03-04-2017, 06:17 PM
As I stroll into town, I take note of my surroundings.
The village is nestled in a trough between two of the gentle, grassy hills which sprawl across the greater valley's eastern slope, and partially hidden within a broad wooded grove. The architecture of the dozen-and-half-or-so thatch-roofed buildings ensconced between the trees is strictly practical, the materials an even split between timber and the red stone which seems so prevalent in this area. The streets are laid out in a sort of haphazard grid, and like all of the roads I've seen since arriving in this vibrant little world, they're made of packed earth - though there are a few flat, red stones embedded here and there. Trees are scattered at random throughout, sometimes growing in the middle of the road, providing ample shade.
There are many people here, dressed in simple clothes. They wear unadorned pants and shirts, or dresses (I have a vague understanding that this has something to do with gender, but the whole idea of clothes seems so very nearly pointless). They mill about the streets, walking between the buildings on mysterious peasant errands or unloading carts full of goods - doubtless produced by the surrounding farmlands through the efforts of people like Luke Darby.
The air smells of growing things, stone, wet earth and manure (which isn't bad as far as words for excrement go - though the concept itself is frankly horrifying).
It's my first experience seeing a street from this angle. I would dearly love to just roam and observe, to understand all the tiny, individual threads of experience which come together to create this scene, but sadly, the participants have other ideas; As I stride down the central thoroughfare all activity grinds to a halt. A wave of paralyzed awe spreads outward as the people notice each other noticing me. Almost mechanically, all eyes are drawn to my lustrous golden form. I can't tell whether they sense the threat I represent, warned by some lesser mammalian instinct, or if they're just struck dumb by my superior height, my obvious strength and burnished bronze visage.
I stop, and I watch. Typically, had I my proper stature, by now they would have already started to run.
Treetops creak in the breeze. A pile of bundled grain rustles as it settles in its wagon-bed. A dog barks somewhere nearby. Among the people silence reigns.
The whispers start slowly, at the far end of the street, rippling towards me in a mirror-image of the initial shock brought on by my arrival. Villagers and farmers turn to the nearest person and talk urgently, mothers comforting children and men speaking in hushed, serious tones. The volume rises, and people begin move, either coming towards me or going indoors. The latter group is mostly the young, the old, and the women. The former is composed almost entirely of men, either grim or nervous. Some of them have tools in their hands, the instruments of their recently abandoned tasks.
I grin. I'm not sure what it is these wretches think they're up to, but I'm sure I'm going to find out, and in so doing I'll learn something about their little community.
As they form a circle around me, I catch snatches of their conversation.
"Is he an elf?"
"He's too tall."
"Look at his ears!"
"Forget his ears, look at his teeth."
"What if he's a Prime?"
"What if he's not?"
"Oh gods, not another one..."
It continues in much the same vein for almost a minute before I grow bored. I can only listen to them being insecure and uncertain - and is that a hint of anger? How intriguing. I haven't even killed any of them yet! - for so long before the temptation to obliterate them all becomes unbearable. They're so tightly clustered, such easy prey for my golden lightning...
"Tell me about yourselves," I interject, my commanding tone cutting through their chatter. "I want to know about life in your village."
It's a straightforward demand, but they don't know what to make of it. The murmuring starts again.
"He wants to what?"
"What the hell?"
"Who does he think he is?"
"Imperious son of a bitch. I told you he was an elf!"
"That was the rudest damn introduction I've ever heard!"
This time, it's one of their number who steps forward. He's a tall man, as human beings go, though still shorter than me, dressed in a thick apron and other sturdy fabrics. His hair is black and short, his face is flat and stony, and he looks fit (though I balk at applying that word to such a limited creature).
"I'm afraid we're all a little confused about what you're doing here, friend," he says. "Harnburg's a human duchy, and this is a human village. Your kind - whatever your are - aren't welcome."
I think about that for a moment, remembering Luke Darby's reaction to my appearance. It raises a lot of questions
"So is it that you distrust anyone that isn't the same species as you, or are you afraid of them? Or is it disgust? Do you believe those who aren't human to be inferior? Does everyone in this valley feel the same way?"
I'd love too hear his answer - it would tell me so much about the fabric of his life and times - but he stares at me as though I've presented him with an unwelcome, unexpected, unsolvable puzzle. I ask another question.
"And what is an elf? I keep hearing that word, and I'd like to know whether or not I'm being insulted."
Someone else, a thin man holding a pitchfork, speaks out.
"And what'd you do about it if you were?"
I stare at him. For the first time, it occurs to me that some of these people think they're holding weapons. If these men try to fight me - if they render more than the most passing and trivial of disrespect - I'll have to slaughter them all, and once I begin in earnest I don't think I'll be able to stop until this entire valley is in flames. As much as I'm looking forward to destroying them, and as brightly as the fires of their burning homes dance within my mind, I'd rather it not come to that before I have a better understanding of this place. There are still so many questions, such shades of meaning to be gleaned before I can fully appreciate their society.
A demonstration is in order.
I grab the pitchfork from the thin man's hands and I jam it into my own neck. The tines squeal torturously as they bend, harmless, against my unyielding golden scales! The assembled farmers and assorted villagers watch in stunned silence as I snap the now-useless implement in half and obliterate the remains by sending a single arc of astral charge booming through the space between my outstretched hands. Men scramble backwards, singed by arcs of stray power. Ashes and slag fall to the ground at my feet, and the smells of the village are replaced by the pungent tang of ozone and burning metal. I smile, my growling appetite for ruination momentarily appeased by the despoilage of a useful tool.
"I'd demand," I purr in the ensuing silence, "restitution. I am King Ghidorah, you hapless, tiny fools. You live by the grace of my curiosity - and you'd best choose your words accordingly."
The village is nestled in a trough between two of the gentle, grassy hills which sprawl across the greater valley's eastern slope, and partially hidden within a broad wooded grove. The architecture of the dozen-and-half-or-so thatch-roofed buildings ensconced between the trees is strictly practical, the materials an even split between timber and the red stone which seems so prevalent in this area. The streets are laid out in a sort of haphazard grid, and like all of the roads I've seen since arriving in this vibrant little world, they're made of packed earth - though there are a few flat, red stones embedded here and there. Trees are scattered at random throughout, sometimes growing in the middle of the road, providing ample shade.
There are many people here, dressed in simple clothes. They wear unadorned pants and shirts, or dresses (I have a vague understanding that this has something to do with gender, but the whole idea of clothes seems so very nearly pointless). They mill about the streets, walking between the buildings on mysterious peasant errands or unloading carts full of goods - doubtless produced by the surrounding farmlands through the efforts of people like Luke Darby.
The air smells of growing things, stone, wet earth and manure (which isn't bad as far as words for excrement go - though the concept itself is frankly horrifying).
It's my first experience seeing a street from this angle. I would dearly love to just roam and observe, to understand all the tiny, individual threads of experience which come together to create this scene, but sadly, the participants have other ideas; As I stride down the central thoroughfare all activity grinds to a halt. A wave of paralyzed awe spreads outward as the people notice each other noticing me. Almost mechanically, all eyes are drawn to my lustrous golden form. I can't tell whether they sense the threat I represent, warned by some lesser mammalian instinct, or if they're just struck dumb by my superior height, my obvious strength and burnished bronze visage.
I stop, and I watch. Typically, had I my proper stature, by now they would have already started to run.
Treetops creak in the breeze. A pile of bundled grain rustles as it settles in its wagon-bed. A dog barks somewhere nearby. Among the people silence reigns.
The whispers start slowly, at the far end of the street, rippling towards me in a mirror-image of the initial shock brought on by my arrival. Villagers and farmers turn to the nearest person and talk urgently, mothers comforting children and men speaking in hushed, serious tones. The volume rises, and people begin move, either coming towards me or going indoors. The latter group is mostly the young, the old, and the women. The former is composed almost entirely of men, either grim or nervous. Some of them have tools in their hands, the instruments of their recently abandoned tasks.
I grin. I'm not sure what it is these wretches think they're up to, but I'm sure I'm going to find out, and in so doing I'll learn something about their little community.
As they form a circle around me, I catch snatches of their conversation.
"Is he an elf?"
"He's too tall."
"Look at his ears!"
"Forget his ears, look at his teeth."
"What if he's a Prime?"
"What if he's not?"
"Oh gods, not another one..."
It continues in much the same vein for almost a minute before I grow bored. I can only listen to them being insecure and uncertain - and is that a hint of anger? How intriguing. I haven't even killed any of them yet! - for so long before the temptation to obliterate them all becomes unbearable. They're so tightly clustered, such easy prey for my golden lightning...
"Tell me about yourselves," I interject, my commanding tone cutting through their chatter. "I want to know about life in your village."
It's a straightforward demand, but they don't know what to make of it. The murmuring starts again.
"He wants to what?"
"What the hell?"
"Who does he think he is?"
"Imperious son of a bitch. I told you he was an elf!"
"That was the rudest damn introduction I've ever heard!"
This time, it's one of their number who steps forward. He's a tall man, as human beings go, though still shorter than me, dressed in a thick apron and other sturdy fabrics. His hair is black and short, his face is flat and stony, and he looks fit (though I balk at applying that word to such a limited creature).
"I'm afraid we're all a little confused about what you're doing here, friend," he says. "Harnburg's a human duchy, and this is a human village. Your kind - whatever your are - aren't welcome."
I think about that for a moment, remembering Luke Darby's reaction to my appearance. It raises a lot of questions
"So is it that you distrust anyone that isn't the same species as you, or are you afraid of them? Or is it disgust? Do you believe those who aren't human to be inferior? Does everyone in this valley feel the same way?"
I'd love too hear his answer - it would tell me so much about the fabric of his life and times - but he stares at me as though I've presented him with an unwelcome, unexpected, unsolvable puzzle. I ask another question.
"And what is an elf? I keep hearing that word, and I'd like to know whether or not I'm being insulted."
Someone else, a thin man holding a pitchfork, speaks out.
"And what'd you do about it if you were?"
I stare at him. For the first time, it occurs to me that some of these people think they're holding weapons. If these men try to fight me - if they render more than the most passing and trivial of disrespect - I'll have to slaughter them all, and once I begin in earnest I don't think I'll be able to stop until this entire valley is in flames. As much as I'm looking forward to destroying them, and as brightly as the fires of their burning homes dance within my mind, I'd rather it not come to that before I have a better understanding of this place. There are still so many questions, such shades of meaning to be gleaned before I can fully appreciate their society.
A demonstration is in order.
I grab the pitchfork from the thin man's hands and I jam it into my own neck. The tines squeal torturously as they bend, harmless, against my unyielding golden scales! The assembled farmers and assorted villagers watch in stunned silence as I snap the now-useless implement in half and obliterate the remains by sending a single arc of astral charge booming through the space between my outstretched hands. Men scramble backwards, singed by arcs of stray power. Ashes and slag fall to the ground at my feet, and the smells of the village are replaced by the pungent tang of ozone and burning metal. I smile, my growling appetite for ruination momentarily appeased by the despoilage of a useful tool.
"I'd demand," I purr in the ensuing silence, "restitution. I am King Ghidorah, you hapless, tiny fools. You live by the grace of my curiosity - and you'd best choose your words accordingly."
Quote:1272 words by the site word-counter.
-travel to a human duchy: accomplished