The Bark-tenders
An odd idea that popped into my head and wanted to get out.
They came out only at night. As the first stars came out to prick holes in Mother Night's cloak and let her watch the slumbering world below, the bark-tenders stirred, staggered to their feet, and began their journey. Out they stepped from their tents with soot-darkened fur and ash-sodden cloaks, wearing masks of the predators of old: coyotes, wolves, cougars--all in bone white, showing fangs that sparkled with a touch of red in the dim light. Whoever they had been before, whatever names they had, they were and had no longer. Even their antlers had been sawn off in solidarity: there was no status to be had among the nightmares.
Together they shambled through the city, a living procession of days long dead. Those deer still awake to see them felt cold terror plunge into their veins, the old fears which told them to run, run, Run! or be eaten. Children of a particular headstrong age would dare each other to stay up past their bedtime and sneak a glance outside. Those who did would always find one of the bark-tenders right outside their window, waiting, staring soundlessly until the children fled for the safety of their bedsheets. They never looked again. Even most adults hid from the bark-tenders, ears laid flat, busying themselves with noisy chores that would drown out the sound of ash-streaked cloaks rustling and hooves scraping along stone.
The only companions the bark-tenders had in the night were the town guards. As the procession left the populated areas, the guards would be there, spears in hand, bowing their head to their brothers and sisters who had forsaken name and status for this sacred duty, and imagining a day when they too might paint their fur black and don a mask of the dead. The bark-tenders marched on past, oblivious to the adults who had grown up and accepted the path of life that Mother Night chained them to.
There, just beyond the borders of town (for such a place could not, should not, would not allow itself to be claimed as part of a town), the bark-tenders reached the grove of sacred trees, whose daytime caretakers had slipped away to slumber.
They stood, stiller even than the ancient trees they guarded, a black shadow on a black night, with only the white and red of their faces to show their presence. Nothing dared approach the sacred trees. Bats, patrolling the area, would seek better places to pause for a rest. Even the erratic flights of insects would turn away from the presence of the bark-tenders.
For Mother Night had decreed that nothing was allowed to touch the sacred trees, not even the bark-tenders themselves.
But on those nights where Father Sky's own cloak obscured Mother Night's, and the lights of the town grew dim, when even the bright leaves of the sacred trees could not be seen; then, and only then, a small child would find themselves at the edge of the grove. They would not realize where they were, believing themselves still lost in some strange dream. The bark-tenders would surround them, and despite the fearsome masks they wore, the bark-tenders would lift the child with a touch more delicate than that of a new parent, and they would feed the child a single piece of the bark's marrow, from right at the base of the lowest branch, where it was sweetest. Forevermore would destiny follow the child, now free from Mother Night's strict path.
What form that destiny would take--warrior or leader, poet or teacher--only the bark-tenders knew, but they would never tell the secrets where Mother Night could hear: for when they sawed off their antlers and donned the masks of the dead, they pulled their tongue out between the sharp fangs and bit it off.