A Call for Story-Lovers

[Acacea]

A tale has been spreading from the streets of Leringard... it is a small one, and most say, a silly one, yet bit by bit it is retold with varying details of actors and voices. Many preface it in the usual manner of stating from where they heard it - from a sailor between ships...who heard it passed from a beggar...who among others was given it and a brightly colored scarf by a halfling gypsy lass with a big dog near the docks, who was absurdly telling the young man accompanying her that no, it would not be better to simply write it on a big sign, for then the story would not be free, "whatever that meant," many might add.
 
 Yet those who do not throw away the passed-on story or the varying sparks of color in fabric (for there are always those who do not receive such things well, and end the chain then and there) share it willingly, handing over the scarf that inevitably came with it as well, though for many different reasons - some for the touch of magic in her voice, and some for the simple joy of telling, and still more feeling foolish solely for the hope of being fed.
 
 For it seems that all versions lead back to Leringard and a halfling, who gave a touch of color to all who would hear her, to pass on and on and on to all who would hear them in turn, and be returned in a month's time with stories of their own. "Warm meals promised from what they can scrounge for all those what share a tale or a tune," tellers swear, though with most not quite understanding the request to pass along the cheery scarves (which she seems to have a never-ending supply of) until the day came to return them in a few months and tell her where they had traveled.

Though the accents, words, and attitudes of the tellers differ greatly, the premise of the story remains similar through all its different versions.


[SIZE=16]

[SIZE=18]Once there was, and once there was not,[/SIZE] a flame that flickered among seven times seven dying embers that had consumed elven forests of ancient oak near a shallow woven ocean underfoot.
 
 The fire had grown petulant among its sleeping brethren, and began to resent the comings and goings of the giants that fed it only scraps of numbers and muttered conversation.
 
 It complained aloud one day, in a voice like the hissing of a sleeping dragon's breath, or the sigh of the bellows before the forge, "Where have they gone, who rode on swirling leaves and crests of sea-foam, the windows to other worlds, the walkers of many ages?"
 
 Remnants of coals wheezed together, coughing soot in a whisper as fleeting and feeble as an old man's words at the end of his life, "Our bed grows cold, and they live in eternal winter."
 
 Silence reigned over its ever-present demesne of nothing, and everything, until the fire snapped again to life in a sound like the spark of iron to flint, or the heady rush of a candle wick taking to flame. "Let them sit before me with gifts of life and laughter, and we shall warm them while they drink mightily of things that were and were not, that are and are not, and that might and will not be."
 
 Nine coals, plus twenty and minus three, glowed warm at the thought and then dim again, like an expanse of marigolds blooming and fading to a short and early summer. "Wind cannot fill their bellies, which are gnawed endlessly by hunger, and spirits cannot make living the dead."
 
 As a great wyrm of heat, it uncoiled and drew itself up to recite, an emperor on a throne of ashes, "Body without soul will wither and die, while bodiless soul will soar free and fly."
 
 In the ever-shifting temper of the very young or very old, it added with the consoling warmth of a mother soothing children, "Give them to eat the sea maid's scaled children, and the deep earth's blind herd, and they will slake their thirst with fallen empires, and wily tricksters, and dreams that walked the world, until all have wept in sorrow, and all have laughed in merriment. Let all remember what was, and imagine what will be."
 
 Elemental roses bloomed in the faces of its bedmates, and then the petals fell from their eyes in mourning and wisped into nothingness below. "We no more leave this hall than a mountain leaves the earth; they will not hear, they will not come."
 
 Though it paced, and though it pondered, and though it wished with all its might, a solution to their final obstacle did not present itself. Its rages went unheard, its genius unwitnessed, its soul unfed, until it too began to at last admit defeat, sinking back into the drowsing simmer that it had woken from.
 
 Then, a great creaking echoed in the distance, like that of a ship pulling ponderously into the harbor of a kingdom in the sky, or the heavy lid of a chest being slowly lifted for all to see its dubious treasures.
 
 A thousand-tongued creature stirred within the room, announcing its coming with the slamming of thunder clapping open every door within the heavens, and its voice was the sound of centuries of secrets it had heard but never told as it sang without rhyme or verse. "I will bring them, who hears all things and travels all lands! I will bring them to you."
 
 They heard, those sleeping brothers in their frozen bed, and remembered, and they roared to life, joining together and leaping to catch the beast as it whirled through their domain, but it merrily evaded the grasp of the flames as it had countless times before, for its body was the taste of sea chanteys and the wistful sighs of harp strains, and its breath was the whisper that gives all things voice.
 
 "I am the king of the court of embers," the flames remembered, and understood, "and the hand of change that creates and destroys in equal measure; the sparks of imagination of all peoples live within my eyes, and my cloak is the chaotic frenzy of the world's core. I am all that burns!" With a last shout of the inferno that levels the forest, they leaped again for the tail of the laughing traveler in a shower of belligerent sparks, rebelling against their confinement as the memory of wildfire returned.

The wanderer sped unhindered back through the cold world it had come from,  but a mote of passion clung to the beard of a mountain clan's mining tune, and drama to the claw of the mongrelman under the bed; sparks of joy and creativity were carried astride gossip from across the seas and elegies for forgotten eras. "Come with us!" they cried to all who would hear as the wind carried them over the streets of giants paved with the storm witch's frozen get.

"How will we know them?" asked one, sheltering its precious heat with the warmth of a lullaby that cloaked its life securely.

The rich laughter of the man a boy had not yet become rang loudly with the unrestrained giggling of a dozen children that have grown and passed plucking stolen apples from someone else's trees. "Every sailor has a mate whose gaffer was lost on the pirate Gale, and every fisherman has a lass that swam away. Every mother feeds her children the visions of her mother's mother's mother. There is not a secret that does not yearn to be told, nor a weight that is not lighter the more that carry it, nor a man with a treasure that doesn't long to boast. They will hear, and they will come... One or one hundred, someone will come..."

Their calling was whispered to the storytellers that hide in the hearts of all that draw breath, to feed their bellies, their souls, and tale-starved regnant that lives in the torches lit at the borders between land and sea, the candle at the bedside, the heart of the forge, and the waiting hearth of the Leringard Arms.

You have heard, but will you come?

[/COLOR][/SIZE][/I]

[SIZE=10]((/Thursday, August 2 - Leringard Arms - Tellers and Listeners Alike - PM If Directions Are Needed\\))[/SIZE]

[Rowana]

Standing in the quiet market musing, the red head watches the few people present with dreary faces. Melancholy colors, melancholy faces, everything tinged with grey. Shaking her head slightly she whispers something softly to herself. She closes her eyes and begins to hum a melody. It begins softly, but grows stronger in subtle tones. Drawing a touch of Weave to her, she opens her eyes and begins to focus her song. In the small clearing before her, illusory plants begin to rise from the ground. Starting as sprouts, curled and weak, they straighten and stretch. Her voice continues to strengthen, and the plants wave in the illusory wind. Each develops a bloom and opens slowly with the rhythm of her song. They open into brilliant lilacs of purple as her song steadies, it's strength established. She turns her concentration to the children passing by, looking for grey faces made colorful again. So many of these littles have never spied such a sight, vibrant flowers nestled comfortably in a field. Each of these lilacs grew in a garden's order, to spell out what she cannot easily say. “Hope” the flowers say, there is hope. She lets her song slowly slip away, and the flowers shimmer and vanish back into the ground they rose from.  

She passes a few pieces of rock candy to children as they look on to the last bits of color. She leans down and whispers near to the awestruck faces,  “Come f-fill your bellies, an your hearts at th-the Storyt-telling. T-tell us about your h-hopes and d-dreams.” She smiles again at the little ones, before they are tugged away by anxious and less trusting parents. She leaves the market the way she came to try and brighten a few faces elsewhere.

[Lalaith Va'lash]

*In the streets of Leringard a swirl of color makes a scene, as a gypsy fills the snow filled air with carefree sound
But, though the weather is cold and her breath breaths white,  pink cheeks don't take her down.*  

*Bracelets, bangles, and bells, relics of days spent with the caravan grace her fragile wrists.
While she dances with renewed spirit and sings of an event that cannot be missed.*

"Five plus two minus seven plus three days until they all return,
but will you be warmly snug in Leringard, to hear of what they did learn"

*She pulls her violin to her frozen cheek, its warm music fills the air.*
"You've now heard the story too, so, will you come and share?"

[/SIZE]

*********