"A witch is just a goddess inside-out"
This entry also known as 'Holy shit, Orli actually finished a prose piece.'
So, for the interest of anyone with some amount of free time on their hands, here's the first draft of the story upon which my gallery is based. It's like a sneak-preview, where you hear the whole plot of the movie but don't get to see any pictures.
But criticism and all of that is wicked welcome, especially if any of it is confusing.
*A note: Due to the fact that I am contrary and think that all ideas about Atlantean geography are subject to whim, I have decided that for my purposes Atlantis-of-long-ago is somewhere in the Indian Ocean, around the area of Sumatra and Malaysia. Take that Plato!
How the Birds Returned to Atlantis
This happened in the long ago, before your grandmother’s grandmother, and even before that. It happened back in the days before the world grew roots, when the islands and continents would wander as they wished, and the land stood near another shore, with the wide ocean on three sides. A great desolation had settled on the land, and the rain fell all day long.
Nothing grew, and all the birds were gone.
There lived a young girl with her parents on the island, and they fished the gentle seas between Atlantis and the Lands Beyond. But as the rains fell, and the crops of the surrounding farms wilted and washed away, and the seas grew rough and dangerous, one night she dreamed. She dreamed of birds, a storm of feathers flying within a great stone chamber, the summer held captive within a mountain. The next day she bid farewell to her parents, and took the road north from her family’s house toward the Mountain.
Three days later, wet and bedraggled, spattered with mud she wondered why she was traveling at all. All she had was a dream to go on, and a vague sense of purpose. She came upon an old fellow in a wide-brimmed hat, wearing the garb of a traveler sitting beneath a tree by the roadside. He held a lantern on a staff, and the light was warm and inviting.
“Where are you going, and why do you go there?” he asked the girl, rain dripping gently off the brim of his hat, sizzling on the lantern.
“I am going to the Mountain, but I do not know why. I had a dream…” The old man looked at her, and gestured for her to sit beside him. She did, comforted by the light from the lantern. They sat in silence for a moment, and then the old man spoke, words falling gravelly and wise.
“I am a wanderer by nature, I travel the roads of this land now, have wandered through the shifting Lands Beyond for many years. So I know how these things go. You are bound to travel to the Mountain, and you go to find the reason behind all this rain.”
“No one knows the reason for the rain,” she said.
“And that is why you go, girl! Someone must find it out, and fix it. And that is what dreams are for. That is what quests are for. That is what heroes are for, and all of those things.” He thumped his staff on the ground, and the lantern flared.
“But I don’t know what to do.” She said, frustrated. “I have never been on a quest. I don’t know where to go, or how to go about it the right way.”
“Then I will give you some advice, as I can give you nothing else.” The old man looked at her a long moment, his eyes glittering strangely in the lantern light. “Take the road to the Mountain, and be not swayed by wind or weakness. When you must make a decision, do not hesitate. And remember-it is always possible for things to change.”
She rather thought this advice was too riddlesome to be helpful, but thanked him anyway. Bidding the Wanderer farewell, she stepped back on the road, setting out once more toward the mountains in the distance. When she looked behind her, the strange old man had gone.
She walked in and out of days, through different sad-faced villages under cloudy, rain-soaked skies. At night her dreams were full of the wind of wings, the echoes in the Mountain calling to be freed.
At a certain point of time, she reached the Mountain, and the road rose up toward the lofty peaks of the summit. She followed, buffeted by harsh winds and stinging rain, until the air cleared and she reached a bridge. The bridge arced gracefully over a ravine, and beyond the bridge she knew her task was waiting. But in front of the bridge its Guardian was standing watch; masked, with sword in hand.
“Where are you going, and why do you go there?” his voice was deep, imposing and solemn. The girl’s eyes sought some face behind the mask, but the eyes that looked back at her were so full of strength that she could not meet their gaze.
“I go to the Mountain, and I have a quest, sent to me by a dream.”
“And what will you do when you reach the Mountain?”
“I will find the reason for the rain, and why the crops wilt in the fields and the seas churn. I will find the birds again.” Her voice wavered.
“And after that?”
She had no answer.
“Beyond this bridge is the Mother of Mountains; beyond this bridge is a mystery. I cannot tell you what lies beyond, only warn you. You will be out of your depth, you will fear, and you will perhaps regret it. If you cross this bridge, you will no longer see things as you do now. You will be changed, and I cannot tell you how. Will you still go on, knowing this?”
She thought of her family, her peaceful house by the shoreline. She saw in her mind her mother’s gentle face, her father’s strong hands, the gentle rocking of fishing-craft in the quiet channel between-the-lands, all that which had been before the rains and the dreams. She thought of the people she had seen as she traveled, the mud-churned fields, the air empty but for clouds and rain. In her ears was the roaring of the sea, in her head, the rush of wind. She squared her shoulders and stood to look the Guardian in the face, decision made. Around her, it seemed, the sky cleared for a moment.
“I will go on.”
“Go well, then. Be honest, and have no fear.” The Guardian stepped aside, sword withdrawn. Perhaps his eyes were softer behind the mask, she could not be sure. She stepped over the narrow bridge, and crossed the border into the broad shadow of the Mountain, where the road rose up toward the summit.
Ahead of her, she could see a figure, the folds of her garment stirred by the wind, looking down over the lands below. As the girl approached, her heart caught in her chest, stunned by a power so old, so strange, and so wholly protective.
“Where are you going, and why do you go there?” Mother Mountain’s voice was quiet, rich and distant, and there was a sadness about her. The girl hesitated, but stepped forward when a soft, strong hand beckoned.
“I have come here from the south, and here is my destination, unless I must go farther. I came because of a dream, Mother Mountain. I have come here for the birds, for the land, for the sunlight which does not return. But-I still do not know what to do.”
Mother Mountain turned toward the girl, and her fathomless eyes were as dark as the bones of the world. “You must go within the Mountain. Inside, there is a witch, and it is she who holds the birds and their queen. Find out why, and fix it.”
The girl was doubtful. “But I am just a girl, and you a goddess. If you cannot make things better, how could I possibly help?”
“I can feel the birds within straining to be free, I can feel the distress of the people below longing for the sun, and I can do nothing. But you, you might be able to do something.” She sank down on a stone, anger and sorrow coloring the air around her.
“The fields and beaches, the forests and valleys, these are all mine. All that goes on above and below this earth I see. This mountain is mine, this mountain is me. And yet, it would seem I cannot see within myself. But if you will not continue, I will not force you, and you may return the way you came.”
The girl knelt down by the sorrowing goddess, looked into her eternal face, and realized all this was true. “I have come this far, and I will go on.”
Then the Mother of Mountains rose and opened a door into the rock, and the girl walked through it into the darkness beyond. Within the mountain there were stairways and passages, strange rooms and doorways, but she passed them by, guided by a rushing sound in the distance and the small lantern that Mother Mountain had left her, with a blessing.
And so she went, moving with her little light through the dimness until she reached a smooth wooden door, and behind the door, a vast collection of noise and movement. Inside, the air was warm as a day just before summer, and the cavernous space rising up and up around her glowed as though lit with gentle sunlight. It was as if she were waking and walking into her dream. The vast reaches of the stony hall were filled with birds of every shape and size perched in crannies in the walls, or flying in chaotic patterns around the place, all crying out to be heard in whistles and chirps and harsh croakings. The girl stepped forward, drawn by a curious figure near the center of the room. The Bird Woman’s back was turned, and the feathers of her cloak were of all kinds and colors. A thin silver cord wrapped tight around her ankle and lay coiled on the floor. It did not seem long enough to allow her to reach the walls and perch among her subjects. When she turned, her eyes were sad and bright, but she said nothing.
And suddenly the stone hall was filled with a whirling of wings, a tempest of beaks and feathers, and all the birds fled to the farthest walls in a mad dash. Silence fell. The Witch entered, and she was old and young at once, pale as a wraith. Her hands were empty and grasping at feathers as they fell, tearing them to shreds.
“Why are you here, and where did you come from?” Her voice was shrill and uneven, sharp around the edges. The girl said nothing for a time, but stood fast. She had left her fear somewhere in the darkness of the Mountain, and she would not turn back.
“I have come from the shores where gentle fishing waters roar for prey, I have come from the fields and villages overrun with mud and dying crops, I have come from the roads near washed away, I have come from the cold hills, I have come from the Mother of Mountains herself, and she has sent me down to fix what you have done.”
The Witch laughed a terrible laugh of scorn and broken promises. “And who are you to change what I have wrought, when Mother Mountain herself cannot? Go home, little girl. I should turn you to a starling, or a stone to cast into a river.”
“Release the birds. Their wings want free air; you have no right to them. They belong to the Bird Woman, and you have chained her, too.” The Bird Woman said nothing, but the wings of her cloak raised a breeze, and the birds in the cavern screeched their scorn.
“I captured her, and she is mine. They all are mine, for to see them move makes me glad, and their conversation is simple, it does not challenge me. They bring with them the summer, and I want that, too. I will keep them all, forever.”
“You are selfish. You hold them and the warmth of summer in these stones, and the lands outside mourn their loss. It rains and rains and nothing grows. The air is full of clouds; the people are sad, and hungry. They have never known a time when things did not grow, and suffer for it now.”
“And why should I care if they are hungry? Things cannot grow all the time; people cannot be happy all of the time. If I am lonesome for company, if I am cold within these caverns, they should be so, too.” The Witch’s eyes were pale and greedy behind her mask; her voice was bitter like a crow’s.
The girl said nothing for a long moment, but her eyes were strong, and full of reproach. “Let them go.”
“You will take them away, and it will be dark, and cold. You will take them away from me, and I will be alone again.” The Witch’s voice was fading, and in her eyes there was something of a glint of what she might have been, long long ago. Something frightened of the dark, something whose choice was made in error.
The girl walked toward the Witch, and extended her hand. “I will give you a light from Mother Mountain, and will stay with you in the dark. When a year is past, the birds will return, that you might hear them speak, and feel the warmth of sunlight again. Perhaps some day you could even go and see it for yourself.”
The Witch hesitated, looking wildly around the cavern at the birds and their queen. Everything was silent, waiting. With a thin sound, the chain around the Bird Woman’s ankle broke, and she leapt into the air. The Witch took the girl’s hand, and the girl was surprised to find it substantial and real as her own.
The girl smiled. “It is always possible for things to change.”
The Bird Woman led her people up through the Mountain in a joyful storm of wings in air. The force of the birds’ return blew the island far out to sea, a great ship of land moved by wings. And there it settled, surrounded by the sea. The people learned to fish the wilder Ocean Sea, and build ships, and how to hold things by for the winter’s rains.
And still each year, the birds fly north. They take with them the summer to bring into the Mountain, and the Bird Woman goes too. There the Witch is waiting, slowly changing to a goddess.
This entry brought to you with help from the wonderful val_it_up and corbistheca, and the Major Arcana.
Mostly I like the fact that, instead of writing a 5 page paper for my Myth class tonight, I wrote a 5 page myth...
So, for the interest of anyone with some amount of free time on their hands, here's the first draft of the story upon which my gallery is based. It's like a sneak-preview, where you hear the whole plot of the movie but don't get to see any pictures.
But criticism and all of that is wicked welcome, especially if any of it is confusing.
*A note: Due to the fact that I am contrary and think that all ideas about Atlantean geography are subject to whim, I have decided that for my purposes Atlantis-of-long-ago is somewhere in the Indian Ocean, around the area of Sumatra and Malaysia. Take that Plato!
How the Birds Returned to Atlantis
This happened in the long ago, before your grandmother’s grandmother, and even before that. It happened back in the days before the world grew roots, when the islands and continents would wander as they wished, and the land stood near another shore, with the wide ocean on three sides. A great desolation had settled on the land, and the rain fell all day long.
Nothing grew, and all the birds were gone.
There lived a young girl with her parents on the island, and they fished the gentle seas between Atlantis and the Lands Beyond. But as the rains fell, and the crops of the surrounding farms wilted and washed away, and the seas grew rough and dangerous, one night she dreamed. She dreamed of birds, a storm of feathers flying within a great stone chamber, the summer held captive within a mountain. The next day she bid farewell to her parents, and took the road north from her family’s house toward the Mountain.
Three days later, wet and bedraggled, spattered with mud she wondered why she was traveling at all. All she had was a dream to go on, and a vague sense of purpose. She came upon an old fellow in a wide-brimmed hat, wearing the garb of a traveler sitting beneath a tree by the roadside. He held a lantern on a staff, and the light was warm and inviting.
“Where are you going, and why do you go there?” he asked the girl, rain dripping gently off the brim of his hat, sizzling on the lantern.
“I am going to the Mountain, but I do not know why. I had a dream…” The old man looked at her, and gestured for her to sit beside him. She did, comforted by the light from the lantern. They sat in silence for a moment, and then the old man spoke, words falling gravelly and wise.
“I am a wanderer by nature, I travel the roads of this land now, have wandered through the shifting Lands Beyond for many years. So I know how these things go. You are bound to travel to the Mountain, and you go to find the reason behind all this rain.”
“No one knows the reason for the rain,” she said.
“And that is why you go, girl! Someone must find it out, and fix it. And that is what dreams are for. That is what quests are for. That is what heroes are for, and all of those things.” He thumped his staff on the ground, and the lantern flared.
“But I don’t know what to do.” She said, frustrated. “I have never been on a quest. I don’t know where to go, or how to go about it the right way.”
“Then I will give you some advice, as I can give you nothing else.” The old man looked at her a long moment, his eyes glittering strangely in the lantern light. “Take the road to the Mountain, and be not swayed by wind or weakness. When you must make a decision, do not hesitate. And remember-it is always possible for things to change.”
She rather thought this advice was too riddlesome to be helpful, but thanked him anyway. Bidding the Wanderer farewell, she stepped back on the road, setting out once more toward the mountains in the distance. When she looked behind her, the strange old man had gone.
She walked in and out of days, through different sad-faced villages under cloudy, rain-soaked skies. At night her dreams were full of the wind of wings, the echoes in the Mountain calling to be freed.
At a certain point of time, she reached the Mountain, and the road rose up toward the lofty peaks of the summit. She followed, buffeted by harsh winds and stinging rain, until the air cleared and she reached a bridge. The bridge arced gracefully over a ravine, and beyond the bridge she knew her task was waiting. But in front of the bridge its Guardian was standing watch; masked, with sword in hand.
“Where are you going, and why do you go there?” his voice was deep, imposing and solemn. The girl’s eyes sought some face behind the mask, but the eyes that looked back at her were so full of strength that she could not meet their gaze.
“I go to the Mountain, and I have a quest, sent to me by a dream.”
“And what will you do when you reach the Mountain?”
“I will find the reason for the rain, and why the crops wilt in the fields and the seas churn. I will find the birds again.” Her voice wavered.
“And after that?”
She had no answer.
“Beyond this bridge is the Mother of Mountains; beyond this bridge is a mystery. I cannot tell you what lies beyond, only warn you. You will be out of your depth, you will fear, and you will perhaps regret it. If you cross this bridge, you will no longer see things as you do now. You will be changed, and I cannot tell you how. Will you still go on, knowing this?”
She thought of her family, her peaceful house by the shoreline. She saw in her mind her mother’s gentle face, her father’s strong hands, the gentle rocking of fishing-craft in the quiet channel between-the-lands, all that which had been before the rains and the dreams. She thought of the people she had seen as she traveled, the mud-churned fields, the air empty but for clouds and rain. In her ears was the roaring of the sea, in her head, the rush of wind. She squared her shoulders and stood to look the Guardian in the face, decision made. Around her, it seemed, the sky cleared for a moment.
“I will go on.”
“Go well, then. Be honest, and have no fear.” The Guardian stepped aside, sword withdrawn. Perhaps his eyes were softer behind the mask, she could not be sure. She stepped over the narrow bridge, and crossed the border into the broad shadow of the Mountain, where the road rose up toward the summit.
Ahead of her, she could see a figure, the folds of her garment stirred by the wind, looking down over the lands below. As the girl approached, her heart caught in her chest, stunned by a power so old, so strange, and so wholly protective.
“Where are you going, and why do you go there?” Mother Mountain’s voice was quiet, rich and distant, and there was a sadness about her. The girl hesitated, but stepped forward when a soft, strong hand beckoned.
“I have come here from the south, and here is my destination, unless I must go farther. I came because of a dream, Mother Mountain. I have come here for the birds, for the land, for the sunlight which does not return. But-I still do not know what to do.”
Mother Mountain turned toward the girl, and her fathomless eyes were as dark as the bones of the world. “You must go within the Mountain. Inside, there is a witch, and it is she who holds the birds and their queen. Find out why, and fix it.”
The girl was doubtful. “But I am just a girl, and you a goddess. If you cannot make things better, how could I possibly help?”
“I can feel the birds within straining to be free, I can feel the distress of the people below longing for the sun, and I can do nothing. But you, you might be able to do something.” She sank down on a stone, anger and sorrow coloring the air around her.
“The fields and beaches, the forests and valleys, these are all mine. All that goes on above and below this earth I see. This mountain is mine, this mountain is me. And yet, it would seem I cannot see within myself. But if you will not continue, I will not force you, and you may return the way you came.”
The girl knelt down by the sorrowing goddess, looked into her eternal face, and realized all this was true. “I have come this far, and I will go on.”
Then the Mother of Mountains rose and opened a door into the rock, and the girl walked through it into the darkness beyond. Within the mountain there were stairways and passages, strange rooms and doorways, but she passed them by, guided by a rushing sound in the distance and the small lantern that Mother Mountain had left her, with a blessing.
And so she went, moving with her little light through the dimness until she reached a smooth wooden door, and behind the door, a vast collection of noise and movement. Inside, the air was warm as a day just before summer, and the cavernous space rising up and up around her glowed as though lit with gentle sunlight. It was as if she were waking and walking into her dream. The vast reaches of the stony hall were filled with birds of every shape and size perched in crannies in the walls, or flying in chaotic patterns around the place, all crying out to be heard in whistles and chirps and harsh croakings. The girl stepped forward, drawn by a curious figure near the center of the room. The Bird Woman’s back was turned, and the feathers of her cloak were of all kinds and colors. A thin silver cord wrapped tight around her ankle and lay coiled on the floor. It did not seem long enough to allow her to reach the walls and perch among her subjects. When she turned, her eyes were sad and bright, but she said nothing.
And suddenly the stone hall was filled with a whirling of wings, a tempest of beaks and feathers, and all the birds fled to the farthest walls in a mad dash. Silence fell. The Witch entered, and she was old and young at once, pale as a wraith. Her hands were empty and grasping at feathers as they fell, tearing them to shreds.
“Why are you here, and where did you come from?” Her voice was shrill and uneven, sharp around the edges. The girl said nothing for a time, but stood fast. She had left her fear somewhere in the darkness of the Mountain, and she would not turn back.
“I have come from the shores where gentle fishing waters roar for prey, I have come from the fields and villages overrun with mud and dying crops, I have come from the roads near washed away, I have come from the cold hills, I have come from the Mother of Mountains herself, and she has sent me down to fix what you have done.”
The Witch laughed a terrible laugh of scorn and broken promises. “And who are you to change what I have wrought, when Mother Mountain herself cannot? Go home, little girl. I should turn you to a starling, or a stone to cast into a river.”
“Release the birds. Their wings want free air; you have no right to them. They belong to the Bird Woman, and you have chained her, too.” The Bird Woman said nothing, but the wings of her cloak raised a breeze, and the birds in the cavern screeched their scorn.
“I captured her, and she is mine. They all are mine, for to see them move makes me glad, and their conversation is simple, it does not challenge me. They bring with them the summer, and I want that, too. I will keep them all, forever.”
“You are selfish. You hold them and the warmth of summer in these stones, and the lands outside mourn their loss. It rains and rains and nothing grows. The air is full of clouds; the people are sad, and hungry. They have never known a time when things did not grow, and suffer for it now.”
“And why should I care if they are hungry? Things cannot grow all the time; people cannot be happy all of the time. If I am lonesome for company, if I am cold within these caverns, they should be so, too.” The Witch’s eyes were pale and greedy behind her mask; her voice was bitter like a crow’s.
The girl said nothing for a long moment, but her eyes were strong, and full of reproach. “Let them go.”
“You will take them away, and it will be dark, and cold. You will take them away from me, and I will be alone again.” The Witch’s voice was fading, and in her eyes there was something of a glint of what she might have been, long long ago. Something frightened of the dark, something whose choice was made in error.
The girl walked toward the Witch, and extended her hand. “I will give you a light from Mother Mountain, and will stay with you in the dark. When a year is past, the birds will return, that you might hear them speak, and feel the warmth of sunlight again. Perhaps some day you could even go and see it for yourself.”
The Witch hesitated, looking wildly around the cavern at the birds and their queen. Everything was silent, waiting. With a thin sound, the chain around the Bird Woman’s ankle broke, and she leapt into the air. The Witch took the girl’s hand, and the girl was surprised to find it substantial and real as her own.
The girl smiled. “It is always possible for things to change.”
The Bird Woman led her people up through the Mountain in a joyful storm of wings in air. The force of the birds’ return blew the island far out to sea, a great ship of land moved by wings. And there it settled, surrounded by the sea. The people learned to fish the wilder Ocean Sea, and build ships, and how to hold things by for the winter’s rains.
And still each year, the birds fly north. They take with them the summer to bring into the Mountain, and the Bird Woman goes too. There the Witch is waiting, slowly changing to a goddess.
This entry brought to you with help from the wonderful val_it_up and corbistheca, and the Major Arcana.
Mostly I like the fact that, instead of writing a 5 page paper for my Myth class tonight, I wrote a 5 page myth...