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Ist draft & fairly rough opening paragraphs. Got one chapter done & now have massive writer's block. Hence the amount of time I spend playing in here. Do your worst...PS This is not exclusive. Anyone else feel free.
-We are not being nice, the clairsiar of Brie Leith, what is left of us. No~one likes a satirist and we were not there when the Dubhgint swarmed in a bloody throng through our halls for Gillie had pushed Ri too far and he was having the lot of us from the halls, someplace private where Se’s cleverness would not count and it was only us Gillie could hurt.
Ri was so quiet and so angry, for we had shamed him before the entire hall, even Se thought it best to hold her tongue, though that might have been from the headache I’m sure she was having, Gillie having managed to smash one of the thick Gaolin platters against her skull. She had a bruise to boast of amongst all the blood. It was leaving her uncommonly quiet and pallid as death. Every so often her eyes would flicker with wry amusement at something Ri said. He was in fine form, his r’s rolling thunderously and his light insolent drawl snapping the words off neat and clean till I was squirming though it was Se who began it and Gillie who threw everything screaming curses. It must have been Jahl curses for Se was laughing in her quiet way that is so very maddening. I was not thinking her Jahl was so good but she is always surprising. Hen Basilio was having her from the death pit with the earth already raining down to bury her alive with her mam and her mam’s lover, the Cruithi being as they are about their bloodlines, & dragged her over most of the known lands before he died. He has been dead ten year and still Se is more two fingered wandering minstrel than trained clairsiar, though she is clever enough and I am not the only one to be thinking our hall would have been better served if all that cleverness were not satire honed.
It was Se who quipped that Ri packaged well, and that was the best that could be said of him. It is only partly true. It is true that he is a small neatly made man with a humorous mouth and fierce blue eyes, too pretty to be a man, but he is also the youngest Pencedd ever, with all the arrogance of a trained satirist and a scion of the blood. The novice hall voted him scariest Pencedd three years running. He has a way, does Ri, of saying nothing, unnerving guilty novices into blurted confessions; a nasty habit and not one to endear him to the novice hall but he has had years of Se and now Gillie as well.
For a long time I was not understanding, for I should never have been given to the satire. I am not clever like Se or Gillie and I thought it was for pity Se was kind to me when she was so cruel with Ri. I know now Ri has no patience with stupidity and it amused Se to know it was fear of Ri made me so very stupid. No~one with sense could be afraid of Se. She is so tiny, like a little wren, with a fuzz of pale hair like thistledown, and looking like a stiff breeze would knock her flat, no trouble. Only her eyes are strangely dark, having seen things never meant to be seen. It has made of her something strange and rare. She is gentle too for all the sharpness of her tongue and the babes know it well for they are always about her feet when she is about the keep though Ri will not have them in his rooms. He says the three of us are enough. No surprise there for keeping Gillie is a work and a half all on its own and she may kill Se yet for it was Se coolly informed her she couldn’t wander about Duan’s Keep with all those death rings knotted in her hair. She should have left it at that and not been so clever for what she said next rankled and it is doubtful Gillie will ever forgive her for it. Se said she would frighten the little ones half to death clanking about the halls like the walking dead and shaved her head to the bone on the strength of it though I suspect it was Ri at the bottom of that and not wanting nits crawling through his beard. He is a fastidious man & Gillie’s hair was a ropey, matted mass smelling like wet wool. Her skin was greased to a dark shine, inground dirt mostly, for she was pale as whey washed up and madder than a riled ferret. All teeth and claws our Gillie, a chevali of the Jahl trapped within four walls and cursed to stay, with all the honour of her tribe riding on her shoulders. Se says she is unhappy having lost the Patrin Way, the leaf trail, the bright wagons and open skies but she makes us unhappy with it and it is not our fault. Granahir’s seed is cruelest of all and Gillie is no exception. They learn to kill early being sent as they are onto the killing fields to finish of the dying of both sides.
Ist draft & fairly rough opening paragraphs. Got one chapter done & now have massive writer's block. Hence the amount of time I spend playing in here. Do your worst...PS This is not exclusive. Anyone else feel free.
-We are not being nice, the clairsiar of Brie Leith, what is left of us. No~one likes a satirist and we were not there when the Dubhgint swarmed in a bloody throng through our halls for Gillie had pushed Ri too far and he was having the lot of us from the halls, someplace private where Se’s cleverness would not count and it was only us Gillie could hurt.
Ri was so quiet and so angry, for we had shamed him before the entire hall, even Se thought it best to hold her tongue, though that might have been from the headache I’m sure she was having, Gillie having managed to smash one of the thick Gaolin platters against her skull. She had a bruise to boast of amongst all the blood. It was leaving her uncommonly quiet and pallid as death. Every so often her eyes would flicker with wry amusement at something Ri said. He was in fine form, his r’s rolling thunderously and his light insolent drawl snapping the words off neat and clean till I was squirming though it was Se who began it and Gillie who threw everything screaming curses. It must have been Jahl curses for Se was laughing in her quiet way that is so very maddening. I was not thinking her Jahl was so good but she is always surprising. Hen Basilio was having her from the death pit with the earth already raining down to bury her alive with her mam and her mam’s lover, the Cruithi being as they are about their bloodlines, & dragged her over most of the known lands before he died. He has been dead ten year and still Se is more two fingered wandering minstrel than trained clairsiar, though she is clever enough and I am not the only one to be thinking our hall would have been better served if all that cleverness were not satire honed.
It was Se who quipped that Ri packaged well, and that was the best that could be said of him. It is only partly true. It is true that he is a small neatly made man with a humorous mouth and fierce blue eyes, too pretty to be a man, but he is also the youngest Pencedd ever, with all the arrogance of a trained satirist and a scion of the blood. The novice hall voted him scariest Pencedd three years running. He has a way, does Ri, of saying nothing, unnerving guilty novices into blurted confessions; a nasty habit and not one to endear him to the novice hall but he has had years of Se and now Gillie as well.
For a long time I was not understanding, for I should never have been given to the satire. I am not clever like Se or Gillie and I thought it was for pity Se was kind to me when she was so cruel with Ri. I know now Ri has no patience with stupidity and it amused Se to know it was fear of Ri made me so very stupid. No~one with sense could be afraid of Se. She is so tiny, like a little wren, with a fuzz of pale hair like thistledown, and looking like a stiff breeze would knock her flat, no trouble. Only her eyes are strangely dark, having seen things never meant to be seen. It has made of her something strange and rare. She is gentle too for all the sharpness of her tongue and the babes know it well for they are always about her feet when she is about the keep though Ri will not have them in his rooms. He says the three of us are enough. No surprise there for keeping Gillie is a work and a half all on its own and she may kill Se yet for it was Se coolly informed her she couldn’t wander about Duan’s Keep with all those death rings knotted in her hair. She should have left it at that and not been so clever for what she said next rankled and it is doubtful Gillie will ever forgive her for it. Se said she would frighten the little ones half to death clanking about the halls like the walking dead and shaved her head to the bone on the strength of it though I suspect it was Ri at the bottom of that and not wanting nits crawling through his beard. He is a fastidious man & Gillie’s hair was a ropey, matted mass smelling like wet wool. Her skin was greased to a dark shine, inground dirt mostly, for she was pale as whey washed up and madder than a riled ferret. All teeth and claws our Gillie, a chevali of the Jahl trapped within four walls and cursed to stay, with all the honour of her tribe riding on her shoulders. Se says she is unhappy having lost the Patrin Way, the leaf trail, the bright wagons and open skies but she makes us unhappy with it and it is not our fault. Granahir’s seed is cruelest of all and Gillie is no exception. They learn to kill early being sent as they are onto the killing fields to finish of the dying of both sides.
good. That makes it easy, I know what good fantasy looks like 
