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The Year Cya Didn’t Keep Anyone

Dec5

This has been bouncing around in my head for a bit; I even have the diagramme of the city and what an individual house looks like

In the aftermath, it was called The Year Cya Didn’t Keep Anyone.

She freed the lost boy named after a destroyed city – a boy her grandson had found for her, the way his father had found her Panlong, and the others after Panlong – dropped her grands off at school, and walked out into the wilderness.

People said she’d walked out into the desert to meditate. People said she’d gone nuts. People said she’d finally gone sane.

Gaheris, who knew where she was, said very little.

What she did was none of those things, or perhaps all of them. She walked – and drove, because she was Cya, and she believed in being prepared – until she found a town on a cleanish river, an abandoned town that had fallen to ruin.

And she destroyed it. Brick by brick, she brought the ruins of the town down until there was nothing left but tidy piles of building materials and the old power plant.

And then, in true Cynara fashion, she laid out her plans, blueprints, drawings, maps, and one sketch on the back of a napkin. And she started building.

One by one the buildings came out of the ground. One by one, they took shape, adobe buildings, brick buildings, square and tall and sturdy. One by one the walls came up, three linked circles, surrounded by a double ring of taller walls. And, in the very center, a Citadel grew.

~

“We’re worried about our grandmother” was not something Luke was really equipped to deal with, but when the grandmother in question was Cynara Red Doomsday, he had to admit there was reason for him to be involved. If Cya had finally gone off the edge…

Assume nothing. He flew out in the direction he was pointed, out past ruined cities, out past the markers she had caved into the stone. “Land now,” one helpfully warned. He kept going.

The city, from the air, looked beautiful. It looked like a model, actually, all white adobe and even whiter marble against the red of the ground, the green of the trees, the blue of the river. And it looked secure – at least from the ground. The gates were thick enough that it must take a Working to open them.

And there, on the wall, Cynara was watching him. She looked dirty, covered from head to toe in dust. She looked sunburnt, her trademark red hair bleached from the sun and coated in the same dirt. and she was smiling.

“She’s building a city,” he informed her grandsons. “She’ll be fine.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/425826.html. You can comment here or there.

#Lexember post Three – Conlanging objects in the Calenyan world – Knife, Sword

Dec5

As if getting into the spirit of Lexember, my local radio station trotted out this wiki excerpt about Mele Kalikimaka and phonological shift.

Today’s words are an experiment in phonological shift adaptation with a bonus geography/history note.

The continent the people who became the Bitrani and the Cālenyena came from held two other nations – the proto-Bitrani on the East Coast, the Cālenyena in the southwest, the [West Coast People] on, obviously the west coast, and the Ice Tribes in the north.

The Ice tribes discovered metal-working first, and traded with the West Coast people and the proto-Bitrani. They called a particular blade, a short one with a barbed edge, yee-shoon.

When the Cālenyena first encountered knives, the west coast people called them allishia. That word can’t exist in three different ways in the Cālenyena language; it became zēzu (zee-zuh)

When they first encountered swords, it was from the proto-Bitrani, who called them tyajoon. Since a starting ty- sound in Cālenyen indicates a useless object, and a sword clearly isn’t, and since they don’t have a j sound, sword ended up tazhō

zēzu (zee-zuh) – knife
tazhō (tah-zhoo) – sword

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/425351.html. You can comment here or there.

#Lexember post Two – Conlanging objects in the Calenyan world – Tent and Goat, Pot and Blankets

Dec4

On par with a goat in terms of importance to the Cālenyena(*) is their tent, at least historically.

petep (first syllable is like the word pet, with the same e sound in the second syllable) – this is a base word for “tent.”

(petepōk, which became pepōk over time, is “stone tent;” house.)

pazit is a goat (paw – zit)

geten is blanket, [and I need to figure out how I make things plural

gōt is a pot, generally a kettle for cooking over open fire, more generically any pot.

There is a Cālenyen saying:

Petep ō pazit, geten ō gōt: Tent and goat, blanket and pot.

It is meant to signify the needs in life (your tent and your goat) and the comforts (soft blankets and cooked food), but in later years also is a description of a separation of a couple – the soldier or worker gets the Petep ō pazit, the mother or home-keeper gets the geten ō gōt.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/424713.html. You can comment here or there.

#Lexember post One – Conlanging objects in the Calenyan world

Dec3

A tweet from the #Lexember founder tells me this began about everyday objects.

For the Cālenyen(*), their most everyday objects would center around their goats, which is part of what people were requesting anyway. So win.

First:
gōzh (rhymes with loge: a saddle, any saddle.

gōzakāb Orig. “big saddle;” a campaigning saddle, similar to a Western trail saddle.

gōzyup Org. “little saddle;” a bareback pad for very fast riding.

(*) I’ve changed this several times. This is the current spelling.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/424521.html. You can comment here or there.

Norm and Mode, a continuation for the Giraffe Call

Nov29

This is for [personal profile] rix_scaedu‘s commissioned continuation of The Norm, from the October Giraffe Call.
The secretary was really quite cute. More importantly, and possible more unfortunately, she was bright. She caught the pun, there.

“And are you?”

“I can be. Certainly more people have called me that.”

“Well, there are worse things to be.” She looked me over. Again. I wondered what she was seeing, what she was looking for. How bad it would end up being for me – and thus for her. “You know, for all the five-ten, eyes of brown, you don’t look middle-of-the-road.”

She wanted to play. Oh, dear. “Well, the Median isn’t always the same as the Mean.”

“And neither are the same as the Norm, are they… Norm? After all, the Norm and the average aren’t the same thing. So, are you normal, then? Norm?”

“I’m certainly accepted as such by the majority of people I encounter.”

“And that’s what ends up mattering, isn’t it, for Norms?” She smirked at me. “And tell me… do you have a very wide range?”

Quite wide. All over the country, although only in average-length trips or things so far under the radar that nobody noticed. Not being noticed was a large part of the job (the other job), which was why this pretty secretary with the stunning blue eyes was disturbing me.

Not the only reason. She looked like I’d seen her before. Common chin, or something, maybe the haircut, which was all the rage on girls about her age recently. Was I being stalked?

My other job leads to paranoia, but that was a bit insane, even for me. “I have a pleasantly large repertoire, ma’am.”

“I’m sure it’s not just your repertoire that’s pleasantly large.”

Oh, she was flirting with me. Well, that had happened before, even with my average looks. I winked at her. And then she continued.

“A man like you must have hobbies too, no? Perhaps a pleasantly large… garage? Power tools?”

As a matter of fact, I did, but I’m not sure my hobbies were what she had in mind. “Ma’am, miss, you are certainly not your average…”

“Bear? No. I’m smarter, too. Nor am I your average secretary. I’m off by at least a couple standard deviations.”

“You sound proud of that.”

“You sound proud of being the average. Are you? It can’t be easy to maintain something that specific.”

“Is maintaining the deviation any easier?” I was no longer certain what dance we were doing, and my appointment was ticking closer. I didn’t know what game this woman was up to, but it was making me very uncomfortable all of a sudden.

“Of course it’s not. Any attempt to skew the statistics of a population will be tricky. Or, sometimes, I suppose, bloody.” She licked her lips at me. She said bloody and she licked her lips at me.

“Miss, I think you’re off by more than a couple standard deviations.”

She laughed at me. “Of course I am. And you?”

“I already told you. Normal. Mean, average.”

“Exactly average? That can’t be all that common.”

“Not on a scatter chart, sure, but someone has to hit it. Why not someone named after it?”

“Norm, why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”

“Why don’t you tell me what your name is?”

“Why, are you thinking it’s Deviation?”

“I have to admit that the thought occurred to me.”

She leaned forward over her reception desk, showing me a nearly-perfect pair of B-cup breasts. “Mode. My mother named me Mode.”

“Mode?” I admit, I was more than a little startled. My eyes went to the little nameplate. Yes, yes indeed, her name was Mode Aver. “That had to be an interesting name, growing up.”

“No more awkward than Norm, I’d imagine.” There was an edge in her voice. Had she made me? “Now. “ This was not one of those good situations. As a matter of fact, it probably managed to be the exact opposite. I kept smiling at her.

“Now?”

“Now, you said you were here to see Mr. Williams, who is, I’d say, boring and average but not, perhaps the norm.”

Certainly not in his income bracket, he wasn’t. “Yes, ma’am – Mode – miss? I did.”

“Miss Mode, yes. And the nature of your business with Mr. Williams?”

“I’m here to talk about a contract.”

I never lied if I could avoid it. It just made things messy in the long run, and you had to remember all those lies. Easier to be what you said you were; easier to do things in such a way that you didn’t have to lie.

And I had a contract to explain to Mr. Williams.

“He doesn’t have you on his appointment book.” Something about her smile told me I was either going to have an appointment down here, or make it up to my appointment with Mr. Williams just fine.

“He doesn’t know I’m coming. It’s a surprise visit.”

“He’s not generally at home to cold calls.”

She knew, didn’t she? And she was so friendly, and so obvious, and so… extra-ordinary.

“Well, I’m sure he’ll be at home to this one. Please, Miss Mode?”

“Mmm.” She pursed her lips. “On one – no, two – conditions, Mr. Norm.”

“And what would those be?”

“First. When you are done with Mister Williams, I want a date. I want you to take me to someplace extraordinary.” She said it like two words, five syllables. Extra-ordinary. Like she was tasting every sound of the word. “On an average income, you ought to be able to afford that.”

“You want me to take you on a date.”

“Tonight. You can pick me up…” She curled her lips in a smile. “I’m tempted to say here, at the front door. But why don’t we say my house?” She scribbled down an address. “That’s my first condition, Mr. Normal.”

“And your second?” I pocketed the number. This isn’t the sort of job where you pick up girls while working. Well, most days it’s not.

“My second condition? Whatever you’re here to ‘talk to’ Mr. Williams about? Take your time, Mr. Normal. Take a good, long time about it.” She flapped her hand like she was talking about nothing all that serious. “Take a siesta in the middle, even. He’s got a four o’clock meeting and I Do. Not. Want. To take notes for it.”

“So. You want me to get you out of a meeting and take you on a date.” Now I was smiling. “Where do those fall on the Cosmo quiz?”

“Numbers one and three. We’ll worry about two, four, and five later.”

Later sounded both promising and ominous. I didn’t know what to make of this woman, with her so-common chin and her so-uncommon everything else. “You have a deal, Miss Mode.”

She smirked, and pushed a button on her phone. “Mistah Williams, there’s a Mister Norbert to see you. I’m sending him up.”

She took her finger off the intercom. “You have a good time with that, Mr…” She looked down at my business card. “Mr. Eames.”

“And I’ll see you at eight, Miss… Aver.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/423752.html. You can comment here or there.

Da Winner!

Nov28

50434 / 50000 words. 101% done!

I hit 50,000 today, as well as hitting “over 25,000 on both halves,” my personal goal for nano.

Now… I get to write some more. 🙂

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/423629.html. You can comment here or there.

Nano – the home stretch

Nov26

As of this morning, my nano total wordcount:

48313 / 50000 words. 97% done!

The Addergoole, Year 9, Second Quarter portion:

25283 / 25000 words. 101% done!

And the last line of that – “Thus, it is my sad but requisite duty to apologize to you for the danger this school has, through our failure, placed you in.”

For a moment, the spell she had on the audience broke.

And the Rin & Girey half:

23000 / 25000 words. 92% done!

And last night’s last lines:
“If I had captured you? Do you think about that? If you’d been over my saddle, if I’d dragged you south to the islands with me? If you’d been my war-bride?”

“Yes.” She laid her answer out as starkly as she could: honest, and with her fear un-hidden. “Yes. And I don’t like it.”

“But you expect me to like being your prisoner?”

“No, not at all.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/423073.html. You can comment here or there.

For Trix

Nov22

Cya liked her job.

That wasn’t surprising, really; with the help of her Mentor she’d faked the credentials she couldn’t push through properly, gotten an internship with a company that did something close enough for a resume, and now, three years after Addergoole, she had papers and a DBA saying she was an official security consultant.

What that meant in practice was that people paid her to find the holes in their security, digital and physical, and to tell them how to fill them.

Most days, she could let her power and the things her father had taught her take care of the heavy lifting. Today, however, she was waiting outside a college, looking for a blonde head of hair and a set of antlers she wouldn’t be able to see.

“Hi.” She loved the acid look she got from the girl walking next to her crew-mate. Barking up the wrong tree, darling, and I’ve been barking there longer than most. “I need to borrow you.”

“Great!” She wondered how long the over-done girl had been hounding Leo, from the way he jumped. “What do you need?”

“We’re going to break into a bank.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/422543.html. You can comment here or there.