A Mother and Her Children
Transcribed by Garr
As told by Egremora
A zodiac after she told the story of Mataline's Mistake.
Shortly after arriving in the Rockslide Tavern, Coriakin asked whether Egremora knew Hekus:
Hekus? Sure! Oh, I taught Hekus a thing or two.
He taught me a thing or two, too.
You ever meet his brothers Rekus or Fecklus?
Well, they were all three of 'em charmers, loved 'em to bits.
Fecklus, he was a big one, reminded me a bit of Carlos.
Less furry, though.
Rekus, he reminds me of, I don't know, some curious person.
Always picking up rocks and looking under them, moon bless him.
We'd find him flat under boulders.
Fecklus would pick 'em up again and Hekus would fix 'em.
That does remind me of a story.
The story of a Mother and Her Children:
This story was told to me by my Mama.
Now, she wouldn't tell me where she heard it.
Love you always, Mama.
May the Moon's light always find you.
The mountain folk have been here long, long, long, but this story's older than that.
The story begins a long time ago, with a pregnant mama.
Though possessing unusual beauty, grace, and kindness, her heart had filled up bit by bit with envy.
She watched her friends have children—
—loving them, celebrating, filling up the world with their happiness and satisfaction.
Finally, it was her turn.
The day had come.
She had many generous gifts to share with her children—
—gifts of deep insight, great athletic prowess, magical powers fantastic, and ambition.
Enough to fulfill any mother's wildest dreams.
She gave birth, the children were beautiful, and she knew true satisfaction.
Her children grew up quickly, as children do.
They were everything she'd hoped.
Strong and intelligent, radiant with the beauty she'd bestowed.
Quick to understand, hungry for knowledge, eager to please.
Most importantly of all, they loved their mother.
They were eager to bring her gifts to thank her for all that she'd given them.
They composed songs, competed to write and perform poems that most accurately depicted how wonderful she was.
…that most accurately depicted how wonderful she was.
Painters and sculptors immortalized her, shipwrights named their ships in her honor.
Some among them, charismatic and well-spoken, were great leaders.
They spread word of their mother's beauty across the green world, and taught others to follow in her path.
So it came to pass that the wide world was sprinkled with temples and towers, castles and keeps—
All of them built in her name, with her face in flags and friezes and frescos.
The ambition she'd given them meant they were never content—
—and the glory to their mother was not enough.
Some minds were unswayed by their songs of praise—
—some dark corners unilluminated by the radiance of her beauty.
Her children and followers came to see the rest of the world as a dark forest.
A fearful and ignorant place—
—a place where shadows gathered and demons lurked in the darkness.
They built their temples and towers taller, built beacons to beckon light across the lands.
They had never been warriors, but they began to learn the ways of war.
The children built fiery furnaces and tempered steel, and a clamorous clang covered the land.
Their bards banged drums and their singers sang, and they set forth to wage war.
They came to the forests and cut them, axes singing to the rhythm of the war drums.
As they felled the forests, they found monsters, sure enough, roused forth from their fell forests in defense.
Folk with fur and claw and faces unfamiliar rose up against the children, and the children slew them all.
Their carpenters fashioned the trees into brightly-lit buildings.
They swiftly swept across the forests, laying them flat, spreading light with them wherever they went.
Their shipwrights fashioned the trees into ships, and they sailed to shores beyond the sunset.
Wherever they went, they spread glory of their mother—
—and they left no redoubts for shadow, no dark forests.
All this time the mother had watched and listened with great pride as her children brought glory to her name.
Her heart glowed with pride at their art, and her heart swelled at their devotion to her.
She stopped spending time with her friends, for she was so busy hearing songs and poetry—
—Receiving gifts and reports of her children's deeds.
It came to pass that her children felled every tree and every forest in the wide world.
All trees had fallen, and lands once fertile and green grew dry in the heat of the sun.
Not only the land suffered. The mother's friends suffered, and they suffered most of all.
The strange folk of the dark forests were their children, of course, and no thought had been given before slaying them.
…before slaying them.
The mother's friends were deeply sorrowful, and angry, but dreadfully slow to action.
Too late to save their own children, they vowed to at least save the world.
They gathered together — one of the friends had an enormous loom, for weaving great tapestries.
They each contributed thread of their own colors—
Warp and weft, week by week they wove a tapestry.
One night while the many children slept, they unfurled the tapestry across the sky.
Into that tapestry, they'd worked a great magic.
When the children awoke, all appeared to be as it had been.
The sun shone, clouds scudded by in the sky overhead.
But when the children began to speak of their mother, they began to change.
Their fingers became needle-like, and their arms became still.
They grew tall, and their legs plunged down into the earth, from which they couldn't pull free.
Their voices changed to a quiet rustle, almost a whisper.
Their skin grew thick and rough, losing its beautiful clarity.
Gradually, those children, so proud of their mother, became the trees they'd felled.
They became a forest, tall and deep and dark.
And those few who remained stilled their voices, and lived in the quiet beneath the branches.
Stories say that their mother only speaks to them once a Zodiac, when she comes to visit.
And they can only reply in whispers.
Now, my Mama never told me where she heard this story.
But I reckon she heard it from the Moon herself.
* * *
Next, she told us a series of tidbits and short stories.
