EitB Civilopedia Updates Thread

[RefSteel]

Huh - seems I never got around to posting this:

(Spoilered for length)

I like this story a lot, but it's questionable how well it fits with the established canon - or rather, it specifically subverts something in the established canon, using and acknowledging the canon but presenting an alternative worldview. Since it does so in the form of a story-within-the-story which might itself be a myth, I think it should work for anyone's preferred interpretation however. Here goes:

[EDIT: SUPERCEDED by a later post. ToC updated.]

The little fire crackled happily in its ring - a real fire, that rare and special luxury made for the children in celebration of a good hunt and good luck finding dead wood, nearly dry - and Raevonyl hugged her daughter to her heart. "A story?" she asked, teasing slightly. "Are you sure you want a story, Ephyra? Even after all the others of a hundred moons and twelve?"

In answer to the teasing, Ephyra just snuggled closer; to the question, she simply answered, "Yes."

Her mother gently stroked her hair and drew her even closer, resting their heads together so her lips were right beside her daughter's ear. Ephyra's eyes shut softly, and her mothers' seemed to close, but still by ancient habit she kept them open just a slit, to watch in case of coming danger or eavesdroppers. To Ephyra, she whispered, "Then the time is come, I think. I saw something this day that kindled a hope brighter than our fire that you shall one day have the wish of your heart."

"I want to be a Nyxkin," Ephyra whispered back. "I want to ride the woods beside Volanna and her panther and help her to save everyone's lives."

"Well, my little leopard-girl," her mother answered, rocking Ephyra sideways in her arms, her laughter soft in her voice, "perhaps you shall." The rocking and laughter subsided though, and her whisper held love alone when she repeated, "Perhaps you shall." Raevonyl's fingers returned to her daughter's hair and resumed their gentle, stroking rhythm. "There are few of the old Nyxkin tales I haven't told you now, but my heart says it is time at last to tell the very first: The tale my mother shared with me and had of her mother before her; the tale I heard but one time more, from the lips of Volanna herself."

There came a silence, almost of reverence; Raevonyl's mother had ridden among the Nyxkin, though thousands of moons had turned since her heroic death. None who knew her would be surprised that Volanna had remembered, nor by the strength she had lent the proud and grieving daughter, but perhaps no other among the Svartalfar would have done it so surely, so simply, or so well, and a brilliant flame of loyalty, intense and almost searing, still burned in Raevonyl's heart. Even her young daughter, at second hand, through all her mother's stories and through a child's instinctive understanding and imitation of her parents, had caught the flame - and sometimes in her childish way was able to use its warmth and light to bring her through the coldest winter nights.

At last Raevonyl spoke again, in a whisper so soft, close by her daughter's ear, that it seemed almost a continuation of the silence. "The tale begins long, long ago - long before your time and mine, and long before this age of ice. Our people come into the story in the time of Volanna's youth, in the early days of the compact that divided the year between Summer and Winter Courts, but those who travel with us began their journey long before."

So she told of the wild band Volanna had led - a small cadre of elven girls eager to explore and test the limits of their abilities, each drawn irresistibly to the nucleus of their group: Volanna, the wildest and most daring of them all. The children fought mock-battles, scoured the woods for hidden secrets, spied on their elders, hunted game for their impromptu camp-outs, and while adults were shaking their heads or trying to discipline or humor or ignore them, formed bonds they would remember all their lives.

That might have been all, and it might have been forgotten by everyone but the girls themselves, had they not found - or been found by - a secret older than the most ancient of the elves. There was another people living in certain hidden, quiet woodlands, secretive and few in number, dwelling ever unseen or at least unknown, but ever watching, ever listening, from among the deepest shadows. There they had concealed themselves for an age of the world and more, but the growing powers around them and the ever-more numerous wars brought fear into their hearts even in that secluded woodland, lest they be found at last, or lest they be destroyed in sport or in passing by some terrible power that knew not even what it had found.

So when Volanna and her companions came into those woods, its hidden people wondered ... and watched. The elven girls were children still, a wild and ragtag band, and it did not take long to see the loyalty they showed each other or the fact - though not the substance - of the childish secrets they kept from the rest of the world. Still the watching and waiting continued though, the product of ancient habits, and it might have continued until it was too late to act had Volanna not seen them, realized what they were doing, and forced their hand.

Her plan was simple, daring, and - almost - direct. She long since had noticed the great hunting cats that stalked her friends through the woods without showing any sign that she had. The more she looked for them after that, the more often she saw them, and the more she noticed behaviors among them that did not resemble any normal cat's - even apart from stalking a group of spear-wielding elven girls through the forest in the first place, which was certainly strange enough. There was one cat in particular that caught her eye: The largest panther she had ever seen, who seemed to approach only on certain special occasions - such as the one she planned to manufacture with her friends. It came, and she saw, but she gave no sign except for a secret signal when she judged the moment right to spring her trap. Before it realized it had been detected, it found itself ringed in children's spears, the circle closed by young Volanna as she whirled to face it with triumph in her eyes, calling out as if in play, "You who thought that you would hunt us have been out-hunted this night, and so surrender to my band, o Queen of forest cats!"

For a long, long moment, as the circle closed in and divided to bristle with outward spears as well in case another of the hunting cats arrived, the panther met Volanna's brilliant, eager eyes as if trying to read the truth of her heart. At last though, it spoke - in a feline growl, but with elven words, to Volanna's further triumph and delight. "We are not cats except in form," it told her, "and I am no queen, for we have none. Never did we hunt you, though we watched you at your games, and though I admire and respect you and wish to trust you in my heart, we never will surrender ourselves to such power as you hold, though it may mean our deaths."

Then Volanna read its eyes in turn, and driving her spear point-downward into the soil, she approached, step by earnest, fearless step, until she could feel the warmth of the panther's breath. Still she held its golden eyes, and she said, "I have no fear of you, o panther who is not a cat, for all your strength and all the sharpness of your teeth and claws. And do you fear us children then because we fear you not? Or what power hold we of another kind?"

Without turning from Volanna's eyes, the panther answered, "Hope." For just a moment, that single word seemed to hang in the air alone. Then the panther spoke again, and it explained, "There is much for us to fear, but we do not count you among the causes. In you, we see the hope of allies who might aid and join us in escaping the doom that draws in upon us all. Yet hope is a danger in this world - a danger second to one alone - and so we must combat it and refuse to reach for it, still less surrender to such of its power as you in your nature seem to offer, no matter the alternative, no matter the strength of our fears."

Slowly, regarding it carefully, Volanna reached out to the panther who stood before her, and slowly she began to stroke its fur. Still holding its golden eyes, she said, "You speak in riddles, and I think in this you are unwise, lest friends misunderstand while others see your meaning clear. But let us see if we can find and teach you better reasons both to tell them and to join with us than either hope or fear."

The panther asked, "What reasons?" but already Volanna was slowly, slowly drawing nearer still, running her hands through its night-black fur, and she answered in a whisper, neither simply nor in riddles, with neither threats nor promises, but by telling how soft its fur was, how nice it felt beneath her fingers, and first asking without need of answer, and soon telling without a hint of doubt, what it was like to feel her gently stroking fingers behind its ears and along its neck. Once, it seemed to begin to speak, but then to think better of it. After that, it didn't speak at all. Its eyes came shut, it gently pressed its head against her stroking hands and then into her arms, and settled down, relaxing slowly as she crouched and then sat to hold it, her whisper merging into a song of her own invention - a child's lullaby.

It didn't sleep - not then; not yet - but by the time it opened its eyes, it had allowed itself to sink into her lap and into her arms, its body limp, its senses focused on the gentle work of her fingers and the soft strains of her song, and anyone who saw them there - contented, resting panther and happy, confident elven girl - could see that it was hers.

"I would like to say," it softly growled, contentment in every word, "that this isn't a very good reason. But I find it's all the reason that I need."

Cradling its heavy head, Volanna answered, "It is a better reason than I think you understand. It's wiser than your riddles, anyway."

The panther looked up at her, and it almost seemed to smile. "Perhaps you're right. The god of trust has long since turned to deception, but there never yet has been a god of love over this world."

*

Such was the tale that Raevonnyl retold to her daughter Ephyra, just as her mother and Volanna each had told the tale to her, and how the hunting cats who were more than cats came to be joined with Volanna and her Nyxkin followers.

Ephyra stirred, and whispered, hardly daring to be heard, "I had heard the steeds of the Nyxkin were gifts from Esus to our people. I never heard that they could talk before."

Raevonyl smiled, whispering, "Strange gifts from such a god: Mighty hunting cats to serve as steeds, simple and direct in their power, bound to their riders in such a way that neither could betray the other. Many there are who have heard that tale, for we have worked hard to make it so. Such is our offering to the god of deception: A fitting offering, for it is a deception of our own. Perhaps too, he who made the Mistforms may appreciate the lies we made but do not tell: Little traps concealed like treasures, like the name Nyxkin itself, set so that those who look too closely at our past and come across their seeming meaning may the more easily deceive themselves."

Ephyra snuggled closer. "Where did they come from, then? And why make up lies as offerings to Esus and pretend they're really cats?" She looked up at her mother with warm love in her eyes, partly as ever for her mother herself, but touched now with another and more distant love as well: Love of the snow leopard of whom she dreamed, not only as a steed but for its own sake, whoever it might prove to be. Softly, she asked her mother, "Why can't they live in the world as themselves?"

Gazing into her daughter's eyes, stroking her soft, dark hair, Raevonyl whispered, "They are doing so," and her smile was warm. "They join with us when they can because that is who they are: The truth concealed completely in the shadow of the lie. They were the first great contribution that Esus made to Erebus: A deeply loyal people who lived by unbreakable bonds of love and trust. So when Esus changed and came to embody deception, he saw how vulnerable his first creations had become in the new world of which he was a part, and he went to them and changed their form so they appeared as solitary hunting cats, unapproachable creatures that live by stalking and stealth, and he twisted the trust that had been half their souls into a deep fear and suspicion of all the countless forces in creation that could deceive and destroy. Then he left them to conceal themselves and live their lives apart, forgotten, through the ages of the world ... until they were found by a band of little elven children whose leader could see beyond their suspicions and mistrust to call unknowing upon the part of their eternal bond that even their creator could neither twist nor break: The love that is the realm and work of none of the gods, but the birthright of life itself."

Another silence fell, and mother and daughter listened together to the crackling of the little fire, feeling of its warmth and one another's. At last, Ephyra said, "Thank you. I like that story. I don't want it to be over though. I want to be a Nyxkin someday too, and find my snow leopard who's more than a cat, and feel the bond enfold my heart and hers. I want to hold her the way we're holding each other now, and whisper together just like this, where no one else can hear." She shut her eyes and hugged her mother close, and Raevonnyl hugged her back, but with a deep and knowing smile.

"Perhaps you shall," Raevonnyl whispered. "Do you know what I saw today, that gave me such bright hope - that made me think the time was come to tell our oldest tale?" She stroked her daughter's hair, watching Ephyra shake her head, using the motion to snuggle closer, near her heart. In her softest whisper, Raevonnyl said, "I saw seven green shoots on aspen trees, the first I can remember." She paused, and bit her lip. "The weather has been warmer, but there were days when it seemed to warm a very little bit before. This is different. This is new." She swallowed once, and hastilly blinked her eyes, holding her daughter tight. "Ephyra..." She trembled, feeling the hope of her heart reach out for her beloved daughter, and she whispered, softly, softly, "Spring is coming..."

...as somewhere in the distant snows, another mother, snuggling a daughter who looked for all the world like a soft snow leopard's cub, growled the same words in a softer whisper still. "...and we're alive."

On what I've been calling the "Sarcodes Cycle" - I like the name (it's the genus name for the flower-like plant commonly known as the Snowplant) but to parallel the Beltane Cycle, this really ought to be called the Samhain Cycle ... which would be quite appropriate in its own way. The spoilered story in this post (on the Nyxkin) would be Chapter 8 (the last chapter). In order, it would be:
Chater 1: Ljosalfar Palace
Chapter 2: Volanna
Chapter 3: Rivanna
Chapter 4: Svartalfar Palace
Chapter 5: Stonewarden
Chapter 6: Illusionist
Chapter 7: Priest of Leaves
Chapter 8: Nyxkin
I hope this is helpful!