Tales from a world that Was Not
Tales of River Valley
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Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Stories. What are they to humanity? Words upon a page, for certainty; the imaginative expression of something that is part and parcel of every human being—something with which we have all had experience in our lives. Yet for some reason many stories never reach out from those who live them out, remaining locked within ourselves only. They may be spoken aloud, but not understood by others. Or they may never be spoken at all, as though we were afraid to trust our audience.
Our stories, humanity's stories, remain half-hidden somewhere deep down inside us where nobody will find them 'till we die, so that no-one else can read them, nor hear its music when it stirs the heart like faint sweet whispers of the art of reason itself. Neither the blinding light of gods, nor the dark shadows that they cast, can pierce the veil that hides our stories from all but ourselves. And if they do, they cannot take away our joy in living. Can't scribble on the page.
⁂
When we finally understand the true nature of the universe, we will understand that the stars and galaxies are merely the echoes of our own stories, repeated artlessly across space and time.
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All of life is a story. Our stories are our lives.
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The stories we tell ourselves are like seeds, waiting for the first breath of the spring wind to scatter them over the world. They are ours. We will not lose them.
⁂
We will despair over all that we have lost.
Our stories, humanity's stories, remain half-hidden somewhere deep down inside us where nobody will find them 'till we die, so that no-one else can read them, nor hear its music when it stirs the heart like faint sweet whispers of the art of reason itself. Neither the blinding light of gods, nor the dark shadows that they cast, can pierce the veil that hides our stories from all but ourselves. And if they do, they cannot take away our joy in living. Can't scribble on the page.
⁂
When we finally understand the true nature of the universe, we will understand that the stars and galaxies are merely the echoes of our own stories, repeated artlessly across space and time.
⁂
All of life is a story. Our stories are our lives.
⁂
The stories we tell ourselves are like seeds, waiting for the first breath of the spring wind to scatter them over the world. They are ours. We will not lose them.
⁂
We will despair over all that we have lost.
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Chapter ℵ: And it came to be written in a book…
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
"You know I trust you a lot, but Mia..." Rikke began in a low voice, "I'm worried about this." She stared down at the pile of clothes spread out on her bed. A green dress lay next to a blue one and a yellow tunic; Sara's fault; a pair of white socks with red roses on them sat alongside some brown shoes. There were also some leggings.
"Don't worry," Mia said. "He won't bite."
The clothes were being ignored. There were also several half-eaten pairs of socks. And a small, green monster, a mouse-shaped creature with enormous ears, enormous teeth, and enormous appetite. The little thing was currently chewing through one of her favourite socks, one she'd thought she'd lost, while it gurgled happily at the prospect of another meal. The sunlight was pouring through her window, shining on the bedspread and making everything look like a painting. A surreal one.
She rubbed her eyes, took a deep breath and reached out for the troll. Her friend grinned at her mischievously as she poked the it with a finger, sending it rolling across the bedspread and disappearing behind Rikke's dress. It squeaked indignantly as it crawled away from danger, dragging its snack along.
"It's biting right now. ...no! Bad troll," Rikke decided. "Give me my socks back."
Mia laughed. The troll did not. It just kept chewing at the sock.
"No. No more socks for you, little troll. And stop eating just the one. I don't need fifteen unpaired socks!"
The troll didn't stop.
"It's just a sock," Rikke said after an awkward silence. "You've eaten three of them already. Give me that one back."
The troll ignored her again and continued gnawing contentedly on the toe of the lost sock. After another moment of silent, mental struggle, Mia finally got up off the bed and retrieved the unfortunate item from beneath the creature's chomping maw before depositing it into Rikke's hand, troll dangling from her fingers. Rikke shook it until it fell, landing on the floor.
"This is why nobody likes you," Rikke muttered to the thing as it began to make squeaking noises in protest at being snatched from its dinner.
Mia burst out laughing at this and pulled a sock off her foot, waving it at Rikke.
"Come on now," she said. "I'm hungry too." She threw the sock past the troll, which chased it around the room for a few moments until it finally caught hold of it and stuffed it inside its mouth, causing it to fall backwards over onto the floor. The small monster chewed a few more times and then scurried off, tail waving in delight.
"Good troll," Mia declared proudly. She pulled off the other sock as well, stuffing it in her pocket. Then her face became serious.
"He's cute, but..."
Rikke waited, watching as her friend sat down next to her on the bed. The sunlight was warm. It felt like summer had arrived early. She couldn't help stealing glances at the troll, which was lying there chewing on a sock. The little creature was really quite adorable.
"But what?" she asked. "I don't get it. You ran over first thing in the morning, to tell me there's a troll?" Rikke drew a deep breath. "I couldn't see it until you told me it was there. You knew about it already… didn't you?"
Mia didn't answer at first. She stared at Rikke, expression unreadable, and Rikke suddenly realised that her friend might know something she didn't want to say. So Rikke held her breath and tried hard not to look away from Mia's eyes until eventually Mia spoke.
"Well... I was hoping you wouldn't see." Her voice sounded very faraway and thin; not as if she were scared or worried about anything—but as though some kind of strange spell had been cast over her so that nothing could be heard except a single thought echoing in her head. "You couldn't yesterday. And now, because I told you it was there, you can. I was hoping it didn't work that way."
The younger girl looked uncertain. A little scared. And Rikke found herself feeling frustrated. Teaching Mia was her job—hers, and Sara's—and it wasn't supposed to work the other way around. Mia wasn't supposed to be scared.
The twelve-year-old was usually the least thoughtful girl Rikke knew. She never let things bother her, nor did she ever dwell on them for long. But this time she seemed to have grown up overnight, all the while without Rikke noticing. Maybe it was the sudden presence of the troll.
She found herself looking at the thing again. She'd read stories, of course- but that's what they were. Stories. Children's books, old folk tales and fairy tales. They were just stories, and now a troll was eating her... socks...
"Mia," she said, suddenly concerned. "Was it here all along? I mean, even when I couldn't see?"
"Yes," Mia answered with a sigh. "Probably. It's been there since last month at least." Mia stood up off the bed and reached out for Rikke's hand, tugging her gently up towards the open window. She paused there for a minute, staring at the mountain, then turned to look back at Rikke one more time before saying: "But don't worry about it. The world is full of these little creatures. I've yet to see them harm anyone." A smile tugged at her lips. "Unless we count your socks, and I bet you thought you were losing those."
Rikke rolled her eyes.
"No need to be sarcastic about it."
They both laughed then.
The sky outside was blue.
"Do you still want to play today?" Rikke asked after a moment. "Where's Sara, anyway? Did she forget? Do we have to find someone else?"
"I already asked her this morning, and she said she doesn't mind," Mia replied. She took hold of the windowsill and pushed herself upwards. She swung herself over onto the window ledge, holding her arms wide. She grinned down at Rikke.
"She's 'negotiating' with a bigger troll right now."
Rikke made a face, imagining a cat-sized one, as she joined Mia at the window. Her friend didn't seem particularly bothered by having a small monster around the place. But as much as Rikke liked playing with Mia, part of her wished the younger girl was a little less daring. She stole another glance at the minor gribbly, which had found itself an alcove between a wardrobe and a chest of drawers and seemed content to remain there for now, its huge ears twitching.
"Well, if I'd known, I'd have brought my bow and arrows," Rikke said.
Mia's smile grew a little strained.
"This isn't a joke," she said. "This one's safe, but trolls..." She looked back out of the window again, taking in her surroundings one last time before looking back at Rikke. "I'm sorry."
"What for?"
"I told you I trusted you." The look on her face was earnest. "And maybe I shouldn't be telling you... but I want to."
Rikke sighed. Mia was painfully cryptic at times.
"We're friends," she said slowly. "Right?"
"Of course we are," Mia answered. "Why wouldn't we be? But friends..." Mia jumped back down off the windowsill, landing easily beside Rikke on the floor, and grabbed hold of the nearest thing nearby: Rikke herself. She pulled the bigger girl into a hug and smiled at Rikke, who returned the embrace. "Friends don't keep secrets from each other. Friends also don't hurt each other."
They held each other close for a few moments.
Mia was cute.
"But I had to do one or the other," her friend continued. She almost seemed to be shrinking. She was trembling. It made Rikke hold her a little tighter. "You always have been too smart for your own good; sometimes you got scared even though you knew there was nothing there. That's why I couldn't tell you about the things that were there. Because what if seeing them meant they could see you?" Mia shuddered. "But you'd figure out we were hiding things, and you were never going to like it."
Rikke's eyes fell on the little monster, still chewing on a sock as it tried to make itself comfortable behind the dresser. Its eyes met hers. It cocked its head to the side, then looked away again, seemingly unconcerned by its human audience as it resumed its dinner.
"Mia?" she asked in a low voice.
This was wrong.
Mia looked up at Rikke with those big blue-grey eyes of hers. ...grey? They were a sparkling, almost unnaturally vivid blue. Rikke reached out and took hold of her hand.
"What's scaring you so much?"
Her friend swallowed hard. Her expression didn't change. She kept looking down, but not before Rikke noticed her gaze fixating on the troll.
"Everything," she replied. She shook off Rikke's grip and turned around, striding towards the door. "Thoughts. Worries. Sara's 'negotiating'. I want to go play with her, but I'm not sure. It's… She's…" Mia paused. "You've got a first-aid kit in the bathroom, right? Bring it, and we'll go meet her."
Rikke stared after her. The air felt strangely thick. Something wasn't right. The world was suddenly a place full of mysteries that weren't meant to be understood.
"But..."
She glanced back at the troll, then at her friend.
"You'll explain, right?"
Mia hesitated for just long enough for Rikke's stomach to sink... and then she nodded, almost convulsively. She had her eyes squeezed closed, tears dripping from beneath them onto her cheeks as she trembled visibly. When she opened them again, they were clear as a bell.
"I will. Everything I know, while Sara's there. We should have, a lot earlier."
And with that, Mia left the room, leaving Rikke standing there.
Rikke blinked at the empty doorway. Mia's footsteps were already fading into the distance as she made her way towards the kitchen and the front doors.
Rikke wanted to call out to her. She, yet again, looked at the troll. This time it watched her, its ears twitching slightly. It seemed happy. She could hear it chewing again.
The air in the bedroom felt thick. It seemed hard to breathe. She stood still and listened.
Then it hit her:
"Hey, Mia?" She hurried after her younger friend, ignoring the little gribbly chewing on her clothes—it didn't seem to matter anyway. "Mia!" Rikke ran down the corridor after Mia's disappearing figure. "Wait up! What do you mean, 'negotiating'? Just how much bigger is it?"
But her friend didn't slow down. Rikke chased after her until they reached the bottom of the stairs leading down into the main floor of her home; then suddenly she heard a noise. A sharp, loud bang, like a thunderclap, despite the warm summer afternoon outside, that passed through Rikke and left the entire world wavering.
Mia froze where she was and stared back at Rikke, her face pale as a ghost, and trembling visibly now.
"What was that?" Rikke asked, holding a hand to her own forehead, which felt as though it might explode.
"Negotiations must've failed." Mia said with a shuddering sigh. Then she took hold of Rikke's arm, guiding her around the corner before looking up again at her with wide eyes. "You'd better grab the first-aid kit. We'll need it."
And she walked off.
Rikke watched her go for what felt like an age. Her brain kept telling her not to follow—there was something very wrong about this. The entire rest of her body refused to listen.
She found herself hurrying along after her friend.
= = =
Negotiating with a mountain; what had she been thinking?
Maybe she hadn't been, Sara thought, climbing onto the window sill and hoisting herself out of her bedroom and into the yard below, taking care not to let anyone spot her. Because she was sneaking. Not because she was grounded—though she frequently got the impression that no one quite knew how to punish her properly anymore—but because it just seemed right. It felt as if it was supposed to be like this.
Like a secret.
A thrill.
Sara's boots landed on the soft grass of the garden outside her house, making little noise against it, and then she stood still and looked up. Her mother waved at her from the living room window, smiling. Sara sheepishly raised her hand in return and waved back, then turned away towards the riverbank, hoping that she wasn't being too obvious that she was doing something dumb. She couldn't stop grinning as she made her way over to the edge of the trees beside the stream, and onto the hiking trail.
This whole week had been so exciting... first the river trolls, and then meeting the strange girl who lived in the old mill by the water. Sara had never seen anything like her before. She was tiny, but also strong, and when she spoke to you, it felt like she was looking straight through your eyes into your soul. Gerd wasn't a real girl, of course, but Sara thought she'd gotten to like them. Her and Lisa both; maybe especially Lisa.
Now here she was, about to talk to a mountain.
The forest was quiet, and the air smelled fresh. The sun was so bright and hot, it made her blink. Wonderful weather for early May, which was usually still cold and sometimes snowy. But it was a beautiful day, and the air smelled so sweet.
It was a good thing that it was summer, since that made the mountain sleepy. Last winter there'd been landslide after landslide, and it'd been a miracle that no-one had been hurt. But now the snow was gone, and even if it started raining, it wouldn't last long enough to make any difference. Still, she and Mia had decided, it would be best to ask the thing to be a little quieter. Mostly she had decided. Mia had tried to dissuade her.
She glanced around the trail as she left the shadows of the trees and stepped out into the sunlight, trying to look casual. Nobody watching. Good. She took a deep breath, then set off across the meadow towards the base of the mountain, taking her time, but setting a good pace for a fourteen-year-old.
Sara's home was in a valley at the base of a large mountain chain, a residential area for people who worked in Tromsø. The houses were mostly wooden affairs, insulated as heck but weak enough to become kindling if one got hit by an avalanche. There'd never been avalanches before, but the winters had gotten worse, and small earthquakes were getting common. That was apparently due to 'geology'...
Sara knew better.
The reason was the mountain.
That's why she'd come out here today.
She'd been thinking about it all week while she helped her mother clean out the attic: What could she do? Her and Mia, they'd seen a lot of weird things lately. They'd done some pretty stupid stuff too—like breaking into the library and stealing books (though she'd put them back a few days later). And yet nothing really bad had happened to them. Nothing permanent anyway. So maybe it was time to see if there was anything else they could do.
And then she'd remembered the river trolls. She'd been wondering about them ever since Mia told her about them, and the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if the mountain trolls might be real, too. She'd imagined what it would be like to meet one of those creatures face to face.
And then she'd realised what she wanted most in the world.
And then she'd seen its face.
= = =
Sara let out a shuddering sigh, a grin of absolute delight on her lips as she stared up at the towering creature on whose skin she was walking. Skin. Clothes. ...soil? Was it covered in soil, or was the soil part of it? How did it move? Did it have feet? Or was the ginormous mountain troll, that even now almost wavered in her eyes, half rock and half living thing- was it stuck? Did it have limbs at all? Could it stand up?
The world shimmered around her, half story and half regular valley.
"Mountain," said Sara. "I'm coming for you."
The mountain didn't answer. It just continued to stare down at the city with its huge round eyes, filling the whole world, eyes which were dark and deep and full of wisdom beyond anything Sara had ever known. Or which were shadowy rocks. Either/or. In one world, she was making her way up a trail—and then she was on top of the mountain—her position uncertain and irrelevant. In another, she was grinning like mad, ignorant of everything except the humongous creature she was walking to.
She smiled, stepping up her pace; feeling like a child again, and never mind her age, which was also becoming irrelevant. She felt light on her feet as she climbed higher and higher up the side of the great beast.
There were caves along the way, tunnels dug into the mountain's sides by wind and rain and other natural forces — some of them probably had trolls, too. Some, she could pretty much tell, weren't really there. Or... weren't there, from the perspective of the human girl.
She was bored of being human.
Sara let her hair grow wild, teeth sharpening a little as she remembered the story of the wolf-girl who lived in the mountains, and how she'd learned to survive in the wilderness by learning to kill. The trolls were different from bears. Much bigger, and far more dangerous. And less so, too. Her limbs still ached from remembering the bear's claws. Her thoughts slowed very slightly, 'Sara' becoming aware of herself as separate from the body she wore. 'Sara' became a ghost inside her own head, looking down at this strange new thing called 'herself', all sharp teeth and wildness. And she found it good.
The mountain looked down at her, its gaze unwavering, as it seemed to smile. Lisa, the wolf-girl, had once met a night-troll when she was lost in the woods. Lost in her story of being lost. It hadn't been luck that let her escape alive. But she hadn't been alone.
She'd had help. From Mia.
Sara nodded to herself, and Lisa nodded to herself, and Sara's existence frayed as the story of Lisa lost that tiny, imperceptible flag that marked it as <NOT REAL>, but remained still a part of Sara. She took it for herself and melted away into the air, leaving only Lisa behind, standing on the side of the mountain, staring up into its eyes with her sharpened fangs bared, a grin on her lips, and two quickly fusing girls behind her eyes. Sara had always put herself into the stories she read. It was only right that the stories put themselves into her.
"Hello," said Lisa.
"Hello," said the mountain.
= = =
Hello, and welcome to the least original story ever crafted.
What you've just read is indeed the story's introduction, but it isn't where it starts. It's been said that it's best to start at the beginning… so, instead, I started a month in. Think of it as in medias res, albeit of an alternate timeline. There is no requirement for displayed events to recur; indeed, there is no requirement for displayed characters to recur.
Mia, Rikke and Sara exist, but Lisa might not. That is up to you. So is the nominal protagonist, although you can expect all three to be important.
Here's some advice…
Make the choices you think will make the best story. That is always a good idea, but for this particular story it's also often the best choice for the characters. There's enough information here to give you some idea of what is happening. There isn't enough to give you a full understanding, and there isn't supposed to be. You should expect to be exploring this reality, just as much as the characters will be.
Well, then. Let's get this show on the road, shall we?
–
Who first contacted the otherworld?
[ ][Protagonist] Mia
What was it she saw?
[ ][Introduction] The terribly odd behaviour of the river
And who helped her survive?
[ ][Mantle] A wolf-girl, the lonely protagonist of a children's book
Votes are by plan.
"Don't worry," Mia said. "He won't bite."
The clothes were being ignored. There were also several half-eaten pairs of socks. And a small, green monster, a mouse-shaped creature with enormous ears, enormous teeth, and enormous appetite. The little thing was currently chewing through one of her favourite socks, one she'd thought she'd lost, while it gurgled happily at the prospect of another meal. The sunlight was pouring through her window, shining on the bedspread and making everything look like a painting. A surreal one.
She rubbed her eyes, took a deep breath and reached out for the troll. Her friend grinned at her mischievously as she poked the it with a finger, sending it rolling across the bedspread and disappearing behind Rikke's dress. It squeaked indignantly as it crawled away from danger, dragging its snack along.
"It's biting right now. ...no! Bad troll," Rikke decided. "Give me my socks back."
Mia laughed. The troll did not. It just kept chewing at the sock.
"No. No more socks for you, little troll. And stop eating just the one. I don't need fifteen unpaired socks!"
The troll didn't stop.
"It's just a sock," Rikke said after an awkward silence. "You've eaten three of them already. Give me that one back."
The troll ignored her again and continued gnawing contentedly on the toe of the lost sock. After another moment of silent, mental struggle, Mia finally got up off the bed and retrieved the unfortunate item from beneath the creature's chomping maw before depositing it into Rikke's hand, troll dangling from her fingers. Rikke shook it until it fell, landing on the floor.
"This is why nobody likes you," Rikke muttered to the thing as it began to make squeaking noises in protest at being snatched from its dinner.
Mia burst out laughing at this and pulled a sock off her foot, waving it at Rikke.
"Come on now," she said. "I'm hungry too." She threw the sock past the troll, which chased it around the room for a few moments until it finally caught hold of it and stuffed it inside its mouth, causing it to fall backwards over onto the floor. The small monster chewed a few more times and then scurried off, tail waving in delight.
"Good troll," Mia declared proudly. She pulled off the other sock as well, stuffing it in her pocket. Then her face became serious.
"He's cute, but..."
Rikke waited, watching as her friend sat down next to her on the bed. The sunlight was warm. It felt like summer had arrived early. She couldn't help stealing glances at the troll, which was lying there chewing on a sock. The little creature was really quite adorable.
"But what?" she asked. "I don't get it. You ran over first thing in the morning, to tell me there's a troll?" Rikke drew a deep breath. "I couldn't see it until you told me it was there. You knew about it already… didn't you?"
Mia didn't answer at first. She stared at Rikke, expression unreadable, and Rikke suddenly realised that her friend might know something she didn't want to say. So Rikke held her breath and tried hard not to look away from Mia's eyes until eventually Mia spoke.
"Well... I was hoping you wouldn't see." Her voice sounded very faraway and thin; not as if she were scared or worried about anything—but as though some kind of strange spell had been cast over her so that nothing could be heard except a single thought echoing in her head. "You couldn't yesterday. And now, because I told you it was there, you can. I was hoping it didn't work that way."
The younger girl looked uncertain. A little scared. And Rikke found herself feeling frustrated. Teaching Mia was her job—hers, and Sara's—and it wasn't supposed to work the other way around. Mia wasn't supposed to be scared.
The twelve-year-old was usually the least thoughtful girl Rikke knew. She never let things bother her, nor did she ever dwell on them for long. But this time she seemed to have grown up overnight, all the while without Rikke noticing. Maybe it was the sudden presence of the troll.
She found herself looking at the thing again. She'd read stories, of course- but that's what they were. Stories. Children's books, old folk tales and fairy tales. They were just stories, and now a troll was eating her... socks...
"Mia," she said, suddenly concerned. "Was it here all along? I mean, even when I couldn't see?"
"Yes," Mia answered with a sigh. "Probably. It's been there since last month at least." Mia stood up off the bed and reached out for Rikke's hand, tugging her gently up towards the open window. She paused there for a minute, staring at the mountain, then turned to look back at Rikke one more time before saying: "But don't worry about it. The world is full of these little creatures. I've yet to see them harm anyone." A smile tugged at her lips. "Unless we count your socks, and I bet you thought you were losing those."
Rikke rolled her eyes.
"No need to be sarcastic about it."
They both laughed then.
The sky outside was blue.
"Do you still want to play today?" Rikke asked after a moment. "Where's Sara, anyway? Did she forget? Do we have to find someone else?"
"I already asked her this morning, and she said she doesn't mind," Mia replied. She took hold of the windowsill and pushed herself upwards. She swung herself over onto the window ledge, holding her arms wide. She grinned down at Rikke.
"She's 'negotiating' with a bigger troll right now."
Rikke made a face, imagining a cat-sized one, as she joined Mia at the window. Her friend didn't seem particularly bothered by having a small monster around the place. But as much as Rikke liked playing with Mia, part of her wished the younger girl was a little less daring. She stole another glance at the minor gribbly, which had found itself an alcove between a wardrobe and a chest of drawers and seemed content to remain there for now, its huge ears twitching.
"Well, if I'd known, I'd have brought my bow and arrows," Rikke said.
Mia's smile grew a little strained.
"This isn't a joke," she said. "This one's safe, but trolls..." She looked back out of the window again, taking in her surroundings one last time before looking back at Rikke. "I'm sorry."
"What for?"
"I told you I trusted you." The look on her face was earnest. "And maybe I shouldn't be telling you... but I want to."
Rikke sighed. Mia was painfully cryptic at times.
"We're friends," she said slowly. "Right?"
"Of course we are," Mia answered. "Why wouldn't we be? But friends..." Mia jumped back down off the windowsill, landing easily beside Rikke on the floor, and grabbed hold of the nearest thing nearby: Rikke herself. She pulled the bigger girl into a hug and smiled at Rikke, who returned the embrace. "Friends don't keep secrets from each other. Friends also don't hurt each other."
They held each other close for a few moments.
Mia was cute.
"But I had to do one or the other," her friend continued. She almost seemed to be shrinking. She was trembling. It made Rikke hold her a little tighter. "You always have been too smart for your own good; sometimes you got scared even though you knew there was nothing there. That's why I couldn't tell you about the things that were there. Because what if seeing them meant they could see you?" Mia shuddered. "But you'd figure out we were hiding things, and you were never going to like it."
Rikke's eyes fell on the little monster, still chewing on a sock as it tried to make itself comfortable behind the dresser. Its eyes met hers. It cocked its head to the side, then looked away again, seemingly unconcerned by its human audience as it resumed its dinner.
"Mia?" she asked in a low voice.
This was wrong.
Mia looked up at Rikke with those big blue-grey eyes of hers. ...grey? They were a sparkling, almost unnaturally vivid blue. Rikke reached out and took hold of her hand.
"What's scaring you so much?"
Her friend swallowed hard. Her expression didn't change. She kept looking down, but not before Rikke noticed her gaze fixating on the troll.
"Everything," she replied. She shook off Rikke's grip and turned around, striding towards the door. "Thoughts. Worries. Sara's 'negotiating'. I want to go play with her, but I'm not sure. It's… She's…" Mia paused. "You've got a first-aid kit in the bathroom, right? Bring it, and we'll go meet her."
Rikke stared after her. The air felt strangely thick. Something wasn't right. The world was suddenly a place full of mysteries that weren't meant to be understood.
"But..."
She glanced back at the troll, then at her friend.
"You'll explain, right?"
Mia hesitated for just long enough for Rikke's stomach to sink... and then she nodded, almost convulsively. She had her eyes squeezed closed, tears dripping from beneath them onto her cheeks as she trembled visibly. When she opened them again, they were clear as a bell.
"I will. Everything I know, while Sara's there. We should have, a lot earlier."
And with that, Mia left the room, leaving Rikke standing there.
Rikke blinked at the empty doorway. Mia's footsteps were already fading into the distance as she made her way towards the kitchen and the front doors.
Rikke wanted to call out to her. She, yet again, looked at the troll. This time it watched her, its ears twitching slightly. It seemed happy. She could hear it chewing again.
The air in the bedroom felt thick. It seemed hard to breathe. She stood still and listened.
Then it hit her:
"Hey, Mia?" She hurried after her younger friend, ignoring the little gribbly chewing on her clothes—it didn't seem to matter anyway. "Mia!" Rikke ran down the corridor after Mia's disappearing figure. "Wait up! What do you mean, 'negotiating'? Just how much bigger is it?"
But her friend didn't slow down. Rikke chased after her until they reached the bottom of the stairs leading down into the main floor of her home; then suddenly she heard a noise. A sharp, loud bang, like a thunderclap, despite the warm summer afternoon outside, that passed through Rikke and left the entire world wavering.
Mia froze where she was and stared back at Rikke, her face pale as a ghost, and trembling visibly now.
"What was that?" Rikke asked, holding a hand to her own forehead, which felt as though it might explode.
"Negotiations must've failed." Mia said with a shuddering sigh. Then she took hold of Rikke's arm, guiding her around the corner before looking up again at her with wide eyes. "You'd better grab the first-aid kit. We'll need it."
And she walked off.
Rikke watched her go for what felt like an age. Her brain kept telling her not to follow—there was something very wrong about this. The entire rest of her body refused to listen.
She found herself hurrying along after her friend.
= = =
Negotiating with a mountain; what had she been thinking?
Maybe she hadn't been, Sara thought, climbing onto the window sill and hoisting herself out of her bedroom and into the yard below, taking care not to let anyone spot her. Because she was sneaking. Not because she was grounded—though she frequently got the impression that no one quite knew how to punish her properly anymore—but because it just seemed right. It felt as if it was supposed to be like this.
Like a secret.
A thrill.
Sara's boots landed on the soft grass of the garden outside her house, making little noise against it, and then she stood still and looked up. Her mother waved at her from the living room window, smiling. Sara sheepishly raised her hand in return and waved back, then turned away towards the riverbank, hoping that she wasn't being too obvious that she was doing something dumb. She couldn't stop grinning as she made her way over to the edge of the trees beside the stream, and onto the hiking trail.
This whole week had been so exciting... first the river trolls, and then meeting the strange girl who lived in the old mill by the water. Sara had never seen anything like her before. She was tiny, but also strong, and when she spoke to you, it felt like she was looking straight through your eyes into your soul. Gerd wasn't a real girl, of course, but Sara thought she'd gotten to like them. Her and Lisa both; maybe especially Lisa.
Now here she was, about to talk to a mountain.
The forest was quiet, and the air smelled fresh. The sun was so bright and hot, it made her blink. Wonderful weather for early May, which was usually still cold and sometimes snowy. But it was a beautiful day, and the air smelled so sweet.
It was a good thing that it was summer, since that made the mountain sleepy. Last winter there'd been landslide after landslide, and it'd been a miracle that no-one had been hurt. But now the snow was gone, and even if it started raining, it wouldn't last long enough to make any difference. Still, she and Mia had decided, it would be best to ask the thing to be a little quieter. Mostly she had decided. Mia had tried to dissuade her.
She glanced around the trail as she left the shadows of the trees and stepped out into the sunlight, trying to look casual. Nobody watching. Good. She took a deep breath, then set off across the meadow towards the base of the mountain, taking her time, but setting a good pace for a fourteen-year-old.
Sara's home was in a valley at the base of a large mountain chain, a residential area for people who worked in Tromsø. The houses were mostly wooden affairs, insulated as heck but weak enough to become kindling if one got hit by an avalanche. There'd never been avalanches before, but the winters had gotten worse, and small earthquakes were getting common. That was apparently due to 'geology'...
Sara knew better.
The reason was the mountain.
That's why she'd come out here today.
She'd been thinking about it all week while she helped her mother clean out the attic: What could she do? Her and Mia, they'd seen a lot of weird things lately. They'd done some pretty stupid stuff too—like breaking into the library and stealing books (though she'd put them back a few days later). And yet nothing really bad had happened to them. Nothing permanent anyway. So maybe it was time to see if there was anything else they could do.
And then she'd remembered the river trolls. She'd been wondering about them ever since Mia told her about them, and the more she thought about it, the more she wondered if the mountain trolls might be real, too. She'd imagined what it would be like to meet one of those creatures face to face.
And then she'd realised what she wanted most in the world.
And then she'd seen its face.
= = =
Sara let out a shuddering sigh, a grin of absolute delight on her lips as she stared up at the towering creature on whose skin she was walking. Skin. Clothes. ...soil? Was it covered in soil, or was the soil part of it? How did it move? Did it have feet? Or was the ginormous mountain troll, that even now almost wavered in her eyes, half rock and half living thing- was it stuck? Did it have limbs at all? Could it stand up?
The world shimmered around her, half story and half regular valley.
"Mountain," said Sara. "I'm coming for you."
The mountain didn't answer. It just continued to stare down at the city with its huge round eyes, filling the whole world, eyes which were dark and deep and full of wisdom beyond anything Sara had ever known. Or which were shadowy rocks. Either/or. In one world, she was making her way up a trail—and then she was on top of the mountain—her position uncertain and irrelevant. In another, she was grinning like mad, ignorant of everything except the humongous creature she was walking to.
She smiled, stepping up her pace; feeling like a child again, and never mind her age, which was also becoming irrelevant. She felt light on her feet as she climbed higher and higher up the side of the great beast.
There were caves along the way, tunnels dug into the mountain's sides by wind and rain and other natural forces — some of them probably had trolls, too. Some, she could pretty much tell, weren't really there. Or... weren't there, from the perspective of the human girl.
She was bored of being human.
Sara let her hair grow wild, teeth sharpening a little as she remembered the story of the wolf-girl who lived in the mountains, and how she'd learned to survive in the wilderness by learning to kill. The trolls were different from bears. Much bigger, and far more dangerous. And less so, too. Her limbs still ached from remembering the bear's claws. Her thoughts slowed very slightly, 'Sara' becoming aware of herself as separate from the body she wore. 'Sara' became a ghost inside her own head, looking down at this strange new thing called 'herself', all sharp teeth and wildness. And she found it good.
The mountain looked down at her, its gaze unwavering, as it seemed to smile. Lisa, the wolf-girl, had once met a night-troll when she was lost in the woods. Lost in her story of being lost. It hadn't been luck that let her escape alive. But she hadn't been alone.
She'd had help. From Mia.
Sara nodded to herself, and Lisa nodded to herself, and Sara's existence frayed as the story of Lisa lost that tiny, imperceptible flag that marked it as <NOT REAL>, but remained still a part of Sara. She took it for herself and melted away into the air, leaving only Lisa behind, standing on the side of the mountain, staring up into its eyes with her sharpened fangs bared, a grin on her lips, and two quickly fusing girls behind her eyes. Sara had always put herself into the stories she read. It was only right that the stories put themselves into her.
"Hello," said Lisa.
"Hello," said the mountain.
= = =
Hello, and welcome to the least original story ever crafted.
What you've just read is indeed the story's introduction, but it isn't where it starts. It's been said that it's best to start at the beginning… so, instead, I started a month in. Think of it as in medias res, albeit of an alternate timeline. There is no requirement for displayed events to recur; indeed, there is no requirement for displayed characters to recur.
Mia, Rikke and Sara exist, but Lisa might not. That is up to you. So is the nominal protagonist, although you can expect all three to be important.
Here's some advice…
Make the choices you think will make the best story. That is always a good idea, but for this particular story it's also often the best choice for the characters. There's enough information here to give you some idea of what is happening. There isn't enough to give you a full understanding, and there isn't supposed to be. You should expect to be exploring this reality, just as much as the characters will be.
Well, then. Let's get this show on the road, shall we?
–
Who first contacted the otherworld?
[ ][Protagonist] Mia
- A twelve year old girl, first-grader at the local middle school. Mia is energetic, daring, and a bit of a prankster. As Sara's next door neighbour, they're childhood friends. The two others like to think of themselves as Mia's older sisters. Mia likes to think of them as vaguely oversized.
- Mia comes from a lower middle-class family, for what little that is worth in Norway, and has a firebrand personality in part as a reaction to that. Any bullying is at your own risk.
- A fourteen year old girl, second-grader at the local middle school. A highly imaginative girl. Sara is not so much 'daring' as simply thoughtless, often failing to recognise the downsides of what she does, but her personality leads her to investigate and explore anything even slightly unusual. She spends as much time in the library as outside, and almost none at home.
- Sara's father is a physicist. Her mother is a doctor. It's a wonder she's as active as she is, you think? In truth, she inherited it all from the two of them. Sara is a well of information about everything from mushrooms to geology.
- Sara's classmate, the most recent addition to the trio. Rikke is a member of the orienteering group; smart, but not academically inclined. Like Sara and Mia, she prefers to spend her time outside. Unlike Sara and Mia, she prefers intense physical activity—the more, the better. "Why walk, when you can run?"
- Rikke thinks Sara's stories are funny, and Mia is adorable. Rikke loves being the protector. Rikke is also relatively rich, used to be a 'popular girl', and hasn't quite adapted to considering her friends' perspective on her behaviour. She will certainly get there.
What was it she saw?
[ ][Introduction] The terribly odd behaviour of the river
- The spring floods in Tromsdalen were always predictable, and always transformed the valley into a soggy mess. They never did this, however. She might not have noticed, but she'd heard an old wives' tale recently.
- Leaving aside the safety of walking on the ice, girls do not have wings. It could have been a mirage, but she didn't let herself believe that.
- She tried to take it home, and the next day it was gone.
- It had been her favourite story for years, and the protagonist was her favourite character. She'd spent months pretending they could talk. What of it, that she talked back? …but the fangs weren't a daydream.
- Not quite anything goes. To be acceptable, the opening needs to be both personal and relevant. No world-shattering events can happen here.
And who helped her survive?
[ ][Mantle] A wolf-girl, the lonely protagonist of a children's book
- Lisa is a pragmatic, terribly lonely girl who'd have done anything to find her family. Her story is of being lost and surviving in the wilderness, surviving all challenges through nothing but her own wit, skills, and admittedly inhuman physiology. A lone wolf, but doesn't want to be. The most defined of the characters; kind to friends and family, violent to enemies, and not much of a diplomat.
- Some stories have complicated narratives. Others reflect a simple wish for freedom, and this one is of the latter.
- A full assumption of this mantle would be a one-way road, but it's an unassuming, undemanding thing. Lisa would break to pieces if taken on partly. The pixie is simply a set of clothes.
- Incredibly relaxing, yes, but through its very lack of definition it treats most aspects of Creation as mere suggestions to be ignored.
- In all frankness, this is simply who Rikke wishes that she could be. They can't all be winners, and there's no benefit to picking this.
- You're vaguely expected to pick this.
- Effectively you'll be describing a children's story of some sort.
- No matter who or what it is, the protagonist will put a lot of themselves into the character. The same works vice-versa; this is your main chance to steer their personality.
- It must be a character that the protagonist would find enjoyable to read about, enough to keep thinking about them for months or years. Feel free to provide your reasoning.
- Not all write-ins will be accepted, regardless. I may not explain why. This initial choice has more guard-rails than your later options.
Votes are by plan.
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Mantles (1/?)
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
All right, since we're coming up on the end of the voting period, I suppose I'd better clarify these a bit.
I'm not going to explain what they are. You can make some guesses, and I have a fairly complete model of the underlying... physics... but figuring that out is one of the intended plot threads of the story. What I can tell you is what Sara knows, at the point in time of the opening, which is sometime in the future from where chapter 1 will be. In other words, this is simply expanding on what was suggested in the narrative.
If you're familiar with Dresden Files, you'll already have some idea. Apparently there's also a related concept in Pact, though I've never read it. Either way, the mantles of Dresden Files work the same way in some aspects... very differently in others.
= = =
When Sara was young(er), she came across a book in the library. This was a children's book, about a wolf-girl who became lost in the mountains and had to survive on her own. Slightly old-fashioned; there wasn't a happy ending, she never did find her family, and the moral of the book was largely "If you play around foolishly on the mountains, you may very well die!"
Lisa didn't die, but that was largely because Lisa isn't human. She repeatedly ran into problems that could very well have killed her, such as running out of food, being lost without shelter, or in one memorable scene being attacked by a bear. For some smaller problems she solved them with wit and knowledge, but the greater ones were only resolved by reference to inhuman attributes. She could hunt down rabbits, or curl up in a crack in the ground with her tail, or...
I've also read the book. The intent, I'm pretty sure, was that the child reading it should realize that since they lack sharpened teeth, preternatural quickness, or a tail (...), given the same situation they would simply not survive. It was a depressing book, at many points. I think in many cases that's what the takeaway would be.
It isn't what Sara took away from it.
She asked her parents for a copy for her birthday, and she spent the next couple of years repeatedly re-reading it, imagining herself in Lisa's role. It's what drove her lust for hiking, which admittedly hasn't been shown yet -- Rikke enjoys the exercise, but Sara always daydreams her way through it -- and she's spent years pretending she could talk to Lisa in her thoughts.
What of it, then, that Lisa started talking back?
The mantle of Lisa is primarily a person, with highly defined attributes, because that's what Sara focused on. Assuming she exists -- she might not, but at the current voting outcome she will -- then Sara has spent so much time thinking about her, she just automatically generates both sides of the conversation. Nothing magical about that. Authors do it all the time. Sara can't exactly control what Lisa says; but then she can't exactly control what Sara says, either, because there's not exactly someone there (besides Sara) to do the control. It's not quite plurality, and she's not quite a figment of her imagination. Children can have imaginary friends. It happens.
Of course then she realised they could swap places, or clothes, or bodies. They could swap minds, or else Sara and Lisa could just mix together into a blend of the both of them. And as Lisa received more exposure to the Real, she became ever less... predictable.
They're simultaneously best friends, siblings, and a figment of each other's imagination.
Sara rewrote the story quite significantly, in her head. She was never able to rewrite the core concept of Lisa, however: Lisa is lost.
= = =
The default mantle of Mia is something else again. Not a specific individual, but fairy-ness as a whole, viewed through the lens of Mia. The general... concept, I guess, of being freed from all obligations. Homework, sitting down for dinner, ...gravity, size, having a defined location. Mia is a daydreaming kid, Mia does not love school, and Mia's spent a lot of time dreaming of what it would be like not needing to... well, just not needing, in general.
"Pixie-ness" might be a better term, perhaps. If Mia were to wholly submerge herself in this concept, she might well pop like a soap bubble. She wouldn't disappear -- conservation of narratives is a thing -- but it's unclear if there would still be anyone named 'Mia' left to talk to.
She's a smarter kid than that, however.
= = =
@Nero200's suggestion is yet a third example. Again it's no-one in particular, but the Traveler is less a change to the wielder, more a forced perspective. The hosts and the guest are both pushed into a specific way of being, a set of rules based on old norse guest-rights and a thousand, thousand other stories, given so much collective inertia that breaking the rules could scarcely be comprehended. Even the old norse gods, when visiting their enemies, were able to rely on this concept.
Depth of history has value, but while this is a powerful mantle, it's also a restrictive one. Moreover, setting it aside is not merely a choice you can make -- in many eyes it would be viewed as an abhorrence. Guest rights are crucially important -- that's why their invocation is powerful -- and deciding to only follow the rules when it's convenient?
That's what Loki does.
= = =
So what does all of this share in common, then?
Mantles are ways of interacting with the world, different from the official, approved modern-human-ness that you grew up with. Stories that originally existed inside you, but which the <REDACTED> of the plot in general allows you to push outwards. Sometimes that may function as a sort of reality-warping, steering the story. Sometimes it takes you away from stories you dislike. And sometimes it only affects yourself, rewriting the story of your own nature to something you find more fun, interesting, and likable.
This won't be your only chance to pick one, so don't think too hard about it.
I'm not going to explain what they are. You can make some guesses, and I have a fairly complete model of the underlying... physics... but figuring that out is one of the intended plot threads of the story. What I can tell you is what Sara knows, at the point in time of the opening, which is sometime in the future from where chapter 1 will be. In other words, this is simply expanding on what was suggested in the narrative.
If you're familiar with Dresden Files, you'll already have some idea. Apparently there's also a related concept in Pact, though I've never read it. Either way, the mantles of Dresden Files work the same way in some aspects... very differently in others.
= = =
When Sara was young(er), she came across a book in the library. This was a children's book, about a wolf-girl who became lost in the mountains and had to survive on her own. Slightly old-fashioned; there wasn't a happy ending, she never did find her family, and the moral of the book was largely "If you play around foolishly on the mountains, you may very well die!"
Lisa didn't die, but that was largely because Lisa isn't human. She repeatedly ran into problems that could very well have killed her, such as running out of food, being lost without shelter, or in one memorable scene being attacked by a bear. For some smaller problems she solved them with wit and knowledge, but the greater ones were only resolved by reference to inhuman attributes. She could hunt down rabbits, or curl up in a crack in the ground with her tail, or...
I've also read the book. The intent, I'm pretty sure, was that the child reading it should realize that since they lack sharpened teeth, preternatural quickness, or a tail (...), given the same situation they would simply not survive. It was a depressing book, at many points. I think in many cases that's what the takeaway would be.
It isn't what Sara took away from it.
She asked her parents for a copy for her birthday, and she spent the next couple of years repeatedly re-reading it, imagining herself in Lisa's role. It's what drove her lust for hiking, which admittedly hasn't been shown yet -- Rikke enjoys the exercise, but Sara always daydreams her way through it -- and she's spent years pretending she could talk to Lisa in her thoughts.
What of it, then, that Lisa started talking back?
The mantle of Lisa is primarily a person, with highly defined attributes, because that's what Sara focused on. Assuming she exists -- she might not, but at the current voting outcome she will -- then Sara has spent so much time thinking about her, she just automatically generates both sides of the conversation. Nothing magical about that. Authors do it all the time. Sara can't exactly control what Lisa says; but then she can't exactly control what Sara says, either, because there's not exactly someone there (besides Sara) to do the control. It's not quite plurality, and she's not quite a figment of her imagination. Children can have imaginary friends. It happens.
Of course then she realised they could swap places, or clothes, or bodies. They could swap minds, or else Sara and Lisa could just mix together into a blend of the both of them. And as Lisa received more exposure to the Real, she became ever less... predictable.
They're simultaneously best friends, siblings, and a figment of each other's imagination.
Sara rewrote the story quite significantly, in her head. She was never able to rewrite the core concept of Lisa, however: Lisa is lost.
= = =
The default mantle of Mia is something else again. Not a specific individual, but fairy-ness as a whole, viewed through the lens of Mia. The general... concept, I guess, of being freed from all obligations. Homework, sitting down for dinner, ...gravity, size, having a defined location. Mia is a daydreaming kid, Mia does not love school, and Mia's spent a lot of time dreaming of what it would be like not needing to... well, just not needing, in general.
"Pixie-ness" might be a better term, perhaps. If Mia were to wholly submerge herself in this concept, she might well pop like a soap bubble. She wouldn't disappear -- conservation of narratives is a thing -- but it's unclear if there would still be anyone named 'Mia' left to talk to.
She's a smarter kid than that, however.
= = =
@Nero200's suggestion is yet a third example. Again it's no-one in particular, but the Traveler is less a change to the wielder, more a forced perspective. The hosts and the guest are both pushed into a specific way of being, a set of rules based on old norse guest-rights and a thousand, thousand other stories, given so much collective inertia that breaking the rules could scarcely be comprehended. Even the old norse gods, when visiting their enemies, were able to rely on this concept.
Depth of history has value, but while this is a powerful mantle, it's also a restrictive one. Moreover, setting it aside is not merely a choice you can make -- in many eyes it would be viewed as an abhorrence. Guest rights are crucially important -- that's why their invocation is powerful -- and deciding to only follow the rules when it's convenient?
That's what Loki does.
= = =
So what does all of this share in common, then?
Mantles are ways of interacting with the world, different from the official, approved modern-human-ness that you grew up with. Stories that originally existed inside you, but which the <REDACTED> of the plot in general allows you to push outwards. Sometimes that may function as a sort of reality-warping, steering the story. Sometimes it takes you away from stories you dislike. And sometimes it only affects yourself, rewriting the story of your own nature to something you find more fun, interesting, and likable.
This won't be your only chance to pick one, so don't think too hard about it.
Last edited:
Vote closed
Statement of relocation
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
In light of not wanting to deal with SV anymore, I've moved the story to QQ. You can find it here. Yes, it's in the NSFW subforum; that's mostly because it's much higher traffic, and I didn't want it to languish unread. I'm hardly the first one to do that; you can expect that the story will remain at least as SFW as anything you can find in a bookshop.
...probably more so, considering some bookshops.
@Nero200, @Kim Bruning, @Quickshot0, @Thelxiope (if you see this), you'll need to redo your votes if you want them to count.
...probably more so, considering some bookshops.
@Nero200, @Kim Bruning, @Quickshot0, @Thelxiope (if you see this), you'll need to redo your votes if you want them to count.
Statement of cancellation
Baughn
Healing-type writer
- Location
- Dublin
Upon advise, and on further reflection, I've realised that relocating this to the NSFW subforum of QQ, when it's a story fundamentally about minors, is... actually rather bad optics, regardless of the story itself being SFW.
As such, it's not moving there, and it will remain cancelled until such a time as I find a different home for it, wherever that may be.
Sorry about that.
As such, it's not moving there, and it will remain cancelled until such a time as I find a different home for it, wherever that may be.
Sorry about that.