Legend of Laputa
By Delta Knight
It began with a simple windmill. The people built the windmill on the side of a verdant hill, and, predictably, used the windmill to refine grains, yet it was a windmill like no other.
More windmills grew up around the original. Tall windmills, wide windmills, four-bladed windmills, five bladed windmills, and so on. These windmills powered more advanced machinery.
Soon, they carved mines into the hill. Then the next hill over. Then the hill past that. Eventually, the entire range became webbed with an intricate labyrinth of caverns, used and unused.
When they discovered a new element in the deepest, darkest part of the mines, at first they knew not how they could extract it in pure form. It didn't take long, however, for them to unlock the secret. Now they could use Etherium.
Around the same time, the people harnessed lifting gases. First non-rigid airships, then dirigibles, then Zeppelins soared through the skies.
The people used Etherium and lifting gases together to make indescribably magnificent airships when both technologies advanced to a high level. They realized that there was no need to bind one's soul to the Earth when one could live freely in the sky. So they assembled the largest fleet of airships ever, and it became the home of myriad lives.
However, the airships became undesirable when the people designed yet another new technology. Cramped, cold, loud, gaseous airships once again entered use primarily as transports. In the airships' stead, massive plates, miles across, ascended high into the sky on the wings of Etherium. Upon the plates arose grasslands, forests, lakes, rivers, hills, mountains, valleys, glaciers…and cities. As the plates multiplied, so did their combined grandeur.
Yet all of the sparks of culture and civilization in history are merely distant stars in the night compared to the daytime sun.
The great city of Laputa appeared. It was a celestially immense flying structure, which served as the glorious capital of the greatest civilization ever to breathe the Earth's air. For over a millennium Laputa dominated the world win an unrivaled display of supremacy.
Then its people abandoned it, in favor of the yearned Earth.
It's still out there somewhere.
The lost city of Laputa.
Author's notes:
Yet another one of my drabbles that I wrote when I was bored. Specifically, I wrote this one when I was bored in English class yesterday.
Tell me what you think.
Update 01/24/11:
Well, it's been a few years, and in the last few weeks I've already taken a few steps towards possibly climbing out of the coffin that has kept me from posting anything anywhere on the internet. So I was purging my profile of deeply embarrassing stories I wrote way back when, took a look at this narrative I composed when half-asleep one morning in English class back in high school, and thought to myself, Hey, that's not so bad, as long as I clean it up a bit. So I meticulously got rid of the passive voice and made a few other minor edits. Enjoy!
-Delta