City of Iron

[icaruslived]

It was called Fenris, and it stank.

It stank of blood, and sulphur, and, of course, the iron, the ever-present iron, forged and hammered to stand strong and stark. It jutted, tall and defiant, a cold, sprawling, metallic blotch on one edge of the grand Lake Bifrost.

Once, the iron had simply been the cheapest building material around, brought

Comments

[halfshellvenus]

It will not let in the sun or the stars, for they cannot be managed or controlled by the gears.
There's such a wonderful, ominous hubris in just this line.

The idea of the city as a living being, perhaps not with typical 'people' as its citizens until the refugees came, was really interesting.

[icaruslived]

Cities are living beings, though! And buildings are its organs, and people are its lifeblood. Fenris just ... took that a bit more literally than most :p

[i_17bingo]

I love cities, mostly because they feel like organisms, with streets like arteries, and citizens flowing in and out of buildings like nutrients.

What's the most fascinating part of this tale for me is how you describe Fenris as a city of two million people, but you never see one of them.

[icaruslived]

Yus. And an alien's eye view on cities would describe their behaviours so much in terms of agency, and flesh and blood, and feeding and fighting and making love. I think cities are such a human construct, that they can't help but be alive...

[mallorys_camera]

Well done!

[icaruslived]

Thank you!

[purplefrog26]

oooh, oooh

sits happily dreaming.

[icaruslived]

dreeeeaming

[swirlsofblue]

Oh, this is gold, brilliantly done. It goes with lrig_rorrim's piece so so well.

[icaruslived]

lrig_rorrim was such a fantastic partner, and we stretched the very limits of what timezones were meant to do in pulling together ideas that fit together and danced together like the sky and the sun. So much fun.