Twidler's Tales (Prologue - II)
You gingerly make your way through the cramped hallway, grateful for the reprieve from the biting cold outside.
As you approach the door at the far end of the passage, your nostrils flare up seduced by the smell of freshly baked pumpkin pudding and freshly brewed (and especially strong, you imagine) coffee. You politely knock on the door, which slowly sways ajar by itself.
In the small living space before you, you see a comfortable looking arm chair facing a warm hearth of fire. Tiny feet lay to rest on a cushion before it, watching glowing embers of firewood occasionally darting to freedom and dying out on the worn rug below.
You pause to offer the etiquette of being invited in, but you feel your back start to crick and crackle from the burden of heaving your torso through ways where the ceiling measured hardly five feet (in human terms) from the polished wooden floor. As you start to clear your throat, tiny feet spring to life and in a flash an elderly gnome-skin yellow with age and a white beard long enough to tickle his toes-stands before you. Beady eyes study your own, now wide with surprise.
“I do not usually allow rif-raf into my home..”, and studying your stooping figure from head to toe he continues, “..and the human sort of rif-raf be the worst kind of rif-raf !”
You start to explain that you are not here to waste his time, but you are cut short.
“Are you going to stand there bent like an ancient ogre all day ? ‘Coz I sure as Panorama’s Immaculate Compass don’t be cravin’ breakin’ my ooool’ neck tryin’ to look up into a face only the lord of the underworld could love..”, he says as he turns and hobbles away, arms tied firmly behind his back until he disappears into the comfort of his armchair.
You breathe a sigh of relieve as you cross your legs and settle down beside ol’ grumpy Twidler by the fire place. For several minutes he does not acknowledge you. He sits motionless-not a flinch, not a grimace-watching the fire, smoke lazily pouring forth from the pipe in his mouth. Spastic flames flickered and danced in his eyes, seemingly led to ferment by the endless repertoire of tales and stories in the mind rather than just the reflection from the blazing fire.
You wait a while longer, and then start to explain the reason for your visit. You detail your current profession as a biographer. You provide references to some of your more accomplished works in wide circulation around the realms, but do not receive any sign of recognition from a being that had seen more than any mortal life you had chronicled had lay to claim. Unfazed you continue to narrate how you had the fortune of uncovering one of his memoirs at the Grand Library in Leskarin. You volunteer to concede poetic esteem as you huff out your chest and quote some of his more enamoring limericks and gush bashfully expressive awe at some of his adventures as sketched in his public journals, but continue to be evaluated with stoic silence.
You clear your throat and start to pick at a loose thread on your linens. The fire starts to die down as the room becomes eerily quiet, the crackle from the fireplace now replaced by the ominous hiss from dilapidated cremains. You start to reach for a piece of fresh firewood when, without warning, Twidler shifts in his chair to face you. You see his eyes shift fervently, inviting you to immerse yourself into plethora of emotions that were boiling within. Passion and hurt tempered by years of indignation and resentment.
"Twidler Twinklefood is a forgotten relic outlander. An ol’ spiteful little man livin’ in solitude on the outskirts of a village that is as charming as a horse’s behind. No. There is no money to be made out of me by vultures of your breed. You and this accursed era you have ushered in have blighted what thousands before you have bled to uphold. Honor is extinct. Chivalry is legend. Righteousness is now a weakness. Mere words that pen-men like you use to lure the coin. Puppeteers of fallen heroes and slain villains re-enacting their moments of glory through the necromancy of your ink ! ‘Tis now objects of ardent desire and regretful deprivation among maidens who have neigh an idea of what they mean! ‘Tis lifeless antiques adorned on the walls at homes of ol’ timers like me! ”
Your cold resolve begins to crumble under the barrage of arrows of forceful incrimination, their barbs wedged deep under your subconscious armor, burning you from the inside out. Even as you start to fight for words, Twidler sits back into his chair and begins to refill his pipe.
“Do ya’ imagine outlander, that I would have ya’ enter my home if I did know neigh that ya’ found me…”, he looks straight and cold into your eyes, “…through the Velvet Rope ?”
You feel your jaw drop and unconsciously remark, “How did..?”
Twidler looks away as if to hide some hurt which he had spend a good portion of his life trying to squelch and bury-but without success.
“Ya’ wear the bearings of a land I have trodden ages past, and long to forget.”
You look down at consider your beaten and hand-knitted leather vest buttoned over your tailored white shirt. The strap to your heavy backpack runs across your chest. A pocketed belt designed in your native device held up a pair of pert linen pants tucked into a pair of fine leather leggings made, you were told, by Togo’s finest. You bring your palm up to your neck and finger your medallion-the unmistakable insignia of a land far south.
“Ya’ have traveled a long way for naught outlander. I have no stories for you…”
Crushed in spirit and dismayed at long empty-handed journey back, you shuffle around your feet to start to get up.
Twidler glances your way one last time with considerable inner debate and then immediately looks away and purses his lips. You look over your shoulder at the back of the armchair, start to say something, but are reminded of the futility of the negotiation. As you lean toward the door, head hung is distraught; you hear a voice behind you. A voice more mellow than you are now used to in your visit. A voice that rose out of a soul that thought itself dead a long many years ago. A voice-struggling to find itself.
“Ohhhhh, a thousand curses of the Grak beast on it all.. I suppose I could let you go with one tale. After all, ya’ did do me the turn of traveling all this way to give some company to an’ ol’ gnome.. however unsavory it has turned out thus far.”
With the glee of a child offered a month’s worth of candy treats, you clumsily crash back on the floor before your storyteller and pull forth your journal and ink pot with remarkable agility-surprising even yourself.
Twidler takes a fresh pull from his pipe, and slowly blows out the noxious fumes, deeply contemplating to himself. He looks squarely you, and you imagine the crack of a smile break on his lips.
“Pour us some coffee from the pot behind ya’ little one, and throw in some wood into the fire before it dies out, for we need its warmth to last us this tale …”
As you approach the door at the far end of the passage, your nostrils flare up seduced by the smell of freshly baked pumpkin pudding and freshly brewed (and especially strong, you imagine) coffee. You politely knock on the door, which slowly sways ajar by itself.
In the small living space before you, you see a comfortable looking arm chair facing a warm hearth of fire. Tiny feet lay to rest on a cushion before it, watching glowing embers of firewood occasionally darting to freedom and dying out on the worn rug below.
You pause to offer the etiquette of being invited in, but you feel your back start to crick and crackle from the burden of heaving your torso through ways where the ceiling measured hardly five feet (in human terms) from the polished wooden floor. As you start to clear your throat, tiny feet spring to life and in a flash an elderly gnome-skin yellow with age and a white beard long enough to tickle his toes-stands before you. Beady eyes study your own, now wide with surprise.
“I do not usually allow rif-raf into my home..”, and studying your stooping figure from head to toe he continues, “..and the human sort of rif-raf be the worst kind of rif-raf !”
You start to explain that you are not here to waste his time, but you are cut short.
“Are you going to stand there bent like an ancient ogre all day ? ‘Coz I sure as Panorama’s Immaculate Compass don’t be cravin’ breakin’ my ooool’ neck tryin’ to look up into a face only the lord of the underworld could love..”, he says as he turns and hobbles away, arms tied firmly behind his back until he disappears into the comfort of his armchair.
You breathe a sigh of relieve as you cross your legs and settle down beside ol’ grumpy Twidler by the fire place. For several minutes he does not acknowledge you. He sits motionless-not a flinch, not a grimace-watching the fire, smoke lazily pouring forth from the pipe in his mouth. Spastic flames flickered and danced in his eyes, seemingly led to ferment by the endless repertoire of tales and stories in the mind rather than just the reflection from the blazing fire.
You wait a while longer, and then start to explain the reason for your visit. You detail your current profession as a biographer. You provide references to some of your more accomplished works in wide circulation around the realms, but do not receive any sign of recognition from a being that had seen more than any mortal life you had chronicled had lay to claim. Unfazed you continue to narrate how you had the fortune of uncovering one of his memoirs at the Grand Library in Leskarin. You volunteer to concede poetic esteem as you huff out your chest and quote some of his more enamoring limericks and gush bashfully expressive awe at some of his adventures as sketched in his public journals, but continue to be evaluated with stoic silence.
You clear your throat and start to pick at a loose thread on your linens. The fire starts to die down as the room becomes eerily quiet, the crackle from the fireplace now replaced by the ominous hiss from dilapidated cremains. You start to reach for a piece of fresh firewood when, without warning, Twidler shifts in his chair to face you. You see his eyes shift fervently, inviting you to immerse yourself into plethora of emotions that were boiling within. Passion and hurt tempered by years of indignation and resentment.
"Twidler Twinklefood is a forgotten relic outlander. An ol’ spiteful little man livin’ in solitude on the outskirts of a village that is as charming as a horse’s behind. No. There is no money to be made out of me by vultures of your breed. You and this accursed era you have ushered in have blighted what thousands before you have bled to uphold. Honor is extinct. Chivalry is legend. Righteousness is now a weakness. Mere words that pen-men like you use to lure the coin. Puppeteers of fallen heroes and slain villains re-enacting their moments of glory through the necromancy of your ink ! ‘Tis now objects of ardent desire and regretful deprivation among maidens who have neigh an idea of what they mean! ‘Tis lifeless antiques adorned on the walls at homes of ol’ timers like me! ”
Your cold resolve begins to crumble under the barrage of arrows of forceful incrimination, their barbs wedged deep under your subconscious armor, burning you from the inside out. Even as you start to fight for words, Twidler sits back into his chair and begins to refill his pipe.
“Do ya’ imagine outlander, that I would have ya’ enter my home if I did know neigh that ya’ found me…”, he looks straight and cold into your eyes, “…through the Velvet Rope ?”
You feel your jaw drop and unconsciously remark, “How did..?”
Twidler looks away as if to hide some hurt which he had spend a good portion of his life trying to squelch and bury-but without success.
“Ya’ wear the bearings of a land I have trodden ages past, and long to forget.”
You look down at consider your beaten and hand-knitted leather vest buttoned over your tailored white shirt. The strap to your heavy backpack runs across your chest. A pocketed belt designed in your native device held up a pair of pert linen pants tucked into a pair of fine leather leggings made, you were told, by Togo’s finest. You bring your palm up to your neck and finger your medallion-the unmistakable insignia of a land far south.
“Ya’ have traveled a long way for naught outlander. I have no stories for you…”
Crushed in spirit and dismayed at long empty-handed journey back, you shuffle around your feet to start to get up.
Twidler glances your way one last time with considerable inner debate and then immediately looks away and purses his lips. You look over your shoulder at the back of the armchair, start to say something, but are reminded of the futility of the negotiation. As you lean toward the door, head hung is distraught; you hear a voice behind you. A voice more mellow than you are now used to in your visit. A voice that rose out of a soul that thought itself dead a long many years ago. A voice-struggling to find itself.
“Ohhhhh, a thousand curses of the Grak beast on it all.. I suppose I could let you go with one tale. After all, ya’ did do me the turn of traveling all this way to give some company to an’ ol’ gnome.. however unsavory it has turned out thus far.”
With the glee of a child offered a month’s worth of candy treats, you clumsily crash back on the floor before your storyteller and pull forth your journal and ink pot with remarkable agility-surprising even yourself.
Twidler takes a fresh pull from his pipe, and slowly blows out the noxious fumes, deeply contemplating to himself. He looks squarely you, and you imagine the crack of a smile break on his lips.
“Pour us some coffee from the pot behind ya’ little one, and throw in some wood into the fire before it dies out, for we need its warmth to last us this tale …”
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