Prompt: 1) 12 sentences 2) something Vardin 3) what happened 100 years ago? by in_the_blue. Meming It Out for a Ficlet O'Clock
So I’d never actually peeked in on this time period before because I didn’t think anything particularly interesting had happened. But it did. The way hunting was handled began to shift and not too long away comes another great war. Ah, well. Stories surprise us. Hope you like.
Liana Mir
Liana Mir reads, writes, and wrangles the muses from her mundane home in the Colorado Rockies and, occasionally, from the other side of the Barrier.
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Story Within a Story - 517 W
A Letter to Fellow Historical Intern, Whom I Named Huerél
Hunt the Mists
He wanted to change the way things were.
Bryn wants to guard their own lands and the outsiders who stumble upon them, but he is no hunter and only the hunters wander out into the mists.
409 S
Vardin Science Fiction Fantasy
Flash Fiction Short Story
Vardin Science Fiction Fantasy
Flash Fiction Short Story
Bryn rode out each morning to check the fields of the House of Calai; though he was the youngest, his father had ensured that every one of his seven sons knew the work of the guardians of Vardin, to protect their people, their lands, and their Queen. Winter was coming and Bryn could see the mists rolling in over the mountain where soon they would become clouds and storms and rain and outsiders stumbling into this hidden land through a Barrier grown thin.
“Father.” He drew his horse up short, who whinnied her protest and eagerness to continue.
He was inordinately grateful when his father stopped his own horse with the flat of his palm on her neck.
“Let me guard the mountains above our Household.” Calai lands stretched from the lower valley of Vardin up to the very edge of dragon lands on the mountain heights, and those few Frenchmen and foreign hikers who found themselves in a land out of myth often found themselves at the mercy of Vardin’s merciless neighbors.
His father narrowed his eyes and cut him off abruptly, reminding him, “Son of my House, you are no hunter,” for it was hunters who guarded the reaches, who wandered forth from Vardin among the outsiders, who took up the sword beside their natural powers.
“Why, Father?” Bryn exploded, surprising his father and even himself at the odd fury within him, but he went on regardless. “Why do you need me when I have six brothers, and why must I leave my Household to hunt when a son can guard our lands?”
The patriarch of Calai stared at his youngest son, only recently a man, for a very long time, perhaps measuring the weight of history and tradition, of the separation between hunter and householder—the seekers and the keepers, the change and the guard against change—and at last sighed heavily and answered, “Perhaps you are the change that will come to Vardin, son.”
He nodded his assent and then turned to look out over their lands, their nation, and Bryn wondered if it was their future he saw.
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Vardin Science Fiction Fantasy
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I vote for more, please.
When we create worlds from scratch, it's important to know their history and what led them to the current day happenings. That's a lot to bite off and even more to chew, but it's as important as the characters' memories in terms of world-building. What I like most about this snippet is the tone and timblre. It feels more old-fashioned than the rest of the world you've shared, as it should. Thank you for writing it!
I do know a lot of their far history, but you landed smack in what I call near history. Bryn is twenty-eight years from having his first daughter, Llereya. (Remember her?)
I'm glad you like it and that it has that old-fashioned feel. It was tough squeezing this into twelve sentences, and there was a lot of worldbuilding to compress. I think I'll rework this one sometime and flesh it out some more. It deserves that.
Thanks for the prompt!