Elec

Medium (920px wide max)

Wide - use max window width - scroll to see page ⇅

Fit all of image in window

set default image size: small | medium | wide

Download (new tab)

by dfeyder

Gallery

The Story Teller

« prev 49 in pool next »

(taken form chapter 23 of "the Story Teller")
The Colossus Warwing takes: Corn, Ownlog and Rodney high above the cloud-line into the near freezing atmosphere, the sky burns orange above the clouds. “Corn the Weaver and Corn’s mate. I would like to ask you a question.”
“I’m not a Weaver.” Corn calls down from Warwing’s back “and how do you think is my mate?”
“The only person on my back that could be. That little chew toy you call Rodney.”
“What did you want to ask?” Corn yells over the burning wind.
“Which makes a better story: one that never ends, or one that gets retold forever?” Warwing ask
“stories change with the passage of years to reflect changing thought and ideas of those hearing them. So a natural better story is one reimagined by everyone that hears it.” Rodney throws down his thoughts.
“we love the things we love because we understand them. That is why we repeat ourselves as often as we do. It reinforces a collective experience. Everyone knows the core of our local parchments. ‘Wolves run and the red flower’ acts as the foundation of or bible our own time before time. ‘the ride’ is our yardstick for good and evil and how we understand what makes them different.”
Warwing bobs her head in understanding “the birds of Winterskiss have a holy book too. Stories of hero and monster, and a holy women from Underdark that rises. Her touch kills monster, and mends broken bones, she walks on water and fire and dresses in a shroud made of blood. We pretend she is like us, a bird, but she is not, she is like you, a mouse of Graywall Keep. Maybe that is how we deal with what we don’t fully understand. We change the story to meet our need. Make them more relatable by making them more of ourselves. Are you Gaia worshipers?”
“I am a follower of Kari, if I am a follower of anything. Rodney is a snake worshiper, and I don’t know about Ownlog.”
“Snakes, Birds, Trees, I wonder, might they all be the same thing? Maybe your Kari and my Gaia are the same creature. one god with many faces. I want to find god. Whatever its name is and I want to ask ‘what forth are we responsible for.’ My people once were artist but now we spend most of our time fighting over a pile of bones where we believe the undying mother was born atop.”
“why fight over bone?”
“the bones are holy. Whoever roost atop the bones will be empowered by and protected by our virgin mother for so long as that sit atop it.”
Rodney looks down to Warwing “if she is virgin then how is she your mother?”
“she is Our holy mother. All eggs laid belong to her for she is the hatchling of Gaia herself. She slept one day at the foot of a river and the water washed across her loin and where the water dripped from her chops eggs formed from stone then all the birds of the earth leapt fourth there from.”
Corn takes in the story “so all birds are formed from dirt and water?”
“Why not?, All mice are forged from clay. It’s the same story” Ownlog express and Rodney translates.
“I have children thank you very much. Let me tell you I didn’t forge mine out of clay.”
Rodney smiles and pat her on the tail, “really where did you get yours?”
Corn snorts not sure if that was a playful jest or ignorant regurgitation. Warwing then pips up “I laid a virgin egg then I was three years old, I then laid three more after rubbing my tail against a boy at a fest two years later. The first never hatched, the others did. I bet if I mated I would lay a lot more.”
Ownlog bashfully whisper through Rodney “you rubbed tails and laid three eggs?”
“well he might have touched my… but we didn’t… and if his… and my… we all know what mating means and I didn’t do it. He was touching me for only a second and it was an accident, we were from different families and we weren’t even to be talking, we were just kid and I wanted to know… then he wanted to know… . But it was fun.”
Rodney looks to Warwing, he climbs up to touch her on the noise “wise man once told me, is it isn’t fun to sin, then you’re not sinning right.”
“Eat my tail feathers poet.” Warwing curses at him.
“I can promise you I will do no such thing. I haven’t even looked at your tail feathers.”
“why not?” Warwing flushes her tail dropping into the clouds, she pulls her wings in then snaps them out slowing herself to map the aria. Her eyes roll back then widen “oh…” being the only sound to leave her beak as she is thinking.
Corn looks to her “so what did you do with your unexpected eggs?”
“I gave them to my mother, she never asked any question. I pretend there my siblings.”
“And the father?” Corn ask.
“I told him about it. We are planning to keep this under wraps till the war is over, Assuming it ever ends.”
“I love this story. Can I have it?” Corn ask
“when you write down the story I want my name recorded as Liz the fourth 22end queen of Winterskiss.”
“why?” Corn ask.
“I think the name Liz sounds better in your tongue then Warwing.” Warwing points with her beak. “There it is, the summit of Elec is there.” Warwing lands atop the mountain. “Ill wait here. I don’t think what lies ahead was meant for me.”
Rodney tips his noise in the air sniffing about Ownlog stands beside him growling “What do you smell.” She ask.
“dead fish, cinnamon and butter, maybe a hint of garlic with a splash of vinegar, and black magic, what about you Ownlog?” Rodney explains.
She pulls her hooked swords from her back “battle, blood old and sour staining this place with evil. Souls where lost here, and the dead come back looking for what they left behind. Rodney steady your blade and ready your magic Hades awaits.” Ownlog bares he fangs lusting for the fight.
As the team dives into the crevasse at the pick of Elec quickly they find the cold heat of the mountain has locked in the scent of death. Corn grips her gut with one hand and her muzzle with the other struggling to hold herself up after tacking the first whiff of unsanctified air. Rodney bite his tongue swallowing hard. Ownlog growls and breaths deeply of the stale earth Ownlog mumbles “just like home.”
Corn and Rodney spend a moment nearly carrying each other, Rodney hacks “what is down here again?”
“A stone of healing. It will be protected by those who failed to find it in the past” Corn recaps
“we have nearly died three times so far, maybe the stone was never meant to be found.”

Keywords