#laoche chronicles

[ettawritesnstudies]

Death's Promise

My entry for @inklings-challenge on Team Tolkien! This story comes from my world of Laoche, which recently got rehauled (yet again) with a new pantheon and more depth to the religious worldbuilding.

In this world the First god is the Artist, who created all of the others to rule over different parts of creation, and the counterpart to the Artist is Death, who isn't an antagonist force but more of a celestial clean up duty. Her role is to be a storykeeper and guardian of souls, then break down the physical remains so the Artist can repurpose the materials. She's often met with dread, sorrow, or fear, but she is fundamentally, kind, and a caretaker of the Artist's creations when their lives are done. In this story, a young gravedigger meets her, and she gives him a promise.

The complete story is under the read more! I'll also be posting it to my blog so it can be found there in case tumblr's search function gives up on me.

Thud. Thud. Thud. The rhythmic falling of hammer on chisel chipped blocks from the stone wall in the crevasse where Martten worked. Dust swirled in the air and made his candles sputter. He stepped back from his work and coughed, assessing the progress. Almost deep enough. The niche needed a few more inches before it would fit Elanor’s body. Maybe a couple more inches after that. She was a large woman, and she ought to be comfortable. It was long enough now—Elanor was also a short woman—and he should finish before the dawn. His arms ached as he picked up the hammer and the chisel which he wrapped in fabric to dampen the clinking noise of his carving.

It had been a busy week. With all the unrest in the city, the devout were bringing down new bodies every day, and they’d run out of empty loculi. He longed for his bed and a shower to wash the dust from his hair, but he needed to finish this work first. He couldn’t sleep in good conscience, knowing Elanor didn’t have a place to rest. The candles kept the place warm, at least. Dozens of them burned around the small alcove, casting a soft glow around the small space. This deep underground, it always stayed cold, even during the day.

It was not day, though you couldn’t tell at this depth, except by the ice deep set in his bones.

He was just about to raise his arm to strike again when a flicker caught in the corner of his eye. A bent figure moved down the corridor, sending long shadows over his work. The newcomer was an old woman, ancient even. She used a cane to support herself and wore a black veil over her black robes. This must have been a superior he hadn’t met yet. He only joined the Siblings since the riots started a month ago, and he hadn’t yet met every follower of the Artist in Dazar. He lowered his tools and gave her a respectful head nod.

“Evening. Do you need something?”

“May I ask whose body will lie there?” She asked. Her raspy voice sounded like a rustle of dead leaves.

“A woman named Elanor Cernall. She was a weaver who died in the most recent attack on the market.”

“What was she like?”  

“I didn’t know her myself, but from what I heard, she was a good woman. Pessimistic at times. Slow to forgive or forget if someone wronged her and her kin, but she had a strong sense of duty. Loyal to the Artist and his people. Skilled at her trade, too. The Siblings preparing her body said that she made and donated the cloth for a good number of our habits.”

Martten kept his head bowed as he spoke, but as he finished his story, he turned to the wall again. Night was getting on, and he wanted to sleep a bit, at least. “Did you know her?” he asked as his first stroke fell.

The old woman hums in the affirmative. “I did. She was a good woman indeed.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“A life well lived is never a loss, but another shining craft to add to the collection of the Artist,” the old woman responded sagely. It was a response Martten heard before, but it didn’t seem like a platitude for her. When she said the words, she gave them weight, and the truth of the saying settled over his shoulders like a shroud.

It added meaning to his work. The followers of the Artist didn’t bury their dead in the traditional way. They hid them underground in catacombs so nobody could disturb them, but they didn’t cover the bodies with dirt or cremate them to get rid of the bodies. They let them decompose on their own, laid out on shelves and adorned with spices to mask the smell. The followers of the Artist remembered and visited - their cemetery was a collection of finished works who kept each other company in the dark. It seemed fitting that they should also have nicely finished graves in which to rest, places befitting the masterpieces. He angled his chisel and gave it a few gentle taps to smooth out a piece of jutting stone.

“It is kind of you to learn her story,” the woman said, interrupting his silence.

“I know them all,” Martten said proudly, then lowered his voice again. “Is that odd, that I talk to them sometimes? Isso the fisherman, a cheerful friend. Aikaterina the scholar, a persuasive orator and wise teacher. Eula, the singer, leading the Siblings in worship. Her poor boy Alex helps me sometimes. He doesn’t have anyone else left.” He paused his carving to gesture to each of their niches. “They keep me company. They’re almost like friends.”

The old woman made the symbol of storge to him, the middle three fingers of the hand held over her lips. It put him at ease, knowing he enjoyed her good company as well. “It’s not odd at all,” she reassured him, setting herself onto one of the empty ledges from earlier in the night to sit for a while.

“The other Siblings appreciate the sentiment, but the rest of the city…” Martten trailed off, a wistful feeling overtook him as his mind wandered. “I was telling Monica the other day—that mother in the niche under Isso. I was telling her about this baker girl, Emalee. I pass her stall after work and she always gives me the leftover bread and pastries from the day. She’s sweeter than her treats, but we don’t talk at all. I’m afraid she’d think I’m crazy for confiding in the dead.”

Martten realized what he was saying too late, after the confession already left his mouth. He talked to the shrouds often enough, but here he was almost treating this old woman the same way. It was wrong, but somehow, she didn’t feel like another human presence; her form so slight and so shadowed, just another ghosts.

“Apologies. I’m rambling. Monica was a grandmother of twenty-seven little ones when she passed, and I think she would understand another lovesick boy whinging about his crush while she’s just trying to rest. I don’t mean to trouble you with my cares.”

The old lady laughed, and it sounded to him a little like the cawing of a murder of crows, the sounds overlapping unnaturally as they echoed off the close stone walls of the catacombs. “I’m not troubled. I’m pleased to find a follower who loves the stories as much as I do. The dead like to be remembered; they enjoy the company too. Monica especially. Only two of her twenty-seven grandchildren visit anymore, and even then, not regularly.”

Martten frowned at that news and struck his hammer especially hard in response. A sizeable chunk fell out of the niche, splitting cleanly along the pins that he drove into the stone. He stooped and set it to the side, then returned to his tapping, working methodically left to right so the surface would come out flat and smooth.

“Do you carve all these loculi?” The woman asked.

“All since I joined the Siblings a month ago.”

“Who assigned you this task?”

“No one. It needed to be done, and so I volunteered. I’m a mason, when I’m not with the Siblings, so I have the skills for it. It’s fitting, giving our crafts back to the Artist and all, and the work means more than breaking blocks for the Atilan buildings all day.”

“You must be weary.”

Martten sighs. “Yes.” He won’t complain, though. It’s worthwhile, and no ache in his bones can change the satisfaction that comes with the effort. A few more strokes and the last chunk came out of the niche. He set it aside on the small pile of rubble for one of the other Siblings to collect, then returned his tools to their own cubby. “But as weary as I am, it’s these old bones that deserve the rest.”

The old woman raised herself from the ledge where she was sitting. Her cane caught the light as she moved, and he realized it was made of bone. A large bone, yellowed with its ancient age—maybe the leg of a stegodon. Part of him wondered if the strange woman collected it herself. It had carvings along the length with symbols that he couldn’t read. “These old bones appreciate a moment to rest and chat with such a charitable young man,” she said cheerfully.

“I hope your old bones walk the world a while yet,” he said, and offered her an arm to steady her as they walked out of the catacombs. She placed her hand on his arm, and Martten realized it was strong, but cold as a corpse.

“They will,” she responds, completely confident. She stopped, took her other hand off her cane, and it stayed standing upright on the point, on its own. She pulled back her veil to reveal a grinning skull beneath, then took her cane in hand again. Martten took a sharp breath as she showed her true form, but didn’t pull away, eyes fixed completely into her empty eye sockets, which had a soft flicker of orange glow within, like distant candle flames.

“You will have a good death,” she promised. “It will be peaceful and painless after a long and well lived life. Your loved ones will surround you, including the sweet wife of which you spoke. Your children and grandchildren will outnumber even Monica’s. One of them will carve your niche with as much care as you carved Elanor’s tonight, and they will tell your memories, and they will pass down your example of kindness to their children. It will be sorrowful, but only in equal measure to how much they loved you.”

Martten didn’t realize he was crying until she brushed the tears from his cheek with a cold and bony finger. He found no words of thanks, question, or response, before she returned her veil, and continued their march towards the exit of the Catacombs. As they walked, the weight on his arm grew less and less, and when he emerged into the light of dawn, he was alone.

[ettawritesnstudies]

Hello! You might be interested in my WIPs. Storge is a standalone high fantasy, and a prequel to the following Laoche Chronicles. I like to think that the worldbuilding is unique - the magic system is (loosely) based on quantum physics, and there are several religions and nations at play. There's a background romance in the series, and none in Storge itself.

Runaways is a standalone portal fantasy with a soft magic system, and a folklore retelling about changelings, the Seelie/Unseelie courts, and a sister's devotion. It's more of a dark middle grade because the protagonists are young, but there's no romance in this one either. It has a few spinoff short stories featuring the background cast.

looking for fantasy writeblrs ! 

heyyyy, so my dash has been kinda dead lately and most of the taglists i’m on have gone inactive, so if any of the following applies to your wips, please reblog/reply ! boosts and recs are also welcome ❤️‍🔥

dark fantasy and/or adult fantasy 

no romance arcs (or romance is not the primary focus of the novel or the main relationship) 

myth, fairy tale, and folklore retellings 

in-depth and unique worldbuilding 

second-world low fantasy 

standalones !! 

[poetunias]

writeblr secret santa!

Merry Christmas, @ettawritesnstudies!!

Ho, ho, ho! It’s your @writeblrsecretsanta, sliding down the Tumblr chimney to bring you a (slightly belated) Christmas gift! Learning about the magnificently detailed and utterly fascinating universe you’ve created for Storge and The Laoche Chronicles has honestly been a Christmas gift to myself, particularly the intricacies of the magic system (not just in the way it works, but the changing ways people study it? Fascinating stuff!). I have been (and still am!) so amazed by the work and genius that has gone into its invention.

For your Christmas gift, here are a few book covers for The Laoche Chronicles! (I didn’t know the individual names of each book in the trilogy, so if you’d like me to add them, dm me and I’ll put ‘em in.)

Hoping you had the extra most wonderfullest of Christmases and a very happy new year!

[ettawritesnstudies]

Have an STS ask! The question... Okay, so I skimmed your WIPs looking for ideas, and all I can think of to ask is "Will we get a chance to read the Laoche Chronicles at some point? Because this already sounds awesome and I only know what the powerpoint said about it.

Ahaha thank you so much for the ask! The better question here is probably How patient are you?

Ideally yes! I'm still developing and outlining the story and I'm very proud of how much I've grown as a writer since developing it in middle school. I still really love the characters and the world and there are certain scenes and moments that live in my head rent free that I want to share with the world but don't make sense without a trilogy of context. Everything I write, I plan to eventually publish it's just a matter of how long it'll take me to get there.

I'll be posting tons of WIP snippets as I work on it, so you'll definitely see more of it in the future, just not in a polished format. I truly feel like this series will be my magnum opus though, so I'm going to try and publish smaller works first to get experience under my belt, so it might be a couple..... Decades? Until it gets turned into a finished thing.

[hannah-deactivated20220725]

SlS Week VI, Part I: ettawritesnstudies

Blog Name

@ettawritesnstudies

Genres Written

High fantasy

Favorite Piece of Writing

WIP First Lines

Writing Tags

storgewip

the Laoche Chronicles

Types of Writing

Novels and short stories

Other Writing-Related Post Types

Writing advice, reblogs of others work, updates of my writing progress, and other miscellaneous posts

Other Writing-Related Comments

I write stories focusing on friendship and family overcoming difficulty together and getting their happy ending! My goal on Tumblr is to share my writing but also to support other writers and enjoy your creativity! I hope you enjoy my blog :)

SlS Taglist (ask to be added or removed):

@humour-and-hyperfocus

@peggydreadful

[ettawritesnstudies]

Laoche chronicles reference!!!

found family dynamics i adore:

the entire gang shares 1 (one) braincell which they takes turns passing around

unwilling teammates gradually grow on each other

Area Man Forcibly Adopted by Several Children

bonded over shared trauma

none of us have actual families or homes to go back to anymore, but at least we have each other

“every single one of these guys has tried to kill me at least once, but we’re cool now and i’d trust them with my life”

redemption arc comes with bonus new family and friends (bonus feature is non-negotiable and eventual acceptance inevitable)

i WAS going to leave the group and go my own way as soon as this job was over - and i would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for my meddling heart!

villains with Feelings™

Officer I Swear I’ve Never Met Any Of These People In My Life (But If Anything Were To Happen To Them I Would Kill Everyone Here And Then Myself)

[ettaseverythingelse]

wow i have absolutely 0 concept of time Alright, recap time, since I missed a few 100 dop posts!

9.16.2020 - Day 23/100

Wednesdays are my heavy days at work, since I’m there for 4-5 hours in the afternoon. The nice thing is that I can listen to things while I’m in the lab, so I  finished season 1 of TMA! (that ending though ahhhh). It gave me plenty of ideas, and I dropped homework momentarily to work on my writing. I got Madelyn’s character arc, and the second chapter of the first book in The Laoche Chronicles outlined, so that was great progress! Then I stayed up until 2am stubbornly trying to get through physics assignments.  

whoops

9.17.2020 - Day 24/100 

I took a shorter day at work Thursday because my CHE teacher was having a recap help session in preperation for the exam that I wanted to go to, and overall it was a really productive day of getting physics done, though not terribly interesting.

9.18.2020 - Day 25/100

Quarter of the way through the challenge!

Today’s been scrambling through Chem and Physics lab, and I’ve got Accounting reading to do before midnight so it’s crunch time! This weekend is going to be spent catching up on studying in preperation for my exams on monday and later next week, so there’s a lot of work to be done but I’m keeping up so far! 

[ettawritesnstudies]

Hyperspecific Poll Time

Click under the "read more" to learn about the character you picked! And feel free to send me an ask if you'd like to learn more about any of them! I'm turning this into a writeblr tag game too so if you want to join in on this, I'm tagging @abalonetea and @ashen-crest and @theroseempress

Option 1: Luca Laine

"It was far too lovely a day for a riot, but not even the warm morning sun or the light breeze flapping the trader's multicolored tents could keep Luca from taking advantage of the fact that there was, in fact, a riot."

The protagonist of Storge! He's a desperate kid who picks up people's trash and tries to salvage it into useful stuff for his family, but when he dares to steal a magical charm from the avian, Acheran, he's too much of a paragon to get away with it. His honestly earns him a job from the reserved shopkeeper and they end up becoming solid friends who look out for each other when their city devolves into a civil war.

Option 2: Grace Laine

"I could have killed you by now if I wanted to. "Uh yeah, but you didn't."

Luca's younger sister! As a powerful energy sink, this kid can absorb magical energy and use it to bolster her own stamina and healing. This also means she can't use magic to fight, and so her father taught her martial arts at a very young age. As a result, this 14 year old menace is fully convinced she's indestructible and sasses assassins and terrorists with absolutely 0 negative consequences whatsoever /sarcastic

Option 3: Enne Laine

Luca and Grace's older sister! Despite being blind, she's the only sibling with common sense or self-preservation. With a lockbox memory and a lifetime of strategic thinking, she's extremely good at getting her way. While her sister is busy provoking the assassins and terrorists and keeping them distracted, she's arguing her way to freedom and sabotaging them on the way out.

Option 4: Hannah Teagan

When her younger sister, Cecelia, goes missing and all signs point to abduction by fae, Hannah promptly storms into the woods behind their house to bring her sister home. She gets more than she bargains for in the Seelie and Unseelie courts, and its up to her to find a way out of their maze and back to the world she knows.

Option 5: Cecelia Teagan

(this one's a spoiler :3)

Option 6: Min Larua (aka Miragel aka Maxk aka Visige aka Mentira)

A changeling who wants to become the Liege of Thieves. They use their various alter egos to set up a "crime ring" all reporting back to their leader Larua to make it seem like they have a stronghold on the criminal underworld in their city. They eventually recruit a real team, none of which have no idea that their rival, ally, and boss are all the same person.

Option 7: Both Tess Teagan and Weswin

(The first one's a spoiler as well.) Weswin is cursed to have a constantly shifting appearance that he can't control, meaning its impossible for him to maintain an identity or make friends. He eventually forgot his name after years of coming up with different constantly changing personas, and so he eventually settled on calling himself after the "west wind" which he follows in his wanderings.

Option 8: Sora Shiraishi

When you suppress your abilities out of fear for years, it can be terrifying when they start to forcefully manifest themselves and you don't know how to recognize them. Especially when you think you're hallucinating strange sounds and objects moving around, even though it's just the friendly spirit that your family's soul is bonded to, trying to get your attention. She only learned much later that she was experiencing a normal connection to the spirit world, and not losing her mind.

Option 9: Madelyn

Originally a very powerful mage, Madelyn lost her magic when her friend Alric betrayed and attacked her with a Relic. As she learns how to use magic from point 0 all over again, she logs her progress in her journal, and eventually learns how to cast spells from the ink and written words, binding her soul to it and becoming a Relic in her own right. It's a good thing her diary is extremely difficult to destroy as a result, but she refuses to risk losing her magic again. It wouldn't physically harm her, but she still might die of embarrassment if anyone ever read it.

Option 10: Seth

The child of high ranking dignitaries in Maaren, Seth was trained for the noble political life from the moment he learned how to talk. He resented this at first, not really knowing what he wanted to do with his life, but not wanting to be associated with his family's legacy. But after his family's power collapses and he escapes Maaren as a refugee, he realizes he's still really good at politics and rallying people behind a common cause, and uses his training as a force for good in the world.

[ettawritesnstudies]

Tumblr ate the ask when I saved it to my drafts but thank you for the questions @faithfire !

For the OC Relationship Ask: Madelyn/Seth, 1, 7, 10, and 75?

1. Who fell first? Who fell harder?

Seth fell first, he was grieving his brother when he first met her and while at first he resented her for surviving while his brother was lost, he quickly grew to see her as a source of comfort and hope. Madelyn had a lot more trust issues to work through first, and she was never interested in romance because she was always focused on her education and her duties, so when she caught the feelings she honestly. Didn't recognize it at first. And then when the realization hit her, it was a shock and she tried to deny it for a while before it became too overwhelming to bear.

7. Who likes forehead kisses? Who likes hand kisses? Who likes neck kisses?

Madelyn likes getting forehead and neck kisses, she finds forehead kisses sweet and protective and neck kisses make her all flustered. She likes giving Seth hand kisses because his hands are usually dry or healing over cuts, well worn and needing love.

10. Who plays with whose hair?

Madelyn has really long hair and Seth likes to play with it but also it keeps tangling up and getting in the way when they cuddle so it's equal parts sweet and silly.

75. Which - if any - other famous ship's vibes do they emulate?

They're inspired by the Eilonwy/Taran dynamic in the Chronicles of Prydain but specifically the version that @/highqueenofprydain writes because it's so much deeper than in the books.

[ettawritesnstudies]

thank you so much for tagging me in this but slkjdflksdfslfjk HOW does that tree grow like that is it a NATURAL fractal pattern??? I have so many questions.

Some organic humour

[ettawritesnstudies]

I just came up with a bunch of new gods and goddesses for a Laoche Pantheon so send me asks about them! Here are the names:

The Artist: The Maker of All

Death: The Keeper of Souls and Stories

Maara (Goddess of Waters) and Neren (God of the Fishes and Sea Beasts)

Pescira: Mother of the merfolk

Daza (God of the Earth) and Nymbi (Goddess of Animals)

Debila and Atila: the mother twins of the humans

Aitho (God of the Air) and Aquila (Goddess of the birds)

Avio: Father of the avians

Craft Spirits

Lara, Illara, and Aral: The Sun, Moon, and Rings

Oren (God of the plants and forests, also medicine and poisoning)

Erlea (Goddess of the bugs)

Relics: Luca and Madelyn - protagonists of Storge and Laoche respectively

[ettawritesnstudies]

Happy Storyteller Saturday! What’s your favorite thing about the Laoche series? (Either Storge or the main trilogy!)

Happy STS!

I think my favorite thing about the series is just that it's mine which doesn't make a lot of sense without context. I wrote a lot as a kid and even finished a book in middle school that was a historical fiction piece, but Laoche is the first story that really felt like it had potential, and it's the thing I've carried with me the longest. These characters grew up with me, and I know they're going to keep growing with me. Madelyn as a protagonist resonates most deeply with me out of all my OCs and I owe it to her to finish her story.

I've got dozens and dozens of story ideas but when I say, "I'm a writer," I think of that story first, every time. And when I say "I want to be an author," I imagine I'll be able to really own that title when I finally publish Storge. I jumped the gun on it in high school and I'm ending up completely rewriting it, but I'm ok with that. It's like the apprentice preparing their masterpiece to become a journeyman.

And some part of me deep down knows that it's ok to keep putting off writing the rest of the series and keep it in this indefinite development stage for as long as I need, because I know the story I'm trying to tell with Laoche is going to be my magnum opus as a grand master of my craft, when I have the skill to execute something that will change people's lives and when I have the presence to reach the people who need it.

I hope that makes sense and doesn't sound too egotistical. I love all the rest of my WIPs too, but Laoche will always and forever be the heart of my writing life.

Thanks for the ask <3

[ettawritesnstudies]

Random writing ask! Part/element of the Laoche Chronicles that has been your favorite to write so far!

Hello, thank you for the random ask! :)

So far I've mostly done short out-of-context scenes and character pieces but I think my favorite might be either

In all of Infinity: A conversation between Seth and Madelyn that's secretly romantic buried under a philosophical essay

or

A New Town: Weswin angst and musings on the human condition

[ettawritesnstudies]

I have never felt so validated in making my avian pirate queen a kea parrot. I love these funky little birds so much and learning this just made my night. I’m going to give her a crow-type no nonsense second in command now, I cannot WAIT to write this pair.

I love how both corvids and parrots are in general highly intelligent, but where corvids generally have strict hierarchies, solve disagreements in the pecking order by fighting, and have a strong dislike for anything new or foreign until they figure out how to make use of it, parrots are just here to party.

The New Caledonian crow, who knows how to specifically build a tool in order to build another tool, never engages in play. These motherfuckers are smarter than some people with the right to vote, and they are Extremely Serious Birds. They don't have time to play, they got work to do and kids to raise.

And then there's the kea, straight-up titled "clown of the mountains", that has a specific vocalization for "playtime!". Scientists decided to try what happens if they play the Play Call for two fully-grown adult keas that are together in an area and can clearly see there is no other, third kea to make the call, and they just go "great idea, disembodied voice! it's TIME TO FUCKING PARTY!" and start wrestling.

Imagine working really hard in order to make it into a top university to study astrophysics, making it to your first Very Serious Class, sitting down full of serious determination, and the dude next to you is taking notes without using his hands, with a glitter pen he's shoved up his nose. And his notes are good.

[ettawritesnstudies]

*falls into your inbox* tell me about death!

(from the laoche pantheon because the way i phrased it is rather unspecific oops)

Thanks for the ask! :D

Death is the Keeper of Souls and Stories

Counterpart/Wife to the Artist, also eternal, keeper of magic and the power of death

Uses magic/physics as a medium with which to clean up, basically, and keep the earth from getting too cluttered, represents entropy and chaos and decay

Associated with dread and fear but in a protective “fear will keep you safe” kind of way

Whenever something dies, she carefully takes care of the souls and their stories and ushers them basically to an archive holding shelf to be remembered forever – a lot like Keeper in Matter actually… while returning the materials back to the Artist to be reused

She’s also seen as kind because she does take care of the souls. The Artist makes things more then the sum of their parts, and when they’re returned to parts, she takes care of that “more” part like a mother tucking kids into bed goodnight and giving them kisses on her the head

Madelyn is her Relic, parallels with the ink

I wrote a story about her for Inklings which you can read here!

(Ask me about the Laoche Gods: list here)

[ettawritesnstudies]

Happy Valentines Day! This is Seth and Madelyn from the Laoche Chronicles.