{"id":302,"date":"2010-10-07T09:07:31","date_gmt":"2010-10-07T13:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=302"},"modified":"2010-10-07T09:07:31","modified_gmt":"2010-10-07T13:07:31","slug":"hia-breoedd-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=302","title":{"rendered":"Hia Breoedd, Part #2"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This is the second in a short #FridayFlash serial based in The Four Part Land. Events that take place here will have a large impact in upcoming TFPL novels.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\tHe waited as the messenger cleared his throat, drawing out the time before he first needed to speak. Finally, the message was ready to be spoken, and it was begun. \u201cThe council has reached their decision in the matter of your wish to journey beyond our traditional lands and into a warmer climate, along with those who might follow you. You are ordered to heed their decision in all of its particulars, and that to break them will result in the punishment of your corporeal body and your mind, and that they wish to remind you of these things before you hear the decision that they reached.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tAnnwyd Arwedda exploded. \u201cEnough! Tell me of their decision, now!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tThe messenger shook his head, then resumed speaking. \u201cAs you will. You are granted the right to take a party of thirty, of able-bodied men and women, and traverse the lands to the warmer country, and, once there, establish a settlement within empty or freely given land, and live to the best of your abilities for one year. Each sextile, you will send a courier back to our home here, carrying reports of your progress, and at the end of that one year period, three council members will arrive, to examine your situation and determine whether it shall be allowed to continue. Further rulings may change these initial offerings, of course, but for now, this is how you are bound.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cAnd if I do not?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cYou well know how you are treated then.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cThen I should take myself to the council?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\t\u201cThey expect you after the mid-morning meal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\tAnnwyd Arwedda waved his goodbye to the emissary, and returned to his tent, pondering how well he had been manipulated. His was an expeditionary party, nothing more, the same as the Fferedig Ddynion would send to their various hunting grounds, to see how many of their populace each could support. His was simply one more hunting ground, even if it was outside of the norm. It would also lessen any support he might have amongst those who stayed behind. After all, who could remember a man who last spoke to you a year past? It was a neat solution to their problems, for if Annwyd refused to go, he knew it would appear as if he had refused to follow through on his own ideas, and that, too, would undermine his support.<\/p>\n<p>\tAnd so Annwyd found himself waiting outside the council tent as the remnants of the meal were cleaned away, waiting like a man who had been brought to heel. He would grumble and burn inside, but to show his passion to the outside world would lessen him as a man, and so he placed a pleasant smile on his face, and entered the tent at a spoken word. Nodding to the council, he placed himself at the centre of the circle, rather than at his normal seat as one of the young members. Once more, he found himself face to face with Bwrw Eira Ddyn, but this time, it was all to be couched in ritual and ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>\tThe ritual began, Bwrw Eira Ddyn gesturing as lesser men lit the smoky fires that would carry their blessings upwards, to those who must hear them. He intoned in the old language, the language of naming and of the proper place of things, and asked for the blessing upon Annwyd Arwedda and those who would travel with him, and sent the prayers of all Fferedig Ddynion to the aid of those who travelled far, in hope that they would find a great bounty at the end of their journey.<\/p>\n<p>\tEven Annwyd found himself swept into the grasp of the ceremony, for even though he felt poorly towards Bwrw Eira Ddyn and those around him, he still believed in the gods above, and that this ceremony was crucial to his designs and desires. And so he gave of himself to the final crescendo, adding his voice in full tongue to the prayers and entreaties of the council, begging the cold eastern wind for a safe passage, wherever it might lead him.<\/p>\n<p>\tAfterwards, Annwyd began the process of gathering his things and his followers, those thirty men and women who would be allowed to travel with him. Much had already been done, and so it was mostly informing all that they would leave on the morrow at sun up, and giving them their last day amongst the greater clan. The mid-day meal passed, and he had completed all of the tasks set to his name, and so spent his time checking and rechecking his pack and weapons and armour, testing each a thousand times over. While his hands worked, his brain wandered, running back across those cold hunts he had spent across the tundra and glaciers of his home, running through the icy mountains in search of the beasts that lived upon their slope. The time that he had fallen and tumbled, his foot slipping on a patch of ice, only to fetch up against a boulder that had broken his shoulder. That moment when his first spear cast landed true, bringing down a large buck with a single throw. It had been considered a mark of luck for him ever since, and he still wore the animal\u2019s teeth on a string about his neck.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is the second in a short #FridayFlash serial based in The Four Part Land. Events that take place here will have a large impact in upcoming TFPL novels. He waited as the messenger cleared his throat, drawing out the time before he first needed to speak. Finally, the message was ready to be spoken, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[34,7],"tags":[22,23],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pRIK4-4S","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":350,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=350","url_meta":{"origin":302,"position":0},"title":"Hia Breoedd, Final","date":"November 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the final entry in a short #FridayFlash serial based in The Four Part Land. Events that take place here will have a large impact in upcoming TFPL novels. Then the council bade Annwyd Arwedda and his travellers fair well, and told them to expect a messenger before the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The Four Part Land&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":312,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=312","url_meta":{"origin":302,"position":1},"title":"Hia Breoedd, Part #3","date":"October 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the third in a short #FridayFlash serial based in The Four Part Land. Events that take place here will have a large impact in upcoming TFPL novels. Sighing, he settled himself down for the night, for although it was early, his planned arising and departure would entail a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The Four Part Land&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":293,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=293","url_meta":{"origin":302,"position":2},"title":"Hia Breoedd, Part #1","date":"September 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the first in a short #FridayFlash serial based in The Four Part Land. Events that take place here will have a large impact in upcoming TFPL novels. Ice flowed out from the western mountains, a glacier that had existed for so long that no one could date its\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The Four Part Land&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":336,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=336","url_meta":{"origin":302,"position":3},"title":"Hia Breoedd, Part #4","date":"October 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the third in a short #FridayFlash serial based in The Four Part Land. Events that take place here will have a large impact in upcoming TFPL novels. Annwyd stared eastward, as a green tinge struck the horizon, and he called \u201cCanfydda!\u201d to those behind him. Waving others to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The Four Part Land&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":381,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=381","url_meta":{"origin":302,"position":4},"title":"100 Posts of Solitude","date":"November 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"And I'm still here and still writing away happily. It's been over a year since the blog was started, and in that time I've managed 100 posts (this is actually the 101st). The time in between has been quite a journey for me as a writer, doing multiple edits on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Flash Fiction&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":341,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=341","url_meta":{"origin":302,"position":5},"title":"Hia Breoedd, Part #5","date":"October 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the fifth in a short #FridayFlash serial based in The Four Part Land. Events that take place here will have a large impact in upcoming TFPL novels. Annwyd Arwedda bent his head to look at those behind him, then ostentatiously rammed his spear into the ground, tip downwards.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;The Four Part Land&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}