Opalite Wires

crowned High Anthem just as those of Avuckka had their talons' grip on Low. It had been this way since before even the Tragic War, and -- unlike other inhabitants of High, who would on occasion drift down to Low, those of Ckorassackea feather remained above the dark.

Superficially, there were many similarities between those of Ckrossackea and Avucckakea passerine; most limbs and sensory organs were in symmetrical pairs, they bore beaks and bladed feet, fingered, thumbed hands, and so on -- but no passerine would ever call them the same as they. It was said and believed of them, with some wonder and some fear, that they were beings of a different sort, something part feather and part condensation, beings spun from bone and cloud, closer to skybeasts and precipitation than mere blood-and-flesh passerine. They were fairies. They spoke with eloquence, only the truth, and bore strange powers of foresight concerning the weather and the stars; they glistened with a color which could not be seen in Low.

Should any passerine come into contact with any Ckrossackea, that passerine would know (it was said) because those of Ckrossackea were generally of shorter stature than a passerine. Ckrossackea might not know manners or the accepted social behaviors of the time or place, they might not know the language. If they were in Low at all, it meant they wanted something which would fulfill their ambiguous pleasure, and they would likely pursue this thing until they possessed it to their liking.

Labels: beings, narrator, passerine

along the cliffs, and the passerine clustered and swarmed about like bees. Groups of friends and family and children of the same clutch wove volatile scarves from the main body of Quartzal, and back up — bus ferry pints drawn by passerine or other pinnaer studded the sky with passengers and cargo — everyone was always speaking or singing or screeching and in general there was never quiet moment.

Planks and thick poles stuck out from the caves, or else straight from the cliffwalls themselves, providing landing and perching areas for anyone who needed them. Only very occasionally would any of these poles fall, and never usually to any injury greater than broken feathers. They withstood the weight and shifting and crashing and clutch of passerine talons very well.

Many years after the War, adamant, dense scrubs and cliff trees had also grown in the crevices of the cliffs, their roots entwined and deep-seated in the vugs, their boles and boughs stone-hard and shaped like clenched fists and outstretched fingers, respectively.

The royalty of Avuckka inhabited other lands belonging to the flock in the Feathered Trenches. To supervise Avuckka, they delegated a wingful of representatives to watch over the place and maintain community meetings, and for the most part, as with most flocks, Quartzal operated independently, with each passerine supervising their own economies, and deferring to the delegates only in matters of crime or infrastructure, as when nests threatened cave-in, or planks became loose, or the walkers of Quartzal picked fights with the passerine over land and noise pollution.

Labels: narrator

was uneven and bulging. It was located directly above Agatava Grade, and was hewn into the cliffs. It was all large caverns or huge gapes exposed to the air, or else bulbous growths of architecture protruding out like tree fungi, bridged or else connected by bus ferry pints that brought people up and down and sideways.

It had been easy to establish Quartzal. The War had aided in the destruction of more stubborn clutches of stone, and the cliffs were veined with vugs that guided further structural carving. The stone fell away in glistening fragments and made for pavement of semi-precious quartz and calcite and armordory and featherinium.

Quartzal was one of the broadest grades in Anthem Low, by virtue of its sprawling and seeping through the stone and adjacent air. In the highest portions of Quartzal, in the skitter of small and disconnected caves, passerine and reared their young in the glitter of deeper niches. Squabs spent their youth scrabbling blindly until the day their parents brought them to the planks to let the misty sunlight of Quartzal's ephemeral dawn open their eyes.

Labels: low anthem, narrator

where Terrai Satin Prass had purchased land after the War with the majority of the diamond medals he had won after the affair. The medals had been pried from the foreheads of skybeasts and shaped with gentle washes of acid, and the stuff in general was of no real use except to proffer when bragging; but he kept one still, in honor of the wife he'd lost, and this was the one that hung in the Centra, beneath the mounting of her left horn.

Terrai was the second-largest ungu landholder in Low Anthem, and its territory spanned from the highest acres of Gypspar to the southeast wall that bordered Galenaver. Its Centra was on one of the most elevated points of Gypspar, and overlooked the rest of the Grade, as well as the semi-circle of other establishments below. The land was partitioned into districts: one that housed, trained, and cared for separated grades of a'ehra; one to process the yield, cleaning, dying, and reworking; and one for general residence.

One side of their lands faced the Via, and for this reason it was some of the most valuable land in all of Low. It cut the runners and the transporters out, and especially for a producer of raw materials and cloths as Terrai, this was very advantageous.

Labels: narrator

true to tradition, met their new mentors and classmates, who would become as close to them as their own parents and siblings. Terrai was a prosperous clan and had many grades of a'ehra, and after some months of allowing Leucan's hair to grow, they determined her of high quality, and she was sent with the other high-grade a'ehra daughters and sons, for proper treatment and training.

Aucomis was something else. He was sent to be with the clan leaders, to be with other ohrkha, his parents assumed, proudly. After the sending-away ceremony they never saw him in public; but they were given access to the Centra itself, during delegated visiting hours, and oftentimes Boula would tag along with her parents, to see how her brother was doing. Back when the three of them were younger and his hair was still short and of irregular growing periods, they were able to see him most of the time; but now when they went he was usually not there, and their visits turned from daily to weekly to monthly to quarterly.

For Boula, of course, there was not much. She tried apprenticing with the personal assistants and weavers, as her father and mother were respectively, but she found no love for it; and so finally her parents suggested schooling.

Labels: narrator

Her birth had been disconcerting -- it was, in the old language, baa'er, or eclipse-like. Her older sister had been a'ehra, perfect and pure white, and then had come Boula, her entrance a maelstrom of piebald curls.

Thereafter they feared the remaining child was also to be hehrum, but his own birth was like a burst of the sun, and so Boula's birth turned from suspicious to auspicious, and they gave her the name of the one who had wiped the blood and pus from the flesh to make way for strength.

The a'ehra they named Leucan and the ohrkha they named Aucomis, and they received much praise, and were anticipated.

Labels: narrator