I just want to write a whole novel about these two.

[bedlamsbard]

Guys, I think I accidentally created a pair of OCs who I'd be happy to write an original novel about. Which is not in itself a bad thing, and has actually happened before in Dust -- this is for Dust, not like I'm working on anything else right now, uh, I mean, except my essays...theoretically -- but is...kind of surprising? IDK, at the risk of sounding conceited, I think most of my OCs could stand on their own in an original novel, though some would probably work better than others. And some would probably work better in an original than in Dust, because their parts are so minimal. (I suspect that the Queen of Anvard and her spouses are going to end up criminally underused, considering, you know, Queen of Thieves and her spouses, one of whom is the Narnian refugee son of a former judge and the other of whom is an escaped Calormene ex-slave.) And Border Wars was partially conceived so that I could sit around and figure out how a lot of my MCs would function if they weren't secondary or tertiary to the main plots in Dust. (Marcia Bracken is a fucking badass, for the record.)

BUT THESE TWO, UGH. Female dwarf odd couple solving crime in their occupied city! I LOVE THEM.

Uh, to back up a step: I'm writing backstory for the aggravation (the reason I keep calling them the aggravation will become clear eventually; I'm sure Bilbo Baggins would agree that the proper term for a group of dwarves is an 'aggravation', ehehehe), because the heart wants what the heart wants and sometimes just writing is better than not writing at all, whatever, character-building, world-building, I DO WHAT I WANT THOR and so on. So I'm writing backstory for a couple of the dwarves that haven't shown up yet, Hnaki and Icelo, with a couple other members of the aggravation in the background. (If you've read Dust 32, Hnaki is Orth's older sister and Icelo is Brofi's younger sister.) I will probably post the whole thing later, but here is an introductory snippet:

Hnaki poured another mug of cider, then carried them both over to the booth Icelo was sitting them in. “Here,” she said, pushing the new mug over towards the other dwarf woman. “My cousin’s paying, anyway.”

Icelo put her head to one side curiously, eyeing her, then finally put the small knife and the chunk of half-carved wood she was still holding aside and took the mug. They sat there in silence for a few minutes, sipping their cider, while Hnaki appraised the bottles and barrels stacked neatly behind the bar, trying to decide how deep she could go before Fiehe or Loet came back or Icelo cut her off. If Icelo would cut her off, anyway. She looked across the table at the other woman thoughtfully.

Icelo raised her eyebrows, seeing her watching. She was a few years older than Hnaki, though both of them were in that intermediate stage of dwarven life where a few decades or so either way didn’t make much of a difference. Hnaki could vaguely remember her from school, but not much more than that she’d been there – there probably wasn’t much to remember anyway, given that they had been in different years, with enough distance between them that it was probably that they hadn’t even interacted. Her long hair was carefully arranged and braided to mostly hide the scar that had left a wide white streak in the red; Hnaki could see the beginnings of the scar at the edge of her forehead from here. Even with the scar she was pretty enough.

Hnaki realized that she was staring at Icelo’s mouth, and, to cover her sudden disconcertion, took a pull at her cider. “Do you miss it?” she said abruptly once she’d put the mug down, a little too hard. “Being able to talk to people?”

Icelo looked aside. For a second Hnaki thought she wasn’t going to get a response, then Icelo dug around on the bench beside her and came up with a slate and a stub of chalk. She wrote something on the slate and turned it around so that Hnaki could see: I miss a lot of things.

Hnaki blinked at that. She’d been in and out of the Broken Shield a lot in the past few years – Fiehe was friends with Loet and Joar – and while she’d gotten used to the sight of Icelo in the corner, she’d never seen her with the slate before. It was a matter of common debate over whether she’d been totally buggered in the head or if it had just been her tongue.

“I’m sorry,” she said awkwardly; she hadn’t said the words in a while, though she’d spent a disturbing amount of time apologizing to Fiehe when she’d been younger and had still cared about such things. “That was rude.”

Icelo shrugged, wiped the slate clean with the side of her hand, and wrote, heard worse.

“I bet,” Hnaki said with a pang; she’d probably said worse, though not to Icelo’s face. She took another pull at the cider, not really sure of what to say or if she ought to apologize again. She couldn’t say that she’d ever really thought that she’d be sitting down with Icelo Steelhand for a conversation – or, well, that anyone would ever be sitting down with Icelo Steelhand for a conversation again.

Icelo looked down, then drank, wiping her hand across her mouth in the exact same gesture she’d used with the slate, which was now lying abandoned by her elbow, heard worse still there in her surprisingly neat round handwriting. Icelo saw Hnaki looking at it. She picked up the chalk again and wrote, what did you do?

“Nothing!” Hnaki said indignantly. “Fiehe just found out that I’d been running with the Brass Crowns for a bit, that’s all, and took exception to it.”

Icelo frowned at her. She made a sign with her hands that even Hnaki knew: who?

“They’re a Coveside gang,” Hnaki explained. “Mostly humans, with some saltwater folk.”

Icelo’s coppery eyebrows climbed upwards, though Hnaki thought that she looked more interested than disapproving.

“It’s not like they do anything big, anyway,” Hnaki snorted. “Just a bit of fun down at the docks, and a scrap or two here and there. More fun than hanging out in the Anvil.”

Icelo looked down at the slate, then her hands, and back at the slate again. Hnaki saw the frustration clear on her face; she wanted to say something that she couldn’t say with signs and was presumably too long to write out. She hesitated, wanting to help Icelo out, but she didn’t know what it was that the other woman wanted to say.

Comments

[snacky]

I have been waiting for Icelo and this is just making me love her in advance! :D

[bedlamsbard]

Icelo is awesome. So is Hnaki; they are the perfect odd couple. And at this point, they're both in a place where they could really do with a friend; Hnaki's getting wilder and wilder and Icelo's getting more and more closed off. (Poor Icelo; she didn't get injured in a Calormene-related riot; she got caught up in a student protest that turned into a riot.)