Tag: character

Night of the Hag

Doste peered anxiously out the window. The moon was high, and there were a scant few clouds to hide its light. There was no one about at this time of night, but he remained nervous all the same. He drummed his fingers on the windowsill.

“Is this truly necessary?” he asked over his shoulder. His wife, Brynn, sat by the fireplace with their guest, and his eyes focused on their reflection in the glass. “We could think this over another night.”

The cloaked figure sat hunched opposite Brynn, poring over items in a deep wicker basket, and paused, silently looking first to Doste then to his wife.

“We have thought on this,” said Brynn, her voice soothing and warm. “We have thought and spoken and prayed, but this will be our chance.”

Doste felt himself frown slightly and a breath hissed from his nostrils, but he didn’t offer further protest. He joined them by the fire, and his gaze fell to the cloaked figure who had begun arranging items from the basket onto a small, whittled tray and grinding them with a mortar and pestle. Some of the reagents he recognized – whiteleaf powder, blackroot stems, Kingfoil moss – but some of the others being ground made his stomach uneasy.

“Yes, well,” he muttered, “I had imagined the help of a medicine woman in more of a…traditional sense.”

The figure cackled, and what little light from the fire reached into her hood briefly showed a face with unsettling features. “What I bring you,” laughed the hag, “is stronger than any medicine or faith you will find.” There was the smell of swamp water when she spoke, and her voice cracked against the ear like broken branches. She mixed the last of her components and brushed these into a separate bowl of liquid, viscous as blood.

Doste looked to his wife, but Brynn met his eyes easily with a smile, undisturbed by the creature’s presence. Her warmth never ceased, and he took such comfort in that. He allowed himself a deep breath, and together they waited for the hag to finish her concoction. When she had, she set the bowl between them and reached out with a gnarled hand, palm up.

“My payment,” she said simply.

“Oh, of course,” said Brynn, almost embarrassed. She reached into the folds of her dress and came away with a folded piece of cloth, which she handed to the hag. The hag looked it over quickly by the light of the fire and, seemingly content, stowed it within her cloak. Doste wore his confusion on his face, but Brynn discreetly shook her head at him.

“Place it beneath your bed, leaving it undisturbed for one week,” instructed the hag. “After your next bleeding, have your husband take you. Then, you will bring the bowl into the wilderness to the north and empty its contents onto the roots of an oak which bears a scar in its bark. When this is done, well…” Though her face was hidden in the darkness of her hood, the two could hear lips sliding back over wet teeth in the way of a grin. “Enjoy motherhood,” she concluded.

Brynn nodded solemnly, though she softly quaked with an inner excitement. She searched her thoughts for a few moments, struggling for words. “Thank you,” she said finally, the start of tears shimmering in her eyes.

They exchanged nods, the hag collected her things, and had opened the door when Doste stood.

“What if it doesn’t work?” he asked.

She paused in the doorway, the quiet howl of wind behind her, and she turned to face him. Still behind the darkness of her hood, he could feel her eyes on him. She gently cackled. “Then I’d suggest you visit an herbalist, Doste,” she laughed. “Because the problem then would lie not with my aid nor your wife’s womb.”

In the time it took for his cheeks to flush and for him to blink, the doorway was empty and the two were left alone, the hag’s laughter echoing hauntingly on the nighttime breeze. Doste turned to Brynn.

“What did you give her?” he asked.

“All she wanted was a poem on something of my mother’s,” she said. “So, I wrote her an old nursery rhyme I remembered from when I was young onto a piece of her wedding gown.” Brynn shrugged. “Cunning women are strange. But what’s more,” she strode over to her husband and embraced him, “is that we’ll soon have a family, Doste.”

END

This was another character origin I wrote up for someone’s D&D campaign. The first half of it, at least. It goes on to be for a warlock who’s part hag, essentially, but I never finished that bit (gave the notes to him to complete…I think. It was a few years ago.), so the first half is more neatly wrapped up than I otherwise left it.

Anyhoo, more stuff on the way. Hope your days are treating you well. 🙂

Ardan Brokenfoot (& news)

The foothills of the Nettiri Mountains are silent, eternal, and still, but for a howling wind. A roll of thunder rumbles its way across the moonless sky, and the clouds, pregnant with the coming rain, begin to loose their storm on the earth below.

“Aaaauuungh!” Yasha screams. Her breathing is harried, and hair clings to her face heavy with sweat. A woman beside her, Ritu, clasps one hand tightly with her own, and with the other holds Yasha’s face by her chin.

“Shh,” she soothes, “you are strong. Like earth- like the mountain, you are strong.” She moves the hair from Yasha’s eyes. “Now, again. Push. He is almost here.”

“I can’t.”

“You will.”

“I can’t,” she screams again, agony drawing out the word. The whisper of the hut’s deerskin curtain breaks the steadily drumming rain for a moment, revealing a mountainous man in the entrance. The tattoos on his bare chest glisten against the modest firelight within the hut. He huffs out a single excited breath.

“Has he come?” he asks.

“Soon,” says Ritu. “Come, hold her hand. She needs you now.”

The wind gains and hours pass, the screams of childbirth bleed into the howling of the storm outside. Then, of a sudden, the tempest dies and the cry of a newborn boy takes its place. His father, Korg, holds him, the pride clear on his face, but the expression soon sours.

“His foot,” he rumbles. The goliath holds the tender infant gently, the aberrant shrunken foot held aloft on two fingers, displayed like a withered leaf on a healthy vine. “What is wrong with his foot?”

Ritu smiles and shrugs a shoulder. “What is wrong with his foot?”

“How will he run?”

She brushes aside his long hair, revealing half an ear with a large bite mark. “You can still listen.” She smiles again. “At times.”

Korg barks a short laugh, which leaves behind fierce grin. He turns to the boy’s mother and kneels. “What do we call him?”

Yasha beholds her son for a long moment.

“Ardhan,” she whispers at last. “After your grandfather.” She holds his leg and beams brightly. “Ardhan Brokenfoot. A name to give him strength.” She then gestures weakly for a box near her bedside, and Ritu nods. The old woman brings the wooden box, and Yasha draws from it a talisman on an invisibly thin silver chain. The talisman itself is a chip of dark stone, but as the light catches its surface, faintly iridescent markings of an unknown script shine against it. The wind outside begins to swell, and Yasha holds the boy’s forehead to her own before slipping the necklace over his head. “You will have a good life, Ardhan. This will help you find it.”

*

As Ardhan grew, he would come to know the land as well as the corners of his own mind. It was harder for him than most, but that adversity blossomed into a strength few others shared. Nestled within the mountain walls of the Nettiri, it was a land of slate, pine, and storms, but also of voices that came in many shapes. The winds had their song, the village elders had their chants, and even the great pines would drum the air with their crackling boughs. But Ardhan would know more than just these.

In his years walking the mountain forests, he would see figures cloaked in dark mists, eyes dimly aglow beneath ethereal hoods. They never frightened Ardhan, and where they walked more songs would follow. The songs were like a humming melody he could feel in his bones more than he could hear it aloud. He would walk the woods with them, playfully seek them out, and where they ventured he would find strange things like the talisman he’d been given as a baby. He would collect these relics in a light sack and return to show them to his mother and father, though they would pay him no mind.

It was on another day like this that he returned to the village and found a group of strangers speaking to the tribe’s eldest, Grontu. The strangers wore dark mantles and hoods that obscured their faces. When they spoke their hushed whispers to Elder Grontu, his lip curled in disgust. Ardhan didn’t hear very much from his chosen hiding place, but what he did spoke of ancient relics and mystical powers. He held the bag at his side a little more tightly against his body.

“You ask of things you only pretend to know,” Grontu spat angrily. “Heed my warning and depart, or else I-”

Ardhan was pulled suddenly off his feet by his hair, and he landed on his bottom in a small cloud of dust. His mother loomed over him. “What do you think you are doing?” she whispered harshly. “Their words are not for one so small.” Yasha regarded him angrily for a long moment, then held a breath and her face softened. “Head home. Dinner is soon. Go,” she said, giving him a light push. His mother’s eyes were warm, but she was not to be tested on this. So, embarrassed and wiping away tears, the young boy nodded and ran off.

He rounded the last turn and was at the opening to his home when a gentle tremor went through his body. He stopped short, but soon recognized the resonant hum in his bones. Ardhan glanced about and soon saw them – dim, crystal blue eyes glinting at him from the shadows of distant pines. They beckoned him, pulling the at the strings of his spirit with a wordless call as undeniable as gravity. Again he looked about, thought of his mother’s warning, but defiantly tightened the strap of his bag and set off for the woods.

*

Hours later, the sun hung in the sky, threatening to dip below the horizon and painting the sky in warm hues. The chill wind rushed over him as Ardhan made his way back home to his village. This was not the first time playing with the mountain spirits had kept him from home so long, but this time it was sure to enrage his mother after he’d disregarded her intructions. Though as he came close to home, a feeling of dread settled in his stomach like a heavy stone. It was the dry season, but a mist hung in the air and climbed lazily from the ground like smoke.

There was no one here.

He heard voices, but they were quiet, muffled, like he was hearing them through a thick cloth. Ardhan followed the voices in circles all about the village, but found no one. A chill gripped his heart as he realized something. It was slow to come, and it wasn’t true for all of them, but the truth remained: the voices were saying things he’d heard before.

“Their words are not for one so small,” said one, the voice of his mother.

“Come. Hold her hand. She needs you now,” said another, the cunning woman Ritu.

“You ask of things you only pretend to know,” came yet another, Elder Grontu.

“He has come?” the proud voice of his father, Korg.

Ardhan stood there in the center of his village for minutes, his home now reduced to a hollow land of ghosts and echoes.

Those next hours and what would be the next several years passed over Ardhan like a high wind, staining his memories only as blurred flashes. He remembered seeing the crystal-eyed mountain spirits and running with them to the woods where he found sleep in the hollow of an ancient pine. He remembered a woman with a gentle face and raven hair looking down at him as he woke. She fed him, and gave him hope, a home, and purpose. He didn’t see himself as he grew into a strong, capable Goliath warrior beside her, but he remembered their travels. They traversed the wilds and great cities alike, both harsh lands with terrible beasts and civilized bastions with towering spires were their home.

And through it all, the voices of the mountain spirits of the Nettiri were silent.

*

“Okay,” said Jaya, tossing a stormy, raven-black lock of hair away from her face. “I’m going inside to inspect the merchandise for our client. This one’s gonna be high profile in the long run, so I want you out here to make sure it can get off on the right foot.” She waited a moment, then snapped her fingers. “Hey, Ardhan. You listening?”

The pair stood in front of a parted curtain obscuring an entryway in a shadowy alley. Between them filed a short line of hunched figures carrying unmarked crates and nondescript sackloth bundles, and across the way on the corner of an intersection of the city’s dusty dirt roads was the colorful storefront of a toy maker. Baubles gleamed, clockwork animals jumped and spun round, and magical lights drew designs on the curved glass of the windows. Ardhan broke off in the middle of a chuckle.

“Mm, yep. No problem, boss,” he said. “Nobody’s getting in without the sign.”

She regarded him skeptically for a few moments, but settled a hand on his massive forearm and squeezed gently. “Good,” she said. “Things are going to be different after today. Stay sharp, big guy.” He reassured her by adjusting the grip on his saw-toothed greatsword and smiling, which she returned with a wink before disappearing behind the curtain.

Ardhan stood watch, and time passed, offering nothing of note. Then something happened which hadn’t in so long he had almost forgotten even the deepest memories of their being: a melody hummed through his bones. Here, he wondered, in the heart of a city so far away? He looked up and down the alleyway, and there at the end stood one of the figures of his childhood, cloaked in darkness and melded with the shadows and the stone. Ardhan regarded the spirit, and a torrent of memories – of his village, of the mountain pines of the Nettiri, the echoed voices of his mother and father – they all assailed his mind at once, and the craving for answers returned, as fierce and as strong as it had been that night.

He followed the spirit, and as he did, he felt almost like a boy again. His muscles forgot their aches, his skin lost its scars, and the weight on his heart he’d forgot was there lifted. He reached the end of the alley where the spirit had been, and saw it now across the populated thoroughfare of one of the city’s main bazaars. It was like one of the games they had used to play when he was a child, the games he’d taken shelter in when he was young. They had made him feel safe through times like…

Like the night his family was taken from him.

A familiar sense of foreboding and dread suddenly fell on him like a leaden sheet. He spun around to see a hunched figure in the distance, exiting the meeting place he’d been meant to guard. Ardhan broke into a sprint, and upon seeing him, the figure darted out of sight. “Jaya!” he called. “Jaya, get out of-”

The world went white.

A wave of force blew him back the way he’d come, sending him flying out of the alleyway altogether. The building which housed the business his friend and mentor Jaya had been overseeing exploded, erupting in gouts of emerald flame and streaks of alabaster lightning. Ardhan tumbled through two market stalls, and panic spread through the crowd. He looked up from the pile of splintered wood and broken pottery, and the last conscious sight he held was of the crystal-eyed mountain spirit standing in the flames of the ruined building, holding Ardhan’s gaze with its own.

Then darkness took him.

END

That was a D&D character origin story I was asked to write for a friend. I was flattered, if not outright honored, as this friend didn’t need help writing a good story in the least bit. He’s grown into a REALLY good DM and could have done better himself. Nonetheless, it was fun to put together.

And in case you missed it: There’s news! Had a couple of publications this summer, firstly over at Twenty-Two Twenty-Eight Magazine is my story “Just like Old Times”, and more recently is my Sci-Fi story “Software” with Third Flatiron’s Offshoots: Humanity Twigged anthology. Check ’em out, let me know what you think, and live well.

Lady Death

Did you know there’s a saying that goes a person’s fate can be read on the wings of a butterfly? That’s what makes fate so hard to know, because the little creatures that carry it rarely stop fluttering long enough to read their wings. I’m sure that’s also what makes them so naturally mystifying, what we don’t realize draws our eye whenever they pass us by, bobbing through the air just out of reach.

They’re with me wherever I go. And wherever I might be, they find me. They are beautiful little things. Gentle, innocent, fragile, small.

Something else not many people know is that butterflies love salt, and a common place they find it is the remains of a dead animal. Flesh, devoid of life and giving way to nature and time – they love it.

I think that’s why they follow me. Like cats that know what doors leave out bowls of water or scraps of food, they’ve caught on to where they can get their salt fix. It’s invisible to us, but maybe their eyes see power over death like a color in the air, a magenta dust on the wind.

It’s a tale as old as time, really; and always the same motivation. A loved one who’s died, their memory growing more distant with each passing day, or one who’s sick and will know death shortly. I was different. I just…wanted to know.

Is it like everyone seems to think, something to be scared of and staved off? Is it “just a part of life,” or is that something we tell ourselves to assuage the anxiety of uncertainty? Is it sleep, or is it just…nothing? Are we just our bodies, our minds, or is there really a spark that drives the whole thing that remains eternal? After all, everyone in history has done it, so it can’t be that hard. It’s the biggest mystery of our time, and always has been.

Anyway, yeah, I think that’s why they follow me. And maybe I misspoke earlier. It isn’t a power over death, because everything that lives dies. That’s an immutable law of existence: everything that is, once was not; and everything that is, will not be again. So, not over death, but a power with it.

And the little buggers can’t get enough.

FIN

(Hey guys.
The astute among us might note the date on this post, that on the one prior, and the distance between the two. Like with all of us, life has had a lot of moving parts lately. Plus, I just haven’t had a lot to say, I guess. But this little ditty came to mind while on a walk earlier today, and it seemed like a good time to post again.
I haven’t been quiet that this is just a place to work out for me: run thought experiments, shout into the void, practice, blah, blah, blah. Feeling now, though, that there might be a good time of creative productivity on the way; a breath of air amidst all the chaos, if you will.
So, yeah, get ready to see more o’ me. This’ll be cool.
Peace, everybody.)

A Little Heist…

Happy Thursday, y’aver’body (that’s “y’all” + “everybody”)!

No grand introduction here, just stopping by to say that if you’re one of my California Brothers or Sisters and been working with the power outages, I hope you’re getting through it well and having fun camping.

Anyway, I’m just gonna drop this here:

Coldin “Fade” Cradleson

Coldin began his life in Bosford, a largely unremarkable homestead but holding a name for its farmland and orchards. In his early years, he did as all young halflings would and found mischief with a small gang of other younglings wherever he might find opportunity to shirk his chores. Some years would pass in this fashion before a devastating dry season hit and his family’s farm failed. Now a young adult with an independent fire in his belly, he set off to the capital city of Stettin to find his own way.

The sprawling streets and maze-like alleyways of the metropolis overwhelmed young Coldin at first and, with a lack of work available to him, he chose his cunning deft hands as his means to earn. Rather than live like a guttersnipe in the streets with beggars, he began making his way through the art of petty theft and crime. Coldin managed to carry on in this way for several months before he caught the shadowy gaze of the city’s Thieves’ Guild proper.

One late night in one of the lower districts’ common houses, the Gilded Mare, sitting at a corner table and enjoying a day’s work, he was approached by a small band of four. One, a human with long black hair tied back and a scar under his left eye; another, tall for an elf, but strikingly green emerald eyes; a third, a stocky dwarf with a nasty grimace and a beard trimmed short; and lastly, a halfling like himself, though her skin was, for Fenris especially, exotically dark. The man spoke first.

“Enjoyin’ this evenin’, little master?”

“I was,” Coldin replied. “What’s all this?” He found his gaze repeatedly wandering over to the dark halfling whose eyes never left his and whose coy smile never dropped.

“An introduction,” said the elf, taking a seat next to him. “Seems you’ve been stepping on some toes since you’ve arrived. There are those who don’t take too kindly to it.”

Coldin tensed, ready for a skirmish. “So then,” he said, looking at the gang, “how does this sort of thing get handled?”

“With an invitation, actually,” said the man. “My name is Runil. This charmer is Vaenin, smiles over there is Grum, and this little beauty is Jasmyn.”

“Call me Fade.”

Runil gave a soft chuckle. “Fade it is then. So then tell me, Fade, how about a job?”

“How could I say no?” replied the halfling with a grin.

…

Several nights later, Coldin was on a sloped rooftop overlooking the Stettin Estates. The moonless sky gifted him total darkness and from his vantage point, he had an unobstructed view of the target’s room. The job was to be simple. Sam Robinsong was in town to personally oversee the sale of a valuable art piece. Runil posed as the prospective buyer, several of Vaenin’s friends filled in the staff of house’s staff to make sure necessary doors and security measures remained accessible, leaving it up to Jasmyn and Coldin to seize the prize once the way was clear. This done, and he was in with the Thieves’ Guild of Stettin. After about an hour of waiting, he watched as Sam Robinsong left the room, called away by the disguised Runil.

“Time to work,” thought Coldin to himself. He slid down the roof top and deftly leapt the small gap. Attaching a grappling hook to the chimney, he lowered himself down to the window sill. He produced his toolkit of picks and levies and set to work on the window. Despite his efforts, it refused to budge. He looked into the room and ducked as he saw someone enter. Daring a glance, he saw that the individual was a halfling and, surmising it was Jasmyn, signaled to her. Meeting his gaze, she smiled sickly as she bagged up the valued painting. She pulled away her face mask, and to Coldin’s shock, the woman standing in the room he knew as Jasmyn looked exactly as he did.

Just then, the door to the room flew open and Robinsong, accompanied by two guards, burst in with swords drawn. Jasmyn produced a black stone from a fold in her clothing and threw it at the ground, and as she did so, it exploded to fill the room with smoke. However, the smoke quickly dispersed, and with Coldin looking on in confusion and awe, he saw Robinsong on the ground, bleeding from the throat. One of the guards took to his care while the other scanned the room and saw Coldin at the window. He shouted for reinforcements and Coldin quickly repelled from the window down to street level. Once his soft boots touched the brick-laid streets, they didn’t stop running until he was hidden quietly behind a pig trough in a butcher’s yard. As the pursuing voices receded, his heartbeat slowly resumed its regular pace. Careful and calculated, he smeared the filth about his cloths and skin, and stole away down the dark alleys towards a beggars’ lane where he fell asleep among the homeless.

He woke the next day to a soft repeated tap against his foot. Standing above him was a man, no older than twenty summers, with short brown hair and a genial smile, dressed in a robe of soft lavender color.

“What’s it? What do you want?” groaned the halfling.

The man never dropped his soft smile. “Hello. I’ve been looking for you. No, don’t worry, not like that. You can relax. I come on behalf of the Order of Bokonon.”

“The fu- who? Listen, I don’t hold to any orders, borders, or robe folders. There are plenty of other people here you can preach to, so, if you don’t mind.”

“My master informs me you’re to serve a matter of great import and in a fortnight’s time, would like to welcome you to our temple personally. Where you will receive answers to any and all questions.”

“Didn’t I tell you, I’m not interested.”

“Ah, but you have reason to be.” With that, the man produced a rolled up piece of paper from his sleeve and handed it to Coldin.

Coldin snatched it from the man’s hand and unrolled it. He gave a short gasp. It was a wanted poster with a depiction of his face on it and a generous sum posted as a reward for his capture.

“The man hunting you is quite resourceful and his reach extends far in this land. This opportunity offers much, but with it, a chance for escape. Here, as a measure of good faith.” The man in lavender discreetly handed him a pouch of coin. “Use this to quickly clean and supply yourself. In two week’s time, at dusk, come to the Temple of Bokonon in Tallin.”

Coldin’s eyes didn’t leave the poster. When he looked up to speak, the man was gone. Thoughts rumbling in his mind, Coldin quickly calculated his odds.

“So then,” he sighed to himself, “to the City of Temples.”

END

The Take: This was cool to come back to. It was THE FIRST character backstory I EVER wrote, so it’s a fun look back in time. A little over-complicated? Yeah, in parts, but overall it worked. Unfortunately, the player for whom it was intended wound up not becoming a part of the main group (I legitimately forget why, but I’m going to safely assume a manner of failure on my part), but I trust the bad guys here were going to come back with a vengeance.

Anyway, take it easy, keep safe, enjoy life, and I’ll catch you all Tuesday!

Ciao, for now.

RE: Gabriel Firefoot, the Dancing Flame (and his Buddy)

(Disclaimer, this is a re-post from Tuesday. Again, busy-ass week.)

Did you know that Lego used to bury its used molds in the concrete foundations of buildings to keep them from being reused? Think about that the next time you get paranoid uploading to the Cloud – Lego already one-up’d you.

Happy (Thursday), everybody!

I’m out of cheeky one-liners, so I’m just going to hop right to it.

May I present:

Gabriel Firefoot, the Dancing Flame

Gabriel Firefoot, having been abandoned by his friends in a tavern on the northern edge of the Rift, sat on a wooden bench with a sullen heart in his chest and an ale in his hand. He continued to let the ale quell the headache that pounded away at his temples as a sympathetic bubbling noise came from the ceramic vase at his side.

“I know, Flynnt,” he began, speaking seemingly to the air. “We allow ourselves a single night of gallivanting to properly explore the town, and they up and fucking leave us. Bastards’ll probably get eaten by giants.”

More bubbly syllables arose in response from the container.

“No I don’t actually mean it. Of course I hope they make it back in one piece. They could have said something before taking off is all. The way I figure it, we have plenty of gold left over from our way up here to live pretty comfortable for about a month. They should be back before then, right?”

The cork lid on the vase gave a small, happy jump in reply.

As the weeks progressed, Gabriel frittered away his small adventuring fortune on drink and social displays in the taverns, trinkets and oddities in the shops, and warm baths and women for his luxuries. Though, as his coin purse began to feel light, with his previous adventuring party still not returned to town and no other suitable traveling types coming through, he felt the looming threat of poverty at his heels. Not wishing to return to the days of stealing scraps of bread as a guttersnipe, he turned to the talent that had served him in that time: he performed.

He and his molten familiar Flynnt took to dazzling passersby with the arts of dance, acrobatics, and wonderful displays of fire. Through these talents, his reputation, and social antics, Gabriel managed to make a way for himself and Flynnt. While the two didn’t enjoy quite the same levels of luxury as before, they managed a comfortable residence at the Rift Keep. After some time, his content attitude began to fade and the fire-dancer longed again for the feel of the road beneath his feet.

Perhaps a fortnight after these feelings took root, a fantastic spectacle came to town: Dr. Grumbar’s Terrific Traveling Troop. The nomadic carnival made its stake in the town’s caravan park, and Gabriel would have been perturbed at the subtracted business if Dr. Grumbar himself, a finely dressed, portly dwarf with a magnanimous red beard, hadn’t discovered him while the showman was about town during the carnival’s setup.

“Well look at you!” bellowed the dwarf. “Yer all flames n’ heels n’ wonder ain’t ye? You lookin’ fer work, laddie?”

Gabriel gladly accepted the dwarf’s handsome offer and began his life anew as a dancing acrobat and fire-breather extraordinaire for the traveling circus. After the company had finished its time in the Rift Keep, they set their course south back into Fenris proper. And so Gabriel and Flynnt traveled, performing in such places ranging from Song to Stettin, Freehaven to the Iron Citadel itself. The company found themselves in Neven as the dry season had come around to its peak.

“Hot as a forge’s arsehole up here it is!” Grumbar jested as he addressed the circus. “That, combined with all those horrid critters these poor folk got’a deal with, they need entertainment! Let’s give ’em a show!”

Gabriel and Flynnt had just finished with their routine, making their way to the performers’ tented section of the grounds. Gabriel congratulated himself and his familiar, and Flynnt would bubble back jovial responses to the praise. He had just lied down and was about to uncork Flynnt’s carrier when the bell at their tent door sounded a ring to let them know a visitor had come. He welcomed the fan in, yet withdrew some at the sight that drew back the canvas flap.

A hunched, hooded figure took several hobbling steps into the tent before speaking, though Gabriel already felt an empathetic tension emanate from the vase to his side.

“You and your…creature…were spectacular tonight,” spoke the hood, with a raspy voice and in an accent that Gabriel could not quite place.

“Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed the show,” Gabriel offered tenuously. He tried to see the man’s face but the darkness of the hood made it difficult. With a thought, he made the lanterns in the tent burn more brightly.

The hooded man shrank slightly at the added light and turned away some. “Might I, perhaps, meet your creature?” he ventured.

“I’d need to know your name first, sir.” The hooded figure only withdrew further and offered no answer. Gabriel pressed. “Did Grumbar let you back here? It’s normally for performers only.”

“The creature…” repeated the hood. Gabriel felt fear emanate more and more strongly from Flynnt the longer this man remained in the room.

“I think you should go…” Gabriel began, the last words more slipping from his lips than properly spoken. His eyes drifted over the hooded man’s shoulder to the tent flap, gently parted by a nighttime gust, and Gabriel saw the prone, motionless bodies of two guardsmen.

The figure must have read Gabriel’s reaction, for it then wasted no time in making a lunge for the vase that housed Flynnt. Gabriel matched the man’s move, parried him aside, and, with a grapple, threw him over a wooden dresser. As he lifted himself from the ground, the cloak and its hood caught on the dresser’s handle and were pulled away, revealing not a man but a twisted creature. Its limbs were gnarled and covered with violet mange and it wore a mask of black iron through which haunting yellow eyes peered ravenously at Gabriel and Flynnt. Its hands were clawed and it raked the wooden dresser in anger as it prepared for another lunge.

The fire-dancer was quick, scooping up Flynnt in his vase and made to roll under a back tent flap to escape, though too late as the masked creature was upon him, grappling him by the sling that held Flnnt. Gabriel delivered a powerful kick to its midsection, sending the creature toppling over a wardrobe chest. The rope strained and soon tore under the stress of the struggle, sending the hardened ceramic container and its cork stopper tumbling across the room in different directions. Flynnt, desperate to make an escape from the monster, hurriedly spilled out of his vase and sped for his protector, Gabriel.

The masked horror steadied itself and made a grab for Flynnt once more. Gabriel, in a defensive rage, summoned a blaze of fire in both palms and gripped the iron mask tight, pouring all of his essence into the act, screaming with the strain, intent on cooking the beast’s head to ashes inside the cauldron that was its mask. It loosed a gut-wrenching scream at the pain and as it did so Gabriel’s mind was assaulted with all manner of strange symbols and visions. He saw the very earth cracking apart with an orange glow, forests repeatedly burned to ash and regrew in a manner of seconds, and runic notes in a language he recognized but couldn’t understand felt to brand themselves in his mind before all went dark.

Gabriel came to consciousness a short time later to the sound of panic and chaos. He roused his senses, collected the vase with its stopper, and mentally called out to Flynnt. The familiar responded to him with a frightened bubbling sound from under the bed. Gabriel sighed a quick breath of thanks to the powers that be and ushered him into the vase. While the creature that attacked them was nowhere to be seen, Gabriel saw clear drag marks in the dirt leaving the tent in a hurry as well as the creature’s mask, some seared flesh lining the interior. The fire-dancer collected the mask, Flynnt with his carrier, and a small manner of essentials in a satchel and left the tent to investigate the flurry of chaotic sounds that surrounded their tent.

Stepping outside, Gabriel was met with a disastrous sight: the carnival gone up in flames. Circus folk and patrons all bustled about, either in a fleeing panic or efforts to combat the blaze. His head surged with pulses of pain, briefly revisited by the visions brought by the wicked creature’s screams, though in them he saw a building that housed a great tree, split in twain. He recognized it as the great tree in the main tavern by the town’s central plaza, though only this time, he saw the tree’s veins and the life that flowed through them. He felt beckoned and, though desperately weakened by his encounter, mustered what he could to traverse the chaotic crowds between himself and the tree.

He was jostled, shoved, and thrown by the fleeing crowds. As best he could, Gabriel made use of the alleyways so as to avoid the thickest of the flooding mobs. His magic exhausted, Flynnt would shield him from the flames when they would otherwise prove dangerous. Eventually, the two made it to the building which housed the broken tree. Patrons of the establishment and workers all ran about with buckets, drawing from the well to battle the ensuing blaze. Pushing past them all to the front door, he shoved it open and took the final shuffling steps to the base of its trunk.

As he and Flynnt approached the tree amid the chaotic flames, Gabriel felt his focus becoming clearer – the tree before him the center of this focus, gaining an aura that grew stronger the closer he came. The strange runes and glyphs from his encounter with the creature again surged to mind, and as he lay his hand on the trunk’s face, he felt them become an explosion. Symbols and patterns flew about his own mind and that of Flynnt’s: Fire, Earth, Mind, Nature – these ideas and their deeper meanings that transcended language and seared themselves into the fabric of his being. Soon he had both hands on its trunk and the feeling that followed was one singular to that moment in Gabriel’s life.

He felt as a part of the relic on which he laid his hands. The energy that flowed through the tree was like blood through his veins and he felt entrenched in the earth as if its roots were his own. He could see through his touch that the object before him stood not alone, but part of the forest that surrounded Neven and beyond. Though not in voice, this connection begged him use his talents to put down the blaze that threatened it and he soon felt flushed with new energy – a mana force more fluid and pure than he’d experience in his lifetime. With it, his breath came easier, filled his chest more fully, blood flowed with vigor, and the world about him grew ever more vibrant. He gasped and wondered how he would ever dream to describe this moment in the future. He then collected himself and focused.

Outside, as peasants and performers all ran and hurried about, the blazes began to subside. All stopped and began to stare as the fires that once raged and threatened the town now slowly diminished until they were no more.

Gabriel opened his eyes and looked about the inn to see for himself that the flames were extinguished. As his lips broke a smile, dizziness took him. He fell to his knees and soon slumped to the floor entirely. The last sight before the black was the visage of an elderly elven woman coming to stand over him.

Gabriel slowly awoke to find himself on a soft bed of heather under a brilliant starry sky. Looking about him, he soon noticed the bed he lied upon was in an attic of some kind and that the starlight which lit the space came through a hole in the roof. The charring around the edges and the strangely powerful smell informed him that it was a building no doubt involved in the fire, perhaps only now a few hours later. His eyes continued to graze about the room and soon came to land on a mirror resting in the corner.

In the reflection, he observed many things: the edges of his performer’s outfit were singed in areas, he had been bandaged to presumably cover burns he had no memory of getting, but most curious of all, his eyes, normally a rich brown, burned brightly green – though they were noticeably fading as he watched. As they dimmed, so too did the light of the stars, the burnt smell that hung in the air, and other sensations, all to their regular, mortal strength.

Mentally, Gabriel called out to Flynnt and, for the first time in his life with the molten familiar, a voice came in response instead of the empathetic vibration to which he’d become accustomed. It was childlike and spoke to the very center of his mind.

“Hey! I’m in the kitchen with the lady.”

“You…you..” Gabriel mentally stammered, “you can talk now?”

“Always have been,” Flynnt responded with a happy thought. “I think now you can just hear me. At least, that’s what the lady says.”

“What lady?”

“The elf that runs the place. Here, just come downstairs when you’re ready. I think she has some stuff she wants to talk to us about.”

“Wait, first, why do you sound so much like a kid?”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, like you’re five or six.”

“That’s funny. I guess that’s just how you imagined I’d sound. You sound like, well, you. I’ve heard you talk, so I guess that’s not so crazy.”

“Guess not.” Gabriel paused for a minute while he considered the situation.

“Don’t worry too much about it, I say. We saved the town! Come downstairs and talk to the lady.”

“Yeah, be right there.”

Gabriel came down the flight of stairs very slowly, each hobbling step made the aches in his body pulse to such a degree it made him wish he’d never left his heather bed. His hand on the rail to guide him, he made his way down the spiral wooden stair set and found Flynnt, taking a vageuly humanoid form, lounging in a large ceramic bowl the way one does in a bath too small for their size. Next to him was the elderly elven tavern keeper, sprinkling him with salt out of a smaller bowl a few pinches at a time, which sizzled and sparked to nothing on contact. Gabriel could hear Flynnt’s voice in his mind softly giggling.

“If you’re gonna cook him,” Gabriel announced, addressing the woman, “I’d use some turmeric root and black Scythian salt.”

“Mmhm,” returned the elf. “I’d prefer black Castellean peppercorn. He’s a spicy little fucker, this one.” And at once, Gabriel knew he and the elf would get along famously.

“It tickles!” laughed Flynnt.

Gabriel slowly walked over to the table where the two sat. The room was well lit. Sconces on pillars about the main room gave the space an inviting glow and the fire in the hearth offered it warmth. As his eyes lingered on the flame dancing over the logs, he was reminded of the incident. It came to him in painful flashes: the cackling flames, the screams, the creature…the creature. He pushed the heel of his hand into his eye as if fighting off a migraine.

“Take a seat, hero.”

“Yeah, Flynnt mentioned the town was alright. How much is left?”

“A fair bit, actually,” said the elf, producing a pipe from the folds of her apron with a bit of pipe tobacco. She fitted her pipe, packed down the tobacco and leaned over to the lounging elemental. “Be a dear and give us a light, would you?” Flynnt produced an appendage roughly resembling an arm with a digit roughly resembling a thumb which soon turned to flame. “Ah, you’re a doll. It all went down,” she said now turning back to Gabriel, “about as quickly as it started. There are few like to lose their house and a great many burned, but none that I know of who’ve died.”

“Thank you, before I forget. Thank you for bandaging me and taking care of Flynnt here.”

“Ah, keep it,” she said with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Wasn’t gonna let you die here on my floor and leave your critter here to wither away. You’re the hero of the town and all, even if you’re also the one that started it.” She gazed at him through the haze of the pipe.

“I…” he tried. “I what?”

“Please. This town sees it’s share of nightmares – ghouls, alghouls, ghasts, other undead horrors – but blazes that start out of nowhere? Why, that might take a circus with a magical firedancer in the middle of the dry season to start…oh, wait.”

“Well, when you put it like that it seems rather hard to deny.”

“I thought so. And don’t worry or start up with excuses, your critter here’s already told me the details of what happened.”

Flynnt bobbed up and down affirmatively.

“In any case,” the elderly tavern keeper continued, “you do owe some responsibility for the act of destruction, however unintentional.”

“I would love to, and I mean that wholeheartedly, I don’t exactly make a fortune working as a dancer though, dear.”

“You can piss on your money,” said the old woman with a scoff. “What we need to do is throw some reins on that new found power of yours.”

Gabriel prepared a witty retort by instinct, but holstered it in recognition of his experience with the split tree. “Well then, where do we start?”

“Where else?” She smiled a wry smile at the young firedancer and took deeply of her pipe before parting her lips to vent a great stream of smoke. Through the thick haze, her voice spoke: “At the beginning, ya dippy shit.”

The next several months consisted of long hours in waist-deep snows, lessons in concentration and connection to the surrounding earth, as well as many thousands of hits with Elsa’s favorite switch. Tempered by this crucible, Gabriel’s complaints sharply quit and he was introduced to a principle which had never found its way into his natural habit before: discipline. When she felt he was ready, she bade him take a knee before her one eve.

“If I’m going to be honest with you, I wasn’t entirely certain you’d make it through the winter.”

“I certainly aim to please.”

“It was the bet, wasn’t it?”

“I will have to eat once I leave.”

The old elf softly laughed. She anointed his head with oil from a smoke-eye olive and coated him with the fragrance of frost mirriam. “Rise, Gahliel.”

The former firedancer and circus performer rose, now Gahliel. He wore close-fitting robes of a light sunset orange, tailored for him by his elven mentor, though without sleeves as per the student’s request. With Flynnt’s jar strapped about his back and his meager satchel on his side, he stood ready for a word from his teacher.

“I suppose this calls for some form of ceremony,” groaned Elsa. “Firstly, I had this made in case you happened to make it this far.” She slowly turned and reached behind the rows of bottles that made up the bar and pulled out an elegantly carved walking staff of an smooth gray ironwood, which he accepted. “Secondly, a question. Do you have everything with you?”

“Everything what?”
“Everything you need.”

Gahliel gave a skeptical squint. “I suppose I do.”

“Mmm, then if I can just say it’s been an experience. You and that spicy little fucker do some good out there.” She retrieved from her robes a small cloth bundle and undid the folds to reveal an angled blue stone the size of an egg. The young man gave a tired sigh at the sight of the little cobalt nugget. “Getting rid of me, eh?” he thought.

“Well, it’s been real, Els.” With that, he reached out and touched the stone. In a blinding blue flash, the last sight Gahliel carried with him into the abyss that followed was the affectionate smile of the elderly elven tavern keeper of Neven.

FIN

The Take: Gahliel was always fun because of the penchant for cracking wise (like we saw with Revan), but what really made his endearing was his connection with Flynnt. I know he’s just a bubbling cork most of the time, but Gabriel’s protective attachment to him as well as having him finally emerge as a childish entity that giggles at being salted always felt like a real nice ribbon on top.

Also, little known fact, Gabriel eventually went on to get impregnated by a dragon. D&D gets weird.

Anyway, ta-ta until Thursday!

…

Interested in more? Like knee-slappers and chin-scratchers? Check out my first published work in the Third Flatiron’s “Hidden Histories” anthology here (and tell ’em Evan sent ya!): 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1

Today’s FableFact source: https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2009/02/building-on-a-dynasty/

Gabriel Firefoot, the Dancing Flame (and his Buddy)

Did you know that Lego used to bury its used molds in the concrete foundations of buildings to keep them from being reused? Think about that the next time you get paranoid uploading to the Cloud – Lego already one-up’d you.

Happy Thursday, everybody!

I’m out of cheeky one-liners, so I’m just going to hop right to it.

May I present:

Gabriel Firefoot, the Dancing Flame

Gabriel Firefoot, having been abandoned by his friends in a tavern on the northern edge of the Rift, sat on a wooden bench with a sullen heart in his chest and an ale in his hand. He continued to let the ale quell the headache that pounded away at his temples as a sympathetic bubbling noise came from the ceramic vase at his side.

“I know, Flynnt,” he began, speaking seemingly to the air. “We allow ourselves a single night of gallivanting to properly explore the town, and they up and fucking leave us. Bastards’ll probably get eaten by giants.”

More bubbly syllables arose in response from the container.

“No I don’t actually mean it. Of course I hope they make it back in one piece. They could have said something before taking off is all. The way I figure it, we have plenty of gold left over from our way up here to live pretty comfortable for about a month. They should be back before then, right?”

The cork lid on the vase gave a small, happy jump in reply.

As the weeks progressed, Gabriel frittered away his small adventuring fortune on drink and social displays in the taverns, trinkets and oddities in the shops, and warm baths and women for his luxuries. Though, as his coin purse began to feel light, with his previous adventuring party still not returned to town and no other suitable traveling types coming through, he felt the looming threat of poverty at his heels. Not wishing to return to the days of stealing scraps of bread as a guttersnipe, he turned to the talent that had served him in that time: he performed.

He and his molten familiar Flynnt took to dazzling passersby with the arts of dance, acrobatics, and wonderful displays of fire. Through these talents, his reputation, and social antics, Gabriel managed to make a way for himself and Flynnt. While the two didn’t enjoy quite the same levels of luxury as before, they managed a comfortable residence at the Rift Keep. After some time, his content attitude began to fade and the fire-dancer longed again for the feel of the road beneath his feet.

Perhaps a fortnight after these feelings took root, a fantastic spectacle came to town: Dr. Grumbar’s Terrific Traveling Troop. The nomadic carnival made its stake in the town’s caravan park, and Gabriel would have been perturbed at the subtracted business if Dr. Grumbar himself, a finely dressed, portly dwarf with a magnanimous red beard, hadn’t discovered him while the showman was about town during the carnival’s setup.

“Well look at you!” bellowed the dwarf. “Yer all flames n’ heels n’ wonder ain’t ye? You lookin’ fer work, laddie?”

Gabriel gladly accepted the dwarf’s handsome offer and began his life anew as a dancing acrobat and fire-breather extraordinaire for the traveling circus. After the company had finished its time in the Rift Keep, they set their course south back into Fenris proper. And so Gabriel and Flynnt traveled, performing in such places ranging from Song to Stettin, Freehaven to the Iron Citadel itself. The company found themselves in Neven as the dry season had come around to its peak.

“Hot as a forge’s arsehole up here it is!” Grumbar jested as he addressed the circus. “That, combined with all those horrid critters these poor folk got’a deal with, they need entertainment! Let’s give ’em a show!”

Gabriel and Flynnt had just finished with their routine, making their way to the performers’ tented section of the grounds. Gabriel congratulated himself and his familiar, and Flynnt would bubble back jovial responses to the praise. He had just lied down and was about to uncork Flynnt’s carrier when the bell at their tent door sounded a ring to let them know a visitor had come. He welcomed the fan in, yet withdrew some at the sight that drew back the canvas flap.

A hunched, hooded figure took several hobbling steps into the tent before speaking, though Gabriel already felt an empathetic tension emanate from the vase to his side.

“You and your…creature…were spectacular tonight,” spoke the hood, with a raspy voice and in an accent that Gabriel could not quite place.

“Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed the show,” Gabriel offered tenuously. He tried to see the man’s face but the darkness of the hood made it difficult. With a thought, he made the lanterns in the tent burn more brightly.

The hooded man shrank slightly at the added light and turned away some. “Might I, perhaps, meet your creature?” he ventured.

“I’d need to know your name first, sir.” The hooded figure only withdrew further and offered no answer. Gabriel pressed. “Did Grumbar let you back here? It’s normally for performers only.”

“The creature…” repeated the hood. Gabriel felt fear emanate more and more strongly from Flynnt the longer this man remained in the room.

“I think you should go…” Gabriel began, the last words more slipping from his lips than properly spoken. His eyes drifted over the hooded man’s shoulder to the tent flap, gently parted by a nighttime gust, and Gabriel saw the prone, motionless bodies of two guardsmen.

The figure must have read Gabriel’s reaction, for it then wasted no time in making a lunge for the vase that housed Flynnt. Gabriel matched the man’s move, parried him aside, and, with a grapple, threw him over a wooden dresser. As he lifted himself from the ground, the cloak and its hood caught on the dresser’s handle and were pulled away, revealing not a man but a twisted creature. Its limbs were gnarled and covered with violet mange and it wore a mask of black iron through which haunting yellow eyes peered ravenously at Gabriel and Flynnt. Its hands were clawed and it raked the wooden dresser in anger as it prepared for another lunge.

The fire-dancer was quick, scooping up Flynnt in his vase and made to roll under a back tent flap to escape, though too late as the masked creature was upon him, grappling him by the sling that held Flnnt. Gabriel delivered a powerful kick to its midsection, sending the creature toppling over a wardrobe chest. The rope strained and soon tore under the stress of the struggle, sending the hardened ceramic container and its cork stopper tumbling across the room in different directions. Flynnt, desperate to make an escape from the monster, hurriedly spilled out of his vase and sped for his protector, Gabriel.

The masked horror steadied itself and made a grab for Flynnt once more. Gabriel, in a defensive rage, summoned a blaze of fire in both palms and gripped the iron mask tight, pouring all of his essence into the act, screaming with the strain, intent on cooking the beast’s head to ashes inside the cauldron that was its mask. It loosed a gut-wrenching scream at the pain and as it did so Gabriel’s mind was assaulted with all manner of strange symbols and visions. He saw the very earth cracking apart with an orange glow, forests repeatedly burned to ash and regrew in a manner of seconds, and runic notes in a language he recognized but couldn’t understand felt to brand themselves in his mind before all went dark.

Gabriel came to consciousness a short time later to the sound of panic and chaos. He roused his senses, collected the vase with its stopper, and mentally called out to Flynnt. The familiar responded to him with a frightened bubbling sound from under the bed. Gabriel sighed a quick breath of thanks to the powers that be and ushered him into the vase. While the creature that attacked them was nowhere to be seen, Gabriel saw clear drag marks in the dirt leaving the tent in a hurry as well as the creature’s mask, some seared flesh lining the interior. The fire-dancer collected the mask, Flynnt with his carrier, and a small manner of essentials in a satchel and left the tent to investigate the flurry of chaotic sounds that surrounded their tent.

Stepping outside, Gabriel was met with a disastrous sight: the carnival gone up in flames. Circus folk and patrons all bustled about, either in a fleeing panic or efforts to combat the blaze. His head surged with pulses of pain, briefly revisited by the visions brought by the wicked creature’s screams, though in them he saw a building that housed a great tree, split in twain. He recognized it as the great tree in the main tavern by the town’s central plaza, though only this time, he saw the tree’s veins and the life that flowed through them. He felt beckoned and, though desperately weakened by his encounter, mustered what he could to traverse the chaotic crowds between himself and the tree.

He was jostled, shoved, and thrown by the fleeing crowds. As best he could, Gabriel made use of the alleyways so as to avoid the thickest of the flooding mobs. His magic exhausted, Flynnt would shield him from the flames when they would otherwise prove dangerous. Eventually, the two made it to the building which housed the broken tree. Patrons of the establishment and workers all ran about with buckets, drawing from the well to battle the ensuing blaze. Pushing past them all to the front door, he shoved it open and took the final shuffling steps to the base of its trunk.

As he and Flynnt approached the tree amid the chaotic flames, Gabriel felt his focus becoming clearer – the tree before him the center of this focus, gaining an aura that grew stronger the closer he came. The strange runes and glyphs from his encounter with the creature again surged to mind, and as he lay his hand on the trunk’s face, he felt them become an explosion. Symbols and patterns flew about his own mind and that of Flynnt’s: Fire, Earth, Mind, Nature – these ideas and their deeper meanings that transcended language and seared themselves into the fabric of his being. Soon he had both hands on its trunk and the feeling that followed was one singular to that moment in Gabriel’s life.

He felt as a part of the relic on which he laid his hands. The energy that flowed through the tree was like blood through his veins and he felt entrenched in the earth as if its roots were his own. He could see through his touch that the object before him stood not alone, but part of the forest that surrounded Neven and beyond. Though not in voice, this connection begged him use his talents to put down the blaze that threatened it and he soon felt flushed with new energy – a mana force more fluid and pure than he’d experience in his lifetime. With it, his breath came easier, filled his chest more fully, blood flowed with vigor, and the world about him grew ever more vibrant. He gasped and wondered how he would ever dream to describe this moment in the future. He then collected himself and focused.

Outside, as peasants and performers all ran and hurried about, the blazes began to subside. All stopped and began to stare as the fires that once raged and threatened the town now slowly diminished until they were no more.

Gabriel opened his eyes and looked about the inn to see for himself that the flames were extinguished. As his lips broke a smile, dizziness took him. He fell to his knees and soon slumped to the floor entirely. The last sight before the black was the visage of an elderly elven woman coming to stand over him.

Gabriel slowly awoke to find himself on a soft bed of heather under a brilliant starry sky. Looking about him, he soon noticed the bed he lied upon was in an attic of some kind and that the starlight which lit the space came through a hole in the roof. The charring around the edges and the strangely powerful smell informed him that it was a building no doubt involved in the fire, perhaps only now a few hours later. His eyes continued to graze about the room and soon came to land on a mirror resting in the corner.

In the reflection, he observed many things: the edges of his performer’s outfit were singed in areas, he had been bandaged to presumably cover burns he had no memory of getting, but most curious of all, his eyes, normally a rich brown, burned brightly green – though they were noticeably fading as he watched. As they dimmed, so too did the light of the stars, the burnt smell that hung in the air, and other sensations, all to their regular, mortal strength.

Mentally, Gabriel called out to Flynnt and, for the first time in his life with the molten familiar, a voice came in response instead of the empathetic vibration to which he’d become accustomed. It was childlike and spoke to the very center of his mind.

“Hey! I’m in the kitchen with the lady.”

“You…you..” Gabriel mentally stammered, “you can talk now?”

“Always have been,” Flynnt responded with a happy thought. “I think now you can just hear me. At least, that’s what the lady says.”

“What lady?”

“The elf that runs the place. Here, just come downstairs when you’re ready. I think she has some stuff she wants to talk to us about.”

“Wait, first, why do you sound so much like a kid?”

“Do I?”

“Yeah, like you’re five or six.”

“That’s funny. I guess that’s just how you imagined I’d sound. You sound like, well, you. I’ve heard you talk, so I guess that’s not so crazy.”

“Guess not.” Gabriel paused for a minute while he considered the situation.

“Don’t worry too much about it, I say. We saved the town! Come downstairs and talk to the lady.”

“Yeah, be right there.”

Gabriel came down the flight of stairs very slowly, each hobbling step made the aches in his body pulse to such a degree it made him wish he’d never left his heather bed. His hand on the rail to guide him, he made his way down the spiral wooden stair set and found Flynnt, taking a vageuly humanoid form, lounging in a large ceramic bowl the way one does in a bath too small for their size. Next to him was the elderly elven tavern keeper, sprinkling him with salt out of a smaller bowl a few pinches at a time, which sizzled and sparked to nothing on contact. Gabriel could hear Flynnt’s voice in his mind softly giggling.

“If you’re gonna cook him,” Gabriel announced, addressing the woman, “I’d use some turmeric root and black Scythian salt.”

“Mmhm,” returned the elf. “I’d prefer black Castellean peppercorn. He’s a spicy little fucker, this one.” And at once, Gabriel knew he and the elf would get along famously.

“It tickles!” laughed Flynnt.

Gabriel slowly walked over to the table where the two sat. The room was well lit. Sconces on pillars about the main room gave the space an inviting glow and the fire in the hearth offered it warmth. As his eyes lingered on the flame dancing over the logs, he was reminded of the incident. It came to him in painful flashes: the cackling flames, the screams, the creature…the creature. He pushed the heel of his hand into his eye as if fighting off a migraine.

“Take a seat, hero.”

“Yeah, Flynnt mentioned the town was alright. How much is left?”

“A fair bit, actually,” said the elf, producing a pipe from the folds of her apron with a bit of pipe tobacco. She fitted her pipe, packed down the tobacco and leaned over to the lounging elemental. “Be a dear and give us a light, would you?” Flynnt produced an appendage roughly resembling an arm with a digit roughly resembling a thumb which soon turned to flame. “Ah, you’re a doll. It all went down,” she said now turning back to Gabriel, “about as quickly as it started. There are few like to lose their house and a great many burned, but none that I know of who’ve died.”

“Thank you, before I forget. Thank you for bandaging me and taking care of Flynnt here.”

“Ah, keep it,” she said with a dismissive wave of the hand. “Wasn’t gonna let you die here on my floor and leave your critter here to wither away. You’re the hero of the town and all, even if you’re also the one that started it.” She gazed at him through the haze of the pipe.

“I…” he tried. “I what?”

“Please. This town sees it’s share of nightmares – ghouls, alghouls, ghasts, other undead horrors – but blazes that start out of nowhere? Why, that might take a circus with a magical firedancer in the middle of the dry season to start…oh, wait.”

“Well, when you put it like that it seems rather hard to deny.”

“I thought so. And don’t worry or start up with excuses, your critter here’s already told me the details of what happened.”

Flynnt bobbed up and down affirmatively.

“In any case,” the elderly tavern keeper continued, “you do owe some responsibility for the act of destruction, however unintentional.”

“I would love to, and I mean that wholeheartedly, I don’t exactly make a fortune working as a dancer though, dear.”

“You can piss on your money,” said the old woman with a scoff. “What we need to do is throw some reins on that new found power of yours.”

Gabriel prepared a witty retort by instinct, but holstered it in recognition of his experience with the split tree. “Well then, where do we start?”

“Where else?” She smiled a wry smile at the young firedancer and took deeply of her pipe before parting her lips to vent a great stream of smoke. Through the thick haze, her voice spoke: “At the beginning, ya dippy shit.”

The next several months consisted of long hours in waist-deep snows, lessons in concentration and connection to the surrounding earth, as well as many thousands of hits with Elsa’s favorite switch. Tempered by this crucible, Gabriel’s complaints sharply quit and he was introduced to a principle which had never found its way into his natural habit before: discipline. When she felt he was ready, she bade him take a knee before her one eve.

“If I’m going to be honest with you, I wasn’t entirely certain you’d make it through the winter.”

“I certainly aim to please.”

“It was the bet, wasn’t it?”

“I will have to eat once I leave.”

The old elf softly laughed. She anointed his head with oil from a smoke-eye olive and coated him with the fragrance of frost mirriam. “Rise, Gahliel.”

The former firedancer and circus performer rose, now Gahliel. He wore close-fitting robes of a light sunset orange, tailored for him by his elven mentor, though without sleeves as per the student’s request. With Flynnt’s jar strapped about his back and his meager satchel on his side, he stood ready for a word from his teacher.

“I suppose this calls for some form of ceremony,” groaned Elsa. “Firstly, I had this made in case you happened to make it this far.” She slowly turned and reached behind the rows of bottles that made up the bar and pulled out an elegantly carved walking staff of an smooth gray ironwood, which he accepted. “Secondly, a question. Do you have everything with you?”

“Everything what?”
“Everything you need.”

Gahliel gave a skeptical squint. “I suppose I do.”

“Mmm, then if I can just say it’s been an experience. You and that spicy little fucker do some good out there.” She retrieved from her robes a small cloth bundle and undid the folds to reveal an angled blue stone the size of an egg. The young man gave a tired sigh at the sight of the little cobalt nugget. “Getting rid of me, eh?” he thought.

“Well, it’s been real, Els.” With that, he reached out and touched the stone. In a blinding blue flash, the last sight Gahliel carried with him into the abyss that followed was the affectionate smile of the elderly elven tavern keeper of Neven.

FIN

The Take: Gahliel was always fun because of the penchant for cracking wise (like we saw with Revan), but what really made his endearing was his connection with Flynnt. I know he’s just a bubbling cork most of the time, but Gabriel’s protective attachment to him as well as having him finally emerge as a childish entity that giggles at being salted always felt like a real nice ribbon on top.

Also, little known fact, Gabriel eventually went on to get impregnated by a dragon. D&D gets weird.

Anyway, ta-ta until Thursday!

…

Interested in more? Like knee-slappers and chin-scratchers? Check out my first published work in the Third Flatiron’s “Hidden Histories” anthology here (and tell ’em Evan sent ya!): 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1

Today’s FableFact source: https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2009/02/building-on-a-dynasty/

‘Hitchcock and Grayson’

Happy Thursday evening, all!

Did you know that a female turkey can, in the absence of any males, reproduce all on her own?

-snaps fingers “Don’t need no man” style-

That’s weirdly topical because of today’s story. It’s an excerpt from from a longer work that I wound up scrapping, but thought was really fun on its own. It might make a revival some day in one form or another, but the basic gist was about a kid sorcerer named Samson that ran a magical detective agency/law firm inside his own head called “Hitchcock and Grayson’s”.

The name came from a trip to Oakland my girlfriend I went on some years back. We went to the Morcom Rose Garden where we met a house cat with a little name tag that informed us his name was Grayson (the name tag, not the cat – though that would have been pretty cool too). As well as a (presumably wild) turkey that we named Hitchcock for the shape of its neck and jowls. Thus, ‘Hitchcock and Grayson’s’ was born! (In name, anyway.)

Without further adieu, may I present:

Virgin Mental – Hitchcock and Grayson’s

Phelp Harris stood outside a door in an alleyway as a clock somewhere struck midnight. He breathed out of his nose as he shivered and watched the cold turn his breath into wisps that danced in the air. Should be in and out in twenty, they’d said. Forty minutes ago, he’d believed the guy. Personal Protective Services usually meant a lot of standing around looking tough, but not in the freezing goddamn cold. This job was supposedly easy money, though. They didn’t expect any trouble, so They said, and just wanted some muscle with a background in brawling if the situation called for it. Maybe a shady pitch by a shady character, but for what They were paying him, Phelp felt it was easily worth it.

The soft clapping of footsteps sounded at the edge of the sidewalk by the alleyway. Phelp straightened his back and puffed out his chest as the sound came closer. Showtime, he thought. Standing in the bubble of bleak lighting offered by a single exposed light bulb, the approaching figure was smaller than he’d expected, silhouetted against the distant streetlight. “Hey, can I help you, kid? Doesn’t seem like the kinda place you ought’a be.”

Stepping into the pale light was a boy, no older than maybe twelve or thirteen with light, woody brown hair, hazel eyes that blinked more often than they should, and a space between his front teeth big enough to fit the right Lego piece if you tried. He was dressed in a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt under a puffy red vest, jeans with holes at the knees, shoes just a size or two too large for his feet, and a backpack. “Is Danny home?” he asked.

Phelp blinked his eyes in confusion. “Kid, I don’t think you heard me. You don’t belong here, understand? Now run along and find your parents, or something.”

“If they were around, you think I’d be in a back alley with some perv at midnight on a weekday?”

“What the? I ain’t no perv, kid,” said Phelp defensively.

“Just sayin’. You’re the grown up here with an unsupervised eleven year old. It’s the dead of night, no one knows where we are. Kind of fits the formula wouldn’t ya say, PedoBear?” The kid pulled out his phone and made a show of pretending to tweet about it.

Oh, a wise ass, huh? Time to turn this up a bit. “Listen kid,” Phelp said pulling back the flap of his jacket to reveal the handle of a 9mm Glock. “Like I said, you need to go. Ain’t the place for you.” Phelp gave a half guilty smirk at the kid’s startled reaction. It soon faded as the boy’s sobs became hiccups and then a full fit of the chuckles.
“Listen, Harris- can I call you Harris?” began the boy. “Whatever they’re paying you, I’ll double it.”

“Hang on a second, kid. How’d you know my name?”

“You’re wearing a name tag.”

“No I’m not.”
“Yeah, ya are.”

Phelp looked down and saw a ‘Hello, my name is’ sticker on his chest that he knew sure-as-shit wasn’t there a minute ago. “What the…?”

“You want some gum?” offered the kid, already chewing.

“What? No,” he said, inspecting the sticker with his name written on it. Looking at it more closely, he could smell it had been written with scented marker.

“Suit yourself.” The boy chewed for a moment and, after a look of eye-crossing focus, blew a gum bubble through the gap in his teeth. “So, what d’you say? Wanna make some money?”

“Look, kid,” Phelp said, discarding the sticker. “You really gotta get outta here. Not safe for you. You don’t go, I’m gonna have to make you.”

“Ooo-hoo-hoo!” sang the boy. He did a little dance in place pretending as if he was scared.

Strike two, you little prick, thought Phelp.

“You seriously don’t want to take the bribe? I thought bribes were like, like hotcakes to bouncers n’ hired goons. Seriously, I can pay.” The boy reached into a pocket in his vest and produced a roll of bills which he undid and counted out eight hundred dollars.

Phelp stood in place with eyes wide as the youngster handed him the money.

“Who the hell are you, kid?”

The boy smiled coyly and said, “Your worst nightmare.”

Before Phelp could react, there was a bright, silent explosion of color. A massive rainbow of light spouted forth from the kid’s open palm like a snow making machine, enveloping the surprised bodyguard. When the effect ended and the lonely bulb resumed its monopoly on light supply in the alley, Phelp was left dazed and stupid on the ground beside the door, froth dripping from the corner of his mouth. The kid blew another bubble through his teeth and wore a proud smile.

He stepped over the crumpled body that was Phelp and tried the knob on the, frankly, shack door to the building. It was locked. The boy gave a short huff before laughing to himself with an inspired tap to his noggin. He bent over and closely scrutinized the door’s surface. He reached out and gave it a light flick of his finger. The face of the solid door rippled like the disturbed surface of a still pond. The boy looked down at Phelp before stepping through.

“Oh, or just Samson for short.” And with a wink, a name tag appeared on the front of his vest before he disappeared through the once solid door.

FIN

The Take: This one was really fun. I think it was one of the first little doo-dad’s I wrote where I got to use magic. It was a bit of a hump getting over those jitters and realizing it was sort of okay to say something happened “because magic”. Anyway, edited a little bit because the sentences were, upon review, pretty damn run-on-y, but I left in the dumb PedoBear joke that I still think is pretty cringey. Overall, it was a fun little scene to put together with magic, character, n’ goofs.

Anyway, happy Thursday and I’ll see ya next week. Ciao, for now.

…

Interested in more? Like knee-slappers and chin-scratchers? Check out my first published work in the Third Flatiron’s “Hidden Histories” anthology here: 
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PRN5ZQ1

Today’s FableFact source:
https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/t/Turkey_%2528bird%2529.htm