Yrae Chronicles

Thirteenth Birthday

A year later, on a bright, breezy day dotted with a few puffy clouds, a magnificent ship slid up alongside Jita’s dock. It looked very old, with a classic design only the few elderly residents of Jita recognised, and they said such a style had been old even when they had been children. Written on its hull, in letters carved of long-lasting dark wood in place of modern paint, was the name Emprades.

( 2238 words )

Sen still couldn’t completely banish Captain Tu from her thoughts. She didn’t entirely want to, either. On the morning of her birthday, she and Kaiji were cleaning the morning’s catch, along with half a dozen other children in the village. It was a communal gathering. If one fishing boat didn’t have a good day, another may have caught too much for one family to eat. Everything was tossed together and distributed among the families for breakfast. This morning, Kaiji was gutting the smaller fish while Sen cleaned them. The bigger teenagers got the bigger fish, like salmon and long, slippery garfish. No part of the fish went to waste. The guts and the scales would be boiled up to make stock for soup that night, with kelp that hung in dried ribbons in the sun.

( 1969 words )

Ninth Birthday

Another year passed and still the Horizons didn’t pull up to Jita’s jetty. Sen thought she had learned all she could from the villagers and other passing ships, but she didn’t stop asking.

( 2005 words )

Seventh Birthday

The sun was just kissing the ocean in the distance as Horizons finally pulled into the jetty. The whole crew came ashore now, though it was still only Tu that Sen was interested in seeing. She ran up the jetty, bare feet thundering on the wood, and threw herself at the big captain in an equally big hug. Kaiji wasn’t far behind.

( 2040 words )

Fifth Birthday

The construction of the jetty was finally underway when Tu rowed up for her sixth visit. Tu’s gold from two years ago had been a major talking point in Jita. There was enough to buy a jetty and labour, certainly, but should they buy better wood to make the jetty last longer but risk building it themselves? Or should they buy the same wood that the other small towns used and hire people who knew what they were doing? Finally, shortly after Tu’s last visit when the captain had expressed disappointment at the lack of progress, Sula had made the decision for them. They purchased wood from Llayad and labour from Ryas to build it properly, though everyone in the village helped out.

( 1756 words )

Third Birthday

It was a harsh, hot morning on the day of Tu’s third visit. Sen was on the beach early, cockling with Kaiji and Sula before the sun got too hot to deal with, though the day promised to be harsh. Nak was already out on the fishing boat. Sen could see it, away out of the mouth of the bay with the other three boats from the village. Closer to shore, anchored halfway to the island at the bay’s mouth, floated the Horizons, white sails painted pale mauve in the morning light. The sun rose slowly back over the dunes behind the little village, smearing pink and orange streaks across the wisps of cloud over the ocean. The sea was glassy flat and barely a ripple made it to shore. It was perfect for cockling.

( 2221 words )

First Birthday

True to the captain’s word, the Horizons anchored in the bay that cupped Jita almost exactly one year later. Sen sat on Sula’s hip, three fingers stuck in her mouth. Kaiji, who was marginally more steady on her feet, stood in the sand with her little fists bunched in her mother’s pants leg.

( 2053 words )

It's been a looooooooong time since I've done a character survey. Mostly cos I'm doing a lot of writing 8D So one came up on my tumblr and why not? I think I'm going with current Nol, towards the end of SH:Gold, but I'll white-out the bits that are real spoilers.

( Read more... )

Well. That was an emotional roller-coaster.

And now Yamin in the Big Book of Stuff :D God I have drawn her WAY less than Nimay. Sorry 'min. You don't have as interesting poses as a swordie, sadly.

Her aesthetic boards almost make it look like they don't live in a desert. I also found the perfect Yamin-like person--Nastaya Zhidkova, who is an albino model with Yamin's identical haircut and everything. I'm so happy. And a bunch of pictures of small children who might as well be the twins and it's awesome. And a healing house! Which is actually an observatory but shh you don't need to know that.