Double Yay!
1) I'm leaving to get my Saab in Richmond!
2) The epilogue to the epilogue of our Mortal Coil game, by me:
"Tell me the story of that constellation, grandpa!"
The ancient man, shaved bald and adorned in robes tied tightly with green cord, looked with love upon the smiling girl. He craned his head toward the heavens with a grace that belied his age. He stopping at the stars just beyond the girl's arms. "'Meles Majora,'" he said. "The Great Badger. Binder Ta, as he was known when he walked the earth and I still lived in the First Kingdom. He lives in a most sacred region of the sky, where the wandering stars can change his shape. Sometimes he's a wolf, a worm, a flower, or a mother's face.
"His story is a very long story, but you already know much of how it ends. Binder Ta learned that the greatest magic was a truth given freely by nature, and could not be bound or understood by the magic-stealers. His words brought life to a jeweled heart, and freed an enslaved army. His truth convinced unchanging Kanan to join with _O_ and nourish the land. His sacrifice was the first of many that day. Mountain and forest became bountiful and safe and humanity no longer cowered behind the walls of the First Kingdom. His flesh fed the bellies of wolves, his bones moved the mountain to action, and what remained fed a lowly worm, a bush, three humans, and changed the world."
Tears had been welling in the old man's eye, and finally one broke the threshold. The little girl had never seen a tear fly upward before.
"Binder Ta showed me the fool I was. I was among the first to settle in the safe confines of the Kingdom, and when everything changed I was among the first who left. Binder Ta's story is a very long story - and in truth, it is not over yet," the old man's hand moved unconsciously to a pouch made of leaves hanging from his belt. "Perhaps when you are old enough, you'll be able to finish it. First, though, I should tell you how it began..."
2) The epilogue to the epilogue of our Mortal Coil game, by me:
"Tell me the story of that constellation, grandpa!"
The ancient man, shaved bald and adorned in robes tied tightly with green cord, looked with love upon the smiling girl. He craned his head toward the heavens with a grace that belied his age. He stopping at the stars just beyond the girl's arms. "'Meles Majora,'" he said. "The Great Badger. Binder Ta, as he was known when he walked the earth and I still lived in the First Kingdom. He lives in a most sacred region of the sky, where the wandering stars can change his shape. Sometimes he's a wolf, a worm, a flower, or a mother's face.
"His story is a very long story, but you already know much of how it ends. Binder Ta learned that the greatest magic was a truth given freely by nature, and could not be bound or understood by the magic-stealers. His words brought life to a jeweled heart, and freed an enslaved army. His truth convinced unchanging Kanan to join with _O_ and nourish the land. His sacrifice was the first of many that day. Mountain and forest became bountiful and safe and humanity no longer cowered behind the walls of the First Kingdom. His flesh fed the bellies of wolves, his bones moved the mountain to action, and what remained fed a lowly worm, a bush, three humans, and changed the world."
Tears had been welling in the old man's eye, and finally one broke the threshold. The little girl had never seen a tear fly upward before.
"Binder Ta showed me the fool I was. I was among the first to settle in the safe confines of the Kingdom, and when everything changed I was among the first who left. Binder Ta's story is a very long story - and in truth, it is not over yet," the old man's hand moved unconsciously to a pouch made of leaves hanging from his belt. "Perhaps when you are old enough, you'll be able to finish it. First, though, I should tell you how it began..."