{"id":1127,"date":"2011-03-21T09:22:19","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T15:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1127"},"modified":"2011-03-21T09:25:29","modified_gmt":"2011-03-21T15:25:29","slug":"one-more-day-mikki-kekki","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=1127","title":{"rendered":"One More Day: Mikki-kekki"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since everyone appears to be enjoying the background material (I wasn’t sure you would),\u00a0 and the tractor isn’t here yet, I’ll throw in some more tidbits to tide you over until tomorrow.\u00a0\u00a0 Or the next day.\u00a0 Nothing should be spoilerish for Kings<\/em> or the books following…some outcropped in the original books and some didn’t.\u00a0\u00a0 (And I don’t promise that there’s nothing new in background that might outcrop in this book or the next.)<\/p>\n

Mikki-kekki<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 Dzordanya, the easternmost land north of the Honnorgat, borders Kostandan on the west, the Honnorgat on the south, and the Eastern Ocean on the east.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Its northern border is undefined.\u00a0 It is a mysterious land, and not exactly welcoming to outsiders; it is heavily forested, damp, and cold.\u00a0\u00a0 The mikki-kekki are a race of non-humans about which even less is known than about Dzordanyan humans.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They are small (sometimes called “woods-sprites” by outsiders)\u00a0 and use some tools (including blow-pipes and simple bows.) \u00a0 These both shoot thin darts or arrows\u00a0 tipped with poison, possibly from mushrooms.\u00a0 They appear to travel and hunt in groups;\u00a0 if they have any permanent homes, these are far from human settlements.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 They are found in the densest forest (and most of Dzordanya is forest.)<\/p>\n

They are generally hostile to humans,\u00a0 and their hostility has limited settlement there.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Their weapons are not effective against armor, and even thick clothing may be protective, but any unprotected part of the body is vulnerable.\u00a0 Dzordanyan humans typically wear leather outer garments which do the trick, though if enough mikki-kekki attack (and they almost always attack in groups) they may close on the person, knock him\/her to the ground and go from there with great efficiency to kill and consume the unfortunate traveler.<\/p>\n

The first humans in Dzordanya are believed to have reacted to mikki-kekki hostility with an attempt to wipe out the creatures, but they were not successful.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That, of course, did not reduce mikki-kekki hostility.\u00a0\u00a0 Very occasionally, a human child will befriend, or be befriended by, a mikki-kekki–in that case, the mikki-kekki try to lure the child away to live with them.\u00a0 Such children are much more likely to become Kuakkgani than others, if they survive this early friendship.<\/p>\n

Mikki-kekki communicate verbally and seem to have a sort of language (the children who make friends with a mikki-kekki troupe insist they do speak, and the child often learns some of that language–if it is a language in the true sense.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Their voices are high pitched, and they make some sounds humans can scarcely hear, let alone immitate: humans usually describe their speech as “chittering–high and fast.”\u00a0 It includes clicks and squeaks.<\/p>\n

Oddly (at least the humans think it’s odd) mikki-kekki do not attempt to kill white-haired people…once someone’s hair turns completely white, they’re safe from mikki-kekki attack.\u00a0\u00a0 Children have reported that this is because the old are considered “snow people.”\u00a0\u00a0 Adults are not sure the children aren’t making this up.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Is there a race of white-haired people in the far north somewhere?\u00a0 Nobody knows.\u00a0\u00a0 And if there were, why would the mikki-kekki not be hostile to them<\/em>?\u00a0\u00a0 Nobody knows.<\/p>\n

However, this has led human settlements to attempt a working relationship with nearby mikki-kekki groups, with the leadership of a “long house” being the person with the longest, whitest hair.\u00a0 If that person is always seen to be directing the others, the mikki-kekki are much less likely to attack.\u00a0\u00a0 White-haired women create a bigger safety zone than men–a white beard is not protection.\u00a0\u00a0 Hence the social structure of Dzordanyan settlements is–though not a true matriarchy–usually headed by an elderly woman (or it can be a younger one if her hair turns white early.)\u00a0 \u00a0 If she should be too sick to go outside (for instance) than everyone stays in the long house until a white-haired woman is able to go out with them. \u00a0 Attempts to fool mikki-kekki by bleaching the hair are fatal.\u00a0 They are able to detect natural white hair v. bleached hair and they appear to hate bleached hair.<\/p>\n

Nobody but themselves knows the origin of the humans in Dzordanya.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some of them may have come from Preal\u00edth, across the river to the south, but much of the population of Preal\u00edth is Seafolk in origin, and the other Seafolk usually shudder when asked about Dzordanya.\u00a0\u00a0 Dzordanyans, when asked, simply shrug and bring up another topic.<\/p>\n

Two things are known for sure about Dzordanyans: they live in what they call “long houses” and many of them go on a long journey called “varkingla,”\u00a0\u00a0 which roughly translates as “the wandering.”\u00a0\u00a0 The itinerant Kuakkgani are all, as far as anyone knows, Dzordanyan.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kuakkgani who have Groves rarely travel (they can, but they choose not to most of the time) and they are more often not<\/em> from Dzordanya.\u00a0\u00a0 Anyone who has survived a visit to Dzordanya understands why the people go varkingla, but not why they stay.\u00a0 Dzordanyans don’t explain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since everyone appears to be enjoying the background material (I wasn’t sure you would),\u00a0 and the tractor isn’t here yet, I’ll throw in some more tidbits to tide you over until tomorrow.\u00a0\u00a0 Or the next day.\u00a0 Nothing should be spoilerish for Kings or the books following…some outcropped in the original books and some didn’t.\u00a0\u00a0 (And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,4],"tags":[108,106],"class_list":["post-1127","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-background","category-contents","tag-background","tag-contents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1127"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1129,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1127\/revisions\/1129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1127"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1127"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1127"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}