#tsr2017

[solidaritetwatson]

Thisby Moodboard

Masterpost for this year’s fics about Ceol and Yannik:

part one - part two - part three - part four - part five - part six - part seven - part eight - part nine - part ten - part eleven - part twelve

[37145-77]

TSR Character Challenges 5-10, Wry Erenson

#5- Wry walked with Grasta's reigns still tight in his hands. Every moment he walked with her reigns tight in his hands. She was fast, strangely loyal, and bitter. No one wanted to see this pair win. Wry walked among the other racers with fear on his back. He didn't want to walk in front of someone, out of fear he would be pushed away. He was ready, his heart full of hope. They could win this.. could they? He looked about the festival at things. He scoffed at tourists, willing to buy and believe anything. He glared at cameras and sweat when someone would speak to him. He did his best to blend in with the shadows.

#6- Wry didn't have enemies, but no one wanted to see him succeed. He was different, always has been. In school he was teased, as a young adult he's avoided. He never fit in, always having his face shoved in a book. He never dated.. it always made people suspicious. His mother and father weren't exactly everyone's cup of tea either, always openly critical of the island and her people. He knew no one wanted to see him here, trying to prove his manhood like everybody else. He just wanted to save his home. No one knew.

#7- Wry looked at a picture of his mother. "You would hate this. You would hate this so much. I'm so sorry, mom.." He held down his tears, but it was no use. They dripped down his face onto the glass of the frame. "You hated the races.. you hated the capaill.." He put the frame down. "You would have hated Grasta, too.." He looked out at the blue gray mare, with flowers still braided in her mane. "You would've hated it all."

#8- Wry had never dreamed of leaving. He knew this was his home. Maybe.. maybe he would leave if he met the right boy.. person! The right person! Why was he panicking? No one could hear his thoughts. If the right boy talked him off of this island he would go.. he would leave if he could love that boy somewhere and not be bullied or threatened for it.. that would make him leave. For now, he stayed for his home and.. and Grasta. It had not been long but he felt a connection with the mare.

#9- Wry knew he was never a great rider. There were great racers. There were amazing racers. There were racers who could run laps around him. He knew he may never be one of the amazing racers.. but he did have an amazing horse. She could win this.. but he was just going to slow her down.

#10- Wry would not give up. He would win no matter who talked him off of his horse. He would win this race. He wanted to keep his home, to be able to care for Grasta after these hell races were over, to eat, to live. He needed that jump start to his life. He would not lose for someone else, he had to put himself first this time. He had always been a pushover before.. not for this. Not for this.

(( @thescorpioracesfestival I'm so sorry to dump all of these at once.. things got hectic ))

[triumfa]

Крузенштерн и Седов. Klaipeda. #sedov #kruzenshtern #tallshipraces2017 #tsr2017 #tsrklaipeda #tallship #lithuania #крузенштерн #седов #регата #клайпеда #литва

[solidaritetwatson]

Rider Challenge #12

[ @starsfelllikerain and I are collaborating and have chosen to set our stories in the 90′s. Also, I’ve decided to do mine in the style of the Katie and the Mustang series, with having a bit from my capall’s perspective at the beginning of each chapter. He’ll be talking about the chapter before, so they won’t make much sense out of order] 

@thescorpioracesfestival

Epilogue:

The seasons of the sea pass. It has been a year. The land calls me again. So soon! I did not expect the magic to have a hold again after such a short time in my home, but it is more than just the land calling me this time. There is also my King.

Though I think, as I struggle toward that wretched shore once more, that I need a new name for him. I left of my own accord. I fought when he could not fight. He is more of my equal than my king. Something more like a brother.

I could smell him in the water. I knew he would be here when I came. He does not expect me to be back. He stands, ankle deep in the Scorpio sea, expecting a head to appear, but not mine. Any head really, except for mine. There is surprise on his face. There is surprise in his voice. He is trying to remember to sing, he has charms in his hands, and in a moment, he will need them. But for now, he does not. I am too glad to see him to eat him. I press my face into his shirt, and keen his name over and over.

The sea is my home. She will call to me always. And before too long, I will be back, I am sure.

But this is also my home. He is my home. And I have missed him like I miss the sea while I am here. His fingers wrap around my ears, into my tangled hair. There is water in his singing. He has missed me too. And I am his home, as much as he is mine.

That is why I am here. The sea does not need me.

This one does.

[solidaritetwatson]

Rider Challenge #8: The Mainland

[ @starsfelllikerain and I are collaborating and have chosen to set our stories in the 90′s. Also, I’ve decided to do mine in the style of the Katie and the Mustang series, with having a bit from my capall’s perspective at the beginning of each chapter. He’ll be talking about the chapter before, so they won’t make much sense out of order] @thescorpioracesfestival

The King is very happy today. He is singing a song under his breath when he comes into the barn. He is singing it as he brushes me down and tacks me. He is singing it, even as the wind tries to steal the air from his lungs, as we ride. He is singing it as we ride home and his is still singing it when he puts me back in my stall, even though he is in a hurry. This would not be unusual, except that usually, he is just humming or whistling.

It seems that he has finally found the words to his song.

We are sitting, Aggy and I, on the edge of a dune, watching the sea roll under the night sky. She is still in the questions mood, which is making me uncomfortable. I’m the sort of person that prefers to just exist, and never question anything. Aggy is not like this. Aggy, I think, would make a very good scientist, if she could ever settle down for books. The only thing that Aggy ever settles down for is knitting. It’s the only thing that quiets her mind enough to enable her to sit still. Which is why I have a constant supply of yellow beanies, and sweaters of various colors, but usually with uneven sleeves. The beanies are yellow because she knows it’s my favorite color. The sweaters are various other colors, because she gets tired of yellow. Also because, much as I love yellow, I don’t really want to be wearing it all over my body twenty-four-seven.

After a blessedly long spell of silence, Aggy comes at me with yet another question: “Would you ever leave this island? For anything?”

A lot of thoughts run through my head. If Aggy were to go to the mainland for school, would I follow her? No, because I would have to take care of Mom. But if Mom had passed on when Aggy went, then would I go? What about Ceol? What if I lost Ceol to the sea? Would I follow her then? With no one left on this island that I love to hold me, would I stay?

I ask: “Would you?”

She shakes her head slowly. “No, no I don’t think I would. I love it too much, I think.”

“Even for school? Even to come back again?”

“I think I would go crazy, if I were ever separated from her.” Aggy tilts her head and smiles at the sea, at the cliffs around us, at the stars above us. “This is home,” she says. “This is where I stay.”

I say, “Then, nothing could take me from here.”

She looks at me in surprise. “But if I were to go, you would follow me?”

“My heart would be torn,” I confess. “But if there was no one else left here, I would probably follow you, yes.” I rumple her hair, and she smiles at me, and we don’t say anything more for a long time.

The night drags on, and we nearly fall asleep a few times, but wake each other up. I don’t usually try to catch anything when I’m this tired, so it’s a good thing Aggy is here. When it is about two o’clock in the morning, judging by the stars’ rotation, Aggy points to the crest of a wave. There is hair among the foam. A small grey horse tosses its head, and screams into the still air. Of course it is grey. Of course it will be a mare. Of course her dream would be right.

I am not standing in the water, as I usually do, because I didn’t want to make Aggy stand there all night with me. So instead of catching it while it is still pulling its bones from its home, we crouch in the shadows and wait for it to come onto the sand. Aggy whirrs the charms in her hands nervously. I smile, and lay a reassuring hand on her arm.

She can do this.

[solidaritetwatson]

Rider Challenge #10

[ @starsfelllikerain and I are collaborating and have chosen to set our stories in the 90′s. Also, I’ve decided to do mine in the style of the Katie and the Mustang series, with having a bit from my capall’s perspective at the beginning of each chapter. He’ll be talking about the chapter before, so they won’t make much sense out of order] (psst Ceol’s bit is at the end in this one)

@thescorpioracesfestival

We have her funeral that night, because it has to be done before the races. I stand with my mother, who can not stop crying. She has not stopped crying since she heard. It wasn’t me that brought her the news. I was not in charge of my physical functions for about an hour. That is what they tell me.

I can’t really hear anything now. There are all these people telling us their condolences, hugging my mother with tears in their eyes. I wonder why they are crying. Why does it hurt so much, feeling other people’s grief? Though some of the grief must be their own. Aggy knew everyone on this island, and all but the most cold hearted loved her. She was mischief and kindness wrapped in a wild package, and everyone loved her. But no one really did, either. No one loved her like I did. Not even my mother. Only I could love her with my love because I am the only one who can love with my love, and she had all of it. She still has it, she will always have it, and death can not take that. I am angry at death for trying. I am vindictive because he has failed. He can not take my love from my sister. It goes with her forever.

Mother Oman says some words. The pyre blazes.  They keep adding more wood, as if it should burn forever. I think how beautiful that would be, if she could be a beacon on this hill, shining forever.

They are calling me forward. No, just one, Terrance, calling my name softly and holding out his hand. I want him to do it for a moment, because I feel so weak, but I know I am the only one. I would have no one else do it. It is my place.

I take a bowl of her ashes and I take the reins of her mare, Fiain, and lead her down to the water’s edge. Just a little ways away there is another pyre, and another figure and capall silhouetted against it, waiting to do the same thing.

Aggy’s friend’s horse got in a fight with another horse, and they both died trying to pull them apart. I don’t know which capaill ripped a hole in her chest. It doesn’t matter. The one got away, and the other is being led down after I am done. They will both go back to the sea.

It seems a shame, as I look at Fiain’s slender face, eyes so unsure, that she should go back to her watery home so soon. We never found out if she was fast. We never got to ride her at all, barely got to know her. She barely knew us. I run a finger down the slope of her nose, and whisper in her ear. She dances soundlessly on the sand. There are tears trickling down my face, and getting in my nose, and they are going to make my sneeze, which would not be good right now. I wipe them quickly away. I walk her carefully into the sea.

I hold her steady, singing into her ear. I hold her head with one hand and the bowl of ashes in the other. I know how this is done. I’ve done it once before. I didn’t want to ever do it again.

I slip her halter off her head and chant the words I know by heart from them repeating in my head as I dreamed again and again the memory of releasing my father’s capall into the sea. I scatter her ashes with hands that are bigger than they were then, but that shake just as much. I whisper her name three times as her capall arches its back and dives into the deep. I am standing in silence, like I am in a trance, holding the empty bowl in a limp hand, and watching the sea where that grey back just disappeared. Someone is whispering my name. I turn. It’s Elfleda, all the color drained from her face; or maybe it’s just the moonlight. I look up. It’s a full moon. Aggy said she would ride her grey mare forever under a full moon. I can see it in my head. I am crying again. Elfleda takes my hand and gently pulls me back up the hill.

It’s only as I stand, alone again, in front of the dying fire, and the crowd from the other pyre joins ours, and I realize that people have been flitting between the two, that I realize what song I had been singing in Fiain’s ear. Over and over and over again, just one line, over and over and over again:

We’re kings and queens, we’ll always be.

We’re kings and queens, we’ll always be.

I wrote it for someone else. But now, with flames stained in my eyes, I realize that it’s also Aggy and I. King and Queen forever. Racing under the full moon. Timeless gods in our bones, the infinite, stretched inside our skin, ages quick.

Mortal but infinite. Gone but still here. I get a chill, and look back out towards the water. No one sees them but me, a pack of silvery dogs, spread out like an arrow, like geese fly, running over the water. Chasing her ashes over the tide. Escorting her home. Home to the sea.

I look back to the crowd around the fire, now thinning. She must be here. Surely, even with everything, she would come. I don’t see her, but, Mona has always been good at hiding. Unless she has gone back to Hastoway. She usually stays for the races, but perhaps this year she has gone back home. I close my eyes. The heat from the low fire is hotter than when it was high. Someone is taking my hand. This time it is my mother. She is still crying. Neither of us say anything. We stand like that until they dose out the embers, and then, at last, we go home.

The King comes to me late that night. He smells of ash and grief. There is only one loss that could cause him to be this distraught. He was not the one to come get my grey sister, but even then, I knew what it meant. He taps my nose halfheartedly, and leans his face against my stall bars for awhile, and I blow on him gently. I wish I had words. Even then, would I know what to say to him? My heart is heavy in my chest. The Queen is gone. I will miss her. Not as much as he does, but I will miss her.

Eventually, he slumps down with his back against my stall door, and starts talking. He is debating with himself. He is asking me questions I can’t answer. He has to answer them for himself.

The races are tomorrow. He is wondering if he should ride. Would it dishonor his sister to ride tomorrow? Would it seem calloused? He tilts his head back to look up at me. I have my head tilted sideways and down, to watch him with one eye. We look at each other for a long moment. I think we understand each other like we never have.

Riding would not dishonor her. Winning would honor her more than anything.

He stands up, grabs the bars between us, and says, “For Aggy.” I keen her name back to him. Does he know that is the sound of my name for her? From the water in his eyes, I think he does.

I will run faster than I ever have before.

I will run for my queen.

[solidaritetwatson]

Rider Challenge #11

[ @starsfelllikerain and I are collaborating and have chosen to set our stories in the 90′s. Also, I’ve decided to do mine in the style of the Katie and the Mustang series, with having a bit from my capall’s perspective at the beginning of each chapter. He’ll be talking about the chapter before, so they won’t make much sense out of order] 

@thescorpioracesfestival

It is the morning of the races. The whole island is electric. The sea is calling out louder than ever. There are noisy crowds, and my brothers and sisters screaming above it all. There are bells everywhere, but none on me. I don’t think I mind them as much as the King does. I wear a net full of charms beneath my saddle though, and it is making my skin crawl. I don’t blame him for the extra precautions; today, of all days, is a good day to be cautious.

It is the morning of the races. Mom screeched and cried this morning over breakfast when I told her I was still riding. She told me she could not lose another child, not in two days. I told her I had to win for Aggy. She asked, what if you don’t win?

I don’t have an answer to that. I just know that Aggy would want me to ride. I know she would ride for me, if our places were switched.

Oh God, how I wish our places were switched.

Ceol is unusually focused. There is dark purpose in his liquid eyes. He snaps viciously whenever anyone gets too close, capaill or human, and he feels like an electric current when I touch him.

I’ve got to keep my skin away from his today, or my mother really will lose another child to the sea.

The time comes. I do not feel ready. I never feel ready. We line up as best as capaill can. There is a rushing in my ears. I barely hear the gun. I don’t even tell Ceol to take off, but he charges with the others. I focus on my breathing, make my eyes take in the riders around me, get my grip on the reins. If I don’t ride this race, Ceol will race it for me, and it is in his nature to run it into the sea, no matter how much he does or doesn’t know my need to win. I can’t trust him like that. I need to be in control.

I see a flash of green copper out of the corner of my eye; Elfeda is riding, all focus, all charge. She is several riders away from me, towards the edge. I am being pushed nearer and nearer to the sea. Ceol’s ears are flickering away from me, towards the waves. I snap the reins, and reach out to pull one of his ears towards me. I sing a stronger melody than the sea. I sing what he is to me. I sing our need to win. I sing of Aggy. I push him forwards, towards a gap, trying to get away from the sea.

It’s such a short race. All races are. It feels like forever stretched inside a moment. So many opportunities to die strung together in just a few moments. It feels like two days and half a second at the same time. There are so many things you have to see. You can’t see them all. You don’t have enough time. Everything feels slow, but it isn’t. You don’t have time. You can’t see and you can’t predict.

I did not see the black horse on my right snake out to grab my foot. Ceol did. He should have run faster, but he was already angry. Angry with my anger.

I could not predict that he would turn on my attacker, instead of running on. I could not see the tan capall breaking away from it’s rider, surging towards my unprotected back, grabbing onto my shirt, ripping off my paper number, unbalancing me in my saddle. I could not predict Ceol turning his hind feet towards the black horse for a kick, and now aiming his teeth at the passing tan horse instead. I could not see, as I suffered from the whiplash and struggled to regain my seat, the blue roan that came crashing into us as the tan one got away from Ceol’s snapping teeth, as a crowd of close riders come upon us, slowed as we are to nearly a halt.

I try to urge Ceol on, but I am slipping. I don’t have any grip at all, the others are rushing past me, Ceol tries to leap for the clear-

I am rolling into the water. What sounds like a thousand feet rush past me. Ceol rears in menace at a horse that tries to come towards me. I am struggling to me feet. Ceol is dancing in the water, eyes wild, sweating hard. By the time I calm him enough to remount, it will be too late. There is a stone in my stomach. I sit back down. Ceol is still dancing, watching me with wild eyes.

I whisper, “It’s alright.” Something escapes as I say it. Something inside of me tells it back to me. “It’s alright.”

His dancing slows a little. A strange song is coming out of my throat. It doesn't have words. I don’t know them yet. Maybe I never will. His ears are swiveled towards me, and not the sea. We are the only people in the world. Aggy is in the sea. She said… what was it she said to me? About the races. I’d asked if she’d won, in her capall dream. She’d said something about not thinking that that was the point.

I close my eyes. I can see her laughing, running, racing me home. I hear the small splashes of Ceol walking towards me. I put up my hand, and open my eyes. He stops just short of touching me. I’ve stopped singing. He’s shivering. He’s standing a few feet from rushing to his home, and there is hunger in his eyes. But he won’t eat me. He wants to go home, but he won’t eat me.

I did not need to race today. I should not have tried to race today. I am barely back in my own mind, my own body. I could have died. Maybe a part of me wanted to die. I am very lucky that I didn’t die. My job in this race is to look out for my capall, and instead, Ceol looked out for me.

I stand slowly. He’s backing away. There is a look in his eyes that I can not call him back from, not for all the singing in the world. Still I sing, and whisper through the singing, “Let me at least untie you, let me at least-”

But he is shying away from my hand. Deeper and deeper. Wild thing. I should move away, before he changes his mind. Today is the day he should eat me, of all days, when I have no fight left in me. We look into each other’s eyes. I think he’s sorry we didn’t win. I whisper again, “It’s ok.”

He turns. He leaps. He takes himself and everything he carries into the sea. I stand alone, with the roar of the crowd coming from a different world. The overwhelming smell of blood coming from a different world.

In this one, I am alone. So alone, that it feels as if no one will reach me ever again. My sister is in the sea. And so is my friend. And even though I let him go, all this grief is too big for my body.

Mom actually came to the race, to watch me not die. She is very glad to hold me in her arms, when it is all over. She doesn't really care that Ceol is gone. She goes on home while I stay to check on Elfleda. She made it through. She didn’t win, but she did well, and she is very happy. I don’t tell her that I lost Ceol. She didn’t see. I’ll tell her later. I can’t say the words right now.

I walk home by myself. My feet drag, and make the walk longer than it has ever been. The song that I’ve written and the this new song that I haven’t are getting tangled in my head.

There is someone standing in the doorway to my house. I think it is Mom, until I get closer. She is smaller. Her hair and skin are dark. There is all this water in my throat. There is water in her eyes. I walk into her arms, and she holds me while I cry.

I don’t know why she is here. I don’t know what this means. I don’t care. It doesn’t need to mean anything. This is now. And she is here. And I am not alone in an endless sea.

[solidaritetwatson]

Rider Challenge #9

[ @starsfelllikerain and I are collaborating and have chosen to set our stories in the 90′s. Also, I’ve decided to do mine in the style of the Katie and the Mustang series, with having a bit from my capall’s perspective at the beginning of each chapter. He’ll be talking about the chapter before, so they won’t make much sense out of order] @thescorpioracesfestival

They have brought one of my sisters in from the sea for the Queen. She is small and shy, but feisty when riled. She doesn’t really want to talk to me. Perhaps my accent is strange, from having lived so long on land. Or perhaps I am saying the wrong things. I am telling her that the land is not so harsh a place once you’ve been here a little while, and that the people here are good at heart, even if they are not as intelligent as we are, and things like that. But perhaps she does not want to hear about kindness and a home away from home.

She listens all day to the calling of the sea, and is scolded when she tries to sing along. She doesn’t want to make this place her home. She wants to go back to her real home. I want to tell her, then you should not have come here. But I don’t. We all come here. The land is a siren we can’t say no to, the siren of a lover, calling us to excitement and adventure. That is why she is here. That is why I am here. And now the sea is our siren, but this siren is our mother, calling us back home.

It is the day before the races, and I am all nerves. Which is why I didn’t say no when Aggy asked me to muck her mare’s stall, because I owe her for all those years that she mucked Ceol’s while I was gone and because I’m going to owe her for more and mostly because her friend is training down on the beach and “it’s the last day of training and goodness knows he needs my help.” I have already ridden today and need something to keep my mind off things, so I say yes, run off with your friend, I owe you a few favors. So she does, and I muck two stalls instead of one, with a handkerchief pulled over my nose.

When I am done, and as I prepare to heave my weight against the wheelbarrow to dump its contents outside, a cold breeze waifs past my legs, and my head jerks up to see a silvery shadow of a dog dash out of the barn. I freeze, waiting for more to rush past me, but feel nothing else. I look around, expecting to see her, expecting to see Mona. I have never seen the Madrai Uisce except around her. Ghost dogs from the sea. I don’t know how she summons them, or why, or why there are ghosts of dogs in the sea, but she says they used to come here, like the horses, but they could never be tamed, so they were killed. And now only their ghosts remain. I don’t know how she knows all that, but if anyone would know, it would be her. Still, I can’t find Madrai Uisce anywhere in the history books of Thisby. If they did roam here, it was long, long ago, before people wrote things down.

Wherever they are from though, they are real, and they are ghosts, and one of them was just here, even though she is not. Ceol and Fiain, as Aggy has decided to call her mare, are both on edge.

There is only one reason why they ever run apart from her. All the hair on the back of my neck is standing on end, and there is a wild drumbeat in my chest instead of my heart. There are running footsteps coming towards the barn. I don’t want to turn around, but the owner of the footsteps has started to shout my name.

“Jan! Jan!” It is one of the stable hands, and she catches hold of the doorway, panting. I can not describe the look on her face. I don’t think I really hear the words that come out of her mouth. She says, “Jan, your sister. It’s your sister, the beach-”

I am already running and I do not think I heard the words she said because she can not have said them, she can not have meant what I know she means, the ghost dog can not have come as a messenger for me, Aggy is fine Aggy is not dead Aggy is not- I am choking on wind and water in my throat. Why is there water in my throat?

I don’t remember getting to the beach. I remember leaving the barn and I remember tripping through the sand because my feet don’t want to lift and I can’t breathe and my heart is now beating outside of my body instead of inside my chest where it should be, and there is a crowd and she is just hurt, or she saved someone’s life, or her friend is dead or… she is just hurt Jesus in heaven she is just hurt let her just be hurt-

The crowd looks up and parts for me. There are two sheets on the ground covering two bodies. I can see her hand poking out. I’d know that hand anywhere. There is a strange noise coming out of my body and I fall to the sand beside her and grip her hand and am somehow expecting her to grip it back. She doesn’t grip back. Someone is pulling back the sheet for me to see. I don’t want to see. I need to see. That is not her face. Cold and white with eyes closed. That is not her chest, red and only half there. They put the sheet back. I think I am screaming. Maybe someone else is screaming. I think I am calling the King of Heaven awful names. Someone is trying to pull me away.

Aggy is dead. Aggy is dead. Aggy, Agatha Olivia, my heart, my sister, I would go with you anywhere, don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me.

Don't’ leave me.