Posts Tagged writing

[partim] Shotrox.

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I saw a good many of the others at a distance as I passed through the forest, but none of them approached me, so I kept my distance as well.  Most of them were people from town anyway, whom I recognized but didn’t know; I didn’t want to make them uncomfortable.

The walk wasn’t as long for me as it would have been for them; it wasn’t long before I entered the small clearing bordered by the ring of stones.

The light brightened as I entered, as it always did, though no-one knew why; by the time everyone got here it’d be nearly too bright to see.

This is where magic happens, when maccans come together, and this is where maccans come together when we need magic to happen.

[partim] The day of the singularity.

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“Other time travelers know me?” Ralph said.

“Everyone knows you, Ralph.” John said. “You know you.”

“I—” he started.  “I what?”

I saw it right away and tried to stifle a laugh.

It took him a bit longer, but you could see when it hit. “Wait,” he said, “Wait, you’re telling me I’m Death? I’m not that fat!”

Of course the caricature would have grown over time.  Were older pictures more accurate? I couldn’t remember.  They got Death’s color wrong, at least; Ralph’s split color’d been interpreted as a face in shadow.  And Death had a red mane, and a much more fearful aspect.

“I’m Death.” Ralph was clearly having trouble assimilating this.

No, my inner reflection of Ralph said.  That’s thousands of years of time travel.

[partim] Shine.

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“Someone came and took him,” she said.

“He was killed?” I said, samewhat alarmed.  People turned to stare.  I definitely hadn’t seen that.  How could I have missed it?

“No,” she said, “Death came for him.”

“Death,” I said.  “Actually Death? The fat hog in the gray robes and everything?”

“Yeah,” she said. “He said—” she rattled off something in Chinese.  The folks listening in got more emotional.  “Um, it means, ‘They haven’t forgotten you.  It’s time to come home.’”

“Sounds like murder to me,” I said.

“It was very sweet,” she said firmly.

[partim] Ierak.

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“Our cousins in Karkedon are feeling left out, are they.”  Of course he would already know; the wind blows where it wishes, and he always hears…

“A shame, of course—imagine what Kron’s city could be like under the tutelage of its god!  Instead… well, you have heard the depths Kron has sunk to?”

I hadn’t, unless—“You mean the children? A crazy rumor—no one puts faith in it.”

“There is the benign ritual, open to all… but behind it a darker one only seen by a select few… and the wind that fans the flames.”

He looked a little ill as he said that.  “We’ll bring an end to that, soon enough,” he said. “The bridge was a surprise.  Their agents must be protected.  You’ll need to put up a guard.”

The gods do have no sense of scale sometimes.  “Guard? Thousands of miles of road? There aren’t enough people—it’d take an army just to cover from here to Bousantie!”

[partim] The day of the singularity.

(Again, as with anything that gets infodumpy like this, I hope the final draft looks considerably different…)

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“The upgrades,” John said. “Freedom from old age, freedom from disease, resilience against trauma… that’s the baseline everyone gets, though some people go for more.  You’ll need that too, of course, because, well, you’ll be seeing a lot of disease and adverse circumstances, and we can’t go around losing you to smallpox or exposure to cold or anything.”

I felt my aversion to adventure rising.  Smallpox?

Ralph’s objection was different, though.  “Not,” he said, “Not that I have anything against the upgrades, but, but, if anyone can get an upgrade like that, why does it have to be me?”   Or not?


“The Great Firewall of Time,” John said. “Our infinite civilization on one side, and the old one with all its limits on the other.”

“Right, and?”

“Well, it’s there to protect everyone.  If only a fraction of 3↑↑↑3 people were interested in seeing, oh, the life of Christ, the old universe’d get so full you couldn’t move.  So nothing from this side can cross back. There are no special excuses, because over a long enough timeline, the number of people with the same excuse and worse would still be far too many.  It has to be a hard line.”

“3↑↑↑3?”

“Three to the third, to the third,” said John, pointing out the numbers in the air, “and keep on raising it to the third about seven or eight trillion times.  The eventual population is considerably larger than this. This end of time is considerably more durable, you see.”

“Anyway,” he went on, “the point is only people from your side of the wall can pass over it both ways.  And while there are a few other time travelers that could be upgraded to the task, none of them are particularly interested in stealing the thunder from your accomplishments.”

[partim] Shine.

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—there didn’t seem to be anything in that direction, though.  The girl was still staring, horrified, at something invisible.  I got up—slowly—and waddled over, though by the time I got there, several of the restaurant workers and patrons were already around her.

“What happened?” they were saying. I was, anyway; the rest was in Chinese.

She pushed through the crowd of people and went to a corner where an old man sitting alone had slumped forward in his seat.

She didn’t touch him, but she didn’t have to; I could see from here the poor man had passed away.

And someone who spoke English called 911, and the girl came up to me.  “Did you see?”

I shook my head.

[partim] Ainlouk.

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Karkedon is one of the biggest cities in the world—maybe even bigger than Alexandreï, depending on who’s counting.

I love cities.  You put a few people together, they’ll talk and get to know each other, but put a hundred thousand people together and nobody gets to know anyone if they can help it. The mind just gives up and refuses to see other people as people; you can be more alone in a crowded city than in any solitary place.

It was morning when we reached the city.  I left the ship and went up through narrow streets of pale buildings, apartment houses and storefronts of artisans and the offices where the scribes tried to keep track of it all, to the city center, where a building like any other building waited with no indication that Karkedon’s powerful were inside, plotting against the world.

Some things it is nice to be part of.

[partim] Scott the Alchemist 4.

NSFW (M/M, rimming) below cut…»

[partim] Ainlouk.

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I stayed in my cabin for as much as I could on the trip back to Karkedon – at least, that was my intention.  I didn’t want to have to talk about the bridge to anyone—even on a Karkedonian ship I wasn’t necessarily safe.

But then the hyena happened, lurching out of his compartment and crashing into mine, the smaller creature quite green with seasickness.  I scrambled out of the way of the window where I’d been sitting and held on to him as he leaned out and was sick.

The hyena, whom I learned later was called Mikips, recovered himself and, with no other apology than a nervous laugh and a blush of embarrassment, rushed back to his own compartment.

I wish that had been the only time I would see him.

[partim] Scott the Alchemist 4.

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NSFW (M/M, hyper) below cut…»