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Gypsum Sets Out

4/22/2017

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When the two Riotori couples left the hilltop they split up. The young women went home while the young men went shopping. Gypsum knew just what he wanted and had opportunity the day before to locate the shop to purchase the item.
Feldspar did not need to ask him what he was going to do with it; his plan for it was obvious. Feldspar grinned with appreciation. He wished he'd thought of it.
However, it did give him an idea. When he discussed it with his brother, Gypsum was very appreciative and agreed that it was an excellent idea.
Feldspar offered again to go first but Gypsum declined. He was looking forward to blazing a new trail and doing something never done before.
The next morning only minutes after sunrise the concerned parties—both sets of twins plus the father of the girls and the head of the Council—met at the foot of that same hill. Gypsum was dressed in his armor. If the Riotori of New City thought he and Feldspar looked impressive without their armor, his appearance almost took the girls' breath away, and even the older men were more than impressed.
The shiny silvery metal covered his arms, shoulders, torso—front and back—and legs, with jointed and flexible plates. Dangerous sharp spikes rose threateningly from the shoulders and more extended from the forearm coverings; those coverings extended over the back of the hands.  Along the upper arms and the chest, the armor was constructed to resemble monstrous skulls of fanged creatures never seen on Kylrock.
His handsome burgundy cloak was attached behind the armor's shoulders and also at the armor's hips and flared out behind him, almost to the ground.
Besides being worn simply as impressive décor, the cloak had the advantage of hiding the contours of the back from an enemy that approached from the rear. Also, it was stiff enough to provide some small protection from a small blade or a weak stroke.
The cloak's attachment on his left hip supported a scabbard and the sword within it.
Topaz and Beryl found his appearance captivating. Beryl, in fact, felt a bit envious of her sister, but comforted herself with the (correct) assumption that Feldspar would be similarly attired when his turn came.
Calcite and Pyrope were also impressed. They hesitated for a moment, for no other Riotori candidate had ever undertaken the challenge wearing armor. Such enhancement was unknown in the vicinity. But there was no rule against it and the two realized even without consultation that the young women would not tolerate any suddenly amended rules to prohibit the accouterments.
"What, Gypsum, do you intend to demonstrate your successful achievement of the trial?"
Gypsum surprised them by removing what looked like a second layering of his cloak. It was a burgundy piece of cloth that when unfolded was shown to be his height in length and half that in width.  He refolded and reattached it to the cloak with closed hooks that grasped the holes in the armor intended to secure the cloak.
"I will fly this from one of the spires in the middle of The Old City. You will be able to see it even from here."
He pointed to The Old City's skyline, where the tops of the three tallest spikes could be seen.
"But if you watch from the hilltop you will see me climb to the pinnacle and attach the banner."
Calcite remarked, "Providing, of course, that you are able to overcome the hazards that wait for you between here and there."
Gypsum was the very picture of devil-may-care confidence. He placed his left hand casually upon the pommel of his sword.
"I do not doubt that that will be the case."
Then in a startling display of aggressive affection, he took Topaz's hand in his and brought it up to his mouth, and gently stroked one of his tusks with the furred back of her hand. It was a gesture of classic chivalry that all there appreciated and admired.  Topaz was heart-flutteringly delighted.
Then with a wave of his hand he turned and trotted toward The Old City and whatever impediments might await.
  
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The View From the Hill

4/5/2017

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The twins had to remind themselves more than once that they were in The New City and their trial would take place in The Old City. Residents of The New City had developed the habit of referring to The Old City as simply "The City" and their own town as "our city" or even just "here."
After Gypsum's declaration to trust him, he invited his brother to trek with him to the top of a high hill just on the outskirts of The New City.  The older males did not choose to follow, but the two young women had already determined that they would spend as much time with their potential mates as propriety allowed. They accompanied the twins, initiating the holding of hands through the entire short journey. The young men found themselves becoming quite fond of this affectionate contact though they did not yet dare to initiate it.
Gypsum wanted a better view of The Old City to determine possible routes into the center, where he planned to leave indisputable evidence of his presence.
Curiously (or perhaps not), the twin females had never been to the top of that hill for that purpose. As children they had climbed it with others in races and games like tag or mountain king (or queen), but they had never paid the slightest attention to The Old City. The place was hostile but otherwise uninteresting.
Now they looked upon it with a different attitude. All four of them studied the geography of the menacing and mysterious place, wondering what dangers might lurk within.
As has been noted, The Old City was enfolded on three sides by mountains. These were rocky cliff faces leading up hundreds of feet to slopes covered with stunted trees, mostly dead, that were silent ancient testaments to the poison that had issued from one of the mines dug and hammered into the cliff faces.
The Old City itself looked for the most part broken and abandoned. From the hilltop they could see flat-domed roofs with chimneys that exhaled the odd black and white smoke that wound upward like contrary ribbons. Here and there in the structures that clung to the cliff faces and those in the city itself, fires glowed, flickering and flaring with unreliable light and warmth.
There were also huge black and brown blocky structures that rose into the air in slanted, leaning, almost drunken angles, as if their foundations were weakening on one side.
And, in almost the exact center, were spires that rose like sharpened spikes into the air. From the distance it looked like some or all of them were jagged along one or two sides like roughly serrated knife blades. These could all be seen very well by any observers from the hill, and even the ground outside of town, though from there only the tips of the spires were evident.
There was one thing more. A brownish-gray haze obscured the lower portions of The Old City, as if smoke from the ancient rusty factories was too heavy to rise through the chimneys and instead settled tiredly along the streets and pathways through the city, to smother or impede the progress of any living thing that might dare to wander through.
Those spires were the focus of Gypsum's strategy. The next day he would reveal what he had in mind for the successful fulfillment of his trial.


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    The story: This serial is about the "mascot" shown at the top of these pages. There are actually two of them, identical twins, Feldspar and Gypsum.
    The people call themselves Riotori, and their planet is Kylrock. The twins have been journeying for hundreds of miles, across many hazards, in search of mates. Please visit the archives to read their whole story.



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