Day 465
The four day stale snow covered the land like a tattered blanket or corpses on a battle plain. Overnight chill froze the horse-trod slush in the roadway and crusted the still white lumps under the shadowed firs. The sun may have risen or it may still be mired in the horizon. Either way, grey clouds had hammered the earth shut in a dim lit coffin.
Back from the empty serf-road Jora squated to see below the branch-line. A small dark-metalled dagger appeared in her hand. If you hadn’t been just hovering over the narrator’s shoulder you’d be dead now. Jora ranged ahead of her three sisters scouting. Sometimes she waited for them to catch up and sometimes she traveled back to them. She waited.
In this weather Jora’s ears picked out voices in the distance with preternatural ease but the clarity cheated distances and timing. Jessa, Jemma, and Jia arrived later than Jora anticipated. Jia clomped down the road because she just didn’t give a shit. She could kick your ass if needed too.
Jora scowled at Jia. The youngest sister gave Jora the finger but hushed her tromping and jumped the ditch to join the other three gathered in the grass and frost.
Jessa, the oldest, gestured for Jora to share her scouting.
Jora shrugged a silent ‘all clear’.
“Then why are we being so fucking quiet here?” asked Jia. Jemma elbowed her. Jia replied with, “Cut that shit.”
“Maybe the gypsies will share their coffee. Right now you need to hush,” Jessa said, “How far to the camp? I’ve been smelling their cookfires for a while now.”
“Just over the hill. They’ve split the road and put up a shop or two. Jia can get her coffee and some food from what I saw,” Jora said.
“Strange. They know something we don’t?” asked Jessa.
“Must.”
“Or they don’t know something we do,” said Jemma.
Jia snorted. “Let’s just get something to eat. I could have eaten last night’s rabbit myself.”
No one looked to Jessa for leadership, but they waited for her assent. “Fine, but don’t stuff yourselves. Be alert. We should have found Crotter by now. And you,” Jessa tapped the hilt of Jora’s concealed blade, “eat last and keep watch.”
“I’ll second,” said Jia.
If you’re thinking this is a trap then you’re thinking the same as all four women, but they’re hungry and confident. And gypsies are fun.
Hello Bite
Day 469
I can’t believe I decided Duoroo would understand politics. I don’t understand politics. How do I write a character that does?
Worse than that, I keep coming back to a Dune-esque sort of dynastic economy and politics. Shit. Hello, bite. You look like more than I can chew. But I’ll roll with it for tonight since I’ve alread pissed away too much time to start over and pretend this didn’t happen.
Duoroo has been cast off by her family. There is an official casting-off process whereby a dynastic family recognizes the abundance of heirs and seeks to mitigate the backstabbing by limiting the playing field to the top tier. Cast-offs are not allowed to ‘take the thrown’ once cast off. They become safe from the dangers of being in that upper tier. If a family were to exhaust it’s upper tier—unlikley—then it would be like a king losing his only born son: it would get messy.
And that’s whats happened or will happen or is being planned (by someone). That someone is having Duoroo collected for manipulation. Despite being cast off now, Duoroo had been part of the first tier—maybe quite close to the top even—but had scorned the life or her family’s business because of her blindness. She forced her family to cast her off so she could be safe. And now, because of that unusual circumstance, someone is looking to exploit that angle.
They’ll exploit it by having in place a plan to kill a larget number of that upper tier in bulk. Something unlikley enough that few would accomodate that sort of thing in their scheming, so someone is the only one to know why Duoroo is still important. Duoroo figures it out though—quickly. She convinces Kraite of the truth and enlists him to help. I suspect the large number of people being killed would be leverage for Kraite. He’s a bounty hunter but not ruthless. Maybe it will be some public event likely to result in innocent deaths as well. Maybe Mallen’s.
This public event could provide a countdown as well as a ‘end of the world’ type disaster.
I must have more than just playing the game however. I must have a real reason for this somebody to be motivated. There must be a payoff more substantial than crown or title. Or the crown must come with a clear personal or professional payoff—maybe just revenge? I hear revenge is motivating.
If I’m going to have politics I might as well have a motivator I don’t understand too!
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