Topic: With Frown Defiant

Lucky Duck

Date: 2007-08-11 00:41 EST
But Memory blushes at the sneer,
And Honor turns with frown defiant,
And Freedom, leaning on her spear,
Laughs louder than the laughing giant.

- Oliver Wendell Homes (1809-1894) - Attribution: "A good Time going"


The rain fell steadily, coloring the horizon with a grey hue. Against the monochromatic background stood two figures upon an empty pier. One stood with an arm extended, pointing out various things of note to the other with hunched shoulders, who stood dutifully in the rain and nodded on occasion in acknowledgment.

"This building will store the materials. And there will be where the dry dock work is done. And this will be the launch," Lucien noted definitively, rounding out the overview of the pier and the rest of the adjoining site. The barrister turned to inspect the edge of the pier. It was then that the loyal manservant caught sight of it.

Gywr saw something in the barrister's eyes, likened to a veil beginning to lift. He saw in Lucien's somber ice blues, hints of an old spark, something that'd been long missing. Muscles in arms held akimbo practically twitched with anticipation. There seemed to be a charge about the barrister.

Lucien cast an assessing glance around the site, the pier and over the western horizon, the lighthouse in the distance nothing more than a silhouette of a darker shade against the grey canvas. And in the rain, the steersman stood.

Lucky Duck

Date: 2007-09-17 00:42 EST
Did you ever do something terribly, horribly stupid, and end up questioning yourself over and over again after it?

Lucien was hunched over the piece of lumber, driving the plane over the wooden surface, smoothing out the curve, erasing every imperfection in the wood.

Black moods. . . I bring you pain, I think. It is what I do best, now.

His hands were raw and red. Perspiration stung his eyes, dripping off the bridge of his nose, running down his chin. Muscles in his shoulders screamed as the midday sun beat down on his back.

I'm well enough, dear man. Just -- my mind is brimming with thoughts and memories. It's hard to keep them straight.

The salty sea air cooled the sheen of sweat on his skin. The sound of the waves breaking against the pier served as a backdrop, like the anonymous din of the inn.

We can not forsee the circumstances of all of our decisions, Alysia.

He wiped the back of his hand over his brow, irritated at the minor, passing interruption.

Foresight is my duty, beloved.
Quite an impossible duty to bear.
Not impossible . Just wretchedly difficult.

Lucien rolled the plane in his hand, rolling his wrist and scraping already raw hand over the working surface. A gutteral growl rose in his throat as the disobedient tool was hurled across the way, landing with a echoing skitter.

It's getting close in here. Please excuse me.

He drew a deep breath and rose to his feet, rubbing his hands together, leaving the half formed lumber on the blocks. His thumb traced over the scar nestled in the middle of his hand.

Guthorm Othinsson

Date: 2007-10-07 20:49 EST
He crouched down to pick up the plane. It was upside down in the dirt and still had a bit of wood shaving a-cling to the blade. Not a usual treatment for a godt tool, the Norskmann thought as he wiped dirt from the flat underside and appraised the project underway just ahead of him.

Long legs took him straightaway to the wood that was begging for his hand. Wood spoke in tones he could not ignore or deny. The project was a small one...but she was a boat. She was going to be shapely, lap-straked and belling out amidships to skim the top of the water, her shape sweeping into a modest stem, both fore and aft. A fishing boat, in truth, but a boat with a soul. And a beautiful soul at that. They would make her beautiful, to serve proudly as a ship's showpiece in miniature. They would show this one off to folk who wanted a fast boat capable of sailing up river right to the shore. Or out into the rolling waves, without fear of the skill to heel to shore before the storm. He chuckled to himself. The fish in Rhydin were going to be in trouble.

He bent over her and caressed the strake abandoned on the block. His calloused hand, used to wielding weapons with sharkskin grips, that hand soaked in the details of the work done before him. Smooth enough, but for a middling stroke that ended with raised roughness. If he had not known how to caress the wood, if he had been inexperienced and impatient with it, he would have impaled the meat of his thumb on a splinter. But he did not. Instead, he raised eyebrows in brief puzzlement.

But the wood was calling...the unmade ship was singing and he could not hold back his joining her.

He leaned into the work, beginning gently, stroking smooth that rough edge, breathing along with the shush of the plane as it shaved delicate curls of wood. His shoulders loved this work, and his back was keen for it. Eyes closed, he guided the tool by feel and sound, two handed--one for the plane, the other for the wood--easy, easy, coaxing a sweet silky smoothness to the grain under his hands.

He liked the response from this strake of wood. It had spring and strength. She, the boat herself, would like this strake nearer the bottom where the flare of ribs would begin the bell-like shape of the belly of the boat. This was a fine piece of wood, flexible and straight.

And he appreciated strength, in wood as well as in life.

Lucky Duck

Date: 2007-11-12 00:33 EST
"Don't think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm."
- Malayan Proverb

Lucien stepped in the empty warehouse, took a deep breath of the wooden scent that filled the warehouse. He lit the lantern, as the morning sun had yet to rise high enough to stream through the clerestory windows, and moved to the bow of the fishing boat already taking shape on the horses. Solitary footsteps echoed, breaking the hush.

The lantern was set down on an empty barrel used as a makeshift stool, table and bench all at once. He ran a calloused hand over the wooden surface and a small grin broke his somber mien and somber mood briefly. The wood was shaped by more than an expert hand. The wood was shaped with heart, the very life in it coaxed out.

The Barrister-Steersman moved away from the bow, over to a squared log set up on blocks and picked up the axe. He would leave the work on the bow to the expert hand of his partner. His restlessness was ill suited to that task at the moment. The axe was hoisted up and brought down with restrained power on the squared log to begin rebating it to match the ribs. The measured strike of the axe against the solid log lent a metered rhythm to the quiet of the warehouse.

The sun was set well near noon before the axe blows ceased. The axe was set down and his shirt was removed and used it to wipe the sweat off his face. Ice blue eyes drifted over the warehouse, the hush interrupted only by the sound of his own breath. It was too quiet.

You don't seem particularly enthusiastic about that.

The Priestess' keen observations always struck to the heart of the matter. She could read him like an open book. Alysia was right. He wasn't enthusiastic at the news. How he felt couldn't even be classified as cautious optimism. He was downright suspicious.

No news from the West End. Nothing from the DCH since the explosion. Not even whispers any more of the Seer. Except for the devil-kin's irritating presence, it was much too quiet. On all fronts.

"Better to have the enemy in plain sight then hidden."

The beading perspiration was wiped off his beard and the shirt tossed aside. The axe was picked up again and Lucien walked over to another squared log. The tool was hoisted overhead and brought down with a tempered strike into the solid wooden surface. It was much too quiet.

Guthorm Othinsson

Date: 2007-11-25 13:05 EST
?Nature thrives on patience; man on impatience.? ~Paul Boese

Impatience was a beast that could eat a man from the inside out, without warning, a snapping of the ties he had to sanity. The Norskmann was on a trail that led further and slow, slow, gods, too slow into the core of deception. He went through the list of what he had prepared himself with. He had several foreign weapons given him by the girl, Tasha. She did not fear to give them to him, even in public. Even in front of that fancy bodyguard, Arrnadae, that the Norskmann did not trust. They had nearly come to blows over mistaken movement and intents, and oh, he was ready to cross swords! But Lucky had a habit of putting his own body between the Norskmann and what Guthorm would tear apart. And Tasha too, had held her guard back, and Guthorm's chance to spend some of his impatience was stolen away by two who most likely had no idea what they averted that night.

Impatience was eating him alive. But here, in the dim warehouse with the sawdust dancing on high sunbeams stealing in from the gable windows, here with the tools his hands knew and grew around, gaining strength and callous from their close lives together, here, was quiet. Here was a chance to breathe again and remember that fate was long woven and could be played out differently only through the favour and notice of the gods. He accepted that, more or less, in this warehouse, standing next to the familiar shape of keel and stems, next to the shaped blocks that Lucky had put his hand and the axe to, all in the familiar smell of wood and sweat.

He sucked in a long breath as his iceblue eyes bounced in easy survey over the progress made in his absence. Lucky must surely be a madman. But the Norskmann had no argument with that. Oh nei. The st?rsmann had guts. This risk they shared equally and with a wild hope, openly visible yet hidden away, regardless if the right folk opened their eyes to see. He spat on the ground, silently daring the Norns to twist the weave. This place was a deliberate spit in Howe and Dewey's eye. The Norskmann laughed aloud at that.

Guthorm Othinsson

Date: 2007-11-25 14:09 EST
?The pine tree seems to listen, the fir tree to wait: and both without impatience -- they give no thought to the little people beneath them devoured by their impatience and their curiosity.? ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Guthorm left the quiet of the dim warehouse as if he was spurred by a thorn. It was the great mound of pine roots rising from the outside yard along the water that pulled him out into the sunny day. It was too early to burn the pine tar, but he needed the flames. He needed to see and feel the heat of them, to match his own burning, down deep in bone and muscle.

The men he had hired to help him over these past weeks were nearly ready to lay on the sod. They had helped the Norskmann find and pull the pine stumps, chop them into lengths, stack them in the wide V-shaped ditch in the sand. They were waiting now for his inspection of the mound and when they saw him come out from the warehouse and around the town wall, they gathered from their dicing to watch and hope.

Guthorm walked around the 60 cubic metres of piled roots. It had taken some time for the men to dig and lay the roots...about 3,000 to 4,000 man hours to make the mound about four man-lengths across and a man high. The Norskmann eyed it all around, and nodded.

"How much will it yield?" a dock-man called Keffin asked.

"Ehm, about 1,000 liters jeg tenke, if we do not burn it. Enough for the boat and 2 bigger ships. That is godt news for you, hmm?" Guthorm slapped Mackie on the shoulder as the man rubbed his tired eyes. The hired man blinked to clear the water out of his pained eye and then lumbered off to do the commander's bidding.

"Lay the sod!"

Several groups of men hefted the wide and heavy lengths of sod and draped them over arms to carry and lay them close to the top of the mound. Guthorm climbed the mound with two others and together they pulled the forest floor sod across the top and stamped it down tight around the roots with their feet. They laid more close around the metal pipe that stuck out high from the middle. Other men draped the strips of earth and pine needles, scruff and leaves, moss and weeds along the sides so that no wood was showing. It did not take long, and soon Guthorm gave the order to fold the draped sod up, so that the root-ends of the mound were uncovered again.

"Pile the coals high, up to here." He jumped down and marked the height he wanted with his hand. He too took up a shovel and began to transfer the charred wood coal to the mound's edge. The smells and sounds of the work: the piney boughs, the soft earth sod, the chinky coal chips, and the sweat, grunting and laughter of the men, the sound of the sea lapping on the beach where they worked, and the sea gulls calling overhead, all filtered into the Norskmann's memory and for a moment, he seemed to be at hjem in Hafrsfjord. So long gone from there, and yet so few years, all passed too quickly...

It was late afternoon when they fired the mound from the bottom edges. The flames caught in the sea breeze and the roots added their snapping and a little smoke as the fire worked it's way between the wood, inwards and upwards. All this, the Norskmann watched from the top of the mound, tamping sod down where smoke leaked up around his feet, and at the early coming of dusk, he judged it ready to drop the sod back along the sides. The fire was well into the mound's interior spaces, the crackling of wood loud and welcome. Men responded to his orders and the fire hissed and belched great columns of smoke as they covered the sides with the damp sheets of forest scruff. They poked the sod with pitchforks and poles to fit it tight against the mound. Against the rose-hued sky, Guthorm and two others seemed to dance there on the top in the midst of grey smoke and the yellow-orange licking of flames.

And in that tamping down of sod, in the use of his bone and muscle, surrounded by pungeant smoke and fire, Guthorm sneered and thought hard on the fall of other-worldly Powers and the Men, who had threatened Rhy'din's destruction for so long. On that night, Guthorm danced like Loki in the fiery midst of Ragnarok.

Lucky Duck

Date: 2008-01-06 00:10 EST
Fierce fire reveals true gold.
- Chinese proverb


"I started the fire for tar. With any luck, it will not rain all natt."

From the rooftop of the ship yard a lone figure sat, looking down upon the pungent bonfire that burned on the beach below. Ice blue gaze reflected the raging red and orange that continued to dance amid the swirl of grey smoke, stretching for the clear night sky, obscuring the sleepy horizon.

Long wisps of smoky fingers reached to the figure crouched in the comforting shadows of the rooftop, and coaxed the unseen witness in. Red and orange filled the barrister's vision. Burning earth and wood filled his lungs. The occassional snap of wood and the break of waves on the beach rang in his ears.

The barrister could feel the heat, just as surely as he could see the fire and smell the smoke. Hot, defiant, daring...impatient. It held promise to purify and cleanse. Fortify and strengthen. It held power to burn and destroy. Eradicate and erase. It was this same promise and power that Prometheus was punished for giving to the mortals. It was this same promise and power two mortal men wielded against the supernatural. Against the very titans and gods themselves.

He looked up at the horizon, through the veil of gey and blue. The storm was coming. But this night it was as the Captain wished. No rain would come tonight. There would be no storm this night.