The Pier (solo)

(This is a thread from Mizahar's fantasy role playing forums. Why don't you register today? This message is not shown when you are logged in. Come roleplay with us, it's fun!)

Considered one of the most mysterious cities in Mizahar, Alvadas is called The City of Illusions. It is the home of Ionu and the notorious Inverted. This city sits on one of the main crossroads through The Region of Kalea.

The Pier (solo)

Postby Ulric on November 12th, 2011, 9:42 pm

Image

49th of Fall, 511 AV

There was a pier, and then, enveloped by dense, milky fog, and the hushed, wavering swell of the sea, there was nothing. The city was not so very far distant, but of the winding and chimerical lanes, of the shingled roofs and creaking rattle of unruly carts, pursers, and the clamorous throngs obscuring the oblong squares and serpentine cavalcades where ornate balusters rose to brightly hued spires, nearby to the rush of frothy steeds thundering by forges where half naked smiths toiled fervently under a mandate of sooty creation, quenching their nails and spear heads in the same trough, it was as though everything else had ceased to endure but that tapering pier, the rusty cleats, piles encrusted by tar and barnacles, the faded, cracking, badly sundered planks that left gaping maws to the sea below.

“There’s a fish in your beard,” Ulric offered, and Herod gave him a vague, almost uncaring shrug.

“That’s helpful,” rasped the elderly sailor, though he didn’t bother to divest the offending minnow from that great, prickly hedge, that was the hue of faded pewter, matching his rheumy eyes. Herod just kept peering at the line that dangled from his hands, shifting it every few chimes to scratch at his cheek. He always uses the left hand, Ulric frowned as he lashed a series of barbed hooks to one of his own lines, deftly tying them at intervals that were roughly the span of his broad shoulders.

“D’you come here often?” There was a screeching of gulls, though the ungainly birds remained concealed, their presence slowly fading under the waves.

“Black albatross,” grunted Herod, tunic rustling as his arms rose, the empty sleeves jerking back. “That’s a foul portent, lad.” Ulric glanced along the gnarled finger, saw a flap of dark wings, the protruding beak.

“How so?” Herod just gave a shrug.

“I’m no seer.”

“Fair enough,” Ulric sighed, returning to his labors. No, definitely not fair enough, you shyke, he growled as he fumbled for another hook, tying it on with quick, looping strokes of the cord, and then reached for the rag where he kept his bait wrapped safely against the onslaught of any scavenging birds. I wish he’d just drown, he thought bleakly, forcing the lank, tiny fish onto each of the hooks, deriving a perverse enjoyment from the pop as the sharp points crushed through each of their heads, the squirt of brains on his palms.

“Y’know,” Herod said absently, turning a bronzed face that was patched by a tracery of lines, “I’ve always been chased by one portent or another, mostly bad, like that one just them.”

“You’re been drinking,” growled Ulric, taking up the line and casting it far over the sea with a shrug of his shoulders. I’ve had enough of sailors, he frowned, having heard enough tales of woeful squalls and crumbling tack to care about their inherent, and largely unfounded fears.

“Only because you asked,” Herod gestured at the empty skin of wine that sprawled near Ulric’s elbow. “Can’t refuse grog, now can I?”

“You talk too much,” Ulric countered, bending to fasten the line around a cleat, just beside the others.

“I barely say anything.”

“I know.”

The cry of the albatross rose over the sea, the old man shivered, and a bead of water lashed from the sky. Bugger.

Image
User avatar
Ulric
The Warrior-Poet
 
Posts: 554
Words: 629666
Joined roleplay: May 20th, 2010, 5:51 pm
Location: Ravok
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Scrapbook
Medals: 3
Featured Character (1) Featured Thread (1)
Donor (1)

The Pier (solo)

Postby Ulric on November 19th, 2011, 11:13 pm

Image

The morning wore on, yet the fog clung to the turgid waters, wisps dancing around their clenched jaws. The crash of breakers waxing, then waning. There was a taut snap ever so often to break the torpor, a grunt as a ridge of spine bent to haul in the snaking cords, tersely ending with a gleam of scales, the dull slap of fins. And then we rap spiny, beady-eyed heads so they don’t thrash any longer, and use a hank of rope to hang them from their gills. Ulric glowered at the few, sadly dangling fish on his line, only consoled by puny gleanings of Herod, who barely managed to string so much as a snapper over the tar-crusted post on his right. “Bad day,” he sneered.

“Is it?” Bushy gray brows knit in perplexity. “I must’ve dozed off. I have a habit of that.”

“That’s fortunate.” Wry and dry as bread, the humor flaked away, swept up by the gusts.

“Perhaps.”

“Perhaps not.” Ulric felt a tug, clasped ridges of rough callus over the creaking cord and gave it a tug. Not bad, he thought, undoing the knot, and began to tease out the line.

There was a cough, a spray of chunky phlegm. The wrinkly fingers rose, lashed away globule of snot. “They say there’s wretched monsters lurking these seas,” Herod’s whiskers gave a precipitous shake. “Vast, raving squids, and huge, scourging crustaceans, their sides crusted by cankers, that shiver the hardiest of ships and breach their hulls, and then lash sailors, crying out with dread, to perish in the sandy depths. Not only that, but I hear there’s a cult that chokes virgins with kelp, uses their ears for a foul potion, and even prays to an enormous oyster.”

“That’s exactly right.” There came a drawl, mocking, slimy with contempt, but hardly cantankerous. The younger man began to tug on his line, ever harder, using the base of his thumb as a spindle. “Though it differs from why they say over a mug of dear, dockside rotgut.” He sucked at his gums, abruptly shifted away from the rusty spike of a nail, frowning. “You’ve been speaking with the fishwives again, haven’t you? You should know better.” Randy wenches, the lot of them.

“Even so, who d’you fathom they’d consume first? Me or you?”

“You, because I’d throw you in.”

“That wouldn’t be very fair.”

“There’s no such thing.” The dark eyes cast around, the line winding tauter. The albatross was back, chased by a lank cormorant. They swept from the pewter sky, through wisps of fog, tinged purple by the chimerical master of these waters, then perched on the decrepit timbers. They splayed their wings, clacked their beaks, made the steady din of the breakers vanish under abysmal cacophony.

“That’s what my wife used to say,” Herod reached over, flung a limp fish at the birds, but they just flapped away, came back. He laid back, fingers extending to swipe at the milky wisps that furled over their heads, like the shreds of a torn pennant. “The last time she tried to base me with a frying pan.”

“Now there’s a thought.” Ulric began to haul on the line, using the leverage of his corded, bulging shoulders as he yanked at the sodden fibers. They were fraying, parting in places. They wanted mending, or finer yet, replacing. Didn’t want to splice the jib before, but he does now?

“She was fat.”

Now that’s pleasant. The fish tiring from its frenzied thrashes, the cord biting into his fist, yet he was only inundated by the unsavory imagery of huge, meaty thighs closing around his face. He gave a shudder.

“She used to refine her own liquor, y’know.”

“Must've been a fine heifer.” Brow arching, deft fingers hefting a large, snapping redfish from the shadowy trough under a cresting wave, he took care to evade the frenzied, spiky fins. “Did you keep her?”

“No,” the whiskers rustled sadly. “She got a hankering for some other man's pork spear. Just up and left, and she took my silver fork, too. Don’t ever let them take your forks, lad.”

“I’d render her to sausage.”

“Ah, were you a knacker?”

“Not exactly,” his words began, delaying when they were swiftly cut off by a particularly loud shriek. Cormorant, you’re a cunt, he scowled angrily, Albatross, you’re an arse wipe.

“Butcher?”

“You’re giving me indigestion,” spewed the sour remark, his lips furling, cheek jerking faintly, near grotesquely. “D’you have any wine, by chance?”

“Wine? What would I do with that?

“Drink it?”

“Ah, that’s right.”

And so, the morning ended with the cormorant sulking, a beard wavering in the gusts, and a heap of dead fish, ready to be strewn in wicker baskets.

Image
User avatar
Ulric
The Warrior-Poet
 
Posts: 554
Words: 629666
Joined roleplay: May 20th, 2010, 5:51 pm
Location: Ravok
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Scrapbook
Medals: 3
Featured Character (1) Featured Thread (1)
Donor (1)

The Pier (solo)

Postby Ulric on November 25th, 2011, 5:05 pm

Image

The mongers were shrewd, the throngs confusing, but as he strode through the jumble of woeful, decrepit roofs, the lanes tapering to a chaos of dead ends, forks, and confuscating dung heaps, he beheld that infuriatingly winking face yet again. “What’re you doing?” Ulric frowned, taking no pleasure in the jingle of his purse, fingers clasping the haft of his knife, as though he meant to plunge it into those rheumy eyes. “No, don’t say anything.”

Alas, that wasn’t to be.

Bugger.

The hedge of whiskers shifted. “The fog is going away,” piped Herod, lines swinging absently, his features ruddy, traced by a cobweb of wrinkles.

“No, it’s not.” Ulric took a trenchant step back, was enveloped by the swirling serpents of mist. “Don’t you see?”

“Can’t,” came the quavery rasp. “I must be blind.”

“You’re not blind.” Ulric’s snort was punctuated by a blast of tepid air, gruffly hurling from his nose, a cloud of vapor wreathing his face, making seeing even harder. “That’s just the fog.”

“Fog?”

Clunk, clunk.

Ulric leaned back, heard a drum of boots on the filthy cobbles, haltingly advancing, and then a fleshy face pushed through the milky wisps, hands brushing away the clinging tendrils from around his legs. There was a gnarled bush to the side, darkly ruddy roses that clung tenaciously to life, or were just a mere chimera. Probably the latter, he sighed. Nothing is real in this city.

“Ah yes, the fog.”

“You fool,” Ulric grumbled, stamping on the fading petal, twisting it under his heel so it left a smear. Just because he could. But sadly, he felt bad. Now that’s unfortunate, he thought glumly. I don’t enjoy this sort of bleak, sappy caring. “This is your fault,” he snarled.

“Fault, fault, fault,” Herod just gave him an irascible grin, waving his tangle of net, chin thrust out. “You just don’t want to confess that you enjoy having me around, don’t you? You enjoy our talks, eh?”

“Enjoy our talks?” Ulric’s eyes bulged. “You daft codger, I barely know who you are. You could be petching Ionu for all I care.”

“What’s that?” Herod cast around, tongue clucking in a harried fashion, finally peeking up at the fog. “Who said I’ve been alive forever?”

“Nobody,” frowned Ulric, taking another pace to the rear. “If you’ve cracked, don’t expect me to look for the fragments.”

“Oh, no need,” Herod gave a shrug, the grin returning, though elusively, for he was again swallowed by the blind of purest white. “Care for a drink?”

“Why not?”

And thus, having finished their labors, they kept on through the wavering lanes, seeking a steady flow of amber, and perhaps a loaf and a bowl of creamy soup. They’d leave a cup for the birds, too. Just because every story deserves an ending.

Image
User avatar
Ulric
The Warrior-Poet
 
Posts: 554
Words: 629666
Joined roleplay: May 20th, 2010, 5:51 pm
Location: Ravok
Race: Human
Character sheet
Storyteller secrets
Scrapbook
Medals: 3
Featured Character (1) Featured Thread (1)
Donor (1)

The Pier (solo)

Postby Macabre on January 7th, 2012, 2:55 pm

Image
Thread Complete!
“Unbelievable. You, [subject name here], must be the pride of [subject hometown here].”

Ulric
XP: Fishing 3

Notes: Guest grading for Fallacy. I thoroughly enjoyed this short thread, very much a fan of your writing. Any questions or concerns please PM me.
Image
we do what we must, because we can. for the
good of all of us, except the ones who are dead.


kalinor lore | the symenestra | faq | office
User avatar
Macabre
That's funny, I don't feel corrupt.
 
Posts: 171
Words: 52332
Joined roleplay: June 27th, 2011, 12:24 pm
Location: Kalinor
Race: Staff account
Office


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests