Stories and the like

[Cho]

Since we have so many talented writers here, Kir and I decided to make a thread that holds stories, fan fics, and the like, just so no one has to create a new thread every time they write a story or something like that. I know there's already a poem thread, but this one is for stories anyone would like to share that they may have written.

[Amelia]

My unfinished fic:

It reminded her of a certain abominable heresy, whose author was now deservedly languishing in the dungeons of the Consistorial Court. He had suggested that there were more spatial dimensions than the three familiar ones, that on a very small scale, there were up to seven or eight other dimensions, but that they were impossible to examine directly. He had even constructed a model to show how they might work, and Mrs. Coulter had seen the object before it was exorcised and burned. Folds within folds, corners and edges both containing and being contained: its inside was everywhere and its outside was everywhere else. The Clouded Mountain affected her in a similar way...The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman

“Rhyalise!” Everett Habor’s cries were muffled by the thick cement walls of the inquisitorial cell.”Rhya! Rhyalise, my Rhyalise, Rhya!”<br> The inquisitor’s robes were too dark to be a felicitous red. They were decorated with black trim and gave him an imperious and frightening air, especially when they were swept into attitudes of cruelty and contempt. His spotted hyena dæmon raised her hackles and made low, threatening noises which permeated the air in shades of fog and poison. Nearby, a gaunt-faced young alethiometrist-friar scribbled upon a sheaf of paper, ocassionally staring fixedly at what looked like a gold and crystal compass. Every time the man cried out, the friar’s whole body gave an involuntary twitch, and his frog dæmon darted inside the comfort of his monastic robes. His name was Pavel Rasek, and his dæmon was terrified of what was happening to the dæmon of the accused. Fra Pavel gritted his teeth and focused at the needle spinning underneath its crystalline lid. He must become accustomed to this sort of thing if he was to become an able member of the Church’s Consistorial Court.
“Recant!” The inquisitor spat. The hyena dæmon crouched at his feet, her body coiled like a spring.
“Recant your heretical expositions, or else suffer the consequences!” In one hand he shook a bunch of paper which was bound together, covered in faded black type; in the other he clenched a most extraordinary little model. It was made of celluloid, and looked like an infinite and impossible knot. It was the universe...
Everett Habor was suddenly racked by great shuddering gasps; he clutched at his heart, his face contorted with pain. His pale brown hair was ravaged, and the spectacles framing his grey eyes were askew. He huddled against the unyielding cement corner of the cell, his arms wrapped around his thin frame, his hand pressed against his heart as though he were trying in vain to keep something inside.
The inquisitor waited ferociously, his cold eyes directed piercingly towards the accused. Pavel Rasek stole a glance at the tortured Scholar and wished he hadn’t; his dæmon went into a fresh bout of fright, burrowing deeper into his robes.
In the corridor outside, two scrivener-friars negotiated with a large steel cage. Inside was Rhyalise, the Scholar’s owl dæmon. Her eyes were the most intense part of her; within their pale amber depths was contained wisdom and exceptional intellect, but at present they radiated primal, life-deep desperation. Every feather stood on end; every inch of her, claw and wing and beak, was fighting to get out of this steel prison. “Everett!” she shrieked. She flung her grey-brown-tawny wings against the bars of the cage. Down feathers floated through the air.
The Scholar felt the impact of feather on cage and moaned. He gazed at the inquisitor through pain-filled eyes and gasped, “Stop! Stop it, please, oh, stop it! Stop pulling! Rhyalise!”
The inquisitor smiled hungrily. “Are you ready to recant, Habor?” Fra Pavel soothed his dæmon and glued his eyes to the Scholar.
Everett Habor did not respond. Perhaps he was thinking of how much work, all his life as an experimental theologian, had gone into the great theory, the theory of manifolds and multiple dimensions...he looked at the treatise, his treatise, which was crumpled in the inquisitor’s fist.
The inquisitor glared at the thin man slumped against the wall. He went to the locked door of the cell and called to the friars through a window: “All right, three more feet!”<br> Rhyalise shrieked a fearsome owl cry and fought more fiercely than ever, but her complacent captors obliged and carried her three feet down the hallway: three more feet away from Everett. Their bond stretched taut.
Everett screamed, a long wordless utterance of pain and longing and terror.
Pavel could not concentrate on the experimental theological question he was supposed to be asking the alethiometer. He held his dæmon so tightly she cried out.
The inquisitor towered over the Scholar. “This is the last time! Do you recant?”<br> From afar, Rhyalise pleaded with the friars. “Let us go! Please!” For answer, the friars shifted her two more inches farther down the corridor.
That was the catalyst. The feeling was unbearable, and Everett choked on his words: “I recant!”<br> The inquisitor sighed, an almost innocent sigh of contentment, as though he were warming himself by a hearth. He turned on his heel and spoke directly to Pavel.
“Fra Pavel, please send for Father McPhail.”<br> The alethiometrist packed up the tools of his trade with deft, pale fingers and took the key from the inquisitor without meeting his eyes. He unlocked the cell, leaving the bereaving inquisitor and bereft Scholar behind.
He returned a few minutes later in the company of two people.

[Amelia]

One of them was Father Hugh McPhail, the president of the Consistorial Court of Discipline; the other was a woman with lustrous, slightly wavy black hair and an entrancing demeanor. She hung behind the Father, so as to show respect for his superiority, but one could tell that she was very curious and not at all simpleminded, unlike the wordless nuns who acted as secretaries in the Tower Court.
Father McPhail strode briskly towards Everett, the woman following quickly behind, her hands full of notes. She took a fine pen from the breast pocket of her tailored skirt suit and jotted something down.
Father McPhail stood over Everett.
“So you have decided to denounce your heresies and turn to the way of God! We want it on paper. Sign this.” He motioned the woman forward and said curtly, “Miss Coulter, the documents, please.”
The dark-haired woman, whose name was Marisa, came forward. She cast a calculating glance at the Scholar. She felt no pity for the man with the mild grey eyes who had his head in his hands. A smile flickered over her face as she envisioned the righteous suffering he had endured. His atrocious heresies were almost beyond the Church’s power to absolve.
She regarded the waiting President for a moment, his fierce, chiseled face expectant. Chastened, she shuffled through the leaves of paper until she came upon a fine white sheet inscribed with dour words, stamped with the Church’s crest. She set it upon a small steel table at one corner of the room and distastefully assisted a nervous Fra Pavel in hoisting Everett Habor under the arms and guiding him over to a chair next to the table. All the energy had been drained out of him, but he tried to support his own weight. He sank limply into the chair. His eyes showed his fear, laced by a weighty feeling of defeat. You can still turn back, a voice inside his head urged. Don’t do this.
No! came another voice. It was Rhyalise. Everett, please, do whatever they want, my heart is being torn out, Everett, please-
He sobbed aloud. Trying to ignore the tugging feeling in his heart and the pervasive sense of longing, he composed himself and straightened his wire-rimmed spectacles. He compulsively flicked a lock of hair off his forehead, a nervous gesture, as he peered at the confession form as though it was a paper of experimental theology.
Without taking his eyes from the sheet he wordlessly held out his hand. Miss Coulter jabbed the pen between his fingers and his palm. Eyes closed, he said hoarsely, “What about my dæmon?”<br> The President said coolly, “After you have signed, of course.” The inquisitor nodded and smiled callously.
Everett sighed silently. You were right, Rhya, he thought to her. Suddenly he felt as though he could not breathe. His heartstrings were surely snapping, all the air being squeezed out of his lungs...
Alarmed, the President threw open the cell door’s window and cried to the friars, “No, no farther! That’s enough!” Miss Coulter’s dæmon, a golden-haired monkey, looked enthralled. The friars shouted apologies and carried the cage a bit closer.
Father McPhail shut the window heavily and stepped over to Everett. He regarded him with an air of undue patience, saying evenly, “Well, go on, then.” The stony lizard dæmon gripped the Father’s shoulder tightly with her small claws.
Everett turned his gaze from the President back to the table with the hateful piece of paper. He knew what it said before he even read it.

All who have erred and been mistaken in the Faith and, by the grace of the Authority, have since returned into the light of truth and the unity of Our Holy Magisterium, should well guard themselves that the Evil One did not drive them back and cause them to relapse into error and damnation.

Everett scanned the page for his name.

For this cause, I, Everett Habor, more commonly called Scholar Habor of Gabriel College, a miserable sinner, after that I had recognized the snares of error in which I was held, and after that, by the grace of the Authority, I had returned to our Holy Magisterium, in order that it may be seen that, not pretending but with a good heart and good will, I have returned thereto...

He was not in error, his treatise was as real and true experimental theology as had been seen in a long time, and he knew it...

I confess that I have most grievously sinned, in committing the most atrocious heresies by making false declaratons concerning the nature of Reality, conceived by the Holy Authority; in attempting to seduce others into my ways of sin and corruption; in believing foolishly and lightly; in making superstitious divinations; in blaspheming the Authority and his Kingdom; in authoring a heretical treatise on the nature of Reality and constructing an unholy object based upon heretical theories.

He had not sinned. He had done nothing...

And upon all these things aforesaid I submit to the correction, disposal, amendment, and entire decision of our Holy Magisterium and of your good justice.

What justice? Was this justice? What would they do to him?

Also I swear and promise to you...

There followed a long list of names.

...to my Lord Saint Peter, Prince of the Apostles, to the memory of the Holy Father Calvin the Pope of Geneva...

More names...

...and to you, my Lords, the reverend Father in God my Lord the President of the Consistorial Court of Discipline, the religious person, Father Makepwe, Deputy of my Lord the Inquisitor of the Faith, as my Judges..

The final promises that the page coldly wrested from him...

...that never, by any exhortation or other manner, will I return to the aforesaid errors, from which it had pleased Our Lord to deliver and take me; but always I will remain in union with our Holy Magisterium and in the obedience of the Consistorial Court of Discipline. And this I say, affirm, and swear, by God Almighty and by the Holy Gospels.

He was almost finished...

And in sign of this, I have signed this schedule with my signature.

Everett took the pen and signed his name, Everett Galen Habor. The black ink flowed smoothly from the nib onto the fine-grained surface of the paper. He wrote in uncharacteristic handwriting; instead of the usual plain, dark griffonage he had used ever since he first took notes at a Scholarly lecture, he wrote in a large and looping script with strange serifs over the E and G. Perhaps it was a sort of involuntary defense mechanism, in which the signing was made less painful by being out of character.
At least he wasn’t being tried by the full board in the Tower Court...that was the solitary comforting thought that passed through his mind.
After the last flourish on the r, he laid down the pen, very gently. The dark-haired lady snatched it up and polished it on a perfumed handkerchief before returning it to her breast pocket. Then Father McPhail came around behind him, reached down, and gingerly picked up the recantation.
He seemed to analyze the signature for a moment; his wiry eyebrows contracted and his eyes waxed intense and vindictive.

[Zoe 'n' Calosta]

Well this is just a normal story that I write, but with daemons as corporeal beings. I just wanted to mix my love for Cal with my love for writing. ;D

"No, please stop - please!" Rhia cried out, keeping her eyes firmly closed. But still, they continued, a mass of brightly coloured daemons, lions, tigers, jaguars, all attacking the struggling, desperate Dalryan. He was changing rapifly, his forms flickering from hawk to lion to weasel to a tiny mouse and to a artic wolf but still he couldn't escape the ravaging teeth and claws that raked him down to the floor of th bus and over and over again, bore into him. The children, jeering and laughing, feeling the triumph oh their daemons apparent victory, threw a number of hard, sharp objects at the cowering child. She curled up on her seat to get away from the hail of weapons but she could feel Dal's pain, so strong. He cried out for her, reaching out but the surge of terrorizing daemons kept him pinned to the ground.
"Leave him go please!" she cried out but no one listened, her pleas and frantic cries just added to their eagerness to kill her and her daemon. The school bus pulled over and the doors opened with a hiss. Some of the children and their daemons reluctantly retreated for this was their stop but they glared at the girl and her shivering daemon as they left the rattling old school bus. There were only a few of her attackers left and they had become bored with their sport. Their daemons hurried over and settled themselves at their human's shoulder or lap or breast and shot contempuous (sp?) glances at Dal. He cried out, startled and Rhia clutched him to her breast, feeling as though parting with him would mean death.
"Oh Dal, Dal," she whispered against his cat fur as she shuddered against her skin.
"Oi gippo - shut it," one of the boys called and the rest of their gang cackled at his joke.
Tears rolled freely down Rhia's cheeks, mingling into Dal's auburn cat fur and she pressed her cheek to his head and he tried to comfort her, to promise her that it would be alright but of course, he couldn't because it wasn't the truth. They both knew that, there was no escape for either of them.

[Amelia Not Logged In]

Yikes! That was good. That could definitely happen in our world...because I think having corporeal dæmons made people in Lyra's world more inhibited, better people....although I'm not sure, look at Mrs. Coulter.

[Zoe 'n' Calosta]

Yeah I guess but as your daemon is your conscious, it'd be a lot easier for your daemon to tell you to do the right thing and harder for you to ignore it. Okay I'm rambling but you get the picture lol

[Zen]

This is a little story I started, about a girl who finds her daemon (excuse my lack of the ae thing, I'm on an odd computer) and how that helps her change someone else. This is just the beginning. Tell me if you want more of it and I'll post it in chunks, as Amelia did.

Leah's eyes danced as they flicked from page to page, drinking in words like a butterfly drinks nectar. She came upon something then, and stopped. She'd read it before, but never thought of trying it. She read it again, than closed the book on her finger. Slowly, ever so slowly, she let one dark brown eye slip into a world of clear dreaming.
Instantly she saw.
Before her stood a bird - iridescent black-and-emerald feathers, ivory speckles, buttercup-colored bill. It gazed at her lovingly with eyes like midnight.
You're there, thought Leah, tears brimming and spilling down onto her cheeks.
I am always here, said the bird. I always will be.
What's your name?
That is for you to choose.
Leah didn't know. She felt it lurking there, some elusive string of colors and sounds...
The bird waited, and changed into a grey cat. It came.
Soran, Leah realized.
The grey cat flickered into a cabbage butterfly, its wings fluttering in excitement. I am Soran?
Yep. Leah felt like she would dissolve into stars.

[rave & phair]

Zen: I love yours. What kind of bird is that? Sounds cute! ^^

Zoe: That was painfully realistic. Darkett got really agitated, but he said it was wonderful. Good work.

Amelia: Please continue. It's enthrallingly Pullman-esque. Especially the Document. Superb Document.

[Amelia Not Logged In]

Raven-- Thanks! The recantation is based on Joan of Arc's and Galileo's documents.

[Cho]

Guest-Amelia said:

Raven-- Thanks! The recantation is based on Joan of Arc's and Galileo's documents.

That's where I've read those before! I knew I'd read something like that before! That was clever Amelia!

Zen- Wow! Wei loved it. I can just see Soran in the form of that bird. Very creative!

Zoe- That was great! Poor Rhia and Dal....I could just see the bus ride in my mind and it was horrible.

[Zoe 'n' Calosta]

Thanx! I'm writing some fan fiction at the mo but its waaay from finished so I'll post some of it when I'm done!

[Cho]

Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm working on a story with daemons in it at the moment as well, and I'm so busy, I can't get anything done. Homework is driving me crazy!

[SNL_Ali]

I'm procrastinating. I'm making this up as I go--I hope its alright....

Jack Anderson was nobody. He woke up every morning at precisely 7:13 and looked out on the city. It was always raining and foggy. He always walked to the kitched, put on the coffee maker, stepped outside his apartment door to grab the morning paper, and always went in to sit at the same chair to grab the same remote (always by the cereal box he never put away) and turned on the same station with the same smiling newscasters with the same smiling sad news. It was always the same--and never different. He always had toast (never the cereal from the cereal box he never put away) and always buttered and jammed it before quickling eating it (during the weather forecast) and running into the bathroom to ready himself up for another regular monotanous day.

He always left his house at precisely 8:44 AM, never a minute later, and always rode down the elevator with his neighbor--Darcie Williams (a retired old lady who always walked her four Pekingnese dogs at the nearby park) and always went to his gray four-door-sedan in the same parking spot. Always. He always took the long way out of the parking garage, so he would avoid the yellow SUV in the south-east corner of the garage (that he always scraped his car on) and get out of the garage (almost always) unharmed.

He always listened to the same station, he always took the same route to work, he always wished he had a girlfriend at precisely 8:54 AM, just as he passed the Starbucks on the corner (home to the most gorgeous barista that had ever existed--Samantha Gordon: coffee goddess). He always got the red lights. He always longed for a Porsche at exactly 8:57 AM, just as he passed the most expensive laundromat in town (not to mention the most wealthy laundromat owner in existance) just as he was turning onto the highway.

Jack always arrived at work at precisely 9:04 AM, and always parked his grey four-door-sedan in the parking place between the blue four-door-sedan (Janice Netherland--insurance claims)and the green Jeep always coated in mud (Jennifer Netherland--sister of Janice and head of risk assessment).

Jack lived a dull life not much different than any other. He lived out his life in his cubicle, always doing what his brain and boss told him too, making $14 per hour yet always wishing it were $15. His boss always made the rounds to stop by his desk at precisely 11:42 AM, three minutes before lunch, to see if he was out of ink toner for the printer (which had never run out, despite the fact that Mr. Jones, satan-boss, checked every day. It is his most irrational fear of tonerless printers that keep him at the corporation, and nothing more). To which Jack always replied, "No, sir, the birds are singing, the trees are green, and the printer has toner" in a most sardonic way. Janice Netherland always stopped by Jennifer's cubicle (across from Jack's) to ask for creamer and to discuss travel plans to some exotic location (to which they never, ever got around to). At this point, Jack would feel a little bit better when Brain Dombey (as close to a good friend as Jack had ever had) would come to his desk with a sandwich (Turkey for him, vegetarian for Jack) for the two of them. They always ate their sandwiches in peace, and then got back to work.

Jack would always work until 4:59, would always leave at 5:13, and would always get home at 7:19 (after doing arons).

Jack was nobody, and nobody was anybody, but at least anybody was somebody. Jack was dull, he longed for the extraordinary, he longed for change, for variation, for love, for lust, for excitement, but Jack was a city boy, and Jack knew people in the city who didn't work for scientists or have girlfriends would never ammount to anything. Jack was nobody, just like anyone else, until November 22nd at 7:13 in the morning.

---

Sorry its boring--I'll add more later (thats when the daemons come in )

[Zen unloggedin]

Raven & Cho: The form Leah sees Soran in first is a starling.
))Not just because that's my current favorite form, mind you.((
Ahem. 'Course not. >>;

SNLObsessed: That is rather awesome. It hasn't got that sleek fantasy feel - more of a - a - auuuugh, I can't describe it without being weird and synesthetic, so I'll just say that - it really is quite like a grey day sitting outside on a cracked sidewalk near a street that needs work. And that sounds like I'm dissing you're work, when in fact I love it... so I'll just go away now and try not to entangle myself while talking in circles too much.

[SNL_Ali]

I couldn't tell the story without setting it up. I didn't want it to be so fantasy-y--I wanted it to feel REAL once it happens. I'll put up da rest tomorrow