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Three hours turned in the sky above. The star of Uldum cooks the sand beneath the beast’s feet. The plodding, cushioned gait bobs you side to side. You wonder how the humans keep in such a world, but you are made from rock and fire. You are from the mountain raised from hell, fed on the strength of stone.
You are Dark Iron.
Three hours past you left Mar’at and all spare one of your Adherents. The Adjunct follows too. Though the sky hangs blue above, the wind carries smells of rot and wicked things. For two hours you rode west as told by the cat-men.
“A well gone wrong. The deep rises as flesh--the Elder one speaks, and his voice is poison.”
You left the warlock in Mar’at with the hands he made. Your men will feed him mountain water, give him lager for the blood, see that he stays still. The Adherent with you keeps his silence well. He is your cousin by blood, but chosen by his acts--as all should. Blood should not know war together in the Trials, unless the Task demands it. This too is another dagger at your heart.
“Adherent,” you say with eyes West, “you may speak.”
He speaks, “The human--” he stops.
“Yes?”
“The others are unsure. A miracle of the forge, some say--”
“Some say heresy,” the Adjunct cuts with a voice of gravel, petty and light. You look back to him, to show the Adherent the difference in your eyes. The Adjunct’s beady specks glare out in hate. You see sweat. You turn around, facing West.
“The spirit of dark embers does not make miracles, Adherent. It is borne from the Doom. It works in death.”
“So the human--he is cursed?”
“He took my pact as his own.”
“But--besides--”
“Yes,” you say, “the evil in that work may prove an omen yet. Perhaps the tortured host sees what we do not. They do not need eyes. For ill or aid, he is remarkable in this. Doom and Death.”
“Doom and Death,” the Adherent answers.
“Doom and Death,” the Adjunct mutters.
---
The battle at the fetid hollow took the day to cut through. The Adherent watched atop the beasts of burden as you and your Adherent wedged yourselves together. You fought with no mind to him, for the hour cannot be known to you nor him. The creatures came from the ground, from holes with teeth, with claws like rakes. They wore their bones on the outside, and your axe reeks with ill blood. Their death cries came like waves, enough to take them as a word of their own. You did not know it, but you knew its make. The elder ones--their needless eyes that see the Doom in truth--spoke its like. These are kin to the Cult.
You made a ruin of this place in your hate.
The sun rests on the distant waters where men cannot drink, and deep things wait. The sunset is a color like a bruise. Two hours passed since you sent the Adherent down below. The fire in his throat went quiet long ago. You cannot hear him now. You feel the Adjunct’s beady eyes on you. Grieving, you step below the sands.
When the light leaves you, the shadows guide you still. The corpses come fewer and fewer. If the world you knew were not a maze itself, you would be lost. You are Dark Iron. You know the deep. Though you are a world away, the earth and darkness is your kingdom. This is but a wound.
Water is a poison here. It seeps from soft walls. It tries to curdle skin and steel alike. As if the rock itself were scarred, the passage all around is knit with criss-cross sinew. Corpses of the wicked things lay bashed and bleeding on the ground--the Adherent’s work is good. Still, you cannot lie, you saw how the wretched moved. Teeth small and sharp within the ground eats at their corpses. Chitin, eyes, and brains smooth over--into the floor.
These things do not know death like you do.
You find him propped against a wall. His breath is out of order. You go to him, and at first he does not see you. His eyes are dark. At your touch he seizes. He reaches for your weapon. It is too easy to stop him.
“I am sorry--Honored Aspirant--a rest--the fire will take this poison! I will rise! I will--”
The wound at his arm is shallow and sticky. There is no fire in his blood. He fights it.
“The thing ahead is clever, but I will rise, Honored Aspirant! I will rise!”
“Be still,” you say. His honor makes him twist. With a breath’s press you push him down, “--find the Mountain.”
“No!” he screams, “I will not--no! I don’t--I cannot die! I will not--”
“Doom and Death,” you say.
“NO!”
“You cannot know the hour,” you say with words like flux and dust, “there is no time for war in you. Let the fire rise. Let yourself be like stone.” You place one hand upon his head, and through your mitt you feel him shake.
“Find the mountain, brother.”
His voice is low, his lungs do not give air.
“I do not want to die. Aspirant--” Even here he gives your honored name. “Not in this place--I have not known--I have not known a path or honor.”
“We do not rise for ourselves, Adherent.”
“Please--I do not want--”
His chest cannot give him air. You feel the heat fade from his body. He goes heavy in the Change, as flesh returns to rock. You put your head beside his. You pray that he may hear.
“Adherent to the Trials,” you say to whatever burns within him, “by your deeds, so do you rise.”
You place your hand to his fevered forehead.
“By the Law.”
You place your hand to his blinded eyes.
“By the Fire.”
You place your hand to his stony chest.
“By the Mountain. I name you risen by all rights earned in war, against the fate that hangs above you.”
The body sinks in your hands.
“By Doom and Death.”
You rise from the earth. You turn toward darkness--in the chamber yet ahead. There is where he found his Doom. You are Dark Iron, but the evil here makes it so you cannot see. He was Dark Iron, and yet his day arrived unwelcome. You step forward in the wound. You take your steel in hand and mind. You find the Fire in your blood, and the Mountain in your arms.
The cut drove through blood and bone. For the first time he heard his breath stagger. With axe between broken horn and shoulder, and dagger gripped between the eyes, he spoke:
“Do it then.”
Entry 132:
From the Mother Mountain the entourage of the Aspirant received a parcel. Per tradition I demanded its destruction, as aid of such can never be given so brazenly. However, the attendant caste informed me of its purpose. I delight in noting that duty bade this a permissible turn of code. As the Aspirant took his parcel, his face broke into a furious and undignified spat.
“What is this?!” the Aspirant spoke in anger, the Element rising in his grip. A credit to the Adherent who carried the message, for I have often seen the least of their sort cow at these displays. When the Aspirant learned of the parcel’s source, I saw at last the trap spring in its honest hate.
From the package the Aspirant removed an armament, one failed and thus unworthy of note beyond this entry. The helmet bore its history thus: by the shape and markings we knew it from an era before the City, by its color we knew it to be Dark Iron and precious untainted stock before the Usurper’s taint. I note this only so that in the event of Doom that it be recovered for repurposing. Its failure stood above the rest; the ornamental horn on one side snapped, and between the eyes the mark of a hewing blow cracked the face into halves. To my chagrin the Adherent spoke:
“From the Mountain the Aspirants forsworn matron offers Task: to mend this worthless metal, and see the helm destroyed in full. May this Task be as fruitless as your own. May the shadow within--”
“Cease,” the Aspirant spoke. For a while the Aspirant merely held the helmet in his hands, a hesitation most unseemly. When at last he stirred, he bid the Adherents thus:
“Tears,” the Aspirant spoke, and the attendant caste brought the blood as bid.
In his grip the Aspirant held the blood of the Mountain, the fairest gift of the Master--righteous is his fire, we will suffer his return--until it bled from his naked hand. I saw the taint of flesh in the gift, a heresy from the Aspirant’s own flesh. I screamed in protest at the blaspheme, but again I protest in vain. With blood and blood the Aspirant spanned the seam of the broken helm, until a scar hideous and molten bridged the eyes. The Aspirant spoke the words of fire, and rose the burning helm aloft with rage in his gaze. When the mending was complete, I bid him to destroy the thing as demanded.
“A Task from without the Council or Queen cannot bid my hand to destroy, sniveling Adjunct--” the Aspirant spoke. His Doom yet comes, “--this helm is mine by rights of blood, by house, and craft. No longer is it burdened by the forgotten, by the unworthy. No longer shall this steel bear shame of failure. I claim it. For if my mother wishes to hasten my Doom, then she shall also hasten my ascendance.”
The Aspirant in his vainglorious arrogance placed the failure on his crown, and called South, toward the Mountain.
“DEATH AND DOOM TO ALL WHO OPPOSE ME. DEATH AND DOOM. BY THIS ACT MAY I BE REMEMBERED. MAY I BRING HONOR TO THIS WORK.”
Stepping across the Emberglades in the dark did little for Ouron’s hopes. The well tended trees and menagerie stirred suspiciously in the shadows. Each sound in the nocturne journey set his old neck taut and sore. His lengthy, chapped ears cooled painfully listening for the intruding snap of a twig or footfalls paced within his own.
His heart rapped against his ribs as his nerves grabbed him. Eyes on the tower, he quickened his steps. Faster. Quick. His hand gripped at the broach cinching his cloak as it flapped behind him. The tower seemed so far away. The tower seemed so dark. Its midnight shade cast ground and gaze to darkness. Blindly, fumbling, he stepped by pairs up the entrance rise. Huffing-fiddling-useless hands! It’s not even locked! It’s not even-
SLAM.
The door to Sanarissa’s tower shut behind him. He could not hear it echo through its rise and fall; just breathing dragged loud, clawing lines to his lungs. He slumped to the ground, hand going to his stomach, There was no scar beneath his fingers, but scars are memories first.
That searing cut.
That human’s eyes.
That tower--that human.
He stayed there for a while.
Climbing the tower did little for Ouron’s knees. The warp stone some fifty feet below glowed welcoming and friendly. The memory of the Night stopped him. A sabotaged teleport to one’s private study was an old trick, a crude trick, and for any other case might be casually ignored.
“Exercise...it’s exercise--” he huffed.
Cresting the final stair he read the name aloud.
“Sanarissa Firewing”
...
...
“Never was a summoner, hm?” he chided himself to a grin, then a frown.
“Nearly seven thousand years and I can count the times I’ve entered another’s study unbidden on one h-” he said walking through the fine conjured arch. Immediately a batch of eyes glowered from the desk some dozen feet away.
Azatoth roiled at the sight of him. The changeling’s edges lapped and rippled at the air. Little bits of bone and gristle rose from its loose black flesh and sunk just as quick. At the center of the coiled, stewing mass glared a cat’s head--most of a cat’s head--if cats had so many eyes, far too many teeth, and a mouth that turned on an axis. The sound it made bubbled from its core; growl and whine and hiss all churned and gurgled out of him.
Ouron froze with one hand spread in front of him, a reflexive shield and empty threat.
“Azatoth,” he started. The once-cat rose its back parts high and lowered its tone to something sinister.
His words were shallow, soft, and pleading.
“You remember--I am Ouron. Sanarissa and I are...”
A pop came from the beast’s front. A long paw, and long dark claws grew from the mass.
“--we are friends. Azatoth,” he said.
The first step here came harder than every step before it in this tower, but Ouron approached the desk. A protest of spittle and twisted, hateful whinnying met him, but Ouron took another step.
“I want to help her, Azatoth. I want to bring her back,” he said as gently as he could. Whether Azatoth could hear him or not, it doubled up in size and furor. Ouron’s throat closed. He took a step.
“There’s something here--I want to look at it--” he tried to say. He felt a strike whisk past his outstretched hand. With that, he stepped again.
Ouron turned his hand to a loose and gentle cup--spit and dealthy screeching ripped past him--he felt the eerie liquid flesh prickle at his fingertips as he guided it toward the creature’s maw. He could not stop the Eye from showing him its emnity, the wicked magic in its form, or the blasphemy that made its body so--he did not need the Eye to know what made it Azatoth.
He did not need the Eye to see its many eyes watering from pain.
Gingerly, slowly, Azatoth rolled its head in his hand. He settled to something warm and soft, no larger than his favorite cat. Ouron bent his knees to soothe it, but could not remember where he learned to do this.
“A little longer. A little longer. I know, I know.”
“I miss her too.”
Sanarissa’s study could have been a testament to her life, but Ouron knew better than to say. Books, alembics, and so much paper filled the space as he searched.
“Seven thousand years and I never had a tower either. Suppose that’s my fault too--” he squinted at a book and shook his head, “--no one wants to give an engineer a tower. Well, good for her. A tower at...how old is Sanarissa?” he stopped to think. When he shook the thought free, he saw the mirror.
Waiting on a shelf and propped still by a pair of neutralized metal rods stood the Stygian Mirror. In the night its umbral magic scintillated in its polished face. Taking it put a shiver down his back, and setting it on the desk turned his stomach.
He talked to Azatoth, since he seemed to listen.
“The cult that held this mirror believed it let them speak to the ‘goddess of the black moon’ and through her, they said they spoke through the stars.” Ouron grimaced.
“They were elves. I’m an elf. And you--” he said to the Mirror, “--are more saturated with Umbral power than ever. So--” he looked to Azatoth, who mewed. Ouron’s chest dropped. He rubbed his forehead with his fingertips.
The memory met his hand again.
Never again.
“Communing through the umbral shadow; arcane and magic mixed, and me without a spell to cast,” he said rolling up his sleeve.
At his touch the voices tore off chunks of focus. He felt his mouth open wide in a shout, but did not hear his voice.
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Coming from that place felt like death, and for good reason. The things that lived there could barely be called alive. Only darkness and pain could grow there, and only through spite could they thrive. Coming home meat remembering what the light made. All around him the grass greened. With a little coaxing the sunleaf trees could soon sprout bulbs of pink and yellow. Life waited with plenty, ready to thrive, ready for what came next.
“Where…” said a whispered, wooden voice ten paces back. Ouron turned about.
The splintering treant loped to catch up. One crooked and curled hand stuck halfway above its fading agate core beset by beady hollow holes. Each movement killed it, little by little, with bits of blackened timber catching on the soft ground. Ugly sap rimmed its empty shoulder-hole; a fatal wound in timing only. Ouron hoped it felt no pain. The others were already gone, and in such--
“Wheeere…?” it asked again, voice creaking.
“It’s a special place to me. I want to show it to you. You’re--”
A tree. A tree made to move. The agate is the only thing that makes it so.
He huffed.
“It’s for special things, like you.”
“Oh!” it said with a shake. A snap cracked beneath it, another root buckled from the weight of living. It hit the ground before Ouron could hold it, roll it over, check the agate.
Still glowing.
“Hello…!” it said.
“Hello Agate,” Ouron said, “Let’s--” he heaved, jagged ragged knives of wood cut through his hands, “--get you up.”
When it could not stand, could not walk, Ouron leaned against the treant. Burning sweat slicked his face. He heard his breathing huff and chuff. A bird sang just ahead.
A stranger grove for miles around rose from the tall, tall grass. Its trees were white and violet. They towered indifferent to a life’s work, and to his father’s work. They lived for thousands of years alone as intended. Shadebough grown a world away from home stood here, and here they would remember.
The weight of moving forward came so bitterly, carrying the little life left as far as he could.
He reached the edge with robes and chest a bleeding tangle, his old arms screaming from their joints. Setting Agate down--letting them stop here--he needed to go farther--
“Oh…”
The treant uncovered his eyes, there in the dark wood. Its hollow sockets cracked wider looking at the canopy. Ouron got to his knees, then fell to a seat.
“Do you like it, Agate?”
The treant did not answer at first. It did not answer for a long time. The gemstone faded dark, and he hung his head.
“What am I doing--”
“Pretty…..” Agate said. It reached its arm out, pushing itself to an angle. Ouron helped it upright.
“I’m glad--”
“I’m glad you’re here, Agate,” Ouron said closing his eyes. The cool, dark ground slowed his heart. The shade shielded his broken skin from the hot sun. A slow breeze rolled through the grove. It took away his breath.
He reached out with eyes closed, touching his hand to Agate’s sickly black bark. Knowing whipped his hand away, opened his eyes, shot air too fast into his chest.
At the edge of the quiet grove came a clink, a clink, a thud.
There in the dark grew a little dark thing--so richly purple it seemed almost pitch--it rose beset by beady hollow holes. Despite the dark, away from light, it opened all at once. A royal bulb with leaves gilded gold grows. A lifetime began as another one closed.
“Can you hear me, old friend? It’s me, you remember?”
The walk south took little, and gave much. He passed his nights beneath the sunleaf boughs between their comely roots. Some days turned on without him waking, preferring to dream in the soft rolling heat of daylight. The roads guided less and less, meandering like a lazy windblown cloud as he was. Their paths of overgrown stone once told him where his people walked. Between the lines, he found more room to stretch.
In this mind he almost passed it by. Still as stone, midnight blue, a marker for another year; the obelisk rose from the earth to nearly twice his height. When he remembered its face, he stopped. Alone, together in a field of swaying golden grasses, he raised a hand.
“How long has it been?” he called, and like the past long gone the stone stayed silent.
How long had it been since he walked so carefully, so comfortably, past this very spot? How different, how similar, how utterly unfamiliar. Two lives walking to one point removed by life after life, and so much pain. He looked upon the runestone, found the space made for his hand. There he hovered, hesitation, until at last contact refrain.
The etched enameled layers scintillated interlocking strokes from conjured slab on slab.
“Centimeters thick, no more or less. The core must be exactly so--build it eight times over eight. Face it south--” the shapes, the words, the meanings rose together. Thousands of stranded syllables rippled as his spell brushed past. Conjured from the stuff of order--exactly so.
“Exactly so…”
Still the words turned silently. The mighty Ban, sentry in its absolute form, said nothing. The trace of it sat ready, as it was always meant to be, but it slept still. One eye open: vigilant at rest.
His lungs let go. His hand parted, and he soon followed.
A most dishonorable, most shameful, and of course damnable passage may never follow tonight’s affair. In pursuit of the hated Brood, the adjunct once again came to the opportunity to strike against the usurper worms. Yet--yet! It fills my heart with righteous shame, no ounce of pity, to try to account for the night.
As expected, as hoped, the aspirant once again met the drake in battle. Here the failure begins. Nary a blow landed true, and what is more, the aspirant’s own blood might have SAVED the spawn if not for OUTSIDER INTERVENTION. Let the record show this was done with no request made, but let the shame fall as it should.
What followed can only be summed in simple terms. Failure. Abject failure, denial of duty--I struggle to even sum it.
When the beast retreated from its wounds, the aspirant and outsiders followed, and here is where the worst of the dishonors fell.
First, with the Brood cornered, the aspirant FREELY offered the kill to one outside the mountain. An elf, the dragonsworn of earlier entries, given precedent on some rubbish personal history. The aspirant forgets it is OUR history that remains paramount. He forgets! He forgets, no matter his sympathies with the Red, that WE are first. Shame to the hand that is slowed by a weak heart! Shame to the soldier who bears any weight but the Mountain!
Second, with this lapse the Brood escaped to their foul pocket realm. A missed kill. A SURE miss, and a failure in the honored art of war. At this retreat, the aspirant threw his spear to the ground. Such a show could be excused, albeit with demerit, if not for the following.
Third, and with the third blow let this record strike him down, the aspirant failed in holding our law above all. With the mother gone, her waiting host-aberrant and traitorous-sat in their eggs unguarded. Even now I shudder to think how their minds turned inside those shells! Hundreds of minds pressed against the empire, against the Queen, against all life!
Yet even in this petty honor the aspirant would not act in his duty. Stopped by an elf, another elf, and THE BROOD ITSELF (the imposter Myralion D’hrvati)--STOPPED IN HIS DUTY. I nearly shrieked aloud, dear Council, and would have if the aspirant had not made a pass to keep our ways. He spoke the Rite of the Ring, and demanded his duel--
RESCINDED!
RESCINDED HIS DUEL!
MAY THE HEAVY LAW BE KEPT SO. MAY IT CRUSH THOSE TOO WEAK TO KEEP IT.
MAY THE WORDS OF IRON BIND US ALL, SO THAT TOGETHER WE ARE CHAIN.
Back turned, a pittance of Grudge uttered, a FAILURE. FIE.
I nearly bore the words of Doom, paused only in knowing its manifest on his soul already. I demanded, on the oath, his justification:
“What you say is true, Adjunct. May the Doom draw closer on me tonight, but I am already fated. You saw their faces just as I did. Even if the elf that stepped forward meant to die for nothing--less than nothing! Death to the Brood! DOOM AND DEATH--”
I will not give the aspirant the justification of righteousness in the anger spoke after this. If his memory is true, he can only damn himself. Yet after this outrage, he continued his petty defense:
“They would not keep the duel. Even if it meant using their bones to break the clutch, there would be no honor. Whatever flimsy alliances this company keeps would only mistake me as a traitor. No justification, no retribution. That is the outsider’s way: they ignore our laws, our history, and our blood. I will not end this night with a mere Grudge. There will be an answer, adjunct.”
On this the fated adjunct spoke true. There shall be an answer, my Council, and let it be death.
The Aspirant took great interest in the rumor spread by one Sanarissa Firewing. As expected for such a claimant, to reject an opportunity to strike at such a despicable foe as Neltharion’s aberrant spawn would create cause for highest demerit. When asked his thoughts, Aspirant responded in acceptable terms.
“Fie on them, adjunct. May this venture into Modgud’s victory redouble the council’s ire of me. I will strike the dragons from their den, and retake the whole of the city if it means reminding the world of the Queen’s might.”
I asked the Aspirant on which queen he spoke, and he thus responded:
“Both, of course. May Moira inherit the honored Modgud’s wrath. Mayhap I will bring such back to the city. No doubt your masters would approve?”
Entry 79:
Our arrival at the Vermillion Redoubt brought me little pleasure, and I complained of the eyesore left by the Twilight’s Hammer. The Aspirant claims to never seen the Bastion of Twilight, but familial association suggests otherwise.
The most immediate suspicions rose from the Aspirant at the appearance of a “friendly” Twilight acting under the pseudonym Myralion D'hrvati. I later asked the Aspirant his thoughts.
“Duplicity is in their wretched blood. That our respective cultist trusts such a thing only sullies her senses. If not for tact, I’d have skewered the thing down its throat.”
Such claims, though, may prove unsustainable boast. While the Aspirant did engage in battle, and in honorable form, he claimed nary a single kill. When downed the Aspirant leapt upon the foe in righteous fury to sunder any chance of a clean death. A commendation in spirit if not in form. Death to the Destroyer and all his works.
Such vigor did not extend to the fallen Red among the dragons gathered, and I was surprised to hear the Aspirant award such beasts with one of our own rites. At camp, I pressed him on this:
“If the Adjunct is so keen on finding my weaknesses, then he will know this: the Red have suffered great--though not as great--at the hands of the orcs, the brood, and the cult. In truth they may be the only flight worth respect. They have an honor of sorts, and was it not Vaelastrasz that set the other races upon our closest foes? Did he not stand against the hated Nefarian? Few Thanes can claim such, and not a one among the Adjunct.”
I forbade such impunity be named henceforth. A demerit. However, may his statement be held in the record.
Entry 80:
We make camp before entering the city. Oh mighty Modgud, your power still seeps from the enemy’s barren hold. The Aspirant set the attendants at once to preparing the travel-smithy. Fresh from the skirmish, and scowling all the while, I watched as the Aspirant plied his skill. Drawn from the store were the following (save essential flux and oil):
Dark Iron, 45th depth band, heated by the Element into a haft.
Dark Iron, 60th depth band, heated by the Element and made impure with Twilight blood. I protested blasphemy.
Twilight scales, flank, harvested from the recently slain and treated to be supple. Wrapped about the haft.
Dragon’s Eye, etched with harvested talon and set into the pike’s head. Aspirant shows little talent for etching, but I suspect this was a simple imbuement of like-essence.
In his work the Aspirant employed methods of the Old kind. When I suggested that the Clan’s techniques would earn him demerit, he responded by spitting at my feet. When asked if such a work would be his Masterpiece, the Aspirant threatened my person.
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I need to work on character description, and I’m sad I’m not good enough at arting to participate in the drawing memes going around, so send me a number and a character (preferably an OC) and I will write a paragraph or two describing:
Them as a child
Them several years past their main adventure
Their parent(s)
Their laugh
Their crying
Their interactions with their children, if they have them
Their interactions with their pets, if they have them
Their interactions with their significant other(s), if they have them
Their interactions with their best friend
Their interactions with an enemy/rival
Their interactions with a stranger (feel free to say who the stranger might be! wink wink)
Please keep in mind that, however hard my muse may argue something or however confidently they make a statement, they can be wrong. It’s my muse’s opinion, and my muse talking, and their perception is skewed.
Do not feel like everything out of my character’s mouth is the truth, or that I’m godmodding.
Suncrown, Sunstar, Fairbreeze. One was a miner's son with the best arm and a cool temperament. One didn't like him. One was an old scourge veteran, and thank the Light for that. None of them fought like this. None of them fought together, if at all. Lux talked with him about it. There wasn't much to talk about.
So, it's the van?
Yes. Yes.
The three walked out with the rest of the warm air.
For the realm, then.
Lux still held the little bundle in his arms. Hm?
"They put in for it, with this being It and all."
Laid across the table, a banner:
A field of red, dark red with purple. In a corner a black hand stabs a stone opposite, and on its blade sit four bleeding heads. One elven, one elven, one elven, and one human. Across the bottom, in common.
"We'll make it right."
You don't have to run it, the normal colors would do fine.
Suncrown, Sunstar, Fairbreeze. One was a miner's son with the best arm and a cool temperament. One didn't like him. One was an old scourge veteran, and thank the Light for that. None of them fought like this. None of them fought together, if at all. Lux talked with him about it. There wasn't much to talk about.
So, it's the van?
Yes. Yes.
The three walked out with the rest of the warm air.
For the realm, then.
Lux still held the little bundle in his arms. Hm?
"They put in for it, with this being It and all."
Laid across the table, a banner:
A field of red, dark red with purple. In a corner a black hand stabs a stone opposite, and on its blade sit four bleeding heads. One elven, one elven, one elven, and one human. Across the bottom, in common.
"We'll make it right."
You don't have to run it, the normal colors would do fine.
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“You do not command us. You do not call on us. If you seriously believe yourself a Warder, then serve.”
“The Vale and its druids move only at our own decision. Nothing less.”
“That you took this power and purpose is your own doing. Until the elders decide what to make of you: find yourself a place to meditate on what you’ve heard today.”
“May the mother moon and earth below give you guidance. You may leave us.”
Ouron drummed his pointer finger on his travel desk, tapping to a steady, irritated beat. The arclamp across his tent rolled light outward in faint ripples, and the taste of the night’s dinner--roots (again)--stuck to his teeth. In the mostly-dark Ouron slouched further and further down his chair until the folds of his night robe propped him back up.
Ping!
The flash of light that passed up and between his ears faded when he realized Catalon was trying to get his attention.
“Good evening Catalon.”
“Good morning, sir” said the little orb of brass. He tried not to look at it. He didn’t sound the same--the voice was wrong--bad work. It was 1st today, most likely, more bad news. Damn the boy. He’d talk to “Prime” or whatever his name was tomorrow.
“Morning?” he asked. Did they botch the timing seque--
“It’s the third hour, begging your pardon, sir.” 1st said, bringing tomorrow with him.
“What if I was asleep, Catalon? You’d have woken me?” he asked.
1st cleared his throat, “Sir.”
Losing the starch in his ears Ouron rubbed the bridge of his nose, hand drifting toward the right. Two months and he still hadn’t touched it.
Catalon continued, “Master Irundelle asked me to forward his findings, sir.”
Ouron waved his hand in a lazy circle.
“He regrets to inform you his studies are thus far inconclusive, but several leads may yet-”
“Very good, Catalon,” Ouron said cupping a hand over his old eye, “is there anything else?”
The simulacrum coughed again.
“You don’t need to do that” Ouron said.
“Sir?”
“You don’t have lungs, Catalon.”
“I’m--I’m sorry sir, I can-”
Ouron sighed, “Nevermind, Catalon.”
“Sorry” he added.
“To your question sir, I’ve indexed some names within the Guard whose credentials might prove valuable for references--after the war, of course.”
We should all be so lucky.
“Very good, Catalon. Retain the index at this location, and prepare for review in the morning--later. In the morning”
“Yes, sir.”
“Catalon.”
The image coughed again. Ouron’s eyes went taught and narrow to the little projection of his junior self. In the languid, vaporous light of the Eye doubled in its shared socket. The hologram flickered--blinked--as he opened his mouth. Then he sighed.
“That will be all.”
“Very well sir” said the archive, and with a miniature bow the orb flipped its projector shut.
Ouron sat back again. Irundelle’s third week of research, and still nothing of note in druidic study.
“So here we are” he said to himself.
A lost lifetime of wisdom, the mind of a practiced scholar, and yet the best he could do now was say, “Three?”
A thud thudded outside the tent, an oaken hand slapped through the entry-flap. Two hoisted itself into its frame, little twigs snagging on the fabric. The bit of moonstone embedded between his lopsided eyes buzzed.
“Me?” Two said.
Ouron softly clapped his hands together, then buried his face in them, propping his elbows at his knees.
“No, Two. Three,” he said into his palms, then looked up. “Where is Three?”
The ent leaned to one side, then tapped its head.
“Me!” Two said again, happily. Another thud outside, this one only peeked through the door. There was Three. His moonstone was a little brighter, but a bad color.
“Me?” said Three.
Ouron sighed, “Hello Three.”
“Me?” said Three.
“Yes, you.”
“Me?” said Two.
“No, not you, you’re Two,” Ouron said, then pointed to Three, “He’s Three.”
“Me?!” said Three.
Two had had enough, and turned to Three. “No!!!” he cried. “You!” and slapped his brother.
“Stop--”
“Me!”
“Me!!!”
No, you!!”
Ouron rubbed his temples. The treants started leaking again. Little sap tears down their woody faces.
“Everybody stop” Ouron said into his hands.
They forgot what they were doing.
“Everybody get water” Ouron said, pressing his fingertips into his hairline.
“Me?” they asked.
“Yes” he said.
The ents turned away happily secure in their respective identities, Three forgetting he was snagged on the tent entrance and tearing it and the arclamp off with him.
The air felt nicer here. A little warmer. Maybe Spring could come without Ouron Nethermoon’s help.
Then why was he here?
The sounds of the world sleeping outside went inward.
How long ago did they leave?
How long ago...?
The teachers tell me you’ve neglected your spellwork.
You can go home after you’ve made it levitate like everyone else, Ouron. No excuses.
You don’t need to cry, you just need to try harder.
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