Post by Cael on May 6, 2007 6:05:27 GMT -5
OOC: A lot of the vocabulary contained in this log is inspired by Tad Williams' Tailchasher's Song, as well as when the cat clan Firewalkers existed. A vocabulary list can be found here: meadowmuck.proboards91.com/index.cgi?board=archive&action=display&thread=1166929512
Jaunty pawsteps could be heard ever so faintly as old Myrddin approached the scene. However, it was his humming that was most obviously apparent from the distance, as it got increasingly closer. It seemed to have no tune at all, but it doubtlessly had a direction to it. Every so often a funny noise would be thrown in as a climax, until the crazy critter saw with his good-eye the form of magnificent Jericho, his far-sensor friend from a while back. It had been a while since he'd seen his friend, and his humming stopped abruptly. "Whyyyyyyyyy, fumbly fiddlesticks, how long has it been my misty-eyed friend, aye?"
While it isn't surprising to Jericho that he has been seen, after all, sitting yourself on top of an old fence post that juts at a slight angle out of the grass is bound to get you noticed, his surprise comes because of the one who noticed him. The tom's eyes weren't really focused on anything, just the vast distance between him and the wavering horizon, and he is slow to blink them and settle them down to the ground where the grizzled Mryddin comes shambling his way closer. Again another blink, before a deliberate grin slides across his muzzle, and the cat lifts his tail in a pleasant greeting, "Good tidings, this afternoon, ambling one," Jericho purrs as a subtle laughter rumbles up from his chest. "It has been many passings, but they are short compared to other times of passing."
"True, my friend, true!" Myrddin's lively tone contrasted, but complimented by Jericho's distant and mystical demeanor. "And what things have ye seen in this passing, eh? Strangeness and happiness, familiarity and despair, clumsiness?" He listed things that appeared on the surface to have no connection to one another. He trotted around in a circle, then settled himself.
Silver ears tick forward, cupping in the sounds from Myrddin's happenstance kind of vocabulary in order to catch all of it before it fades into the air. Jericho stands in a fluid motion, walking the tight circle of his perch before bounding down to the grass with little disturbance and even less noise. The tom pads to his old friend and sniffs the other's nose in greeting before easing back on his haunches and letting his long, thick tail curl around his forepaws. "Many things happen in passing, but only those things that one notices." Not only can he walk in circles, he also talks in them. The breeze picks up and sends the warm scent of flowers to both cats and excites a kitten-like glimmer in Jericho's stormy eyes, "Quiet and solace have settled over M'an things. Something I have heard, too, about trees whispering and water shimmering in the forest."
Myrddin suddenly became sincerely focused on what the far-senser had to say. He stared into Jericho's deep eyes with his own single good one. To any other cat this might have been frightening, to be stared at by a half-blind old cat, but this was different; as if Myrddin was watching the visions of the far-senser through a screen. "Yes, yes, I see, I see." His tone was contemplative and focused. For a moment that stepped out of time into eternity, they were frozen. The pure calmness of the surroundings and in nature doing its purely natural thing, seemed to go on forever. But, when that was enough, their gaze broke and it was on to the next thing. "And be there any word from the other Az, the Az-iri'le? It would seem as if they have flown and fluttered their own ways until now. Where, oh, where?" Suddenly he looked utterly perplexed, and looked around wildly as if looking for a predator, or looking for whom he was asking about. He went on, "Where, where, where...now here, not there, ...?"
To others it would be strange, yes, but Jericho is not others. The cat's eyes mirror the old one's, though perhaps a little more attention is paid to the sadly blind side, sensing through and past the silky film as they connect on a realm beyond the one their paws touch. And then they blink, and Jericho's attention slides fluidly up to the cloudless blue sky, his maw opening slightly as he drinks in the vastness. "No word," he eventually offers, his brows knitting together in concern, growing even darker as the old cat near him begins to worry so. The tom stands, and purposefully circles through the grass, round and round in a deliberate circle with Myrddin in the center, keeping the cat's thoughts corraled and calm. "No word, no word, yet we will sing soon, 'Nre'fa-o, my brothers and sisters.'" It is there that the large tom stops, bounds forward once in the grass as if pouncing on an invisible little creature before continuing in his circle dancing and singing, "Az-iri'le, we the Folk, dance for our Allmother among here and there, here and there."
Myrddin was calmed by the far-senser's actions, and slowly stopped his wild antics. "Nre'fa-o, our brothers and sisters!" he joins in, "The Allmother and her firstborn are with us always, as always, as always. Indeed - had I forgotten? By the An, ye're right, my Oel-var'iz, we will dance again." Calm, he settled into the grass and pondered with an odd expression on his face. Perhaps his previous outburst was due to a certain melancholy or lonely air; but that would soon change for certain. "We will summon the Az-iri'le to sing a few nights from now, aye?"
"Sing we shall, and the Allmother will call them, yes," the far-seer purrs, settling down from his springing, lilting dance, to slide a few steps through the grass until he finally oozes back down into a sit. His eyes land again on Myrddin, the very tip of his tail continuing to tick back and forth. "But it is felas we Folk miss most, sometimes, yes, and the telling of tales, my Thane." They were once a clan, and finding themselves, the silver tom has made them a clan again. To the old cat, Jericho sneezes in a kind of kitten giddiness that belies his older, grown nature. Again his attention drifts lazily up to the blue ocean of sky, devoid of birds or clouds, and the cat drinks up the bright sun and warmth that spreads across the fields.
Relieved now that a friend has returned to him, the old cat Myrddin joins in his frolic, bounding about with him as kittens do. "Yes, yes, the felas for ye young bloods, and the songs for everyone." He returned from his once confused state to his old jibberish. "Fiddly fum, squiddly squm, let's hear some--a song! Aye, come close t' listen and a song of the old Az-iri'le I'll tell."
The silver tom leaps forward toward Myrddin, batting at his paws as the two leap about like newborn kittens in their first summer, rolling in the long, rich grass and swiping at the grasshoppers and butterflies that scurry to get out of the romping felines' ways. When the older cat begins to sing, Jericho's paws slowly begin to lose their energy and draw him closer to his friend. He slides his forelegs along the ground, melting into a comfortable sit while his tail still dances and plays with the blades of grass behind him. His eyes close with purpose, his head lifting to scent the air that wafts from the old Thane; the scent of a story on the wind, "Sing, sing, Cu'nre, for the stories of my heart brother warm me deeply."
Myrddin settled himself on his haunches and looked to the sky. "And here we'll begin, at the beginning, where beginnings should begin, indeed. And we will begin with the firstborn, Tangaloor Firefoot, as the world begins in the paws of Goldeneye and Skydancer's firstborn. Firefoot, in his pelt as black as Meerclar the Allmother's, trod on his feet of fiery red in his lively manner. It was dusk by now, and the sun was setting in the Va'an, as always, but a scent reached his nose that was disturbing as the sun at night--of fear, of course. 'Tangaloor, fire-bright, flame-foot, farthest walker; your hunter speaks, in need he walks...' but the last line was forgotten. Swiftly Firefoot found his hunter in need. It was a youngling, mewing. He was stuck beneath a fallen tree. But this tree did not fall on its own accord.
While listening, Jericho begins to sway from side to side in the rhythym of Mryddin's song, and a deep but gentle thrum builds in his chest. He doesn't move too much, just enough to notice when the wind isn't blowing if you look closely enough, and even his tail has settled into the the melodic thrum of the story. His eyes closed, the tom can see the ancient cats, from whom they are all descended, and at the mention of the west, his head inadvertantly strays in that direction without the use of his eyes. Jericho's maw opens when he sees the youngling beneath a tree that had fallen so strangely, and the far-seer issues a concerned noise for the youngling.
'Help me, help me,' the kitten mewed, and Firefoot responded, 'Never you fear, my hunter, we will relieve you of this mess. Where is your family?' Firefoot pushed the tree off of the youngling with ease and waited for his response: 'I do not now, I do not know. They have left me, maybe they don't know I've left them. They are gone for now!' the kitten said, pitifully. Firefoot took him in his paws and said, 'Never fear my hunter, we will find your family, and we will come to terms with who has set this trap for you,"
"Nre'fa-o, little one," comes the voice of the audience, crooning and soothing as if he were Firefoot helping the kitten from underneath the tree, "Good dancing, good dancing, but where is your mother or has her milk run dry for you?" Jericho's words a quiet, echoing the gently thrum that comes from him, "Her milk has run dry and you are in this trap." Then there is silence from him.
The kitten responded, 'I have never seen this creature before, who had set this trap for me; it was just like Az, but it was red. It had a long nose and black legs, and slyness that could be seen in its eyes.' Tangaloor looked round, 'Indeed yes, I know who has this ill will. I ask you to stay with me, watch.'
It is no longer Myrddin and Jericho; no longer are they in the lush fields soaking up the warmth of the sun and it slowly begins its decent into the west, but they are simply the voices of stories and whispers of the ancient cats. "There is a slyness in that Az that is red," echoes the smooth purr of the listener, "and you will stay with me, for I can light the way in the darkness of the world of the Az that is red." There is a brief pause and a subtle shifting of paws on the ground, "The Az that is red, the Az that is red."
Firefoot leapt to the top of the tree and looked down and 'round. He broke several leafy branches from the tree and leapt down and began to dig a deep hole by the fallen tree--a large one--two, in fact. He picked up the little one and placed him safely under the log. 'I am watching you, please stay here,' he said, and licked the kitten swiftly before covering the holes by the fallen tree. Firefoot hid himself cleverly and watched. The An fell and Meerclar's night covered the earth. The kitten and Tangaloor waited. It was then that a rustle could be heard--the red Az with black legs and a long nose came along his way. A Fox. And when it went to retrieve its prey, a great thump was heard--into the hole it fell! Tangaloor leaped out of his hiding and ran to the trap-for-a-trap. 'Yes, sly fox! This is what happens, for we are every bot as clever as you, so do not play with the Az! Shall we leave you there for a while?' But in the end the fox was released, and the kitten picked up by Firefoot who led him to his light, his family. The fox never trapped the Az again." And Myrddin concluded his tale.
'You see it there, Firefoot, the Az that is red!' comes a voice, smaller and weaker than the voice of the large far-seer, and as Jericho becomes caught in the story of his Thane, he feels the fear of the kitten rising in him whereas a normal listener may not. 'I am under the earth and alone, and there it comes!' Then a kitten like squeak escapes him when he sees the fox fall and Tangaloor come up from the shadows. Deep down he knows that the kitten would like to keep the fox there, but it is released and sent away from the Az which it never caught again. And when the story winds to its close, Jericho's eyes slowly come open to stare distantly through the storyteller, issuing many long, slow blinks before the light of this world registers on his face and he has returned to be underneath the sun again. The tom is quiet for some time, his tongue flashing out to smooth down his whiskers before finally, "An excellent story."
(In which Myrddin and Jericho find one another again and tell a story)
Jaunty pawsteps could be heard ever so faintly as old Myrddin approached the scene. However, it was his humming that was most obviously apparent from the distance, as it got increasingly closer. It seemed to have no tune at all, but it doubtlessly had a direction to it. Every so often a funny noise would be thrown in as a climax, until the crazy critter saw with his good-eye the form of magnificent Jericho, his far-sensor friend from a while back. It had been a while since he'd seen his friend, and his humming stopped abruptly. "Whyyyyyyyyy, fumbly fiddlesticks, how long has it been my misty-eyed friend, aye?"
While it isn't surprising to Jericho that he has been seen, after all, sitting yourself on top of an old fence post that juts at a slight angle out of the grass is bound to get you noticed, his surprise comes because of the one who noticed him. The tom's eyes weren't really focused on anything, just the vast distance between him and the wavering horizon, and he is slow to blink them and settle them down to the ground where the grizzled Mryddin comes shambling his way closer. Again another blink, before a deliberate grin slides across his muzzle, and the cat lifts his tail in a pleasant greeting, "Good tidings, this afternoon, ambling one," Jericho purrs as a subtle laughter rumbles up from his chest. "It has been many passings, but they are short compared to other times of passing."
"True, my friend, true!" Myrddin's lively tone contrasted, but complimented by Jericho's distant and mystical demeanor. "And what things have ye seen in this passing, eh? Strangeness and happiness, familiarity and despair, clumsiness?" He listed things that appeared on the surface to have no connection to one another. He trotted around in a circle, then settled himself.
Silver ears tick forward, cupping in the sounds from Myrddin's happenstance kind of vocabulary in order to catch all of it before it fades into the air. Jericho stands in a fluid motion, walking the tight circle of his perch before bounding down to the grass with little disturbance and even less noise. The tom pads to his old friend and sniffs the other's nose in greeting before easing back on his haunches and letting his long, thick tail curl around his forepaws. "Many things happen in passing, but only those things that one notices." Not only can he walk in circles, he also talks in them. The breeze picks up and sends the warm scent of flowers to both cats and excites a kitten-like glimmer in Jericho's stormy eyes, "Quiet and solace have settled over M'an things. Something I have heard, too, about trees whispering and water shimmering in the forest."
Myrddin suddenly became sincerely focused on what the far-senser had to say. He stared into Jericho's deep eyes with his own single good one. To any other cat this might have been frightening, to be stared at by a half-blind old cat, but this was different; as if Myrddin was watching the visions of the far-senser through a screen. "Yes, yes, I see, I see." His tone was contemplative and focused. For a moment that stepped out of time into eternity, they were frozen. The pure calmness of the surroundings and in nature doing its purely natural thing, seemed to go on forever. But, when that was enough, their gaze broke and it was on to the next thing. "And be there any word from the other Az, the Az-iri'le? It would seem as if they have flown and fluttered their own ways until now. Where, oh, where?" Suddenly he looked utterly perplexed, and looked around wildly as if looking for a predator, or looking for whom he was asking about. He went on, "Where, where, where...now here, not there, ...?"
To others it would be strange, yes, but Jericho is not others. The cat's eyes mirror the old one's, though perhaps a little more attention is paid to the sadly blind side, sensing through and past the silky film as they connect on a realm beyond the one their paws touch. And then they blink, and Jericho's attention slides fluidly up to the cloudless blue sky, his maw opening slightly as he drinks in the vastness. "No word," he eventually offers, his brows knitting together in concern, growing even darker as the old cat near him begins to worry so. The tom stands, and purposefully circles through the grass, round and round in a deliberate circle with Myrddin in the center, keeping the cat's thoughts corraled and calm. "No word, no word, yet we will sing soon, 'Nre'fa-o, my brothers and sisters.'" It is there that the large tom stops, bounds forward once in the grass as if pouncing on an invisible little creature before continuing in his circle dancing and singing, "Az-iri'le, we the Folk, dance for our Allmother among here and there, here and there."
Myrddin was calmed by the far-senser's actions, and slowly stopped his wild antics. "Nre'fa-o, our brothers and sisters!" he joins in, "The Allmother and her firstborn are with us always, as always, as always. Indeed - had I forgotten? By the An, ye're right, my Oel-var'iz, we will dance again." Calm, he settled into the grass and pondered with an odd expression on his face. Perhaps his previous outburst was due to a certain melancholy or lonely air; but that would soon change for certain. "We will summon the Az-iri'le to sing a few nights from now, aye?"
"Sing we shall, and the Allmother will call them, yes," the far-seer purrs, settling down from his springing, lilting dance, to slide a few steps through the grass until he finally oozes back down into a sit. His eyes land again on Myrddin, the very tip of his tail continuing to tick back and forth. "But it is felas we Folk miss most, sometimes, yes, and the telling of tales, my Thane." They were once a clan, and finding themselves, the silver tom has made them a clan again. To the old cat, Jericho sneezes in a kind of kitten giddiness that belies his older, grown nature. Again his attention drifts lazily up to the blue ocean of sky, devoid of birds or clouds, and the cat drinks up the bright sun and warmth that spreads across the fields.
Relieved now that a friend has returned to him, the old cat Myrddin joins in his frolic, bounding about with him as kittens do. "Yes, yes, the felas for ye young bloods, and the songs for everyone." He returned from his once confused state to his old jibberish. "Fiddly fum, squiddly squm, let's hear some--a song! Aye, come close t' listen and a song of the old Az-iri'le I'll tell."
The silver tom leaps forward toward Myrddin, batting at his paws as the two leap about like newborn kittens in their first summer, rolling in the long, rich grass and swiping at the grasshoppers and butterflies that scurry to get out of the romping felines' ways. When the older cat begins to sing, Jericho's paws slowly begin to lose their energy and draw him closer to his friend. He slides his forelegs along the ground, melting into a comfortable sit while his tail still dances and plays with the blades of grass behind him. His eyes close with purpose, his head lifting to scent the air that wafts from the old Thane; the scent of a story on the wind, "Sing, sing, Cu'nre, for the stories of my heart brother warm me deeply."
Myrddin settled himself on his haunches and looked to the sky. "And here we'll begin, at the beginning, where beginnings should begin, indeed. And we will begin with the firstborn, Tangaloor Firefoot, as the world begins in the paws of Goldeneye and Skydancer's firstborn. Firefoot, in his pelt as black as Meerclar the Allmother's, trod on his feet of fiery red in his lively manner. It was dusk by now, and the sun was setting in the Va'an, as always, but a scent reached his nose that was disturbing as the sun at night--of fear, of course. 'Tangaloor, fire-bright, flame-foot, farthest walker; your hunter speaks, in need he walks...' but the last line was forgotten. Swiftly Firefoot found his hunter in need. It was a youngling, mewing. He was stuck beneath a fallen tree. But this tree did not fall on its own accord.
While listening, Jericho begins to sway from side to side in the rhythym of Mryddin's song, and a deep but gentle thrum builds in his chest. He doesn't move too much, just enough to notice when the wind isn't blowing if you look closely enough, and even his tail has settled into the the melodic thrum of the story. His eyes closed, the tom can see the ancient cats, from whom they are all descended, and at the mention of the west, his head inadvertantly strays in that direction without the use of his eyes. Jericho's maw opens when he sees the youngling beneath a tree that had fallen so strangely, and the far-seer issues a concerned noise for the youngling.
'Help me, help me,' the kitten mewed, and Firefoot responded, 'Never you fear, my hunter, we will relieve you of this mess. Where is your family?' Firefoot pushed the tree off of the youngling with ease and waited for his response: 'I do not now, I do not know. They have left me, maybe they don't know I've left them. They are gone for now!' the kitten said, pitifully. Firefoot took him in his paws and said, 'Never fear my hunter, we will find your family, and we will come to terms with who has set this trap for you,"
"Nre'fa-o, little one," comes the voice of the audience, crooning and soothing as if he were Firefoot helping the kitten from underneath the tree, "Good dancing, good dancing, but where is your mother or has her milk run dry for you?" Jericho's words a quiet, echoing the gently thrum that comes from him, "Her milk has run dry and you are in this trap." Then there is silence from him.
The kitten responded, 'I have never seen this creature before, who had set this trap for me; it was just like Az, but it was red. It had a long nose and black legs, and slyness that could be seen in its eyes.' Tangaloor looked round, 'Indeed yes, I know who has this ill will. I ask you to stay with me, watch.'
It is no longer Myrddin and Jericho; no longer are they in the lush fields soaking up the warmth of the sun and it slowly begins its decent into the west, but they are simply the voices of stories and whispers of the ancient cats. "There is a slyness in that Az that is red," echoes the smooth purr of the listener, "and you will stay with me, for I can light the way in the darkness of the world of the Az that is red." There is a brief pause and a subtle shifting of paws on the ground, "The Az that is red, the Az that is red."
Firefoot leapt to the top of the tree and looked down and 'round. He broke several leafy branches from the tree and leapt down and began to dig a deep hole by the fallen tree--a large one--two, in fact. He picked up the little one and placed him safely under the log. 'I am watching you, please stay here,' he said, and licked the kitten swiftly before covering the holes by the fallen tree. Firefoot hid himself cleverly and watched. The An fell and Meerclar's night covered the earth. The kitten and Tangaloor waited. It was then that a rustle could be heard--the red Az with black legs and a long nose came along his way. A Fox. And when it went to retrieve its prey, a great thump was heard--into the hole it fell! Tangaloor leaped out of his hiding and ran to the trap-for-a-trap. 'Yes, sly fox! This is what happens, for we are every bot as clever as you, so do not play with the Az! Shall we leave you there for a while?' But in the end the fox was released, and the kitten picked up by Firefoot who led him to his light, his family. The fox never trapped the Az again." And Myrddin concluded his tale.
'You see it there, Firefoot, the Az that is red!' comes a voice, smaller and weaker than the voice of the large far-seer, and as Jericho becomes caught in the story of his Thane, he feels the fear of the kitten rising in him whereas a normal listener may not. 'I am under the earth and alone, and there it comes!' Then a kitten like squeak escapes him when he sees the fox fall and Tangaloor come up from the shadows. Deep down he knows that the kitten would like to keep the fox there, but it is released and sent away from the Az which it never caught again. And when the story winds to its close, Jericho's eyes slowly come open to stare distantly through the storyteller, issuing many long, slow blinks before the light of this world registers on his face and he has returned to be underneath the sun again. The tom is quiet for some time, his tongue flashing out to smooth down his whiskers before finally, "An excellent story."
OOC: It is here that I had connection issues, so there may be more to this thread later.