Under Construction: TOMU 2-37
Oct. 10th, 2011 02:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerin10/10/2011
1:30-2:00 ~400 words
2:00-2:30 ~900 words (+500)
10/11/2011
4:15-4:45 ~1400 words (+500)
4:45-5:15 ~1800 words (+500)
[Beginning.]
I knew the book by the title, though I'd never actually read it. Nights of Fire and Wonder was a storybook... or perhaps "book of lore" would be a better description, since the stories within it were regarded not as inventive fictions but as a record of earlier times. Pax-language culture had been mining some of the better-known stories within it for centuries. It was where we got our concept of genies from, through mangled misunderstandings of the most dramatic tales of particularly powerful djinn.
Even the word "ghoul" came from the Nights, though the local undead pest was quite a bit different. The original ghuls were formed from dessicated corpses that were exposed to the dark light of the new moon. They were swift and cunning, capable of communicating with the living, and using deception and subterfuge to stalk their prey. They had a society made up of clans or tribes, and sometimes even dealt with the living through trade and diplomacy. Our local ghouls were a being trapped in a state of perpetual rot. There was some form of animating intelligence within their heads, but nothing that anyone had ever managed to communicate or reason with.
This copy was old, though not ancient... old by the standards of library books produced through modern methods, not old by the standards of old books. It was far bigger than any version I'd seen on a shelf before, and the lettering inside was small and close together. I'd seen copies of the Nights that labeled themselves as unabridged, and they'd been smaller. This one didn't proclaim itself to be anything other than itself.
The copyright notice dated it to 12 YJ... the Justiciar Interregnum had happened about ninety years ago, I was pretty sure, which would make this book about eighty years old.
It was hard to say exactly because a lot of things about the interregnum had never been set down in exact detail. It was possible to fill in the gaps on things like when it had begun and ended by looking at blank spots in the official recorded history of the Imperial Republic, but since it wasn't something that historians could freely discuss anyone who tried to piece together a definitive timeline of the fifteen or eighteen years during which Magisteria had officially been a theocracy had to do so alone.
[]
If Professor Bohd had been consulting a book on [][] myths, that suggested that her reaction to Twyla had more to do with her djinn side than her demonic one.
[1 hour in.]
I knew the book by the title, though I'd never actually read it. Nights of Fire and Wonder was a storybook... or perhaps "book of lore" would be a better description, since the stories within it were regarded not as inventive fictions but as a record of earlier times. Pax-language culture had been mining some of the better-known stories within it for centuries. It was where we got our concept of genies from, through mangled misunderstandings of the most dramatic tales of particularly powerful djinn.
Even the word "ghoul" came from the Nights, though the local undead pest was quite a bit different. The original ghuls were formed from dessicated corpses that were exposed to the dark light of the new moon. They were swift and cunning, capable of communicating with the living, and using deception and subterfuge to stalk their prey. They had a society made up of clans or tribes, and sometimes even dealt with the living through trade and diplomacy. Our local ghouls were a being trapped in a state of perpetual rot. There was some form of animating intelligence within their heads, but nothing that anyone had ever managed to communicate or reason with.
This copy was old, though not ancient... old by the standards of library books produced through modern methods, not old by the standards of old books. It was far bigger than any version I'd seen on a shelf before, and the lettering inside was small and close together. I'd seen copies of the Nights that labeled themselves as unabridged, and they'd been smaller. This one didn't proclaim itself to be anything other than itself.
The copyright notice dated it to 12 YJ... the Justiciar Interregnum had happened about ninety years ago, I was pretty sure, which would make this book about eighty years old.
It was hard to say exactly because a lot of things about the interregnum had never been set down in exact detail. It was possible to fill in the gaps on things like when it had begun and ended by looking at blank spots in the official recorded history of the Imperial Republic, but since it wasn't something that historians could freely discuss anyone who tried to piece together a definitive timeline of the fifteen or eighteen years during which Magisteria had officially been a theocracy had to do so alone.
[]
If Professor Bohd had been consulting a book on [][] myths, that suggested that her reaction to Twyla had more to do with her djinn side than her demonic one. I had no idea how many of the stories in the Nights dealt with genies, but the popular perception was that the whole book was pretty much about them. I had a feeling that wasn't quite the case, but even still it would be work to narrow it down.
[This part probably happens later, possibly in a future chapter, but I'm writing it down now so it doesn't fall out of my head.]
"Have you ever read it?" I asked her.
"Not in its entirety," she said. "I've read multiple adaptations of some of the individual stories, but this looks... well, it looks to be very complete."
"Yeah," I said. "If whatever Bohd was after was from one of the stories that we'd know, I doubt she would have needed to dig this book up."
"Unless it's a detail that most translations leave out," Amaranth said.
"So, basically we're going to have to read the whole thing," I said. "At least until something jumps out."
"Well, you could take a more systematic approach," Amaranth suggested.
"More systematic than reading the whole thing?" I asked.
"Oh, baby," she said, "just because a territory is unknown to you doesn't mean that it's uncharted. Why go stumbling in without a map if you don't have to? Nights of Fire and Wonder is one of the most-read and most-studied pieces of translatedliterature in the Pax-speaking world. There are study guides, and I guarantee you that a few minutes of ball-gazing will turn up a table of contents complete with synopses. It shouldn't take long at all to figure out which stories concern djinn, and maybe even get some idea about which of those might contain something that would be significant to a modern human/djinn descendant. Even leaving that aside, there is another angle you might be overlooking."
"What's that?"
"It's illustrated," she said. "Did you happen to see any pictures on the page Professor Bohd was reading before she closed it?"
"Actually, yes," I said. "It was a bare-chested swordsman."
Amaranth turned over several pages one at a time. About every other one had an image that would fall within that rough description, but none were the one I had seen. I wouldn't have been able to reproduce what I'd seen from memory or anything, but I hadn't forgotten it.
"That doesn't seem to narrow it down by much," Amaranth said. "So, I guess you should try looking for the picture while I see if I can't dig up some synopses?"
"I suppose that will be faster than reading," I said. "Thank you."
"You're welcome... and anyway, I did want to help Twyla find out about her parentage," Amaranth said.
[1.5 hours in. Starting to shape up. Still working on names for the nearest Arabian analogues in the MUniverse. I need to rework the parts that have Amaranth directly examining the book, because in the current writing she intercepts Mackenzie on the way to her next class, when Mackenzie has dropped the book off.]
I knew the book by the title, though I'd never actually read it. Not in its entirety, anyway. I'd been seeing different versions of various parts of it for as long as I'd been able to understand and retain a story. Nights of Fire and Wonder was a book of many stries... or perhaps "book of lore" would be a better description, since scholars regarded the content not as inventive fictions so much as a record of earlier times.
Pax-language culture had been mining some of the better-known stories within it for centuries. It was where we got our concept of genies from, through mangled misunderstandings of the most dramatic tales of particularly powerful djinn. Even the word "ghoul" came from the Nights, though the local undead pest was quite a bit different from those found in eastern lands.
The original ghuls were formed from dessicated corpses that were exposed to the dark light of the new moon. They were swift and cunning, capable of communicating with the living, and using deception and subterfuge to stalk their prey. They had a society made up of clans or tribes, and sometimes even dealt with the living through trade and diplomacy. Our local ghouls were a being trapped in a state of perpetual rot. There was some form of animating intelligence within their heads, but nothing that anyone had ever managed to communicate or reason with.
The book itself had originated in the Crescent Peninsula almost a thousand years ago, though some of the tales within it were supposed to be much older, coming from various points along the shores of the Ardan or from points even further east than the peninsula.
This copy was old, though not ancient... old by the standards of library books produced through modern methods, not old by the standards of old books. It was far bigger than any version I'd seen on a shelf before, and the lettering inside was small and close together. I'd seen copies of the Nights that labeled themselves as unabridged, and they'd been smaller. This one didn't proclaim itself to be anything other than itself.
The copyright notice dated it to 12 YJ... the Justiciar Interregnum had happened about ninety years ago, I was pretty sure, which would make this book about eighty years old.
It was hard to say exactly because a lot of things about the interregnum had never been set down in exact detail. It was possible to fill in the gaps on things like when it had begun and ended by looking at blank spots in the official recorded history of the Imperial Republic, but since it wasn't something that historians could freely discuss anyone who tried to piece together a definitive timeline of the fifteen or eighteen years during which Magisteria had officially been a theocracy had to do so alone.
If Professor Bohd had been consulting a book on [][] myths, that suggested that her reaction to Twyla had more to do with her djinn side than her demonic one. I had no idea how many of the stories in the Nights dealt with genies, but the popular perception was that the whole book was pretty much about them. I had a feeling that wasn't quite the case, but even still it would be work to narrow it down.
[]
I found Amaranth waiting for me outside the fitness center.
"What's wrong?" I asked. It was the first thing out of my mouth because it was the first that ran through my head.
"Nothing," she said. "I finished my last class and was wondering if you managed to get in touch with Professor Bohd, and how it went."
"You're really not letting go of this Twyla thing," I said.
"Well, I'm concerned for the both of you," she said. "I would like to be able to help her, yes... and to know more about her... but I also don't want you to be in poor standing with one of your favorite professors."
"She's not mad at me, I don't think," I said. "I apologized anyway and it seemed to make her feel a bit better about me, but she has bigger problems, or thinks she does."
I gave her a rundown on what had happened, including the book I'd left up in my room.
"She gave you an old copy of the Nights?" Amaranth said.
"Yeah, have you ever read it?" I asked her.
"Not in its entirety," she said. "I've read multiple adaptations of some of the individual stories, but this looks... well, from your description, this one sounds pretty complete."
"Yeah, I'm fairly certain this is the whole unabridged thing."
"If it's in Pax, it's not likely to be," Amaranth said. "Aside from issues with translation by scholars who put their own personal stamp on the work, exactly which texts make up the canonical Nights is a subject of quite a bit of scholarly debate, as versions of it popped up in multiple places along the southern Ardan... the popular view that the larger versions are more likely the most authentic seems unlikely to me, if only because the original work would have been as likely to gain stories as it traveled than to lose them."
"I'm not worried about the definitiveness of the text," I said. "Unless I interrupted Bohd before she found what she was looking for... or failed to find it, I mean... we have to assume that what she was looking for in here."
"Unless it's a detail that most translations leave out," Amaranth said. "They do vary quite a bit."
"Yeah," I said. "And if whatever Bohd was after was from one of the stories that everybody knows, I doubt she would have needed to dig this book up. So, basically we're going to have to read the whole thing. At least until something jumps out."
"Well, you could take a more systematic approach," Amaranth suggested.
"More systematic than reading the whole thing?" I asked.
"Oh, baby," she said, "just because a territory is unknown to you doesn't mean that it's uncharted. Why go stumbling in without a map if you don't have to? Nights of Fire and Wonder is one of the most-read and most-studied pieces of translated literature in the Pax-speaking world. There are study guides, CragsNotes, and stuff like that... and I guarantee you that a few minutes of ball-gazing will turn up a table of contents complete with synopses. It shouldn't take long at all to figure out which stories concern djinn, and maybe even get some idea about which of those might contain something that would be significant to a modern human/djinn descendant. Even leaving that aside, there is another angle you might be overlooking."
"What's that?"
"Did you happen to see any pictures before Professor Bohd closed it?"
"Well, yeah," I said. "It's got an illustration at least every other page. I guess that makes things a little easier, since it leaves us with less actual text to go through."
"But if you happened to notice what the illustration was, we don't have to go through the text at all," she said, and understanding dawned on me. It was obvious in retrospect. I might have come up with it on my own eventually, but I hadn't. "Just leaf through until we find it. What was it?"
"It was a bare-chested swordsman."
Amaranth turned over several pages one at a time. About every image included a figure that would fall within that rough description, but none were the one I had seen. I wouldn't have been able to reproduce what I'd seen from memory or anything, but I hadn't forgotten it.
"That doesn't seem to narrow it down by much," Amaranth said. "So, I guess you should try looking for the picture while I see if I can't dig up some synopses?"
"I suppose that will be faster than reading," I said. "Thank you."
"You're welcome... and anyway, I did want to help Twyla find out about her parentage," Amaranth said.
"You know this isn't necessarily going to lead us to that," I said. "If there are any family trees in here, it's going to be about long-dead caliphs."
1:30-2:00 ~400 words
2:00-2:30 ~900 words (+500)
10/11/2011
4:15-4:45 ~1400 words (+500)
4:45-5:15 ~1800 words (+500)
[Beginning.]
I knew the book by the title, though I'd never actually read it. Nights of Fire and Wonder was a storybook... or perhaps "book of lore" would be a better description, since the stories within it were regarded not as inventive fictions but as a record of earlier times. Pax-language culture had been mining some of the better-known stories within it for centuries. It was where we got our concept of genies from, through mangled misunderstandings of the most dramatic tales of particularly powerful djinn.
Even the word "ghoul" came from the Nights, though the local undead pest was quite a bit different. The original ghuls were formed from dessicated corpses that were exposed to the dark light of the new moon. They were swift and cunning, capable of communicating with the living, and using deception and subterfuge to stalk their prey. They had a society made up of clans or tribes, and sometimes even dealt with the living through trade and diplomacy. Our local ghouls were a being trapped in a state of perpetual rot. There was some form of animating intelligence within their heads, but nothing that anyone had ever managed to communicate or reason with.
This copy was old, though not ancient... old by the standards of library books produced through modern methods, not old by the standards of old books. It was far bigger than any version I'd seen on a shelf before, and the lettering inside was small and close together. I'd seen copies of the Nights that labeled themselves as unabridged, and they'd been smaller. This one didn't proclaim itself to be anything other than itself.
The copyright notice dated it to 12 YJ... the Justiciar Interregnum had happened about ninety years ago, I was pretty sure, which would make this book about eighty years old.
It was hard to say exactly because a lot of things about the interregnum had never been set down in exact detail. It was possible to fill in the gaps on things like when it had begun and ended by looking at blank spots in the official recorded history of the Imperial Republic, but since it wasn't something that historians could freely discuss anyone who tried to piece together a definitive timeline of the fifteen or eighteen years during which Magisteria had officially been a theocracy had to do so alone.
[]
If Professor Bohd had been consulting a book on [][] myths, that suggested that her reaction to Twyla had more to do with her djinn side than her demonic one.
[1 hour in.]
I knew the book by the title, though I'd never actually read it. Nights of Fire and Wonder was a storybook... or perhaps "book of lore" would be a better description, since the stories within it were regarded not as inventive fictions but as a record of earlier times. Pax-language culture had been mining some of the better-known stories within it for centuries. It was where we got our concept of genies from, through mangled misunderstandings of the most dramatic tales of particularly powerful djinn.
Even the word "ghoul" came from the Nights, though the local undead pest was quite a bit different. The original ghuls were formed from dessicated corpses that were exposed to the dark light of the new moon. They were swift and cunning, capable of communicating with the living, and using deception and subterfuge to stalk their prey. They had a society made up of clans or tribes, and sometimes even dealt with the living through trade and diplomacy. Our local ghouls were a being trapped in a state of perpetual rot. There was some form of animating intelligence within their heads, but nothing that anyone had ever managed to communicate or reason with.
This copy was old, though not ancient... old by the standards of library books produced through modern methods, not old by the standards of old books. It was far bigger than any version I'd seen on a shelf before, and the lettering inside was small and close together. I'd seen copies of the Nights that labeled themselves as unabridged, and they'd been smaller. This one didn't proclaim itself to be anything other than itself.
The copyright notice dated it to 12 YJ... the Justiciar Interregnum had happened about ninety years ago, I was pretty sure, which would make this book about eighty years old.
It was hard to say exactly because a lot of things about the interregnum had never been set down in exact detail. It was possible to fill in the gaps on things like when it had begun and ended by looking at blank spots in the official recorded history of the Imperial Republic, but since it wasn't something that historians could freely discuss anyone who tried to piece together a definitive timeline of the fifteen or eighteen years during which Magisteria had officially been a theocracy had to do so alone.
[]
If Professor Bohd had been consulting a book on [][] myths, that suggested that her reaction to Twyla had more to do with her djinn side than her demonic one. I had no idea how many of the stories in the Nights dealt with genies, but the popular perception was that the whole book was pretty much about them. I had a feeling that wasn't quite the case, but even still it would be work to narrow it down.
[This part probably happens later, possibly in a future chapter, but I'm writing it down now so it doesn't fall out of my head.]
"Have you ever read it?" I asked her.
"Not in its entirety," she said. "I've read multiple adaptations of some of the individual stories, but this looks... well, it looks to be very complete."
"Yeah," I said. "If whatever Bohd was after was from one of the stories that we'd know, I doubt she would have needed to dig this book up."
"Unless it's a detail that most translations leave out," Amaranth said.
"So, basically we're going to have to read the whole thing," I said. "At least until something jumps out."
"Well, you could take a more systematic approach," Amaranth suggested.
"More systematic than reading the whole thing?" I asked.
"Oh, baby," she said, "just because a territory is unknown to you doesn't mean that it's uncharted. Why go stumbling in without a map if you don't have to? Nights of Fire and Wonder is one of the most-read and most-studied pieces of translatedliterature in the Pax-speaking world. There are study guides, and I guarantee you that a few minutes of ball-gazing will turn up a table of contents complete with synopses. It shouldn't take long at all to figure out which stories concern djinn, and maybe even get some idea about which of those might contain something that would be significant to a modern human/djinn descendant. Even leaving that aside, there is another angle you might be overlooking."
"What's that?"
"It's illustrated," she said. "Did you happen to see any pictures on the page Professor Bohd was reading before she closed it?"
"Actually, yes," I said. "It was a bare-chested swordsman."
Amaranth turned over several pages one at a time. About every other one had an image that would fall within that rough description, but none were the one I had seen. I wouldn't have been able to reproduce what I'd seen from memory or anything, but I hadn't forgotten it.
"That doesn't seem to narrow it down by much," Amaranth said. "So, I guess you should try looking for the picture while I see if I can't dig up some synopses?"
"I suppose that will be faster than reading," I said. "Thank you."
"You're welcome... and anyway, I did want to help Twyla find out about her parentage," Amaranth said.
[1.5 hours in. Starting to shape up. Still working on names for the nearest Arabian analogues in the MUniverse. I need to rework the parts that have Amaranth directly examining the book, because in the current writing she intercepts Mackenzie on the way to her next class, when Mackenzie has dropped the book off.]
I knew the book by the title, though I'd never actually read it. Not in its entirety, anyway. I'd been seeing different versions of various parts of it for as long as I'd been able to understand and retain a story. Nights of Fire and Wonder was a book of many stries... or perhaps "book of lore" would be a better description, since scholars regarded the content not as inventive fictions so much as a record of earlier times.
Pax-language culture had been mining some of the better-known stories within it for centuries. It was where we got our concept of genies from, through mangled misunderstandings of the most dramatic tales of particularly powerful djinn. Even the word "ghoul" came from the Nights, though the local undead pest was quite a bit different from those found in eastern lands.
The original ghuls were formed from dessicated corpses that were exposed to the dark light of the new moon. They were swift and cunning, capable of communicating with the living, and using deception and subterfuge to stalk their prey. They had a society made up of clans or tribes, and sometimes even dealt with the living through trade and diplomacy. Our local ghouls were a being trapped in a state of perpetual rot. There was some form of animating intelligence within their heads, but nothing that anyone had ever managed to communicate or reason with.
The book itself had originated in the Crescent Peninsula almost a thousand years ago, though some of the tales within it were supposed to be much older, coming from various points along the shores of the Ardan or from points even further east than the peninsula.
This copy was old, though not ancient... old by the standards of library books produced through modern methods, not old by the standards of old books. It was far bigger than any version I'd seen on a shelf before, and the lettering inside was small and close together. I'd seen copies of the Nights that labeled themselves as unabridged, and they'd been smaller. This one didn't proclaim itself to be anything other than itself.
The copyright notice dated it to 12 YJ... the Justiciar Interregnum had happened about ninety years ago, I was pretty sure, which would make this book about eighty years old.
It was hard to say exactly because a lot of things about the interregnum had never been set down in exact detail. It was possible to fill in the gaps on things like when it had begun and ended by looking at blank spots in the official recorded history of the Imperial Republic, but since it wasn't something that historians could freely discuss anyone who tried to piece together a definitive timeline of the fifteen or eighteen years during which Magisteria had officially been a theocracy had to do so alone.
If Professor Bohd had been consulting a book on [][] myths, that suggested that her reaction to Twyla had more to do with her djinn side than her demonic one. I had no idea how many of the stories in the Nights dealt with genies, but the popular perception was that the whole book was pretty much about them. I had a feeling that wasn't quite the case, but even still it would be work to narrow it down.
[]
I found Amaranth waiting for me outside the fitness center.
"What's wrong?" I asked. It was the first thing out of my mouth because it was the first that ran through my head.
"Nothing," she said. "I finished my last class and was wondering if you managed to get in touch with Professor Bohd, and how it went."
"You're really not letting go of this Twyla thing," I said.
"Well, I'm concerned for the both of you," she said. "I would like to be able to help her, yes... and to know more about her... but I also don't want you to be in poor standing with one of your favorite professors."
"She's not mad at me, I don't think," I said. "I apologized anyway and it seemed to make her feel a bit better about me, but she has bigger problems, or thinks she does."
I gave her a rundown on what had happened, including the book I'd left up in my room.
"She gave you an old copy of the Nights?" Amaranth said.
"Yeah, have you ever read it?" I asked her.
"Not in its entirety," she said. "I've read multiple adaptations of some of the individual stories, but this looks... well, from your description, this one sounds pretty complete."
"Yeah, I'm fairly certain this is the whole unabridged thing."
"If it's in Pax, it's not likely to be," Amaranth said. "Aside from issues with translation by scholars who put their own personal stamp on the work, exactly which texts make up the canonical Nights is a subject of quite a bit of scholarly debate, as versions of it popped up in multiple places along the southern Ardan... the popular view that the larger versions are more likely the most authentic seems unlikely to me, if only because the original work would have been as likely to gain stories as it traveled than to lose them."
"I'm not worried about the definitiveness of the text," I said. "Unless I interrupted Bohd before she found what she was looking for... or failed to find it, I mean... we have to assume that what she was looking for in here."
"Unless it's a detail that most translations leave out," Amaranth said. "They do vary quite a bit."
"Yeah," I said. "And if whatever Bohd was after was from one of the stories that everybody knows, I doubt she would have needed to dig this book up. So, basically we're going to have to read the whole thing. At least until something jumps out."
"Well, you could take a more systematic approach," Amaranth suggested.
"More systematic than reading the whole thing?" I asked.
"Oh, baby," she said, "just because a territory is unknown to you doesn't mean that it's uncharted. Why go stumbling in without a map if you don't have to? Nights of Fire and Wonder is one of the most-read and most-studied pieces of translated literature in the Pax-speaking world. There are study guides, CragsNotes, and stuff like that... and I guarantee you that a few minutes of ball-gazing will turn up a table of contents complete with synopses. It shouldn't take long at all to figure out which stories concern djinn, and maybe even get some idea about which of those might contain something that would be significant to a modern human/djinn descendant. Even leaving that aside, there is another angle you might be overlooking."
"What's that?"
"Did you happen to see any pictures before Professor Bohd closed it?"
"Well, yeah," I said. "It's got an illustration at least every other page. I guess that makes things a little easier, since it leaves us with less actual text to go through."
"But if you happened to notice what the illustration was, we don't have to go through the text at all," she said, and understanding dawned on me. It was obvious in retrospect. I might have come up with it on my own eventually, but I hadn't. "Just leaf through until we find it. What was it?"
"It was a bare-chested swordsman."
Amaranth turned over several pages one at a time. About every image included a figure that would fall within that rough description, but none were the one I had seen. I wouldn't have been able to reproduce what I'd seen from memory or anything, but I hadn't forgotten it.
"That doesn't seem to narrow it down by much," Amaranth said. "So, I guess you should try looking for the picture while I see if I can't dig up some synopses?"
"I suppose that will be faster than reading," I said. "Thank you."
"You're welcome... and anyway, I did want to help Twyla find out about her parentage," Amaranth said.
"You know this isn't necessarily going to lead us to that," I said. "If there are any family trees in here, it's going to be about long-dead caliphs."