anke

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Well, back to the worldbuilding notes. :D

Eodea has goblins among its humanoid species.

They have pointed ears, big noses, and projecting jaws with marked canines. Their hands have two thumbs, one on each side of the palm, and three non-thumb-fingers.

Their sexual dimorphism works out to male goblins being around 3-4 feet tall, and female goblins 5-6 feet. Women are also more long-lived, and rarer - I haven't settled on a number yet, but something in the ballpark of 5-10 males for each female in a population.

So they have a reason for a tendency to protect girls and woman. Also for polyandry. The longer lifespan is a factor for women being most of their leaders, lorekeepers, judges, scholars, etc.

Goblins in general, and male goblins in particular, tend to be very group-oriented. I'm sure there are humans who have interpreted an unwillingness to make important decisions alone as sign stupidity or cowardice.

There is an insular nation of goblins in the mountains of Raaji.

In Konda there are smaller goblin communities integrated into a society dominated by humans. Particularly in the capital they are known as expert craftsmen, usually by the name of their legacy-lines - small teams who work together and trace their training back through generations.

Yrn was a settlement founded by goblins; they still make up about a third of the population, the rest again being mostly humans.

In northern Akadan there's a culture whose makeup by species includes goblins along with orcs (majority), elves, and humans.

What is your personal mental image of goblins?

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Setting: Yrn, Eodea
Genre: Fantasy
Summary: Gumei explores her talent for magic.
Warnings: none
Note: "dancing" was a prompt from Deirdre
Words: 100

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Dehrai crossed through the mountain, leaving light in his wake.

At the lowest point of his circuit, under sea level, Dehrai’s fingers lingered over runes keeping the tunnels unflooded. Those did not need weekly renewal, and no-one would teach him their workings.

On his climb back he fed more light-spells in the communal workshops and dwellings too deep under the city even for lightwells, letting thanks warm him.

As a mote grew to a glow too bright to look into, he smiled. Air and light had called him, not stone and metal. He would follow that call again

"under-" was another prompt by Aldersprig. :)

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Everybody needed salt, and the further away from the salt pans by the sea you got, the more precious it was. So Karva put together a caravan. One year’s time, and carts, animals, people, cargo. But it would pay off.

It was a long way to the mountain-locked nation of Raaji, and the people had to help push the carts up the pass roads, but it would be worth it.

But no-one wanted to trade anything like Karva had expected. Finally she snapped and asked.

“You want far more than the Goblins.”

“Goblins?”

“They bring salt from underground.”

I'm attempting the April A to Z challenge, with fiction with at most 100 words. "E is for Effort" came from Rix Scaedu.
If you have prompts for later in the alphabet, please give them to me.

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Kondarans! Arrogant, lazy... Mirab was an example of the type, being put out at the thought of having to learn a new language - it had never crossed her mind anyone would not speak her own. Teaching it had fallen on Daaren, and he was not about to complain about it, given that he had been another one of the strays the local keep was in a habit of taking in. The girl’s attitude grated on his nerves, anyway.

Mirab’s companion, Firo, seemed an exception from the rule, modest and diligent, and trying to mediate between the girl wrapped up in herself and the real world. It was he who suggested they could translate a story, for them to offer as entertainment and as thanks for the hospitality. The idea even roused Mirab’s interest.

“Oh, yes! A tale about Sir Garob!”

The name seemed vaguely familiar to Daaren. “What is he known for?”

“He was a knight who travelled to barbarian places to teach people to defend themselves. To teach them courage and honour. Only he and his page. How brave he was.”

“Ah. I heard stories that came from Harred.”

“That sounds like the place where he fought a bloodthirsty griffin.” Mirab was blind with hero-worship for someone she never had met. Firo was more perceptive, judging from the nervous looks he gave me.

Daaren nodded. “In Harred I heard tell of him. A Kondaran noble too stupid to care for his own horse or gear, so he had to have a boy following him and do the work.”

“Stupid?!”

“Or maybe lazy. Certainly, though, arrogant and stupid with that. He was set to killing a griffin that at the time hunted near the town. People tried to tell him it was a bad idea; there was a cyrnag with the griffin; they left the herds alone and occasionally traded with the people in Harred.”

The girl yelled something in Kondaran too slurred and rapid for Daaren to catch more than something about lies. He talked right over Firo trying to calm her down.

“I’m not making this up. I am telling the story as it was told to me. Do you want to hear the rest, or not?”

“Not.” She pouted, sulking like a girl half her age.

Firo tried to smooth things over. “Maybe we should try with the story of Saya and the good fairy. It is less long also.”

Mirab gave him a sour look. “You do it, I don’t care.”

“I’ve never heard of a good fairy.” The very idea raised Daaren’s hackles. But he did appreciate the boy’s efforts. “So tell me of those fairies you have down south.”

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

When she did not keep herself occupied, nightfall in Muirha nearly tore Sylvie apart. The settlement being snugged into a valley between high mountains meant the dull, purple shadows blanketed it early, while the sky was still a bright blue, and the light on the mountaintops started changing colour from the almost-white of day to golden yellow.

The principle was soothingly familiar; the same happened in the narrow streets of the city she had been born in, with the sun still lighting the tops of the higher buildings. But none of the towers of Yrn, even built on the island-mountain as they were, could match the splendour of those wild peaks.

In the east, the light gleaming from old snow slowly turned from yellow to orange, looking even more brilliant against the darkening sky. To the west, dark teeth had swallowed the sun already, and blocked the sunset proper.

Sylvie missed the wide horizon over the ocean, a view only a few sets of stairs or ladders away back home, the complete rainbow of colours each sunrise.

Twilight had never felt like a purple shroud at home.

My grandfather told me this happened when he was little.

Alarm spread through the village, in short warnings the grown-ups didn’t bother to explain to their children. The children were gathered in the homes together with the old, while the able-bodied armed themselves and went out in groups to warn anyone scattered.

Cooped up indoor in broad daylight, the children heard the stories about this particular threat for the first time. A pale spirit of sorts, as calm and shining as a cloud-free and wind-still midwinter night. And as deadly.

They were interrupted by calls of a returning search party. They brought one of the older girls home, dead and cold. Not a mark on her.

Everyone waited out the day and night, fearful or mournful.

By mid-morning the next day, some parents decided the children should see, and took them to the place where the hoofprints had been spotted.

Most fae were capricious, but my grandfather never forgot, the unicorn was most dangerous of all.

Originally posted at  ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Sylvie had to decide what to do with an entire afternoon without any classes or duties.

She could continue melding splinters back into the door frame, for practise.

Or she could try to get a handle on light. Since that instruction started, she must have spent days in a room that had been darkened apart from a narrow beam of sunlight, trying to sense it like she could feel the inner structure of plants. The light had wandered slowly, slipping through her fingers. A tickle of finest cobweb on the back of her hands had seemed like a start, but that had been the slight warmth of the air, not light directly.

Of those who started with those practises around the same time, she seemed to be the only one who made no progress. Cassar was able to create a glow, and Guméi was already building small things from lines of light.

At least Guméi isn’t making fun of me.

Tired of failing the same thing over and over, she decided to try something else.

Guméi was distracted by some of her own work, and let Sylvie borrow her silver brooch without asking what she wanted it for. Maybe she assumed her friend wanted to go out.

Instead Sylvie retreated to her room, a nook tiny enough she didn’t have to share, and settled down for her experiment.

The brooch – a stylized gull – was already warming in her hands. She let the impression of it, the weight, the shape, the glint of light fill her mind, crowding out apprehension. When she reached out her feelers, her magic sense, the metal felt startlingly cold again. Good. Not a pleasant feeling, but a promising sign. It decided her to push through the discomfort, for as much detail as she could absorb.

Eventually the sound of voices pulled her back to herself. More or less. She was shivering all over. The memory of being in an ice cold place that was the same in all directions faded like a dream, but left her disoriented. While her mind cleared, coming up with the thought that part of the problem was that she was lying down rather than sitting up, she registered he anger in the voice she heard.

One of the elder students was berating Guméi. My fault. This is wrong!

Sylvie tried to sit up. It got the tutor’s attention. She hunkered down to steady Sylvie, who leaned her back against the wall and curled up best as she could. She’d never felt so cold.

“Here, what were you up to?” The tutor was as angry as worried.

When she tried to answer, Sylvie’s teeth chattered too much to talk. She looked around for the brooch, but couldn’t see it. The tutor held it up.

“I’ve got this. You understand me, yes?”

Sylvie nodded.

“Well, questions have time until you’re back to normal.” She turned to Guméi. “Here, give a hand.”

They helped Sylvie to her bed to rest. Shaken and chilled she felt like she could hardly think. It would be horrible if her closest friend would be blamed for her mistake. She wanted to explain and apologise.

With the other two silent, she noticed the tittering and whispering outside her room. And more mockery on top of it.

When left alone, Sylvie tried to concentrate on her breath, to help her relax into sleep, but fears of what would be waiting for her when she woke up circled in her head like rats in a barrel.

Originally posted at  ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

The stairs went far down, leaving the sounds of the city behind high above. Ardí carried an oil lamp and led his appointed novice to a small room on a landing, where he set the oil lamp on a small table. He pulled back a curtain and led her onwards. The next chamber was a short corridor, with another heavy curtain at the end of its left side. Its mirror followed, so dark now Sylvie could make out her tutor only as an irregular blotch. He gently pushed her into the final chamber, and lifted her hand to place something in it. A nut. She could feel its edges and uneven surface.

“See if you get anything from this. Don’t worry if you don’t, right the first time. Take as much time as you want. You can come out whenever you want, and try again another day.”

She nodded, too distracted to consider if he could make out the gesture. Once she’d sat down crosslegged on a smooth blanket, Ardí left, closing the curtains on the way to the outer chamber.

Sylvie stared at the nut as she turned it in her hands, willing to see something that wasn’t the random green and purple lights her eyes made up in the darkness. She imagined Ardí sitting in the lamplight and reading notes. He had to be very quiet; Sylvie couldn’t hear a thing, even though she thought she should hear the sound of a sheet of paper being turned even through the curtains, in the silence this far underground. After a while she held up the nut to her ear, and closed her eyes, in case sight wasn’t the way to go for her. It didn’t make any difference.

This wouldn’t be half as bad if she’d know what sense it would be. How could she tell she was doing something wrong if she didn’t know if what she was doing was the right thing to begin with? She twitched as she heard something, but caught herself. She had scratched over the shell of the nut without meaning to.

The thought of failing and being washed out of the school made her sick, so she tried to ignore it, and took some more time.

Even breaths. Sense, don’t think. It sounded easier than it was.

After a while there was a faint crackling sound, just at the endge of hearing, and her heart raced as her imagination suggested that the heavy curtains petrified, trapping her all alone in the dark. She got up quickly and touched the fabric, which moved easily under her fingers. Embarrassed – had she been dozing off here, into a nightmare? – she sat down again for another try, but it was just a token effort. Very soon she had a last idea – licking the object of this little experiment – but since that didn’t lead to any interesting impressions, she rubbed the nut dry on her tunic, and gave up for the day.

She told herself that she had been trying for a long time, but she didn’t look Ardí in the face when she came out of the silent chamber.

In between, her tutor talked with Sylvie. It was a bit odd, being asked what she liked, and why she did, or didn’t. At first she gave short answers, too busy wondering what Ardí wanted to hear to just say what came to her mind, but eventually she was drawn out.

“My favourite place is the spirit wood.” Sitting in one of the small gardens had reminded her of it.

“I’ve never been in there. What do you like about it?” Sylvie hesitated, looking for words, and Ardí tried to help her get started. “Can you describe what it looks like?”

She frowned. “It’s big, and green, and tangled.”

“And that’s what you like?” It hadn’t sounded enthusiastic.

Sylvie nodded and shrugged at the same time.

Another voice interrupted them. “Excuse me? I think you may be asking the wrong questions.”

Ardí got up and greeted, “Eda Eralai,” then respectfully waited for her to speak. Sylvie was on her feet, too, having followed his example, and stood a step behind him and to the side. She was a bit awestruck at having one of the senior teachers take an interest in a novice like her, but the older woman smiled, and spoke with a soft, warm voice. It helped, even over the surprise that Eralai addressed her, rather than her tutor.

“I have been at the edge of the Spirit Wood occasionally. The trees must be very old.”

Sylvie nodded. She had wondered about that. “Do you know how old?”

Eralai shook her head. Sylvie was surprised a grown-up, a teacher even, would admit to not kknowing something that easily. “It must be hundreds of years, maybe even thousands.” After a short pause she asked, “Have you actually gone into the wood?”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t afraid?”

“Yes, I mean no. I mean, not of the wood. I was running away. I thought they might not follow me inside. The wood felt safe.”

“What do you mean?”

Ardí asked, “Do you mean you thought you’d be safe because the others would be more afraid of it than you?”

“I did, but it’s not what I meant. It just felt safe. Good.”

“How did that feel?” Eralai ignored Ardí and watched the girl closely.

Sylvie spread her arms, and said the first thing that came to her mind. “It’s like warm water flowing up my skin. Or through me.” She frowned. That didn’t make sense, did it?

“Flowing up from the ground?” The teacher’s voice was soft, neither incredulous nor mocking.

“Yes.”

“And where does it go?”

“All through me.” Remembering the feeling, she smiled and stretched tall as she could, spreading her fingers high above her head. A moment later, she crossed her arms self-consciously and looked at the senior teacher, who still smiled.

“Very good; that should be helpful.” Eralai turned to Sylvie’s tutor. She spoke a little faster to him, more businesslike, but sounded cheerful. “Have you tried with something living yet?”

“We had a nut right on the first day.”

“Well, try again. The first try, pretty much everyone who hasn’t come into sensing already it too nervous to get it right. And if a live seed won’t work, get a small plant in a pot.” She addressed both of them before taking leave, “I’m sure you’ll manage.”

She stared at where she knew it was in the darkness, and saw nothing, strained her ears, and heard nothing. She concentrated on taking even breaths and being patient. The nut remained a lump in her hand, with a spark of warmth near one end.

What? Sylvie waited, but the feeling didn’t go away. With a bright laugh, she got up and bounced off the corridor wall in her rush to tell Ardí.

He raised his head from his notes, and his eyebrows high. It was a look of interested surprise, but it also reminded Sylvie she should act a bit less childish. She bounced on her toes, anyway. “I think I have it. Something, at any rate.” She lifted the nut to her eyelevel, pointed and said, “Here, it’s warm here. Inside the nut. It’s so odd…”

Ardí peered at the little thing for a moment and then smiled, and sighed. “I’m afraid we’ll have a different tutor for you, then.”

“What? Did I do something wrong?”

“Oh, no. Sorry I scared you. It’s just that someone who feels could help you more than I, because I see.”

Sylvie thought that over. Of course she had known about the principle, but never considered how it affected learing and teaching. “So, what does it look like, to you?”

“Like a light, yellow-green spark.”

“And what is it?”

“That’s the part that will sprout. Most of the nut is food for the new plant.”

“I should have known that.”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’ll learn.”

Originally posted at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

For decades Chirrd had lived among humans and goblins for curiosity’s sake, and to share what he had learned with his clan. He had not anticipated that one thing he learned by its very nature could not be shared.

It was not apparent right at the start, because he was lucky enough to first run into some of his close old friends. All of their joy about the meeting bolstered his confidence.

Once they had reached the village, he was the centre of attention. Even the few elves who at first had not been interested in hearing his stories contracted the curiosity of the rest. Chirrd started into the tale he had, in his head, rehearsed so often on his way home.

It collapsed very quickly, as his audience picked up on incongruencies where the tint of his feelings did not mesh with what he said. Their confusion was mirrored and amplified in his own mind, and mingled with his own embarrassment. He had gotten used to not sharing his soul, and having secrets. The concern for his wellbeing from his closest was swept away in a wave of disappointment and disapproval.

“I’m sorry. It’s too much.” When he hurried off, nobody followed him immediately. It meant he had some time to wonder just how something that had been as natural as breathing felt obtrusive now, fearing the answer might be that something was wrong with him.

When two of his friends found him, his shame and fear deepened their concern for him. Chirrd could feel their sympathy, and it calmed him, even before the first word was spoken. Evshi drew him out with questions, Ashas listened patiently.

Describing what it had been like to live among soul-blind people, who were obsessed with appearances because that was all they had, brought back the memory of how terrified and lost he had been at first. How could he have forgotten how it felt to share love? He could not ask that, but burst out, “How can I fear my clan? My family? It makes no sense.”

“I think you just need time. Take things slow. Being plunged in such an excited crowd right on the first day… As you said, it’s too much, all at once,” Ashas’ said.

It rang true. Chirrd’s gatitude brightened their mood.

Originally posted at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.