Previous | First | Full first draft
On the way there he got distracted by a used book store near the edge of the mahalle that he’d never noticed before, a tiny place called “The Joli Raja’s.†Since he had plenty of time, he figured he’d stop in and give it a look.
Just inside the doors was a bargain bin—ten books a nummo. The attendant told him they were worthless because they were so heavily marked, and if he just wanted one, it’d be free.
“Hey, who’s there?â€
Someone was behind me, on the bridge.
Sucks to be them.
No, that’s not good at all. Bodies would be worse than witnesses. But the fuse was still going and I was too far away now to stop it.
Nothing to do but keep running, now.
The sky lit up behind me a split second before I heard the blast.
The damage was done. I only hoped there would be nothing left of the man to find; they’d look a lot harder for a murderer than a saboteur.
But I wasn’t ready to be a murderer.
The temple of Aiol at Aleksandreï is the largest structure in the city these days. Regardless of how important I became, though, I still felt like the smallest thing in it.
Not that I ever managed to become very important. From my first year in the service of the god, when it became clear I had no aptitude for the divine engineering, I was relegated to a clerical position. That, though, I was good at, and soon enough I was managing most of the temple’s secular affairs.
Then the railroads came—a perpetual headache.
It seemed simple enough in principle—Aiol, the god of winds, had handed down the principles of harnessing wind and steam and smoke to do the work of men. And, certainly, carrying trains of wagons to all parts of the world was work the divine engineering could handle, but it hardly seemed worth the expense.
After all, the trains would only run if the rails were perfect.
In the cities, that was easy. But even along the rail from Aleksandreï to Bousantie there was quite a bit of countryside—opportunities for thieves and peasants to steal the iron, for trees to fall, for lands to flood—delays and repairs, delays and repairs.
And now they want a railroad built all the way to Tianan in the country of the Sers—did they never learn ambition is a vice?—but with the support of a god, many things are ventured.
I had only met the god Aiol once. I was still, at the time, trying to understand the principles of steam-powered machines, when he came into the classroom where I was studying.
For those who have never seen a god, I should say they are very like their pictures—like a hornless satyr from the waist up, but with feet almost like an ape, though without the thumbs they have. He looked young; but the gods are young when they choose to be.
Ironic that Seran work would keep the road to the Seran country from being built.
He checked the station, just to be sure. Empty; good. No witnesses. Outside of the station, nobody would be around for a good mile or so.
He went back down the rails to the Coudn bridge. It wasn’t the most impressive bridge the Aleksandreïans had built for their railroads, but like all of them it was built at great expense.
And after tonight, it would be no more.
He set up the bomb on one of the bridge’s foundations, unrolled the fuse a comfortable distance, lit it, and took off running downstream.
I’ll admit I only have a vague direction on this so far.
I took a taxi to Rico’s where I figured Blake’d already be waiting for me. But when I gave my name to the maître d’—Green, reservations for two—I found he’d been held up as well; he came to my table about five minutes after I sat down, and he was soaked even wetter than I had been.
He didn’t apologize. “Quite a day out, isn’t it?†he said, and grinned.
Blake is one of those people who tend to look a little different every time you see them. Today, I was sure he was quite a bit fatter than the last time I saw him… but he wore it well, so I wasn’t going to complain.
He sat down across from me, picking up a menu. “So, did you order yet?â€
“Nah,†I said, “I just got here. Missed my bus, had to call a taxi.â€
“I missed the bus, too. I think they’re running ahead of schedule today. But I figured I’d walk, since it’s only a couple of blocks.â€
Most of you have probably heard of NaNoWriMo, a project where one tries to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. Â I’ve tried it a couple of times; the next Ralph story, which I haven’t posted yet because I don’t think it’ll really make sense until the current one is finished and posted, was my attempt last year. Â This year, I managed a whopping 688 words. Â I’m posting them as scraps because they’re too disjoint to fit with each other, but I’ll be working on trying to continue the story from here on out. Â It is set in Terce, but there are no satyriffic shenanigans, so.
Ainlouk waited outside the rail station at Tars, waiting for everyone to leave as night fell. His hand moved to check the bomb in his pack: still there, ready.
The last train to Aleksandreï churned out of the station, and the slaves and the Aiolan priests who manned the station filed out, heading back to their quarters.
He forced himself to count to a hundred before moving. The street was silent and dark with the lamps extinguished; it was a clear, hot night.
Ainlouk went around the back of the station, walking the rails through the yard where the merchants loaded and unloaded their goods, to the platform where the rich men who rode trains disembarked, and opened up his pack.
The bomb lay wrapped in heavy cloth.
Previous | First [NSFW] | Full first draft [NSFW]
We sat quiet for a while. Arky calmed down some, recovered his composure, dried his eyes, blew his nose.
“I could tell Flair,†he said, “About the humans, I mean. You know he’d get into it. And then, we could—“
“Well, sure he’d like it. He’s taken everything else I’ve thrown at him. But would he be able to keep quiet about it?â€
“He wouldn’t have to! We don’t have to tell him you’ve been importing humans from… wherever it is you get them from… just that you’ve got a thing for them. It’d fit neat with that fib of yours about the gorillas, and he’ll be able to lord it over them shaven human-wannabes who hang out at the mall.â€
I tried to suppress a bad memory.
“But… what about Toby?†I said.
“Who?â€
“The… imported human.â€
Arky made an exasperated grunt and stormed into the kitchen. I didn’t follow him; I knew him well enough by then to know when he needs time to himself. So I went and put my sweats on while he made angry sandwiches. I lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling and thinking. I was torn between wanting not to hurt my best friend on the one paw, and the feeling that I might be—I didn’t want to think it—settling for less on the other paw. I half felt like turning to stone for a year to avoid the problem. No, that wouldn’t help. Maybe a big tattoo of shame dyed across my forehead. “BAD TIGER.†I was trying to figure out what typeface best conveyed horrible shame when Arky came back out.
Nov 28
Tags: body control, Frank, furry, Ralph, tigers, Turia, writing
Previous | First(ish)
Almost done with this story’s first draft, then I’ll get the full first draft posted. Also, I’ve decided I’ll be calling Ralph and Shine’s world Turia.
We worked out for a good half hour, till I was good and sweaty, even with the big fan going full blast.
I felt better. Endorphins’ll do that, Ralph thought.
And that’s why you’re always on the weights, eh?
He didn’t have to answer.
I got up, wiped down the equipment and took a good long shower in the guest bathroom, thinking of Ralph while the sweat rinsed from my fur.
Of course the monster was on me before I could prepare any further. I held up the spear, hoping it’d impale itself, though at the last second I realized this was probably not something I wanted to happen—it’d probably still knock us down and I’d be trampled.
Instead, it knocked the spear aside with its horns.
I took a seat by the TV. Emma the front desk girl brought me a piece of the cake, but I wasn’t really hungry. Nobody showed any further interest in me, as usual. The party wasn’t really anything special for me; they brought in cake every week at the slightest provocation and donuts if nobody could think of anything to put on a cake.
Still, it was my birthday and I probably wouldn’t be getting anything but Stevens’ dud piñata. I spat confetti out of my teeth, and tried to remember this morning’s Motivational Life Coach e-mail. “Being interesting is an action,†it’d said, “So go out and do it.†I spent some time trying to think how that could be motivational, pondered for a while whether it really meant anything at all, and had just about sunk into a rather despairing collection of thoughts about how the world had reduced me to the point where an e-mail forward was my biggest impetus in life when I realized it was time to get back to work.
The empty piñata head was sitting on my desk when I got back; it watched me blankly as I worked on the SWAT report and continued trying to get all the confetti out of my mane.
Previous | First | Full first draft
It was the smell of it that grabbed me, that pure smell of vinyl, or whatever it was that it—that he was really made of… it entered my nose, bypassed my brain, and went directly for my crotch.
Before I had realized what was happening I had already torn my clothes off—and I mean I literally ripped them from my body. I didn’t know I had that kind of strength in me. The smell was so powerful! He shouldn’t have smelled so clean—I’d left him covered in the remains of what he’d eaten—crumbs and spills of food and drink…
Theme based on Arclite by digitalnature | powered by WordPress | Privacy policy