In the past, I know I have mentioned that the spark that grows into a story, gaming idea, or even just a component of either, can be as simple as a quick glimpse of something that strikes me, a phrase that resonates, or even just a name that comes to me.
It grabbed my attention the moment I first heard it (thank s to my wife!) and I found myself listening to it a handful of times as I drove to the office, the next day. When I finally arrived, the entire story hung in my memory, envisioned as what might be a music video. No, I had not yet researched the lyrics to it, so the imagery came to me from the tone, the pulse, the feel of it.
Interesting how vivid the story can be, from the power of music…
For those wishing to read the entire story, beginning to end, I offer THIS link to the page where it is now housed.
She awoke in the bed she had known all her life as her mother’s. The small hut that had been given over to that woman long ago, out of respect for her as the Firstmother, the shaman of their clan, now stood, cleaned and empty of anything her mother had collected over the years.
The small crystal glowed gently as it rested on the side table next to her. Beside it, the smoldering stub of a thick bundle of incense struggled to keep the scent of cedar and jasmine hanging in the room. These, the only reminders of the powerful charm that had started her journey into world of shadows. The place of visions that welcomed her into the rite of passage on her twentieth birthday.
Her mind slipped gently back into the world of the living.
Sitting on the edge of the bed, with her flowing mane of copper-red hair framing her in a ray of sunlight from the distant window, her mother smiled.
“My heart sings, this day, for you have returned not as my daughter but to take your rightful place, among the clan. You return not as a child, but as the mother to all,” she said, with a voice soft and comforting.
Her mother pointed to the pouch that still rested upon Vedara’s chest.
“Open it, dear one.”
With fingers still weary, she pulled the small knot open and loosened the neck of the pouch. Reaching in, she withdrew a couple of the objects it contained.
Small figures, carved of bone, that were so clear and detailed that she knew who, within the village, each represented. The pouch, she realized, contained one for every person that lived around them.
“I saw them…” Vedara began.
“Yes,” her mother placed a warm hand upon Vedara’s shoulder. “The wolves come for us all, when we dare the rite of passage, seeking the dream world to move from child to adult. If we do not learn to control or deny our weaknesses, they will consume us, in our own time. Each one taken leaves a shadow of themself where their own spirit first fails them in that place. Some give way to despair or fear before they even step away from their homes. Some, like your father and brother, fight, struggle, and resist. A few travel far before they give in…but almost all do.”
Her mother leaned forward, kissed Vedara gently on the forehead.
“Only one in a generation reaches the sea. From there, they must earn their place on the ship.”
Her mother drew back and brushed Vedara’s hair back from the sides of her face, then touched one finger to the worn pouch.
“Keep them, protect them, and love them, for you are mother to them all, as of the rising of this sun. Keep the clan in your heart above all else. All will look to you for the light in the mist. Let not even the love of our family come between you and this sacred duty, for all are your children, now.”
With that, her mother stood and warmly smiled. For a moment, she wavered in Vedara’s sight, seeming to almost pass into dim light or shadow despite the bright morning sun that shone through the window. Then, slowly, she faded into a shimmering, golden mist that drifted in all directions.
When Vedara was strong enough, she arose and came out of the hut. At the far side of the village, she saw the funeral pyre upon which her mother’s body rested. As she walked toward it, the villagers bowed to her in reverence as she passed. To each, she offered a gesture of blessing, as was their custom.
Standing before the final resting place of her mother, the clan’s Firstmother before her, she was joined by her father and brother.
“She gave herself to it, after she said you were free of the village,” her father slowly, haltingly said, the loss of his wife tempered only by the knowledge that she had passed in the way she wished and embraced. “Once beyond that, she knew nothing could stop you.”
The smaller Wythrigin clans of the far north often live solitary lives for much of the year; each one with its own Firstmother who councils and tends to them, sharing leadership with a Chieftain in most cases. Firstmothers in the smaller, more peaceable communities, are typically followers of Tanen, the Goddess of Nature that is wild and untamed, although many seek the intervention and guidance of Sheildaga, one of the “Embraced” who dwells within the grace of Tanen. Now raised into a sort of immortality by her patron, she was once a Firstmother in her own right, although without a clan of her own. Living in the forbidding cold northlands, legend says she befriended and cared for an orphaned pair of polar bear cubs, who remained at her side and faithfully traveled with her as she moved from clan to clan. In one particularly harsh winter, she came upon Clan Nagatan in a small valley as starvation was closing in on them, their Firstmother lost to them in a landslide. Drawing upon her connection with Tanen, she brought about a thaw within that secluded place, with berries and other foods maturing before the eyes of the stranded clan.
