Something Original
May. 1st, 2010 03:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charameiApologies to my circle: I'm about to spam y'all with the ginormous backlog of reviews and 3W4DW stuff that I haven't had time to post this week.
A couple of years ago, I wrote Stasis, a one-off original thingamijig designed simply to free my brain from a creative rut.
I kind of liked the world, but it clearly needed more time to mature. And then a month or so ago, I was driving along the M5 with my mother and there was a tree...
I don't know if I'll ever turn this world into anything longer than disconnected oneshots, but I do like it. Maybe one day.
For now, this.
Title: Untitled
Rating: PG
Fandom: Original (Eloise's World)
Genre: Hm... myth?
Characters: The God of the Forests
Wordcount: 307
The first god they killed, long ago, was the god of the forests. He was taller than any tree that exists today, but they took torches and blades, hacked off his legs and burned them on great bonfires that smoked and spat for weeks. In this way they felled him, and when he landed on his back they piled on mud and rock and rubbish, more and more every year until he was deep underground. It filled his mouth, his nose: it weighted his eyes shut and stopped his ears. He struggled, and for a decade the ground shook with his fury and his impotence; but the tremors slowed. When at last they stopped the people dug down, with pinpoint accuracy, and carved out his heart.
The forests howled without the wind to aid them. For two years nothing grew, nothing moved, until Graeme was made the first Administrator and took the heart for himself. And so it began.
But what of the old god? Time moved on, and they piled ever more mud and stone onto him. As the aeons passed they forgot he was there and built on him, and when the ground shook and the buildings fell (as they always did), they laid down tar and gravel and built roads.
There is a tree by the side of the motorway that connects Abledon with Caracshire. It is long dead: it has no branches any more, the trunk sawn shortly after it divides into five. It is ancient, but not hollow, and covered in ivy that is a verdant green all year round. A dreamer might fancy that it is a hand, grasping at the sky in a doomed attempt to escape its earthen prison. When the storms come in the spring the tree sways, its hewn branches grabbing at air.
And the ground trembles.
A couple of years ago, I wrote Stasis, a one-off original thingamijig designed simply to free my brain from a creative rut.
I kind of liked the world, but it clearly needed more time to mature. And then a month or so ago, I was driving along the M5 with my mother and there was a tree...
I don't know if I'll ever turn this world into anything longer than disconnected oneshots, but I do like it. Maybe one day.
For now, this.
Title: Untitled
Rating: PG
Fandom: Original (Eloise's World)
Genre: Hm... myth?
Characters: The God of the Forests
Wordcount: 307
The first god they killed, long ago, was the god of the forests. He was taller than any tree that exists today, but they took torches and blades, hacked off his legs and burned them on great bonfires that smoked and spat for weeks. In this way they felled him, and when he landed on his back they piled on mud and rock and rubbish, more and more every year until he was deep underground. It filled his mouth, his nose: it weighted his eyes shut and stopped his ears. He struggled, and for a decade the ground shook with his fury and his impotence; but the tremors slowed. When at last they stopped the people dug down, with pinpoint accuracy, and carved out his heart.
The forests howled without the wind to aid them. For two years nothing grew, nothing moved, until Graeme was made the first Administrator and took the heart for himself. And so it began.
But what of the old god? Time moved on, and they piled ever more mud and stone onto him. As the aeons passed they forgot he was there and built on him, and when the ground shook and the buildings fell (as they always did), they laid down tar and gravel and built roads.
There is a tree by the side of the motorway that connects Abledon with Caracshire. It is long dead: it has no branches any more, the trunk sawn shortly after it divides into five. It is ancient, but not hollow, and covered in ivy that is a verdant green all year round. A dreamer might fancy that it is a hand, grasping at the sky in a doomed attempt to escape its earthen prison. When the storms come in the spring the tree sways, its hewn branches grabbing at air.
And the ground trembles.