Monday Mission on Tuesday: Untitled

(I forgot the name of this exercise, but the goal is to write a scene of dialogue in which one of the characters is silent but not absent. 700 words. This week I decided to pull some characters and a scenario from something else I'm working on--I'm not sure I can use this, but it was an interesting challenge nonetheless. If you'd really like to help me out you can take a guess at what Kyrie was feeling/thinking in the comments box.)

They stood on the Promenade: Freya, Samuel, Kyrie and Benjamin, facing the Temple. To their back was the Mother’s Tears, water level down from a long dry summer, but the trees along its bank as green as ever. Around them young children laughed and played while their parents helplessly tried to keep up with them, and the teenagers beside the fountain were almost certainly truant. The flatbread sellers were doing a brisk trade in iced drinks and sweets, but Samuel and Benjamin had eyes only for the Temple on the other side of the Palace. The midday summer sun glittered off its sodalite and quartz facings, making the split pyramid appear almost like a brighter section of the sky, while about it base to tip flew priests and priestesses, so dwarfed by the massive structure that they looked like dragonflies or hummingbirds.

“They actually fly,” said Samuel.

“A mark of the Huntress’s favour,” said Freya, leading them toward a stone bench nearby.

“So you say.”

“You disbelieve me?” Freya’s brow briefly rose. “Well. Many of the Queendom’s own citizens do as well. You may have heard tales of doubters and skeptics, or even believers who do not want to travel to End, jumping off of barns or rooftops in the countryside. Many young men and women are injured this way every year.”

Kyrie studied the two of them, then returned her purposefully blank gaze to the Temple. It was beautiful, no doubt of it.

Samuel smiled, a genuine one, it seemed. “This seems convenient, doesn’t it? That the priests and priestesses of the Huntress can truly fly—ah, but only around her Temples.”

“It leaves room for skepticism I suppose, but faith without challenge means little.” Freya shrugged. “We know it is true. I can fly wherever I choose, but doing so off of temple ground is blasphemy. The act is sacred to the Goddess.”

Kyrie’s jaw clenched. She smoothed out her red fire dancer’s skirt as she sat, choosing to look, for the moment, at two girls running after a rolling hoop toward her right. The bigger one with her black curls and small beaked nose reminded her of Skadi.

“How many men dream of flying?” said Samuel quietly.

“Does anyone not?” asked Benjamin.

“And what of the other orders?” said Samuel. “The Water Goddess—the Mother, you call her?”

Freya inclined her head. “Yes. They can create—bring into existence living things.”

“I know of many a king who would love to raise an army that way,” said Samuel.

“Or a harem.” Benjamin smirked and slouched against the bench’s stone back. Kyrie thought of smacking him, and sat on her hands.

“I think not,” said Freya. “Such an act could only be punished in the gravest possible way. I’m not sure you grasp this: magic is sacred. It is not a game or a parlour trick, it is a serious calling and no one would dare abuse it. Why do you think you have no magic in Senot?”

“Who says we don’t?” Benjamin said. Kyrie didn’t even have to look to know the infuriatingly insolent gaze Benjamin must be turning on Freya at that moment. Oh to be back at Circle House with Skadi.

“Anyone who has met your priests would know that they are powerless.” Freya’s voice was growing brittle.

“And the Seer’s followers,” said Samuel quickly. “They see the future, I hear?”

“Yes,” said Freya, “As do we, although in different ways and by different means.”

Kyrie looked back towards the three of them, and saw Samuel shaking his head. “What would stop someone from abusing such a power? If you know the future, it would be so easy to shape it.”

“Indeed it is. Why do you think the Queendom is stable, prosperous, and scientifically advanced while the people of Senot still get around by horse and live in shacks?” Freya seemed oblivious to the look that Samuel and Benjamin shared. “But the goddesses and the gods call only those who will serve them truly; manipulators and tyrants are not given the ability to see the future.”

“What happens to those who are called and choose not to serve?” asked Samuel.

“They go mad,” Freya replied.

Kyrie’s gaze slid back to the girls and their hoop, laughing while they lunged and sprinted, and their parents standing nearby and shaking their heads. She kept her features even, and bit her tongue so hard it hurt.

Posted by Andrea at March 18, 2008 10:21 AM under Fiction , Monday Mission

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