Under Construction: KDR 2
Oct. 5th, 2011 06:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerin10/5/2011 - ~500 words
10/10/2011 - ~950 words
[A rough beginning. Very rough. I mentioned in the comments on the first chapter that I couldn't write Dan's sparkling wit all the time, and you can see that here... the wit is there, but not the spark. The finished version of chapter one started out a lot like this, as little snippets showing more the drift and thrust than the chapter and verse.]
It wasn't yet five when Dan Harris set out to catch the air coach. He was more tired than he looked, and he felt more tired than he was. He felt the deep-seated, down-in-the-bones weariness of someone who has put up with more than he can stand of something but who knows he needs to put up with even more or else it'll get worse. [awkward]
He often thought wistfully of his childhood, spent in transit back and forth between the isles and eastern Magisteria. Technically he was a native of that land, but he didn't feel it. He was more a child of the wind and the water... his earliest memories had been on a flying ship, and he thought of the sky above and the sea below as his true parents.
Life on the boats had been simpler. Well, it had been hideously complicated, but it had been invariably so. The complications never stopped, and there was rarely more than a moment's pace or any room to stretch out and breahte. That made things simple. It was do or die, so you just... did.
And you lived.
He'd lived, when others had died. He'd fallen out of that life and landed square in this one... fell out of the sky and ended up in a meadow, like some kind of backwards fairytale.
[]
"Headed to Augustinian?" the man asked. [Note: Need to avoid calling unnamed characters in this story "the man", to avoid confusion.]
Dan looked over at him. He wasn't exactly at a loss for words, no... there were a dozen and a half decent responses to a question like that. But it was early, and he was tired, and he had a suspicion that this man, the only other person in the compartment with him, was part of what he was tired of.
"From Lefton?"
"Of late," Dan said.
"You fly often?" the man asked him.
"Often enough."
"Where to?"
"Up," Dan said. "Sometimes down, but not as often. Right now up has a slight lead."
[]
"Mr. Harris, I will be plain."
"That'll be a nice change," Dan said.
"There is a lot more you could be doing for your empire."
"I'll put in a double shift next Tuesday, then," Dan said.
"I'm not talking about your work at the Airworks, though you could be doing more than that."
"Couldn't," Dan said. "The wife has her society meeting Tuesdays, or else I couldn't do it then, either."
"I mean you could be doing something greater," the minister said. "Something more."
"Have you come to offer me a job?" Dan asked.
"You know there are jobs waiting for you if you want them. I've come to talk to you about the future."
"I've never understood why everyone's in a rush to get there," Dan said. "Seems to me that the action is in the present. Now the past, the past has some history. But what's the future got going for it? No one can say..."
"Specifically, your son's future."
[]
"You should probably put this on," Dan said, holding the feather charm out to him.
"Why is that?"
"Because you're going to need it in a few seconds."
[Starting to flesh it out. I haven't worked on this as diligently as I should; I'm going to try to do a few hundred words every day. Towards the end of the month I'll spend more time polishing and making sure they join up together better.]
It wasn't yet five when Dan Harris set out to catch the air coach. He was more tired than he looked, and he felt more tired than he was. He felt the deep-seated, down-in-the-bones weariness of someone who has put up with more than he can stand of something but who knows he needs to put up with even more or else it'll get worse. [awkward]
He often thought wistfully of his childhood, spent in transit back and forth between the isles and eastern Magisteria. Technically he was a native of that land, but he didn't feel it. He was more a child of the wind and the water... his earliest memories had been on a flying ship, and he thought of the sky above and the sea below as his true parents.
Life on the boats had been simpler. Well, it had been hideously complicated, but it had been invariably so. The complications never stopped, and there was rarely more than a moment's pace or any room to stretch out and breahte. That made things simple. It was do or die, so you just... did.
And if you did the right things at the right time, and everyone else did the same thing, and none of a million and one things that had nothing to do with anyone in particular went wrong, you didn't die.
He'd lived, when others had died. He'd fallen out of that life and landed square in this one... fell out of the sky and ended up in a meadow, like some kind of backwards fairytale... complete with three wishes, a nobleman's daughter, and later on a foundling babe of sorts. The main difference between life and a story, though, was that where stories led you to an ending, life just kept piling on more beginnings... by the time you reached anything like a meaningful ending, then by definition it wasn't a life anymore.
[]
Dan didn't have a plan in mind, as such. He'd announced his intention to go to Augustinian to sort the matter out because... well, because something needed to be done, and it was something... or at least the start of something. He'd figure out the next step when he got there. The important thing was to keep moving. If you can't see a way forward from where you are standing, stand somewhere else.
An overland air coach came through Lefton twice a day in each direction. He'd said he would take the morning one just to better satisfy the need for immediate action, but he was glad that he had done so. The afternoon coach would be busier. The morning coach would likely only have long-distance travelers who'd boarded it sometime the day before at various points north, but the afternoon coach was frequented by villagers heading towards the city for weekend visits and shopping.
The coach consisted of three separate compartments, joined together like a wagon train. The bulky, squarish vehicle had little in common with the nautically-inspired ones that Dan had grown up aboard and now worked with. Bulky luggage and small cargo shipments were lashed to the top. There was a platform with a high railing around the outside of each compartment, and they were tethered together by walkways in flexible enclosures. When it flew it traveled fairly low to the ground, about fifty to sixty feet. By following natural magical pathways... sometimes augmented or straightened through applied geomancy... it avoided the need for the complicated array of levitators and elemental regulators that a true airship needed. It had wheels for traversing terrain where such assisted flight was not possible.
[]
"Headed to Augustinian?" the man asked. [Note: Need to avoid calling unnamed characters in this story "the man", to avoid confusion.]
Dan looked over at him. He wasn't exactly at a loss for words, no... there were a dozen and a half decent responses to a question like that. But it was early, and he was tired, and he had a suspicion that this man, the only other person in the compartment with him, was part of what he was tired of.
"From Lefton?"
"Of late," Dan said.
"You fly often?" the man asked him.
"Often enough."
"Where to?"
"Up," Dan said. "Sometimes down, but not as often. Right now up has a slight lead."
[]
"Mr. Harris, I will be plain."
"That'll be a nice change," Dan said.
"There is a lot more you could be doing for your empire."
"I'll put in a double shift next Tuesday, then," Dan said.
"I'm not talking about your work at the Airworks, though you could be doing more than that."
"Couldn't," Dan said. "The wife has her society meeting Tuesdays, or else I couldn't do it then, either."
"I mean you could be doing something greater," the minister said. "Something more."
"Have you come to offer me a job?" Dan asked.
"You know there are jobs waiting for you if you want them. I've come to talk to you about the future."
"I've never understood why everyone's in a rush to get there," Dan said. "Seems to me that the action is in the present. Now the past, the past has some history. But what's the future got going for it? No one can say..."
"Specifically, your son's future."
[]
"You should probably put this on," Dan said, holding the feather charm out to him.
"Why is that?"
"Because you're going to
10/10/2011 - ~950 words
[A rough beginning. Very rough. I mentioned in the comments on the first chapter that I couldn't write Dan's sparkling wit all the time, and you can see that here... the wit is there, but not the spark. The finished version of chapter one started out a lot like this, as little snippets showing more the drift and thrust than the chapter and verse.]
It wasn't yet five when Dan Harris set out to catch the air coach. He was more tired than he looked, and he felt more tired than he was. He felt the deep-seated, down-in-the-bones weariness of someone who has put up with more than he can stand of something but who knows he needs to put up with even more or else it'll get worse. [awkward]
He often thought wistfully of his childhood, spent in transit back and forth between the isles and eastern Magisteria. Technically he was a native of that land, but he didn't feel it. He was more a child of the wind and the water... his earliest memories had been on a flying ship, and he thought of the sky above and the sea below as his true parents.
Life on the boats had been simpler. Well, it had been hideously complicated, but it had been invariably so. The complications never stopped, and there was rarely more than a moment's pace or any room to stretch out and breahte. That made things simple. It was do or die, so you just... did.
And you lived.
He'd lived, when others had died. He'd fallen out of that life and landed square in this one... fell out of the sky and ended up in a meadow, like some kind of backwards fairytale.
[]
"Headed to Augustinian?" the man asked. [Note: Need to avoid calling unnamed characters in this story "the man", to avoid confusion.]
Dan looked over at him. He wasn't exactly at a loss for words, no... there were a dozen and a half decent responses to a question like that. But it was early, and he was tired, and he had a suspicion that this man, the only other person in the compartment with him, was part of what he was tired of.
"From Lefton?"
"Of late," Dan said.
"You fly often?" the man asked him.
"Often enough."
"Where to?"
"Up," Dan said. "Sometimes down, but not as often. Right now up has a slight lead."
[]
"Mr. Harris, I will be plain."
"That'll be a nice change," Dan said.
"There is a lot more you could be doing for your empire."
"I'll put in a double shift next Tuesday, then," Dan said.
"I'm not talking about your work at the Airworks, though you could be doing more than that."
"Couldn't," Dan said. "The wife has her society meeting Tuesdays, or else I couldn't do it then, either."
"I mean you could be doing something greater," the minister said. "Something more."
"Have you come to offer me a job?" Dan asked.
"You know there are jobs waiting for you if you want them. I've come to talk to you about the future."
"I've never understood why everyone's in a rush to get there," Dan said. "Seems to me that the action is in the present. Now the past, the past has some history. But what's the future got going for it? No one can say..."
"Specifically, your son's future."
[]
"You should probably put this on," Dan said, holding the feather charm out to him.
"Why is that?"
"Because you're going to need it in a few seconds."
[Starting to flesh it out. I haven't worked on this as diligently as I should; I'm going to try to do a few hundred words every day. Towards the end of the month I'll spend more time polishing and making sure they join up together better.]
It wasn't yet five when Dan Harris set out to catch the air coach. He was more tired than he looked, and he felt more tired than he was. He felt the deep-seated, down-in-the-bones weariness of someone who has put up with more than he can stand of something but who knows he needs to put up with even more or else it'll get worse. [awkward]
He often thought wistfully of his childhood, spent in transit back and forth between the isles and eastern Magisteria. Technically he was a native of that land, but he didn't feel it. He was more a child of the wind and the water... his earliest memories had been on a flying ship, and he thought of the sky above and the sea below as his true parents.
Life on the boats had been simpler. Well, it had been hideously complicated, but it had been invariably so. The complications never stopped, and there was rarely more than a moment's pace or any room to stretch out and breahte. That made things simple. It was do or die, so you just... did.
And if you did the right things at the right time, and everyone else did the same thing, and none of a million and one things that had nothing to do with anyone in particular went wrong, you didn't die.
He'd lived, when others had died. He'd fallen out of that life and landed square in this one... fell out of the sky and ended up in a meadow, like some kind of backwards fairytale... complete with three wishes, a nobleman's daughter, and later on a foundling babe of sorts. The main difference between life and a story, though, was that where stories led you to an ending, life just kept piling on more beginnings... by the time you reached anything like a meaningful ending, then by definition it wasn't a life anymore.
[]
Dan didn't have a plan in mind, as such. He'd announced his intention to go to Augustinian to sort the matter out because... well, because something needed to be done, and it was something... or at least the start of something. He'd figure out the next step when he got there. The important thing was to keep moving. If you can't see a way forward from where you are standing, stand somewhere else.
An overland air coach came through Lefton twice a day in each direction. He'd said he would take the morning one just to better satisfy the need for immediate action, but he was glad that he had done so. The afternoon coach would be busier. The morning coach would likely only have long-distance travelers who'd boarded it sometime the day before at various points north, but the afternoon coach was frequented by villagers heading towards the city for weekend visits and shopping.
The coach consisted of three separate compartments, joined together like a wagon train. The bulky, squarish vehicle had little in common with the nautically-inspired ones that Dan had grown up aboard and now worked with. Bulky luggage and small cargo shipments were lashed to the top. There was a platform with a high railing around the outside of each compartment, and they were tethered together by walkways in flexible enclosures. When it flew it traveled fairly low to the ground, about fifty to sixty feet. By following natural magical pathways... sometimes augmented or straightened through applied geomancy... it avoided the need for the complicated array of levitators and elemental regulators that a true airship needed. It had wheels for traversing terrain where such assisted flight was not possible.
[]
"Headed to Augustinian?" the man asked. [Note: Need to avoid calling unnamed characters in this story "the man", to avoid confusion.]
Dan looked over at him. He wasn't exactly at a loss for words, no... there were a dozen and a half decent responses to a question like that. But it was early, and he was tired, and he had a suspicion that this man, the only other person in the compartment with him, was part of what he was tired of.
"From Lefton?"
"Of late," Dan said.
"You fly often?" the man asked him.
"Often enough."
"Where to?"
"Up," Dan said. "Sometimes down, but not as often. Right now up has a slight lead."
[]
"Mr. Harris, I will be plain."
"That'll be a nice change," Dan said.
"There is a lot more you could be doing for your empire."
"I'll put in a double shift next Tuesday, then," Dan said.
"I'm not talking about your work at the Airworks, though you could be doing more than that."
"Couldn't," Dan said. "The wife has her society meeting Tuesdays, or else I couldn't do it then, either."
"I mean you could be doing something greater," the minister said. "Something more."
"Have you come to offer me a job?" Dan asked.
"You know there are jobs waiting for you if you want them. I've come to talk to you about the future."
"I've never understood why everyone's in a rush to get there," Dan said. "Seems to me that the action is in the present. Now the past, the past has some history. But what's the future got going for it? No one can say..."
"Specifically, your son's future."
[]
"You should probably put this on," Dan said, holding the feather charm out to him.
"Why is that?"
"Because you're going to