Archive | August 5, 2011

Vocabulary Fic: Sedulous

Aug5

I took this vocabulary test, and was, being me, a bit miffed at the words I didn’t know. But I wrote them down, so I have a new word-a-day for the next month!

Today’s word is sedulous:
1: involving or accomplished with careful perseverance
2: diligent in application or pursuit

Origin of SEDULOUS
Latin sedulus, from sedulo sincerely, diligently, from sed-, se without + dolus guile — more at suicide
First Known Use: 1540
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sedulous

 

So, taking off from our earlier story…

One of Cash’s teachers at the Tower had called him “sedulous,” which had annoyed him until he’d found the dictionary section of the library. He wasn’t a quick learner, but he was dogged, stubbornly sticking to a subject until he’d mastered it.

Warfare had not been a subject that had particularly interested him…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/99913.html. You can comment here or there.

Breaking In

Aug5

haikujaguar has begun a writing challenge for her Words of the Day: take the four from Mon-Thurs, and work them into a paragraph/story/poem/etc.

This is mine, for the words lenity, cerement, yataghan and adamant. I meant to make it funny, in contrast to the stories that kept wanting to come out of swords and grave-wrappers. I think the words weighted it on me.

“Hey, Cash, what’s this say?” Anemone jabbed a finger at the metal placard on the broken case.

“Yataghan,” Cassius read, “a Turkish saber found in…”

“Cash! What’s this?”

Of the eight, Cassius was the only one whose parents had paid for his schooling at the Tower, and thus the only one who could read with any skill. This old building they’d found, half-buried under the rubble of another one, the gate buckled open just enough for a skinny teen, had him running all over the place, translating for his friends.

He jogged to the other side of the room, staring at the rotted linen Roma was yanking on. “Holies, Rom, don’t do that. That’s…” He peered at the plaque for the correct word. “That’s a gravecloth,” he temporized, “a cerement.” He braced for Roma’s helpful…

“It ain’t cement.”

“Cerement,” he repeated. “They wrapped it around the body. The dead body.”

“Oh!” Finally getting the point, the bigger boy dropped the length of cloth.

“Ca-a-sh!” That was Ona and Ursa in concert, the way they often were. They had no lenity in them, no forgiveness if they were ignored. He jogged down the buckled and cracked floor towards the twins, Roma following him, wiping his hands on his pants and asking questions.

“What is this place, Cash? Some sort of place like the Tower, a Library? What’s with all the broken glass?”

Cassius skidded to a halt by the girls, Roma stopping abruptly behind him. “No,” he said, ignoring the quaver in his voice and the doom his friends would bring down on him for arguing. “No.” He made his voice hard, adamant, even as he backed away from the artifact. “No, it’s…”

“Cash,” Ona snapped. “Read it for us!”

He didn’t need to. He recognized it from the books, from the ones in the room labeled “Never Again.” He didn’t think, here, in the open like this, it could hurt them. Then again, vandals had broken every other case, stolen anything of use, except this, still sealed in its glass.

“It says ‘death,’” he snapped.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/99541.html. You can comment here or there.

30 Days Second Semester: 10, Coming Soon: Reiassan

Aug5

For the 30 Days Meme Second Semester, for the prompt “11) Write a movie trailer style trailer for a story, existing or not-yet-written.”

Reiassan/Rin & Girey – landing page here (and on LJ).

Pan over a rocky landscape, following a river that wends its way south, past a white-walled cliff city, past farms cut into the mountains. As we begin, the travel up the road, running Northwards, looks like a long, ragged snake.

Voiceover: The two nations on the continent of Reiassan have been at war as long as either of them can remember.

As we grow closer, the snake reveals itself as an army, slowly marching, tired, wounded, but proud. The almost-universally dark-haired and short figures wear bright colours, and we can hear, over the crescendos of the music, the thudding rhythm of a cheerful marching song. Their armor is Romanesque in feel, and their mounts, those that have them (Officers, better-dressed, no less tired, no less wounded) ride tall, husky goats.

Finally, after generations, one nation has emerged victorious.

We see, among the short, brightly-dressed soldiers, others, dressed in bland browns and tans, wearing chains, some male, some female, mostly taller, fairer people. The camera is still moving Northwards, picking out faces on the long train of people.

The war is over.

Cut to generals signing treaties in a tent, one dark-haired, one blonde, both tired-looking.

Pan out from the tent to the mess of the battlefield. Scavengers and medics tend to the wounded and bury the dead. Near the tent, a man in rich-looking robes is forced to his knees on a platform.

The Callanthe had defeated the Bitrani. They have killed their King.

We see the axe begin to fall, and the camera cuts away, again. A dark-haired woman in a bright green tunic looks down at a scruffy blonde soldier in the remains of expensive, if dull-colored, clothing and armor. His hands and ankles are shackled.

Now they must learn to live with them.

The List:
1a) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
1b) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
2) write a scene that takes place in a train station.
3) the story must involve a goblet and a set of three [somethings]
4) prompt: one for the road
5) write a story using an imaginary color
6) write the pitch for a new Final Fantasy styled RPG (LJ Link)
7) prompt: frigid (LJ Link)
8) write a scene in the middle of a novel called “The Long, Dirty Afterwards” (LJ)
9) prompt: mourning dead gods (LJ)
10) write a story set in three different time periods. (LJ)
11) Write a movie trailer style trailer for a story, existing or not-yet-written.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/99133.html. You can comment here or there.

There’s a Pawnshop on the Corner, Where I keep my Overcoat…

Aug5

‘Scuse the digression.

There’s a farmstand on the corner where my lunch-walk passes by…

So yesterday I picked up a zuke, some fresh corn, and a pepper, and for dinner, we had tempura’d tilapia, zucchini, and yam, with fresh sweet corn on the side. Delicious!

This was a bit accidental – I picked up plain seltzer the other day, thinking that Alton Brown’s pancake recipe called for it. (It doesn’t. His waffle recipe is still delicious). After some searching we determined that it was his tempura recipe… so we made tempura. A nice accident.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/98968.html. You can comment here or there.