Never Silent

My brain is pretty much totally offline. To the point where nothing short of sleep will kick-start it.

…considering that this usually happens at 2pm, I have done pretty well.

So I pretty much had the choice of
a) continue to sleepwalk my way through half-assed storybits, or
b) just post whatever and write all of the remaining storybits after my nap.

And I chose b). Because the artists want good stuff to go with their pieces, and the buyers want good stuff to go with their purchases. And I think that’s probably
more important than churning the storybits out on schedule regardless of quality.

And I think that, in future years, I need to
a) get more advance assistance on running Team Venture and
b) be more reasonable about my limitations. Not just body, but brain, as there is just no arguing with fibrofog.

And these writing challenges work for Wind Tunnel Dreams because I have the whole morning to think of what to write in response to one. Here, I have ten minutes. And when my brain gets like this, that’s not enough.

So yeah. Frustrated. But I want you guys to get better from me than what I’ve been turning out.

Still staying up. Still leading Team Venture to victory! Just allowing myself to meander off the trail a bit.

I step into a world of glass…

Every available window is hung with glass, colored or prismatic, abstract are in shapes of nature or artifice. Light fractures all over the tower, light splitting light, rainbows all over the walls. The glassmaker can make you anything here. She specializes in window hangings, but you may have a kaleidoscope or a prism, if you are very good. Do sit on the window seat here while we do a little business. Just a few lenses. It won’t take long at all. Just lie back, dear, and watch the prism just over your head. See how the light moves? Just watch there, and this will all be over soon…

———————-
Abstract snowflake, purple butterfly, and balloons stained glass by SageAutumn. Shiny!

The exhaustion has set in fully. With it, the loopiness. Slipjig’s last list will be awful.

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I open the box and tip out a necklace – three strands of beads twined together.

I count out the beads precisely as I work. Magic has rules. Magic always has rules. It’s the metal beads I’ve put the spells on, of course; the glass beads would have taken me years! No, the metal beads are enough. Old magic, like the kind once used on ships – tying up the wind in rope, unknotting it when needed. I’ve spent the last few months traveling every place I could think to find magic, tipping it into the little metal beads, and stringing them on.

So in theory, the whole necklace should have enough magic to take me back. It’s not emeralds, but those are a bit pricier over here. This should be enough, these three – magic number, three – strands of glass and magic.

It will be done soon. Soon I will go back.

————————————-
Triune necklace by aVivaSedai. Three individual necklaces of seed beads in blue and green with
funky eclectic spacer beads can be braided together or worn separately.
Between 18-19 inches long, each two-stranded necklace can add fun and
color to your outfits!

I have no idea where my sponsorships are at. I’ll have a better idea tomorrow afternoon.

Coffee.

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The box is small, but the embellishment is so rich and detailed… the artist had an eye for perfection.

Keryn kept her chips in the box. A gift from her grandmother, its black-on-cinnabar swirls mirrored the design on her everyday chips, the ones she wore to school. They fit perfectly behind her ear, in her new socket, and clicked out for the dozens of hair-thin cables her lessons were delivered through.

Her hair was shaved on the left side, of course, so it wouldn’t get in the way. And of course her chips and socket cover had to be decorative. Plain shimmersteel wouldn’t just be boring, it would be outright embarrassing. Grandma got it, even if Dad didn’t. Grandma knew that chip fashion was what she wanted, and she gave it to her, every birthday and Founder’s Day.

Keryn’s favorite part of the morning was opening the box and choosing what socket cover she’d wear that day – jeweled or not, silver, copper, what kind of decoration. School? No oh no. This was about the decisions she got to make for herself.

———————-
Lavishly-embellished steampunk/Victorian tin box by MizArchivist of Cosmo’s Curiosities. embellished Altoids tin measures 3.75″ x 2.5″ x 1″ (standard Altoids
size) and is covered in Sculpey, which is soft until it is baked in 250
F for half an hour. It’s glazed with a polymer medium and signed on the
back (hinging) side by the artist. It is safe to store food in, as it
once held mints. Obviously, don’t eat the clay off the tin. That’s not
good eats.

The design has its roots in a silver Balinese filigree and
Steampunk/Victorian- favoring the latter, particularly given the color
choices.

This is *perfect* for your favorite BPAL imps!

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Dear artists: I am not going to have enough time to write about everything during the thon. Was scrambling til the last week, then stuff I hadn’t anticipated started flooding in! So I will write the remaining ones after my nap. Because 24 straight hours is totally my limit.

I set the picture aside, still uncertain about what it says about Sol 2. Instead I pick up something small and, once I wipe the grit away, shiny…

The room is dark. The woman’s voice starts out quiet, only a little above a hum, sweet and wordless. It climbs – then dips and climbs again. And with it… silver.

The silver forms itself to the contours of her voice, looping in on itself. Only rarely does she need to dart a hand out to shape it. For the most part, it follows her song. Deft fingers dart out to thread beads on it, but only a few… the silver is its own art.

Her voice drops down again, and tapers off; she catches the piece and sets it in a well-cushioned little box.

———————————-
It almost looks like a voice. “Greens in Winter” by Kythryne of Wyrding Studios. A swoop of silver wire, peridot, and moonstone. 1 7/8″ (48 mm) high, 1 1/4″ (33 mm) wide.

Just had a possible missing-cat situation. That’ll get your heart pumping. (He was found safely, don’t worry.)

Second shift is over. Blogathon is 2/3 over. Now we just have to get through this last, thoroughly evil shift.

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I squat down to study a picture labeled “Venutian Binds”. Ah, finally! An exploration of Venus – Sol 2!

Oh, my.

Try as I might, I am unable to force a reading through on this picture. Of the framer, yes, and the owner… but I cannot get through to *source*, to Sol 2 itself. No ruins have yet been found on Sol 2, but this picture clearly indicates the presence of tentacled dominatrixes and helpless spacefaring blondes. Perhaps this is the source of the tentacled creature who interfered with the baseball game I read earlier? I wish that I could establish their provenance for certain, but I fear that all I get is a headache.

———————–
“Venutian Binds” by UltraLilac – 16×20″, in a handsome black frame.

FigmentJ’s latest post so far = “I like string.”

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The next piece glitters, despite its apparent morbidity – a human skull and bones.

The deathgirls move throughout the city, laughing with each other, safe in their shockjackets, pink skulls glittering on their chests. Their hair tends to be short and punky, and the general aura of their group is of fearlessness. This city is theirs, kidgirls or no. Some might say it’s always been theirs.

If one tries anything with you, just ease on by. It’s not that any one in particular is all that dangerous. It’s that they move in packs, and they always back each other up. No deathgirl’s ever totally alone, even if it looks that way at first.

Some of the older folks look at them wistfully. Not that they want to be like the deathgirls in particular – just that they wish they’d had friends like that, a pack like that.

——————————
Shiny pink skull & crossbones necklace by Zlana of Zlanarama. And guess what? It’s Zlana’s birthday! By, like, a few minutes still. So bid on her necklace! And if the necklace doesn’t suit you, go shop at her store!

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And if you sponsor me, *please* remember to e-mail me your donation receipt. Because the e-card doesn’t tell me how much you’re sponsoring me for.

I sit back, hands spread on the floor, breathing slowly. Recovering from the Oracle, and from my accidental fall into the spinner’s mind. It is with reluctance that I pluck the next artifact from the table – a simple box.

My brother thinks it’s Mom who puts things in my wishing box, but that isn’t so. I meant, I used to think so too. I would write my wishes down on a slip of paper, just like she said, and tuck the paper in the box right before I went to sleep. And the next day, or maybe the day after, my wish would come true. I mean, moms do have powers. I know they totally do. But this was different. Because *every* wish came true. Every reasonable one, anyway. Mom explained that I couldn’t have a pony because we had no place to keep it, and that’s okay. But I mean like finding my dad a job he liked better, and Mom finding enough money under the couch to buy me a new iPod Micro. But still. I thought it was Mom and luck.

Until the night I couldn’t sleep. I was tossing and turning, and finally realized I’d forgotten to write something on my wish paper. So I opened the box.

And the bottom was gone.

There was a tunnel instead, long and dark, and a pair of glowy eyes… a a gravely voice that said “We’ve been helping you all along. Now it’s your turn to help *us*.”

I slammed the lid right back on. I don’t sleep so well these days.

——————–
Get your very own wishing box, thanks to PiscoSubito! 4″x4″x21/2″, handpainted, probably nothing nasty at the end of that tunnel.

Me: “My skillset is napping.”
Emily: “Sooo, you’re qualified to be a housecat.”

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It’s crashing to the floor the jolts me out of the Oracle’s trance. My hand falls to a length of yarn, and I’m back in -

She fed the roving into the wheel, pulling the fibers out, foot working the treadle, lost in her trance. Six weeks since the EMP, and no word of the outside world… it was making her a bit stir crazy. Cabin fever, though of course she wasn’t confined to her cabin… she had the whole town, but they had nothing but each other. Nothing but each other, and no way of knowing what was happening out there. Spinning calmed her, and it was *useful*; what she had here wouldn’t make a sweater, but it would make a scarf, and god only knew if they’d have power back come winter.

She didn’t know if they’d all be here come winter. But preparing for winter was better than the alternative. The climate was just now struggling back from that last incident. Surely no one would do anything to endanger it agaiin. Surely the talk of nuclear weapons was just politicians blustering.

She worked the treadle and tried her damnedest not to think about it.

——————–
Handspun yarn by DulcinBradbury. She says, “It’s a thin yarn in deep pink, mango-yellow and a lighter pink –
colours of sunset. If I recall correctly, the fiber was a blend of
merino wool, camel and silk. It could make a lovely lace piece — there
might be enough for a shawl.” EmilytheSlayer thinks it’s make a great pair of armwarmers!

Thanks, people who’re commenting – I do not have time between things to talk to you individually just yet! But I am reading and appreciating…

…my slight Southern accent is coming out.

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Beneath the heart, a chip with another music file. I load it up and lean back in my chair, and and pulled along into its wake…

The woman has a sly dark smile and dangerous eyes. She walks down the dark street with unnatural, predatory grace.

She got something she is up to
She got business to conclude
She is older than creation
And she ain’t got time for fools

She enters the bar, but attracts the notice of no one. She pulls a chair out, flips it back, and straddles it – and she looks up.

At me.

Looking for the light
So you think you see
More than shadows on the wall?

I would stumble and fall, were I really here. Her eyes are enormous, and they hold far too much… they hold whole centuries, and I feel that I am in danger of falling in.

The Oracle, and ancient goddess of this world. I look back. She looks forward. And we have met in the middle.

———————-
“Vitus Dance” CD by Gaia Consort, donated by viola placer Solcita. All words in italics are from the song “Oracle“.

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Feeling much less cranky/stabby. Helps that all of the items have bids now. *decisive nod* I think I was feeling stressed out for the artists even more than I knew…