Translations
Jul. 17th, 2006 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rosiphelee*waves* Hullo. How's everyone? My internet is technically back, but it's too bloody hot for my muses (which have declared technicoloured high fantasy or nought) so don't expect much. ^_^
Title: Translations
Words: 854
Prompt: Transcription (except I got it in my head that it was transliteration but I think the story's general enough to work for both
Summary: Words below water in the Serene Court of Arcady
The Serene Lady sat on a fountain’s edge in the Court of the Clasped Hands, in the heart of the Palace of the Lords of Life and Death in the city of Arcady by the Sea, and watched the sunlight fall through the water, bright as ice. Above her, a myriad of tiny windows, leaded into patterns of stars and diamonds, let the summer sun into the hall to fall warmly on her bent head. Some panes had fallen, since the Lords fell, and the floor was glittering and treacherous with shattered glass.
All else was water, falling from open stone hands set into the walls, or cupped hands that rose from the floor, stone fingers worn smooth over the centuries. Here were hands clasped in a circle, man, woman, child, here a single clenched fist rising high, dribbles squeezing from between clenched fingers. The floor was washed with it, a shimmering sheet that whispered around the soles of her shoes but never rose high enough to wet her feet.
Below the water, in row after gleaming row, letters were carved deep into the pale stone. She did not know the alphabet, though she had been told they were the words of ancient treaties, binding and absolute.
After the fall of the Lords she had walked freely through their libraries, restlessly reading dry volumes, seeking to know what treasures and terrors had fallen below her sway. She had found strange languages unfurling beneath her fingers, tongues she should have known, yet had never been taught, alphabets runic or lithe, strange to her eyes. There were books written in languages no soul in her court could name, the nations that had spoken them long gone to dust.
They had blurred in her mind, symbols entwining and reforming, lines of ink bleeding across her dreams at night until she had passed the task to another, better taught for the quest. She could not remember if the lettering here had had a match on those dusty pages.
There were letters on the wall, too, but there the constant trickle of the water had worn new paths, transforming the deep groves into curves, curves into lines. A new alphabet took shape, water-formed and secret.
Deep channels in the floor drew the water away to rise through the walls again. She knew that if she stood and climbed to the galleries above the hall, the channels too would form letters, supposedly the names of those who had signed these treaties, immortalized below the flood.
Had the Lady who made this place realised that the water would, in time, wear all away? Had that been her purpose, to remind all who followed her that even the works of more than mortal men must fall in time? Or had she thought that there would never come a time when the court would not be tended, when the Lords and their manifold servants would falter in their purpose?
Her reflection made little sense, criss-crossed with letters. There was the shadow on her sinister side, and here the shimmer of silver on her right. There was the blur of her hair, pale in the sunlight. Nothing was clear: all was reshaped by the flow of the water.
There was the sound of steps from the far end of the hall, splashing and heavy, and she looked up to see one of her people approach. She watched him as he crossed the expanse of the water, his feet sending ripples across the width of the court, further rewriting the words below.
He was a heavy man, thick jawed and sturdy, and he knelt willingly but gracelessly, thudding to his knees and sending a wave to touch her toes. He crossed his arms over his motley livery, proclaiming, “I have come before the One Serene!”
“Your fate is my will,” she said coolly. “What tidings?”
“A delegation from Arden has arrived at the Northern gate, Serene One. They bear tribute.”
“Have they been told that the Lords have fallen?”
“They are much distressed, Serene.”
She bit back a sigh. The inner realms, merchant nations all, had taken the fall with equanimity. Most of the outer realms had long denied all but the name of Arcady. Yet the forest realms were lands of mystics and sages, and the passion of their hearts dwelled much upon the glory of the Lords.
“Bid them await me in the Hall of Glassen Webs,” she said, rising. “I will attend them anon. Go, too, and seek out Vannora ap Geraint.” After the troubles she had had with the envoys from Broceliande, she had no intention of speaking to the forest clans without a Arden-born adviser on hand.
As he hurried away, she followed at a more temperate pace, the water swirling around her feet, the ancient treaty rendered unreadable by the tumult of her passing.
The Lords were fallen, and the courts they had ruled had become hers. It did not matter that she could not read their agreements. They did not bind her, and she was free to disregard them. She would, if the need came, write them anew.
Happy Monday ^_^
Title: Translations
Words: 854
Prompt: Transcription (except I got it in my head that it was transliteration but I think the story's general enough to work for both
Summary: Words below water in the Serene Court of Arcady
The Serene Lady sat on a fountain’s edge in the Court of the Clasped Hands, in the heart of the Palace of the Lords of Life and Death in the city of Arcady by the Sea, and watched the sunlight fall through the water, bright as ice. Above her, a myriad of tiny windows, leaded into patterns of stars and diamonds, let the summer sun into the hall to fall warmly on her bent head. Some panes had fallen, since the Lords fell, and the floor was glittering and treacherous with shattered glass.
All else was water, falling from open stone hands set into the walls, or cupped hands that rose from the floor, stone fingers worn smooth over the centuries. Here were hands clasped in a circle, man, woman, child, here a single clenched fist rising high, dribbles squeezing from between clenched fingers. The floor was washed with it, a shimmering sheet that whispered around the soles of her shoes but never rose high enough to wet her feet.
Below the water, in row after gleaming row, letters were carved deep into the pale stone. She did not know the alphabet, though she had been told they were the words of ancient treaties, binding and absolute.
After the fall of the Lords she had walked freely through their libraries, restlessly reading dry volumes, seeking to know what treasures and terrors had fallen below her sway. She had found strange languages unfurling beneath her fingers, tongues she should have known, yet had never been taught, alphabets runic or lithe, strange to her eyes. There were books written in languages no soul in her court could name, the nations that had spoken them long gone to dust.
They had blurred in her mind, symbols entwining and reforming, lines of ink bleeding across her dreams at night until she had passed the task to another, better taught for the quest. She could not remember if the lettering here had had a match on those dusty pages.
There were letters on the wall, too, but there the constant trickle of the water had worn new paths, transforming the deep groves into curves, curves into lines. A new alphabet took shape, water-formed and secret.
Deep channels in the floor drew the water away to rise through the walls again. She knew that if she stood and climbed to the galleries above the hall, the channels too would form letters, supposedly the names of those who had signed these treaties, immortalized below the flood.
Had the Lady who made this place realised that the water would, in time, wear all away? Had that been her purpose, to remind all who followed her that even the works of more than mortal men must fall in time? Or had she thought that there would never come a time when the court would not be tended, when the Lords and their manifold servants would falter in their purpose?
Her reflection made little sense, criss-crossed with letters. There was the shadow on her sinister side, and here the shimmer of silver on her right. There was the blur of her hair, pale in the sunlight. Nothing was clear: all was reshaped by the flow of the water.
There was the sound of steps from the far end of the hall, splashing and heavy, and she looked up to see one of her people approach. She watched him as he crossed the expanse of the water, his feet sending ripples across the width of the court, further rewriting the words below.
He was a heavy man, thick jawed and sturdy, and he knelt willingly but gracelessly, thudding to his knees and sending a wave to touch her toes. He crossed his arms over his motley livery, proclaiming, “I have come before the One Serene!”
“Your fate is my will,” she said coolly. “What tidings?”
“A delegation from Arden has arrived at the Northern gate, Serene One. They bear tribute.”
“Have they been told that the Lords have fallen?”
“They are much distressed, Serene.”
She bit back a sigh. The inner realms, merchant nations all, had taken the fall with equanimity. Most of the outer realms had long denied all but the name of Arcady. Yet the forest realms were lands of mystics and sages, and the passion of their hearts dwelled much upon the glory of the Lords.
“Bid them await me in the Hall of Glassen Webs,” she said, rising. “I will attend them anon. Go, too, and seek out Vannora ap Geraint.” After the troubles she had had with the envoys from Broceliande, she had no intention of speaking to the forest clans without a Arden-born adviser on hand.
As he hurried away, she followed at a more temperate pace, the water swirling around her feet, the ancient treaty rendered unreadable by the tumult of her passing.
The Lords were fallen, and the courts they had ruled had become hers. It did not matter that she could not read their agreements. They did not bind her, and she was free to disregard them. She would, if the need came, write them anew.
Happy Monday ^_^
