strijder20
Wallowing in irony
This is a great story. I really enjoyed reading through.
Unbound
- Thread starter the unbound
- Start date
the unbound
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2011
- Messages
- 57
Part II
Chapter XVII
Did it work?
Did I die again?
Or just wash up on shore?
There are still parts of my ceremonial garb--woven by dozens of temple virgins--stuck to me. The thick sopping wool yarn has lost its color and stinks of brine.
It's hard to drown when you love the sea so, when you feel at home in its embrace. When each stroke is effortless. I swam out for days, beyond any memory of shore. Finally, my energy gave out and the salt water filled my lungs. I remember an instinctual panic any living thing feels when it's dying--even if, like me, it knows on some level that "higher" powers will preserve it, suck it out of the world, rejuvenate its wilted, soured tissues and drop it down anew on some pristine terra firma that's ripe and ready to be kneaded.
Still, I can't be sure. I might have slumbered in the drink. I could've drifted like a plank of wood, hibernating until some stray current brought me up for air.
No, I'd be hungry then. The cells of my body would be screaming for nourishment.
I'm not famished and that can only mean I've been reborn.
This is what every human soul has wished for at some point. Every mistake undone. Every sin expiated. A fresh beginning. The dream of a thousand generations, and it's mine whenever I like. It only requires the quietus of a bare bodkin.
The air here is crisp. Cool autumn air well above the equator. Calm seas. Gentle, rolling crests stretch on toward the northern horizon. The shore stretches on, featureless in either direction.
I choose east, but nothing in the landscape changes.
I camp at night, managing a small fire from a few scraps of dried seaweed and thick shoots of grass. At morning, I walk on and my eye starts to pick out little portents of things to come. Above the beach, there are wild grasses growing in vast, wind-blown fields. Specimens that could be bred into useful grains.
On the eighth day, I spot a sail out on the water. It doesn't come to shore, but it's headed east also. The next evening, as the sun is descending, I see the camp fires of the boat's pilot and his people.
I spend extra time foraging for better kindling, more wood to make my fire big enough for them to see across the flat plain.
In the morning, they come.
A dozen or so approach me as I sit by the embers, chewing on some kelp I've pulled from the shallows.
They are lean and brown, with wide eyes like cherubim, but dark as afterthought. Bands of diagonal tattoos mark their upper arms. Thick and bold on the men. Slender and inviting for the women.
I nod to them, as if we are strangers passing one another in some metropolis. But here, at the dawn of time, there is no anonymity.
Cautiously, they step forward and hunch across from me.
One of the women asks me where I've come from in a dialect of Malay.
"From the sea," I answer. "Just now."
They peer at me strangely.
"What do you want?"
"What do you want?" I ask in return.
They shrug and look at each other.
"You camp here in the spring, even though the soil is dry."
"There are fish that come near shore."
"But not many," I tell them. "Not enough. To grow, your people will need more food. There are grains that grow nearby. They can be cultivated."
"How?" she asks.
"I will show you."
Chapter XVII
Did it work?
Did I die again?
Or just wash up on shore?
There are still parts of my ceremonial garb--woven by dozens of temple virgins--stuck to me. The thick sopping wool yarn has lost its color and stinks of brine.
It's hard to drown when you love the sea so, when you feel at home in its embrace. When each stroke is effortless. I swam out for days, beyond any memory of shore. Finally, my energy gave out and the salt water filled my lungs. I remember an instinctual panic any living thing feels when it's dying--even if, like me, it knows on some level that "higher" powers will preserve it, suck it out of the world, rejuvenate its wilted, soured tissues and drop it down anew on some pristine terra firma that's ripe and ready to be kneaded.
Still, I can't be sure. I might have slumbered in the drink. I could've drifted like a plank of wood, hibernating until some stray current brought me up for air.
No, I'd be hungry then. The cells of my body would be screaming for nourishment.
I'm not famished and that can only mean I've been reborn.
This is what every human soul has wished for at some point. Every mistake undone. Every sin expiated. A fresh beginning. The dream of a thousand generations, and it's mine whenever I like. It only requires the quietus of a bare bodkin.
The air here is crisp. Cool autumn air well above the equator. Calm seas. Gentle, rolling crests stretch on toward the northern horizon. The shore stretches on, featureless in either direction.
I choose east, but nothing in the landscape changes.
I camp at night, managing a small fire from a few scraps of dried seaweed and thick shoots of grass. At morning, I walk on and my eye starts to pick out little portents of things to come. Above the beach, there are wild grasses growing in vast, wind-blown fields. Specimens that could be bred into useful grains.
On the eighth day, I spot a sail out on the water. It doesn't come to shore, but it's headed east also. The next evening, as the sun is descending, I see the camp fires of the boat's pilot and his people.
I spend extra time foraging for better kindling, more wood to make my fire big enough for them to see across the flat plain.
In the morning, they come.
A dozen or so approach me as I sit by the embers, chewing on some kelp I've pulled from the shallows.
They are lean and brown, with wide eyes like cherubim, but dark as afterthought. Bands of diagonal tattoos mark their upper arms. Thick and bold on the men. Slender and inviting for the women.
I nod to them, as if we are strangers passing one another in some metropolis. But here, at the dawn of time, there is no anonymity.
Cautiously, they step forward and hunch across from me.
One of the women asks me where I've come from in a dialect of Malay.
"From the sea," I answer. "Just now."
They peer at me strangely.
"What do you want?"
"What do you want?" I ask in return.
They shrug and look at each other.
"You camp here in the spring, even though the soil is dry."
"There are fish that come near shore."
"But not many," I tell them. "Not enough. To grow, your people will need more food. There are grains that grow nearby. They can be cultivated."
"How?" she asks.
"I will show you."
Verarde
Pondering Wearing A Hat
So it is a new game! I was wrong, and I humbly concede that.
mayor
Heart & Mind
who are you playing as now?
my guess would be the Inca's looking at the picture above the ?warriors?
my guess would be the Inca's looking at the picture above the ?warriors?
He's playing as Polynesia.
DefoesRightBoot
Former Daimyo x3...
- Joined
- Sep 23, 2010
- Messages
- 201
Ha! So you're going for the longest story ever??
Good job it's top quality then!!
Good job it's top quality then!!
the unbound
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2011
- Messages
- 57
the unbound
Chieftain
- Joined
- Sep 5, 2011
- Messages
- 57
Part II
Chapter XVIII
The hill people are warriors. They will murder you.
I have dealt with warriors before.
Their chants bring down the anger of the gods so that they never lose.
I've met gods before, too. I will be fine.
As I leave the settlement, they watch my back, sure that I am disappearing from their history as suddenly as I became part of it.
The walk into the hills takes two days, and this time I arrive at noon.
Some voices boom from their sentries and the whole of their encampment stirs to life. I hold out my hands, showing my empty palms, but they stomp and chant anyway.
From the line, one emerges.
I have seen his eyes before. His whole expression, his carriage. Even the way the shadow of his nose crosses his upturned lip as he considers my existence, eyes me like a hunter sizing up game.
It's the young warrior from the jungle all over again.
Something deep in my brain tells me to best him, like before. To win them over through awe.
It's something deeply familiar. It goes back past my last life, lands me somewhere in the gray spaces of my mind where nothing is certain; that place beyond solid memory. I can see it all playing out before without knowing when or where.
The whole affair is a pattern. Details change. The young man's name. The tribe. The setting. Somehow, though, it is the same.
I am the constant in iterations without number.
"I have not come to fight."
"To die, then?"
"No," I say with a smile. I reach behind me and pull the sack slung over my shoulder into view.
A few grunts as they watch the bag, watch me bend down and reach my hands into it.
I pull out the loaves. They're not quite hard tack, but they're baked to a crisp brown. They will last, so long as they're kept dry.
I offer one to the man nearest me. He takes it and sniffs at it. His fellows laugh at his caution, and so he snaps a bite off. The oaty stuff is unfamiliar, but he mashes it between his teeth and considers its merit. Finally he turns and nods.
"A tribute?" the warrior facing me asks.
"No, a payment."
"For what?"
"Do you ever travel past the mountains toward the sunrise?"
"No," another answers. "The fishing is no good there."
"But with a food that will not spoil," I say, passing another loaf to him. "You could."
"Why?" the warrior asks.
"I wish to go."
"But why?"
"Don't you want to know what's beyond the mountain? Don't you wonder what it's like there? Wouldn't you like to see the whole sweep of the world pass beneath your keel?"
They look between one another.
"Perhaps," one says.
"Yes," adds another.
"Good," I tell them. "Then I will show you."
Chapter XVIII
The hill people are warriors. They will murder you.
I have dealt with warriors before.
Their chants bring down the anger of the gods so that they never lose.
I've met gods before, too. I will be fine.
As I leave the settlement, they watch my back, sure that I am disappearing from their history as suddenly as I became part of it.
The walk into the hills takes two days, and this time I arrive at noon.
Some voices boom from their sentries and the whole of their encampment stirs to life. I hold out my hands, showing my empty palms, but they stomp and chant anyway.
From the line, one emerges.
I have seen his eyes before. His whole expression, his carriage. Even the way the shadow of his nose crosses his upturned lip as he considers my existence, eyes me like a hunter sizing up game.
It's the young warrior from the jungle all over again.
Something deep in my brain tells me to best him, like before. To win them over through awe.
It's something deeply familiar. It goes back past my last life, lands me somewhere in the gray spaces of my mind where nothing is certain; that place beyond solid memory. I can see it all playing out before without knowing when or where.
The whole affair is a pattern. Details change. The young man's name. The tribe. The setting. Somehow, though, it is the same.
I am the constant in iterations without number.
"I have not come to fight."
"To die, then?"
"No," I say with a smile. I reach behind me and pull the sack slung over my shoulder into view.
A few grunts as they watch the bag, watch me bend down and reach my hands into it.
I pull out the loaves. They're not quite hard tack, but they're baked to a crisp brown. They will last, so long as they're kept dry.
I offer one to the man nearest me. He takes it and sniffs at it. His fellows laugh at his caution, and so he snaps a bite off. The oaty stuff is unfamiliar, but he mashes it between his teeth and considers its merit. Finally he turns and nods.
"A tribute?" the warrior facing me asks.
"No, a payment."
"For what?"
"Do you ever travel past the mountains toward the sunrise?"
"No," another answers. "The fishing is no good there."
"But with a food that will not spoil," I say, passing another loaf to him. "You could."
"Why?" the warrior asks.
"I wish to go."
"But why?"
"Don't you want to know what's beyond the mountain? Don't you wonder what it's like there? Wouldn't you like to see the whole sweep of the world pass beneath your keel?"
They look between one another.
"Perhaps," one says.
"Yes," adds another.
"Good," I tell them. "Then I will show you."
darknight66071
Chieftain
Really very good writing. Definately looking forward to what you're going to do with this in the long run.
Sparthage
Fighting Tyranny
lurker's comment: Is the "Unbound" title supposed to mean that you are drifting through the various civs in this story?
clearmurky
Emperor
You should publish this somehow.
clearmurky
Emperor
And it's also his username.
As he already said at some point of this story, it isn't possible to publish this anymore due to it being available on a free internet forum. Plus that none of the readers would understand anything of this if they haven't played Civilization 5. So it's better off in here for all us Civ folks than out there for the rest of the world.
clearmurky
Emperor
Good point.
Optical
The Fall of the Eleventh
Best. Story. Ever.
And it just keeps getting better. the unbound, you underestimate yourself
And it just keeps getting better. the unbound, you underestimate yourself
christos200
Never tell me the odds
Why not?
Also great story. What i like in this story is that is very good and you dont have to read a wall of text.
mayor
Heart & Mind
probably because he wants to write his own story.... in his own style, theme and lenght
EDIT: of which you're doing an excellent job btw
EDIT: of which you're doing an excellent job btw
Spoiler :
I find this one so belittlling
