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Worldbuilding Blogfest #5: Story excerpt
The final post in the Worldbuilding Blogfest – full list of participants here – is an excerpt from the work in progress. This obviously poses a bit of a problem for me because I went and changed everything. I tried writing some snippets from the new version, but I don’t really have a good enough handle on it to write it yet; I’m not sure who the characters are, or how closely it’s going to resemble the previous plot. So here’s an excerpt from the original story, “Angelcutters”, in which Franza, the protagonist, is investigating a murder that she’s really not supposed to be looking into.
Since this was not work-related, only a favor for a friend, it was after dark before I had the opportunity to fly up the fog-draped cliffs of the city’s towers to Angeltown. As a mezzano, I couldn’t own property here, but I had been up a few times on business, enough to know my way around. I flew over gorgeous and bizarre mansions, some designed in the shape of flowers or dragons, some like elaborate fairytale wonderlands, others resembling many-layered holiday ornaments. In the sun they dazzled the eye. And the view on a clear day was glorious; one could see out of the city, down the stair-steps of the terraced fields descending into the valley–all the way to the sharp-edged mountain peaks raking the sky, draped with the graceful lines of cargo trams.
Tonight, however, rain and gloom blotted out the mansions’ exquisite artistry and concealed the view in fog. Rehial and Lamiah’s house was surrounded by level upon level of hanging gardens, their complex topiary no doubt tended and trimmed by an army of mezzano gardeners.
A short mezzano housekeeper opened the door for me, her status in the household evident from the large ring of keys clattering at her belt. She was blonde, a color so rare in mezzano that I suspected she’d bleached it, particularly since it was piled on her head and tumbled over her shoulders in a pretentious heap of curls that mimicked the Angels’ elaborate, impractical hairstyles. Most of us mezzano wear our hair short so that it doesn’t foul our wings or tangle in the wind.
“I’m here to see Lady Lamiah,” I said.
The housekeeper scowled at me. “The lady is not in.”
“Then may I see her husband?” I never actually said it was official business, but tried to put the implication out there.
Sullenly she escorted me through hallways with arched ceilings and huge windows looking out on the dark, rainy gardens. There were plants everywhere, exotic types in ceramic pots with rich floral displays. The housekeeper glared at me when I reached curiously to touch one glossy leaf. She refused all my efforts to make friendly conversation, regarded me with suspicious distaste and left me in a well-lit audience chamber, where moments later, a maid brought me a plate of sliced fruit–”From the gardens,” she murmured, bowing herself out on whisper-soft bare feet.
It was astonishingly quiet here. Other than the splashing of rainwater outside the windows, the only sound was my own heartbeat. When I reached for a slice of fruit, the creak of my wet jacket broke the silence like a burst of raucous laughter.
I wondered what it would be like to grow up in such a place. No loud neighbors quarreling with each other and netting pigeons from their balconies; no delinquent teenagers darting between illicit laundry lines. No need to tie a piece of string across the door to tell if someone had broken in and stolen your meager possessions.
But crimes still happened here, hushed up quickly and quietly by the Silver Guard. Something had caused a woman from one of these quiet, beautiful houses–perhaps this one–to end up in the Big Midden with every bone in her body broken by the fall.
“Detective?”
I dropped the fruit, uneaten, and rose quickly to bow as the speaker glided into the room. His face was too angular to be called handsome, even if one allowed for the black-to-the-edge eyes that gave his gaze a vacant quality. Wheat-blond hair fell down his back in a glossy cascade.
“You don’t have an appointment,” he said, and I knew his voice then. I had last heard it issuing from a Silver Guard mask. I tried to make my face blank. I had no idea if he recognized me, but how could he not?
“I have a package for the Lady Lamiah,” I said, stiff-lipped.
“My wife is out of town. I will see that she gets it.”
I bowed again. “My instructions are to deliver it into her hands. When will she return?”
It was hard to read his expressionless face, his empty black eyes, but he drew his shoulders back and his hands flexed. “I am her husband.”
“It’s nothing to do with you, m’lord,” I said. “But I have my instructions. May I write her a note?”
I scrawled: “Honored Lady: I have a package for you. Please contact Detective Franza in care of Station House. Your servant, Det. Franza.”
Rehial took it with one gloved hand and turned his back, dismissing me rudely. The housekeeper, who had been hovering nearby, saw me out. My back was clammy with sweat.
Once we were out of Rehial’s earshot, I tried asking the housekeeper, “So what is it like, working in Angeltown? My mother was a cook and I grew up underfoot in kitchens, but we never worked anywhere so fancy.”
No response. Her face was like stone. I’d never met servants who weren’t eager to gossip as soon as their masters and mistresses were gone. But these were–cowed, I thought. Or maybe scared stiff. I glimpsed a maid dusting something down a hallway; she glanced at me and just as quickly looked away.
“My name is Franza,” I tried one last time. “You can find me at Station House, or send a message and I can meet you –”
She closed the door on me. I flew away thoughtfully, glancing back at the house over my shoulder, apprehension crawling in my veins.
Crossposted to Wordpress, Livejournal and Dreamwidth. Comment wherever you like.
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And I'm glad you like my hypothetical SGA AU of your not-yet-existing story *g*
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If the dolphin people basically look like dolphins, why do they build cities? What would these cities even look like? I love the idea of coral cities, but I'm not sure why building them would be an advantage for actual dolphins.
Haha, it would indeed be very difficult for Rodney. That's probably why he's friends with Teyla, because she's more willing than most to listen to him and acquire some materials. Or maybe there are very smart crabs or something that live together with the dolphins? (Radek? *g*)
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The idea that appeals to me most is that the cities are built to demonstrate scientific principles and/or as a kind of art. They don't need to, but they like to. Resource scarcity is not really a problem for them at this point -- there's all the food they need, and they don't really want stuff. So they travel around, gossip with anybody who will hold still long enough, ponder advanced fluid mechanics and mathematics, and build cities with complicated archways and towers to physically test their mathematical discoveries ... basically their equivalent of a peer-reviewed journal, and an art form too!
I could even keep the murder-mystery aspect of the original, if perhaps a dolphin turns up dead of clearly foul play, and they have to turn to the land-dwellers to solve the crime, because murder and deception is something that the dolphins just don't do, so they have no idea how to even begin. (Though I must stop thinking of my main dolphin and Fisher character as Rodney and Teyla. It just ... fits so well ... *g*)
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My little brother, who studies math, says that most mathematical formula can be represented as 3D-structures in several different ways, and often you can only get back to the original formula if you know which system they were using. So obviously there are codes hidden in the sculptures, and it depends on which corals you use and which part it's built on, etc. etc. Different "cities" sometimes have rivalries because they're "built on" different theories and if one is disproven a lot would have to be taken down, or very different area of mathematics and they each think theirs is more important, or some put more emphasis on aesthetics than others, and one of the complicated parts is that theoretically you could hide messages in the sculptures if you use a different formula->sculpture mapping system... Or maybe you have young dolphins one or two generations later who want to build coral cities just for fun, putting together formulas how they fit and look well and not according to some scientific principle. (Different dolphin tribes further away aren't interested in mathematics but tell each other long epics and sagas instead!) You could find enough possible murder motives!
Dolphins and Fishers, or one of each, working together would be great, and depending on the POV it would be very interesting to describe the other's surroundings and try to solve a crime despite such a different culture. Rodney and Teyla really would fit very well! I wouldn't worry too much about it: they're not too distinctive to people who aren't very into SGA and easy to "disguise" a bit, and from what I've heard filing off serial numbers has become more and more popular anyway ;)