Hwesta, Holly and Co.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 29 - WINNER!

2009-11-30T04:39:12Z

Guess what guess what! I just won NaNo! I have the wordcount and the novel and the winners page to prove it. I'm so excited! I also wrote about 21600 in past 6 days. -flails excitedly-

Today: 3948
Total: 50,073

Eydis shook her head. "South. They said she converted, and I think they have one big place where everyone learns religion." Eydis shook her head at the folly. "That seems the most likely place she would have gone. Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Aislin tilted her head. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"You've been acting oddly lately. I'd rather you changed less rather than more." She didn't need to add anything to that, she could tell that Aislin understood what she was getting at.

Aislin smiled at her. "I think it's rather too late for that," she said.

"It's also past sundown. You'll be able to see better tomorrow, and be more rested. You look tired." This Aislin actually seemed to consider, and she shrugged.

"That seems like a good idea."

Aislin stacked her clothes neatly in a pile, and walked several feet off, starting to shiver already in the chilly morning air. With the usual flash and bang, she changed, feeling the oddly reassuring feeling of feathers sprouting and bones readjusting themselves. Blinking, she stared around at the landscape. It was much crisper than it had been moments ago.

A few flaps of her wings and she took off. The ground dwindled beneath her, and soon Eydis and their campfire was only a speck on the vast patchwork beneath her.

Eydis was right. It was mostly farmland around here. She could see fields and houses dotting the area. Flapping hard - it was too early in the morning to have any sort of decent thermals - she winged south. The sky was a brilliant blue, patched with clouds, and the sun shone in the distance over the lands that seemed flat from this height.

She was greeted raucously by the native ravens who didn't recognize her. Three or four of them circled around her, and she called greetings back. They didn't know her, and she could swear they had a funny accent, though that was practically nonsense since the caws sounded the same.

Thinking that she was from another flock, one of them got up above her and dived her, followed by his companions. She dodged, calling back that she didn't want to invade, that she wasn't going to bring her flock after her. They didn't believe her and she dodged away, They stopped following her eventually, either because she was out of their territory or because they got bored of her.

She moved lower to the ground, keeping an eye out for anything that looked interesting. Something flashed on the ground under her. It sparkled, and she doubled back, taking another look. It turned out to be someone's hat that had some metal on it. She considered diving down and stealing the hat. It was shiny, but it also looked too big to carry off easily. She circled a few times, and eventually decided not to.

The sun rose higher enough in the sky and warmed up the ground. Aislin was grateful for the rising warm air to help keep her aloft. She circle and meandered south and tried to imagine what this would look like from the ground, plodding along at a snail's pace. All the people down there, trudging along so slowly, completely unable to soar like this. She almost pitied them. Idly, she started counting them. One dark head, another, that one had a hat, that one wore a bright bandanna, that one had blonde hair, that one was very gray haired, that one was bald, but had a huge beard she could see from even up here.

Wait, had that one had blonde hair. She circle back and sure enough, she found the blonde haired person again. A quick glance around confirmed what she knew, that no one else had hair that light a color in the area. She was walking along the road, traveling north east, with a companion. Her companion looked more like everyone else in the area, with darker hair, and taller than her companion.

Aislin dropped down lower, landing on a nearby fence, watching them approach. It was, and she was starting to think, Astriðer. She didn't really think that she would have the monumental amount of luck required to stumble upon the exact person she was looking for. But what was she doing out here? Wasn't she at the central religious place further to the south? And who was her companion. She tilted her head from side to side, trying to keep the two of them in her vision properly. They weren't wearing anything very shiny, to her disappointment. Their clothes were a dirty looking white, but that was the only thing that came close to shiny. The shorter girl had a pretty hair color though. It was much brighter than the other person she was with. What would happen if she tried to take it? It was probably attached, and people tended to shriek and hit her if she tried to take shiny things that they were attached to. She shook her head, deciding not to and taking off.

Circling above the pair, she debated going back to Eydis. She wanted to tell her friend that she had found Astriðer, though with not obvious sigh of the jewelry. Taking another look at Astriðer's companion, she realized that that was the girl who had used the necklace last. Once she realized that, it was impossible to mistake her for anyone else. Not that that told her anything about the other girl, or her relationship with Astriðer.

If she left to tell Eydis what she had found, then she wouldn't know where Astriðer and her companion had gone. But she needed Eydis as backup if she was going to confront Astriðer and get the jewelry back. She didn't think that Astriðer would have sold or given away the jewelry to anyone, except perhaps the girl next to her, but either way, it would be around when Aislin confronted her. She hoped.

She supposed that she could follow them to where ever they stopped for the night, and then fly back to where Eydis was and they could try to catch up with them. But Eydis was so slow on the ground, and she couldn't fly. She could try taking the jewelry back while they slept. That would solve the problem. Eydis could travel at a decent speed again, and she could return back north with what she had come south to get in the first place.

But, she wanted to know why Astriðer had taken it. If she simply snuck in after they went to bed and went through their things, then she wouldn't have a chance to talk to her and ask what had gone through her head when she decided to take it. Not just something that didn't belong to her, but something that was very valuable.

She also didn't know if she could find it. They weren't carrying much, and Aislin had a sneaking suspicion that one of them was wearing it, or had it hidden about their person, under their clothes somewhere. That would be much harder to sneak off with without them noticing.

But flying around was boring. It was still early, and she didn't want to just flap around all day following two boring people. They would probably just plod along at a snail's pace all day, and maybe stop and eat some odd looking food. She sighed and cawed. It seemed like the boring thing was the thing to do.

When she returned back home and changed back, Eydis looked very concerned. She even held off giving Aislin her drug long enough to ask a few questions.

"What happened? You were gone all day."

"I found them!" Aislin announced with some success. "She had shiny blonde hair and the one with her had been a raven once." She tried to preen her wings, and stared at them for a moment, confused by the smallness and light color. Right, she had arms, not wings.

She shivered and Eydis handed her some clothes. Aislin stared at them. "These aren't the clothes we wore down here," she pointed out.

"I know. I found some clothes from the locals so we wouldn't stand out so much. Put them on." Aislin did, with help from Eydis when she couldn't figure out what to do with all the fabric. It draped in funny ways and tied up with sashes. It was all very confusing, especially when she was having a hard time working her fingers independently. Eydis ended up doing most of the dressing.

"You found Astriðer with the person who last used the necklace and changed?" Eydis asked.

Aislin nodded. "I just said that." Why was Eydis asking silly questions?

"Where were they?"

She shrugged. "South of here."

"At the religious place? In a city? Selling things, buying thing?"

"On the road. Walking. They were very boring. They stopped in mid afternoon and started knocking on doors. Eventually someone talked to them and they went out back and beat on things for a while." She had spent the whole day watching them. The only interesting thing had been when they passed by shiny things. She had also managed to steal some grain from the ground, though people had come and chased her away. She had even killed a small mouse, to her pride. She hadn't done that in a long time. It had been delicious.

"Did they have shiny implements with them when they beat on the grass?" Eydis's tone of voice sounded like she was talking to a small child. Aislin's reaction wasn't that far off.

"Yes!" she said, remembering. "Shiny, and they were cutting at the grass."

"So, they got hired as temporary farm workers for the night. What direction are they going?"

"Towards us. Away from the water and the morning sun, towards home." She thought there was another way to phrase that, but it didn't come to mind.

"Really?" Eydis was surprised. "They're heading north east? Not south?"

North east. That was the term. Aislin nodded. 'I'm sure. Definitely towards home. But not quite. They were headed more east. Towards the mountains, rather than towards home."

"Huh." Eydis sat quietly for a moment. "That is very odd. Why would she be coming back north, and with someone? What do you plan on doing tomorrow?"

Aislin shrugged. "You could plod south with me. I was going to steal their magic shiny, but I wasn't sure I could do it without getting caught, and I wanted you for backup. I'm not sure how long it'll take us to get there without wings though. You're so slow on the ground."

"So are you, but you're probably planning on flying, aren't you?" Eydis said, and Aislin nodded. "So I'll follow you south? Do you think you can find them again?"

Aislin considered it. She knew where they had stayed for the night, and they moved so slowly that she could probably find them pretty quickly. "I think so. We can probably catch up with them tomorrow night if you move quickly."

Eydis nodded. "Then that's what we'll do. But now, you have to take this." She held out Aislin's drug. Aislin stared at it and Eydis added, "You have to." Aislin sighed and downed it, freezing and losing her grip on the world around her.

Kyta stared up at the top of the barn, feeling more sore than she remembered having been in a long time, if not ever. "Whose idea was this to work for our dinners anyway?"

Astrither, sitting next to her, replied, "Yours. I wanted to keep away from people."

"Yeah, but you insisted no stealing. Except the stuff we already did, of course. This work is, well, more work than I expected."

"Because you're a lazy southerner. Have you ever had to work for your dinner before?" Astrither sounded contemptuous.

"I had to do well in my studies to get dinner at home," Kyta said. "But physical labor? Nope. I managed to avoid most of that. Though, when I was apprenticed to the old cleric at home, I usually had to clean everything. Candlesticks, clothes, robes, the temple, the works. That probably counts as physical labor. But then several new young people decided they wanted to help out, and I could move up to theological studies." She banged her hands against the chimes hanging above her head. The farm people kept chimes everywhere, to the point of almost annoying her. It seemed like every time she moved, she banged into some. The farm animals didn't even seem to notice, but Kyta was starting to be angry at the constant tinkling. Even the university, which taught about the gods, didn't have this many.

Kyta continued staring up at the top of the barn. This one, unlike the previous one, didn't have holes in the roof. It was actually dark inside, and not lit by the full moon, which made for good sleeping, but bad moving around in the dark. She had already run into at least one pole. How Astrither managed to deftly avoid everything was something she had yet to figure out, and the other girl wasn't giving away her secret.

"Do you still have the candles?" she asked, and Astrither answered with the sound of a match and the soft flickering of the candle being lit.

"Not in here, you idiot!" Kyta said, sitting up rapidly and blowing out the newly lit candle. "Everything in here is flammable, and I don't want to burn our bed down! We can go study outside."

Astrither sighed and led the way down the ladder, grabbing her bag as they went. They set up on a rock behind the barn, out of sight of the house with the farmers that had agreed to feed and house them for the night in exchange for work.

On the first night out from the city, Kyta had pestered Astrither into giving her back her notebook. The first thing she had done upon getting it back was to check that everything was where it should be. She had flipped to the section containing the scroll she had carefully copied, and discovered that it was missing. In fact, it had been ripped out. When she mentioned this to Astrither, barely able to contain her anger, the barbarian had just shrugged, and explained that it was private knowledge, and it should be destroyed. Kyta had just about decided to leave her then and there, since one of the things she wanted to know about had just been destroyed.

"Did you keep the papers you ripped out?" she had asked. Astrither had nodded, and Kyta had learned that she had kept them, and had spent the next two days trying to convince the other girl to let her have them back. She had eventually relented and returned the crumpled pieces of paper, but refused to tell her anything about what they said.

Instead, Kyta and Astrither spent most of their time talking about shape changing and traditional magic. She had been very disappointed when she learned that Astrither had not, in fact, made the jewelry that let her shape change, and went on to explain why. Kyta was somewhat amazed at how much Astrither had absorbed from the books she read. It probably helped that she had some background on shape changing.

Kyta, in return, had been allowed to see the necklace, and had explained the significance of some of the elements in it, or at least he best guess as to that. Astrither was a surprisingly good student, with an excellent memory of the things she had read and been told. She was better at remembering things she had heard than Kyta, to her shock. It made for interesting discussions.

They were deeply involved in a discussion about their favorite topic - how traditional magic interacted with shape changing, when they were interrupted.

"Actually, that's not how that works," came a voice from around the corner of the barn. It wasn't the farmer's voice, nor anyone in his family that Kyta had heard. Astrither leaped to her feet and had her hand on her weapons as the person came into sight.

Kyta didn't recognize them at all. They were petite, too short to be from around here, if the bright red hair hadn't given it away. She was dressed like a local, but from Astrither's reaction, she wasn't. "Do you know her?" Kyta asked the other girl, keeping her voice down.

"Yes," came the terse answer. Not someone she wanted to see then. Probably someone from up north. Did all the northerns have such light hair.

"Where's your companion?" Astrither asked. "You're never seen without her."

"Behind you." Kyta jumped, and Astrither did the same, shifting so her back was against the wall of the barn. Kyta just backed away from the three of them, moving away from the barn into the open. She didn't think she wanted to be here right now, not if Astrither's reaction was anything to go by. Especially not if the companion, who was appearing from the other side of the barn, was nearly as intimidating as she looked.

The red haired person addressed her. "Who are you?"

Nervous or terrified was probably the way to go. She was calming down from her initial shock, and starting to think rationally again. "A friend," she said. "You know her?" She gestured towards Astrither.

"Yes. How did you come to use the jewelry to change into a raven?"

Kyta gaped at her. How could she know this? That had been days ago, and Kyta was positive that she would have noticed this person around. She seemed familiar somehow, but anyone with hair that color would stand out like a sore thumb.

"I - what are you talking about?" she managed, half losing track of her calm, half hoping she could put this person off. "Who are you?"

Astrither growled, and Kyta looked at her long enough to realize that she was circling the other short woman, with brown hair. They seemed busy. But then, she was busy too.

"I am Aislin of the TRIBENAME tribe. I am also the creator off the jewelry you used. How did you come to find it and use it?" She hadn't moved since coming into view, which was somewhat unnerving.

"...oh." Kyta managed. She was a shape changer then. A raven. And a traditional mage. She had to be, if her claim was true and she had created the jewelry. Which meant that she could use her magic to do all sorts of nasty things if she so chose, assuming she had traditional magic with her. She could well be hiding some under her clothes. It also meant that if Kyta could get a hold of some or all of that, she could probably keep these two away, or keep them around long enough to ask the dozens of questions that had sprung up in the back of her mind since Aislin had announced that she could make the jewelry.

She stopped backing away slowly from everyone else. "You created them? How? Why?"

Aislin tiled her head and looked at Kyta. "You have not answered my question. You do not have them, do you?"

Kyta shook her head. "I don't actually know where Astrither is keeping them. She hasn't let me see them."

"You're lying. You had them out yesterday. They were very shiny, but she never let you touch them. How did you find them in the first place? Did you steal them from her?"

Kyta blinked at her again. Right. A shape changer. She was a raven, so she noticed shiny things, and she could have been flying over their heads for the past month and she probably wouldn't have noticed. Who paid attention to all the dozens of birds flying around, anyway? "I found them by accident," she said. "I didn't know what it was and tried it on."

"Yet you are still here, still following them. Why? Are you not afraid of it? Shape changing is not permitted south of the mountains, I believe."

Kyta shrugged. "I'm unusual. I want to know how they work. I want to be able to make one."

"I would not wish for such a thing, if I were you," Aislin said. She was about to say more, but was cut of by a twin flash of light.

Kyta tried not to jump at the double bangs that accompanied the brilliant flashes, shielding her eyes. Two empty sets of white clothing fell to the ground. Kyta peered hard enough against the blindness the light had caused and saw two ravens stood where Aislin and Astrither had been. So a change did force the other. She guessed Aislin hadn't madde the change, but Astrither had somehow. That was interesting.

The one she assumed was Astrither flapped her wings, but didn't make it very far off the ground. The companion that Astrither had been facing off against made to grab her, but Astrither managed to get into the air and avoid her grasp. Aislin recovered much quicker and was on Astrither's tail. Kyta stared up as the two birds disappeared into the sky.

"What...?" she asked. She turned to the remaining woman, but she wasn't there. She turned out to be behind Kyta, as Kyta discovered when she felt hands on her, dragging her towards the barn, and forcibly sitting her down between the rock they had been sitting on and the barn.

The woman asked something, and Kyta stared at her. Her accent was thick to the point of unintelligible. "What did you say?"

"Will people come look?" This time she could understand what she was saying.

"Probably. The bang and flash of light are a bit unusual around here, you know. It's a good thing there's no one educated around here to notice what that means." The woman didn't look like she understood what was said, and Kyta repeated herself. "Yes, but they do not know what it means. You are lucky." That seemed to make more sense, and the woman sat down next to her. Kyta looked at her. "Um, what are you doing?"

"Waiting." She kept talking in another language, looked at Kyta, and continued in a language Kyta understood. "Aislin will return here, probably."

"Who are you?" Kyta started to get up, but the woman grabbed her arm before she got too far and pulled her back.

"No. You wait here too. I am Eydis. I am Aislin's friend."

"Right. I see how this is going to be. I stay here, they come back, and you do something nasty to me. Somehow I don't think I want to stay here." She spoke fast enough she guessed that Eydis wouldn't understand her.

A voice sounded from the direction of the house, calling out Kyta's name, and asking what was going on. Kyta turned to Eydis. "I will go talk to them," she said. Eydis seemed to understand that, and let her go. Kyta turned to check before she walked around the end of the barn and saw Eydis readying a bow. Darn. It was going to be harder than she thought to get away if she needed to.

Kyta reassured the farmer and his family that nothing was going wrong, it was probably just lightning flashing somewhere. She even managed to convince them that the flash of light they had seen came from further away, and that the lack of storm clouds to go with the lightning wasn't a sign that the gods were angry at them. They went back into the house, and Kyta considered following them, but when she turned back to check where Eydis was, she saw her on the roof of the barn with her bow aimed at Kyta. Suddenly, it made more sense to not follow them into the house.

I'm almost done the story, but I probably won't actually write it for a while. :p Exams and stuff are coming.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 28

2009-11-30T01:21:18Z

So, I woke up this morning, and thought I had to write 6K to win. Turns out I was actually at 46K, and I only needed to write 4K. Guess I wrote more yesterday than I thought!

"Today": 2820
Total: 46,125

Once they got to the outskirts of town, there was more life in the streets. More people had business that ran late at night, and people that didn't want to be out in the bustle of daylight came out once the sun set. These were harder to hide from, but as Kyta pointed out, less likely to be trouble unless they caused some.

They walked down the street with everyone else. Kyta occasioned some odd looks, for he hands still being tied, but surprisingly few people took note of them. At once point Astrither growled, actually growled, making Kyta jump and look around for the source of this. A handful of boys were backing off into the shadows. "What was that?" Kyta asked, but Astrither just shook her head and kept walking.

The last challenge was the outside wall. The gates were closed at night, and there was a sleepy detachment of guards. Nothing exciting was likely to happen overnight. There were no armies anywhere nearby, the local nests of bandits hadn't done anything interesting lately, and there was no one in the city that they wanted to keep in. However, getting the gates opened required you to be someone special, which neither Kyta nor Astrither were, as far as the guards were concerned.

They stopped outside a shop that was closed for the night shortly before the gates. Kyta explained the problem. "We could wait until morning, and leave with the morning crowds," she said. "People are unlikely to come looking for you out here, especially if they think you went into the catacombs. They'll look on campus before they bring in the city guards. It's a matter of pride."

Astrither considered. "I want to get weapons before we leave," she said. 'Where can we purchase some?"

"Do you have any money on you? Because I sure don't." Astrither shook her head. "Then we get to steal something." Astrither started to protest, but cut herself off, then nodded again. Kyta thought that was interesting. Astrither clearly didn't want to thieve, but had some reason in her own head the justified it this time. "If we go back to the metalworker's street, I can probably get us something before they open proper. Can you disarm a guard? And you'll have to untie me."

Astrither regarded Kyta seriously. "You have done nothing to try and escape. Why? Why offer to help me where you have no gain?"

Kyta shrugged. "I'm a nice person?" she said with a grin.

"I do not believe you. You are a thief, and a liar. You have stolen my possessions, even after I told you not to, and lied about me attacking you. Yet, now you do not try to escape and try to help me. What do you gain from this?" It was the longest thing Kyta had heard the terse girl say all day.

The question almost justified an honest answer. The barbarian probably wouldn't be put off by frivolous answers right now, and Kyta desperately wanted to know what the jewelry did, besides the obvious, and everything about it. She also wanted to know what the scroll she had been reading so slowly said. It was unlikely that she could convince Astrither to teach her how to read the language. She doubted that they would even be around each other long enough for Kyta to learn anything useful. But she could probably translate it into something useful.

"I want to know what exactly the jewelry does," she said, after her considerations. "I want to know how it works and how you created it and if I can create a new one. I want one of my own, if it does what I think it does. I want to know how to read all the scrolls in the catacombs. I want to know what a particular scroll says, and I have a copy of it, and I think you can read it. I also want my things back." She looked conspicuously at the bag that Astrither still wore. "You took my things, but I'm not going to hold a grudge. I'd also really like you not to do anything nasty to me, but if I can't convince you of the first, I'm unlike to convince you of that one."

The other girl kept looking at her, not saying anything. Kyta waited, forcing down the desire to keep talking. She knew this tactic, and she wasn't going to fall for it. That or the girl was thinking, which seemed less likely. Or more likely. The barbarian didn't behave quite like most of the other people she had know, and she was annoyingly hard to read when she went all quiet, like she had been all day.

Despite this, Kyta was starting to get antsy, staring the blue eyed girl down when she finally spoke. "I will not harm you further, unless attacked first," she said. "Turn around." The previous statement notwithstanding, Kyta was nervous as she obeyed. Astrither untied the rope and Kyta turned back to face her. "I would appreciate your help in finding some weapons and leaving this city. If you wish, you man return to the university, but do not tell anyone where I went."

That was... unexpected. The last thing Kyta had expected was for the barbarian to believe her and turn all trusting. Kyta smiled at her. "Good to know. Can I have my things back?"

Kyta saw Astrither hesitate, but she still pulled the bag off and handed it to Kyta. A quick search revealed that the jewelry wasn't in there. Kyta was disappointed. She hadn't expected the other girl to be stupid enough to hand it over, but it would have been nice, and now she didn't know where the jewelry was. "Where's the jewelry?" she asked.

"You may not have it. Safe." Her good luck wasn't extending that far.

"Now we go do some thieving," Kyta said. It was a challenging but not impossible task. Astrither knocked out one of the guards, while Kyta talked up the other one until Astrither could take him out too. They let themselves into the shop and Astrither spent too much time, in Kyta's opinion, browsing dozens of identical knives. Eventually she picked out three, muttering to herself in her strange language, and they disappeared. Their third trek through the city was practically easy, given the experience they had gained from the other two. Astrither seemed both more confident and more nervous with the weapons. Kyta suggested they try to find some food, and Kyta practiced her stealing again one one of the few people selling food at this hour. That one didn't go as well, and they had some excitement as they ran from the angry food seller, but they managed to get away. They found someplace Kyta deemed was unlikely to get them mugged and ate, before spent the last hours until dawn sleeping.

By the time dawn came, they were both more than ready to leave the city. There was no easy way for Kyta to disguise Astrither's blonde hair, so they just took their chances, hoping that the guards would be to distracted or uncaring to stop them. It worked out this time. Kyta led them eastward at Astrither's instruction, Astrither expressing her opinions on their route where applicable. The barbarian wanted to get away from civilization as soon as possible, feeling that they would be better able to survive where she could hunt. Kyta felt oppositely, that they were better off trying to get food by stealing or offering to help at a farmer's in exchange for food and a bed. Astrither felt she stood out too much, and it would slow them needlessly. Kyta felt the same way about Astrither's plan. They had not resolved their differences by the time the stopped, but Kyta won out enough that they stopped in the mid afternoon and tried several farmers until one accepted their offer of work for food and bed, with many curious glances at Astrither's hair and eyes.

It was mid-afternoon the next day by the time Eydis finished shoveling out the areas Aislin had marked. She had ended up doing most of the work, and Aislin had spent most of the time walking around talking to herself trying to remember exactly what to do, or sitting and meditating. Surprisingly, she hadn't complained about the cold as much as Eydis had expected, considering the temperature and how much movement she was doing. Eydis chalked this up to her being too distracted by the impending magic she would have to work.

Once completed, Eydis stopped next to Aislin, who was in the meditating part of her cycle. She sat down heavily next to the silent shape changer and rested, glad for it, until she heard sound coming from next to her.

"You're finished?" Aislin asked, and Eydis nodded without opening her eyes.

"Are you ready?" she asked back, and opened her eyes to see Aislin nod. "Can you tell me what this is going to be like, or where we'll end up?"

Aislin shook her head. "I've never done this before. Neither has anyone I know of. I read about it in some detail before I came here. I think I remember all the important things. The Aytorians used to do this with large groups of people, most of whom were not mages, so you should be safe. I don't know how much magic I'll use up, though.

Eydis nodded. "What do I do?"

"Get all of our belongings and stand in the middle of the circle and wait. I'll tell you what to do when we need to. I don't think there will be any explosions or flashing lights or anything. From what I recall, I activate the road, and then we start walking, and we get where we're going much faster than we would have normally."

"Seems odd," Eydis commented, doing as she was instructed. She readied all their things, packing them so she could carry all of them for a short time, if Aislin was incapable, and sat down on one of their bags in the middle of the trampled and dug up snow. She watched the other woman follow the tracks she had made, walking in a circle from one patch of stone to the next. At each place, she stopped, disappeared for several seconds, then reappeared. The bag of the magic powder she had gotten from her falconer friend was in her hand, and Eydis suspected it was rapidly depleting. On the last patch of stone, the one that was furthest south, she was out of sight much longer. If she hadn't been able to hear the sound of chanting, faint but clear across the snow, she would have been concerned that something had happened to her friend.

Finally, Aislin returned to the center, looking both concerned and tired. "That's it," she said.

"That's it?" Eydis said, puzzled. Aislin had said little fanfare, but this had been almost nothing.

"That's it. Now we walk south. I'll know within an hour if it worked."

Eydis was extremely puzzled, but stood up and handed Aislin her pack. Even for her powder magic, this was subdued. Usually there was at least something interesting happening. Shape changing had the flash and bang to mark it.

However, she had to admit after they started walking that something had happened. It was subtle, but it seemed like every time she looked up at the scenery nearby, things weren't moving quite the way she expected. She couldn't put her finger on it, but the world looked off just slightly. It wasn't fuzzy, or extra crisp. The colors all looked right, but it was very unsettling.

They had walked about a couple hundred meters - whatever making the scenery look funny also made it hard to tell how far that had gone, which was also disconcerting - when she realized that something else was amiss. They should have been climbing, up out of the small valley they were in. Instead, they ground appeared flat, and much as it had looked when they started walking. Flat, mostly untrampled, and fairly broad. She stopped for a moment, looking behind herself, and saw two pairs of snowshoe footsteps stretching out behind her, as expected.

Aislin answered her question as Eydis turned to face her. "It's working. The landscape is going to be funny for a while. I think we'll be there at sundown, if we keep going at this pace. We shouldn't stay the night here."

Eydis nodded, glad of that. She didn't like the idea of staying in this odd, somewhat disturbing landscape. They walked several more hours, and the ground in front of them never changed much. It slanted up or down some, but not enough to be called even a real hill, and the mountains on either side changed much out of proportion with how fast they were walking. She never put a finger on what looked so odd, and eventually just started keeping her head down, staring at her feet. It kept her stomach settled better.

At some point she realized that the snow on the ground was getting thinner and dirtier. Shortly after that, the snow gave way to stones, set in the same pattern as the snippets she had seen under the snow up north. Tthey both stopped to take off their snowshoes and pack them. Eydis took off several layers as she realized it was warmer than expected, and was very surprised when Aislin did the same. By this point, Eydis expected the sun to have set, but it was still hovering above the mountains. She could swear that the mountains had been shrinking as they walked southwards. Certainly, they had less snow and more trees. She didn't think about it too hard. This wasn't flashy, but she was rescinding her previous opinion. This was plenty enough evidence that magic had been worked.

The sun had finally disappeared behind the mountains when Aislin stopped. "We're here," she said.

Eydis looked around. The scenery stopped being unsettling to her eyes. The ground in the distance wasn't the same flat, almost featureless stone trail it had been all day. Behind her, the road wound away out of sight into the mountains. She considered following it back, to see where it lead, but decided not to. "Where are we?" she asked.

"Northern Aytoria. I'll show you on the map once we set up camp. The area isn't heavily peopled anymore because of the poor farming, or because no one likes to live where miracles happen, I don't know which. Can you set up camp?" She sat down where she was, shedding her bag. "I'm tired."

She looked it, and was paler than usual. Obligingly, Eydis set up their tent under some trees. "Are there enough people to worry about a campfire?" Aislin shook her head, and Eydis gathered enough sticks - actual wood, it amazed her - to make a campfire. It took her several tries to get it lit, since it didn't behave like peat. She marveled for a minute at the audacity of burning wood just for fire, then fetched Aislin from where she was staring off into space, not having moved since she sat down.

Eydis unpacked their rations and cooked the shape changer a meal. Once she had food, Aislin came back to life, engaging her friend in conversation about their plans. Eydis asked a few questions about their day's travel, but received unsatisfactory answers. Once the food was packed away, Eydis pulled out their single map of Aytoria from her bag. She lined it up with some of their other maps of the north, to give Aislin a better idea of where everything one. Aislin stared at it, found where they had started and pointed to a seemingly random location in Aytoria.

Eydis looked at where Aislin pointed. "Are you sure?" she asked, and Aislin nodded. It was mind boggling. It was over a month's travel south, assuming good weather. Eydis had never actually been this far south before. It was well past the southern boundary of what the tribes claimed. There we almost no mountains down here, not as she usually defined the term. She stared at the map and shook her head. "That is some interesting magic of yours," was all she could think of saying. "Now what?"

"Not sure. I think I'll change and take a survey of the land from the air. I might see something useful, or give us an idea of where to go. Where had Astriðer said she was going again?"

Eydis shook her head. "South. They said she converted, and I think they have one big place where everyone learns religion." Eydis shook her head at the folly. "That seems the most likely place she would have gone."

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 27

2009-11-28T23:28:38Z

About where I expected to be today. Once again, not sure where I'm going with this! I wish Astrither would tell me what she was planning on doing.

Also had to break in the middle because I wasn't sure what Kyta and Astrither would be up to, and it affects Eydis and Aislin. Darn timelines that actually affect each other!

Today: 3069
Total: 43,305

"Good morning," Eydis greeted, her and was joined by the rest of her family. Aislin grinned back, and continued wiping sleep from her eyes as she sat down next to her companion.

"We're heading out today?" she asked, and Eydis nodded. Aislin seemed quite happy at the prospect. "When do we take wing?"

Eydis gave her and odd look. "Once the sun crests the mountains."

"So, in about two hours?" Aislin said, looking at the sky, and the eastern mountain. "About the right time to pack and say goodbye to everyone. I pack while you talk to people?"

Eydis shrugged. "I've already packed, so it's just your things left."

Eydis' estimate was a little bit off, as the sun had been visible over the mountains for nearly an hour before they finished saying goodbye to everyone. Eydis had a good conversation with her parents, and she deduced that Aislin had a similarly long conversation with Janiko.

Out of the area heated by the hot spring, they discovered that the ground was not as free of snow as they had hoped. While it wasn't actually snowing, the sky was clear and consequently it was bitterly cold. Aislin started shivering about the time they saw snow on the ground, and even the exertion from the climb barely kept her warm enough. While Eydis started shedding layers, Aislin kept all of hers on.

"I had forgotten how cold it gets every winter. Every year it happens, and every year I am reminded," Aislin muttered into her scarf. Eydis gave her a mildly sympathetic look - she did do this every year - and continued.

By the time they reached the road that was their destination, Aislin was alternating between complaining about the cold, and about the snow that was well over knee deep until they put on snowshoes.

Eydis stopped at the bottom of the little valley and announced, "We're here."

Aislin looked around. The ground was flat snow, marked by animals prints and their own snowshoe prints descending from the mountains. "Where are we?"

"At the road marked on the map. I could dig it out, but I don't want to get it wet."

The red haired shape changer frowned. "This is not what I anticipated." Eydis raised an eyebrow inquiringly. "Less snow, for one," Aislin replied. "And more civilization."

"It is an abandoned road. Most of it is destroyed, and it turns into a much smaller path a couple hundred meters south of here, where the valley rises again. Is this not the place you were looking for?" She wasn't looking forward to them having to backtrack. They would lose valuable days, and the journey south by more conventional means would take far too long.

"I'll tell you in a bit. Can we shovel down to the stone?"

Eydis nodded. She stored their bags under the small, twisted patch of trees nearby, and started shoveling down. It was hard work, even with the relatively light powder that hadn't had time to compress. Aislin spelled her off, but Eydis still managed to end up doing the bulk of the work. As they dug down, the snow got more packed, until at the bottom, Eydis was chipping at ice. That was the hardest part by far, and consequently Eydis ended up doing most of it.

Eventually, they chipped off enough ice that they were scraping stone, and Aislin watched intently as Eydis cleared a small spot. It was interesting enough that she even stopping complaining about the cold. It was stone, but not bedrock or another naturally occurring stone. They were clearly man-made, and placed in a distinct pattern, with different colored rocks. It was hard to tell the colors or any sort of pattern, since they were still mostly covered in snow, and only a handful were uncovered enough to be distinctive.

At Aislin's insistence, the spot grew, and soon Aislin could stand in the hole with Eydis, whom she shooed out. Eydis was glad for the break, and watched the mage in the hole. Bending, Aislin brushed at the stones examining them, then took her hand out of the glove and pressed it to the ground. She left it there for a few seconds, then brushed the snow off and tucked it back in the glove. She brushed away more snow and stared at the ground longer. Eydis watched her, as confused as Aislin was when Eydis read a map and corresponded it to the real world.

Finally, Aislin reached up to Eydis and the stronger woman pulled her out of the snow hole. "This is it." She grinned. "It's one of the Aytorian's fast roads, and still active enough for me to use it. I just need to clear a larger area before I can make it work." She smiled up at Eydis. "Do you mind?"

Eydis shook her head and shrugged. "Where? And are you going to help? It would warm you up."

Aislin considered, then agreed. "Sure. I'll mark out the areas I need uncovered." She sighed. "Why does it have to be winter, with snow?"

"It wouldn't matter much the time of year," Eydis pointed out. "The ice has been here over the summer. There was just some snowfall on top of it."

Aislin sighed again, then jumped back down into the hole to take another look at the pattern. Done, Eydis hoisted her out again, and Aislin walked around, marking areas apparently at random to Eydis' eyes.

It took Eydis

FINISH LATER WITH DAYS AND CHANGES

The temple was as busy as Kyta expected. There were also more guards around than she remembered, though she realized it was probably because she always came at the night or in the evening, when there were fewer people around. Fewer people required fewer guards if something went wrong.

Still, she managed to stay around, praying and listening to the chimes, and duck behind Thytikos to trigger the door and shut the door before anyone noticed, she hoped. She started down the hallway, and froze.

She heard a noise. She had never heard anything down here but her own noises, not even that of a mouse or other small creature in the dark.

Someone was breathing down here. It was probably human, though she had no idea. She also had no idea where it was coming from, since it echoed in here. There was only place it could be coming from, though, ahead of her.

She inched forward, acutely aware that the other person, if it was actually human, could hear her just as well as she could hear them. She heard the soft scrape of something brushing against stone, and a footstep, quiet but still audible. Inwardly, she cursed, realizing how much sound her own feet made.

They remained like that for several long seconds, neither wanting to move and give away anything else about their location or movements. The sound from the temple itself was muffled almost to silence by the thick stone door.

Finally Kyta decided that she couldn't stand there in the dark forever. One of them was going to have to move, and it might as well be her. There was an intersection a few meters ahead of her, if she remembered correctly, where it branched at nearly a right angle. The whole area sloped downwards, trying to get underground before it left the temple, since there were no stairs.

The person could be in the straight part of the corridor, but she suspected they were hidden around the corner. She readied the torch, and lit it, immediately breaking into a run, not trying to be quiet since her boots would be loud either way. She ran the short distance and rounded the corner, thrusting the torch ahead of her, hoping to blind the person.

It worked, but too successfully, as Kyta was also blinded by the light. Someone lunged into her gut, knocking her backwards. She dropped the torch, and it sputtered on the floor, though remained lit.

Kyta slammed back into the opposite wall, banging her head. She grabbed the person's hair and wenched it backwards, and they let go, though not before having their head jerked back, and clinging onto Kyta as long as possible. This, too, wasn't as successful as she had hoped, as two punches landed in her gut. Doubling over, with a grunt she let go of the person's hair. Strong hands on her shoulder forced her upright, and slammed her against the wall again, face first, pinning her there.

"I should not be surprised," said a voice, and Kyta immediately recognized it as Astrither's. This was... not unexpected, once she thought about it. She swore to herself. This could go either very well for her, or very poorly.

"I did not expect you to come through here," Astrither continued. "Though it is very convenient. Where are the other exits from here?"

Kyta didn't answer immediately. Cooperation let her lead Astrither around and possibly get her somewhere useful, like the library again. Resisting might allow her to escape, but not immediately. Lying was definitely a possibility.

Astrither interrupted her thoughts by digging her nails in between Kyta's collarbone and shoulder. Kyta gasped. It hurt more than she expected. "I'll tell you," she said hurriedly, once t he pain lessened. "The ones I know of lead to the library, cathedral, a laboratory, and into the clergy's quarters."

"Not good enough," Astrither replied. "I want one with no people. All of those are busy. You know of others."

"I don't!" Kyta protested, and was rewarded with another set of pain. She gasped again, wondering why the girl hadn't used this technique before. Cowardly, perhaps. "I think, I think there might be another one, but I don't know where it comes out." That was a lie - it came out just before the campus proper ended, in a cellar. It was a well frequented cellar, for the supposedly hidden entrance, though the catacomb exit was actually hidden and unused.

"You are going to take me there," Astrither told her. "Now, are you going to cooperate, or do I have to force you to do everything?"

"I'll cooperate," Kyta said. That was probably true, to an extent. She could make a break while in the tunnels, or wait until they were in the outside world. It was beneficial to stay with Astrither for a time, though. She still had Kyta's bag, presumably, and all the things in that. She also knew more about shape changing and that magic. The barbarian had been reading from the same section of the library that Kyta had, and probably read many of the same books, or enough different that Kyta could learn something from her. She also had that fascinating jewelry. It might even be worthwhile to stay with the barbarian after she could have escaped, simply for those reasons.

Astrither clearly didn't believe this, however, as she maintained an almost painfully tight grasp on Kyta while she forced her to lie down and sat on her, while fiddling in the bag. The next thing Kyta felt was rope being tied around her wrists, again. Right, she had left some in her bag, for carrying and tying things that didn't fit into her satchel. She fervently wished that she had taken it out, now. Kyta heard something jingle, but wasn't sure what it was.

Astrither let her stand, though she didn't help her up. "Lead," she ordered.

It was several hours later before Kyta stopped, and Astrither seemed to getting more and more anxious the longer she was down here. Kyta had made some small conversation, and established that Astrither had made her way out on her own at least once, but had managed to get no other details from the taciturn girl. It had been a very quiet walk. Kyta considered escaping, but wasn't sure she would be successful, and wasn't sure she wanted to after all.

"Why are you stopping?"

"We're here. The exit is just ahead, up the stairs. It would be easier if you untied more. This door is more complicate than the others."

"You can direct me." Kyta sighed. The barbarian was being needlessly short, she felt.

"Don't you think it will be a bit obvious if you march me around tied up like this? You stand out, I'll stand out, and people will stop you right left and center. Especially since the guards have orders to keep an eye out for you."

"I'll manage." She gave Kyta a not so gentle push.

Sighing again, Kyta led Astrither up the stairs. With some difficulty, she told the other girl how to undo all the latches, and avoid the little sharp things the designers had built into the door. She wasn't sure why, but this one was the best guarded of all the doors. Kyta had bloodied a few fingers opening it the first time, though she was careful not to let Astrither do that. It could be extremely useful to try and get on the girl's good side.

"You know a lot about this door for never going through it."

Kyta shrugged. "I opened it, I didn't explore past there."

"You knew it was here, then."

Kyta bit her lip. Such an obvious slip up too. "I did." Honesty might help. Or the reputation of honesty.

The cellar was empty when the girl entered it. While the walls were lined with shelves, most of them were empty, and many were broken or sagging, clearly in disrepair. Only the bottom shelf held anything. Kyta had identified them as alcohol of some sort by testing a few bottles, which made sense.

"Exit?"

"Over there." She led them to the small set of stairs and the slanted board. "I don't know what's up there."

Still holding on to Kyta, Astrither pushed at the door enough to open it a crack. They heard no sounds of people, though the light streaming in was very bright in comparison to their dim torch. Kyta's stomach growled, and Astrither shushed her.

Astrither blew out the torch, threw it back into the cellar and dragged Kyta out the door. They walked quickly across the open ground to a copse of trees, where Astrither did her best to put them out of sight from all angles.

"Do you know where we are?"

Kyta hesitated, then nodded. She knew what most of the university grounds looked like, and some of the city. "Can you get us out without getting caught by anyone?"

Kyta bit her lip and thought. To forestall any violence, she said, "I don't know. I'm thinking."

All of the routes straight out that she knew of were heavily peopled, as they went through the city. The city surrounded the university, so any escape they had would involve getting through there secretly somehow. Astrither was quite hard to disguise, with her distinctive hair and eyes, not to mention her voice and accent. Night time would be their best bet, to avoid the crowds. Some people would be out, and if they were spotted by a guard they would almost certainly be approached and possibly questioned. They would just have to be sneaky.

Did she actually want to leave the city with the barbarian, though? There was every chance that once they were out of the city, Astrither would decide that she didn't need Kyta. Everything Kyta needed was right here, at the campus. Other than staying with the girl, and the jewelry which was one of the most fascinating things she had found so far, everything argued that she should stay here.

Kyta suggested her plan of leaving the city at night. Astrither considered it, asked a few questions, and finally agreed to it. They would spend the day in the trees, trying not to be noticed. Kyta suggested going back to the catacombs, but Astrither refused. When pressed, she gave her reason as not wanting to get stuck down there if anyone came.

The day passed slowly indeed. Kyta's stomach kept growling, and soon Astrither's was joining the chorus. She was also getting extremely thirsty. Astrither allowed her to use a different part of the trees as an impromptu outhouse, and used it herself a handful of times. For reasons unknown to Kyta, Astrither insisted that they bury their waste. Kyta suggested that one or both of them could go looking for food or water, but Astrither never accepted it. Astrither couldn't leave because the guards were looking for her, and she wouldn't let Kyta leave for fear that she would escape, and tell everyone where she was. Despite her best efforts, Kyta had to admit that Astrither was an excellent watchdog. She didn't see any time that she could had dodged off, and started wondering if she should have done it sooner, in the catacombs. Astrither refused all the small chat that Kyta tried to initiate, about the bag, and her books in it, and anything else that Kyta might find useful.

Night fell, taking far too long in Kyta's opinion. Once she was reasonably sure that not many people would be around, Astrither led Kyta from their hiding place, such as it was, and let her lead them into the city.

It was eerie, being in the city after dark. Kyta had spent much of her time wandering around the campus after dark, and had gotten used to its silence and size in the dark. The city, on the other hand, was a new place. A few lights were lit in the windows, but not many, given the hour. Almost no civilians were around in this part of town. All the upstanding citizens had gone home, letting the guards patrol the streets as needed.

The saw a few of those, but ducked into alleys and waited as they passed by, or took back routes to avoid them. Kyta was starting to resign herself to being taken out of the city, and having to try and defend herself if Astrither decided she didn't need her anymore. She could make a scuffle when they were trying to escape a guard. However, she was also banking on what she knew of Astrither. She didn't think the girl had the guts to kill her. She was starting to think that she might have the ability, but she didn't seem like she would be able to kill someone in cold blood.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 26

2009-11-27T10:27:42Z

Whooo! Best day in my personal NaNo history! Over 6000 words today. And, that puts me at over 40K. I am very proud of myself, and very tired. Another two days of 5K, and I'll be done. <3 Not likely to happen quite like that, with my schedule, but you never know. Also brought my minimum words per day to win down below 3000, which is a nice feeling. It's around 2500, but in actuality it's closer to 3000 still, because of the aforementioned writing-after-midnight thing.

Today: 6142
Total: 40,236

"She tied my hands and threatened me, I don't know why. She seemed to think I knew something, but I don't know what. She..." Here, Kyta stopped and sniffled, for effect. "She burned my clothes. Thankfully, she didn't actually manage to burn me. I fought back and ran away. I don't know how I did it, but I escaped. She took my bag though. I was just trying to read!" Kyta burst into tears and grabbed hold of Nomiki. He stiffened, very surprised, then awkwardly patted her on the back. Kyta let him suffer for a few moments, then pulled away. "I'm sorry," she mumbled, looking down.

"You should go back to your room and rest," he told her, standing up. "I can send an assistant, or walk you there myself, if you so desire."

Kyta looked up at him, then back down. "I don't know. Astrither is my roommate, and she might come back..."

"We can ask the guards to keep her away. That will suffice. No one will doubt your word." Kyta agreed with him there. In fact, she was banking on it.

"Thank you," she said, and stood. As promised, Nomiki accompanied her back to her room. Kyta didn't have to fake how tired she was, or how unsteady on her feet. The librarian left her in her room with instructions to rest, and promised to ask the guard to check in on her periodically, and keep Astrither away.

Once the door closed, the first thing Kyta did was check if there were any signs of Astrither having returned here. Everything looked the same as it had been when she had left early the previous morning. If she thought the barbarian could cover her tracks, Kyta wouldn't be completely sure, since she hadn't memorized everything properly. She had a pretty good idea what to expect, though, and was confident that Astrither hadn't been and gone.

She could be hiding out, or just lost in the catacombs. Or she could be far away, having changed into a bird and flown away. Did the necklace even work like that? Kyta had changed immediately upon putting it on, but that could be coincidence. On the other hand, that seemed monumentally unlikely.

She had also changed back, and if she had done something to trigger that, she had no idea what it was. That in itself was somewhat disturbing. Kyta frowned. She was sure she had read something about this, unlikely as that was. Something that had to do with changing, when a person wasn't a shape changer naturally, such as the term applied There was something about using traditional magic to affect shape changing, and force a second person to change whenever the first did.

Which meant that the jewelry was probably some fascinating hybrid of shape changing and traditional magic. Had Astrither made it? She had shown no signs of either kind of magic, but that didn't mean she couldn't use them. If she was right, then the jewelry would force the user to change whenever Astrither did. The change might even go both ways, though Kyta didn't know enough to be sure on that point. It could certainly be useful evidence against Astrither if that was true, since Kyta could just force Astrither to change in public, if she ever needed to threaten the girl.

That was all academic right now, though, since she didn't have access to Astrither, or the jewelry she created. More importantly, she also didn't have her notebook, and she wanted it back. That was a problem she wanted to remedy, sooner rather than later. With guards looking out for the northerner, it should be easy enough to find out when the girl reappeared, the trouble was getting the things she wanted back. Ironically enough, the library was probably still the best place to find information.

She debated between sleep and going back to the library for a moment before deciding that the library was clearly the better choice. With Astrither out of the way, probably, the likelihood of finding anyone in the catacombs or the room of the library itself was low. All she had to worry about was Nomiki finding out. And the guards checking up on her. That was problematic as well.

She wandered downstairs and found the administrative desk. The lady there looked very surprised that Kyta was up and about, and greeted her with, "I thought you would be abed. Librarian Nomiki stopped by earlier to tell me you were feeling ill, and that you should be let rest, even though you had classes today. He wouldn't say what you had. Are you feeling better?"

Kyta shook her head. "I think I will go to the healing temple," she said. "I think I need their help."

"Can you make it on your own? We can send someone with you," the lady protested, concerned.

Kyta shook her head again. "I think I can make it there on my own. It's not too far."

The lady bid her farewell, and Kyta walked out of her sight in the direction of the healing temple. Once she was out of eyesight, she turned a corner, double back half a block, and adjusted her direction to her real destination, the central temple. It would be annoyingly busy very soon, since many people did their worshiping in the early morning, but she was confident that she could disappear without any trouble.

"We're not leaving today." Eydis looked sternly at Aislin, and repeated herself. 'We are not leaving today. You need to rest, and you need to rest here, not on the trail. You can't rest on the trail, by definition." Aislin started to protest, but Eydis cut her off. "Another day won't make a difference. Go talk to Janiko. He'll appreciate your company."

Eydis returned to her breakfast, ignoring Aislin. The other woman realized this quickly and gave up protesting. Taking her breakfast with her, the shape changer left, and Eydis sighed. That had gone both better and worse than she had expected. She would have to talk to Janiko, and see if he could help her make sure Aislin didn't do anything stupid. She wouldn't put it past Aislin to try to fly to the next tribe south, and stock up again there. How she thought she would survive without her magic, or the drug that kept her sane, Eydis didn't know, but that was not always the first thing Aislin considered when making plans.

Her sister sat down next to her. "Something happened?"

Eydis shrugged. "Yes. It's private. She wants to go south. She needs to rest."

"And she's head strong?"

"Sometimes. Enough of the time. Rash, more accurately. Janiko will probably show her the hot spring, and that should distract her for some time."

Her sister nodded. "And you still wish to stay with her? How long has she been changing?"

Eydis sighed. She didn't like thinking about that, though it was inevitable, and eventually she would have a very unpleasant duty. "Almost six years," she said, and her sister nodded. She didn't need to point out that that was getting to be a long time for a shape changer.

"So what do you plan on doing on your unexpected stay here?"

"See my family again. Talk to Dushan."

"Ahhhh. That's why you're not worried. You think he has newer maps than you have? I assume you got yours from the trading party we see every year. They were through here only a couple weeks ago, and we sold them updated maps on their way south."

Eydis nodded. "Updated maps, and I think there's something on there that we'll recognize, that wouldn't be useful to most people."

"Let me guess, it's private?" Her sister raised an eyebrow and grinned. Eydis nodded. "You're going to say everything is private, aren't you?" Eydis nodded again, and her sister threw up her hands. "You get more secretive every time I talk to you! Last time you wouldn't even tell me why you wouldn't be back down here again. At least this time, you brought that reason. And a very nice reason that is. It would have been nice for you to tell us before you ran off with her."

Eydis shrugged. "It wasn't important."

"It was important enough you didn't want to tell us about her. We had to find out through songs, and then deduce that you were the 'loyal companion' mentioned in passing."

"She's a foreign shape changer. She was new back then. She had done nothing famous yet. I doubted it would be supported." Eydis was almost done her breakfast, and enjoying the smell of tea brewing.

"Maybe grandfather wouldn't have, and maybe your brother and mother wouldn't have, but you could have at least told me!"

"Would you have told anyone else?"

"Of course not!"

Eydis looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "Really? Once I was gone? Not once in the past six years?"

Her sister blushed. "Noooo, I wouldn't have."

"Exactly." She stood. "Now, has Dushan moved in the past decade?" Her sister shook her head. "Is he in, or out on one of his mapping trips?"

Her sister looked at her and chuckled. "Out? In the winter? He may be crazy, but he's not that crazy."

Eydis smiled back. "Thank you."

She went back to their cabin and rummaged through their bag, looking for their maps. Checking that they were still safe in their waterproof cases, she tucked them under her arm, and started across the village, trying to remember where the mapmaker lived.

She was unsurprised when she saw Aislin with Janiko, talking about something. They were down near the hot spring, and Aislin appeared to be amazed at the sight. Eydis considered going over and talking to her, but decided that Aislin was having more fun without her, and she had something she wanted to do first.

It was with a small amount of pride that she knocked on Dushan's door. Her memory for the village was still good, despite all that had changed since she lived here over a decade ago, and she still knew where everything was. She had been afraid that she would forget her home wintering town, confuse it with the dozens of other villages she had visited in the intervening years, but it seemed childhood memories were strong.

The door opened, revealing an elderly man, his hair and beard well on their way to white, though it was hard to tell against the blond of his youthful hair color. She still had to look up to him. "Ah, Eydis. I did not know you had returned. Come in."

She accepted his invitation with a smile and a nod. Inside was dark, the heavily slanted light of the sun barely over the mountains not angled right to illuminate the room. A handful of the dozens of candles in the room were lit. Like most of the village, it looked almost exactly like she remembered. Shelves covered the walls, and each was full to overflowing with carefully bound and waterproofed scrolls. Each shelf was labeled in tiny, neat handwriting with the location of the maps on that shelf. A large table in the center of the room stood empty, ready to have the valuable parchment spread out on it. Towards the back of the room, a smaller table was in use for personal projects, and behind that, a bed.

"You must be looking for something." He sat down at the smaller table and resumed the leather working lying there, wielding the large needle deftly.

"I have maps this far south, but the ones for further south are not detailed enough. I'm looking for something in particular, something not shown on the maps I have. Can you help?"

"I would say you've come to the right place, but you already know that." He stood, going to the left wall. "Where exactly were you thinking?"

Eydis named two of the major mountains south of them, though somewhat further west than the usual route to Aytoria. "And anything that connects that area to Ignacij," she added.

He looked at her. "That's a bit far north of where you're going," he pointed out. "And he's about due for an eruption. Going to pray before you head south? It's getting close to winter."

"I know. I doubt we'll need that far north, but I have a suspicion."

He shrugged and pulled out five maps. Laying them on the table, he said, "These are the big area ones. You can tell me the details from here." He opened one, spreading it gently flat on the table. It was parchment, and old. Eydis could tell where he had updated and added to it over the years. It covered the area between the mountains she had named, and listed a handful of the better known trails, and the tribes in the area.

She frowned at it. "Do you have this area in more detail?" She pointed to a valley, he nodded, and pulled out another map which he spread out on top of the other one. She examined this one closely too. "Do you know if there are any old roads, from the Aytorians, in the area?"

He bent over the map too, bracing himself on the table. After a few moments he pointed out three, but Eydis shook her head. "Not quite. Major roads."

"There aren't any really major roads in this part of the world. You have to be further south, and west, for that. There was never enough people up here to justify a major road for them."

Eydis shook her head. "It doesn't have to be on the scale of the BIGROAD, just more than a trail that they used and someone decided a couple generations ago that meant they created it, because they put down some rocks there."

Dushan pulled out several more maps and let Eydis examine them as well. Two, she put aside as promising, the rest he put away and pulled out some more. He seemed to enjoy her persistent interest. She supposed it was because few enough people dug deeply into his map collection. Most people wanted maps of the major routes, and her rarely got to dust off the more obscure maps. That much was obvious from the dust he had to brush off some of the ones she examined.

By the time she was done, she had set aside half a dozen maps, a paltry number compared to the number she had looked at. "Do you mind if I return later, Dushan? I need to consult with Aislin as to which of these we need." He shook his head. "We may not purchase any of these, but I can compensate you for your time, if you wish." She hoped he wouldn't take her up on that, since she had little to offer him. He simply nodded, and Eydis realized that they would probably end up purchasing a map outright, to simplify things.

She left with thanks, and went in search of Aislin. She wasn't hard to find. Like most first time visitors to the area, she was enthralled by the hot spring. She and Janiko were still down near there, though they had migrated downstream, to where they had set up pools of water cool enough to enter without burning oneself. Aislin had removed her boots and was standing ankle deep in water, grinning like a small child.

She twitched when she saw Eydis approach, looking well on both sides of her companion before she looked straight at Eydis. Janiko turned to see who she was looking at and hailed Eydis cheerfully. She responded in kind, and stopped next to them.

"You never told me there was a hot spring here!" Aislin exclaimed.

"I did. I told you there was a surprise ahead, when we were approaching," Eydis responded.

"I thought you meant your family. This is amazing! It's the largest one I've encountered. No wonder this is your winter camp. Hot water all year round, and Janiko tells me there's another stream that way," she pointed, "that provides drinking water."

Eydis nodded. "We like it here. Also why so many caravans stop here, going north and south. You never wondered, since it's so far out of the way?"

Aislin shook her head. "I never thought about it. I've never been south, at least by this route."

Eydis turned to Janiko. "May I reclaim her?"

"What for? You aren't leaving today, as she has informed me several times." He smiled at her, his voice not as harsh as his words sounded.

"Plannning. We may not leave today, but we must soon."

Janiko shrugged. "All good things come to an end. You both are welcome to join us for dinner again, once you are finished."

Aislin stepped out of the water and started drying her feet off. "We shall," she told him, and he disappeared to the rest of the camp. "What did you have to ask me about?"

"Traveling south. At this rate, we won't make it before the storms snow us in somewhere unpleasant, and since someone has discovered how to use the necklace, I expect to be slowed down by your changing and trances." Eydis knelt next to the shape changer.

"So, what do you expect to do about it?" Her feet dry, Aislin pulled on socks and her boots.

"You told me of the Aytorian Empire in its peak, how they used their magic to travel great distances, which allowed them to control everything." Aislin nodded. "And how one of the ways you suspect they did that was via roads that were powered by their magic, and allowed them to travel great distances quickly." Again Aislin nodded, and Eydis could see her figuring out where this was going. "There are many stories in our histories about their travels, and how fast they managed to get everywhere when conquered us. There are also many roads they used and maintained around our territories. I suspect that at least one of them is one of their magic roads. I talked to Dushan - our map maker - and he found several maps that have likely roads on them. You would have a better idea than I which ones are magic, and which might still be usable. I don't know enough about them."

Aislin nodded, a grin spreading across her face. "You're brilliant, Eydis. I had no idea they had roads like that up here, though I really shouldn't be surprised. Yes, if your stories have tales like that, then one of them is probably still usable. And, I think we have enough magic left to activate it for the two of us."

Cheerfully, she stood and followed Eydis back to Dushan's. He looked a bit surprised at how short a time Eydis had been away when he answered her knock. Eydis introduce the two of them.

"Pleased to meet you, raven. I have heard many stories about you, though not the one that tells why you are headed south, taking odd roads." He invited them in.

"Hopefully you will hear it soon, though now is not the time to tell it," Aislin demurred. Eydis asked for the maps she had been looking at, which Dushan had already packed up and set aside. He unpacked them as carefully as he had before and spread them out on the table.

Knowing how poor Aislin was at reading maps, she started explaining the markings on the paper, starting with where they were, and where their home tribe was, and working their way down the path they had taken. Dushan explained as well, showing the markings for height, trails, tribes, territorial borders and all the multitudes of other markings on the map. Aislin seemed somewhat overwhelmed by this plethora of information, but Eydis judged that she understood enough from her answers to questions.

"Now, these are the roads I picked out as likely," Eydis said, once the explanations were done, pointing to them. "They're well-traveled, old, and lead into areas that were probably strategically valuable a couple hundred years ago. There are also sufficient tales about them."

Aislin bent closer, examining the markings and asking for clarification. Two she ruled out immediately, via some criteria Eydis wasn't sure about. It probably had something to do with what she knew of magic. The remaining three she all examined closer. After several comparisons, and other questions Eydis didn't understand where they were going, she ruled out one more.

"Both of these would work, but this one," she pointed to the one closer to where they were now, "starts and ends closer to where we are, and where we're going, I think. We're here, and going here, right?" She pointed to both places on the map, and Eydis confirmed that they were correct. She wasn't sure how the road ended near the second place Aislin had pointed at, but assumed the mage's judgment was correct. And hoped that she was reading the map correctly, which whatever extrapolation she was using.

"We'll take this one," Eydis told Dushan, and he rolled up the map they had been looking at it. Eydis promised to return before the left with the payment, since she had nothing on her, and gathered up the older maps she had brought, and the new map they had just purchased.

"So, when do we leave?" Aislin asked. "You're making preparations, so it must be soon. Tomorrow? It's getting too late in the day for today." The sun was already trying to disappear behind the mountains, though they wouldn't sleep for another several hours.

"Tomorrow, unless anything happens tonight," Eydis told her. "We will again accept Janiko's offer of food, and the lodging we were in previously." Aislin nodded, obviously pleased.

Astriðer sat on the top of the building, wondering what to do now. It was well after dawn, and she had manage to make her way to the roof without running into anyone else. She also had no idea what she was going to do next. Her plan of simply staying here until she ran out of things to learn here, and moved westward, was still technically possible, but she had a sneaking suspicion that Kyta had just disrupted her plans more than she realized. Kyta also seemed to know more about shape changing and magic and the jewelry than Astriðer did, which was both puzzling and annoying.

She wasn't sure how to convince Kyta to tell her anything. If they could collaborate, then Astriðer was sure she could find out something useful about how the madness affected people, but Kyta seemed completely unwilling to say anything. Perhaps it would have been useful to try to befriend the thief earlier, but Astriðer didn't think that was at all likely now.

She opened the book again and browsed its pages. Little of it made more sense now than it had in the catacombs. This time she was more thorough, though, and near the end, she discovered an interesting section. Unlike the rest of the book, it was written awkwardly in her language. The letters were oddly shaped, but the writing was fluent, and Astriðer concluded that Kyta had copied it from somewhere, likely a scroll in the catacombs.

She was getting better at reading, and as she made her way through the text, she had a sinking feeling of shock. None of the other texts she had read described how to become a shape changer, just the effects, and various things periphery to that. This, however, was a detailed description of just that, down to the ritual that she really wasn't supposed to know. She had always heard that shape changers weren't secretive, it was just almost impossible to describe somethings. The only thing that was kept secret was how to actually become one. Somehow, someone had acquired that knowledge, and written it down. The text was accompanied by two awfully drawn pictures, that Astriðer could only guess were of a shape changer and their animal, though it was hard to tell.

Once she was done reading, she put it down and stared into space. She wanted to destroy this, since it shouldn't be accessible to anyone but shape changers and those becoming shape changers. She almost wished she could unread the book, but that wasn't possible now.

Putting from her mind how this had been found out, Astriðer started carefully ripping the pages from the book. She could probably find a candle somewhere to destroy these in. The pages removed from the book, she crumpled them in her hand and decided where to go next. It was daylight, and she was missing classes, not that it mattered significantly. The library, and the books in it that she had been slowly working her way through, was the place she wanted to be at the most. She shrugged. Then she could go there. Nomiki might object to her being there instead of in classes, but Astriðer could probably sneak around her, or convince otherwise.

Keeping Kyta's bag with her, and stashing the book and ripped out pages in there, Astriðer descended back into the building, and made her way out the front door. She had no idea why no one else was in the building, but wasn't going to complain.

She found her way to the library and entered via the back door she usually used. Nomiki saw her and hurried over. He didn't look pleased.

"Astrither!" he called. "Stop!" She did so.

"Yes, Librarian Nomiki?"

"Come with me." He led her into the back room, closed the door and turned to face her, looking very serious. "Why did you attack Kyta unprovoked?"

Astriðer blinked at him, shocked. "What?" She had been right, Kyta was going to mess up her plans for here. This was not good at all. "I didn't attack her unprovoked." She had no idea how to explain what had happened, not properly to these people. "She stole something very valuable belonging to me, and I reclaimed it. She would not return it to me willingly, so I had to be more forceful than I wanted to be."

"Forceful with fire, and rope? She looked pitiful when I found her sleeping here this morning. And had I not taught you to speak in a civilized tongue when talking to people? Kyta couldn't understand a word you said when you attacked her. You cannot expect people to do as you ask if you do not speak a civilized tongue." Nomiki looked very stern, and disappointed.

"I do not know what you are referring to," Astriðer said, speaking slowly to make sure she didn't garble what she was trying to say. "I did not attack Kyta. I reclaimed the items she had taken, and then she left." She really didn't want to mention the maze, since she was certain that she wasn't supposed to know about it, even though it was easily accessible from the library.

Nomiki shook his head. "I thought you knew better than to lie, Astrither," he said, sounding even more disappointed. "I had hoped that you could explain yourself to me, but it seems you will persist in not telling the truth. Come with me."

Still perplexed, and now becoming concerned, she followed him out of the room, outside. As soon as she saw guards waiting she stopped, and backed up several steps. This was very bad.

"I am sorry, Astrither. You should come with these gentlemen." She backed up several more steps, well inside the library at this point. "Please do not run," Nomiki told her. "It will only make it worse." Astriðer ignored him, turned, and ran through the library as fast as she could. She knew exactly where she was going. If she could get completely lost in the maze, then she was sure that the guards would too, if they followed her down there. She could hear their footsteps behind her.

The guard at the entrance to the room saw her coming and moved to block her path. "What's-" he started to say, before Astriðer barreled into him. He grabbed her, but she brought her elbow around into his ribs, and punched him in the face. He let go, and she thought it was almost as much from surprise as from her attack.

It only took her moments to cross the room, and yank at the door. It opened as easily as it had the previous night. Astriðer slammed it and grabbed all the torches before nearly tripping going down the stairs. This time she stopped at the first intersection, and carefully noted in her mind which way she was going, right. She did the same at the next intersection, choosing the same direction. She stopped three intersections away from the entrance and stopped, trying to hear anything over her heartbeat and breath. Nothing. She sighed in relief, and kept waiting. Her heart had stopped pounding as much when she concluded that they had not followed her down here, for whatever reason.

Astriðer lit the torch and looked around. It looked pretty much exactly like all the other passages she had traversed that morning. She felt her chest tighten and realized how much she hated it down here. She had already spent hours wandering around down here, completely lost, and now she was going to spend more hours, this time with the knowledge that once she got to the top, she would be a hunted woman. She could scream from the frustration, but she held back, in case anyone might hear down here.

Collecting herself and putting her anger aside, Astriðer started the long process of finding another exit out of here, preferably one that wouldn't be guarded, and with as few people as possible. And one that was nearby, so she didn't have to spend any more time down here than she absolutely had to.

As she wandered, Astriðer again tried to update her plans. Staying here had suddenly become not an option, unless she wanted to undergo their punishments for her attack on Kyta, whatever that might be. She suspected it wouldn't be pleasant. She also knew that she couldn't tell them why it had been so important, since shape changing was forbidden here, besides the jewelry being secret because she stole it, and needed it to research how the madness was caused.

So, she had to go elsewhere. She could go east, but she hadn't planned on doing that any time soon, and that required crossing the mountains, which she didn't want to do in winter. Everything she had heard down here, and what she knew from the southern tribes back home, said that once winter fell, it was best to stay home.

She could fly. She had the jewelry, and though she had never used it for fear of giving herself away to Aislin or anyone nearby, it wasn't impossible for her to simply fly there. That route had its own risks, though. She couldn't control when Aislin forced a change back, which could be a very bad idea if she was in the air at the time. She doubted she'd have the capability to remove and put back on the jewelry while falling, and Aislin would probably just change back into a person immediately anyways. She also had no idea how to fly, or what was involved in flying over a mountain range over the winter. It was probably harder than it seemed, given how often shape changers walked to their destinations.

Astriðer swore to herself. She wished she could have planned for all these contingencies. She had accounted for everything she had thought of, but apparently "everything she had thought of" wasn't enough. It was very discouraging. It had seemed like a simple idea, trying to figure out what caused every shape changer to go mad and be killed, for their own good. Such a simple idea, in fact, it amazed her that no one had tried it before. But it wasn't the first time. The jewelry itself was something that had never been tried before that worked. It was a good time for doing things that had never been tried before, or so she had thought.

Catching herself, Astriðer realized she was brooding in things she couldn't change. She had made her decision, and it was extremely hard, if not impossible, to go back on it. She would simply have to continue looking for answers. If necessary, she could now undergo the ritual, something she had thought impossible before. Things would have to be much more desperate before she did that, but it was possible.

She brooded, and tried not to brood, and made plans that she wasn't happy with and tried not to think about how hungry she was for a while. The rest of her mind lead her body around the maze, making sure she didn't walk into anything and keeping track of where she had been. If she hadn't already realized this, she would have been amazed at how vast the maze was, and completely empty. Twice she had to replace her light with candles.

So, by the time she saw a door, she was ecstatic. She was sick and tired of being down here, and almost wished she had gone with the guards. There were no stairs to this door, just the door itself. Cautiously, she pushed against it. To her surprise, it opened easily, sliding noiselessly open a crack. Ambient light streamed through the crack, almost blinding her after the dimness of the torch. Noise, too, streamed in. Her hopes for an empty exit had been dashed. Peering through the crack and praying that no one noticed it, she tried to figure out where she was.

Once she figured out where the door lead, she barely believed her eyes. The central temple? Right in the middle of things? This could be either a great opportunity, or a terrible thing. It was going to be very busy in here for a long while, until the sun set. People were in and out of the cathedral all day. Some lay people, but often clergy, and there were more guards around than she wanted to risk. She considered sneaking out and hoping no one noticed that she hadn't come in the normal ways, but discarded it. She stood out too much to try that.

Sighing, she decided that she had to stay in the tunnels longer. Her stomach and most of her mind protested the idea. She hadn't eaten since the previous night, and the darkness and endless passages were exceptionally draining. Nonetheless, she couldn't think of anything else. Pulling the door closed, she sat down and leaned against the rock. She started to nap there. As she closed her eyes, she frowned in thought. The door opened too easily for it to be rarely used. As a guess, this was the entrance Kyta used to sneak into the library. At the very least, someone had been coming through here often enough that the door was easy to work. So, she didn't want to be napping across the entrance, where anyone who came in would trip over her. Standing, she moved down the hallway and leaned against the wall just past the first intersection. That should give her enough time to react if anyone came in. Closing her eyes, she leaned her head against the hard stone wall and did her best to fall asleep.

Eydis was very pleased when the night passed uneventfully, waking up the next morning to the sounds of the village waking up. The mysterious user of the necklace had no decided to experiment with it's powers that night, at least. She was much more refreshed after an undisturbed night's sleep, especially since she had dragged the tired shape changer to bed at a reasonable hour, despite Janiko's interest in talking.

While she was glad Aislin was making herself welcome here, Eydis was concerned. Janiko knew that Aislin was a shape changer, and also knew that she had been one for many years now. Eydis didn't want him falling in love with Aislin. It was a bad idea, all around. Aislin would get hurt, because she had more important things she needed to do, and would have to leave him. Janiko would get hurt because Aislin would have to leave, and because she was a shape changer, so any relationship would be short, at best. Especially at this point, Eydis didn't want to have to see him go through the torment that anyone who fell in love with a shape changer went through. Past a certain point, the shape changer simply wasn't the person they used to be, but it was hard, if not impossible, to convince the family and loved ones of that.

Eydis considered talking to Janiko about this. He probably wouldn't listen, but if he did, it would solve that problem before it became one. It probably wasn't necessary unless they stayed more days here, Eydis concluded. Two days wasn't enough to cause a problem, just enough to plant the seeds of one. And, it seemed likely that they would leave today. She would forgo the conversation.

By the time Aislin appeared, bleary eyed but cheerful, from the cabin, Eydis was done breakfast, and enjoying a conversation with her sister and mother.

Whew! That's a long one.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 25

2009-11-27T00:55:49Z

Not enough, but still respectable. Exactly 2000 words! I thought it was funny. I have no idea what's going to happen next, or how to wrap this up.

Today: 2000
Total: 34,094

Aislin looked up at Eydis, sniffled, then buried her head against Eydis' chest again. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I should have told you sooner." She stopped, and Eydis waited, her arms wrapped around her friend. "I didn't used to get dreams. Visions. Hallucinations. I don't know what to call them. When I took the drug, it was just blankness, silence and emptiness, and I didn't really remember it. For years. Nothing. But recently..." she trailed off, still mumbling into Eydis. "They started out simple enough. Scenery, a few random images. Sounds, light. I started to appear as a character in them. I could move around and interact with things. There are never any people, just animals. I... started to die in them. I get attacked, I drown, I can't control myself. The world explodes. Everything. I don't know what it means." She was barely intelligible by the time she finished, the words tumbling out over themselves in a tearful rush.

Eydis hugged her closer. "Maybe there's just bad dreams," she suggested. It was unlikely, given what she knew of the drug, but Aislin needed comfort more than reason right now.

"Maybe," came the muffled response, not convinced. Eydis didn't know what else to say, so she said nothing.

After some time Aislin sat up on her own and wiped her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I'm fine now." Briskly, she brushed the tears off her face and tugged the knots out of her hair, but Eydis was fairly sure she wasn't actually fine yet. "We should try to get some more sleep. We still have to leave tomorrow." Privately, Eydis didn't think they were going anywhere, but nevertheless, she lay down next to her friend and fell asleep, for at least the fifth time that night.

Kyta darted around several corners, keeping her mental map in the forefront of her mind so she wouldn't get lost. It would be child's play to lose her roommate down here, as long as she didn't get lost herself. It was only a couple of corners before she stopped, hiding around a corner and listened. Footsteps, not hers, echoed, but she saw no light. A few moments later the footsteps stopped, a voice spoke shortly, then the footsteps started up again, much slower, at a walking pace. Kyta grinned. That had been almost too easy.

Now for her next problem. Problems. She was barefoot, her hands tied, her clothes torn, and without her bag. She must look quite pitiful, not that she stopped to consider it. The first problem was her hands being tied behind her. She frowned. Without light, it was particularly hard to look around for something sharp, and there wasn't much sharp on the ground, thankfully for her feet, but not so good for her hands. Two options presented themselves in her mind. Find something sharp in an alcove, or go back to the library and find something. Astrither was probably trying to get back to the library, but she also probably wouldn't be able to find her way. Even if she discovered the maps in Kyta's bag, she probably wouldn't be able to read them. Library it was then.

Walking slower and more cautiously - it amazed her she hadn't run into a wall dashing through the dark - she retraced her path back to the library. She heard no signs of the other girl, and was fairly confident that she would notice her before she was noticed. For one, she was much quieter than boots on the stones.

She hurried too much going up the stairs and stubbed her toe. Swearing, she tried not to fall over or hop up and down too much. She never noticed how useful footwear was before this!

Fortunately the door wasn't too stuck, and she just had to lean against it some before it swung open quietly, banging against the wall much louder. The not-so-hidden room was much as she had last seen it, still dark, since nothing was lit. Kyta also didn't recall anything sharp in this room. The back rooms of the library, on the other hand, might have something, and at least the rest of the library probably had something lit so she wouldn't have to continue bumping into things in the dark.

Unfortunately, between Kyta and the light were many minutes of wandering around in the dark and bumping into things. She stubbed her toes four more times, and banged her head into solid feeling bookshelves twice, even with her humming to try and hear things coming. It didn't help that she probably walked in circles a couple times, or at least missed the door by a couple of shelves, since she didn't have the library memorized. She didn't usually have to wander around it with no visual clues.

So it was with some glee that she finally saw some light, and could make her way towards it and actually see the obstacles in her way to avoid them before coming into physical contact with them. A torch had been left lit in the back room, which didn't seem like a great idea to Kyta, in a flammable important building like this, but she wasn't going to argue with it. And, just as she hoped, there was a knife in the room, along with a bed, chair and small table piled with books.

She backed up to the counter the knife was on, grabbed it carefully, and awkwardly twisted it around to try and saw at the rope. She had already tried to slip her hands free, but whatever else she said about the girl, Astrither knew how to tie knots. With no small amount of effort, and the unnerving feeling of the knife pressed against her skin several times, Kyta managed to cut the rope. She heaved a sigh, dropping the knife back on the counter and bringing her hands in front of her to rub the wrists. She sighed again and frowned at the red marks the rope had made. Now what?

She could head back to her room, but that was the one place that Astrither was guaranteed to look for her, when she got out of the maze. Or, if not looking for Kyta, she would almost certainly return there. Whether or not this was a good thing depending on what Kyta wanted to do. She wanted her book back, that was for sure. She also didn't want to get into another scuffle with the barbarian. She'd been in two now, if the day they met even counted as a scuffle, and she knew that the likelihood of her winning a physical match was pretty low, unless it involved running around mazes Kyta had memorized.

However, if she brought guards with her, then the odds were much more in her favor physically, but the guards would want an explanation, and then there would be all sorts of awkward questions about the books in her bag, and her notebook possibly, and how she had gotten away the first time, and how she had gotten into the library so late at night. Then again, she could come up with reasonable answers to all of those. Astrither worked in the library and could have gotten the books, she ran away, and she hadn't been in the library at all. Astrither had simply attacked her. As a pleasant side effect, she would discredit Astrither, which put Kyta in a much stronger position.

On the other hand, she might end up being watched, which wasn't a good thing, and she wasn't sure she could explain the other books she had in her room, which weren't well hidden enough to fool anyone who knew what they were doing.

She yawned, and realized that she should figure out where she was going to sleep sooner rather than later. She didn't like the idea of her bedroom, as she wasn't sure she would wake up if Astrither came back and decided she was too much of a risk to have around. Kyta looked down at the cot she was sitting on. She could sleep here. The librarian knew her, and Nomiki might even be sympathetic to her. Though, the librarian also liked Astrither, and the girl had been working here for some time.

Kyta yawned again, and realized that she had already made her decision. She would sleep here, and come up with a reasonable explanation to whoever saw her next. She was pretty sure it wouldn't be Astrither, and that's all she cared about. That particular topic require more thought, and more sleep. Curling up and pulling a blanket over her, she fell asleep within moments.

She was woken up the next morning by a startled cry. Kyta opened her eyes and saw Nomiki, composing himself and looking not at all startled, though he was presumably the source of the cry a moment ago. She felt like she hadn't slept at all, the sunlight in the background notwithstanding.

"I did not expect to see you here, young Kyta," the librarian intoned. Kyta thought he sounded like he was intoning everything, just for the effect.

"I did not expect to be here, Librarian Nomiki," Kyta responded, sitting up. As the blanket slid off, it percolated through her brain that she probably didn't look any better than last night, except perhaps less tired looking, and Nomiki's expression agreed with that assessment.

"What happened to you? Your clothes is torn and burnt, your feet are bare and," he looked around, "I see no boots, nor any outside. A night studying could explain why I find you here, when you are not supposed to be, but torn and burnt clothes? Your wrists?"

Kyta bit her lip, looking down. "I... I was attacked," she said quietly. She supposed she was going with Astrither the barbarian attacked her now. She would have to play it by ear as to how much to tell anyone higher up she talked to. How much about the jewelry and the catacombs should she say? "I can hardly believe it myself."

"By whom?" demanded Nomiki. "No, wait, I will find water, and a clean set of clothes for you." He disappeared, and reappeared only a few moments later, carrying new clothes. "Here, put these on. I will find water and a rag to tend to your wrists." He left, closing the door. Kyta dressed, and answered his knock with an "I'm dressed."

He entered, carrying a bucket of warm water and a rag. Dipping the rag in the water, he took her hand gently and started massaging her wrist with the warmth. "Now, tell me what happened. Who attacked you?"

"I, I don't know if I want to say," Kyta started, her voice small. "I don't want them to hurt me again..." She trailed off nervously.

"Nonsense. Nothing will happen to you, I'll see to that myself if I have to. What happened?" His voice was brisk, though still lofty in tone, but his hands were soft.

"It, it was your assistant, Astrither." She glanced up, checking his reaction. Surprise, but not much. She could see the gears of stereotype beginning to work in his head already. "I was in the library working late, and she attacked me. I didn't understand what she was saying, it was in some other language."

"Probably her mother tongue. I thought I had taught her to speak like a civilized person," Nomiki said to himself. "Continue."

"She tied my hands and threatened me, I don't know why. She seemed to think I knew something, but I don't know what. She..." Here, Kyta stopped and sniffled, for effect. "She burned my clothes. Thankfully, she didn't actually manage to burn me. I fought back and ran away. I don't know how I did it, but I escaped. She took my bag though. I was just trying to read!" Kyta burst into tears and grabbed hold of Nomiki. He stiffened, very surprised, then awkwardly patted her on the back.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 24

2009-11-25T10:49:02Z

Wrote about 115 yesterday, most of which was edits to the previous day's work (which you're actually lucky enough to get, since I'm posting this late. :p Decided I wanted to win today, and have to write over 3000/day to win. So I wrote more than that, and now I'm down to almost exactly 3000/day. So tired... Ii'd like to write 3500/day, so I can finish a day early, given my tendency to do most of my writing after midnight. Starting to look for ways to wrap up the story.

23rd: 115
Today: 3633
Total: 32,094

"Did I? I was just wandering through here. I felt ill, tripped and dropped my torch. I landed near it, my clothes caught fire, so I took them off so I wouldn't get burned. I'm still feeling quite ill."

"You're still lying. I know what I saw and heard, and I know what you did. What do you know about the jewelry! What did you read? What did you figure out?"

Kyta just made a gesture that resembled a noncommittal shrug. Astriðer, unable to think of anything else to do to get her to talk, dropped her again and stalked off. She was somewhat surprised when she returned momentarily, holding a length of rope commonly used to carry books around with, that the thief was still mostly where she'd left her. The only difference was that she had picked up her bag, and looked up suspiciously when Astriðer reappeared.

Astriðer snatched the bag, to Kyta's audible protests, which she ignored. She then grabbed Kyta's hands, forced them behind her back and tied them together. It wasn't at all the same as tying up a dead animal, but it was similar enough that Astriðer was fairly sure that the girl wasn't getting away.

She marched the suspiciously compliant girl towards the door,slinging the bag over her shoulders and holding her captive with the other hand. Now it was Kyta's turn to demand, "What are you doing?" Astriðer didn't answer, just opened the door, and pushed the girl down the steps. She stumbled, but caught her balance, and Astriðer lit the torch before closing the door.

Once they were on flat ground, Astriðer placed herself squarely between the thief and escape - escape being the library, since the catacombs were enough of a maze to be a decent escape deterrent - and glared at her.

"No one will come looking for you down here for a long time. I can do anything I want to you down here, and no one will come to stop me. And, as you people are so fond of telling me, we have some barbaric tendencies where I come from." Astriðer had never been particularly good at subtlety.

Kyta looked up, a smile spreading slowly across her face, one that Astriðer very much didn't like. "And you're as dumb as the stories make you out to be." Astriðer lunged for her, but Kyta was already off and running into the darkness.

Astriðer grabbed the torch and followed, but she couldn't see her prey, and her hearing was hampered by the noises she made running. Echoes of footsteps sounded from everywhere, and far too quickly she had lost the girl, and was in danger of getting lost herself.

She swore to herself and stopped. As expected, there were footsteps behind her, but none of them stood out as hers, since they all matched the footprints of the boots so commonly worn by the clergy. She had accepted their boots as a borrowing, since none of her clothing was suitable down here, and now her footsteps were indistinguishable from the others traversing this corridor.

She started retracing her steps, stopping at the first intersection she came to. She deliberated a moment, trying to recall her chase in reverse, and decided that right would lead her back to the library. At the next intersection, she decided left, less confident in her decision. The next also received a left decision, and was even less confident. By the tenth intersection, she realized that she was more lost than before, since she knew that there hadn't been more than a handful of turns before she stopped chasing the thief. She swore again.

Now she was lost in a maze of unknown size, with a thief who didn't appear to be nearly as lost, with only a single torch and no way out. She had the jewelry, but not much else. And the bag she had taken. There might be something in there that would lead her out, she realized.

Shaking her head at her own folly in not realizing that sooner, she opened the bag and looked through it. It appeared depressingly mundane at first glance. A stack of books, and neatly tucked to one side, something to write with. The typical student's bag.

She examined the books closer. All of them were from the section of the library where she'd found the girl, that she wasn't supposed to have access to. Astriðer looked around, somewhat ruefully. It appeared that Kyta had her own access to that area. Which meant she almost certainly knew these passages, or at least well enough to get from her entrance to the library with some regularity. Or this was pure chance, but Astriðer didn't think so.

The last book, buried in the bottom, wasn't from the library. It appeared to be a notebook. Astriðer frowned, flipping through it. The writing appeared to be a smattering of notes taken from many books on a variety of topics, mostly from classes. Astriðer recognized some of them from classes she was taken, or had heard that other students were taking.

Partway through, though, were several drawings. Astriðer stopped at those, turning them several directions. It appeared to be a bunch of squiggles, or abstract shapes, but if Kyta had taken a sudden interest in abstract art, she would be very surprised. There were some dots annotated, with the comments at the bottom, written in very small but legible text. Some squinting and trying to remember vocabulary revealed that they were describing the locations of some buildings in a historic city. Astriðer rotated it until she could see a map. It might be a historic city, but she could swear the layout looked like the library. Maybe the library's layout wasn't as unique as she thought?

Several pages later, she found another drawing that she quickly realized was another map. Again, it was labeled like some notes on architecture, but Astriðer suspected that it wasn't. Kyta knew the catacombs fairly well, or so she was assuming. If she had been exploring an unknown area, she would have made maps, and these looked like maps.

She flipped through several more pages, then the rest of the book and found a bunch more maps. It was hard to tell, with all the flipping back and forth, but it was not inconceivable that they pieced together to form a big map. By this point, Astriðer was about ready to bet that they did form a map, since she didn't have much of an idea where the exit was, or exits if there was more than one, and this was looking like the best clue.

Unfortunately, map she might have, but there wasn't a big "You are here" sign on it either. None of the pathways were labeled useful things, like "library", so she couldn't try retracing her steps on the map.

Shrugging, Astriðer started walking down one of the hallways, stopping at every intersection to compare it to all the possible places on the map she could be. It wasn't the most effective idea, or the fastest, but it was the first one she had, stuck underground with effectively no landmarks to go by, either on the map or before her eyes.

Astriðer suspected it was getting close to dawn by the time her torch wore down. When the light started flickering dangerously, she stopped at the next alcove and lit the candle there, putting out the torch and leaving it on the ground. The candle was mostly gone by the time she finally found another set of stairs.

Restraining a shout of joy, and glad for the rush of excitement to offset her tiredness, she hurried her footsteps, careful not to accidentally put out the candle. She still hadn't figured out where she was on the map, with the incomprehensible writings everywhere, even though they were in a language she nominally understood. She didn't need it though, with a door in front of her. She pushed at it experimentally. It didn't move, and she was terrified for a moment that it was locked from the other side, and she would have to spend more hours wandering around in the darkness, unsure of where an exit was. She hadn't realized what a terrible prospect that was until she thought her chances of getting out depended on it again.

She shoved again, and the door remained firm. Determined not to be stuck down here any longer, she shoved again, and again. The door popped open, banging against the far wall with a loud crash, and the sound of something expensive breaking or falling to the floor, and revealed a room, darkened except for the lighter her candle cast.

It was a smaller room than many she had seen around campus, and seemed all the smaller for all the things filling it. Several plain wooden tables were set up, with just enough room between them for a single person to squeeze though. Casting long shadows against the wall and across the table were tall, very expensive looking glass containers. Some seemed to be simple cups, others balls with tubes leading out of them. Metal stands, as plain as the tables, held up the glass, where they stood off the tables. Scattered across the tables were other small instruments. She saw a mortar and pestle, a flat piece of stone, and what looked suspiciously like a frying pan,but couldn't pick out anything else against the dark. Astriðer could make out the shape of shelves against the far wall, but nothing about them, except that they weren't empty.

She didn't see a door, but told herself that there had to be one. There weren't enough footsteps coming up the stairs in the maze for anyone to be visiting this regularly via that route, and she didn't see dust on most of this stuff.

She closed the door behind her, wincing at the broken glass and metal implements on the floor behind it. She had knocked one of the shelves, and apparently shoved a chair over when she forced the door open, spilling the contents and breaking anything breakable on it. She didn't stop to see what she'd broken, but instead sidled between two of the tables.

Sure enough, there was a door on the other side, and it appeared to lock from the inside. She tested the handle. It was locked, but she wasn't worried.

Astriðer stopped. Something was nagging her. She recognized that smell from somewhere. Turning around, she looked back at the broken glass work by the door she had entered by, trying not to think how much it had cost. She could investigate. She was also tired, hungry and wanted out, and had no idea where she was, or if anyone was going to come investigating the noise and demanding to know who she was and how she had gotten here. Shaking her head, Astriðer unlocked the door and slipped out into the hallway beyond.

Aislin opened her eyes. The world was draped in shadow. Shadows trickled in the windows, crawled over the beds, and wrapped themselves around the poles holding the cabin up. She stared at the tip of one of them, curling around the top of the window.

It didn't appear to move. She watched harder. Closer. The tip twitched. It crept forward across the wood, sliding silently over another grain in the wood, clearly visible before the shadow covered it. Aislin looked away, finding another tendril, and watching it closely. After several long moments, it to slithered forwards, almost imperceptibly. She tried a third. This one was stubborn. It lay there, still as death, right next to her toes, without moving. Aislin stared it it, not blinking. Her eyes watered. Still no movement. She blinked away tears, and in that moment, the shadow jumped forwards, wrapping itself around her foot. It felt like a shadow, that is, like nothing. Aislin frowned at it. It was ugly, curling around her pale skin, standing out so sharply.

Something sparkled in the edge of her vision. She turned, on her feet, and looked out the window opposite the one with shadows creeping in it. This one, like its twin, was also framed in shadows, but they were creeping out, not in, and didn't seem to be as successful at it. Outside, sunlight streamed down, illuminating the water, but not touching the dark recesses of the cabin.

Aislin looked around. There was no door, just the two windows, and bedding gear spread out for two people. She shrugged. The window it would be then. She walked to under the window, discovering it was set about head height for her, and inconvenient climb out. She sighed, wishing Eydis was around to give her a boost.

She jumped, and banged her head against the top of the frame, and swore. It didn't hurt as much as she expected, to her relief. She tried again, with the same result, and glared at the window. There had to be an easier way.

She shook her head at her own folly. Shaking her head, she stretched out her arms wide. Nothing happened. She glared at her right hand, then her left. By the time she turned back to her right hand, sleek, dark feathers greeted her. Aislin smiled. Much better. The left, when she checked, matched the right.

She flapped several times, lifted up into the air, and dived through the window, folding her wings back to keep from hitting them. She tumbled onto the ground, rolling, and shook her wings. They stayed wings. Aislin looked at them, shrugged, and preened some of the dust off before tucking them back.

Aislin looked around. No one was around, which wasn't surprising, since hers was the only cabin in sight, and she had been the only person in the cabin. She jumped, and glided over to the water. A river babbled by, flowing from the top of the valley that she could see, and disappearing off the edge of a cliff into a waterfall sending up clouds of mist just past where she stood.

She knelt and took a sip. It was clear and delicious, if icy cold, cold enough to make her teeth hurt. Still, she was thirsty, so she drank. The water was clear, and she could see the bottom. The only motion was of the water coursing past, setting up ripples in the water. No sand, no sludge, and no leaves or twigs floated by.

Aislin stood, wiping her mouth on her wing and shaking it off. Far off, she heard the sound of a raven cawing it. She tilted her head, listening. It sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it. Another raven took up a call, similar but not quite the same, from another direction. Moments later, another, then another. Within moments, she heard raven calls from all directions, followed closely by ravens appearing in the sky above her. She watched them, fascinated. They seemed to practically sparkle, their dark feathers gleaming in the sunlight, sending ripples of light to splash across the ground.

She took off, flying up to join them. As she approached, they parted around her. Aislin circled around to join them, but every time she got close, they swirled and moved away, like some single living being, following a single mind's instruction. On closer inspection, she could see shadows rippling across their bodies too. The darkness shimmied across one, from wing tip to wing tip, and dripped off to catch the next passing bird, sliding all around the flock.

With a start, Aislin recognized the call they were sending up. It was the predecessor to a mob cry, calling out to anyone who could understand that an enemy was nearby, like a hawk or an owl, and calling for reinforcements.

Aislin looked around. She could see no other living things but the mob she was flying around, trying to be a part of. She couldn't imagine what they were calling for. She also knew that it wasn't the season for nestlings. She could defend herself, as could all the other adult ravens. There was nothing to fear, save the storms and mountains that they made their home in.

The cry changed subtly, some ravens taking up a different call, and others joining them. Aislin again tilted her head, trying to parse the cacophony of calls.

A raven whistled by, its beak gleaming, and shadows trailing of its wings. She knew its cry, even as she dodged. It was one of anger, of fury, and righteous defense. It was the cry of a mother defending her young against attack.

She tried to call back, unsure what to try and convey, but her sounds came out as gibberish to her ears, and another raven dropped on her, followed by another. She dodged the first, but the second nipped her wing, ripping out a feather. She screamed, watching the attacker shake it out of his beak, and the speck of black drift downwards, swinging back and forth as it shrunk from her sight.

Another bird slammed into her wing, sending them both tumbling downwards before they struggled apart and Aislin beat her wings hard to regain altitude. The mob had grown, and she had shrunk, until she was no larger than the smallest of the group. She made it no more than a handful of wing lengths up before three more birds swooped down, and she had to dive to avoid them. Again she struggled up, and again more of her brethren dove, forcing her to dodge or face their ferocity. Their song was a mingling of war cries and cries for the dead, mingling in an alternating harmony to her ears. She was outnumbered, and it seemed like every time she struggled upwards, more black streaks fell upon her. She couldn't dodge them all. Screaming, she lost feathers, tumbling down, crying out with every impact.

Eydis watched Aislin for several long moments after the drug too effect. She didn't like this, not at all. They had been relatively safe from the side effects of the jewelry, that one change forced another, but now that someone had tried it on, and discovered what it did, it was much more likely that they would try again. It had just become that much harder to travel south, with the possibility of Aislin changing, and the decision whether or not she should change back. Eventually the other person, especially if it was Astriðer, would figure out what was going on, and while she didn't know what would happen then, Eydis very much doubted it would be a good thing.

Eydis yawned. It was still the middle of the night, their room very dark, with the clouds covering the moon. Her eyes had adjusted from both the flashes of Aislin changing, and she could almost see now. The shape changer was dead still, except for the movement of her breath. There was no point staying up waiting for her. She would be like this for several hours, long enough for Eydis to grab some sleep, possibly until dawn or when the rest of the camp woke up. Aislin had done this enough times that she would be able to figure out to crawl into bed once she woke up, or she would wake up her companion trying to figure that out. Not so different after all.

Covering another yawn, Eydis felt around until she found a second blanket and pulled that over herself, both to cover the ones that now had holes in them, and to make up for the loss of warmth form Aislin not being there. It took her a long time to drift off to sleep, listening to her friend's quiet breathing.

When she woke up next, the room was still dark. The steady, regular breathing of the comatose shape changer had been replaced by a soft sniffling, interlaced with quiet whimpers. Eydis still couldn't see much, just the outline of the shape of Aislin. Sitting up, she spoke softly, "Aislin? Are you awake?" No response, not that she had expected one. Reaching out, she hesitated. It was generally not a good idea to touch or physically disturb a shape changer when they were under the influence of their drug. She had never tried it herself, but every story she had heard said that it was not pleasant for the shape changer, like having the world shaken on them unexpectedly. Eydis withdrew her hand and wrapped her arms around her knees.

She didn't like this, not at all. Normally, there was no movement and no sound from the shape changer in this state, save for the faint motions of life. From everything she knew, they were incapable of moving. Their muscles locked up, and their mind was absent, unable to control their body. Supposedly, they were communing with their human self, or fighting off their animal soul, or otherwise revitalizing the part of them that made them human, against the onslaught of their taken animal soul, but Eydis had never tried that, and Aislin had never really spoken of her trances that way. Frankly, Eydis didn't care what went on, as long as the drug kept her friend safe and delayed the madness.

This, however, was not normal at all. Movement and sound, and sounding very distressed. Whatever was happening, Aislin wasn't liking it at all. Eydis watched, and worried at her lip with her teeth. Perhaps she would stay up.

Eydis had fallen asleep again, her head resting on her knees, when Aislin awoke with a cry. She struggled to stand up, tripped over her own stiff limbs and almost fell over. Eydis, startled from her sleep, managed to organize her limbs enough to catch the red haired woman before she fell too hard. Aislin shoved her away, eyes not recognizing the woman who held her, but the stronger woman didn't let go. Soon, Aislin fell limp, looked up at her holder, then clung on to her. Eydis lowered them both to a sitting position and held Aislin as she trembled and clung to her. While comforting, Eydis was still deeply disturbed at this change from the usual.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 22

2009-11-25T10:44:39Z

Again with the posting stuff days after I wrote it... I'll keep stats for the day it was written, since that''s more useful.

Today: 926
Total: 28346

It was late, and Tryphos had gone home for the night, after she had caught him falling asleep over his book several times. He had protested, and tried to drag her with him, but she'd prevailed and sent him home to bed, and she had stayed reading. She had dozed off herself several times since then. Her book was interesting enough, but she kept shorting herself on sleep, by staying up too late reading, like she was doing now. She had just woken up and was rereading the page in front of her for the third time when she heard a bang.

She froze. She knew that bang. It was the sound of someone changing shape. And she most definitely didn't expect to hear it here.

Astriðer was up and running, her book forgotten, before she even realized it. The bang had been indistinct as to where it was from, given the echoing in the library, but she knew where she was heading, the only place it could have come from

There were no guards outside the room once the library was closed. There was no need for them. No one confronted her as she burst into the room. No one was visible immediately, and the room looked undisturbed.

Something cawed in the back, and Astriðer ran down the narrow aisles. A second bang sounded, and this time she saw a flash of light light up the ceiling and cast dark shadows from the book shelves. Someone coughed and retched out of sight.

She rounded the bookshelf and saw an olive skinned girl with dark brown hair kneeling on the ground, looking very ill. Two scorch marks were on the floor, and the white, flowing clothes that everyone seemed to wear here were equally scorched. Most damningly, the sparkle of silver and red at her neck and on her hand gave her away.

"What are you doing!" Astriðer shouted, remembering to speak the girl's language, and grabbed Kyta, slamming her against the wall. "What are you doing here! Why are you wearing that!"

Kyta looked at her, her eyes rolling lazily around, blinked and seemed to focus on the furious girl holding her up. "What...?" she mumbled.

Astriðer shook her. "Why are you wearing that jewelry?" Her words was clipped short with fury. She wished she had been able to purchase a dagger.

She blinked, then her face lit up, though her eyes still didn't focus on . "Ahhhhh," she breathed, not a noise of giving in, but a sound of understanding. "That's why you tried to hide it, and why you don't want me knowing." Kyta coughed again, and Astriðer held her away, disgusted. "Water?" the girl asked, sounding very pitiful.

Astriðer put the girl down, to free up her hands,and forcibly removed the jewelry from Kyta, disgusted. "Get dressed. I don't have any. What do you know." She pocketed the jewelry, careful not to put any of it on. She wasn't exactly sure how it worked, but didn't want to give Aislin any hints if she hadn't yet figured out where the jewelry had gone. Kyta's using of it could almost help, in that regard.

Kyta put her clothes back on, adjusting them to cover the two holes that had been singed through the front and back as best she could. "More than you, apparently." She sounded smug, but still dazed. "You're only here to find out about shape changing, are you?" Astriðer didn't respond, debating actions. She could try to force the knowledge out of the thief, or try to convince her. She had never been particularly good at convincing with words, and she wasn't comfortable in this language.

Astriðer looked at Kyta again. "How did you find these." It was more of a demand than a question.

Kyta shrugged. "Stumbled across them while browsing some books."

"Like hell you were. You aren't allowed into this section of the library, and they were well hidden. How did you even get in?"

Kyta laughed. "Well hidden? Well, if you have no idea what you're doing, I suppose they were well hidden. You forgot to lock all the doors."

"Nomiki is very thorough. How did you get in?" Astriðer's voice was flat.

"Well, I guess you forgot one. I had to return a book, and didn't want to wait until morning."

"Why were you looking for my possessions?"

Kyta shrugged, looking as innocent as she could. The effect was somewhat spoiled by her clothes trying to fall apart on her. "They seemed interesting. How was I supposed to know they were yours?"

"You already found them, and tried to steal them once, thief. What is the penalty for thieves in this country?"

"But you can't bring me to the courts, because you can't tell them what's so important about that. And besides, you have it back - there's no case for you." She sounded smug, assured that she would suffer nothing. It infuriated Astriðer.

"Where I come from, stealing something of that severity could start a war. As the thief, you would be the first one to be killed."

"But you're here now, and we're much more civilized. You know, I would really like some new clothes to wear. Mind showing me some?"

Astriðer growled and slammed Kyta into the nearest wall again. Kyta seemed disoriented again, as it took several moments for her eyes to refocus on Astriðer's. "What do you know? What have you read that you just figured out?"

Kyta tried to shrug, failed, and made a noncommittal noise. "I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm frankly completely confused at why I'm feeling so ill."

Astriðer swore at her. "You just turned into a bird! You're feeling ill because your body has no idea what happened to it. You're also lying!" Astriðer was shouting by the time she finished.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 20

2009-11-22T05:27:02Z

Wrote 800+ words in a 15 mins yesterday - pretty happy with that! Unfortunately, I was tired and blargh after that (besides busy - Friday is games night here), so didn't write any more. :(

Today: 1291
Total: 27,420

The earrings were each a wing, with stones scattered across them. Upon a closer look, Kyta realized that the pattern was the exact same as on the wings. The ring, similarly, could be interpreted as a bird wrapping itself around the wearer's finger with again, the same pattern of stones on the wing. It was interesting that someone had taken the care to make sure that the patterning was identical across all four pieces of jewelry. ^11/20/09Either the artisan was just very particular about their work, or there was some sort of significance.

Slipping the jewelry in her bag, Kyta replaced the books she'd moved to find it and climbed down the ladder. She guessed there was some sort of significance to the jewelry. Everything Astrither had done said the jewelry was significant. Her reaction to Kyta looking at it initially, and that she had taken such care to hide it in a part of the library that wasn't frequented. It wasn't the best spot, but it indicated some thought had been put into it, and that the hider didn't want anyone else knowing it was there. Hiding in plain sight wasn't an option since jewelry like this was practically unheard of. The delicateness, and the silver, would make it stand out anywhere, not to mention she had never seen red stones quite like that. Clearly, Astrither didn't trust the banks either, which was the other place people commonly put their valuables, if they didn't hide them around their homes. Of course, on that one, she might not be wrong, since there had been more than once instance of a bank closing down and taking everything inside, to the fury of the people that had deposited there. Even the empire's controls couldn't stop that happening occasionally.

Kyta stopped outside the door to the catacombs and took out the necklace. She stared at it. Why was Astrither so protective about it? Why was this the only thing Kyta knew of that the barbarian had brought south with her, other than the things strictly necessary to travel? What was so special about it.

Curious, Kyta examined the snap, then reached behind her head to clip the necklace on. Pulling out the earrings, she put those on as well. She shook her head, feeling the weight of them brush against her neck. Pulling out the ring, she held it between her fingertips for a moment, then shook her head at her own folly. Was she afraid something would happen when she put it on? She slipped the ring on her left hand.

A flash of light and a bang, like thunder but smaller. Kyta tried to scream, but her whole body was clenched in a grip she couldn't fight. She felt her insides slide unnervingly against each other, and her bones shatter and reassemble. It was over in a moment, before she could begin to comprehend it.

She gasped and coughed, hearing it come out harsher and louder, startling her. She jumped back, losing her balance and falling over, flailing her ams and feeling too much resistance against them. Kyta tried to look, but her vision was disoriented. She could see too much. The shelves were too tall, and too lit. A torch burned next to her, larger than life.

She blinked again and moved her head, trying to get the black thing in the middle of her vision out of the way. It moved with her, staying in the center of her vision. Everything seemed flat.

She shook her head again, then looked to the side, realizing she could move her head more than she should be able to. Sleek black feathers appeared in her vision, spread out. She twitched, they twitched.

She blinked again, the realization dawning with some horror. She tried moving her arms again and watched the black, feathered wings move accordingly. Kyta tried folding them up, then repeated it on the other side with the other wing.

Next she tried speaking. It was much less successful than she hoped, or about as much as she expected, coming out as a loud caw. She startled herself, and tried to jump back, and would have fallen if she wasn't already sitting down. She shook her head again and tried to stand up.

With no warning, she was clenched in the impossibly strong grip again. Screaming was impossible. The sliding shattering exploding unnerving disturbing feeling of her body reorganizing itself in a way it was never intended to took hold and forced its way down her body.

She gasped and coughed, the gesture working much better this time. Kyta stared down at her hands. Actual hands, human skin, the nice light brown color she had lived with and seen since the day she was born. She had never been so happy to see them again.

Kyta shivered. The room was cold, and as she looked up, she realized that her clothes was in a pile under her. Shifting sideways, she started to put them on, when she was interrupted twice.

The first was by her own body. A wrenching feeling in her gut warned her a moment before she vomited, coughed, and vomited again. It was no more fun than it had been last time, when she was sick. She didn't feel ill this time, just completely disoriented by her own body.

The second was by a voice.

Astriðer had taken to reading in the library after it closed, taking a handful of books out from the almost forbidden section of the library to the back room, which was deserted after the rest of the library workers left for the night. The librarian always smiled at her as he left, watching her head back into the library. She told him she was reading, and when he inquired as to what, gestured at the books that surrounded them and replied with a generic answer. She overheard that he thought she was trying to make up for all the time she had spent with the barbarians, trying to cure herself of her own ignorance. She wanted to correct him, but Tryphon pointed out that Nomiki might not let her spend so much time unaccompanied after the library closed if he thought that. As much as it rankled, Astriðer had to agree that the alternative was much worse.

Tryphos sometimes stayed late with her, reading his own set of books. After much debate with herself, she had told him what she had found in the forbidden section, and some time after that, about the catacombs. He had been excited and fascinated in a way that she had not, since he had never really seen another culture, or read about them much. That a whole section of the library existed, to discuss things that weren't allowed anywhere else, and that it was guarded, made his eyes widen in shock and fascination. He immediately demanded that she let him in, but she couldn't do that, since he didn't work there, and the guard always stopped him. Later, the guard had spoken to her and told her that the only reason she was allowed in there was that she worked for the library, and he wasn't going to forbid her entrance just because she wasn't from Aytoria natively. She thanked him, but left with a sour feeling in her mouth, that her homeland was an issue. She knew she shouldn't have been surprised, considering the rest of the reception she had gotten, but it hurt nonetheless.

So she took her books elsewhere, and read with Tryphos in other parts of the library where she didn't think they would be disturbed. She had not told him about the things she had taken south with her, the stolen jewelry. That secret was too much for her to tell anyone here, even him, as much as she had come to trust him. She could only hope that she had hidden them enough, since she had no other ideas of where to hide them here, that would be safe from unintended prying, and the intended prying she expected her thieving roommate was still searching her room for things, though she had found little evidence to support that view.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 19

2009-11-21T02:21:06Z

Yup, didn't write anything on the 18th. Came down with the flu and tried to do homework too. Didn't work out too well. Slept 11 hours and felt much better. Slept through my class, but it was Japanese so that wasn't as much fun as one would hope.

Wrote most of this while tired and zombieful. It may not make much sense.

Today: 2673
Total: 26,129

Aislin awoke sharply to a flash of light and a bang and ^11/19/09the familiar twisting crunching exploding sliding blinding sensation, followed by the equally familiar sensation of wings, feathers, and a smaller size.

By the time Aislin shook her head and cawed, Eydis was sitting up, weapon in hand, and looking very startled. Eydis looked at her. "What's wrong? Why did you change?"

Aislin stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out what she said. Everything felt fuzzy inside her head. She shook her head, both to clear her head and because she was unable to say anything that Eydis could understand. She hopped off the blanket and stared around the room. It was dark, and she could just barely make out the shapes of things. There were a number of shiny things on the walls and she twitched her head back and forth to get them in proper view. Gradually, she became aware that she was actually human, and that she should be doing something more important. She looked up at the tall human shape looming over her, and realized after a moment that it was Eydis.

"Aislin. You need to change back to a human."

Aislin blinked up at her, then finished parsing the words. She nodded, as best she could as a raven. She took note of how she felt, noting how it felt different from normal, and changed back to a human.

Shivering in the night air with no clothes on, Aislin wrapped herself in the scorched blanket while Eydis pulled out a spare set of clothes for her to put on. She stared blankly at the proffered clothes for a second before realizing what they were and putting them on hastily.

"What happened?" her companion repeated herself.

Aislin shook her head again, a much more obvious gesture in human form than as a raven. It didn't help clear the fuzziness. "I didn't. It was forced. Someone used the necklace."

"Astriðer?" Eydis inquired, digging in their pack.

"No, I don't think so." Aislin shook her head slowly, thinking. "I didn't recognize the sensation. It didn't feel anything like you. But someone definitely used the jewelry." She paused, then added, "I hope they weren't in the air when I changed back."

Eydis shook her head as she pulled out the pouch containing Aislin's shape change drug. "They wouldn't have had enough time. It takes you longer than that. At least we know that the jewelry wasn't lost somewhere."

"Perhaps Astriðer didn't take it," Aislin pointed out. "It definitely wasn't her that just changed. I don't know who it was, but I know that much."

"Or someone stole it from her, or she sold it, or she let someone else try it since she knows you can tell who wears it," Eydis pointed out. "I know you don't want to think that of her, but you can't deny she's the most likely candidate at this point. Here." She held out the drug and Aislin stared at it. She really didn't want to take that. She knew the hallucinations would start almost immediately, like they had last time, and that they would be no less disturbing.

"Aislin. You have to." Aislin lifted her gaze to look at Eydis, then sighed, sat down cross legged, and took the drug. Within moments, she stiffened and her eyes glazed over.

HALLUCINATION SCENE?

Kyta had gone through several dozen books in the hidden section of the library on shape changing and the northern culture and magic, and was rapidly running out of books in that section to read. Her progress through the copied scroll was much slower. She could read the first few page, or at least get a general idea of what it said, but was no where near a tenth of the way through, let alone finished. It was fascinating, both the language and what the contents hinted at, but incredibly frustrating. It was more frustrating than knowing that there was something that she couldn't read at all, because she knew that she could read it, given sufficient time she didn't have. Her other classes were starting to take up more of her time, and the beginning aspiring clergy were required to participate in services, so they could see and experience what they were someday to do. Most of these were in the evening, after their usual classes, and interfered with Kyta's time in the catacombs and reading her stolen books. She dared not skip any of the required learning she was doing, both because she found them interesting, and because it would be a bad idea to give her teachers the impression she had more important things to do.

But it was very hard to concentrate on school when there were such fascinating things in the back her mind. She was able to hold on to enough of what she'd deduced about the language that she was working on it in the back of her head during classes, and sometimes in lieu of paying attention. It was also very hard to concentrate on the religious teachings the school was trying to impart when she'd only had a handful of hours of sleep the previous night, and most of the previous month before that. With the winter rains in full blast, pelting down on all the exposed areas of the school and city, Kyta was having a hard time not getting sick, and keeping her books dry. Far too often, she found herself awake as the sun rose - or what qualified as sunrise - and hurriedly getting a few hours of sleep before the day started for everyone else and dragged her with it. It was all worthwhile, as far as she was concerned, though. She had learned far more in the past couple months than she could have dreamed before coming here.

So it was not very surprising when she was up in the wee hours of the morning, pouring over her textbook. Her roommate wasn't keeping any better hours than she was, or was preferring to sleep in the library rather than take the trek through the pouring rain again.

By this point, she had a pretty good idea how shape changing worked, and what part it played in the northern cultures. There was nothing written down on how to actually become a shape changer, much to her chagrin, since she might have tried it if she knew how to. The side effects of eventual madness didn't look like too much fun, but it was a fascinating concept Equally fascinating was the other set of books she had taken out, the ones on the magic to the westCHECK, discussing how their magic worked, and the powder they used to power it gotten from SOURCE. The amazing things they could do, without the help of the gods, and just their own sources, awed her. Kyta hoped to travel there, perhaps under the guise of a missionary, once she had learned everything she could from this university.

The book she was currently reading was the most interesting one she'd read so far, save the one she was translating. It actually discussed the intersection of the two areas she was reading about, and how the shape change magic interacted with the "traditional" magic, as it put it. For the most part they didn't, except that traditional magic could affect how and when shape changing magic came into effect. The book described a series of experiments that had been performed, and proved with some degree of conclusiveness that a shape changer could be forced to change, or change back, by a particular use of traditional magic. Furthermore, a linkage could be set up that allowed two people to change shape to the same animal simultaneously. Most interestingly, to the study's authors and Kyta, was that it was actually the same animal, not just two similar ones of the same species. Everything they could measure - size, weight, feather pattern, beak, feet, eyes, caw and a few more things, was completely identical, though they had different actions and different personalties dictated by the human that they originated from.

Furthermore, most practitioners of traditional magic couldn't use their more typical magic while they were changed, either via the linkage method, or via becoming a native shape changer themselves. However, a skilled practitioner, with the possibility of correlation with age and not just skill, was able to control themselves, and the animal they had changed for into, enough that they could perform almost the same range of magic as they had access too as a human.

In the same book, it also detailed what happened when a native shape changer attempted to be able to be able to change into two animals. It was somewhat grotesque. When they changed, they ended up as some random mutation between the two animals, with no apparent sense or pattern for the merging. In their follow up to the study, nearly everyone who had attempted that was dead, either by their own hand or their community's when they were unable to cope with normal society. The one or two who were still alive cited their reasons as being able to separate their animals into containers or compartments. However, they also displayed symptoms of two personalities in one body. They seemed to maintain two sets of memories, with nearly identical personalities. Both cases like this were also skilled traditional mages.

Finishing the book, Kyta stood up and started pacing, to help her think and process what she had just learned. She let her thoughts mull around and make connections with what she knew, not really thinking about anything, just processing. To keep her hands busy, she checked that the door was locked and continued rummaging through Astrither's things, letting her mind continue running in the background. She still hadn't found where the jewelry she had found on the first day was hidden. She was starting to suspect Astrither kept it on her person at all times, but had seen no evidence of it being move to and from some hiding spot when her roommate came in late in the evening, or in the morning when she got dressed, and Kyta knew from experience that their night clothes held no space for anything to be hidden, without the risk of it falling out or jingling. It could be hidden elsewhere, like in the library, but Kyta Her room was awfully small for pacing, so she carefully packed up the book she had just finished, making sure her bag was rainproof. Most of the way to the temple was covered for occasions just like this, since it typically poured all winter, but there was a small section between where the aspiring clergy lived and the rest of campus that wasn't covered. Kyta couldn't figure out why, but had heard other students cite it as anything from the university trying to build character, to them not being able to afford it.

After that short dash through the rain, it was merely a matter of navigating the much longer, but drier, path to the temple. It was another dash between the university and the cathedral, since the temple stood on it's own, towering above the nearby buildings. She didn't admire the architecture, since she'd seen it hundreds of time before by this point, and it was difficult to look up when it was raining like this.

She shook herself off inside the temple, splattering droplets against the stone walls and statues. It seemed particularly apt on Anatolik of the rainy west winds, who was presiding this season. She could only hope, and make some sacrifices to Borei, that he didn't win his annual battle with Anatolik and send cold down from the north to freeze everything. It would be hellish getting around the campus with the paths getting pelted by freezing rain, and getting hailed on traversing the uncovered parts.

Stepping around Thytikos, and missing the gentle seasons he brought, she opened the door and entered the catacombs. Closing her eyes and yawning, she walked down the black tunnels, and considered wishing she had stayed back in her room to sleep. She was exhausted. Despite her tiredness, she tried to walk quietly. While it was unlikely that anyone else would be here at this time, only a few hours before dawn, it was also the time that someone sneaking around down here might be looking around, assuming that no one else would be there. Other than that one time, she had not seen any signs of anyone else coming down here. However, when she checked the alcoves nearest the library very closely after that, she found that the scrolls were being rotated, though at a much slower pace that she could read her native tongue, but much faster than she could read the language they were in. She suspected Astrither or one of the professors, since they were about the only ones she could see being able to read the barbarian language. Astrither was barely literate, and from everything she heard, entirely unlikely to steal anything, so she wasn't sure about that, but someone was definitely looking at the scrolls.

Slowing down and making doubly sure to be quiet and listen hard, Kyta tiptoed up the steps and pushed open the door, glad she had oiled it. The room was dark, as expected, but this was another section she had gotten very good at traversing in the dark. She slunk over to the shelf she had taken the book from, opened the bag and unwrapped it, making sure it was dry before she put it back.

Shaking her head at her silliness, she returned to the catacombs and retrieved one of the torches before lighting it and returning. Doing her best to keep it shielded, she started browsing the shelf, the stopped. She had been completely unable to find the jewelry in Astrither's room, and the other place her roommate spent most of her time was in the library. It was not impossible that she knew about this room, and would consider it safer to hide things in. And the room didn't have that many unique places to hide things. Under, on and between the books were the only places that came to mind, for someone like the barbarian. And she might even be stupid enough to hide it in this section, for whatever reason.

Grabbing the ladder, Kyta started a detailed search of the bookshelves, looking for anything that jingled or could possible be that interesting thing she had seen on Astrither's be the day she moved in.

She wasn't wrong. On the top shelf of the shelf against the wall, behind the row of books, she heard something jingle when she bumped the bookshelf. Grinning wickedly in anticipation, she investigated further, and pulled out the necklace, glittering silvery in the light. It looked like what she remembered, the delicate silver holding up red stones. She looked closer at it, tilting her head and holding the necklace spread open. She could swear that there was something drawn in there, some sort of pattern. It looked like some sort of bird, but it was hard to tell what kind, since it seemed stylized into the metal. The wings were outstretched, forming the sides of the necklace and tapering up to the chain, and the head was along one of the wings, blending in with some sort of decoration next to it to make the necklace look more symmetrical. Stones marked the eyes and were scattered across the wings, and it looked like the bird was holding one in its beak.

The earrings were each a wing, with stones scattered across them. Upon a closer look, Kyta realized that the pattern was the exact same as on the wings. The ring, similarly, could be interpreted as a bird wrapping itself around the wearer's finger with again, the same pattern of stones on the wing. It was interesting that someone had taken the care to make sure that the patterning was identical across all four pieces of jewelry.

I have to write over 2000 words a day to win now. >__<

The bit I crossed out was because I didn't feel like losing 125 words because I changed how that section was going. I seem to be getting worse at not stopping in the middle of sentences. :)

Reading back on it, the notes about fixing stuff like SOURCE and CHECKTHIS are really funny.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 17

2009-11-21T02:13:28Z

Yeah, posting stuff the day I wrote it... this is from the 17th. Didn't write much.

"Today": 768
"Total": 23,456 (whee, 23456! They're in sequence)

^11/17/09Aislin was surprised at how quickly the music brought the steps to the dance back to her. Her face lit up in a broad grin, smiling up at Janiko. Within moments the dance swung her away, into another's competent hands, then to the next, less skilled, and on around the circle until she returned to Janiko.

Then next song was also one she recognized, but the one after that was unfamiliar to her, so she took a welcome break from dancing. Janiko hesitated a moment then joined her on the seat. "Tired?" he asked, and Aislin nodded.

"We've been traveling all day, and walking is much more work than flying." A bit of a chill went through her when she realized that she'd outed herself as a shape changer. A moment later, she realized that they already knew who she was, and that she was a shape changer. If they were going to dislike her for that, they had already had a chance to do so.

"Is it? It seems like flying would be more work, with the winds and snow and how much further you travel, not to mention all the side effects of shape changing." He seemed genuinely interested, or a very good actor.

Aislin shook her head. "I don't carry anything while flying. I'm usually met at the other end, or by Eydis. And I'm much lighter as a bird. On the ground, we seem to be plodding, and I'm carrying our packs."

The conversation lapsed, and Eydis came to join them, eyes shining and face flushed from dancing. Aislin smiled at her - she rarely saw Eydis this relaxed and comfortable, a change from her usual quietness around other people. "You're not dancing?" Eydis asked, offering a hand to Aislin. "Care to dance with me?"

Aislin laughed. "Not this song, maybe the next. Janiko tired me out already."

"Did he?" She turned her gaze to the young man, raising an eyebrow at him. "Trying to convince the raven to rest here for the winter, or longer? You'll have no luck, and you're not the first."

Janiko held his hands up in a good natured defense. "I intended no such thing! I won't try to convince her to do anything except dance again, and you're stealing that job from me already."

"Best of luck with that," Eydis told him, grabbing Aislin's hand and dragging her to her feet against mock protestations. "Come dance. You'll wake up once your feet get moving." Aislin allowed herself to be dragged back into the swirl, and noticed Janiko coming as well.

By the time Aislin was led to one of the cabins with Eydis, she was exhausted from the dancing and travel, but very thoroughly enjoying herself. It was so much easier to simply stay on the outskirts of a celebration with Eydis, watching and enjoying others enjoying themselves. It hadn't even occurred to her that it would be so much different with her friend dragging her into the thick of things, and practically forcing her to participate and enjoy herself, even if the forcing was unintentional.

With a happy sigh, she lay down on the bed, scooting to the side to make room for Eydis. "Had fun?" her friend asked, joining her and wrapping them in blankets. Aislin nodded and sighed happily again. "Can I convince you to do it again?"

"Most certainly." She paused, then mentioned, "You don't normally join in either."

"This is my family," Eydis explained, answering the implicit question. "It's... different." She paused, thinking. "I grew up with them. They already know me. It's just different being here than anywhere else." Now it was Eydis' turn to pause, before asking, "How long do you want to stay here? The sooner we go south, more likely we are to miss the winter storms, but you and Janiko seemed to be enjoying each other's company. I don't know if he's already partnered, but I do not think so."

Aislin shook her head, though she knew Eydis couldn't see it. "He's nice, but I don't like him that much. At best, I will accept an offer to accompany us part of the way, but I won't stay here to spend time with him if it hinders our chances of find Astrither." She realized something. "Did you want to stay longer with your family?"

Again Eydis mimicked Aislin unintentionally by shaking her head. "We can leave tomorrow after we've restocked, and the weather permits." By mutual agreement, they both gave in to their tiredness and fell asleep.

Aislin awoke sharply to a flash of light and a bang and

Yeah, I stopped in the middle of a sentence. I do that sometimes... wasn't sure whether to continue the scene, or jump to another one.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 16

2009-11-18T03:46:16Z

Heh, it's funny when I post a day's writing 19+ hours after midnight. Though less than that the writing, since I tend to do my writing after midnight. :p

Also, I started installing Arch Linux on my brand new computer. ♥

"Today": 1005
Total: 22,688
Should be at: 26,667

Aislin agreed, and they started off again faster. Luck was not on their side, as soon tiny snowflakes drifted down on them, gradually increasing in size and volume. Disturbingly soon, in Aislin's mind, there was snow on the paths. ^11/16/09Eydis seemed less concerned about them trekking down the narrow path as a thin white blanket covered it than Aislin was. She wasn't used to snow falling from the sky, it usually just stayed on the ground where she knew what to do with it, and it didn't blow all up in her face and try to sneak in her clothes.

Coming around a bend in the trail, Eydis stopped and pointed ahead. "There. That's where we're headed." Aislin stopped and followed her outstretched hand. In the bottom of the valley, she could see the light of fires.

"People?" she exclaimed. "You didn't mention there would be people camped here!"

"I wasn't sure if there would be. They tend to arrive about this time of the year, but sometimes it's deserted. For maybe a couple of days." Eydis grinned at the shape changer. "That's not the end of the surprise, though."

"What?" Aislin asked. Eydis just shook her head, grinning. "What?" she repeated, and Eydis started off down the trail again. Aislin shook her head and followed, glad that keeping moving kept her warm. What else could there be to surprise her than people, and the promise of hot food and companionship?

The fires were down in the bottom of a valley, next to a spring. Eydis hailed them, and they were quickly greeted by a handful of children that ran out to greet them. Following at a much more sedate pace was an older man with hair nearly the color of the snow falling around them. He greeted them and welcomed them to his fire, and Eydis accepted.

Aislin gratefully let herself be led to a spot near the campfire, and relinquished her bag to a young helper, though she watched where it was put. Eydis did the same, and greeted several of the people by name. Aislin didn't know anyone, and waited for Eydis to pause in her talking for a moment to lean over and ask, "You know these people? They seem friendly, but I don't know anyone, or really recognize their clothes."

Eydis grinned broadly at her. "This is my tribe, my birth tribe. I went to join HOMETRIBE when my brother did, and stuck around there. I used to come down and visit with the traders, which is why I know the path. Then I met you." She shrugged.

Aislin gaped at her. "I didn't realize this is where they were! You said that they were far away and you didn't need to go back and visit them that much whenever I asked!"

Eydis shrugged again. "It was true. I decided when I decided to be your companion that your business was more important than mine, and you've been busy. I knew I'd get down to see them eventually."

The young man sitting on the other side of Aislin chuckled. "You never mentioned?" he said. Eydis grinned at him. "So she's your shape changer, is she? I almost think I've heard of her."

Aislin gathered her wits at actually meeting Eydis' family - the brother Eydis mentioned had been taken by Senka before Aislin had come to HOMETRIBE - and turned to greet the young man politely.

"Perchance, is your name Aislin?" he asked, shaking her hand warmly.

Aislin stumbled a moment before responding, "Yes. And yours?"

"Janiko," he replied. "I've heard a song or two about you." Aislin blushed some and he laughed. "Just as pretty and exotic as the tales say." Someone else chimed in agreement.

"But not as pretty as Eydis!" someone else called out, to laughter, including Eydis'.

"One of my old crushes," Eydis murmured to Aislin before calling back, "Then why did you turn me down to go with Hjordis, then?"

Aislin could only watch as friendly tribal banter went back and forth between Eydis and the people that she, presumably, hadn't seen in years. She felt very much out of her depth, and guilty for having kept her closest friend from this unknowingly.

It was about this time that Aislin noticed that there was no snow stuck to the ground, though snow was still falling from the sky. Puzzled, she looked around, beyond the light of the campfires, but the light was too uncertain for her to be able to tell. She would have investigated it further, but Janiko came back and addressed her.

"What brings you this way? Eydis hasn't been back in recent years, so I assume your business has kept me elsewhere. She has sent news, but only so much as can be sent via messenger, and you know how little that is! Not enough memory for all the personal details."

"Business, and things. Much of the early time was getting myself into songs," Aislin grinned self-deprecatingly, "so I don't think I need to repeat myself there. In this case, we're heading south looking for something that we think was stolen and the person came south with it."

Janiko's face sobered. "Who is it? If there' among our tribe, we'll bring them out. What did they take?"

Aislin shook her head. "I do not believe they are. To the best of my knowledge, they are outside the tribal lands now. It was the jewelry that I made, that allows shape changing of anyone, before they have undergone the ritual."

He nodded. "Ah, I see why you hunt it south even with the winter approaching. And you think the thief went to Aytoria? Do you need anyone to escort you?"

Aislin shook her head again. "Thank you, but I think Eydis and I will be fine, if you can part with her again." She smiled. "It will be easier not to be noticed, I think."

"Do you think - no, I will leave the questions for later. Now is a time for revelry and celebration, no. Do you dance, Aislin?"

Aislin caught her breath and blushed without being aware of it. It had been a very long time since someone had asked her to dance. She heard the flutes and drums starting up in the background. "I do, Janiko," she replied. "Would you like to dance?"

Taking her hand, he lead her closer to the fire, where other pairs were dancing. "Do you know this song?" he asked, and when she nodded, pulled her into the dancing.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 15

2009-11-16T10:02:15Z

Ack! The last two days were... problematic. Real life conspired to keep me from writing, um, anything. I'm supposed to be at 25K as of midnight (that is, two hours ago), and I was still at 19K. But, the good news is that between midnight and now, I wrote almost 2600 words, which is pretty darn epic for me. It helps that I know what I'm writing about.

Today: 2592
Total: 21,633

---------------

It was driving her crazy, that something huge and important and fascinating was buried beneath the school, and she couldn't read a word of it! She had mapped the catacombs, except for the other entrances, but had a pretty good idea where the exits were, based on her equally detailed maps of the surface. There were only a handful of other exits, the notable ones being in the library, under the minor scholar's quarters, and under one of the research buildings that was also off limits to her. She had skimmed at least one book from each section, and none of them made sense, though some were clearly in different languages than others.

Kyta sat on her bed, staring at the maps she had made, flipping back and forth in her book. It was time to leave the catacombs and look for something that would enlighten her elsewhere. The most promising places looked to be the library, for obvious reasons, or the research building, in the hopes they would be studying something useful. But the research building was too much of a long shot - the library was much more likely to have useful books in a language she could read.

Kyta checked the time. It was getting late. After dinner, and after the sun set, though the sky was still light. Most people would be in bed soon, and Astrither would be returning from her job soon, maybe. The girl tended to stay late there, and Kyta only knew she hadn't been buried in books because her roommate was sleeping when Kyta awoke the next morning, or the sheets had been disturbed. They rarely saw each other, and exchanged fewer words, which suited Kyta just fine.

Gathering up the only thing that really mattered for this sort of outing, her book of notes, the appropriate writing implements and a bag to discreetly carry them in, Kyta made her way across the campus to the cathedral, and down into the catacombs. By this point, she practically had the catacombs memorized, enough so that she didn't always bother lighting a torch until she got to where she was going. She had been coming down here for over a month, long enough that the sun was usually set by the time she made her way over after dinner. She had skimmed all the documents down there, much to the detriment of her sleep, as there were lots. She could drink tea, but it was an expensive import. Her maps were full of annotations and examples of what the script on the scrolls and books looked like and detailed measurements and where she had left torches. Everything she needed to figure out what translation book she needed, if she ever found one.

Kyta, lost in her thoughts, came rapidly out of her reverie when she saw light flickering down the hallway nearest the library. She had no torch, and wouldn't have noticed it if she had had one lit. She froze. The light stayed there, flickering but probably stationary. It must have been associated with a person, for momentarily, she heard footsteps again, then the creak of a door, and the light disappeared. Kyta listened to her heart pounding for a few more seconds before moving again.

She didn't realize that someone else knew of the catacombs existence. She had never seen anyone else, or any evidence of them. As far as she had known, it had been her little secret, her private area where she could disappear off to and be completely unknown.

Who could the other person have been? They had run when she had arrived, presumably in response to the footsteps she hadn't tried to hide, so they probably had no more right to be down here than she did. Or they were a very nervous someone that did actually have the right to be down here. They had run to the library, but that could be because it was the closest exit away from her, not because they had come in that way.

Kyta lit the torch she was carrying and checked behind herself. Sure enough, footprints in the dust. Approaching the intersection where she'd seen the light, she froze when she heard the door squeak and light flicker down at the foot of the stairs at the end of the hallway. By the time she had caught her breath, the door had close with a thud, and the light disappeared again. Kyta hastily blew out her torch, but didn't move. If they had come back in, she didn't want to give away that she was there with her footsteps. They might still walk into her in the dark, but they would probably light something first, and she could try getting away by stepping when they did. She'd never tried that before, but it was the best idea she had.

She listened intently, but the only sounds she heard were her heart continuing to pound in her ears, and her breathing, which she tried to muffle. After nearly a minute of seconds stretching out longer than they were supposed to, Kyta concluded that they had just opened and closed the door, and probably hadn't entered, or they were more patient than she was. Just to be safe, she stayed where she was for another half a minute. With several deep breaths - breathing quietly was very hard when she was as worked up as she was now - Kyta relit her torch.

Whoever it was had footsteps indistinguishable from hers, as Kyta couldn't tell her footsteps from the other person's. They had only made it as far as the first alcove. Kyta stared at the books there, wishing her memory actually was perfect, and not just almost perfect. She couldn't tell if anything had been moved, or taken. Her best guess was that something had been taken, but she wasn't sure, and she didn't know what. Even her detailed annotations didn't include an inventory of everything down here. That would take years, if not decades, not just the month or so she had had.

Had the person just been looking randomly, or was there something special about this pile? Kyta took a detailed look through, being extra careful about noting what scrolls came from where, so if the other person came back, they wouldn't notice her checking. The script was consistent with this section, the sort of square, blocky writing. There were only three pictures in the stack of five scrolls, all in the same scroll. One picture was of a person, and two were of big cats, the same species, but different poses. Kyta had never seen that sort of animal before, so she couldn't tell much more.

Kyta scratched her head. Did she dare go into the library now, given that someone else knew of that entrance? Would someone be waiting for her? If there was someone waiting, did she want to meet them or not? How likely were they to be able or willing to punish her for exploring down here? While it was not explicitly stated anywhere, it was pretty obvious from the hiding that she wasn't welcome down here.

Her best guess was that the other person wasn't supposed to be down here any more than she was, judging by the way they ran as soon as they noticed here. The second opening of the door could have been a scare tactic, to try and make her go away, though Kyta couldn't quite figure out the rationale behind that. They probably wouldn't be waiting for her, since they probably assumed she was supposed to be here too. Which mean it was probably still safe for her to explore the library, if she waited a sufficient amount of time for them to clear out.

To kill the time, Kyta copied down the contents of the scroll with the drawings on it, simply because it looked to be the most interesting. She tried to copy down the drawings too, but they came out awkward looking and unbalanced, and looking nothing like the originals. She was pretty good at mimicking scripts, but apparently real drawing was still beyond here.

That took a fair amount of time, and once she had finished, Kyta replaced everything as it had been when she found it, an tiptoed up the stairs. The door was only stuck a little bit, and Kyta kicked herself for not bringing oil when the door squeaked.

As expected, it lead out to the library, and the first thing Kyta saw was rows of bookshelves, looking very innocent and much like every set of bookshelves in the library. She was quite familiar with most of them, and these looked no different. She shut the door behind her and listened carefully for the sound of someone.

She heard nothing. Following the walls, Kyta walked the boundary of the room, ducking back among the shelves as she passed the entrance. Pulling out her map, Kyta checked the catacombs against the library. Yup, she was in that unmarked space on the blueprints, behind where the guard was. As she hoped, she was in an interesting part of the library, or a part that seemed likely to be interesting, because who guarded boring things?

It was actually a fairly small room, compared to the rest of the library. No more than a couple dozen shelves, all packed together in the usual fashion, and a small table near the door. No chairs, unlike much of the library, but a ladder stood next to the table for getting to the higher shelves. Kyta left that alone, and started at one end of the room, taking a random sample of each shelf, reading a little bit, figuring out what it was about, and noting that down before returning the book.

Some of the books were in Aytorian, but some were in other languages. Most of those other languages were in the same alphabet as Aytorian, but three shelves in, she found a book in one of the scripts from the catacombs, and a little more searching in the same area revealed a dictionary that translated between her language and one of the scripts in the catacombs, but not the one nearest the library exit. It was exciting, but Kyta was hoping to find something to do with the scrolls the unknown person had been looking at. She continued searching.

She found several more dictionaries for other scripts in the catacombs, but not the one she was looking for. Then, on the far side of the room from where she had started, she found it. A tidy little book, one that fit nicely into her hand, with lists in her language and the script of the scroll nearest the door. Grinning excitedly, Kyta pocketed the book, and started doing a more detailed search of the area where she found the book.

It only took her a moment to realize that this was the section on the northern barbarians. Her brain clicked, and she realized that's why the scroll had pictures of people and the cats. She might not know much about the barbarians, but the one thing she did was that they could change into animals. It was horribly forbidden by the gods, but that only made it more interesting as far as Kyta was concerned.

She checked a few more books before finding one on shape changing, and another on grammar. She put both of them in her bag, and had to resist the urge to take the whole section. She couldn't take out an entire section at a time, the way she could in the rest of the library. She would have to suffice with just the three books. Realizing that the library would probably be closing soon, Kyta rearranged the books to hide the fact she'd removed some and returned to the catacombs.

She considered staying down there, but it would be difficult to read much, since her supply of torches was limited. If she brought them back to her room, Kyta was confident that she could hide them, especially considering how much time her roommate spent there.

It was full dark as she made her way across the campus back to her room. She met several people, and made sure to act normally, but the bulging bag of books was nothing unusual. Most people knew she spent most of her time reading, and checked out half the library at a time.

Safely back in her room, Kyta bolted the door and spread her prizes out on the bed. All of them looked interesting. She could try to use the dictionary and grammar one to read the scroll, or she could read the one on shape changing. The former would be much more difficult, and Kyta was in the mood for something she could understand right now, rather than the slow, painful slog that translating the scroll would be. Tucking the other two books away in her hiding spot, Kyta curled up next to her candle and started reading.

Eydis stared at the map, then looked up at the mountains and the trail ahead of her, then back to the map. Aislin watched her repeat the gesture several times, rotate the map, and try again. Aislin bit her lip.

"Are we lost?" she asked, after a couple more iterations of this.

Eydis paused before responding. "Probably not?" It was more of a question than a statement, which wasn't reassuring to Aislin. "You haven't traveled south with the traders before, have you?" Aislin shook her head, though she knew Eydis already knew that answer. It didn't bode well for their likelihood of not being lost.

Eydis shrugged. "I think this is the right path," she said, pointing down the left path. "I might be misreading this, and we might have made the wrong turn two hours ago."

Aislin swore. "This is so much easier when we can both just fly over everything! All the landmarks look different down here! But I can't fly ahead and leave you."

"And I won't let you go south alone and steal all your supplies." Eydis gestured to her pack. "There's a reason I'm carrying all this, and I'm not carrying yours too."

Aislin sighed. "I know. It's just so frustrating! This is so much easier when you can change too, and we're met on the other end."

Eydis had nothing to say to that, so she shrugged and started down the left path. "If we're still lost tomorrow, you can try changing again and seeing if the map makes any more sense after you've seen the area from the air."

Aislin nodded and followed her friend. They trudged along together for another couple hours, Eydis consulting the map periodically. Finally, Eydis looked between the map and the scenery around her, and a grin spread across her face. "We're not lost!" she announced proudly. She pointed between something drawn on the map and one of the mountains in front of her. "That, is that. We're not lost." Aislin between the things Eydis was pointing at, and unintentionally mimicked Eydis' earlier gestures. She didn't see it, but if her companion claimed she knew where they were, Aislin was happy with that.

"So, does that mean you know where the next rest spot is?" She pointed to where the sun had disappeared a couple hours ago. "The sky's going to get properly dark pretty soon."

Eydis nodded. "We should get there before dark assuming those clouds," she pointed, "don't start snowing on us."

"And if they do?" Aislin asked, not having much experience with falling snow, and not particularly wanting to, considering how cold she got tramping through the stuff on the ground.

"That would be bad. Let's make it there before it starts snowing."

Aislin agreed, and they started off again faster. Luck was not on their side, as soon tiny snowflakes drifted down on them, gradually increasing in size and volume. Disturbingly soon, in Aislin's mind, there was snow on the paths.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 12

2009-11-13T09:57:40Z

Still not quite caught up, and in fact further behind than I was yesterday (only wrote half what I needed to be at), but still excited. More bouncing ideas off a different friend, and more epic ideas for the plot. The end of the story may have shifted some, since I have ideas for what happens after my nebulous idea of "the end", but there's no way that's enough for a second NaNo.

Today: 1008
Total: 19,041

-------------

Astriðer skimmed the titles of the the books, making her way to the far side of the section of the library. She still hadn't found where to shelve the book on her culture or the magic system when she came across another door. It didn't open at a tug, so she pulled on it harder. When it sprang open, she stared at a narrow set of stairs going down into darkness. She blinked. Why was there a set of stairs going under the library? A torch was set in just inside the stairwell, and Astriðer lit it, closed the door except for a crack, and went down the stairs.

About two dozen steps down, the stairs joined a corridor, which Astriðer followed, still curious. She had a feeling that this wasn't actually a part of the library and she shouldn't be here, but this was the first thing she'd found since arriving that might have anything to do with magic.

A dozen or so paces down the corridor, Astriðer found an alcove with scrolls and finer lighting sources than the torch she held. Carefully keeping the torch away from the flammable scrolls, she opened one. It took her a moment to recognize the writing, but when she did, her eyes opened wide and she gasped. It was written in her language, the rarely used and barely known script for writing things down.

She started reading down the scroll, frustrated at her slowness at reading in her own language, especially in comparison to the progress she'd made in the Aytorian's language. Fortunately, it only took her a few sentences to realize, much to her excitement, that it was about shape changing. Several dozen thoughts she wasn't quite sure of flashed through her head at once. They had something to do with this possibly having something to do with finding how to stop the shape change madness.

Trembling, she put down the scroll and picked up the one next to it. Both disappointingly and excitingly, it was a continuation of the first one she had examined, denoted by the comment at the top of the scroll. The next scroll appeared to also be about shape changing, though Astriðer also caught a mention of 'magic' in there, whatever that referred to.

She stood staring at the scrolls for a minute, unsure what to do. Likely, the books belonged down here, but she wasn't sure where. On the other hand, this was exactly why she was working in the library, indeed, why she was in Aytoria to begin with, and she wasn't about to pass up the chance to find out more.

The decision was made for her, when she heard footsteps echoing along the stone hallway. Snatching up the first scroll, Astriðer grabbed her torch in the other hand and stopped herself from running back to the entrance. It would make too much noise. Instead she tiptoed, wincing at how much noise her boots made on the floor. The door squeaked much more than she remembered coming down, but she made it through and pushed it shut without having heard anything more threatening than footsteps in the distance.

Astriðer's heart pounded and her breathing was rushed. She looked down at her hands and realized she still held the torch. Blowing it out, she opened the door and stuck the half-used torch in the bracket before closing the door again. Taking a deep breath, and trying to ignore the trembling in her knees that came from the rush of almost being found out, she walked around behind one of the shelves, out of sight of the door but within hearing. Another few deep breaths, and Astriðer walked back to the stack of books she had left, sat down and put her head down on the top of the stack.

Another few deep breaths, and Astriðer gathered a hold of herself again. She tucked the scroll she had taken away under the desk, not the best place but the best she could do on short notice. Searching the section of the library more thoroughly, she returned the other books to their correct positions, and put the stolen scroll on the top of one of the shelves. Still not the best, but better than nothing and her previous hiding place. Finishing her work, Astriðer returned after the library had closed to take down the scroll and start reading.

Kyta was delighted at Astrither getting a job as well. Suddenly, she knew when her roommate was going to be out, and for how long, and most conveniently, her barbarian roommate was out when Kyta wasn't in classes. This gave Kyta ample time to search through Astrither's half of the room, and feel free to take apart anything she thought she could suitably put back together.

It also gave her plenty of time to read the books she took out of the library without anyone questioning what she was up to. She had read most of the section on languages, and still l hadn't found anything that looked promising to match the texts in the catacombs. She was starting to think that nothing existed that was publicly accessible. Were it not for the promising lead on the guarded room that didn't exist on the schematics, Kyta would have thought that nothing on the mysterious language existed at all. Not even the most obscure and dry texts mentioned anything that seemed likely, and none had any examples of the strange writing buried in their pages of examples and comparisons.

It was driving her crazy, that something huge and important and fascinating was buried beneath the school, and she couldn't read a word of it! She had mapped the catacombs, except for the other entrances, but had a pretty good idea where the exits were, based on her equally detailed maps of the surface. There were only a handful of other exits, the notable ones being in the library, under the minor scholar's quarters, and under one of the research buildings that was also off limits to her.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 11

2009-11-12T09:44:26Z

Yesterday, had an awesome evening hanging out with friends, but unfortunately only wrote about 85 words. Today was much more productive - I wrote almost 3600 words between 4ish and 8ish, with a couple breaks. Could have gotten more, but had to do other things. Another 300 words and I'm caught up (though, now that it's past midnight, I'm 2k behind again. :(

Today: 3594
Total: 18,033

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It was nearly a week's travel before they were back home again. Aislin sighed happily, looking down from a ledge at the valley her tribe called home at this time of year. A cluster of thatched cabins clustered around the stream running down the valley, and several people wandered from cabin to cabin on some sort of business. She waved at the village, but unsurprisingly no one noticed. Eydis shook her head. "Home again, home again?"

"Yup. Good place to be. Maybe they've had better luck finding the jewelry than I have." They followed the trail down and happily greeted the people they saw, receiving pleased greetings back.

That evening they enjoyed dinner with friends, catching up on the news from the past couple of weeks. There had been a light snowfall, the last rain of summer getting hit by the impending winter, and the winter winds had started up in earnest. Aislin and Eydis agreed heartily on the winds - they had noticed them traveling out of the mountains, where there was nothing to stop the wind from practically taking over. Aislin more so, since she had been flying, and had to contend with the winds in the air, with nothing but her petite raven body and skill at flying to keep her from getting blown off course. A few buildings needed to be repaired, as the occupants were complaining of the freezing winds sneaking in the cracks. The sun was only coming up above the mountains near to noon, and soon the valley would be in perpetual twilight until the sun rose above the mountains in the spring. The birds realized this too, as several flocks had been seen overhead, flying south for the winter.

They were preparing for a festival, a bright, cheery affair with lots of fire and dancing, to brighten their spirits through the long, dark months ahead. Several people were out collecting the peat and wood needed to fuel the fires, and hunting parties were in and out many days to catch enough food, both for the festival and for the winter, when hunting became more dangerous. A trading party had been sent south several months ago, to trade with the southerners for the things that made their winter more comfortable. If all went according to schedule, they would be back in the next few days.

Aislin, and to a lesser extend Eydis, told their tales about the other tribes. They had exchanged stories with their allies, telling of unions, births and deaths. Last summer, Eydis' cousin had gone to live with a young man in ALLIEDTRIBE, and Aislin had talked to them while she was out looking. Eydis' family was quiet happy to hear that their other daughter was settling in happily, and planned to spend the winter there, and possibly the next as well.

Unfortunately, nothing more had been heard about the jewelry that had disappeared. Aislin had discovered it missing near the end of the summer's skirmishes with the ENEMYTRIBE to the east, trying to encroach on their territories. The assumption had been that the enemy tribe had heard of the jewelry, realized it's potential, and sent someone to steal it. Upon losing the war, however, the other tribe had claimed they knew nothing about it, and HOMETRIBE had been unable to find any evidence to the contrary. Aislin had asked her tribe to look for it, but nothing had been turned up in the weeks before Aislin and Eydis left, and nothing had been found since. Frustrated and worried, Aislin and Eydis returned to the cabin they shared with Eydis' family for the night.

The next morning, they were awakened by the joyous sounds of the trading party returning, nearly a day before they were expected. Getting dressed hurriedly, Aislin left her tent and was greeted with the sight of pack animals being unloaded. She hurried forward and helped the traders unload, seeing Eydis follow her to do the same thing. Under the direction of the traders who had gone south and actually knew what to do with everything, she carried boxes and parcels to the right place.

Dried food that they couldn't grow in the chill and infertile soil went to the storage cabins, some kept cold so it wouldn't spoil, others preserved so they only needed to be kept safe from scavengers. Clothes went to main cabin, the largest building by far, to be distributed among those who needed them, and those who had specially requested things before the trading party went south. Most of it wasn't as wasn't as warm as the furs they got from the animals they killed and ate, but it was still warm, and often prettier or special in some way compared to their daily ear. Paper, another treasured item, also went to the main tent. It was only used for special occasions since it was so hard to get a hold of, but necessary for keeping in touch with sister tribes that were too far away to visit regularly. They weren't so much allies, since they were too far away to call upon in times of war, but maintained generally friendly relationships, usually sparked by a union some generations back where communication had been kept up even after the original couple's death.

Wooden things were also highly prized. Bows, nearly impossible to make from the stunted trees that grew in their home, were traded for, and made hunting much easier. Eydis was one of the few to actually own a bow, but she didn't use it as much as her knives and traps when hunting, since arrows were also hard to find, and broke often. Raw wood was also brought up, for making masks and other ceremonial items. The main cabin also stored all the little trinkets and toys that weren't strictly necessary, but kept people's spirits up. Aislin took a peek in one of the bags she carried, noting with some delight that they had the little tops that seemed to spin on almost everything, and the people that spun and danced depending on how the user manipulated the strings. A bag of small shiny things was also spotted, and Aislin knew that she would soon see them all over the village, sewn onto clothing and generally decorating things to add a little sparkle to things. The trinkets that weren't moving or shiny made cheerful noises. One of the most valuable trinkets were chimes, glass tubes hung in an aesthetically pleasing configuration that could be attached inside homes to add a bit of cheer where needed.

Everyone in the village was out and helping by the time the unpacking was done, and it seemed like the festival had come early. Most people had placed orders for something they were hoping for months ago in the spring, and were excited or anxious to find out what had been available.

The returning traders were fed and settled down in the main cabin, and oversaw the distribution of the traded goods, since they knew where everything was. One by one, the boxes and bags were opened, the items called out, and the owners coming forwards. Communal use items were kept aside, to be stored in communal areas by the people that knew best what to do with them. A few of the items were claimed late, as hunting parties returned to find the hustle and bustle of the village, and knew what it meant.

It was only when things settled down that evening that Aislin did a head count and realized that someone was missing. Leaning over to Eydis, enjoying her bowl of soup, she asked, "Am I imagining things, or is someone missing?"

Eydis looked up and did a head count as well. "They could be out, using the outhouse, or sick and sleeping."

"Perhaps," replied Aislin. The next time she had the opportunity, she spoke to one of the people that had just returned. "Did everyone make it home safely? I thought I remembered more people going south than are here."

He looked at her and sighed. "Yes. I was going to tell her family first, but Astriðer left as we were about to leave. She had been spending much of her time with the Aytorians, and we simply assumed she had been discussing trading with them, since her sister is planning on moving to OTHERTRIBE in the summer and had requested some things, but a day or so before we left, she informed the head trader that she wished to stay and travel south. I'm not sure why, or why he let her. She claimed that she believed in their gods, and wanted to travel to their capital and become a clergy, or somesuch. It seems very tragic to me, actually."

Aislin stared at him for a minute, shocked. "Honestly? That's what you heard?"

He nodded. "I know, it's about a crazy as it gets, but what can you do? Astriðer's a grown woman, and we can't control what she wants to do. She didn't take anything that didn't belong to her, and actually left much of her things, to be returned to her family." He shook his head. "I don't understand it, but that's how it went. It's been weeks - I'm kinda used to the idea now, I guess."

Aislin shook her head. "I think it'll take me at least that long to get used to the idea myself! I wish I knew why - she seemed to be happy here, and I can't imagine what the southerners could have told her to convince her that their pantheon of four was somehow superior to ours."

He shrugged, and Aislin decided to leave him be. She returned to her seat next to Eydis and told her the news. Eydis was as shocked as Aislin. It was practically unheard of for someone to abandon their tribe. There had been tales from other tribes of it happening, but no one close.

Eydis stopped in the middle of a bite, staring off into space and thinking. Aislin finished her sip, and inquired what she was thinking with an expression.

"Aislin, when did the trading party go south?" Eydis' voice had the semi-dreamy quality of her speaking while working something out in her head at the same time.

"Hmm, three or four moons ago? It was during the skirmishes with ENEMYTRIBE, and around the time that ^the jewelry disappeared." Aislin thought for a moment. "I'm pretty sure it was shortly before the jewelry disappeared, or before we realized that, since I don't remember searching all the things that were sent south for trading for it, to make sure it hadn't been somehow mispacked. And the trading party definitely left after the war had started, since we had to send almost a dozen warriors to make sure they got out safely, and that let ENEMYTRIBE raid that safe house, the one that lead to the trap we set a few weeks later." Aislin didn't ask why, letting her companion finish thinking things through.

"And was Astriðer acting funny before she left?"

"No, I don't recall that. She was still mourning the death of her father to the shape changing madness, but she seemed to be doing better after the winter. She seemed to have gained enough sense to realize that there is no way to reverse the madness, or really stop it, and had stopped pestering me about it." Aislin stopped, thinking about what she was saying. She had a feeling that she knew where Eydis' thoughts were going, and wasn't sure that her companion was wrong. "You think, Astriðer had something to do with it? The jewelry disappearing?"

Eydis nodded. "I'm not sure, but it seems likely. We didn't need to use it for a week or so before the trading party left, and hadn't used it after they left either. She could have taken it, hidden it, and gone south, knowing that we wouldn't suspect that either. We caught the spy from ENEMYTRIBE only a day or so after they left - she couldn't have known that, but it isn't entirely implausible. And you know that she is hurt and angry about the madness. Look at how many people close to her have succumbed to it - her father, brother and sister-in-law, uncle, as well as two of her close friend. And she's been pestering you, asking how you created it, and how it kept me from going insane, and everything she can find out about shape changing. The stuff she really wanted to know wouldn't really make sense without her having undergone the ritual."

Aislin shook her head, grabbed Eydis' arm, and lead her outside, so they would be in a more private setting. "It doesn't seem right, though. This is Astriðer we're talking about. She's the most honest person I know, practically. She's never stolen anything in her life, let alone something she knows is important to our communication and safety, not even counting the magical research I put into that."

"But she could also be more distraught than she's letting on. She's lost six people to the madness - that will do something to a person. If she thinks that she can find a cure, no matter how implausible that sounds to us, she could be desperate enough to try something like this."

"But what possible gain could there be to her having the jewelry in her possession, and heading south? She doesn't know my magic, she has none of the powder, she's not a shape changer herself, and the Aytorians believe shape changers are the impersonation of evil, or something similar to that." It didn't make quite enough sense to Aislin, though Eydis was putting forward some disturbingly convincing arguments.

Eydis shrugged. "Maybe she heard something from the traders that made her think the Aytorians would know something?"

Aislin shook her head. "But that doesn't explain the premeditated taking of the necklace."

Eydis thought for a minute, then said in a much slower pace than her arguments with Aislin a moment ago had been, "She knows you're not from around here - maybe she hoped to find something about it in your homeland?"

"But that doesn't even make sense!" Aislin exclaimed. "My homeland - the one that isn't here - doesn't know anything about shape changing, or about the magic I use."

"But she doesn't know that," countered Eydis. "You don't talk about your past before you joined us much - all she knows is that you came from somewhere else, and might have a way to keep shape changers from going mad, and won't tell her what it is." Eydis paused. "At the very least, it's a possibility. We haven't found anything talking to our allied tribes, the enemy tribes aren't going to tell us anything, and we don't have any other leads."

Aislin couldn't argue with that. "Fair enough. Shall we make plans to go south as soon as possible?" Eydis nodded, and Aislin sighed. "I had hoped to spend a few days here, but you're right, we should go before winter settles in properly. The southern mountains are going to be cursed snowy and stormy by the time we get there. If we hurry, they might not be as bad." Aislin held her arms out and Eydis hugged her. "Better one lead than none, right?" Eydis smiled at her, and the two of them returned inside to the revelry.

Astriðer was very pleased when the librarian told her cheerfully that she could work in the library if she wanted to. She would start at the bottom, shelving books and answering questions from other students, and she could also stay in the library after it closed if she wanted to read something. Furthermore, the librarian offered to help her with her reading and writing, after she noticed that Astriðer was having trouble reading some of the signs and book titles. Astriðer gratefully accepted the offer, and Tryphon seemed even more excited than she was.

"That's great for you!" he exclaimed, bouncing from one foot to the other. "Just think how amazing you'll be speaking this language once you've been working in a library, and doing all that reading and stuff." To Tryphon's chagrin, there wasn't an available position for him, and the librarian deemed Astriðer a better fit, or at least would gain more from it. Tryphon agreed, but promised that he would visit her as often as he could.

So Astriðer started learning her way around the library. It was a big building, covering nearly a block of the university's land, and two stories, unlike most of the buildings on campus. Almost the entire space was taken up by shelves of books, covering every topic Astriðer could think of and a few more. However, most of the topics were boring. Much of the library was given over to administrative storage - university records, archives for the city and much of the significant cities in the empire, theories written up on subjects she didn't much care about. Some of it was more interesting - maps of foreign lands, tales of travels to the places mapped, tales of the gods and what they had done, and the results of their actions. Even some things in between, like the history of the empire, and some horribly misinformed tales of travels to Astriðer's homeland, most of it from decades, if not centuries, beforehand.

The shelving was organized, Astriðer was told, but she wasn't sure if she agreed with their definition of organized. It was more of a rough grouping of topics, sorted by topic or author's name, depending on the section. To her, it seemed like it was however the person to shelve the books felt like putting them away. As she started work, Astriðer noticed that books were often in the wrong place, and when she asked the librarian about this, she was told that they were actually in the correct place, according to tradition or how someone else had justified it better than Astriðer's logic in where the book in question should be placed.

She spent the first week trying to figure out where everything went, under the patient guidance of the librarian, whose name she finally remembered was Nomiki. Tryphon, as promised, followed her around, reminding her of things she had forgotten, pointing out sections he thought were interesting, and occasionally disappearing for a couple hours to sit and read some of the things he thought were interesting.

The other person Astriðer saw frequently, other than the people who worked there, was her thieving roommate. Kyta often visited, occasionally asked questions, and usually spent her time buried in the sections of the library Astriðer had deemed boring. They didn't interact much, and Astriðer tended to ignore Kyta unless the girl specifically asked her something. She watched her, however, wondering what brought her roommate to the library with such regularity in the mornings, and rarely, in the evenings. It was possible she was doing readings related to her classes, but since she frequented parts of the library that few other students did, Astriðer concluded that that was unlikely.

It was nearly impossible to ignore that some areas of the library were guarded. For the first while, they watched her as closely as they did any of the other students, but once they realize that she worked there, they started ignoring her. Around the same time, Astriðer had a stack of books to shelve in one of the guarded areas. Carrying the stack, the guards simply nodded at her and let her by. Tryphon was off in some other section of the library, reading about epic wars that had happened decades before he had been born.

Upon first glance, Astriðer wasn't sure why this area was restricted. It looked much like the rest of the library, with perhaps a shorter roof, but nothing particularly interesting. Setting the books down on a table, she examined them closer. One about the culture to the south, in the desert across the ocean. Two about to the far east, one about magic, and one about her own culture. Puzzled as to why they weren't being shelved in the usual section for those topics, she opened them and started reading the first few pages.

She was quite proud of her progress at reading, and the back of her mind noted that she was actually reading the words, not just sounding them out and trying to match the sounds with a word she knew. The rest of her mind was concentrating on the words. She'd opened the book on her own culture, and going by the first paragraph, it didn't seem to have been written by a moron who had never met anyone from the tribes. In fact, it seemed to deal with shape changing, and the cultural significance of it, if her comprehension was right. Not only that, they hadn't mangled any of the details yet.

Astonished and excited, Astriðer opened the one on magic. She read the first paragraph and quickly realized that it was far over her head - she didn't know most of the vocabulary they were using, and without that, the rest of the words didn't make much sense. She the other two looked less interesting, but she read a handful of paragraphs from each of them, and quickly realized that they seemed to take a radically different approach to the cultures they talked about than the publicly accessible section of the library.

Leaving the books aside, Astriðer started searching the library for the correct section to put the five books in. A moment's thought reminded her that these book hadn't been taken out by students, but by teachers, and Nomiki had given them to her specifically, not just left them in the usual reshelving stack. That did explain why they had been checked out, if students hadn't done it. It didn't explain why the most interesting books in the library were off limits to the lay person and all the students, or why the books that seemed to tell the most accurate picture about places outside the empire were restricted.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 9

2009-11-11T01:29:25Z

Sooooo, forgot to post this last night. Went to bed late and unwriting full.

Today: 836
Total: 14,354

----------------

" 'I do not deny that I spoke with your warriors,' Notos said, calmly. 'I may be a thief, but at least I am not a liar, or a betrayer. I spoke true to the warriors about what I had done, and what they should do, and it benefited them. I did not charge them with guarding the north, and then arm their enemies and incite them to invade, and then lie to the warriors when they came to me for help.'

" Borei knew that he had caught in his greed, but refused to back down. 'I believe you are mistaken,' he said. 'Did you not see the storms I sent to hinder the barbarians? I threw my fiercest storms at them to slow the invaders down, and buy my warriors time to gain reinforcements.' Unwilling to have his crimes pointed out to him even more, Borei left with what dignity he could and returned to his snowy mountains. Notos had upheld his promise, and restricted Borei to only a few months of the year where he could unleash his storms."

He finished his story and, apparently deciding that he had done what he needed to, nodded and left. Astriðer was quite surprised, that a storyteller would not stay around to answer questions from his pupils. The other students stood up, and Astriðer noticed that no one else seemed to thing that it was at all strange to have gotten so much wrong about the shape changers. Equally odd, no one seemed to have noticed that she was one of the 'northern barbarians'.

The boy who had been sitting next to her offered a hand getting up, which she took after a moment's hesitation. "You're one of those, erm, northern people aren't you?" he asked, and Astriðer nodded, surprised he even had to ask. "I've never seen one before. Umm, I'm sorry for being rude - I just don't know how to react!" He stuck out his hand. "I'm Tryphon."

Astriðer shook his hand. "Nice to meet you." He was the first person who had tried to talk to her, rather than just eying her distrustfully or gawking, since she arrived. "Where are you going now?"

"Same place you are," he replied cheerfully. "Don't you know where you're going?" Astriðer shook her head, ruefully. "Well, you can follow me. I hope you don't mind me stopping you earlier." He lead her out of the classroom and down one of the many identical hallways. "Interrupting a teacher probably isn't the best thing to do. Don't really know that for sure, since I'm as new here as you are, but none of the teachers back home like him liked it, so I think I can safely say that he wouldn't have either."

"Excuse me, but do you mind speaking a little slower?" Astriðer interrupted, somewhat bewildered by his rapid speech.

"Oh, I'm sorry. You must not speak this language natively, do you?" Astriðer shook her head again. "When did you start learning it?"

"About a year ago in earnest, though I knew bits and pieces before that," she replied.

"Wow! I couldn't learn a language that fast! It's probably really hard. I mean, I've never tried, but it must be. Learning how to say stuff in a whole new way, and getting new grammar and stuff? It's hard enough learning my own language!" Astriðer shrugged. It wasn't as hard as he was making it out to be. The dialects of the northern tribes were almost as difficult to understand as this language. It was work, sure, but not impossible.

Tryphon lead her to all her other classes that day, chattering furiously any time they weren't actually sitting and listening to someone. Astriðer wasn't quite sure what to make of him. He seemed as friendly as he appeared, and to genuinely like him, even though she rarely got a word in edgewise. She spent most of her time trying to decipher what he said, since after the third request to get him to slow down when talking, she gave up and let him chatter. At least she would get practice listening, if nothing else.

When she mentioned not having any money to him over dinner, he had a solution ready. "You could get a job! The university hires all sorts of students. Ummm, I'm not sure where they get hired though. Cleaning the temple, but you're probably not blessed for that are, you," Astriðer shook her head as he continued, unsure but fairly certain he was right, "and that's mostly for more experienced students, almost clergy themselves The guards definitely won't take anyone random on, even though you could probably do it, if the stories about barbarians are right." Astriðer kept quiet on that one. "Administration is boooooring, I won't suggest that to you. Er, the library maybe?" Astriðer knew that was the right one. She needed access to they Aytorian's knowledge while she was here, and the library was the obvious choice.

"I think the library would be best. I think I would like books," she said.

"Perfect!" Tryphon exclaimed around a mouthful of food. He coughed, swallowed, and tried again. "I'll take you there tomorrow, or better yet, tonight."

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 8

2009-11-09T10:02:56Z

Ugggh, tired. I have a midterm tomorrow, but I hadn't written anything today so I ended up staying up until 2 again writing. Got to where I should be, though. Not much substance, just randomness about the gods and stuff.

Today: 1504
Total: 13,515

Continuing from Astriðer's morning.

----------

She sat quietly with a table of others, listening to their conversation, for breakfast. A couple of them tried to include her in the conversation, but it was hard for her to follow all of it in detail, so she answered their questions and declined to participate further. She had gotten directions to her first class the previous day, so after she carefully packed up her dishes, she made her way across campus, somewhat proud of herself for only having to ask for directions once. It was very confusing, how all the buildings seemed to look the same, with no apparent distinguishing features.

She joined a small group of other students, all dark haired and stocky, sitting cross legged on the floor. The young man next to her leaned over. "Hello. Where are you from? I've never seen hair that color before."

Astriðer eyed him for a moment, last night's activities still in the forefront of her mind, before deciding he probably was genuinely interesting and not trying to be rude. "North," she said, simplifying it for his sake. "It is a common color at home."

"Really?" He grinned excitedly at her. "Do - do you mind if I touch it?" Astriðer shook her head, perplexed but willing to accommodate him, and he tentatively reached out and touched it. "So soft!" he exclaimed. "It's really this color naturally? I know some of the women try to do things to their hair to change the color, but nothing turns out like this!"

Astriðer chuckled. "No, this is the color I was born with. I am not used to seeing so much dark hair. The darkest I have seen at home is that color," she pointed to another girl, with a medium shade of brown hair. The boy shook his head in disbelief.

The teacher entered the room stood at the front of the room. Most conversations fell silent quickly, though a few stragglers had to be silenced by their neighbors and the teacher's look. Without any sort of introduction, he started on his tale.

"Some moons after Notos rose to his rightful position of south wind, replacing the cowardly impostor Helios, barbarians swept down from the north, razing everything in their path. They came in the night, on the wings of birds, and the animals followed them, and their howls and feral cries could be heard for miles, sending women and children crying to the warriors to protect them. The warriors, proud in their strength but protective of their charges, came to Borei the north, pleading with him to grant them the strength to drive out the invaders, and asking why he had not intervened before the barbarians came down into the fertile lands of Aytoria."

Astriðer stiffened, taking offense to this description of her ancestors. Before she could say anything, she stopped herself, took a breath, and continued listening. Her people had tried to move south before, and been rebuffed. They weren't lying, exactly, just wrong on some important details. The teacher continued.

"The god of winter storms was impervious to their pleas, however. He had much to gain from the barbarians bringing their cold further south. While Notos had promised him half the year to control, he was greedy, and wanted more. Helios had been unable to defend his reign, letting Anatolik take his fertility, and giving Borei more than half the year that he deserved, before Notos destroyed him utterly. Borei was greedy, and wanted more than Notos had fairly given him.

"To further his greed, Borei had gone to the barbarians and urged them to come south, promising them riches and fertile land if they did. Borei had also gone to the fierce animals of the north, and promised them rich huntings and easy winters if they supported the barbarians. Fools creatures that they are, neither the barbarians nor the wild animals had questioned why the god of storms would be able to promise fertility and a restful life."

Now Astriðer was starting to get annoyed. She was sure that their tales of animals following them was simply a misinterpretation of shape changers. Could they not tell the difference between an intelligent animal and a shape changer? She also knew that no goddess of winter storms had invited them south at any point in their history. The closest was STORMGODDESS, and she was too busy keeping them pinned in over the winter and fighting with RAINGODDESS to try to send anyone south.

"Thus, Borei forsook the warriors that had been sworn to him, switching his allegiances to their enemies. Furious at this betrayal, the northern warriors went to the new, fierce god of the scorching summer winds, asking his help in driving the invaders out of their realm and telling him of Borei's betrayal. Notos, hearing the warriors tales, was enraged at Borei, and recognized his deception immediately. Before his ascension, Notos had promised the older god that he would not interfere substantially with the north wind's existing reign. Notos had upheld his word, but Borei was now trying to encroach on the new god's territory. It was a test, the south wind was sure, and one he was determined to beat.

"The sun god told the warriors to sneak into the mountains and bring back some metal, which they faithfully did. The sun god then blew on it, heating it up to a malleable temperature and forging it into swords and armor for the warriors. He presented it to the brave young men, saying 'Take these. They will protect you from the snow and ice the betrayer sends with the barbarians. Whisper my name to them, and they will radiate light so bright it will blind anyone in front of it. Whisper it again to dim the light. Using these, separate the animals from the humans. The animals can be driven far into the mountains - they will return to their ways and forget the wickedness the betrayer told them soon enough. The humans must be dealt with differently. I have a secret to tell you. They have taken some of the animals and merged with them, becoming a half human half animal travesty. More intelligent and with the skill and guile of humans, but with the savagery of animals. They are the most dangerous. They are also easily recognizable by their inability to remember what they were like as humans properly. These, you must dispatch of first. The rest of the humans will then scatter, their strength broken'

"The warriors heeded Notos' words and return to the north. With their shields to protect them from the deathly cold Borei sent to help the barbarians, they were no longer in danger of freezing to death. They whispered the sun god's name, and the shields glowed with the brilliance of the sun, blinding their enemies. The warriors shouted and ran forward, driving the animals into the hills, where they did not return from.

"As instructed, they captured the humans, and sent their bravest in among them to find those the god had warned them about. The easiest to find were those with fur spouting from their faces, and claws to match. Still blinded by the divinely blessed shields, they were easy to kill, which brought out their similarly cursed friends. Others had the wings and talons and beaks of birds, and still others the claws and size of bears. All the fierce and noble animals were represented, but twisted horribly out of their typical forms."

The boy next to her put his hand on her arm. Astriðer looked at him, furious and about to speak up to correct their teacher, and he shook his head. She opened her mouth to defend her reasoning, but he shook his head again and put a finger to his lips, warning her to be silent. Furious, but recognizing that this was not the best time to correct such things, Astriðer subsided. She had known the Aytorians knew nothing about shape changing, but had not recognized just how little "nothing" was in this case.

"Notos spoke true, for once those with the form of animals were killed, the rest of the humans gave up hope. The warriors dimmed their shields by again calling upon Notos, and those left and untainted by animal forms fled for the hills.

"Borei was furious at the new god's interference, but cunning enough to know that he could not challenge the young sun god for defeating his attempt to expand his territory. Bringing his clouds and ice and lightning, he followed the warriors back to their patron and confronted Notos.

" 'You are a thief!' the older god accused, and Notos, resting on his brilliant throne, said nothing. 'You spoke lies to my warriors, telling them that I had betrayed them, and sent them into my mountains to steal from me.'

" 'I do not deny that I spoke with your warriors,' Notos said, calmly. 'I may be a thief, but at least I am not a liar, or a betrayer.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 7

2009-11-08T09:44:42Z

I'm simultaneously pleased with how much I wrote today, and annoyed that I didn't finish the scene I was trying to finish.

Today: 2601
Total: 12011

--------------

This goes in the STUFF HAPPENS NOT MUCH section from the 5th, where Astriðer is wandering around town.

She left the shop, continuing down browsing the jewelry and pots and pans and cutlery and bits and chimes and other miscellany needed for other professions to function. The really interesting shops, however, had someone watching them, and a handful of clergy guards around to ensure nothing went wrong. These were the stores where weaponry was sold, everything from the knives needed for daily life to the long swords and pole arms used by soldiers and guards.

Astriðer entered the shops eagerly, hoping to find something familiar here, but to her disappointment, very little was familiar. The weaponry was all different styles from the types she knew, and even the things like daggers that were nearly universal didn't seem quite right when she picked them up and handled them.

The guards didn't seem to like her interest, though. She was examining a nice looking dagger and wishing she had something to barter, or enough to buy it, when a hand fell on her shoulder. She turned around and saw a cleric guard, Borei's emblem on his chest and a disapproving expression on his face. "Foreigner's don't get weapons," he informed her. "Get out."

Astriðer raised an eyebrow at him. "I do not believe that is so, sir. I am in training at the cathedral and have the right to be here. I am also not purchasing a weapon. I can stay." She tried very hard not to slide the dagger into a fighting stance. These were clerics, and she didn't want to hurt them, even if they were mistaken.

"I don't think you heard me," he said. "I told you to leave. You don't need a weapon. Go back to the cathedral, where they want you." A second guard, also with Borei's emblem, joined him, looking equally displeased.

Astriðer sensed she was outnumbered. Tilting her head in confusion, and not sure how much she was feigning, she asked, "But, are you not clerics as well? Do you not also want the same things as the clerics in the cathedral?"

"We're working clerics, not teaching clerics. They're more interested in getting more people to bring in money, we want to uphold the god's order. And right now, that order say you shouldn't be here. Get out." When Astriðer made no move to leave, he reached for her to make her leave forcibly.

She hesitated a moment, then carefully replaced the dagger where she had taken it from and let him grab her shoulder and push her out of the shop. She could have taken one of them, armed and surrounded by weapons, but she didn't want to chance two, and she didn't want to destroy the innocent smith's shop, and she didn't want to attack a guard, however mistaken or malicious they might seem to be.

The incident had soured her desire to brows the markets, though, and she wanted to return to her room at the university. Unfortunately, she still had no idea where she was. None of her usual landmarks were around, and she couldn't have seen them with all the buildings anyway. She asked someone for directions, but they spoke too fast for her to understand, and rolled their eyes and walked away after the fourth time she asked for clarification The next person she got a response from was kind enough to speak slower, but he gave street names, and she had forgotten them before she found the next street sign. The third person simply gestured and finished off with a, "You can't miss it." Frustrated and embarrassed that she couldn't manage to find her way back to the center of the city, she started wandering around based solely on intuition, and people's vague directions.

At some point she realized that she wasn't getting stared at because she had blonde hair, or solely because she had blonde hair, but also because she was well dressed, and looked well off and unarmed. She also realized she was being eyed by a group of youths who didn't look like they intended pleasant things towards her. Eying the area for traps, and realizing full well that she wouldn't notice many of them since she was unfamiliar with cities, she approached the group.

"Excuse me. I'm looking for the cathedral. Can you give me directions?"

The tallest looked startled before exchanging glances with his friends. "Over there," he said, pointing. Astriðer thanked him and continued. She had a hunch that he was following her, and when she stopped to look at something, she saw him in the distance behind her. The buildings weren't getting any less run down, and she was pretty sure that she wanted to be going the other direction. She was also still lost, and not sure what to do. The group seemed to mean her no good, but they had done nothing to her yet except make her nervous.

Hands grabbed at the pouch at her waist, pulling and cutting it off. Astriðer grabbed for it, but missed and spun. The culprit, not to her surprise, was one of the tall boy's friends, and he was off at a run. Astriðer took off after him. The pouch was empty, her actual valuables stored under her clothes, but it still contained the small amounts of money she had. Not enough to purchase anything, but still hers, given to her by the clerics she had traveled down here with.

He was fast, and knew where he was going, and had friends. A boy stepped back in to her as she tried to dart past, knocking her off balance and slowing her down. Another girl tried to trip her, but she saw that one in time. And it only took a moment

FIGHT HAPPENS HERE. TOO LAZY TO WRITE IT NOW (Yeah, this is the scene I wanted to finish and didn't. Oh well).

-----------------------

This section happens after yesterday's post, as usual.

The language section of the library might have something on it, but more likely it was in the hidden part of the library. There was even a small chance that there was a translation book in the catacombs, but that seemed unlikely. Anyone going down there probably already knew what they were looking for, and didn't need a guide.

She knew where she was going this evening, though. Back to the catacombs. She'd have to find a couple of torches, to replace the one she had used earlier and so she could explore longer. If Astrither was out all evening again like she had the previous day, then Kyta could stay out late as well, without having to worry about explaining herself to anyone. It could be useful to find a way to get in and out of the large window in her room, too. It was on the second storey, but she was sure she could come up with something.

The teacher finished the tale of Notos' killing Helios and taking his place and dismissed the two dozen or so students sitting and listening. It was still no where near noon, and together they walked across campus to their next class. All the new prospective clergy were grouped with people presumed to know about as much as they did and sent to classes together. It was supposed to build friendships and such, so that they would discuss the teachings with each other, and when they went out to preach and teach on their own, they would have a network of people to help them in rough times. Kyta had no intention of being sent back out to the furthest corners of the empire. She wanted to stay here, in the capital, near where all the interesting stuff happened, and where she could learn as much as she could.

It was after the evening meal before she had any free time again, and Kyta politely excused herself from the people she had eaten dinner with, found a handful of torches, and slipped towards the cathedral. It was later in the day that when she had visited yesterday. The sun low on the horizon, almost setting, sending light streaming through the doors. Anatolik was mostly in shadow, as Thytikos stood between him and the sun, but a little crept around and light up his left. Thytikos was deep in shadow, embracing Kyta with darkness and she stepped behind him. With some difficultly, she found the switch again, and pried the door open, leaving a tiny crack as she shut it behind herself. One of her three torches went into the holder where she'd taken one from yesterday, a second was lit. Following her map, Kyta went out as far as she had been previously, ignoring all the branches. She could traverse those later, but for now she wanted to explore as deeply as she could.

She was slightly disappointed that everything she found for the next fifteen minutes was the same as in the rest of the catacombs - alcoves set regularly, stacked with papers and maps she couldn't read, and candles. Once she stopped to think about it, it was really quite amazing. There must be thousands of candlesticks down here, even with only one per alcove. Several thousand candles, and candles weren't cheap. Thousands of thousands of papers. It was incredible! There must be more down here than in the entire library, which already contained more knowledge than she had ever dreamed of. She could only hope that something hidden and in an unknown language would be as interesting as it appeared. If it turned out to be ancient grocery lists, she was going to be sorely disappointed.

One of the first things Aislin had been told once she had successfully change into a raven for the first time was where she could find the drug that prevented her madness. Each shape changer eventually developed favorite places where they went to restock, usually near the original source they had been directed to.

Aislin's was in just as an obscure and far away place as anyone else's, nestled in the northern end of the mountains, and several days travel from where they had left Bazyli and Janez. The narrow winding trail led her and Eydis up a cliff, where it flattened out. The whole area was covered with lichen growing furiously, and the few stunted trees that had been cleared out by Eydis and Aislin the previous year had not returned. The wind was bitterly cold and strong, on the unprotected ledge. The two women wasted no time collecting the dark red lichen, scraping it off of the rock in small sections, leaving plenty behind to cover the area in their absence. They filled two small sachets before retreating to the relatively sheltered trail, and hurrying down to a more protected area.

There, they set up their tents for the night and started a fire with some TREENAME wood, carefully carried up here for just this purpose. The lichen was then pounded into a fine powder and put in a tray above the fire and covered. Eydis and Aislin talked for several hours as the lichen smoldered, checking on it occasionally and watching it turn from dark red, to dark brown, to black, then to an even darker red. Once that last color change was completed, they took it off the fire and let the fire burn itself out. A handful of the ashes from the fire was mixed in to the lichen powder, and enough water was stirred in to make everything stick together. The sun had set and the sky was dark by this point, as Aislin and Eydis curled up in their tent and slept.

The next morning, they carefully swept the newly minted drug into a clean bag and stored it. There was only about half as much powder as there had been lichen, but that was sufficient. Looking at the results of their work, Aislin sighed. "I really wish I knew how the first shape changer figured this out. It all seems so random. Did they just pick the hardest to find plants and mix them up for a while? And then try to cook it for dinner? How do you test something like this?"

Eydis shrugged. "Luck?"

"Doubtful," replied Aislin. "They must have had some idea, from studying them. Or generations of time to kill, and not minding how many people died. It's not like they could take the drug and immediately know the effects of it - it takes years to realize that it works. I still don't know for sure if the jewelry stops the madness - we simply haven't had enough time to find out. You haven't shown any signs yet, but you wouldn't have even with the typical method. Well, assuming you were taking this." She gestured to the bag containing the drug they had just created and sighed. "I really wish these things were easier to find out."

Eydis shrugged, pausing at eating her breakfast to comment, "Perhaps they had a better way of doing it. The madness could have come sooner for them, and the drug has had the effect of slowing it for everyone, somehow."

"Unlikely but possible, I suppose. There's nothing in the tales to indicate that that was so, though. It was still not uncommon for someone to last for four years before being killed, and the tales seem to indicate that seven was not uncommon after the drug was discovered, which is about right."

Eydis shrugged and the conversation lapsed. They packed up their belongings and traveled southwest, leaving the mountains for rolling foothills, though Aislin still thought of them as mountains, even after having lived in real mountains for years now. Midway through the next day they arrived at a small wooden cabin, no more than two rooms. Built off the cabin was a large mews, currently empty. "Doesn't look like he's home," Aislin commented, but she knocked on the door anyway. As expected, no one responded. "Well, I guess we wait."

It was nearing sunset when a tall, brown haired man appeared out of the woods, a hawk perched on his gloved hand. He nodded at the women, then ignored them as he returned the bird to the mews and tended to it. He invited them inside with a nod of his head, and the followed him silently.

His house was as small as it looked, with only a stone fireplace, several chests and small table with chairs in the main room. A doorway led to the other room with a bed in it. He opened one of the chests against the far wall and produced a small bag. "I suppose you want this," he said flatly, handing it to Aislin. "You'll be back in a couple moons?" Aislin thanked him and agreed. "I suppose you'll be wanting to stay the night, as well."

"If it's not too much trouble," Aislin said. He grunted agreement, and Eydis and Aislin gratefully spent the night inside. It wasn't as warm as Aislin would have liked, but still warmer than spending the night outside, and much warmer than where they'd spent the night after creating the shape change drug.

The falconer was gone when they woke up the next morning, as was his bird. Aislin wasn't offended - he had never been particularly fond of people, his voluntary interactions with her aside. She would return in a few months.

Astriðer woke up late and tired, after her late night out. No noise came from the other side of the room, so the thief must be out. A jolt of adrenaline went through her as she realized the position of the sun meant it must be at least noon and she practically leapt out of bed. Throwing on her daytime clothes, she looked out the window and realized that there wasn't nearly enough people around for it to be noon, at which point her brain kicked in and reminded her that the sun came up sooner, and much higher, down here than at home. With a sigh of relief, she sat down on the bed and continued getting ready and a much more sedate pace.

ASTRITHER'S SECTION FINISHES HERE

It was nearly a week's travel before they were back home again.

-------------

I think my writing is getting more disjointed. I've also started a section in my notes for things to change when I revise it with things like introduce the side effects of shape changing earlier, Kyta doesn't actually dislike the smell of salt, add more deity chimes to Aytoria, not so many rambly boring parts, and give a name to the falconer in the woods and figure out why he helps them. I also have a bunch of comments about "figure out Aytorian religion" and "why did $character do $action" and "what role to shape changers play in society and religion", which I sometimes have an idea what's going on, but need to flesh it out better.

Yay, I'm caught up for the day! Supposed to have about 11700 by the end of the 7th!

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 6

2009-11-07T09:56:54Z

Whoo, better progress this time! Almost caught up with where I'm supposed to be today. Another day like this and I'll be back on schedule. :) Thinking of speeding up the pace - I'm almost 10K in and I'm still in the intro.

Today: 3013
Total: 9410

---------------

Bazyli nodded as if he had expected no less and continued eating. Aislin still didn't know what to make of him. He certainly seemed friendly, and they had something in common, but something about him bugged her the wrong way. His tribe, or the tribe his clothes proclaimed him to be from was only tacitly allied with hers, preferring to remain neutral. They had no particularly strong ties, and it was very odd of him to offer his assistance after knowing her such a short amount of time, if his presence as she tranced and slept counted as knowing her. Surely he had some other reason for being this far north. Well, there was the obvious one, but surely wanting to restock on the drug that kept him sane was higher priority than helping a random stranger, and she didn't trust that it was just out of the kindness of his heart. There was too much to be gained by simply pretending to help her out, and then backstabbing her.

On the other hand, not telling him about the jewelry's theft would still be a bad idea, as she needed every eye and ear she could recruit to get it back, since she still had absolutely no idea where it had gone, or who had taken it and why.

They finished their meal, Eydis finishing first and starting to pack up their campsite. Janez took the hint, or agreed, and started packing up his and Bazyli's tent as well, leaving the two shape changers to talk.

"When did you find your shape change animal?" Aislin asked him.

He finished his sip of the soup and responded, "Just over seven years ago now. I requested of my tribe leader to have permission to undergo the ritual, and accompanied a hunting party out. TRIBENAME had no shape changers at the time, so I had to wait for one to pass by before it was possible. Our previous shape changer had... passed on earlier that year, before I was ready. And yourself?"

Aislin nodded. Not an entirely uncommon story, though it appeared he had been well into adulthood before finding his animal. "Not as long ago as you. Only four or so years - I lose track of time so easily." She chuckled. "Though, I must confess that without a tribe leader to petition to for permission, my ritual was somewhat unusual."

"Do you think that contributed to your creation?" Bazyli had finished his soup, but made to move to rise yet.

Aislin shrugged. "Perhaps. I do not know. I would not like to try it again, hence my urgency in finding the existing set." She had finished her soup, and stood, not wanting to continue this. She did not particularly want to reveal how she had created the shape changing jewelry. It was a good secret to have, in her opinion, and she could only hope that it would keep her safer. Bazyli took her hint and also stood, and went to help Janez as Aislin went to help Eydis.

"You don't trust him." Eydis made it a statement, not a question, her voice low. "Why?"

Aislin shook her head. "I do not know. ^Something about him doesn't seem quite right, and I can't quite figure out his motivations for wanting to help us. Or, at least, motivations that I want helping us."

It only took a short while to have everything in neat, carryable packages shared between the two of them. Bazyli and Janez were ready just as quickly, and they headed south, a somewhat notable lack of conversation between them. Occasionally Aislin and Eydis would discuss something between them, but knowing that the others could hear, kept their topics on to things they didn't mind others overhearing, which somewhat limited them.

They were climbing into the foothills when Bazyli stopped at a fork in the road. "I believe this is where we part. I have business in other places than you appear to."

"Thank you for accompanying us as far as you did," Aislin responded, polite. "Good luck and safe travels."

Bazyli nodded and Janez bowed slightly; Aislin and Eydis replied in kind. Once the two men were out of sight, and presumably earshot, Eydis let out a small sigh. "I think I agree with you. I don't trust their intentions. A shape changer has nothing to gain from helping us reclaim the jewelry, and much to gain from finding it for themself. Being able to change into a second animal at will, and without the risk of losing themselves to that animal's mind, is a greater temptation than I'd want to give someone I don't know very well. If we need help, our tribe can provide as much as we need." Aislin nodded in agreement, and Eydis continued, "Where to now? More shape change drug, or more of your powder? The raw shape change drug is closer, I believe."

"Shape change drug, then. Westward, then?" Aislin hitcher her pack higher and continued down the trail, enjoying the sunshine before it disappeared the winter.

Kyta woke up bright and early the next morning from the sunlight streaming in through the window on to her face. Opening her eyes, she squinted and rolled away until she could see again, staring at the plain wooden wall. Classes started today, the expected regimen of the gods' exploits, debating, public speaking, logic, reading, writing and the million other things deemed required for any competent, educate person or clergy. More importantly, today she started learning, from someplace that actually had something to teach. She had already read every book at home often enough that she'd probably memorized some of them, and pestered all the local craftsmen into teaching her everything she could learn without actually apprenticing to them. Here, a whole new set of people and books and places were opened to her.

Kyta rolled out of bed and dressed herself neatly, brushing her hair and settling her appearance for the day. Astrither was still sleeping soundly, presumably since she had gotten in late last night. Kyta wasn't sure how she managed to sleep though the sun like this, but wasn't going to complain too much right now.

The cooking staff were already up and working, and Kyta greeted them with a smile and some questions about their work. It was much the same as any sort of cooking at home, and she was able to discuss things reasonably intelligently, earning some smiles and hopefully respect from them. It only took a moment to eat her breakfast, even with conversation interspersed, and then she was hurrying off to the more interesting parts of campus.

While she badly wanted to go back to the catacombs and see what they had, she also knew that in the early morning people would be bringing their sacrifices to the gods, and spending time meditating and chanting and all the other things they did to keep the gods happy. In short, the cathedral would be crowded with people and clergy, and no way for her to slip into a hidden door unnoticed. That option removed, the most attractive remaining ones were the library, and anywhere on campus that it looked like it would be interesting. But then, there were places in the library that looked interesting, and it was still the library, full to the brim with books she hadn't read yet.

She had skimmed through the library the previous day, but neglected to take a really good look at anything, since she was more interested in getting a quick look at everything. Now she took a slower, more methodical approach. She found the index of categories and read it, taking note of the ones that looked the most interesting - culture, geography, languages, divine magic - and where they were located. She also found a map of the library and copied it down in her booklet. Then she found the librarian and started asking about the person that had built the library and its lovely architecture and how she was fascinated with it and where could she find him so that she could tell him her appreciation? She ended up with a name and an address, as well as the knowledge that the plans for the building were publicly available and in this library, which was what she had been going for in the first place.

Armed with her map, she followed the directions the librarian had given her and wound her way deep into the library, reading title at random and stopping to open the cover, read the introduction, and smell the sweet smell of books. She didn't let herself get distracted, though, and soon she was surrounded by booklets of crisp paper on shelves that reached several times her height. Putting the ladder she'd grabbed earlier to good use, she set it up leaning against the shelves and started searching for the exact blueprint she wanted.

It wasn't as easy as the librarian had made it sound. Most of the papers were for random buildings in the area, since this was the same library that all the public records were stored in and building plans were considered public records. Furthermore, the were sorted by age, and the library was not the first building listed. They had been stored in several other buildings before this one, and moved several times. In the move, some of the records had been put in the wrong spot, or ordered according to different schemes in patches, or just left out somewhere. In short, the whole section was a mess, and not the neatly sorted picture the librarian had presented. Kyta wasn't sure if the librarian had know and was deliberately deceiving her, or had just never came to this part of the library.

Despite this, the section was still fascinating. Most of the buildings were boring, plans for houses or bath houses or a new shop, but some were more interesting - public buildings, including the mayor's house and offices, and the fighting ring, and old plans for city layouts. She never knew that so much went into whether or not a street could be extended, or where to put the next marketplace! And she was getting lots of practice skimming building plans and figuring out what they were for, who had drawn them up and when, what other papers would be bundled with it, and how the random lines on a paper corresponded to what she saw every day.

At least an hour of fascinating searching later, she found the gems, though, right near each other, as if Anatolik was blessing her search. The blueprint for the cathedral, the oldest buildings of the university and the library itself. She grinned wickedly to herself. Here, hopefully, would be where anything that wasn't on the official map would be. Rooms that were off limits to students, secret hiding areas, secret passages, catacombs. Well, probably not, she admitted to herself. Anything that was actually supposed to be secret would probably have been hidden, and not stored in a publicly accessible place like this. In fact, all the really interesting stuff wouldn't be found this way, but it provided a good start.

She climbed down the ladder and sat down at the base, leaning against it and pulled out her map and notebook. Putting the original blueprints and the map given out next to each other, she took a moment to orient them the same, and started comparing. The general outline was the same, as expected, but she kept looking, carefully comparing them, and checking the measurements on the blueprints. Sure enough, she found someplace that didn't quite match up, and unless she was mistaken, it was near the area where she'd seen guards the previous day. Officially it was listed as "for structural reasons", but none of the other buildings she'd skimmed seemed to have anything resembling it, and it wasn't labeled with anything on the official map. First place to explore, found.

She carefully packed away the papers where she had found them, leaving some moved in case the librarian checked that she'd actually come here, but also making sure to store the really interesting papers exactly as she had found them. She was approaching the section she'd deemed interesting when she heard bells sound. The call to the start of the day, telling students that it was time to be somewhere else, and the rest of the townspeople that the day had officially started. It was also the bell that told Kyta that she was late, and should have been on the other side of campus by now. She thanked the librarian hurriedly as she dashed out of the library, running for the other side of campus.

She was late, of course, and the teacher was not pleased. A young, kind looking man, he addressed her as she walked in and tried to blend in to the back of the class.

"You're late."

"Yes, I'm sorry sir. I was at the library and lost track of time." She ducked her head, feigning nervousness.

"Today is the first day of your learning. What could have taken so much time at the library this morning? Share with your fellow students." His lips pursed and he glared at her disapprovingly, spoiling his kind appearance.

Clearly she couldn't tell them about the presumably restricted areas of the library, or the catacombs she was hoping were in the cathedral schematics. "I learned that the layout of a modern city is much more complicated than a rural town, or than I had imagined. Considerable amounts of time and thought go into even the simplest building or road change within city walls."

"Satisfactory, I suppose, though that doesn't explain why you were learning that, instead of here. Sit."

Kyta sat, crossing her legs on the wooden floor of the room. Behind her teacher was a window overlooked the fascinating view of another building - clearly someone hadn't put quite enough thought into building placement as she had just described. Her teacher continued his lecture, which appeared to be a tale on how Notos had ascending to his position.

"Young Notos, his faith in Helios broken by the elder god's cowardice and inability to perform even such a simple request as send a wind at another's request, resolved that he would become the next sun god. In the young sailor's opinion, the elder had outlived his time as a god, and deserved to be replaced, but only by someone that was truly capable of the position. Not anyone would do, only someone strong and ruthless, persistent and daring. Someone that could truly bend the earth to his will, and force it to do as he pleased.

"Anatolik, already secure in his position, did not agree with this young impudent. His control was much gentler, like the calming and healing rains brought by his winds. He refused to support young Notos against Helios when Notos came to him, presenting his argument, and pleading for the god's backing. At Anatolik's refusal, Notos cast down the bushel of grain he offered as tribute and stamped on it. 'Let you pay the price for this, then' he declared. 'As ruler of the heat and southern winds, I will destroy the farmland you try so hard to water, boil away your rains, and make futile all your attempts at generosity. Your winds will be scorched and driven away by me.' Anatolik laughed, and Notos left, undeterred."

Kyta was less interested in the story, which she knew already, and more interested in her classmates. Many of them appeared to agree that the story was something they already knew. Their attention wandered, though they tried to hide it and appear attentive. One idly played with a strand of her hair, another started unpicking the stitching at the bottom of her hem. Others seemed to be genuinely interested. Probably from the country, even further out than she was, or born to commoners, Kyta surmised. Anyone else would know something as fundamental as this. Or converts, though all of them looked like they were from the Aytorian Empire.

"Borei was more sympathetic to Notos' attempts, his icy grip on winter storms mirroring Notos' attitude on the scalding summer. Borei recognized competition when he saw it, however, and was not sure he wanted to support the prospective south wind. More importantly, he saw the determination in Notos' eyes, and could not deny that the young sailor would make his place in the world, or the skies, regardless of what Borei himself did. With a nod and an icy blast, Borei gave his approval of Notos' plan to remove Helios. Notos declared, 'In thanks for your support, I shall give you reign over the skies for part of the year. I shall not attempt to melt your ice, or melt your snowy peaks.'

"At that time, there was no west wind, as Anatolik blew threw from the east to the west, hindered only by the buffets given to him from either side by Helios and Borei. With Borei's support at his back, and uncaring of Anatolik's laughter in his ears, Notos began to set his traps."

Kyta started listening with only part of her mind, paying only enough attention to notice if her teacher said something she was unaware of already. Instead, her mind wandered to the catacombs from yesterday. Catacombs like that could only be built to hide something that still needed accessing. Otherwise it would be further away, or destroyed. So there was something special about the maps and papers she had found down there. She badly needed to find what language they were written in, and she knew that it wouldn't be as easy as asking someone like she had for the building plans. She had a strong suspicion that even the language was something she wasn't supposed to know, and that asking about it would have bad things happen to her all of a sudden. Well, she was being melodramatic - maybe she'd just get a slap on the wrist, and told to behave herself, but that wasn't exactly a desirable solution either.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 5

2009-11-06T09:11:52Z

Yeah, so yesterday I wrote 46 words, so that didn't really deserve to be posted. Did better today - just over 2K. I had hoped for more, but my brain turned off early. Mmmm, brainz... At least I'm only a day behind.

In case it doesn't show up right, Astrither's name is more correctly Astriðer (the third last character being an old fashioned character for th). She spells it correctly in her narratives, as does anyone who would likely know, but characters like Kyta don't know any better. Same for Elður (Elthur).

Eventually things like OTHERTRIBENAME and ENEMYTRIBE will get replaced, but for now, they're reminders to fix it after NaNo, or when I'm procrastinating. In my actual draft, EMPIRE got replaced to Aytoria or Aytorian, as appropriate.

Also yeah, I tend to stop in the middle of paragraphs/thoughts. I don't do middle of sentences much anymore, thankfully.

Today: 2020
Total: 6397
Supposed to be at: 8340ish

-----------------

Astriðer was completely lost. She had never seen so many people together at once, and the complete lack of mountains, except on the distant horizon, was both unnerving and disorienting. She had decided, perhaps foolishly in retrospect, to find her way around by exploring the campus and surrounding city on her own. What she had not accounted for was that every new clergy and student was arriving on the same day, or close to, and everyone else had the same idea, or had forgotten something, or simply wanted to get out and see the city.

She had also forgotten how much she would stand out. She was dressed in the same loose, flowing white clothes that everyone was wearing, but her blonde hair made her stick out, and every time someone caught her eyes, they did a double take at the color. Needless to say this made her attempt at an idle walk around the city somewhat disconcerting, as nearly every person was trying to discretely stare at her. Figuring that the most interesting places would be the places buried with people, however, Astriðer had made her way towards the crowded areas, bearing the stares with as much dignity as she could.

Following the crowd hadn't worked as well as she hoped. Everyone around her was babbling away rapidly in a language she barely knew and seemed to know where they were going, or at least have someone with them that knew where they were going. All the signs were in a language she could only read with some difficulty, and so were the street signs.

With a sigh and a frown, she stepped out of the flow of traffic, and decided that she was actually going to browse the area, not just follow the person in front of her mindlessly. She had stopped between two fruit stalls, whose owners were both glaring at each other over some dispute. Astriðer checked their waists for weapons, saw none and decided that they weren't going to erupt into battle in the next few moments. To her surprise, a moment later they exchanged some unseen signal, laughed, and started chattering away to each other. Astriðer caught about half the words, and decided that they were actually friends, previous appearances aside.

One of them addressed her, and Astriðer took a moment to form her words before thanking them, but excusing herself. She was fairly certain the university provided food for its students. Continuing down the street, most of the stalls sold food of some sort or another. She turned on to the next cross street she came to, and after some wandering, found an aisle that looked more interesting - metalworking.

Back home, she had some experience in a forge, though not much compared to the man she learned from. At any rate, it had given her an appreciation of the amount of work than went into the craft, from simple things like nails, to the weaponry and traps she was more interested in. She loved the feeling of standing in the smith's workshop, usually the warmest place back home which made it especially desirable in winter, and watch them turn a lump of metal into something beautiful or practical or both.
Here, the warmth was less of an issue, as it was plenty hot enough in her opinion, but the draw of creation with fire and water was still there. The first place she stopped at sold chimes and charms for the gods. Most were to Thytikos, of course. People loved to welcome the god of all things daily life and normalcy into their homes. His chimes were the most varied, with long, deep ones resonating pleasantly bumping against the ones barely larger than her hand that let out a tinkle that was practically lost in the bustle and noise of the market. Unsurprisingly, Notos was also well represented. His heat gave the smiths their craft, and appeasing him was where much energy in the long summer months. Surely his reign also extended to the Elður mountain that periodically belched fire, and was feared in her home as much as Notos was here. Borei was much more familiar, however. The cold and storms that the Aytorians feared he would bring were familiar to her, since they originated in the snowy hills and mountains of her home. She loved the deep, almost mournful sounds his chimes made. Anatolik, she wasn't sure of. He was the oddity in her opinion, and she was fairly sure his reign didn't extend very far north. Rain and soft storms were almost as unfamiliar to her as the ocean that he came from. She also didn't see much point in trying to appease him, since the worst he could bring was less fierce than what Borei could. Welcoming him made more sense, but it seems the winds would come as they willed, and it was mostly a matter of making sure they didn't come when not wanted.

She smiled to herself, proud of being able to remember this much about the Aytorian's religion. She needed that, if she were to be able to stay here without suspicion for as long as she needed to. She hoped that she wouldn't be have to become a clergy before finding out what she needed to, since their penalty for clergy committing blasphemy was death, but if necessary, she'd have to do that.

She also wanted to be able to buy some chimes for her room. All the public spaces had them already, but the student quarters didn't come with them, and she wanted to fix that. Unfortunately, she didn't have anything that these people would accept. She had brought nothing down with her except the clothes and a few other very special thing she wasn't going to sell, and even if she had, these people disdained barter. The university provided a stipend, but she still had her pride. She was not so poor and helpless yet that she would accept handouts like that. Equally unfortunately, she had no idea where to acquire money. Perhaps someone would hire her on a laborer? A skilled laborer would be preferable. The school might have places for her to help - tending the altars to the gods if they permitted it, or working in a more removed capacity from her ostensible real reason to be here, managing the library or assistant to a researcher or teacher.

She left the shop, continuing down browsing the jewelry and pots and pans and cutlery and bits and chimes and other miscellany needed for other professions to function. The really interesting shops, however, had someone watching them, and a handful of clergy guards around to ensure nothing went wrong. These were the stores where weaponry was sold, everything from the knives needed for daily life to the long swords and pole arms used by soldiers and guards.

STUFF HAPPENS, NOT MUCH (Yeah, I got bored here and wanted to write something more interesting. So I just ended it and kept going)

Aislin work up, bleary headed, with the warm snug feeling of Eydis curled up at her back. She opened her eyes. The sun was low on the horizon, and it was dusk or dawn, but that wasn't really surprising at this time of the year. She ached, both with the cold and the side effect of the drug.

"Are you awake?" Eydis' voice murmured in her ear and Aislin nodded. "Did you find anything?"

Aislin shook her head. "Nothing. No one seemed suspicious, and they hadn't had anyone arrive in the past few weeks. I don't think they were lying to me - I hope I'm well respected enough they wouldn't. They promised to pass the news on to anyone else who might know." She stopped, clearing her head and adjusting the blankets to keep her warmer, while still letting her breathe. "I think I'm running out of ideas at this point. None of our allies has it, and none of our enemies have given any indication that they are willing to go to war, especially with winter setting in. I'm not even sure most of them know of it's existence!" She sighed. I'll probably stop by the OTHERTRIBENAME on the way back, but I'm not sure where to search next. Diplomatic negotiations with the ENEMYTRIBE?"

Eydis chuckled. "Diplomatic negotiations with a sword? Doesn't seem like such a good idea."

"I know." The conversation lapsed for a moment. "I'm getting up. We should get going. Who were the strangers here when I came in?"

"Bazyli and Janez," Eydis responded, moving the blankets aside and handing Aislin the rest of her clothing. She had been too tired the previous night to do anything other than crawl into the bare basics she needed to keep warm. With a grateful smile, the shape changer accepted the extra layers. Eydis continued. "Met them waiting for you. The taller one, Bazyli, is a lynx - I assume he's here looking for the drug. Speaking of which..." She looked at Aislin. "You need more. We're running low. Of both your drug, and your other powder"

Aislin shook her head, grimacing at her clothes as she put them on. "I know, I know. I wish someone had told me about how much I would come to hate it before I went through the ritual." Eydis raised an eyebrow at her. Aislin laughed weakly. "Yes, yes, you did and everyone else did and I didn't listen. I think the nightmares are worthwhile, given what I've been able to do so far, though. Current events aside. The second is more problematic." She frowned, her momentary good cheer driven away. A moment later, she took a deep breath and let it out. "Never mind that. Shall we start food, and meet our guests?"

Aislin was tending to the meaty soup in the pot when Janez appeared. "That smells delicious," he commented with a smile. "May we partake of your food, or shall we simply share your fire?"

With a glance at Eydis to ensure they would have enough supplies if they share with the strangers, Aislin replied, "If you wish, you may share our food. It should be ready shortly. Is Bazyli awake?"

"Yes, and he will appear shortly." Janez settled next to the fire. "You made quite a dramatic entrance last night, raven. Was there a reason for the urgency? You are far from home, if you are from the same tribe as your companion." He tilted his head, looking at her, and implicitly commenting on her red hair and petite form, different from his light brown hair and much stockier form.

"I am of the same tribe as Eydis, yes." Aislin continued stirring the soup. She would be surprised if he didn't have at least an inkling who she was. There was only one red haired shape changer in the tribes she knew of, and that she was a raven should be all the confirmation he needed of her identity. "I am looking for something that was either lost, or taken from me. You may have heard of it, in fact. A particular set of jewelry, a necklace, earrings and a ring? Silver colored, with red stones."

Janez' expression, and Bazyli's as he emerged from his tent as she spoke, gave away that they knew exactly what she was talking about. A pause, and a startled but attempted polite, "oh" was Janez' audible reaction.

Bazyli was more restrained. "That does explain why you are so far from home. Thank you for your offer to share a meal." He joined Janez, and handed him his eating utensils, then leaned over and they held a small discussion that Aislin didn't try to listen in on.

The soup was ready before any more conversation was, and Aislin served it up, humming quietly. Eydis smiled as she caught the tune - it was from the ballad telling of Aislin's adoption into their tribe. Aislin just smiled back - she was allowed to be a bit egotistical sometimes, wasn't she?

Bazyli paused from eating his soup and asked, "Are you interested in any help? Bazyli and I are free to assist you, should you need it." Janez nodded his agreement, though Aislin knew he already agreed, from their previous conversation.

Aislin wasn't sure what she thought of this. On one hand, having someone else to help them, could be useful, but on the other, she didn't know him, and didn't trust him. The jewelry she had made could be very useful to another shape changer, and his form was much more useful in a fight than hers was. Eydis could probably defeat Janez, but she wasn't sure she could defeat Bazyli, if things came to that. There we also other things she needed to take care of, and having someone follow her would interfere with that. "Thank you for your offer, but I believe we do not need any help right now. Should that change, I can keep you in mind."

Bazyli nodded as if he had expected no less and continued eating.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 3

2009-11-04T08:16:34Z

Blargh midterm tomorrow (today, technically). Not quite 5K. :( Better luck after exams?

Total: 4330
Today: 1181

----------------

Before closing the door, she checked for some sort of light source, and found a handful of torches in a wall bracket. Lighting one with the flint placed nearby, she pulled on the bar set in the back of the door to close it. Checking the torch, she noted it was the same style as the other torches she'd seen around campus - it would be no problem to replace it when she came by next.

Finally, she lifted the torch up, looking down the narrow hallway she found herself in. She would have called it a cave, if she hadn't known that caves weren't actually smooth, dry tunnels the correct height for humans, with curious insets in the wall at regular intervals.

Passing by the first of these insets, she stopped and examined it. A shelf was carved in there, with a candlestick and several spare candles. Next to it were several scrolls that looked very old. Unrolling one carefully, Kyta found that it was a map, though of an area she was unfamiliar with. She tried looking at it from all directions, but nothing jumped out at her as being Aytorian lands, or any of the other lands she was familiar with. More frustratingly, nothing was labeled in a language she understood, though she thought it might be the same as the one on Astrither's ring. Kyta frowned, considering coping it into her booklet, but decided not to - there looked like there was going to be too much else to see, and she knew she needed to get back to her room before sundown in a couple hours.

The next inset held much the same thing - lighting and paper, with more that she couldn't read. Same with the next, and the next. Mostly maps, but some scrolls with text on them. She couldn't find any sort of pattern, or any reason why they would be scattered in insets like that. Why not store all of them together, rather than separated by a handful of paces?

One thing she did map, however, was the way the passage moved, and what branched off of it. The tunnel she followed branched and turned, and Kyta kept very detailed notes on exactly how it did so, both so she could find her way back, and so she could relate it to the world above. She also kept an eye on her torch - she hadn't seen any others, and she wanted to make sure she could get back to the entrance safely. She was sure that she wasn't supposed to be wandering around back here

She wasn't sure how far she'd walked, but she'd filled up half a dozen pages in her notebook with maps and scribbled reproductions of the maps she'd encountered, and the likely character set of the writing on it, and her annotations on all of those. The maps were particularly hard to disguise in her obfuscating code. She guessed that she only had about a quarter of her torch left when she shrugged, peered down the hallway wishing she could keep going, and turned around.

The return trip was much faster than the outgoing trip, since she didn't have to stop and mark everything down, and she already knew the route. It felt like only moments, though she knew it had been much further, before she was standing in front of the door she had entered from (or another door that looked identical). Kyta leaned against the door, feeling it creak under the pressure, and a line of light appear around the edge. She heaved a sigh of relief that the door wasn't locked, or something else wrong with it and blew out the torch before slipping out the door and pushing it slowly closed behind her.

As estimated, the sun was low on the horizon and streaming in around Thytikos. As she had hoped, there were as few people around as when she had slipped into the catacombs. Grinning to herself, she wandered back to the living areas of campus, and joined the back of the food line outside the dining building. She made small talk with the person behind her, complained about inefficient feeding schemes, and ate a reasonably socail dinner with a bunch of strangers before returning to her room.

Kyta opened her door with a small amount of trepidation, since she hadn't departed on any better terms than she had met her roommate on. She was also wondering what her roommate's reaction would be if she interrupted anything, and whether or not she should be worrying about a knife at her throat for being a "thief".

Somewhat to her surprise, however, her room was empty, and everything that could possibly be Astrither's was packed neatly out of sight. The only evidence that Astrither even still lived there was the sheets on the bed and university issued clothes laid out.

Kyta grinned. How crazy was she feeling? Astrither had threatened horrible things on her if she snooped again, but that wasn't the first time someone had threatened that, and it hadn't stopped her before. All that meant was she needed to be better about not getting caught this time.

Kyta left the door open a crack and kept her ears alert for footsteps as she visually examined the drawers very closely. Not seeing anything that looked like it would give her away, she pulled them open. Nothing stood out to her as Astrither's stuff. Three drawers later, Kyta was wondering if Astrither had brought anything down besides the clothes on her back. Maybe that was all she'd brought - barbarians didn't have much in the way of possessions, and the university provided the basics to those without it.

Strangely enough, she still hadn't found the jewelry from earlier, even after a quick visual inspection of all the obvious places. Astrither clearly didn't trust her enough to leave it even on the top of a drawer, or anywhere visual in her closet, or even under her bed somewhere. Which meant that she had a better stash to put things, which might lead to other interesting trinkets Astrither might want to keep hidden.

The sun was down when Kyta stopped searching, getting tired of jumping at every set of footstep that went by, and knowing that Astrither had to return soon. She would find what she was looking for later, when she had more time. Still thinking about the oddities her roommate presented, Kyta readied herself for bed and fell asleep.

Astriðer was completely lost. She had never seen so many people together at once, and the complete lack of mountains, except on the distant horizon, was both unnerving and disorienting. She had decided, perhaps foolishly in retrospect, to find her way around by exploring the campus and surrounding city on her own. What she had not accounted for was that every new clergy and student was arriving on the same day, or close to, and everyone else had the same idea, or had forgotten something, or simply wanted to get out and see the city.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 2

2009-11-03T09:45:21Z

I has crazy plots stuff now! I bounced ideas off my boyfriend for a while, and things went happy fluffy explode, and now I have all sorts of neat stuff to write.

------------------

Bazyli smiled at the question, the corners of his eyes crinkling behind the scarf covering his face. “I am,” he replied, “I'm a lynx. Janez has been my companion since before I found my change animal. Are you as well, or your companion?”

Eydis shook her head. “Aislin is a raven. She asked me to be her companion a couple of years before she found her animal.” Bazyli nodded, and Eydis glanced up at the sky again, keeping an eye out Aislin's silhouette against the dark sky, without much expectation of finding anything. She must have just missed spotting her, for a moment later a raven landed a rush of feathers next to Eydis and changed into a petite redhead in a flash of light, scorching the ground nearby. Eydis handed her some warm clothing to wear, followed by a pinch of her drug. Aislin took them with a grateful nod, put the clothes on, and downed the powder. Within moments she stiffened, eyes closing as the drug took effect and rendered her comatose. Eydis wrapped another blanket around here and sighed.

Bazyli was looking at Aislin with a strange expression. It immediately disappeared when he realized that Eydis was looking at him. “Do you mind if we share your shelter for the night?”

Eydis shrugged. “It would be convenient and the night is long. I will not be sleeping until Aislin awakes again, but you are welcome to sleep now.”

“I think I may do that.” Bazyli and Janez unpacked their overnight things with the efficiency of long practice and set up their own wind shelter next to Eydis' before settling down to sleep. Eydis realized she'd forgotten to pour the tea, shrugged, and poured herself a mug, settling down to wait for another hour or so until Aislin awoke.

Kyta loved new places. Or at least, she loved new places that were universities. There were so many new places and nooks and crannies and libraries and places with new, interesting, restricted places she wasn't allowed that actually gave her a challenge to get in to and had some sort of reward for sneaking past the guards and security mechanisms. In the first day wandering around, taking notes on everything with her notebook, she'd filled up several pages already. Most of it was mundane places – classrooms and offices and administrative buildings – though probably still useful. She was rapidly filling up pages with maps and notations on things that looked interesting to investigate later. Names, origins of numbering schemes on rooms, what each administration did and who to talk to when she needed something. It would take a while to build up the same network here that she had at home, and she'd be in a bit of a precarious position until them.

Other things she found were much more interesting – research labs, both locked and unlocked, rooms of the library with polite signs saying “Do Not Enter” and discretely placed guards out of sight down the hallway, and “hidden” cellars with alcohol and an amusingly well used concealment over the entrance.

On the other end of the spectrum was the areas that weren't well hidden, and in fact, wanted people to come visit them. The whole campus was arranged in a circle around the point of it's existence: the cathedral. All the roads radiated out from that building, dividing the campus into several slices, like some sort of grant inedible pie made of buildings.

The cathedral was round, mimicking the surrounding area, or perhaps the surrounding area was mimicking the cathedral. Slender, fluted columns marked the outside rim of the consecrated ground, rising to support a domed roof. Four large doors, carved with scenes depicting with the ascension of the appropriate gods stood open to let the wind pass through.

Kyta approached it from the south, noting with some cynicism that Notos, god of the south wind and the heat it brought was depicted killing his predecessor, and ascending to take his place. Each of the others would show a similar scene. Peace, love and happiness might be what was preached, as Astrither had pointed out, but it was not what she was reading from the architecture. The faint sound of chimes sounded in the air. Somewhat to her surprise, there weren't many people around, only a handful.

Inside, Kyta stopped and stared in awe. Her small temple at home had never looked as grandiose as this. The roof rose three or four, if not five, stories in the air, and was hung with chimes, so many that it covered the roof. She couldn't quite tell from here, but she could swear that each was carved with something. The wind moved them enough that there was always a faint musical sound in the air, but not loud enough to be considered music.

Carvings climbed the wall, originating behind the four larger than life statues of the gods. Each was placed in the cardinal direction they claimed, the doors neatly dividing each from their neighbor.

Opposite her stood Borei, the north wind, framed by the mountains. Snow and ice rained down around him, flattening trees and stirring the ocean to a fury. To her right the weather was much kinder, showering Anatolik with the fairer storms of spring, bringing life to the crops behind him, the ocean calm at his back. Continuing turning, the sun scorched down on Notos, the south wind bringing heat and famine and death in the summer, without rain to relieve it. Finally was Thitikos, gentler, mild west wind that governed most of their life, with his gentle fair skies and benevolent lack of extremes.

None of the depictions were unexpected, but the sheer skill that made the stone practically come alive had Kyta staring in awe. She practically shivered looking at Borei, and wanted something cool to drink looking at Notos. She ran her hands over their robes and touched the backdrops, reverent at the amount of time and skill that went into them. Someone must have been very devout, or very well paid, to come up with something like this.

She walked around the statue of Thitikos, still admiring it, and noticed a small, unobtrusive door behind him. Her curiosity sparked, she felt around it, looking for a handle. Nothing obvious appeared, and she frowned. Why would there be a door with no handle? She checked behind the other deities, careful to keep her mannerisms the same as if she were simply admiring the statues. Sure enough, each had a door, but no handle she could find easily.

Returning to behind Thitikos, she continued searching, expanding to include the areas around the door and the back of the statue. Finally, success. A particular swirl of the wind, when pressed, popped the edge of the door out slightly with a faint click. After a check to ensure no one was around at that particular moment, and some straining and sore fingertips, Kyta managed to open the door enough for her to slide through.

--------------

Total: 3174
Today: 1153

Not where I want to be, but at least I have stuff to write about later.

NaNoWriMo 2009 - Nov 1

2009-11-02T09:23:35Z

So, for those of you not familiar with it already, it's November, which means it's novelling time! In an attempt to keep me motivated (and back up my novel) I'm going to try and post it here in daily increments. Just remember, it's NaNo, so everything is unedited, raw, and possibly self-inconsistent. But I'll still happily accept comments on anything you like or dislike. :)

It's starting out very NaNo-y - no title, no plot, little world, just some characters and stuff.

---

NaNoWriMo 2009

Kyta threw open the door to her new room for the next several months, if not years, and promptly wrinkled her nose at the salt smell that assaulted her. It was amazing how much more the room with a large window smelled of the sickly salt and dead animals ocean smell compared to the hallway. It was definitely going to take a while to get used to that. She would almost be missing the clean scent of trees at home, if she hadn't spent most of the past five years wishing she could leave there to come here.

It only took a moment to ascertain that her roommate had already arrived, since one of the beds had blankets and clothes strewn about it. Throwing her packed stuff on the other bed, Kyta promptly started nosing around in the things that clearly didn't belong to the university. It took her an equally short amount of time to decide that her roommate wasn't from the NAME empire, and that she was going to be interesting to live with. Most of the clothes strew about were ragged dead animal skins, sewn together haphazardly, with beads and baubles attached in designs. On closer inspection, they were probably well made, considering where they had come from. Kyta studied them carefully, memorizing details to note down and look up the meaning of later. Surely this library would have more detailed information on the culture of the northern barbarians. She was sure that was where her roommate was from, probably a convert coming down to get educated, much good that that would do. Likely not anyone with any sort of rank. Barbarians didn't have any sort of ranking anyway, and if they did, no one had seen anyone beyond an assistant to a minor chief, or some equally useless status. Probably an outcast trying to make the best of things. Kyta shrugged, adjusting the clothes into the same heap as they had been before she examined them before checking under and in everything else.

Ah-hah! Tucked under the neatly folded sheets was another surprise, completely at odds with the crudity of everything that wasn't the university's. A handful of jewelry pieces, far too expensive to have been purchased, and far to delicately made to have been brought from the north. A matched set of necklace and earrings, made of silver woven in delicate patterns, with tiny red stones set in appropriate spots. Gorgeous, and practically light as a feather in her hands, better quality than anything else she had seen close up. A ring that almost matched was there too, slightly heavier and more solid, but still clearly made in the same style - an imitation perhaps? And, lastly, the oddity among oddities. A heavy, gold ring, clearly intended for a man's hand, unlike the rest of the jewelry. No stones, just an engraving around the outside in a language she didn't know, or couldn't read. She twirled that around a few times, trying to memorize the strange characters, or at least find the beginning and end of a sentence, before replacing it under the sheets in the exact same place she had taken it from.

Footsteps down the hallways were her only warning before a pair of hands fell on her shoulders, and the next thing she knew, she was stumbling across the narrow room to trip over her bed, sprawl over it, catching herself on her bag before her teeth became intimate acquaintances with the wall.

Flipping around, Kyta blinked up at the intruder responsible, and knew immediately that this was her roommate, whose possessions she had been going through. Blonde hair trailing over her shoulder, pale round face and angry blue eyes all made her quite distinctive from everyone else Kyta had known.

Unfortunately, infuriated was the next word that came to mind, as she glared down at Kyta, hands and body in an offensive posture. A stream of angry sounding gibberish sounded from the girl's mouth, and Kyta blinked at her. That was definitely not a language she knew. The other girl seemed to realize this, and spoke slowly in a more intelligible language next.

“What were you doing with my things?” she demanded. “What were you going to take? Who sent you to rifle through my things, thief?” She took another step forward, putting her right at Kyta's knees, sprawled across the bed as she was, and looking quite intimidating.

“I'm not a thief!” protested Kyta, struggling to get up, and stopped by hands on her shoulders before she got too far. “I live here! I just arrived!”

“I do not believe you,” the girl stated flatly. “Why else would you be rifling through my belongings, if not to steal them?” Despite her words, Kyta could tell that she'd at least partially convinced the girl of her innocence.

“You left them lying around in my room – it's not a crime to be curious about the person I'm going to live with for the next several years! A little examining never hurt anything.” She needed practice. She'd gotten used to never being caught at home, and was getting sloppy.

“It is when they do not belong to you and are packed away.” She frowned down at Kyta, grabbed her arm, and hauled her to her feet. “I will verify that you actually live here.”

“Hey!” Kyta was indignant, but allowed herself to be dragged to the front desk with as much dignity as she could muster. This didn't work as well as she had hoped, since she was dragged down a flight of stairs and around three buildings before the girl, whose name turned out to be Astrither, found someone that could answer her question to her satisfaction.

Having acquired proof, Astrither turned to Kyta and looked at her somberly for a few seconds before saying, “I will let you off this time, but if I find you rummaging through my possessions again, I will treat you like a thief, regardless of your permission to be in my room. The clergy may preach forgiveness, but the gods preach justice, and the gods have more power than any human clergy.” With that, she left, appearing to lose all interested in Kyta.

Kyta stared after her for a moment, thinking and filing what she had said in the back of her mind. With a shrug and a half laugh, she exchanged comments about “those northern barbarians” with the staff member who had verified her residency, and followed Astrither back up to her room.

This is definitely going to be an interesting year, she thought. Northern roommate who she'd made such a good impression on, in addition to simply being in a real city, no more than a few days from the capital, at the largest university worth attending. And classes hadn't even started yet!

Eydis sighed. This far north was terrible. Not a real tree to be seen, just moss and lichen and bogs and maybe a stunted, twisted thing that passed for a tree. And so flat! Practically no mountains, or even anything that really qualified as a hill, right up until the horizon. Nowhere to hide, but at least it was flat as far as the eye could see, so it would be that much harder to sneak up on her. Conversely, it was that much harder for her to sneak up on anyone. But this time, at least, she wasn't doing any sneaking, just waiting.

Sighing as her feet squelched – another reason to hate it up here, wet, smelly peat bogs – she tramped around until she found what she was looking for: a chunk of peat that had been left out to dry. Probably right where Aislin said it was, if there were any decent way to tell where she was out here. Pulling her glove off, she tested the dampness, concluded it was dry enough to be useful, and started building a fire.

Soon she was settled down in front of a small but very smoky fire, a three sided wind block at her back to keep her warm and the fire lit, and a pot of water over the fire. Aislin had neglected to mention exactly when she'd be arriving, but Eydis wasn't really expecting her to show up for a couple hours.

To pass the time, Eydis practiced the new ballad she'd learned at home, interleaving speech with song with blowing on her pipes. It was one of the new ones, that her cousin Zdravko had written a couple years ago after her younger son, just on the cusp of manhood, had died of some disease. Zdravko had talent, and skill for sure. It started out cheerful, with a lively tune for dancing alternating with songs of youth and talent and promise. Melancholy wove its way in, telling of how Zdravko's son had slowed, tiring and his strength failing. He started dreaming about Senka, the beautiful goddess of the night who blanketed the earth under her cloak for winter and welcomed the weary into her arms. Finally Senka started coming to him during his waking hours, and finally, his spirit stood, strong and youthful as his body had ever been, and followed her out into the night. Eydis was sure that this wasn't how it had happened in reality, but knew that this was a much preferable way to remember him. The benefits of being a bard, she supposed, getting to choose how events were remembered and portrayed for generations to come.

During her practice, she had noticed a pair of human silhouettes in the distance, clearly drawn by her fire and, once they were closer, by her song. They had taken a spot at the fire near the end of her tale, and she had merely nodded in acknowledgment as she continued. Now, putting down her pipe, they traded the formal welcoming and acceptance of a place at the fire between traders.

Her guests were dressed even warmer than she was, with the only thing she could see of their faces were their eyes - light brown on the taller one, and blue on the shorter. Their clothes were decorated in the fashion of an allied tribe, whose domain was further to the north, closer to where she was now than her own home was. Both were male, and she assumed that one was a shapechanger.

“I am Bazyli, and this is my companion, Janez. What brings your travels here?” the taller asked. “This is a fair distance from your home, unless I miss my guess, far for one to travel alone.”

“Not quite alone. My companion left me several days ago, and has agreed to meet me here. I have family in the MINORTRIBENAME tribe, and spent some time with them before continuing up here. And yourselves? It may be closer to home for you, but it is still some distance.”

“Traveling, searching, gathering, visiting. What usually brings people to this desolate part of the world. When is your companion expected to arrive?”

Eydis shrugged. “I do not know. Sometime today, mostly likely, though whether she meant before the sun sets, or before it rises again, I do not know. Would you like some tea?” She extracted a small pouch from one of her pockets and carefully measured some out before pouring it into the pot. The strangers gratefully accepted.

They made smalltalk, and Eydis danced around the issue of asking which was the shapechanger, and other pertinent questions, like how far gone he was. Clearly not too far, otherwise she would have noticed by now. Finally, she gave in to her curiosity, counting on the fact shapechangers rarely, if ever, harmed others like them to keep her and Aislin safe. “If I may inquire, which of you can change? And what is your animal form?”

Bazyli smiled at the question, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I am, a Lynx,” he replied.

---

Today's wordcount: 2010
Total wordcount: 2010

Bookstore Love

2009-07-28T03:20:04Z

I work in downtown Vancouver, but despite this, I don't actually know the area that well. When I was growing up, we pretty much never went downtown (we live about an hour's drive away in the suburbs and my parents don't like city traffic), and I can't remember ever just wandering around to see what there was. Since starting working there, I've done some wandering with friends, but I'm usually paying more attention to the person I'm with or where I'm going than what's around me.

However, today at lunch, I decided to take advantage of the sunshine and happiness outside and take a walk. And lo and behold, I discovered a bookstore.

Not just any bookstore, though. The epitome of what a bookstore should be.

Floor to ceiling books on narrow wooden shelves, covered with books, often a row and a half deep. Narrow aisles that wind around and sometimes dead end or circle around, made narrower by still more books piled up. Just... books, everywhere, on all sorts of topics, and the whole room full of that delicious "I'm a used book, come read me! I have weird, interesting, unique stuff to share!" feeling. It's heaven.

Most of the stuff is semi-sorted - a corner or set of shelves will be on a topic, but there's no guarantee that you won't find something different squished in there. The stuff on the floor might be related to the bottom shelf, or the top, or the one on the other side. And there's a giant pile of books that I can only assume is unsorted in the middle of the room.

And talk about treasures! I found a book on Arabic grammar there, third edition, first published in the 1870s, this edition from the 1890s. I love old books, especially old books on a topic I'm interested in. I'm sure that I would have found more if I'd spent more time looking at books instead of wandering around thinking I'd died and gone to heaven.

The only downside is that the speculative fiction section is one shelf right near the entrance, and I think that's it. It's primarily a non-fiction store, but since I've discovered how much fun non-fiction is, I'm okay with that.

For those that live in the area, It's MacLeod's bookstore, on Richards and West Pender, specifically 455 Pender Street, Vancouver. Hours are 9-6 weekdays, 11-6 on Sunday, and possibly Saturday, I can't remember exactly. In short, not open evenings, sadly.

I've added another room to my dream house, or have a better idea what an existing idea for a room looks like. Floor to ceiling books, stacked, half sorted with the inventory all in my head, full of rare, unique, awesome books. Sliding ladders to get to the upper shelves, because they're awesome. Someone would ask me for a book, and I'd go "Oh! I have that!" and disappear into the room and wend through the shelves to pull out the book in question and reappear to lend it to them.

I may love computers and technology and intend to have the other half of my dream house be the best shiniest newest technology money can buy, but I can't give up my long-standing passion for books that easily.

Poly & Friends vs Lovers

2009-07-15T04:52:08Z

One of the things I'm interested in/coming to identify with is polyamory, that is, dating more than one person simultaneously, with all parties aware of and okay with the situation. I won't give a long description here, as the link above does it much more eloquently and completely. (And while you're there, check out his other essays - he's a really interesting guy.)

I have also recently discovered that most people can, apparently, tell the difference between someone they like as a friend, and someone they're romantically attracted to. I have never really been able to do that - one of the things that led to me questioning if I was straight or not was having a crush on a close friend of the same gender and not really being able to tell if that was any different from any of the other friendships I had. I really liked the french verb "aimer" to describe relationships, because it means "to like or love", which is eminently accurate for me. In a broad sense, I divide the world into people I'm close to, and people I'm not, and everyone in the former category is someone I have in the past, am currently, or am capable of loving, in the romantic sense.

This is another of the things that I assumed everyone felt, until I discovered poly and realized that it described the way I feel pretty much perfectly. And then I mentioned the idea to my friends and got the blank look that told me this is one of those things I took for granted that isn't as universal as I assumed subconsciously. The closest I got was someone who could divide the world into people he has an intimate/personal relationship with, and people he doesn't, which sounded to be along the lines of people I'm close with vs not. However, he seemed to more naturally divide people into other categories - friends, potential friends, people forced to associate with, etc. And romance wasn't part of it at all.

I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not. On one hand, I tend to have close relationships with lots of people, as pretty much my entire circle of friends is close in that way, but on the other hand, a side effect is that there's no way I can act upon (or in some cases, even tell the person) every person I'm interested in. I wouldn't call it a string of broken hearts, though, as that's not an accurate description. More a string of, "Oh, I like this person. I think I have a crush on them. ... Neat."

It was pointed out to me that being bi might contribute to this, or vice verse. Since I consider males and females (and any other gender people choose to identify with) roughly equal in romantic status, it bleeds over into how I view friendships.

Not that this directly relates to polyamory. I doubt that all, or even most, polyamorous people feel this way. But it is why I feel drawn to poly - I don't see what's inherently wrong with wanting to and/or being able to pursue relationships with anyone I choose to, regardless of if I'm currently dating someone, gender, or any other factor.

Despite all this, I probably won't identify as polyamorous properly until I've actually had successful multiple relationships. Identifying as bi took a while, but at some point I gave up saying "I only sorta think girls are cute, honest" and said "I think girls are really cute, but I end up dating guys all the time for some reason."

Good stuff

2009-06-10T04:37:59Z

So, stuff.

I'm working full time now. Got an awesome coop job with a games programming company downtown (Magellan Interactive, if you're interested, though their website doesn't have much). I'm a junior programmer in C++ (with bits of using C), working on a couple of unannounced games (ooh, exciting, I know). Mostly fun, frustrating but equally often rewarding. Even when I'm relatively blah about it (eg tired, bored), it's still something I enjoy.

I was thinking about self-esteem the other day, mostly in regards to friends, and it occurred to me (as I was falling asleep, what better time?) that it would be neat to have to come up with something I was good at and/or productive at and/or learned every day, on the principle that thinking about positives instead of negatives leads to generally more positive thinking. Really a concept better suited to twitter, but I find it somewhat silly, so blog it goes.

I made progress on what I was working on at work, and managed to draw up a list of the stuff I need to do to complete the task (one I even think is reasonably comprehensive), and assigned times (horribly off, but that's a learning experience) to them.

I learned that there's an awesome person pseudonymed freaksexual that I can stalk online with at least one fascinating post, and probably lots others. Yet another one to my list of fascinating people to follow.

Also, yesterday's xkcd was hilarious.