Original fiction: Names
Feb. 10th, 2009 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
narcasse2822 words. PG. Following on from Inexplicable, Remembering, Reminiscence, Memory, Eternal, Cycles, Demonology, Argot, Analogy and Meanderings.
The business of epithets.
Names
Disclaimer: Original fiction.
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The trouble with names, single names, double names, five splendoured Imperial names, is that they’ve a tendency to acquire epithets. Things like ‘the poet’, ‘the far-eyed’, ‘the damned’. Those three being most specifically common to my ears though it is only the last that is often claimed as mine. They called me ‘conqueror’ too of course: ‘el-Fatih’ as I hear it would translate in another tongue. Conqueror of lands, of nations and of the little scraps of scrub and bush in between. I did enough of that after all, conquering things for the sake of the gods and the Empire, and sometimes even for myself. But I do not think I did half as much of it as the human nations would have me believe. I wasn’t always at conquest. In fact as I recall it I spent most of my time drinking my tea and talking through the night. Less conquering than waiting really. Perhaps they should have called me ‘the watchful’ instead. Watching, waiting for that chink in their armour to fall open to my knife: not really much by way of conquering at all. But, so the bards will sing, I am a conqueror of things. Other armies, other lands, other treasuries. Sometimes I wonder if they sing about the smaller things that were no less taxing to win. Perhaps they do. It might make the stuff of epic ballad to tell of my hours of private conquest after all.
Yet, quite understandably the human nations don’t bother themselves with those tales so much. Theirs is not a song of my glories or any such prowess, for they do not call me conqueror but rather damned. How that came about I have a fair idea for when my people tell the tale it is the blessed mark of a miracle, the hand of the gods stretching out to shield their faithful, to command him to his feet to raise his blade in their glory again. The humans tell it otherwise. And my Second tells a third version but I will come to that later.
We were, as we always here in those days, marching on yet another human city. A proper city this time with walls and murder holes over its gateways and those awful slots in the battlements which molten lead was poured down in times of war and plain slop in times of peace. And the slop was probably the worst of it; you never knew what was it in after all. But as defences went this city was fairly defensible, they had a reasonable incline to protect them, good solid outer walls, no true curtain walls mind, which seem to be an Imperial affection, and as I understood it, a reasonable fighting force. These were more than the usual town militia who ran about in flimsy leather armour and probably had only one or two decent blades between them. We’d seen their troops patrolling the battlements: men in flexible iron plate and chainmail. Better equipped than the usual sort we encountered, they even had helmets with nose-guards which was a rarity in those days.
I could say that as a result we thought it best to turn out on our finest too but that would be false; military code dictated our state of dress and it was only by being the highest ranking General that I sometimes got away with lacking a helmet. I had, still have, an awful helm with a great black plume of feathers that stick out at the top but thankfully that is strictly ornamental. It is the legacy of an earlier age when my ancestors would prance about on horseback attempting to knock each other off with poles for the benefit of their ladies. Such a pointless exercise and thankfully the fashion for it only lasted a few hundred years I am told. Our usual helmets, like the rest of our armour was designed to cover the most vulnerable areas of our reptilian anatomy but at the same time leave us enough movement to see our enemies coming and cut them down. I know that some of our footsoldiers wore helms with mesh coverings over the eyes but then such helms were also used as potential battering rams against opponents. There is nothing so terrifying as a member of the standard guard, having lost all weapons lowering his head and charging the enemy, claws bared. They were fearless to the point of insanity and even our cavalry feared them and took great pains to show them every respect. They were deranged as far as I could tell because who else would willingly take on the riskiest positions and yet still laugh as they charged the enemy down.
We are a warlike people in many respects so with such insanity comes glory of course. Those who perish in battle, no matter how foolhardy, are celebrated as heroes. The families of the fallen visit the great monuments that bear their names not in sorrow but in celebration. The orphans of a mother slain in battle grow to maturity hearing her venerated as a true and loyal soldier of the Empire, whose love for the state outweighed even her love for her children. And this is not a crime: this is heroism. Any individual, even a human, might love their immediate kin and seek to protect them but to give yourself over to the Empire completely, to lay down your life to defend the great mechanism of our society, to be sword and shield of the Empire elevates common feelings to the level of a universal dedication. And whether they carry you back feet first or leave your body buried under the corpses of the enemies required to bring you down, it is glory nonetheless. Death or glory, death and glory that was the cry. Though sometimes I rather wished instead for beer or cake.
None of which is the point. Because the point is that mostly we wore helmets with full battle uniform, which consisted of platemail and chainmail and things like cuirasses and greaves. Except Imperial cuirasses had less of a potbellied effect than the later human ones because they didn’t need to cover the abdomen of course. We have enough of our own armour plating there to deal with regular blows and it extends down the thighs which was always an added advantage. Why protect ourselves there? Because unlike our noble ancestors we tend to walk upright and thus leave our bellies exposed. It’s the general theme of things with Imperial citizens though I have noted that women tend to be more heavily scaled along the sides of their torsos as well and there are enough whose scaling reaches completely down to their knees. Of course my lady possessed only the most rudimentary scaling but that was part of the reason she passed easily amongst the humans and made a most excellent spy. Which is a diversion again but one worth touching upon. For there were amongst our people and still are, those who through interbreeding or genetic mutation were possessed of very human features. They were thus less suited to military campaigns due to a lack of scaling and in some cases a complete lack of low-light vision but they were wonderful spies and sometimes negotiators. My lady was the former since she really had little skill at peaceful negotiation. Of course she is long gone now, the blood that allowed her to pass as human also shortening her lifespan by many centuries. History names her as yet another great hero of the Empire, and leaves in its tomes illustrations that give her shimmering serpent scales even to the point of adorning her with some scaling upon the forehead reaching down towards her nose in reminisce of several of our great queens. She had no scales and I often teased her for it but give or take another millennia and I wouldn’t be surprised if they will draw her with gossamer dragon wings.
Digressions aside, the Empire is fond of repatriating its own. All nations are but I like to think that we are especially adept at it. We rewrite history to our own suiting, in keeping with the Imperial design. And so it is that what was accident became legend.
I’d worn a helmet that day, entering into battle against these reasonably equipped humans. It had seemed a sensible course of action and when battle was met on the terrible flatlands before that treacherous slope that led to the ramparts I found myself quite pleased with my decision. How I ended up on foot rather than horseback I can’t recall, it may have been by accident or by design and sometimes it certainly helped to be on foot at the same level as the rest of my troops rather than an obvious target on a horse. It also gave the human troops a somewhat difficult time of it when they tried to strike critical blows since we are as a general rule somewhat shorter than the average human. It’s no good hefting an axe if it swings wildly over the head of an opponent who is barely required to duck. Perhaps it was an axe blow that brought me down, perhaps not. I recall only enough to know that something laid me out on the ground like a corpse.
And so I lay dazed and insensible to the world while the battle raged around me. The fact that I didn’t move further probably prompted my foe to presume my death. My helm obscured any possible indication of a cracked skull and with it wedged forwards over my eyes I certainly must have looked slain. Imperial soldiers fall holding their weapons tight so the saying goes so the fact that I clutched my broadsword still would have caused little concern. In the heat of battle there is little time to check that an opponent is dead after all. So down I went, the great General felled at last. Not that the human who ‘slew’ me probably knew enough to realise who they’d slain. The black armour of command officers is reasonably indistinguishable if one does not know what to look for and they didn’t in those days. Perhaps they were knocked aside the moment I fell; perhaps they forged forwards daringly before my armies forced them into retreat. All I know is this: that when there was some lessening of the deafening sounds of war around me because there were only corpses in my immediate vicinity and I could gather my wits enough to push my helm back and stand up, a hush spread across the battlefield. And as I turned to face my foes once again there was fear in their eyes, an unadulterated terror in the seconds before my troops fell upon them screaming my name.
After that the tide of the battle turned, the human defenders being overrun easily as fear and superstition spread throughout their ranks. Some fled, some fell on their own swords, most did not survive. And when we took the city it was a sorry sight, the citizens cowering behind the statues of their gods. I would have spared them all if reason permitted it, had those terrified fools not called us demons and thrown themselves into murderous frenzy. They slaughtered their own kind as well, presumably to save them from corruption and by nightfall no living thing remained within those city walls save for those brought by Imperial mandate. We did not care to spend the night in such a forsaken place nor for it to remain standing so we systematically destroyed it, burnt down the thatched roofs, pulled down the stone walls and tore any semblance of settlement to pieces. We worked through the night at that grim demolition and by morning all within the city walls was alight with purifying flame. And it was not a victory.
They say that the remains of those city walls remain in crumbled ruins still but that within their protective circle the grasses grow tall and unruly, far more nourished by the soil than those outside. I do not know if plants thrive upon human blood but to my people it was a sign, a mark of our glorious fortune. For even upon the field of death the blessings of the gods are upon us and the earth itself renews at our touch. And both sides agree upon the nonsense of resurrection.
I was not dead, merely stunned, my Second corroborates this though he adds to his version a sharp kick to my side and the admonishment to get up. Perhaps his version is the truest, I do not remember any such blow from his armoured foot but it is not inconceivable and in my dazed state I might easily have required it to haul myself to my feet again. Yet the human nations and the Empire itself will insist that I was dead and not just dead upon the ground but dead with my blood leaking out from beneath my helm, my fingers stiffening around the handle of my blade in rigour mortis. I was dying they say, no, I was dead until the gods themselves raised me up again. It was a miracle, the blessing of heaven upon a worthy son of the Empire. I was raised up again to serve the holy purpose of Imperial conquest. And so I became ‘the Conqueror’, soldier of the gods. Not that this is too extraordinary, we have many tales of great warriors raised from death to fight again, of noble queens stricken by poison only for their piety to purify their veins. Piety. I somehow doubt it was piety that saved at least one popular royal heroine and rather more the fact that she threw all that alcohol back up. We are a nation of foolish miracles in many ways, for instance when the tale is told of a prince who became locked in one of the underground grain stores and did not suffocate for lack of air nobody seems to question that said grain stores are large enough to contain enough breathable air for days if not a full week and that he was found within scant moments of being locked in. We are fond of our miraculous, godly blessings.
Of course the human nations had their own version of the tale that also, strangely enough, involved my death or rather the reason for my lack of it. Here the epithet was ‘the Damned’ and I became a great and terrible and soulless monster. To them I did not die because I had no mortal soul to save me from damnation. I could not die because I was a beast, a harrowing creation of damned sorcery or atrocity or whatever else my people were accused of. In fact our entire nation was comprised of such monsters and the only sensible answer to that was a godly crusade against us and our blasphemy. And we all know how well that went. The human nations did attempt a crusade of sorts but it was short-lived and utterly pointless because it was by then far too late to stir up supernatural fervour against us. We had begun trading by then, forming economic alliances, establishing Imperial governorships over human city states. If they had called for such action perhaps a handful of centuries prior they might have had a reasonable response but not then, not when we were recruiting human scouts in droves. This was around the time that the priesthood began to send novices into the human cities accompanying our armies as well. Imagine that, these human looking priests venerated by our society. Of course they were not human nor was their anatomy anything matched by humanity but the human nations weren’t to know that: all they saw were smooth skinned faces that looked reasonably enough like their own. So the call for holy war against us came too late, we had triumphed already.
But the legend lingers, that somewhere, deep within the heart of the Empire lies dormant a beast, a deathless soldier of the gods. What they think I’m going to do with my apparent deathlessness I don’t know but it is there and it is threat and promise rolled into one: that one day I will lead the black armies again. And depending on your perspective that is either glorious prophecy or fateful dawn. I’m not sure if it’s anything of the sort for if it comes to pass then it will simply be so, just a deed to be done. I have a job to do after all, to defend the Empire from all enemies, to protect the nation that I swore to defend. A duty born out by the weight of history, patriotism and love. And whatever anybody else might seek to make of that is their own business, not mine.
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The business of epithets.
Names
Disclaimer: Original fiction.
++++++++++
The trouble with names, single names, double names, five splendoured Imperial names, is that they’ve a tendency to acquire epithets. Things like ‘the poet’, ‘the far-eyed’, ‘the damned’. Those three being most specifically common to my ears though it is only the last that is often claimed as mine. They called me ‘conqueror’ too of course: ‘el-Fatih’ as I hear it would translate in another tongue. Conqueror of lands, of nations and of the little scraps of scrub and bush in between. I did enough of that after all, conquering things for the sake of the gods and the Empire, and sometimes even for myself. But I do not think I did half as much of it as the human nations would have me believe. I wasn’t always at conquest. In fact as I recall it I spent most of my time drinking my tea and talking through the night. Less conquering than waiting really. Perhaps they should have called me ‘the watchful’ instead. Watching, waiting for that chink in their armour to fall open to my knife: not really much by way of conquering at all. But, so the bards will sing, I am a conqueror of things. Other armies, other lands, other treasuries. Sometimes I wonder if they sing about the smaller things that were no less taxing to win. Perhaps they do. It might make the stuff of epic ballad to tell of my hours of private conquest after all.
Yet, quite understandably the human nations don’t bother themselves with those tales so much. Theirs is not a song of my glories or any such prowess, for they do not call me conqueror but rather damned. How that came about I have a fair idea for when my people tell the tale it is the blessed mark of a miracle, the hand of the gods stretching out to shield their faithful, to command him to his feet to raise his blade in their glory again. The humans tell it otherwise. And my Second tells a third version but I will come to that later.
We were, as we always here in those days, marching on yet another human city. A proper city this time with walls and murder holes over its gateways and those awful slots in the battlements which molten lead was poured down in times of war and plain slop in times of peace. And the slop was probably the worst of it; you never knew what was it in after all. But as defences went this city was fairly defensible, they had a reasonable incline to protect them, good solid outer walls, no true curtain walls mind, which seem to be an Imperial affection, and as I understood it, a reasonable fighting force. These were more than the usual town militia who ran about in flimsy leather armour and probably had only one or two decent blades between them. We’d seen their troops patrolling the battlements: men in flexible iron plate and chainmail. Better equipped than the usual sort we encountered, they even had helmets with nose-guards which was a rarity in those days.
I could say that as a result we thought it best to turn out on our finest too but that would be false; military code dictated our state of dress and it was only by being the highest ranking General that I sometimes got away with lacking a helmet. I had, still have, an awful helm with a great black plume of feathers that stick out at the top but thankfully that is strictly ornamental. It is the legacy of an earlier age when my ancestors would prance about on horseback attempting to knock each other off with poles for the benefit of their ladies. Such a pointless exercise and thankfully the fashion for it only lasted a few hundred years I am told. Our usual helmets, like the rest of our armour was designed to cover the most vulnerable areas of our reptilian anatomy but at the same time leave us enough movement to see our enemies coming and cut them down. I know that some of our footsoldiers wore helms with mesh coverings over the eyes but then such helms were also used as potential battering rams against opponents. There is nothing so terrifying as a member of the standard guard, having lost all weapons lowering his head and charging the enemy, claws bared. They were fearless to the point of insanity and even our cavalry feared them and took great pains to show them every respect. They were deranged as far as I could tell because who else would willingly take on the riskiest positions and yet still laugh as they charged the enemy down.
We are a warlike people in many respects so with such insanity comes glory of course. Those who perish in battle, no matter how foolhardy, are celebrated as heroes. The families of the fallen visit the great monuments that bear their names not in sorrow but in celebration. The orphans of a mother slain in battle grow to maturity hearing her venerated as a true and loyal soldier of the Empire, whose love for the state outweighed even her love for her children. And this is not a crime: this is heroism. Any individual, even a human, might love their immediate kin and seek to protect them but to give yourself over to the Empire completely, to lay down your life to defend the great mechanism of our society, to be sword and shield of the Empire elevates common feelings to the level of a universal dedication. And whether they carry you back feet first or leave your body buried under the corpses of the enemies required to bring you down, it is glory nonetheless. Death or glory, death and glory that was the cry. Though sometimes I rather wished instead for beer or cake.
None of which is the point. Because the point is that mostly we wore helmets with full battle uniform, which consisted of platemail and chainmail and things like cuirasses and greaves. Except Imperial cuirasses had less of a potbellied effect than the later human ones because they didn’t need to cover the abdomen of course. We have enough of our own armour plating there to deal with regular blows and it extends down the thighs which was always an added advantage. Why protect ourselves there? Because unlike our noble ancestors we tend to walk upright and thus leave our bellies exposed. It’s the general theme of things with Imperial citizens though I have noted that women tend to be more heavily scaled along the sides of their torsos as well and there are enough whose scaling reaches completely down to their knees. Of course my lady possessed only the most rudimentary scaling but that was part of the reason she passed easily amongst the humans and made a most excellent spy. Which is a diversion again but one worth touching upon. For there were amongst our people and still are, those who through interbreeding or genetic mutation were possessed of very human features. They were thus less suited to military campaigns due to a lack of scaling and in some cases a complete lack of low-light vision but they were wonderful spies and sometimes negotiators. My lady was the former since she really had little skill at peaceful negotiation. Of course she is long gone now, the blood that allowed her to pass as human also shortening her lifespan by many centuries. History names her as yet another great hero of the Empire, and leaves in its tomes illustrations that give her shimmering serpent scales even to the point of adorning her with some scaling upon the forehead reaching down towards her nose in reminisce of several of our great queens. She had no scales and I often teased her for it but give or take another millennia and I wouldn’t be surprised if they will draw her with gossamer dragon wings.
Digressions aside, the Empire is fond of repatriating its own. All nations are but I like to think that we are especially adept at it. We rewrite history to our own suiting, in keeping with the Imperial design. And so it is that what was accident became legend.
I’d worn a helmet that day, entering into battle against these reasonably equipped humans. It had seemed a sensible course of action and when battle was met on the terrible flatlands before that treacherous slope that led to the ramparts I found myself quite pleased with my decision. How I ended up on foot rather than horseback I can’t recall, it may have been by accident or by design and sometimes it certainly helped to be on foot at the same level as the rest of my troops rather than an obvious target on a horse. It also gave the human troops a somewhat difficult time of it when they tried to strike critical blows since we are as a general rule somewhat shorter than the average human. It’s no good hefting an axe if it swings wildly over the head of an opponent who is barely required to duck. Perhaps it was an axe blow that brought me down, perhaps not. I recall only enough to know that something laid me out on the ground like a corpse.
And so I lay dazed and insensible to the world while the battle raged around me. The fact that I didn’t move further probably prompted my foe to presume my death. My helm obscured any possible indication of a cracked skull and with it wedged forwards over my eyes I certainly must have looked slain. Imperial soldiers fall holding their weapons tight so the saying goes so the fact that I clutched my broadsword still would have caused little concern. In the heat of battle there is little time to check that an opponent is dead after all. So down I went, the great General felled at last. Not that the human who ‘slew’ me probably knew enough to realise who they’d slain. The black armour of command officers is reasonably indistinguishable if one does not know what to look for and they didn’t in those days. Perhaps they were knocked aside the moment I fell; perhaps they forged forwards daringly before my armies forced them into retreat. All I know is this: that when there was some lessening of the deafening sounds of war around me because there were only corpses in my immediate vicinity and I could gather my wits enough to push my helm back and stand up, a hush spread across the battlefield. And as I turned to face my foes once again there was fear in their eyes, an unadulterated terror in the seconds before my troops fell upon them screaming my name.
After that the tide of the battle turned, the human defenders being overrun easily as fear and superstition spread throughout their ranks. Some fled, some fell on their own swords, most did not survive. And when we took the city it was a sorry sight, the citizens cowering behind the statues of their gods. I would have spared them all if reason permitted it, had those terrified fools not called us demons and thrown themselves into murderous frenzy. They slaughtered their own kind as well, presumably to save them from corruption and by nightfall no living thing remained within those city walls save for those brought by Imperial mandate. We did not care to spend the night in such a forsaken place nor for it to remain standing so we systematically destroyed it, burnt down the thatched roofs, pulled down the stone walls and tore any semblance of settlement to pieces. We worked through the night at that grim demolition and by morning all within the city walls was alight with purifying flame. And it was not a victory.
They say that the remains of those city walls remain in crumbled ruins still but that within their protective circle the grasses grow tall and unruly, far more nourished by the soil than those outside. I do not know if plants thrive upon human blood but to my people it was a sign, a mark of our glorious fortune. For even upon the field of death the blessings of the gods are upon us and the earth itself renews at our touch. And both sides agree upon the nonsense of resurrection.
I was not dead, merely stunned, my Second corroborates this though he adds to his version a sharp kick to my side and the admonishment to get up. Perhaps his version is the truest, I do not remember any such blow from his armoured foot but it is not inconceivable and in my dazed state I might easily have required it to haul myself to my feet again. Yet the human nations and the Empire itself will insist that I was dead and not just dead upon the ground but dead with my blood leaking out from beneath my helm, my fingers stiffening around the handle of my blade in rigour mortis. I was dying they say, no, I was dead until the gods themselves raised me up again. It was a miracle, the blessing of heaven upon a worthy son of the Empire. I was raised up again to serve the holy purpose of Imperial conquest. And so I became ‘the Conqueror’, soldier of the gods. Not that this is too extraordinary, we have many tales of great warriors raised from death to fight again, of noble queens stricken by poison only for their piety to purify their veins. Piety. I somehow doubt it was piety that saved at least one popular royal heroine and rather more the fact that she threw all that alcohol back up. We are a nation of foolish miracles in many ways, for instance when the tale is told of a prince who became locked in one of the underground grain stores and did not suffocate for lack of air nobody seems to question that said grain stores are large enough to contain enough breathable air for days if not a full week and that he was found within scant moments of being locked in. We are fond of our miraculous, godly blessings.
Of course the human nations had their own version of the tale that also, strangely enough, involved my death or rather the reason for my lack of it. Here the epithet was ‘the Damned’ and I became a great and terrible and soulless monster. To them I did not die because I had no mortal soul to save me from damnation. I could not die because I was a beast, a harrowing creation of damned sorcery or atrocity or whatever else my people were accused of. In fact our entire nation was comprised of such monsters and the only sensible answer to that was a godly crusade against us and our blasphemy. And we all know how well that went. The human nations did attempt a crusade of sorts but it was short-lived and utterly pointless because it was by then far too late to stir up supernatural fervour against us. We had begun trading by then, forming economic alliances, establishing Imperial governorships over human city states. If they had called for such action perhaps a handful of centuries prior they might have had a reasonable response but not then, not when we were recruiting human scouts in droves. This was around the time that the priesthood began to send novices into the human cities accompanying our armies as well. Imagine that, these human looking priests venerated by our society. Of course they were not human nor was their anatomy anything matched by humanity but the human nations weren’t to know that: all they saw were smooth skinned faces that looked reasonably enough like their own. So the call for holy war against us came too late, we had triumphed already.
But the legend lingers, that somewhere, deep within the heart of the Empire lies dormant a beast, a deathless soldier of the gods. What they think I’m going to do with my apparent deathlessness I don’t know but it is there and it is threat and promise rolled into one: that one day I will lead the black armies again. And depending on your perspective that is either glorious prophecy or fateful dawn. I’m not sure if it’s anything of the sort for if it comes to pass then it will simply be so, just a deed to be done. I have a job to do after all, to defend the Empire from all enemies, to protect the nation that I swore to defend. A duty born out by the weight of history, patriotism and love. And whatever anybody else might seek to make of that is their own business, not mine.
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