1000 Days

Everything about a Waccho appears human expect for their scale and proportions.

Given the same age and maturity a Waccho man extends past his human counterpart by his head and shoulders. While not making him quite as imposing as those arboreal giants of Canituu, the Anori, Wacchos regularly participate socially with humans. Their presense can be quite disconcerting. Waccho women—who are often confused for adolescent males—follow the same pattern of scale and sociability. Most times the women are on par with an adult human man. Some clever traders among their clans use these differences artfully in negotiating deals with our people.

If their height is disconcerting, their proportions are humorous and a bit off putting. From not a great distance, an unmoving Waccho appears human. If there is no other reference—a building or livestock to provide scale—even more so. Then they move.

A local fern-peddler, a man claiming to have hunted wild trens in the Thoon archipelago with the Captain Noag himself (so he should know), described the Waccho gait as an unsuccessful attempt to fall down. A Waccho’s lower limbs—arms and legs—are longer in proportion to their upper limbs than are a human’s.

The differences continue in their faces. A Waccho’s mouth is slender and nearly lipless. While their noses’ parallel our own, the distance between the mouth and the nose exceeds ours. Their eyes favor the edges of their face more than the center and are large and wide. Overall they have a flatter facial structure, that along with the mouth and eyes, reminds one of a startled doe. According to Waccho men their women are quite lovely with more delicate faces, but this author uses their modes of dress to distinguish between the sexes on most occasions.

Word count: 302
Day 204

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Immediately you are struck by the misplacement of the man in the garb. Gane is like a rabbit wearing a hat or a puppy in a shirt. Doable; just not right. But you don’t know what you would change.

From top to bottom he’s Solex Guy. Gane’s dreads are rubbed evenly with alizarin crimson and pleat evenly left and right when he’s at Mass or ride high in a ponytail bound in a tight clasp near his scalp when he’s on the job. His split-sleeved cassock fits smartly. His blue and gold subdermals pulse professionally from the gaps. His cincture is tied expertly in the old style–thank-you brother Chabe. When he walks his boots clip precisely on the stoneways.

Gane’s hres are error free. No one unit tests their prayers as effectively as he. His knowledge of circuits, networking, hymns, and chants is unparalleled. If you had three sons and you wanted the third to be in the clergy you want him to be just like Gane. You just wouldn’t want him to be Gane.

He’s a faker, an impostor, or a liar. Or he’s deluded, confused, or biding his time. Clearly he’s unwilling to be bad at what he’s pretending but he’s not bothered to fully obscure what must be disdain.

Leaving it there. Everything else that I tried fell flat.

Word count: 219
Day 160

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Consecutive numbers day. w00t!

Jansa closes her eyes to better inhale the music. Listeners talk of letting the notes flow over them like water, but she’d rather inhale them like air, mixing the melody with her soul then releasing it to the rest–if she releases it at all. This Onsals’ Eve tune grants her the sensation of deciding to cry and then not following through.

The quick tune shouldn’t. It’s brightly played on the wood flute and an easy one to dance. It’s Winter, not a season of sadness. Not Spring.

To her right her mother sits as upright as seventy years will allow her. The old woman’s hands rest in her lap as if abandoned. Jansa snatches one up and holds it closely. She warms her mother’s cool skin with her own, rubbing lightly over the papery surface. Like a page from an ancient text it proclaims no more life will be written here and, soon, no more read. Jansa looks at her mother. She doesn’t steal a glance or polite familial moment, she looks at her and doesn’t turn away.

Juena’s experience reads like the stones of a shallow stream, but her thoughts pass like the water flowing over, always coming, always going. Never. Right. There.

Augur’s scars too close and too many to count, most to old to discern from the wrinkles of age, line her mother’s cheeks like the delicate bipinnate pattern of a honey locust leaf–rough and smooth at the same time. She looks foreign, almost unreal, with her hair shorn.

I’ll have to come back to this. It’s not going where I’d expected.

Word count: 280

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