Just a few scribbles

I have no clue what half of this is. It just kinda happened....

[alittlethingiwrote]

For centuries the stars have been used by many cultures across the galaxies to navigate by. Their constant glow in the night skies, and while on occasion some fade and new ones step out from the blackness of space. It takes a while, charts are up dated and changes are made. It takes years for a star to fully disappear, for it's light to slow fade out to those that can only see it as a small dot. They act as road maps in the inky blackness that envelopes the small bubbles of life.

There are many that have entire fields of study on stars and they're life, how they form how they die, where they are. All of it. Such a person is highly valued in a crew, they are the navigators, the ones that lead them into adventure and then bring them home again. Most rely on them for knowledge of where they are if they're safe, or they have lived long enough to know when they aren't safe anymore.

Here in an uncharted part of space an old planet with many cultures all different, but capable of working together. They have all thrived, with some specialising in some fields over others. As a whole, an outsider would consider it one culture. Wouldn't see the slight differences between them since they are all so influenced by each other. What they do see clearly though is that unlike many other cultures throughout the galaxy, they have stayed where they are. They have not ventured far into the vastness of that beyond planets limits. Only into orbit. The technology exists for them to leave but they don't. Large stations sit in orbit. All armed and constantly scanning the skies.

Navigators drew new star charts spent hours of their visit, pouring over the charts that were kept by several cultures. All different. None of the charts matched. charts from the same cultures and those from different ones from the same time period. None of them matched. It was chalked up to inexperience. they hadn't had the proper tools and the environment of the upper atmosphere would have distorted any observations made when on the planet. The study of it was abandoned in favour of other pursuits. Ones that were felt to be of greater benefit.

The trip goes well. Until they wish to leave.

It wasn't until the course was mapped and the planet was behind them, now a near inviable dot in the distance. Courses changed constantly, needing to mapped an remapped throughout a journey. This one was no different, this part of space changed more often then others, with clouds of dust and nebula common place. Each of scientific interest and all a visual spectacle. vivid colour contrasted with the nothingness behind them, stars occasionally peeking through the thinner areas of them. After stopping to once again marvel at their surroundings and taking a moment to take in where they were, they returned to their charts. Double checking headings and the course home. Eyes flicking over their charts and the stars ahead of them.

They didn't match.

Between one nebula and another a constellation had moved.

It was no longer to their left. But their right.

Thinking they had just skipped across the chart a little they checked again.

And again.

And again.

They were moving.

They didn't know how it was possible. The stars they were navigating by where lightyears away. It took centuries for the light they emitted to reach them here. They couldn't have moved.

It's not possible.

Dread overcame them. Made them cold. Their fear of the blackness that surrounded them grew. It wasn't until the ship was moved, like a boat in the ocean being moved by the waves. A gentle rock, before it grew to something moving across the hull. Vibrations moved through the metal of the ship as whatever it was outside moved and a noise something akin to the calls of whales echoed through the ship.

It wasn't long before the ship was silent. The noise gone. The only evidence that they had come into contact with something the slight roll of the ship. All eyes turned to each other before landing on the navigator. Meeting their gazes then moving it to glass that surrounded this part of the ship. The constellations there were navigating by were far closer than before moving slowly across to the front of the ship. It wasn't till the ship was rocked again that the noticed.

The lights from around the room reflected back at them from beyond the glass.

They weren't stars at all.

They were scales.

[alittlethingiwrote]

Greenery shivered as it moved through the trees and the grass, even the lake felt the cold that the sudden wind brought. It made its way though the valley, bringing with it the faint smell of the ocean. Once it reached through valley walls fine clouds of dust from the rock face billowed out. They made the slow journey to the valley floor in soft slow spirals. A journey made turbulent but the winds that followed.

Sitting here at the top of the valley looking down it looked so small. Like a model or a painting, so unreal and detached from the reality of it. Hidden in the trees, a town that that actively hides from the rest of the world. A town with dancing lights and vibrant colour. A town where myth and legends tend to make a somewhat regular appearance. Where everyone finds a small amount of piece, the silence in the middle of the lake as the suns light is dulled and its now a comfort in the dark rather than a blinding light. The smell of the open air the feel of the wind after an eternity in the heat and humidity of the darkest depths.

[alittlethingiwrote]

It's is traditional that the women of her culture wore white. To symbolise their purity, calm nature and innocence. They made her were white, day in and day out. She was always complimented on her beauty, how the white contrasted against her dark skin making her look ethereal. A goddess among men.

She disliked the tradition intensely. It made all women appear weak and incapable of looking after themselves. Made men believe they were better than the women they would throw themselves at.

They were kept safe and hidden from sight. Away from the difficult decisions and the politics the wars that effected them just as much. They didn't get a say. Their opinion didn't matter. She hated it. She spent endless days in the library, reading tomme after tomme on their history and allies and enemies. She learnt to hide in the places that men's gaze skipped. She listened and she learned and she waited.

It was a tense time in history for the country, so close to war. No doubt it will end in war if the wrong thing is said. She couldn't leave the country in hands of men that were too quick to fight. Too quick to plunge the country into war for the glory of it, no matter the consequence. All those involved in the negotiations were accompanied by body guards and confidants.  She only had to get to a few of the key members and the rest would follow.

She had never liked white, she preferred red.

So she painted the floors and the walls and the dress and her skin with the blood of those that would paint the world the very same colour.

She preferred red.

So on silent feet and blade in hand she painted and painted with the blood of the dead.

[alittlethingiwrote]

It looked different here. Looked gentler, calmer, maybe it was that the sound was muffled smaller. Still the rolling of the waves moved all underneath it, tossing it about displacing it. The surface constantly moving and changing be it from the swells or the rain hitting or the silly human things that though it could survive a storm like this.

When you could breathe it in, when it was a part of you, it felt like freedom. Letting the waves carry you somewhere new, or jumping between the walls of water just because you could. Diving head first into the next, the raining hitting skin was unlike any other when you're always surrounded by water. It felt like warm static, moving across you until you broke the surface again. It was soothing in its own way. At least to some, others find it unbearable, hid in the depths from it.

And the sounds that the storm makes dimmed from beneath the waves, become deafening and chaotic a symphony of nature and disaster. Sometimes its nice to float on the surface eyes closed just listening to the chaos surrounding you the prickle of the rain drops and movement of the waves. Sometimes you wonder if at the height of some of them you could touch the cloud so dark, matching the depths you know so well. Wonder if you just moved them a little bit you could touch the stars you gaze at on calm nights.

The stars that you've looked at for so many years, wondering how far away they are. Wondering what they look like up close. Wishing with everything you have that you could touch them. But on nights like this, dark and clouded and so loud. You wonder why you would want to be anywhere else.

[alittlethingiwrote]

The room was bathed in the low light of the trailing lights hanging in criss-cross patterns around the ceiling, tinging the room in a soft orange glow. shadows flickering across the walls from the lanterns dotted on the shelves lining the walls in the spaces between books, atop the wardrobe nestled between the spider plants and ivy cascading down the sides in a green waterfall. A light breeze bringing with it the scent if the rain falling outside and causing the in the hanging baskets to sway and the trailing leaves to click against the fairy lights wrapped around the curtain pole.

The crisp scent of rain filled the air cutting through the lingering incense and background earthiness of the room. Quiet hum of traffic in the distance is punctuated by the turning of pages as the occupant reads, sprawled out across the arms of an oversized armchair blanket slung carelessly across their lower legs. A mug tea sat on the nearest surface steam dancing above, picked up when the occupant stops to listen to the rain. How it falls and how it smells, to bask in the quiet of the night.

A small tabby cat, sprawled like its owner, across the unmade bed on the opposite side of the room. Back paws off the edge of the bed, stretched out, reaching towards the laptop emitting a low light and playing soft music on the quietest volume. The soft sound of sock clad feet shuffle on the carpet towards the room, carrying another smaller black cat, yawning as they shuffle past the reader trailing their free hand through their hair as they make their way towards the bed. Careful not to disturb the sprawled cat, as they settle on the bed, black cat a long line down the centre of their chest as both drift once more towards sleep.

Setting down their reading, to cradle the still warm mug of tea, they turn to watch the occupants of bed. Quiet breathing and the occasional twitching the only movement. A content smile on their face they turn to the window eyes closed head tilted towards the sound of the rain, the smell of the night air and heat of the tea.

They think to themselves, this is home.

[alittlethingiwrote]

She never expected to survive, and yet she has. Walking through the crowds gathered to witness her death, now openly staring with fear in their eyes. Paralysed where they stand only able to watch. Ash clings to her skin, footprints scorching the grass, smoke rising from her and flowing around her like a liquid dress.

Red eyes surrounded by darkened skin promise death and retribution. She was not the proper sacrifice. And they have made her their punishment.