Caterpillar & Red Fish (Halfstreet Archives)- genre: YA steam fantasy/adventure

Caterpillar and Red Fish (Halfstreet Archives)

note: Please see the ends of the draft-chapters for definitions of unfamiliar terms.

Caterpillar and Red Fish (Halfstreet Archives) 

lit: Aetherist D. Zoem  

'...so I ended up here, hoping to make some kind of life, ya know? Who wants to be an *idling until you stop being useful?' The thin face of the smoke man blinked out then, as it did every few bumps the train made against the secret rails. He tapped his knee nervously, resettling himself on the seat across from the child who graciously listened to his accounting of woes. Stopping himself launching into another tirade, he grinned at the girlchild through swirling etheric bits, 'You're a quiet one. They'll need to watch for you.'  

The child looked past the long faced man of plum smoke tendrils, her right hand, still sparkling with the glitter of the eve of *New Anuum, tightened around a rolled leaf that never seemed to leave her grasp.  

An *Anansan treeling several rows ahead eyed the pair with space-black irises set in pale pink orbs, heavy wooden lids clicking with each blink. She folded her hands--which were veiled in yellow gloves concealing her fingers of generous length, just to the tips--over the lap of an amber dress covering her from her angular chin to her rail-thin wrists, on down to the floorboards. The child, noticing being noticed, met her eyes boldly, noting the ripe-looking pink fruits, small as crab apples in the treeling's branches which twisted into a fashionable side spire jutted out to the left of her crown, boasting small diamond-shaped leaves. 

'They'll make you see things 5 minutes or so ahead,' the treeling woman told the staring girl, in a voice mesmerizingly deep. 'You make take three. I will have 15 minutes of your dreamtime in return.'

The child didn't answer, having apparently lost the fight to the train's lull, which finally managed just then in rocking her to sleep. Wide half-moon eyelids cast the world in dreamspace black. Her small rosebud mouth parted in slumber. Alarmed, mere minutes later, her eyes blinked open but they were mere minutes too many, by her estimation, and she cursed herself for the mistake. The treeling woman and her promising fruits were gone.  

Grabbing her box by its topmost wooden handle, Samora rose to a stand, nodding briefly to the smoke man, who'd found a moonfly to engage in his conversational fancies during her mind's absence, about the price of lodging in Old Ceylon for non-registrants. He raised a hand in return, with a pleased nod, patting his pocket suggestively which flickered out in smoky wisps under the impact, and swiftly reengaged with the softly glowing sienna creature, crowned in a corkscrew-cotton mass of chartreuse spirals, leaned against the windowpane, rapt in their discourse.  

Samora tilted her head, confounded with his gesture, until reaching into her leftmost pocket, she kenned the meaning, her conic earthen fingers seizing upon three small coarse-skinned spheres. Her heartbeats took to speeding thumps within their chamber, and she beamed appreciatively at the man of wisps, who just happened to glance her way once more, the corners of his eyes crinkling merrily.  

Raising her head much higher, Samora moved forward, flinching with the first clack of her slightly heeled shoes-which had been useful over the rougher bits of her journey but were now a hindrance-against the wooden tiles. She would have to replace them with dance flats, at the first opportunity. What she would give for a private railcar, if only her stores were of the means.  

Samora stepped into the next railcar on her shoe's tips, squinting in the dimly lit room of sphere-bending walls cast in the amber glow of trained light-gourds swaying left to right, hung atop diamond-shaped panes of green glass. Her nose wrinkled at the sharp scent of shock fruits; tart and intense as the pepper-shaped shards were, her eyes following a crunch that could only come from the one eating them. She quickly redirected her gaze, in the wisdom following realization. Dimmed windows. Shock fruit. There was a gridling in here.  

She slowly bent to reach a hand into the creases at the backs of her shoes, against the protests of instinctual cleanliness, and removed them, leaving only the spats to conceal the remainder of her stockings' end hem. Clutching the shoes with her freehand, she stepped swiftly to the door across the room, which, if the memory map she'd purchased was correct, would lead her to the stairwells, and finally, after a few trials she was sure, the baker. A kindling flickered the *onyxian center of her eyes, at the thought. She pressed her lips intentfully, reaching for the handle of the railcar's side-tilting door, successfully making her way through it.  

(More to come as the aethergraph posts them *_^)  

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Terms you may appreciate definitions for:  

*Anansan: Anansi-kind; a kind of dreamer, that dreamed itself out of 'reality', possibly becoming stuck in dream-form. Many are as tree-like beings.  

*Idling: A manifester's animated figment, usually created to fill some needed role for a time. Creation of them is frowned upon by most manifesters.  

*Anuum: Year  

*Onyxian: Dark. Black hued.  

*Gridling: A young, often newly birthed energy-sucker, often used to power constructs.

(The Halfstreet archives are known for their issues with bookeaters. As text is restored it will be transmitted to you, even bit by bit through the aethergraph. Your sentiments, and votes of confidence are appreciated. It is hoped you will enjoy the next chapter, and the next, and the... Well, you catch my meaning. Shine on.)