The Sword Made of Stone
Katrina Velder: "My mother told me a story once. Of an Elf who was cursed to kill his lover with but a word, and tear her soul apart. So he waited in the Garden of Silence, a place where no sound could be heard, and suffered there for the sake of his love. Only by her death would he be freed…"
Katrina Velder: "Centuries he waited, and centuries more, until the gods wept at his sacrifice. They summoned his love, and removed his curse, and that of the Garden, and for the rest of their time they lived and laughed and talked. From sunup to sundown they talked…"
Katrina Velder: "But it wasn’t an Elf, it was a Satyr. And she didn’t love him, not anymore. The gods grew tired of him hiding in their Garden, drinking from the dew that rained down from the Tree of Life, and stealing all their songs. When he learned the Song of Songs, the tune that lies at the bottom of all, they knew he must be silenced…"
Katrina Velder: "So they found the Satyr’s lover, and pulled her bones from the earth, and they made her whole again. They turned her apathy into hatred, and they twisted her until she could twist no more, making a warrior out of a maid. They gave her a sword made of stone, and they sent her to the Garden to kill him…"
Katrina Velder: "But when she saw him again, it all came undone. She’d forgotten his smile, and the way he played the chords. The way he’d danced under the stars, and called each of their names. Their eyes met, and they wept, and they laughed — never speaking a word…"
Katrina Velder: "They laughed until the gods turned the Garden against the Satyr. Until Silence bent back, one extreme unto another, a cacophony that threatened to tear the Garden apart. The Satyr became a Songbird, a cruel mockery of his former form, a fitting punishment from the gods…"
Katrina Velder: "The Songbird vanished on the Four Winds, and the gods laughed, and the lover was thrown from the Garden…"
Katrina Velder: "But one god took pity on the lover. She found the lover broken in a hollow, and healed her wounds with kisses. She combed her hair and clothed her, and made her body warm. And when the lover was ready to leave the hollow, you traded her stone sword for a metal whip, and told her to eat the stars…"
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