So I thought I'd share the opening "scene"... of a story I am currently invested in.
It's a SciFi story. You know, space, lasers, aliens and ships that go "fjoooommm" in space (if space allowed sound that is).
Anyway, this is the opening... and yes, it is actually a SciFi...
783 AD
Sweden
Sigrid had woken up during the
night, a few hours before everyone else. The summer had been so hot, that
sleeping had become harder and harder, and even now, with the sun still behind
the hills on the other side of the lake, the temperature had become so high,
that she was sweating in her bed.
To not wake her husband, she sneaked
as best she could out of the house, and walked down to the shore.
Standing on the shore, she looked
around to see if she was alone.
All the houses were silent, and not
a single person had woken up, or at the very least, had gone out. Only the
various animals were stirring. The chickens at Sven and Holmgrid's house were
the loudest, but Sigrid noticed her neighbours goats first, who had taken an
interest in her early morning visit.
Ingefast's goats did not have a pen,
so a few of them came over to Sigrid to say hello. For goats, they were
extremely friendly and loved to be petted. And loving the horned creatures, she
obliged them as they came one by one.
When the goats had had their fill
and moved away, Sigrid looked around again, before lifting her tunic over her
head and walked naked in to the lake.
The cool water instantly felt like
paradise. And she felt herself cooling down and be able to relax more.
She had taken dips in the lake four
or five times a day for the past few weeks, but the morning dips were always
the best. It made her feel like the previous day's hard work, heat and sweat,
were being washed away, and the cooling effect were the signal that it had been
done.
Every night she had come out to the
lake, ever since the heat wave had started. The first night, one of the younger
boys in the village had seen her as she stepped out of the water, and every
night since, she had watched for the boy. But the shame, coupled with the
excitement, had not made the boy return.
The thought of him made Sigrid smile
as she leaned backwards to soak her hair.
Letting herself float in the water,
she could see a few stars still visible in the ever brightening daylight, she
knew the sun would soon come up over the hills, and the last light of the
ancestors would sleep, waiting for the next night.
Turning on her stomach, she swam out
a bit, far enough to know she could not reach the bottom, before returning to
the shore. There, she sat on the sandy bottom, far enough down to allow the
water to cover her chest, exposing only her shoulders and head.
Breathing deeply, she mentally
prepared herself for the coming day. She had been working with the blacksmith
this summer, helping him with orders, material and making sure he actually did
his job, as he was prone to have a few too many drinks of mead during the day.
People only looked the other way, as he was the best blacksmith they had right
now, but Sigrid was determined to learn everything he knew, and in a few years,
take over the blacksmith.
For a nineteen year old girl, Sigrid
had her whole life planed out to the smallest detail.
Her husband Tore was a strong man
with a natural skill in building houses and even carving runes and animals in
wood, and she and him tried every night for a child, and also because they
enjoyed sleeping together. She had planed to be pregnant before the year was
over, so that the child would be more independent by the time Sigrid became the
village blacksmith, and a few years after that, she would bear another child.
For her, it did not matter if the first child was a boy or a girl, but knew
that Tore hoped for a boy, most men wanted their first born to be a boy. Sigrid
wanted one of each, that much she knew, even if it meant having more then two
children in the end.
Thoughts of her husband stirred her
desires, and she rose from the lake to try and get her husband in the mood, and
with Sigrid's well known beauty, Tore were never far from the mood.
Grabbing her tunic and putting it on
as she walked up the slope that lead to their house, the sun's first rays
touched her hair. The heat of the sun would soon dry her hair if she remained
outside, but the thought of bedding her husband this early in the morning,
Sigrid did not mind if her hair were still wet when being on top of him.
She almost ran the final thirty
metres to their house, but a sound she had never heard before, made her stop
just outside the door.
It sounded like a sword had hit the
ground, a big sword.
Looking around for possible enemies,
or maybe some other early morning person, she saw that a bush near the entrance
to their yard, had been disturbed and was now moving slower after possibly
being the target of the sound.
Sigrid, not wanting to take any
chances that it might be an enemy, friend or just some animal, grabbed a wood
cleaving axe that was outside the door, and crouched down and started walking
silently towards the bush.
Just as she came to the bush, she
heard a similar sound, but farther away, and then another much farther than the
second. But the first sound had come from the bush, so that was to be
investigated first.
With the axe ready for a strike, she
parted some branches and could see a metallic object deep in the bushes. It was
the smoothest metal she had ever seen, so smooth and clean, that she could see
reflections of her movements on it with ease.
It looked like a thick, long and
smooth cup. No markings, no handles. No nothing except for the smoothness. She
wondered briefly what blacksmith could have made such a beautiful object, and
what it was for, but all thoughts of such things vanished when the object
opened up small holes around the top, and a silent hissing as from a snake was
heard.
Sigrid's world grew darker, and she
could feel how she lost the grip of the axe, and before darkness took her, she
felt the dirt of the ground being pushed against her face.
* * *
So yea, that's the start of it... any thoughts?
Cya
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