rix_scaedu | Entries tagged with lasrial

I wrote this to kunama_wolf's anonymous prompt and it came in at 606 words.

“Well, it was back when there was water on the moon,” began Warial before he had to duck the seat cushion Tala threw at him.

“You said you were going to tell me a true story,” Tala told him, “but that’s how humans start stories about things that never happened!”

“She has a point,” agreed Lasrial. “Her aim is getting better, too.”

“Used to be that beginning just meant a very long time ago,” put in Dorthiel, “because the gods did try to put water on the moon, back when they were establishing things, but it wouldn’t stay.”

“Why not?” Tala was diverted, at least temporarily, from whatever tale Warial had been going to tell.

“I was in the room once when someone spent half an hour explaining that, with diagrams,” replied Dorthiel, “but I didn’t really understand it. I think they meant that the moon isn’t heavy enough to hold on to water, but I could well be wrong.”

Tala asked, “So, where did the water go when it left the moon?”

“You know, I really have no idea,” said Dorthiel, “and you’d think that if you had enough water for an ocean, a couple of smaller seas and lots of lakes, then you’d notice when it turned up somewhere else, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s probably all over the place,” commented Eluriah, an angel with black and dark brown banded wings and a fondness for twin swords. “I mean, water evaporates and goes up to form clouds. So if the water on the moon did that and kept going up because the moon couldn’t hold on to it, well where would it stop?”

“So there could be clouds floating around in the space beyond the moon?” Tala was fascinated.

“If there are, then the air the gods tried to put on the moon must be out there too – I think that there was the same problem with that as with the water,” added Dorthiel. “I do know that they tried longer with the air than with the water – apparently some of the lunar gods were very keen to get the same type of life up there as there is on the ground.”

“The same type of life?” It was Lasrial who’d picked up on that.

“There is life on the moon,” admitted Dorthiel. “I understand that it’s mainly simple plant forms that one of the older gods created to demonstrate that life could exist under the moon’s conditions but that you and I probably wouldn’t recognise them as a proper plant. Certainly there’s nothing up there capable of worship or belief, although I remember one of Xenophormor’s angels being very excited about a creature his divine master was working on that would live on the lunar plants.”

“Xenophormor?” Tala looked around the table. “Should I know that name?”

“You’ve no reason to,” said Lasrial sombrely. “He died on the same battlefield as my first master.”

“I’m sorry,” apologised Tala, “I didn’t mean to-.”

“Don’t be silly,” Lasrial dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand. “How were you to know? Besides, how will you learn anything if you don’t ask questions?”

“Well put,” agreed Dorthiel. “Xenophormor was a moon god who was slain in the Death War, as were the other gods who were most interested in establishing life on the moon. Our remaining Lunar Trine have other interests and so the matter remains where it was.” He finished on a pensive note but then added brightly, “Now, wasn’t Warial going to tell us a story that may or may not have happened when the gods were trying to make water stick to the moon?”

I wrote this to ysabetwordsmith's prompt " From the Angels setting: a forgotten holiday."

Tala found Lasrial sitting morosely on a rock on the edge of their practice ground. The older angel was usually serious and solemn but today he drooped. The shades of the dead that thronged Thaladneth’s halls usually ignored the angels but they were crowded around Lasrial, so many in number that they made a barely audible susserating murmur.

“Lasrial,” Tala put her hand on his shoulder to make sure she got his attention, “what’s wrong?”

He looked up and asked eagerly, “Does our master have a task for me?”

“Not that I know of,” Tala replied, “but you looked so sad, I was worried about you. What’s wrong?”

“Today would have been my first master’s highest holy day,” he was solemn again and a tear might have glistened in one eye. “It’s a day I like to be busy on.”

“But today you’re not busy and you miss him?” Tala couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to lose her divine master, and she didn’t want to know.

“Yes.”

“Humans mourn their dead by going and putting flowers or lit candles on their graves,” she offered. “I could come with you if you would like company.”

“Thank you,” he smiled at her, “but with a dead god that’s too close to worship to be safe.”

“Oh Lasrial,” she knelt down beside him and put her arms around his torso, and only his torso, under the point where his blue-grey wings sprang from his back, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right little one, it’s not your fault.” He still hugged her back and he may have cried a little while she couldn’t see him as he petted her hair.

When he let her go she stood up. “If you want something to do,” she offered, “you can come and help me put all the books I pulled out in the library back on the shelves. If there’s time left after that, then you can take me through my spear drill again.”

“Your spear drill’s okay,” Lasrial observed in a why-would-we-do-that tone.

“Given the amount of time I’ve been doing it, you can’t tell me it’s up to your standards!” She flashed a smile at him.

“Well, no. You have a point.”

I wrote this to kunama_wolf's prompt "Tala/the swordlords - "Three turns of the tide""

The convocation of the gods was over and the participants had dispersed to their home demesnes. Tala had taken Warial’s advice and kept her speculations to herself but she had continued to speculate and once the Thirteenth Swordlord and his small retinue had returned home, she took to the library when her duties and training allowed. Dorthiel found her there when he passed the open door on his way to wash and change after practising sword work with Lasrial.

“What are you looking for?” He had a fair question. She was surrounded by stacks of books, each book with pages marked by a tagged scrap of vellum or paper stuck between its pages. Some books had several such tags.

“The Vardmasters,” replied Tala, “and their agents. Tell me, Dorthiel, how do we know that an angel at the convocation is in the service of a god?”

“They arrive with their divine master, they wear his or her token,” he shrugged, “They’re an angel?”

“I didn’t see everyone arrive so I can’t say who arrived with who,” she started counting off on her fingers. “I saw angels who weren’t wearing tokens, come to that I saw angels who weren’t wearing clothes-”

“The servants of Ebroum,” interrupted Dorthiel. “It’s best not to ask, really.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “If you say so. My third point is that the Outcast are angels but they don’t serve a god.”

“They don’t serve the vard either,” he pointed out.

Tala sighed. “Dorthiel, do you remember what it was like to be newly made? Wanting desperately to serve? Did you get turned down at all before you found a position?”

He shook his head, though she wasn’t sure which question he was responding to.

“I was rejected and I remember what it felt like. I think if a Vardmaster had approached one of the Outcast when they were new and didn’t know any better, he would have taken service with it.” Tala looked at Dorthiel, waiting for a response.

“But that would only give them one or two…,” Dorthiel trailed off at his younger sister’s expression.

“How does a new angel know that the Choirmaster who accepts his or her service is the Choirmaster of a god?” Tala waited for his answer.

“Because-,” Dorthiel broke off and muttered a soldier’s expletive. “You don’t think they’ve got the one or two we assumed they’d coerced or turned somehow, you think they’ve got a Choir?”

“It would go with these references to the Perverted Choir in The Three Turns of the Tide ,” Tala indicated a heavy, leather bound volume that sat on its own, not stacked like the others around her.

“Those are the prophecies of an insane god,” pointed out Dorthiel.

“Which came first, the prophecies or the insanity?” Then she added, “And if he was insane and they meant nothing, why were the Vardmasters so quick to go after him? Even before they challenged the Swordlords?”

I wrote this to ysabetwordsmith's first prompt.

“There are angels,” explained Lasrial, “and there are vard. Angels are servants of the gods. It’s what we’re created for. We have free will, a desire to serve, a propensity to support the functioning of the universe and a talent for singing. The vard are miniatures of their masters, the Vardmasters.”

“Wait, those things are miniatures?” Tala interrupted him. “But the one fighting Gadiah was as big as you are! How big is a Vardmaster?”

“I’ve only ever seem them arrayed for war, manifesting to battle the gods themselves,” he admitted. “Of course, the gods can manifest at any size they desire. I’ve seen them large enough to hold a human or angel on the palm of a hand.”

Tala got a faraway look on her face, “That would be awe inspiring, to be held like that.” She snapped back, “But the Vardmasters can do that too? What are they?”

Lasrial nodded. “They can. The Vardmasters aren’t gods, they’re unmakers. A lot of the gods have destructive aspects but the Vardmasters are different. The gods and their angels support the sphere of creation we know as the universe. The Vardmasters don’t want to destroy the universe but to subvert the principles of its creation so that it not only never was but never could be. Everything they do is aimed at that.”

“Everything?” The younger angel was astonished. Lasrial sometimes thought that she was too open in letting her every emotion show on her face but when her thoughts were on their divine master he remembered what he had been like before the First Swordlord had fallen.

“Everything,” confirmed Lasrial. “The Death War. Stealing the souls of human dead. Encouraging good men to worship dead gods. Killing angels. I don’t know how it all fits together but I know they’re doing something out there in the spaces beyond creation.”

“But what? Why?” Tala was confused.

“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Perhaps it is their nature.”

I wrote this to kunama_wolf's prompt. It follows on from Might Have Beens.

Tala was returning home with the Third Swordlord’s reply to her master’s message when she came across the fight on the borders of her master’s demesne. Angel versus vard, one on one, with spears. Tala didn’t recognise the brown winged angel but she did recognise her master’s symbol on his shoulder brooch. She didn’t know much about fighting either but she thought her unknown brother was in serious trouble. She wanted to help but she didn’t have a weapon and didn’t know how to use one anyway but as she looked at the fight she got an idea…

“She yanked on its tail,” Gadiah told Dorthiel and Lasrial while Tala stood to one side in admonished silence. “Threw its balance and guard off so I could kill it but I don’t know how she managed to pull it off without getting herself hurt. I didn’t see or hear her coming and I’m sure the vard didn’t either but getting away without getting its spear through her, that was just sheer dumb luck.” He looked at the much younger, female angel severely and she looked down at the floor.

“Tala is a very fast, quiet flier,” observed Lasrial.

“She is,” agreed Dorthiel. “Do you remember those close-order, flying combat drills Hadural used to insist on? Tala would have been good at those. She can turn inside half her wingspan at full speed. I don’t know how she does it. Well,” he corrected himself, “I’ve seen how she does it but when I tried it I nearly broke my wings.”

“She shouldn’t be jumping into fights if she doesn’t know what she’s doing,” Gadiah said severely.

“But you’re my brother and you needed help, what was I supposed to do?” Tala looked at back at him with her dark, silver-speckled eyes.

“Go for help,” he snapped.

She crossed her arms and snapped back, “I meant more useful help than driving that thing away from your body.”

“Do you have any idea what it would have done to you if it had gotten its hands on you?” Gadiah was beginning to lose his temper.

“Nothing worse than it would have done to you. I have actually read the texts with the educational pictures of those things in them.” Tala was fired up as he was.

“Enough! Both of you!” Dorthiel held up his hands and spread his black wings in emphasis.

“You both have a valid point,” added Lasrial, “and I have another. What if the vard find out Tala is our lord’s messenger? They might well target her.” The looks the three older, male angels gave her chilled Tala to the bone.

“So?” The question came out in a very small voice.

“We teach you to protect yourself,” said Lasrial cheerfully. “Gadiah will give you your first lesson this afternoon on the practice lawn.”

“I will?” Gadiah’s question had a bewildered air of ‘how-did-this-get-to-be-me?’ to it.

It balanced out Tala’s response of unequivocal delight beamed at all three of them. “Thank you!”

I wrote this to ysabetwordsmith's first prompt. I may have to work on getting shorter ideas...

“And Lasrial,” the darkly clad angel who had already turned to pursue his divine master’s orders paused and turned back to listen to the rider that was being added to them, “when you have finished, return here and spend some time with your new sister. I believe it would be good for you.” The rhythmic sound of whetstone on steel filled the spaces between the words.

“As you wish, Lord Thaladeneth,” Lasrial bowed again, turned for his running take off and was airborne almost as soon as he cleared the balcony door. As he neared the metaphysical borders of his lord’s domain his mind was already on the task ahead. Murder was always unpleasant but, then it was supposed to be.

The secret priest was, like all of his kind who tried to do good in the world, not nearly so secret as he believed. For the matter to have gotten as far as Lasrial or another of his brothers the man had to have ignored divinely sent warning dreams and some fairly unsubtle rebukes from the priests of all three surviving Swordlords. They were down to their last option for dealing with the man and that option was Lasrial.

The house was dark and everyone asleep. Lasrial liked that. It always seemed better for the survivors if they believed the victim had died in his sleep. A few suggestions in the right ears usually saw any dependents into suitable new lives. He just needed to find the right-

“Ho villain, put up your weapon! This house is under angelic protection!” The figure that stepped around the corner radiated light, its golden hair and the gold band of feathers on each wing the only relief from the unrelenting pure white of its appearance.

“What are you doing here, Outcast? And keep it down,” hissed Lasrial, “or you’ll wake the entire household.”

“I am here to defend a righteous man whose good works enhance the lives of all around him,” proclaimed the white and gold angel.

“He worships a dead god and won’t listen to common sense and reason,” Lasrial told him flatly. “I’m what you get when common sense and reason run out of time.”

“Who are you and why are you in my house?” The sleepy man in the doorway was Lasrial’s target and obviously had no idea what was going on.

“I am here to defend you from the dark powers that would silence your light,” proclaimed the white and gold angel.

“I have to concede that,” admitted Lasrial, his blue-grey wings held in tight to reduce his profile.

“Angels fighting,” a fourth voice growled into the conversation from behind Lasrial, “if I’d known I’d have brought rat-on-a-stick. By the way, I don’t want the priest dead either. What you going to do, tough boy?”

The whiff of sulphur and the expressions on the faces of the other angel and the human together with the sound of that voice told Lasrial everything he needed to know. He said conversationally, “There’s a vard behind me, isn’t there?” The human and the other angel nodded, the angel beginning to draw the sword strapped to his side as he did so. The sword blade glowed, of course. Lasrial shifted his grip on his spear.

From behind him the vile voice commented, “Oooh, pretty boy’s got a sword, but tough boy’s going to make his move first. What’s he gonna do?”

From the sound of its voice, their normal proportions and stance, the vital point in that baboon-like body with double bat wings and a donkey tail should be-. The spear rotated in Lasrial’s hands faster than thought and he lunged backwards. The resistance and weight told him he’d met his target. Lunge forward to pull the spear free and rap the other angel on the side of the head with the butt, hard enough to knock him out. Pivot the spear round its butt and take out the third target.

And it wasn’t a clean kill. Lasrial wrenched out the spear, dropped it on the ground and caught the dying man before he reached the floor. Once the angelic weapon was removed from the wound there was no mark in the mortal flesh. “I’m sorry.” The rusty emotion in Lasrial’s voice was compassion. “That was supposed to be instantaneous, I must be out of practice.”

“But why?” The man was bewildered as his life ebbed away. Lasrial was acutely aware of other voices but this was the important one right now.

“I fought in the Death War.” So many painful memories. “I saw my lord, our lord, the First Swordlord fall under the weapons of the Vardmasters.” The dying man’s eyes widened in surprise and wonder. “I helped recover his body after the battle. I helped clean it and lay it out.” Pain and tears. “He was gone. There was no bringing him back. No resurrection. We cannot worship or serve a dead god, it’s too dangerous to the world. When you wouldn’t listen, my brother, we still had to cut off your conduit of faith. I’m sorry.” The man’s eyelids fluttered, all tension went from his muscles, his eyes dulled and he was gone. Lasrial dropped a kiss on his brow and gently put the corpse down.

“My husband…?” The woman inside the room, who must have heard if not seen everything, was sensibly terrified.

“Is dead. I’m sorry.” Lasrial was brusque but he thought sympathy from him would be unwelcome. “I’ll leave now and take the other angel with me. You should summon assistance from the authorities – your husband is dead and you have a slain vard in your hallway.”

Lasrial collected his spear, resheathed the Outcast’s sword and picked up the unconscious angel under one arm. Then he left. The entire affair had been messier than he cared for and there was still to dead man’s family to consider.

Later. “The affair was messier than usual, my lord. My apologies.”

The sound of whetstone on steel continued unabated. “Sometimes these things cannot be helped. One of the Outcast rescued from himself, a vard dead and the worship of a dead god ceased. All in all, I believe you should consider that a good result.”

“I caused unnecessary distress, my lord.” That, that stung his pride. Lasrial prided himself on doing his job cleanly.

“Distress can bear desirable fruit.” His divine master continued with his eternal task, honing the edge of a sword. “Now, go spend some time with your sister. And Lasrial,” the tone said ‘look at me’ so Lasrial raised his eyes from the floor to meet his master’s, “she has never been in a Choir. She’s as ignorant as that fool we’ve just packed off to Ashrenat’s Choir to be socialised, though less foolish. She needs you and your few brothers to teach her the things she should know.”

Lasrial’s wing’s flared in surprise and interest.

“Now,” Thaladeneth paused his honing to consider the edge of the blade in his hand, “go make friends and be about your tasks.”