Firefly Glen Phosphorescent

in a matter of seconds, the story escalated into hero-on-an-adventure to dire must-save-the-world-at-all-costs. arcturus' ear twitched as he frowned, trying to think of what he would do.. and then, he tried to step outside of his mind a bit (as he found wraen often encouraged him to do this, look through eyes not clouded by their own upbringing) and think of how the grey witch would react.

he felt no matter what answer he chose, it might not be right. in arcturus' plain view, it seemed that things that were fated to happen, would happen -- fate always seemed to find a way. even if he went back and changed everything, would not fate just thread a new storyline to see their vision become a reality?

"does it matter? would it not happen regardless of what the grey witch does?" he sighed, trying to better explain his view: "maybe that is starchaser's destiny? how does the grey witch stop it?"

So, Wraen had managed to awaken more independent thinking cells inside Arcturus's mind and, what he suggested to her revealed a lot of, what he thought in general. It was true - some things were pre-destined. Like she would never bear and give birth to young, but compared to, how huge the life was, it was but a small speck. 

She did not reply immediately, she looked around for something that would help her visualize, what she was about to say. A twig would be perfect. Wraen got to her feet and left the cozy den, to expand her search and finally she caught sight of, what she was looking for. She disappeared in the darkness briefly and was soon back, carrying a piece of a small branch. 

This she put right in front of Arcturus's feet and told him: "The only thing in this story and in life that is truly predestined is that you are a wolf. You can't change it, no matter, how far back you go in the past. You will always be one. However, have a look at, how this twig looks like. It starts in one piece and then it branches off. That's, what your life looks like. It can lead you in many directions, depending on, when and where you make the choices."

"Starchaser could have died before he met the Gray witch and the witch with no saviour around could have withered away herself. Starchaser could have done more research on, what the dragon was like, climb up the mountain being more prepared. Or - he might have asked the Fairy queen for an advice.

And do you really know, why he wanted to climb that mountain? Was it pride? Was it for fame and glory? Was it truly for noble reasons, greater good or... maybe he wanted to become a fearsome dragon himself? If they had taken a different path, Drake might not have got gravely injured and together they would have fought the dragon and killed it. Or maybe Drake would decide to betray Starchaser, being a spy of the dragon's for years.

There are many ways the story can go - and you have the opportunity that not a lot of people do - to return to past and reset that story. Make them choose differently and see, where it leads then," she finished her explanation.

wraen was silent for some time. arcturus watched her questioningly as she rose -- he even stood up himself, though he halted as she saw she was browsing for something nearby. he was puzzled, but kept her in his periphery in silence.

she came back, a twig bore before her. the ostrega's brow furrowed, but he said nothing. it seemed the twig was symbolic -- arcturus glanced at the offering in a way he had never considered trees before. it was true, they started as a simple, linear thing -- and over time life and experience shaped and moved their direction.

"i would go back so that starchaser was never born at all." the mountaineer at last answered, no guilt or emotion in his voice. simply, a strange species of pragmatism -- for if starchaser had not lived, he would have never experienced suffering. he would have never lost his family, met the witch, abandoned drake, or had his soul stolen by a dragon. "it seems a lot of strife could be avoided that way."

maybe that was his flaw, focusing on the bad to the point he had tunnel-vision.. when all around him were the good things, things that ought to take precedence but were often put to the wayside by constant stress and storming.

"Oh, very interesting. Non-existence problem," Wraen said, picked the stick up, stuck it in the snow so that it looked like a little tree and reclaimed her place right next to Arcturus. 

"Starchaser was never born. The storm happened still, which - in fact - was not a true storm, but a fight between the Mountain Dragon and the Gray Witch. They had had a long history, but all you need to know is that, when two very powerful magical beings fight, very unusual weather phenomenons happen. Such as - massive avalanches, earthquakes, uncontrollable wildfires, tall waves, drenching everything. 

The two were even matched in strength and, while Gray Witch managed to wound the dragon to weaken it considerably, it on the other hand trapped it in the hawthorn tree, which was poisonous to the Witch. Poison seeped through the needles into the witch's skin and wings, she was unable to free herself and with no one to free her from the trap she wasted away long and painfully. 

With the Witch gone, the magic that protected the Elven Kingdom, disappeared. Once the Dragon had healed it's injuries, it soared down from it's mountain and attacked the forest, intent to kill everyone that lived in it and destroy the land completely," Wraen finished the story. "Did Starchaser not-existing improved the story? Would you like to end it like this?"

well, yeesh. non-existence solved nothing.

arcturus' ears folded back, but a dogged grin stuck to his features. wraen was enthralling him with her story-that-could-not-be-beat -- but he had suspected all along that maybe, no matter how things unfolded in this story, there could be only one ending.

did he want it to end? the beta shook his head. "no, not like that." he sighed, bemused by how easily wraen could stump him. he was not half as clever as he wished to be. "tell me how it really ends." arcturus mused, eyes set expectantly on wraen in invested interest.

"I don't know, how it really ended, because it is fiction first and foremost," Wraen chuckled, not yet done tormenting Arcturus to think for himself and be a bit more creative than just waiting for her to pour all the answers in his mouth.

"You help me - go back at any point in the story and I will change it accordingly. Or... we can even go forward, if you wish," she said. "The point of the story is to explore all the possibilities that could happen to an individual. It's about choices and consequences."

thinking for himself -- god, it was challenging.

he tried to wrack his brain on how to solve this inexorable puzzle, but no solution came to mind. every idea arcturus had he followed mentally to its end, and found the conclusion either unsatisfactory, or unsolvable.

"what if starchaser's friend hadn't got hurt -- what if, he was there in the cave alongside starchaser, before the dragon stole his soul?"

"Well, I did not tell you everything about moss trolls, did I?" Wraen smiled, cunningly and appeared as if she had known these details all along, rather than having come up with them on the spot. "Unfortunately, whichever way the story chooses to go, Drake gets separated from Starchaser, he gets either hurt, or lost, or devoured, or frozen, or tumble down the slope of the mountain. 

However, the Grey witch had enough magic to hold the time and thus the dragon and everyone else still. She flew up the mountain and found the injured Drake first. Moss trolls are hardy little creatures and they have not only very thick skin, but thick skulls as well. Not to mention that they are built almost of rocks. Drake had been incapacited, because that rock-slide had cracked his skull and broken two of his four claws. 

But these injuries - lethal to a regular man - would just need time to heal. A lot of time in Drake's case, because you just know, how quickly rocks mend their cracks and breaks," Wraen grinned. "Anyway, the witch used fire to melt the breaks and fix them and with Drake intact again, the two followed the path Starchaser had left and eventually found him and the rest of the frozen folk inside the den. 

Frozen they all stood there, but even beneath the ice one could hear quiet and feeble heartbeats. So not all were dead in the cave. The Gray Witch sat down to think, while Drake wandered onwards and disappeared out of sight, until she heard him calling her," here she paused and looked at Arthur. "What was that Drake found?"

how did she make it all up on the spot so expertly? arcturus, not for the first time, marveled at the complexity that was her intelligence. wraen made him feel stupid -- not in a bad way, but just in a way that made him feel as if his faculties were shallowly tapped while hers ran deeper than any rivers' might.

it was not a bad thing, to be outwitted. there was a certain magic in it for arcturus, who thumbed over this new piece of information in riveted contemplation. it was like a game - albeit a challenging one - to keep up with the blistering mental pace that wraen set.

"was it the shining orb?"

"Close, but no," Wraen shook her head. "They had found the dragon's heart. While it was stored elsewhere, the dragon was invincible. It used other souls to keep itself alive and do the bad deeds, but keeping itself safe. Remaining almost immortal. You could kill the soul of the stranger, but the dragon would stay alive regardless, because it's heart was hidden elsewhere."

This twist in her story was not a new one - utilized in many fairy tales accross the world. The heart of an evil wizard, witch, dragon, monster, demon would be stored elsewhere and protected not by just one, but many safety measures. And the row would usually go something like this: in a faraway land there was a black horse - you caught it, you slayed it - there was a black cat inside - you caught it, you slayed it - a black crow sprang out and flew off - you caught it, you slayed it - you found a sparrow within - you caught it, you slayed it - you found an egg made of diamond. You cracked it open and the evil thing died.

But Wraen would not be Wraen, if she did not challenge her friend a little more. Arcturus - so far - had proven that he could think of his own, if he tried hard enough. "But you do realize that dragon, who had lived for thousands of years, would not simply leave its heart lying around for anyone to grab. It was probably heavily protected - tell me, how!"

arcturus knew nothing of dragons' hearts, or witches, or sparrows, or eggs. nor of dark horses, black cats, and ancient spells -- so all of this was new in a way that was staggering.

he tried to mentally track all she had told him now; to examine every little detail, to see if one was the foreshadowing mark or a contextual clue.. even then, he found his progress halted, for his imagination was not unlike something small and underfed: it had not seen much use or light in its lifetime, and so, was as if a frail fledgling growing weakly in the dark.

"ice demons..? or maybe mountain trolls, golems?" he knew not if these were things that existed -- not even in his childhood had he been given much sustenance in way of fairy-tales.. but he did recall some things, and it sounded like it might possibly be right. "traps or secret paths that lead to dangerous pits..?"

"Here I thought that you had no imagination at all," Wraen remarked, looking at her friend both fondly and with a hint of admiration too. Ice demons, mountain trolls - golems, of which she had no idea, what they were. She decided to press him to describe the latter, after they had wrapped up this story, and if she remembered to do it.

"Let's say that there was a bit of particular magic that the Grey witch could not break on her own, because, if the dragon had ever thought of any enemy making this far, the magic folk were the first. However, moss trolls like Drake had never been on her list of being anything significant to worry about, which turned out to be her mistake. Because sometimes we are so keen on heavily protecting something with complex spells and traps, that we forget that there might be one simple way to get there. 

The spells that would have killed or seriously injured the witch, did not affect the litte stone creature. The ice demon, which tried to chomp him down broke it's all sharp teeth and dispersed, howling in pain and discontent. The mountain troll was so focussed on swinging his big, furry claws and roaring at the witch that it did not notice, how Drake slid through it's feet, soundlessly and without a trace. 

Finally he made it to the place, where encased in a sturdy ice crystal, lied the dragon's soul. On shone brightly and emitted cold light. Drake grabbed it and returned to the witch. Together they left the cave and brought the crystal outside and now they had to figure out, how to destroy it," Wraen had finished yet another section of the story and looked at Arcturus. She did not say anything, but this time - you know, what to do now.

arcturus preened inwardly to be complimented, albeit his self-goading was short-lived as wraen's story continued and it was revealed he would have to think even more. arcturus enjoyed these challenging stories, but he also dreaded giving the wrong answer. for that reason, he was quiet for some time before he spoke.

"maybe because the ice queen expected that only powerful beings, or those possessed of magic, could get to her soul, that there was some sort of enchantment protecting it from being destroyed by magic." and what was the antithetical answer to magic? arcturus' brow furrowed. "maybe it needed something natural to destroy it - like sunlight, or fire -- or even something as simple as moss. could drake destroy it, then?"

Arcturus had got the story-telling bug from Wraen and his suggestions to the tale they were spinning together got better with each turn. It was funny to remember that just moments ago he had been rigid and unwilling to contribute, and now he was truly blossoming. 

"Or maybe it was something fundamental about life that the dragon did not understand. Unfortunately, sunlight did not destroy it, neither did the moss. Not even Drake's stone claws could harm it, or any spells that the witch knew.

But the witches are known to be smart and able to think outside the regular frames. After thinking long and hard, the witch asked Drake to pick up the soul again - she herself could not touch it without feeling horrible pain - and brought it back inside the cave, where the frozen figure of Starchaser was standing. 

The witch came close and pressed her ear against Starchaser's chest - right, where one feels their heart beating. And, though the body of our hero of the story appeared dead, his heart was still ticking. Slowly, quietly, but the thread of life was still there. So after a bit of thinking, the witch said the magic words and merged the dragon's ice cold soul with the warm, beating heart of Starchaser's," Wraen paused, feeling a bit smug for the smart and unexpected turn of the story that she had come up with, thanks to Arcturus's suggestion. 

"There was a horrible, ear-splitting screech of pain and fury from down below, the walls of the cave began to shake and crackle. Blocks of ice fell and would have buried all three, had it not been for the quickness of the witch, who saved both Drake and Starchaser at the last moment, before the Dragon's den collapsed completely," the end of the story was near, but Wraen needed a bit of quiet contemplation on, how to wrap all loose ends the best. 

"All was quiet in the mountains, save for the Witch and Drake, who had leaned over the sleeping form of Starchaser, waiting for him to wake. And, when it happened, the young warrior looked both the same and a little different as well. His eyes were ice cold blue as that of the dragon's. He yawned, he looked from one friend to the other and asked, what had happened," one step closer to the final chapter, but still not near enough. 

"So - they told everything. And then the Witch asked, how he felt? The Starchaser thought and shrugged: "I am the same and I am different. What is going to happen now?" The Witch replied: "You are the Keeper of the Dragon's soul now. The Dragon is dead in one sense and yet it is still alive within you. And from now on you are the ruler of these mountains and ranges, until the Dragon has learned, that one thing it does not understand, has never felt.

Only then will it be set free. Until that day comes - you will walk immortal with the dragon safely sealed within your heart," she said. "Starchaser agreed and it is not known, whether he succeeded in his quest or if he is walking this world or other realms still, having lost count of years and centuries, teaching the dragon, what it friendship and love is," and this was the end. Maybe on a little less original note, but Wraen was satisfied. 

We did it! We wrote a story together!

all credit goes to you, mastermind!! it was a good one!

arcturus indeed had transformed; through wraen's gentle guidance, he had gone from unimaginative, to at least trying. he would never have wraen's depth of storytelling, but he tried to be a critical thinker: this story had made him inspect it from many angles.

if any wolf alive was a witch (the good kind), he imagined it was wraen. she was able to weave brilliance from the barest of yarns -- truly, he was in constant amazement by her ability to keep him on his toes while still being engaged.

starchaser's fable came at last to an end; arcturus savored it quietly, imagining how the ice dragon had felt to have her heart shorn with another. he wondered if starchaser still roamed these earths as the keeper of the dragonsoul, or if his body, along with thousands of others, had joined the earth.

there was a solemnity in the air unique only to well-written stories coming to the gradual close. arcturus briefly mourned the passing of the characters he had come to know and root for. for the most part, he was wordless -- but he enjoyed that wraen often could fill the silence with her own apt nuance.

"brilliant."

"Alright," Wraen broke the solemn silence that follows a story told well or an exciting book you have read all night through. When the last of the delicious scent had wafted away, reality filled the empty space. She grew aware of the darkness and the cold that surrounded them, and that at least for her it was still a very long way away from home. 

"Will you be so kind to lead me down? I would like to get back to Firebirds by sunrise," she turned to Arcturus, while stretching her limbs and looking forward for a brisk run to warm up again.

Last one from me. Thank you - this was really fun!

arcturus saved the moment a second longer -- already the story was fading away like a wisp of smoke on the breeze.. but arcturus would hold its characters to his heart for some time.

he rose reluctantly, realizing alongside wraen it had gotten dark and quite frigid. the two of them had quite the trek in front of them -- obliging, arcturus gently lead the way -- all the while dreading the moment when wraen and he would take different paths, and his life would temporarily be just a little darker.