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PodCastle => Episode Comments => Topic started by: Ocicat on January 09, 2020, 05:24:59 AM

Title: PC605: Blood, Bone, Seed, Spark
Post by: Ocicat on January 09, 2020, 05:24:59 AM
PodCastle 605: Blood, Bone, Seed, Spark (http://podcastle.org/2019/12/17/podcastle-605-blood-bone-seed-spark/)

Author: Aimee Ogden (http://podcastle.org/people/aimee-ogden/)
Narrator: Dani Daly (http://podcastle.org/people/dani-daly/)
Host: C. L. Clark (http://podcastle.org/people/c-l-clark/)
Audio Producer: Peter Behravesh (http://podcastle.org/people/peter-behravesh/)

Previously published by Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

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Content Warning:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)



Show Notes
Rated R for secrets, science, and sexuality.



Upstairs, in the little rowhouse on the thirty-sixth meridian of the city of Leth Marno, the scuffling grows louder. Heels ring out against the floorboards, and shouts are muffled; by the rugs, perhaps, or a hand that grasps to cover a mouth.

Anell Nath sits downstairs by the flower-arrangement pedestal. Her hands shake as she trims leaves from a bundle of pale peonies. She is more certain with the tools of her trade than with the instruments of the gentleperson’s art, but dissection scissors would make slow work of the thick waxy stems. As she works she counts the blows from the level above; categorizes and classifies each cry that makes its way down to her. Cool observation distances her from what is happening up there. That is her job, and always has been: to study, to take notes. To seek understanding, or at least knowledge.

Hasn’t she had enough understanding for a lifetime by now? How deep must understanding be, before she drowns in it? The blades of the shears snap methodically, and leaves fall to the ground between her bare feet.

Years of hard, grinding work in the library and the laboratory have honed the great desire of Anell’s heart into a scalpel, a sharp point ever driving toward that goal. The blade is so keen, though, that by its very nature it has flensed away everything else.

The shears are heavy in her hand. A scalpel would have been defter. She sits, and cuts, and waits.




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