Arc 0 Post 1: Songs in the Dark
Songs in the Dark
Seventh Bell Prayers, Hall of the Young
Threads of light grey, green and flickering blue danced upon the rough stone of the hall in time with the words of the First Prayer, spoken first in the old tongue of the Ancestors and then in the tongue of the People to the beat of many small hands.
Kápote zoúsame sta parapáno edáfi, sofoí kai epidéxioi sti téchni
Once we lived in the lands above, wise and skilled in craft.
You shuffle against Vex's shoulder and bump against Ixil's foot, knowing that you've earned many pinches and bruises from it, but not caring. You need to hear this, you need to know what the whispers and furtive hand gestures the caretakers mean. Vex claimed that you were defective and they'd feed you to the Sloppers instead of the Knife Gifting. Too tall to be a whisper-foot, too clumsy to be a dancer, too warm-souled to be a hunter, and ugly besides with the way the lines of your face seemed sharp enough to peel the bark off fungus-wood.
Metá írthe to makrý skotádi
Then the long dark came.
In your heart of hearts you had hoped that that the tale-teller be as you are, but she was not. Only coming up to your chin and you haven't gotten your full inches in yet. Yet in spite of the disappointment the light of the burning ether-cap is warm and filling, and the tale she spins grips you like a sudden under current.
Ósoi pálepsan enántia sto skotádi péthanan
Those who struggled against the darkness died.
The tale-teller's wrists shone with sliver bells, finer than anything you had seen before, the pale light holding within it reflections like the face of water. 'If I look close enough into them will I see myself?' You wonder, 'is that the secret to making light and sound cast back into the shape of the world? Would it be strange to take in that light as well? Would it make me more myself? What would that look like?'
Allá o Sofós íxere óti o Skoteinós odigoúse to drómo
But the Wise knew the Dark lead the way.
On she sings and on you clapped, nine times nine, each verse a trial that the old ones were given by the Dark on their way down from the Burnlands into the hidden homes of the People. She speaks of how they had become smaller and nimbler of fingers, save for the warriors and hunters of great beasts, of how song had been stolen from the burbling waters of Orv, how the first blue-flame had been tamed to forge the tools and knives of the People and of how...
Émoiazan perissótero o énas me ton állon óste oi fylés na eínai dynatés
They grew more alike, one with the other, that the clans might be strong.
A thought kindles in your mind with strange surety. 'Had the Old Ones been less alike one to the other, less smooth of face and sure of their path? Maybe you were like them. That wasn't bad right? The Old Ones had been 'wise and skilled in crafts' even before the Dark came. Maybe they too had been like...
[] Write in name
Maybe you weren't just a weird...
[] Boy (Male)
[] Girl (Female)
[] Child (Non-Binary)
OOC: I decided to go with Greek for the Azlanti tongue, because the Taldans who were later Day Imitators of Azlant are very Roman coded. Originally I wanted to go with ye olde Liniar B Greek, but there is no way I am making coherent sentences with just a dictionary. Apologies to any native speakers of modern Greek for the inevitable weirdness of Google Translate.
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