#Nanowrimo Day 21: Frewyn's Glory

Well, the 50,000 word marker has been achieved. Onto the next 50,000. In the meantime, here is a piece from Draeden and Bryeison's return from the Galleisian War Saga:

The season was in its heightened state of alteration: the verdant hues of a lingering summer giving way to the golden flush of autumn, the trees blushing with ripened drupes, the ground misted over with glistening rime, leaves furnishing the forests with their vibrant hues, the bark of the various trees glowing numinous in the soft morning light, the end of the harvest bowing to the reign of winter impending. Here was autumn in its ripening bloom, and there harvest and the beginning of the Frewyn High Holidays were prepared to surmount the kingdom. The frosts delicately garlanded the boughs of the subdued landscape, the last intimations of moss raged tranquil against the dampening frosts, the withies of the weeping willows laden with light snow mantled over the ground, the great oaks wreathed the canopies of the wood, the flecks of sunlight pervading the slender cracks between. Here was all the splendor of Frewyn’s hardiest season, and there was nothing to do but stand atop the Tyr Bryn and admire the rippling downs and distant crags. The ocher of the dying leaves canvassed against the northern black rocks, the dormant tilth blanketed with their amber tones crumbled over the tumbling cliffs, the deep hue of the mere in the quiet beyond subduing all the adornments of gold and green, the majesty of the neighboring mountains, masters of all they surveyed, their quiet ascendancy felt in every knell, in every vale, in every recess, supplied Bryeison and Draeden with a wealth of sensations. Here was all Frewyn’s sovereignty: the peaks presiding over the west stood, unyielding, artless, and uncompromising, all their influence in their formidable forms; the lapping shores at the coastline tinkling with musical waters crashing melodious as they danced and dashed against the rocks; the vastness of the rising wood, the trees defying nature’s commander to retract and retreat, their verdant spines balancing the weight and glistening ornamentation to spite the coming season. They saw themselves in the land, Bryeison all unshakable confidence and tranquility, and Draeden all voluble and joyous vibration. Studying the kingdom in all its triumph, resonating its vibrant and unsubtle thrum, as they stood on Tyr Bryn, they felt the full extent of their magnanimous inheritance. Frewyn herself was all their glory, and the modest reception she granted for their return home- her misted peaks, her luxuriant valleys, her hedgerows, her stone borders, tilled earth- was all their reward. Though they could not see Diras Castle from Tyr Bryn, they felt the added exhilaration of knowing that the marl of integrity on their nation lie somewhere beyond the drifting sprays, billowing down from the skies and wafting out to the roaring seas. It was there, the king was eagerly awaiting their arrival, and they would have hastened to the capital were it not for the prospect before them. They tapered their gazes, trying to distinguish more of Frewyn’s moving beauties, descrying the sundry of gradual motion made without any provocation: the languid genuflection of the trees, the dulcet ripples of the lake, the lilt of the passing gales, the rise and fall of the gorm gliding overhead.

                “She is astounding,” Draeden breathed, his eye following the lines of the mountains. “I could barely leave her, and now that I see her after having been willfully parted, I should never suffer to leave her again.”

                Bryeison marveled at the prospect, his lips curling in wistful smiles. All his sanguine reverie was in returning home again, in returning to the keep, in being under Dorrin’s graces, in seeing Vyrdin, in resuming to all his former simpler joys: reconciling his senses and resigning himself to tea, games of Fidchell, participating in the coming harvest, and in relishing the king’s kind auspices once more. “The Great Lady of the Southern Continent,” he exhaled, his countenance tranquil and wondering, “and yet you can enter her valleys without being anxious.”

                Draeden gave him a flat look. “I’m allowed,” he petulantly protested. “You should attest that a land doesn’t answer back when spoken to or of, but would that every lady of ample mounds and fine prospect answer with such endearing mumurations as Frewyn herself can do.” He let out a most doting sigh. “There is my lady, Bryeison,” he mused, gesturing toward the kingdom’s abundance. “And when one is borne to such devoted glory as this, all the beauties of fine lace and blushing smiles are a pale imitation to the natural wonders of the Gods.”

                Bryeison would have attested to Draeden’s being afraid of women without all the hindrances of lace and pearls, but he checked himself and let it pass. A knowing simper was all that he expressed, and they remained at Tyr Bryn looking down at Frewyn’s glories with rapturous spirits and high glee until Draeden’s stomach began to rumble.