An excerpt from my latest low-fantasy piece:
Jokani was like a secret society brimming with such confidence that it dared to operate in public.
Each building pressed firmly against the next paying no attention to how many stories high or what colors or materials stood beside them, and they were all referred to by name. Sheepshire was the stout and square building lined in green tile on the corner of foxborough and grove that would enchant your shoes for an hour on an exhausting day, run officially as a bakery that sold so-so loaves for very cheap. Haggard’s was the nice pub that made you wait a week for a spot and walk up to the third story to enjoy admittedly tasty but not in any way decadent meals under the dim and flashing glow of lightning caught in floating glass bubbles; Toby’s was the pub you went to after work; and Madam Auguste’s was the pub you went to only when you really hated your life. Chung Hey Barn – or CHB – was the bookshop off of Stone with a rotating menagerie in the back sourced from the rescue division of Seimei’s zoology department that always had a litter of chupacabras to pet on a low day. The Place wasn’t actually a building but the empty lot between Stockade – the tall and thin dark blue wooden jewelry emporium – and Fairwhether – the cake shop where even the smallest dainty cupcake grew wings and flitted around – where over time a few benches, chairs, and tables had sprouted up alongside and about a single enormous palm tree.
The city was known for its oddballs who shouted at the sky or themselves or you, and for its intellects who did likewise. Some shop owners had brilliant backstories and heritages that stretched across the world and the wars, some seemed to have appeared out of thin air, and some thoroughly guarded their pasts with a joke or a knife or both. Like the buildings, every type of being was able to come and stand beside the other with no frame or reference as to what was good or proper, only what was good and proper for them.
I wanted so desperately to be in on whatever it was that was here. But every time I thought I had it down there was another perfect place for lunch, another corner I should avoid at all costs, another journeyman I had to meet, another code word, another mystery.
Thank you for reading my piece! I welcome all feedback and critique 🙂
Fantasy
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