![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meanwhile, back in the waste land
I am trying to reduce this whopper of a manuscript to something a little more manageable and have been Omitting Needless Words. I've just deleted a pretty little anecdote that doesn't do anything to forward the plot, as the wrong person is doing all the talking; the OTHER speaker's personal history might be useful backstory, but Telemakos's own isn't, really. So rather than waste it completely I had the bright idea of posting it here, where maybe it will entertain someone.
"Tell me about hunting lions."
Telemakos closed his eyes for a moment and thought about lions. He thought about Menelik as a tiny cub, smaller than a housecat, curled in his lap in Grandfather's stables and feeding like a human baby on milk in a goatskin bottle. And then at last, Menelik bleeding to death in Himyar after the fight with the wild lion, and Telemakos's own final blow of mercy to finish the lost life. He still grieved over the cub he had loved.
But Medraut had had to do that to his own father.
No wonder he didn't speak to anyone for five years after that, Telemakos thought.
"When I was very little," he said, "I used to go lion-stalking by myself. I would have been whipped senseless and starved for a week if anyone had ever found out." He shook his head, remembering, and marveling at his own long-lost fearless ignorance. "I wasn't at all afraid. The worst that ever happened to me was once I stayed out so long the sun set before I started home. I'd been watching a family group take apart a zebra--you know, the males eat first, and then the females, and then the kits--and then another two males came along, but they weren't in the same pride and so there was a fight. But it was the lionesses, the nursing mothers and aunties, who fought them off. I was sitting in an acacia the whole afternoon, watching; I think I sat there for five hours. I couldn't have gone if I'd wanted to--I had to wait till the lions moved away before I could get down. At any rate it was after dark when I started home. Mother of God! The lions hadn't frightened me, but being alone in the dark with the hyenas hoo-hooing to each other did. I was too little even to be carrying a knife. I was made to write out a whole chapter of Deuteronomy, five times, the next day. All about obeying God's commandments and a long list of curses brought on you by disobedience."
"Did it stop you stalking lions?"
"It stopped me coming home after dark," Telemakos said. "At least, the hyenas did. I didn't mind about Deuteronomy." He laughed. "I never thought I could kill a lion, then; I just loved to watch them. Before my father came to Aksum, the only thing I knew of him was that he had killed the lion whose skin hangs in the front hall of our house."
He added reflectively, "I have just thought that if the battle of Camlan had never happened, my father would never have come to Aksum. He would not know about me."
---------------------------------
Meanwhile, back in osprey world, the Loch of the Lowes chicks are about a month old and halfway to fledging. It is pouring today and the mother is mostly sitting on them.
I think it is really hard to conceive of how BIG they are via the webcam. The nest, for example, is actually about the size of a kitchen table. The full grown osprey has got a four foot wing span.
The direct link is here.
just now I was shedding tears thinking about how lonely it will be all winter without my favorite osprey to watch. Because I like this one best.
"Tell me about hunting lions."
Telemakos closed his eyes for a moment and thought about lions. He thought about Menelik as a tiny cub, smaller than a housecat, curled in his lap in Grandfather's stables and feeding like a human baby on milk in a goatskin bottle. And then at last, Menelik bleeding to death in Himyar after the fight with the wild lion, and Telemakos's own final blow of mercy to finish the lost life. He still grieved over the cub he had loved.
But Medraut had had to do that to his own father.
No wonder he didn't speak to anyone for five years after that, Telemakos thought.
"When I was very little," he said, "I used to go lion-stalking by myself. I would have been whipped senseless and starved for a week if anyone had ever found out." He shook his head, remembering, and marveling at his own long-lost fearless ignorance. "I wasn't at all afraid. The worst that ever happened to me was once I stayed out so long the sun set before I started home. I'd been watching a family group take apart a zebra--you know, the males eat first, and then the females, and then the kits--and then another two males came along, but they weren't in the same pride and so there was a fight. But it was the lionesses, the nursing mothers and aunties, who fought them off. I was sitting in an acacia the whole afternoon, watching; I think I sat there for five hours. I couldn't have gone if I'd wanted to--I had to wait till the lions moved away before I could get down. At any rate it was after dark when I started home. Mother of God! The lions hadn't frightened me, but being alone in the dark with the hyenas hoo-hooing to each other did. I was too little even to be carrying a knife. I was made to write out a whole chapter of Deuteronomy, five times, the next day. All about obeying God's commandments and a long list of curses brought on you by disobedience."
"Did it stop you stalking lions?"
"It stopped me coming home after dark," Telemakos said. "At least, the hyenas did. I didn't mind about Deuteronomy." He laughed. "I never thought I could kill a lion, then; I just loved to watch them. Before my father came to Aksum, the only thing I knew of him was that he had killed the lion whose skin hangs in the front hall of our house."
He added reflectively, "I have just thought that if the battle of Camlan had never happened, my father would never have come to Aksum. He would not know about me."
---------------------------------
Meanwhile, back in osprey world, the Loch of the Lowes chicks are about a month old and halfway to fledging. It is pouring today and the mother is mostly sitting on them.
I think it is really hard to conceive of how BIG they are via the webcam. The nest, for example, is actually about the size of a kitchen table. The full grown osprey has got a four foot wing span.
The direct link is here.
just now I was shedding tears thinking about how lonely it will be all winter without my favorite osprey to watch. Because I like this one best.