Post
Region: The East Pacific
As Valwomar begins his story, his voice takes on a tone at once familiar and utterly strange to Martis. It has all the ancient quality he and his fellow priests of Ademar are trained to use in their own tales, but where Pakatska storytellers are lent the voices of a thousand years, the woodman sounds singularly alone. Vórgetsk translates for the benefit of the outsiders every so often.
It happened once, when the world was younger than it is, that two children lived in the woods. For many nights they wandered, eating what they could find and living only as the truly desperate can. There was no shelter above their heads but the leaves, and no comfort but the cushion of grass and bush.
They came upon a clearing with a statue in the middle, carved all of gorgeous wood by delicate hands, and thought that surely here was a being of power and grace. Their food was laid down at the statue's feet, and they went to find other offerings. So passed the light days, and the children grew ever thinner, until at the last they collapsed upon the ground before the statue.
As they lay upon the soil, the statue came to life, shedding its wooden skin in favor of living flesh. It spoke to them thus: I am Wadamir. I have seen your actions and your lives, and I ask you: why? None asked you to bring your bounty to my feet. The children answered in unison, "we did as we should -- we know not why, for that is the domain of beings greater than us."
At this Wadamir furrowed his brow. What, then, separates your own lives from those of the beasts you hunt or hide in terror from? You are above these things. They and you have souls, but yours is as a sculpture to their untouched log. I shall teach you to sing, and think, and imagine. All that I require is that your descendants tread in my steps.
The children agreed, and Wadamir taught them. In time they grew, and he had taught them all he could teach, and each became a great people, so that not all could fit within the forest. Their descendants fought, and so Wadamir, to keep the peace, took it upon himself to bring one child's sons and bring them out of the woods to whatever land would have them; at this the forest itself grew angry, for it had seen the children and their peoples within its trees and become smitten.
Wadamir saw that the woods were wroth, and held out his hand. If you will permit this act, then to you I will grant the charge of the other child. He and his shall for ever be yours. The forest agreed, and the two children split their paths.
