P.C. Hodgell's Blog, page 15
May 20, 2012
Old Pantheon Gods
Thanks for your feedback. It seems that I left myself fairly free to develop this class of gods, who don't have much of a role in Tai-tastigon. So here's your chance to contribute a god, if you feel so inclined. The rules:
Bottom line: I haven’t said enough about the OP to significantly restrict me now. I can set them up more or less as I like
a. They are Rathillien’s oldest gods, predating the Four and the Kencyr temples
b. Their power initially came from the faith of their followers and from Rathillien directly. Now the latter is funneled through the Four. What change does that make? They are aware, grudgingly, that the Four have been elevated above them, as the Greek gods came to rule over and replace the titans as top dogs. (Did anyone ever worship the titans? Were they perhaps prehistoric deities?)
c. They align with the Four. Those that didn’t either died off or are barely hanging on. It wasn’t a battle, just a fundamental shift in power. (?)
d. OP Gods can appear in any aspect, human, animal, object, monster
e. For most of the crafts and professions, people have turned to their Guild Lords and grandmasters, ie to the New Pantheon in Kothifir. People pray to Mercer for success in business, to Ruso for inspiration, to Shandani for health. They are the major pantheon with King Krothen as their Zeus.
f. There’s still some overlap, though, eg. Vedia the healer who lives Undercliff. There may be other reasons for OP deities to exist even though NP gods roughly cover the same territory.
I have some 14 OP gods, each linked to one of the Four, but could use more if only in passing. Any ideas?
Bottom line: I haven’t said enough about the OP to significantly restrict me now. I can set them up more or less as I like
a. They are Rathillien’s oldest gods, predating the Four and the Kencyr temples
b. Their power initially came from the faith of their followers and from Rathillien directly. Now the latter is funneled through the Four. What change does that make? They are aware, grudgingly, that the Four have been elevated above them, as the Greek gods came to rule over and replace the titans as top dogs. (Did anyone ever worship the titans? Were they perhaps prehistoric deities?)
c. They align with the Four. Those that didn’t either died off or are barely hanging on. It wasn’t a battle, just a fundamental shift in power. (?)
d. OP Gods can appear in any aspect, human, animal, object, monster
e. For most of the crafts and professions, people have turned to their Guild Lords and grandmasters, ie to the New Pantheon in Kothifir. People pray to Mercer for success in business, to Ruso for inspiration, to Shandani for health. They are the major pantheon with King Krothen as their Zeus.
f. There’s still some overlap, though, eg. Vedia the healer who lives Undercliff. There may be other reasons for OP deities to exist even though NP gods roughly cover the same territory.
I have some 14 OP gods, each linked to one of the Four, but could use more if only in passing. Any ideas?
May 18, 2012
Gods, etc.
The prospect of knitting/crocheting projects has apparently inspired me. Since childhood, I've seen happiness in part as having at least one manual art project in hand and another waiting. Part of the gall in growing up has been wanting to see my efforts find an audience rather than doing them just for fun. When did I get so serious? And is it destructive to creativity?
At any rate, I've figured out a number of things about the gods of Kothifir, Old and New Pantheon, which is a relief after banging my head against a wall for weeks. What I can't remember is what I said about the Old Pantheon in God Stalk. Did I only speak of it in terms of Dalis-sar, Gorgo, and Abarraden (sp)? Most of the gods Jame met and subsequently de-templed would seem to have been New Pantheon, since they were powered by the Kencyr temple. At the same time, I remember thinking that NP gods were based on human models while OP gods tended to have an animal or fantastic component. I dunno if that came through. What do you remember?
At any rate, I've figured out a number of things about the gods of Kothifir, Old and New Pantheon, which is a relief after banging my head against a wall for weeks. What I can't remember is what I said about the Old Pantheon in God Stalk. Did I only speak of it in terms of Dalis-sar, Gorgo, and Abarraden (sp)? Most of the gods Jame met and subsequently de-templed would seem to have been New Pantheon, since they were powered by the Kencyr temple. At the same time, I remember thinking that NP gods were based on human models while OP gods tended to have an animal or fantastic component. I dunno if that came through. What do you remember?
May 13, 2012
Argh (Again)
Frustrating times. It's another one of those days when I can't seem to come up with ideas. I'm at the turning point in the next novel when everything starts to come apart. It's the winter solstice. The Old Pantheon gods are invading Overcliff Kothifir to enact the ancient stories despite being banned by King Krothen. Clearly that earlier chapter does not do them justice. Part of the problem is that they are earlier versions of the Four, but with the Four as we now know them emerging through their ancient diversity. I'm thinking in part in terms of Tai-tastigon where the OP gods exist as a fading breed vs the New Pantheon gods powered by the Kencyr temple, but even there the Four have their presence, if Jame had known where to look for it -- say with Gorgo.
It strikes me that Rathillien is being torn between its native spirits as embodied by the OP and the Four and the New Pantheon that owes its power to the Kencyrath's Three-Faced God, with the Tyr-ridan yet to come. If so, no wonder there's so much confusion.
(See, this is what I meant when I said that I didn't yet know what to do with Kothifir's godlings. Some ideas come very slowly indeed, and they tend to be the big ones.)
Also frustrating: I've finished my last knitting project (a samurai hat for a Harvey Milk silent auction) and am now scrambling for something else to do. That may sound trivial, but knitting helps keep me sane and creative. So I'm open for suggestions/orders. Generally I don't charge much more than the price of the yarn.
Countess is well. I may finally have learned how to control her bolts, simply by using more strength and awareness of her moods, which tend to be furious at the onset. Friday was the first time in weeks that the trainer didn't shout at me. Mind you, we haven't gone outside yet this spring.
Last Thursday I came home to find drops and smears of blood all over the downstairs floor. Somehow my ragdoll Dorothea had severely gashed her leg. She has an inch and a half of stitches in it now and is limping in circles. Ah, the mystery of cats.
It strikes me that Rathillien is being torn between its native spirits as embodied by the OP and the Four and the New Pantheon that owes its power to the Kencyrath's Three-Faced God, with the Tyr-ridan yet to come. If so, no wonder there's so much confusion.
(See, this is what I meant when I said that I didn't yet know what to do with Kothifir's godlings. Some ideas come very slowly indeed, and they tend to be the big ones.)
Also frustrating: I've finished my last knitting project (a samurai hat for a Harvey Milk silent auction) and am now scrambling for something else to do. That may sound trivial, but knitting helps keep me sane and creative. So I'm open for suggestions/orders. Generally I don't charge much more than the price of the yarn.
Countess is well. I may finally have learned how to control her bolts, simply by using more strength and awareness of her moods, which tend to be furious at the onset. Friday was the first time in weeks that the trainer didn't shout at me. Mind you, we haven't gone outside yet this spring.
Last Thursday I came home to find drops and smears of blood all over the downstairs floor. Somehow my ragdoll Dorothea had severely gashed her leg. She has an inch and a half of stitches in it now and is limping in circles. Ah, the mystery of cats.
April 3, 2012
Progress? (a snippet)
Mixed days at the stable. I had a really good canter on Countess yesterday, with a hint of the gallop she's capable of as a former race horse. Would that I could unlearn the memory of injuries that tend to make a coward of me. Jame never was hurt, as far as I know. Her fear of horses seems to relate mostly to her experiences with Iron-Jaw, her father's haunt mount. A week ago, though, I spent some four hours at the barn helping out and the trainer made me feel thoroughly incompetent as a stable-hand. That wasn't pleasant. And it only seems to happen when I'm alone there with him, twice now. Go figure.
Anyway, I'm about half way through the first draft of the next novel and I've come to a place where I deal with the Old Pantheon gods of Kothifir. The following section doesn't satisfy me. Any suggestions would be welcome although, as usual, I can't promise to follow them. A lot will probably depend on where I take the OP gods in the second half of the novel.
Faint music sounded from the back of the cavern and the crowd hushed. It drew nearer, echoing – pipes, flutes, drums, something eldritch that might have been the wind whistling between the worlds. Figures advanced carrying torches. Their shadows preceded them, casting fantastic shapes on the cavern's fissured walls. The crowd drew back as the procession entered the body of the cave.
Jame was reminded of Mother Vedia's approach on her feast day. There, in fact, she was, again tottering like a living statue on an upraised litter, again surrounded by her dancing, snake-wreathed attendants, but this time without bats or followers. Next in line was another woman carrying a sheaf of wheat, then another obviously pregnant, and another elderly and thin, whose attendants all wore black and trod somberly with lowered heads. One stumbled and fell. The others lifted her up to her mistress who enfolded her in gaunt arms. The attendant melted into them, leaving her mistress noticeably plumper.
"The Great Mother in her aspects of healer, nurturer of the crops, helper in child birth, and hungry tomb," said Kroaky, raising his voice over the competing clamor of the attendants.
Jame regarded the four diverse figures and remembered her conversation with Gran Cyd, queen of the Merikit. Showing her a fertility figure and an imu, both representing the Earth Wife, she had said, "These images were ancient long before Mother Ragga was even born."
Jame had wondered at the time if the Earth Wife and the other three of Rathillien's elemental Four, while each a distinct individual, wore different, older aspects in different cultures and were subject to older stories. Here was the answer. They did.
Four men on raised litters followed, the first in armor, the second festooned with tools, and the third a crown. The last was a hunched, almost bestial figure dusted with soot and ash.
"Her consort, the All-Father: warrior, maker, patriarch, and avenger. Believe me, you don't want to get on the wrong side of that one."
If these were other aspects of the Burnt Man, Jame heartily agreed.
Next four young women appeared, one after the other, smeared green with what seemed to be river slime.
"The Fish Girl. The River Amar is very important here, for transportation, for the water that it provides to the fields and, of course, for its fish. That's the river herself, first in line, wearing the head and cape of a catfish. Nice legs. Ouch!"
Fang had jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.
Jame noted that the last girl had goggle eyes puffy with tears and that the hands which she held up to cover her lower face were webbed. The Great Salt Sea had been fresh water before it had dried up. Jame remembered Gorgo of Tai-tastigon, who had started out as a rain god and then become one of lamentations before switching back after his rebirth. Could some similar transformation have occurred here?
A single man followed in a whirlwind all of his own, his tattered clothes whipping, his followers spinning about him like dust-devils. On-lookers grabbed at their hats and skirts.
"The Old Man," said Kroaky, almost reverently, holding down his ginger hair with both hands. "The Tishooo. The East Wind."
"In the Riverland, we call him the south wind."
"Well, he would come at you from that direction although, in fact, he moves about pretty much as he pleases, the tricky old devil. Some say that he governs the flow of time itself in the Wastes, don't ask me how. Here we most often get him direct from Nekrien to the southeast. He keeps away the south and west winds, from the Barrier across the Wastes and from Urakarn. We don't honor those here."
"What about the north wind?"
"That blows us the Kencyr Host and occasional weirding. Blessing or curse? You tell me. Without the east wind and the mountains, though, Kothifir, Gemma, and the other rim cities would be buried in sand like the other ancient ruins of the Wastes."
The procession wound around the cavern until it reached its center. Here torches were set in holes drilled in the limestone floor. The thirteen avatars of the Four joined hands within the circle and began to rotate slowly sun-wise. Their worshippers formed a withershin ring around them, then another going the opposite way, and so on and on, alternating, to the edges of the cave. Jame grew dizzy watching their gyrations. Everyone was chanting, but not the same thing:
"There was an old woman …"
"There was an old man …"
"There was a maid …"
"There was a young man …."
Anyway, I'm about half way through the first draft of the next novel and I've come to a place where I deal with the Old Pantheon gods of Kothifir. The following section doesn't satisfy me. Any suggestions would be welcome although, as usual, I can't promise to follow them. A lot will probably depend on where I take the OP gods in the second half of the novel.
Faint music sounded from the back of the cavern and the crowd hushed. It drew nearer, echoing – pipes, flutes, drums, something eldritch that might have been the wind whistling between the worlds. Figures advanced carrying torches. Their shadows preceded them, casting fantastic shapes on the cavern's fissured walls. The crowd drew back as the procession entered the body of the cave.
Jame was reminded of Mother Vedia's approach on her feast day. There, in fact, she was, again tottering like a living statue on an upraised litter, again surrounded by her dancing, snake-wreathed attendants, but this time without bats or followers. Next in line was another woman carrying a sheaf of wheat, then another obviously pregnant, and another elderly and thin, whose attendants all wore black and trod somberly with lowered heads. One stumbled and fell. The others lifted her up to her mistress who enfolded her in gaunt arms. The attendant melted into them, leaving her mistress noticeably plumper.
"The Great Mother in her aspects of healer, nurturer of the crops, helper in child birth, and hungry tomb," said Kroaky, raising his voice over the competing clamor of the attendants.
Jame regarded the four diverse figures and remembered her conversation with Gran Cyd, queen of the Merikit. Showing her a fertility figure and an imu, both representing the Earth Wife, she had said, "These images were ancient long before Mother Ragga was even born."
Jame had wondered at the time if the Earth Wife and the other three of Rathillien's elemental Four, while each a distinct individual, wore different, older aspects in different cultures and were subject to older stories. Here was the answer. They did.
Four men on raised litters followed, the first in armor, the second festooned with tools, and the third a crown. The last was a hunched, almost bestial figure dusted with soot and ash.
"Her consort, the All-Father: warrior, maker, patriarch, and avenger. Believe me, you don't want to get on the wrong side of that one."
If these were other aspects of the Burnt Man, Jame heartily agreed.
Next four young women appeared, one after the other, smeared green with what seemed to be river slime.
"The Fish Girl. The River Amar is very important here, for transportation, for the water that it provides to the fields and, of course, for its fish. That's the river herself, first in line, wearing the head and cape of a catfish. Nice legs. Ouch!"
Fang had jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow.
Jame noted that the last girl had goggle eyes puffy with tears and that the hands which she held up to cover her lower face were webbed. The Great Salt Sea had been fresh water before it had dried up. Jame remembered Gorgo of Tai-tastigon, who had started out as a rain god and then become one of lamentations before switching back after his rebirth. Could some similar transformation have occurred here?
A single man followed in a whirlwind all of his own, his tattered clothes whipping, his followers spinning about him like dust-devils. On-lookers grabbed at their hats and skirts.
"The Old Man," said Kroaky, almost reverently, holding down his ginger hair with both hands. "The Tishooo. The East Wind."
"In the Riverland, we call him the south wind."
"Well, he would come at you from that direction although, in fact, he moves about pretty much as he pleases, the tricky old devil. Some say that he governs the flow of time itself in the Wastes, don't ask me how. Here we most often get him direct from Nekrien to the southeast. He keeps away the south and west winds, from the Barrier across the Wastes and from Urakarn. We don't honor those here."
"What about the north wind?"
"That blows us the Kencyr Host and occasional weirding. Blessing or curse? You tell me. Without the east wind and the mountains, though, Kothifir, Gemma, and the other rim cities would be buried in sand like the other ancient ruins of the Wastes."
The procession wound around the cavern until it reached its center. Here torches were set in holes drilled in the limestone floor. The thirteen avatars of the Four joined hands within the circle and began to rotate slowly sun-wise. Their worshippers formed a withershin ring around them, then another going the opposite way, and so on and on, alternating, to the edges of the cave. Jame grew dizzy watching their gyrations. Everyone was chanting, but not the same thing:
"There was an old woman …"
"There was an old man …"
"There was a maid …"
"There was a young man …."
March 3, 2012
Genjar
I'm told that Baen has announced a Jan 2013 publication date for this novel. That can't be right as the ms. isn't due until May 1 2013 and, believe me, I need the time. Sorry this one is taking so long. It reminds me of Seeker's Mask in its complexity and variety of scenes. I miss the familiar setting of Tentir.
In this novel, I flashback several times to Tori's early days with the Southern Host. The last chapter has to do in part with why Genjar led the Host against Urakarn in the first place. My current version has him ordered by a dying Kruin to chase down the traitorous Karnid prophet to the gates of Urakarn itself if necessary, but a trial reader tells me that I previously suggested that Genjar was glory-hunting and took up the chase on his own incentive, just as Pereden did later with the Horde. Does anyone remember anything about the former, re: Genjar?
In this novel, I flashback several times to Tori's early days with the Southern Host. The last chapter has to do in part with why Genjar led the Host against Urakarn in the first place. My current version has him ordered by a dying Kruin to chase down the traitorous Karnid prophet to the gates of Urakarn itself if necessary, but a trial reader tells me that I previously suggested that Genjar was glory-hunting and took up the chase on his own incentive, just as Pereden did later with the Horde. Does anyone remember anything about the former, re: Genjar?
February 21, 2012
Dreams
Last night I had a long, complicated dream about Batman, a character who has stirred my imagination since my childhood. In fact, one of the carefully constructed fantasies I use to put myself to sleep involves a meeting between him and Jame in her post-series role as a quasi-divine inter-dimensional seeker-out of things that need to be destroyed (not BM himself, I hasten to add, although his butler Alfred doesn't trust her one bit, nor does Dr. Watson in another such fantasy).
What I almost never dream about, though, are my own imaginary world and characters. It's almost as if I spend so much time daydreaming that night gets short-shifted. That's frustrating when I think of the authors who claim to have gotten ideas in their sleep (Coleridge being the classic example with Xanadu, also being an example of the drawbacks). I wonder, though, how common they are. Other examples? Also, is anyone out there tuned in to the Kencyrath's dreamscape, as it were? If so, how do I get there?
Nonetheless, I'm about half way through the next novel and currently am turning back to Tori's past. I've already covered his reception in the Southern Host as a teenager (not warm) and his first clash with Genjar (very chilly). What else would you like to see?
What I almost never dream about, though, are my own imaginary world and characters. It's almost as if I spend so much time daydreaming that night gets short-shifted. That's frustrating when I think of the authors who claim to have gotten ideas in their sleep (Coleridge being the classic example with Xanadu, also being an example of the drawbacks). I wonder, though, how common they are. Other examples? Also, is anyone out there tuned in to the Kencyrath's dreamscape, as it were? If so, how do I get there?
Nonetheless, I'm about half way through the next novel and currently am turning back to Tori's past. I've already covered his reception in the Southern Host as a teenager (not warm) and his first clash with Genjar (very chilly). What else would you like to see?
February 1, 2012
Kencyr Temples and a tidbit
I'm drawing a blank. There are Kencyr temples in Kothifir, Tai-tastigon, and Karkinaroth for sure. I know where three others are, but don't think I've mentioned them yet, except perhaps for Tai-than.
Oh, and here's the first bit of the next novel, still very much a work in progress, so comments/corrections are welcome:
Halfway to the top, the lift cage shuddered to a stop and hung, swaying, on its ropes. Leather-winged birds flitted around it, jeering through sharp teeth. The morning sun poured between its bars like molten gold, bright and hot, and wood creaked.
Its sole occupant swore.
Through the slatted floor under her feet, Jame could see the garrison of the Southern Host spread out like a toy city at the foot of the cliff. There was the inner ward, there the quadrilateral barracks of each Kencyr house. Ant-like dots moved through the streets with deceptive slowness. How high up was she? One thousand feet? Two? Kendar had warned her, with a shudder, that it was nearly three thousand to the top of the Escarpment at this point, not counting Kothifir's towering spires above that. At least she didn't suffer from the Kendars' inbred fear of heights – not that dangling here on a few strands of hemp was exactly reassuring.
Commandant Harn's headquarters were somewhere within the office block north of the inner ward. Jame remembered her reception there some ten days ago, how the burly man had fidgeted around the room, bumping into furniture, avoiding her eyes.
"Ah, Jameth … er, Jame. So you've come at last, all the way from the Riverland. Have a nice trip?"
It had at least been a long one, some forty days on the River Road with time enough to learn the rudiments of the native language from her Southron ten-commander, Brier Iron-thorn. While she had been as far south before as the Cataracts, if not so far west, it had been by the Builders' step-forward stones under the earth. Traveling over ground between the seven kingdoms made up of shattered Bashti and Hathor had given her a new sense of Rathillien's size, never mind that huge stretches of the Eastern and Western Lands remained unexplored. She thought about the empty spaces on Marc's stained glass map and wondered if they would ever be filled.
Three thousand years on this world, and yet we know so little about it.
However, she had found that the Southern Host was trying to remedy this by sending far patrols off in all directions to explore and, incidentally, to collect materials for the great stained glass map growing at Gothregor under Marc's hands.
Maps fascinated the Host.
So did mysteries.
In general, the southern Kencyr seemed much more curious about the world in which they found themselves than any but the Mount Alban scrollsmen had been in the Riverland – a change of attitude that came as a surprise to many cadets, given their lords' general indifference. Although the Barrier was farther away here than in the north, on the other side of the Wastes, Perimal Darkling itself seemed closer and the end of all things nearer.
"Archaic," some said scornfully about such concerns, and dismissed them.
Others kept their silence, but wondered if, here, they might be touching something more vital to their people than they had in a long, long time.
To have come such a long way, though, to receive such a wary welcome …
Oh, and here's the first bit of the next novel, still very much a work in progress, so comments/corrections are welcome:
Halfway to the top, the lift cage shuddered to a stop and hung, swaying, on its ropes. Leather-winged birds flitted around it, jeering through sharp teeth. The morning sun poured between its bars like molten gold, bright and hot, and wood creaked.
Its sole occupant swore.
Through the slatted floor under her feet, Jame could see the garrison of the Southern Host spread out like a toy city at the foot of the cliff. There was the inner ward, there the quadrilateral barracks of each Kencyr house. Ant-like dots moved through the streets with deceptive slowness. How high up was she? One thousand feet? Two? Kendar had warned her, with a shudder, that it was nearly three thousand to the top of the Escarpment at this point, not counting Kothifir's towering spires above that. At least she didn't suffer from the Kendars' inbred fear of heights – not that dangling here on a few strands of hemp was exactly reassuring.
Commandant Harn's headquarters were somewhere within the office block north of the inner ward. Jame remembered her reception there some ten days ago, how the burly man had fidgeted around the room, bumping into furniture, avoiding her eyes.
"Ah, Jameth … er, Jame. So you've come at last, all the way from the Riverland. Have a nice trip?"
It had at least been a long one, some forty days on the River Road with time enough to learn the rudiments of the native language from her Southron ten-commander, Brier Iron-thorn. While she had been as far south before as the Cataracts, if not so far west, it had been by the Builders' step-forward stones under the earth. Traveling over ground between the seven kingdoms made up of shattered Bashti and Hathor had given her a new sense of Rathillien's size, never mind that huge stretches of the Eastern and Western Lands remained unexplored. She thought about the empty spaces on Marc's stained glass map and wondered if they would ever be filled.
Three thousand years on this world, and yet we know so little about it.
However, she had found that the Southern Host was trying to remedy this by sending far patrols off in all directions to explore and, incidentally, to collect materials for the great stained glass map growing at Gothregor under Marc's hands.
Maps fascinated the Host.
So did mysteries.
In general, the southern Kencyr seemed much more curious about the world in which they found themselves than any but the Mount Alban scrollsmen had been in the Riverland – a change of attitude that came as a surprise to many cadets, given their lords' general indifference. Although the Barrier was farther away here than in the north, on the other side of the Wastes, Perimal Darkling itself seemed closer and the end of all things nearer.
"Archaic," some said scornfully about such concerns, and dismissed them.
Others kept their silence, but wondered if, here, they might be touching something more vital to their people than they had in a long, long time.
To have come such a long way, though, to receive such a wary welcome …
Help with Wikipedia
Sybil 6 just sent me an interesting link about the 19th century practice of "anthropodermic bibliopegy," or the process of binding books with human skin: http://io9.com/5881006/in-the-1800s-binding-a-book-your-own-dead-skin-made-a-lovely-gift. I hadn't realized that it was a quasi-common practice among average people. Checking out the Wikipedia entry, I found several mentions of its use in fiction, but none of the Book Bound in Pale Leather. I can't seem to log in to add the Kencyrath series or just God Stalk. Could someone with wiki-smarts do it for me? Thanks!
Nightmare: a poem (?)
I don't usually write poetry, am not sure that I can, but this dream was so vivid ...
It starts with a shuffling noise downstairs at night.
The cats don't stir, so I am slow to rise.
She stands in the upstairs hall in half-light,
A silhouette with a halo of wild, white hair.
But I know that she wears a t-shirt full of holes
And that her sagging underpants are soiled.
She wants to pass me into the room that once held her bed.
There we stand, face to blank face, I and my dead mother.
What else could I have done for her?
Dementia devours everything it touches.
Besides, it's too late to comb her wild, white hair.
It starts with a shuffling noise downstairs at night.
The cats don't stir, so I am slow to rise.
She stands in the upstairs hall in half-light,
A silhouette with a halo of wild, white hair.
But I know that she wears a t-shirt full of holes
And that her sagging underpants are soiled.
She wants to pass me into the room that once held her bed.
There we stand, face to blank face, I and my dead mother.
What else could I have done for her?
Dementia devours everything it touches.
Besides, it's too late to comb her wild, white hair.
January 19, 2012
tagmeth @ 2012-01-19T10:33:00
Well, I've decided not to send Death's-head or Bel out with the caravan. Instead Jame is riding an emos, a variation on the giant extinct imu. They don't pull the sledges, though.
I had my first ride this past Monday on Dandy, a champion show-horse. Lord, he was strong, but very well trained. The last time Marc had me ride a show-horse, outside, he (the horse, not Marc) backed us down a steep drainage ditch into heavy undergrowth. Of course I fell off and nearly got trampled. At the time, it seemed hilarious. Since than and two non-horse related broken bones, I'm gotten a lot more cautious.
I had my first ride this past Monday on Dandy, a champion show-horse. Lord, he was strong, but very well trained. The last time Marc had me ride a show-horse, outside, he (the horse, not Marc) backed us down a steep drainage ditch into heavy undergrowth. Of course I fell off and nearly got trampled. At the time, it seemed hilarious. Since than and two non-horse related broken bones, I'm gotten a lot more cautious.
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