Vanir - bloom

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Cobalt
Ramen
Posts: 75
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2007 7:10 am

Vanir - bloom

Post by Cobalt »

His first thought was (DARKNESS) and in his head, he screamed.

The membrane around his bright world was thin. He passed through easily.
But he wasn't ready for the next world, could never have been prepared for such a place.

His existence had been surrounded by energy, bursting with stars.
Floating on beds of light and swimming in warm baths of wavelength he had felt the distant need.
Naive, he found the dimmest corner of his world, lit only by a few nearly dead red dwarves.
There he pushed his way through the membrane.

(DARKNESS)

Sudden and terrible, he was thrown from the portal; lost forever.
The night invaded every atom of his being. Intolerable, it frayed his mind.
Alone and defenseless the sucking black nearly destroyed him.
Until salvation came.
(...light...)
A star. The star.
He crawled. Slowly he moved towards his future.
Millennium marked his arrival. The world was old, and harder to root in.
He would need to work very hard.

This world had saved him. Now he would save it.
“A stone is heavy and the sand is weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.”
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Cobalt
Ramen
Posts: 75
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2007 7:10 am

Post by Cobalt »

…this place is so...dim...let me give you a better illumination…


Job had farmed this plot of rocky spiteful ground ever since the death of his father, Job. The custom of inheriting name, and land, from father to son stretched back to the Great Migration which had repopulated this island of nameless death.

In his great-great-grandfather's time, the island's silent oppression seemed to infect the landscape, like a dimly remembered nightmare from long, long ago. Trees were stunted, clearings were choked with weeds and brambles, and everywhere poisonous thistles threatened to rip apart a man's sandals. The island resisted every effort to reshape the terrain. Tilling the soil; sifting the loam; irrigating the fields. Nothing could change the ankle-breaking holes, fist sized rocks or sandy dead-patches that littered the island.

But time grinds away at the toughest of opponents. No matter the power that once cursed these lands, corn and maize now grew in the holes. Grape vines clutched the sandy earth, and years of patience had set down intricate stone irrigation ditches. The winters of the island were sometimes terrible, and life became hard. But after many generations of hard labor, the island was returning to life. Job had inherited this work, and he would pass the duty to his son in turn.

It was still a few hours before sunrise when Job swung his feet out of bed. Stretching his stiff back Job pulled the window shades revealing a dawn, hours early. The farmer reeled in shock. He raced to the front lawns, then slowed to bask in the sweet golden glow. From the sky drifted tiny little sunletts, each a dazzling miniature sunrise. Job held out his hand. Moving in stillness, glowing without light; a fractal pattern of crystalized sunlight sat in his palm.

The particles floated like sunflakes, warm and scintillating, and landed amongst his wheat fields. Where each tiny spark stuck in the soil, wheat shivered in response. The hours before dawn were filled with many small miracles. Buds and planted seeds sprouted and grew, and by full dawn, his youngest field was waist high. Plants with only a month left to mature swelled and ripened, bursting with nutrition. There would be a harvest today, in March! By day's end Job had reaped sheaves of wheat, twice the quality anyone on the island had ever seen. Enough to see his family fat and happy through any winter, with spare enough to sell for extra coin!

Some neighbors, jealous or afraid, muttered of supernatural curses and the evils of the island. Job railed against their paranoia. "This is not an ill. We are blessed by some power, not cursed. The island's evil is chased away!" He invited any who would come, to witness the bloom that have fallen on his field, and to literally feel the goodness radiating from the tiny suns.
“A stone is heavy and the sand is weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.”
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Cobalt
Ramen
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Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2007 7:10 am

Post by Cobalt »

Basking under a large willow tree on the smooth stone edge of the village pool, Job dangled his toes in the sun-dappled water. Ripples appeared and bounced off of each other, like the memories Job was lost in. Nearby, Job the Younger lay watching some small minnows dart. The father spoke, "I will tell you a story, Job". He'd heard many stories of reclaiming the island from Job the Eldest, who had heard them from his Grandfather. One afternoon, Grandfather had said, when he was very young, not long after they'd first immigrated to the island, he had helped his family reclaim the choked pond that was their best source of water. When he closed his eyes, Job could almost see his ancestors working on the pool.

His Father and Grandfather had spent the early morning cutting back the rampant undergrowth that had choked the poolside. Both men were stripped of shirts, breathing quickly, silver machetes slicing through the air to hack the last stubborn broomstalk down. For many feet all around the pond, complex root-work and dirt covered well-set flagstones. As the two men cut, Job and his mother and two older sisters followed, using trowels and shovels to clear away the detritus. Job's dogs ran around the family while they worked, eating as many snakes and toads as they could catch. Near the poolside, there was a large weeping willow that couldn't be removed, which was actually quite lovely, and the family left. By evening, the area was beginning to look almost respectable. A few days later the water ran clean and nearly every settler came to the pool for their daily needs. In short time, the pool was the center of the settlement, a gathering place to relax and meet your fellow pioneers.

Other families had gathered to listen while Job finished his tale, relaxed and enjoying the last warm afternoon of the summer. Job the Younger had drifted into a near slumber, daydreaming, and so didn't notice the strange happening in the pool. Sunlight that filtered through the water, vague and indistinct, began to clarify. Before long, golden light shone out and then merged into threads, stretching from bottom to surface, wrapping and interweaving in a beautiful fashion. As Job woke from his mild slumber, the threads broke the water, solidifying into a glowing platform in the center of the pool. The surface shifted in a hypnotizing way, tricking the eyes into seeing dream-like images that changed from moment to moment. Over a period of a few minutes the figure of a man emerged from the dais. It was large, nearly a giant, and shone brightly. The light didn't hurt to look at, but it did distort the statue's surface even more. The shocked villagers were silent while the figure grew, leaving only after it became clear there was no more growth to be seen.

Many villagers stopped by Job's farm the next day to ask questions. "Could this be a new beginning for the island? Can it's past be put to rest?" "Is the rebirth we hoped to create being aided from...from what? A god? A Sungod?" Most sounded hopeful, but the island had bred tough, careful people. They would keep their hope buried, lest the disappointment be too great. Job thought better. He knew this was a sign of better things to come.
“A stone is heavy and the sand is weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.”
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Cobalt
Ramen
Posts: 75
Joined: Mon Jul 23, 2007 7:10 am

Post by Cobalt »

Each day Job watched many of Huma's villagers visit the Bloom Shrine. The colors and lights given off the by statue were soothing and gentle, giving the place it's new name. Villagers paying respect left offerings of flowers and seeds, scrounged from the winter stores. Children had strung evergreen wreathes around the figure's neck, leaving kisses on its indiscernible face. All through the months, those tokens remained bright and lush growing even thicker and healthier than before they were plucked. The water, too, was magically changed into a sparkling crystal spring, clear, crisp and much in demand.

Then one day, after three months of bringing offerings and scooping fresh water, the statue changed. Shifting and glowing in the pixilated and fractalized movement that had captured attentions for so many hours, the figure raised it's arms! One palm was open and faced the sky, the other was closed in a fist. In an instant, the statues constantly shifting golden pattern stopped, save for the palms. The closed palm had a dark light showing between it's fingers. Something was held there. The open palm swirled slowly inward, to a single point of golden light. That point drew all eyes, to some gave even a feeling like yearning, a need to place something small there. To Job, the message was clear and obvious, almost spoken to him. The statue needed a seed.

The Shrine was now full at all hours. Humaans filling buckets, laying flowers, laughing and talking, all of them subtly facing the statue at all times, like a crowd anxiously awaiting an arrival. Always there were villagers asking questions of Job, for it was widely known that his fields had been affected by this golden growth first, and he could always be found at the Shrine. His answers were few, and frustrating to those craving more. Though Job spent many hours by the pool, contemplating it's true meaning, he came no closer to an understanding. His thoughts ran into wall after wall of comprehensions and limitations. He could only say what he felt. This growth did not seem evil, in fact the opposite.

An hour before a dawn Job sat in his favorite place by the pool, cross legged, and calm. Meditation came easily at the Shrine, and it took only moments to attain a morning peace. From a pocket of his winter coat, Job took the seed his ancestors had carried to Huma. The strongest of trees, the ironwood, would grow from the tiny seed he'd carried but the climate on the island was too wet. Job had never planted it, instead passing it to his son as a reminder of where they'd come from. Now Job took the seed and planted it in the swirling point of light.

The world became like a dream, and Job could remember little of what happened. First the air became thick, and his need of breathe withdrew. The stillness was absolute, save for the point. Swirling golden light thick like syrup poured from the palm, pooling in scintillating windowpanes of liquid gold. The open palm closed, the closed opened, and the seed was returned, now made of bloom. Job rose and as he took the seed from the hand, the feeling around him snapped like a taut rope. Job breathed deeply of the cold winter air, wondering if this new experience would change the walls he'd run up against before. Perhaps he now had a key.

Job now had a telling to satisfy even the most greedy of gossipers. Once a month, the Shrine would change a seed offering to a spore of bloom. And it was known that the bloom would make any plant hardy and healthy. The shock of fresh greens available at this time converted many to making offerings at the Shrine, spreading even more bloom across the island. Over many days the number of bloom plots grew more and the mutterings of dark tidings grew less. The people were starting to believe in a new future.
“A stone is heavy and the sand is weighty; but a fool's wrath is heavier than them both.”
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