Norrolith

This heat is not a temperature It is a weight, a drag on ones bones. It settles around ones shoulders, limply hanging. It is a slope towards shadows and places of rest, A climb up level open cliffs called parking lots. One steps inside, and over the course of long minutes It uncoils and falls away in thick salty layers. To go back and take them up again is herculean.

The merchant Banmot surveyed the wreckage in the streets, and the woman who had created it. Three men had leapt from the crowd, knives drawn. Banmot had thought he was going to see the Triple Gate before the woman-thing had intervened. She hadn't moved, one moment she was respectfully behind him, the next she was amongst the assasins, knocking one into the next. She crouched for a moment in the dust of the street, her bald head corpse pale under the dessert sun. The assasins recovered, and began to circle her. She watched them circle and retreated, herding Banmot towards a wall. He wanted to run, but there might be more in the corwds, and s

I am the knives’ edge, the division of space. The vanes and thrusters that are my arms claw for acceleration, my engineheart pounding. The space between my target and I narrows, the corvette not able to match my speed. It turn then, fire rippling down its flank as it fires off a broadside. The shells have barely cleared their muzzles by the time I have found my way through them. I skip, my analogies breaking down as I dart forward. Interfaces and intuition serve to describe this moment, but only to a limited extent. I abandon all pretenses at being humanoid, forget hands and feet, forgo eyes in favor of vector fields and projected inter

There is a dragon, canny and crafty. An old wyrm grown complacent with the centuries. Through inattention and trickery the unthinkable happened. Cast out from his home, at an age too venerable to carve himself a new legend, the dragon felt despair close around his heart. he flew, from the usurper and the old enemies he never thought himself to come amongst again, he fled. He found a river, and a kingdom there. It stank of sheep and cattle, was backwards in every regard. But it had that shimmering whiff of prosperity, and that was all the dragon sought. He wasted no time in striking, butchering the wooden wagons for their golden hearts. Embol

 There is a city, on the banks of wide, slow river, in a green valley. The winters were harsh, but the summers long and mild, and the fields always verdant. The area was known for its wool and cheese, and many, many brokers converged on its walls in shearing season. It did have walls, and a respectable army, but mostly it got by being useful to all it’s neighbors, a position where no one wanted to go to all the bother of conquering and keeping it against the others. Eventually though, a dragon arrived. its kind are generally known for their lack of diplomacy and this one wasted no time in establishing itself the uncrowned ruler of the

I offer nothing in my defense, Within my wirligig words, are battered, tumbled concepts. There is a limit to how well I will bring each one to earth but these have been random. Lighting strikes jotted down in the evenings. It's not monitor glow but forced inspiration keeping me up. So, from fevered moments or long dull minutes I have conjured them. I hope they serve their purpose whether it's the one I intended or happy happenstance. No regrets, no warranty express or implied.

Locked up, I can't confess That I really want to change. The situations bad, sure, but I could just ride it out. That would be easier, but going in circles goes nowhere. So I guess I need to stop, keeping conversation with myself and answer the question. “No, I'm not doing anything tonight.” Babysteps, but I'm moving.