Chapter1
AN. this is the first story I have ever written for Fanfic at least I don't have to write a disclaimer as it is based on a Greek myth. Well, hope you don't find it too boring.
Prologue:
If you were a fly on the wall, so to speak, at the right time and place you would be amazed by the things you could see. Flies see everything. At first the Gods were worried by this as flies were therefore able to see many things they should not but a flies IQ is not much higher than the dirt and muck they feed on and so are not able to interfere, question or change anything and have no means of telling other people about the things they see or hear and so the Gods could not be bothered to do anything about them yet.
One such fly is flying over the surface of a large lake, its blue-green waters are rippling slightly in the warm, gentle breeze and the fly is skimming over the surface looking for things to eat and trying to avoid being eaten by the fat, lazy fish that are swimming beneath the surface. In the middle of the lake there are two beings reclining on a sofa that is almost impossible to see and is floating just above the water. Although the fly does not know it, it is looking at Poseidon, God of the sea and Selene Goddess of the moon. Poseidon looks like he was made from a blue-green material and then painted over with the correct colours but the blue-green still seems to show. Selene looks like she was made from silver and grey materials, her skin has a silver hue, her hair is silver-grey, her dress is silver-white with deeper grey shadows, her eyes are grey and her lips look like they were once red but now have a silver sheen.
"Shall we play one more game before we have to attend the Council? I think it is Ares again, probably done something stupid, offended someone and coursed a fight." Poseidon said
"Well he would, wouldn't he." Said Selene irritably. "Yes, let's play a game before we have to attend that infernal meet. What shall we play? Unstable Empire again, or maybe something new?"
"Something new I think," Said Poseidon thoughtfully, "how about New Planet, or maybe Tyrant?"
"I've played New Planet quite recently. Let's play Tyrant; we haven't played that for a while. Which side will you be?"
"I think I fancy the Tyrant." Poseidon answered, "What Map shall we have this time, Earth maybe?"
"Yes Earth sounds good." Answered Selene. Poseidon spread out his fingers and swept them over the sea surface in front of them.
The fly flits closer. A large area in front of the two Gods is now glassy smooth. It shows a map. This map is of a world. The Gods now bend over it taking. When they touch the water, ripples spread from their fingers to the edge of the map shattering the image. When the map reassembles it is a close up of the point they touched. The fly looks on uncomprehendingly as armies march.
Leave the fly now and look down across the sea. There is a very large land mass that is wide at the top but as it stretches south towards the pole it tapers off. A way off the coast by the big end there is a small group of tiny little islands huddling together. On one of these islands there lives a small tribe of olive skinned natives. The island is called, at least by the natives, Hytagaris (pronounce: hu-wee-tagh-aah-ris). The natives do have primitive canoes but these flimsy crafts could not survive in open water and so the natives have never been further than the other islands and so they know nothing of the rest of the world around them and the islands very existence is unknown to the rest of the world, the natives have their own little haven.
Sadly not for much longer. From the land called Crete three explorers were sent by the king there to explore for lands unconquered and new. These three ships travel across what is know known as the Mediterranean Sea. They have been raiding villages along the coast of Africa and looting them for goods, food and even people. When their ships are full they take their goods back to Crete to the king. The ships pass over villages already looted by them unless they need food or supplies. The ships are now nearing what is now called the Straights of Gibraltar and they are heading for a bad storm.
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On the inhabited island, Ruatonim (pronounce: Ruw-at-tone-im) threw a log on the flames which was licking hungrily around the wood in the fire place, a tricky manoeuvre for someone with a broken leg. It had been smashed by a Raeraccs (pronounce: Rah-eir-aks) or water lion when he stumbled on a mother nursing her cubs when he was hunting. Raeraccs have gills as well as lungs and teeth like a sabre-toothed-tiger. Ruatonims Bond, the natives on Hytagaris did not marry they became Bonded, was called Kataalac (pronounce: Cah-tal-ah) but his pet name for her was Arinadna meaning Spear Maiden and she called him Minotaur as that was his name when said backwards and in their language it meant bull. Kataalac came over to him and helped him with the wood he was struggling with. She was only around twenty, about the same age as him, and she was heavy with child. Their first son, Icaieris (pronounce: Ih-kai-rh-is) was one year and asleep on her hip, she laid him down in their cradle by the fire, it was made with soft animal skin hung in a wooden frame. His red hair was the same as his mothers and, though his eyes were shut in sleep, Ruatonim knew they were deep brown the same as his.
"It's a beautiful evening," said Kataalac, "like the night we were bonded, do you remember?"
"Yes." Said Ruatonim. He gazed out at the skies through the open window. It was deep velvet blue, though through the other open window you could see the sun in its last death throws – Phinixac (pronounce: Fee-nih-iks-ah-c)– was their name for the sun, the same as the red-gold bird that in death burst into flames but still rose the next day from the ashes. It was sometimes seen in the woods. He remembered. He remembered their bonding night, after a whole day with two of their hands tied together – his left and her right. He remembered brushing her long red hair for her, her sea green eyes sparkling through a copper mist as she ran her long fingers through his dark blue-black hair. Everything she did was made from grace itself, even when large with child, and their first night together as bonds, he would never forget it.
She smiled at him, also remembering. She placed her hand on her stomach, "Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?" She asked him.
"It doesn't matter to me, so long as it's ours. We already have one beautiful son. Little Ick does look a bit tiered right now though!" He chuckled.
"When do you think I'll be able to hunt again? It's awful being cooped up like this, can't run, can't jump about, can't hunt, can't drink, can't do anything!" She looked wistfully at the snarling Naishk (pronounce: Nay-ish-ck) head nailed to the wall. Naishk were distantly related to the Raeraccs but were pure black, not red-brown-yellowish, sometimes with a few white slashes across their muzzles and were much rarer. She had brought it down with a Kaeer, a short hand held spear, when she was swimming in the bay, quite a way from the village.
Ruatonim grinned, "I think most of the young men are glad of it, it seriously damages their egos to be beaten by women in 'masculine' activities such as hunting and archery. They get big headed ideas about men being better than women just because women have to take a few months of if they want to have children. Even I did!"
"Yes, but you learnt your lesson fast!" she said.
"Well it was more like, learn the lesson or have it pounded into you and branded on your forehead for a month!"
"Hey!" She jumped at him and knocked him over. They wrestled playfully with each other for a moment, Ruatonim knew she should not jump around so much but then she would probably go mad if she could not even attack him to tell him off.
As the fiery Phinixac finally sank below the horizon in a last burst of flame on the warm summer night, Kataalac rose and covered the fire. The two of them went to sleep on the furs in the corner of the darkened hut.
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Kataalac awoke very early, she always did. She dressed and went from the living part of the hut to the working part. Clambering over the pots and tools littering the floor in ordered chaos she stepped out side into the chill morning air. It was cool and fresh, but not really cold, and the sun had yet to rise but there was grey morning light filtering from over the horizon and it was enough to see by. Kataalac wended her way among the tall trees and undergrowth, following a half hidden animal track, almost impossible to make out unless you knew it was there. It was dark under the canopy and she followed the track along way, never getting lost, she had been this way many times before although the track looked disused. Eventually it came out onto a shear cliff, the trees marching right up to the edge and leaning over staring down at the crashing waves below, it was almost as though the edge of the forest had just dropped away beneath the waves, maybe it had.
Racshyahrmalrl (pronounce: Rash-yah-mal-le), she called it, which meant Landsfall/death, it was her own private place. There was a long cliff, it stretched all the way around to the bay but hear there was a high Knoll. It was the highest point of the entire island and at the very top, leaning out over empty space was an old, gnarled tree. Its thick branches were twisted and one long one curved out over the edge. Kataalac walked up the steep slope to the tree. It was a relatively easy climb and she had done this every morning since she was 14 and knew it like the back of her hand. She climbed out onto the branch and soon was sitting out on the branch with her legs dangling over the void.
She sat in silence staring out over the waves. The sky was beginning to lighten to a pale blue, soon it became golden then the crimson Phinixac came over the horizon, reborn again for a new day in a wash of amber and peach while its twin image shimmered on the waves below.
She watched the rebirth of the Phinixac in silence. She sighed, another dawn, another day. She was miserable, she wasn't even aloud to go swimming.
Two children will be quite enough for me. She thought. This is the second distressingly long pregnancy I have endured and two children will be quite enough for me. I can't wait till I can hunt again, I love to hunt.
Suddenly she stopped her musing. Oh holy Kra what is that! She clambered down the branch as quickly as she could, slipping and grazing her hands and feet on the rough bark, she threw out her hand for the next branch as her feet were slipping. She missed. For a perilous moment she was falling, then she found the branch but now she was hanging over the terrifying drop above jagged rocks and deep waters. The thin branch she was clutching was digging into her skin. She pulled up against it and swung out violently with her other hand desperately trying to grasp a sturdier branch. She missed and as she fell back down and her weight pulled downwards on the branch there was aloud creaking and then a sickening splintering sound, it snapped. She was falling. A loud cry ripped through her lips. She was falling, falling, falling, the world was whistling around her and the crash of the hungry waves below was drawing closer. Suddenly as she was twisting and writhing through the air there was a terrible pain all down her right side, she had struck rock. Hands torn and slick with blood she grasped at the jagged protrusion, hanging on for dear life.
AN. Bit of a Cliffy here, literally, well hope you've enjoyed the first chapter of the very first story I've written for Fanfic, hope it wasn't too boring, I only typed 2155 words.
