#indigenous lore

[melestasflight]

I wish I had more time this week to create something more for @aspecardaweek, but here's my recent attempt to explicitly write aromantic characters.

Keep my heart warm while I’m gone dives into life on Helcaraxë and intimacy between friends - Aredhel and Ecthelion. They march on, they love (in their own way), and they survive together.

Appropriate for the Day 4 theme of 'worldbuilding,' this was inspired by Lakota traditions and Cherokee astrology.

Fic snippet below the cut.

~

The winds are still, and the camp outside falls deadly silent. Ehtelë traces idly the notches down Írissë’s forearm. Some match his own for Elves dear to them both, but not all, and she carries many more. He draws the pattern in his mind like memorizing a celestial map; he would recognize Írissë anywhere.

His friend’s heartbeat drums against his ribs. Its rhythm hastens right before she asks, ‘Do you remember the day we sneaked into grandmother’s orchards and fell upon the bushes of chokeberries? I would march barefoot in the snow right now for a single berry.’

Ehtelë fails to recall the taste of the small fruits, although they used to be his favorite. A bitterness of hunger lingers on his tongue. Írissë need not be burdened with this.

‘How could I forget?’ He smiles at the memory nonetheless. ‘Mother ensured I remember exactly what would happen the next time I decided to steal from Queen Indis’ gardens, be it with her kin or not.’ 

‘Do you remember what happened after?’

‘We shamelessly acted a belly ache to avoid supper, and Anairë saw right through us.’

‘No, before that.’ Írissë’s heartbeat now clops like the hooves of galloping horses.

He knows exactly what she’s asking. That moment he can envision as clearly as the shadows of the lard lamp dancing against the wall of their tent. The flames of their hearts were young, then, and the yearning pulsed through Ehtelë’s body. Not for love letters with feverish confessions nor for muffled whispers between the garden mazes.

But touch he had craved, to hold a hand longer, for a kiss to linger. He remembers how he claimed Írissë’s berry-stained lips shyly and clumsily. His friend giving in to her own curiosity, savoring the trust between them before she ended the kiss and escaped, leaving him to chase after her through the woods. Írissë was and still is the faster runner between them.

Her lips trace the line of his jaw with intent, and this is not a memory.

From Keep my heart warm while I’m gone

[auswomenwriters]

Giving up the secrets of the bush: Rosa Praed's Outlaw and Lawmaker

Giving up the secrets of the bush: Rosa Praed’s Outlaw and Lawmaker

Next in our classic author series, doctoral candidate Narelle Ontivero discusses the work and life of Rosa Praed.

Born on 27 March in 1851, Rosa Praed lived her formative years in the country town of Bromelton, Queensland. In her autobiographical work, My Australian Girlhood (1902), she wastes no time in asserting the native landscape of Australia as the first and primary source for all her…

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