The TwiceBorn

Wait Til The Midnight Hour

"It is only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world."--Joseph Campbell 

"The ground looks very far away, Alora the Twiceborn." Blixen stared fixedly downward, and his stubby tail twitched nervously as he perched on Alderon's wide rump. Alora looked down as well. Blixen was right.

She'd wound up spending most of her morning looking for a stump to stand on to mount the large horse but, not finding that, had had to settle for a deadfall. Standing on her tiptoes on a wobbly branch and knowing if she fell, she wouldn't get back up was not one of her finer moments. But she was astride and, for the moment, Alderon was agreeable.

She ran a trembling hand down his muscular neck. In a manner she could not explain, her and Alderon now understood each other. It was a fragile tether, one that dulled in the sun but gleamed, bright and wet, in the moonlight. He would do her bidding. And she imagined, if his mind could scream against the bars of the UnderRealms' cage, the shrieking would be never-ending. But when she picked up the reins...he would obey. Such was the power of the Tablet...

...which she had snugged away in her saddlebags. Blixen had already made his inclinations known by either rolling about on top of her saddlebags in ecstasy or running up to sit on her shoulders backwards, his tail madly swishing back and forth as he stared down at the saddlebags, afraid to turn his back to them. She'd already had to spit out several strands of his ratty tail.

"Blixen,the Tablet isn't going to suddenly come to life and snatch you up. Stop sitting on my shoulder, just settle down. Or if you are going to sit up there, turn around the right way."

Being Blixen, he chose neither. Instead, he jumped down on the saddle-horn and then curled into the V of her legs. He looked up with his woebegone eyes.

"Say that if you want, ShadowLord but the truth of the matter is...you don't know WHAT the tablet will do."

Alora clucked to Alderon and he moved forward. A deep,rolling cough boiled up out of her lungs and she doubled over then spat.

"I do know what the tablet will do, Blixen..." She rasped as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. The air she breathed in burned like flame.

She probably needed the noncholo a few more times but he'd have to find her in a new camp, preferably one much closer to Rogue's Refuge

"...because it is now mine. And it leaping up out of my saddlebags and eating you alive is not one of the things on my list for it to do. Not right now anyway." She had to tack on the last part. Even scared and subdued, she knew a part of Blixen's pea-sized brain was always scheming and plotting on how to gain. Now she no longer had to think of ways to threaten him to get him to do her bidding. She had the Tablet.

Alora frowned. She should have never had to think of ways in the first place.

She couldn't even command one obstinate goblin. How was she going to command the tablet?