Carriage and Two: Farmers, part 5

[sythyry]

Mirrored from Sythyry.

“I beg your pardon,” said Mayor Gorsen the next day. “Precisely what has become of my carriage?”

“It’s tumbled over in the stream at the bottom of Burrbumber Bluff,” said Allam sadly. “One side has been stove in, and I don’t think the wheels are in the best of condition anymore.”

“By the spanglio!” exclaimed Gorsen. “My new carriage, with the lacquered panels and elliptical leaf springs! And what of my horses, my matched pair of six-year-old roan mares that I fed on apples every day by hand?”

“Profferty got dragged down the bluff with the carriage. She’s all scraped up on the flank, and has her wounds and injuries. Dillesc fetched up on some bramble bushes on the edge of the bluff, so she’s scratched up but not so bad as that,” said Allam. “She lost her foal, I fear, though.”

“Ach! Accanax shit on the situation!” cried Gorsen. “What hideous angel or insanulous idea propelled you to drive home in the middle of the night? Could you not wait until morning?”

“We hadn’t got a place to stay in Vheshrame,” said Allam. “We’d been too busy at the guild to go find lodging. The only hotels we found were rather dear. We thought to come home to sleep, rather than spending on the city.”

“Ach! Sleep on the streets, by the spanglio! Or prevail on the Cantoozies, or whatever your eighth-cousins-thrice-removed are called, to take you in for the time! Or any other Herethroy family: at that hour they will be too tired to work out the geneological details. Or sleep under the Pillar of Incangiophor, for Mircannis’ sake! It is not yet too cold for that! Just, do not drive your borrowed carriage, with the pregnant mares, across the twisty roads atop the Burrbumber Bluff in the dark of night!”

Allam had no great basis for disputing the mayor’s cry. “I’ve assembled a dozen farmers; we’ll have horse and carriage out first thing after dawn,” he said.

“I suppose that is the best that can be hoped for, under the circumstances,” said the mayor.

And, by dint of the great strength of many stout farmers, both horse and carriage were hoisted to the top of the bluffs. Neither one was in shape to travel by its normal means, so the horse was coaxed onto a cart, and the carriage onto a hay-wain. And so they finally came back to Dren Mafferhame, though more like the first thing after noon than the first thing after dawn.

Comments

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

My translator and I chatted for two-thirds of an hour before I understood the concept. We do not have such a thing per se, though if you want to inflict, say, physical clumsiness on someone, that is straightforward.

But I don't think this family was particularly cursed, simply unlucky. And the bad luck builds on itself: when a carriage-driver is exhausted after a long and dreadful day from the previous bad luck, and trying to drive an unfamiliar vehicle at night, accidents are hardly unlikely.

Still, in the end they move to Kismirth. I hope that doesn't count as bad luck.

[ionotter.livejournal.com]

I do believe that depends on what happens in the interim, between then and now?

I mean, if they somehow manage to anger a stray Nendrai-not necessarily Vae-and all get turned into tentacled sugarcubes, ending up in Kismirth might not be enough of an escape to be considered *good* luck?

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Nobody's managed to anger Vae lately, or not so she shows it anyhow. She's feeling rather subdued and even horrified by some of her adventures. The problem, of course, is when she decides to make up for it.