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a-sweet-pea · 4 years

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Thank you for all of your suggestions! I’m afraid I have gone entirely sideways and opted for a little size-swapped medieval fantasy James and Elle chat session. Please enjoy!

A lone figure strode up the hill, which was simultaneously expected and unexpected. Ever since Elle had knocked over the wooden-post fence around the nearby farmland, she had been anticipating attention from the locals. She had hoped in vain that the gift of a blackberry bush uprooted from the forest (much easier than trying to pick off berries) would have made up for her clumsiness, but deep down she knew it wouldn’t help. Thanls to a few bad eggs (well, maybe more than a few) a giant could hardly take an evening walk without inciting an angry mob. She’d been sensible and isolated herself in the forest for over a week, leaving the safety of treecover only after nightfall, and only to walk to the lake in the mountains, miles from the nearest village. But then that cow had come stumbling into the woods, clearly wandered away from its herd, and she had to carry it back (not least of all because it meant she got to pet it’s soft nose as she did), and naturally she had done so at night so that she wouldnt be seen, but another thing that could not be seen in the faint moonlight was the danged fence, and that was that.

So for days now, having given up on secrecy, she’d been sitting just beyond the treeline in full view scanning the horizon for angry mobs, but here was a single man walking up the hill to the edge of the forest. As he got closer, she could see that he had a longbow and a quiver full of arrows strapped to his back, but even as he reached the crest of the hill, only a few steps (or a few hundred of his) from where she sat, he did not reach for his weapon. He just stood, his expression too small and distant to make out.

He brought one hand to his mouth and shouted in clear, if cautious voice. “Hullo there, giant.” Elle raised her hand and gave him a small wave.

“Hello giantslayer.” He stiffened and put one hand on the end of his bow, but didn’t ready it.

“I-I’m not-“

“Look, I’m not stupid.” Elle laughed. “They sent you to kill me.” He lowered his hand.

“Well aye, they did that.” Elle interlocked her fingers and rested her chin on them, elbows on her knees.

“And you came in broad daylight. That seems like a bad choice.”

“Ah was gonnae come in the night,” he retorted. “Ahm no a numpty. But ah saw ye a long way off and ah thought to ma’sel, ‘that’s a lass tae bonny to murder.”

“Excuse me?” Elle snorted.

“Naebdy told me you were a girl, ah cannae kill a girl!”

“So you’re saying if I was a man, you would have snuck up on me in the night and shot me.”

“No! Well, mebbe’s aye. Is that bad?”

“Yes, yes it is,” she laughed. “But thanks for not killing me anyway I suppose.” She furrowed her brow. “Hold on, did you say ‘bonny’?” She leaned down further and the little man stumbled backward. “That’s your quaint country word for ‘pretty’ isn’t it?” Now that she was closer, she could see a sheen of sweat on his brow and a little tremor in his legs. “Are you flirting with me?”

“That depends,” he swallowed, a nervous grin on his face. “Is it working?”

“Well, that depends.” Elle sat up and lifted her hand. “Let me get a good look at you.” His eyes went wide as she reached toward him, but he didn’t run off. “Don’t worry, I’ll be careful.” She wrapped her fingers gently around his torso and lifted him off the grass. A blush rose in her cheeks, she could feel his heart racing and his warm chest press against her fingers as he took rapid breaths. She couldn’t remember the last time she held a human, it was such a strange and wonderful thrill. His eyes were bright and his mouth hung wide open in shock. “Let’s get these out of the way.” Elle pinched his quiver between her fingertips and carefully worked it up and over his shoulder and head.

“Wasnae using ‘em anyway,” he laughed nervously.

“Right,” she brushed the dark fringe of his goatee with the tip of her thumb. “What’s your name?”

“James,” he said, wiping the sweat from his brow. “ James MacKinnon.”

“You are a bold and handsome little creature, James MacKinnon. Tell me, how exactly would you go about flirting with a giant?”A baffled smile stretched his cheeks as he settled more comfortably into her grip, resting his arms on the top of her hand like they were the arms of a throne.

“Do ye like poetry?” Elle smiled back at him.

“Let’s find out.”

#giant/tiny #g/t fluff #g/t fiction #g/t writing #giant #giant tiny #asweetpea #asweetpea writing #james and elle #g/t

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egg-of-mankhad · 5 years

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Your Name

Cranes could be seen flying overhead a setting sun. The color of orange a prominent one in the fortress that bordered the entrance into Kugane. Where concrete pillars reached into the sky. Towers upon which pirates stood watch over the vast ruby dyed sea.

“<Okay...Just as we agreed...”> A young adolescent Xaela girl would whisper to the older male, pointing towards another docked ship where a number of questionable figures were loading on crates that looked to be heavy with their weight in gold. “<They have the golden scaled ones with them. If we integrate they might hardly notice us. We just need to play our parts well.>”

“<Sechen I don’t know…>” the older Xaela whispered. His crimson eyes narrowing with hesitation upon the men as they passed. Men garbed in happi jackets would venture back and forth as they spoke, hidden behind a wooden rice container. “<Look at them...There scales are made of gold. Ours are black. They will ask questions”>

“<We act dumb. Their tongue is far too quick regardless. The are like leaping dolphins who know not when to quit. Here--quickly>”

Before their hiding place was collected by the traders, the pair of Xaela would slip to the next container of rice. Then to the next. Dodging their horns and tails out of the eyesight of the strange hornless beings who were their seaferriers.

“<We act dumb, but we signal to them. We want work. We want to be a part of their crew. They won’t object. Not with the large brutes they appear to carry.>”

“<And if they turn us away?>”

“<Then we find another ship to collect us. I do not intend to stay here forever Eigengrau. Not on this sea…>”

“<Sechen…>”

The male Xaela did not wish to stay either. The sight of the tower that stretched to the Heavens would always seem like a scar across the sky in his eyes. And the horizon, a dreadful reminder. He would try and reach out to his newfound friend for a small bit of comfort that they would finally find a place away from everything. She did not take his hand.

“<After this. I do not wish to see you anymore.>”

====

“<M...marraige….papa…?>”

How old was he then...Thirteen summers? The fresh tears had not quite left his face. His father sat across from him in stone faced. Dead set in his decision for the young man. The young one had come of age. And his body was starting to develop into its peak.

“<You are a man now. Or...You will be.>” He would wordless gesture towards a paddle that sat next to him. It was ceremonial and made from wood. And held within it the same markings that reflected the dangerous curves of the sea. “<Within the next month the cyclone will return.>” Crimson red eyes, shining like a dying set of stars, would center in on Eigen. A predator upon prey, in some other scenario perhaps.

“<You will brave the waters. And you will find yourself a whale calf, kill it, and bring it here.>”

It was an order. Not a request; The days leading up to such a moment were felt with preparations that included reminders of the boy’s lessons. As well as new lessons. Such as how to harpoon a cow. And where to find a whale pod. Things such as a whale’s weaning period. The boy was taught how long a calf stayed with their mother. When the mother rose to the surface. How to tell when a calf was feeding on a mother’s milk. So many different things about whales Eigen would learn in that short time period, so many things he would wish he didn’t know.

====

“THERE SHE BLOWS!!”

There came that charged cry of the ship’s captain. A shout of excitement, and impassioned need. There. She. Blow. Her size was 37 fulms, 6 ilms. A heavy weight of 15 tons. She was pretty, but not an absolutely beautiful catch. Eigen’s eyes glimmered in recognition of the mollusks that covered the underside of her hide as she lept across at the ships side. A sad peering giant eye glancing over to them in that brief moment. Her blowhole spraying out a shimmer of water.

Sounds of hardworking men’s feets could be heard scrambling towards Eigen’s end of the ship. And the sound of rowboats being lowered could be heard. Someone handed Eigen a harpoon, the young adult couldn’t see whom.

He had only been in Kugane for a moon, and they already put him to work. “Hey, you look strong! Come help us!”; Eigen did not understand these words. All he understood was that he was shoved on a ship at the earliest convenience the moment he was separated from Sechen.

It was good work, but not well paying work. Eigen would learn quickly that he would only recieve the same wages as the Kojin beast tribe who traveled with him on these excursions. Barely enough for food. Yet enough to be scrambled for a room for a night. The reality would dawn on Eigen how he would have to choose his living condition quickly. It was either to have food and be homeless, yet still starve. Or to have a room and starve.

For a Xaela such as he, the choice was rather one sided.

“Boat’s cleared!” shouted another man. Some would shove Eigen’s shoulder roughly as he felt the boat he sat in become heavy with other able bodied men. They were rowed quickly to the cow’s position. The Hingan sun bearing down on them with a hint of judgmental rage.

“Laying on her now, nice and sweet! Draw out yer irons now, boys! This one’s a beast!”

“Just like her sweet scaley cousin am I right?” A man would punch Eigen’s shoulder with a laugh. A moment would past before the dark au ra would realize that the man was speaking to him. He would laugh with him, though not understanding his words.

“Oi!! Asshole! Don’t bully the poor lad!” Eigen blinked over at a raen who would have snarled at the laughing hiyur, who would grab at Eigen’s shoulder and would murmur against the horn. “I hear you savages have a tribe where everyone looks like a kami damned whale. Is this true? Can you introduce me?” The hiyur’s snickering voice made Eigen’s spine shiver for some reason.

The raen would snarl once more and roll his eyes. Though there was nothing to be done to the man. He was a drunk. No one wanted to deal with him. “Fucking Hingans” the raen would murmur.

There was a distance in his eyes as he regarded Eigen as well. A cold, uncaring one. He seemed more so focused on the water with the spraying geysers of whale breath in the distance.

“Heyyyy don’t sweat it scales. You and me, we understand the whales. We live, breath, eat, shit, and -fuck- whales am I right?” The Hiyur man would snicker. “You really must introduce me to your females. I’ll hold you to that okay? Here, shake on it. We go find a cow to screw together after we’re done screwing this here cow.” The hiyur man gestures wildly to the sea. His hand missing the herding spot of the whales by a few fulms.

“GODDAMN MORONS QUIT YER SCABBLING AND FOCUS FOR FUCK’S SAKE” The roegadyn that headed the front would shout with irritation. “Asahi---ASAHI---Think you can give it to her!? The DAMN BASTARDS ahead of us are already gallying her mates!”

“On it already…” The air would grow tense as a resounding echo would shake through their boat. A loud and violent song that would ring across Eigen’s horns.

“Focus on big mama! Forget the babs!---Look alive rookie, this is gonna be yer first Sleighride!”

It was beautiful, but terrifying. A symphony of fear, and of terror. Sung for the audience that were her predators. Eigen would listen to the matron’s song. And felt his heart tug for the days of his youth. Remembering the sorrow of the creature he would lay to rest. Simply for the right to a name of his own.

====

“<You are late>”

The boy Xaela would arrive at his father’s tend. Bloodied and covered in black ink. Looking as though he was about to cry. He had ventured out into the sea like his father had said. Among thunder and lightning like his father had said. He did not find any mother whale out there but had apparently found something much worse. Much larger. Though yet still a whale, if the tail fin he dragged behind him was of any indicator.

He, couldn’t stop crying.

“<What is this?>” The voice of his father was quiet. It sounded like disbelief but the young Xaela could not be certain. The elder stood and walk over to the younger au ra. Eyes glowering over the fin. “<I asked for a -whole whale-. Not this….-excuse-.>” He would gesture with a growl.

“<I...I lost it….!”>”

The boy looked up at his father with weeping tears in his eyes. His bloodied mouth openin and closing as he sobbed. Looking absolutely disheartened. “<I bit its tail and I harpooned it like you said but its flesh had torn and I lost it…! It...It died though….I think it was...Dyi-->”

“<Do not speak to me your excuses! The rest of the whale! -Where- is it?!>”

The boy had failed his test. That much was certain. And before he would be casted off, the boy would run away. Terrified, and cowardly, he would run. While the skies outside would continue to storm with raging winds and rain. He stumbled over a conch shell at some point during his fleeing. And hits his head face first in the muddied sand. The sky around him would be alight with lightning. And ahead of him, within that moment. His eyes would catch the bloodied form of the whale that he had come into contact with bells before hand. It was barely breathing, barely holding onto life. Upon the bed of coastal sand. Fifty fulms in its magnificence. A giant, compared to creature his father expected him to tame. Next to the creature, was another. A baby thing that looked like it was in a state of weeping.

Sadly, carefully, Eigen would put his arms over both creatures. And he would hug them both, as well as anyone his size possibly could. A sharp piercing sensation in his heart telling him that this was what he needed; how he hated it so.

“<....I am so sorry….>”

He really did not want to take two lives that night. But it was already too late. Lightning flashed across the sky and the boy would cower as he held tight. “<Please...please forgive me>”

...

“<Eigengrau. Your name is Eigengrau....A Shadow is what you are. Nothing more, nothing less.>”

#eigen story #ooc post #a drop in the ocean #just mankhad things #memories of kugane #memories of the ruby sea

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forsoothsayer · 7 years

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The Drunken Boat by Arthur Rimbaud

As I was going down impassive Rivers, I no longer felt myself guided by haulers: Yelping redskins had taken them as targets And had nailed them naked to colored stakes. I was indifferent to all crews, The bearer of Flemish wheat or English cottons When with my haulers this uproar stopped The Rivers let me go where I wanted. Into the furious lashing of the tides More heedless than children's brains the other winter I ran! And loosened Peninsulas Have not undergone a more triumphant hubbub The storm blessed my sea vigils Lighter than a cork I danced on the waves That are called eternal rollers of victims, Ten nights, without missing the stupid eye of the lighthouses! Sweeter than the flesh of hard apples is to children The green water penetrated my hull of fir And washed me of spots of blue wine And vomit, scattering rudder and grappling-hook And from then on I bathed in the Poem Of the Sea, infused with stars and lactescent, Devouring the azure verses; where, like a pale elated Piece of flotsam, a pensive drowned figure sometimes sinks; Where, suddenly dyeing the blueness, delirium And slow rhythms under the streaking of daylight, Stronger than alcohol, vaster than our lyres, The bitter redness of love ferments! I know the skies bursting with lightning, and the waterspouts And the surf and the currents; I know the evening, And dawn as exalted as a flock of doves And at times I have seen what man thought he saw! I have seen the low sun spotted with mystic horrors, Lighting up, with long violet clots, Resembling actors of very ancient dramas, The waves rolling far off their quivering of shutters! I have dreamed of the green night with dazzled snows A kiss slowly rising to the eyes of the sea, The circulation of unknown saps, And the yellow and blue awakening of singing phosphorous! I followed during pregnant months the swell, Like hysterical cows, in its assault on the reefs, Without dreaming that the luminous feet of the Marys Could constrain the snout of the wheezing Oceans! I struck against, you know, unbelievable Floridas Mingling with flowers panthers' eyes and human Skin! Rainbows stretched like bridal reins Under the horizon of the seas to greenish herds! I have seen enormous swamps ferment, fish-traps Where a whole Leviathan rots in the rushes! Avalanches of water in the midst of a calm, And the distances cataracting toward the abyss! Glaciers, suns of silver, nacreous waves, skies of embers! Hideous strands at the end of brown gulfs Where giant serpents devoured by bedbugs Fall down from gnarled trees with black scent! I should have liked to show children those sunfish Of the blue wave, the fish of gold, the singing fish. —Foam of flowers rocked my drifting And ineffable winds winged me at times. At times a martyr weary of poles and zones, The sea, whose sob created my gentle roll, Brought up to me her dark flowers with yellow suckers And I remained, like a woman on her knees... Resembling an island tossing on my sides the quarrels And droppings of noisy birds with yellow eyes And I sailed on, when through my fragile ropes Drowned men sank backward to sleep! Now I, a boat lost in the foliage of caves, Thrown by the storm into the birdless air I whose water-drunk carcass would not have been rescued By the Monitors and the Hanseatic sailboats; Free, smoking, topped with violet fog, I who pierced the reddening sky like a wall, Bearing, delicious jam for good poets Lichens of sunlight and mucus of azure, Who ran, spotted with small electric moons, A wild plank, escorted by black seahorses, When Julys beat down with blows of cudgels The ultramarine skies with burning funnels; I, who trembled, hearing at fifty leagues off The moaning of the Behemoths in heat and the thick Maelstroms, Eternal spinner of the blue immobility I miss Europe with its ancient parapets! I have seen sidereal archipelagos! and islands Whose delirious skies are open to the sea-wanderer: —Is it in these bottomless nights that you sleep and exile yourself, Million golden birds, o future Vigor? – But, in truth, I have wept too much! Dawns are heartbreaking. Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter. Acrid love has swollen me with intoxicating torpor O let my keel burst! O let me go into the sea! If I want a water of Europe, it is the black Cold puddle where in the sweet-smelling twilight A squatting child full of sadness releases A boat as fragile as a May butterfly. No longer can I, bathed in your languor, o waves, Follow in the wake of the cotton boats, Nor cross through the pride of flags and flames, Nor swim under the terrible eyes of prison ships.

#arthur rimbaud #french poetry

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penbetweenthelines-blog · 7 years

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Arthur Rimbaud-The Drunken Boat

#poetry #arthur rimbaud

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