Kevin's Watch

Notes: The story is a longer, detailed retelling of Rime Coldspray's account of the toils and adventures of the Swordmainnir, as narrated in a chapter bearing the same title in Fatal Revenant. An attempt to bring these underdeveloped characters alive and give them some back-story. The tale begins some weeks after the first eruptions of Longwrath's madness.
Written as a practice piece to find the right mood for revising "Guilt", which is why it contains a few thematic similarities.


Click the links for content.

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

Then return to drop a comment.

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Looking forward to reading this, Frostheart, but I have a pile of papers to grade!! This will be my reward after wading through.

EDIT: Got a good start but will have to finish later. Question: When you refer to the tafl, do you mean an actual game board or just a table?

Tafl in this context denotes a game board; they play a hybrid of archaic chess and Norse tafl games. There's a corny-ish joke about the Lewis Chessmen; imagine this with the Ironhand's face instead.



And the other frequent Norse word, hird, means a retinue/nucleus of elite warriors.

Thanks for the definition, Frosty.

I am almost tempted to use it to modify my title, but probably don't want to verge into Buffalo Soldier territory; the Buffalo Chorale is challenging enough.

But elite ninja swag buffaloes are so in right now!

"Stone and Sea!" she moaned now, running one hand through her hair. "Now observe at this bloody mess! Whither wended its way, this winning stroke of mine, withered and vanished into the whirlwinds of woe!"

Holy alliterations Frostman! I guess I should expect if from a Finn.

That flew over the tops of Himalaya and a couple of other mountain ranges on purpose. However, alliteration's still a common technique of narration over here, from comics to Viking metal lyrics. Difficult to avoid from this mental disposition.

ETA: Why was one of my comments above edited? Was this by mistake? It didn't include this text mentioned below where it seems I'm suddenly quoting myself.

Frostheart wrote:

Frostheart wrote:Tafl in this context denotes a game board; they play a hybrid of archaic chess and Norse tafl games. There's a corny-ish joke about the Lewis Chessmen; imagine this with the Ironhand's face instead.

Yes, and of course, other female Giantish "attributes."

ETA #2 Fixed the original comment.

I don't know how that happened, I was the one who made the crack about the "attributes". Maybe Furl's is messing with our heads from Heaven.

Perhaps. At first I thought my account had been compromised, coned through some other recent messages, but found nothing so suspected it had been either you or SD. No worries.

So, did you reach the end or did bad Finnish alliteration habits turn out too overwhelming?

Sorry, report cards due this week, and the proverbial doodoo hitting the fan in other areas of my life!! This weekend promises to have some down time, though, so hopefully I can enjoy the rest of the story.

Edit: Finished Chapter One. I love it, and feel that your language and thought-train is pitch-perfect to a telling of a Giantish tale.

deer of the dawn wrote:Sorry, report cards due this week, and the proverbial doodoo hitting the fan in other areas of my life!! This weekend promises to have some down time, though, so hopefully I can enjoy the rest of the story.

Edit: Finished Chapter One. I love it, and feel that your language and thought-train is pitch-perfect to a telling of a Giantish tale.

Thanks, glad to hear that. Something of a challenge to write from a 2000-year-old Giantess' point of view. Needs some mental re-adjusting to equate human days with fleeting minutes and observe the changes of the world from the perspective of centuries rather than decades. And, as even Coldspray & co talk like 19th century thesauri, I saw no reason to change the "oldtime" feel of the narration (not to mention that I started typing this to get the exact same style flowing again).

Good luck with work and anything else in life not basking in sunshine!

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"Finnished" (lol) chapter 2. I love it!! I feel you really got the tone of Giantess thoughts right. And you did something admirable-- the prose is rich, but it isn't distracting.

Chapter 3 this week.

I really wish we could get more interest in this forum... ideas?

Thanks!!

Hmm, the only thing strolling around the top part of my brain would be to arrange a contest, or some kind of (bi-)monthly short writing assignment. The previous would acquire more participants with actual prizes rather than WGDs. Perhaps gift certificates to Amazon (the sum wouldn't need to be large at all and maybe a number of people might contribute to the lot) or something of that ilk?

A fair deal of skill exists on this board--it's just that most regulars pour their enthusiasm to Tank battles and the more creative areas are left to gather lichen.