Open Challenge Week, Challenge 6: Weather
Feb. 20th, 2004 02:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynThis was done at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
olna_jenn's suggestion, using one of the challenges available this week at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
multifandom1000, and I really should have been asleep about an hour ago. However, as I meant to get up and go to bed, I figured out what I had to do in order to finish it.
The skies over the city of Anuar held nothing but black, swollen thunderclouds, which broke with unholy fury as a lone, small figure made its hapless way across the grounds of Tiryat University. Almost it seemed that the clouds took delight in drenching the lone walker. An observer atop the University's sky-watching tower would have noticed the figure stop in its tracks and stare briefly, morosely up at the sky before continuing on its way.
It was not much of a walk, to be sure. Tiryat, though the oldest university in the world (besides those yet standing in Old Runland), had never been the biggest. It had been built over foundations laid by some unknown prior generation, whose own stones had been laid atop stones older yet, and when one sets about building on such ancient roots one must be content with their outline, or else destroy all the work that has already been done. The students often said that it was meant for a store-room to some old palace, or one house of healing among many serving a city of some prior Age. But it was only speculation, and no one listens to students anyway.
Regardless, there was no shelter along the paths that led from one end of Tiryat to the other, and so the hooded figure was thoroughly drenched by the time it reached its destination. The observer on the tower would have seen it lift a tiny fist and bang furiously on the door of the University's clinic. There would have been a sliver of light. Then the observer would have nothing left to do but get out of the rain, because the poor bedraggled figure had gone inside and closed the door behind them.
Sulen Tolfarsson resisted the urge to shake herself off, powerful though it was. Instead she undid the buttons of her raincoat and hung it on the peg nearest the door. Sighing, she settled down on the waiting-bench to wring out her long, black braid. It seemed some unwholesome joke, that she should spend five years voyaging in the Deepsinger only to come home to such a sodden welcome.
The click of heels on tile brought her head up, and she dropped her braid. "Doctor Nuan," she said, her tone one of quiet respect. "Thank you for waiting."
"I almost went home," said the new arrival, a silver-haired woman with the tip-tilted nose and olive skin that marked the people of Kourinye. "This storm's been a long time coming."
"I know." Sulen fought the urge to wring out her braid again; it lay down her back heavy and wet, and not for the first time did she regret having let it grow so. "I apologise. I thought I could beat it."
The other woman only made a small noise in the back of her throat, as if to say, there would be no point in reproach with you looking like something fished out of a river clinging to a barrel.
Sulen held up a parcel wrapped in oilcloth and waxed paper. "The last few were not ready," she said. "The developer would not be rushed- I told him how important this was, but he would go no faster-"
"And well he should not." Dr. Nuan accepted the parcel. "Your images from the bottom of the sea are hard-won, and you must not rush them for anything. Not even for me."
"I did not want to wait another day," confessed Sulen. "Eyes will lie if the looker wants to see badly enough- but the camera could not be deceived. And when the first one came back to me!"
Dr. Nuan nodded. She had already opened the package, and had begun sorting through the numerous squares of thick, shiny paper within. "One would think such a thing would be on the charts of Umbria," she mused.
"Umbria has no business so far north, Doctor." Sulen smiled. "They are great sailors, but when a sounding finds mountains below, they leave. And they mark their maps with a great red circle and say 'here you must not go', and that is the end of it. . . until a craft like the Deepsinger is built, that goes under the sea instead of over, and so does not worry about sea-mounts ripping out its belly."
The picture took a few moments to see clearly. It was no fault of the image, but of the mind of the beholder. Pictures had been made by light and chemical and paper for many a year, but no one had ever thought to seal a picture-taker up against water and go diving – until Sulen. The thought of looking down upon a ring of mountains from above was astonishing enough; the idea that one might do so under the ocean beggared belief. Still, it was not as if Sulen could fly. Either Sulen had built a model and a false landscape and taken its picture- or she had gone into the icy waters of the northern Pelkar Sea and found the last ruins of some hidden city, built in the sheltering shadow of mountains that had stood above the seas in Ages long forgotten.
Dr. Nuan considered the picture, turning it this way and that under the light as Sulen watched her. At last, she sighed and handed the pictures back to Sulen.
"Before he died," she said, "your father gave me a letter, and said: Hara, you know what I have done. For all that I would like to share it with Sulen, I would not have her think her sire a madman. . ."
She reached into some secret pocket of the vest she wore.
"If I am right, and what I saw was no false vision," she recited softly, "then give these words to her. I think she will grow up just the sort of girl to chase the truth to world's end."
She smiled as she took out an envelope yellow with years, and handed it to Sulen.
olna_jenn's suggestion, using one of the challenges available this week at multifandom1000, and I really should have been asleep about an hour ago. However, as I meant to get up and go to bed, I figured out what I had to do in order to finish it.The skies over the city of Anuar held nothing but black, swollen thunderclouds, which broke with unholy fury as a lone, small figure made its hapless way across the grounds of Tiryat University. Almost it seemed that the clouds took delight in drenching the lone walker. An observer atop the University's sky-watching tower would have noticed the figure stop in its tracks and stare briefly, morosely up at the sky before continuing on its way.
It was not much of a walk, to be sure. Tiryat, though the oldest university in the world (besides those yet standing in Old Runland), had never been the biggest. It had been built over foundations laid by some unknown prior generation, whose own stones had been laid atop stones older yet, and when one sets about building on such ancient roots one must be content with their outline, or else destroy all the work that has already been done. The students often said that it was meant for a store-room to some old palace, or one house of healing among many serving a city of some prior Age. But it was only speculation, and no one listens to students anyway.
Regardless, there was no shelter along the paths that led from one end of Tiryat to the other, and so the hooded figure was thoroughly drenched by the time it reached its destination. The observer on the tower would have seen it lift a tiny fist and bang furiously on the door of the University's clinic. There would have been a sliver of light. Then the observer would have nothing left to do but get out of the rain, because the poor bedraggled figure had gone inside and closed the door behind them.
Sulen Tolfarsson resisted the urge to shake herself off, powerful though it was. Instead she undid the buttons of her raincoat and hung it on the peg nearest the door. Sighing, she settled down on the waiting-bench to wring out her long, black braid. It seemed some unwholesome joke, that she should spend five years voyaging in the Deepsinger only to come home to such a sodden welcome.
The click of heels on tile brought her head up, and she dropped her braid. "Doctor Nuan," she said, her tone one of quiet respect. "Thank you for waiting."
"I almost went home," said the new arrival, a silver-haired woman with the tip-tilted nose and olive skin that marked the people of Kourinye. "This storm's been a long time coming."
"I know." Sulen fought the urge to wring out her braid again; it lay down her back heavy and wet, and not for the first time did she regret having let it grow so. "I apologise. I thought I could beat it."
The other woman only made a small noise in the back of her throat, as if to say, there would be no point in reproach with you looking like something fished out of a river clinging to a barrel.
Sulen held up a parcel wrapped in oilcloth and waxed paper. "The last few were not ready," she said. "The developer would not be rushed- I told him how important this was, but he would go no faster-"
"And well he should not." Dr. Nuan accepted the parcel. "Your images from the bottom of the sea are hard-won, and you must not rush them for anything. Not even for me."
"I did not want to wait another day," confessed Sulen. "Eyes will lie if the looker wants to see badly enough- but the camera could not be deceived. And when the first one came back to me!"
Dr. Nuan nodded. She had already opened the package, and had begun sorting through the numerous squares of thick, shiny paper within. "One would think such a thing would be on the charts of Umbria," she mused.
"Umbria has no business so far north, Doctor." Sulen smiled. "They are great sailors, but when a sounding finds mountains below, they leave. And they mark their maps with a great red circle and say 'here you must not go', and that is the end of it. . . until a craft like the Deepsinger is built, that goes under the sea instead of over, and so does not worry about sea-mounts ripping out its belly."
The picture took a few moments to see clearly. It was no fault of the image, but of the mind of the beholder. Pictures had been made by light and chemical and paper for many a year, but no one had ever thought to seal a picture-taker up against water and go diving – until Sulen. The thought of looking down upon a ring of mountains from above was astonishing enough; the idea that one might do so under the ocean beggared belief. Still, it was not as if Sulen could fly. Either Sulen had built a model and a false landscape and taken its picture- or she had gone into the icy waters of the northern Pelkar Sea and found the last ruins of some hidden city, built in the sheltering shadow of mountains that had stood above the seas in Ages long forgotten.
Dr. Nuan considered the picture, turning it this way and that under the light as Sulen watched her. At last, she sighed and handed the pictures back to Sulen.
"Before he died," she said, "your father gave me a letter, and said: Hara, you know what I have done. For all that I would like to share it with Sulen, I would not have her think her sire a madman. . ."
She reached into some secret pocket of the vest she wore.
"If I am right, and what I saw was no false vision," she recited softly, "then give these words to her. I think she will grow up just the sort of girl to chase the truth to world's end."
She smiled as she took out an envelope yellow with years, and handed it to Sulen.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-20 06:50 am (UTC)Ånd I did adore the barrel quip. ^_^ in-joke!
Re:
Date: 2004-02-20 08:04 am (UTC)*rereads, falls over laughing* I didn't even notice that the first time through. *^_^* Lovely.
And yes, another beautiful glimpse of the Nth Age. (I call it that because I'm not sure what number you may have given it and don't want to tread on your toes.)
Re:
Date: 2004-02-20 08:16 am (UTC)I figure the events at Tiryat University are probably taking place at the end of the Sixth Age. As I've said before, I know Tolkien was writing a sort of alternate prehistory for our world, but I can't quite reconcile this with Tolkien's own decision to leave Terran religion out of it. Unless Eru Iluvatar is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and decided to start intervening more directly after however many centuries, I just can't fit the two currents of belief together. I mean the good Professor nothing but the highest respect, but it makes more sense for such an alternate prehistory to develop into an entirely different world-line.
Terribly sorry, Prof. Tolkien. Please don't throw me to the Balrogs.