Difference between revisions of "Shimana"

Revision as of 22:26, 17 April 2011

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Prologue

The first few turns on the island were hard. Very hard.

Nothing in Manavi's life as a simple farmer's wife had prepared her for exile on the barren, rocky island. It wasn't just the lack of green, growing things; it was the very unpredictability of their ecosystem. All her turns, she'd been able to predict what the day would bring her. Late summer, clear skies with punishing humidity? Thunderstorm on the way. Biting freeze that made your skin feel dry? No snow tomorrow, guarenteed. But this? The weather's moods were as capricious as a young girl's, and it seemed impossible to predict when the next killer squall would blow up to drag their brave shellfish gatherers out to sea.

Clutching her sleeping infant to her chest, Manavi paced along the leeward shoreline, poking at holes in the sand in hope of turning up something to add to tonight's dinner pot. She kept one eye on the treacherous sea at all times, the way one would watch a large but sleeping predator. For her, there was nothing of beauty in the green-and-grey-and-white waves, only danger. Despite the urgent need to find food, something in the back of her head her weather sense kept nagging at her.

She'd just unearthed her first mollusk when the dark smudge on the horizon caught her attention. As Manavi watched with growing fear, it expanded into a brooding darkness marred by jagged strikes of lightning. With a start she took of running for the caves, clinging tightly to the now-screaming baby strapped to her chest. "Squall!" she cried as she ran, "Big blow's coming, get away from the shore! Hurry!!!"

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They lost two that day, a teenager and her toddler brother - one of the first born to the island. As Manavi comforted their bereft mother, she cursed her husband who'd doomed her to this fate without having the decency to live through the first turn of his exile, and she cursed the sea for being such a harsh mistress. But more than that, she swore that none of hers would be lost to such a fate, even if she had to dedicate every last day of her life to studying and mastering its caprice.

Description

Background

Shimana is the granddaughter of a pair of poor farming cotholders who were doing only what they thought was right. It wasn't /fair/ that Baradin was taking so much of their hard work, and when all their neighbors rose up in rebellion, well, they followed right along. They were exiled without a further thought, leaving behind two young children who were quietly absorbed into the community.

While Manavi's husband barely lasted out his first turn of exile, he did live long enough to give her a son. But it wasn't in the holder woman's character to give up, despite the hardship of this life. She was used to working hard, to being attuned to her environment, and so she began to thrive as much as any of the exiles could be considered thriving. A life spent watching the weather and the turnings of the moons turned out to be incredibly useful: she was often the first to notice the signs of a deadly storm brewing, or when a change of the winds was about to bring in a long dry spell.

She trained her daughter in the arts of observing sea and sky, but it was Kormana who turned it into something more. It started as most things do: with a little luck. A meaningless benediction spoken before a particularly fruitful sea-harvest was suddenly turned into something more, and before long superstition had Kormana beseeching the creatures of the sea for their help on a regular basis. What had been practices of nothing more than long habit and convenience began to take on other meanings, and by the time Kormana had her daughter late in life, they were well on their way to ritual.

Shimana was raised steeped in such things; she believes quite firmly in the power of 'speaking to the sea' and 'reading the sky', as it's come to be called. What any sensible Pernese fisherman from the mainland might do out of good sense, Shimana does out of belief that if she doesn't, /terrible/ things might happen.

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