Pipping at the Gates of Dawn...

[Khalika]

"There is a mystery in the woods....a piping that bids you come follow.. "


It was a cool early evening in Myrken tonight. even with the warmth of the suns return. One was still reminded of the winter chill that surrounded them. the Liverly manager of the Waystation was no exception. a laid back man of little to no care save the comfort of the animals in his care. the cousin of Daphne-Kyle, Fritz put the L in WS&L, a job he took pride in, the few people who work under his watchful eye, he hoped found him fair and easy to be around. His newest employee. a smallish young woman, whose somewhat dificult name he had been rolling about his tongue for days now...so that he would not be the fool when he spoke it. Which is what left him to be leaning near the back area of the stables, which looked out to the open spance and then to the Myrkenwood. It was a quieter night..the energy that had been abuzz about the return of the sun had died down. and the townsfolk were once again bolting down the hatches to wait out the winter. he never minded the winter, growing up in a northern climate he was use to weather much colder then this...a warm cup of coffee held in a six fingered hand. rested upon his lap as he watched the stars...

Then carried upon the light evening breeze. a tune drifted passed his ears...So faint a whisper would drowned it out. It came from the forest, or beyound. He wasn't sure for it surround him without any sence of direction. Standing his curiousity peeked for the tune was so real, more then the music he has in the past. it seemed almost alive. Wind flutes perhaps or pan pipes..he couldn't be sure. . but it had awoken something in him..Something in the core of his soul. For the first time ever the livery manager wanted to know what was out there in the world.

He moved slowly towards the tree line. with each step the music seemed to whisper..."find me" as he closed in he spotted a figure, small, the size of a young girl. leaning against one of the trees, her attire was worn tatters of mismatched clothing, nothing seemed to fit right. sleeve rolled unevenly. trousers looking a inch to short. sweater sleeveless, cloak patched upon patched. Her hair was a wild gathering, course and knotted brush and pine knitted and weaved between the strands. she was the musician. tiny hand moved freely over the instrument, not shaped in any fashion of pipe or flute he was familuar with. The tune it weaved held a exsistance of its own. it was light-hearted and free one moment, then somber and raw the next...it held such a primal form, that light shivers attacked the listeners spine. the musician seemed lost in her play, not noticing the somewhat clumsy man as he stood but ten feet from her...

He wanted to speak, but couldn't, paralyzed in place he watched..no more then watch ever sense, ever fiber that made him absorbed the music. Then it was snapped, eye blink as if out of no where a large buck deer was standing before the young girl.

It was a massive creature, standing high and proud is antlers stretching out, heavy in the velvet felt. thirteen teers, its body was more the size of a horse then a deer, its breaths were heavy as if it had just been apart of a massive chase. It pulled a step towards the girl, and it was that soft motion that paused the tune as she looked up to him...

Fritz wanted to call out..to tell her to be careful, in all his years he had never seen a buck that magestic in size and presence. But he needn't worry for the girl was no mere girl..she was the riddle that carried the dream...

One of those tiny fur shaded hands lifted to graze across the sweat laden cloat. and in the silence of the music..it was replaced by the faint sound man and hounds in the distance.

"You shouldn't be here old horn, this place is sticky with the banal of life. they're to wrapped up in the dark to dream of the light...You should not have run this far.."

He voice was old...it remember the beginning, when the earth was young and Gaia heart was blessed...The eyes of the beast looked upon her, it had no words...its gaze spoke more then any language ever could..

"I know you feel it...the Autumns heart is in the world again, and it calls to you...it is apart of you like me...like the Bodach..His wolf face is too fitting for this land...I fear you will pause to long to heal this land...the hunt is near...and my tunes cannot keep them at bay for long.."

Even as she spoke she could hear the sounds of the chase pulling close...she looked out into the darkness...a slap to the rump of the beast and it bolted, leaping towards the forest it is gone...

"You'll never catch him!....even in this place where you grow in strength...I find those who still remember...I'll awake the dream again!.."

Fritz was frowning now...lost in a mix of confusion and amazment...How could a girl, have such a beast as a pet?...or whatever their relationship was...and what scared it away?...he shook his head he must be seeing things...for he could swear that while they were talking the Stag to the shape just for a moment of a man...but not a man...for its head was still of a buck, and it legs were gloved hooves...and he wore nothing but a cloak of thick leaves...like he pulled it from the trees itself...then he was gone..the stag again a stag..and racing into the forest...and then there were dark cloaked figures...like shadows or ghost. And the girl..She was shouting at them...talking nonsense to his mind...but they two were shifting...first dogs black and fierce then men cloaked like old priest..then both...then gone...raceing after the beast...

His heart raced....for this was more then Fritz ever bargined for when he agreed to held his cousin start up the Waystation..The girl looked at him for the first time...feline eyes glowing yellow and orange in the night..a fanged smiled...before she too fled into the forest...moving more like an animal then a girl...and Fritz realized tonight...nothing was what it seemed...save the tune..the tune was still there..pipping in his heart...

He had never yearned for adventure..never truly cared for what was out past his home...but that ended tonight...He wanted to know now...he wanted experiences...As he turned back towards the Livery, he woundered many things..but first and for most he wounder if he was the only one to hear the music on this night...

"And suddenly they knew that the mystery of the hills, and the deep enchantment of evening had found a voice and would speak to them." -Lord Dunsay.



*****Side-note***
Just to let everyone know...any could have heard and or saw what Fritz saw this night...and what they experience is up to the writer...soo...what will the music awake in you?

[Rance]

I heard the song the same night I found my parents dead.

I'd never heard the song before – I'd never heard such music; such beautiful, brilliant music. I've never heard something as soothing as that before, and never have my thoughts yearned for such release and security. But the night that I heard the music, all seemed right with the world until I heard their screams.

The screams drowned out the melody. I wanted them to stop. I wanted to help, I wanted to soothe them all; I wanted to take two people whose love had created me into my arms and rock them into happiness the way a mother would coddle a sobbing babe, but I could not – I heard them screaming, and all I wanted to hear was the music.

It is a shock unlike any that many have felt before, to tears yourself away from the beauty of a dream, to find your parents dead in the room beside yours, gutted on the very bed on which they'd made me. I threw up, I remember that much – they'd etched a permanent smile from ear to ear on my mother's face, and my father's throat was a gaping gill that sucked for air. I saw the dying sparkle in their eyes; a twinkle of fading hope as everything they once knew spilled out through black, smiling gashes. Never should a human be dethroned to such a state, wherein all pride and station is suddenly lost. To see a human flop helplessly in a puddle of their own blood, like a fish out of water, it is depreciating, and it is wrong. To see them reach for nothing with bloody, shaking fingers, it makes me wonder what they think they might grab to remedy all of the pain and unstitch etched on their faces.

They did not die with a smile. Every human comes into this world as a joy, as a gift, as a present; they enter innocent, pure, and clean, and from the day they are born, they are dying – we die as we grow. Every heartbeat brings us one step closer to the last; every breath laughs at us, counting the ways until we gasp no more. I wonder if in the last moments of any life, in the last moments of my parents lives, where they were naked, bathed in blood, where a swift knife forced them to smile through new tears in their skin, if we can count how many breaths we have left. Can we could how many times more our chest will rise and fall? And if we can, can we fulfill our dreams in the last few moments of our lives, knowing that we have nothing to lose?

The Guard said it was murder. They said there was no evidence to point towards any reason or rhyme for it. Had my parents had any enemies? They asked. Had my parents any debts that they did not pay, or any unsettled business? I find it humorous that, when looking back on the cause for such a bloody scene, they are so quick to question the lives of the dead, as if they could speak for their very own death. As if they'd brought it on themselves. As if they'd asked to die naked and cold in their own fluids.

I shook my head and tried to lie, but I knew better. I heard the music that night. I know why my beloved parents are dead.

My sister, Eurestella, she had a baby once. She knew the joy of giving life; she knew the pride of feeling the pain it took to bring an infant into this world. We all slowly die from the moment we are born, and I think that when Eurestella had her child, she realized her mistake. We are brought into this world as failures; we are brought into this world to die. Upon our creation, we are murdered – we will grow old enough to walk, to speak, to make love. We will simply grow older, until we are feeble and incontinent, until we are wrinkled, blue-haired images of our former selvs. And then we will die.

Parents are murderers. Eurestella killed her child a year after it was born, to give it a quick release. To cut right to the climax. I think she realized her mistake. She killed her baby in a tavern, and the guards quickly took her away to the prison, and then to the gallows. Maybe she too heard the music – maybe she tried to repent for the mistake of giving birth to her child.

Not many of us realize the futility of our lives, but they are simply that – they are futile. They are cruel. They are meaningless.

My parents are dead. I, I am still alive, and that is the worst part of it all. Even now, where they rest in their Sunday best six feet below the earth, where they can cuddle with worms and forget their skin and bones, they have had the final laugh. They keep giggling through the slits in their throats and the gargling blood in their lungs. It's all one big joke. They succeeded. Every parent is a murderer. Every parent brings a child in this world, knowing full well that one day, it will die.

Day by day, I am dying. Every day, I suffer, I breathe one less breath, my heart beats one time less. My parents were the worst criminals I have ever met. They laughed, they cheered, they provided for me. They sewed my dresses and cut my hair. The taught me manners, they taught me righteousness and religion. They taught me faith. They tried to make me think I had a life to live. But the music, the music told me otherwise.

The music doesn't lie.

I haven't heard the music since that night my parents died. I still keep hoping I will hear it one more time. Until then, I'll wait.

I'm waiting for the music. I know where I hid the knife.

- Genvieve Brownem