@booksocietyās All By Myself Event: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
āTell me what itās like. The race.ā
What itās like is a battle. A mess of horses and men and blood. The fastest and strongest of what is left from two weeks of preparation on the sand. Itās the surf in your face, the deadly magic of November on your skin, the Scorpio drums in the place of your heartbeat. Itās speed, if youāre lucky. Itās life and itās death or itās both and thereās nothing like it.
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On the farthest shore
falls foam from waves
which crash with the
rhythmĀ of the seaās heartbeat
The water horseās song
soft wailing and whinnies
a saltwater elegy
sung in the waters
of the Scorpio Sea
of men they eat, wet brine they drink
blood and salt pass through knife teeth
dragged under, no wonder
what happens to those
dragged off their boats
their bones wash ashore
wave washed, sun bleached
white like the chalk cliffs
the capaille uisce
for long they remained
untamed as storm waves
frothing and raging
tearing onto the land
some claim that the coming
of Saint Colomba, fatal saint
who our ancestors cast
from the high cliffs of Thisby
they say that his blood
was a baptism of both land and sea
that when the capaille uisce
ripped and ate his remains
shortly after, the first capal was tamed
The colors are so rich and beautiful. Itās super slim, snaps on easy and ACTUALLY COMES OFF EASILY. My other case required a butter knife and brute force to remove it. Itās shiny but my fingerprints are almost invisible on it. 10/10 would recommend.
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It is a day closer to November, but the sea might usher it in before the calendar does. The morning is bristly, unfriendly: fog clings to the fields and the streets, hugging the houses and the beach, while a sharp rain beats down from clouds overhead. Reilly pulls his hat down, his jacket tighter.
He didnāt expect the beach to be too full during this wretched weather, but the storm from the early morning brought in a horde of capaill uisce onto the island and the stock of potential mounts is rich. Reilly knows that a capall washed ashore during a storm is more dangerous than any other horse on this beach, and he suddenly wants to go back to Grattonās and the chalkboard and undo what was done.
The sad smile Peg would bestow on him for doing that, however, makes Reilly stay rooted in his spot on the cliff above the sand below.
A scream comes from down the beach, and Reilly turns to watch. His stomach churns as he sees a hoof flinging upward, into the hair, followed by a flurry of thick mane, then nothing. Blood pools where a man stands, the uisce fleeing into the sea with a line trailing behind it, no longer held by a hand that is no longer there.
The rain has lightened by now to a fine mist. Reilly looks over the top of the cliffs, past the outskirts of Skarmouth, where Malvernās yard lies. Tourists in fine coats line white fences holding highly valued horseflesh, some of them with remnants of capaill blood. He wishes he had a mount from that yard instead of a mount from the sea, but Reilly has yet to unearth the proverbial pot of gold.
He remembers the chalkboard now, the blank space next to his name glaringly empty, and he begins his journey down to the beach, steeling himself against the brutal weather and the harsh, unguarded stares of those around him.
Ā . . .
When he gets to the sand, stands on it, breathes in the salt from the ocean reaching out in front of him for miles and miles, it is unlike anything he has ever experienced before. All around him is chaos, but the feeling of being completely lost in a melee of men, capaill uisce, and the sea makes him calm, and he knows himself.
Reilly has never known himself more than now.
He carves his way through the beach to a man in a bowler hat shouting words into the wind while a horse is winning the battle on turning him into a kite.
āWhen did you fish this one out of the ocean?ā Reilly also shouts into the wind, but aimed closer to the man near him, hopefully.
The man turns, gives a sharp tug on the line tethering the uisce to him, and tosses a few chips of metal at it. Iron. āThis morning! Fine one, aināt it?āĀ
Reilly cringes, except unlike that time with Peg and the chalkboard--he means it. āAye!āĀ He replies, his words lost on the man when he leaves.
The next man Reilly finds is slightly more organized. This one is a true horsemonger, with a little harem of capaill in his possession and a few men scattered around him doing various things with the devils or admiring them. Reilly recognizes the man from Grattonās, but doesnāt approach him, instead watching the horses mill about. One of them reminds him of Skata, the infamous horse from a few years back who took Mutt Malvern to the sea, and another reminds him of dark root cellars during a winter storm. He focuses not on those two. All of the uisce here reek of the ocean, most of their manes still dripping, flowers woven into their forelocks and bells around their pasterns.
These smoke and mirrors will not keep them away from the waves, not in this weather, not in Scorpio season.
At the end of the line lurks a capall, dangerous like a wasp on your shoulder. Reilly watches her, entranced. He canāt distinguish if her charm is the lullaby of the sea or a certain appreciation. She does not lunge at the dogs running the beach, or the stable boy holding her down, or for the sea, and her eyes hold a strange calmness.
She knows herself.
Reilly decides it is time to find a different man harking horses at the crowds.
Pyre (2017, developed by Supergiant Games) x The Scorpio Races (2011, by Maggie Stiefvater) -Ā The Liberation Races
If they survive in the Downside long enough, the exiled men and women grow horns and hooves, transforming into demons. Only the victor of a Liberation race may regain their freedom, atop a ferocious man-eating beast that emerges from the Sea of Solis.
So I decided to combine my favorite game of 2017 and my favorite book! Both Pyre and The Scorpio Races have fantastic writing and world building. I highly recommend experiencing both! You can buy Pyre on Steam or the PS4 store for only $20, and The Scorpio Races is available on Amazon for $8!
