The Storyteller

Chapter One: The Beginning

Long ago, eons before our time, there was a land much like ours.
In this land was a sacred place.
A mountain that grew flowers year round, through the hottest, driest summers. And the coldest, heaviest of winters.
Now these flowers were special.
Each one was made of special crystals.
At the base of the mountain was a small town, full of the people who guarded the sacred treasures growing at the peak of the mount.
The only people who were allowed to use the power of the flowers they guarded.
These were the story tellers...
When the flowers were plucked and crushed into a powder, the story tellers would put this powder in their pipes, and make large clouds of purple smoke with each breath.
And then, they would tell stories...
Tales of valor, glory, love and passion. Tales of war, stories of days past and of legends from ancient times... And as they told the stories, the smoke would take shape, becoming the stories that were being told. The more vivid the story, the greater the detail that appeared within the cloud...

Within the village, there was a festival held every year, where the children who were to reach adulthood would be given a knife, a small bag of various tools for wood working, and were told to go up into the mountain for a week.
They would fend for themselves and live off of the land, while looking for the perfect piece of wood to carve into the pipes they would use for story telling...
It was during one of these festivals that the events shaping the world as we know it today started to unfold...

Elohs was just about to receive his tools for the ceremony when his father came up behind him. His eyes, which already had the purple tint within the irises from the poison of the sacred flowers, were bright and and full of pride. "You're going to do great things, Elohs. Remember that it's not the pipe that makes the story, it's the teller that makes the tales. So if you're unable to make one that looks intricate, there's no shame." He said, hugging his boy.
He put his mouth near Elohs ear and whispered just above the noise of the crowd, "There are many good trees near the base of the mountain, but the best ones are near the top. If you can find the strength to climb there, that's where I would go" he advised.
He smiled at his son and then went and joined his wife in the crowd of families sending their children off with hugs and hopeful goodbyes.
The beginning of the only safe path up the mountain was where the village held the ceremony, a great stone archway was the marker for the start of the trail, which is where the children all lined up, waiting for the tools to be handed out and for the village elders to officially start the event.
The Elders had been there for longer than
Anyone can remember, they were the original founders of the village. They were different from most older people, their skin didn't wrinkle and sag like it should have. Instead it changed over time to be white as the snow, and their hair seemed to be of a similar shade of white. Their faces could have easily been easily mistaken for someone in their middle ages, apart from the bleached appearance.
Their eyes had succumbed to the poisoning, blinding them completely, their eyes looked like the purple smoke of the flowers had been condensed into orbs.
As unseeing as they were, they somehow knew their way around no matter what was going on.
They deftly handled the events of the ceremony, granny Ven was handing out the tools while grandfather Mercurous made his way up to the stands in order to speak to the children lined up to begin the ceremony that would bring them into adulthood. Elohs smiled up at granny Ven as she handed him the tools. She smiled back and continued to pass out the tools. Elohs felt a bit of a chill enter his bones. How had she known he smiled at her?
He tied the tool bag to his waist and faced the platform that grandfather Mercurous was standing, clearing his throat to signify he was about to speak...

Grandfather Mercurous took out his pipe, a plain looking thing with a large bowl and a long stem, the wood was a pure black, which seemed that much darker next to the pure white of his skin and hair.
He poured in a large quantity of the crystal powder and quickly lit it with experienced movements and deft hands. On his thumb he wore a small wooden disk which he used to cover the top of the bowl as he inhaled the sweet smoke.
He took in a long, deep breath of the smoke, and then he began to speak.
He told the story of how he and the eight other elders had found the the mountain and created the village...
"Long ago..." He began, "we elders were naught but Children. There was myself, Mercurous... Ven... Eartheart... Mar... Jupitol... Saturus... Uran... Neptus... Plutol...
We were the last of our people, all the others had died off... From hunger... War... Disease...
We were all that was left..."
He paused to take in another long intake of his pipe before resuming the story. The smoke was creating a vivid picture of the elders, all with the appearance of children not much older than Elohs was now.
"We wandered for months... Feeding off of the land... Helping each other to survive... And we somehow remained happy... It was our seventh month of wandering when we reached the base of the mountain... Standing at the very spot those young children stand, we looked up at the mass of stone, soil, and trees that were before us... And we climbed..."
The smoke showed the young elders venturing up the paths that the children were moments from taking.
"We had climbed for about three days before we had come close to the peak... And that's when we first saw them... The sacred flowers..." The smoke almost seemed to become solid as it created an image of the sacred flower that it originated from.
" They were beautiful... They seemed to glow when the light of the sunset filtered through their petals... And it was in the midst of a field of the flowers that we made camp..."
Grandfather Mercurous chuckled a bit before he drew in the next cloud to continue with his story.
"We had created a shelter of wood from the forest, and had a small fire going... We had forgotten to gather enough firewood for the night though, and as the fire began to die, we felt the chill of the night begin to set in..."
The smoke showed the young elders shivering around a small diminishing fire.
"And so that's when Eartheart decided to pluck one of the flowers from nearby and threw it into the fire, hoping that it would burn...
And to our amazement, it caught fire!" At this point, the image of young Eartheart threw a smoky crystal flower on the flames and it began to burn.
"The smoke that arose was purple and mildly sweet... And the fire seemed to grow warmer almost instantly... So we gathered up small armfuls of the flowers and used them as the fuel for our small fire...
As we warmed ourselves, breathing in the sweet smoke, we took turns telling stories our families had told us. The origin of our people, and how we had come to this world..."
Everything was silent, as if he world was holding its breath, waiting for the next part of the story... Even the birds had silenced and the winds had died down...
"And then we saw it happen... The smoke was taking form as we spoke... Becoming the things we had only imagined from the tales of our people... And we knew that we had found something sacred and powerful...
As we dreamed that night, the clouds of smoke became the stuff that formed our dreams, and we saw everything that we hoped to do... We no longer desired to wander aimlessly. We all knew what had to be done..."
As Grandfather Mercurous finished telling about the discovery of the sacred flowers, and began on the building of the village, the world seemed to exhale. The birds sang again and the wind lazily flowed about the scene, tousling hair and making loose bits of anything flutter and sway as it passed by. Elohs closed his eyes and let his other senses observe the world around him. As he focused on everything at once, he imagined that this was how the elders must get around. They sense the world around them with their whole bodies...
As he was lost in these thoughts, grandfather Mercurous finished the tale and faced the children. His unseeing eyes seemed to stare at their very souls. Elohs opened his eyes as he felt the gaze of the old man sweep over him.
The power that the elders held was unimaginable... Even blinded by the very things that helped them create this village, they were every bit as incredible as they had been in their younger days, if not more so.

The whole village was silent as Grandfather Mercurous raised his hand towards the children.
He closed his unseeing eyes and turned his face towards the top of the mountain, then with a long, sweeping gesture towards the peak, he loudly and clearly said one thing, words which rang in the air like the deep throes of a large bell: "Go forth." He said simply. All was still for a moment, before all the children save for Elohs began rushing up the trail. He however slowly turned toward the mountain path and looked up the trail, savoring the moment. The magical moment that signifies the start of a journey.
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"And here the story begins.." He says quietly to himself, then steps forward, leisurely making his way up the mountain, taking in the beautiful scenery that the trail offered him. There was no need to rush things... He had a week after all...