You have been taken by the Mists

Author Topic: A Dreadful Irony  (Read 1058 times)

tears_of_elysium

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A Dreadful Irony
« on: November 18, 2009, 05:02:26 PM »
"I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so
To punish me with this, and this with me,
That I must be their scourge and minister.
I will bestow him, and will answer well
The death I gave him. So again good night.
I must be cruel only to be kind.
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind."


~ Hamlet Act 3, scene 4, 173–179.
« Last Edit: November 18, 2009, 09:15:15 PM by tears_of_elysium »

tears_of_elysium

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Re: A Dreadful Irony
« Reply #1 on: November 18, 2009, 09:15:29 PM »
   The village where Lucian lived was one of perhaps 200 people, who had little reason to call it anything in particular, because to them, it was just "the village". If the von Zaroviches or the Boyar within whose domain the village nominally rested had a special name for it, it mattered little to those who dwelt there. Every so often, an official looking tax collector on a horse arrived, having managed to negotiate the often treacherous path through the foothills of the mighty balinoks to reach the mountain dell in which the village sheltered. With a regularity far more dependable than the arrival of such a representative, the Barovian farmers and goatherds gathered and grinned to each other as they watched the horseman depart in short order, a disgusted look on his face. For the most part, though, the outside world had as little use for the village as the village had for it, and the seasons came and went, filled with meaning, tradition, and folk tales told to small children around hearth fires.

tears_of_elysium

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Re: A Dreadful Irony
« Reply #2 on: November 18, 2009, 09:48:12 PM »
   Even from an early age, though, Lucian knew that the stories and tales were more than imaginings of his parents and the older wives of the village. Sometimes, a villager would go missing, and while everybody blamed the mountain weather, or even wolves, Lucian couldn't imagine a storm or wild beast that could take somebody from their bed where they lay, or snatch up a straggling villager without trace after nightfall. Quietly, the villagers mouthed names of evils older than the stories that had grown up around them: "Vrolok", or "Neuri" , making the warding signs against evil as they did so. Lucian learnt the gestures by heart, in case he should ever meet one, whatever they really looked like, and hoped he would never need to use them in truth.

   Lucian and his twin brother were only children, an unusual situation for a village with families that frequently numbered more than ten, that did not escape comment. Lucian's father was considered one of the village's leaders, and often made decisions when they needed to be made. Several families complained that Lucian's father was content to be in charge, but not to do his share of the work, a situation which Lucian's father was very aware of. He frequently took his frustrations out on the twins and their mother, leaving Lucian's brother Petrov shy, withdrawn, and silent, while fuelling in Lucian a fierce temper, stubborness, and resilience. Their mother, though, bore the worst of their father's rages, enduring them as if to shield her sons from the full brunt of their father's rages. This was the only small mercy in the otherwise harsh life of subsistence under the shadow of the mountains above.

  
« Last Edit: November 18, 2009, 10:00:20 PM by tears_of_elysium »