this morning, the sun appeared to rise in the west…
6/6/20 - based off the NANOWRIMO prompt “this morning, the sun appeared to rise in the west” from a close to 2 hour writing session with my friend! I tried to insert as many world building as possible, but you can definitely tell I was in an ATLA/high fantasy mood
Alea knew something was wrong. The wrongness was in the jerky motion of the harvestmen scuttling away from her fingertips, their legs tapping against the worn wood in clean tik-tik-tik frenzy. It was in the air, suddenly too light where it was once thick and humid, as if the night sky suddenly stopped above them, sucking air to fill the vacuum of its momentum. The wrongness, the sense that something slipped loose in the world, came from how the caravan stopped without a sound. In the expanse of the Stone Sea, where hulls scraped against granite and crunched glass, silence and stillness meant you were stuck. Trapped in waves built from rock. If they were lucky, that was all it would mean.
Darrow shuddered behind her, and Alea hurried to press her hand to his mouth. Even under the firm push of her palms, his lips quivered, weak from another day of the fever. His eyelids were alive with movement even in sleep, surely chasing some dream or ocean as he was oft to do. Alea almost envied him were it not for the way his chest still rattled with wet wheezing.
With her other hand, Alea steadied him and pinned his shoulder to the wall behind him. If the caravan didn’t move soon, she would be damned if they died from a coughing fit.
The starlight streaked in through the bars, dappling Darrow’s sweat sheened skin with pale light. It made him look more ill, the complexion of grey, dead fish slicing through his otherwise tan skin. Half-Spirit, the the caravan leader - Timel - had called him. Alea had spat on him for those words, but the words stung with the same acidic heat as the subsequent lashing because it was true. Every night, Darrow seemed to become more spirit than man. Blood leeching from his body with every cough, his muscle and fat making way for a skeletal frame. It was true what they said - the fever burned everything but bone.
Alea turned her face away.
He’ll be fine. Her fingers ached where they dug into his shoulders. Timel said he would help us.
The silence continued. Alea dared not call out to the covered cells around her. It was unlikely they would respond to her anyway.
Above, the stars began to wheel. There was a deep groan that resonated through the sea, shaking the foundations of the caravan ship as the sound vibrated, up from the cherry pit of the earth and through Alea’s core. Starlight began to slowly drift from where they slanted, before quickly picking up speed, until their light left impressions of smeared cream in Alea’s eyes.
It was with a start that she realized the stars were moving in the wrong direction. And that, from the horizon where Raz of the Western Sun was meant to drink from, light began to glow.
Shit. Alea wrenched her eyes closed. Her heart hammered in her chest, and the silence faded to make way for the roar of blood in her ears, A Harvest Morning.
The Stone Sea, Alea, Darrow, even the silence, seemed to freeze and quiver. Nothing moved, not really. Not even wind. But Alea felt it rise from the earth, like the smell of rain does after storm. A Decayed. Its large, spiritual body made no sound as it scraped against the sea, pulling its weathered self from hell, but Alea felt its movement to the marrow of her bones. She felt the beast’s presence as if the tik-tik-tik of harvestmen tapped against her bones, or as worms under skin, or rot at the back of her mouth. Behind her closed eyelids, Alea could see the outline of the creature in white against darkness - a ghastly image of an ancient, armored body trudging through the landscape.
The Decayed brushed against the caravan, once. The sense of rot, of something destroyed and preserved as it died, filled her. The heady scent of sulfur filled the air. Her star vision was still weak, but Alea knew the ghostly star must be close. Soon, the Harvest Morning would be over, and the sea would move once more.
For a moment, Alea could have sworn it paused. With her eyelids still closed, she could only barely sense how the dead constellation moved - that it had stopped, and through its helmet, it could have looked at her where eyes may have been. Of course, that was impossible, for stars did not see as we see them.
The wind blew, the stone sea moved, and the sun rose in the west. Alea opened her eyes.
She sagged with relief, her hand coming away sticky with the blood and spit from Darrow’s lips. She rinsed her hands in the small pool of Saint’s Water left in the corner of their cell. When she took them out, they were shaking.
A Harvest Morning. They were cutting it close to the Solstice.
By the time she cleansed her face and swept her dark hair up from her neck, Darrow had propped himself up, gray eyes blearily looking at her.
“Good morning,” Alea said, stretching.
“Morning,” he said with smile. He always looked healthier in the daylight, as if the sun filled him up like a waterskin. “I miss anything?”
Alea shuddered, thinking of the ghostly image in her eyes, how it shifted with the world. Already in the blue dawn light, the Stone Sea was beginning to thaw - turning glass and gems and flint into water. The night already seemed to disappear from memory, and Alea longed to leave the stars and gods to the dark. And yet, past Darrow’s shoulder, the imprint of five white lines curled around the red bars. A hand that had closed around it and burned away the rust.
There were no eyes, Alea reminded herself. There were no eyes.
Aloud, she said, “You missed nothing.” She grabbed a rag and dipped it in the bucket, preparing to wipe away the sweat and blood that had dribbled down Darrow’s chin. “We were fortunate this Harvest Morning.”
The surface of the Saint’s Water rippled as she wet the towel. Alea didn’t need to look to know that in its reflection, among the gold sun and red bars, that she would not be there.
