The fifteen minute novel writing experiment is a attempt to write a complete (and very rough) draft of a novel by writing for fifteen minutes each day. I have taken a timed writing from one of the daily prompts done in 2021, cleaned it up a little and used it as my jumping off point into a story. Each day I will take the last line of the story written the day before and use it as my sentence starter and write for fifteen minutes, growing the story as the year progresses.
Day 166: It was on mornings like this that she would have enjoyed the luxury more she suspected.
It was on mornings like this that she would have enjoyed the luxury more she suspected. ‘And I suspect I would have enjoyed the bath a lot.’
In Tyrin she and the other village girls bathed in the nearby lake. There was a shelter built around the edge of the water, a three sides building to shield them from view. As the lake was enormous, the lake side wall had been left out. Anyone on the other side of the lake might be able to see movement but nothing else and so the modesty of the girls was kept in tact.
While Anya wasn’t close with anyone but her sisters, and they left the lakeside bathing group when they were marries, she did miss the convivial noise and sense of community. In Tyrin, and in the rest of the kingdom, regular bathing was considered one of the ways to keep harmful disease away. It was promoted by the church and there were even fines for slovenly appearances as it courted disease which could endanger them all.
When she came here the Matron and Marta found the adherence to cleanliness in those of the Kingdom of Dovish amusing. ‘Yet the house of the star has bathing chambers in some of the rooms.’ Anya thought as she stretched out the cloth she used to wash so it could dry and dried herself before dressing. ‘At least the one I was given did. And I doubt they would have given me their best chamber, so even the chambers of the not so great had the feature.’
As she dressed, Anya wondered if the people who lived her before, like Deran believed in regular bathing or mocked it. ‘I suppose I could ask.’ She doubted it was a lesson he expected her to take but it was a curiosity. ‘And if you can’t ask a memory of a person about the way they lived who can you ask?”
The water was boiling as Anya finished dressing and her exertions warmed her somewhat. She poured the water over the tea leaves to steep and huddled in front of the fire to warm up her fingers and toes. While being thoroughly warm wasn’t always necessary, Anya wanted to go down to the orb to have her morning look around before going to the circles and Deran. That way she could see if anything notable was happening, or if Marta left anything for her by the stone basin before she began her day. As the room of the orb was cold, Anya knew that if she wasn’t thoroughly warm before going there, she would be completely chilled when she returned.
‘Plus Deran’s room isn’t warm. Even if I move the circles I still have to go into the rooms with them for a while.’
Anya’s plan was to go to the orb, see if there was anything that needed monitoring and then see Drean and possibly move the circles to the room next to her main living quarters. ‘Not that yesterday’s plan went all that well.’
Anya shook her head, decided the tea had steeped long enough and poured out her first mug of the morning. While life in the hidden spaces had become more or less routine, since there were n people to interact with, her plan to seek out Marta had been completely ruined with the meeting of Deran. Anya slowly sipped her tea and wondered if that was a good thing or not. Should she still seek out Marta.
‘It might be safe.’
As the word safe floated through her mind, Anya thought of her dream. It was fragmented now. She remembered a statue promising to keep her safe in hopes of a bargain later. Anya shook her head and the dream remnant’s fell away.
Ten til Midnight 