Thank you, thank you, settle down. I’ve one last tale this eve, an ancient story of true love if you’ll indulge me.
Came seen through veil
O’ twilight’s mist
That intangible grouse
‘Twas love’s first kiss
They looked th’ pair
O’ heights unmatch’d
Seen from afar
Her freedom snatch’d
Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. This is a story that was told to me by my mære, told of her own mære. Lyala was her name, and you’d best remember that her name was Lyala as through’t the centuries she was the fairest maiden in all lands, and no man e’er forgot her name was Lyala. They near and far sought her for many reasons, all of them lustful.
Know now that she was of elvæn stock, as was my mære, as am I to a small amount. You may not have encountered their clain since, oh, ah, I see a dwærven lass in the corner. Good nigh to you, my long-lived friend! Pray grant forgiveness upon this humble soothsayer for alteration of its delivery; I fear the intent would nary translate otherwise. Gae ba nannoch te trallae, if you will. Yes, yes.
Now then, where was I? Ah right. Lyala of the elv.
The elvæn, to give brief descript, have their own uniqueness in how they live. Some say that sap beats through their hearts, and that such lives as yours and mine are but mere seeds in the wind to them. They are one with nature like none other.
Lyala came of age at a time when the myriad clains of the world, from the strongest of drakes to the smallest of tharaxes, were first mending the sky and the soil together. It was that long ago that her clain guided her in ritual to a tump where a young giant slept, and his name was Drom.
Hid from th’ sun
Time stopp’d for one
A life encas’d in stone
One does not know
What one does not know
His kind days liv’d alone
Through cleft’d twain
Emerg’d th’ man
Blue sky adorn’d his home
“For what purpose serves my binding to that rooted one?” asked young Lyala, with my apologies to you, my dwærven friend. Te trallae.
Replied the Great Ivy, yes, that one, “To grant you the wisdom of longevity.”
“Will not I learn of longevity in my cycles to come? Without need to care for a sapling as large as I?”
But the Great Ivy didn’t answer and the ritual concluded with Lyala sent unto the untread paths, no longer carried through the breeze but instead having to place one foot after thother while her glacial companion matched pace.
Giants, to give brief descript, are borne from certain boulders landed in meadows from the eruption of distant volcanoes, and can birth as large as castles. Drom, by comparison, was small for his clain. In every other way, he was normal for that of a giant: he moved slow, he spoke slow, he shat slow.
With muted tongues they went, having naught to say and no emergence requiring react. Drom would trudge where Lyala led, and Lyala would choose anyplace that her fluttered mind deigned curious.
Two centuries did they go whereupon Drom finally nestled into a comfortably rocky crag for slumber. It was away from the decays of seawater and sandwind, but also the forests which Lyala was a part of. As she had no reason to abandon the living mound, Lyala took hospice in the nearest hume ville through the cycles ‘til his awakening could resume their journey.
Scattered clamour race along
Faster past th’ dusks and dawns
Always going never gone
So are th’ mortals in turmoil’d song
Was that Smythe or was it son
Their garments change based on the sun
Did not one depart just last moon
So are th’ mortals in turmoil’d song
A life ransacked for glory gained
Upheaven lives and nothing gained
Empires fall for nothing gained
So are th’ mortals in turmoil’d song
Thus did Lyala remain through one civilization after the next, patience welled ‘til Drom awoke once more, his form grown thrence that his gaze was level with rooftops.
Lyala had grown too, in experience.
She adorned the lightest of dresses that fashioned summer kisses, seeking his praise. She twirled with mufflers and mitts to warm his heart. Seasons of gifting him cultures learned as she’d learned from one ville after thother, one cycle after thother.
And for her, he gave his smile.
“Why do you stay?”
To reply honestly, Lyala allowed herself half a cycle. “If I had not,” she said finally, “who would?”
Brimmed full of the chaotic world of mortals like you and I, te trallae, Drom and Lyala set to journey far beyond the maps’ edges.
And then, Drom’s pace slowed. Lyala aided her companion to enter slumber, and once fulfilled she discovered the ritual binding had bled gone only to be replaced by a crosspath of greater interest.
Is he warm, is he safe inside
His bed he claim’d, does he dream
Of trees or rocks, is he safe inside
Will he rememb’r, our times aside
One anoth’r in laught’r, will he grow
E’en more than our times aside
The ancient texts of Rydenthal has presence of Lyala’s first records, those dates lost to the tides of course. Should you venture to Rydenthal and gain access, make quer to the volumes of earliest guilds as that is where the mære Lyala took vocation those many cycles ago. While they do not mention the elv by any given nomen, you’ll know to find her due to the coincide of a landmass upon her depart.
“I like you,” Drom admitted after quite some time. Quite some time.
Those were the words what Lyala needed to emerge from her role as partner for the immense giant and into a new purpose, a relationship, with the mature Drom.
“I like you too,” she said after quite some time.
“What is new?” asked Drom.
“Everything,” said Lyala, raising her hand.
Drom lowered his shoulder far down and she wrapped her arm ‘round his finger in an embrace, her incredibly light elvæn form lifting from the ground with each breath he draught.
“Come,” she said. “Let us be off. I have heard of a distant place beyond imagine.”
‘Tis said th’ expanse of age was their own
‘Tis said th’ expanse of distance was theirs too
‘Tis said many things of the pair for their time in bond
Th’ expanse of their love was what most grew
Myths state that the Path of Clouds… Yes, yes, that’s where they went, please hold your tongues for those who want to hear the story, thank you. The Path of Clouds is a mythical place e’en amongst the drakes and the tharaxes and all the clains of this wonderful world we live upon. It is located in a place of neither soil nor sky, along ridges of difficult passage, and only seen in a certain time with the acceptance of certain gæds granting particular allowance to behold such a magnificent experience.
Lyala’s own experience and learned knowledge of the Path of Clouds had come when Drom slumbered, through clashes with all manner of foe, as she traversed dungeons with allies forgot. Their loosened lips shared deeply rumored secrets when given a taste of elv’sblood, of which I see a few of you partaking in tonight, good sers.
E’en in weathers unbound, Lyala nestled herself safely into the soft clover bed atop the awakened giant’s forearm while their travels continued, she guiding Drom to this village or that ruin. Here, more accounts can be found in the not-so-ancient-but-still-quite-ancient texts, mostly of the æthereal traits of the beautiful elvæn woman as she supped with whatever ranking dignitary was present to the day. Some accounts share how Lyala would enter upon a clothier of no repute, depart wearing some fantastical garment, and of how that clothier would become besotted by nobility for generations onward.
In a very few select mentions of passing, it was stated that the elv danced alongside her gollem through the fair grounds and gæthering times from this ville and that ville. In one text, Drom was said grown as a mountain. Of those records which did not give nomen, the elv was writ to have harnessed the lands themselves as her steed.
We know though, don’t we?
We know.
Th’ most fragile crystal
Flawless in her clarity
In ‘er shine
In ‘er sharpness
So small in my hand
A jewel
On a chain
She holds my heart
But who holds ‘ers
So small in my hand
My friends, I wish to end this tale now, lest you hate me forever. I beg thee, please.
No?
I am sorry then for what is to come, but as you’ve kept with me this far to hear the story of mære Lyala, so too do you have my envy for your courage.
They were to arrive at the Path of Clouds within a few cycles of the sun.
Cycles as small as Lyala was to Drom.
It was then that Drom’s gait thickened. His words slurred.
Ah, my friends. For all clains from drake to tharax and inbetween, the eternal slumber which takes those we hold dearest to us becomes a painful time, of loss and of grief. For Lyala, no such existence had e’er held so strong a grip on her heart than what love she’d received from Drom. Received and given.
Tears welled up in Lyala who embraced the firmament of Drom’s pulsing chest where his heartstone slowly beat, not knowing if her love could even feel her presence, so tiny against the granite shield she was. All she could do was stay with him while his pace err’d.
Drom fought, through yawns lasting days he shared his profess of love for the one companion who’d never left his side. Lyala urged him to venture forward, suddenly aware of the cruelty that is time. When his legs gave pause, Lyala clambered down his limbs to take hold of the knolls that were his feet, begging them for one step more. Just one step more.
He slowly curled up, and he slowly fell asleep.
The giant slumbered in that spot from that day on, as hillocks grew into hills, as caves grew into caverns, as decades grew into centuries.
Lyala stayed, in nearby villæ for as long as their citizens came and went, over the course of many, many cycles.
What defines a home
Is it a place or some wood
Is it security from th’ cold
No
I know
It is love
Where do I go
I shall stay by this mound
I will claim th’ land ‘round
Yes
I know
It is love
And it was thus, Lyala founded the mountain ville of Dramslay, and its gatherers grew in size and waned just as soon. Many travellers, many adventures, endured the trek to share a warm drink and pleasant tale in a pub very similar to the one we’re in tonight, my friends.
In cycles to come, Lyala met another elv: a well-to-do man which I personally am quite fond of I must admit, yes, and when the Season of Ritual happened upon the two of them, Lyala became the true mære of an amazing… ah, but again I get ahead of myself.
Oh, my dwarvæn friend! Yes, I did notice your quizzical glance when Dramslay was mentioned, you sly sod. Well, you’re correct.
There does happen to be an incredibly large depression on the outskirts of Dramslay, yes. Very large indeed. Dramsgorge, I believe is the nomen.
Rumours shared say that there was once an æthereal, bound through love like none had e’er known, who stood on a rocky clearing and summoned the lands to the horizons in bidding for journeys unfound.
But we know, don’t we?
We know.
Thank you.