update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/neviim/cover-ideas.html

@@ -83,7 +83,23 @@
 <dt>Artante Diria</dt>
 <dd>appears almost human, though with their features much smoothed, epicanthic folds, pale skin, straight black hair</dd>
 </dl>
-<p>Artemisians are described <a href="remote/codrin/001.html">here</a></p>
+<p>Artemisians are described thus:</p>
+<blockquote>
+<p>Arrival.</p>
+<p>Arrival and light and noise and a slick, slippery feeling to the air about em.</p>
+<p>Codrin stole a few long seconds with eir eyes squinted shut. The light itself was loud, the noise bright. Everything was just slightly off, just slightly wrong.</p>
+<p>And then, those seconds passed, and the noise was less blinding, and when ey opened eir eyes, ey no longer felt deafened, and ey was able to take in the world around em. The floor, the colonnaded walls, the greenery beyond. Tight-fitting stone, slick and polished.</p>
+<p>Before em stood what ey supposed must be the Artemisian delegation.</p>
+<p>Turun Ka and Turun Ko, judging by their artificial appearance, stood half again as tall as em. Their flesh, what might have otherwise been skin, was made of what looked to be a supple, rubbery material in gunmetal grey. Powerful thighs supported a stocky torso, and the fact that they were leaned slightly forward was counterbalanced with a thick, lizard-like tail behind them. Their shoulders were sloped and narrow, and ey could see now why they had described themselves as equally comfortable on both two and four legs: their hands were clawed and padded with five fingers and an opposable thumb, but so were their feet.</p>
+<p>Atop a long neck rising from their shoulders sat heads with a distinctly canine bent. They were shaped, in fact, not too dissimilar from Dear&rsquo;s, though the ears were less outrageously large.</p>
+<p>It was the faces, though, that captivated eir attention. They did not have visible mouths or noses, their &lsquo;muzzles&rsquo; instead being covered with a somewhat lighter grey version of that same supple coating. <em>Porous, perhaps?</em> ey thought. <em>To let them smell? I don&rsquo;t suppose they need to eat. Maybe for speech?</em></p>
+<p>Rather than eyes, there was a mirrored panel of black, looking more mercury than plastic or glass. No visible eyes, no visible expressions.</p>
+<p><em>Well, this will be interesting.</em></p>
+<p>To their right a being of similar shape stood on two legs, though one far smaller, coming up only to Codrin&rsquo;s breastbone. The longer ey looked, however, the more those similarities began to fall away. Yes, it stood on two powerful legs; yes, its body was canted forward and kept on balance with a thick tail; yes, it had an elongated snout.</p>
+<p>However, rather than that supple plastic, it was coated in a scaly hide, washed in oil-sheen colors. Where the firstrace representatives had little in the way of facial features, though, Stolon, ey assumed, almost seemed to have a surfeit. Their eyes were bright and curious, their mouth seemingly ready to a smile &mdash; or some other expression, ey reminded emself, as what appeared to be a smile to humans may not be so to secondrace. They did not have hair, as made sense for a lizard of some sort, but they did have a crest of what appeared to be feathers of a sort, or perhaps massively elongated scales.</p>
+<p>Beside Stolon and standing a head shorter than even them was a creature that reminded em so much of Debarre that ey did a double-take. The resemblance was uncanny: a svelte coat of brown fur with a creamier white starting beneath the chin and heading down over their front &mdash; or at least, ey assumed it continued beneath the thin, blue tunic they were wearing &mdash; and a black-tipped tail behind. Plenty of whiskers, curious eyes.</p>
+<p>The last of the Artemisians, Artante Diria, looked almost-but-not-quite human. Her features seemed far smoother, with a nose that melted into her face and earlobes that ramped smoothly down into her neck below. Beyond that, however, the differences were negligible. She could easily get lost in a crowd of humans with no problem whatsoever, another face of Asian descent. She even wore a blue tunic and sarong of nearly identical cut to what ey had worn for so long.</p>
+</blockquote>
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                 <p>Page generated on 2022-01-13</p>