A/N: If you haven't read "Annals of Kings" by ilysia then seriously go do it now. Right now. Before you read any more of this. You read it? Good. Because that one story is probably the single most inspirational thing I've ever read.
This is the story of Arthur.
Before the Subtle Shifts of Tectonic Plates
A prologue to Foothold
"Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me."
The forest lay in rolling hills and lumps, covered by green moss. The three children had gone to play in what blessed sunlight reached the bottom of that green forest and the old man once more stood alone, yet not. Silent in the chapel of his heart.
The light was divine, he thought, and as he looked up he smiled.
His back was clad only in grey linens and his gnarled hands held an equally gnarled cane of ironwood. His bald head was dotted by livery spots and patches of his former plumage. Before him stood a little Rabbit and conversed ever so lovely. The children knew not of its presence for if they had they would surely have fled. Things were changing in the world and for a creature of his accumulated lifespans that was quite the literal statement.
The girl under his care was remembering more with every dawn. The boys under his care, remembered only a little so far, but the old man was certain they would all come to understand his actions given enough time. "So you understand why it must be so?" the Rabbit asked him in it's deep voice.
Several animals had come his way in the past weeks. More than he cared for, until one day, one of them spoke. It did so with a far more commanding presence than he would have expected and its arrival had left him sleepless since. "Will I remember this conversation, Old Friend?" His voice was weathered and frail.
"I hold no dominion over your memories, Lord Vârcolac," it told him.
A bird twittered somewhere and he breathed deep of that sweet forest smell. Trying to banish the melancholy that was ever so present in his mind.
"Have you given them their names yet?" it asked.
The old man smiled, hands resting on the cane that was mounted in front of him like a pillar. "Last night."
"Good," the deep voice praised.
It was no Rabbit though it moved like one, though it looked like one, and though it twittered its nose like one. It was no mere Animal, but so he had gathered after it first came to him as a Stag. Decked in flecks of gold on its pelt and crowned by tawny antlers. By far too splendid for the world. "Is this the will of Emperor-Beyond-The-Sea then?" he asked it. He had made peace with its command after the first prophetic dream it gave him. He had no notion to question the will of one so ancient. One whose existence had never before, not in eight centuries, been revealed to him in such resplendent manner. No notion to question when he each evening felt his given time fade away by grace of its certain presence next morning.
"It is," This would mark the longest conversation the two had ever had.
He nodded, felt the weight of old bones and worn cartilage. He had lived longer in this skin than many of the previous and had often wondered why, as memories drove him from hearth and home; as he divorced from the hustle and bustle of life, and as a force unseen had compelled him to steal babes from their cribs and raise them in the forest. Wondered why in the long and lonely nights, filled with despair, why he continued to live when all others died. "So shalt it be."
The Rabbit bowed to him. "So Shalt It Be."
The old man bowed in return and rose with a great deal of trouble. He turned away from the still ray of sunlight, towards the deeper avenues of his forest where yet more creatures awaited him, though none as confounding as his Lord.
When he turned the Rabbit was gone. In His absence the forest came alive once more as if in deference to His magnificence.
The children were playing in front of the cabin when he returned, all three enjoying the warm day. "Master, why must you take such long walks?" the fabled commander asked in atypical naiveté of the child he currently was. "We get so terribly bored and Lauviah cheats in every game," he said smartly.
"I do not," she emphatically protested.
The old man smiled and leaned on his cane. "My children," All three looked to him and he suddenly remembered them well as they once were. As mighty soldiers on a field of victory. "I have a task for you."
Each child sat down to listen.
"You must go to market and buy us a goat."
They watched him in open mouthed awareness.
"It must be grey and it must be fertile. Can you remember all that?" he asked kindly.
The children nodded all as one.
"Good," He staggered closer to the cottage. "I am old and need its milk. You are young and need to familiarize yourselves with the world," He wobbled through the door and sat on his lumpy bed. He moaned as he leaned back. "And grey-pelted goats have the softest fur," The children followed in silence like a flock, watching him.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. They would have to learn very quickly from here on.
"Master?"
The old man started. "By the Prophet," he grumbled. "Are you still here?"
"You didn't give us any coin to buy the goat with," Lauviah informed in her solemn voice. So removed from the fearsome warrior she once was.
He watched her before a smile broke out on his face. "I didn't, did I?" The children shook their heads even as he reached for a purse of copper coins, ones saved for just this purpose. The three would soon learn abandonment; understand fear. By the grace of God it would be the last time they would have to learn that lesson. "Take it and don't drop it."
One of the boys took the pouch reverently in hands that were still so small. Much too small to hold a sword. When he looked up his mouth had fallen open in concentration.
"Go with the speed of Wind and remember the most important rule?" he whispered as he raised a crooked finger.
They chorused in perfectly bored harmony. "Never take a stranger's hand, never speak to a bird that flies unbidden through your window, always cross rivers for good luck."
Upon completion the girl approached and he watched her attentively. The light caught her corn-yellow hair and made deep pools of her blue eyes. She leaned in, kissed his cheek, and hovered for a second before she whispered: "And always trust sailors with golden earrings."
The old man smiled and let out a sigh of relief. He closed his eyes, feigning sleep. "Go now," he said in a petulant voice. "I am a weary, old man in need of rest and you are young and spry."
He listened as they left the hut, gabbing with each other about everything and nothing. Part of him felt bereft for their sake. They had so few years at the beginning of each rotation, to be as children.
And he was about to sacrifice their peace.
In his gowns he kept a phial of violet water. It smelled of flowers, so deceitfully sweet, but killed most everything it touched.
With shaking hands, not of fear but of old age, he uncorked the phial and drained its contents in one swallow. The poison was quick and soon stilled every sign of life within his body. His body became a silent husk as the afternoon sun shone through his one window. As his home fell cold despite its warmth.
Upon their return, the children and the goat clopped loudly into the clearing where their safe haven lay ensconced by pink hollyhocks and their doting bumblebees. The goat was released to feast on the grass as the children hurried inside.
They found him there, stiff and cold. Grey and hours beyond death.
TBC soon...
A/N: Vârcolac is Rumanian for Werewolf.