[Story] These Twilight Years: The Crowded Bird
Elders think of the past and worry about the future
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Note: These Twilight Years (or Les Temps Crépusculaires in its original tongue) is a homebrewed setting adapted from Paizo’s official Golarion setting. Read the Preamble!
“How did it all get to this, hm? I wonder, I wonder…” said Qufran to himself.
He’d been whistling walking songs from his youth, pausing sometimes to answer a question asked by no one, nodding and grunting to an invisible audience. The kettle whistled on his campfire.
“Going by the dawning Sellen,
Wandering mind and on steady legs.
Going from green Gronzi to soaring Glen,
Going by the dawning Sellen.”
As he sang, the water hissed and the leaves whispered. Listening closely, you could almost hear a crowd, many voices echoing the words, whistling with the kettle, sighing in melancholic remembrance, dancing under the leaves.
The caravan was still asleep and the sky was barely slipping out of the night’s deep blue. He liked to wake before the others, he could pretend it was silent for a while. “I guess I’m an early bird” he thought, and giggled at his own poor joke.
He was a very unassuming figure these days, “Big-Heart” Qufran. He used to be a tall and proud traveler, his feathers shivering in the wind with their ever-glistening tint of purple, his piercing eyes of green. Now his back was bent, but he was not broken, not yet. Wrapped in ample clothes, carrying always his smoking pipe, he still walked. His head and beak still shined, covered in sparkling jewelry and trinkets. His voice was still kind, his laugh still warm, and his eyes still piercing. The body was slowing down, but he walked the road still.
“That’s an old one.” said a sly, raspy voice behind him.
“Old? Don’t exaggerate now, Anisha. Everything must seem young from your age.” threw Qufran back. He hadn’t known she was there, but didn’t mind. He was never truly alone now and used to people being around, coming and going, always half-there, never unexpected.
From the tall woman came a short little laugh, immediately chased by the rattling of many bone-charms and bracelets on her arms. “Well, you are right. It’s old-er than what you usually sing, little bird.”
She delicately brushed her leathery hands over the stump next to the fire, sweeping away the ash and dirt, then sat down. Taking out a small pouch and a teapot out of the endless folds of her robes and scarves, she poured the boiling water and dropped a handful of herbs.
Anisha never seemed to sleep. Qufran had certainly never seen her sleep, not once since he joined the caravan all those decades ago. He had stopped trying to figure it out. Her ancient eyes were always tired, enveloped in fold upon fold of sleepy wrinkles, with an ever-sardonic squint cast at the world. She would often smirk when she spoke, as if quietly laughing at ironies only she could see. What must it be like to be so old, he wondered? To slowly age as the world spins fast around you, to see so much, to see everyone else leave you, to end up alone. He didn’t know exactly how old she was or how old elves could be, but it was certainly many centuries. He had started to complain about aches in his “old bones”, but by comparison he must seem a boy to her. Tengus didn’t live too long, about as long as humans did, but that seemed plenty enough time to him. Time enough to learn, to walk and laugh and sing, and then to teach and turn back into wind before getting bored.
“It’s one from my younger wanderings. I can’t quite remember where I heard it, up near Stetven I think. My mind has been going back a lot these days, up the eastern Sellen, beyond Gronzi and the mountains…” He stopped, looking east, to the horizon and beyond.
“Thinking of…” She trailed off looking into the fire, her eyes grave for only a moment. “Bah! Why the nostalgia little bird? Ain’t good to think of such things for too long.” She turned towards him, hesitant.
“You know, next time we’re by the braided tree maybe we could go east for a bit. A lovely hike in spring. You could look on your Koloran again and you…you’d feel better. Ready for the road ahead.” She was trying to convince herself as much as him. Why was it so painful when she’d done it all before? Or was it because she’d done it all before? She muttered a curse under her breath, a curse on Charon, on Pharasma and on her long years.
“We’ll have plenty of time, plenty of time for all that.”
“Time, yes.” He looked at her kindly and she held his stare. Then, not knowing what to say, he let silence fill the air for a while and drank his tea. Rather let silence breathe than say empty words, as his old teacher liked to say. “Maybe he would have known what to do.” said Qufran, and his bones ached, and her heart ached.
“How did it all get to this, hm?” he continued, as if she’d been listening to his meandering thoughts. It wasn’t difficult to guess, however. The troubles of their old caravan were reaching a dead-end, and all their thoughts seemed to spin around this question, these days.
There was a word Anisha was thinking of. Or more precisely, she was thinking of a word she knew she shouldn’t think about, and so she edged around it, steering clear of its shapes, of its sound, of its meaning. Everyone else did the same, afraid of saying it, afraid of thinking it. That might make it real. But then again their bad luck was real enough. There was a deep power in words, this she knew. But maybe now was the time to unleash this one, to face it? Better than letting it slowly erode their minds?
She shook herself and stretched, unleashing a waterfall of rattles and clinking. The sound was comforting, and she enjoyed the added dramatic effect.
“It’s a Curse, my friend.” She took a long swig of her tea, trying to clean her tongue of the iron taste.
Qufran looked very strange now. His bright green eyes looked straight at her, unblinking, waiting. There was an anger in him, shock, fear, but also a sort of release. He waited a while, half-expecting some spell or bad omen.
She waited too, but was not as patient. “Yes, I know. I’ve said it. I’m not going to just burst in flames, you know?”
“Oh no, besides you’d laugh at the flames, then feeling awkward they’d probably apologize and extinguish themselves!” he blurted back. He was still a little shaken, but relieved. “You’ve said it, and don’t you dare say it again, but I think you are right… Yes, yes. It is. Now how did it happen, why?”
“I think you know why, Laughing Wind.”
He winced. His wyrd-name was seldom used these days. Images of his old teacher surfaced once more, the previous Passer who was called Flaming Owl, the one who gave him his own name, the one who passed on the crowd to him. How bright the days were then, learning and travelling, and how light the burden of Passing seemed. But no one dared utter Qufran’s wyrd-name now, not since…
“I thought it would heal. Or somehow fix itself, with time.” he said, quite pitifully.
She got up, stretched her legs and paced a little around the fire. Her eyes as flames, an almost crazed look. “Well it didn’t. It is eating you, weighing you down, you’re bursting at the seams little bird. Time tricks. Time can do a lot, and it can heal some scars, but it doesn’t fix alone. Fixing’s living business, it’s a mortal act, the hand that plants the seed, that digs the earth, that holds the walking stick. Little bird, it’s got nothing to do with Time, it’s up to you to do it!”
“I’m too old to do it. Besides, what good would it do to chase him now? Would he even want to see me, to talk to me? I… I’m tired, Anisha.”
“Yes, well so am I.” She sat back down, sighed. Looking up at the sky and the morning birds, she went on. “But maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s a sign we have to make way for the young. It’s a bright new world, as they say. They could do it, I’m sure.”
“Certainly, they could… although I don’t find this new world very bright. Shining maybe, blinding… burning and rotting under that Taldan gold paint. Oh, but Anisha could they? Could they really? I’m so afraid for them. I don’t want… my little ones.”
Tears welled up in his eyes, and she lay her long hands on his shoulder. “Now, now. Everyone has to leave the nest, little bird. This is how the dance goes. They need their first true Beajour, and we need the Passing.”
And like that, it was settled. There was no point in arguing, she was right, he knew. He was so, so deeply afraid for them, but he knew. Finishing his tea he looked to the bottom of the cup for a long while, searching in the leaves.
He was remembering dark whispering woods, the loving dust of a library, kind shadows cast on cold stone, and coal stains over dried blood. Then his invisible crowd stops and his vision blurs, something happens that has not happened in a very long time, the Chimes of seeing ringing in his ears. He feels Anisha taking his hand in hers as he plunges deeper, seeing the long road behind and ahead, watching Four old lovers dancing sadly, A golden warrior rotting on his white horse, A bleeding thief stealing the mountain’s fire, Black lilies blooming on a battlefield, The kindly boatman forgetting her name. He and Anisha will both close their eyes, falling through the tapestry, to see a crack in the other moon, terror leaking from it. They will look beyond the velvet horizon, where the double-headed serpent isn’t, eating itself, spinning madly.
The noises of the crowd came crashing back as he jumped from his chair. Anisha stood too, trembling. The voices were talking fervently, commenting, advising. His clothes and feathers shifting as if countless hands were grabbing him, asking him, telling him, pleading, shouting, screaming. He breathed in, and out, sitting back down. Slowly the fear left until he laughed quietly. The kind of whispering laugh he did while remembering, the comfort of memories, the safety and certainty of what has already passed.
“Those were the Chimes…” said Anisha, sitting next to him. She laughed too, bitterly. “No better sign, I guess we made the right decision.”
A nostalgic glint in his eyes, he looked up, smiling. He thought of the younger travelers, his little ones, their first days and how they came to join the caravan.
The next night Anisha still sat there, the sleepless Watcher, she who remembers prophecies, mumbling to herself and trembling still. She looked at the ground intensely, watched beyond it, far beyond to some distant destination, unblinking. She thought of the visions and what they could mean, tracing back old hints and references, riffling through half-remembered words and lost omens. The road ahead was unclear, difficult, she couldn’t be sure where it would lead. Then again, that meant it could go anywhere, somewhere it had never gone before, somewhere new.
