The Telword Tales

[Older]

The Telword Tales


Prologue


/with apologies to Geoffrey Chaucer/

When Myrtul with his sweet showers has loosed the Claw of Storms,
and bathed every meadow with the liqueur that engenders the tender flowers,
then longed my heart to go on pilgrimage to strange lands and learn the ways of forest folk in their fair woodland halls. I, [smudge] Telword, man and bard, in my first venture from my Waterdhavian domus, resolved to learn of the elven folk by sojourning among the woodelves of Ardeep Forest -- as it was but a two-day journey with an excellent hostelry along the way. Ah! the comestibles of that place deserve a paen of their own! But nonetheless, while I have time and space, I think it reasonable to tell you of all the folk I met: who they were and of what degree, and also in what strange array that they were in,
and with the Twice-cursed Twins I will begin.

....as soon as the next scroll is scraped and dried

[Older]

The Twice-Cursed Twins
Twins there were, rare among the elven folk and deemed most unlucky by the woodelven community of Ardeep. But worse, far worse as the long-memoried folk agree, was their natal day, for they were born on the least elven day of the calendar year 1251, the Winter Solstice. Born into a shocked Moondown family, the female was called Vestelle, and the male Mourn. They were separated, of course, and fostered to distant relatives of relatives; Mourn to the High Forest and Vestelle to the other side of Waterdeep, in the Westwood. Ardeep hastened to forget the Twice-Cursed Twins.
Mourn
Fostered by woodelves who had accepted the fading of the elven pantheon and recognized the working of new powers in their woodland realm, Mourn, though missing the security and closeness of the kin groups his peers all shared, admired his foster-parents and their place in the community. He shadowed his foster-father, a cleric of Mielikki, from his first years. "As close as Mourn to Taeghen" became a common saying along the banks of Unicorn Run. With no memory of his birthplace or birthparents, a defining moment in Mourn's youth came when he received a scroll that found its way by many hands to his from a twin he did not know he had. He replied, and two more scrolls were exchanged over the next five decades of the twins' youth. They agreed to meet when they were grown, drawn each by an unsatisfied longing for something neither of them could express.

[last line at the very bottom of the scroll: there must be more]

[Older]

Vestelle

Fostered in the Westwood on the other side of Waterdeep by dutiful but not affectionate relatives, Vestelle grew up knowing much of duty but little of love. She was always ahead of her age with the bow and only mediocre with the other weapon of her fosterfolk, the longsword. In fact she hated the discarded blade one of her foster-sisters had dismissed to her use : it was too heavy for the quick-thrusting style she would have preferred, but too light to stand up to stroke and counterstroke with axe or greatsword. It mattered little, though, considering the peace enforced by the humans of nearby Waterdeep. She used her bow nearly daily for hunting game or slaying the beasts that competed for the game, for she was raised to be a ranger of the woods, among the few hunters for the small tribe, who were mostly weavers of cloth for daily use and woodcarvers of marketable objects for the pleasure of the human citydwellers. If defense of the Westwood had not been the price extracted by the Waterdhavians for allowing the elves unfettered and sole possession of the woodland, she might never have learned to use a blade at all. Bow and longknife she mastered, the longsword she suffered and carried perforce. Outwardly timid and obedient, inwardly she yearned for reunion with the only being for whom she felt true affection, her unseen twin. Always quick and silent in her comings and goings, she overheard an unguarded conversation between her fosterfather and the high druid of the Westwood about her cursed birth, and was amazed and pleased to learn she had a living relative who had not decided to reject her. She contacted him by devious means and they agreed to meet shortly after they came of age, in Sundren between the eastern seacoast and the inhospitable Icewind Dale. Vestelle left first, with little thought for her fosterfolk, who gave as little thought to her loss except to voice to each other their complaints about the few things she took with her. Her adventures on the journey were no doubt grim, because when next I heard of her she was at the Sunderer's Gate without her treasured bow but with a small purse of gold she had earned as hunter for the various caravans she had joined on her winding way. The great plague that swept through Waterdeep earlier this year took both the twins' birth parents and Vestelle's fosterkin.

Oft does the tale turn but late;
That which was cursed becomes straight;
The outcast proves true;
The curser reaps rue. [smudged] Telword