(no subject)
May. 3rd, 2019 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
styxtoshadows"Rakash!" The elder orc swore as the rats scattered in front of him. The storeroom was overrun. Styx peered from behind his father's legs. "We'd been saving that...look at it. All gone!" He looked back down at his son staring up at him. "Don't worry, we'll just have to get more from the Kwarsan traders."
Later that evening Styx had gotten into trouble for calling his little cousin a Rakash when she stole his leg of lamb. "I was calling her a rat, like the ones in the storeroom" he pleaded.
His uncle shook his head. "That doesn't mean rat. It means something several steps below the most useless garbage imaginable. Your sister is not rakash."
His father frowned. "Fine, you were teasing her, but you do not use that word for anyone in the clan. There are no rakash in this family and to call each other that would make us look weak in front of the other clans. Don't we have more love for each other than that?" Styx had agreed he did and his father soon started telling him stories about the orcs battling the cannibal rock giants long ago.
***
Styx knew the Kwarsan came by every now and then in wagons. His mother said they were a greedy people and without honor but his father blessed them for bringing the family stronger iron than the orcs could produce in their mountain forge. Not as good as dwarf made, but at least humans would actually sell their wares. Styx had never seen a Kwarsan, though, only their goods. He'd never seen anyone who wasn't an orc and the sight made him uneasy, to see such a strange form walking and talking.
The Kwarsan was brown and showed his teeth a lot. His expression was difficult for the orc to read and his forehead was smooth as an egg. Styx wondered if it would break with only a gentle tap, falling off that spindly neck. Grown orcs do not hide behind their fathers, Styx told himself. Besides, the man came only to his father's chest. Styx puffed out his own chest defiantly. We are warriors and he is only a Kwarsan. The man had tried to hand him a piece of honeycomb.
"Free sample for the boy?"
Offering something to a child before an adult, a deliberate insult. Styx held back and watched his father's face grow dark, but his father said nothing.
***
His mother puffed out her cheeks and groaned when she heard how much the knives and pots had cost. "They are skinning us alive. Even for Kwarsan they charge too much. Here, Styx, I had your father buy this for you." He grinned as she put the tiny bronze mirror in his hands. Just like the ones the bone men used to talk to spirits. "One day you will call up visions with it."
_______________________________________________________
Visions...right. Styx the orc, now thirty years old had gotten no farther in the study of the World Tree than he was when he started. How long had he been sitting there in a daze?
"I have to...I have..."the saga of the falling leaves, open up and see what's coming, turn my self to face me but-, I remember the winter- who is the new voice the disharmonious one? Oh, child, you will learn. Styx got lost in a babble of senseless voices every time he tried to turn his mind to his calculations.
Shut up! It didn't do any good. It never made more than a moment of silence. He'd have to stop using the Amber. It shouldn't be too difficult, not for an orc of his tribe. He would simply turn away from it. Or so he'd thought the last five or six times, just before he was back to distill and taste more. What started as a buzz in his veins, a golden thrumming had become normal and everything else was torture.
Maybe Amber was the key to releasing himself from the Amber. It produced so many magical effects maybe he could use it to free himself. Styx worked all day, preparing himself and writing formulas in the mud, constantly cursing elves in the foulest language he'd picked up from the Kwarsan traders. When he did that the voices withdrew, leaving only the faintest sense of disdain.
Styx's clothing was wrong. At first he thought maybe he was growing thin from only hunting when he could tear himself away from the tree but soon he couldn't deny it anymore. His clothing was a tent, his hands and feet were too large and clumsy, but it wasn't that they were big, only that they had shrunken a little less than the rest of his wasted body. When he finally dragged himself to get some water, there was a strange face, no longer orcishly flat, with oversized elf-like ears. As if the Amber had tried to turn him into and elf but never made it past those ears.
He collapsed on the muddy bank. I'm shrinking. Maybe the world could do me a fucking favor and let me disappear altogether. But he never did.
Hunting took too long. It was easier to steal from travelers. Raiding them was kind of like war, if you were deep enough in denial to tell yourself that. Besides, that string of sausages was asking to be taken. He stopped to rest behind a tree, panting. A twig cracked behind him and he turned his head. A pale Kwarsan child stood there in the clearing. It had blond hair around its head like a halo and wore a long shirt. It just stood there, dumb, eyes wide and finger in its mouth. Most annoying, he wasn't that much taller than it.
"Are you a gobelin?"
"A what?" Styx grunted. Even his voice sounded changed.
"Mother says they're evil, angry little spirits that sour milk and take bad children away. So, are you a gobelin?"
No I'm not he started to say, but instead "yes" came out.
"Are you going to take me away?"
How stupid could these Kwarsan offspring be!? "I don't want any bad children" he croaked. "Go away." He lunged at the child when it didn't move and that seemed to work. "Goblin" he muttered, sitting down. Well he wasn't an orc, not any more. He'd broken his promise to return.
Later that evening Styx had gotten into trouble for calling his little cousin a Rakash when she stole his leg of lamb. "I was calling her a rat, like the ones in the storeroom" he pleaded.
His uncle shook his head. "That doesn't mean rat. It means something several steps below the most useless garbage imaginable. Your sister is not rakash."
His father frowned. "Fine, you were teasing her, but you do not use that word for anyone in the clan. There are no rakash in this family and to call each other that would make us look weak in front of the other clans. Don't we have more love for each other than that?" Styx had agreed he did and his father soon started telling him stories about the orcs battling the cannibal rock giants long ago.
***
Styx knew the Kwarsan came by every now and then in wagons. His mother said they were a greedy people and without honor but his father blessed them for bringing the family stronger iron than the orcs could produce in their mountain forge. Not as good as dwarf made, but at least humans would actually sell their wares. Styx had never seen a Kwarsan, though, only their goods. He'd never seen anyone who wasn't an orc and the sight made him uneasy, to see such a strange form walking and talking.
The Kwarsan was brown and showed his teeth a lot. His expression was difficult for the orc to read and his forehead was smooth as an egg. Styx wondered if it would break with only a gentle tap, falling off that spindly neck. Grown orcs do not hide behind their fathers, Styx told himself. Besides, the man came only to his father's chest. Styx puffed out his own chest defiantly. We are warriors and he is only a Kwarsan. The man had tried to hand him a piece of honeycomb.
"Free sample for the boy?"
Offering something to a child before an adult, a deliberate insult. Styx held back and watched his father's face grow dark, but his father said nothing.
***
His mother puffed out her cheeks and groaned when she heard how much the knives and pots had cost. "They are skinning us alive. Even for Kwarsan they charge too much. Here, Styx, I had your father buy this for you." He grinned as she put the tiny bronze mirror in his hands. Just like the ones the bone men used to talk to spirits. "One day you will call up visions with it."
_______________________________________________________
Visions...right. Styx the orc, now thirty years old had gotten no farther in the study of the World Tree than he was when he started. How long had he been sitting there in a daze?
"I have to...I have..."the saga of the falling leaves, open up and see what's coming, turn my self to face me but-, I remember the winter- who is the new voice the disharmonious one? Oh, child, you will learn. Styx got lost in a babble of senseless voices every time he tried to turn his mind to his calculations.
Shut up! It didn't do any good. It never made more than a moment of silence. He'd have to stop using the Amber. It shouldn't be too difficult, not for an orc of his tribe. He would simply turn away from it. Or so he'd thought the last five or six times, just before he was back to distill and taste more. What started as a buzz in his veins, a golden thrumming had become normal and everything else was torture.
Maybe Amber was the key to releasing himself from the Amber. It produced so many magical effects maybe he could use it to free himself. Styx worked all day, preparing himself and writing formulas in the mud, constantly cursing elves in the foulest language he'd picked up from the Kwarsan traders. When he did that the voices withdrew, leaving only the faintest sense of disdain.
Styx's clothing was wrong. At first he thought maybe he was growing thin from only hunting when he could tear himself away from the tree but soon he couldn't deny it anymore. His clothing was a tent, his hands and feet were too large and clumsy, but it wasn't that they were big, only that they had shrunken a little less than the rest of his wasted body. When he finally dragged himself to get some water, there was a strange face, no longer orcishly flat, with oversized elf-like ears. As if the Amber had tried to turn him into and elf but never made it past those ears.
He collapsed on the muddy bank. I'm shrinking. Maybe the world could do me a fucking favor and let me disappear altogether. But he never did.
Hunting took too long. It was easier to steal from travelers. Raiding them was kind of like war, if you were deep enough in denial to tell yourself that. Besides, that string of sausages was asking to be taken. He stopped to rest behind a tree, panting. A twig cracked behind him and he turned his head. A pale Kwarsan child stood there in the clearing. It had blond hair around its head like a halo and wore a long shirt. It just stood there, dumb, eyes wide and finger in its mouth. Most annoying, he wasn't that much taller than it.
"Are you a gobelin?"
"A what?" Styx grunted. Even his voice sounded changed.
"Mother says they're evil, angry little spirits that sour milk and take bad children away. So, are you a gobelin?"
No I'm not he started to say, but instead "yes" came out.
"Are you going to take me away?"
How stupid could these Kwarsan offspring be!? "I don't want any bad children" he croaked. "Go away." He lunged at the child when it didn't move and that seemed to work. "Goblin" he muttered, sitting down. Well he wasn't an orc, not any more. He'd broken his promise to return.
