Young Writers Society

School has started for me, but I have the entire novel written, so should be able to continue posting it regularly.

The second part of chapter seven reprises Luanna (after how long...?), and has a scene between Tey and Jyuna which is easily my favorite so far. But I'll shut up now and let you read.

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“Where are we going?” said Tey.

“Be quiet and keep walking and then you’ll see,” replied Jyuna, marching several paces ahead of Tey, his hands in his pockets. He was striding even faster than usual.

“All right,” said Tey, though he felt a tad disgruntled. Shortly after the fight had concluded, Jyuna had taken Tey aside and began leading him through the maze of hallways in the palace’s main apartments. They didn’t return to Tey’s apartment, but turned down an unfamiliar hall. Tey had the suspicion Jyuna was leading him to his own apartment, though he didn’t know why.

“You’ve done really well, Tey,” said Jyuna. “Better than I expected—but of course, I knew you had it in you. Beating Kiri, of all people…dasha jyeten! Incredible.”

Tey blushed, embarrassed at Jyuna’s high praise. “Well…I don’t know…I mean, it wasn’t anything that—it was—I think she got overconfident. She made a mistake, that’s all…”

“Let me tell you a secret, Tey,” said Jyuna with a cavalier laugh. “Most great warriors win battles not on their own strength, but the mistakes of their opponents.”

Tey wasn’t sure if this was true, but didn’t have time to muse on it because Jyuna had stopped before an archway draped with a bolt of Ajyadi-style silk: sheer, embroidered with elaborate designs like those inked on Jyuna’s skin.

“This is…” said Tey.

“My room, yeah,” said Jyuna, pulling aside the silk and motioning for Tey to follow him. Tey did, somewhat hesitantly; he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was intruding. He glanced around the room, though it didn’t look much different from his own apartment: beige flagstone floor, whitewashed walls, a bed tucked into the corner surrounded by nightstands and a wardrobe. Yet the walls were hung with Ajyadi tapestries and paintings, and the stands bore small, beautifully-carved gold and jade figurines of Ajyadi deities. The entire room was suffused with the rich, hot smell of spices—the same smell as Jyuna’s breath, Tey realized with a cold jolt.

Jyuna strode to an elegantly-carved wooden cabinet set opposite the wall. Tey remained standing by the door, watching as Jyuna reached inside the cabinet before stepping back, something long in his hands—

“A katal?” said Tey.

“That’s right,” said Jyuna, crossing the room so that he was standing in front of Tey. The sword was about the length of his arm, and was encased in a black lacquer scabbard inlaid with gold and silver curlicues, similar to Jyuna’s tattoos but more delicate. Jyuna drew the sword with a single smooth motion, showing Tey its slender, single-edged curved blade. The metal was dark and silvery; the hilt also black and inlaid with more gold and silver curlicues, bearing a prominent cross-guard.

“Wow…it’s…beautiful,” said Tey, drawing in an appreciative breath as Jyuna slowly turned the sword to let the light catch the blade at different angles. “Is it…yours?”

“No,” said Jyuna, sheathing the blade again with startling suddenness. “Here.”

And before Tey knew what was going on, he found the katal resting in his own hands. His knees buckled under its weight, and he almost dropped it—only the fact that it was an invaluable katal kept him from doing so.

“Wait…” he said, his mind racing as he gazed at the sword and the back up at Jyuna. “Why are you…”

“It’s yours,” said Jyuna.

Tey felt like he’d been dealt a very firm blow to the head. “What? B-but—I’m just a beginner—you said that it takes years to earn a katal—”

“It’s yours,” repeated Jyuna, more insistently. “You’ve got resolve, Tey. Kijya na dak, as I said when we first met. You’re already a warrior and a senior member of Presulis. You deserve it.”

“N-no, I…I…” Tey croaked. He didn’t know why he was protesting, just that—it felt wrong. He was just a street boy, he didn’t deserve something like this. But Jyuna’s mouth was set in a firm line of conviction and his dark eyes invited no argument.

Tey tore his gaze away from the katal, his head swimming. This was all so much, so fast.

“Its name,” Jyuna was saying, approaching Tey, “is Yakan Dashnya ay Katal. Sword of the Unknown Lover.”

“L…lover?” squeaked Tey. He’d already thought the sword looked feminine, but with a name like that…

Jyuna smiled and clapped Tey, hard, on the shoulder. “Remember what I said to you before? About hate making you strong?”

Tey bobbed his head in a nod. Jyuna went on, a curious sad quality to his eyes:

“It’s true. Hate can make you strong…but love makes you stronger.”

He gave Tey a cryptic, but sad, smile, before removing his hand from the boy’s shoulder and heading to the door, his red tunic billowing around him. Tey watched Jyuna’s retreating back for a moment, before dashing to keep up, the unfamiliar weight of the katal—the Sword of the Unknown Lover—in his hands.

His heart felt stuck in his throat, and his face felt strangely hot, but he didn’t know why.

~*~

Two weeks on Aeta, and Luanna was already desperately counting the days until she could return to Earth.

She hadn’t imagined that her trip to the lost world would end up so…dull. Sure, she had expecting it to be awful, but only because of beggars and muggings, or food poisoning and heat stroke. All exciting things, unpleasant as they might be. Instead, the trip itself had ended up even duller than civics class.

The crux of the matter was that she was doing absolutely nothing. All she did every day was follow her preset itinerary—which usually involved waking up early to attend some dull cultural activity in the city’s artistic district, a single street crammed with playhouses and brothels. Unfortunately Luanna didn’t get to see what Aetan brothels were like, because she spent all her mornings inside stuffy, hot theaters reeking of sand and berda weed (a plant the people on the planet liked smoking that reeked of burning rubber), watching garishly-costumed actors saunter about the stage and intone lines in stentorian voices. Then, in the afternoon when the heavy heat hit, Luanna would retreat to her hotel and struggle to get a stellarnet connection on her mobile communicator. It was hard, yet out of any place on Aeta that she’d tried, the hotel had the best reception.

After about two weeks of this, her brain felt like it was turning into jelly. Worse, at the last play—one about the four “Founders” or whatnot of Aeta—Luanna had run into the same pushy porter again, who’d accosted her during the intermission and pelted her with questions about the visa process. She’d only escaped him by pretending she needed to go the restroom, before stumbling out of the playhouse and returning to her hotel. The wasted money from not watching the play to its completion was well worth it.

This evening, Luanna had gone out for a stroll by the riverside. Walking every evening was a routine Luanna had developed on Earth so that she could stay in shape, but on Earth she could walk in grassy parks and wide boulevards. Here, Luanna had to force her way through surging crowds of merchants, families, guards, and the strange feathered, long-trunked four-legged animals the Aetans called “burdenbeasts”. Nor was she serenaded by songbirds and surrounded by the smell of flowers; all Luanna heard were the discordant squawks of wide-eyed monkeybirds, and all she smelled was a mix of sand, sweat, and rotting sewage.

The riverside was awash in pre-sundown activity: vendors pushing carts with jingling bells, children playing in the mud by the riverbank, dockworkers hollering curses at each other as they hauled heavy crates off boats. Luanna glanced at the river itself—it was so wide she could barely glimpse its opposite bank and replete with wooden boats of every kind, almost one on top of another, their sails bobbing like a flock of colorful birds. The water was sludgy and grayish and slapped against the banks with heavy sucking sounds. She breathed deeply, but soon regretted it, her throat seizing with the powerful odor of sludge and rotting fish.

Wonderful, she thought, wrinkling her nose.

“Hey, watch out!” cried a child’s voice, and Luanna jumped in surprise when she felt a small head bump against her thigh. A dirt-streaked little boy stared up at her, his eyes wide like coins, before quickly turning and scampering away.”

“Wait—” Luanna reached out after him. “Come back, I need to ask you—”

But the little boy was long gone. Luanna sighed and slumped her shoulders. She should have been expecting such a reaction. Every time she tried asking one of the natives a question, they gave her terrified glances before running away, or else stammered and mumbled so quietly she couldn’t hear them.

She couldn’t ask anyone else, though. That was the main reason she took to the streets every evening—so she could question anyone about Mr. Marsh. Usually, though, Luanna didn’t even get a chance to describe him before the native she’d been questioning ran off.

At this rate, she’d never find anything about Mr. Marsh. A part of her was already beginning to think she’d imagined the first sighting altogether.

The sensation of a warm hand tapping her on the shoulder startled Luanna out of her thoughts. She whirled around, wondering what kind of native would have voluntarily approached her.

She saw a tall young man with skin somewhat darker than that of most Aetans, but long hair a vibrant shade of red. His open vest revealed elaborate dark tattoos on his arms and torso. He didn’t look like any Aetan Luanna had seen before.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “You seem a bit…bothered by something.”

“Ahh…” said Luanna, a flush of color rising in her cheeks. This was the first time she’d been directly addressed by a native, and to her disconcertion usual gift with words had deserted her.

The man offered Luanna a smile, which only made Luanna feel worse. She didn’t know why, but there was something—some gleam in his dark eyes—that bothered her.

“Are you lost?” said the man. He hadn’t removed his hand from her shoulder; it was uncomfortably hot and heavy. “What’s a pretty offworlder girl like you doing by the riverside?”

Luanna blushed harder. “No…no, I’m not lost. I was merely taking a walk.”

“All right.” The man shrugged. Two others had arrived behind him—one a girl with paler skin, dressed in a yellow silk robe; the other a boy with a mop of dark brown curls. They cast their taller comrade confused glances, which he ignored.

“Who’s this, Jyuna?” said the girl, sounding annoyed. She fingered the sheath of one of the two swords she wore strapped to her back—the boy also wore a sword, his by his side. Luanna wasn’t surprised; quite a few natives carried weapons, probably to stave off muggings.

The man—Jyuna?—laughed and said, “Some lost offworlder.”

“I’m not lost,” said Luanna, annoyance spiking within her. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Jyuna, I think you should let her go,” the boy said. Surprisingly, Jyuna obeyed, removing his hand from Luanna’s shoulder and stepping back. Luanna suppressed a relieved sigh.

“Better get off the streets before night, offworlder,” said Jyuna. Luanna frowned inwardly; she didn’t like the way he kept referring to her as “offworlder”, as if she wasn’t human.

“Let’s go, Jyuna,” snapped the girl, tugging at Jyuna’s arm. Jyuna began following her, the brown-haired boy striding ahead of them.

By all means, Luanna should have just let them go and gone on her merry way. But still…they were the first natives to have openly addressed her. She couldn’t help but feel curious. Before she could think, she called, “Wait!”

Jyuna stepped mid-stride. He turned around, looking curious, although his two comrades looked rather annoyed. “What is it?” he said.

“It’s…well…” said Luanna, gathering her wildly fluttering thoughts like a sheet on a clothesline. “I’m looking for someone. A man. He’s very tall, powerfully built. Dark skin? Silver eyes and hair. I was wondering if you knew anyone like that…”

She trailed off, embarrassed. The blank stares Jyuna and his companions were giving her didn’t help things. At length, Jyuna said, “Why do you want to know?”

“Well...I know him, see,” said Luanna. “And about two weeks ago, I saw him in the city square, and…”

Again Luanna trailed off, feeling stupid; why was she telling these people—strangers—about Mr. Marsh? It had nothing to do with them, and already she could tell from the looks on their faces that they wouldn’t have any answers for her.

“Sorry, offworlder,” said Jyuna. “I’ve never heard of anyone like that.”

Luanna had thought as much. She was about to say something—some thanks, a small courtesy—but in a flash of yellow silk the girl was in front of her. Luanna didn’t have time to blink before the girl pushed the heel of her hand painfully against Luanna’s collarbone, sending her tumbling in a startled heap to the dusty street.

“Quit bothering us, offworlder,” hissed the girl, spitting the last word as a curse. “Get lost.”

Luanna had nothing to say to this; shock and indignity kept her glued to the ground, blood pounding in her ears. She wanted to say something, to protest that they didn’t have the right to treat a diplomat-in-training so rudely, but she couldn’t dredge any words out of the buzzing in her mind.

“Knock it off, Kiri,” said Jyuna admonishingly. “Be nicer to the little offworlder.”

The girl just pulled a face before flouncing away from Luanna to join her comrades again. She didn’t look back at Luanna, although the curly-haired boy spared Luanna a brief, uncomfortable glance. Jyuna spoke to Luanna one last time, his words quiet yet ringing with a barely-concealed dangerous intent:

“You might as well leave while you still can, offworlder.”

His voice, low with warning, quivered in the cold center of Luanna’s bones. She shivered and drew her knees up to her chest, watching as the three disappeared into the clamoring crowd. People walked around her, parting like a river around a stone. Most seemed to be going out of their way to avoid the strange, pale foreigner slumped in the middle of the street.

For the first time, Luanna saw another side to her stay on Aeta. She’d only been thinking of it from her perspective, thinking how she didn’t even want to be here. Now she saw that it went two ways: The natives didn’t welcome her presence here either.

~*~

“The girl back there…” said Tey hesitantly, as he, Jyuna, and Kiri followed the riverside street, weaving past stalls selling smoked fish. This was technically a reconnaissance mission, and the first official Presulis mission Tey had been given: their goal was to seek information about a man by a specific description.

A description that so happened to match the one the offworlder girl had given them.

“Yeah, what about her?” said Jyuna. Beside Jyuna, Kiri made a scoffing sound, but didn’t speak—she had been silent throughout the mission, still steaming over her loss to Tey. The first time she’d spoken had been when she’d shoved the offworlder girl.

“The man she was describing…” Tey began.

“It sounded like him, didn’t it? The ina Leader Idach told us to search for,” said Jyuna. “Dark skin, silver eyes. Sounds like Lord Masudo, doesn’t it?”

“So he is in the city,” said Tey. Their orders had been to confirm whether this man, Lord Masudo, was in the city. Why, Tey didn’t know, but the mission had an aura of importance, and urgency about it.

“Lord Masudo…” said Jyuna, casting dark eyes around the crowded streets bathed in the last dying rays of the sun. “The last time mage still dumb enough to live in the Mainland. So it really was you, in the marketplace…”

Tey followed Jyuna, absorbing what the Ajyadi had just said, his heart thudding.

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Yeah...I know I took too long to get back to Lulu's viewpoint, so suggestions on that area will be greatly welcome. ^^ I'm feeling better about her voice here, though--I think I did a better job emphasizing her dislike of the planet, but the call's yours, not mine, so tell me whether her voice is more defined/she's better as a character or I if I still need to work on her. Hers is the voice that has given me the most problems by far...

I quite like the scene with Tey and Jyuna, and is definitely my favorite scene between the two so far. Of course, it could use some improvement, especially with the descriptions (bleurrgh...). I'm wondering, too, whether the relationship hintings are too strong, or not strong enough, or any shade in between. Writing those two's interactions is difficult because Tey is completely oblivious, yet on a subconscious level reciprocates, so...balancing all those nuances = headache.

Chapter eight is my favorite so far, and I've been hyping it like crazy and you'll soon see why. It's also the shortest one so far, and I can get away with posting it in only one topic. It should be up soon, depending on how heavy my schoolwork burden is.

All critiques are welcome--shred away!