Fragment: Dragon's eye
Sunday, December 4th, 2011 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tsaikoIt's just a fragment. However, considering its the first thing I've written in month that didn't die after one paragraph, I'm calling it a win. Helps that the original idea is several years old so I have a bunch of the world building already done. It was just waiting for a plot to come along.
As the last of the sunlight faded from the horizon, Corun climbed out of his granite cave to look up at the sky. Overhead the diamonds of the night gleamed against the sky. They didn’t hold any answers for him though. Corun didn’t know how to read the language of their steps, to divine the future from their movements.
What Corun did have were dreams. One dream in fact, that came to him over and over again: blind with his eye jewel removed, the feeling of warmth where someone held it, and the gentle stroke of fingers against the scales of his nose. According to humans, a guivere only removed his or her eye jewel one day a year when he drank from the guivere fonte, the dragon’s spring, to replenish his magic. Corun had assumed since he was blind, that he was remembering the incident a few months ago when the human hunter had stumbled across his brother and him drinking and returned Corun's eye to him.
The more he had the dream though, the less sure he was. Corun didn’t feel the overwhelming sense of panic and fear he’d felt that day at the spring. Instead it was more of a nervous anticipation and want. There was still fear, but none of the panic.
Guiveres removed their eye jewels one other time as well. When guiveres mated, they exchanged eyes. It was a sign of trust and respect and faith in another. Magic would allow the jewels to be absorbed by the other, until it seemed like two become one. A guivere usually mated only with another guivere, but Corun had heard that it wasn’t always the case.
Now Corun didn’t know whether the dream was a memory or a vision of what was to come.
Author's notes: Guivere is based on the French guivre or vouivre, which is derived from the Latin for viper. According to The Enchanted World: Dragons book I read years ago, guivre is a large, serpentine dragon that lived in France and had a large jewel for a eye that it removed once a year in order to drink. The book also stated the dragon's was wreathed in fire when it flew, wore a crown of gold on it's head, had massive horns, and poisonous breath.
What it neglected to say was that traditionally the guivre were all female, the the gem was removed when she bathed (not drank), and that they would blush and run away when confronted with a naked man. Needless to say, I decided to just keep the bits that I liked and got rid of the rest. Since I'd read the book many, many years ago, I also managed to butcher the name. Hence I decided to go with my alternate spelling, which is closer to the (incorrect) way I say the French word in my head.
As the last of the sunlight faded from the horizon, Corun climbed out of his granite cave to look up at the sky. Overhead the diamonds of the night gleamed against the sky. They didn’t hold any answers for him though. Corun didn’t know how to read the language of their steps, to divine the future from their movements.
What Corun did have were dreams. One dream in fact, that came to him over and over again: blind with his eye jewel removed, the feeling of warmth where someone held it, and the gentle stroke of fingers against the scales of his nose. According to humans, a guivere only removed his or her eye jewel one day a year when he drank from the guivere fonte, the dragon’s spring, to replenish his magic. Corun had assumed since he was blind, that he was remembering the incident a few months ago when the human hunter had stumbled across his brother and him drinking and returned Corun's eye to him.
The more he had the dream though, the less sure he was. Corun didn’t feel the overwhelming sense of panic and fear he’d felt that day at the spring. Instead it was more of a nervous anticipation and want. There was still fear, but none of the panic.
Guiveres removed their eye jewels one other time as well. When guiveres mated, they exchanged eyes. It was a sign of trust and respect and faith in another. Magic would allow the jewels to be absorbed by the other, until it seemed like two become one. A guivere usually mated only with another guivere, but Corun had heard that it wasn’t always the case.
Now Corun didn’t know whether the dream was a memory or a vision of what was to come.
Author's notes: Guivere is based on the French guivre or vouivre, which is derived from the Latin for viper. According to The Enchanted World: Dragons book I read years ago, guivre is a large, serpentine dragon that lived in France and had a large jewel for a eye that it removed once a year in order to drink. The book also stated the dragon's was wreathed in fire when it flew, wore a crown of gold on it's head, had massive horns, and poisonous breath.
What it neglected to say was that traditionally the guivre were all female, the the gem was removed when she bathed (not drank), and that they would blush and run away when confronted with a naked man. Needless to say, I decided to just keep the bits that I liked and got rid of the rest. Since I'd read the book many, many years ago, I also managed to butcher the name. Hence I decided to go with my alternate spelling, which is closer to the (incorrect) way I say the French word in my head.
