the Price of Forced Solitude

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=140 BGCOLOR="#33CC33" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <IMG SRC="088208c0.jpg" border=0 width="800" height="140" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=115 BGCOLOR="#33CC33" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Mad Cow"><U>Home</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Updates"><U>Updates</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Fanfiction"><U>Fanfiction</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Dimension"><U>Scenery</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Populace"><U>Populace</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Language"><U>Language</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Government"><U>Government</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Life in Pylea"><U>Daily Life</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Challenges"><U>Challenges</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="mailto:tania@fangedfour.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:tania@fangedfour.com"><U>Contact</U></A></div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=340 BGCOLOR="#000000" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <div> Title: The Price of Forced Solitude</div> <div> Author: AK</div> <div> Rating: R</div> <div> Summary: A vision of a younger Lorne.</div> <div> Feedback: <A HREF="mailto:slashalicious@livejournal.com " TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:slashalicious@livejournal.com "><U>slashalicious@livejournal.com </U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <div> * * * * *</div> <bR> <div> "Each morning before I feed I go out into the hills where the ground is thorny and parched, beat my breast and curse the loins that gave birth to such a cretinous boy-child!" -Lorne's mother</div> <bR> <div> * * * * *</div> <bR> <div> Lorne woke up to the sound of his mother bellowing at him from the other room. </div> <bR> <div> "KREVLORNSWATH! GET UP THIS MINUTE OR I WILL COME IN THERE AND DRAG YOU OUT AND FEED YOUR BREAKFAST TO THE SWINE!"</div> <bR> <div> Motionless, red eyes blurry with sleep, for a second Lorne lay still in his bed and listened. Contents of his mother's half-muted ranting consisted of the usual: his eight brothers had already eaten their porridge and had been out pursuing the havrlock for hours. Lorne always slept through their early risings. This, to hear his mother tell it, was because Lorne remained a lazy, worthless slugabed in need of a good shaming. Pity for his family that he didn't shame easily. Any moment now, his mother would burst into the room he shared with his brothers and clobber him in the head with the medium-heavy black kettle. He'd hurriedly get up, eat some porridge, read for a while, and after their hunt, he'd go and join his brothers in the Hall of Drink and Chance.</div> <bR> <div> Join in the loosest sense of the word, of course. Lorne usually sat in the corner and drank the contents of his mug alone, alternately trying to tune out the clamor and join in on the conversation. Usually both attempts were made unsuccessfully, and he spent the evening sitting around enduring the stupidity of both the Dance of Honor and the Dance of Joy, performed repeatedly and to the delight of everyone but him.</div> <bR> <div> Most days Lorne accepted that his circumstances were what they were. If this was to be his lot in life, so be it, but sometimes the way they treated him became too much. </div> <bR> <div> Blinking sleep away, and tuning out his mother's yelling, Lorne pushed back the coarse blanket covering him. Snatching up a worn tan tunic out of Numfar's open chest, he slipped quickly out the back door.</div> <bR> <div> Once outside, Lorne broke into a light run and didn't slow until he reached the lice pile. Landok and Numfar and his brothers might have been awake for hours, but the morning was still early enough to be half dark. Lorne passed the maggot heap off to his left, covered with its cow carcasses and bones. His mother's bellowing grew softer with the distance, and Lorne walked quietly through the wet grass.</div> <bR> <div> Only forty years old and a blight on the honor of his clan. Craven, they called him. Poltroon. Coward. He-who-does-not-fight.</div> <bR> <div> No one ever talked much to him, except to criticize and shout and occasionally suggest he restore honor to the Deathwok clan by casting himself into the pits of Trelinsk. If they talked about him, they shook their heads and unanimously agreed that his mother and father had definitely eaten the wrong son. When Numfar wasn't being ordered to perform the Dance of Shame on his behalf, mostly his family ignored him, and usually that was fine with Lorne. </div> <bR> <div> Some of the other young Pyleans, especially the ones to whom he wasn't related, liked to throw sticks and rocks at him until he ran away. The only one who didn't throw rocks at him was Blix, but ever since he'd refused to join in the sacred joust two sun-cycles ago, even Blix threw a stone now and again, at least when others were watching. Everyone treated Lorne with vast contempt, occasionally laced with viciousness. Lorne hated it, but he understood it was the way of his people.</div> <bR> <div> And so Lorne avoided his peers whenever possible. He avoided everyone whenever possible.</div> <bR> <div> Turning, Lorne walked backward a moment, looking from a distance at his ancestral hut. He hated his home, hated everything about his world. In his darker moments, Lorne wondered if his cousins were right--maybe he should journey to Trelinsk and throw himself into the sacrificial canyons.</div> <bR> <div> And maybe everyone was right, and he was a coward, because much as he loathed his life, Lorne wasn't prepared to perform honor-suicide at the bottom of the Trelinskian chasms. Even if there was nothing for him here. Maybe he was a coward, because sometimes he couldn't bear to face them. </div> <bR> <div> One time, at the Hall of Drink and Chance, his mother found out one of her friends had privately insinuated that even if he didn't look it, Lorne had to be part cow. His mother and his father joined in beating the offending gossiper to a bloody death right there in the Hall. Constable Narwek deemed the death a righteous honor-slaying, and no more was said about it. Watching from the sidelines, Lorne had never forgotten the sight, or the sick feeling he got looking at the bludgeoned, mangled body.</div> <bR> <div> Lorne walked out into a patch of sunshine. The day grew brighter by the second, and he squinted up at the twin suns. </div> <bR> <div> Most days he didn't think he was a coward. But Lorne didn't want to be a warrior. He thought the hunt was stupid and found the Crebbil cruel, and all valor aside, the idea of confronting a drokken to him seemed like an exceptionally stupid thing to do.</div> <bR> <div> But if he didn't want to be a warrior, what was he to do with himself? Lorne would turn forty in two more moons. Forty was the Pylean age of majority, and upon your fortieth life-day, your family generally arranged and announced a suitable union with whatever interested, braying harpy owned the most cows or the most land.</div> <bR> <div> Lorne was pretty sure this sort of arrangement was not in his future, and little as he would have liked to be coupled with any of the females he knew, to not mate would only bring further shame upon his family. Not to mention--the lack of such a union, coupled with his refusal to join in the hunt or the sacred joust--left little else in life to pursue. Lorne was already a misfit, a scourge upon the house of his clan. An ungraceful aging could only serve to worsen the situation.</div> <bR> <div> And lately, Lorne realized more and more exactly what that would mean. When he was little, he used to dream that things would be better once he was older. He'd grow big and strong, even if he didn't love the hunt and no one ever shouted his name as their choice to swing the Crebbil. His horns would grow out. He'd find and be mated with someone who would understand him, even if he wasn't a warrior, and he wouldn't be alone anymore.</div> <bR> <div> Gradually, as the years passed, reality set about its business extinguishing that silly daydream. </div> <bR> <div> Seven weeks ago, his horns finally started sprouting, tiny red buds breaking through his green crust of forehead. Lorne knew in advance that horn-growth hurt, and though he wanted it and thought he was prepared for it, he wasn't. The skin-breaking felt like raging, spiraling twin headaches. </div> <bR> <div> Lorne endured the rite of passage as bravely and stoically as he could. For himself, he thought he did well, and luckily the shooting pains passed in under a fortnight, leaving his forehead merely a bit sore and aching. For some, the initial growth phase lasted much longer. </div> <bR> <div> Also on the bright side, even through the pain the experience carried a fair bit of excitement. The emergence of horns signaled sexual readiness, and so was quite the big deal amongst his people. Celebrations were thrown in your honor when your horns finished budding, and often the timing coincided with the mating ritual.</div> <bR> <div> But Lorne's family took little notice of his maturation, except to laugh and shake their heads, since what sane female would want to be the life-giver of the children of Krevlornswath? What female would want to be coupled with such a failure of a creature as him?</div> <bR> <div> Lorne had never even had a friend, not in his whole life.</div> <bR> <div> Abruptly Lorne stopped walking, leaning against a tree. He'd had a friend once, sort of, though Constable Narwek gave him a six-hour lecture about how a cow could not be your friend. Lorne always liked cows, and the others mocked him for that too. When he was younger, he used to spend a lot of time in his family's cow-house, looking at the cows, petting them, giving them treats. He liked the donkeys too, but the cows were his favorite. Cows lived a dirty and uncivilized existence, yes, but some of them were clearly intelligent animals, and Lorne didn't think much of his civilization anyway.</div> <bR> <div> When he was younger, back before his twenty-fifth life-day, he'd come across a runaway cow once, scavenging for berries deep in the forest. The cow was young and male--most people didn't pay attention to the gender of cows, but then, Lorne wasn't most people. At first, the cow fled from him in terror. Lorne spent at least a month trying to befriend the cow, getting it to trust him, and sneaking provisions out of the food-stores to bring to it. Secretly he named his cow Laneen, after the smallest blue moon-star. Eventually he convinced his lovely little cow not only to trust him and take food from his hand, but also to answer to its name and to come when Lorne called.</div> <bR> <div> That is, until the day three months later when Grakban noticed him secreting cow-food away. Grakban made Numfar follow Lorne out past the rocky hillside, into the shaded glen in the forest where the cow stayed in hiding. Two days later Laneen was slaughtered with a swing of the Crebbil and eaten at the village feast. After that, Lorne kept his distance from the cow-house.</div> <bR> <div> Lorne slumped against the tree behind him. Wasn't like he really wanted to be mated anyway. Most Pylean females were as unpleasant to him as the males, and twice as unappetizing. Lorne simply longed not to be lonely anymore. Seemed he was to suffer the strange fate of being constantly, inescapably surrounded by others, and yet feel eternally alone and apart.</div> <bR> <div> These thoughts twisted Lorne's gut, and he took a deep breath and buried his negative thinking. Most of his family members worked themselves into long-lasting snits and rages before ever managing to banish an unpleasant thought, but Lorne possessed the ability to kiss off a bad mood at a moment's notice. Taking another great lungful of the fresh glorious air, Lorne smiled and looked around. He'd come unconsciously to one of his favorite places in the forest, a small meadow half-shaded by trees.</div> <bR> <div> The suns were fully risen, and all around him the forest stirred to life. </div> <bR> <div> The village was full of ugly noise--the constant grunting sound of the Pylean language, the thundering din of the Hall of Drink and Chance, and the cacophony of the cow market. But the world away from the village was always full of nothing but beauty. Lorne ceased looking about and closed his eyes, listening now to the forest. Lorne loved the collected sounds of nature--the kawflaws chirping, the rustling of the leaves and the grasses in the quiet breeze, the steady beating measure of the wild larmar's hoofs. He loved the magnificent whisper of the wind and the sweet burbling of his favorite brook, running twenty stag's leaps down to the lake, and when rain came down, he loved the patter of that too. He'd tried to explain to his mother once why he found the forest so wonderful, but his mother only smacked him in the back of the head and told him to grow up.</div> <bR> <div> Lorne self-consciously put a hand to his forehead, stroking circles around the base of one of his horns. Anxiously Lorne cast a last glance around, but the woods were quiet save for the forest's own soft sounds. If anyone saw him, he would never, ever live it down, and a lot of rocks would probably be thrown at him too. Not to mention....well, Lorne was pretty sure that whatever the punishment-sentence was for substituting your hand for the honor of the great mating ritual, it couldn't be good. Settling back against the tree, he slipped out of his tunic and opened the rough yellow fabric of his overalls. </div> <bR> <div> Lorne rested his other hand over his groin, taking himself in hand.</div> <bR> <div> He'd been illegitimately touching himself for about a fortnight now, always secretly, usually hidden away deep in the woods. Such depraved activity surely brought shame upon a body, but having experienced the ecstasy of mindlessness, of release, Lorne didn't care or even feel that guilty anymore. Nervous about getting caught, yes, but not guilty. Why should he care about being depraved?</div> <bR> <div> At the Hall of Drink and Chance, they laughed at him and called him cow-shuker, which had been a favored nickname ever since the incident. Lorne knew, however, that if anyone truly suspected him of shuking cows, Constable Narwek would cease his lecturing and clap Lorne in shackles instead. The punishment-sentence for cowshuking was a minimum of three weeks in one of the wooden necklocks in the village square. Lorne remembered when he'd first heard of that punishment-sentence. Because if it was forbidden, someone, at some point, had to have done it.</div> <bR> <div> Lorne switched horns, rubbing around the second one faster and with a little more intensity. The skin around the horn he'd been touching felt hot and aroused, like a subtle fire was burning underneath his forehead, and his breathing came quicker.</div> <bR> <div> Lorne soon lost his thoughts to his need. The mindlessness, which in Lorne's opinion was the best part of illegitimate self-touching, took over, and he squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lip as he hurtled towards the completion moment. Due to his youth Lorne finished rapidly, and he gasped when his hips thrust up in release. Afterwards he wiped his wet hand off on the grass, and sighing, did up his overalls. His horns felt oversensitive, and he pulled his hand away quickly after touching one again. The moment of pleasure, and the bliss of forgetting his circumstances, his self, everything--always slipped away too quickly.</div> <bR> <div> For a minute he stayed where he was, sitting slumped comfortably against his tree. </div> <bR> <div> Now and again, when he was alone and feeling happy, Lorne raised his voice and let a lilt slip into his words, making a sound that was both extraordinary and strange. His sound was not similar to his mother's roaring, or like the warrior-yells Landok constantly emitted since his horns had grown out and he'd taken a mate. The sound Lorne made was different. All his life ghosts had lived inside his head. Making the sound let the ghosts out. Set them free.</div> <bR> <div> Lorne couldn't do this voice-lifting when anyone else was around--they inevitably started shrieking and fell to the ground in pain, screaming of burning in their ears and of wicked sorcery. When Lorne stopped, and they recovered, they muttered that he was evil and should go burn in Tarkna. Sometimes Lorne fantasized about making his sound until all their heads exploded, but his sound would never be considered an honorable weapon in battle, and besides, when it came right down to it, Lorne didn't have that kind of viciousness in him. </div> <bR> <div> Which was, of course, a big part of the problem. </div> <bR> <div> Lorne only wished even one of them, his mother or Numfar or any of them, could find it in themselves to care about him. Even a little bit.</div> <bR> <div> Lorne didn't know why he was different, why he could hear things no one else did, why he could make his special sound, why he could see more than met the eye in his people's stark lives and baffling rituals. Occasionally he went into the hills and beat his breast, as the people of his home were wont to do, and cried and wished he could escape his life. But Lorne also thought breast-beating was a stupid way to express your emotions, and if praying and wishing weren't as dramatic, well, at least they were simpler and things stayed more private that way.</div> <bR> <div> Donning Numfar's brown tunic and straightening his overalls, Lorne realized he felt hungry. He probably ought to go back to the village for some meat and drink, even though a bach-nal was to be held tonight in the village square. Lorne hated the bach-nals, which were even worse than the Hall of Drink and Chance, if such a thing was possible. Besides, he didn't want to leave the forest. The woods were full of life, but empty of other Pyleans, and Lorne felt happier here than anywhere else. Lorne stood up and began the long walk back to his family's ancestral home. Sometimes, when they regretfully mentioned Trelinsk with more frequency and earnestness than made him comfortable, Lorne wasn't sure how he continued, or why he even bothered. Passing a hand briefly over himself, Lorne wondered at his own resiliency.</div> <bR> <div> Walking alone in the forest, Lorne opened his mouth and raised his voice high, loudly. Wordlessly he made the sound that was, at least to his own ears, beautiful.</div> <bR> <div> -finis-</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>