Allison
05-09-2002, 03:30 PM
*copied from the VN boards*
The final vestiges of evening twilight wove between the boughs of the sacred grove like liquid gold. A solitary figure, hair black as raven, trudged somberly past the stone ring, the still waters of the well at its center mirroring the canopy of leaves above it.
"Taliesin, my friend...my mentor...how I bless and curse the fact ye are not here to see this day. Greatest of all bards... how shall we go on? What will be our legacy? Will noone sing the songs of our people? Will this generation be the last?"
Eithnesidh, Bard of her Clan, could sense the unrest in the very earth beneath her bare feet. The winds had carried a forboding and the conifers had shivered in expectation of this day. For a fortnight, she played her songs...part intercession and part dirge...hoping that her melodies might somehow intervene on the metamorphasis about to descend.
It was not to be. Whatever foul magicks had been woven, she could sense in her very marrow that things were not the same...and would never be, from this day forward.
Eithnesidh waded into the slowly meandering river, her deliberate movements causing barely a ripple as she moved to its center. She stood still for what seemed an eternity, lost in thought. Tears, capturing the rising moonlight, streamed as if rivulets of ice down her cheeks and joined their source in the river she stood in. Carefully removing her drum, she gently fingered the well-oiled skin, worn with much use. She forced a smile through her tears as she recalled the victories she had celebrated with her clan, her rhythms filling her comrades with seemingly boundless encouragement.
Slowly, as if placing a newborn babe into its crib, she lowered her drum onto the surface of the waters. It bobbled there for a moment, before the light current captured it and began moving it in silent funerary cadence downstream. Eithnesidh watched quietly as it disappeared into the evening shadow, a metaphor for what was to come to her realm.
For whatever time her people had left, she would fulfil her role as recorder of history, telling young and old alike the tales entrusted to her. This final chapter would be bitter to recount, but her people knew that bitter often came with sweet, and whatever the future may unfold, this rule would likely remain immutable.
One thing was for certain, as she walked past the ancient stones: the old ways had finally gone, like a smoking flax finally snuffed out. Quietly and tearfully, she made her way home...to an uncertain and frightening tomorrow.
-----signature-----
Eithnesidh Bhey - 3x Bard
Clan Thorne - Guinevere
The final vestiges of evening twilight wove between the boughs of the sacred grove like liquid gold. A solitary figure, hair black as raven, trudged somberly past the stone ring, the still waters of the well at its center mirroring the canopy of leaves above it.
"Taliesin, my friend...my mentor...how I bless and curse the fact ye are not here to see this day. Greatest of all bards... how shall we go on? What will be our legacy? Will noone sing the songs of our people? Will this generation be the last?"
Eithnesidh, Bard of her Clan, could sense the unrest in the very earth beneath her bare feet. The winds had carried a forboding and the conifers had shivered in expectation of this day. For a fortnight, she played her songs...part intercession and part dirge...hoping that her melodies might somehow intervene on the metamorphasis about to descend.
It was not to be. Whatever foul magicks had been woven, she could sense in her very marrow that things were not the same...and would never be, from this day forward.
Eithnesidh waded into the slowly meandering river, her deliberate movements causing barely a ripple as she moved to its center. She stood still for what seemed an eternity, lost in thought. Tears, capturing the rising moonlight, streamed as if rivulets of ice down her cheeks and joined their source in the river she stood in. Carefully removing her drum, she gently fingered the well-oiled skin, worn with much use. She forced a smile through her tears as she recalled the victories she had celebrated with her clan, her rhythms filling her comrades with seemingly boundless encouragement.
Slowly, as if placing a newborn babe into its crib, she lowered her drum onto the surface of the waters. It bobbled there for a moment, before the light current captured it and began moving it in silent funerary cadence downstream. Eithnesidh watched quietly as it disappeared into the evening shadow, a metaphor for what was to come to her realm.
For whatever time her people had left, she would fulfil her role as recorder of history, telling young and old alike the tales entrusted to her. This final chapter would be bitter to recount, but her people knew that bitter often came with sweet, and whatever the future may unfold, this rule would likely remain immutable.
One thing was for certain, as she walked past the ancient stones: the old ways had finally gone, like a smoking flax finally snuffed out. Quietly and tearfully, she made her way home...to an uncertain and frightening tomorrow.
-----signature-----
Eithnesidh Bhey - 3x Bard
Clan Thorne - Guinevere