I'm a multi-graph writer with writing samples in my profile; this post is searching for a GM. While I'm still workshopping large parts of this prompt, the working theory is that it takes place during the Dance of Dragons. The MC is a freedman slave stumbled upon during the War in the Stepstones by Lord Corlys before being turned over to Viserys as an entertaining gift; a Pentosi (man/woman) with a knack for entertainment. This is intended to be a high stakes, politically charged RP involving economics, war, statecraft, so on, so if that isn't your thing, then this likely isn't for you. The text below is what I'm imagining as a prequel / prologue to our story.
A WEAVER HAS MOCKED THEIR FUTURE IN INK, spelling out its doom from front to back, top to bottom, with a flowing black tatau in a tongue none recognize. When first she saw it, their Lord's wife called it beautiful - and commanded them to keep it hidden for their own good.
Hidden or no, the doom written on their skin cannot be avoided. Sylvan's fate will haunt them all the way to the end, and it shall be the death of them. It begins with hazy memories of their past.
You already know how it ends.
-=-
When her heart first beats, it is nearly her last.
Before her heart began to beat, there was nothing but darkness and silence. It was not unpleasant, but rather a deep and dreamless sleep from which an eternity had sprawled in every direction, formless. Without shape she had drifted, without thought she had been. Perhaps she remembered something of fire, of existence and possibility But these things became no more than dreams within eternity. Until she was born. And she drew breath.
No air fills her lungs. Instead, water as cold as ice floods her mouth, her throat, her lungs, devouring oxygen and casting away the last vestiges of her slumber. What dust from sleep that had remained is now gone. Now, she’s drowning in existence. The noise of thundering water fills her ears, and the taste of salt saturates in her tongue. A dull, throbbing ache spreads her from lungs, a cold, numb horror which threatens to overwhelm her breath-starved body.
She doesn’t know anything but the terror of drowning. But that doesn’t mean she is alone, born to die. Around her, the world indeed exists, though she knows nothing of it. Her ignorance is nearly fatal.
A worldly woman would have known to swim to the moon, to the only light in a sea of darkness, but she does not. All she does is drown.
---
In a world she has never seen, two men stare out from the deck of their ship toward a strange disturbance in the water.
“You’re jumping at ghosts, Corlys,” one of them says. A tired and bitter old man, wrapped in two layers of robes to keep out the winter air, though it’s little help. “We’re the first ship. How could anyone be ahead of us?”
That question is at the front of Corly's mind, as well, as he watches intently. Indeed, they’re the front and vanguard of an entire fleet of ships. The waters should be dead, yet the water churns and froths with desperation. Feeding fish, perhaps. Or some sort of magic. Or…
“A survivor from Mannforth’s fleet, perhaps.”
The old man scoffs, but he turns to study the disturbance again, just in time.
Briefly, almost impossible to notice, a hand breaks the surface of the water, catching moonlight and then returning to the depths just as quickly as it had come. Both men blink, turn to each other, and call at the top of their lungs at the same time. “Overboard!”
Their ship roars to life, the crew, once idle with dread, now burst into action with their newfound purpose to save the distant drowner, no matter the cost. With that incentive above all others, they move with tremendous speed, steering the rudder and casting the sail in the direction needed to coast the wind and cut a clear path to the drowner.
---
She suffers in a prison of darkness. A cruel way to die for anyone, but for her, a worse fate than could ever be deserved. Slowly sinking beneath her own clumsy weight, falling toward darkness just as within she falls to the dark. To a bitter, gathering nothing. In a way, she feels closer to the nothingness she’d once been every passing moment, but now that nothingness is no longer perfect.
However briefly she has lived - she has lived.
And she lives long enough to feel something new. Pain. Specifically, pain, because of a clumsy oarsman smacking her while attempting to give her something to hold onto. He misses, and hits her ribs. Not that his failure means much, since a rope collects around her shoulders at the same time, dragging her up above the surface of the water, into glorious air. Into existence.
But the water doesn’t leave her lungs. And so she falls unconscious after catching only a single glimpse of the moon, beautiful and whole, looking down at her.
“Huh,” says one voice, vague and distant and yet lovely in its sheer novelty. “It’s a Pentosi.”
A WEAVER HAS MOCKED THEIR FUTURE IN INK, spelling out its doom from front to back, top to bottom, with a flowing black tatau in a tongue none recognize. When first she saw it, their Lord's wife called it beautiful - and commanded them to keep it hidden for their own good.
Hidden or no, the doom written on their skin cannot be avoided. Sylvan's fate will haunt them all the way to the end, and it shall be the death of them. It begins with hazy memories of their past.
You already know how it ends.
-=-
When her heart first beats, it is nearly her last.
Before her heart began to beat, there was nothing but darkness and silence. It was not unpleasant, but rather a deep and dreamless sleep from which an eternity had sprawled in every direction, formless. Without shape she had drifted, without thought she had been. Perhaps she remembered something of fire, of existence and possibility But these things became no more than dreams within eternity. Until she was born. And she drew breath.
No air fills her lungs. Instead, water as cold as ice floods her mouth, her throat, her lungs, devouring oxygen and casting away the last vestiges of her slumber. What dust from sleep that had remained is now gone. Now, she’s drowning in existence. The noise of thundering water fills her ears, and the taste of salt saturates in her tongue. A dull, throbbing ache spreads her from lungs, a cold, numb horror which threatens to overwhelm her breath-starved body.
She doesn’t know anything but the terror of drowning. But that doesn’t mean she is alone, born to die. Around her, the world indeed exists, though she knows nothing of it. Her ignorance is nearly fatal.
A worldly woman would have known to swim to the moon, to the only light in a sea of darkness, but she does not. All she does is drown.
---
In a world she has never seen, two men stare out from the deck of their ship toward a strange disturbance in the water.
“You’re jumping at ghosts, Corlys,” one of them says. A tired and bitter old man, wrapped in two layers of robes to keep out the winter air, though it’s little help. “We’re the first ship. How could anyone be ahead of us?”
That question is at the front of Corly's mind, as well, as he watches intently. Indeed, they’re the front and vanguard of an entire fleet of ships. The waters should be dead, yet the water churns and froths with desperation. Feeding fish, perhaps. Or some sort of magic. Or…
“A survivor from Mannforth’s fleet, perhaps.”
The old man scoffs, but he turns to study the disturbance again, just in time.
Briefly, almost impossible to notice, a hand breaks the surface of the water, catching moonlight and then returning to the depths just as quickly as it had come. Both men blink, turn to each other, and call at the top of their lungs at the same time. “Overboard!”
Their ship roars to life, the crew, once idle with dread, now burst into action with their newfound purpose to save the distant drowner, no matter the cost. With that incentive above all others, they move with tremendous speed, steering the rudder and casting the sail in the direction needed to coast the wind and cut a clear path to the drowner.
---
She suffers in a prison of darkness. A cruel way to die for anyone, but for her, a worse fate than could ever be deserved. Slowly sinking beneath her own clumsy weight, falling toward darkness just as within she falls to the dark. To a bitter, gathering nothing. In a way, she feels closer to the nothingness she’d once been every passing moment, but now that nothingness is no longer perfect.
However briefly she has lived - she has lived.
And she lives long enough to feel something new. Pain. Specifically, pain, because of a clumsy oarsman smacking her while attempting to give her something to hold onto. He misses, and hits her ribs. Not that his failure means much, since a rope collects around her shoulders at the same time, dragging her up above the surface of the water, into glorious air. Into existence.
But the water doesn’t leave her lungs. And so she falls unconscious after catching only a single glimpse of the moon, beautiful and whole, looking down at her.
“Huh,” says one voice, vague and distant and yet lovely in its sheer novelty. “It’s a Pentosi.”