07-09-2012, 04:33 PM
| | | Re: Pinkie Pie's Museum
The next piece is an old original work called Sister of Stone.
During its conception, Pinkie Pie thought of the least feeling type of protagonist she could manage: a golem. She wanted to write from the point of view of a character who could operate on two senses, hearing and sight. While she enjoys Aer, the main character, to this day, Pinkie Pie could never figure out how to get the story off the ground, and abandoned it two and a half chapters in. Written on: October 31st, 2011. Quote: Aer’s first memory was of birth, though The Wise said such a thing was impossible. Of the many moments that made up her past, she remembered most vividly the moment of creation. From the earth, she was given. From a great slab of granite, he birthed her. Though he taught her and inscribed in her the ways of the world, no lesson stood out so much as that one she learned in the very beginning: Life
Aer’s memories of her creator faded soon after he departed. When at last she separated from him, she remembered neither his face nor his name. He had given her life, but she could no longer pick him out of a crowd.
Instead, Aer choose to embrace the most ingrained of her lessons—and lived
She moved place to place, a small giant among beings of flesh. At a height of over seven feet, she towered above men. She darted through crowds with the minute figure of an Elf, even though each step carried with it the weight of a statue. Until the age of seven, she explored. Her life changed whenever she grew bored, for she required no sustenance.
For a year, she was an act; an attraction at which the naïve might gawk.
For a second, she walked across the seafloor.
For a third, she traveled with a group referring to themselves as heroes-for-hire. Sell-swords, she came to call them. They did not steal, nor did they kill when other options were available, but their services always came at a cost. It was among them that The Passion flourished. She was the heart—and often her presence alone was enough to maintain morale.
The faces dictated her life—three detachable facets of herself containing three different beings: The Passion, The Wise, and The Ranger. Without one, Aer’s face was nothing more than a featureless blank slate with no more life than the stone from which she was born.
Aer grew to prefer The Passion and the life it brought her. Within it the wildest part of her being. It was equal parts seductress, child, and artist. It stole many hearts and schemed a great many stories.
In the second was The Wise, a knower of many things. Within it existed literature, philosophy, and an understanding of the world. All it lacked was a comprehension of building blocks, for science was beyond the limitations set upon by Aer’s creator.
The Ranger was a face of silence—and not once did it speak.. It carried with it a love of projectiles, but knives most of all. It could throw them with such precision that not once did it miss a target. It spoke only in combat, a trait Aer found unappealing. Birthed from stone as she might have been, she desired thoughts words not just thoughts.
When her tenure with the sell-swords came to an end, Aer wandered.
She spent many months exploring that which no mortal would dare venture to. Aer walked again the depths of the oceans. She explored worlds beyond words. She climbed the tallest of mountains, the deepest of pits. Darkness held no secrets from her.
And yet she found herself bored.
It was during her journey inland through Willowfield—a county landlocked on all borders but its east, by which it was instead met with blistering seas—that she happened across the beginnings of a rumor spread by two men traveling in the opposite direction as herself, carrying across their backs overflowing bags of red apples. They spoke of a people whose art of life was unrivaled—a people who could imbue creations of stone with all the bits and bobs of humanity.
Aer was intrigued.
She approached the two men, crushing fallen leaves with each step. Fall had arrived in force, as it always did in Willowfield. The flat of the land lay covered in leaves of a great many reds and browns, all abandoned by the many trees they once clung to.
They turned and met her with awe, as beings of flesh often did. No matter her journey, always she was greeted with a great degree of reverence.
She approached with The Wise, for The Passion would have made little attempt to elicit the information.
“Greetings,” she said, and bowed to the men, though even in bow, she towered above them by a good foot.
Each man bowed in turn. One was shorter, older, and hairier than the other and experienced the most difficulty doing so. It was he who spoke first, squeezing his words through a thick brown beard. “Well met,” he said, adding a moment later, “…my lady?”
Aer nodded.
“My lady,” the older man said again, as though to reassure himself that the greeting was correct.
Aer accepted the confusion, though she did not understand it. She had chosen that day to do away with her belongings and begin anew. She indeed possessed the body of a woman, though it was devoid of more risqué traits.
“I heard you speak of a people in Carnivale with the power to imbue stone with true life,” said Aer.
The older man bowed again and looked to the younger man, who seemed more confused than he. “I did, miss,” he said. “It’s a rumor, but it’s been growin’ more popular of late. Not sure myself how much truth it holds.”
“And what all do you know of this rumor?”
“Only that it started in Carnivale, some miles from the capitol, miss.” He lifted a hand as though to tilt his hat, only to discover no hat existed to do so. “I couldn’t say more than that.”
Aer nodded to the older man. “Then I shall go there now. Thank you very much, sirs.”
She turned to leave with every intention of doing so, for nothing of worth yet existed in the present conversation. As she did so, the older man spoke one last time. “Miss?” he said, his voice somewhat stronger than before.
Aer paused “Yes?”
“I’ve…” The man himself did not seem sure what he intended to say. “I’ve seen golems before, miss, but not one that’s looked like a woman. With all respect for askin’, are you the only one?”
Aer shrugged. “I don’t know.”
She began her journey anew, only for the man to call out again. “Miss!” he said.
Aer stopped and turned to face him.
“I don’t mean to be keepin’ you,” the man said, “but there’s something else I’d like to ask, if you’d be willin’.”
“Ask.”
The man cleared his throat, looked to his companion, at a last spoke. “Can you… feel? Like me and my boy? I’ve seen golems before, but I’ve always been wondering.”
Though Aer’s features were indeed crafted from stone, for a moment, they held a deep mixture of thoughts. After a great many seconds had passed, during which the older man waited quietly for an answer, Aer said, “Sometimes. I can touch, hear and see, but the others are beyond me.”
The older man bowed, but not before punching the younger lad in the shoulder so he would do the same. “Thank you, miss. Sorry to have taken your time.”
Aer departed wordlessly, as did the older man, his companion in tow. The stone of her face could not contort in a fashion that would depict the emotional responses of humans, but that did not stop the narrow slit of Aer’s mouth from shifting ever so slightly at the edges.
“Carnivale,” she said to the falling leaves and dormant trees.
Carnivale, at one point, was a destination to her. She’d passed along its coast side and stopped in several of its many settlements. It was the color that lingered in her thoughts. Even on the dreariest of days, Carnivale was nothing if not colorful. “The rivers run gold in Carnivale,” travelers used to say, “and from the teats of their women comes wine.”
Aer paused to consider it, for she could not remember if either claim were false.
Carnivale was a week or so the west. Between Willowfield and Carnivale lay Ironside, a county built on the production of arms and armor. Though infamous for discipline of its soldiers, not once had they ever been involved in conflict with any neighboring county—or rather, they never began the conflicts.
Aer remembered it most for its varying shades of brown and gray.
It was a place best not visited any longer than necessary.
Aer need not eat nor drink nor sleep, she need only to walk. She counted each step and passed her thoughts along a hazy barrier till they became blank, at last granting her a state of mind capable of passing the days alone as it so often had before. With one foot in front of the other, Aer began the journey west. |  |  |