The Yule Log RPG

[littlemanpoet]

Pada, Muna, and Wenda raced deeper into the darkening forest. Wenda smelled fear. She felt the snow and ground beneath her quick hooves. Away, away! Away from the fear! But where were they runnning to? It did not matter. Pada and Muna did not know what Wenda had heard in the stable for two-leggeds. All they knew was that there had been word among them of someone strong, someone akin to ground and snow and tree and thistle, home in the wind and cold. Pada and Muna asked her, What did they say of this someone? A strange and hidden one, this someone, sometimes strong, sometimes not. In winter? In the fear of no-more-running? Strong against fear, weak in winter when all the land is sleeping.

They raced through the ever thickening woods, the dark fir trees closing in around them. But reindeer may pass through the narrowest of ways; all they need is the width of their horns, less if they had no horns. Fleet and silent they moved, their hooves the only sound, passing through thick groves, through quick cold creeks, around ice covered ponds, wending north and up, ever up. The land climbed slowly here, slowly to the feet of the northern mountains.

They paused at twilight. The wind had died. Surely they were far from the fear. The branches of the firs moved around them. They moved again, trotting now, careful of the branches that moved in no wind. They stopped. Eyes. Before and above them. Two of them. Deep green. A long face went with the eyes, and a longer body, with feet that hugged the ground like evergreen roots. It looked at them for a long while. Transfixed, they stared back.

"What have we here?" asked the deep, woody voice. "Three reindeer far from the plains?" It looked closely and carefully at each one of them. "But one of you is more." Its eyes rested on Wenda.

Wenda could not speak to it as a reindeer. She gave off her fur and changed. She was so cold! Now she wished she had not given so to the panic of hte moment, and brought at least a thread of clothing with! She shivered in the cold snow, and folded her arms around her.

"Hmm!" it said. "Like one of our wives."

"Are-" her teeth chattered "-you .... the .... Green Man?"

His eyes seemed to receded into depths of thought. "I do not know of what you speak. What do you fear?"

[Envinyatar]

Stamo appeared to cast his eyes upwards at Owl’s words. Was he sending off some quick plea for strength and assistance? It was hard to tell. But from the quick, sharp look Mori gave him it seemed the tall man’s thoughts might be of a different tenor.

‘Right, then,’ he murmured, fastening his cloak about his shoulders once he’d stood up. He handed Mori’s cloak over, and stood holding their staffs as his companion buckled the clasp and pulled it round about him to his satisfaction.

‘We’ll follow after you, Master Owl,’ Mori said, taking his own staff in hand. Owl perched on his shoulder as they went out into the kitchen’s courtyard. Tevildo was there, keeping watch from his perch on the stone wall.

‘You take the cat!’ Stamo whispered low to Mori. He placed Owl on his own shoulder for the moment and urged his friend forward toward the feline. ‘Makes me sneeze,’ Stamo confided in a hushed tone to Owl. ‘Something fierce! Wouldn’t want that now, would we as we’re trying to go quietly after the two ladies . . . and the creature?’

[littlemanpoet]

It is not far now. There is an entire dwelling where she has gone. My appetite is increasing again. You have become quite akin to cartilage, my dear former village chieftain. Most tasty of all the souls, what with your courage mixed with all that delectable fear. Quite nice.

Not as nice as the veritable banquets of ages agone when My Lord still sat the Throne. Those were the days. Did I tell you I was his chief chef? I did? Well, I never tire of telling my quarries about it. Those were indeed the days. Have you ever tasted an Elven Fëa? Nothing like it. Oh, and the recipes I created. My Lord rewarded me well. Basting, roasting, broiling, filleting of fëar, so many different ways to prepare them for My Lord's table. Spices of all kinds: threats, false promises, stories of rapacious deeds done to kindred. I became fat upon the rich fare. And My Lord was most appreciative of even of the refuse from my dishes. There were orcs from the Elves and trolls from the Ents. Dwarven and Human refuse did not seem to keep well enough. The former hardened to naught but blasted stone while the latter shriveled and fell to ruin, their fëar slipping away to we knew not where. Just as yours is sure to do. And that is what makes me so famished! I need something more lasting. That is why I seek her. She is double-fëa. They are rare.

But lo! She runs away from the dwelling. Then we must turn aside, you and me. Do not look at me that way. I know it seems painful now, but you will fade away to nothing and then be free of pain forevermore. Some of my kind say that you will go beyond the walls of the world, but I do not think so. There is not enough to you.

See you the small sparks of fëar in the trees and slipping along the ground, thinking they are hidden from me? Silly little scraps of nothing. Too small to be more than a mere after dinner sprig of mint. They hide as if I seek such drivel. Silly.

But ah! There is somewhat other at that dwelling! How did I not see it before. And two of them! And now they seem to be moving in the same direction as the double fëa! I do believe that I know them! Strong fëar, these! Indeed, I do believe that they may be just the answer for my famished appetite. You are a mere bone the marrow of which has been sucked dry. I need you no longer. I have new quarry - most delicious! - to hunt down. Oh, the delightful recipes I can try! The spices to be used! What means would work best for their preparation? Basting? What stories do I know? What despair can I set into their minds? We shall see, we shall see!

[Tevildo]

Tevildo did not want to be left out of the adventure and reluctantly agreed to have the men carry him wherever they were going. Still, he had not been pleased that he would be toted along like a piece of spare baggage. Even after Mori picked him up, Tevido had trouble finding a comfortable place to perch. He had tried sitting on one shoulder and then the other, but the tall man had objected when Tevildo's claws had extended down into the thick folds of his robe scratching the soft skin underneath. Mori had finally agreed that the best thing Tevildo could do was to crawl inside his large pouch and stick his head up, peering over the edge.

The ride was uncomfortable and bumpy. The men paid the cat little attention as they strode briskly towards the north. Once or twice, Tevildo had started a bit of mild caterwauling, objecting to the fact that the men were not showing him adequate care or respect. Mori and Stamo were apparently oblivious to his discomfort, and, despite his pleas, all he’d gotten in return had been a stern glance and an admonition to be quiet. Miserable and bored, he’d finally fallen asleep in the pack.

Dreams claimed Tevildo quickly…..deep, disturbing dreams of the ugly creature who had so terrified him long ages before. First, he was doing the hunting, tracking down the miserable creature and his minions but too quickly the tables turned, and he had become the hunted. Deep shadows reached out to grab him, threatening to pull him apart from ear to tail and leave him limp and lifeless. With great effort, the cat pulled himself up to consciousness and slowly pried open one eye, grateful that he was intact and breathing and alive.

The thing must be gone. Tevildo purred in relief, kneading his claws into Mori’s back out of the sheer joy of being alive. But then he waited and listened. At the far edge of his awareness, in the mysterious recesses of the mind that warn a hunter what creatures are up and about, Tevildo again felt the heavy presence. Only it did not seem to be directed at him, but rather at the tall two-leggeds. Strangest of all, the thing was in back of them and, though distant, seemed to be getting closer.

Tevildo’s fur stood completely on end. He leapt out of the pouch and bounded upward, this time landing on Mori’s head, unsheathing his claws and hanging on as tightly as he could, while shouting out a warning. “You, fools, Mori and Stamo. Do something. This thing is following us…..maybe one, maybe two. I do not know what it is. But it is dark and heavy, and it seems particularly interested in the two of you.”

[littlemanpoet]

Wenda drew Pada and Muna close to her sides and hugged them, then proceeded to tell the Ent, as he called himself, of her fear. With many a hoom and hom and haroom and even a harumph, he listened to her whole tale, with a few sprinkled in encouragements not to be hasty despite her chattering teeth. Finally she finished.

"Hoom! Hom! One thing I would like to ask you, Wenda skin changer."

"What is that?" she stuttered.

"Does your kind turn blue? I have never seen it before."

"O-only when we are too cold."

"Hoom! Then maybe it is time for haste. Hm yes! I think you should return to your other shape."

"But th-then I won't-t b-be ab-ble t-to t-talk-k!"

"Hoom now. Nor will you for long in the shape you wear!"

Wenda saw the sense of the Ent's words, and turned to her two friends. It always helped to think of them when she turned.

"Mm-hm!" nodded the Ent. "You will live. Now, I must spend some time thinking about what to do." The Ent lifted his eyes and looked over the heads of the three reindeers. "There is someone coming. No, do not fear! Oh no, room hoomty room toom! I think this is not the shadow you fear. Oh no, room toom. Let us wait and see who comes."

Wenda, Pada, and Muna turned and looked the in the direction the Ent was calmly looking. Coming between the firs was a hooded figure, dressed warm against the cold, whose breath came as if having used much strength to move as quickly as able. Wenda knew the shape of the figure. It was Mara. Wenda trotted forward to greet her.

[Arry]

‘Do you think they will fare well?’ Willem had gotten himself and Old Goody a cup of tea each. Hers he had laced with a little of the spirits the cook had got down from her shelf. ‘Might ease her up a bit,’ cook had confided to him, though for the life of him he could not understand what needed easing.

‘The big folk,’ he went on in explanation as she turned her face toward him. ‘They’ve gone after Miz Wenda and Miz Mara.’ He frowned for a moment, looking down into the depths of his tea as if to find answers. ‘At least I think that’s where they’ve gone.’

‘Funny, isn’t it?’ he said after a gulp from his steaming mug. ‘How the owl seems to be talking to them and then he listens, too, as they talk in that pretty language.’ He nodded his head as a few of the words in Quenyan that he’d caught ran through his mind. He tried them out on his tongue, smiling as he got them round to how he thought he’d heard the two tall mean speak them.

‘There are places along The Great River . . . up where it narrows, near the northern mountains, where the white barked aspen trees grow.’ He knew he was rambling now, but it was pleasant to do so and it took his mind from the looming dangers in the shadows beyond the village wall. ‘In the autumn, their leaves turn all of a golden color. And when the cold breezes blow they shimmer in the pale sun and rustle prettily. And sometimes it seems behind the touch of leaf on leaf there are the sounds of some fair voices singing one to another, in some old tongue just barely out of hearing.’ He chewed on the corner of his lip, a habit of old, as he recalled the images of those trees against the dark mountains.

‘The words the tall men used . . . they reminded me of that,’ he said. ‘Trees in their last glory before the cold of winter shook off their leaves and covered them with snow.’

[Undómë]

Goody sniffed her mug of tea and nodded at what the rising steam had told her. She raised her head and saw Cook standing just to the side of the doorway from the kitchen. Before the woman could duck out of site, Goody raised the mug to her lips and took a sip, giving the woman a wink as she did so. Though, once the cook was out of sight, she sat the mug on the hearth to keep warm, knowing it was most likely she would drink no more of it.

‘Do you think they will fare well?’ Willem’s question brought her attention back round to him; she watched him as he spoke. And she could just barely hear the flow of words he tried out in that tongue the two old masters had spoken. ‘Or perhaps “old Lords”,’ she thought. Not Elvish lords, though they had that other worldly sense about them. As if they trod here on this familiar ground her own feet rested on, and yet stepped lightly, too, in places just beyond her reckoning. Lords of some power and of grace who saw fit to keep those under their charge safe. ‘And with whose bidding do they come?’ she wondered. Not from twisted shadowed halls, there was too much of light shone in their eyes and in their aspect.

‘Yes, I think they will fare well, Willem.’ She gave him that simple answer and kept the reasonings to herself.

‘And you . . .,’ she went on, giving him a wide smile. ‘That was a lovely image you conjured for old Goody. ‘And though my eyes have never beheld such trees, yet your words brought them right to life. I could see and hear them truly.’ She leaned back and gave him a long sideways look as if taking his measure. ‘You would make a great story-teller, you know!’ She nodded and cackled a bit at her new image of him. ‘In the great lords’ halls I’ve heard tell they’re called bards and have places of honor at the table. They wander, these story-tellers and collect bits and pieces of things they’ve seen or heard about and weave them into stories and songs.’

She poked at the fire, stirring up the flames. ‘Yes, I could see you doing that . . .’