Child of Spring: Chapter 3

Dreamer's Code
Bellring a Member
Report Mistakes/Typos
Report Easter Eggs

About Masterplans
Santhworld: Program
SW.: Game Designer
SW.: Treasure Shoals
SW.: Lorehold
SW.: Nepris
SW.: Trivia
Santharia: Manthria
Nybelmar: Zhunite Pl.
Sarvonia: Icelands

World Map Overview
Distances in Caelereth
Climate Map of Sarvonia
Continent: Aeruillin
Continent: Akdor
Continent: Cyhalloi
Continent: Nybelmar
Continent: +Details NE
Continent: +Details NW
Continent: +Details SE
Continent: +Details SW
Continent: +Politics
Continent: Sarvonia
Lands: Icelands
Lands: +Tribes
Lands: Caael'heroth
Lands: Iol Peninsula
Lands: Kanapans
Lands: Kuglim Lands
Kingdom: Santharia
Kingdom: +Ancient
Kingdom: +Provinces
Kingdom: +Rivers
Kingdom: +Routes
Details: Manthria
Details: Vardýnn
Details: Ráhaz-Dáth
Details: Silvermarshes

Create Beasts
Create Plants
Create Races/Tribes
Create People
People Nomenclature
Create Places
Create Gods, Myths...
Create Spells/Magic
Create Library Entries
Create Misc. Stuff

Reserving Resources
Arbaon Pictures
Bard Judith Pictures
Eratin Pictures
Faugar Pictures
Grunok's Pictures
Ingeborg Pictures
Isilhir Pictures
Koldar Pictures
Linda Tso Pictures
Quellion Pictures
Quellion Pictures II
Shayan's Pictures
Seeker Pictures
Sheil Pictures
Sheil Pictures II

Proverbs & Sayings
Styrásh (Elvish)
Thergerim (Dwarvish)
Kuglimz'Seitre
Kh'omchr'om (Orcish)
Trollish

[Coren FrozenZephyr]

CHILD OF SPRING

This is the story of [Winter] and the Way of Wind and Water. He is one of the Gifted, those rare individuals born with natural magical ability. He has lived the life of a Krean monk since he entered the monastery at age six, but his heart is in Nybelmarasa, the last place in the world where the magic of the Ancient Krean still lives. In a year he will leave [White Mountain], a place which has been home for seventeen years, and make the long journey to the Academy. Here he will learn the ways of magic from the mages of Nybelmarasa as they have been passed from the legendary emperor Dearan Asaen himself. Or so he hopes. It is said that our gifts define us, make us who we are. What would you do if you lost yours and how far would you go to get it back?


CHAPTER SUMMARIES

Chapter 1: The Songs of Wind
In which we meet Winter. Into the peace of the mountain, a new song has come on the Wind.

Chapter 2: Meditating on the Breath
On his way to the monastery, Winter runs into a friend. Why is Orange out of breath and what is he searching for?

Chapter 3: Song of the Family
In which Winter remembers. The two monks discuss the change that looms over White Mountain.

Chapter 4: War and Peace
Winter and Orange disagree about the coming war. Winter is troubled by the change that has come over his friend.


Oh! I found a working map showing the Cloud Cape and the Port of Nor! Attached below.

[Coren FrozenZephyr]

CHAPTER 3
Song of the Family

"Don't you find it odd? That they're headed to the Port of Nor?" he said.

I shrugged. "I know little of the wars of Men," I said. "But this I know: Kingdoms come and kingdoms go. The peace of the mountain remains."

"There will be no peace on the Mountain if the Port of Nor falls."

"Attack the monasteries and make an enemy of the Order of Stormblades? I think not."

Beneath our dangling feet, in front of us and to our left, the valley stretched from horizon to horizon, and beyond it, the sea. The stone was cool to the touch, a lingering memory of the night in a landscape of light and life.

"It feels good to sit here, to feel the solidity of the rock under my hands," he said. "This rock was here before monks and monasteries came, and it will be here after we have gone. And one day it too will be gone."

"Everything flows," I said. His breathing was still intermittently troubled. I laid a hand on his shoulder and felt the Flow leave me and begin to seep into him. After a while I took my hand off.

I heard the creak of a rope as one of the younger monks worked the well. The slosh of water being drawn. The rhythm of the grinding stone where Aunt Winn worked the corn for the morning bread. A Stormblade practicing in the lower grounds. I could see these things without looking at them. The Song of the Morning. The Song of the Family.

Besides me, with less than a palmspan between our shoulders, Orange hummed an ancient song that had only three notes and yet endless variety of interval. Sometimes it rose to an aching chord that caught the throat. This is warmth, it said. This is safety. This is the Whole.

The sun caught in his hair and cast it to molten bronze. Orange. Hearing it, you might think he must have been named after his hair as is often the case with these things. But then I suppose we would have called him Copper. His hair is lighter than mine, a richer brown with filings of copper, but not quite orange or red. No. He is named for his zest for life, his vivacity. Above all, he is named for his laughter.

His laughter belongs to a different world than the ports of men and their ships. It belongs to the Mountain. It whoops and peals and thunders unashamedly; if it finds no echo, it feeds on itself, and when it seems to be checked, it peals forth louder than ever, especially in periods of deep, collective meditation.

I am very fond of Orange, of his laughter. I think we all are.

When the Flow had first opened up in me and I was pushed out of my body and Master Kao was away, he came to visit me every morning for six days until Master Kao returned, and sat with me through the hours of Sunblaze, when the winds are high and their call strongest. We were six at the time. I remember him sitting by the bed, working his way methodically through the jam and bread in his basket, a slice at a time. "You can have one too. All you need to do is come back."

Then he would shrug, butter the next slice and proceed to eat it with the rapt attention and mindfulness only children and monks have. Aptly enough, his basket is full with small jars of orange marmalade. Actually, it is not orange. In these parts we call them "the brownie orange" because they look like miniature oranges. Compared to orange jam, the taste is sharper, less sweet but without the bitterness. It is my favourite and he knows this. The brownie orange grows only in one place on the mountain and it is a perilous climb. Every year someone slips and breaks an arm or a leg. Then Master Kao teaches us how to set bones. One year a boy almost fell to his death.

When the masters come in to refresh the wards, he picks up his basket, which by now is invariably empty, and heads out. He would then pause at the door, calling casually over his shoulder just before he leaves: "There might be more tomorrow. I suppose you will just have to hang around." He spends the rest of the afternoon gathering more of the little round fruit and then cooks it with Aunt Winn for the next morning's visit.  

His voice brought me back to the present. "There will be many deaths today. I wish there was more we could do."

"We can only do what we can," I said, putting my hand on his shoulder in consolation.

"Couldn't the masters stop it?"

"It is not our war, Orange."

"There must be something they can do. Can't they call to the wind, can't they call to the sea and prevent their ships from landing?"

"And how long should we keep the storm alive? A year? Two?"

"As long as it takes. Eventually they would give up and leave."

"There will be other ships, other fleets. Eventually one will land."

He paused and considered this. When he spoke again, he had come to a decision, but it pained him. "Then we must call the wind and destroy their ships. There will be fewer deaths that way."

"Would you kill one man to save another?" I said.

"And yet they must be stopped."

[Artimidor Federkiel]

I'm slowly working my way through this story... Very interesting read so far, Coren, very well told, slowly getting the reader into the tale, bit by bit introducing the characters and the broader image - and I wonder where it's going

Only small quibble I have at the moment perhaps is a technical one, which is that the chapters are rather short, so that the amount of chapters grows, and it looks a bit weird. Some chapters might maybe put together in a larger one? Because I also always have top think about integrating it on the site, and remember that each separate chapter we put up means a lot of work (own page, own Word doc, Word document addition various links in menus, addition to authors page, book page etc.) So if there's a possibility to make single chapters larger if they represent some sort of unit, that would very much be welcomed!

[Coren FrozenZephyr]

Thank you Art, your praise means a lot.

Chapter length: Talia and I were discussing the same thing (see comments under Ch 7). That's a very fair comment. Would this be a workable solution for everyone?: I'd like to continue writing as is until the end of Act 1, and then review the structure (consolidate chapters, remove scenes etc). To minimise the work involved for you, perhaps we could hold off uploading until then? In the meantime, I will continue working on the comments made on each chapter; and at the end of Act 1, I'll review the whole thing and produce an uploadable, consolidated version for you. I don't mind if the text doesn't go up on the site for a while.

Oh God, I'm getting verbose again. Discipline Coren, discipline. I'm putting myself on a very strict verbal diet. Some time in the not too distant future, 'Coren' will become a measure of brevity and succinctness. (Dream big, I say.)

[Artimidor Federkiel]

How many chapters would Act 1 encompass approximately? How many chapters would the whole thing have? Just to get a rough estimate...

[Coren FrozenZephyr]

Hehe, I don't really know. I write in a "headlights" kind of way, seeing only until the next bend in the road.

I think Ch 1-4 (before the monastery) could be Ch 1; the bits with the children (Ch 5-9) might be consolidated into Ch 2. If the story flows at the same rate, somewhere around Ch 4 or 5 Act 1 should end. I know where I want to end up at the end of Act 1, I just don't know how long it will take me to get there.

As for the whole thing, the shorter the better. But then again, who knows? Old habits die hard...

[Shabakuk Zeborius Anfang]

That was a really enjoyable read, Coren. The dialogue is fantastic; much is told in few words, and there are many little jewels to savour.

Of the four comments below, only two suggest alterations; the others are but mutterings of mine.

"Everything flows," I said

... and you never sit on the same mountain twice. Easter egg?!

 

When the Flow had first opened up in me and I was pushed out of my body and Master Kao was away, he came to visit me every morning for six days until Master Kao returned, and sat with me through the hours of Sunblaze, when the winds are high and their call strongest. We had been six at the time. I remember him sitting by the bed, working his way methodically through the jam and bread in his basket, a slice at a time. "You can have one too. All you need to do is come back."

I believe this should be: "We were six at the time." I'm pretty sure you don't need past perfect here, just simple past. I'm not a native speaker, however. (Are you?). Personally, I would actually prefer: "We were six years old at the time", but that may be a matter of taste.

The brownie orange grows only in one place on the mountain and it is a perilous climb. Every year someone slips and breaks an arm or a leg. Then Master Kao teaches us how to set bones. One year a boy almost fell to his death.

That's a very sensible attitude to risk, although the practice wouldn't last long in health-and-safety obsessed Britain, where I, while living in a student hall, was once told I had better leave the changing of a light bulb to the janitor, because it was too dangerous for me to do this myself. Anyway, that's a lovely passage you've written there. I'll remember this.

When the masters come in to refresh the wards, he picks up his basket, which by now is invariably empty, and heads out. He would then pause at the door, calling casually over his shoulder just before he leaves: "There might be more tomorrow. I suppose you will just have to hang around." He spends the rest of the afternoon gathering more of the little round fruit and then cooks it with Aunt Winn for the next morning's visit.

You slip into simple present here twice, but I think you should stick with the subjunctive: "When the masters would come in (or: "used to come in"?) to refresh the wards, he would pick up his basket, which by now would invariably be empty, and head out ..." Similarly in the last sentence quoted here.

[Coren FrozenZephyr]

Thanks, Shab! Point by point response:

1) Panta rhei - You caught it! Added to the list of easter eggs under Ch 1. (And fair warning: I might just steal your version later on...)

2) No, I'm not a native speaker either. Past perfect always trips me up - something I just can't seem to wrap my head around. So I usually end up having to play it by ear, which, shall we say, is not quite fool proof

3) One of the (fun!) challenges here is to depict that sense of Other. To capture the essence of the Way of the Wind and Water. To convey how the monks' profound alignment with the Way has altered their attitude to life, and how their responses have in a sense become qualitatively different. Engaged-detachment, I suppose? And to do these by showing rather than telling.

4) Yeah. I struggle with the tenses in this story. I write in the past tense, but then the narration wants to switch to the present tense on its own. Then it sounds odd. I think the root of the issue is flowing from recounting to recalling and back again. I wish Judith or Rayne was here to explain how these narrative switches should be handled. I'll see if I can find any explanatory material on the web.

[Athviaro Shyu-eck-Silfayr]

Re. that last point of yours, Shabakuk, I would find something like this flows more easily:

"When the masters came in to refresh the wards, he would pick up his basket - by now invariably empty - and head out. He would pause [or: He always paused] at the door, calling casually over his shoulder just before he left: "There might be more tomorrow. I suppose you will just have to hang around." He would spend [or: He then spent] the rest of the afternoon gathering more of the little round fruit and cooking it with Aunt Winn for the next morning's visit."

I'm no Judith or Rayne, but that's my farthing. Using "used to come in" or "would come in" in the temporal clause seems a bit heavy-handed to me. The repetitious nature of it is conveyed elsewhere.

Athviaro.

EDIT: In speech - to me - the use of the unelided "you will" seems a little forced and requires an emphasis on the verb; I might be being oversensitive.

[Shabakuk Zeborius Anfang]

I'm no Judith or Rayne, but that's my farthing.

You are an Athviaro, and that ain't bad either. Your solution sounds good to me.

[Athviaro Shyu-eck-Silfayr]

You're far too kind, Mr. Anfang.

I have neglected to say how much I've enjoyed this story. It's been a great read so far, and I hope you manage to make some progress with Chapter 10. If in doubt, you could always drop a cow on somebody.

Seriously, keep up the good work.

Athviaro.

   About this Board
   Dev Introduction
   Developer's 1x1
   Technical Forum Stuff
   Advanced Forum Help
   Testing Thread
   Where's the game?

Advanced search

[Members]

Members Total Members: 1019 Latest: lolanixon Stats Total Posts: 144591 Total Topics: 11052 Online Today: 88 Online Ever: 700 (23 January 2020, 20:05:39) Users Online Users: 0 Guests: 48 Total: 48

[Artimidor]

	Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2005, Simple Machines TinyPortal v0.9.8 © Bloc
Theme based on Cerberus with Risen adjustments by Bloc and Krelia Modified By Artimidor for The Santharian Dream