A Mouse's Tale

[Mouse]

You will find here the entries of Mouse, better known to her family as Elizabeth "Lizzy" Gaelwen Van Dunlop, in her own words and images.

[Mouse]

Stretched out on my back in a square of sunshine,I watched the small particles of dust and pollen swirl gently in front of the arched window and was still and quiet. My older brother, Tiberius, all of 12 and almost two years my senior, was hiding knitted thick eyebrows under his rough dark curls, trying to push back tears of frustration while the tutors went over the incantations again. Mother had insisted on bringing tutors from the dragonborn city, the gnomish woodland kingdoms, the dwarven mountain keeps and even from her own kin from far away Elven mystic workshops to see if her oldest child, her firstborn son, had inherited his father's knack for magic casting.

Tiberius groaned under the unshakable gaze of these mages, as different in composition as the flowers that grew along the castle paths and that bloomed all year that mother had wrapped up and brought with her all the year as ago when she was sent forth to meet her future husband with her tiny entourage of handmaids, guards and an ancient pedigree. These pieces of living history and power crowded around the boy with focus as sharp as an Elvish dagger and watched the huge wooden table that the boy sat at. Before him on the table, engraved with Elvish script, was a goblet of water, a small urn of burning incense, a small bag of sand, various stones of distinct colors and crystaline shapes, seeds, a few vials holding fibers, liquid or colored vapors and a mechanical construct of a bumble bee. I was insatiably curious as to the how heavy the stones were and were they warm, and what did the liquids smell like and what was their purpose, and what made such a hard but pleasant smell in the burning urn. My mind was on fire and my heart was jealous that Tiberious was so close that he could reach out and touch and hold and investigate, but it never occurred to him to do so. My face was cold and vacant, trying not to draw attention or to give away the sideways glances when I thought I could get away with it.

I asked both my parents at the same time, as was my way, if I could also attend this training, and mother had immediately objected. Father, with equal fervor, had said of course, as long as I was quiet like a mouse and kept out of the way. Lenora had long ago learned that Father and I had some inner, unspoken sameness and had not pursued the matter further. We just belonged to each other utterly.

As hard as Tiberius might try, the objects remained unaffected. I listened with owl ears and stretched very carefully, bit by bit, in the sunshine until I could watch the great masters' hands and arms as they spoke the words that rang so sweetly it was like singing. The tall, blue Dragonborn mage glanced at me and I pretended to be bored.

Tiberious flapped his arms about in true Van Dunlop glory, but I had been mouse-quiet on too many of his sword fighting forays with other masters, and archery challenges and horsemanship lessons, and strategy games, which was what gave my brother the greatest pleasure and success. Still, the object on the table remained silent and ignored his chanting completely. Again, I caught the hulking dragonborn's eyes resting on me, his face impossible to interpret and I felt a small voice somewhere in my head, which I immediately quieted and flipped over on my back, closing my eyes against the streaming sun.

I lay there and pressed my back against the stone floor, feeling my body caught between the cold stone and the warming sun. I let it fill me, bit by bit - heat and the absence of it, opposed there in one space. In my mind, I squeezed the two forces even closer into a tiny imaginary square, then into a tiny point and imagined all the heat in the surrounding room fitting into this tiny point, and all the absence filling the void left behind. I heard the tiny voice in the back of my head say the word fire, but it was not the word fire, it was an image, a song, a heat from long dark days since passed and a new word that sounded like a low belly growl. I gently moved my hands to caress this growl, raising my arms just off the cold stone and letting my body feel warm and flushed until I heard Tiberious say, "Lizzie?"

Suddenly I realized the silence of the room and the voice only in my mind, sitting there like an old friend. I flipped over, eyes wide and caught the sapphire stare of the tall, blue wizard who, in this light, looked far more dragon than man. Wait. Why is the light....

The vials had moved to the edge of the table and the stones in front of them. The water is the goblet had turned to solid ice, and in the center of the table was the small urn, erupted into orange and blue flames that followed my movement as I steadied myself on my legs and moved quietly toward the door with the eyes of my brother and the mages on me.

In the singing fire song, the azure mage said, "No, little mouse. You will be staying here," and then he turned to Tiberious, eyes wide with shock, and said in Common, "Boy, go fetch your mother."

[LaraCooper]

"Death Beyond the Door"


The small courtyard behind the palace kitchens was beginning to lighten despite the shadow of the massive walls of Luciferium  Rock. I smelled the warm bread baking in the large stone ovens and was suddenly hungry. I had hoped that by skipping breakfast I would be the first in the courtyard, but over the last several months of my new life learning to be a mage, regardless of my commitment to rising early, Smokebeard always seemed to have anticipated then when and where of my arrival and this morning he was standing firm and silent near the kitchen door, his face an impassible palisade of neutrality.

“Good morning, little mouse.”

“Good morning, Thrrrrrrooonethirrron”. It had taken me a month to get the intonation of his name correct in Draconic, but watching the slightest upturn of his mouth into almost a smirk had been worth it. Most people were afraid of the low growl that came from his chest when we practiced the ancient and magical language as we walked through halls, but I had come to feel it as more like a loud purring. It was a low, slow song with much strength and much sadness and I often wondered if true strength was ever found in joy. I looked through the dusty stone yard, with tufts of hay here and there, empty barrels and crates to be picked up and taken back to wherever they came from, a few chickens scratching at small rocks, or looking for seeds in the hay, and pecking at bits of potatoes in one of the crates. “Why are we here?”

I never knew what he was planning. There were other teachers. Fawnsworth, an elvish acquaintance of Mother, spent time teaching me mathematics and how to apply them to finding distances to far places with strange tools that were always beautifully crafted. He was meant to teach me to read as well, but I had been doing that for years already and we often read in silence until I came along a question that needed further explanation. There was the human, Bipple, who “taught” me magical theory by watching the stars, and taking careful measurements and reading “signs”, but Bipple never seemed to be able to answer the bigger questions about where magic came from. “Why, the gods of course,” would be all that he would say.  Morpheous, a clever old gnome with more hair in his ears than on his head, was by far the better instructor at magic. He blindfolded me and taught me to focus on the sound of water dropping softly on leaves. “Focus on the quiet places, and when all the world around you is a crashing chaos, find the quiet and say the spell.” Cleo the human cleric came to teach me the deities, and Straella the Elvish paladin who taught me to fight with daggers and the mace and with magic. Father taught me about strategy in battle and I asked a hundred questions only to make the sessions last longer. Mother taught me how to behave at court and talked at great length of bloodlines and political allies and I tried to pay attention so that it the lessons were short. Then there was Smokebeard.

Officially, he was my teacher of History, but it felt more like a study of the nature of things. Wordlessly, he would nod and I would follow him all over the palace. He once had me watch the boys at the Griffin stables for two hours and then asked me what I had learned. He wanted me to not just look, but to see beyond – to notice the tiny behaviors that revealed the nature of a person – their kindness or cruelty. He always asked me to show him my spells, and he would watch, without comment or expression. He sat me in front of eight jars of dirt once and had me feel the sands and soils and describe them. Then ask what might or might not grow in them and how it would affect the creatures who lived above or below the soil. Then he explained where these soils had come from and suddenly he was a storyteller and I his audience as he recounted the decline of the Elves of the great Sleeping Sea plains when the rain didn’t come and the Elves fled into the forests.

“We are here to practice your magic, Mouse.”

This would be a good day! He obviously had nothing planned other than seeing my spells this morning and I was happy to show off. I could always cast shocking grasp on him since blue Dragonborn are resistant to it. I couldn’t hurt him even if I had wanted to. All the cantrip did was make his scales itch. I went through me routines that Morpheous had me practice until I reached Burning Hands.

“Stop. Yes, that one will do. Today you are going to practice it in the courtyard. Let’s see what you can do with this crate. Can you burn it?”

I planted my feet firmly, concentrated on the sound of the cooks’ chatter from the kitchen and lifted my arms into a dance resembling whipping flames while pulling the words of the firesong from memory until the small planks of wood cracked open into flame.

“Very good, but so what? What good is this on a such a mild warm day? Are you going to roast me slowly?”

“No. But I could burn down a door. Or a wall.”

“I see. And when you burn down the door? What then?”

“I will burn the man behind the door. That’s what Father says. I can protect myself and my family from enemies.”

“Is the man behind the door your enemy?”

“He must be if I’m burning it down.”

“I see. So how do you know you can do it? Burn the man, that is?”

I wasn’t sure just exactly what he meant. I had stepped on an ember that had fallen from the hearth once and knew that fleshed could be burned. Did he want me to show him? I wasn’t about to cast a spell and burn my teacher! At a loss, my eyes rested on the tan chicken pecking away at a collection of straw and grinned. I knew exactly what to do and raised my arms and sang the words and watched the chicken don a robe of licking, living orange flames. The sound was piercing. The hen screaming, smoldering, feathers giving off a stinking white smoke, her eyes mad and unseeing with terror. The other chickens ran from her, sensing either her madness or their own peril. He feathers turned black and then her skin and she finally dropped to the stone, just lying there, trying to draw breath, her lungs still burning from the flames and smoke. I watched her for what felt like hours while her mind fled and her body died, tears, like rivers, rolling over my cheeks and onto the stones.

I looked up at Smokebeard, watching me with his stony face that revealed nothing and I ran. I ran through the kitchens, through the hall, the library and up the cold stone stairs sobbing until I found my room, threw the door open and sat in front of the window and cried until I couldn’t draw air through my nose and my head pounded. I closed my eyes and could still see the bubbled skin of the chicken, red, blistered, wet and could hear the tiny cackles of pain that escaped her while life ebbed. I could not hear or see anything else. All I could feel was nausea. I heard the low rumbling growl of Draconic as my tutor stepped into my room.

“Mouse?”

“GO AWAY! I HATE YOU!”

“Mouse.”

“I’M NEVER DOING MAGIC AGAIN. GO AWAY. TELL THEM I’M DONE!”

“Mouse, listen to me.”

“I WON’T LISTEN! I HATE YOU!”

It was the first time I had heard a Dragonborn roar and the only time I was ever afraid of him. He paced in front of the door, his brows knitted together tightly, his chest heaving and his eyes wild with emotion. He reached out to me in voice and in mind in Dragonspeak.

“You WILL listen! You are a caster! You can be Death that comes from beyond a burning door, or you can sit and hide and bar the door and wait to be the chicken, or perhaps it will be Tiberious, or your Mother, or the twins, but you WILL decide. There is a price, caster, and when the day comes, you must know which side of the door you stand on!” With that, he turned and left.

I sat in my room, alone, the rest of the day. My handmaid, Portia, left a tray of bread and soup and apples in my room, and I let the soup grow cold. Portia took it away but left the bread and apples. The window in my room from the tower was cut glass of many heavy pieces, all different colors and pieced carefully together to form two knights, swords drawn, and lunging for one another. If I put my eye up to the window, next to the knight in silver, I could peer down and for just one tiny spot, then angel was just right that I could see the city past the palace walls. I watched until the sun fell behind the walls of The Rock and all was dark.

The next morning, I rose slowly, dressed simply and crept down to the kitchen courtyard. Smokebeard was leaning against the wall, his blue scales dull against the gray rock in the semi-darkness, and his face unreadable. I walked beside him and leaned next to him, peering out into the mirk, breathing in the smell of baking bread, watching the chickens peck at the hay as if they knew nothing. I saw a blackened stone in the yard and in my mind saw not the tan hen, but my baby sister, with her long braids and cold gray eyes.

In flawless Draconic I growled lowly, “I am Death beyond the door.”

[DM JEB]

I'm loving theses tales

[LaraCooper]

A Game of Cat and  Mouse
My left calf itched violently from the healing scratch that ran across and down the length of my lower leg from knee to ankle. It would probably scar and mother had forced me to wear a long gown of lilac and ivory. I felt nearly naked standing there in the sheer, light fabric of the dress, in a large, long hall behind the gilded benches my parents occupied. Justina and Kelly were meant to be by my side, but they had long ago sneaked away and were wandering through the ladies and high sons of Luciferian Rock and the statesmen and wealthy merchants of far-away cities that I had only heard of from my tutors. I could see the girls flashing their charming smiles, then using their identical faces to confuse people as one or the other pick-pocketed our illustrious guests. Those girls were destined for trouble.
I tried to stand on my right leg and use my left slippered foot to gently scratch the long wound. I had mastered the throwing of the daggers, as was my mother’s fond desire, but had gotten bolder and began using hand axes. The weight difference was significant and one had to have a firm grip on the weapon, as opposed to the light, more finessed hold on a dagger. I had dropped an axe and felt its unforgiving edge graze down my shin, leaving a clean slice that filled quickly with blood. I nearly fell over trying to scratch without being noticed, but reached out and firmly grasped George’s shoulder, who gasped, attracting mother’s gaze. George and I both immediately stood a bit taller and looked innocent. I mouthed the words “I’m sorry” to George after mother looked away. George had auburn hair, like mother, and was immediately likeable. He just winked at me and smiled. There had been stirrings in his heart and strange dreams and there were rumors that the gods were whispering to George. We had a long talk and walked through the gardens and I advised him to keep most things to himself and to be true to his own mind and heart first.
I waited impatiently, surrounded mb younger siblings, for the procession from Dolnan to arrive. The matter of my betrothal was at hand, as I stood here ready to celebrate my Solstice Day of my 16th year. In Ni’hal, one celebrated the cycles of the year with the seasons and we all celebrated together. I was born in early summer and celebrated the passing of my years at the Summer Solstice with many others. This Solstice Day would mark my eligibility to accept suitors for my hand in marriage. I had heard that many commoners in The Rock engaged similarly, their parents making arrangements for matches of suitable status, wealth, family connections etc. I had also heard a few rumors of younglings who struck out on their own, or married in secret a mate of their own choosing, much to the shame and detriment of their parents. Having to pay off an offended family could be one’s undoing.
There were careful considerations of matches for me that all bored me to tears. There was Klaud, my cousin from Silverburgh. His father Thalion was my mother’s brother and he had a twin sister, Kate. Silverburgh was known for its trade and gentle life near the coast and boasted a beautifully planned city, perfectly symmetrical, closer in design to an Elvish city than the other human states. Silverburgh was positioned such that it was much more cultured, seeing higher populations of gnomish and dragonborn traders. Their guilds were legendary and the city was the embodiment of artistry itself. Klaud was three years my junior, however, and a marriage to the Silverburgh legacy would involve patience and time.  Klaud was being tested this summer to see if he owned an ability for magic, so it was his sister, Kate, who had come to court. She was spry and had lush curls of rich auburn like so many of the elvish side of my family. She was nearly as tall as I was, though younger and had arrived last week. We had become quick friends. She had already been tested and found no real connection with the arcane arts, though she was very good with animals and we often found ourselves visited by birds, mice, butterflies, and such as I gave her the tour of the palace. The griffons adored her and she ran her fingers through their feathers and they purred and trumpeted for her attention.

There was a great deal of talk about Saints Cross, nestled on the northeast coast of Ni’hal at the end of a large bay and backed by the great sweeping plains, who had known relative peace, under the reign of my Uncle Lars and his elvish wife, Maia. I had always thought they were the most beautiful people I’d ever seen. Uncle Lars, father’s younger brother, was tall and lean and handsome with the expected ice-blue eyes of the Von Dunlaps and jet black hair, while his wife was willowy and lithe with emerald green eyes and ice-white hair. The thing that made them beautiful was their genuine love for each other. I’d only known them briefly. The came once during high summer of my 10th year, but they were still talked about in court and among the common folk who saw them arrive in the city in a simple armed caravan filled with gifts from the far coast. They rode in on matching gray mares, regal, smiling, and fearless among the crowd of Luciferian Rock. They held hands in the gardens and were often seen catching each other in sidelong glances, like new lovers. They were kind, soulful people, gentle like a bygone age, but as happy as they were, the only shadow that fell over them was their lack of an heir. There were no children born of their great love.
There was talk behind closed doors, talk that I was becoming more privy to now that I was part of the grand scheme of bloodlines, of who would rule at Saints Cross to carry on the name. It was discussed that I could find a suitable marriage within the better known houses of Saints Cross and learn to lead under the mentorship of Lars. The city’s largest threat was from orc raiding parties who darted in, under cover of night from the seas of razorgrass, hit smaller keeps on the fringe of the city, then darted back into the darkness. As of late, the orcs had grown in number and boldness and burned through several nights until forces from The Cross were required to go out. Usually, these forays were brief, but the last party to leave the city were found slaughtered, dismembered, partially eaten and partially drug through the endless horizon of green. Either the orcs were organizing, or they were breeding something in the plains. The city would need someone well versed in defensive strategy. It was decided that Tiberius was the most likely choice in the short term to shore up the city and find a solution for orcish invasions. I longed to see my brother again and begged to be sent there to help him, but I was politely uninvited from the room.
It seems as the most likely master of my fate was my cousin, Jon, from Dolnan. The only living child of my father’s brother, Titus and his elvish wife, Alcyon, Jon was born the same summer as I, and had shown some degree of magical awakening. Uncle Titus and the Lady Alcyon had been mismatched from the beginning. He was as robust as my father, charismatic and joyful, while Aly was a secretive, quiet, brooding woman with no mirth within her heart. She was, as elves go, quite beautiful, all silvery and shimmering, but her marriage to Titus has been strictly an arrangement. She was happier buried in her books. I had heard of her extensive library, and envied access to Ni’hal’s largest mage college, centered in Dolnan. Aly’s inherent sadness may have had to do with the seeming curse that she and Titus were under where their family was concerned. It seemed the cosmos could feel their misalignment and the ruling couple had seen 4 children in 9 years be brought to the light of the world, then wither and die within hours. They finally had Jon and Alcyon had casually announced that he would be the last attempt. Her body, her mind, her spirit could bare no more. I knew little of my cousin, and it was him that we waited for. He and his parents were to be presented to court after a three month journey, mostly by water, to the sloping hills of Luciferian Rock, to celebrate Jon and I’s Solstice Day.
I had barely seen father in those three months. I was turned over almost exclusively to mother and my tutors to groom and educated me on the finer points of duty, of court, of the history of elvish bloodlines and a myriad other useless paths of study that only lead me to be moodier and more disagreeable. I had each predominant human house of note’s crest memorized, knew at least 30 enchanting stories to tell at court about the history surrounding The Rock to provoke tears, giggles or inspired shouts, depending on the mood of the room. I was fitted for gowns and rainbows of fabric were draped across my face. “Not that one, her skin is far too pale.” “This one sets off the blue in her eyes.” “Not the yellow, it makes her look sallow.” I tolerated as much as I could and to her credit, mother could see when my frustration had built to a possible explosion. She dismissed them all to sew and would reward me by handing me one of the alchemy books from father’s study and leaving me alone the rest of the day.
So here I stood, scratching my leg through my dress, my hair taken down from its customary braids, washed, curled, piled high on my head to create an illusion of height, waiting for my future.  Footmen opened the doors into the great hall and announced loudly, “The Lord Titus and Lady Alcyon of Dolnan, and Prince Jon of Dolnan…” All eyes watched the small family as they glided through the hall toward us. George leaned over, his smile gone and his eyes serious beyond his years, “Lizzy….what’s wrong with him?”
Uncle Titus was the picture of health and maturity. Closest in age to my father than any of his siblings, Titus grinned a wide and confident smile that was typical of Von Dunlap men, and his black locks curled around his face with shocks of gray at the temples. He would have been perfect were it not the long, harsh gash across the left side of his face where he had stepped in front of a mace in order to shield my father during a skirmish with a pair of mountain trolls they had startled while hunting. He gave my father a hearty shout, while his wife glided in with far more decorum. Alcyon was dressed in a shimmering silver gown that seemed to have a gentle radiance of its own, her white hair dead straight with tiny braids that ended in black-purple beads that caught the sun. She was slight and short like a lithe cat sauntering down a dark alley. There was no expression to her face at all, and her eyes revealed nothing. It was as if she was carved of cold white marble and would remain all edges for eternity. Yet as cold as Aunt Aly seemed, an audible gasp left my lips as she fanned to her right to reveal her son, Jon.
Jon was beautifully carved, like his mother, but without even her sense of life. He had long silver hair, more like mithril, gleaming and his face was finely featured, but his skin was a sickly gray like snow-laden clouds. He looked downward until his mother made space for him and when he looked up, he scanned the dais until his eyes rested on me. His eyes were black, soulless pits that seemed to not to see at all, but there at the corner of his beautiful full lips, rested a smirk of conquest that nearly made me vomit. He was tall like Titus, but of slight build like his mother and stooped over slightly like he was drawn toward the earth in some unseen battle. He was dressed in black leather armor with a white fur cape draped over his shoulders. I thought it odd in the middle of summer, but wished I , too, had something to wrap around me, as I felt suddenly cold to my very bones. Suddenly, I felt not only cold, but quite disjointed from my body, as if I had concentrated, I could have left it entirely. I felt a word forming in the back of mind, in the low purr-growl of draconic, but another part of mind ran, reeled, floated from it. I reached out with what wit I had left for the word….marfedelom….death…..
It was the last thing I could remember before the world went black.

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