Yes, I know, the updates haven't come. Life has taken a turn for the busy, and I just haven't had the time and energy to devote to the blog. I do intend to come back to this. But right now I to focus on a very, very necessary career change.
I understand that some of you may resent further delays after putting up with so many. I'm hoping that with the start of the new year will be the start of some serious changes in my life that will afford me the time to begin updating regularly again. I apologize for the delay, and I don't blame anyone for ceasing to follow any future updates. I do hope you decide to come back eventually. Also, if you have any questions, please feel free to let me know. Email address is worldofazunah at gmail.com
In the mean time, my friend Ashenraptor made a cool "trailer" for Project: Azu-nah! So check it out!
Project Trailer
Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me thus far, and I hope to see some of you again when the blog fires back up again in the future.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Update
Quick update: the Project will be continuing, for those who thought Evacuation was the end. I will be resuming regular entries starting August 30th. Look forward to it!
Friday, June 24, 2011
Evacuation
It took me a while to assess the entirety of the damage. My pack comes apart to a degree, and I had stashed the large main part in the cave since we’d moved to this area. I kept all my reagents and antidotes in the big pack, where they’d be safe. The smaller mini-pack has my daily tools like the computer pad, first aid kit, and my multi-tool.
The irony is that I had left the little pack hanging on a tree branch when we’d first gone to see the grass fire. It had been out in the elements for the entire time the tornado had ripped through the area, and somehow it was completely untouched. The big pack, which had been wedged near the entrance to my cave, had been drug out, bashed and battered, and then dumped into a patch of burning grass. That’s where Nandi found it.
It was the fire, not the tornado, that really screwed me over.
The chlorine reagents are the only ones that are in liquid form. They’re kept in packs of tiny individual dose-sized cylinders, made of a shatter resistant polymer (they come in clips, like funny little bullets, and I have to load one into the injection gun to administer them). If they had been through just a thorough bashing, they probably would have been okay. But the polymer isn’t resistant to extreme heat. I pulled a twisted casing full of melted plastoid slag out of my pack and glared at it. The casing had a picture of a flame with an “X” over it, and said “Keep away from fire,” in seven languages. I really hate you, Murphy. Ugh.
This was really bad.
I literally cannot survive on Minerva without the chlorine reagents. The thought made my throat close and my pulse spike. Itchy eyes and trouble breathing would be the least of my problems. While I was busy wheezing, my body would be, quite literally, corroding from the inside out. Not the way I want to go.
I sat on the ground, staring at the remains of the cylinder casing, dreading the next step. I’m due for a dose today. Without it, I’ll be itching and miserable by evening. In a week I’ll be dead. Nandi and Kohric were looking over my shoulders on either side. Nandi doesn’t really understand why I need all my pills and injections. He just knows they’re important in some vague way. Kohric, though, knows that his world is effectively poisonous to me. He sat down next to me, looking very, very solemn, and caught my gaze.
“Tee must go,” he said, very softly. It wasn’t a question, and hearing him say it made my throat close up again. I felt Nandi start from my other side, and he made a tiny keening whimper.
I felt sick. I would have to use the emergency com box to flag GZ Station and have a shuttle come for emergency evac; the ultimate statement of failure for a field scientist. It’s like going away to summer camp and then having to call your mommy to take you home after the second day. Doc Sutherland will never, ever, EVER let me live this down. Granted, I’ll only be away long enough for medical treatment and resupply, but I’ll probably still be weeks; weeks of time I’m supposed to be documenting. Weeks away from people who have become dear friends.
“Tee must go,” I whispered. My voice sounded thick and raspy. Kohric pressed his forehead against my shoulder, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. “But I will come back before the moons have turned.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
It takes a shuttle three days to get to Minerva from Iapitus. Those three days were misery. I barely left the cave on the second and third days, and by the time I got a ping from the shuttle with an ETA, I had to have Kohric’s help to walk to the pick up site. My breath was rasping like an old lady, I felt nauseous, and I was so short of wind that it took us nearly an hour to walk there. My eyes were so irritated that I was having trouble seeing clearly. I was practically stumbling by the time the shuttle landed.
Nandi and Kohric were the only ones that accompanied me. I’m incredibly grateful for that. I don’t think I could have handled having anyone else there; it was hard enough saying goodbye to the two of them.
Azu-nah don’t weep; they don’t have tear ducts in the same way we do. When they’re particularly upset, their throats start to tighten involuntarily and they make a kind of keening wail. Kohric’s jaw was tight, and his throat was working furiously when he came to hug me goodbye; the equivalent of holding back tears. We bumped foreheads and I hugged him while he murmured words of safe passage, and asked me to “return home soon.” My eyes were already watering, but that started tears openly trailing down my cheeks.
Nandi told me that he would save an entire koh for me, and if I didn’t come back he would give it to Ikaylay or Sodo. I laughed weakly through my tears and hugged him.
I was quickly bustled into the shuttle by two no-nonsense medics. They buckled me to a gurney and began setting up monitors before the shuttle door even began to close. My head was beside one of the small, oval windows. Outside, Nandi raised a hand and flexed his fingers in an imitation of waving goodbye. I pressed my hand to the window and tried to smile as my two friends seemed to grow smaller and smaller below.
”Before the moons turn,” I whispered.
Okay, before anyone freaks out, this is NOT the end of Tee's story or the Project.
There is, however, going to be a period without updates. Think of this as a season finale. The Project requires a lot of plotting, planning, and working on art. It's difficult to keep that up on a weekly basis indefinitely, and when I try to the quality begins to suffer. So I'm going to be taking a few weeks to do some behind the scenes type work; plotting things out, mostly, but I also want to get a bit of a dictionary up for you guys. If you have any questions, let me know!
ETA for the "season premier" (I use the term extremely loosely) is July 26th. Look forward to it!
The irony is that I had left the little pack hanging on a tree branch when we’d first gone to see the grass fire. It had been out in the elements for the entire time the tornado had ripped through the area, and somehow it was completely untouched. The big pack, which had been wedged near the entrance to my cave, had been drug out, bashed and battered, and then dumped into a patch of burning grass. That’s where Nandi found it.
It was the fire, not the tornado, that really screwed me over.
The chlorine reagents are the only ones that are in liquid form. They’re kept in packs of tiny individual dose-sized cylinders, made of a shatter resistant polymer (they come in clips, like funny little bullets, and I have to load one into the injection gun to administer them). If they had been through just a thorough bashing, they probably would have been okay. But the polymer isn’t resistant to extreme heat. I pulled a twisted casing full of melted plastoid slag out of my pack and glared at it. The casing had a picture of a flame with an “X” over it, and said “Keep away from fire,” in seven languages. I really hate you, Murphy. Ugh.
This was really bad.
I literally cannot survive on Minerva without the chlorine reagents. The thought made my throat close and my pulse spike. Itchy eyes and trouble breathing would be the least of my problems. While I was busy wheezing, my body would be, quite literally, corroding from the inside out. Not the way I want to go.
I sat on the ground, staring at the remains of the cylinder casing, dreading the next step. I’m due for a dose today. Without it, I’ll be itching and miserable by evening. In a week I’ll be dead. Nandi and Kohric were looking over my shoulders on either side. Nandi doesn’t really understand why I need all my pills and injections. He just knows they’re important in some vague way. Kohric, though, knows that his world is effectively poisonous to me. He sat down next to me, looking very, very solemn, and caught my gaze.
“Tee must go,” he said, very softly. It wasn’t a question, and hearing him say it made my throat close up again. I felt Nandi start from my other side, and he made a tiny keening whimper.
I felt sick. I would have to use the emergency com box to flag GZ Station and have a shuttle come for emergency evac; the ultimate statement of failure for a field scientist. It’s like going away to summer camp and then having to call your mommy to take you home after the second day. Doc Sutherland will never, ever, EVER let me live this down. Granted, I’ll only be away long enough for medical treatment and resupply, but I’ll probably still be weeks; weeks of time I’m supposed to be documenting. Weeks away from people who have become dear friends.
“Tee must go,” I whispered. My voice sounded thick and raspy. Kohric pressed his forehead against my shoulder, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. “But I will come back before the moons have turned.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~
It takes a shuttle three days to get to Minerva from Iapitus. Those three days were misery. I barely left the cave on the second and third days, and by the time I got a ping from the shuttle with an ETA, I had to have Kohric’s help to walk to the pick up site. My breath was rasping like an old lady, I felt nauseous, and I was so short of wind that it took us nearly an hour to walk there. My eyes were so irritated that I was having trouble seeing clearly. I was practically stumbling by the time the shuttle landed.
Nandi and Kohric were the only ones that accompanied me. I’m incredibly grateful for that. I don’t think I could have handled having anyone else there; it was hard enough saying goodbye to the two of them.
Azu-nah don’t weep; they don’t have tear ducts in the same way we do. When they’re particularly upset, their throats start to tighten involuntarily and they make a kind of keening wail. Kohric’s jaw was tight, and his throat was working furiously when he came to hug me goodbye; the equivalent of holding back tears. We bumped foreheads and I hugged him while he murmured words of safe passage, and asked me to “return home soon.” My eyes were already watering, but that started tears openly trailing down my cheeks.
Nandi told me that he would save an entire koh for me, and if I didn’t come back he would give it to Ikaylay or Sodo. I laughed weakly through my tears and hugged him.
I was quickly bustled into the shuttle by two no-nonsense medics. They buckled me to a gurney and began setting up monitors before the shuttle door even began to close. My head was beside one of the small, oval windows. Outside, Nandi raised a hand and flexed his fingers in an imitation of waving goodbye. I pressed my hand to the window and tried to smile as my two friends seemed to grow smaller and smaller below.
”Before the moons turn,” I whispered.
Okay, before anyone freaks out, this is NOT the end of Tee's story or the Project.
There is, however, going to be a period without updates. Think of this as a season finale. The Project requires a lot of plotting, planning, and working on art. It's difficult to keep that up on a weekly basis indefinitely, and when I try to the quality begins to suffer. So I'm going to be taking a few weeks to do some behind the scenes type work; plotting things out, mostly, but I also want to get a bit of a dictionary up for you guys. If you have any questions, let me know!
ETA for the "season premier" (I use the term extremely loosely) is July 26th. Look forward to it!
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Complications
I woke to myself again half way back to the caves. I had no memory of starting back. My face was streaked with the salty remains of many, many tears. I had no idea how long we had sung to the dead. It was late, though. The moons had traveled most of the way across the sky, and the clan members around me were quiet and subdued.
It took me a moment to realize that Kohric was on my left, his hand gently resting on the back of my elbow as we walked. Nandi was on my right, walking heavily on all fours and staring blankly at the ground. Kohric was murmuring to me, something about how the way one dies has a different ritual. The logical part of my brain latched on to this and compared tonight to the funeral for the dead hunter at the old clan site. The rest of me wished I never had to see another funeral of any sort ever again.
I must have lost myself again, because the next thing I remember is waking up the next morning. My eyes were gummy, my lips felt dry and cracked, and I wanted a drink of water more than anything in the world. I sat up and found that I had somehow wedged myself against Nandi in the night. I’d been using his flank as a pillow, which explained why I could barely turn my head straight. His feet were in my lap, and his tail had flopped across my shins. He was still sleeping, snoring gently with his head resting on his arms.
I slowly slid out from under his feet, careful not to wake him, and stepped outside in search of a drink. I felt numb, detached. Your brain has a way of distancing you from grief after a while. You can’t feel that kind of intense pain constantly for a long period of time or you’ll lose your mind. So it comes in bursts until you can handle it. I welcomed the numbness. It meant I could function without feeling like a vice had been clamped around my chest.
The clan was very quiet this morning. It was almost noon, actually, and only about a third of the clan was awake. Those that were up were subdued, and performed only the most immediately necessary chores. No one had even begun trying to piece together all the broken equipment, lost objects, deadfall, and other remains of the tornado’s destruction. The entire clan was reeling from yesterday’s disaster, and they hadn’t gotten up the strength to start picking up the pieces just yet.
Kohric was awake at the community fire, half-heartedly eating a strip of dried meat. He stared absently into the flames, the meat flapping against his cheek as he chewed. He looked like a cow. It would have been funny under better circumstances.
I found a drinking bowl and filled it at the spring at the back of the fire cave. I sat down next to Kohric and sipped at my drink, staring at the fire and thinking how odd it was that it was the same element that had wreaked such havoc on the clan just the day before.
Kohric began murmuring again, he was explaining something about how the clan had to find a new tsurandi-Kan, and they could not be from D’Keda. This was nothing like his normal lessons. He was simply reciting information, staring unseeingly into the flames. It took me a while to understand; this was Kohric’s anchor, his way of trying to find normalcy again after all that had happened. I leaned my head against his shoulder and listened absently as he went on and on.
He eventually stopped and we sat in companionable silence, taking comfort in each other’s presence. The clan slowly began to come to life. People came to eat or drink, or simply warm themselves by the fire. Others began slowly clearing the smaller bits of debris and wreckage away.
Kohric slowly turned and looked over his shoulder, seeming to finally register what was going on around us. I shifted away from him as he moved to stand, and joined him on my feet. He looked up at me and gave a small, tired gape grin.
I was about to ask him, “What should we do now?” when I heard my name called. Nandi came trotting up to us, his eye ridges furrowed and his mouth a small, thin line with worry. In his hands was my pack.
Rather, the remains of my pack. One strap was gone, and the other battered until the padding had begun to show through the cuts in the fabric. The bag portion was torn open, and an ominous dark stain at the bottom suggested that several of the bag’s contents had ruptured. My brain slowly put two and two together, and I reached for my bag with a growing cold feeling spreading through my stomach. The only liquid items I had with me were the chlorine antidotes I need to survive on Minerva. There wasn’t a single one still intact.
“Oh shit.”
It took me a moment to realize that Kohric was on my left, his hand gently resting on the back of my elbow as we walked. Nandi was on my right, walking heavily on all fours and staring blankly at the ground. Kohric was murmuring to me, something about how the way one dies has a different ritual. The logical part of my brain latched on to this and compared tonight to the funeral for the dead hunter at the old clan site. The rest of me wished I never had to see another funeral of any sort ever again.
I must have lost myself again, because the next thing I remember is waking up the next morning. My eyes were gummy, my lips felt dry and cracked, and I wanted a drink of water more than anything in the world. I sat up and found that I had somehow wedged myself against Nandi in the night. I’d been using his flank as a pillow, which explained why I could barely turn my head straight. His feet were in my lap, and his tail had flopped across my shins. He was still sleeping, snoring gently with his head resting on his arms.
I slowly slid out from under his feet, careful not to wake him, and stepped outside in search of a drink. I felt numb, detached. Your brain has a way of distancing you from grief after a while. You can’t feel that kind of intense pain constantly for a long period of time or you’ll lose your mind. So it comes in bursts until you can handle it. I welcomed the numbness. It meant I could function without feeling like a vice had been clamped around my chest.
The clan was very quiet this morning. It was almost noon, actually, and only about a third of the clan was awake. Those that were up were subdued, and performed only the most immediately necessary chores. No one had even begun trying to piece together all the broken equipment, lost objects, deadfall, and other remains of the tornado’s destruction. The entire clan was reeling from yesterday’s disaster, and they hadn’t gotten up the strength to start picking up the pieces just yet.
Kohric was awake at the community fire, half-heartedly eating a strip of dried meat. He stared absently into the flames, the meat flapping against his cheek as he chewed. He looked like a cow. It would have been funny under better circumstances.
I found a drinking bowl and filled it at the spring at the back of the fire cave. I sat down next to Kohric and sipped at my drink, staring at the fire and thinking how odd it was that it was the same element that had wreaked such havoc on the clan just the day before.
Kohric began murmuring again, he was explaining something about how the clan had to find a new tsurandi-Kan, and they could not be from D’Keda. This was nothing like his normal lessons. He was simply reciting information, staring unseeingly into the flames. It took me a while to understand; this was Kohric’s anchor, his way of trying to find normalcy again after all that had happened. I leaned my head against his shoulder and listened absently as he went on and on.
He eventually stopped and we sat in companionable silence, taking comfort in each other’s presence. The clan slowly began to come to life. People came to eat or drink, or simply warm themselves by the fire. Others began slowly clearing the smaller bits of debris and wreckage away.
Kohric slowly turned and looked over his shoulder, seeming to finally register what was going on around us. I shifted away from him as he moved to stand, and joined him on my feet. He looked up at me and gave a small, tired gape grin.
I was about to ask him, “What should we do now?” when I heard my name called. Nandi came trotting up to us, his eye ridges furrowed and his mouth a small, thin line with worry. In his hands was my pack.
Rather, the remains of my pack. One strap was gone, and the other battered until the padding had begun to show through the cuts in the fabric. The bag portion was torn open, and an ominous dark stain at the bottom suggested that several of the bag’s contents had ruptured. My brain slowly put two and two together, and I reached for my bag with a growing cold feeling spreading through my stomach. The only liquid items I had with me were the chlorine antidotes I need to survive on Minerva. There wasn’t a single one still intact.
“Oh shit.”
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Aftermath
I have no memory of how we got back to the caves.
I probably should have been disconcerted by that. I’m really not the type to zone out. But I wasn’t exactly in my right mind, either. I woke from the worst of my grief to find myself in the middle of a cluster of Azu-nah. The clan was very active, and I slowly began looking around to figure out what was going on. It felt like my grief had wrapped around my thoughts, making them sluggish and distant. I wasn’t terribly interested in what was going on around me. It was almost like I was along for the ride and my training and instincts were all that was left to pilot my body.
One of us, Nandi or I, must have carried Oshtik back. She was lying on the grass nearby, looking so tiny and delicate. It was hard to reconcile this with the vibrant, intelligent person I’d known. I tore my eyes away and swallowed hard against the lump rising back into my throat.
Next to her were other still forms. It took me several minutes to get up the courage to look. I didn’t know if I could bear further loss. I sucked in a breath through my teeth, scrubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms, and forced myself to face the other casualties.
The first was a small grey female I’d known only by name; A’shen, one of the young hunters. My first thought was relief that I hadn’t known her well enough to feel further wrenching grief from her death. I felt a sharp stab of guilt and turned away. I was not going to think about the loss of a chance at getting to know her. Next to A’shen was an elder, a deep green male, his skin coarse and pebbly with age. I recognized him as one of Kohric’s friends. I didn’t even know his name. Thank the listening deities it wasn’t Kohric himself. The guilt stabbed at me again.
The fourth and last body was To’odir, the Kan’s apprentice. My heart sank. She was the one, even more than the Kan, who had helped Nanahan recover from her injury. She was one of the few clam members who wasn’t born and raised in D’Keda. She would often tell stories to the children about her clan in the deep forests where she grew up. The clan had been certain she would make an excellent Kan. Her death seemed horribly unfair.
I stood there for a long time, trying to wrap my brain around everything that had happened. Everything had turned upside down so fast. Had it really only been this morning that I’d been teaching Eyani and Oshtik English? It felt like a lifetime away.
The clan eventually gathered around the dead and began to carry them away. I assumed that they would take them to a pyre or bury them. But instead we struck out onto the plains. The sun was very low now, staining everything a burning orange. The lingering smoke and ash in the air reflected the light too. It would have been pretty if I hadn’t felt so awful. It slowly seeped into my head that the clan was singing a low, mournful chant. I couldn’t focus enough to make out more than a few words, and simply stumbled along with them.
We walked close to a kilometer away from the caves, to an open area with short cropped grass. The four bodies were laid out several meters apart, reverently posed in a sort of loose fetal position, with their tails curled around their bodies. The Kan pulled up a handful of grass and twisted it into a kind of brushy wand. He paced around the nearest body, To’odir, circling her, his lips moving in silent prayers. The clan was still chanting softly, watching solemnly.
Then the Kan reached down to To’odir and flicked one clawed finger down to the little notch where her neck met her chest. To my horror, he neatly severed her flesh with his claw and green blood began to ooze from the wound. He dipped the grass brush in her blood and began to draw a circle on the ground around his apprentice’s body, using the same careful reverence I’d seen when he had prepared the funeral fire back at the old clan site. This was apparently how they prepared the dead. When he had completed his circle he brushed a line of green down To’odir’s muzzle and tucked the brush into her hands. One after another, the Kan twisted a brush, spilled blood, and painted the funerary circle around the dead, finishing with the brush tucked into the hands.
The sun had fully set by the time the Kan was finished. The few stars visible in the fading sun were joined by the full blazing night spectacle, with both slowly moons rising on the horizon.
The clan gathered around the dead and sang to them long into the night.
This week's cameo was submitted by Ashenraptor with her character A'shen. She was a good sport and let me make her character into a red shirt. :P
I probably should have been disconcerted by that. I’m really not the type to zone out. But I wasn’t exactly in my right mind, either. I woke from the worst of my grief to find myself in the middle of a cluster of Azu-nah. The clan was very active, and I slowly began looking around to figure out what was going on. It felt like my grief had wrapped around my thoughts, making them sluggish and distant. I wasn’t terribly interested in what was going on around me. It was almost like I was along for the ride and my training and instincts were all that was left to pilot my body.
One of us, Nandi or I, must have carried Oshtik back. She was lying on the grass nearby, looking so tiny and delicate. It was hard to reconcile this with the vibrant, intelligent person I’d known. I tore my eyes away and swallowed hard against the lump rising back into my throat.
Next to her were other still forms. It took me several minutes to get up the courage to look. I didn’t know if I could bear further loss. I sucked in a breath through my teeth, scrubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms, and forced myself to face the other casualties.
The first was a small grey female I’d known only by name; A’shen, one of the young hunters. My first thought was relief that I hadn’t known her well enough to feel further wrenching grief from her death. I felt a sharp stab of guilt and turned away. I was not going to think about the loss of a chance at getting to know her. Next to A’shen was an elder, a deep green male, his skin coarse and pebbly with age. I recognized him as one of Kohric’s friends. I didn’t even know his name. Thank the listening deities it wasn’t Kohric himself. The guilt stabbed at me again.
The fourth and last body was To’odir, the Kan’s apprentice. My heart sank. She was the one, even more than the Kan, who had helped Nanahan recover from her injury. She was one of the few clam members who wasn’t born and raised in D’Keda. She would often tell stories to the children about her clan in the deep forests where she grew up. The clan had been certain she would make an excellent Kan. Her death seemed horribly unfair.
I stood there for a long time, trying to wrap my brain around everything that had happened. Everything had turned upside down so fast. Had it really only been this morning that I’d been teaching Eyani and Oshtik English? It felt like a lifetime away.
The clan eventually gathered around the dead and began to carry them away. I assumed that they would take them to a pyre or bury them. But instead we struck out onto the plains. The sun was very low now, staining everything a burning orange. The lingering smoke and ash in the air reflected the light too. It would have been pretty if I hadn’t felt so awful. It slowly seeped into my head that the clan was singing a low, mournful chant. I couldn’t focus enough to make out more than a few words, and simply stumbled along with them.
We walked close to a kilometer away from the caves, to an open area with short cropped grass. The four bodies were laid out several meters apart, reverently posed in a sort of loose fetal position, with their tails curled around their bodies. The Kan pulled up a handful of grass and twisted it into a kind of brushy wand. He paced around the nearest body, To’odir, circling her, his lips moving in silent prayers. The clan was still chanting softly, watching solemnly.
Then the Kan reached down to To’odir and flicked one clawed finger down to the little notch where her neck met her chest. To my horror, he neatly severed her flesh with his claw and green blood began to ooze from the wound. He dipped the grass brush in her blood and began to draw a circle on the ground around his apprentice’s body, using the same careful reverence I’d seen when he had prepared the funeral fire back at the old clan site. This was apparently how they prepared the dead. When he had completed his circle he brushed a line of green down To’odir’s muzzle and tucked the brush into her hands. One after another, the Kan twisted a brush, spilled blood, and painted the funerary circle around the dead, finishing with the brush tucked into the hands.
The sun had fully set by the time the Kan was finished. The few stars visible in the fading sun were joined by the full blazing night spectacle, with both slowly moons rising on the horizon.
The clan gathered around the dead and sang to them long into the night.
This week's cameo was submitted by Ashenraptor with her character A'shen. She was a good sport and let me make her character into a red shirt. :P
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
To be continued?
This week is going to be a little different. We'll be back to Tee next week, but I wanted to take some time out to get some feedback from you guys and discuss where the Project is going. I'd really appreciate your thoughts.
In a few weeks I'm going to be putting the blog on a short pause. A mini summer vacation, essentially. The break will be a few weeks long, 3-4, and then we'll be back to our regularly scheduled (sorta) Tuesdays. I need some down time, and I want to get to work on where the Project is going.
Now, here where I really want your feedback: do I keep going? The entire reason this blog exists is so that I can share my headworld with you guys. It's essentially a presentation of the planet whirling around in my brain. The world exists regardless, and I will continue to develop it and create for it. But a presentation is only worth it if someone watches.
So, do you guys like this enough to want to keep reading? Are you enjoying the Project? Or am I putting hours and hours of my life into presenting to an empty audience? I'd really like you guys' feedback.
Regular entry will be back next week.
In a few weeks I'm going to be putting the blog on a short pause. A mini summer vacation, essentially. The break will be a few weeks long, 3-4, and then we'll be back to our regularly scheduled (sorta) Tuesdays. I need some down time, and I want to get to work on where the Project is going.
Now, here where I really want your feedback: do I keep going? The entire reason this blog exists is so that I can share my headworld with you guys. It's essentially a presentation of the planet whirling around in my brain. The world exists regardless, and I will continue to develop it and create for it. But a presentation is only worth it if someone watches.
So, do you guys like this enough to want to keep reading? Are you enjoying the Project? Or am I putting hours and hours of my life into presenting to an empty audience? I'd really like you guys' feedback.
Regular entry will be back next week.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Loss
We huddled in the cave for what felt like eternity. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t actually very long. Tornados don’t generally sit in one place for more than a few minutes, but it really didn’t feel like a few minutes. Then again, keeping track of time was the last thing on my mind.
At some point Nandi must have come into the cave with us. I have no memory of it. He may have been inside before we came in. I don’t know. But at some point I realized there was another warm body pressed against my side, and the spiky bristles of his shorn mane were prickling my neck. It was oddly centering; a tiny piece of normality in the middle of a howling nightmare.
Eventually the wind died down and we got up the courage to move. Nandi moved off to look out the cave entrance, and I slowly unhinged my stiff limbs from around poor Eyani. The poor little guy was looking thoroughly squashed, but he didn’t seem to notice. He looked up at me as if he was expecting the cave to come crashing down on top of us. His pupils kept dilating and contracting like a confused pair of camera lenses. I bumped his forehead and it seemed to help; his ears relaxed, and he let out a funny little huffing snort. Then his eyes tracked up to my cheek and he flattened his ears again.
“What is this?” he asked, sniffing up at me.
I felt at my cheek and realized the cut I’d gotten earlier had left a mess of crusted blood down the side of my face. I was so scrambled by everything that happened that it took me a minute to realize why he was concerned.
“Your blood is green,” I said. “My blood is red.”
His eyes grew huge and he stared at me for a long, long time as if I’d grown a second head. I wondered if he was suddenly registering just how very alien I am to this world. It made me feel lonely.
“Tee is hurt?” he finally asked.
I smiled at him and bumped his forehead again. “No,” I said.
We made our way after Nandi to the entrance and my stomach lurched. The sun was still up, but the smoke and ash and dust in the air made everything feel smothered and hazy. There was a huge, winding path of ground in front of the cliff face that was completely littered with debris; twisted, shattered pieces of wood, broken bits of rocks, whole shrubs, roots and all, flung everywhere. Even the grass that had managed to stay rooted looked warped. Everything was covered in a fine layer of grey ash. There was less burned than I had feared, though. Perhaps the fire wasn’t able to catch well at such high speeds. There were areas of grass that were clearly smoldering, and some of the broken logs had red coals glowing balefully from their centers. Gusts of smoke kept billowing in on the wind, carried from the larger fire on the plain.
It was incredibly disturbing. This wasn’t D’Keda as I’d come to know it; this broken, horrible mess. Then I began to register the cries in the air, and the disturbing factor went through the roof.
Amidst the ash and twisted debris were shapes, bodies.
Eyani disappeared out from under my arm and vanished down the hill. I scrabbled to follow him, but Nandi was suddenly grasping my arm. I looked up at him, confused.
“Many hurt. We must find them,” he said. He looked absolutely haunted. I nodded and we touched foreheads in a feeble attempt to rally our courage.
As we made our way down the cliff I could see others of the clan heading down into the wreckage as well. The cries of pain began to mingle with cries of horror and anguish. My throat closed and I felt like a lead weight was squeezing down on my chest. I had a sudden horrible image of Kohric lying dead flash through my head; I shuddered. He had to be safe. They all had to be safe. Please.
Without really any planning, the entire clan fanned out of its own accord. There was a kind of unspoken nervousness that coursed through them. The sun was starting to set, and I knew they were afraid of it growing dark before everyone was accounted for.
Nandi and I trotted out into the grass that bordered the beach, ears pricked for voices calling for help. Several trees had been downed, a few completely thrown or twisted into pulp. One was neatly severed down the middle where it had been shoved up against a boulder.
We come to the edge of the damaged area without finding anything, and we swung around to follow the other side of it back to the caves. I was almost beginning to think things may not be as bad as I’d feared when Nandi suddenly stopped abruptly in front of me, sending me sprawling into his hindquarters. I heard him exhale sharply; he let out a horrible little whimpering moan. I looked over his head and felt my blood freeze.
Oshtik.
She was a little, huddled pale lump on the ground, dusted with ash. No, my brain said immediately. This wasn’t what it looked like. No, no! She was sleeping, she’d been knocked unconscious; she was too hurt to walk. My eyes slid over the pointed slice of wood buried between her shoulders, and I found myself stumbling toward her.
This couldn’t be happening. This could not be happening. My mind refused to accept what was in front of me. No, no, no! This was a nightmare. This couldn’t possibly be real. This was a research mission. It wasn’t supposed to be this way! This could not be happening!
I sank down to my knees in front of her, my hands clutched at my chest. I know I was moaning, sobbing, but it didn’t feel like they belonged to me. I was alone with my grief. I rocked back and forth, shaking my head. Tears were streaming down my face, down my chin. They made little damp pills in the ash around Oshtik’s cooling body. I kept wondering when I would wake up, praying I would wake up, and that this was all a horrible nightmare.
But the sun continued to set, and Oshtik was still dead.
I wailed my grief to the burgeoning stars.
I realized too late that the last two entries parallel real events in the midwestern US. I just wanted to make it clear that this was unintentional. This plot turn was planned over a year ago. Apparently I have terrible timing.
At some point Nandi must have come into the cave with us. I have no memory of it. He may have been inside before we came in. I don’t know. But at some point I realized there was another warm body pressed against my side, and the spiky bristles of his shorn mane were prickling my neck. It was oddly centering; a tiny piece of normality in the middle of a howling nightmare.
Eventually the wind died down and we got up the courage to move. Nandi moved off to look out the cave entrance, and I slowly unhinged my stiff limbs from around poor Eyani. The poor little guy was looking thoroughly squashed, but he didn’t seem to notice. He looked up at me as if he was expecting the cave to come crashing down on top of us. His pupils kept dilating and contracting like a confused pair of camera lenses. I bumped his forehead and it seemed to help; his ears relaxed, and he let out a funny little huffing snort. Then his eyes tracked up to my cheek and he flattened his ears again.
“What is this?” he asked, sniffing up at me.
I felt at my cheek and realized the cut I’d gotten earlier had left a mess of crusted blood down the side of my face. I was so scrambled by everything that happened that it took me a minute to realize why he was concerned.
“Your blood is green,” I said. “My blood is red.”
His eyes grew huge and he stared at me for a long, long time as if I’d grown a second head. I wondered if he was suddenly registering just how very alien I am to this world. It made me feel lonely.
“Tee is hurt?” he finally asked.
I smiled at him and bumped his forehead again. “No,” I said.
We made our way after Nandi to the entrance and my stomach lurched. The sun was still up, but the smoke and ash and dust in the air made everything feel smothered and hazy. There was a huge, winding path of ground in front of the cliff face that was completely littered with debris; twisted, shattered pieces of wood, broken bits of rocks, whole shrubs, roots and all, flung everywhere. Even the grass that had managed to stay rooted looked warped. Everything was covered in a fine layer of grey ash. There was less burned than I had feared, though. Perhaps the fire wasn’t able to catch well at such high speeds. There were areas of grass that were clearly smoldering, and some of the broken logs had red coals glowing balefully from their centers. Gusts of smoke kept billowing in on the wind, carried from the larger fire on the plain.
It was incredibly disturbing. This wasn’t D’Keda as I’d come to know it; this broken, horrible mess. Then I began to register the cries in the air, and the disturbing factor went through the roof.
Amidst the ash and twisted debris were shapes, bodies.
Eyani disappeared out from under my arm and vanished down the hill. I scrabbled to follow him, but Nandi was suddenly grasping my arm. I looked up at him, confused.
“Many hurt. We must find them,” he said. He looked absolutely haunted. I nodded and we touched foreheads in a feeble attempt to rally our courage.
As we made our way down the cliff I could see others of the clan heading down into the wreckage as well. The cries of pain began to mingle with cries of horror and anguish. My throat closed and I felt like a lead weight was squeezing down on my chest. I had a sudden horrible image of Kohric lying dead flash through my head; I shuddered. He had to be safe. They all had to be safe. Please.
Without really any planning, the entire clan fanned out of its own accord. There was a kind of unspoken nervousness that coursed through them. The sun was starting to set, and I knew they were afraid of it growing dark before everyone was accounted for.
Nandi and I trotted out into the grass that bordered the beach, ears pricked for voices calling for help. Several trees had been downed, a few completely thrown or twisted into pulp. One was neatly severed down the middle where it had been shoved up against a boulder.
We come to the edge of the damaged area without finding anything, and we swung around to follow the other side of it back to the caves. I was almost beginning to think things may not be as bad as I’d feared when Nandi suddenly stopped abruptly in front of me, sending me sprawling into his hindquarters. I heard him exhale sharply; he let out a horrible little whimpering moan. I looked over his head and felt my blood freeze.
Oshtik.
She was a little, huddled pale lump on the ground, dusted with ash. No, my brain said immediately. This wasn’t what it looked like. No, no! She was sleeping, she’d been knocked unconscious; she was too hurt to walk. My eyes slid over the pointed slice of wood buried between her shoulders, and I found myself stumbling toward her.
This couldn’t be happening. This could not be happening. My mind refused to accept what was in front of me. No, no, no! This was a nightmare. This couldn’t possibly be real. This was a research mission. It wasn’t supposed to be this way! This could not be happening!
I sank down to my knees in front of her, my hands clutched at my chest. I know I was moaning, sobbing, but it didn’t feel like they belonged to me. I was alone with my grief. I rocked back and forth, shaking my head. Tears were streaming down my face, down my chin. They made little damp pills in the ash around Oshtik’s cooling body. I kept wondering when I would wake up, praying I would wake up, and that this was all a horrible nightmare.
But the sun continued to set, and Oshtik was still dead.
I wailed my grief to the burgeoning stars.
I realized too late that the last two entries parallel real events in the midwestern US. I just wanted to make it clear that this was unintentional. This plot turn was planned over a year ago. Apparently I have terrible timing.
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