When he was young, the boy said "tell me a tale of the dragons, a tale of adventure and magic and of great battles." When he was young, he would run through the forest, hacking at branches and rabbits and squirrels with a stick, laughing as he went. Now he is a man, and cannot set aside his childish dreams. He cannot step outside of the world of wonder he dreamed up as a child. Now he lives among dragons, fights armies, and wields powerful magic. Well, so the tale usually goes, anyway.
Leolaf, king from the western reaches of the Wyrmteeth mountains to the rocky shores of the Mekki sea. From the dark forests of Wilderglen in the south to the northern step and frigid coastal waters. He was not always royalty, and this the scribes tell true. He came out of a small house on the eastern edge of that great forest, alone but for his father in the cottage they shared. If one ventured westward into the forest too far, one might run across things of a highly dangerous nature to a little boy, but in the few miles near the edge, nothing beyond a stray wolf or a sleepy bear might venture on accident. That area just wasn't as wild as the forests name would normally denote.
So then he would grow into a nice young man, well built with dark brown hair and a confident stride. Back then there was little more than a few castles and local lords who kept the peace in that cut-off country, though none would call it that for years. The road west was not yet carved out at the base of the troll-tooth hills that stretched up out of the Wilderglen. The most the outside world heard of was a few sailing ships that would come up the coast to trade for thick wool and elvish sculpted wood.
That was the real civilization of the land in those days, those elven trees breaking through the forest up into the sky. Perhaps if you set foot into the forest back then you might see more than the few remaining home-trees, before they retreated back into the woods away from the touch of man. Back then they were ever peaceful with the folk of the forest's edge, trading back and forth for bread and shiny metals. They had their fear of the dwarven folk under the mountains, never trading with them who dwelt too close to mother nature's bosom.
Leolaf's mother was an elf maiden in fact, though the rarity of such a coupling has been exaggerated in the stories. Back a few generations such a thing was common, though certainly not widely talked about. Most of the stock of the country is a bit mixed, but at the time it was down to the half elven women and men who still came down to claim a mate from towns, or hold one night of passion in a fit of fey wildness. The difference that was striking was that Leolaf's mother was the only truly full elf who had left the forest since half a century before, though most historians and bard just guess at this and include it as an afterthought.
It was in this time, this land, that a king needed to rise, for unbeknownst to all, a very terrible force would soon awaken in the west and wing its way over to the coast. The elves would hide in their forest, growing back the burned swaths with no problem, but the dragon, settled in in a coastal cave soon found that men made tasty snacks. The local lords, those left after stone burned and melted in their proud strongholds would unite, but against a force of magic so great, armies just set out great buffets for the beast. Life so close to the forest was more peaceful, but the refugees streaming inland from the destruction told tales to spark the adventurous urge in any young man's heart, though the burns and the ruined castles on the north-east roads took back many boy's courage almost as soon as he had obtained it.
Not so with Leolaf. He set about to find the beast and see if any strength from his arm might kill it, or at least send it back from whence it came. It was in this spirit that he ventured westwards into the Wilderglen first, seeking his mother's people about whom his father had told him stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment