Sosir and the un-sea

The heavy, wet clay was an almost impassable barrier to him. He sank deep with every step, the fur on his legs clotted with the sticky mud up to his knees, the pull of the soil hard on his legs and back. He had known gravity would have had its pull on him once more once he had taken the elevator down, but underestimated its effect.

Had he been one prone to despair or self-pity, the grey batter would have eventually swallowed him in the end. He was not, though. His kind was bitterly stubborn, holding on beyond sensibility. Well out of his mind he found himself dragged up to the base of a scraggly weeping willow. up to his chest the clay covered his fur, cracking and crusting where it had slowly begun to dry. 

The sun had already started to rise. The watery, early rays were not enough to thoroughly warm him, but the worst of the chill was abated. The faint morning light was at least enough to look around him, and see the stiff, short reeds nearby on the little tree-crowned mound. Scraping at the mud he dug out the thick roots, and had himself a meal while he rested.

Soft rain veiled the cool, stretched out lands. The flat, verdant green land was strangely open, especially after the time spent in the tunnels in the sky. Height difference was less than a meter at the tallest bumps in the land, most of which were also crowned with knotty trees. Pools and puddles dotted the often bare clay. 

In the distance he spotted small figures digging at the mud with broad forepaws, their stocky build and coöperation revealing them to be ettins. Whatever yield they dug up, they appeared to deposit into a boat of sorts? Sosir could not tell from this distance, but it seemed to lie in the mud, not even one of the pools. He shouted at them, hoping to get their attention.

His voice still carried far, not weakened at all by the weightlessness of the past few days, and he knew they must have heard him. Choosing to ignore him, the industrious folk continued their work. He intended to walk up to them, and resolved to lift his weary body once it was rested enough. 

He would have, had he not noticed the pools on the plain were growing.

As the tiny distant figures got into their vessel, the pools were actually overflowing and connecting at the edges. The sight was bizarre, since the rain was barely enough to moisten his fur. The plain was changing to an archipelago, and if Sosir had not lived on an endless sea once, this would have panicked even the hardy Nornir.

Sitting half-submerged and half-floating on top of the branches of the knotty willow sosir felt a prime anger of a sort he had not felt in a long time. 

However hardy and respectable Ettinae were, they cared only for their own. The stocky devils had floated dir-ward, leaving him to weather the rising waters by himself.

He was angry at himself, too. Or at least his sensible carefulness. He had not tried to swim in the silty muck to catch up with them. Dark waters tended to hide unpleasant surprises, and stranger things creeped and swam barely below the surface.

To forget his uneasy position and distract him from whatever horrors might be swimming near him in the opaque soup, Sosir exercised the weightfullness out of his muscles. The motions warmed him, though once something slimy and long brushed past him attracted by the commotion. 

He shivered and spat at the waters in disgust, but nothing came up to him again.

In time the water receded, flushing back through the pools along with whatever nightmares the filthy water obfuscated. A loud sucking noise reverberated across the flats, a mud-covered, fat fish or worm floundered, flopped and pulled its bulk into a hole. 

With great relief Sosir climbed down the tree and stepped in the new deposit of clay-like filth.

He had to find true dry land.

No direction appeared safer than the other, and when the plain would flood once more he could not tell. Eventually he would need a safe spot to sleep, too. For a moment he considered the elevator, but he had enough of the madness up there. He simply started walking, following the direction of the sun. 

He passed custers of knobbly willows and mangrove trees, each perched on little hillocks. Sometimes he found signs of intelligent life, mostly moist rope tied around trees or anchoring posts sunken into the mud. Spotty triffids grew fairly frequently by these points, as did wild potatoes and starchy rooted reeds.

Before night fell another flood rose to the treetops. Once again Sosir found himself waiting for the water to recede, this time luckily in a tree that stood above the waterline. Here he ate a meal of hastily dug out roots and triffids, which respectively tasted of muck and of soggy, soft apples.

The gloom of the overcast day made way for the gloom of twilight, and he struggled against tiredness after his meal was completed. He washed his fur and weary limbs with the cool, but dirty water in an attempt to remain awake.

A sudden flash of fire in the distance, and a remaining flame out in the darkness did a better job at that, however. It burned smoothly, standing tall like a beacon. Sosir kept his bearing by the distant flame, and searched for it every time his eyes opened after quick naps between the branches.

When the plain once more drained loudly, Sosir climbed down into the cold dark clay. He finally had a visible goal since descending onto the world again. A stable flame would lead to creatures. In the shade of night some wormlike and formless things still slithered through the saturated slime. Hunting for smaller things of the same cut, and the remaining mollusks. He tried not to think of the greater forms and masses that had slid through the water earlier, surmising those heavy things needed the suspension of water for their great aquatic bulk.

The early glimmer of dawn was once again showing, the start of his second day on the muddy flats. He had both underestimated the distance to the beacon, and his speed on the soft and sucking ground. He had almost made it though. A tall mount with a crude tower of logs and rope held a flaming bundle up high. Small islands with coppiced trees dotted the surroundings, and the frequency of root vegetables and triffids had increased. The mount with the beacon on it came into view as he walked around one of the little islands and he was treated with the familiar sight of civilization.

Some roundhouses, simple fencing for some more natural looking animals and basic fortified outer palisades to keep unwelcome things or creatures off. The houses were roofed with reeds, walls made out of wattle and daub. The houses his tribe lived in were made of different materials, but the designs mirrored his once-home. More important than the huts, however, were their inhabitants. Looking back at him from that bump was a growing group of Nornir!

Woven shoes of willow sticks prevented them from sinking into the ooze as they came to get him. They were strong and tall, and one could tell they knew it. Stubbornness and pride were evident, though tempered by life on the harsh, semi liquid land. A porridge of roots and hoppity eggs was given to him to regain his strength, and the warm meal was a very welcome one.

As he regained liveliness by the fire curious youths, women and some cautious males kept watch on him, an unnecessary tension growing between them. A natural trait to a people whose only solid ground was their kinfolk.

“You've shown grace to a stranger. I am very grateful for that, to trust anything that comes out of that mud must take courage.” Sosir said.

“None of us knew what to do. Never before had one like us crawled out of the changing lands. Ettins pass by, sometimer they barter small things for ship repairs of food stocks and on some dark and frightful nights changing, twisted things have slithered out of the grey muck.” a sturdy male said.

An adult woman, plump of build and slightly darker of fur added:”It was no far cry to think of you as another changeling's trick. However, they are not patient, and very voracious. We would have known by now had you been one.”

“my journey could have been a far harder one, I hear. The things I have met were idiotic and distant, rather than cunning and confrontational. I thank the stars I've not met them so far.”

“Leentje is not wrong, you’re none of the slimy ghouls, yet I think it would help our trust if you would tell us your name and story. your fur does not betray you to be one of the other tribes but you must have come from somewhere.” The sturdy male Norn said, whose name apparently was Frejk.

Sosir told the general lines of his journey. He spoke of his forested home, jumped to his recent ride down the elevator into the mud, and he told them about the intervening adventures. Most of the day and eve was spent such, the crowd growing until all of the village heard him. He was wary of telling some of the stories he himself could barely believe. He could see these Nornir barely believed him as it stood. Dry land was unknown to them, though the tower he had come down by they had seen from a distance. His greatest surprise came when they recognised the strangers from his tales. The flabby things, the outsiders, the dwellers in the blackened stone mist. 

They knew them as Gestr. To them they were just another group of strangers, like the Ettin. They dug at the slime like the Ettins, yet rather than wholesome roots and vegetables they harvested the squirming and flopping things. 

More than that they did not know. Sosir sighed, and accepted it. Their world was very small, and very dangerous. The night brought him no dreams, and he slept like a heavy rock after the arduous day and awake dreaming of storytelling.

The following days he proved his worth beyond entertainment. During dry hours he dragged baskets of mud up the mound to repair what was lost to the water, he dug for roots and cut wood with their bone tools. During the flooding hours he wove hazel and willow fences, replaced daub and thatching. The days flew by in such grateful monotony, the honest work fitting Sosirs industrial nature. As the days grew into a fortnight a combination of wattle and many baskets of clay had added half the size to the island; a welcome strip of dry land the tribe could be fed from securely.

That evening he went to sleep satisfied. Despite the other Nornirs amused interest at his hard labour, he had persevered, even persuaded others to help him, and he had made the first step towards proving this flooding land could also be tamed.

He awoke early the next morning, to inspect his work and get as much done as possible before the waters would come again.

To his horror, the island was once more exactly the same as it had been when he had found it. 

The mass of clay and soil, all the willow wattle he had woven to contain it. Even the roots and willow shoots he had planted in the soil. All that remained was the endless flats of mud, silt and greenery. Even the hazel and willow hillocks were gone, replaced by fresh ones, uncut.

“We could have warned you, but fires like yours can only be quenched by the rains of reality.” Leentje said in a sorry voice. She must have been up for a while, tending to the flaming pole, the beacon that crowned their village.

Sosir thought about building a boat, or somehow joining one of the Ettin crews. He cut the thought short, spat into the mud and resumed his work. Something told him water had not been the cause of this destruction, and this awful land could be tamed.

Again many days passed and his work once more bore fruit. This time he had forced all his labor into a solidly built wattle and daub tower. It had been built hugging the side of the village, of the main trunks of trees and dried clay. As night fell, he pretended to sleep in the main hut among the other Norns. Biting his cheeks and tongue to remain awake as one by one the others started their snoring, Sosir kept his eyes shut and his ears open.

A soft breeze sneaked past him, barely more than a breath. The reed mat that functioned as a door bristled softly, at the least three times. After that, he counted the silence. He sneaked out of the nest on the tips of his toes, and through the darkness made his way outside.

The beacon shone more brightly than it had any right to, and the air felt static. Sosirs fur stood on end with the power in the air. The water stood right up to the edge of the island, lapping somewhat at its edges despite its stagnant state. 

Leentje and two others were up. They danced around the beacon in a silent festival. Quietly tittering laughter and giggling echoed from all directions, impossibly originating on the water. Their faces warped in the flickering light of the flame, appearing at once newly hatched and ancient. The sight was maddening, the sounds louder than they were and wholly disorienting. The air grew pregnant with an evil power of change.

And then Sosir tripped one of the women.

The giggles, power and bright light was gone. The ladies all ended down on the trampled ground. Leentje glared at him.

“You could have known I knew of witchery, Leentje. It always comes at a price, at the cost of good hearts and minds. Why were you doing this, did you think those sickening giggles were the approval of saints and gods?”

“We gave the men what they desired! Their work in maintaining the island and fighting the swamp's horrors gives them purpose! They stay and help us because they know we need them!” She snaps at him.

He spits in the moist earth and barks to her:“So you sell the heart and mind of your own for control over your own. You have fed things beyond your power!”

She pouted, cussed under her breath at him but offered no response.

Frejk and the other men rushed out, an adolescent Norn had his ear twisted for failing the night watch, and most were carrying their flail-like armguards. 

Sosir’s threatening stance over the cast down witch made for a story not told in his favor, and he would have been thrown out into the deep dark night had the giggling not begun again.

It echoed loudly over the water, a loud noisome laughter. Vocalised as by flabby lips, the deeply irritating sound still seemed to have no origin. The spell had been initiated, the promise of sacrifice made, but the deed was cut short. Not a single Norn, big or small, would sleep that night.

Smaller things, flabby and idiotic, slithered and crawled up their island during the darkness. The flailing armguards made the men of the tribe appear like the tentacle armed Gestr in the shade, or perhaps like the burly armed digger Ettins. Sosir fought among them, expecting worse than what came. Morning creeped up to them, and when it finally came little relief was felt. Leentje had by then told the tribe of her doings, of the lie perpetuated through the generations by mothers and sisters. Of the constant transportations that had both stumped their growth and always brought them to new feeding grounds.

These were a practical people, ever co-depandant, and she was quickly forgiven. The decision was made to evacuate, to get as far as they could from the corrupted village, the still burning beacon and the tittering entity. As none of them ever had a need for it, they had no idea how to build a boat. They decided to do so regardless. It would serve as a sled between the floods, and it only ever needed to float long enough endure a few hours of water. 

All wattle, thatching, beams and even nesting of the town was used. Barely even shaped like a ship, the vessel lay in the mud like a hen on her nest. Hatchlings, food stores and caged hoppities were gathered at the heart of the boat, as were precious earthenware jugs filled with purified and boiled water. Pushing it was impossible, though pulling proved viable. The weather seemed to work against them, as the rains grew heavier as they travelled.

The flood came swifter than anticipated, and so the boat began its first short journey on the water. Sosir and the men now pushed the boat along by long poles. What beasts tried to intrude their raft were swiftly cast off, and this luckily distracted most from seeing something vast and fleshy pulling the island and its beacon into the muddy water.

Nights and days took turns bearing upon their nerves, and the raft needed repairs after almost each flood. By now they made teams, those best at poleing the boat through the water and those that pulled swiftly, and this allowed some respite between jobs. Leentje had been weak after her fall from grace, but made herself useful in foraging and repairing the boat. She kept many night watches, too, as she seemed no longer able to sleep.

Her dark hair and fur had been turning grey. Everybody pretended not to notice as she aged every night.

They awoke adrift in a grand reed bed, up against a silty bank. Sparrows and weaver birds sang and fluttered between the stalks. Leentje had been the night watch, but she had not called when the flood came. She was not there at all. Tufts of grey and anthracite fur lay in the raft and drifted between the reeds. She seemed to simply have dissolved like honey in milk.

From the bank onwards, the trees and increased hills implied a more solid, true waterside. The water appeared cleaner, and the corrupted things that had crawled in the heart of the plain were nowhere to be seen. Wading birds sifted the water for small crustaceans, and wild potatoes grew in patches alongside glasswort and triffids.

The pure sights clearly inspired the Nornir of the flats. A new site for a roundhouse was found before the flood even receded and Sosir worked until the night fell to rebuild the hut alongside them. They would not associate him forever with the horror and hardship of the last days, but could he forget the corruption? It pained him, their level headed nature and their way of life agreed deeply with him. They had lived on top on terrible things for generations and terrible things were contagious. 

He left, witnessed only by the stars, taking only what he learned, leaving only lessons.

This story was based upon and intended to explore the biome from This article.