Silent Harmony ~ Rust ~ Prologue

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Famous deaths litter Raykin’s past, as they do any kingdom in Thyllaeth, but there has been no death more famous than my own. It may sound horribly cliché four millennia on, now that countless others have suffered much the same fate, if for differing reasons. In hindsight, I should probably have taken care of him earlier, or taken better care of myself, but hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

I was the first. Naïve and ignorant as every other Raykinian. I could have had no inclination as to what would happen to me. I was strong. I was powerful. I was respected.

My city, Ni-Yana, was still in its infancy, though it stands now as the most ancient city in the kingdom. It was a quiet little town of only a few hundred people, but at that time, when most residents could still remember the end of our hunting and gathering days, it was a metropolis. Date palms hung out over the banks of the Ra-Lin, red-dusted fronds flapping in the ever-present desert breeze. There was always with a small boy wrapping his legs around the trunk of one while an older boy showed him how it was done, hanging from the top of another and grinning down with a date between his teeth.

We had just discovered a method of turning the Ra-Lin’s muddy banks into bricks, out of which we could build rudimentary shelters, though it took us a while longer to strengthen them and keep their rooves from melting in the first heavy downpour.

We used palm trunks strung together with rope made from their fronds to build rafts that we could cast into the Ra-Lin and catch fish from. We made vessels to hold water and brought it from the river to grow plants, instead of foraging in the desert for the faintest sign of berries. We built fences in which to hold captured nira and other beasts, which we fed and watered and waited for them to breed, a far easier way of earning dinner than spending all day in the desert.

I say this because I had my hand in developing all of this new technology. For that, I was respected.

My parents were killed when I was a child. They are not the only ones to have so carelessly thrown their lives away so that I could continue mine, though calling my current state ‘life’ is something of a stretch. No person’s life is more important than one’s own. This has been my belief throughout my existence, even as an orphaned child, but especially now that my life has long since flown.

Too many people throw their lives away for pointless reasons, even more now than when I lived. Now, there are wars between kingdoms, between cities, between districts, between families. So many pointless deaths litter the continent’s history. I have seen every war with my own eyes, seen their conception, and have not once seen a just reason for any one of them.

I do not wish death on anyone. There is no word in any language for the pain of death, save for the blood curdling screech of agony that I was too anguished to scream at my own death. I could feel the steel grating against bone, my bone. I could feel it piercing my mind, burning with sharp, icy fire and a thousand polished nails, but still the pain was only physical.

It wasn’t until an agonising half a heartbeat later that I could feel my life being picked away from my body. The sword’s fire blazed away at my life as rusted fish hooks tugged it from my heart, too quickly for me to gasp a last breath, and yet far, far too slowly.

I was killed in my sleep. I do not sleep anymore. The scar on my face begins to burn in warning if I even think of it. I fear it. When I still lived, I had no fears. I had life, I had breath and I had a beating heart. For that, I was strong.

Do not mistake me; I was not naïve, no more than the rest of Raykin. I was the first to die in such a way. Before me, swords were only used to slit the throats of the penned animals. I was the first person to have had a sword taken to him. I suppose this makes me the cause of all the wars in Thyllaeth today, and for that I apologise.

My time, before Ni-Yana’s farms and mud brick houses were thought of, before the name of Raykin was even a shimmer in my mind, we were nomads wandering the desert in a constant search for survival. We hung close to the river for water, but not so close that we would be vulnerable to attacks from other desert people. It was a pride of lions that took my parents, when my family group was further upstream, where the country is brushed with waves of grass. We kept far from the river after the attack, and even further from the grass lands.

Everything we did, we did to survive. We sometimes went for days with nothing more than a snake to feed seventeen mouths. Then sixteen mouths. Fifteen. Fourteen. So many of our number continued to sacrifice themselves, willingly, so the rest of us could continue to live. Pointless sacrifices, every one of them. They were strong people, far better suited to hunting than to dying.

It was a harsh life. Kill or be killed. If we saw something alive, we killed it to eat. ‘Cute and fluffy’ were not words in our vocabulary. If it was ‘young and helpless’, that meant an easy meal. It was the mentality of every Raykinian at the time, though we didn’t know we were Raykinians just yet.

Every year of life was celebrated, even more than it is today. No kingdom celebrates birthdays as extravagantly as Raykin, and those earliest of days are the reason why. We needed events to celebrate, and another year of life was more than reason enough.

Not long after my seventeenth birthday, I saw the yrae.

As any tale will, this one has been exaggerated and glorified over the months, years and centuries since I first told it. It did not appear in a flash of light that made the midday sun seem like a dull, distant star. The feathers of its body and its long, sinuous neck were not dazzling enough that the sky appeared cloudy, and neither were its wings dark enough to be windows of midnight. Its gentle ‘coo’ did not make it sound to me as though it was more intelligent than any other bird of prey, only weaker.

I was not stunned into stupefied silence when I saw it. To me it looked like nothing more than a particularly large geya, though brighter and with a strange, ribbony feather stuck out from its tail.

Ah, yes. The tail of an yrae. I can see your eyes and your smile widen even now, dear reader. The sparkling blue jewel at its tip is the stuff of legend even now. That glistening azure thumbprint that makes a sapphire look no more valuable than a lump of granite because it throws back so many, many more colours, colours that few in Raykin have ever seen, even four thousand years later. Vibrant greens, far brighter than anything the sad fronds of a date palm could manage. Red far sharper than the rusted orange of our desert. Yellow more impressive than the most pampered of Raykinian skin. Orange, violet, white and silver, and behind it all the most astounding blue imaginable.

You’ll notice, dear reader, that this much I do not deny. I do not use the word ‘beauty’ for it had not yet found its way into our language. Before the yrae stone, what reason could we have had for such a word? Something was either useful, or it wasn’t, and that was how I saw the yrae. I was no savage for lifting my bow and sighting along the arrow at the legendary bird. Anyone else would have done the same, be it four millennia ago or four days ago.

The meat from such a large bird could feed every mouth in my family and see us sleep comfortably. Its feathers could be used for fletching on arrows, its long wing bones as shafts, and the shorter bones filed and sharpened and used as arrowheads. And its stone, well, that wasn’t a legend because it could make fine jewellery.

I let loose my arrow and watched as it twisted in the air, catching in the wind and finally piercing the yrae’s stunning blue breast. It let out another gentle coo, gave an even gentler flap of its wings, then fell to the sand with a soft thud and a puff of rusty orange sand. This time there was a flash of white light, bright enough to make me cover eyes but not strong enough to cover the sun.

When I looked up, the yrae was gone. Only the slight indentation in the sand and the brilliant cerulean thumbprint were left to show I hadn’t imagined it.

Yes, ‘only’ the yrae stone. I was the first, remember. I had no idea what it could do. The sceptic in me still wasn’t ready to believe it was magical at all. Unless it could conjure a feast for my family to account for the missing yrae, the stone was useless, so far as I could fathom.

Nevertheless, I bent to pick up the stone, cool and smooth against my sand-scorched fingers as I turned it over, trying to decipher the legendary artefact.

The sensation I felt all over my back is still one I can’t quite put words to. It was like a snake writhing under my skin, but not painful or uncomfortable at all, just… odd. It still feels odd, for some reason. It’s not a feeling I can get used to.

I pulled my shirt over my head in order to reach behind my back and see if I was imagining this feeling or not, but before I had fully removed my shirt, I was thrown forwards, face first into the sand as though a large animal had pounced on me. I could feel something heavy on my back, pushing me into the sand, but it wasn’t attacking. I braced my hands on the ground and pushed myself up onto my heels, waving my arms when the weight on my shoulder blades tried to pull me over backwards.

I swung my arms wildly enough that one hit the thing on my back, and it hurt in two places—my forearm, and somewhere else that I couldn’t quite place. I turned my head to this bizarre new feeling, at the time even stranger than the snakes under my skin.

At this point, my astonishment could not be embellished enough. The yrae stone had given me wings. A pair of enormous black wings now sprouted from my back, made up of a thin membrane of black skin that resembled the wings of a bat. I reached back with one hand to draw one leathery wing around me, then pinched the membrane between two fingers.

I jumped when it hurt, and the wing cringed back behind me, not with a mind of its own, but with my mind.

My eyes were finally drawn to the sky, and I spread my new wings, giving the action as much thought as I would to spreading my arms. I flapped them once, experimentally, and the draught of wind they created was enough to lift me from my knees onto my feet. A second flap lifted me high enough that I saw the world as though I stood on someone’s shoulders, and resulted in a landing as though they had collapsed under me.

I looked up again, spread my wings to their full span and gave a strong flap. New muscles in my shoulders and back tightened and relaxed as they carried me off the sand, and my fingers gripped the yrae stone desperately, not daring to let it go.

When in flight, nothing else matters. With the wind brushing under my wings, it didn’t matter that I had no food for my family. It didn’t matter that I had no idea if I could work the stone to make food appear from nothing. It didn’t matter that the yrae had evaporated into light. It didn’t matter that I’d dropped my shirt and bow and had no way of knowing where I’d left them.

I had the yrae stone. I was strong. I was powerful. I was respected.

No longer the weedy little waif who had seen his parents throw themselves to the lions so the rest of the family could run. I had never been shy or brooding as is written in every history book in Raykin. I merely knew my place. I was young. I had ideas that were always bubbling in my mind, looking at the fish in the river and the mud of its banks, baked solid by the sun, but I never tried voicing my ideas because I knew I wouldn’t be listened to. Only the most senior adults were allowed to give their ideas. Otherwise there would be arguments, which waste breath. There would be tears, and tears waste water. It was always far preferable to remain silent and wait for your turn.

But with the yrae stone, my family had a new leader.

I flew up and down the river, gathering people together and telling them to meet my family, where the river burst out from the gorge and was shaded by the great cliff face.

When I had enough people gathered, I told them of my ideas, and because of my wings fanning out like some living cloak, they listened. We built houses, rafts and fences. We grew plants and captured wild animals to tame.

Yrae-kin, we called ourselves. People of the yrae. And our little settlement was Ni-Yana. Yan’s town.

The name remains the same, of course, though the meaning has changed, as have the meanings of many words over the years. Yan’s city is certainly more accurate.

I was only the leader of a few hundred people, in our tiny little mud brick hovels in the cliff’s cool shadow, but the traditional title that denoted the leader of a family wasn’t enough, so they invented a new one for me.

Seven years after finding the yrae stone, I was crowned king.

King Yan of Yrae-kin.

I’m sure it’s not only the weight of years that gives the name a certain ring.

Maybe I did punish too severely. Maybe I could have listened to more opinions. Maybe my tolerance could have been a little higher, my patience a little less thin. But I had nothing to work by. I was from a family where the leader had the final say, and very, very few others were allowed an opinion. It worked for our family of fourteen, but apparently not all families worked the same way.

Ni-Yana continued to grow, and my little city became more and more difficult to manage. Ownership became an issue. People were claiming ownership of the animals and plants they grew, and refused to share with others in the town unless they gained something in return. If people could own animals, then they could steal them, too.

I still had no template to work by. I had never even expected to inherit leadership of my own family group, let alone thirty others. I had former family leaders to act as my advisors, and of course, our survival instincts were still strong because of our lives before the yrae stone.

We sent the thieves away, downstream, away from Ni-Yana, but still the crime spread. A decade ago, we hadn’t even had the word ‘crime’ in our vocabulary. Suddenly it was everywhere. People were hurting others just to steal the animals they could have bred themselves.

I flew a lot in the later years of my reign. Nothing matters in the sky. It didn’t matter that people badly injured their neighbours for such petty reasons. It didn’t matter that they were beginning to turn on me, just because I was the one to hand out the punishments. It didn’t matter that the respect they once held for my ideas was turning to fear of my power.

It doesn’t matter that it was Qewir, the advisor I trusted most out of them all, who finally turned on me. It doesn’t matter than he threw my beautiful wife, my two daughters and my son into the desert. It doesn’t matter that my descendents—the only family I have, now—are still left to wander the desert, four thousand years after my reign was ended. It doesn’t matter that my current family still blames me for their exile and the prejudice the Riverfolk have against them.

None of it matters when I’m flying.

It doesn’t matter that I’m dead.

Alternate ending~ (just cos it's fun~)

It doesn’t matter that my current family still blames me for their exile and the prejudice the Riverfolk have against them. It doesn’t matter that I’m dead, and have been for centuries.

None of it matters when I’m flying.

Forty centuries on, I still have the yrae stone.

I’m still strong. I’m still powerful. I’m still respected.

I am still feared.

~ ~ ~

Babble~

Prologue redux! Because Silent Harmony has been frustrating me for ages with its sheer shittiness and total lack of planning for everything before chapter 18. For the record, I'm midway through nineteen. Nothing was working. I'd started that version in April 2003, and hadn't even invented the Own until about a year later. There was just 'may, Nol and a very sketchy Melraan.

Suddenly they all appeared on the scene and went, "LOL HI EVERYONE! Now you have to feel sympathy for characters you've never even met lollerskates 8D" and it sucked. Even Nol barely existed before midway 2003.

The prologue sucked because it just read like history, so now it's told first person from Yan's point of view, and DAMN I love. He cooperated with me for a whole four pages and a coupla lines more *T_T* I'm so proud~ *^^* Now you see why it's 5am: Yan NEVER cooperates with my writing, so I had to snag the opportunity while it was presented.

He's a complete bastard to write because he's just so manipulative, and there's ALWAYS an ulterior motive behind his words. He plants seeds in your mind and lets you water them on your own, so you don't realise he even planted it in the first place. It just seems like your own idea that formed in your own mind. He is an evil, evil man and when I can get him right, I squee insanely.

So this is me, squeeing insanely 8DDDDD

SUCH a manipulative bastard, he is. He even had me sympathising with him towards the end. I woulda throttled him, but then he woulda stopped cooperating and left me hanging with three paragraphs to go.

So anyway. Assuming you all feel yourselves sympathising with him, even tho you know what a bastard he really is, THAT is Yan, right there. It was also written between 11pm and 5am, when most normal people would be sleeping, but Yan's not normal. He doesn't sleep, so when he starts talking, neither do I 8D;

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK, PEOPLE!

Comments

[drazzi.livejournal.com]

I am privilaged because I was sent this every two paragraphs XDDD

I like it very much hon. Yan is such an interesting character, he had an odd and interesting way of saying things. He's so ELEOQUENT and it works so well in this prologue.

I think this beginning is a big improvement, and I'm glad he co-operated for it. He is horribly manipulative, and I think that will go over a lot of people's heads on their first read and understanding of the story, which I think will be good.

[creatore-magico.livejournal.com]

*puts down guirat to read* ... Woo, the opening paragraph just sucks you right in. X) So many misteries all in that one paragraph, so much promise of things to come. >D

Then I love how you stray from that initial part to go on to the description, bringing the reader back slightly. It's really god description too, painting the picture of a very vivid way of life. You are so good at that Narti!

" I could feel the steel grating against bone, my bone" ... I love that bit. *_*

The tail of an yrae description is really nice too <3 how the narrator is slightly sarcastic about how un-magnificent it was. And I ADORE how he calls the reader, 'dear reader'

"The sensation I felt all over my back is still one I can’t quite put words to. It was like a snake writhing under my skin, but not painful or uncomfortable at all, just… odd. It still feels odd, for some reason. It’s not a feeling I can get used to." I really like this bit too, because, the narrator is very good at describing things, being very well spoken. So for him to say he can't put it in to words must mean it was a very odd sensation indeed.

I've always wanted to read a description of flying like that!

I like how you only fin dout it is Yan speaking near to the end <333 YAAAN! Kuuu =D *fangirls*

And and... i love how you re-visit what it feels like to fly in the last lines... and then you re-visit the things from the start... about the death... and...

<33 Dah! I can't comment good, but Well done Narti! =D!!!

[dragged-up.livejournal.com]

I liiikes. BRILLIANT narration and the descriptions are amazing. Love all the details. So yays ♥

[ladylight.livejournal.com]

YAN!! <3

Right, I know where my internet time limit's going today XD

Ooh, the dreaded first person ... I trembled in my head when I started reading, but you pulled it off really well, hon. It suits Yan well, the tone and the language and the lovely undertones of 'alas, poor harmless me' ;D Yeah, I believe you ...

Now, first of all I'd just like to point out (ahem) I GOT YAN FIRST so everyone else can wait their turn >.>

and second of all, I love the images - particularly in the first half - that you/Yan spin up out of very short sentences to start with. The feel of Raykin is set up really quickly and without endless rambleambleamble about the colours of the sand at sunset and the centimetre-by-centimetre colour graduations in the sky. :P There's a lot about the culture of Raykin somehow thrown in as well, which I thought was great.

I give you my favourites (you never know, you wrote them, but you might have forgotten them):

There would be tears, and tears waste water.

There was always with a small boy wrapping his legs around the trunk of one while an older boy showed him how it was done, hanging from the top of another and grinning down with a date between his teeth.

It was a pride of lions that took my parents, when my family group was further upstream, where the country is brushed with waves of grass.

So yes. Awesome. About the historical retell style itself: I absolutely love the short little hints and steady pace of the first bit (and aw, Raykin's history is so adorable ... we love mud bricks <3), but the second half - even though it's also enjoyable - reads (to me at least) like a sudden slowing of pace. A straight recount in the style you started in tends to have more events than detailed descriptions in it, but the second half starts to turn into first-person real-time narrative ('My eyes were finally drawn to the sky, and I spread my new wings, giving the action as much thought as I would to spreading my arms. I flapped them once, experimentally ...') rather than a swift-moving overview. There's nothing wrong with either, but it's probably good to stick with one or the other for Yan's monologue here.

And now just a few nibbles:

I was the first to die in such a way. Before me, swords were only used to slit the throats of the penned animals. I was the first person to have had a sword taken to him.
-- Call me a horrible, horrible cynic (because I am), but how long has Raykin existed and had weapons up to this point? Or does Yan mean he was the first in the new settlement to have had a sword taken to him?

I do not use the word ‘beauty’ for it had not yet found its way into our language. Before the yrae stone, what reason could we have had for such a word?
-- The fundamental man-woman match-up reason: 'That woman beautiful, give me twenty cows' or 'That woman fugly, I not take her if you give me twenty cows'. Okay, so maybe they didn't have the word 'fugly', but you know. >.> It's a bit unusual not to have that kind of concept in the language if the Raykinians have a fairly established construct by this point. Perhaps he could say something poetic and Yan-like along the lines that they'd forgotten the real meaning of beauty in all that harsh living somewhere?

None of it matters when I’m flying.
It doesn’t matter that I’m dead.
-- I paused a few seconds for my proper squee here - I take it the meaning is that he's flying AND dead now, and we suddenly realise 'Whoa, he's dead but still moving around and stuff!' :O That being the case, maybe you could look at reversing the order of the sentences for your REALLY slow readers *cough* or change the last to something like 'Even the fact that I'm dead'?

Anyway *ahem* I have spammed you yet again, as of old, so sorry XD Suffice to say that the overview is 'your desert > insert setting here' <3 <3 You have such a full and deep world occupying your brainspace there, and it would be wonderful to read about even without all the lovely people inhabiting it. And Yan, with or without the invention of BOOTS, is the rowr. Eee, it's so lovely to see things moving along agaaain :D :D

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Depending on whether he cooperates or not, Yan alternates between being my favourite charrie and the one I most want to hit with a cricket bat. Right now, I'm loving him X3

Thank you for reading, hun <3!

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Mmm~ nice long Saku comment, that makes me happy =D *devours it*

Flying is freedom~ and he still loves it =D

Thank you, Kuu~ =D

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Whee, thankuu Silber-lub *^^*

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Ooh, the dreaded first person
I know~ I'm not a fan of first person either >> But this just had to be. I've written it twice in third person and it's just come off as a history book every time. Also, 'I'm dead' has more grab-value than 'he's dead', so yersh, various reasons as to why I couldn't avoid it ^^;

About the historical retell style itself
Hmm~ that'll be something I'll have to look into. I wanted to draw most attention to the yrae bit, because that was THE turning point, not just in Yan's life, but in EVERYTHING. Before that they were just nomads, but once the yrae stone came into their lives, everything changed. They had a kingdom and stuff =0 It's that day by which their calendar is marked, so it's not really something I want to just keep the same as everything else in the chapter.
I dunno, I'll poke at that XD

When Yan was killed, Raykin had existed for about~ 25 years. Before that they were just hunter-gatherers and the only weapons they had were bows and spears. Swords Yan probably nicked from Kazin, cos they'd come across steel by that time, apparently, but the Raykinians only ever used them to kill their farm animals for food. Never really thought about turning them on people. Killing other people, especially your own leader, was just stupid, cos that meant one less person to help hunting. It was just a waste, and wasting anything (especially something as precious as life) wasn't the done thing.

So, Yan was the first king, the first to be killed by a sword (so far as he knows, anyway), and~ the first to be killed by someone he trusted. Sucks to be Yan XD

CLEARLY THIS NEEDS FIXING *makes note to do that*

The fundamental man-woman match-up reason
...Fair call XD Also, I'm imagining Yan saying 'fugly' now, thank you very much XDD

*pokes at the ending* I suck at giving endings the right kind of punch I want them to have. You tell me YOUR secret, there XDD

Don't appologise for the spammings! I love~ your comments, cos you give me stuff to fix and tell me how to fix it X3

[shanra.livejournal.com]

but hindsight is always twenty-twenty. <- Question, would Yan know that expression? (I can assure you that it doesn't exist in Dutch.) Would it in Raykinian (i.e. do they have the technology to give birth to the saying)? Yes? Then ignore me. No? It needs to go.

I could have had no inclination as <- I... do not think you can use 'inclination' in that manner.

There was always with a small boy <- I am confused as to the 'with' there. Is that just a quirk of Yan's speech?

their rooves from <- roofs, by chance? Sorry, I just noticed the Alyssa comment. I'll try and keep myself from duplicating things from now on. I'm sure she's mentioned a few of the ones above.

and brought it from <- them. I know you mean 'it' to refer to the water, but you can't. It's not a direct object, so it can't have a referer back. You could just leave it out, I think, and make it something like 'we began growing plants instead of forage'. It'll be clear that the vessels (and irrigation, I'd imagine!) and the water are involved.

Do not mistake me; I was not naïve, no more than the rest of Raykin. <- Ooooh, I do quite like that.

I suppose this makes me the cause of all the wars in Thyllaeth today, and for that I apologise. <- *cackles* And that. I love how he just goes 'I apologise' and leaves it at that. XD

even now, dear reader. <- might wish to clarify that he's writing this since I was rather thrown out of the story by it.

‘beauty’[,] for it had <- otherwise you risk readers reading it as "beauty" for it, had". Also, if you're using single quotation marks for direct speech (which I know you are) then you need to use double quotation marks for this.

And its stone, well, that wasn’t a legend because it could make fine jewellery. <- wasn't or isn't? I'm confused now. Was the yrae stone already a legend during Yan's time or not? Because I'm getting conflicting statements on that.

my wings fanning out like some living cloak, they listened. <- and they didn't run or tery to kill him? Not even once? Not even somewhere? Not everyone is going to react to a guy with wings in the same way. Not everyone will obey. I know this would probably come out of you told this part of Yan's story in third person, so I'll leave it and just shrug it off to his perception of things. Especially if he's a manipulative thing as I believe you've mentioned before. Always nice to have people think the best of you.

Yrae-kin, <- Oooh, nice touch. I hadn't realised that's where Raykin'd come from.

and[,] of course, our <- Poor lad to get all that thrown onto his shoulders. Still, Yan, me dear, you sound intelligent enough to have solved it if you really wanted to. (Whatever makes you think I'm taking his version with a grain of salt?)

I'd leave it at the original ending there, me dear. That last line is incredibly powerful and in-your-face, but by adding more text, you vaporise the importance of the statement. It makes the prologue weaker.

That all said and done. I am much impressed. Yan has a very nice way with words indeed. Very good at not stating what those punishments were (beyond sending people into the desert) isn't he? Why didn't they just come back, though? If he's as disorganised and unknowning as he claims wouldn't they have been able to just slip back into town or build up a new life elsewhere on the river and live according to their rules? How severe is the idea of being ostrasised? (I probably spelled that wrong.)

I really, really liked the description of how Yan's people used to live. It's a very, very nice touch and really brings home the fact that they're not living in a traditional setting.

Agree with Lyssa on the first person, but you knew I felt that way to begin with, so... But yes... Very, very nicely done this, me dear. Loved the narrative feel. Loved the descriptions. And I have to say I quite like reading about Yan, but that's the 'Baddies are so interesting syndrome'. Which I mean in a nice way, of course. Loved the descriptions of the flying. *applauds*

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Question, would Yan know that expression?
No, he wouldn't *axes it*

Is that just a quirk of Yan's speech?
That's a quirk of 'narti trying to write something at arse-am \m/ I originally had it worded one way, didn't like it, changed some bits and forgot to change others, so~ yeah. Oops XD;

Was the yrae stone already a legend during Yan's time or not?
It was a legend in the same way dragons and fairies are for us. He was looking at it in the same way you might if you'd just seen a lizard breathe fire. '....... There's no way that was a dragon. But DAMN it looked like one.' *makes note to make this clearer*

and they didn't run or try to kill him? Not even once? Not even somewhere? ... Always nice to have people think the best of you.
Ooh, you're good ^.~ That's well and truely Yan's manipulative side working there. He never said everyone loved and trusted him, after all X3 He doesn't lie, but he doesn't quite tell the truth. Perhaps not the most reliable narrator, but damnit he's the most fun >D

Poor lad to get all that thrown onto his shoulders.
Aww, DIDDUMS XDD

Thank you SO much for your comment, Shanra dear =DD It helps to have an evil git doing the first person, so you can't help but question the accuracy of his narrative >3

[shanra.livejournal.com]

*ruffles Yan's hair* You need to try a little bit harder, love. Just a touch.

It helps to have an evil git doing the first person, so you can't help but question the accuracy of his narrative

*chortles* I know this a little too well. But they do make such good first person protagonists. Especially the manipulative ones. Or the insane ones.

[magycmyste]

ok, posting as someone who has yet to read your work and knows absolutely nothing about the yrae or the characters of this world:

I hate first person. I hate it with a passion. Any story that is told in first person has an extra hurdle to jump for me to get involved in the story. That said, you crossed the hurdle. This was written beautifully. Admittedly, the first part didn't grab my interest very much. Not that it was badly written, but it seemed like "wise old man reminiscing" to me, and with the POV, I had to force myself to keep reading. About the only thing I was wondering was "Is this guy a ghost or just really old?"

I think the first part that REALLY got my attention, and probably my favorite part of this prologue, was when Yan started talking about death. The way you/he described it was so... poetic is the word coming to mind right now. There's probably a better one, but it's 3 in the morning here, so my mind isn't working quite as fast as it should. Anyway, I really enjoyed it a lot. After that, everything just seemed to flow for me.

Also, I see how you were starting to be sympathetic. If I hadn't read your description about Yan being a manipulative, sneaky bastard (which I haven't read any of those exploits yet), I would have seen this as a stern but just king. Maybe a bit Machiavellian. And while I don't think Machiavelli's methods were ideal, they made a lot of sense and I certainly wouldn't call them evil. Well, from an outsider's point of view anyway. I could well believe that someone who was under that kind of rule would think the ruler to be evil. And want to kill them. Machiavelli's prince makes enemies easily. Anyway, I'm rambling.

This was a very good read (despite the first person-ism ^_^. It works very well for this piece), and I enjoyed it. I wasn't reading too critically because of the hour, but the only nitpick I noticed was near th beginning: "There was always with a small boy wrapping his legs around the trunk ...." The "with" bothered me a lot. That's about it, though.

[annarti.livejournal.com]

First up, thank you thank you thank you for reading and commenting =DD I've really been wanting to know what this looks like from an outsider's point of view, who's only meeting Yan (and the rest of Raykin, for that matter) in this chapter =3 The stuff you were wondering about is just the stuff I wanted, tho the 'wise old man' is... interesting. Can't say I mind that too much, actually XD Maybe move the talking-about-death bit closer to the beginning, if that's the properly catching bit. Hmm~ *muses*

Also, for the record, Yan is... erm... undead, I guess is the best way of describing him. He was killed at 40-ish (42, from memory?) then was brought back to not-quite-life and has been hanging around since then. He looks perfectly normal, he's just dead =D

Fear not, only the prologue's in first person X3 I'm not a great fan of the first person either, but this just had to be. I've tried it three previous times in third, and it just kept sounding like a history book, whatever I tried doing with it, so bugger that.

(re the nitpick: I had it worded differently to begin with, didn't like it, changed one bit and forgot to change others so it'd make sense. In other words, it was 5am and I buggered it up XD;;)

Again, thanks so much for the comment, I was really hoping for something like this =3

[magycmyste]

::grins:: you're welcome. glad I was helpful. And I really liked the way it sounded. I went ahead and friended yrae so I can read some more. Can't guarantee that I'll get everything read anytime soon, but at least I'll have it available whenever I have time.

[wispywillow.livejournal.com]

[annarti.livejournal.com]

Yay comment! :D

That's a good point about the swords, I hadn't thought of that! I imagine back in the day they were sort of long, curved knives, maybe close to two feet long? Straddle the back of the sheep/pig/nira/goat/whatever and slit its throat or something like that, so it'd be sharp on the inside of the curve. Modern-day swords are roughly a metre long, straight, two-handed and sharp on both edges, so that's definitely something worth Yan mentioning there. Especially considering one of the two main charries is a swordie XD; Mmm, swords <3

Re further/farther, the only way we differentiate is to say that Americans say 'farther' XD I've never heard an Aussie say it, certainly =3

He did~ adjust quickly, yes, cos he's a power-hungry bastard who saw the birdy, knew exactly what it was going to do, saw stars in his future and knocked it off. Then along come the wings and he says SCORE~ and goes flying. Seems I'll have to rework that so it seems less narratively abrupt, tho.

Thank you for commenting :D I love nitpicks <3

[wispywillow.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the curved shorter blade would definitely be good ^_^ I wasn't sure whether to envision a curved blade or a straight blade, so I'm glad you clarified that :D

*giggles* Well, we only say it sometimes. We're weird, what can I say ^_^

My pleasure! I'm planning on reading some more tonight! :D

[annarti.livejournal.com]

You ARE weird! Think about how the poor letter U feels, being left out of so many words like that! *hugs it* Poor neglected thing =(

I will squee if you read more :D I love when people read my stuff, makes me feel proud :D