Elemental: Another new novel
Jul. 5th, 2007 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamchroninIf I don't update this, yell at me. Yell a lot. Pester me. Remind me I'm trying to treat this like a NaNo thing, because I am. Only...with quality writing instead. ^_~
Constructive criticism is welcome. I might cry a little, but I can't improve if it doesn't sting.
And, of course, this is an original story so...if you want to read more than this first part, comment to me and I will add you to the filter.
Elemental
Part one(a)
I am human.
Let no words you find here or elsewhere convince you otherwise. Let no myths, legends, rumors, or wife's tales cloud your thinking on this matter. No matter what the other wizards or elementals say, I am human. I entered this world from a woman's womb just as naked and helpless as any other babe. My parents loved me while they still lived, and while that and other things may make me more fortunate than most, it reinforced in my heart the knowledge that so many other elementals lack.
When I was small, I was just as afraid of the wizards who rule this world as anyone else. One of my first memories is of when I was still too young to speak as clearly as the adults around me, and I'd fallen and skinned my knee. My mother scolded me.
"Don't cry so loud, Agrad. You'll call the attention of a wizard if you carry on like that."
My father told her not to say such things. I cried harder, but quieter, because now a wizard was going to come and burn our house down because I disturbed his studies. In my mind, a wizard was twenty feet tall and had skin of smoke and flame and ate babies for breakfast when they weren't destroying villages for fun.
It was an idea that persisted for a lot longer than I would usually care to admit. Wizards were rarely seen, especially in a village like mine. People heard rumors, and paid their taxes, and murmured curses under their breath. Wizards were the problem with the world, and everything was their fault. Poor weather, poor crops, deformities, infestations, illness, laziness; everything that no one wanted to accept blame for was the fault of the wizards. When I began taking lessons I was quick to jump on the bandwagon and proclaimed with righteous indignation that my first poorly done assignment was the fault of a wizard.
My tutor pierced me with a steely gaze over the rim of his glasses. "Is that so?"
"Oh yes!" I said. "A wizard cast a spell on me so that I forgot all about the assignment, and I spent the day playing with my friends instead, so I had to rush to finish it just this morning. But it's not my fault. It was a spell."
He shook his head and took out another paper I'd done perfectly the week before. "What about this one? The penmanship is amazing for a child your age."
I glowed with pride. "Thank you."
He continued shaking his head as he tore it in two. "It must have been the result of a spell as well. Such a pity."
I stared at him in shock. Had he just ripped up the paper I'd copied so meticulously for hours, as if it were nothing? I'd been looking forward to handing that to my mother and showing it off to anyone who would look. Now I'd never be able to bring it home. I'd never hated someone so much in my short life. "It was NOT a spell! I worked hard on that!"
"You must take responsibility for your shortcomings just as much as for your successes, if you wish to compound your successes. Now, you are to go straight home, copy this page again, and add to it these three pages."
I ran home with tears in my eyes and anger burning in my soul. I'd show him it was not wizard's work that made me good. I'd prove to him that it would take a real wizard's spell to make me do poorly at my work.
When I handed him the pages the next day, he grunted softly as he looked them over. I still remember how I waited for what seemed like an eternity, memorizing every detail of the small room while I tried to pretend my interest was purely casual. His desk was a light wood, maybe pine, and it was covered with random papers, books, and scrolls. One corner was stained black from an ink spill that had subsequently been covered in a fine layer of dust. The shelves that hovered over his desk were just as cluttered as his desk, but I knew even at that age that the clutter was simply his way of organizing too many things at once.
The sound of a wagon rumbling down the street outside pulled my attention to the window on the other side of the room. Beneath it was the chair I sat in for lessons, and beside that was a small desk for an older student that came in later in the day. Hovering between the desk and my chair was a bag with pockets full of chalk, quills, ink, and other necessities of learning. It was handy, because it would move up or down depending on who needed to reach into it. I could pull out chalk for my slate, or paper and a quill for assignments without having to ask for help or stand on a stool, and the adults could do the same without stooping over.
Dust hung in the air and danced in the light from the window. I followed the beam back across the room to where my tutor was still considering the pages I'd handed to him. I shifted closer to look over his shoulder and the board beneath me creaked a little. I paid it no mind, and he seemed to do the same. He just shifted from the second to the third, and then to the fourth, in somewhat more rapid succession.
"Agrad, do you understand any of what I have you copy?" he finally asked softly.
"No, sir."
"It's time to move on to reading," he said as he set the papers on his desk.
That was all, that day. I wasn't sure if I'd done well or not in his opinion until a week later when my assignments for the month were sent home with me. My parents beamed at me and showed off those four pages with pride. They worked together to make a special dessert, as a reward for my hard work.
I'd like to say that I never again blamed my problems upon wizards after that. But, I am human, and when everyone around you does the same thing it is hard to set it aside, especially when you are but a child. I did think twice though, about just what it was I blamed on others, and what I could get away with.
As for the pages, my mother threw them out after a few months. I found them in the bin and fished them out, because I refused to let such hard work be destroyed once again. I put them under my pillow, where they were found the next day. My mother laughed and said that if they meant that much to me, I could keep them provided I kept them somewhere safer than my bed.
When I could finally read them, I memorized them. It was a part of the history of the wizards, and the Arcane War where they defeated the gods themselves. There were twenty wizards who had spent their lives mastering magic and come together to assume power. Seventeen of them survived to rule the world as virtual immortals over the human kingdoms they then divided among themselves. It was a history I was only then just learning, and gave far more detail than I'd ever heard before. Before then, I hadn't understood that there was once a time before wizards. They'd ruled our world for over three hundred years. They'd triumphed over the gods. Even the temples paid taxes to the wizards, and every human bent their knee before them or died.
That's not to say that people did not try to overthrow them. Even as a small child, I knew that many wars had been fought by those who chafed under their rule. They came near to succeeding a few times, but the wizards were too powerful. The fourth page I had copied told of the first elementals. In the first uprising against the wizards, three had been killed. A generation later, three came forward with the full power of any other wizard and reclaimed the kingdoms that had stood without a true ruler in the mean time. They had the element of magic that the dead wizards had once possessed, and came to be called elementals by those who wished to marginalize their claims. The elementals instead took it upon themselves as a badge of pride, and the name became theirs.
That is where the paper left off, and I did not ask about it. It was adult stuff, and ancient, and had nothing to do with me, a mere child. I continued to learn to read and to reason, and learned a great deal many other things about the world and how things worked in it. I was too young to begin learning spells, of course, but it didn't keep me from dreaming about what spells I'd want to know when I was grown up. I had status enough that I'd be permitted more magic than simple farming magic. I just wasn't sure what kind. I wanted to be powerful enough to escape bedtime and gross food, I remember that much from my early fantasies. I wanted to learn magic that my parents would be proud of. Nothing too powerful though, because I didn't want to have to work for the wizards directly. Everyone knew that working for a wizard was dangerous, after all.
In retrospect, it seems natural that soon after a wizard visited our village, and that was the beginning of the end of my childhood.
Constructive criticism is welcome. I might cry a little, but I can't improve if it doesn't sting.
And, of course, this is an original story so...if you want to read more than this first part, comment to me and I will add you to the filter.
Elemental
Part one(a)
I am human.
Let no words you find here or elsewhere convince you otherwise. Let no myths, legends, rumors, or wife's tales cloud your thinking on this matter. No matter what the other wizards or elementals say, I am human. I entered this world from a woman's womb just as naked and helpless as any other babe. My parents loved me while they still lived, and while that and other things may make me more fortunate than most, it reinforced in my heart the knowledge that so many other elementals lack.
When I was small, I was just as afraid of the wizards who rule this world as anyone else. One of my first memories is of when I was still too young to speak as clearly as the adults around me, and I'd fallen and skinned my knee. My mother scolded me.
"Don't cry so loud, Agrad. You'll call the attention of a wizard if you carry on like that."
My father told her not to say such things. I cried harder, but quieter, because now a wizard was going to come and burn our house down because I disturbed his studies. In my mind, a wizard was twenty feet tall and had skin of smoke and flame and ate babies for breakfast when they weren't destroying villages for fun.
It was an idea that persisted for a lot longer than I would usually care to admit. Wizards were rarely seen, especially in a village like mine. People heard rumors, and paid their taxes, and murmured curses under their breath. Wizards were the problem with the world, and everything was their fault. Poor weather, poor crops, deformities, infestations, illness, laziness; everything that no one wanted to accept blame for was the fault of the wizards. When I began taking lessons I was quick to jump on the bandwagon and proclaimed with righteous indignation that my first poorly done assignment was the fault of a wizard.
My tutor pierced me with a steely gaze over the rim of his glasses. "Is that so?"
"Oh yes!" I said. "A wizard cast a spell on me so that I forgot all about the assignment, and I spent the day playing with my friends instead, so I had to rush to finish it just this morning. But it's not my fault. It was a spell."
He shook his head and took out another paper I'd done perfectly the week before. "What about this one? The penmanship is amazing for a child your age."
I glowed with pride. "Thank you."
He continued shaking his head as he tore it in two. "It must have been the result of a spell as well. Such a pity."
I stared at him in shock. Had he just ripped up the paper I'd copied so meticulously for hours, as if it were nothing? I'd been looking forward to handing that to my mother and showing it off to anyone who would look. Now I'd never be able to bring it home. I'd never hated someone so much in my short life. "It was NOT a spell! I worked hard on that!"
"You must take responsibility for your shortcomings just as much as for your successes, if you wish to compound your successes. Now, you are to go straight home, copy this page again, and add to it these three pages."
I ran home with tears in my eyes and anger burning in my soul. I'd show him it was not wizard's work that made me good. I'd prove to him that it would take a real wizard's spell to make me do poorly at my work.
When I handed him the pages the next day, he grunted softly as he looked them over. I still remember how I waited for what seemed like an eternity, memorizing every detail of the small room while I tried to pretend my interest was purely casual. His desk was a light wood, maybe pine, and it was covered with random papers, books, and scrolls. One corner was stained black from an ink spill that had subsequently been covered in a fine layer of dust. The shelves that hovered over his desk were just as cluttered as his desk, but I knew even at that age that the clutter was simply his way of organizing too many things at once.
The sound of a wagon rumbling down the street outside pulled my attention to the window on the other side of the room. Beneath it was the chair I sat in for lessons, and beside that was a small desk for an older student that came in later in the day. Hovering between the desk and my chair was a bag with pockets full of chalk, quills, ink, and other necessities of learning. It was handy, because it would move up or down depending on who needed to reach into it. I could pull out chalk for my slate, or paper and a quill for assignments without having to ask for help or stand on a stool, and the adults could do the same without stooping over.
Dust hung in the air and danced in the light from the window. I followed the beam back across the room to where my tutor was still considering the pages I'd handed to him. I shifted closer to look over his shoulder and the board beneath me creaked a little. I paid it no mind, and he seemed to do the same. He just shifted from the second to the third, and then to the fourth, in somewhat more rapid succession.
"Agrad, do you understand any of what I have you copy?" he finally asked softly.
"No, sir."
"It's time to move on to reading," he said as he set the papers on his desk.
That was all, that day. I wasn't sure if I'd done well or not in his opinion until a week later when my assignments for the month were sent home with me. My parents beamed at me and showed off those four pages with pride. They worked together to make a special dessert, as a reward for my hard work.
I'd like to say that I never again blamed my problems upon wizards after that. But, I am human, and when everyone around you does the same thing it is hard to set it aside, especially when you are but a child. I did think twice though, about just what it was I blamed on others, and what I could get away with.
As for the pages, my mother threw them out after a few months. I found them in the bin and fished them out, because I refused to let such hard work be destroyed once again. I put them under my pillow, where they were found the next day. My mother laughed and said that if they meant that much to me, I could keep them provided I kept them somewhere safer than my bed.
When I could finally read them, I memorized them. It was a part of the history of the wizards, and the Arcane War where they defeated the gods themselves. There were twenty wizards who had spent their lives mastering magic and come together to assume power. Seventeen of them survived to rule the world as virtual immortals over the human kingdoms they then divided among themselves. It was a history I was only then just learning, and gave far more detail than I'd ever heard before. Before then, I hadn't understood that there was once a time before wizards. They'd ruled our world for over three hundred years. They'd triumphed over the gods. Even the temples paid taxes to the wizards, and every human bent their knee before them or died.
That's not to say that people did not try to overthrow them. Even as a small child, I knew that many wars had been fought by those who chafed under their rule. They came near to succeeding a few times, but the wizards were too powerful. The fourth page I had copied told of the first elementals. In the first uprising against the wizards, three had been killed. A generation later, three came forward with the full power of any other wizard and reclaimed the kingdoms that had stood without a true ruler in the mean time. They had the element of magic that the dead wizards had once possessed, and came to be called elementals by those who wished to marginalize their claims. The elementals instead took it upon themselves as a badge of pride, and the name became theirs.
That is where the paper left off, and I did not ask about it. It was adult stuff, and ancient, and had nothing to do with me, a mere child. I continued to learn to read and to reason, and learned a great deal many other things about the world and how things worked in it. I was too young to begin learning spells, of course, but it didn't keep me from dreaming about what spells I'd want to know when I was grown up. I had status enough that I'd be permitted more magic than simple farming magic. I just wasn't sure what kind. I wanted to be powerful enough to escape bedtime and gross food, I remember that much from my early fantasies. I wanted to learn magic that my parents would be proud of. Nothing too powerful though, because I didn't want to have to work for the wizards directly. Everyone knew that working for a wizard was dangerous, after all.
In retrospect, it seems natural that soon after a wizard visited our village, and that was the beginning of the end of my childhood.
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Date: 2007-07-10 03:41 am (UTC)