Describe an Imaginary Place

[Talysia]

The trees that had kept their leaves were beautiful; arching majestically towards the sky and gently drooping towards the earth in graceful swathes, a scene of copper, gold and bronze. The leaves that had already been shed lay in a thick, dark golden carpet, covering the gnarled tree roots and only allowing the hardiest of forest plants to poke their heads through, whilst a shaft of warm afternoon sunlight fell through the equally aureate canopy to illuminate a small glade. She loved to walk here in Autumn.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Centuries of winter had locked the city in ice. Streets and boulevards had been bored through the frozen element, but where the plan of the city had been formerly laid out in two dimensions, now it had three. It was not uncommon for one street to run directly above another. When this happened, those in the upper level could look down on the people, carriages, and sleighs below, moving like creatures underwater. The tall old houses still stood -- supported on all sides by ice, how could they not, no matter their state of disrepair? -- but much of the social life, and all of the business was conducted in cellars and subcellars. Only the very wealthiest could afford to heat rooms above ground and keep their apartments warm enough to make life “supportable.” In these neighborhoods, parks and gardens had been carved out, great hollow spaces where the elite paraded in their furs, ruffs, and antique velvets, between rows of frozen statues. There was, too, a fashion current among this same aristocracy-of-wealth to commission coaches with windows made up of many small panes of variagated glass, so that the eternal sameness of the ice might appear to them in a hundred brilliant colors as they rode through the town.

 

[Talysia]

Sunlight played across the lake, and he watched as the glinting ripples spread outwards as a fish broached the surface of the water. Around the bank, graceful willows swayed as an errant breeze caught them, giving off a soft, shuffling sound: a restful sound that soothed his tired mind as much as the gentle birdsong did. His travels could wait for now. He was content to rest his feet in this earthly paradise, laying back in the long grass and looking up at a deeply blue sky. As he dozed off, breathing in the scent of wildflowers, he wondered why he was exploring when there was a place like this in the world.

 

[JDP]

Stark, black rock against cold, white snow; the Knives stretched ever upward into the cobalt sky, resolute and indomitable. Beneath their forbidding countenance, the valley could not help but cower, forever held in shadow.

With a crack like splitting bone, a mountain shifted, sloughing off a wall of snow and ice. Lazy at first, then with gathering impetus, it fled headlong into the valley. Like a breaking wave, the ice descended, bellowing its freedom as it rushed headlong into the treeline. It struck in a white cascade, sending thunder ricocheting from peak to peak, whilst beneath, the valley trembled. Lonely splashes of snow-capped green vanished beneath crushing silver clouds as the Knives asserted their authority.

And like a death rattle, the cacophony dwindled to nothing. White mist swirled about the valley floor as the fall's final, icy breath rolled over it. A bruise of pale, blue ice glimmered upon the mountainside; a malign eye surveying its domain.


-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

"Behold Seramalan Saleem, Jewel of the North! City of Spices! Breathe of Desert Winds and Salt Breeze, both! O, Gentle Mother, Wise Counsellor, Steadfast Defender! Behold this, the Home of Heroes! Behind walls of Dawn's Gold, Dusk's Flame, and Moonlit Silver! Rejoice, for you are come home to Seramalan Saleem, Jewel of the North!"​

Indus Khe Torin
Keeper of Dawn's Gate
Seramalan Saleem ​

 

[Talysia]

Roiling, dark grey waves hit the side of the wooden tradeship, and it listed sideways until it was buffeted from an equally violent wave from the other side. No light to guide the sailors came from either the sky or the stars - both were obscured by the thickest of cloud, and surely it wouldn't be long before the rains started. The mast had already been ripped from the deck by the gale force winds blowing in from the west, and it looked very bleak indeed for the merchants on board.

 

[Culhwch]

Not so much an imaginary place as an imaginary time, inspired by our current climate crisis...

A hot wind gusted down the empty street, bringing with it stinging grains of dirt and grit. He could still remember a time when the winds that whipped along George Street were bitter rather than blistering, and the river - only a block to the south - had wound its way languidly through inner Brisbane. Now the river bed was dry and cracked, and you could camp in the shadow of the Victoria Bridge. Twenty years. Only twenty years. It shouldn't have come to this so fast, he thought. He squinted his eyes against the deluge, raised a hand in a vain attempt at protection, and pressed on up the street where once busy people had rushed about their business. His goal was in sight, the once-vibrant colours of Brisbane Square now tired and faded but still recognizable. Inside that building was just about the only place in the city that had't been looted or trashed - the city library. He'd been stopping by once a week since before he could remember, and no trifling apocalypse was going to stop him...

 

[Talysia]

I like that one, Culhwch.

The moon shone down out of a clear black sky, illuminating the lake with an unearthly brilliance that captivated all who chanced to see it. Even the moon's great reflection was calm: No currents or movements swayed its stately progress across the surface of the lake, matching the course of the real moon like the partner of a dancer at an ancient ball. Oddly enough, there was no sound. It was as if the creatures who lived around the lake were also watching this most beautiful of spectacles, waiting for the moon and its partner to complete their regal passage before they could move again.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Overhead, there were unfamiliar constellations painted on a deep purple sky, and the air she breathed, through which she moved, had a bitter taste and a distinctive texture, that made her think it must contain elements previously unknown to her. As she walked, a second and then a third moon appeared on the horizon, and slowly blazed a visible trail across the sky. Near morning, when the sky had lightened to lavender, she caught her first glimpse of a building in the distance, one made up of impossible surfaces and oblique angles. She realized, then, that the geometries of this place were going to be as alien as the stars and elements.

 

[Talysia]

The heat was terrible. The cavern where the dragon had made her nest was immense, and the huge domed ceiling was black with the residue of millennia of smoke. A wavering heathaze erupted from everywhere the lava was exposed, and the bubbles that rose to the surface released a gas that smelled sulphurous, but there was no way to avoid it, not if they wanted to appeal to the great creature for clemency. Not even the piles of human bones, arms extended towards the dragon's impressive hoard of golden trinkets and jewelled items, could deter them from reaching the scaly beast.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

As they entered the tomb, the silence that hides in underground places leaped out to meet them. As he walked, Smith brushed his fingers against the side of the tunnel; the clay bricks felt dry to touch. The air tasted stale and smelled of mummies. There was only one passage, but it had many turns: right, right, and always right, like an unicursal maze. The center, he thought, would not lie very far from the place where they had entered -- but how perilously distant if something went wrong, forcing a hasty retreat. Sooner than Smith expected, they reached the burial chamber. From niches on three sides of the crypt, crocodile-headed goddesses looked down with unnerving reptilian complacency. What appeared, at first glance, to be a mosaic floor of marvelous complexity, proved, when stirred up by the explorers' hobnailed boots, to be a sparkling dust of crushed beetles' wings. They found no such treasure as they expected, only a gilded sarcophagus and two clay jars stoppered with cobwebs and egg sacs. Smith joined Dr. Blackwood over by the coffin. It was unlike anything he had seen before, being very broad across the middle, and the arms were depicted spread out from the body at 45 degree angles. The painted eyes ... appeared much too realistic. Indeed, there was nothing stylized about the face or figure. Just so this king -- priest -- magician -- whatever he had been -- must have appeared in life.

 

[JDP]

The room was small, warm and cosy. In the far corner, a fire burned cheerfully in the hearth, sending embers dancing upwards, courting the darkness of the chimney stack. Simple woolen rugs spread across the floor, leading to a pair of worn but comfortable-looking chairs. The soothing crackle of flame lent the room an almost hypnotic cadence. Yet something wasn't right; if this was home, why did Darien feel nothing?

 

[Talysia]

No-one knew what technology kept it aloft, but the floating city was impressive indeed. Graceful silver spires punctuated the far-off skyline, whilst the flatter roofs of what must be houses or shops were scattered everywhere else, giving the city an old-fashioned feel despite the futuristic looking buildings. It hung in there like a cloud, set in a sky of the most glorious blue, and the only way up to it was to use the equally technologically advanced airships. The people there, it was rumoured, were as cool and serene as their surroundings, and most of the people left on the surface aspired to live there. It was the ultimate dream for the affluent.

 

[chrispenycate]

The mountains seemed to ouverhang the tiny community, bald, iced peaks sprouting beards of almost horizontal trees that could drop his firewood clean through a man when the snow was wet and heavy. Mornings came late, and evenings didn’t linger round the huts that bordered the stream, each sheltering behind a giant boulder that gave protection from the unpredictable avalanches. Their doors were raised a man-height above the ground, and doors and window-shutters double barred against the occasional fierce blizzards – goats, pigs and chickens shared their owners’ warmth during the winter.
This was no land for a cripple.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

She quickly become lost in a tangle of narrow streets, in the great knot of filthy lanes, and filthier alleys, and atrocious little byways that was the city. The further she went the knot clenched tighter and tighter, until she began to think that the city was going to strangle itself in one enormous noose, began to wonder, too, if there was any way out. On either side, tenements had been built one upon the other, piled higher and higher, and at increasingly crazy angles, until the little shacks at the top were so tipsy it seemed impossible they kept their balance and did not tumble off. Cats prowled on the intermediate roofs, or perched on the overhangs, some of them, indeed, had climbed so high one might easily imagine them a winged species of feline-avian hybrid, as living gargoyles. The upper stories must be wretched little garrets, yet she thought it might be rather fine to live there and look out from a window on a clear night, up among the stars. It would be better, anyway, than dwelling down close to the dingy street, whose odors of dung, garbage, and offal must rise three or four floors a least during the summer.

 

[Winter Lord]

The dolmens where a defence, a boundary, and a powersource. The land beyond them looked normal, but it wasn't. At times, it looked like two photos on an overexposed piece of film, and at others, the color of the folage looked washed out, or too intense. Thirty some years ago, is was just normal farmland, and you could still see where the fences that had marked out the fields. Hell, in one field, there was a rusting tractor, its owner had been too scared to try and retrieve it, because of how he might be changed, or what he might meet. The Great Midwestern Verge was and interesting place to live.

 

[Talysia]

The Great Forest was immense, bisected by the fast-flowing River of Memories, and given its' reputation, very few people went in there. Impressive oaks bent their branches across to intertwine with their fellows, creating a roof rather than a canopy, and the floor was soft and springy where the ferns were not growing. Moss grew in profusion, accompanied by fungus of many kinds, whilst the occasional flower poked it's head through to seek some sort of light. Birdsong came from everywhere; trilling and chirping came from trees, bushes and the ground alike, but there were other noises, too, almost voicelike in their quality. It could almost have been enchanted.

 

[dwndrgn]

It was quiet. Not a silent but waiting to jump you kind of quiet. This quiet was peaceful. The silence suggested that nature was at rest; just enough of a rest to give its full attention to the dawn awakening. The looma trees moved gently, their fingered limbs waving in the breeze. Soon enough they would wake and begin their work - keeping the barkeaters from denuding their trunks. I sat at the base of the biggest looma and waited for the dawn to wake up the forest. This was my favorite time; I loved to watch the dance of the barkeaters as they attempted to outwit the loomas. Then the skits would flit in for their morning feast, zooming here and there snacking on the quick little gats - when they could catch them. I smiled in anticipation.

 

[Saltheart]

In the center of the crop field, there is a hole. Under the hole, there is a tunnel. And at the end of the tunnel, there is a cavern. All along its surface is the eerie blue glow of jewels and gemstones. Even without a lantern, when it is pitch black, it glows profusely, like a dusted star under the mountain. It is hot in there, as hot as an oven, and if you don't carry a bottle of water, you will sweat yourself dry, catch a stroke, and fall apart under the gaze of its lonely, eerie glow.

 

[Talysia]

The contents of the pans on the great hob started to bubble, and the savoury scent of meat stew filled my nostrils. A haunch of what looked to be beef was being turned on a spit over a huge fireplace, and the juices that dripped into the hearth fizzled when they hit the hot stone. Cooks and helpers bustled here and there, collecting platters of food for the banquet from the long trestle tables where everything was prepared, and the great cauldron of soup simmered along nicely in the corner, over yet another fire. I loved coming into the castle kitchen, even if I was underfoot most of the time. It was always such a lively place; so warm and busy, not always friendly but always eventful.

 

[JDP]

Waves crashed in a cacophony of spray. The whitecaps found themselves dragged by the keening wind toward an inevitable climax: to be shattered upon the dark, grey rocks. Above the raging shore, coarse grasses shuddered against the breeze. Born beneath the gunmetal sky, their roots dug deep, clinging stolidly to the grainy, salt-withered soil. Like a bolt of grey-green cloth, the wide swathe of mulegrass rippled, mimicking the ocean that lay before it. Wind howled, waves broke and mulegrass danced; it was a battle of patience and will.