Re: Pause for vacation?
One last yarn before I go...
--- C'tis, Turn 39 ---
The streets of C'tis
It is high summer when the young chameleon runs in from the front, so exhausted she can no longer blend completely with her surroundings, so she flickers in and out as she runs down the crowded main street, never slowing as she speeds toward the High Rock. And somehow everyone already knows what she is hurrying to say.
Lugal is haggling in the marketplace with an herb seller when the murmurs begin to reach him, and he is so taken with the thought of a victory parade that he forgets to finish threatening the poor herbivorous merchant, and thus quite inadvertently pays him a fair price for his goods. When he was been barely older than a hatchling, what parades they used to have! Every time ol' Shiny Army and his boys with the long sticks won some bedraggled swampland the village elders decreed a festival. Lugal even remembers the parade to celebrate the conquest of his own homeland, although he is beginning to doubt that the purple elephants were real.
But those were warmling parades, with warmling food and music and bizarre customs, and Lugal has always wondered what a triumphant lizard nation would put on. Certainly there would be a lot less flailing and composing odes to vile dairy products. No, it would likely feature some insipid little play by the hatchlings re-enacting some big battle, and then some moralistic tale from that blabbermouthed young woman whose name he never bothers to recall, but it would also have a real banquet spread. And perhaps they'd bring out the large heatlamps, late at night, after the kiddies were tucked safe in their nests...
As Lugal walks back to his hut he is lost in dreams of glazed crickets and melon balls and nubile young hierodules.
***
A marketplace in the Summerlands
Two human women are raising the canopy over their newly repaired stall. It is early evening, and the canopy is the last thing they need before they can reopen. That means they be able to make the official re-opening of the market tomorrow morning, which is months overdue, and they note with equal parts sympathy and greed that many of their neighbors and competitors will not be ready. It was only through the generous tax relief and aid policies of the lizards that they were able to rebuild themselves, and they had been luckier than many.
The women nod to the young lizard watchman as he makes his rounds. He is a good friend after the long months of occupation and then reconstruction, and anyhow he and his troops do a brisk business with the women in knit goods even in the middle of the summer. There had been some murmuring against their lizard overlords as recently as a year ago, but no more; after the repeated harassment and terrifying occupation by the purple bastards, as they are universally called here, the women and all of the rest of their compatriots have had it with human rulers. The lizards have always been good for business.
The young lizard watchman notices the women struggling with the canopy and offers to lend them a claw, so the old woman has him hold the canopy steady on one side while the young women shimmies up the post to tie the knots. The old woman checks carefully for leaks in the canopy and tables that might inadvertently be left in the scorching sun, and finally nods her satisfaction.
"Heard the news?" says the lizard as he turns to leave, in passable human dialect. After nearly two years in the Summerlands, his accent doesn't sound half bad.
"We sure have," says the old woman, and she presses a long, fuzzy piece of knitwear into his claws. Even in summer a lizard's tail gets quite cold at night when he's making the rounds, and the lizard smiles in gratitude as he continues on to the next stall, which belongs to the local vintner. It has been a good night for him.
The women began setting up tables in earnest now, unpacking a few crates that had miraculously survived the looting and the burning, and arranging the items neatly. They also have some new items almost finished, and they must hurry if they are to get them all painted in time. They expect the good news on the eve of the market's long-anticipated opening will loosen people's (and lizards') coin purses, and it would never do to run out in the middle of the day. The young woman pries open the lid on a large bucket of red paint and picks up the first carved figurine of a sleeping dragon. It will prove to be their best seller tomorrow.
***
The watchtower of Boddern Weald
An old man in red robes is walking the dusty corridors of the castle, searching for loot. He is looking for anything that might have been hid hastily by the few highborn Pythites who escaped before the fourth siege, and regrets the complete slaughter of the enemy commanders during the storming of the castle means that there is nobody left who knows what might be hidden.
No one pays the old man any mind; these days there are many humans in the employ of C'tis, fighting side by side with the sauromancers in battle after battle with Pythium's mighty army of mages, and no lizard soldier looks twice at the sight of another human in funny robes. If they were to stop and think they might recall that there are no powerful fire mages among their ranks, but nobody has time to stop and think with all the repairs to make and the final foraying parties to send out. Besides, there is a familiar air to this fire mage.
Cole does not mind the lack of attention in the least. He finds the human form tiring to maintain, and does not want to waste valuable treasure-hunting time chatting with confused lizard guards. He would far rather not leave his shiny crimson scales behind, but regrettably, human manipulative digits and small puny size do come in handy when searching for treasure hidden by humans.
He does not actually expect to find anything. The war was long and hard for his purple foe, and secretly he suspects every scrap of treasure has long been carted off to the captiol, where – Cole sighs bitterly – it is now apparently being pawed over by more undeserving humans, Mannish-men, who will only see what they can spend it on, and never love each individual gold piece or gem for who they really are. The dragon observes a moment of silence for the horde that might of been, and moves on to the dungeons. There is still an outside chance he might yet find something.
***
The hatchery in the Mark
"... and so Aetonyx ate the fish, and the lizards lived happily ever after."
Laph pauses before starting her next story. All the hatchlings are staring at her with rapt attention, except for the littlest ones, who still can't focus their eyes properly. There is a happy mood to the room, and even the dourest old hierodule is smiling, happy that their charges are getting some personal time with the great yarnspinner herself, perhaps? Laph smiles faintly, because she knows better. Everyone is happy these days because of the news that is sweeping the kingdom. Pythium itself has fallen; there is only a token force left defending their last fortress, which C'tis is besieging, and they are rumored to be on the verge of surrender, probably won't last the summer.
She glances briefly toward the most central part of the hatchery, where the eggs are kept. Eggs and small hatchlings are just too vulnerable for any lizard mother to protect on her own, and so most lizards, especially those who live in outlying regions, come to the hatchery to lay their eggs. Like some well-to-do town lizards, Laph chose to lay her eggs in her own nest; but now that they are within days of hatching she has brought them here, where they will be safe and among eggmates. They are the oldest eggs in the hatchery, but far from the only, and Laph suspects there will be many Great Hatchings throughout the kingdom within the next few months.
Time to enjoy the peace, she thinks, to rebuild and replenish our numbers. She tries, and mostly succeeds, in extinguishing the tiny voice in her head, who sounds a lot like Ash'embe, come to think of it, which adds, before the next war inevitably comes.
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