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Thursday, June 19, 2008

Shannelleran, Day 8

By: Unknown

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The Most Recent Previous Piece.

The pair crossed the village square, heading east. Kilrick felt the girl edge closer to him, pressing her sinuous form against his side as she grasped his arm. Staring ahead, she looked sidelong at the suspicious and lascivious eyes following them, while Kilrick blushed, cursing his armor.

As they passed the general store, which also served as the village tavern and inn, the road narrowed, funneling the oddly-attired couple between close-set huts. Soon, however, fewer eyes stared, the earlier discord having faded before reaching the outskirts of the town. Kilrick relaxed his gait while the girl’s hand fell absentmindedly to hold his gauntleted palm. They walked on in silence until the village had faded to sparse and unprofitable farmland.

“So, you never explained how you stopped my father,” the girl stated, breaking the silence. As Kilrick glanced over, she smiled at him, her teeth flashing into view.

“And you never told me your name,” teased Kilrick, grinning back.

“Nor have you told me yours. My name is Shannelleran.”

“Shannelleran? That’s something of an odd name for this area.”

“You can call me Nell,” she smiled at him. Suddenly, she seemed to realize that she was still holding his hand. She dropped her arm, her ears turning scarlet as she looked away.

Kilrick smiled softly. “You have a beautiful name, Nell,” he complimented. “I am Kilrick Taynerone, of the Halward Taynerones.” He drew himself up, the pride he held in his heritage evident. “My family is-“

“I’ll call you Rick!” she interjected. His shoulders fell as he looked over at Nell, who beamed at the road ahead. Kilrick sighed in resignation, changing the subject.

“Do you have a surname, Nell?” he asked.

“Of course!” she responded.

Kilrick waited for a few moments. “Well, what is it?” he finally asked.

“Not important,” Nell stated flatly. Her jaw was set, her rose lips pressed into thin lines. Kilrick frowned in concern.

“You’re right, it’s not,” he said, before they once more fell into silence. The pair continued past farms where rural hands were just setting to work. Nell set a brisk pace. It was not long before she noticed bleary-eyed young farmhands staring at her as they passed. She sighed.

“Haven’t they ever seen a girl before?” she challenged accusingly, her face contorting in a disgusted grimace.

“Well, you are still in a nightgown,” Kilrick said, his timbre bending in defense of his gender.

Shannelleran stopped in the road. Holding her palms open and out with her elbows bent at her side, she looked down at her white garment, bending over slightly to see her legs past her chest. “My goodness, I’d completely forgotten!” she laughed, brightly. “Well, I guess I’ll have to find clothes somewhere.”

Kilrick nodded, not noticing that Nell had already turned toward a nearby farmhouse. Looking over her shoulder, she sighed in exasperation. “Rick, come on!” she hissed. He stopped, peering at her quizzically. “The whole family is already in the field,” she clarified, pointing. As she continued to the farmhouse, Kilrick stood for a moment, mouth agape, before hurrying after her.

--

~Michael Akerman

Monday, June 16, 2008

Shannelleran, Day 5

By: Unknown

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Yesterday's.

She glared at him icily as he tried to right himself. “Pervert!” she barked, “Stay away from me!” Kilrick lifted himself to a sitting position.

“I didn’t mean…” he started, frowning. “I wasn’t trying to…. It’s just that you were wounded, and I…” he blushed, glancing over at the crumpled form of the large attacker, who lay still on the floor.

The girl stared at him for a moment, watching him as his deep brown eyes considered the cobblestones. His visorless helm betrayed a clutch of light brown hair draping to the nape of his neck, outlining his strong jaw. His face was young, but lightly creased and worn. He was adorned in full plate mail, his mostly constructed from a motley assortment of mismatched pieces. These were made of a dingy, cheap iron, save for his greaves, which gleamed with the indefatigable shine of whitesteel. His longsword was sheathed at the belt, but the visible sheath and hilt were well-wrought in a matching motif: gold filigree traced the outlines of countless small wings along the length of the sheath, meeting the gold guard, which stretched out in paired quillons. The walnut grip tapered toward a decorative wing, crafted of gold, which graced the pommel of the sword.

Slowly, she smiled. “Okay, I believe you.”

“What?” Kilrick looked up, surprised.

“Let’s go!” she exclaimed, standing gracefully and clapping her hands together, pleased. Her voice rang in dulcet tones through the square.

“Go? What do you mean?”

“Elsewhere! Away from here! Let’s leave the general area and travel to a different general area. You and I shall escape, scurry, scramble away! We shall sojourn, we’ll ambulate in a specific direction!”

“No, I’m familiar with the idea of going! But why am I going with you? Who are you? And most of all, why should you trust me to go with you?”

She frowned. “That last question is backwards from what I expected. Well, you’re a knight in partly-shining armor and I’m a damsel in distress, so you’ll be protecting me. As for the last part, the knight is always a good person in the storybooks!”

Kilrick rose to his feet. The girl faced him, her head level with his shoulder. He looked down at her, his eyebrow arched cockily. “First, I’m not a knight, at least not now. Second, the fellow with the staff seems to have been knocked out or killed, and besides, his weapon is broken.”

“All the more reason for you to come! You shall have to explain how that happened. I’m afraid I fainted for a bit.”

He blinked at her. She smiled back. Kilrick incredulously gaped, “You mean you didn’t-“

“Besides,” she interrupted, a note of weariness and wariness beginning to tinge her voice, “the townspeople have been staring, and my unconscious father is going to wake up soon, which are two good reasons for both of us to get out of here.”

“Your father?” Kilrick asked, looking in surprise at the massive, beastly man, who was beginning to stir next to the hut with which he had collided. As Kilrick glanced around, he noticed the dozens of shocked eyes which stared out of filthy windows and partly-opened doors. “Yes,” he nodded slowly. “I think it’s a good idea to leave.”

--

~Michael Akerman

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Shannelleran, Day 4

By: Unknown

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The Previous Installment

Groaning, Kilrick stared at the cloudless morning sky above. He lay prone, his longsword wedged at angle under his back and above his arm. Trying to stand, he rocked about fruitlessly, unable to find purchase with the sword pinning him as it did. Finally, leaning to his left, he pressed his left arm up from under the sword hilt, leveraging himself into a quick spin that sent him flat on his face. Clamoring to his feet, he ran with his longsword ready to the corner of the square.

There, amidst the rubble that had tumbled down following the onslaught of the golden wave, a young girl lay curled. Her form was perfectly still, a grey pallor cast upon her face. Fearing her dead, Kilrick sheathed his sword and crouched down. Her chest lay still, but her face was locked in a grimace of pain, her brow knit and furrowed. With a sudden sharp inhalation, her expression relaxed and her breathing resumed with a steady, but dangerously weak, pattern.

Looking for wounds on the frail form, Kilrick reached into his belt satchel and groped for his meager bandages and the few herbs he carried with him. Her feet were bare and dirty, the delicate appendages traced with small cuts, but not seriously harmed. Long, pale legs overlapped one another, bending at the knee and tracing up to the hem of a thin cotton nightgown, falling nearly a hand below her hips. These flared out from her thighs and waist, the nightgown following the sinuous curve from her leg and plunging down her right hip to her waist, before climbing back up her torso.

Her arms were splayed in front of her chest, dingy with grime but undamaged. Her long shapely fingers clenched tightly, her close-bitten nails digging into the flesh of her left palm. She was certainly a comely girl, the nightgown draped loosely over her trim abdomen and drawing tight over the twin swells of her breasts. While her body was somewhat more attractive than average, her face was astounding.

Hungrily, Kilrick traced the pale, pure line of her neck to her young face, his eyes widening as they traced the low hillock of her chin and swept along the fragile jaw line to the labyrinthine seashell of her ear. The girl’s full, coral pink lips were parted, their creases glistening slightly. Fine lashes swept from her closed eyes, standing out from the white of her skin. Her forehead was traced with the bangs of her hair, where sandy brown and saffron yellow strands mingled and swept to her shoulders, cut ragged by a blade evidently wielded by the girl herself, judging by the uneven work.

Even during this overly elaborate investigation of the girl’s features, Kilrick noticed only one moderate wound. A long gash had torn the neckline of her gown, leaving a trail of blood slowly staining her chest. Tearing his gaze away from her face, Kilrick rubbed a poultice of herbs on a strip of gauze. Pulling the torn cloth away from the wound, he pressed the strip to her chest.

As he rubbed the bandage in place, the girl gasped suddenly as her eyes snapped open! Her mouth hung agape as she stared at Kilrick, who raised his hands in an apologetic gesture. As he started to explain, she sat up, throwing her left arm protectively across her chest. Kilrick fell backwards, rocking off his feet and splaying prone on the ground, while she pushed herself backwards and sat with her back against the wall and her knees against her chest.

~Michael Akerman

Friday, June 13, 2008

Shannelleran, Day 2

By: Unknown

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(Yesterday's installment)

He stood for a moment, letting his body and eyes adjust to the morning. Shaking his breastplate to find a comfortable fit, Kilrick was turning to leave Darl’s Folly when a desperate scream echoed across the expansive court. Drawing his longsword out, he spun to search the square. In a darkened corner, the bulky mass of a man in a brown fur cloak was raising a massive staff above his head. As he tensed himself to bring the weapon to bear upon his hidden target, a feminine voice broke plaintively, “No, please!”

Kilrick rushed across the square, swearing under his breath. He was swift of foot, but the distance was great, and the staff had already begun to fall. As he closed the distance, he grew swiftly certain that he stood no chance of parrying the crushing blow in time. Kilrick shouted in a final effort to distract the attacker, but even as the large man drew back slightly at the noise, the momentum of the staff carried it through its dreadful arc.

Just before striking its prey, however, the staff came to a shuddering halt. A high, short tone, like the striking of a silver bell, shot across the square, while a glow of silvered-blue gauze filled the corner, silhouetting the cloaked man and the halted weapon. Silence filled the breadth of a second, as the stave shuddered in the shocked man’s grasp. Then, with the echo of a deep gong, a sphere of scintillating gold swept outward from the corner, tossing shards of the shattered staff about and lifting the large man from his feet. Kilrick gasped and fell backwards, knocked from his feet like a child’s doll by the rushing sphere. Then, as swiftly as the sphere had formed, it dissipated harmlessly against the walls of the village huts, leaving only a dying echo of the initial clamor.

~Michael Akerman

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Shannelleran, Day 1

By: Unknown

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Let's see how much discipline I have.

So, here's the plan: I have a story I've been wanting to write. I'm going to try to do 30 minutes or more of writing a day for a while. We'll see how long it lasts. When I'm done with a chapter, I'll post the chapter. Or maybe when I finish the short story, depending on how this goes. I'll post the day's work on IVIC and a notification on CoK. The chapters or whatever they end up being will be on both.




Shennelleran, Day 1

As the first dim light of dawn filled the cobblestone square, Kilrick peered around the corner of the small peasant house. He seemed to be the first one awake and about in the little village, which was not unusual: he had always been an early riser, and his years of travel had made him still more accustomed to living with a lack of sleep. “Just as well,” he muttered. “I always have to explain myself when people catch me sleeping in the open.” Satisfied that the square was empty, Kilrick stepped out from the shadows.

He felt very conspicuous in the middle of that dismal little burgh, even though it was empty. The town of Darl’s Folly lay like discarded buildings on the shore of once-charming Lake Velindra. The waters swam still and silent, with no river current to mix the dark pond. It was something of a geological oddity: rain or some dead stream had filled a small, awkward depression at some point in the distant past. A large population of fish had once dwelled in the lake when the water was still crystal blue, supported by a pleasant climate and a complete lack of natural predators in the isolated pond. The city of Darlhaven sprang up around Lake Velindra and was swiftly made profitable through the fishing industry and an enviable trade position.

The city soon grew too large for the little lake, the fish population stuttering to a genealogical halt as Darlhaven grasped for food and profit. The pleasant trade road running through the area was forsaken when the Kingdom of Genream to the east finally conquered the long-hostile Sintreln, south of Darlhaven. With the steady and swift waterways of the Sintreln open to the Kingdom, trade with the western Grand Empire of Halreln doubled as the easy but slow overland route was forsaken.

The city soon fell into decline, the imposing balustrades and statuary of the famed Darlhaven Exchange collapsing in disrepair and ruin. Blooms of algae choked the lake, turning the peaceful pond into the brown bog that now lay alongside the village. The people struggled to farm, eking out a living by raking through the muck of the moist land. The population of Darlhaven fell, with the council steadily relenting to changes of moniker: from the Trade City of Darlhaven, to the City of Darlhaven, the Town of Darlhaven, Darlhaven Village and finally Darl’s Folly, the blame for the great city’s failure placed unfairly on the shoulders of its founder.

So, it would seem odd and, for some, cruel for a knight in full armor to stand amidst the ruins of the once-great metropolis. Kilrick always found it difficult to convince townsfolk that it was not pride or mockery that made him constantly outfit himself in his finery. Rather, he had no mule, no squire or page, so it was only practical to wear his armor while he travelled. Still, Kilrick couldn’t help but anxiously rub the hilt of his whitesteel longsword as if he thought it a talisman to ward off conflict.


By my hand,
~Michael Akerman