Nineteenth Beginning 29: Worldshore

[As mentioned in the previous post, we are now in the OMG, it's nearly November 30! portion of NaNoWriMo.  Yes, I know this is just an outline, but you have to admit, it's not a rough outline.  It's pretty smooth in places.  It's in blue to show that I know that it's not anything close to finished work. 

And, yes, the punctuation is starting to go.  Be warned that things will get spottier as we go on from here.]

The wandering trio Narnemvar Postlavanderon and Satbada, sometimes known as Shortbread by idiot masters and their impossible friend bumble along through the woods.  Satbada had been told of the recent revelations and is pondering his place in the world and the relative importance of the idiot sorcerer.  He can’t decide whether to disapprove of him or not and eventually decides to provisionally both approve and disapprove of him. 

Narnemvar is still naked and is starting to walk better, although it becomes obvious that someone needs to stay right beside him to keep him from stumbling over things that he doesn’t notice.  He doesn’t seem to notice this, or at least he doesn’t seem to care whether he falls and whether other folks have to keep him from falling.  His mood is starting to improve and he’s starting to compose limericks about their situation.  He says that it will help him keep things straight in his mind

Postlavanderon says that sonnets would be more aesthetically pleasing and Narnemvar says that you need a proper desk and chair and quill to do a proper sonnet and what’s the point of an improper sonnet why an improper sonnet is no better than a limerick, besides being harder to memorize on the hoof

Lavvi disagrees and tells of parties he’s been to in the central valley where sonnets were composed literally on the hoof on the backs of purebred horses – walker horses with gates as smooth as a calm sea and he describes the ladies who were riding and poetizing and how good two of his sisters were at it

Narnemvar agrees that if his sisters were there on horseback that they could compose sonnets and he would try to keep up.  but they are not here, obviously, or he would be wearing clothes so he will do limericks, thank you, and he will do them in the buff as the walk north

Lavvi concedes the limericks but suggests that they try to catch a boat as far south as they can and travel wes.  That way they can travel to his island home and consult with his father and his father’s network of mages and philosophers and other sorts, while still going north for Satbada’s sake

If they leave off getting a boat too long by the time they get it, they’ll have to go west, which would put their unfortunate servant at risk.  Satbada does not shudder at being called ‘their’ servant, but he really doesn’t like it.  It’s blurring boundaries.  He likes clear boundaries, which is one of the reasons that he doesn’t like Narnemvar.  Narnemvar is neither fish nor fowl, although I need to find a more otherworldly way of saying that.

Narnemvar agrees with the search for a boat thing.  He starts to recite the basics of their situation and compose from it.  Let’s see – there will probably be lewd rhymes with or references to sausage,  twist, tube, curse, shortbread, bloat, lifting a foot, log, entering, going north, contagion, fear, snot, patches, marks, and other things

leg beg keg dreg peg  - not profitable

sausage, bedge, dredge, fedge – fudge, hedge, wedge, ledge, sedge, possibly something could be done with that

twist, enlist, fist, kissed, dissed, gist, hissed, missed, pissed, wrist, cyst, blissed, something could definitely be done with that, but not pertaining to the situation

tube, boob, cube, goob, lube, rube,  - maybe

perhaps even limericks are too much for me in my current wasted state

“that’s a shame” again, Satbada’s voice had no trace of sarcasm.  that had to be supplied.  that should be at the very end of the section.  to parallel the other section that ended that way

In the meantime, Postlavanderon is wracking his brain to see if he can remember some connection of his family’s that might be located in the area.  he can’t remember anyone as coming from the finger, which is populated mostly with transients – smugglers and traveling merchants and seamen on leave and the kind of people who like to live in huts with pigs

he lists off mentally a number of merchants who might have traveled to the finger on an ongoing basis.  he tries to think where they might drop anchor.  there are some rocky places, he finally remembers and they are currently parallel to them.  it’s only past them that the beaches spread out and it’s just at the area past the rocks that ships are most likely to be. 

he passes that news on to his friend, who asks how much of a walk he thinks it will be to that place.  Postlavanderon thinks that if they walk through lunch, they’ll probably be able to get by the worst of it.  are you up to it dear boy, bosom chum

isn’t chumming something to do with fish?

yes it’s throwing tasty things into the water to attract them and distract them from looking for the hooks

I’ve met a few bosoms that would distract me from most things

yes but are you up to it

perhaps I would be up if a chummy enough bosom was about

was about, what would a bosom be about, my chum

ah, it’s a pity I’m decrepit and off my game, the only thing I can come up with is the old joke – what is that peasant about – it looks like he’s about five foot three

dear me, that is a decrepit one – is the trail starting to angle towards the ocean?

It seems to be, sir. 

the sound of Satbada’s voice makes them all think of lunch and they enquire if they have anything that could be eaten while walking.  There is some dried fish, but that is usually boiled before being eaten.  and there is flour, but that also requires preparation

they banter about their unfortunate situation and when Narnemvar says he’s not likely to be hungry for a day or two, they decide to walk through the day with just water

there is some talk about how long the water will last, but Narnemvar says that as humid as it is, he can tease water out of the air.  they empty one of the waterskins into the others and he spells it to collect water.  he says that it won’t add much more than a cup to the days rations, but that he can spell the others as they empty

they talk about deliberately emptying a skin, but decide against it.  they are once more witty and bantery and Narnemvar succeeds at long last in composing a limerick of which he is moderately proud, but only because he was able to do it at all under such duress.  he celebrates by stopping long enough to put pants on. 

while stopped, he notices that his friends hadn’t been joking about the hair fraying away.  he is now bald across the top of his head.  it look like someone took his hair and slid it back it makes almost a straight line from the top of his ears, angling up in back to reach almost the top of his head

He notices that he can almost feel an extension of his hair around him.  He follows the feeling into the magic, finding that there are tendrils of his hair flowing into the magic, radiating out all around him, he wonders about cat whiskers and whether he will be able to read magic if he bumps up against it with his hair ends. 

he starts trying to compose a limerick about his hair