Post by Crow • ᚴᚱᚬᚴᛦ on Nov 23, 2023 9:05:54 GMT
The boy did not realise it until they had left, but the Harbour and the Starless Sea is not a place entirely strange to him. It is a place spoken of in the fireside stories of his boyhood, though then it was called Mímisbrunnur, or Mímir’s Well. A library located deep within the earth, surrounded by water, the home of every story that has ever been written — what is that if not the famed well of wisdom, in colossal form?
And Old Mímir was no longer; tending to the well in his stead are a collection of Keepers, Acolytes, and Guardians. But very few of them are left. Most of the Guardians had turned against their fellows, believing fervently that the Harbour’s secrets must be kept to themselves.
It’s easy to take a position against the Collector’s Club — surely knowledge must be shared freely with all. Who wouldn’t like to explore the Harbour and discover what secrets lie in those ancient walls? But there is a persistent feeling, lingering as a whisper in the back of his head, that there must be a price to pay for such knowledge, a catch yet unrevealed. After all, the Wanderer gave his eye in order to drink from Mímir’s Well.
As the boy sits in his hovel and contemplates this, he sips from a cup of hot mead, brewed from the honey that flows in abundance within the Harbour. (Mute Zenith had brewing tools in his home, and Zenith was more than happy to instruct the boy on how to use them.) It tastes richer and burns warmer in his belly than any mead he’s ever drunk. Murk Schnickstick had the same idea as him — he wonders if the svirfneblin had achieved the same success with his batch.
The boy picks up the book he had borrowed from the Harbour — a fantastical, riveting tale about a kingdom of owls — and continues reading the page marked by a dried leaf. Delicious mead, a good book, a crackling fire, the soft patter of a late afternoon rain. It’s the cosiest he’s ever felt in this lonely hovel.
However, a thought intrudes insistently upon his mind even as he is deep in reading. His gaze is drawn away from the book and towards items left on the floor, lying near the small fire pit: a handful of six-sided dice with symbols instead of numbers and a golden compass, its needle spinning and wobbling aimlessly to and fro. For some reason, he finds himself thinking of Fortunes & Fables, the green leather-bound book Mirabel had hired them to retrieve from the Collector’s Club, a tome that was “special” for having been written in the Harbour. He thinks about the only page that was written in Common.
The rest of the page had been torn off by an unknown hand, leaving the passage incomplete.
And as he raises the warm cup to his lips, he recalls the memory that had cracked across his head when he drank the Harbour’s honey: his younger self sharing a horn of mead with a smiling, raven-haired woman as the quiet dark of winter descended upon the village. The same woman who had been appearing in his dreams.
The passage and the memory. Both feel uncannily familiar to him. Both hold promises of revelation, down below, at the bottom of the well.
It is such a tempting thought. Sweet as honey mead.
And Old Mímir was no longer; tending to the well in his stead are a collection of Keepers, Acolytes, and Guardians. But very few of them are left. Most of the Guardians had turned against their fellows, believing fervently that the Harbour’s secrets must be kept to themselves.
It’s easy to take a position against the Collector’s Club — surely knowledge must be shared freely with all. Who wouldn’t like to explore the Harbour and discover what secrets lie in those ancient walls? But there is a persistent feeling, lingering as a whisper in the back of his head, that there must be a price to pay for such knowledge, a catch yet unrevealed. After all, the Wanderer gave his eye in order to drink from Mímir’s Well.
As the boy sits in his hovel and contemplates this, he sips from a cup of hot mead, brewed from the honey that flows in abundance within the Harbour. (Mute Zenith had brewing tools in his home, and Zenith was more than happy to instruct the boy on how to use them.) It tastes richer and burns warmer in his belly than any mead he’s ever drunk. Murk Schnickstick had the same idea as him — he wonders if the svirfneblin had achieved the same success with his batch.
The boy picks up the book he had borrowed from the Harbour — a fantastical, riveting tale about a kingdom of owls — and continues reading the page marked by a dried leaf. Delicious mead, a good book, a crackling fire, the soft patter of a late afternoon rain. It’s the cosiest he’s ever felt in this lonely hovel.
However, a thought intrudes insistently upon his mind even as he is deep in reading. His gaze is drawn away from the book and towards items left on the floor, lying near the small fire pit: a handful of six-sided dice with symbols instead of numbers and a golden compass, its needle spinning and wobbling aimlessly to and fro. For some reason, he finds himself thinking of Fortunes & Fables, the green leather-bound book Mirabel had hired them to retrieve from the Collector’s Club, a tome that was “special” for having been written in the Harbour. He thinks about the only page that was written in Common.
Some tales, once read, heard, seen, can’t be forgotten. A sonnet of a man’s first love, the heartbreak that follows, held tightly by a widow. A song of laughter and love and loss sung quietly to one’s self, at a table far too empty. A painting, of a woman staring back through a door wondering what could have been had she turned the knob.
If he wanted to, he could not forget their tales. With each attempt to forget the memories flit around his mind on papered wing with renewed effort, whispering their tales of love and loss into his ears.
Shame, the stories that he remembers and the ones he forgets.
Maybe, down belo
If he wanted to, he could not forget their tales. With each attempt to forget the memories flit around his mind on papered wing with renewed effort, whispering their tales of love and loss into his ears.
Shame, the stories that he remembers and the ones he forgets.
Maybe, down belo
The rest of the page had been torn off by an unknown hand, leaving the passage incomplete.
And as he raises the warm cup to his lips, he recalls the memory that had cracked across his head when he drank the Harbour’s honey: his younger self sharing a horn of mead with a smiling, raven-haired woman as the quiet dark of winter descended upon the village. The same woman who had been appearing in his dreams.
The passage and the memory. Both feel uncannily familiar to him. Both hold promises of revelation, down below, at the bottom of the well.
It is such a tempting thought. Sweet as honey mead.
