Meme between the lines
Nov. 11th, 2012 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stillsostrangeSince I really need to take advantage of my deadlineless state to finish a short story or two, it's time for the first lines meme again.
"Flood"
Nan doesn't mean to fall asleep--she never does. But Evie's soft breath and the steady creak of the ceiling fan lull her, till her eyes sag and the worn paperback slides from her fingers.
"Salt"
The sea left footprints.
Elias kicked at the hard white ground, watched salt dust puff and settle on the toes of his boots. The salt flats stretched out around him, mountains floating like a mirage in the distance. He felt the phantom weight of the long-receded ocean pressing down. It would come back, eventually. Sometimes he wondered if he'd be around to see it. Mostly he hoped otherwise.
"Snakebit"
The horses were restless. The sound of snorts and hooves tangled through Lanie's nightmares, familiar dreams of smoke and screaming. She woke with a start, sweat sticky on her neck. Beside her, Merle stirred with a muffled curse as one of the horses whinnied.
"Spore"
"I got it from my girlfriend," the boy says. "Ex-girlfriend." Color rises in his light brown cheeks. "Wow, that makes it sound bad. Simpler too, I guess."
"Waiting For the Train"
When it's raining here, you hear the trains.
Changeling Hearts
The girl whose name was not Aletheia Rampion woke to thunder, and the lingering terror of a nightmare squeezing her chest.
Daughter of Jackals
The empress’s antechamber was dim and hushed, warm from two bodies and a single lamp. Voices drifted through both doors: from the interior, the soft tones of the physician and his attendants and the occasional cry and curse from the empress; from the exterior, the muttered talk of courtiers awaiting news. Indihar al Seth sat on a cushioned bench, breathing in the taste of lamp oil and nerves, and waited for her life to change.
Mesofauxtamia
The temple of Kimah was a place of bells. Solemn peals marked the hours; chimes called the priests to meals and to prayer; gongs clashed to warn of danger--thankfully rare, though pilgrims carried news of troubled roads and uneasy borders. And overlaying all was the jingle of charms hanging from eaves and doorframes, copper and bronze and polished stone dancing in the unceasing breeze off the mountains. Bells spoke more often than human voices in the halls of dust and clay.
Pinion
Lilah runs and darkness follows.
The Poison Court
No one had died at a royal ball in over a year. Savedra Severos held that thought in her mind as she surveyed the Topaz Ballroom; it might reassure her eventually.
Prayers to Broken Stone
Rain washed Paris, speeding the Seine on its rush to the sea. The cruelest month had come and gone, but storms still lingered. In Saint-Germain-des-Prés it poured from the gutters and dripped from curling wrought iron balconies. Moisture darkened pale walls, new paint and plaster over centuries-old bones. On rue du Four, water drummed against the awnings outside Les Vieux Os and fell in ribbons to the flooded pavement.
The Winter Road
Isyllt Iskaldur knelt in mud and darkness, cursing the autumn rain and every impulse that had driven her to become a mercenary.
"Flood"
Nan doesn't mean to fall asleep--she never does. But Evie's soft breath and the steady creak of the ceiling fan lull her, till her eyes sag and the worn paperback slides from her fingers.
"Salt"
The sea left footprints.
Elias kicked at the hard white ground, watched salt dust puff and settle on the toes of his boots. The salt flats stretched out around him, mountains floating like a mirage in the distance. He felt the phantom weight of the long-receded ocean pressing down. It would come back, eventually. Sometimes he wondered if he'd be around to see it. Mostly he hoped otherwise.
"Snakebit"
The horses were restless. The sound of snorts and hooves tangled through Lanie's nightmares, familiar dreams of smoke and screaming. She woke with a start, sweat sticky on her neck. Beside her, Merle stirred with a muffled curse as one of the horses whinnied.
"Spore"
"I got it from my girlfriend," the boy says. "Ex-girlfriend." Color rises in his light brown cheeks. "Wow, that makes it sound bad. Simpler too, I guess."
"Waiting For the Train"
When it's raining here, you hear the trains.
Changeling Hearts
The girl whose name was not Aletheia Rampion woke to thunder, and the lingering terror of a nightmare squeezing her chest.
Daughter of Jackals
The empress’s antechamber was dim and hushed, warm from two bodies and a single lamp. Voices drifted through both doors: from the interior, the soft tones of the physician and his attendants and the occasional cry and curse from the empress; from the exterior, the muttered talk of courtiers awaiting news. Indihar al Seth sat on a cushioned bench, breathing in the taste of lamp oil and nerves, and waited for her life to change.
Mesofauxtamia
The temple of Kimah was a place of bells. Solemn peals marked the hours; chimes called the priests to meals and to prayer; gongs clashed to warn of danger--thankfully rare, though pilgrims carried news of troubled roads and uneasy borders. And overlaying all was the jingle of charms hanging from eaves and doorframes, copper and bronze and polished stone dancing in the unceasing breeze off the mountains. Bells spoke more often than human voices in the halls of dust and clay.
Pinion
Lilah runs and darkness follows.
The Poison Court
No one had died at a royal ball in over a year. Savedra Severos held that thought in her mind as she surveyed the Topaz Ballroom; it might reassure her eventually.
Prayers to Broken Stone
Rain washed Paris, speeding the Seine on its rush to the sea. The cruelest month had come and gone, but storms still lingered. In Saint-Germain-des-Prés it poured from the gutters and dripped from curling wrought iron balconies. Moisture darkened pale walls, new paint and plaster over centuries-old bones. On rue du Four, water drummed against the awnings outside Les Vieux Os and fell in ribbons to the flooded pavement.
The Winter Road
Isyllt Iskaldur knelt in mud and darkness, cursing the autumn rain and every impulse that had driven her to become a mercenary.
