Practice of Magic: Memories of a Very Stupid Orc, 3rd Entry

• Posted by Karver the Lorc January 19, 2017 - Filed in TSC: Mixed - #Straag Rod  #Karver  #Practice of Magic  #Grulmar  - 1,252 views

  

   

  There was a garden…

   

  Funny things, these memories. There are things that you remember, some that you don't, some that you remember only partially.

   

  There is a garden…

   

  Sometimes you can remember only images, blurred images streaked by the colours of your emotions.

   

  There will be a garden…

   

  Sometimes there are sounds, important sentences said out loud, becoming just mere quotes said by important people. Important to you.

   

  As long as you will remember…

   

  But some things remain crystal clear, like images in motion frozen in eternity, to haunt you forever, making you shake your head to get them out. Making you think about other things, like if there was shame in those images, something that makes you embarrassed just by thinking about it.

   

  This echo…

   

  I keep looking at the sky, at the stars. Have you noticed that the night sky in a desert looks like a sea? Sort of? Maybe not, maybe it's just my poetic soul - if I ever had one. It's like looking into a sea full of long lost objects, items that people threw away on their voyage over the endless waters. I keep looking at the sky because I'm afraid to sleep. It's coming again, haunting me. The Dreams. I feel that tonight they will come and it won't be pretty. He's going to try to persuade me again. She's going to test me, as always.

   

  The words I'm going to write down here...if you'll read them when you'll find this letter under a rock of my tonight's camp...you'll be all over it. Drooling. Maybe even wanking over it. What do I know about what you do when you get enlightened?

   

  It was back when I was still at the College. The Dream came and I hate them Both for making me remember every twisted image I see in those Dreams. Crystal clear memory. Forever burned into the inside of my skull. You can consider yourself lucky

   

  There rose a garden of slender trees, and wound around the trunks were vines festooned with lily-like flowers. A multitude of spheres moved, deep in the sky, as distant and pale as the moons. There was the sound of chirping birds, but it was a doleful sound, as if something with a vague memory of having been a bird was trying to reproduce sounds it no longer felt.

   

  And then the image changed, not a garden anymore. I was surrounded by vines, much larger than anything you can imagine. I was a tiny insect in between vines that were reaching the skies. But there wasn't a sky, no. When I looked up I saw peaks, peaks of mountains, like if I was watching them from above. My head spinned, trying to make sense out of that, but can a mind really comprehend something like that?

   

  There was a man standing next to me, as tall as possibilities, as strong as sadness, with hair black as anguish and eyes with the colour of echo. And he looked at me with those eyes that almost made me drop to my knees.

   

  I looked around the darkness around me, shadows cast by the giant vines, shadows so dark they expanded through eyelids and sideways glances, obscuring the clarity of mind. That Dream was different, something about it felt different. Not just the vines and mountains instead of sky - no, I was getting used to that strange imagery. There was an...urgency in that particular Dream.

   

  I looked at the man who wasn't watching me anymore, instead looking up, to the mountains. “Just you today?” I asked him. “The green-eyed Bitch isn't around?”

   

  “Busy,” the man replied and I dropped to my knees after hearing the sound of his voice. Sound like a silent thunder, something that doesn't come from the sky but from your bones, echoing through your soul, crushing you under the weight of regret. “Be witness,” he added and pointed up.

   

  I shook my head, trying to cover my eyes with my hands. “I don't want to…”

   

  “You have to,” the man said and it was like if someone pulled the strings of my soul, getting me back on my feet, on the tip of my toes, tilting my head back and forcing my eyes to open. “Watch.”

   

  At first, I had no idea what should I watch, but then I saw. There, on the top of one of the mountains. Dragons. Three dragons locked in a deadly dance of fire and blood. Lights were flashing as the shouts were unleashed, fire against ice, raw force against the beat of wings.

   

  At first I thought they were all fighting each other, but not. It was two against one.

   

  One big, black as coal, his scales burning with the fire of the world, was fighting against a bronze dragon and a grey dragon. I couldn't make out any details, though I noticed a broken horn on the grey dragon's head.

   

  They were circling through the air, both bronze and grey striking at the black one with everything they got. Shouts, tails, wings, claws, teeth. And the black one was just laughing. With one beat of his wing he sent the bronze dragon flying to the ground where he landed hard, piles of snow launching into the air.

   

  The grey then rammed the black one from above, both their bodies now falling down, locked in a deadly embrace where both clawed with their rear legs at their opponent's belly, jaws trying to grasp around the other's neck. And the black was bigger, stronger. He managed to clench his jaws around the grey's dragon shoulder, right where the wing was, and then used his rear legs to push him away from the grey, sending him to the ground.

   

  “Come,” said the man and suddenly we were on the peak, standing in the snow, near the grey dragon. The bronze one was lying a short distance away, close to something that looked like a Dragon Wall. And the black one was still in the air, mocking his opponents.

   

  But my eyes were drawn to the grey dragon. He was...different. His colour wasn't completely grey but something like a snow covered with a deep ash, like slate upon marble. Stone, yes stone or metal was what he saw with this dragon.  He was scarred, plenty of cuts on his sides, his chest bearing a scars of heavy burns. One of his horns was partially broken, a ring in his nose like a bull. A ring of bone and ebony, carved in a twist. A coiled snake being eaten by an eagle. The horns were adorned with rings as well. He was breathing heavily, the air in front of his nostrils being blown away, melting by his hot breath.

   

  It was then I realized that there were no sounds, everything was covered by the deafening silence of the Void, blinding my understanding of that situation. I wasn't supposed to hear the words, I know that now. The words that the black dragon was saying, his jaw moving, as he sat down on the ground in front of the grey dragon.

   

  And suddenly I felt myself moving forward, towards the grey dragon.

   

  “In your time of need...I come,” I said with voice that wasn't mine, voice breaking in the middle of the sentence, finding it hard to continue. “Not because of you. Because of me,” I murmured and the grey dragon turned to me, his red-orange eyes, burning like coals, looking straight at me. Not shocked, just curious. And I knew those eyes, my heart racing, the pounding of the forge’s hammer constant in my head..

   

  I was nearly touching the dragon's maw, I felt the hot breath on my face. The sulfur, the ash, the vapor of sizzling water...It was so familiar. “Not a Grudge, Old Hammer. A Penance. You shall remember.” I touched the dragon's maw and it was like as if sun was born within my chest, burning its way out of it, through my heart. And the light was engulfing the dragon.

   

  And then there weren't dragons anymore. They changed, changed into something I've never seen before. The grey dragon in front of me suddenly became...something else. Humanoid. With horns, tail, wings, pointy ears, grey skin. Dragon's scales were now his armor. His face was scarred, as if battle was his way. The horn was still broken and there was still a nose ring in his hawk’s nose. And his wings...they were broken, looking as if every inch of bone was broken in them. They were hanging down limp alongside his muscled back, being dragged over the ground like a long cloak, but he bore the burden, the extra weight. The eyes still his eyes, the spirit unbroken. And this...creature was holding a sword, slightly curved, double edged with its blade made out of...light, glass, crystal, amber. It radiated with light so it was hard to tell for certain what material it was.

   

  The bronze dragon was changed too, into a very similar creature, with a long beard, supporting his weight with bronze staff as he was getting on his feet, mighty wings spreading behind his back. And the black one? The same. Horns black as night, his eyes and hair burning with world's fire, his tail anxiously twitching, wings beating. Beautiful might to the grey one’s ugliness.

   

  There was an exchange of words between the three of them, the grey one was getting angry. He then shouted something and both other creatures dropped on their knees so suddenly, as if they were forced by some invisible force. The grey one was getting furious and then he lashed out with the sword he was holding, against the black one.

   

  The ensuing fight was fast, faster than I could see.

   

  The grey one wielded the sword as truth only to fall to the ground screaming in torment, in intense pain. Sadness overwhelming. Understanding. The black one was defeated and fleeing, but it laughed as it fled. The bronze one was maimed, his silence like snowfall.

   

  And then I woke up. In my room in the College, covered in sweat. I heard a thunder from the distance, I was barely able to breathe, trying to digest what I saw. And I cursed the Tall Man, I cursed him with every fiber of my being.

   

  For haunting me. For doing this to me. For showing me things I wasn't able to understand. For forcing this on me.

   

  I didn't want it. And I still don't.

   

  But now, I have to sleep. I can't stay up anymore. I'm going to Dream again and I will curse when I wake up. Because I don't want any of this.