07-18-2016, 09:51 AM
A pair of screams matching on a perfect fifth pierce the dew-moistened air in Camelot as myself and Ciamath emerge on the other side of the portal, barreling through with the bike. Somewhere along the way, we had both fallen off. Suddenly I feel the need to do something, anything to break our fall--
For a moment the world blurs around me. Suddenly I have my boots planted on the ground and Ciamath is hurtling through the air towards me. I don't even have a moment to ask myself how in the hell (and what in the hell) I just did before she collides with my stomach, sending us both flying backwards farther. I spend the next few seconds shouting and trying to run against the power of the Worst Bike in the History of Anything Ever. Fortunately, it works eventually.
"What was that about not being fast not too long ago?" Ciamath asks teasingly. It occurs to me that I'm carrying her bridal-style, and I can't help but wonder how I did that, either, what with my piddly physical strength and being tiny on top of that. I put her down as gently as possible, my arms and legs trembling in the process as I heave and huff.
“Well, at least we haven’t had a dull moment yet,” she chimes as she makes contact with the ground again. “I suppose it won’t take you too long to figure out where we’re going.”
At that I stop wallowing in anguish and exhaustion to look around. Like I had seen from the other side, around the gate here was a neat little arrangement of not very little stones. Inside and outside the ring was a number of flowers, some of which appear trampled by hooves and shoes and other things. Deciding one of the flowers looks particularly nice - a bright-petaled purplish flower which seemed to shift shades of purple from time to time - I jump up, slip it behind Ciamath’s ear and stick out my tongue playfully. I then resume looking about.
“Cute,” she remarks, and thanks to the peace and quiet, I can hear her fiddling with it. Birds are singing and flowers are blooming - I can’t imagine what more I could ask for from such a beautiful scene.
...Well, maybe a tire swing would be neat, but that’s beside the point.
Past it all I then notice something particularly interesting: what looks like some kind of tower off in the distance. “Oh. Are we headed that way? Looks kinda small,” I observe. “Probably tall, but really narrow…”
Ciamath laughs a little, and I turn to her, my expression puzzled. “You might need a better view. Here - climb up on my shoulders.” She crouches down, putting one knee on the ground. Reluctantly I do as she says, making sure to avoid her spear and wobbling a little as I rise into the air. “Woah, hey, keep it steady--”
I spend a few seconds just gawking in awe. I can see, off in the distance, what looks like a massive fortress of some kind. I can’t help but let a little woaaaaaah out because of just how incredible it looks - I can’t help but smile as I make the connection that it’s kind of like the layered cake equivalent of a castle. Around it I can see a number of scattered villages and sprawling farmlands and even a castle or two, but the ones that are all over are so easily dwarfed by the colossus towering over them.
“That’s Minas Tirith - home of some of the finest smiths I’ve ever met. More importantly,” she starts walking toward the massive fortification, “home of one Jamven Falconsflight. Whatever you want from him, if it can be forged, you’ll have it by the next sunrise.”
I can’t help but be a little awed. “Woah-- wait… I need money, don’t I? I, er, don’t really have any.”
“Omnilium,” she responds. “Either you can hand over some of that or you can will it to be made into Camelot’s currency. Gold tends to be rather widely accepted, in my experience, so if you can shape a little Omnilium into golden coins, that might be a good start.”
I decide to do as Ciamath says, holding out my hand over her head and shutting my eyes. Even through my eyelids I can see the rainbow-glowing blob of a substance amassing before me. Over the course of a few minutes, the bright light fades to a dim one, and a dim one to a nonexistent one as a weight grows in my hand.
I open my eyes. Minas Tirith is just that much closer, it seems, and obscuring it is a light brown sack with a golden drawstring pulled shut tightly. A greenish diamond-type gemstone is embedded in the bag at the front. Out of curiosity I gently pull the top of the bag open, and my eyes meet with a number of bright, golden quarter-sized coins. A big smile of discovery crosses my face and I pluck one of the coins out, examining it. On one face is the visage of a man I don’t recognize, and on the other side is a sort of insignia I don’t recognize either. Maybe I didn’t make the coins right, but I can’t even distinguish any features from it. “Uh, Ciamath? Did I make these right?” I offer one so she can see for herself.
After some thoughtful hums and hahs, she hands one back. “Surprisingly, yes. Even if they’re unacceptable, I’m sure Jamven can smelt them down and get some other use out of them.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Just don’t lose those. Omnilium is incredibly valuable. To lose those coins is to waste potential.” Nodding (and shaking my whole body a little in the process), I slip the coin I had handed over back into my coinpurse, then look for somewhere to hang it. “Where should I put it…?”
“You may want to just hold onto it for now. If it’s in your hand, you’ll keep your mind on it, and that way you’re much less likely to lose it,” she explains. Since that sounds pretty reasonable, I nod again and grip the bag in my right hand by its drawstrings.
I carefully prop my chin up on the top of Ciamath’s head and look around. In all honesty, I have no idea why I’m still on her shoulders, but I kind of like the view - up here I can see little animals running about on the sides of the road, birds fluttering from tree to verdant tree… people rustling around in farmlands with maze-like crops, and…
...Off in the distance, a carriage stopped on the side of the road. I point it out to Ciamath. “Yes, carriages are common in Camelot,” she responds. “People who know the lay of the land can earn a good living helping people travel. It’s probably one of the safest ways to travel here, past having a personal Prime bodyguard.”
I look to the coinpurse in my hand and the nonexistent lightbulb lights up over my head again. “So how much would carriage fare to Minas Tirith cost from here, do you figure?”
“So you need a ride,” says the grizzled-looking man sitting on the front of the carriage. “I can give you one if you’ve got the coin, sure. Just tell me where you’re headed and get comfortable.”
I hop down from Ciamath’s shoulders, bracing for the rough landing. It’s not too rough - I can fall six feet and land without too much of a problem, I note - then point to Minas Tirith off in the distance. I then reach into my pouch, taking out about eight golden coins. “How’s this? We’re just heading that way - I’m sure you can figure out the rest.”
The man nods wisely, then gestures to the back of the carriage. It’s covered over by a tough-looking, thick black fabric of some kind, and it’s made out of a neat-looking dark wood. I walk over to one of the open sides, which from the looks of things I’d need to hop up to reach. As I rear up to do just that, I feel Ciamath's hands under my arms. I resist the urge to laugh at the odd sensation as I’m hoisted into the air and placed on the inside. “Up you go!”
That rings a bell. I’m not sure why, but it does.
Ciamath jumps up and into the carriage after me. I notice the interior’s rather empty - there’s a few empty barrels and boxes lying about, along with a few blankets and a pair of couches across from one another. If I had anything I needed to store, I’d probably make use of the boxes, but since I don’t have anything on me besides my coinpurse, I just take a seat. As I get comfortable, I wonder whether or not I should mention the feeling I just had, like what Ciamath had just said had some kind of significance, and how I would go about mentioning that.
I shut my eyes for a moment. It was such a simple, general thing that surely it could apply to anything. Why did I feel any attachment to it at all? Either it was a sentence I used frequently, a sentence I attached to something significant or it didn’t mean anything at all… and with how crazy I sound, just thinking about this, I’m thinking it’s probably that last one.
“Is something on your mind?” Ciamath inquires, and I open my eyes. She looks… concerned, if I had to describe her expression. The corners of her lips perk up. “If there’s something on your mind, I know I just met you, but you can talk to me.”
I relay what I was just thinking to her after a moment of thinking. Surely asking for her advice and getting nowhere would be better than never asking and risking not getting potentially useful help.
She, too, seems puzzled. “Perhaps… and you may take my word with a grain of salt,” she replies, “but I think… it may be an issue that you want to remember something, and it doesn’t matter what it is you remember in doing that - whether it is really something you remember or not doesn’t matter to you. Being without memory is a cruel fate, but filling your mind with vague or improper memories is a worse one.”
After a moment of silence, she concludes, “tread your path to recovery lightly, that’s my advice. Find what truly holds significance to you, even if that takes longer than you may like.” That… is actually pretty helpful, I think. Obviously I would’ve thought that I shouldn’t just assume everything that pops into my head means something, but I wouldn’t have put that kind of thought into it.
Well, maybe I ought to. I turn my attention to the pastures and fiefs passing our carriage by as we ride to Minas Tirith.
For a moment the world blurs around me. Suddenly I have my boots planted on the ground and Ciamath is hurtling through the air towards me. I don't even have a moment to ask myself how in the hell (and what in the hell) I just did before she collides with my stomach, sending us both flying backwards farther. I spend the next few seconds shouting and trying to run against the power of the Worst Bike in the History of Anything Ever. Fortunately, it works eventually.
"What was that about not being fast not too long ago?" Ciamath asks teasingly. It occurs to me that I'm carrying her bridal-style, and I can't help but wonder how I did that, either, what with my piddly physical strength and being tiny on top of that. I put her down as gently as possible, my arms and legs trembling in the process as I heave and huff.
“Well, at least we haven’t had a dull moment yet,” she chimes as she makes contact with the ground again. “I suppose it won’t take you too long to figure out where we’re going.”
At that I stop wallowing in anguish and exhaustion to look around. Like I had seen from the other side, around the gate here was a neat little arrangement of not very little stones. Inside and outside the ring was a number of flowers, some of which appear trampled by hooves and shoes and other things. Deciding one of the flowers looks particularly nice - a bright-petaled purplish flower which seemed to shift shades of purple from time to time - I jump up, slip it behind Ciamath’s ear and stick out my tongue playfully. I then resume looking about.
“Cute,” she remarks, and thanks to the peace and quiet, I can hear her fiddling with it. Birds are singing and flowers are blooming - I can’t imagine what more I could ask for from such a beautiful scene.
...Well, maybe a tire swing would be neat, but that’s beside the point.
Past it all I then notice something particularly interesting: what looks like some kind of tower off in the distance. “Oh. Are we headed that way? Looks kinda small,” I observe. “Probably tall, but really narrow…”
Ciamath laughs a little, and I turn to her, my expression puzzled. “You might need a better view. Here - climb up on my shoulders.” She crouches down, putting one knee on the ground. Reluctantly I do as she says, making sure to avoid her spear and wobbling a little as I rise into the air. “Woah, hey, keep it steady--”
I spend a few seconds just gawking in awe. I can see, off in the distance, what looks like a massive fortress of some kind. I can’t help but let a little woaaaaaah out because of just how incredible it looks - I can’t help but smile as I make the connection that it’s kind of like the layered cake equivalent of a castle. Around it I can see a number of scattered villages and sprawling farmlands and even a castle or two, but the ones that are all over are so easily dwarfed by the colossus towering over them.
“That’s Minas Tirith - home of some of the finest smiths I’ve ever met. More importantly,” she starts walking toward the massive fortification, “home of one Jamven Falconsflight. Whatever you want from him, if it can be forged, you’ll have it by the next sunrise.”
I can’t help but be a little awed. “Woah-- wait… I need money, don’t I? I, er, don’t really have any.”
“Omnilium,” she responds. “Either you can hand over some of that or you can will it to be made into Camelot’s currency. Gold tends to be rather widely accepted, in my experience, so if you can shape a little Omnilium into golden coins, that might be a good start.”
I decide to do as Ciamath says, holding out my hand over her head and shutting my eyes. Even through my eyelids I can see the rainbow-glowing blob of a substance amassing before me. Over the course of a few minutes, the bright light fades to a dim one, and a dim one to a nonexistent one as a weight grows in my hand.
I open my eyes. Minas Tirith is just that much closer, it seems, and obscuring it is a light brown sack with a golden drawstring pulled shut tightly. A greenish diamond-type gemstone is embedded in the bag at the front. Out of curiosity I gently pull the top of the bag open, and my eyes meet with a number of bright, golden quarter-sized coins. A big smile of discovery crosses my face and I pluck one of the coins out, examining it. On one face is the visage of a man I don’t recognize, and on the other side is a sort of insignia I don’t recognize either. Maybe I didn’t make the coins right, but I can’t even distinguish any features from it. “Uh, Ciamath? Did I make these right?” I offer one so she can see for herself.
After some thoughtful hums and hahs, she hands one back. “Surprisingly, yes. Even if they’re unacceptable, I’m sure Jamven can smelt them down and get some other use out of them.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Just don’t lose those. Omnilium is incredibly valuable. To lose those coins is to waste potential.” Nodding (and shaking my whole body a little in the process), I slip the coin I had handed over back into my coinpurse, then look for somewhere to hang it. “Where should I put it…?”
“You may want to just hold onto it for now. If it’s in your hand, you’ll keep your mind on it, and that way you’re much less likely to lose it,” she explains. Since that sounds pretty reasonable, I nod again and grip the bag in my right hand by its drawstrings.
I carefully prop my chin up on the top of Ciamath’s head and look around. In all honesty, I have no idea why I’m still on her shoulders, but I kind of like the view - up here I can see little animals running about on the sides of the road, birds fluttering from tree to verdant tree… people rustling around in farmlands with maze-like crops, and…
...Off in the distance, a carriage stopped on the side of the road. I point it out to Ciamath. “Yes, carriages are common in Camelot,” she responds. “People who know the lay of the land can earn a good living helping people travel. It’s probably one of the safest ways to travel here, past having a personal Prime bodyguard.”
I look to the coinpurse in my hand and the nonexistent lightbulb lights up over my head again. “So how much would carriage fare to Minas Tirith cost from here, do you figure?”
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“So you need a ride,” says the grizzled-looking man sitting on the front of the carriage. “I can give you one if you’ve got the coin, sure. Just tell me where you’re headed and get comfortable.”
I hop down from Ciamath’s shoulders, bracing for the rough landing. It’s not too rough - I can fall six feet and land without too much of a problem, I note - then point to Minas Tirith off in the distance. I then reach into my pouch, taking out about eight golden coins. “How’s this? We’re just heading that way - I’m sure you can figure out the rest.”
The man nods wisely, then gestures to the back of the carriage. It’s covered over by a tough-looking, thick black fabric of some kind, and it’s made out of a neat-looking dark wood. I walk over to one of the open sides, which from the looks of things I’d need to hop up to reach. As I rear up to do just that, I feel Ciamath's hands under my arms. I resist the urge to laugh at the odd sensation as I’m hoisted into the air and placed on the inside. “Up you go!”
That rings a bell. I’m not sure why, but it does.
Ciamath jumps up and into the carriage after me. I notice the interior’s rather empty - there’s a few empty barrels and boxes lying about, along with a few blankets and a pair of couches across from one another. If I had anything I needed to store, I’d probably make use of the boxes, but since I don’t have anything on me besides my coinpurse, I just take a seat. As I get comfortable, I wonder whether or not I should mention the feeling I just had, like what Ciamath had just said had some kind of significance, and how I would go about mentioning that.
I shut my eyes for a moment. It was such a simple, general thing that surely it could apply to anything. Why did I feel any attachment to it at all? Either it was a sentence I used frequently, a sentence I attached to something significant or it didn’t mean anything at all… and with how crazy I sound, just thinking about this, I’m thinking it’s probably that last one.
“Is something on your mind?” Ciamath inquires, and I open my eyes. She looks… concerned, if I had to describe her expression. The corners of her lips perk up. “If there’s something on your mind, I know I just met you, but you can talk to me.”
I relay what I was just thinking to her after a moment of thinking. Surely asking for her advice and getting nowhere would be better than never asking and risking not getting potentially useful help.
She, too, seems puzzled. “Perhaps… and you may take my word with a grain of salt,” she replies, “but I think… it may be an issue that you want to remember something, and it doesn’t matter what it is you remember in doing that - whether it is really something you remember or not doesn’t matter to you. Being without memory is a cruel fate, but filling your mind with vague or improper memories is a worse one.”
After a moment of silence, she concludes, “tread your path to recovery lightly, that’s my advice. Find what truly holds significance to you, even if that takes longer than you may like.” That… is actually pretty helpful, I think. Obviously I would’ve thought that I shouldn’t just assume everything that pops into my head means something, but I wouldn’t have put that kind of thought into it.
Well, maybe I ought to. I turn my attention to the pastures and fiefs passing our carriage by as we ride to Minas Tirith.