For a while now you've been pestering me to tell you all my story. I know you'll all of heard of my time with the Legion, Supplimentary Unit Brava, out in the Horsehead with Dawnstar, Star Boy, Triplicate Kid and Oracle. The legends that followed me back home are amazing and shocking but remember they are only just that, Legends. Tall tales of daring and wonder loosely based on what might have beens and what should have been. They are to the truth what the tides are to the storm. They are nothing more than a sign of its passing, a result of a violent cause.
They are not the whole story.
The stories you'll have heard will have many similarities to the tale I want to tell, the same names of characters and places, the dates of battles and maybe some of the outcomes. But the guts of a good story is in the details as all the great Bards will tell you.
Well I'm not a great Bard, just a woman who has lived through a war, loved a fair man and lost a soul mate. A gifted woman, I'll agree. My families tuning to the elements was strong in my blood allowing me to tease the air into currents and eddies, but I was never a true Hero. Only a farm girl who grew up in the wrong times.
You see, I've seen real Heroes from across the mainly star filled skies as they puke and piss like regular folks. It's true I've danced to music made on real Dragons gut twine strings, drank wine made from plants we could never cultivate on out mineral poor farms, seen the Nebulae of afar as they birth young stars and ultimately seen too much to want anything other than a place and daughters of my own and then to die here with my family on our dark skied homeworld.
But you don't want to hear about that do you? No, I can see in your innocence that these are truths I'll have to glide over, as easy and distant as your five winged kites.
You want to know about the Legion.
You want to hear about Heroes of Legend with passions and powers beyond our ken. Alright, I'll give you Heroes but you may not like them at the end, for what are Heroes but Men, Women and other who do great acts with no fear of consequence.
If you are sat comfortably then I'll begin.
Let me tell you about the Legion.
Posted by Harbinger on :
The children had been badgering her for months now.
At first they were shy. A few stared as she strode through the market place. A few more whispered the next week she visitted. By the fifth time they called out to her “Nightwind! Nightwind! Tell us your stories, Nightwind of the Legion!” but she ignored their calls and bartered for her supplies instead.
Within that time the council of the Six Peaks had approached her of course and asked her, no.. they pleaded that she take a seat on their raised dais in the Cloudfilled Chamber. She had laughed and politely shown them her door. “Feel free to visit at any time.” She had called after them, and one or two had in the months that followed, but she never allowed them to make the offer again. What use, she thought, would a damaged windwalker be to these people? They don’t need my views, they need to talk to the farm workers and Earth lovers amongst themselves.
Still, as is the way of these things, she faced questions and bold stares and whispers still as she walked through the town. Do they really still expect me to fly? She thought with amusement.
Summer comes quick and never stays long on these upland moors. The mists and chill are gone almost over night as the smaller second star, Erabinus, makes it appearance in their western sky. A time to watch the fruits bloom, the weeds invade and many winged small indigenous flyers return over their skies.
With the return of the brief summer and the filling of the markets with new faces selling their produces she made her first real friend amongst the local folks. An old Speaker, much like her grandmother had been, returned to the moors after a two year journey visiting her children in the southern islands. The old lady, blessed be her wisdom, had taken one look at Berta and clapped her hands in delight.
“Aah, now you lassie look like ye could do with a nice hot brew of nettle tea and a hand baked tattie scone or two.” Berta loved the woman ever after and they soon began seeing each other with a regularity and familiarity that Berta and Coreed, the generous Grand Dame of this market town on the edge of the Vast Snow, grew to acknowledge was like of a friendship foretold.
It was Coreed’s idea that Berta should tell the children the truth about the Legion.
Posted by Harbinger on :
Okay, so some of you may have noticed the names of the Legionnaires above and thought "hmmmmm, there goes Harbi, retelling history just to fit her story" and you know what you would be right too. This will not follow established Legion history so count it as an Elseworlds or Earth 2 story. I'll fill in all the gaps as I go along, never fear!
I'll be posting more tonight as we learn a wee bit more about this Berta Harris and the choices that led her to become a Legion SUBber.
If you want to let me know what you think so far, have any questions or just want to say "hi" then don't be shy, post away.
It's great to be back!
Bxx
Posted by Harbinger on :
Everyone has heard of the great industrialist Rene Brande and his idea to start up an academy for talented metas in the early 30th century. Brande had one of the few descendants of Krypton on his staff as his personal bodyguard and most probably one time lover, the infamous Lor El. It is told how Lor El made him realize the great untapped potential of the youths of the Milky Way. A call to his Personnel Resource Department and four other registered metas on his Earth staff were sent to him. It’s an urban legend no longer even questioned that all five of the Founders met that day and immediately agreed to join Brande in his quest to reassert the Heroic Potential of Humanities Dreams.
That very day, so the stories go, he renamed them in the style of the great Heroes of the past. Lor El became Shield, Aln Stalb was to be known as Triplicate Kid, Ani eb Stark was renamed Lightning Lass, Shunam Murdo Trileman he re-christened Colossal boy though later he changed it to Goliath, and Fluor Arexi iii, my poor sweet husband to-be was to be forever remembered as Star Boy. The Founders, blessed be.
Everyone knows how they traveled from world to world to search for and sponsor these gifted children. All have heard how they spread their doctrine of harmony between the different worlds and diverse cultures. It is already one of the best known facts that Brande did not set out for these children to be affiliated to any political faction, system alliance or military body, these things just happened as the group evolved. Everyone knows that.
Well let me tell you everyone knows Puckshite!
Fluor had told me many times as we lay together and as we swam in the velvet skies that Brande wanted an army to further his own political career. For those of you who doubt my words just look at the man’s record over the last five cycles. Brande is a calculating schemer who’s interest in children stemmed from an unnatural feeling towards young flesh, and an ambition that allows him to use anyone and everything to further his own ends without fear of conscience.
Fluor told me that he was one of nine hand picked metas employed straight out of an Earth Gov meta registry. As the bribes alone to even read the registry must have been huge Fluor reckoned Brande must easily have spent several Million Year credits just arranging those initial meetings. Of the nine metas taken from the registry only four were chosen, to fight the good fight along side Brandes’ one time floozy Lor El. The rest where never seen again. There have been many who have tried to track the missing five, but none have ever succeeded.
[ January 23, 2005, 11:14 AM: Message edited by: Harbinger ]
Posted by Harbinger on :
Berta sits cross legged on a large blue scatter cushion.
She is in her own small croft hut. The walls are wattle grey, the floor is a solid brown. She has little furniture and a rudimentary kitchen in this, her central room. The scatter cushion is the only colourful object, rich enough to draw the eye, attract the hand and entice the body. It is covered in small needlework patterns of pale blues and amber.
She nurses a cup of nettle tea in both hands, enjoying the sharp scent as if it were a friendly memory. Her eyes are closed but she feels the disturbance in the air as the old lady, her only real friend for a hundred klicks around, approaches her squat dwelling place.
Coreed doesn’t knock at the door, in this place and at this time that would be taken as rude. Instead the Grand Dame walks through the short hall and straight into the central room, her thick leather boots clicking on the earth brown tiles.
“Elanur says you scare the children.”
“I’m not surprised.” Berta raises her head and smiles a melancholic smile.
“Elanur is a fool my dear, you mussn’t lie to them Berta, children have enough intelligence to deserve the truth. “
Berta rises from her cushion and offers it to Coreed. The old lady is not fool enough to decline and Berta helps lower her onto its plush comfort. A cup of nettle tea is handed to Coreed and the Berta sits crossed legged on the floor in front of her.
“Coreed, maybe my purpose isn’t to argue with the locals, my own clan live many hundred klicks south of here, I’ve been thinking..”
“Berta, you are the best thing that has ever happened to this Gods forsaken dung heap and no mistakes! It’s an honour to have met you m’lassie, and while it is not my place to tell a great Legionnaire what she should or shouldn’t do,” a sly ironic grin on the old lady’s face elicits an echo of the same from Berta, “you must not let snow-wives gossip and fear of the truth stop you or scare you away.”
Berta sniffs at her tea. “Thank you Coreed, you are a real friend.”
Coreed lowers her face to sniff at the brew in her hands and once more smiles. “A real friend must be honest, and honestly Berta, while you were gallivanting across the many starred sky did they not teach you how to brew a decent tea? This is truly awful!”
Both women crack with laughter.
[ January 24, 2005, 04:01 PM: Message edited by: Harbinger ]
Posted by Harbinger on :
By the time we had heard of the Legion out here on the upper Limb of the Eastern Milky Way I was already six of our long years old. I had been through my Twelve Days Initiation becoming a Windwalker, my Grandmother having taunted the Screaming Winds around my poor pale body, bringing forth the blood right that all our women folk on the Southern Reaches have. Like my Grandmother and her Grandmother before her and skipping generations all the way back to the First Rulers in Clouds she brought forth the Third Song from my spirit, the voice of my will that bends the air currents around us. Even back then my clan were proud as I had a mighty will.
You may not remember the old purple Omnicrom Stellar Fix series comm plants. Never mind, they were antiquated before they even reached us on the Reaches. My father, ever a serious man, had a routine whereby we would all gather each Septan Eve, before the Weeks End Feast, and listen to newscasters from the distant many starred Systems. This was as much as he would allow us children to hear from the Offworlds.
The Legion had been mentioned a few times I’m sure, but the first time I really remember hearing about their exploits was their rather unorthodox solving of the missing Quintine Crystal case.
Even as a young girl, like most I suppose, I wanted to be different. I wanted to BE someone.
No, that’s not right really, I knew I WAS someone.
My Grandmother took me aside afterwards and quietly asked what I was thinking. Well she could see right through my poker face. My Grandmother and I were always very alike and of course she had spotted the awakening longing in me that eventually led me to the Legion.
“Lassie,” she said, “your obligations go no further than to yourself and your hearth, never forget that, no matter where you think you must be.” She had looked me in the eye and even in that late evening light she must have seen the blush tint my pale cheeks.
I nearly missed the opportunity to apply for Legion sponsorship, do you know that? If my little cousin Agathe hadn’t slipped and split her lip then bled copiously over our old school ma’am, Miss Senik, I’d never have had an excuse to go back to the homestead that afternoon. My aunt Tilda, the youngest of my Grandmothers’ children and ever the rebellious of my aunts was listening the local Omnicrom stations. Even as I walked through the door with young Agathe they were offering an opportunity for one lucky listener to be flown to the Oort cloud staging Asteroid Grimdrell where a representative of the Legion would be looking for potential members. As the Omnicrom was never played of an evening unless Father was present to tune it to the correct news channels I might not have heard of this offer. Maybe I would have heard from one of our neighbours, but who can say?
The talk was all of which of the Legionnaires would be there. Listeners had voted for Triplicate Kid as he was greatly renowned for his boyish looks and easy manner. The supposedly dashing Captain Valor and bold Ultra Boy were close runners up. The Omnicrom jock was enjoying fielding calls about these brave and heroic youths. Aunt Tilda saw the look on my face and was beginning to turn off the broadcast when she saw Agathe. Her attention immediately focussed on the youngest girl of our family and she fussed her ridiculously leaving me to listen in wonder as the Omnicrom jock told me how to finally realise my dream.
In another world Agathe and I arrived back to the homestead minutes later and I never heard these broadcasts, or aunt Tilda had switched off the broadcast before I could hear the competition properly. On those worlds I probably lived a stable life amongst my clan, maybe even marrying and bearing girls to Bron, my first childhood crush by now. Perhaps and perhaps again, we can only guess at what might have beens.
What I did know was I had to be in the Great Tsaratanami Massif city of Dauphin Major in ten days. 1,300 klicks in ten days! And our old beat up hover Vikkin had the habit of breaking down at least every 100 klicks. I would have to get there myself if I really wanted to go.
My father would disapprove, my mother would forbid it, the only one who I knew I could trust to tell where I was going was my Grandmother. She would understand my dream. She would somehow stop my parents from banning me from trying at least.
It was to be the first time I would Windwalk without her guidance. That was to be our last conversation and I have always regretted the sharp words we exchanged. Even these dozen standard years later the worry and fear in her eyes as I stormed out of her small hut that evening sends shivers through me. I later heard that she did tell my parents where I was going and what my plans were, though it took her six hours to walk the half klick from her small hut to the families homestead. At least she had given me a chance even if she didn't want me to go.
I hope she would have grown to be proud of me by now, but I'll never know as she passed away while I was fulfilling my Legion training quota and by the Clouds Own Booming Voice she could be damnably stubborn!
Maybe I am more like her than I ever imagined.
Posted by Kent Shakespeare on :
Bel-
This is incredible stuff!!!!!!
More, more, more!!!!!!!
Posted by Harbinger on :
As she watched the high flying Kites punched through the ice crystals of the Altocumulus Undulatus above her. Their contrails weaved patterns of wonderment within the cotton wool rolled sky. She half closed her eyes to squint for details. She knew she would not be able to see their identification plumes clear enough to recognise the families involved, still she tried. Her Legion bio-enhancements still worked, but they were never that good. The kites were five or so klicks straight up.
This far north of the Massif there would not normally be so much activity so high up. It was one of the reasons she had chose to live here. As the five winged flying serfs darted like legendary eagles she could feel their every movement above her head.
“I hope it’s not a sprockin’ unofficial Clan meeting!”
Coreed had said exactly what Berta had been thinking.
The two had been picking delicate Joopli blooms in Coreeds’ southern orchard all day, stopping only once to break bread and drink from an old blue veined porcelain flask. Earlier Berta had joked about Coreeds’ ongoing battle to teach her to drink nettle tea like a northerner, “I’d be as well just suck the stalk directly if I wanted it that strong” she had teased. Coreed had smiled at her young friends’ comment but said nothing. When finally they had stopped to lunch the great sun Aratochi had started on its downwards turn and little Erabinus had long slipped below the horizon, Coreed had only sipped once from the flask before passing it to Berta. “Here lass, this’ll refresh you.”
Without stopping to smell the brew within Berta bravely took a large gulp and it nearly all came back out through her nose as she gasped and spluttered and choked!
“Apple brandy lassie, my own recipe. Nettle tea is fine indoors but if we’re working out in these fields I prefer something a bit more robust, don’t you agree?” Coreed smiled like a cat.
“Oh Goddess Coreed, did you have to spoil it with that much cinnamon?” and both women had laughed loudly before picking up their baskets and returning to their hard earned harvest. Their woven baskets were half filled with the rare fragile blooms so valued by lovers and the grieving. They both knew that they had only this day before the flowers would spoil so neither made much small talk. There was work to be done. Berta found the physical effort to be exhilarating but cheated quite often by teasing a breeze to push a fragile flower just beyond a comfortable reach towards her. Coreed, tough as a Kathooni yak, had wilfully struggled with the large bushes without complaint softly humming an ancient verse to herself. Surreptitiously Berta blew a breeze around her friend, keeping her cool, aware that the Grand Dame had no bio-enhancements to keep her going through the long day.
Two hours later the kites had appeared. Within half an hour the sky had their contrail scrawl all over it.
“Coreed, if it is a full Clan do' will my family be there?”
“You are not their Speaker if it is Berta, it is not your place to have a wee worry.”
“I haven’t seen my family for nearly ten years Coreed, I think a 'wee worry' is the least of my feelings right now.”
[ January 24, 2005, 02:22 PM: Message edited by: Harbinger ]
Posted by Sonnie on :
Very nice B, a change of pace from your usual full throttle adventures and you write it well....
So, you have recreated the Legion then (again ), your Brande is quite sinister, Lor El as a Kryptonian - great name, it made me laugh! Berta seems rather cynical - can't wait to see how you tie in the young headstrong runaway with the battle weary Legionnaire. Coreed is an interesting character already and what's this clan meeting about then? Is Berta ashamed to meet her family?
Anymore comng soon?
Posted by Harbinger on :
Thanks Sean and Keith, I'll get back onto this either tonight or tomorrow as we follow young Berta through her Try-out and we find out why the skies are so full of kites and how to make a perfect brew.
Glad you're enjoying it!
Bxx
Posted by Harbinger on :
My hair has always been my biggest vanity.
Unlike the human stock who originally seeded this world nearly six hundred standard years ago our peoples hair has developed beyond the single strand of proteins used to trap air against the scalp. Our long manes also fulfil a sensory function, particularly important if you are a Windwalker. It senses changes in the atmosphere around us, it allows us to feel movement nearby and lets be honest now, it looks terrific!
It was this awareness of disturbances to the atmosphere that alerted me to the approaching jet. Until that point I had never seen a flying machine. I know that jets are not that rare these days but all those cycles ago our skies were only disturbed by serf kites and silver shelled beetles on their seasonal flights.
I was stood on top of a spinning column of the sweet humid moor air, wind walking in the most literal sense towards the distant city of Dauphin Major. The long spindle shaped machine roared several hundred feet above me, blasting itself towards the Great Tsaratanami Massif and shattering the tranquil skies around it. I had nearly lost my concentration as I struggled to keep myself from being rudely flung to the ground below.
Even as I cursed their ineptitude the green jet slowed to a stop and hovered in the clear skies half a klick ahead of me.
My young determination took over and forgetting how close I had just come to my death I hurled myself at the ship, intent on giving the person responsible a piece of my mind. It wasn’t until I became level with it that I saw the Lester Corp logo and realised that onboard was probably a member of one of the richest families in the United Planets. Even then I had sense enough to bite my tongue.
“Hey li’l lady, goin’ my way?” the voice appeared at the same time as the small holo of a thin bored looking man in a garish purple and gold flight suit. For the second time in as many minutes I nearly lost my concentration and fell. “We’re going to see the freakshow at Dauphin, you wanna ride?”
It took me two seconds to stammer my reply. An airlock opened directly in front of me and I blew myself into the personal jet of the richest kid in the galaxy, Delroy Lester the Ninth, the so called Bejewelled Boy!
Posted by Harbinger on :
The Great Tsaratanami Massif city of Dauphin Major is one of our largest cities. With a population of nearly three hundred thousand it has a fifth of our planetary population within its mighty walls. I had never visited such a massive hive of population before.
The excitement of finally seeing such an incredible place and the up and coming competition had kept me awake for the last 42 standard hours as I wilfully strode on top of the air. Within an hour of entering the green jet of Delroy Lester I was asleep. He had personally greeted me as I tumbled out of the airlock, a large grin on his otherwise bland face. He didn’t actually offer his hand as was the norm in those days, instead he looked at me as if I were a curio on a market stall before turning and indicating I should follow him. When I think of what he could have been like I guess we were lucky that he was a catamite and had no taste for our young flesh. There were five of us you see, all Windwalkers of some skill, all eager to prove ourselves to the local Omnicrom station exec that we should be their representative at the Legion Try-out. We were all polite to each other, with that acid sweetness one usually reserves for one you truly despise. My face ached from pretending to smile while we introduced ourselves and exchanged the most basic of introductions. It may be ofinterest to hear that one of the Windwalkers was Delia Vroon, the current Arch-premier of the southern continent.
I had no idea that there would be so many of our folk trying out for the chance to have a formal Legion Try-out!
As I said though I fell asleep almost as soon as I sat in the retro- leatherette suite that young Delroy led me to. The four Windwalkers were horrified at my assumption but there was nothing I could do except rest. When I awoke nearly two hours later we were approaching our goal. The skies around the city were awash with serf kites and small-stead flyers. It looked like a Moorwash midgies swarm, buzzing and angry, waiting for a victim. Though we weren’t to know it as we sipped Denebian orange juice in the back of the spacious personal jet that victim was going to be me.
My family hadn’t taken the news that I was leaving well. I may have been a Windwalker so by planetary law, if not custom, I should have been allowed to travel anywhere under the lapis skies. My father had other ideas. As a greatly respected Elder of one of the Landlocked Families he had called in many favours to find me and bring me back to the home stead.
As all young adults instinctively know, dreams are there to be followed without querying the need to dream. And as a young adult I had done exactly that. Unfortunately, as a young adult I was not aware of that other great guiding axiom, there’s always someone who wants to piss on your chips.
Posted by Numf-El on :
Makes a pleasant change to vinegar.......
Or maybe not.
It's great to see such a change of pace from you, B. From rupturing realities to freakshows.
Thoroughly enjoyable as always. Great stuff - all the small details are great.
Big hugs, K2xx
P.S. How does it go again? More,....um.....
Posted by Harbinger on :
Eventually, as the large sun set slowly behind the Westron Hills the two ladies finished their blossom picking.
The Cumulonimbus mamma clouds were beginning to colour on their underbellies with the dull red of diffused sunlight, appearing to hang pregnantly against the pale evening sky. The kite trails had faded only an hour before. With the coming gloaming the wind off the North Snow began to chill the old lady as she carried her abundant basketful of the fragile blooms. Berta slipped off her long grey cloak, thin and soft to touch yet enough to keep a body warm, and without speaking lay it across Coreed’s shoulders. She was thanked with a tired smile.
They walked up the slight hill, the air rich with eve’bloom scents; sweet night blossoming gingerhook and evening glory mooonflower. The two women had not spoken much after lunch and Berta guessed that her friend was too tired to begin now. Even as she thought about the sudden appearance of the serf kites earlier Berta knew better than to bring them up right now. She may have been a Legionnaire but Coreed was a Speaker and so it was not the younger woman's place to begin asking questions. Even if there was one in particular she wanted to ask.
Coreed stumbled on some loose earth, nearly dropping her precious cargo from her basket onto the rough ground below. Berta stepped forward, gently clutching the older lady’s arm and supporting her. Only two blooms fell.
“Bet you’re thinking what a silly woman I am, I’ve only tilled this ground for forty Long Years, you’d think I’d know where to step by now, eh lass?”
“We’ve had a long day Coreed, it’s only that you lead so well that I haven’t fallen up this path a dozen times yet.”
“For one who’s travelled where you have and seen the things you’ve seen you’re surprisingly bad a liar. Thank you anyway lass, you’re a kindly soul in a cold world” Coreed smiled and carried on up the path towards her dark house.
Berta laughed to herself as she followed her friend. It took them nearly half an hour to walk the half mile up the hill, Coreed taking care over the dips and jutting stones that interrupted their way. Berta was happy to let her friend lead, it never crossing her mind that she could just as easily of flown them.
As they reached the low roofed collection of rounded buildings that made Coreed’s family homestead they could both see the serf kite contemptuously scratching at the old courtyard. Berta had felt it approach the house an hour ago but thought better than ask if Coreed was expecting visitors.
Coreed squinted in the soft evening light and grunted, nodding towards the house. “I’m not expecting anyone lass, you think it’s for you maybe?”
Berta strained to make out the plume markers but in this light she could not see it clearly. “I hope not Coreed, I really hope not. We’ve had a long enough day already don’t you agree? I’d much rather just get home to my shower and crib instead of entertaining.”
Softly, with the lightness of tone both women used when teasing Coreed answered “You Legionnaires aren’t so mighty after all are you really?”
Both women were laughing as they approached the two strangers in the courtyard.
Posted by Harbinger on :
quote:Originally posted by Numf-El: From rupturing realities to freakshows.
And that's just this week
Thanks again Ken.
Oh loved how you saved yourself in Dragons - very ingenious who said copper wire from ha'pennnies?
Posted by Harbinger on :
We landed two miles to the north of Dauphin in what at the time I thought must have been one of the largest landing strips in creation.
Civil air strips were few and far between in the Southern Reaches back then. Still are, probably.
I had my ID chip to hand and was eager to get out and look at the wonderful lively streets of Dauphin, with the early Neo Rococo balconies and spires between the sombre Industrial Chic Living Blocks. I wanted to try the thousand flavours of Sand Spice, smell their abundance on the breeze. The gondolas on the river Strui were renowned to be True Earth Stock, made from ancient trees long extinct, hand carved and painted by genuine craftsmen of the Mother System. The tightly groomed gardens of the Infinity Faith of Wa-Zen and the Rising Spring chapel of the Unnamed Saint built centuries ago by the long dead Christian sect! Oh Dauphin, our mighty city with a real working Zeppelin link to the Upper Starting Point Sub-stratosphere Inter-planetary loading strip, seven miles straight above! Oh Dauphin with it’s bustling, bartering markets, it’s hundreds of thousands of inhabitants! Here I could see other races of Humanity, not just the pale yellows and ochre’s of our branch of mankind, if I were lucky I’d meet a being with eyes of anything other than blind looking moonstone, touch hair that wouldn't curl in response to the smallest breeze.
Here I would experience life!
I was so friggin’ naive wasn’t I?
My Grandmother had bought me a six hour head start. I thought she’d be able to persuade my family to allow me to go without a struggle. I believed they’d let me go with a brave smile and a kiss for luck. I wasn’t even fully seven of our Long Years of age and had no idea about the desperate actions love for ones nearest and dearest could drive a person to.
There were seven days until the Try-out. I thought I would have that time to myself to get ready for whatever challenges the Omnicrom radio station could throw at us. Well, I had that to deal with still, but the next seven days were spend dealing with what my father and his clique of Man Landowners could throw at me. Bloody Earth lovers the lot of them!
I was a Windwalker, by tradition I had all the rights to freedom as a Speaker.
Try telling my father and his damn friends that though.
My father’s family are.. or certainly were, land owners. Earthbound by tradition, as well as in thought. Until he married my mother none of his family had mixed with the Windwalkers in the forty generations we’ve moved the air around them. Such things weren’t done. As us Windwalkers were by tradition landless they were simply too proud, too greedy, to think of such a thing. When I stop to think of it, whichever branch of the tree you followed, my family have always been as stubborn as Kathooni yaks!
Anyways, as a landowner my father had money. We were never rich as say Delroy Lester, but we had connections. All the traders of the Southern Reaches would know of the Harris family and most likely a fair few from the North too. I hadn’t banked on dear old dad getting word to them to stop me, inconvenience me, return me to him any way they could.
As I said earlier, there’s always someone who wants to piss on your chips. In the seven days after I arrived in Dauphin City I was to learn this lesson again and again and again.
I was accused of stealing in the market. I was threatened and cursed outside the Rising Spring chapel, a joopli traders threw her slop bucket over me one night, my hold bag was stolen with my few precious belongings in it, my cloak sigil defaced and it seemed everywhere I went my credit chip was refused. By the time the actual Try-out happened I had been reduced to sleeping in an alley and unloading a Tentui Scrap Barge to earn enough to eat.
It wasn't until the day of the Try-out that I learned why there had been such hostility shown towards me. I saw my mother in a market, walking alongside a tall elegant Speaker with incredible sea green hair. I snuck close to them, sure that I would not be recognised in my ragged cloak and overheard the two women discus where I had last been seen and how the plan to break my spirit had come along. I knew from my mother's tone that she was worried for me. I saw the anxiousness in the way she tapped her thumb along the tips of her fingers, a sure sign she was upset. I also heard them say that my father would make himself bankrupt if he had to bribe a court to return me to the family homestead but it was something he was prepared to do. My mother, normally a strong and compassionate woman, looked fragile and daunted. I thought at the time it was at the thought of my family going bankrupt!
Well, they had thought that little Berta would break because things had gotten rough did they? Quite clearly I remember thinking to myself that day "I'll sprockin' show you!"
And with that I pulled my resolve up around my shoulders like a second cloak. I was more than ready for the Try-out!
Posted by Kent Shakespeare on :
More, more, more!!!
Posted by Numf-El on :
Once again B you paint such vivid pictures. I can almost smell the spices, hear the babbling of the markets, feel the claustrophobia.
F'n'A - more more more!
Posted by Harbinger on :
The Try-outs were held at midday.
The queue to the Whispering Fields at the centre of Dauphin City stretched for nearly two miles, eight people wide into each of the four entrances. The Omnicrom competition had given a lot of our people hope. I was flabbergasted to see so many people, I had never imagined that so many living souls in the same space at the same time. It was shocking to my young mind that so many people would possibly choose to be in one place! It wasn’t until years later when Fluor took me to see his birth World and we got involved in a small gang war on Xanthu Prime and had to fight our way out of a renegade Hive Block that I knew what too many people in one place really was.
The crowds were colourful, a mixture of interested locals, curious off worlders, eccentrics, metas and madmen. At least seven windwalkers flew overhead as I joined the queue. After hearing my mother I knew that there would be several of my family and Goddess only knows how many people in their pay out looking for me. Though I was certainly strong of spirit I wasn’t stupid. I knew just as one knows that the sun will rise of a morning that they would not make this easy for me. If my father wanted me to return with him to the family homestead amid the Southern Reaches slumber this would be where he would strike with the most desperation. They had yet to break my spirit but that didn’t mean I thought I was invulnerable.
As we neared the gates to the Fields it became apparent that those wanting to participate in the days Try-outs were queuing into a separate gate, their friends and loved ones cheering them as they approached the registration points. I was certain that it would be here that my family would be waiting for me. I was prepared for this. Following the main crowd right up to the audience’s gate I watched the masses around the combatants gate. I was wearing a Dirge Drivers helmet with full breathing psuedopod aparatus and glazed goggles I had found the day before on the Scrap Barge and a silver cloak of an eastern clan. Hunching my back slightly and leaning on a stick with river weeds bunched in my pockets I looked like another old dreghive man waiting to see a show.
As I shuffled up to the audience's gate I stumbled into a family crowd who were cheering their little darling into the Try-out. Carefully I milled amongst this clan, positioning myself neerer to the Try-out gate ever watchful for any sign of my father or his friends. About thirty feet away there was a tall off worlder, black of skin with tightly curled hair and an arrogant gait walking through the crowd as if they were of no interest. Despite my longing to meet off worlders and hear of the many wonder from beyond our system I hardly noticed him.
He noticed me.
As I made my way through to the Try-out gate, skirting along the edges of clans and supportive friends I felt an anger building inside me, anger that I had been denied this opportunity to have a proud family around me. Angry that I was having to go into a public event dressed like a dreg, smelling of Barges and hiding my true Windwalker nature. My hair had been rudely crammed down the back of my tunic and the suffocation of my air sense was making me feel claustrophobic. Still I pretended to join the nearest clan in cheering their beloveds entrance to the Try-out gate.
Twenty feet from the gate, half hid behind a large leather clad Earth Lover cheering his young twin son's as they strode proudly through, I heard a *clunk* behind me. I turned quickly to face the tall off worlder who smiled as he stepped over an unconcious body. "Ahh, Derk, there you are, we must hurry." And with that he took my arm and dragged me speedily towards the check in desk, brushing the crowd aside like he was striding through tall grass.
Before I knew it my ID chip had been scanned and the off worlder had pushed me through the gate into a small enclosure smelling of excitement, sweat and sweet foods, full of the most ecclectic mix of characters I had ever imagined could exist. All the while he had stood behind me, sheltering my back from all viewers around us.
After we in in the enclosure I stripped out of my disguise, pulling my hair free with reckless pleasure, and looked back out of the gate. My aunt Tilda stood just outside the Gate with a strange look of excitement and fear painted accross her wide face. She gave me a half smile then turned quickly and strode into the crowds behind her without a backwards glance. I admit I had tears in my eyes then, though what exactly they were for I still don't know.
Later Zuban Berg, as I learned my tall off world rescuer was called, told me of his psionic awareness of his surroundings and that he had divined that the young man he had struck down had less than honourable intentions towards me, while he had read my determination to get through the gate and so he'd impulsively thought to help.
Zuban was, of course, also known as Temple. He was the best friend I had ever had until I started in my relationship with Fluor, and the first man I ever did lay with. He was also the fifteenth Legionnaire to die in combat and, despite his help in getting me into the Try-out and the love he showered me with, was a spy and traitor on a mission to discredit the Legion from within.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, you want to hear about the Try-out first don't you?
[ February 09, 2005, 12:23 PM: Message edited by: Harbinger ]
Posted by Numf-El on :
Queen B
You're just a wicked tease, so you are!
F'n'A!
More more more!
Posted by Numf-El on :
Oi ! Madge !
Sorry - YOUR Maj.
Get on wi' it.
Posted by Queen B on :
Sorry Ken, we've been having 'puter problems at home that were only fixed today - more coming tonight.
Posted by Queen B on :
As they approached Coreed’s abode Berta could make out the plume of the Uist family, Coreed’s clan, on the kites.
“They’re for you Coreed, it’s your family crest on the birds.”
“Bother and damnation I say, why they troubling me today?” The old lady’s voice was wrung with tired determination.
As the two women got within two hundred metres of the house the two tall men, dapper in their navy and silver trimmed flight outfits, began to walk towards them. Neither parties spoke. The russet bronzed dusk light had turned deep blood red and purple, casting long shadows against the cobbled courtyard. The kite’s pale brown feathers took on a blue tinge. Berta walked slightly ahead of her friend for the first time as they got close to the two strangers. Both men offered to carry the baskets of softly scented Joopli flowers from the two women. Berta had seen their eyes widen in momentary recognition of her but she held her quiet, waiting for Coreed to make the introductions.
“Jasper and Euan, you pair of scallywags, why you disturbing your old gran on a night like this?” Coreed’s voice had taken on the tone of indifference.
“The clans are gathering Grandmama and you are the nearest, and most beloved, Speaker for the Uists.”
“Flattery doesn’t work on me Jasper, I thought I’d taught you better than that.” Coreed’s tone told a different truth though, and her quick fond smile was not lost on the young man, who reciprocated with a wide toothy grin. The other, Euan, momentarily looked angry, as if he resented this fond display in front of Berta.
“Coreed, I’ll put these blooms in the storage vat if you want to join these two..”
“Don’t be daft lass, the meeting won’t start until the dawn’s light touches Old Jarrow’s Fang, up on the Great Snow, we have twelve hours yet, isn’t that right lads?”
“Gandmama,” Euan spoke quickly, his voice sounding serious, “There is a Northern Clans Meet arranged for midnight, we have been sent to request your attendance. We have to leave right away to …”
“Euan, I am the Speaker of Clan Uist and I won’t be told what to do by the third son of my oldest girlchild, not when you’ve only just learned to scrape the fluff from your cheeks, remember your place boy.” Berta had never heard her friend talk like this, there was a solid sharp edge to her words that would brook no dissent. Euan’s eyes overcast with momentary anger while his brother Jasper flashed a small shrewd grin. Berta remembered the rivalry that her mother and aunts, and her sisters and herself shared and she took a deep breath. These things were best not aired with non-family members present.
Berta walked up to the courtyard, leaving Coreed to discuss the families business with her grandchildren. She offering her hand to the kite to sniff, and gently stroked the great bird below it’s flattened beak. With her Legion ‘enhancers she could hear every word, as much as she may not wished too.
“Grandmama,” Jaspers voice were hushed and steady, respectful as it should be, “The Northern Clans have matters of great importance to air, we all know how wise your council is…”
“What have I told you about flattery Jasper?” again Berta could clearly hear the favourable tone in Coreed’s voice. Maybe this was were the rivalry sprang from.
“Grandmama, if you will not go at least will you let me be your proxy?” Euan’s voice echoed with reconciliation, Berta could picture him wringing his hands in mock humility. She felt angry at the boy’s transparency but was certain Coreed would feel similarly.
“Euan, there’s only one person here who I would trust to be my proxy at a Clan’s meet, and she isn’t even a Uist.” Coreed’s brutal put-down made both boys gasp. “Okay, I’ll put my flowers in the vat and go to this bloody Clan Meet, and it better be good too, let me tell you. And you two, with your flash new jackets and bloody airs and graces can stay here and clean your bloody birds crap off my courtyard. Berta lass, I know you’re listening, get your wits about you, we’re going to Clan Meet.”
[ February 16, 2005, 01:33 PM: Message edited by: Queen B ]
Posted by Fat Cramer on :
Nice touch to keep the two stories alternating. I don't know if I want to get to the clan meet or find out what Zuban/Temple is up to first!
Posted by Kent Shakespeare on :
quote:Originally posted by Fat Cramer: Nice touch to keep the two stories alternating. I don't know if I want to get to the clan meet or find out what Zuban/Temple is up to first!
What she said... although (even tho we can assume the outcome) I'm leaning toward the Zuban/try-outs.
Both storylines, however, are calling for a bit of...
* * * * * * * * * * (wait for it) * * * * * * More, more, more!
Posted by Queen B on :
Thanks FC and Kent, more, more and more coming over the weekend I promise!
Bxx
Posted by Queen B on :
As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, the Omnicrom Station Master had fixed the Try-out. His girlfriend.. and I use the term in the loosest possible way.. won the contest. Of course he wasn’t to know that she had the mutant ability to produce overpowering fuck-me pheromones and saw the Legion’s proper try-out as a way to further her own career as a porno-holo-starlet. You’ve probably heard of her, Simonne la Goodhead is her stage name now, back then she was just Sanra Sunnet.
She strode into the centre of the arena, towards the end of the day, with that long legged purposeful walk of an alley cat. She stopped, batted her huge lashes at the crowd, stretched in a manner that I’ve seen imitated (and to be honest tried on a few occasions) but never as successfully by a hundred women in the years since. She sucked her stomach in, heaved her pert bosom out, rolled her head on her long neck with both arm arching up to hold her wealth of ruby hair off her face, pursed her lips in an ‘o’ and stared at the men through half closed fluttering eyelids. The crowd went mental. Half of it because they wanted to have her, the other half because they wanted to HAVE her. We all knew then that despite the many ranges of Earth and Sky Lore our people had shown that she would win.
The bitch!
I cried.
Zuban, showing remarkable restraint in the face of such over powering airborne compulsions, hugged me tight and said one of the most profound things I’ve ever heard. “Don’t give up, we ain’t dead yet.”
[ February 19, 2005, 09:03 AM: Message edited by: Queen B ]
Posted by Queen B on :
Delroy Lester came to our rescue. The bored multibillionaire scion of the galaxy’s richest family had placed a substantial wager on a Windwalker joining the Legion and wasn’t about to let some little small world Omnicrom Jock ruin his day. I do wonder how that man's career fared after than, certainly Delroy would have let it be known that he wasn't impressed, and is always the way with the ultra rich, their slightest pique can sometimes translate into severe physical hardship for those that cause it.
Anyway, Delroy's Major Domo, an impressively tall mauve skinned man with immaculate fingers and a slightly haughty air gently touched my arm and explained that his master would be honoured if I could join him on a little trip out to the Legion exhibition and formal Try-out in the Oort cloud. His tone told me he would rather eat his own flesh than share a jet with one as common as I if he had any choice in the matter. Never having been one to take others’ trifling snobberies seriously I grabbed Zuban and we trailed behind the Major Domo as he went in search of several other Windwalkers to extend the same offer to without a second thought.
Within a standard hour we were back on the green jet that had carried me to Dauphin Major only a week ago. Initially I could see that Delroy was not happy at having Zuban on board, but the two men spoke for a few minutes and the potentially embarrassing situation was soothed. I asked Zuban what he had said and he rather blandly replied “I gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse,” before smoothly changing the subject. Of course, in hindsight we learned that theTriumviri scientist who had amped his natural psionics had invested considerably in giving him the ability to influence people. And again I’m getting ahead of myself, my apologies, Zuban’s story will be told in the proper place, but there are still a fair few tales to tell before we get to that.
I assume the Major Domo or one of his staff had checked our ID chips before we flew up to the extremes of the atmosphere. Certainly none were disallowed from leaving our mother planet as we boarded another green Lester Corp ship moored at the Upper Starting Point Sub-stratosphere Inter-planetary loading strip. While the jet had been sleek and pointed, this interplanetary vessel was rounded, with bustling waves of sensor arrays and antennae, fields of expandable solar receptors and a wide bank of exhaust flumes. There was nothing sophisticated about this vessel. It shouted ‘practical’ far above ‘beauty’, and to my childish outlook it was rather disappointing that my first space flight would be in such a vessel.
As soon as we entered it I changed my mind. Lush doesn’t do the main hall justice. Extravagantly outrageous might come close. Every fitting had a skin of topaz, obsidian or marble - real Mother Earth marble! The floor had discrete panels of pearl and tortoise shell depicting historic events, amid perfect pink marble slabs. The walls were covered from smooth floor to high ceiling in panels of fine cloth – one Delroy pointed out was from 15th century Turkey, or large flat oil paintings of his family and their many achievements, or simply clusters of rare minerals and ores, cut paper thin and arranged into Escher- like patterns of wonderment. The chandelier, and I have to admit I had never seen a chandelier before that day, hung like a monument to gluttony. It was twenty five metres across and thick in stones of obvious value arranged in ever decreasing size from the bulbous heart to feather like edges. It radiated a strangely cold fractured light that hypnotised me!
On top of this I was struck by the sweet smelling air. It was subtly different to anything I had tasted before. The gravity was ever so slightly higher too, but Zuban had warned me the Standard Grav, based on Mother Earth norm, is about 6% stronger than our home worlds. The strange thing is that none of this was too much – I had intellectually prepared myself for it and, hopefully, hid my relatively poor and uncultured background in the face of this blatant splendour. The actually thing that caused me the most confusion was the in-ship air conditioning! It felt like an abomination to one with my sensitivity to the ebb and blow of the breezes. It felt like claustrophobia.
I felt very small and insignificant as we walked through the hall, being shown to our sleeping quarters.
I sneaked a peak at Zuban as he returned naked from the shower cubby. Unlike the men of our people he had small curls of tightly packed hair around his groin and on is chest. An oddly attractive exotic feature that even then I knew I would enjoy running my fingers through. He must have known I was looking and probably enjoyed putting on a show for me, rubbing his long lean frame with down soft towels, he took an extravagantly long time to dry his head hair I seem to remember.
He always knew exactly just how beautiful he was.
Zuban shared my quarters that night though respected my modesty and slept on the huge plush couch wrapping himself in a pure white comforter. Truth be told, while Zuban snored ever so gently in his slumber, I don't think I slept a wink.
[ February 19, 2005, 10:08 AM: Message edited by: Queen B ]
Posted by Queen B on :
It took seventeen hours to reach the Oort Cloud and a further two to gain access to the staging satellite, Grimdell where, it was promised, real Legionnaires would be on hand to assess any potential members.
While we were in the last hours of that flight Zuban and I sat ensconced in one of the small viewing bubbles high above the ships bridge, watching as we skirted around the stormy atmosphere of the jovian H’rrathik. We talked of everything and nothing. I told him about my family, my dreams, our peoples Sky Lore and of man’s Earth Lore. He told me that his brother shared his psionic abilities, though no-one in his family had ever exhibited such skills before. He hinted darkly that it was because of these abilities he was forced to leave his family in the Orega Colonies and travel in towards the UP and it’s more liberal understanding of meta-mutations. I questoned him on his colonies fight against the Dominion/ Khund/ Durlan Triumviri but he changed the subject with a pained look.
The Major Domo, or one of his clone helpers, appeared on the holo-viewer and requested our company for a luncheon with Delroy and his other guests before we arrived at the contest. He also suggested we might want to approach one of the on-ship seamstresses to if they could help make us more appropriately dressed for the meal. After the holo blinked out I said that as the Major Domo had been wearing a black puffed bodice, with shoulder and waist ruffs and skin tight arm and leg stockings he looked like a spider who had had some of his legged pulled off, so HE should be the one who dressed more appropriately. Zuban had a great whooping laugh that started me off. We were both still chortling away to ourselves when we approached the seamstresses’ rooms.
Thirty minutes later we were stunning in our new outfits. I had a long deep purple cape casually slung across my shoulders, a pair of thigh high boots with silvered embroidery running down the length of my legs, a smart pant and vest set and a hugely ornamental belt wrapped twice around my waist and hanging in a relaxed fashion on side. I felt like a real someone as I peered at my reflection.
Zuban looked like a hero from the Olden Days! His head was covered in a white facemask, topped by a helmet cut into five strips cresting in red. He had a thin poncho of grey with lavish stitching along the lower edges, while his muscular frame was shown off in a glossy black faux chain mail. His boots looked like genuine leather, soft and rich, as they folded at the knee and looped back down towards his ankle, tied with a strip of black material as glossy as the chain mail. His belt, also looking like real leather, had a variety of pouches and pods, and his wristbands snugly wrapped his arms in white. I knew as I saw him leave the seamstresses’ room that he deserved his place in the Legion just for looking so damn hot!
We entered the grand dining hall, arm in arm, as if we were royalty. My heals licked with an echoing tattoo and Zubans made a soft scuff as we walked across the room to the other guests.
Seated at the table in front of us were three other Windwalkers, each wearing similarly rich clothing and a Sky Lord, in a hooded cassock of mauve and pale blue. They each looked bored with the others company. I wondered how long they had been waiting but didn't ask.
Zuban said a bland hello for us both and we sat and joined the silence.
There was no sign of Delroy or his irritating Major Domo.
Posted by Queen B on :
Coreed’s grandsons had been quite vocal in their disappointment. Neither had quite said directly that the old lady was mad, yet their tones and body language had said it clear enough that even Berta’s unfamiliar eye could see it. Coreed had been unmoved, and as both law and tradition dictated they acquiesced to her demand.
As Berta stepped into Coreed’s old hover car she asked why they didn’t fly. Berta was more than willing to carry her friend. Coreed laughed and just set the co-ordinates into the Driver Control.
Berta had a dozen questions she wanted to ask but remained quiet for the thirty minutes travel time. As they approached Old Jarrow’s Fang Coreed turned to Berta and said in a soft voice, almost as if apologising, “Berta, my family has a fair amount of clout up here though I don’t think that it’ll be all that easy for you. I think we both know why this meeting has been called before the official meeting tomorrow.”
She turned and focussed on the control grid before Berta had the chance to ask the question that leapt to mind. In the sky before them the air steamed with purple smoke, underlit by a bonfire. The hover car slowed and gently descended to park in an open field, surrounded dozens of other vehicles. There were people milling around in small groups excitedly talking, none paying the old lady’s vehicle much notice.
Coreed had changed into her cloak, heavily embroidered with her clans’ sigil, giving Berta back her thin cloak. Coreed stepped out into the frozen field before pulling her thickly furred hood around her face. Berta followed reluctantly, her apparently confident stride masking a bad feeling growing in her belly. She shook her head, her hair flowing around her neck and shoulders, down her back, like a storm brushed stream.
A couple of men twenty feet away stopped their conversation when they noticed the two women. After several seconds of blatantly staring they both dashed ahead, through the field strewn maze of vehicles. More heads turned as they walked through the field and approached the traditional meeting place of the clans. Berta heard her name said a few times, and not always with the respect an ex-Legionnaire would expect.
“Well, I guess they’ll know you’re here now Berta, nothing like a homecoming Hero to stir up a decent conversation, eh?” Coreed used the soft tone of humour and smiled like a cat at the end of a hunt, just before the pounce.
“Who are they Coreed and what exactly have you brought me to?” Berta’s quiet voice was as light as a breeze, though an under current of tension was audible.
“Don’t fret child, this is a time for the Northern Clan Speakers, you have nothing to fear, in fact you might be surprised.”
Although she didn’t say it out loud Berta muttered to herself “Or maybe not..”
Posted by Harbinger on :
We waited at that table for forty five minutes, being joined by two other Windwalkers while we sat in an embarrassing silence. Zuban had been stroking my calves with his toes out of sight (though not out of air-motion sense) of the others. We had exchanged a few challenging glances and tried a couple of abortive attempts at conversation. No-one wanted to talk. Well, sprock them I thought.
Zuban and I spoke about the décor and were thrown hard glances of reproach. The Sky Lord tried to engage us in a theological conversation about the meaning of life. The old man had said that it was accepted as a fact to his faith that death was only a deep sleep. Before he could bore us all to tears Zuban had cheekily answered, “It maybe like a deep sleep but it’s a bugger to get up in the mornings afterwards isn’t it.” The choked laughter from the other table guests and dirty looks from the Sky Lord killed that conversation there and then.
The silence became excruciating.
Zuban stopped caressing my leg with his toes.
We avoided each others eyes.
Someone drummed their fingers in a slow tattoo upon the table.
And slowly the music started. Faintly, a soft rumpity-rumpity sound, like Hillmen’s brass aggapipes. The noise grew, soon we could here the penny flute and the ting of cymbals. By now everyone was staring at the main entrance. The patter of feet and the rustle of cloth. Soft voices chanting a name, again and again, like a holy mantra.
We were all on our feet, our air senses alerting to motion approaching the room.
In a sudden flourish the lighting changed, subdued gentle omni-lighting became a blackout with three piercing spotlights jabbing at the doorway. A murky artificial tasting cloud started to seep around the edges of the entrance. Several of the Windwalkers started clapping in time, though I followed Zubans’ lead and stood nonchalantly watching. The cymbals crashed, the flutes sang and the horns shouted their arrival.
The lights started to flash and suddenly a hundred small pin strobes burst into being in a flash of synchronised rainbow hues. In time to the beat we were treated to a show by a group of Xanthui circus bards as they tumbled, hand walked and jived into the room, within a bellowing fake cloud. There were about fifteen of them, dressed in the traditional multicoloured diamond patchwork clothes of space gypsies.
They danced and played up a storm, whipping around us in an orgy of motion, backs bending, bodies cartwheeling, arms and legs windmilling, instruments passing between nimble hands in time to the beat. And at their climax, when we were become giddy from the excitement in the atmosphere they stopped. Statue still. All their eyes pointing towards the entrance, their arms outstretched as if to a lover, imploringly. For a frozen second their tableaux of longing was imbedded on my mind and Delroy Lester the ninth, our host and benefactor for this trip, made his entrance.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cheer.
Lost within the ornate gilt folds of a costume that would have taken an architect to design he strode in as if he had no cares in the world. His outfit was part blamange, part fir tree, a dash of jumble sale stall mayhem, a nod towards 27th century near-zero grav architecture and all crass. A wealth of folds and complicated bows, all pinstriped in gold and small shining stones hung from every edge, limb and surface. His hair struck out at alarming angles, small strings of gold with tiny bells threaded between the glued spikes, an oddly shaped stove pipe hat coloured like petals protruding from his crown. His eyes were heavily made up in shades of blue and green, rouge applied, it looked like with a trowel, and a long dangling earring of feather.
I heard Zuban snort and the Sky Lord looked away hurriedly, busying himself in some imaginary point of interest several feet away from Delroy. One of the Windwalkers began to laugh but she wisely stopped herself quickly.
Dismissing his entourage with an indifferent wave of a hand Delroy carefully sat himself down at the head of the table.
He looked up the table at us, making deliberate eye contact with each of his guests before casually asking “Shall we eat?”
[ February 25, 2005, 08:55 AM: Message edited by: Queen B ]
Posted by Queen B on :
The meal was, a best, bland!
There were, Delroy told us, thirty nine course to follow. Each of the fourteen I managed was little more than a smudge or blob on a plate, with a swirl of oddly coloured sauce around a few and the odd strand of earthy plant for decoration. Of all the courses I only really remember the Annsansanien spinach as it made me balk. Disgusting stuff I tell you, it tasted like it was fermented in dog mess with a texture and smell to match. In hindsight, maybe it was, who knows?
Between each dish the dancers performed and not to sound ungrateful but I found them boring. My eyes were only on Zuban, as much as I tried to join in with the conversation around the table, only one man had my interest that night.
The Sky lord tried to hijack the conversation but had little luck as Zuban’s sarcasm and ill will towards the old mans faith was pleasantly offensive. I was falling in love with my mysterious black skinned off worlder as he verbally parried, charmed and dismissed the boorish priest. At that age I had never met someone so charismatic, up front and utterly gorgeous.
I don’t remember falling unconscious. I never tasted the poison as it was built up meal after meal until all the correct chemicals were in our system and the elements sewn into our new clothes insidiously leaked their toxic venom.
When I awoke it was to a migraine glare behind my eyes, a throat that felt as if it were being violated by a sand storm and the smell of my own sick. I was tied at the wrists and ankles onto what I later learned was a fully operational moon crushing laser digger ray. The sort olde time asteroid miners would use to gut the way into one of the trillions of free floating space mountains in their search for valuable minerals and ores.
I tried to open my eyes but was blind folded. I felt no sensation from the air around me and for a painful second thought my hair had been cut off! The Sky Lord was talking and as painful as regaining consciousness was I knew I had to hear what he was saying.
“..will definitely answer the call.”
Another voice spoke but too soft to hear clearly. The Sky Lord continued.
“You will have a trophy Legionnaire, not just these sad wannabe’s boy, they’ll come when the escaped lad gets to them..” again the soft voice spoke and the Sky Lord answered, “It doesn’t matter that we didn’t plan for that, the end result will be the same, you’ll get your revenge on them for refusing your generous offer to join their ranks. I guarantee Delroy you will have a Legionnaires head to mount on your wall by this evening. And for every hour that they don’t come we’ll just have to execute one of these Windwalkers.”
The soft voice, Delroy’s, chuckled then said something sharp.
“If you insist, but let me choose which one we kill first Delroy. I pick the moon faced girlfriend of that clever mouthed black lad. That'll learn him for escaping. She can be our first sacrifice.”
[ March 08, 2005, 01:28 PM: Message edited by: Queen B ]
Posted by Abin Quank on :
Harbi, Harbi, Harbi, you've gone and done it again...
Another of your wonderful stories to drag me back here and chain me to the computer in avid anticipation of the next chapter.
MORE! MORE! MORE!
Posted by Harbinger on :
I'm having a few problems with 'my word document' folders right now - the 'puter is nearly back to full health but not quite - the next section has been writ so hang on in there Abin, it's a-coming soon
[ April 10, 2005, 12:53 AM: Message edited by: Harbinger ]
Posted by Harbinger on :
The sweat ran down the nape of my neck.
I breathed deep, once, twice, three times. Each time it caught in my throat as I imagined it would be my last gasp. Twisting my arms against the chains that bound me as I realised that the pretence of being unconscious would do me no good I heard the Sky Lord laugh. The old psychopathic squajjin’ Gurnett-eater knew I had awoke and heard him ask to murder me to get back at Zuban. The chains dug into my wrists and ankles, unmoved by my struggle.
I stopped and panted. Well, maybe my body had been beaten, but my will never would!
As all Windwalkers know the art of air manipulation is to tease the currents around you with a subtle psychic song, the Third Voice our people call it. Well, I never was one to sing, my voice being deep and textured and the range limited. But as the psycho Sky Lord and Delroy Lester learned, I can scream!
Three deep breaths, and I focussed on the feel of the air against my skin. With concentration I could feel the anaesthetic tar on my hair, probably smeared there in the misunderstanding it would limit my power. Oh, it limited my power alright, it limited my awareness of where I threw the air, it certainly didn’t stop the hurricane forces I unleashed! In fact I fed the anger and indignation I felt into the scream I used to call the winds. I pushed every iota of my childish hurt pride, every trace of the fear and confusion I felt, every little bit of the raw desperation that ran through my veins with my pulse. I used it all to power a twister of huge proportions against the voices that I had heard. The tar didn’t stop that part of my power, not the actual wind!
The walls did that. It also stopped the bodies of the sky Lord, Delroy and the Xanthui Viper Cultists that had disguised themselves as Space Gypsy musicians as my song summoned twister threw them at great speeds against it.
Bang! BANG! BANG!
I heard them crash against the beautifully sculpted topaz skinned bulkhead.
Even as I heard their crashing against it below me I felt a rumble and heard a crash. A whoosh of air over me then a voice, like an angel visiting his charge said with a flat certainty that verged on humour “Well, you know how to make a mess, you want to tidy it up, or would you rather I did? Bet you’d prefer I did, eh?”
My head was spinning from the effort of summoning the gale force winds. My arms and legs ached from struggling against the chains, my back was sore from the gun barrel pressed into it, I was scared, confused and bloody angry, and someone was making snide jokes. I didn’t know if it was a friend or foe, all I knew was I was exhausted!
I started to cry!
Thank the Goddess for the hood over my face, I wasn’t to know it was Captain Valor come to rescue us after Zuban had alerted the Legion to our predicament. He never saw the tears, though must have seen my body rock as the sobs came. Within half a minute there were other voices around us and gently I felt myself be lifted from the chains and floated over onto the deck. The telekinetic mind monster Tellus had softly freed me from my predicament.
Zuban was stood beside me, his face a picture of anxiety as he lifted the hood from my head.
“Hey you.. don’t leave me again okay?” was all I managed before he hugged me in his strong offworlders arms, softly calling my name. We were left alone for several minutes as the Legionnaires rounded up all the Xanthui Viper cultists and released the other hostage Windwalkers from the similarly dangerous positions they had been put in.
As you know, after that Zuban and I were fast-tracked through the great motile academy on the Taurus Sigma Staging Zone to become the thirty eighth and thirty ninth Legionnaires to be invited to join.
Of course, Delroy Lester got off with the kidnapping and attempted murder charges, and I heard that the Sky Lord mysteriously blew himself up while in jail, I didn't care. I was a Legion-freakin'-naire, along with the man I loved!
By the time the three months training was over Zuban and I were an established couple.
It was the happiest time of my life.
And as we agreed earlier, one of life’s great learning experiences is knowing that there’s always someone who wants to piss on your chips. I would never have guessed it was going to be the man I loved more than life itself. Zuban Berg. Hyper awareness and intelligence, clairvoyance, charisma, strength, speed, agility, model looks and a bloody traitor’s intentions.
The man I loved.
The man who would most definitely piss on my chips, and from a great height too. Then nearly kill me in the process.
Sometimes life teaches you it's lessons with a calm word, a considered offer, a kind and generous teacher, and time to think it through, and then sometimes it hits you from out of leftfield with a bloody large stick and says "deal with this sucker!"! Can you guess which kind of experience Zuban was?
Posted by Harbinger on :
quote:Originally posted by Abin Quank: Harbi, Harbi, Harbi, you've gone and done it again...
Another of your wonderful stories to drag me back here and chain me to the computer in avid anticipation of the next chapter.
MORE! MORE! MORE!
Thanks Chuck, as ever your support is appreciated It's great ti have you back with us Mr T, we've all missed your wackiness around these parts (LegionWorld I mean, not those parts )
So, when you going to blow us all out of the water with your writing again? I believe you may have a story about a certain Mr Karr to finish off if you have a spare moment or two
And have you read the end of Leg35C yet? Do you want to ? If so I'd really appreciate your comments.
Now that things are kind of back to normal with the 'puter I'll be posting a few parts of this a week for you (and everyone else of course)
Bxx
Posted by Kent Shakespeare on :
Posted by Harbinger on :
Thanks Sean, very nice
Unfortunately our 'puter is back to it's old tricks of just not working when it should so it'll be a while before there's any more.
Thanks for your support though
Bxx
Posted by Numf-El on :
OI !
HARBI !
Get your finger out and get back on with the story telling!
Missing it loads.
More, more, more.
. . .
please?
Posted by Harbinger on :
Thank you kindly Mr Thomson, more is coming - I've written seven posts onto Word - just waiting to get time off to arrange a new internet provider.
Dragons rawks BTW, you star you!
Posted by Harbinger on :
Right you lot, internet provision arranged from this weekend - I have, at last count twenty eight (yup, twenty eight) posts written for you so book a chair, stock up on lollipops and coffee and get ready as Sub-mania is coming back!
Bxx
Posted by Kent Shakespeare on :
Awright!
Bring em on!
Posted by Harbinger on :
Berta led Coreed through the brownian motion of the crowd.
The crowd was thick with families setting up for the long evening and guildsmen selling wares and reaquainting themselves with their customers and fellow traders. Individual sigils strewn amongst crests and coats, sewn onto streamers of every colour and tied upon poles proclaimed which of the mighty and many were present. Children running amongst them screaming with glee with dogs chasing, grandmothers laughing as they watched and chatted amongst themselves. Small pit fires roasting game and vegetables smearing the air with delicious smoke so tantalising to walk through. Laughter and talking and cat calls fill the night. Above them, Windwalkers danced and pirouetted, feet lightly skipping accross the columns of air spun for the entertainment of the masses below. Sky Lords playing with light and sound adding to the carnival atmosphere.
Berta and Coreed walked through the amassed folks of the Northern Moors. Behind them ripples of hush, wide eyed stares and whispers spread like rings upon a pond face. Both held their heads up, walking with an air of oblivion to the effect their arrival had on the crowd.
"There Coreed..." Berta points accross the field to a gathering of folks flashing Coreeds family sigil.
"Not yet lass, they know I'm here already, let's see if we can find a Bastard Councillor first, find out what's going on here, eh?"
A group of children, playing with robot birds with feathers flaring in blue and greens unnatural to this worlds indigenous avians ran past Berta, calling out to the crowds as they went.
"Macawnicals. They were all the rage when I left the Nebulae..." Coreed smiled as Berta said it.
"I think I prefer the smaller ones." Berta caught the twinkle in her friends eyes as she said it, "the Budgeriebots."
Both women laughed at Coreeds awful joke and carried on through the excited crowd in search of one of the unfortunately named Bastard Councillors charged with the unenviable task of bringing order to this gathering.
Posted by Harbinger on :
I heard Crystal Kid and Lamprey before I met them.
Having just finished a day long medical and psychological examination and platform tour I was left outside the canteen with orders from my Trenian guide to wait there for my fellow recruits. I didn't realise he meant inside the canteen so in my niaviety I stood at the wall beside the door. From inside Crystal Kids dry voice was clear and Lampreys husky tones echoed behind.
Crystal Kid: Oh no, I could never wear black, not with my complection. These trainee suits are a crime I tell you, a crime! It'll make me look like a corpse... black against my pale blue skin, who designed these? They should be reported to the High Council!
Lamprey: Ooh I know.
Crystal Kid: They'll drain all the colour from my cheeks y'know
Lamprey: Ooh I know
Crystal Kid: Make me look like a corspe I tell you, one of the walking dead
Lamprey: Not like any human one I've seen.
Crystal Kid: It'll be like Fright Night of Space with me as the lead... what did you say?
Lamprey: You wouldn't look like any human corpse...
Crystal Kid: Well thank you my lovely amphibious friend, thanks a lot. Me as a xeno-corpse!
Lamprey: No silly, not all bloated and scabby you know
Crystal Kid: What are you talking about?
Lamprey: Well the only corpse I ever did see was on Oceanus when I spent the summer as a life guard, before being sent.. before coming here.
Crystal Kid: oh?
Lamprey: yeah, like he was bobbing about like a bag of jelly in the sea, not a nice look, and you are far more toned and buff than that so..
Crystal Kid: Oh thanks sweetie, I do work out you know. Do you likee what you see? 'Buff' is my middle name.
Lamprey: <giggle>
Crystal Kid: Well, maybe if I change my hair, what do you think? If I had a blonde pony tail the horrid jumpsuit they've given us won't look so bad, what do you think?
Lamprey: Nah, you should stick with black, it's very dashing you know.
Crystal Kid: Dashing you say? I like that, dashing..
I took a deep breath and decided to walk in, it was never our way to eavesdrop. Squaring my shoulders and pulling my black jumpsuit straight I turned into the canteen.
Posted by Harbinger on :
My two fellow recruits turned sharply and stared as if I were an apparition. Crystal Kid is tall, thin but with that wirey muscularity that lo-gravity world folk work hard to gain, skin as powder blue as a reto-dove egg and the biggest most mischievious smile I have ever seen. Lamprey, stood slightly behind him, nearly a full metre shorter, eyeing me suspiciously for a second before breaking into a shy smile. Her pale green skin and short hair reflected the light like a Gurti-lizards back. Irradescent and shimmering, she is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. It was Lamprey that taught me how to use body-rouge and eyeliner, I'd never dared to be so decadent before!
Crystal Kid walked up to me with his hand outstretched in the timeless symbol of welcome. "I'd die to have hair like yours." His eyes glinting hopefully at my long locks.
We spoke for about twenty minutes before Zuban joined us, closely followed by two other recuits. Ultra Girl, the youngest of us was Ultra Boys youngest sister - she had inherited total physical invulnerability from their famous 29th century ancestor, the Emeral Dragon. With her was Retro, one of the elusive Predominates of the Eternal Instant. His spiritual nature and quiet understand annoyed Zuban, though I think that Retro could move outside of the timestream and Zuban was unable to sense him and that had something to do with his dislike. Hyper Boy, one of the clone grown Jovian workers of Cygnus Star One and Shadow Lad of the Talokean Resistance joined us after a further hour and our training team for the first semester at the academy was complete.
Team 46Epsilon.
The following three months were the hardest of my life. We were each fitted with Bio-enhancers, worked sixteen hour days with material to study for the next day, psych examed, taugh in galactic and planetary law, tested, prodded, pushed and punished. We were even forced to have corrective dentistry, the Tech saying "We wouldn't want the Galaxy to see you as anything less than perfect now would we!" as she injected anesthetic into my gums.
Those three months made us a fairly effective fighting unit and forged us into what I would think of as my new family.
Posted by Harbinger on :
Old Jarrows Fang is a natural wonder on this world.
The original settlers called it the God Phallus though later generations changed its name to better suit the social mores of their times. Locals called it Gods own Cock o' the North.It stands nearly 700 metres high pointing to the enormous sky above, stiated silver pink speckled granite and jade surrounded by 7,000 square miles of moorland and glacial fields. Nearly perfectly round, it has a circumference of only 60 metres. Ten metres up there is a hollow, only eight feet tall and four wide known as Speakers Lip.
It is said that the Earth, Ice, Sky and Wind Lore all meet at this point and any who would tell a lie while stood there will be dead by the end of the year. There is more than anecdotal proof backing this. There is certainly a current of this worlds energies that flow around this point and those with sensitivities towards any of the four Lores are aware of much more of the power they command here. Those caught lying here are ostracised from the 100 clans and guilds. Often they are found later either dead by their own hands or under mysterious circumstances not often investigated too thoroughly by local constabluary. Only Speakers or Guild Chiefs are allowed to stand upon the Lip. On fear of death this is one law that has not changed in almost 500 years.
To all from this dark skied world, this is a place of magic.
Posted by Harbinger on :
Zuban and I were law-bonded on a small asteroid chapel only three light minutes from the Academy twenty four hours after graduating.
We had our recruit family with us - 46Epsilon, all happy at our graduation, Retro being the only other recruit from our group to be offered the honour of a full Legion post. Also present were a party of Legionnaires who had been present at the graduation ceremony the day before, a selection of our tutors and trainers, and fellow academy students.
As Crystal Kid would say, we partied our bits off!
Ironically it was the night before my wedding to Zuban that I first met Fluor. Maybe calling it a meeting would be streching the truth.
The girls and Crystal Kid were taking me out on a supposedly ancient Earth custom of a 'hen' night. I'm still not exactly sure what an egg laying chicken has to do with the alcohol and ritual humiliation they playfully poured into and onto me that night. Those ancients were truly unfathomable, weren't they? Anyway, we were on a well pre-planned and co-ordinated tour of the clubs on one of the cluster of entertainment asteroids that helped serve the crew and students of the Academy. The object of the night was simply to drink and dance ourselves into oblivion and have as much of a laugh as physically possible en route. We had just left the fifth or maybe sixth bar and turned into the main drag of the hollow asteroid when we spotted Fluor. He was stood under a stairwell trying to discretely play on his palmnet while waiting for someone. Although not in fill Legion uniform his ruffled shirt was made from the tell tale starfield material he is famous for. We snuck up to him, though he heard our giggles just before we could suprise him. He kept up the bluff of pretending to make an important call for all of five seconds when we surrounded him. After switching off his 'net he smiled and slowly turned all those awkward shades of embarrassment that teenagers from time immordial have blushed when caught doing something unexpected by peers. He quickly fled, the thought of nine drink and stim fueled ladies and Crystal Kid on a big night out quite rightly terrified him. Crystal Kid and Ultra Girl christened him 'Shooting' Star Boy after that, to much hilarity. Supposedly the story of that night still gets told at the Academy, though no doubt much expanded upon, and it's still his nick name to the recruits there to this day.
I forgot about that night until the Xanthui Hive Riots several years later. Fluor remembered it perfectly. He still had that shy smile as he reminisced even in the midst of all that senseless death.
Again, I'm getting ahead of myself aren't I?
Posted by Harbinger on :
We were talking about my first wedding. Do you know, as excited as I was, as we both were, I don't really remember much. We both wore our Legion outfits, had sixteen guests from the Academy as witnesses and forty six others joined us at the night reception. I remember Lamprey being scandalised that Goliath and Murmur snuck off for a quiet little rendevouz of their own, Brande talking shop with a diplomat all the way through Ultra Girl's Maiden Speach, I think it was me who cut the three tiered cake though maybe both Zuban and I did as he had told me that was his peoples tradition.
I remember Zuban telling it me it was unlucky to look back as we left the reception for our first night as a married couple. Maybe he was right as I certainly remember looking back at our friends as we left.
What I remember more though is the magical week that followed. We had seven standard days before having to report to Home Star - the artifical system Brande created to house the rapidly expanding Legion Project. As there was very little media hype around our wedding we snuck off to the jungles of Marius Grief in peace. Funny thing is that although I know in my heart I love Fluor in a more complete and honest manner that I ever did Zuban that week was possibly the most magical, precious memory I have. The 21 hour days on Marius Grief are filled with some of the most spectacular atmospherics imaginable - high clouds that would engulf continents speckled with light from star clusters burning so bright they can be seen in the daylight. Zuban and I were both deliriously happy.
This period and the following nine months or so were filled with contentment and love as only a farm girl like I was can imagine. With Lamprey, Crystal Kid and Ultra Girl gaining full Legion admission after their next three month semester at the Academy I felt as if all my prayers had been answered.
Six months after that things started to go wrong. I believe I've already spoken about chips and fates condiment of choice..
Posted by Harbinger on :
I don't want to talk about my son.
The child I had with Zuban was so special to me, to both of us. I fell pregnant a few months after we were wed, and the pregnancy was not without it's troubles. Our genetics were compatible enough to allow Zuban's seed to bring forth life within me, and I was ever a strong lass, but there were quite a few complications. I was in labour for nearly 20 hours before we had to cut him from my belly to ease both of our discomfort. There was the risk, we were told that I would never be able to carry a child to full term.
Poor little Berto Elusdu Harris-Skye Berg.
I named him Berto after my father and Zuban wanted Elusdu, he said it was after a hero of his world. The honorific 'Skye' our people use when off world.. well, little Berto may not have been born here but I wanted him to know his full heritage and feel included in it. If we had returned here as I had always hoped to.. I don't know.. raise kites or farm the moors, he would have had to drop it I guess.
Anyway, my.. our darling wee boy was a sacrifice made by the Apokalypse Worshippers in order to raise their long dead lord Darkseid. As we battled the dark hordes that the evil God threw at us we never gave up hope that somehow Berto would be found alive. Maybe there's still a little part of me that hopes somewhere he's alive, though logically I know the dark God didn't lie when he called to me with Bertos voice. Defeating Darkseid was the darkest day of my life. We had to stop him, and with the Genesisians aid we did that once and for all.
It also meant that there was no possible way to bring my boy back.
Posted by Harbinger on :
Berto only lived for a little under 2 standard years, not even two thirds of one of our Long Years.
His christening robe was spun of finest Elama-silk, palest yellow and silvered. He didn't cry during the ceremony but screamed like a fiend later during the party we threw at our apartment.
He was holding onto my chest as we sat on the balcony pod overlooking the Elusian Pool of Home Star. His first word was "mama." He looked at me with such blazing love, fingers entwined in my hair. Zuban and Ultra Girl were there, they cheered and confused the poor bairn by trying to make him say it again. He smiled shyly and burried his head in amongst my hair, confused by our laughter and my tears. He refused to make a sound for an hour afterwards.
I still hear that first word and see his enchanting smile, can hear the patter of his feet as he learned how to walk. I can smell that innocent attractive scent that all babes exude that hung around him like silver lining.
After losing Berto I started to fall apart. We both did.
Brande had Psi techs ease my pain, our workload was lessened though I threw myself into what was given with a ferocious passion. Zuban and I rarely saw each other as we were too aware of the pain we each felt. My friends were so supportive, understanding, honest and truly marvellous. I resented it. I didn't want compassion from Crystal Kid, hugs from Ultra Girl, sparring practices with Hyper Boy or quiet beauty amongst the rare blue gem asteroids of Uorthe West Maxima with Dawnstar.
I wanted bloody revenge.
To be honest I don't think I really lost that feeling, though now I marvel that one as, and I mean this with every respect and genuine love for him... self centred person like Crystal Kid could say the supportive heartfelt things he did, that Ultra Girl could put aside her reserve and stoicism to hold me as we cried or any of the other amazing things they did. With hindsight I know that they were as lost and hurt as we and it was not easy for them either.
I think Bertos death was one of the triggers that led to what Zuban did later. Certainly when we were attacked three months later Zuban was close to the edge anyway so it's hardly suprising he couldn't resist the Dominion implanted urges that took him over.
Posted by Harbinger on :
At the Clan Meet, the first Speaker from a small northern family launched into a barely disguised xenophobic attack on off worlders, their customs and wares. Accusations of asset stripping, mineral theft and using the brave clans as slave labour barely received a clap when he finished. With calculated insult none of the Guilds or southern families asked questions or seek advice. He looked smaller as he dismounted, the crowd already forgetting his name and message, instead too busy turning their back to him as they discuss the next Speaker and what they might have to bring to this place. The next is a Windwalker from the southern Edge of this the most northerly continent. The old lady gracefully spun a column of air to lift her onto the Lip. Berta watched her through Legion bio-enhanced eyes, recognising her as an aquaintence of her mothers from 10 Long Years ago.
Coreed watches Berta, a small frown touching her brow.
This speaker talks of the off worlders with more respect and receives a cheer when she has finished. The questions asked are phrased with respect and Berta suspected that most were pre-planned.
Coreeds clan was to be honoured as one of those to Speak later in the night. Although she had no proof Berta was sure that she would learn a lot more from that Speach than all the Speakers prior. Coreed still stood beside Berta, her family and friends joining them during the first speach, near the edge of the fang. The old lady had said nothing directly towards Berta since introducing her to her wide eyed relatives. The old Lady had merely said that she hoped tonight would be a night remembered for a long time before she turned and to face the Speakers.
The Skies above were deepest indigo, web line traces of black high above. Berta reckoned there was still eight standard hours left until dawn would end this Clan meet. She noticed that some of the younger children were already asleep while a few others yawned and fidgetted restlessly. She knew that the excitement was far from over though, they still had to get to the main event.
And Berta prayed quietly that she was not it.
Posted by Harbinger on :
I guess it's time to tell you about Zuban Berg, Temple as he was later known when a Legionnaire.
My first love, husband and father of my child. Traitor, spy, murderer and mean spirited sneak. He was all of those things and so much more in the years I knew him. Well, I'm not promising I know everything as there's still so much to learn about him, but I'll share what is known.
Zuban was a twin.
When we returned his body to his home system we met with the 23 survivors of his clan, the rest had been massacred by the Domminion Khund Durlan Triumvulate.
They all remembered him and told us his sad sad story.
Zuban was the younger twin, though they never were seen to fight or argue his brother Elusdu was always seen as the more dominant.When Berto was born I had asked Zuban about his choice of the name Elusdu. He told me how the name belonged to a folk hero who had continually given himself to the mercies of the Storm Sir to save his darker twin. In the story he told me Zuban said how after one brutal attack the dark twin vacated his body leaving a vessel for Elusdu to escape into. The twin entity, now called Marassa then drew upon their new found strength to defeat the Storm King and bind him to the great dark under the deepest ocean.
We will never fully know what elements of truth were woven into this fantastic story.
Certainly the twins father, Steer, was a hard man who spoke more with his fists than with words. Their mother had died delivering them and Steer, or 'Storm' as the tribesfolk called him, had a darkness of spirit that did nothing to attract a new wife to his bed.
Steer regularly took his bloody rages out on his boys.
Posted by Harbinger on :
Steer was scared of them, both Zuban and Elusdu showed an awareness that to his superstitious mind could only be explained by Lao spirit possession, he had no idea of psionics, and both were obviously stronger than other children their own age. It was suspected that with there being no woman in their lives the physical abuse he gave was more than just beatings. It was reported by one old man we spoke to that when Elusdu was being beaten Zuban would enter a trance and speak in two voices, one of purest elemental rage and one whimpering as an animal in pain. Whatever happened between the father and sons it was strongly frowned upon in the village and they were forced to flee their ancestral grazing lands. Three months later a starved and terrified Zuban returned to the village, his eyes shadowed, blood dried into hair and clothes and unwilling to speak of whatever had forced his return there.
He was nine standard years old when he returned to his people. A family with no boy children, so valued on that world, took him in and made every effort to make him one of their own. None of that family survived the Triumvulate massacre so we only heard second and third hand how Zuban was unwilling to eat with the family or partake in games with the other children. He was ever after a loner. His hyper awareness and strength made him a fearsome warrior though and he was leading hunting trips into the wilderness savannahs by his twelfth year.
Poor Zuban was so badly damaged even before the Dominion found him.
And in his fifteenth year, as he was preparing to enter into the ritual lottery fights needed to marry a local lass, the Dominion launched it's attack on his home system. His world had one off world communication tower, had only at best annual trade with nearby systems and as the peoples had decided three hundred years earlier to return to a societal model based on pre-first industrial revolution farming communities they had no way to know of and prepare to repel the amassed army entering their system intent on pilaging it for all they could get.
The Khund War Dog advance force killed over 80% of the planetary population within the first day of invasion. Grandmothers, mothers with sucklings at their breasts, children, all adults, the sick and the healthy alike, the War Dogs showed no mercy.
During this initial attack Zuban found and killed a Durlan spy, intuated how to work the 'changers communication unit and sent a challenge to the DKD. The Dominion were interested in him after that, this suprising barbarian from the outer reaches had their attention, and like scientists finding a labratory mouse that could speak back they caught and dissected him.
He never stood a chance.
Posted by Harbinger on :
The Dominion have always been interested in the evolutionary potential of human kind. We have within us all the genetic potential to become whatever we need to be. So different from their evolutionary sterility. Their scientists were amazed at Zuban's incredible mutation - mental skills, physical prowess and ability to handle pain. He must have been as a gift to them. A techno ignorant mental powerhouse, so damaged already. They put him back together as near as they could after they had finished with him, memory triggers affecting his naturally photographic recall as well as influencing his later actions. He was given a powerful suggestion of wanderlust, to search for the Legion and when amongst them they would send an alarm call to awaken their sleeping pawn.
Two short years later his wanderlust brought him to our planet and the Legion try-outs.
We weren't to know it but just three months after losing Berto Zuban would have a few very unwelcome guests.
It was the Fatal Five.
I know, they would never be called welcome, but as Zuban was already suffering from the loss of our child it was a particularly painful time. The Persuaders Atomic Axe was one of the Dominions weapons from the 27th century Wars of Secession. Like all major Dominion weapons it continually transmitted a message on low level frequencies that allowed the Dominion to trace it throughout the galaxy.
It also triggered Zuban's programming.
Posted by Harbinger on :
Within three months of the Fatal Fives attack Zuban was fighting alongside the DKD Triumvulate forces, leading them to places of vulnerability to the UP. He was reported to have killed Mars Premier Gulta Dadu with his bare hands, though this was never officially proven. It is certain that he was responsible for the desecration of Zinthan 6. Their millenia old crystal dancing spheres and polution free skies were ravaged by an unprecesdentedly savage attack of Khund War Dogs led by my husband.
It was only a matter of time before we met face to face, and in his final few minutes of life he bravely fought off the programming that had destroyed our life together and took it upon himself to save as many Legionnaires as he could and do damage to the DKD. He initiated the Nega explosion that tore the Dominion system Defryix Minor apart destroying their War Machine Mainframe. The Legion lost six of their brave members that day, Zuban quite rightly was remembered as one of them. Micro was crippled and Chemical Queen was damaged in the alter-dimension radiation, losing her abilities forever after that fateful night.
The Media got wind of a traitor within the Legions ranks and the fall out from that still reverberates within that organisation now.
Zuban and I had only been Legionnaires for a little over a Long Year, three standard.
A Legionnaires heart has to be made from pure gold.
That means they never quit. They never stop trying, believing, fighting or being the very best our beleaguered galaxy has to offer. Having a heart of gold means that compassion, consideration, respect and restraint are rules to live by. Always!
My heart is only 18 carat.
I had a breakdown.
Posted by Harbinger on :
They had stood for nearly five standard hours listening to the Speakers as they discussed trade agreements, family fueds and the future of this beautiful bleak land. They had heard from many of the Speakers from Guilds and families, each wanting to impress upon the assembly their views, most wanted to talk of off worlders trade and potential new markets. Some wanted to damn them, most were curious, a few were cautious. Berta wanted nothing more than to return to her crib and sleep, but graciously she waited with Coreeds family before the old lady's name was called to Speak.
Her family respectfully touched Coreeds shoulders lightly with gentle fingers - an ancient tradition said to mean 'may the Goddess hold you softly while you Speak'.
Coreed looked fearful for a split second then brushed off the well wishing touches of her clan. Shaking her white hair accross her shoulders she faced the Councillor.
"I am not the one the crowds want to hear Speak today."
Knowing what was coming Berta started to back away. The sheer weight upon her of many hundreds of eyes stopped her from turning in flight. Coreed turned to her, a sad look in the Speakers eyes overcome by determination. Quietly, muffled below the muttering and confusion in the crowd Coreed stepped to Berta and said, "You have heard what has been said here today Berta, we do not need another old ladies views or another manchild who has never seen anywhere but this one small world to guide us. You will be doing us a disservice if you do not go up there Lassie, we are all worthy of so much more than that. We need someone who has real courage, real character now. Someone who has lived! Trust me lass, please, for our friendship if for nothing else, let them see you and hear what you have to say."
"Please Coreed, you can't.."
The old woman had a tear in her eye as she turned back to the Councillor to announce in a voice strong enough that even the Sky Lords arts had hardly to magnify for the crowds to hear "I must refuse your gracious invite kind Councillor, my heart and back are weary. I ask the councils forgiveness but in my stead I would be honoured if you alowed my chosen replacement to address the worthy here tonight. I choose Berta Harris to Speak for me upon the Speakers Lip."
Turning back to Berta she put her hand out, imploring the former Legionnaire closer.
"Well Berta, you know it's time now, your people want to hear what you have to say. What do you say?"
Posted by Harbinger on :
After Zubans death and the visit to his home world I threw myself into my work.
It didn't help lessen any of the pain at all and after six long painful months Invisible Kid ordered me to have compassionate leave.
Under the guise of public interest and hollow compassion the media hounded me whenever I tried to find a place to settle down. The blood sucking parasites the lot of them! I travelled to about fifteen planetary systems, several dozen asteroid settlements and countless nebulae stations. Everywhere I went there were staring eyes, frozen in recognition of my pain. I refused communication blips from my friends and denied my name wherever it was spoke. I was broken. You wouldn't believe the amount of times I started to dial the code to my family's omnicrom but was in tears before I finished so couldn't complete it. Despite many hundred times of trying I never made a call.
My grandmother died during this time. I learned of it by accessing the Comlog for our world, a habit I had kept since first leaving here. I checked the families names, making sure they were all still safe and sound. It was a weekly mantra, scrolling through the Harris of Southern Archipeligoes lists, smiling at any additional names as my sisters and aunts bore children.
My grandmother died without ever hearing my apologies for the impossible position I had put her in and the shame my family must have believed I'd brought them by running away. I had thought there were no more tears I could shed. Learning of her death proved I was wrong about that to. I was on a Shingle cruiser in the Mare Equilbria Sea of Lynois Leon when I found out. I thought I would never stop sobbing and could have filled another ocean.
There is nothing worse than truly feeling alone.
Posted by Harbinger on :
Anyway, my time lost amongst the stars with only my own voices for company was the nadir of my soul.
Loneliness makes you crave voices, even those from inside you that you would never otherwise listen to, that you'd suppress and deny, strangle if you could.. if you are lonely enough you'll listen to them. maybe worse of all, I started to believe what they told me, how unworthy I am, how little I deserved to be a Legionnaire, a Harris or even a human. I was so far removed from myself that I shudder to think what any decent minded sentient must have thought meeting me as I travelled without rhyme or reason for those two standard years. I must have appeared as a spectre, unconnected with the daily solidity of purpose or worth.
That's when I started my journals. The same "Journals of a Broken Hero" that were distributed through the All-Net News Channel nearly four standard years ago came from them. The editor made me cut quite a bit of them out from the final manuscript. No-one, she said, would want to hear about a Legionnaire being afraid and lonely, no-one would believe it! The public needed action, romance, excitement, blood and guts, they wanted drama! I had seen all of that, but still knew that that was only half of the story. My grandmother used to say "For every polished face a coin has the tail underneath". The public got what they wanted and in turn the Regufees of Xinthan 6 received a major lump sum into their coffers. Not enough to replace their lost cultural treasures, not nearly enough to give the generation of children left without their families the love and support they truly deserve. They got every single pfennig I could give. If the public wanted to believe what was published, that I spent my time travelling the galaxy on the good will of the Brande Corp spouting about my past glories I didn't mind. I was too far removed from common sense to care.
Several Legionnaires including Lamprey, Ultra Girl and Crystal Kid, my Academy family, never stopped trying to contact me and one night while sat overlooking the great Methane Waterfall Cathedral on Drammi Chinano Seven I reached for the palmnet just as they called and without conscious thought I thumbed the receive button. It was the first time I had spoken to any Legionnaire in nearly twenty eight standard months.
It was Lamprey. She suprised me by doing something I would never have believed possible. She didn't speak, she cried!
Posted by Harbinger on :
Crystal Kid joined Lamprey in the broadcast booth and said "Berta, come home.. we miss you my love.." and then we all cried.
It took a further ten calls and three months before I met with them face to face. For the whole week beforehand I was a nervous wreck. What if they were angry at me for being so close to Zuban? What if they were to tell me that the Legion did not want me back? What if they wanted to hug me and stifle me? Would it be worse if they didn't? How was I supposed to cope?
When all you feel is aching pain inside your heart it is difficult to be reasonable.
We all agreed that we were not meeting up as Legionnaires, we would not go anywhere that we would be hassled as such or could possibly be called into action. We were only friend being reunited after too long apart. They took me to Xanthu for a shopping trip. It must have been Crystal Kids idea, that man can shop for his Home system! Xanthu has one of the highest population densities of any world settled by man. Originally it was covered in rich oceans but as the colonists arrived and previously rare minerals were discovered just under their world's skin the population rocketed. Seven hundred and fifty years later it is home to almost 61 billion people. If you want to be annonymous hide in a crowd, that was the logic behind our visit, and there is definitely truth in that.
As fate would have it we arrived fourteen hours before the Xanthui Hive Wars erupted and 26 million lives were lost in a senseless gang war between rival Hives.
So much for a nice quiet get together with old friends.
It was to be a bloody battle that kept us there for six local days and where I was destined to meet Fluor again.
Posted by Harbinger on :
Berta stepped up to the packed earth surrounding the Fang, the crowd deadly silent behind her.
She never looked back, did not show her disappointment at this turn of events. They would never know how annoyed and scared she felt. Coreed knew though, Berta was sure of it. The Legion Flight Ring on her finger loosened gravity's eager tug and Berta stepped out onto the air before her people. Their sensitivity to the Lores that this magical place brought would give the crowd before her the knowledge that she was not using her Windwalker's powers here.
She would address them as the thing they sought, as a Legionnaire.
Floating up to the Speakers Lip without stirring a single current around her, she has a small smile on her lips. What do they expect? Will they be happy with the truth? She turned to face the Clans and Guildsmen stood before the Fang and said "Thank you for this priviledge, I did not think I would be asked to Speak here tonight so have not prepared anything for you." She notes that some mutter as if disbelieving her, yet the Sky Lords nod, their Lore confirming the truth. There was barely a moment of quiet as her words were absorbed before the Clan Speakers and Guildsmen raised hands in the traditional way to show they want to ask questions, and Tribesfolk and commoners alike shouted their queries.
The first question allowed by the Bastard Councillors threw her off guard for a moment after being in the supportive environment of Coreeds clan for most of this evening.
"Yes, I did run away from my family madame Speaker. I did not fully understand at that time that they would feel shamed in the eyes of their neighbours. That was never my intention. I loved, and indeed, still love my family very much."
The next Speaker, face tight with disapproval spoke, "You married and bore a child to an offworlder," The Speakers voice was bright and sharp, like a stiletto, "Are you so ashamed of your heritage that you would do such an unnatural thing?"
Berta echoed the Speakers tight smile as she drew breath before answering. She was glad the Speaker couldn't see the tightening around her eyes.
There were three standard hours until the sun rose and this meeting could be called to a halt. It had already been a long night. As the crowd quietened, eyes pinned on her, Berta threw caution to the winds. They wanted to hear her story? Well, let them hear it.
Posted by Harbinger on :
The Kariq of Karakotum Block had ordered that Erini Sinatra Divine III be cleansed once and for all from the gene pool, if you get my drift. Not long after that Ogaday Bayakorou of the Khan Dynasty Family Spacing Company was found in a freezer, his genitals having been ripped off and stuffed into his mouth. Cause of death, choking on his own body parts. Of course, the Khan Spacing Company was known to be one of the major supporters of the Kariqs political ambitions and most probably one of the major money laundering companies used in their dynastic expansion.
Erini Sinatra Divine III was showing the Kariq and his Hun peoples that she was mightily pissed off.
The fall out from the nuclear attack that broke the mighty walls of the Divine Dynastic House Block took over a week to clean up. The Xanthui Emergency Services had severe problems trying to halt the civil unrest that erupted. By then there were six Legionnaires and me at hand to try to help. Seven Legionnaires. Seven Legionnaires against nearly 65 million protestors, many thousand private armsmen with an ever spiralling mission of revenge and over 18 million dead to be identified and given a final resting. 18 million and rising horrifically every hour.
Tellus and Lamprey protected the reservoir and clone and fungi vats - the survivors wouldn't starve. Crystal Kid, Ultra Girl, Star Boy and I dealt with the crowds as best we could while Oracle at the Most Revered Tribunes Station stood as a last line of defense for Xanthu's most worthy, acting as liason and field leader in turns. Her magicks were what ultimately broke the satellite blockade that had resisted all calls off planet including our Legion bandwidth alarms. It took her three days to arrange the materia needed for the spell to work. In those three days eight million more Xanthuis were killed in the troubles. The damage done to the infrastructure connecting the Major Hives was almost beyond repair.
Welcome to Xanthu. The greatest Hi-Tech world of the Hi-Tech galaxy.
Welcome to Hell.
Home to over 60 billion sentients in the Great Towers and Blocks, seen by some as the only solution to population growth out of control. Seen as others as a social experiment gone wildly wrong. The Hive War long predicted by social commentators was in full heart breaking, family destroying, society smashing, life taking swing.
Posted by Harbinger on :
Heart pumping, adrenaline at breaking point, muscles deep aching, air sreamfilled, sweat streaming, eyes squinched against the peircing search beams, Fluor and I had been pushed back into an industrial area by sheer weight of numbers and in exhaustion we fled like dogs. His mass shifting abilities had allowed us to phase through and hide inside an abandoned bunker, under a rubble packed door. Here was the reality of being a Legionnaire, the death denying desperation and fear of existence compressed into a chosen life of perpetual danger. Our Palmnets were only picking local signals from the aether. We could hear the crowds parleying for truces between rival factions. We could hear their deaths as the leaders of this atrocities sat safe in their guarded palaces squabbling over reimbursements.
As we sat huddled in our desperate hiding place Fluor told me of his childhood on this most populated of worlds.
I had been desperate to hear voices for so long that I drunk his words into my hollow self like the elixir of life itself.
And as he spoke we listened to the palmnet reports, after three days of pushing ourselves without sleep or rest it was as much as we could do. Our Legion bio-enhancements, contrary to public opinion have very finite limits. We were huddled there for nearly three standard hours and in that time Fluor without knowing it started the long process of healing my fractured heart.
Posted by Harbinger on :
The questions that followed in the next hour were in turn aggressive, ebarrassing, painful, patronising and just plain rude.
Berta answered each one with honesty and as much dignity as she could muster. Placing her toes against the edge of the Lip she faced the crowd, never letting her face drop even asshe sobbed. Tears often streked her cheeks as she held her eyes on the Speakers who had asked the questions. A Sky Lord, unsteady through much mead and jenho fruit beverage stood and using his Lore to magnify his voice well beyond the necessary asked "You allowed yourself to wear face paint and jewelry, illegal to one raised in the Sky Lore. Have you no sense of culture?" His voice was poisonous with thick scorn.
"With deepest respect to the Sky Lore and it's understanding of the wonderous mysteries of the open space above us all, I am a Windwalker, Daughter to the Ancient Rites of Air and Speaker of the Third Voice, as was my Grandmother and her Grandmother before her and so back for many dozen generations. Therefore we follow a different set of Lore driven laws. So you are right, I have no sense of your culture. As the Four Lores dictate I do not question it either."
The crowd erupted with laughter and jeers. Berta smiled her most innocent smile, eyes twinkling with mischief.
The next question came from a young Speaker of the Southern Clans, an Earth Lover, "will you consent to marry me?", raised further hearty laughter and Berta only laughed in response. Amongst the cheers and jeers of the crowds she saw Coreeds shrewd smile and mentally took note to thank her friend afterwards for getting the man to ask that question at that time.
Berta knew then she could win this battle.
Posted by Harbinger on :
After Captain Valour had led a force of some 60 Legionnaires and recruits and over 2,000 Science Police officers to Xanthu, effectively stopping the riots in moments, the Legion welcomed me back with open arms. Many open arms were held out as I returned nervously to Home Star, members I hardly remembered working beside confided how much they had missed me.
I was given light duties for the first few months and arranged that whenever possible went on missions with Fluor. I never thought it would be possible to fall in love again. Certainly I never meant to, but like the turning of the skies from dark to dawn to daylight things become clear without us even noticing. Fluor admitted to me that since our first meeting all those years ago on that asteroid, the night before my wedding to Zuban, he had thought of me often.
Fluor has an honesty and gentleness that would suprise you. For all the terrible things he has seen in his time as a Legionnaire he has never lost his faith in people, in the basic goodness of humanity, in the necessity of peace. He will not keep quiet when he sees any wrong doing, he cannot idley ignore injustice, will not walk by when he could stay and offer aid, it is his nature to nurture those less fortunate that himself. He inspires those around him without being aware of it. He speaks from the heart at all times, unable to lie or chide. He has a smile that makes the room light up, the smile of a healer. With a skill at presenting hard truths with soft words, strong hands and reasoned morals, in every way he is the very best the Legion has to offer.
Fluor Arexi iii is made of purest gold!
We were wed just over a year after the Xanthu Hive Riot. After a standard month sailing amongst the Strangeways of the Durtha Clouds, speaking to the Great Dragons and learning the Macro-ecology laws of the Oollooll we returned to Home Star to accept our next assignments.
We served as Legionnaires for a further two years together and if you like I will tell you of the adventures we had.
It didn't last though as once again my chips were to be drenched.
Posted by Harbinger on :
The Xanthu forces had sent their planetary Meta Force to join in skirmish battles with the Dominion Khund Durlan Triumvulate.
Those bloody fools assumed the Khund War Dogs would be scared and retreat. In one battle four space worthy Metas were slain. Xanthu, one of the greatest planets to be occupied by man, reeled at the blow this dealt to their pride. Pride is a fragile thing, when it breaks it leaves sharp edged remains that can cut those around it. Their world's Tribune recalled all Meta Licenses. Brande himself approached them to ask that Fluor, and also Mechanoid, Atmos and eleven recruits be excused from this draconian edict. His words fell on deaf ears and Fluor had to return to his homeworld, the place where we had nearly been killed three standard years before. The Xanthu Tribune refused my application to join Fluor, saying the Legion would not be needed anymore. As a final insult communications between Home Star and the Xanthu Meta Force was put under extreme scrutiny and we were denied more that five minutes to talk over an omnicron every week, Fluor's workload permitting. We only spoke four more times.
Screw you too Xanthu!
I served as a Legionnaire for a further eight months before deciding that my place was back here. It was the hardest decision of my life. It took me another three standard months to make what should have been simple arrangements. The doubts began to flood me, worried I was heading towards another breakdown. I was going home, and it scared me.. terrified me more that anything I'd experienced in all my travels before. What if my family did not want me back? I couldn't bear the thought of it. Stupidly I expected protestors at the space port, my ID chip being revoked, to be stoned by crowds of offended Wives whenever I tried to access a market, my family slamming their doors on me. Ultimately it was this last fear that made me decide to purchase land near the Northern Ice Fields. I would take my time and settle back gently into a simpler and just as satisfying lifestyle amongst the farmers and traders of our most remote lands. Word of my return must have reached my mother. I'm sure she would be waiting for me to contact them, but for all my vaunted Legion bravery I couldn't. As often as I tried my fingers couldn't punch the final digits on their omni-code. I knew they wouldn't contact me, probably the same doubts riddle them.
I would trade all the excitement, fame and glory of my Legion days for a hug from my mothers strong arms again, live through my darkest hours again and again and a hundred times again to hear my fathers voice say my name or hear him sing to himself as he always has in contentment while tending the land.
Still my fingers tremble and eyes wet as I try to dial their Homecode.
Some doubts will always remain.
[ June 10, 2005, 04:06 PM: Message edited by: Harbinger ]
Posted by Harbinger on :
Berta stood on the edge of the precipice.
Her toes tickled the edge of Speakers Lip. The crowd were silent below her and the weight of the answer to the question she had just been asked had pressed their lips shut. The air hung heavy, anticipating the next words as streaks of deep lapis were beginning to trace accross the eastern sky revealing dawns edge creeping towards the huge sky above.
Berta looked into the mass of eyes glint with expectation before her. Amongst the upturned faces she could clearly see Coreed. Her friend stood with her shoulders back, pride engraved into her very being as she calmly returned Berta's look. Berta understood why Coreed had persuaded her all those months ago to talk to the children, "tell them your tales lassie, it'll do them all good to hear something different." Her words came back to Berta, but she understood that Coreed had really wanted more than that. Coreed wanted Berta to have the opportunity to tell her own story, to put her mind and memories in order, to get used to her own voice and be prepared for this moment. Berta knew in her heart that what was happening was always going to happen, with or without Coreeds gentle coaxing all those months ago. She always knew that she would have to Speak before the people's of her world, tell them her side of the story.
She was a Legionnaire, they had to know the truth.
Well it was to be expected that they wanted to hear a Legionnaire Speak, it would be a tale to tell their children and grand children.
The question still hung in the air in front of all their faces. A question Coreed of Clan Uist had asked in clear ringing tones.
"Would you do the many Peoples of this dark skied world the honour and be willing to take on an advisory role before the Cloudfilled Chamber of Council assuming the responsibility of representing thisr distant world in any dealings with the mighty United Planets delegates when they came next Spring?"
Well, would she?
On the edge of a precipice.
Toes on the very of Speakers Lip.
Well?
Would she fall or fly?
If only she knew which was which.
She only had one choice.
[ June 11, 2005, 09:14 AM: Message edited by: Harbinger ]
Posted by Harbinger on :
I'm tempted to leave it there - a real cliff hanger for you all
Nah, more to follow, just getting a glass of wine
Bxx
Posted by Harbinger on :
Three weeks to the day after climbing the spiraling, hand carved and polished neo-rococo steps to the Cloudfilled Chambers on the High Tor of Maleganna, overlooking the central park district of Dauphin City for the first time, Berta Harris Skye, the newest appointee to the council received a letter marked with a violet and golden Clan Speaker Seal of Privacy.
She recognised the hand writing on the envelope with its long graceful loops and tiny precise dots and strokes as belonging to Coreed.
Berta closed the door to her office, asking the secretaries not to allow her to be disturbed until further notice and sat slumped in her high backed retro leatherette armchair, right leg swinging over a padded arm. She stared at the yellow envelope for several moments before tearing the top off in a single motion.
A genuine three page long hand written on real parchment paper letter!
Berta smiled to herself that her friend had thought so highly to take time to compose such a thing. As she read it Berta never lost her smile, laughing at several points and tears welled in her large moonstone eyes as she finished it, before eagerly re-reading it several times.
By the end of the morning she had memorised it by heart.
Posted by Harbinger on :
I hope you are not too swamped by politics, scheming liggers, ass-kissers and officious back biting toadies that you can't make time for this wee note. I also pray you have genuinely forgiven me for making you stand on Gods own Cock o' the North to Speak in my stead. I'm sorry we never had the chance to speak privately after that mad night, so please allow me the indulgence to write this to you instead. Maybe it's for the best that you read what I need to tell you as after everything that has happened I really don't know if I could tell you these things to your face.
Firstly, let me say I wish you every success in your new role and am so proud of you lass, so proud it makes my heart ache. It is funny that I have lived over 23 of our Long Years and you are the first honest Speaker that bunch of crooks and swindlers has entertained that I can remember.
This is difficult to say but I have a secret to tell you Berta, something that has burned in my inside since before we met last summer. I've wanted to tell you like I want oxygen from the air. Please hear me out Berta, you will know that I've never done anything with you in mind without the deepest admiration and love guiding me.
For you to understand I have to take you back almost 22 of our Long Years, nearly what, 65 standard? You see, I met your grandmother, Dori, when I was almost 2 Summers old. She had just turned 3. She was the funniest, most rauccous lass I'd ever seen up there on the Moors. Our families used to have a trade agreement you see and your great grandfather and my father worked on building solid links between the two. It was your Great Grandfather and his father who had first sold my family rights to the southern isles where my grandsons breed their fancy Kites. Our family were always quiet Goddess fearing types until you Harris' arrived. Your family with their big smiles and easy laughs encouraged us to be what we are now.
We met, your grandmother and I several times over the next few years and became like sisters in our closeness. When she became a Windwalker after her sixth Summer as was the tradition she was married and after that I only saw her three more times. We wrote to each other and when the seasons and our families allowed we Omnicrommed.
[ June 10, 2005, 04:10 PM: Message edited by: Harbinger ]
Posted by Harbinger on :
Page 2/
Dori came up here when my second daughter had my first granddaughter. You weren't yet born then though if memory serves me rightly you came shortly after. We hadn't seen each other in 9 Long Years. She still had a laugh that could ignite a room and a generosity that would calm it.
The next time I met her was when your father called in all his chits to get help in stopping you from attending the Legion try-out in Dauphin City. I was the woman with your mother that day in the market Berta. Even if we hadn't of been talking about you I would have recognised you immediately. I've been wanting to tell you this for so long now lass, how you looked the spit of Dori, my oldest and dearest friend. We'd first seen you a good hour before you spotted us my dear. We followed you, your mothers eyes filled with her hearts shining. Your shone that day too, the excitement you felt bubbling the very air around you.
As we followed you that day I saw you for what you were, and still are. A good kid Berta. No, more than that, a bloody excellent kid! I understood then that your grandmothers and mothers pride in you was thoroughly justified.You tidied an apple stall as you searched for the right one to buy. You genuflected to a Sister of Solemn Air with an honest respect so long lost to those money grabbing city folks. You helped a Tribeswoman when her rolls of silk spilt onto the grassy verge, do you remember that? She offered you a mela-fruit as thanks but you declined with a smile as you walked on. Your mothers pride was as a stone in her throat, stalling her speaking and glistening her eyes with unfalling tears. And do you know what, since that mad hour I have felt the same. When she did speak her voice was raddled with the anxious mix of emotions that only a mother knows when she sees it's time for her child to leave the home and make her own way. And she knows her child will do her proud wherever that child goes.
Your grandmother and I kept in touch with more regularity after you left, writing almost every week to each other as we had all those Long years before. I know your generation don't hold much for actually putting quill to paper instead you rely on palmnets and Goddess only knows, but there is something very intimate and honest in taking the time to write in the traditional way by hand, or so I believe anyway. Both your Gran and I, once we learned that you were safe, laughed about your kidnapping by Delroy Lester - I'm sorry to admit this but we both had mad giggle fits whenever we spoke of it, imagining your reaction to getting tar in your hair. I bet you were furious for a week, I bet you were! Your hair was always your vanity, and how do I know that? You are Dori's granddaugter through and through. A heart as big as a planet and the determination to move one if needed, and the most glorious head of hair on any world too. You proved that so many hundred times, your dignity and strength of character have always led you Berta. So many people whose life you have touched hold you so dear to their heart, but you've never seen that I bet, have you?
Dori never stopped telling me that she missed you and the pain she felt at her parting words to you were as tremendous as her pride in and love for you. She never wanted those words to be the last said between you Berta, you must understand that. Your grandfather used to say that Dori could break backs on her pride. He got that right but the wrong way around. Your grandmother broke her own back from the weight of all those unsaid apologies and heartache. She loved you so much Berta, so much!
Posted by Harbinger on :
Page 3/
I travelled to see Dori just before her death. Your grandmother had a deeply intrusive cancer for over a year before telling anyone. She would not let something as minor as the slowly growing pain she felt and the possibility of her death stop her from getting on with life. Even in those last few weeks she still had a smile and generous praise for all of her grand children, and her love for you was never far from her lips. She died in her sleep and when we found her in the morning she looked as if she were finally in peace. Before she passed away she wrote a letter for you, your father and mother both swore to give it to you when they next saw you.
And if you are interested you can read her letters to me next time you are in the Southern archipeligoes, they are safely kept in a chest of ash wood in my home there. I have kept every one she ever sent. They are some of my most precious belongings. She knew how to write a good yarn without delving into the fantastic or frightening that those with empty lives often fall back upon. Your grandmothers honesty was her greatest strength.
You are both so very much alike in so many ways.
The Mid-Spring Rave will be next month and your family will be up on the Central Massif near you in your new ivory tower in Dauphin City for that mad festival. They're as rauccous a bunch as you Harris' ever were. A family with bonds of love and respect as deep and strong as any have and as you will find out, they have always loved you lass. They are the family you always strived to find. And they are all yours! Give your mother a hug from me, and enjoy getting reaquainted with your aunts and sisters and neices. There are quite a few of them that have never met you so be sure to live up to the tales they've heard about their tremendously brave aunt Berta, the Legionnaire.
I'll be back in the Northern lands come Summer just before the Jooplis bloom again. My old bones don't like the winters bite anymore so I'm with the soft southern branch of my family for the duration. If you have time when I return please feel more that welcome to come give me a hand again. That trick you pulled blowing breezes around to keep me cool last time would be greatly appreciated.
Well, I've rambled on enough so for now, this is goodbye lass. It's been an honour and priviledge to meet you and get to know what a fine woman my oldest and dearest friend's grandddaugter has grown to be.
It is my heartfelt wish the Goddess holds you softly in her arms where ever she blesses you to travel.
With best wishes and much love,
Coreed Uist
p.s. If you have time between now and Summer Berta do try to learn how to make a decent brew please lass, or it's another mouthful of that awful home brewed brandy for you.
Posted by Harbinger on :
During the initial trade talks the delegates from the Many Starred Worlds asked that our Peoples choose one Speaker to bring those issues most pressing of our world to the delegates table. Unanimously Berta Harris Skye, the former Legionnaire called Nightwind was voted as that representative. Within a local Spring month, a little over two standard, she was this worlds first repesentative to the fledgling discussions. Within the Summer season she had gained enough support to arrange trade under the old UNI-x-trad agreements, bringing trade and assistance from the Hi-Tech societies of the United Planets to our world. The potential cultural benefits of opening a major Oort cloud trading post with a Transmatter facility to the Many Starred worlds has been seen by many cultural historians as the saviour of our world. We kept the Lores and Tribesways to our one planet yet had a new colossal market open up to our Families and Guilds. The Joopli plant, once only found in our cold northern and southern expanses is now one of the galaxy's most sought after bloom and has definitely helped to generate our strong economy.
Although the benefits trickled through our societies at a smooth pace and within a local year all felt their effect there were some who said that Harris Skyes political ambition was not entirely motivated by altruism. With our small binary systems' sudden involvement in the greater United Planets politicio-economic affairs Berta Harris Skye was propelled onto a more prominent platform. In what some have speculated was a co-ordinated pincer movement the former Legionnaire Fluor Axeri iii completed his five year tenure as the Xanthu planetary defender and joined the Xanthu planetary council.
The couple are reported to have been reunited during a pan-Galactic trade conference on Alderbarin Four. Some reports say they never made any of the key note speaches and were hardly seen at all during the conference, supposedly his suite showing a 'do not disturb' beacon for the majority of the week. These reports are, of course, unsubstantiated. Certainly, with both former Legionnaires representing their worlds at United Planets level gatherings they were soon seen together on many occassions.
Almost ten years to the day after their first marriage the couple renewed their Lawbond vows in a ceremony at the Great Fang on our northernmost moors. After the traditional three day celebration of a Speakers wedding they returned to their duties, both applying for and gaining positions on the High League Council for Inter-Galactic Peace within the United Planets.
For nearly three standard decades they travelled the Galaxy together in this role.
They retired from their UP positions almost two standard decades ago and now raise racing Kites on the Southern archipeligoes with their family.
Of their four children two have followed them into politics, and it is reported that at least one of their eight grandchildren wishes to carry on this tradition.
[ June 10, 2005, 11:49 AM: Message edited by: Harbinger ]
Posted by Harbinger on :
THE END!!!
Posted by Harbinger on :
Ps - if you spot any mistakes let me know and I'll edit them Posted by Harbinger on :
quote:Originally posted by Kent Shakespeare: Awright!
Bring em on!
your wish is my command!
this time anyway Posted by Fat Cramer on :
Oh, thank the Goddess, a happy ending! I really wasn't expecting that.
Super work, B., your best story yet!
Posted by Ghost of Numf-El on :
Well, what can I say?
You've done it again B.
After your grand, universe altering, galaxy sweeping space opera, you've changed your tack completely and gone for the intimate, personal story.
You've gone from the dropping jaws to the tugging heartstrings. I must confess to getting a touch emotional at bits. Daft old bugger that I am.
Sooooperb. F'n'A, B !
The only slight problem that I had with the whole thing was that there were some paragraphs that should have been books, in my eyes. But then you would have a rambling, drivelling load of old shite like Dragons, that doesn't know when to die!
Big hugs,
K'N
Posted by Harbinger on :
Thank you Nancy and Ken.
yup, a happy ending, we all ove them so I thought this time I wouldn't play head games and just go for it.
Ken, I cut about half of my story from the last twenty odd posts just so it didn't take over my life (like Leg35C did) as I delved into more and more detail. I wanted to give a general sweeping overview into Berta's life - and it isn't that much different from your standard heroines in comics these days - deaths, betrayals, breakdowns, fear and self loathing.
God but it really did need a happy ending didn't it?
I have ideas for my next story but I'm going to take my time with it so this'll probably be all for the next couple of months.
Anyone who has taken the time to peruse my wee musings, thank you! I hope you enjoyed it.
Bxx
Posted by Harbinger on :
And Ken, we don't want Dragons to die! No siree!
Posted by Invisible Brainiac on :
Amazing story, B. Just amazing. I know this isn't in continuity, but you've made me love Berta all the more.
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
), your Brande is quite sinister, Lor El as a Kryptonian - great name, it made me laugh! Berta seems rather cynical - can't wait to see how you tie in the young headstrong runaway with the battle weary Legionnaire. Coreed is an interesting character already and what's this clan meeting about then? Is Berta ashamed to meet her family?![[LOL]](graemlins/lol.gif)
who said copper wire from ha'pennnies?
![[Elastic Lad]](graemlins/ElasticLad.gif)
)![[Poke Joke]](graemlins/poke.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
so it'll be a while before there's any more.![[Embarrassed]](redface.gif)
Daft old bugger that I am.