing a crush on Sythe, despite his best efforts.
(For)Sythe: once-human, now turning into a gorgon. She's actually taking it pretty well, and she's the first woman Roben's ever met(well, first person in general) who didn't totally freak out or become awkward when she saw his face. That may be because at the time she'd just seen Medusa swallow three classmates whole and then had giant snake monsters trying to kill her and everyone else. But at any rate, she continues to seem unfazed by it, which endears her to him. She's actually pretty blunt and no-nonsense, and has no problem stepping up to take charge in violent situations when no one else is around--sometimes even when Roben is around. Which totally gets him kind of hot. Sythe is sarcastic, a little bitter, and is actually easily cheered by little things--dry clothes after getting out of the rain, new comic books, Twix candybars, and Formaldehyde, who continues to dance for her in his tank at night. It doesn't creep her out as much as it used to.
Locif: An incubus, the offspring of an angel and a demon. Locif is strikingly beautiful, in a dazzling, mind-numbing kind of way that hits most people speechless when they meet him. He tends a bar in downtown Haydis, and is the closest thing Roben's had to a friend (before Sythe.) He of course catches Sythe's eye, and jealousy begins to brew in Roben. Locif, on first-impression, is a "nice guy", but can turn into a real bitch if you rub him wrong. The cheerful kind. You know, the ones that spit insults at you with genuine smiles on their faces and laugh when you flick them off. And yet, he's also involved in a deep internal struggle between his demon and angel sides. A sort of ultimate evil vs. ultimate good sort of thing.
He has nipple piercings, and he loves them.
*he's warned by his techgeek that engaging in strenuous activity will activate his baser animal instincts, which will dissolve his human glamour elixir. Activities like fighting.
Activities like getting ambushed by a horny college girl who starts making out with him and then runs away screaming when his face shifts back into half dog-skull.
Roben leads a charmed life.
Forsythe's parents are very nice, very loving people. But they're also very normal, so Forsythe's withdrawal from society in her final year of highschool is a bit of a last straw. Not to mention her eccentricities and dislike for hanging out with other girls. So, to fix it, they've offered to pay for her entire college education--if she spends the first year at an all-girl's college and make some friends. How hard could it be, right?
Riiiiiight.
Meanwhile, down in Haydis--supernatural prison for supernatural baddies--Medusa has gotten loose. Again. And Roben is going after her.
Roben is half-not-quite-human, half-cerberus. The offspring of a damned union between Lilith, the wife of Haydin, and Cerberus, the guardian of the gate of Haydis, he is only one of many--Lilith is the type to lay eggs, and Roben's brethren number in the dozens. However, he is one of the few who are actually a benefit to society. Roben has taken up vigilante hunting.
When denizens of Haydis escape, it's up to people like Roben to track them down, and either end them or bring them back. Now, he's got to bring Medusa back. Preferably before she regains her power in the world above and begins creating new followers.
Though Roben has some difficulties moving in the world above, one of them being that half of his face is a canine skull.
So some preparations are in order.
Forsythe wasn't expecting much out of her year at girl college, and she got a lot more than she bargained for. For starters, she ended up joining a sort of cult that's more serious than she thought it was. Forsythe just thought she and some fellow myth geeks were going to sit around talking legends. But it's turned into some sort of Medusa-worshi, and Forsythe is starting to get genuinely scared--especially when snakes start behaving strangely around her. Her own pet snake Formaldehyde is getting weird--performing something like a dance in his tank at night when he thinks she's asleep.
Then things take a turn for the downright wrong. Because Medusa herself shows up, and then everything just goes to hell. A few of the girls more caught up in the cult sacrifice themselves to her, and the rest hole up in the gym with Forsythe and as many weapons they can muster. Medusa retreats into the worship chamber to digest her meals and leaves some sort of mutated serpent creatures patrolling the school grounds. Things seem to be looking up when the attractive new janitor busts in with guns ablaze and turns out to be some sort of paranormal investigator, but something's changed--for one, his face isn't human anymore.*
He gets flung into the gym during his battle with one of the serpents. It dies before it can hurt anyone, but their saviour is currently unconscious, and no one wants to help him. So Forsythe steps up to the plate to do what she can.
When Roben comes too, he's looking up into the face of a plain young woman with a very scared, yet determined look on her face. And she isn't screaming. Which is such a nice change.
Together they manage to kill Medusa and save the school, but Forsythe gets bitten in the process. When she comes to, she's waking up in an infirmiry in Haydis--in the middle of turning into a gorgon.
Roben: technically a Lilim. Offspring of Lilith and Cerberus, the guardian of the gate of Haydis. He's not ugly, per se. He just doesn't have the sort of face women are attracted to. Great body. Half dog-skull face. He possesses minor abilities in the arts, the most prominent of which is throwing fire. He's trying to get better at shapeshifting so he can possess a more humanish face. He's ruthless when it comes to hunting down escapees, and he's pretty good at it. He's developing a crush on Sythe, despite his best efforts.
(For)Sythe: once-human, now turning into a gorgon. She's actually taking it pretty well, and she's the first woman Roben's ever met(well, first person in general) who didn't totally freak out or become awkward when she saw his face. That may be because at the time she'd just seen Medusa swallow three classmates whole and then had giant snake monsters trying to kill her and everyone else. But at any rate, she continues to seem unfazed by it, which endears her to him. She's actually pretty blunt and no-nonsense, and has no problem stepping up to take charge in violent situations when no one else is around--sometimes even when Roben is around. Which totally gets him kind of hot. Sythe is sarcastic, a little bitter, and is actually easily cheered by little things--dry clothes after getting out of the rain, new comic books, Twix candybars, and Formaldehyde, who continues to dance for her in his tank at night. It doesn't creep her out as much as it used to.
Locif: An incubus, the offspring of an angel and a demon. Locif is strikingly beautiful, in a dazzling, mind-numbing kind of way that hits most people speechless when they meet him. He tends a bar in downtown Haydis, and is the closest thing Roben's had to a friend (before Sythe.) He of course catches Sythe's eye, and jealousy begins to brew in Roben. Locif, on first-impression, is a "nice guy", but can turn into a real bitch if you rub him wrong. The cheerful kind. You know, the ones that spit insults at you with genuine smiles on their faces and laugh when you flick them off. And yet, he's also involved in a deep internal struggle between his demon and angel sides. A sort of ultimate evil vs. ultimate good sort of thing.
He has nipple piercings, and he loves them.
*he's warned by his techgeek that engaging in strenuous activity will activate his baser animal instincts, which will dissolve his human glamour elixir. Activities like fighting.
Activities like getting ambushed by a horny college girl who starts making out with him and then runs away screaming when his face shifts back into half dog-skull.
Roben leads a charmed life.
The window book
Title is AWFUL I KNOW shut up, k
When Abby was little, she had trouble making friends. Her grandfather felt sorry for her, so he gave her the next best(possibly better) thing: a book. But not just any book. A magical book.
This is not like other magical books. It does not transport you to other worlds, or let you cast spells, it isn't a guide to fairytale creatures that secretly exist in the shadows of your reality. It doesn't even read itself aloud.
What it does is it let you look.
So Abby looked. And what she saw through the page was a little boy, much like herself in that he was alone in his room, sitting on his bed, looking unhappily out a very large window. After she noticed the fact that he was alone and looked lonely, Abby began to notice other things. The boy had long, dark hair, and very vividly purple eyes. This did not strike her as odd because Abby was not yet at the age where you start noticing the difference between what is considered odd or normal. She did think of it as mystical. Abby didn't actually know the word "mystical" yet, but she was very aware of the meaning, and the feeling of that word sent a thrilling little chill down her spine.
His clothes were the sort Abby had seen in some of her grandfather's paintings--dark, long, billowing clothes, layers of them, with cruelly curved, pointy, decorative bits of metal attached to the shoulders and around the neckline. The colours of the clothes were very rich and diverse, but also subdued so that you didn't really notice.
The paintings that the boy reminded Abby of were ones that her grandfather had painted himself, and were so real and so lifelike that when you at first looked at them you thought you were looking at a person through a window. Now that she thought of it, Abby realized that the little boy's face, even, was very like the people in those paintings--they had long, narrow, angular faces, very elegant and graceful, but at the same time you knew from looking at them that they could turn viciously cruel in a heartbeat. They'd always sort of unnerved her, but now looking at the little boy Abby didn't feel anything but pity, because despite his hauntingly beautiful features and the ring of twisting, wicked looking metal that sat on his head, he was undoubtedly, undeniably crying.
Abby Solomon befriends the boy, and as they grow older, they grow closer. They tell each other about their different worlds, help each other through hard times, and forge a deep connection across two different universes. Tharalan is a prince of Nelfeld, the land of dark magic--considered by many to be "evil" in his world, though Abby can't see any evil in him.
As the years pass, Abby loses her special book, and loses touch with the prince. She's a young woman now, working as a night janitor in the local library--a very special library. The only reason she really has the job is because her grandfather was friends with the curator. Abby's never managed to amount to anything in life--she's too wrapped up in comics, books, movie, and video games to be bothered with real life. Ever since she lost the magic book, she's been obsessed with finding some sort of replacement. But she never has.
Her life changes radically one night though when the curator of the museum gives her a special key to the upstairs--somewhere she's never been allowed before--and asks her to fill in for the usual night librarian. Abby doesn't ask why a library needs a night librarian, and she doesn't ask about the stairwell that didn't used to be there. She just takes the job, and the bonus pay, and smiles, and nods.
But that night, something goes horribly wrong. As Abby's putting books away, she spies someone stealing a book off the shelf and running off with it. Abby gives chase and follows them through a door that wasn't there before and falls into a place called Limbo--a place between worlds. It's then that she discovers the page in her uniform's pocket--a page from the magic book. It sprouts a thread of light that Abby follows into Tharalan's world, tumbling out of his mirror and into his bedroom.
At first taken to the palace dungeons, Abby is visited soon after by Tharalan himself--now king, after he assassinated his father(who'd killed his mother some months before) and ruler of this land of dark magic. Abby soon remembers her duty to the library's curator and requests Tharalan help her get the book back--to which he refuses, because he wants Abby to remain in his world with him. Forever.
Locking Abby in her guest rooms isn't good enough though. She soon befriends a gargoyle that roosts on her balcony and convinces it to fly her away from the palace, deep into the city surounding it. There, she meets an older manwhore who's out of his prime and being fired from the brothel he's worked at all his life, and a rough-tough drunkard mercenary that frequents it. With their help, and the help of the gargoyle, Abby begins to work her way into the seedy underbelly of the already all-around seedy city in search of the book and the thief--with King Tharalan searching every shadow for her all the while.
When Abby was little, she had trouble making friends. Her grandfather felt sorry for her, so he gave her the next best(possibly better) thing: a book. But not just any book. A magical book.
This is not like other magical books. It does not transport you to other worlds, or let you cast spells, it isn't a guide to fairytale creatures that secretly exist in the shadows of your reality. It doesn't even read itself aloud.
What it does is it let you look.
So Abby looked. And what she saw through the page was a little boy, much like herself in that he was alone in his room, sitting on his bed, looking unhappily out a very large window. After she noticed the fact that he was alone and looked lonely, Abby began to notice other things. The boy had long, dark hair, and very vividly purple eyes. This did not strike her as odd because Abby was not yet at the age where you start noticing the difference between what is considered odd or normal. She did think of it as mystical. Abby didn't actually know the word "mystical" yet, but she was very aware of the meaning, and the feeling of that word sent a thrilling little chill down her spine.
His clothes were the sort Abby had seen in some of her grandfather's paintings--dark, long, billowing clothes, layers of them, with cruelly curved, pointy, decorative bits of metal attached to the shoulders and around the neckline. The colours of the clothes were very rich and diverse, but also subdued so that you didn't really notice.
The paintings that the boy reminded Abby of were ones that her grandfather had painted himself, and were so real and so lifelike that when you at first looked at them you thought you were looking at a person through a window. Now that she thought of it, Abby realized that the little boy's face, even, was very like the people in those paintings--they had long, narrow, angular faces, very elegant and graceful, but at the same time you knew from looking at them that they could turn viciously cruel in a heartbeat. They'd always sort of unnerved her, but now looking at the little boy Abby didn't feel anything but pity, because despite his hauntingly beautiful features and the ring of twisting, wicked looking metal that sat on his head, he was undoubtedly, undeniably crying.
Abby Solomon befriends the boy, and as they grow older, they grow closer. They tell each other about their different worlds, help each other through hard times, and forge a deep connection across two different universes. Tharalan is a prince of Nelfeld, the land of dark magic--considered by many to be "evil" in his world, though Abby can't see any evil in him.
As the years pass, Abby loses her special book, and loses touch with the prince. She's a young woman now, working as a night janitor in the local library--a very special library. The only reason she really has the job is because her grandfather was friends with the curator. Abby's never managed to amount to anything in life--she's too wrapped up in comics, books, movie, and video games to be bothered with real life. Ever since she lost the magic book, she's been obsessed with finding some sort of replacement. But she never has.
Her life changes radically one night though when the curator of the museum gives her a special key to the upstairs--somewhere she's never been allowed before--and asks her to fill in for the usual night librarian. Abby doesn't ask why a library needs a night librarian, and she doesn't ask about the stairwell that didn't used to be there. She just takes the job, and the bonus pay, and smiles, and nods.
But that night, something goes horribly wrong. As Abby's putting books away, she spies someone stealing a book off the shelf and running off with it. Abby gives chase and follows them through a door that wasn't there before and falls into a place called Limbo--a place between worlds. It's then that she discovers the page in her uniform's pocket--a page from the magic book. It sprouts a thread of light that Abby follows into Tharalan's world, tumbling out of his mirror and into his bedroom.
At first taken to the palace dungeons, Abby is visited soon after by Tharalan himself--now king, after he assassinated his father(who'd killed his mother some months before) and ruler of this land of dark magic. Abby soon remembers her duty to the library's curator and requests Tharalan help her get the book back--to which he refuses, because he wants Abby to remain in his world with him. Forever.
Locking Abby in her guest rooms isn't good enough though. She soon befriends a gargoyle that roosts on her balcony and convinces it to fly her away from the palace, deep into the city surounding it. There, she meets an older manwhore who's out of his prime and being fired from the brothel he's worked at all his life, and a rough-tough drunkard mercenary that frequents it. With their help, and the help of the gargoyle, Abby begins to work her way into the seedy underbelly of the already all-around seedy city in search of the book and the thief--with King Tharalan searching every shadow for her all the while.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Scandal of the Century?
That's the title I'm sort of settling on until someone suggests another. I suppose my brain is less like a dead pigeon today.
Also, this line from "Animal" by Keisha goes well with these two:
"I am in love with what we are, not what we should be
Sybil Wright had never been much of a lady. She played only with her brothers and the other boys, as she tended to be too rough with other girls if they even wanted to play any games she enjoyed in the first place. Any dolls that were given her were placed on the shelf above with great care and left to collect dust. Dresses were soon tattered, mud spattered, and her mother gave up the venture for the duration of Sybil's younger years. No one bothered to braid her hair; most of the time it was tangled up enough to keep to itself, and every year or so when summer came around, either Sybil or her brothers managed to get their hands on a pair of scissors and lop the whole mess off. In the years just before Sybil crested womanhood, she began nicking her brothers' clothes and, to everyone's surprise, it actually had a calming effect on her personality. When confined to a little girl's petticoats and fine buckle-up shoes, Sybil was wild as a stray pig. Once she donned a boy's trousers, vest, and shirt, though, she became a perfect little gentleman.
Something changed, though, in the years of tumultous puberty. Her father put his foot down. He threatened to marry her to callous old Horace, the mill man who lived the next township over, if she did not tame her boyish ways. Sybil was furious when he did so--she did not throw a tantrum like a proper girl, screaming and crying and stamping her foot. Instead she went out to the barn, saddled a horse, and went off into the moor.
She rode about for a day and a night, and though her father sent out friends to search no one found her. Sybil knew the moors by heart after her childhood of running about them with her brothers, and she knew just as well how to live out on one at night in the summer when she had a horse to keep her warm enough.
When Sybil came back, she acted like a different woman. She said little to anyone and did as she was told. She wore her dresses, sang the high notes in church, and day in to day out she tended the sheets of the governor's household.
That is to say, absolutely nothing about Sybil herself changed. She just didn't get up to her boyish antics in public anymore.
"No, no, turn it round this way. ...Sah," Sybil added as she corrected John Griffith's attempt at repositioning the bloomers. He'd had them on backwards originally, and it was all Sybil could do not to snicker. Even more laughable was his expression, as if he really just could not believe this was actually happening.
He'd tried to make her leave again, but Sybil had prevailed. It wasn't difficult, really--she knew from the moment she'd entered the room and seen what she'd seen that he was just like her. And Sybil had a theory. If she was a woman who somehow possessed the personality of a man, why shouldn't he likewise possess the personality of a woman? And if he did, he ought to be submissive like one, shouldn't he?
And he was. After a little more protesting he relented to her insistence on assisting him, and stood tamely as she pointed out the flaws in his attempts at ladywear. He obediently did as he was told, all the way up to the point where Sybil was pulling the corset back out of the trunk for him.
"Hold on a moment, now," John said. "You don't mean to say you'll help me put it all on, do you?"
"And why not?" Sybil asked, turning back to him with the corset in her hands. "If you can't even get bloomers right I hardly expect you to get it all on right yourself. ...Sah."
"But...why?" he asked. "You...you shouldn't even...I've been caught at it once before, you know, and the woman--she's supervisor of the maids now or something--she almost had a fit. She screamed, she did. And then she went and had to have a lie, and then the doctor even had to come see her and give her a tonic--you are taking this all awfully well."
Sybil smiled. Then she lifted up her skirts.
"Wait, what are you--" John's voice dissolved into a yelp of astonishment. "Those--those are men's trousers!" he exclaimed aloud, pointing at them.
"Shhh," Sybil hissed, frowning. "Not so loud, or you'll bring the whole house running! Sah."
"Those are men's trousers," John whispered loudly, his eyes round and wide like a doe's.
"Those are lady's bloomers," Sybil pointed out, letting her skirts fall back. John flushed bright red again. "...Sah," Sybil added.
"Well, yes, but--"
"Yes, sah?"
"But...they're..." John's voice trailed off as he realized he had no grounds for argument. And he flushed a third time.
Sybil couldn't help but feel sympathetic towards him. He was clearly ashamed of his "problem" while she had never felt so about hers. But for the life of her, she really couldn't think of a thing to say to him. In the way men rarely know what to say to emotionally distressed woman, Sybil had no idea what to offer in the way of comfort to the governor's son.
"We really ought to hurry this along, if you do want to finish dressing. I've other chores to get on to, and I'll be missed. ...Sah."
"You can stop saying it like that now, you know," he said with a sharp look, the flush fading beneath his irritation. "I get what you mean."
"What d'you mean, what I mean?" Sybil asked, blinking.
"What you mean by saying it like that. Like I'm not...not really a sah."
There was a moment of silence in which the lady's bloomers on John Griffith's body stood out in both their minds. Sybil tried not to smirk.
"That's not at all it," she said. "I don't mean anything by it, it's just that...well, sah, I can't help but think of us as the same, now, even if you are my...my better."
"Oh." Another moment of silence passed as John considered this. "Well...in that case, you might just not say it at all. I don't mind if you don't, not really. You can just call me John. If you like."
"Can I?" Sybil asked, a bit of suspicion in her voice.
"Yes," John said. He smiled timidly. After a moment of contemplation, Sybil suddenly returned a broad grin.
"I would like that," she said. "And I'm--I'm Sybil. Sybil Wright." She offered her hand to shake, a formal, manly greeting.
"It's nice to meet you," John began, taking the hand, but yelped again as Sybil made a mock bow and tried to bring his hand up to her mouth for a kiss, like a proper gentleman acquainting himself with a lady. John yanked his hand away as if he'd been burned.
"What're you doing?!" he exclaimed.
"I was just playing along," Sybil said defensively. "No need for you to shout like that."
"Well--you startled me," he said.
"I thought you might have liked it," Sybil said. "I wouldn't have done so otherwise. Here now, I'm sorry. I shan't do it again."
"It's alright," John conceded, hesitantly. Yet again, awkward silence squatted between them. "Were...were you really going to help me get the rest of this on?" He gestured to the dress hanging out of the trunk and the corset in Sybil's hands. Sybil grinned again.
"Certainly. But like I said, we ought to hurry. Mistress Wood's like to notice if I don't get my chores done by dinner bell."
Still wary of being made a fool of at any moment, John reluctantly surrendered himself to the confident young woman's hands.
Also, this line from "Animal" by Keisha goes well with these two:
"I am in love with what we are, not what we should be
Sybil Wright had never been much of a lady. She played only with her brothers and the other boys, as she tended to be too rough with other girls if they even wanted to play any games she enjoyed in the first place. Any dolls that were given her were placed on the shelf above with great care and left to collect dust. Dresses were soon tattered, mud spattered, and her mother gave up the venture for the duration of Sybil's younger years. No one bothered to braid her hair; most of the time it was tangled up enough to keep to itself, and every year or so when summer came around, either Sybil or her brothers managed to get their hands on a pair of scissors and lop the whole mess off. In the years just before Sybil crested womanhood, she began nicking her brothers' clothes and, to everyone's surprise, it actually had a calming effect on her personality. When confined to a little girl's petticoats and fine buckle-up shoes, Sybil was wild as a stray pig. Once she donned a boy's trousers, vest, and shirt, though, she became a perfect little gentleman.
Something changed, though, in the years of tumultous puberty. Her father put his foot down. He threatened to marry her to callous old Horace, the mill man who lived the next township over, if she did not tame her boyish ways. Sybil was furious when he did so--she did not throw a tantrum like a proper girl, screaming and crying and stamping her foot. Instead she went out to the barn, saddled a horse, and went off into the moor.
She rode about for a day and a night, and though her father sent out friends to search no one found her. Sybil knew the moors by heart after her childhood of running about them with her brothers, and she knew just as well how to live out on one at night in the summer when she had a horse to keep her warm enough.
When Sybil came back, she acted like a different woman. She said little to anyone and did as she was told. She wore her dresses, sang the high notes in church, and day in to day out she tended the sheets of the governor's household.
That is to say, absolutely nothing about Sybil herself changed. She just didn't get up to her boyish antics in public anymore.
"No, no, turn it round this way. ...Sah," Sybil added as she corrected John Griffith's attempt at repositioning the bloomers. He'd had them on backwards originally, and it was all Sybil could do not to snicker. Even more laughable was his expression, as if he really just could not believe this was actually happening.
He'd tried to make her leave again, but Sybil had prevailed. It wasn't difficult, really--she knew from the moment she'd entered the room and seen what she'd seen that he was just like her. And Sybil had a theory. If she was a woman who somehow possessed the personality of a man, why shouldn't he likewise possess the personality of a woman? And if he did, he ought to be submissive like one, shouldn't he?
And he was. After a little more protesting he relented to her insistence on assisting him, and stood tamely as she pointed out the flaws in his attempts at ladywear. He obediently did as he was told, all the way up to the point where Sybil was pulling the corset back out of the trunk for him.
"Hold on a moment, now," John said. "You don't mean to say you'll help me put it all on, do you?"
"And why not?" Sybil asked, turning back to him with the corset in her hands. "If you can't even get bloomers right I hardly expect you to get it all on right yourself. ...Sah."
"But...why?" he asked. "You...you shouldn't even...I've been caught at it once before, you know, and the woman--she's supervisor of the maids now or something--she almost had a fit. She screamed, she did. And then she went and had to have a lie, and then the doctor even had to come see her and give her a tonic--you are taking this all awfully well."
Sybil smiled. Then she lifted up her skirts.
"Wait, what are you--" John's voice dissolved into a yelp of astonishment. "Those--those are men's trousers!" he exclaimed aloud, pointing at them.
"Shhh," Sybil hissed, frowning. "Not so loud, or you'll bring the whole house running! Sah."
"Those are men's trousers," John whispered loudly, his eyes round and wide like a doe's.
"Those are lady's bloomers," Sybil pointed out, letting her skirts fall back. John flushed bright red again. "...Sah," Sybil added.
"Well, yes, but--"
"Yes, sah?"
"But...they're..." John's voice trailed off as he realized he had no grounds for argument. And he flushed a third time.
Sybil couldn't help but feel sympathetic towards him. He was clearly ashamed of his "problem" while she had never felt so about hers. But for the life of her, she really couldn't think of a thing to say to him. In the way men rarely know what to say to emotionally distressed woman, Sybil had no idea what to offer in the way of comfort to the governor's son.
"We really ought to hurry this along, if you do want to finish dressing. I've other chores to get on to, and I'll be missed. ...Sah."
"You can stop saying it like that now, you know," he said with a sharp look, the flush fading beneath his irritation. "I get what you mean."
"What d'you mean, what I mean?" Sybil asked, blinking.
"What you mean by saying it like that. Like I'm not...not really a sah."
There was a moment of silence in which the lady's bloomers on John Griffith's body stood out in both their minds. Sybil tried not to smirk.
"That's not at all it," she said. "I don't mean anything by it, it's just that...well, sah, I can't help but think of us as the same, now, even if you are my...my better."
"Oh." Another moment of silence passed as John considered this. "Well...in that case, you might just not say it at all. I don't mind if you don't, not really. You can just call me John. If you like."
"Can I?" Sybil asked, a bit of suspicion in her voice.
"Yes," John said. He smiled timidly. After a moment of contemplation, Sybil suddenly returned a broad grin.
"I would like that," she said. "And I'm--I'm Sybil. Sybil Wright." She offered her hand to shake, a formal, manly greeting.
"It's nice to meet you," John began, taking the hand, but yelped again as Sybil made a mock bow and tried to bring his hand up to her mouth for a kiss, like a proper gentleman acquainting himself with a lady. John yanked his hand away as if he'd been burned.
"What're you doing?!" he exclaimed.
"I was just playing along," Sybil said defensively. "No need for you to shout like that."
"Well--you startled me," he said.
"I thought you might have liked it," Sybil said. "I wouldn't have done so otherwise. Here now, I'm sorry. I shan't do it again."
"It's alright," John conceded, hesitantly. Yet again, awkward silence squatted between them. "Were...were you really going to help me get the rest of this on?" He gestured to the dress hanging out of the trunk and the corset in Sybil's hands. Sybil grinned again.
"Certainly. But like I said, we ought to hurry. Mistress Wood's like to notice if I don't get my chores done by dinner bell."
Still wary of being made a fool of at any moment, John reluctantly surrendered himself to the confident young woman's hands.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
my brain making like a dead pigeon and me not having a title...
2 posts
1 day
Sybil Wright found her master's son climbing into a corset two weeks after her twentieth birthday.
She was coming in to change the sheets on the young master's bed. That was her job, for the most part--Governor Griffith had a large house, with a large family. If Sybil wasn't washing, drying, or folding sheets, she was putting them on someone's bed. She hated it. It was tedious, repetitive, and on the best days she had difficulty resisting the urge to throw the blasted cloths all in the fire and walk out of there for good.
Today, however, things had suddenly gotten much more interesting.
John Griffith stared at her with an expression of first astonishment, then mounting horror. He'd frozen in the middle of dressing himself, one leg bare, the other lifted halfway out of the corset. A modest dress with only one or two layers of petticoats had been slung casually over the end of his bedframe, a pair of silk gloves huddled in a pile next to one of the sleeves. The young man was wearing lady's bloomers beneath the corset.
"Wh...what are you doing in here?" he asked. It sounded like someone had punched him in the stomach. His eyes darted from Sybil to the dress on the bed and back.
"Sheets, sah," she replied, blinking at him, her mind buzzing with astonishment. "I...I didn't mean to--"
"Get out," he said shakily. He tried to straighten up to deliver a more authoritative order, but his heel caught on the edge of the corset as he did so. Young Griffith stumbled, barely caught his balance, and steadied himself with his face aflame. "Out!"
"Certainly, sah," Sybil said, obediently walking right back out as if in a daze, closing the door behind her.
Sybil stood outside for a moment, and then a grin slowly spread across her face.
"Sah?" she said, popping her bed back into the room. John was hastily stuffing the dress and corset into a trunk in his closet, but he was still wearing the bloomers. His head shot up and smacked loudly on the lid of the trunk as her voice startled him.
He looked round at her in disbelief.
"You have that on wrong."
1 day
Sybil Wright found her master's son climbing into a corset two weeks after her twentieth birthday.
She was coming in to change the sheets on the young master's bed. That was her job, for the most part--Governor Griffith had a large house, with a large family. If Sybil wasn't washing, drying, or folding sheets, she was putting them on someone's bed. She hated it. It was tedious, repetitive, and on the best days she had difficulty resisting the urge to throw the blasted cloths all in the fire and walk out of there for good.
Today, however, things had suddenly gotten much more interesting.
John Griffith stared at her with an expression of first astonishment, then mounting horror. He'd frozen in the middle of dressing himself, one leg bare, the other lifted halfway out of the corset. A modest dress with only one or two layers of petticoats had been slung casually over the end of his bedframe, a pair of silk gloves huddled in a pile next to one of the sleeves. The young man was wearing lady's bloomers beneath the corset.
"Wh...what are you doing in here?" he asked. It sounded like someone had punched him in the stomach. His eyes darted from Sybil to the dress on the bed and back.
"Sheets, sah," she replied, blinking at him, her mind buzzing with astonishment. "I...I didn't mean to--"
"Get out," he said shakily. He tried to straighten up to deliver a more authoritative order, but his heel caught on the edge of the corset as he did so. Young Griffith stumbled, barely caught his balance, and steadied himself with his face aflame. "Out!"
"Certainly, sah," Sybil said, obediently walking right back out as if in a daze, closing the door behind her.
Sybil stood outside for a moment, and then a grin slowly spread across her face.
"Sah?" she said, popping her bed back into the room. John was hastily stuffing the dress and corset into a trunk in his closet, but he was still wearing the bloomers. His head shot up and smacked loudly on the lid of the trunk as her voice startled him.
He looked round at her in disbelief.
"You have that on wrong."
Chapter 1, thus far
Breathe in, flex throat. Push the tension out with sound. Vowels rattle my vocal chords. Hum once, up, hum again, back down. Rinse, lather, repeat.
"Put this on."
I opened my eyes to see my wardrobe manager thrusting a tight black top at me, the curves sewn into it to flatter my body as much as possible.
"She'd never let me get away with that."
"She isn't here. Connel! Where's the black nailpolish I asked for?"
I barked a laugh, stripping off my plain loose T and slipping into the black thing. It fit me like a second skin, snug and sexy. I loved it.
"She'll vacking murder me if I go out there with shit on my nails."
"Sweetie, it's what your fanbase wants. Polls were screaming for it after you did that vampire thing in that music video. Eternal Fapping."
"Eternal Passion," I corrected with a smirk. I liked this one. The last drobey had no sense of humour.
"Connel! Vack it, Connel's fired. You! Yes, you, with the hair. Get me black nail polish in the next minute and you'll have a promotion."
"What's next, lipstick?"
"I thought it best to ease into things, dear, but if you really want--"
"Forget it, I'm dead as it is." I closed my eyes to shut out the pre-concert chaos around me and went back to vocal warmups.
Step onto stage, listen to the roar. The only ocean any of us here tonight have ever known. It washes over me, and as I step up to the mic, parting my lips, I feel beautiful.
I take a breath.
You are so pretty...like a little doll.
Fingers brush the back of my neck.
My throat squeezes and convulses shut, mouth dry as the empty world outside the biodome, airless and bitterly, deathly cold.
So pretty. I could touch you all day long.
It's like my bones are rattling inside me while everything between them and my skin has turned to water. Bile surges in my throat, and I feel a mounting sensation of...of horrible, all over, inside and out. I actually want to pass out.
Shh, don't scream, don't want to ruin your pretty little voice--
"Forest!" the drummer hissed at me. "The vack, man?"
I signalled the band behind me and they immediately began playing. I could feel the whisper bubbling back to the surface of my mind. I fought it desperately.
Come on, come on, get to my entrance--
The intro was over and I practically flung the words out of my mouth at the microphone, assaulting it with my voice. The first few notes stuttered off-key, but I didn't care. I wasn't singing for them, at the moment, I was singing for myself. I needed this. It was the one thing he hadn't touched and destroyed and ripped away from me stop thinking about it stop thinking about it stop thinking about it and vacking sing.
So I sang.
It wasn't a big concert. I was the highest name there, and that's saying something. At the time I was maybe in the bottom thirty-thousands of drop rank, my name getting dropped throughout the entire city about ten times an hour. I'd gotten a recent flux in popularity to get it this high, but we were holding our breathe in case it was just a fad-spike. No point putting stake in numbers if I was only the latest trend of one of the many microsocieties that made up the New California Biodome's sprawling, diverse cultures.
A good gig in the end, though. It didn't matter how many of my fans were there. What mattered was how many people were there in general. Because by the end of the night, all of them would know my name. And they'd be talking about me. Not a huge spike in the drop rank, but every little bit helped.
"You're a vacking whore." The words oozed out from perfect white teeth, accompanied by a sinuous trail of smoke. My friend Tris smiled at me like a crocodile and fell into step beside me as I made a beeline for my room backstage.
"Piss off, bitch," I shot back, smirking. He laughed aloud and hooked his arm through mine.
"Not here," I muttered. I shifted slightly so that I slid free. Tris rolled his eyes and bounced ahead of me to the dressing room, the door sliding open when it recognized his genetic fingerprint.
"She isn't here, Julian," he said, pirouetting in front of the row of mirrors that covered the wall. The smoke from his cigarette formed a ghostly spiral about his head as he spun.
"Cams are, Tris."
"My God, Julian, you're like, vacking paranoid lately. What has crawled up and nested in your ass?"
"Nothing," I mumbled defensively. I finished changing and scrubbed off the black nailpolish. "I'm just...being careful."
"You're being paranoid."
"Tris--" I bit my lip and took a breath. "...What is it going to take you get you off my back about this?"
"Put this on."
I opened my eyes to see my wardrobe manager thrusting a tight black top at me, the curves sewn into it to flatter my body as much as possible.
"She'd never let me get away with that."
"She isn't here. Connel! Where's the black nailpolish I asked for?"
I barked a laugh, stripping off my plain loose T and slipping into the black thing. It fit me like a second skin, snug and sexy. I loved it.
"She'll vacking murder me if I go out there with shit on my nails."
"Sweetie, it's what your fanbase wants. Polls were screaming for it after you did that vampire thing in that music video. Eternal Fapping."
"Eternal Passion," I corrected with a smirk. I liked this one. The last drobey had no sense of humour.
"Connel! Vack it, Connel's fired. You! Yes, you, with the hair. Get me black nail polish in the next minute and you'll have a promotion."
"What's next, lipstick?"
"I thought it best to ease into things, dear, but if you really want--"
"Forget it, I'm dead as it is." I closed my eyes to shut out the pre-concert chaos around me and went back to vocal warmups.
Step onto stage, listen to the roar. The only ocean any of us here tonight have ever known. It washes over me, and as I step up to the mic, parting my lips, I feel beautiful.
I take a breath.
You are so pretty...like a little doll.
Fingers brush the back of my neck.
My throat squeezes and convulses shut, mouth dry as the empty world outside the biodome, airless and bitterly, deathly cold.
So pretty. I could touch you all day long.
It's like my bones are rattling inside me while everything between them and my skin has turned to water. Bile surges in my throat, and I feel a mounting sensation of...of horrible, all over, inside and out. I actually want to pass out.
Shh, don't scream, don't want to ruin your pretty little voice--
"Forest!" the drummer hissed at me. "The vack, man?"
I signalled the band behind me and they immediately began playing. I could feel the whisper bubbling back to the surface of my mind. I fought it desperately.
Come on, come on, get to my entrance--
The intro was over and I practically flung the words out of my mouth at the microphone, assaulting it with my voice. The first few notes stuttered off-key, but I didn't care. I wasn't singing for them, at the moment, I was singing for myself. I needed this. It was the one thing he hadn't touched and destroyed and ripped away from me stop thinking about it stop thinking about it stop thinking about it and vacking sing.
So I sang.
It wasn't a big concert. I was the highest name there, and that's saying something. At the time I was maybe in the bottom thirty-thousands of drop rank, my name getting dropped throughout the entire city about ten times an hour. I'd gotten a recent flux in popularity to get it this high, but we were holding our breathe in case it was just a fad-spike. No point putting stake in numbers if I was only the latest trend of one of the many microsocieties that made up the New California Biodome's sprawling, diverse cultures.
A good gig in the end, though. It didn't matter how many of my fans were there. What mattered was how many people were there in general. Because by the end of the night, all of them would know my name. And they'd be talking about me. Not a huge spike in the drop rank, but every little bit helped.
"You're a vacking whore." The words oozed out from perfect white teeth, accompanied by a sinuous trail of smoke. My friend Tris smiled at me like a crocodile and fell into step beside me as I made a beeline for my room backstage.
"Piss off, bitch," I shot back, smirking. He laughed aloud and hooked his arm through mine.
"Not here," I muttered. I shifted slightly so that I slid free. Tris rolled his eyes and bounced ahead of me to the dressing room, the door sliding open when it recognized his genetic fingerprint.
"She isn't here, Julian," he said, pirouetting in front of the row of mirrors that covered the wall. The smoke from his cigarette formed a ghostly spiral about his head as he spun.
"Cams are, Tris."
"My God, Julian, you're like, vacking paranoid lately. What has crawled up and nested in your ass?"
"Nothing," I mumbled defensively. I finished changing and scrubbed off the black nailpolish. "I'm just...being careful."
"You're being paranoid."
"Tris--" I bit my lip and took a breath. "...What is it going to take you get you off my back about this?"
Friday, December 3, 2010
Sketches
From The Place. I'm still debating whether or not to give it an actual name; I'm not sure. Anyway.
Top left, Garth, in full troll-form. She's leaping off the clocktower of Lower Place. Compasses don't work in Place, and there are no stars, so the clocktower is the only real way to tell where you are. Garth has a very long, heavy tail that is crucial in maintaining her orientation in the air when she's freefalling like this. The clocktower is also the main eyrie in town for gargoyles.
Right below Garth is Theo, the weerraptor that is in constant raptor form. Theo is wearing a mini tophat that's kept on her head by some elastic. She'd rather wear a normal tophat, but they can't stay on her raptor head, and elasticky strings on normal size hats just look silly.
Next to Theo is her ex, a unicorn nymph. Unicorns in the Place play a curious part no one is quite certain of at this point. All that's known is that when they show up, bad things are going to happen. Unicorns alter the solidity of reality around them. In ye olde days, this just made them impossible to find on Earth. In the Place, where reality is already unstable, it really screws things up. People have been known to be trapped between the fabrics of reality after getting too close to unicorns. Unicorns are also suspected to possess some sort of malignant intent towards humans especially. Maybe it has something to do with being hunted for centuries on many worlds for their horns, which are said to give the possessor immortality. In the early stages of their life, when their horns are stubby little things and they're not powerful enough to protect themselves via altering reality to escape, they take different forms to sort of disguise themselves. Horse with a horn? Obviously a unicorn. Person with a horn and a tail and hooves and funky ears? Not to mention weird skin and hair? Wtf, burn it. BURN IT.
So yes, unicorn boy has had some issues with being accused of witchcraft in some of the more primitive worlds. Which is why he prefers the Place, where everyone's too disoriented to care. He doesn't have a name yet. He's also a prostitute. And he's pissed at Theo for being a dinosaur all the time. He misses her. It doesn't help that he's one of her best sources when she wants to dig up dirt on the darker sorts to make this week's column more interesting. So occasionally they sort of HAVE to run into each other.
The floof above them is Azerith cuddling with his baby Giant Salamander. I dunno its name, but he loves the ugly little thing. He finds it adorable. I kept his stripes on his body this time around because I felt like it, and his tail may or may not be actually attached to him at the moment. Those are his eyes looking down at the salamander, and his mouth below those.
He keeps his nose on his face because a disembodied nose just isn't that sexy.
Aaaaand the big black thing is the gargoyle landing on a rooftop somewheres. Her hood and dorsal are currently inflated, and that's her mantle stretching out on either side of her. When deflated, her hood turns into a literal hood, and her mantle folds around her like a cloak. If you didn't see her face at night, she'd look like a cloaked figure and nothing more.
Above her is Ivan, looking like the sorry little wet blanket he is. Cheer up, Ivan. Why so serious?
Oh yeah. You OD'd on a magical faultline, which is why your sorry ass ended up here in the first place, left most of your memories behind you aside from a few choice emotional scars, and now you're suck in a who-knows-what working in an Inn serving tables and trying not to piss yourself from terror when the gargoyle appears on your balcony every night.
And crying out loud, stop complaining to the manager about her. It's her roost, you moron. She was there first.
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