I always felt a certain wistfulness before I went out on a new trip. It is difficult to explain. Part of me yearned to see new lands, to find new things, to record them and add my little footnote to the annals of history. There was another part, however, that sounded louder and louder as my years advanced and the trappings of a sedentary life felt more like a warm, weighty blanket than a cold anchor.
I longed to settle down.
I had never given much thought to finding a husband -- normally, it was task enough to look after myself, let alone take on another -- even though I enjoyed my occasional and all-too infrequent dalliances with men. A home, however, a place you could be reasonably sure would free of many of the things in the world of Korin that would kill you, that was another story altogether. There were many days when I envied anyone who could take care of their morning constitutional without scouting the area, first.
My thoughts were heading toward that gloom as I looked about my small tavern room for what would certainly be the last time in a long while -- perhaps the last time ever. It had been a tidy, warm place. That night, it would welcome another.
I lifted myself on my toes and then settled on my heels, testing out my new boots. Combined with a new set of trousers -- I rarely felt comfortable in women's clothes, even when I wasn't traveling -- a thick but soft shirt, wide belt and stuff leather vest, I felt better equipped for this journey than any other. That was one benefit of working with the Ministry for Human Preservation I had discovered: they provided enough coin for some decent traveling gear as well as modest expenses of the road. With a nod, I headed down the stairs.
Seymuhr and Broo Fang Tane were already at a table, the latter hunched into a hooded cloak. Tane was a monk, an Optimist, whose order was dedicated to spreading hope and reminding the residents of Korin that things were not always as bad as they seemed -- a dangerous message in at a time when...well, at any time in Korin. Our world could be a silly place, but it was always a dangerous one. Seymuhr was licking out his bowl of spider porridge, intent, from the look in his eye, at swallowing every last sodden appendage. Porridge stuck to his sparse beard like lichen when he pulled the bowl away and reluctantly set it down.
"Fresh from the web!" He said as I sat across from him.
"Wonderful." I never shared his taste for spider -- nobody I had ever met enjoyed them as much as he did. I hoped that Dervan, or the road north, had more plentiful food supply. The tavern wench saw me sit and soon came over with a mug of warm ale. She offered to fetch me a bowl of spider porridge, too.
"Do you have anything else? Eggs, perhaps?"
She brightened. "We have spider eggs! Would you like that, instead?"
My stomach heaved. "I'll just take a muffin, then."
"One spidernut muffin, on the way. Good choice, too. They're very moist."
"Wonderful." I said again and turned to Tane. "Are you not eating this morning?"
Seymuhr answered with a bark of laughter. "He already tried! He had a bowl of fruit in front of him and was about to dig in to it when a woman scooped it up, spat in it and then crushed most of it on his head. Show Mira! Come! Come! Show her!"
When he did not, Seymuhr pushed back Tane's hood. I shook my head; it looked as if the poor monk had rolled down a hill and crashed through an orchard. Still, when I looked around the tavern, I saw no blood. No bodies.
"And you didn't kill anyone?"
Tane wiped yellow fruit from his head and flicked it on the ground. Behind me, I heard a woman laugh and slap a table repeatedly. Tane shook his head. His eyes were closed and he was breathing deeply.
"Well, you should be proud then. You are taking another journey toward the peace you long for."
"And you'll have plenty to eat on the way," Seymuhr said. He leaned forward and snatched a chunk of fruit from Tane's ear, sniffed it, then popped it in his mouth. That brought another round of laughter and table-slapping from behind me. Tane didn't say anything. He just pulled his hook back up and hunched further.
I decided to eat my spidernut muffin as quickly as my stomach would allow.
Thanks for reading! In his creative writing Masterclass, Neil Gaiman stressed the importance of writing frequently, every day if possible. "You have to get the bad stories out," he said. That's what this blog is, in part. Admittedly, I don't always put a lot of thought into these entries; they are merely a way for me to: (a) test out a few jokes and make fun of the genre; (b) work on dialogue and scene; (c) develop the world of Korin, where my real fantasy stories take place and (d) appear busy while I eat lunch, so I can avoid human interaction. Feel free to let me leave a comment or critique. I always like to know what works and what doesn't.
