Fiction teaser of a sort.
Sep. 23rd, 2002 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynAbout a week and a half ago I had the feeling of a piece of VicMage.Asia gamefic floating around in the back of my head, but it refused to come out and play because I couldn't start it off properly. I got to grumbling, whined to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cadhla about it, and eventually went off to do something else. Shortly thereafter I sat down and started banging this piece out, figuring that going at the story from another point of view than I'd initially thought might do me good. And it did, sorta - this character, Lieutenant Deng, was kind enough to give me his impression of the time between the breaking of the Ainu clan called Sun Bear and the Category 4/5 typhoon that blew up shortly after.
Unfortunately, I got interrupted before Deng could get very far with his thoughts, and now I seem to have lost the thread of the feeling. Dammit.
there is something in the feel of the air today that does not sit well with me. as if there were some kind of film of shadow lying over everything and everyone on the ship. . .
wish I could say what it was. this isn't what victory feels like.
don't think anyone else feels it, either, for what little that might be worth. they're all celebrating. I haven't heard this many fireworks set off since new year. mind, that might not be celebration, that might just be sense - sun bear was damn powerful, Heaven only knows what spirits they've got rattling around their raft, and with the spirit men dead - well. only the stupid take chances with something like that. fireworks it is.
sun bear is dead. that's all there is to it. broken, defeated, dead, whatever you want to call it. the sky steeds dropped enough dragonblood (all right, all right, alchemical fire jelly, but the sailors call it dragonblood) on the raft to burn down a forest. I swear, it was the most unnerving thing I've ever seen. they used Owls. it was just about dawn. . . the dragonblood catches fire a little bit after they tip it out the belly of the 'steed, and Owls are just about the quietest thing in the air, since they haven't got engines - something else has to drag them into the sky well out of sight, that's usually a Petrel's job. . . anyway, it was dead silent and still dark, and I was on deck. I knew it was coming and it still poured ice down my spine to see the flames starting up in the sky without the slightest sound, falling and falling and raining everywhere. . .
fire jelly isn't really for causing damage, though it's damn good at that. if we wanted to do real damage we'd be dropping anvils or something. no, fire jelly's there to give the spirit men heart attacks. see, as soon as the dragonblood's visible in the sky, that's our signal to bring the guns to bear - as many of them as we can - and start firing. even sun bear only has so many spirit men. there's only so much they can hold off at once. ainu spirits are fickle as p'an-lin chien, so I’m told, and if the spirit man doesn't keep his attention on them absolutely they go off and leave him. . . so if he's trying to call his thundergod to attack the fleet, and he's got the main repeater cannons targeting his raft, and he's got dragonblood raining on him out of the sky. . . well, something's going to give and it's generally not the fire jelly.
they really were tough bastards, I have to admit.
don't know when they realized they didn't have a chance. sometime around midmorning, probably. there's a shift in the battle-feel when the other side realizes there's no hope left for them. either the heart goes out of them and they start dying like rats before a lump sickness outbreak, or they get their backs up and fight with everything they've got, because they know there's nothing left to lose. you don't see that so much with most clans. pirates, yes. the pirates are all bushi, and bushi don't give up. you have to chop off their heads and bash in their teeth before you can be sure their corpses aren't going to bite you. but ever since we got enough of an edge to start taking the battle to the clans instead of just hunting pirates where we found them, we've been seeing people give up. . . not used to that. ainu aren't supposed to give up. they're supposed to come at you screaming like a wave of angry locusts, not just - stop. I think everybody in the fleet was relieved when Lord Admiral Zheng said to take that as a surrender, even if the clan never actively sent up a surrender flag. it goes down all wrong, firing on people who look like they've seen the face of yama. ainu clansmen fight well, they really do, but sooner or later most of the ones left standing wind up looking like that.
most of 'em. this was sun bear. fleet intelligence told us that sun bear's been dominated by bushi for as long as anyone can remember, generations before Lord Admiral Zheng got taken by them as a boy. I don't think anyone really appreciated just how much difference that made. one of the oldest ainu clans in the world, with more bushi than any other, including the ones who came in from the outlying clans' rafts over the last two years. . . picture a city the size of kaifeng, and fill it up with people whose answer to 'you're going to die' is 'then I'll drag you all screaming down to hell with me', then sprinkle in a couple handfuls of ordinary people for good measure. that's what sun bear gave us. somewhere around midmorning the bushi realized they weren't going to get anywhere, and the spirit men changed tactics. . . no more shielding, no more protecting, oh no. thundergod time. can't tell you how many ships have more storm damage than cannonfire. they knew they'd be caught in the same damn storm as we were. they just didn't care. they were going to die anyway, right? might as well send us to the bottom too.
that pretty well took the 'steeds out of the picture. Owl or no, a storm like that's going to break a 'steed's wings right off. they flew out of range and circled while the rest of us kept fighting...
Bah. I gotta get back into the feel of this and finish the damn thing.
cadhla about it, and eventually went off to do something else. Shortly thereafter I sat down and started banging this piece out, figuring that going at the story from another point of view than I'd initially thought might do me good. And it did, sorta - this character, Lieutenant Deng, was kind enough to give me his impression of the time between the breaking of the Ainu clan called Sun Bear and the Category 4/5 typhoon that blew up shortly after.Unfortunately, I got interrupted before Deng could get very far with his thoughts, and now I seem to have lost the thread of the feeling. Dammit.
there is something in the feel of the air today that does not sit well with me. as if there were some kind of film of shadow lying over everything and everyone on the ship. . .
wish I could say what it was. this isn't what victory feels like.
don't think anyone else feels it, either, for what little that might be worth. they're all celebrating. I haven't heard this many fireworks set off since new year. mind, that might not be celebration, that might just be sense - sun bear was damn powerful, Heaven only knows what spirits they've got rattling around their raft, and with the spirit men dead - well. only the stupid take chances with something like that. fireworks it is.
sun bear is dead. that's all there is to it. broken, defeated, dead, whatever you want to call it. the sky steeds dropped enough dragonblood (all right, all right, alchemical fire jelly, but the sailors call it dragonblood) on the raft to burn down a forest. I swear, it was the most unnerving thing I've ever seen. they used Owls. it was just about dawn. . . the dragonblood catches fire a little bit after they tip it out the belly of the 'steed, and Owls are just about the quietest thing in the air, since they haven't got engines - something else has to drag them into the sky well out of sight, that's usually a Petrel's job. . . anyway, it was dead silent and still dark, and I was on deck. I knew it was coming and it still poured ice down my spine to see the flames starting up in the sky without the slightest sound, falling and falling and raining everywhere. . .
fire jelly isn't really for causing damage, though it's damn good at that. if we wanted to do real damage we'd be dropping anvils or something. no, fire jelly's there to give the spirit men heart attacks. see, as soon as the dragonblood's visible in the sky, that's our signal to bring the guns to bear - as many of them as we can - and start firing. even sun bear only has so many spirit men. there's only so much they can hold off at once. ainu spirits are fickle as p'an-lin chien, so I’m told, and if the spirit man doesn't keep his attention on them absolutely they go off and leave him. . . so if he's trying to call his thundergod to attack the fleet, and he's got the main repeater cannons targeting his raft, and he's got dragonblood raining on him out of the sky. . . well, something's going to give and it's generally not the fire jelly.
they really were tough bastards, I have to admit.
don't know when they realized they didn't have a chance. sometime around midmorning, probably. there's a shift in the battle-feel when the other side realizes there's no hope left for them. either the heart goes out of them and they start dying like rats before a lump sickness outbreak, or they get their backs up and fight with everything they've got, because they know there's nothing left to lose. you don't see that so much with most clans. pirates, yes. the pirates are all bushi, and bushi don't give up. you have to chop off their heads and bash in their teeth before you can be sure their corpses aren't going to bite you. but ever since we got enough of an edge to start taking the battle to the clans instead of just hunting pirates where we found them, we've been seeing people give up. . . not used to that. ainu aren't supposed to give up. they're supposed to come at you screaming like a wave of angry locusts, not just - stop. I think everybody in the fleet was relieved when Lord Admiral Zheng said to take that as a surrender, even if the clan never actively sent up a surrender flag. it goes down all wrong, firing on people who look like they've seen the face of yama. ainu clansmen fight well, they really do, but sooner or later most of the ones left standing wind up looking like that.
most of 'em. this was sun bear. fleet intelligence told us that sun bear's been dominated by bushi for as long as anyone can remember, generations before Lord Admiral Zheng got taken by them as a boy. I don't think anyone really appreciated just how much difference that made. one of the oldest ainu clans in the world, with more bushi than any other, including the ones who came in from the outlying clans' rafts over the last two years. . . picture a city the size of kaifeng, and fill it up with people whose answer to 'you're going to die' is 'then I'll drag you all screaming down to hell with me', then sprinkle in a couple handfuls of ordinary people for good measure. that's what sun bear gave us. somewhere around midmorning the bushi realized they weren't going to get anywhere, and the spirit men changed tactics. . . no more shielding, no more protecting, oh no. thundergod time. can't tell you how many ships have more storm damage than cannonfire. they knew they'd be caught in the same damn storm as we were. they just didn't care. they were going to die anyway, right? might as well send us to the bottom too.
that pretty well took the 'steeds out of the picture. Owl or no, a storm like that's going to break a 'steed's wings right off. they flew out of range and circled while the rest of us kept fighting...
Bah. I gotta get back into the feel of this and finish the damn thing.
