Grey Wings.

[Something Evil]

"Many, many years ago, even before I was born if you can believe that, man lived in a land very different from the one we now call home.
There was green trees and plants everywhere, and great rivers ran through a flat land without mountains to block your view.
The seasons were mild, so snow barely fell..

Even in the winters, food could be taken from the trees and from the ground-- there was no frost in the cold season that forced man to store his food or guard it harshly against those who might seek to steal it.

Animals also wandered the land in herds that would span as far as you could see-- making the ground tremble beneath their feet. The nourishing meat and milk, and the hair, hide and sinew they provided for clothes, shoes and many other things, was never hard to come by.

All this was granted man by the great gods in the sky-- our Mother and Father.
But it was also this that caused man to grow haughty and sinfull...

Knowing this, and worrying, the Elders of four tribes sent a prayer to the gods.
Wishing to remain true to the gods and their word, the Elders prayed to be given a land where man would not be tempted to sin-- a place where those worthy would live according to the Word.

Touched by the prayer, the Mother and the Father revealed themselves to the Elders, granting what they had asked for.
And thus, the five hundred who were worthy, were carried by a great bird to a new world...

Known as Mirikast in the most anicent scriptures, the new world was granted the name Baruch, which means blessed in the old language.
This was to remind our ancestors and us, that we could never forget the Word and that we are to stay true to it.

As you have been told, our home is a mostly frozen and dark world, inhabited by terrible beasts and demons, whose poison means death even to those strongest in faith and mind. Only due to the five spheres of light granted to us by the Mother and Father, can our five villages survive in the high mountains where the world's own sun can still grant us the seasons.

Remember this-- without the gift of the spheres, there would not be air for us to breathe, or enough light or warmth for the sacred herds of animals and the scarce plants hugging the ground.

Without it, neither we could live here.

So praise the gods for the gift they gave us, always stay true to their Word.


~

Pausing to take a drink out of the cup of steaming root tea that had been standing beside her, the old woman's wrinkled face became even more so as she grimaced in reaction to the bitter liquid. Then she muttered as she reached out to pick a couple of sweet crystals out of a jar nearby, although the small crystals were quite expensive, her rank as an Elder did not make the cost a concern.

She had earned it, the tribe might worry about her slight excesses, but they could not complain.

"Now..." she began, taking another drink as she turned her eyes back at the children in front of her, the young boys to the right and the young girls to the left as tradition and the Word demanded. At the back of the tent stood a young man and a young woman-- the Elder's assistants, who were both ready to scold or punish any of the young students should she find it neccessary.

Usually the children knew better than to misbehave, but the parents of some had a tendency to be too kind, and thus their children were all too likely to question things they were too young to understand or do other things that they should not.

Though, the Elder had to admit that she was quite pleased with the efficency her assistants made sure to teach the young ones the neccessary dicipline, not to forget belief in the Word.

"Are there any of you who have any questions before we continue?" she asked.

One of the boys raised his arm, clearly eager to speak, but remembering his manners and remaining silent until the Elder aknowledged him.

"When the Mother and the Father gave us this world, why did let the demons and the beasts be here too?" he asked, glancing over at his much quieter, one year older sister. The two kids were both troublemakers, questioning far too much-- the Elder had noticed that since the first day of this class almost two weeks ago. But at least the girl was more bidable and usually kept her unseemly thoughts to herself, with time she ought to heed the Word as she should.

The Elder sighed.

"Because, in their wisdom, the gods decided that in order to know what evil is-- man needed to see it in the form of the demons and the beasts they run with. Man has a sinfull soul, and only through following the Word and doing the work of the Father and the Mother, can he redeem himself".

"But.." the boy began, "the herd keepers told me this story once, about a boy from the Three village...".

With a angry scowl, the Elder smacked her hand against the table, "be quiet young man. You will go with assistant Fenel to the reading room, study the second and third books of the Word until assistant Fenel decide that it is enough. I will not have such undecent stories mentioned here at this school!"

Keeping her eyes at the boy while he placed his book in the drawer of his desk and stood up to follow Fenel out of the room, then she slowly sat down into her chair. That boy was trouble enough already, if he was going to get ideas from those vile stories spread by the herd keepers...

Perhaps she ought to advice his parents to send him off to study with the munks, or at the very least she ought to talk with them about the herd keepers and their stories.

It was hardly true to the Word to allow such corrupting stories to be spread, especially when there was some truth to it. She still remembered when it happened and some of it she had been there to see herself, she thought with a shudder....

[Something Evil]

When little, before they entered the world of adults at the age of fourteen and were expected to behave according to their rank and be faithfull to the Word, there was hardly a child of the Five Tribes that did not occationally dare dream of something else than the harshness of their reality.

The rare chance to listen to one of the stories sung by the unbelieving herd keepers, who guarded the priceless herds of cattle, sheep and horses, was always grasped eagerly by any child. Even if it meant discovery by their parents or a priest, and the following harsh punishment.

However, even the hardiest and most strong-willed child would soon submitt to the demands of society and the Word. In time, even they faded and became proper citizens living according ot the word of the Mother and the Father.

And the very few who did not, they were given to the church to spend their lives as munks, never leaving the monastery where they had been placed.

But sooner or later, change still manages to lure its way in, even if it affects the lives of many-- or just one...


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Dragons were a thing of evil..
Ravenous, mindless beasts that lived in the lethal and godless lands past the valley of the Five Tribes. Though they were creatures of great beauty and of gigantic size, the dragons were slaves of their instincts and the base desires of their flesh. Lacking minds capable of sentience, they were not to be considered truly evil like demons, dragons were still beasts of the Devil and thus had to be slain whenever encountered.

That was what the Word said about dragons, whether they were the crawling and burrowing beasts that sometimes lurked around the village middens, the heavy and terrible beasts that lived by fiery rivers deep underground and sometimes came out of their lairs to feed. Or the two winged kinds of deceptive beauty; the large, pale ones living in the wilds past the mountains, and the smaller ones of bright colors living in the near mountains-- that sometimes grew bold enough to hunt the animals herds or even children.

All that he had been taught during his life, rushed through Morkal's mind as he stared at the snarling creature currently ravenously devouring the pixie hare he had just spent over an hour at trying to lure into the snare he had set. So meagre that its ribbs clearly showed at every single heaving breath as it ate the prey it had stolen from him, the tiny dragon kept snarling as it stilled its obvious hunger. Wherever it had came from, there was no doubt about that it had been a while since it had eaten, its dull scales and the trembling of its legs and tail speaking of long-term starvation as well.

Despite his conflicting feelings about what to do, Morkal slowly closed a hand around the hilt of the knife at his belt, but at the same time-- he couldn't help but admire the delicate pattern of veins and differing shades at the dragons wings. Had it been healthy and not as dehydrated or starved as it was, the dragon would have been a even more impressive sight-- though it was probably still very young and not even a meter long from snout to tip of its tail.

Then he looked down at the superficial cuts where the dragonet's claws had grazed his arm as it lunged for the hare, it bled a little, but not much. Not knowing much about dragons though, he probably out to clean the cuts as soon as he could.

"Hungry, are you?" he muttered, taking a firmer hold at the knife as the dragonet looked up at him with its black, soul-less eyes to utter a particulary chilling snarl. No, the creature certainly didn't seem capable of reason, just as everything he had been told stated. Probably he should be glad that it wasn't a larger specimen he had encountered, but still a part of him was hesitant about killing the dragonet..

Of-course it was a beast of the darkness, though not truly evil, and it was just a dragonet after all. There was also another part of him that wanted to capture the creature and keep it somewhere away from the town, to learn more about it. But doing so would pose so many other problems-- like how to feed it, how to keep others from learning that he had kept a beast hidden and if it grew quickly, getting rid of it later could pose a truly serious problem.

With a quick movement, before he could have any second thoughts, Morkal drew his knife-- advancing at the dragonet as he tried to pin it to the ground using his foot.
And then, everything happened much too quickly..

The dragonet hissed in startlement, and it instinctively turned to protect itself-- jaws wide open to bite onto whatever part of its attacker that presented itself, which turned out to be Morkal's hand. It bit down, and a sickening crunch was heard as flesh and bone tore and broke between its young, but still more than sufficently strong jaws.
Then the dragonet shrieked in pain at Morkal's panicked kick to get it off, which was quickly echoed by a scream from the human himself.

Somehow Morkal managed to register, through the pain caused by the bite, that the beast had let go off his hand-- laying whimpering somewhere nearby. However, he was unable to see anything through the flashes of light dancing before his eyes, or the extreme fit of dizzyness that suddenly assaulted him.
And while he tried to get his legs to obey and turn in the direction that he thought the village lay, he dropped to the ground as he lost consciousness.

[Something Evil]

Notes: because I managed to forget posting the second part before the third. No cookie for me.



Morkal woke.

For a moment he felt fine, faintly registering that several hours had to have passed, it seemed much darker than he remembered. But then he became aware of something-- terrible and beastly in his mind, just as it became aware of him. Wary, the other mind seemed to look at him for a split second, then everything seemed to shatter as they both struck at each other in fear.

Alien colors appeared to burst in front of his eyes, twisting his surroundings till he could not find anything in it that he recognized, and the base emotions of the beast tore at his mind. Held in the terrifying grip of the unformed link between him and the dragonet, and he could no longer distinguish between what was himself and what was the beast raging in his mind.

There was the icy fear of eternal damnation for having been ensnared by the beast like he had.

Disjoined impressions of hunger, pain and a need to get away, mixed with shifting images of village, dark cave with keening beasts above, parents-- some human, some of hulking, grey beasts, and some a mix of the two. There was things that he was simply unable to comprehend.., and in the end he was simply not able to even try holding on to what he thought was him.

Blind and deaf to anything around him, Morkal mewled-- alternating between writhing and clawing at the ground in a fashion chillingly similar to the injured dragonet nearby. And the sounds were echoed by the beast itself, as it lay at the cold ground-- as lost as the human boy in the mind-link holding both in a steely grasp.

It was like then the two were found by a pair of herd keepers, seeking out the source of whatever that had nearly caused their animals to bolt.

~~~~

Tightening the scarf wrapped around her shoulders and lower face, Merna shuddered and mumbled a prayer-- glancing at her companion as he flicked his hands in the traditional sign to ward off evil. And with another look at the village boy laying on the ground in front of them, she did the same.

Lacking the skill of other sight that some keepers were gifted with, she had no idea what was happening with the young villager and the dragonet. But now, even she felt that something unnatural was happening, and judging by the behaviour of the two-- it could not be good.

"What should be done?" she asked, lowering her eyes slightly as she turned towards her companion and husband, Nesek. And waiting while he clearly struggled to come to a decision, she reached down to touch the dagger hanging at her belt. If Nesel decided that there was nothing that could be done about the two, it would be up to her to put an end to their suffering, being the woman.

As tradition demanded, men could not demean themselves by spilling the blood of the unarmed or innocent.

"Take one of the canny old animals, one of those trusted to carry the youngest children, bring it here", he husband said after a long pause, and then he started to unwind the rope wrapped around his waist. Once done with that, he knelt by the dragonet, binding its legs and jaws securely.

"Master Harag should have a look at them and decide what is to be done, the tribe may also welcome the resources a dragon's hide and bones may give. I will carry the beast, will you take the boy back my wife?"

Allowing herself to look at him, Merna gave her husband a quick smile and a nod, while she might not agree entirely in the decision her had made-- it would be up to the men to handle any trouble it might cause. But still, worry grew inside her as she went to find one of the old and calm horses in the herd she and Nesek were the keepers of, when heading about this-- the people of the village would not be happy. In anger, they might hold back equipment and other resources needed by the keepers-- if the priests came to believe that the Word had been defiled.

And worse, there was no telling what evil what had happened with the village boy and that beast could bring...