Stormblood, The Axe That Wakes the Dawn
A year and a half ago I handed the Moleskine journal that I kept on my person for flashes of writing inspiration to tesseracting, at her request. Eighteen months later there is not much else in that journal, but what she wrote remains, along with the art that her husband, gear_halo, sketched at the end.
This is the tale she scribed...
Mephistoples awoke with a jolt, dropping several inches to the stony ground. It was as though a fist of rock had shoved up through the earth and punched the bottom of his straw cot.
Asking no questions and letting no curse escape through his gritted teeth, Mephistoples pulls Stormblood from beneath the pile of hides and cloths at the foot of his cot and stumbles to the entrance of the cave. No hint of morning touches the dark cloth of the sky.
Stormblood slung safely across his back, M wonders if he truly sees puffs of his breath in the chill air, or if his eyes are still blurred with sleep.
Five hundred paces, six hundred, and M is only at the foot of the easternmost hill of the glade. Still, the skiy is velvet black, tho he feels the animals of the earth stirring restlessly in their burrows.
The last few paces to the hill M takes at a dash, then, with a mighty shout, he leaps into the frosted air and bypasses the first switchbacks od the path to land several dozen yards up the slope. Stormblood slams against M's back, but, now burning with internal heat, he takes the blow as encouragement to climb.
Leap after leap, scramble after [?] scramble, he gains ground towards the summit. Mephistoples races his own heartbeat.
When, after prolonged struggle, the arduous climb is over, he rests at the crest of the hill, gazing at the broad horizon.
M draws a deep breath and slings Stormblood over his shoulder, the red enamel gleaming even in the darkness. He cradles the relic against his belly, his hands holding it perfectly.
Without a thought, M strikes the first chord.
Instantly, his face is touched by the sun. The first rays of the morning leap effortlessly over the horizon with such precise timing that no observer could say if Mephistoples summoned light or if the sun summoned music.
Stormblood sang the dawn, crying easily under his fingers.
The light touched the metal studs in the man's shoulders, pecs and elbows. Through a particularly strong riff the sun seeped over Stormblood, throwing fractal beams of flame across M's face.
Another chord, another, and the sun lit stones at M's hips and knees, until the moment came to forcefully bring the full potential of light and heat into the world.
With a final summation of effort poured into a powerchord to crack the earth, Mephistoples raised the sun into the sky, leveraging it to shine upon his awesome boots and set the world on fire.
The original story, scanned from my Moleskine journal:
This is the tale she scribed...
Mephistoples awoke with a jolt, dropping several inches to the stony ground. It was as though a fist of rock had shoved up through the earth and punched the bottom of his straw cot.
Asking no questions and letting no curse escape through his gritted teeth, Mephistoples pulls Stormblood from beneath the pile of hides and cloths at the foot of his cot and stumbles to the entrance of the cave. No hint of morning touches the dark cloth of the sky.
Stormblood slung safely across his back, M wonders if he truly sees puffs of his breath in the chill air, or if his eyes are still blurred with sleep.
Five hundred paces, six hundred, and M is only at the foot of the easternmost hill of the glade. Still, the skiy is velvet black, tho he feels the animals of the earth stirring restlessly in their burrows.
The last few paces to the hill M takes at a dash, then, with a mighty shout, he leaps into the frosted air and bypasses the first switchbacks od the path to land several dozen yards up the slope. Stormblood slams against M's back, but, now burning with internal heat, he takes the blow as encouragement to climb.
Leap after leap, scramble after [?] scramble, he gains ground towards the summit. Mephistoples races his own heartbeat.
When, after prolonged struggle, the arduous climb is over, he rests at the crest of the hill, gazing at the broad horizon.
M draws a deep breath and slings Stormblood over his shoulder, the red enamel gleaming even in the darkness. He cradles the relic against his belly, his hands holding it perfectly.
Without a thought, M strikes the first chord.
Instantly, his face is touched by the sun. The first rays of the morning leap effortlessly over the horizon with such precise timing that no observer could say if Mephistoples summoned light or if the sun summoned music.
Stormblood sang the dawn, crying easily under his fingers.
The light touched the metal studs in the man's shoulders, pecs and elbows. Through a particularly strong riff the sun seeped over Stormblood, throwing fractal beams of flame across M's face.
Another chord, another, and the sun lit stones at M's hips and knees, until the moment came to forcefully bring the full potential of light and heat into the world.
With a final summation of effort poured into a powerchord to crack the earth, Mephistoples raised the sun into the sky, leveraging it to shine upon his awesome boots and set the world on fire.
The original story, scanned from my Moleskine journal: