The Visitor - A Prologue
#1 of Tales of Riverswood
So this is the first short story I have from a new series of other short stories I have in the works. While not strictly a prologue per se, it is the introduction to a completely new world, separate from my other writings. So I guess it's as good a prologue as any.
I had thought about not publishing this one, but then I realised that it would be a good to post a story that was set in the titular village. Unlike the other stories it hasn't got any Yiff, I couldn't get it to work, so it's gone. Don't worry though, the rest do have Yiff scenes and/or themes. Anyway, this is should set the scene a little. I have no idea of how it turned out, so I'm dying to know. (Also, I'm not great at Ipod-Sofurry story structure translation, so anything on format would be nice. I'm a novice writer, I need this :P)
In case you're wondering, yes, Fex is British for all intents and purposes (as am I, so I can't really help it), which is partly why it may sound a little 'strange' to you. It's also my first foray into first person, so any tips with that would be appreciated!
Anyway, I hope you enjoy it!
The Visitor
Here it is at last, Riverswood village.
I set down my pack in the wild grass on a hill overlooking the little waterside village and perched atop of a nearby boulder. I drew my knees up toward my chest, put my paws on top and rested my muzzle, as I regarded the small settlement below.
Looking at it, it didn't appear to be anything special. Just a typical village with the buildings built in the typical way that they built them in the southern reaches. They were the kind with grey, straw thatched roofs and small cobbled stone bricks as a foundation, with a kind of whitewashed mortar with exposed timber frames for the walls. You know the type. It all looked rather quiet and peaceful, it didn't seem to have any of the bustle of larger towns, and I guess I liked that. Just like home, but with a lot less sand and a lot more rain.
I felt a little out of place here. I was anything but usual to this part of the world. I'm a fennec fox. You might have heard of us. Big ears, sandy yellow fur, diminutive, lives in the desert. Hello, that's me, Fex Hearth. But I'd left the deserts and dunes of my home behind years ago in a brash, youthful spur to seek out adventure, fame and fortune. You could say I found a little piece of each over the years, even fell in love, once. But that was a long time ago, or at least it felt that way to me now. I was only thirty, I didn't feel like it, but I was.
I peered over the village once more, maybe, just maybe, after all of this... I could find a house, a home. Here, in Riverswood. Nothing special. You know, just a little house. Maybe along the water, with a little jetty for fishing. Settle down, have a family...
No. That wasn't why I was here, I had a job to do.
There had been this old drunkard in a tavern who had rambled about how he had seen a fragment, a 'shard' as he called it, of a powerful and revered crystal known as the 'Godstone'.
Naturally, the other patrons drunkenly slagged the poor sod off for wasting their time, but I for one was intrigued. I may have been an outerlander, but even my people told of this story. It was a tale I actually knew quite well, I'd always enjoyed listening to it as a young kit. Her version was a lot more rose tinted than my own, but I'll do my best.
Essentially, the story went that an ancient race of godlike beings created the world. As a gesture of goodwill to their new creation, they each left a little portion of their power behind in the form of a 'shard' of crystal. Each crystal could be harnessed, used by an individual to wield the power of the god that had created it.
Among the first life to rise up from the new world were the Dragons, the quickly found and used the power of the shards to unite them all into one, giant crystal that they christened 'The Godstone'. Soon they has built a mighty empire over the entire land with the Godstone at the forefront of their strength.
Of course, as time passed, the Godstone was used for increasingly destructive and immoral acts, (which, as it cane to mind, were never stated in the story, maybe my mother didn't want me to know) and when the very earliest of our ancestors emerged, they saw us as a threat, and waged war against us with the very stones that were used to create us. Being all nice and loving, this was not looked on kindly by the gods, who then destroyed the Godstone and its corrupted owners with a great explosion of fire and lightning. It's destruction scattered the original crystals out across the entire world, where they were lost, along with a good portion of the Old Continent.
A nice story to go along with the crystals, even if it is probably quite untrue.
Anyway, point was that one of these 'shards' had also surfaced in a small village to the south; Riverswood, but that wasn't quite why I was here either. You see, I was formerly a treasure hunter. Now, I use the word formerly because one such 'treasure' changed the course of my entire life.
A tablet, that's what it was. This little, broken piece of shaped clay that I'd found in an old ruin in the jungles to the south. It had been covered in grime and dirt of millennia, but, once I'd swept that away I realised the whole tablet was covered in these utterly brilliant, beautifully intricate carvings and hieroglyphs. I soon realised that this little tablet was no ordinary artefact, but one made by the dragons themselves, carved in ancient draconic. This was amazing. Never, ever, across all of history had anyone found anything close to this, but the really interesting thing that I found out about the tablet? That lay in what was actually written. Well, it took an age to translate but finally I managed to read the inscriptions in their entirety.
I was horrified.
This was the real reason why I'd come to find the shard. It had become my purpose.
I reached into the inside pocket of my waistcoat and took out a small leather bound notebook with a small silvery polished stone set in the middle of the cover. The book was going away present, it had become my journal, so to speak. Inside was a small collection of various inscriptions and drawings of things I'd found in ruins over the years.
The shiny surface of the stone caught the light in a bright, iridescent glow. Opal, beautiful stone. It was from inside an old crypt I'd come across in my homeland, and thought it'd make a nice addition to the cover of my journal. This was where I kept the translation for the tablet. The actual tablet itself stayed with me in my pack as well, clothed in protective wool just in case something were to happen.
The rainbow faded away into shadow and the distinct low, distant rumble of thunder echoed off in the forest behind me. I looked up toward the steel-clad sky. Thin, dull ropes of rain started to seep down from the clouds and all around me in a faint drizzle.
I tucked the notebook back into my overcoat, the sketch would have to wait for now. Where I was from, far to the east, it never rained. In fact, there was almost no water anywhere at all. Most people in this land tended shy away from the rain, but for me it was a rather welcome change of pace. I liked the feeling of the rain against my fur, the soft pattering it made when it hit the ground. It was nice. I liked the rain.
I tugged the brim of my wide hat down over my eyes and stepped lightly from my perch. I grabbed my leather pack that had been laying in the grass at my feet and headed off into the village in search of this fabled shard.
And as it would happen, I was in for a spot of luck, a short way into the village I came across one of my western cousins, a red fox. He didn't seem bothered by the light drizzle as he leant against the wall of a building up ahead. He had a long, dark overcoat that ran down to his knees and a long, fluffy tail that swayed slightly from side to side in the breeze.
His head turned toward me and he gave me the once-over. "Hello fennec." he said stoicly, folding his arms. "Anything you need?"
I quickly raised my paw to him, and he lightly shook it, then returned his own paw back under his other arm. In that brief moment, I caught a little glimpse as an amulet nestled among his clothing, it was silver and had a little green stone set into the metal, maybe jade, but it disappeared before I got a proper look.
"Well, I guess you can..." I began. "I'm looking for a very special stone, an alleged shard of the-"
The fox quickly motioned with his paw for me to stop. I looked at him, confused. He glanced about, then leaned toward me. "The shard of the Godstone is here." he confirmed quietly.
My heart fluttered. "It is?"
He slowly nodded. "It is. But tell me, what would you intend to do with the stone after you have found it?"
Take it.
"I don't know, " I replied, scratching my head. "I never expected to actually find it, to be honest."
The fox frowned, and his eyes become dark and serious. "Let me tell you, Fexian Hearth, that the shards are objects of inconceivable power and destruction. Even the weakest among them can wield the most incredible powers. They are forces to be revered, and do not believe for a moment that you can ever control them." He then pointed further along the path. "If you wish to seek the shards further, find a wooden dock along the waterfront."
I stared at the fox. I had never told him my name or that I was seeking the shards as a whole. It was like he'd read my mind, and I eyed him with a slight suspicion.
"Who are you?" I quieried.
The fox solemnly shook his head. "Somebody who shouldn't exist."
I quickly took a glance toward where he'd pointed, I couldn't see far through the haze from the rain. I turned back to the fox. "Who should I-?"
I met a wall. He'd quite literally disappeared. The air where he had stood had been replaced by an empty void. I looked about but he was nowhere to be seen. Be couldn't have just run off without me noticing, could he?
There was something that wasn't quite right about this town. I thought.
Despite his vanishing act the fox was indeed correct. At one end of the village and away from most of the buildings, was a short wooden dock that went out a short way into the river. A short figure sat on the end of the dock, back turned to me. It was hard to see much detail from all the rain but I could make out a long, wide tail laying out behind them as they paddled the water below with their feet.
I had to get closer. Slowly, I approached up behind the creature, not wanting to scare them, and then carefully onto the dock. The creature was humming a soft, gentle melody to themselves while they worked with something in their paws. The tune was sweet and caring, like the way a mother would sing to her child. It reminded me of life back in Aibara, living among the deserts with the rest of my kin.
...And of how much I really missed them.
I was so distracted by my distant thoughts of home that I forgot to look where I was going and walked straight off the dock, right into the freezing water of the river. That'd be fine, except that as a desert dweller I couldn't swim. As my head started to dip underneath the water I was completely powerless to stop it. I nearly ended my adventure before It'd begun.
Typical.
Something heavy struck my chest. I groaned and rubbed my eyes with my paws.
The creature from the dock had straddled my middle, paws pressed together on my sodden chest. They'd dragged me to the side of the riverbank, they'd saved me. I thanked all of the spirits and all of the everything that was watching over me that I was still alive, and finally, I managed to get a good look at the creature at long last.
It was unlike anything I'd ever seen, its body was rodent-like but was covered in a thick, dark brown coat that seems to just shrug off the rain in small beads, like it was waterproof. The brown ended toward the forearms and forelegs of the creature, where it turned into a deep blackish colour. It's muzzle was a little wider and more rounded than a fox or a wolf and it ended in several long, wiry whiskers. Behind that were two bright, bold and frankly, beautifully deep blue eyes. But they're weren't focused on me, they still looked down at my chest.
There was something else, a bold, purplish glow emanated from a small crystal that hung on a string around it's neck, resting softly on the creatures' chest.
What probably struck me the most was it's rather complete lack of clothing. It was pretty easy to see that it had rounded, feminine hips and a pair of small, rounded breasts. The fact that she was sitting on my stomach made me a little bit uncomfortable.
Alright, a lot more uncomfortable.
Her head raised and looked up toward me, her eyes looked at me with complete warmth and compassion. She tilted her head to the side. "Are you ok?"
Her voice was soft, sweet even. I coughed a few times. "I think so."
Her paw shifted slightly on my chest. I looked down, the fingers were joined by a thin membrane. She heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank the waters."
She stood up and helped me to my feet, I quickly brushed some of the damp dirt from my front. I looked up and raised a paw, eyes focused on her head, in an effort to ignore her nakedness.
"Fexian Hearth, Fennec fox, a pleasure to meet you." I said.
The creature grinned and eagerly shook my paw. "Sibby Kidsun, I'm an otter." she chirped in reply.
An otter? So that's what this creature is called?
"Fexian?" she mused, "That's not a name."
"Well..." I replied, a little taken aback, "You can call me Fex. It's a normal name where I'm from." I shrugged.
She cocked her head to the side, looking me over intently with her bright green eyes. I looked away, a little embarrassed. I'm not too sure, but I think I might have started to blush. "Wow, you're unlike anything I've ever seen." she whispered. "Where are you from?"
I turned back to her. "The east, from the deserts of Pertua and Gilba." I said.
She slowly nodded her head. I don't think she was really listening. Still, she regarded me up and down intently. Her crystalline eyes stopped above my head, and her smile grew a sly edge. "I like your ears."
I peered up, I'm not sure why. I couldn't see them. I must have looked like a complete idiot because she started to laugh. My long ears fell back out of embarrassment and she chuckled even more. Oh saints, I felt like an idiot in front of her. Now I could definately feel my cheeks burning under my fur.
"I like you Fex." she smiled, playfully pushing back my shoulder with a paw and wiping a tear from her eye. "Are you staying at the inn?"
Actually, I'd run out of money a few weeks ago, I usually just about got by scrounging whatever I could find on my travels, but with recent events that had stopped altogether. Did I want to tell her that?
"No, I haven't got any money."
"Oh, that's okay! I have lots of room." she chirped happily, really happily.
A sharp shiver ran down through my spine, I was freezing cold. I still drenched from idiotically falling into the river. "You should get warm before you freeze." she said, grabbing my paw. "Let's get you in front of a fire..."
She span and started to tug me away from the river. She had a lively bounce to her step, long tail bobbing behind her as she grinned happily to herself. She seemed to mean well enough, so I let the short otter lead me along the village waterfront. I spotted my hat laying on the ground ahead, and scooped it up with my free paw as we went.
Okay well, I say short, since I started to travel I quickly noticed that us fennecs are quite a lot smaller than most, so she really was about my size in height. It wasn't a great confidence boost given the strange looks I tended to get anyway. It was probably a good thing then that nobody was around to see me being dragged about by an otter without any clothes on.
I turned my eyes back toward Sibby, I took my gaze over the thick, but short, brown fur over her back. The surface of her coat was slick from the rain and after saving me from drowning, but underneath it must have been warm and dry. I couldn't say that I didn't envy her, I was freezing my tail off.
My eyes trickled down over her hips, soft and feminine. They swung a little from side to side as she walked. I watched her for a bit before I caught myself staring and looked away. She stopped in front of a wooden house, literally on the waterfront. One half of the house was placed firmly of the riverbank, the other extended over the water on several stilts. That was all i got to see before she quickly pulled me inside.
Her paw slipped away from mine as she skipped off to one side and bent down to light a fireplace by the right wall, leaving me standing by the door. I looked about, there wasn't much to describe about the inside of her house, it really just consisted of a single dark and under furnished room, with only a couple small tables pushed up against the walls and a few chairs at the far side. Although there was a door at the far end which probably led to where Sibby slept, given there wasn't a bed anywhere in sight.
The fire caught and the room filled with a soft orange glow, Sibby turned her head around and saw me still standing at the door. She bounded over and took my paw again, pulling me down next to the fire, then she sat on the floor opposite me. She too had sat cross-legged, I tried to avert my eyes toward the fire, away from her.
She leaned toward me. "So, Fex!" she chimed, "What brings you to Riverswood?"
My eyes quickly darted back to Sibby, to the small crystal resting just above her- I tore my eyes away, back to the dancing flames of the fire.
"I-" My voice caught, and I cleared my throat. "I came because I heard that a shard of the Godstone was here. I asked someone, and they said to go to the docks, so I did."
"...and you fell in the river!" she chuckled.
I didn't say anything, and just let her finish laughing, too embaressed to speak. She looked at me, and leaned toward me again, putting a paw on my shoulder to comfort me. "Hey, it's OK if you can't swim... Lots of people can't."
I looked up, straight into her ocean blue eyes, kindly lookings back at me. There was such a warmth, a compassion in their depths that I had never seen in anyone before. She truly felt for me. That made me feel a lot better.
I gave her a weak smile.
She sat back and returned my smile. Suddenly her expression changed, "Oh! I know!" she piqued.
Something tiny landed in my lap. I jumped. The otter let out a hushed giggle at my surprise. I looked down, a small purple crystal on a string had fallen between my legs. I glanced back to Sibby, the stone was gone from her neck. She just sat there smiling at me. "Go on, put it on." she urged.
I did as I was told and took the string and hung the stone around my neck, instantly I felt relaxed and content. I turned back to the crystal, I carefully picked it up from around my neck and felt it over in my paws, it's soft, calm glow washed over me as it touched the pads of my paws.
"So... This is...?" I whispered.
"The shard of Aegis." said Sibby.
"Wow..." I uttered, rolling it over in my paws. "But...why are you showing me this?" I asked, still regarding the crystal.
"Because you wanted to, silly." she said.
So this was the shard of Aegis...
Many of the shards had their own little tales behind them or about their powers. The deity behind this shard, Aegis, was a god of goodwill and protection who helped form the air and water, but other than that there wasn't much else I knew. I think that the goodwill part had definately rubbed off on Sibby. But it was true. Of what the tablet had been telling was far more than myth and legend. After all these years, all this time... They were real. "How... How did you find...?" I uttered.
"Oh! That's easy!" she said. "Years ago I lived in a place called Cristoff. There was this old wrecked ship in the harbour that people said had lost treasure, but nobody could swim far enough to reach it..." She beamed toward me. "...except for me."
Typical folk tale then. "How'd you do it?"
She laughed. "You don't know anything do you? I'm an otter! We can swim and hold our breath better than anyone!"
"So... you found the shard at the bottom of a harbour?" I asked, moving the conversation along.
"No." she said, shaking her head, "The ship wasn't sunk. It was stowed away in this little lockbox..." She made a little motion with her paws, a rectangular size a few feet in size.
"We?"
Her face became fallen and sullen. "My... Friend, Sohan." she whispered. "He was with me when I found the shard. I miss him..." She then started to stare bleakly into the fire. Obviously this was a topic I shouldn't have brought up.
Damn. I felt bad for bringing that up. Way to go, Fex. "I'm sorry..." I murmured. "I shouldn't have brought it up."
"Yeah..." she breathed. "It feels so long ago..."
"Do you know why it was on the ship?" I asked. Seeing her like that was pretty depressing, I'll admit. She turned back to me and the sadness started to dissipate away.
"Oh, yeah. There was a captains log with the lockbox, they thought that the shard would protect the ship, like in bad weather." She shrugged. "It didn't."
"So what does it do exactly?" I asked.
"I'll show you." Sibby reached toward the fireplace and grabbed onto a log that sat on the top of the pile and threw it casually toward me. I barely had any time to react, the log struck me clean across the muzzle.
The world spiralled away into black.
"Argh..."
I groggily opened my eyes. I was in a part of the house I must've missed, it was a little rectangular room with a bed (which she must have put me in while I was out) pushed up against the far corner. It was just as unfurnished as the rest of her house. There was something else, this terrible, throbbing, pounding headache right where the log had hit me.
The bed I was laying in was low, and Sibby knelt over me with a little brown clay bowl in her paws. "By the waters! I'm so sorry!" she blurted, "Normally it stops things like that from happening! Please don't be angry! Are you ok?"
My lord, my head was pounding. "Oh, my head..." I managed to groan.
"I didn't mean to hurt you, I swear!"
"It's alright, Sibby."
"No! It's not!" she protested. She brandished the little bowl. "My father was a healer, I have something that's supposed to help you with pain..." She dipped her paw into the bowl and brought out a strange, translucent blue gel. She smiled reassuredly as she began to gently rub the gel into my temples. Almost instantly I began to relax as the soothing gel touched my fur, and the pain faded away. I closed my eyes and let her gentle paws take over all my senses.
"Fex..?" she whispered eventually.
I opened one eye and looked up at her, she smiled weakly down at me. "Yes, Sibby?"
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Only if I get to ask one myself." I grinned.
"How did you know the shard was here?"
Good question.
"Well..."
There was a sudden loud banging sound, like someone was knocking at the door.
Sibby gave me an apologetic look. "Just a sec." she said as she stood up, taking her calming paws away from my temples.
She dropped the bowl off on a small table near the door as she went to see who it was, leaving me by myself. I caught a quick glimpse at her tail as she left. I turned and shook my head.
Damn it! What's wrong with me? I shouldn't be looking at her like that. It's like I can't take my eyes off her, like when I was infatuated with Laurel, my ex-partner. I smiled to myself, we broke up over a dispute about the treasure that we used to find together. It was only a sapphire for crying out loud, it seemed all so petty now.
The door brushed shut behind Sibby and I took the brief moment to take a good look at the little crystal she'd given me. It still hung around my neck, I guess she'd forgotten to take it back.
I took it in my paws and brought it close. Aside from the little grow that it seemed to have it was no different from any other cut crystal, well aside from the flawless craftsmanship in it's cutting and polishing, but hardly-
The stone began to shine, not a dull glow as it had before, but a true shine. The deep purple glow became so much brighter, so much that it was like holding a little star in my paws. Why it would suddenly do such a thing?
I heard the front door squeak open, then Sibby greet whom ever had come to the door. I couldn't hear much of what they were saying over the crashing of what must've been near-torrential rain. After several moments of murmuring, I heard Sibby say something along the lines of "Okay, let me get him." and the sound of her footsteps started to approach the doorway to my room.
The house gave a sudden lurch and a shudder and the sound of several things dropping to the floor rung out of the deathly silence that followed. I looked about, nothing appeared too badly damaged, but Sibby...
Sibby. Sibby was in trouble.
I jumped out of the bed, taking a moment to steady myself as my senses readjusted before stumbling over toward the door. To my complete surprise the door flew away from it's hinges, picked me up and slammed my sorry tail against the far wall, hard. I fell to the floor in a crumpled heap as a dark shadow cast over me.
I groaned and closed my eyes.
Typical.
So that's it, I hope it's better than I think it is (low self opinion on these things) and I hope you liked it. I haven't had a lot of time to proof-read this, and I will go over it again soon enough. If you happen to find anything out of order, please point it out!
Comments and feedback are much appreciated!
...and if you've got this far and liked what you've read, there is a follow-up series that I'll be working on very soon, so stick around. (either sub this folder or watch, because I'll make a notice of it in an entry here before it's up. And yes, Fex and Sibby do return)