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Topic: The Silent Revolution (Read 417 times) |
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Estarien
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The Silent Revolution
« Thread started on: Jun 7th, 2004, 12:59am » |
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Estarien sat in the sand right at the edge of a tidal pool, digging her bare toes into the cool, wet sand and watching the annual migration of islanders setting out for their higher educations.
"It's just not right", she thought. "They leave home full of ideals and plans for returning home and improving the way things are right here, only then they get a taste of how things are elsewhere, and many never return at all, or worse yet, they come back and join the status-quo."
Truth was that she wanted to be on one of those boats herself, but her family was just another fishing-family, and the fish weren't getting any more plentiful lately, and if fishing were prosperous, she'd then be expected to take up the traditional family trade.
"Stupid traditions.. ha!" She reached into the tidal pool and drew out a small shellfish. "Looks like we're both trapped in a place the tides of change have forgotten." She then walked down to the surf and set the tiny shellfish free into the seas where it belonged.
The "school" she helped organize for local island kids who also could not afford the Academy was not meeting that day because opening day of Academy was considered an island holiday, so Estarien decided to take full advantage of a day-off.
She was alone on the beach now, all the other locals being down at the marina this day. Overcoming her natural modesty, she removed the green dress she was wearing over her swimming costume and raced into the foaming surf to see if she could now swim out past the sandbar.
(I'll be back tomorrow same time to continue this thread. If anybody else wants to join the "underwater movement", just dive right in .. pun intended  )
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Estarien
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Re: The Silent Revolution
« Reply #1 on: Jun 7th, 2004, 11:53pm » |
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The next day, Estarien woke early and went down to the abandoned old warehouse as usual. It was there that she and seventeen other people met to form what they jokingly called "Lightsout University" due to the secrecy of their gathering there.
It was very informal, rather a non-lending-library and tutoring service, and most everybody there was both professor AND student. Today she had charge of the history lessons, and she needed to prepare for her class, which would be meeting there in about two hours.
She went around behind the ancient brick and timber buliding and climbed in through the back window to unlock the front door from within. She then removed the makeshift blackout shutters from the few exterior windows to let in a bit more daylight.
Her heart sank as the emptyness of the room became apparent. The crate-and-barrel "desks" were gone. The lamps for night-classes were gone. The slate-board and supplies-chest were gone.
"The books.. they're GONE!"
The school had been there for almost nine years now, ever since they had outgrown their old location in the lower level of The Dunes Club. She and her friend Mirinay had been collecting textbooks, encyclopedia and other such volumes used by the school since before the school was even concieved. Some of the books were very rare, and some of the student essays and theses were irreplaceable. Now all those years' hard work was gone, and there was no crime to report since no "school" existed.
She unlocked the front door and sat on the bare floor waiting for the first classmates to arrive. She dreaded giving them the news that there'd be a holiday until they found a suitable location to meet, and until the books could be at least in-part replaced.
Most of all though, she dreaded swallowing her own pride and having to travel to Speare and beg-borrow-steal new texts for her own students.
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Estarien
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Re: The Silent Revolution
« Reply #2 on: Jun 10th, 2004, 11:22pm » |
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That evening, Estarien took the long way home. Her home-island was one of the larger ones, with a population of near one-hundred people residing there, and another twoscore or so who came there to work at the fishmarkets or down at the marina and warehouses.
The islanders never really needed much that the sea or the lush terraced gardens could not provide, but there was still the need to trade in order to get some modern medicines, mechanical wonderments like the steam-driven engines that powered the cannery, and some luxuries like fine fashions from Rubria and the superbly crafted jewellry from Mystral. Every day the boats went in and out with their various cargos, and still, somehow, nothing ever changed. The wealthier families of the island stayed wealthy, and the poorer stayed poor. Sons inherited their fathers' trades, and daughters were raised up to be mothers.
Her own house was on the western side of the island, in what was once considered to be a respectable traditional dwelling. Being somewhat of an agitator though, Estarien had taken up the eccentricity of filling her own small terrace garden with near two-dozen assorted pieces of statuary. Some were of mythical "wee folk" and others were caricatures of animals dressed in clothing representative of the various nations of Halcyon.
The little two-room bungalow's exterior had been frescoed with scenes of underwater life, and the front door had been removed for a more practical and inviting curtain of strung-seashells. She had nothing inside to steal, save for her inheritance.
Going straight to her pantry, she found the sugar-tin and poured all the sugar into a mixing-bowl. There in the bottom of the tin she kept a smaller tin in which she hid her few valuables that were meant to be her dowry.
She sat down at her dining table and opened the tin, revealing several rings, a chain of fine silver, and a brooch of some strange green stone which had been in her family for centuries.
"I'm sorry, nanna Ekoru, but I need the money ..and you would understand."
Estarien had no brothers or sisters, no cousins, no relations at all except for her mother, her father, and her widower grandpa, who still kept the books for the family fishing business, defying his age. She loved her family, and she respected them too, but she knew she would never pass those heirlooms down to any children her mother might have wished upon her.
She would sell all she had to give those young people back their school, and she planned to set sail the next morning for Speare to trade her family's past for those kids' future.
(coming next - Estarien goes to Aegis)
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