Tag: dark fantasy
-
Patina – Chapter 112
A little trick Sadja learned was that if you kept quiet and let people talk as if you were not there, eventually they’d talk about interesting topics. Now, that’s not to say she was completely asocial: look at her, she was helping. Covered from head to toe in grease streaks, crouched on a scalding pipeline…
-
Patina – Chapter 111
The Hunter settled his hunting rifle on his right shoulder and kneaded his aching eye. Setting up guard wasn’t the kind of job he was the best at anymore, but they had corralled him into doing it again, and truth to be told, it was indeed a welcome change from hour after hour of wall…
-
Patina – Chapter 110
They ate beneath a slab of rock sticking out of the snow. Dry vines and splotches of faded paint covered its surface, creating patterns of alternating colors that attracted Sadja’s attention even as she sat down to pry her canned food open and enjoy decades-old delicacies. “Is there a way to make these anew?” She…
-
Patina – Chapter 109
Sadja had her eyes closed and the world spoke in rhythmic whispers. Her body lay against a tree, a grey wizened pine that had seen too many winters to remember the time before the war. She felt its roots trying to find purchase in the frozen soil, beneath the snow and tiny pillars of sap…
-
Patina – Chapter 108
Cramped inside, cramped outside. Sadja reached for the larger pen, tracing down the last few letters on the sign in thick black lines. Her hand was steady, but painting signs while sitting on her knees for hours on end was starting to get to her. “Is this correct?” She asked the old smith-woman who had…
-
Patina – Chapter 107
Valeriana, current Augur of Dorsoduro, never liked it when a communal meeting was scheduled. It was always for the worse reasons, and there were at least two she could count. The threads she sent onto possible futures all buzzing into a bad situation for all of them. The first reason was the most cruel winter…
-
Patina – Chapter 106
As snow piled up, so did changes. For the next few days, the Hunter’s hut was home to a flurry of activity, most of which was spent in silence. It was as if everyone had their own thoughts and worries to exorcise. The moth-people’s chattering died to a few murmurs as the helped clean out…
-
Patina – Chapter 105
As Winter swung its white veils all over the plains, rolling down from the Old Country and onto the remains of the world of men, the floating city of Venexia traced its route back and forth between the ports of the Bittersea, collecting survivors from the direst Tide in recent memory. Desperate people hung onto…
-
Patina – Chapter 104
Amarco. The Constable’s name was Amarco. The Hunter followed him, circling the outer wall and talking with workers and repairmen as they tinkered and labored putting the defenses back up, patching over blasted pipelines, drawing fetishes and lines of tinkling bones over the top, filling pressurized holy water tanks, and doing everything and anything to…
-
Patina – Chapter 103
She was trying. Elissa was really trying. Taking the Hunter’s suggestions to heart, no matter how hard they had been listening to, she had waited for Sadja to come back to her. Even when the ripples into her future had started to speak about the wolf-girl reaching out to her, she had turned the other…
A. Montresor 