update from sparkleup
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Madison Scott-Clary
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<p><em>“It is done! It is done!</em> the fox hollered. <em>“It is done and those poor saps did not even get to finish their song! Oh, to see their faces! Crumbling sim, friends forever cut off!”</em></p>
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<p>Dear’s partner also laughed, eventually hopping to their feet and chasing after the fox in a mad dash, leaving Codrin to sit and smile and watch and think.</p>
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<p>There was no more Codrin in the L<sub>5</sub> System. Had ey ever existed? Ey was only memories, and perhaps that is all ey had ever been. Navel gazing and existential crises mixed with the glee of having actually <em>done</em> something. No longer just the passive amanuensis, but now the active participant, to whatever extent.</p>
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<p>When Dear and its partner finally collapsed into a laughing heap amid the dandelions and shortgrass, Codrin stood, raised eir hands to the fire-dimmed sky, and addressed fox and human and flames. “Hwæt! We great three have made it! We have made it to safety and sanctuary!”</p>
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<p>Dear rolled up and focused on Codrin with a singular intensity that ey had seen countless times before and yet never gotten used to.</p>
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<p>“We three, the heroes, the shield-bearers of Elfive had long since sought the beast. It lived in the caves, they said. It dwelt in the fields and disguised itself as tall grass, ready to ensnare the traveler. It was as large as a mountain and crouched beside the valley, unseen, traversed, summited, and still it claimed lives in its hunger. Who knows the truth, now, but us three? None who met its gaze had ever lived to tell the tale, and none now will ever hear, for we are the only ones who have seen it face to face and lived, and yet we escaped only by jumping from the world up to the heavens.</p>
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<p>“We sought it by night until we realized that it was not there–“</p>
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<p><em>“We sought it!”</em> Dear shouted, hoisting a tankard that had appeared in its paw.</p>
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<p>“We sought it by day, supposing that that is where it must be hiding–“</p>
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<p><em>“Sought but did not find!”</em></p>
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<p>“We looked to the morning, supposing that it might dwell between the two, but morning is the time of creation! The beast of destruction cannot live there. And so we sought in the evening gloaming and there we found the slavering teeth–“</p>
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<p>“The jaws that bite, the claws that catch.” Dear’s partner chimed in, lifting their own tankard.</p>
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<p>“And we braved them. We braved, but though we tried, we could not best them. There was no fight to be had–“</p>
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<p><em>“No swords could cut it!”</em></p>
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<p>“No spears could pierce it.”</p>
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<p>“–and all we could do was hold off its attack to run away until true darkness fell and we could finally rest. The next morning we would take off running, and hope to gain some distance, but always the beast was there, ready and waiting–“</p>
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<p><em>“Ready to pounce!”</em></p>
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<p>“So we grew weary, for nothing we did could not be undone by the beast. It <em>was</em> the mountain! It <em>did</em> dwell in the grass! It <em>did</em> live in caves! It was all these things and more.”</p>
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<p>“So much more, yes.”</p>
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<p>“So, the best that we could do,” Codrin said with an air of finality. “Was to leave behind the earth, the realm of the physical, to leap up and up–“</p>
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<p><em>“Up and up!”</em></p>
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<p>“Up and up!”</p>
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<p>“–and ascend directly to the heavens to live as gods!”</p>
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<p>The three of them all lifted their tankards high, spilling spruce beer and laughing as they shouted, “Hail! Hail!” before drinking deep.</p>
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<p>“You, my dear, are quite drunk,” Dear’s parter said, grinning.</p>
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<p>“That I am!”</p>
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<p><em>“But that was good! Much better than signing a waver that we might be lost and then waiting for the appointed time.”</em> Dear paused, tilted its head, and adopted a sly grin that surely meant trouble. <em>“But I do not think that that is</em> actually <em>what happened, for when God hath ordained a creature to die in a particular place, He causeth that creature’s wants to direct him to that place.”</em></p>
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<p>Codrin sat down on the ground as the other two had and awaited Dear’s version of the events.</p>
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<p><em>“When God hath ordained a creature to die in a particular place, He causeth that creature’s wants to direct him to that place.”</em></p>
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</article>
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<footer>
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<p>Page generated on 2021-08-22</p>
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