Some Old Tales 6

I wrote this years ago to satisfy some needs in myself and others. It was given to me and I gave it to them. Perhaps you will actually read and heed it. Perhaps not.

Do as you will just as I do as I must/

It seems time to repeat some stories from long ago.

So I remember the stories ....

"Once upon a time, (in the time before the coming of the Church), each was beholden to their own and the coming of age meant dedications to tribe and family - it meant initiation. Then the Church came and laid waste to the world that we created with our own hands. From that time on the world changed and as the world about us changed, so did the other worlds change too.

When our people were scattered or fallen, we too changed. Alone in the world, beholden to none but those that we could but just FEEL we stood. So we did continue our ways to our own and when there were none of them - to those the gods saw fit to send to us.

Woe betide they who took birth and were borne apart from us. They who could not come home. Lost were they, lost are they - with none to ease their pain. Alone in a world that is not their own.

To the Moon on the sacred nights they cry. To the dusk they weep and from the dawn they hide.

But they are not forgotten; our lost. For it has been said that the gladdest song of all is the song that leads home and loudest of all is the grief wail for those who do not return - those lost in lands who will not remember their song.

So it is that they are scattered, the lost, those restrained from us - we have been promised that they will still hear our call. To our ancestors' blood we call. To our gods and to the gods of our forebears we call.

Our voice will be heard - thus we have been promised! Our voice will be heard on the four winds and the four winds will carry our wail to those who are lost. It is they; the guardians of our people that shall roam the worlds.

From the four corners they will come - creeping silently through every shadow, riding every ray of the setting sun to seek out our lost. Our guardians will find them and in secret for the enemy is ever watchful and their time is short upon the lands of men each time.

Our guardians will find them all and whisper the old words to them in the night. In dreams they will come and in dreams they will show our lost the way to us. In dreams they will see us and in the sounds of the night will our secrets be spoken unto their very souls.

And their blood will awaken. Their blood will boil and burn. With our song in their hearts will each of them be judged by the guardians of our people - of our past, of our present and our future.

The funerary call shall be the only solace for they who are judged unworthy. Poor mad shells staggering about in their blindness - they are the sign that our songs must be pure and correct.

The few that are worthy. Those that survive the trials, those that are strong. To them shall be whispered the secrets and to the shadows they will listen.

With time and in times to come they shall rue their strength. They shall envy the mad but in their strength shall they find the wherewithal to continue. And continue they will - filled with our essence and fuelled by our purpose for the future."