815 words of random world/character building. Couldn't think of a satisfactory way to wrap it off, so it cuts off at the end.
A crack echoes through the skies. A tiny stream of red falls down to the ground below. And that stream flows from the wounds of a man, one arm hanging down to scrape the top of the clouds. In the background, a city looms, its skyline punctuated by gasbags and the atmosphere tainted with the taste of ozone.
This is Varus.
Before us lies a square, in the centre of which is the wreckage of a fallen airship. Heat and light bathes the figures there - two sides, waging war high above the ground. One side is dressed in gold and crimson, tailored attire gleaming with medals and accomplishments. The other seems only united by their lack of uniform - their grey and brown rags, their slipshod furs and hides.
And amongst these one man stands above them all. Bare chested and thick muscled, the pistol he cradles in his one gloved hand seems dwarfed by the fingers that wrap around it. But it is his other hand that causes fear as he raises it, as lightning flies from its palm into the chest of a charging guard. There is a bang, followed by a brief silence, as the discharge arcs into a gas cell, and a number of bodies fly up only to plunge over the edge. The marauder - as he is known - only laughs.
His real name is not known to the guards, nor to the men under him - but regardless, his mother called him Sky. A word synonymous with hope in the minds of many ground communities. Unfortunately, not the one into which he was born. His mother was lynched for the name - dragged from her home and beaten before the eyes of her newborn son. The mob did not kill her, but the damage was done - her body broken and her mind more so, she perished in Sky’s third year.
Sky was raised by the village elders. Of course, he was no longer known as Sky. In a fit of irony, his elders renamed him Rock - and they taught him to hate. They taught of the Great War, the ravaging, as only the groundlings can. Of the aggressive Varus, and of how they crushed the earth so that it could no longer sustain them, before taking to their flying cities to gloat. On Varus, they tell a rather different tale, of a corrupt and greedy world who brought about their own demise - who can say which is true? But Rock never heard this second tale. Rock heard of the city who had ruined the world, of the people who laughed at his suffering through the banks of clouds, and he stewed in hatred.
Then, in his tenth year, the test came. For the reason Varus had been able to rise above the ashes that was the Earth was because strange power ran in the blood of their people - men and women who could cast flames from their bare hands - and even cause a city to fly. Down below, however, such talents were as rare as the blood of Varus. And so the young were tested. Because control of that blood could change the supposed suppression into a war - and a war could be won. As you can see, Rock passed the test. It was not a pleasant test - the young boy was left alone in the wilderness for three nights. When the elders returned for him they found him surrounded by the charred and butchered corpses of a number of foxes - one of the few creatures that had actually managed to recover fully from the ravaging.
On that day, Rock became Spark. Another name for another role. the boy learnt to master his gifts as he also learnt to fight, and he became a man. The elders watched him, proud of the weapon they were making. But when he asked leave to build a ship and launch a raid on Varus, they denied him. they would not risk their asset for anything short of total victory. But they had underestimated the strength of his hate - it was only when all but one was dead that the last granted the youth permission. Then he too was murdered, his blood seeping into the brown dirt, turning it crimson.
The village under Spark was a hard place. Those who could not fight worked to build and repair a fleet of ships - those that could faced an uncertain fate up above the clouds. Some returned laden with food and goods, whilst others never came back at all. The only constant victor was Spark. Even when all his companions perished, he would return, raid accomplished. For the people of Varus had forgotten their gifts long ago. Faced by a man who could wield nature itself as a weapon they could only break.
Author
Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___ (Read 309310 times)