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trant_book_n_curioA History of Lies - Fiction, History, and Sausage: 3
Dragon Age, Cullen & various templar OCs, SFW
Cullen recalls his boyhood in Honnleath
.
3.
During the thirteenth summer of my childhood, the aftermath of a foreign war in the Free Marches was of no concern to me. Instead, I obsessed over events that hadn’t yet happened in the southwest Fereldan village of Honnleath. Day and night, I waited for my own story to begin.
Even though I was just a boy, I knew how my story should be written. It did not matter that I was young. For years I had focused myself toward a single goal. I wanted to become a templar and help others. I vowed to give myself to a life of honorable service and no other future held any appeal.
I sought out every piece of information I could find about the Chantry’s teachings and their methods for training templars. Each week I brought new questions to the village Chantry. Our village had four templars stationed permanently. I observed their actions while I followed after them. I asked them to explain what they were doing as they went about their duties. Whenever I suspected they had a moment of free time, I asked them to train me.
I persisted for five years but by the time I turned thirteen I began to worry that I was growing too old. Two of the templars told me that they began their training when they turned ten. Another started when he was twelve. At thirteen I feared that the life I wanted would pass me by.
One day I overheard the templars talking about a knight-captain who was coming to stay in Honnleath for a week. I begged them to tell the knight-captain that even though I was thirteen, I had already dedicated five years of my life to studying the Chantry’s teachings and the templar’s ways. These men laughed at me but I insisted that I was serious. After all, the four of them had watched me practice. They knew how much care I took when delivering play-acted apostates to the Chantry. I knew more about being a templar than any other thirteen year old in Honnleath. I was ready to study full time under templar supervision, ready to pass each test required before taking my final vows.
Eventually these men assured me that they would tell the knight-captain how serious I was. Then they told me to run along and that was when I knew they had only been humoring me. I spent the rest of that afternoon lying on top of the hill behind the village Chantry. I sunk into the tall grass and looked up at the sky. I hungered for the words that would form the first page of my tale. This hunger hollowed out a cavern that began in the pit of my stomach. I closed my eyes and let myself fall into that dark place, away from the noise of the village, deep into the darkness of my uncertainty. The intensity of my thoughts reverberated around me in desperate echoes.
Looking back, that was the first time I understood what it meant to be overcome with anxiety.
.:.
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Dragon Age, Cullen & various templar OCs, SFW
Cullen recalls his boyhood in Honnleath
.
3.
During the thirteenth summer of my childhood, the aftermath of a foreign war in the Free Marches was of no concern to me. Instead, I obsessed over events that hadn’t yet happened in the southwest Fereldan village of Honnleath. Day and night, I waited for my own story to begin.
Even though I was just a boy, I knew how my story should be written. It did not matter that I was young. For years I had focused myself toward a single goal. I wanted to become a templar and help others. I vowed to give myself to a life of honorable service and no other future held any appeal.
I sought out every piece of information I could find about the Chantry’s teachings and their methods for training templars. Each week I brought new questions to the village Chantry. Our village had four templars stationed permanently. I observed their actions while I followed after them. I asked them to explain what they were doing as they went about their duties. Whenever I suspected they had a moment of free time, I asked them to train me.
I persisted for five years but by the time I turned thirteen I began to worry that I was growing too old. Two of the templars told me that they began their training when they turned ten. Another started when he was twelve. At thirteen I feared that the life I wanted would pass me by.
One day I overheard the templars talking about a knight-captain who was coming to stay in Honnleath for a week. I begged them to tell the knight-captain that even though I was thirteen, I had already dedicated five years of my life to studying the Chantry’s teachings and the templar’s ways. These men laughed at me but I insisted that I was serious. After all, the four of them had watched me practice. They knew how much care I took when delivering play-acted apostates to the Chantry. I knew more about being a templar than any other thirteen year old in Honnleath. I was ready to study full time under templar supervision, ready to pass each test required before taking my final vows.
Eventually these men assured me that they would tell the knight-captain how serious I was. Then they told me to run along and that was when I knew they had only been humoring me. I spent the rest of that afternoon lying on top of the hill behind the village Chantry. I sunk into the tall grass and looked up at the sky. I hungered for the words that would form the first page of my tale. This hunger hollowed out a cavern that began in the pit of my stomach. I closed my eyes and let myself fall into that dark place, away from the noise of the village, deep into the darkness of my uncertainty. The intensity of my thoughts reverberated around me in desperate echoes.
Looking back, that was the first time I understood what it meant to be overcome with anxiety.
.:.
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Date: 2015-07-29 05:40 pm (UTC)That line made me smile.
As I was whizzing by on my dash I saw your comment about certain readers disdaining first-person POV. I guess I understand where the sentiment comes from, I think I saw a similar post once that specifically targeted first-person fanfic, but this little bit right here shows how tremendously effective first-person can be.
IIRC, this story uses 1st and 3rd?
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Date: 2015-07-30 12:28 am (UTC)Once I knew what the story wanted to be, I decided to rewrite my Cullen POV scraps in 1st POV. If things go as planned, AHOL will mix 1st and 3rd although, for me to pull it off, I really need to nail a pulpy hardboiled noir style of 3rd with a dash of surfacer Kirkwall twang in the vocab+rhythm. I don't have my outline in front of me right now but I think I have a couple more chapters to go before segments in 3rd might occur, assuming I pull it off.
If I manage to make this work as planned, the mix of 1st and 3rd will allow the story will be a long running in-joke on nature of truth, reality, and POV within the DA series, with icing scenes that are arguments over the mix of falsehood and truth in the dueling 1st POV vs 3rd POV tellings. History being written. ;)