Quiddles
Junior Member
Prologue
At the dawn of remembered time, the Mother called all Her children to Her that she might give them each a Name. She bade them form a line, and each came to Her in turn so she could whisper their Name. Each Name would give the one who possessed it their shape and their role in the world. Some creatures, all inclined towards trickery and pranks, thought to hide behind the Mother so they could overhear all the Names. She saw them easily, and sent them back to join the line.
The cunning tricksters did not give up. They agreed a plan together. One of them could hide much more easily than a whole group, so one would hide behind the Mother then tell the others the names they had learned. This they did, those remaining making sure to move about so it was not easy to see that one was missing from the line. When the Mother finally spotted the one hiding, the next crept off to hide instead. In this way, between them, the tricksters learned the Names of almost all the Mother's children.
The tricksters shared the Names they had learned, and in this way they gained the ability to change their shape into that of almost any other creature. Each of them, though, kept back one Name, and so it is that none of them can take the true form of any of the others. Because of this they can each be recognised, if you know what to look for.
Not long after the Mother called the tricksters before her, and it was immediately clear that they had not fooled her at all. “Every Name has a price,” she told them gravely. “A duty to live as that name, a role granted by it. No price is greater than can be paid by one creature. Yet, each of you carries not one Name, but many.”
The tricksters looked at each other in horror, suddenly realising how impossible it would be to live the life of every single creature whose Name they know. The Mother continued to frown at them, for she wanted them to know the gravity of their situation. Nevertheless, she was their Mother, and she loved them.
“I cannot take away the knowledge that you have, my precious Tricksters,” she told them, a little sadly, “but this I can do. Your own Names are yours alone, and you each must play that part. For all the other Names together, I give each of you a second duty. If you uphold that duty, you will be free of any others. If you should fail... then you must carry the weight of every Name, and that will surely kill you.”
Shuffling their feet in apprehension at what their second Duty might entail, the Tricksters waited.
“Perhaps you remember the child I called Human. Your duty will be to watch over this child. To use your wiles and trickery to guide it and teach it, to protect it from hubris and arrogance, to keep it in balance with my other children, and to teach it to prize laughter more highly than war.” Then the Mother had the Tricksters memorise this verse, binding them to their new duty while instructing them in it:
“Mine to trick and mine to teach,
Mine to seek and mine to see,
Mine to keep secrets,
Mine to guard and mine to guide,
Mine to watch and mine to warn,
Mine to bring laughter.”
Mine to seek and mine to see,
Mine to keep secrets,
Mine to guard and mine to guide,
Mine to watch and mine to warn,
Mine to bring laughter.”
So, in time, humans came to walk every continent of the Earth, and the Tricksters lived among them fulfilling their duty. Then, one day, one of the Tricksters vanished. The others had no warning and no clues. So suddenly and completely did the Last Trickster vanish that the others could not even remember a face or a shape or an everyday name.
After that, everything began to go wrong. One by one, gradually over the centuries, the Tricksters began to grow forgetful of their duty and even of the Names. Too spread out among the billions of humans to be able to help each other and remind each other of their roles, some have completely forgotten who they really are and live their lives believing themselves human, touched by madness and plagued by nightmares as, in their dreams, they play out the roles of a hundred thousand creatures.
One alone remains totally clear-headed and loyal to the duty bestowed on all Tricksters. One alone, who must find the other Tricksters and remind them who they are and what their duty is before the human race is destroyed by its own actions. That one is...
[Choice 1]: I run into the fire. I am not burned.
[Choice 2]: I sit among the branches of the Great Ash Tree.
[Choice 3]: I give a warning by running away.
[Choice 4]: I was born from a stone. Or was I?
Which do you vote for? You are voting to determine the main protagonist of this Quest story.
[Choice 2]: I sit among the branches of the Great Ash Tree.
[Choice 3]: I give a warning by running away.
[Choice 4]: I was born from a stone. Or was I?
Which do you vote for? You are voting to determine the main protagonist of this Quest story.
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