The Quiet Ones

Initial chapter for some brief orientation.

First off. This is some long haul saga shit. Shogun. Thornbirds. Cien años de soledad. Dune. OK maybe not quite as bad as Dune. This story starts with the main character and her partner (cop partner, specifically canonically NOT sex partner in the primary thread) at age 19, just after they graduate [police academy] and begin working as patrol constables. I have semicontiguous time-hopping narrative taking these characters up to almost age 40, mid-way through their careers which have culminated in her and partner making the squad like they always wanted. This was all written as an absurd prequel panorama leading up to, get this, the book I was ACTUALLY trying to write at the time but struggling with. Well, anyway, that next book begins with the main character in her early forties being released from the citadel dungeons unexpectedly, not even two years into her life sentence for the of her husband. That one's got stuff planned. BETRAYAL! FUCKING! A JOB ONLY YOU CAN DO! And that's not all! That's right folks, she has AMNESIA! Probably!

All that to say, I have a goodly amount of narrative material to seed the garden with here and then I guess I start exploring narrative junctures where the two of them aren't as successful in staying true to their strictly platonic life arrangement.

Also: don't read that thing up above to mean that this story doesn't have BETRAYAL and FUCKING and A JOB ONLY YOU CAN DO! It does. The main story thread just happens to be the path where they are more successful sticking to their principles.

Second off. This did not begin its life as an intentional fuckfest which is why it's not, yet. Incidentally, it started as a, cough, "about a page of character backstory" that our GM asked for, and grew into a weirdly long fantasy.... novel? collection of novella-length vignettes? that I never did anything with, partly because there were plenty of points where I had the impulse to make the story sexier or more explicit, and didn't honor that impulse because I thought I was trying to write something "publishable" instead of something "unprintably depraved slice of life."

I never wrote most of that stuff I wanted to. Partly because I wanted to keep the pristine versions of them—because so much of their life's work in which they do a lot of good, was founded on the fact that despite their natural chemistry, they never pursued a romantic relationship out of principle and dedication. I love that for them. But putting my longest fantasy work on here means I can also love different things for them in different timelines. Sex things.

Okay. So let's get started, and hopefully I don't screw up how I'm trying to organize this thing, dear reader, so you aren't constantly confused as fuck.

===SETTING========================================

SEMPRISPORT, coastal city-state and seaport along the southeastern part of the continent. It's some D&D lookin fantasy city shit, you knew exactly what it is before you finished this sentence.

===DRAMATIS PERSONAE============================

FAUZIA BERSK, human female, age 19, patrol constable in the Semprisport city watch police service; medicates away her inconveniently sorcerous abilities. Daughter to THE RAVANITE HOMELY HOUSE FOR CHILDREN. Or, take your pick, unnamed parents in a far-flung corner of the empire of MIVIA, who gave her up to a temple of ARVINTER because, big-question-mark, demons? Watch guard partner to MAGNUS CURRY.

MAGNUS CURRY, orcish-human, age 19, patrol constable in the Semprisport city watch police service; fully intends to teach Fauzia to cook. Grandson to MAGDA and son to HILDY. Watch guard partner to FAUZIA BERSK.

MAGDA KOVÁCS, orcish-human, age 66, semi-retired mostly-volunteer-these-days nurse at the HOSPITAL OF RAVA. Mother to HILDY and grandmother to MAGNUS.

HILDY KOVÁCS, orcish-human, she ded

RAVA, the rook, lord of the damned, or whatever his real epithet is that I wrote 100,000 words ago and no longer remember (he's a god! he's a chill benefactor! will update later!)

ARVINTER, traditional one-dimensional tightass hearth god and general dumping ground for ALL THE AUTHOR'S REAL LIFE ANGST ABOUT SCARY RELIGIOUS PEOPLE

MIVIA, a made up place, like Russia-Ireland-Belgium, place is fuckin next level eurasia-ginormous and heads up, they love ARVINTER there, foreigners less so.

CSOGLAR, a made up place like Hungary-Romania, smaller, plagued by political troubles with the bordering MIVIAN Empire. Most Csoglarans are of mixed orcish and human ancestry. They are COOL AS HELL, mostly because the author thinks so, she's one of those Baba Yaga fangirls, you know the kind or, she's pro-hag or some shit.

OK, I'm bored with this intro. I'm guessing you get the gist. I'm going to chew on whether to go with first or second person narrative (comment or message if you want to make a case for either), and hopefully post something soon! Typing this up got me pumped all over again to hang with these characters!

Oh yeah, one last bit. Their calendar has 4 month-analog units. They call them seasons. There's a whole calendar with the holidays and moon shit.