History of Tsyllaes
Feb. 2nd, 2005 01:04 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
annarti.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
yrae
Just to prove I haven't been slacking off, I have~ been writing over the past... week or however long it's been since I posted a min!fic, just haven't been working on minifics. Primarily working on ficcing the history of Tsyllaes, which is harder than I thought. See, it's obviously told from Yan's pov, given that he's the only one who's seen all 4000+ years of Tsyllaes' development (bar the decade or three when he was off cavorting with the goddesses), and I've only written Yan... three times? And obviously in third person. First person, Yan is a bit of a bastid to write. Lotta verbal diarrhoea going on there.
Anyway. It was originally intended as maybe a 5 or 6 page thing, but it's obviously going to go for quite a bit longer, so~ I believe I'll be puting it off until I've finished a few other projects I've got going >> 'til I get back to it, you can have this much =D
~ ~ ~
Nyan rana yn Yan.
Four thousand and twenty years ago, such an introduction was not necessary. My presence alone provided sufficient introduction. Even now, the name retains some of that former potency. Of course, not a soul believes me to be the man I say I am, and yet not a soul has confidently met my eye at the mention of my name. Whether they are wise or fools, I couldn’t know.
The early years of Raykin’s life can be summed up in that name. The kingdom still shudders at the mention of it, though not even the oldest of her inhabitants remembers my reign, excluding myself, of course. The smallest child knows the apparently debatable story of her foundations, however shaky and basic their knowledge.
As such, I will not bore readers with this part of the kingdom’s history. True, people learn of my rule from Qewir’s writings rather than my own, but as I say, the raw basics remain. At the very least, Qewir left my retelling of that beautiful yrae intact, even if he burned every other sheet of parchment bearing my handwriting, then replaced them with his own accounts.
He may have been the one to sheath his sword in my skull, but Qewir is not a lying man. Each word of what he wrote of my rule is truth, I will not deny it. He brushed over some accomplishments of my rule, lent his own name to others and omitted still more entirely, but those events he wrote in full most definitely speak the truth.
I was a tyrant; I have no qualms in admitting this. I am not writing this to redeem myself, rather write a more personal account of Tsyllaes’ history. I brought the people from a nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering to living in shelters against the harsh climates of the kingdom, but I was a tyrant. Certainly not the worst in four thousand years of history, but while I ruled, Raykin’s years hadn’t yet reached three figures. They had nothing to compare their first king to but their former lives, living under the rule of a few old men.
Yes, all four kingdoms have seen worse rulers than myself, many whose names were forgotten barely two centuries after their deaths. I was ruthless, yes, but the kingdom progressed under my rule. For a number of rulers, Kazinian empresses in particular, their grasp on the kingdom slipped, causing her to fall backwards.
But I digress.
To Raykin’s knowledge, my story ended in the thirty-third year of my reign. My life ended this day, but not my story.
Over the apparently endless millennia of my existence, a few people have discerned that I am indeed the kingdom’s first ruler. Most have stupidly attempted flight when they realise this, but the more sensible realise that escape is hardly a viable option. Some—mostly the desert people—are even to bold as to ask me questions. Inevitably, the first question I am asked always relates somehow to death. That one experience everyone must have, and yet that one nobody can speak of first hand.
“At least you had the mercy of dying in your sleep,” they tell me, “It wouldn’t be as painful that way.”
Perhaps not. I don’t speak with the greatest authority on painless deaths. After all, I had a sword driven through my skull. However, no matter how passive the death, a victim of Aeia’s hand would nevertheless have to deal with the feeling of their life being torn viciously from their body. The desperate feeling when breathing is no longer a subconscious action, and when one struggles hopelessly to keep the heart beating.
According to countless history books, I died instantly, but Lin is not one so willing to give up one of the lives she protects. While she begged and pleaded with Aeia to keep me in life rather than death, I hung somewhere between the two in an agonising tug-of-war which need not have been played. How Lin could have expected to emerge successful, I’ll never know. Aeia was always to be the victor, but Lin is just so desperate to win some day. She has a strong mind, but Aeia will always be stronger.
“Do you mean to say you’ve met them?” Always the same question, perhaps worded differently, with different inflections to indicate incredulity, hope, indifference…
I have, in a manner of speaking. I have met them in much the same way as though I had been sleeping and had dreamt their presence. At times, so clear it might have been life, at others so clouded it could only have been a dream.
“But then, if it seemed so like a dream, how are you certain the goddesses were truly there?”
A wry smile, a cocked eyebrow; “Because I died.” Strangely, I have even had one boy try and dispute this, because apparently a steel blade through your mind isn’t quite convincing enough a death.
And yet I am still here to tell the tale. I try not to use the term ‘alive’. My heart doesn’t beat, I only breathe through force of habit, I have no need for food or drink, I’ve not physically aged since my death, I only tire through over-exertion, not lack of sleep. Most certainly, the term ‘alive’ does not apply. As far as Raykin is concerned, I am dead, and so I will remain as such.
The day after he killed me, Qewir was lenient enough that he allowed my wife and children to live, and instead cast them into the desert.
Were such a thing attempted now, it would be seen as an even crueller death than my own, but it must be remembered that not thirty-five years earlier, Raykin lived in that very way. Mina, Waké and Noku were too young to know those days, but Aliah would have remembered them well. I had also taken the precaution of teaching my children some basic magic of their own, should they ever be stranded in the desert.
It was this magic that sees me here now. To this day, I know not how my daughters accomplished the feat of bringing ‘life’ to a dead body. I spent nigh on a century attempting such a feat myself, but nothing has come of it. I had three yrae stones in my possession, and still I can’t give life to something that has lost it. Perhaps this is because I have none myself to give.
Anyway. It was originally intended as maybe a 5 or 6 page thing, but it's obviously going to go for quite a bit longer, so~ I believe I'll be puting it off until I've finished a few other projects I've got going >> 'til I get back to it, you can have this much =D
Nyan rana yn Yan.
Four thousand and twenty years ago, such an introduction was not necessary. My presence alone provided sufficient introduction. Even now, the name retains some of that former potency. Of course, not a soul believes me to be the man I say I am, and yet not a soul has confidently met my eye at the mention of my name. Whether they are wise or fools, I couldn’t know.
The early years of Raykin’s life can be summed up in that name. The kingdom still shudders at the mention of it, though not even the oldest of her inhabitants remembers my reign, excluding myself, of course. The smallest child knows the apparently debatable story of her foundations, however shaky and basic their knowledge.
As such, I will not bore readers with this part of the kingdom’s history. True, people learn of my rule from Qewir’s writings rather than my own, but as I say, the raw basics remain. At the very least, Qewir left my retelling of that beautiful yrae intact, even if he burned every other sheet of parchment bearing my handwriting, then replaced them with his own accounts.
He may have been the one to sheath his sword in my skull, but Qewir is not a lying man. Each word of what he wrote of my rule is truth, I will not deny it. He brushed over some accomplishments of my rule, lent his own name to others and omitted still more entirely, but those events he wrote in full most definitely speak the truth.
I was a tyrant; I have no qualms in admitting this. I am not writing this to redeem myself, rather write a more personal account of Tsyllaes’ history. I brought the people from a nomadic lifestyle of hunting and gathering to living in shelters against the harsh climates of the kingdom, but I was a tyrant. Certainly not the worst in four thousand years of history, but while I ruled, Raykin’s years hadn’t yet reached three figures. They had nothing to compare their first king to but their former lives, living under the rule of a few old men.
Yes, all four kingdoms have seen worse rulers than myself, many whose names were forgotten barely two centuries after their deaths. I was ruthless, yes, but the kingdom progressed under my rule. For a number of rulers, Kazinian empresses in particular, their grasp on the kingdom slipped, causing her to fall backwards.
But I digress.
To Raykin’s knowledge, my story ended in the thirty-third year of my reign. My life ended this day, but not my story.
Over the apparently endless millennia of my existence, a few people have discerned that I am indeed the kingdom’s first ruler. Most have stupidly attempted flight when they realise this, but the more sensible realise that escape is hardly a viable option. Some—mostly the desert people—are even to bold as to ask me questions. Inevitably, the first question I am asked always relates somehow to death. That one experience everyone must have, and yet that one nobody can speak of first hand.
“At least you had the mercy of dying in your sleep,” they tell me, “It wouldn’t be as painful that way.”
Perhaps not. I don’t speak with the greatest authority on painless deaths. After all, I had a sword driven through my skull. However, no matter how passive the death, a victim of Aeia’s hand would nevertheless have to deal with the feeling of their life being torn viciously from their body. The desperate feeling when breathing is no longer a subconscious action, and when one struggles hopelessly to keep the heart beating.
According to countless history books, I died instantly, but Lin is not one so willing to give up one of the lives she protects. While she begged and pleaded with Aeia to keep me in life rather than death, I hung somewhere between the two in an agonising tug-of-war which need not have been played. How Lin could have expected to emerge successful, I’ll never know. Aeia was always to be the victor, but Lin is just so desperate to win some day. She has a strong mind, but Aeia will always be stronger.
“Do you mean to say you’ve met them?” Always the same question, perhaps worded differently, with different inflections to indicate incredulity, hope, indifference…
I have, in a manner of speaking. I have met them in much the same way as though I had been sleeping and had dreamt their presence. At times, so clear it might have been life, at others so clouded it could only have been a dream.
“But then, if it seemed so like a dream, how are you certain the goddesses were truly there?”
A wry smile, a cocked eyebrow; “Because I died.” Strangely, I have even had one boy try and dispute this, because apparently a steel blade through your mind isn’t quite convincing enough a death.
And yet I am still here to tell the tale. I try not to use the term ‘alive’. My heart doesn’t beat, I only breathe through force of habit, I have no need for food or drink, I’ve not physically aged since my death, I only tire through over-exertion, not lack of sleep. Most certainly, the term ‘alive’ does not apply. As far as Raykin is concerned, I am dead, and so I will remain as such.
The day after he killed me, Qewir was lenient enough that he allowed my wife and children to live, and instead cast them into the desert.
Were such a thing attempted now, it would be seen as an even crueller death than my own, but it must be remembered that not thirty-five years earlier, Raykin lived in that very way. Mina, Waké and Noku were too young to know those days, but Aliah would have remembered them well. I had also taken the precaution of teaching my children some basic magic of their own, should they ever be stranded in the desert.
It was this magic that sees me here now. To this day, I know not how my daughters accomplished the feat of bringing ‘life’ to a dead body. I spent nigh on a century attempting such a feat myself, but nothing has come of it. I had three yrae stones in my possession, and still I can’t give life to something that has lost it. Perhaps this is because I have none myself to give.