| Subject: The story is inside this post. |
Author:
Emmas
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Date Posted: 02:20:01 06/24/04 Thu
In reply to:
Emmas
's message, "Something Different..." on 02:09:15 06/24/04 Thu
It was still dark in the room, the bluish darkness just before the first rays of the sun reach up over the horizon to tinge the sky, but the room's inhabitant was already awake and moving. In the darkness, a candle burst into life with the sharp snap of a striking match and the shadows fled from the warm glow the flame created.
The room was lit up golden and John O. Peter flung his weather beaten cloak around his shoulders hurriedly. The candle's light cast his gnarled face into sharp relief, etching deep shadows below the lines of age and concern that marked his face heavily. It tinged his long white mustaches a ruddy yellow and caused his blue eyes to sparkle almost mischievously. John O. Peter was old; he knew it, his dilapidating room knew it, the whole village knew it, but they also knew that his strength had never left him. Just the way he moved was enough to prove that. His long, lanky frame traveled deftly between the stools and cluttered desk; he practically raced amongst them, but he never upsetted even one sheaf of loose paper. A dark hand as lined as his face, but callused and scarred from years of farming reached out and grasped the old ash staff propped up against the wall and his second hand swept the floppy woven straw hat onto his head. One last adjustment of the dirt caked green cloak and John Odin Peter was ready to go.
But, he stopped at the foot of his small, tousled bed as he did every single morning, and let his sparkling blue eyes travel up and up the wall until they came to rest on the magnificent painting almost a head above him. The frame was of dark pinewood, polished until it shone softly in the candlelight, but it was not the frame that held his gaze.
Gray and black, blue and purple came together in swirls of color to create vast storm clouds and a dark sky cloven by tongues of lightning. The sky seemed to fill his vision, catch his breath, rivet him to the spot in awe, but then his eyes slid onto the wondrous figure that danced through the rippling lightning bolts. The whitish gray of the eight-legged horse seemed to paint the fur so realistically that John almost believed that if he reached out, he'd find himself touching the surging, fire-eyed animal that raced across the fearsome sky. He could almost hear the lash of the lightning bolts, he could almost smell the rain, almost feel the powerful animal beneath him…
Slowly, John shook his head and smiled, prying his gaze away from the painting. Every morning he lost himself in the sheer reality of it, the intense beauty. Every morning, even though that painting had hung in his room for over ten years. It was that sense of reality that enticed him; not that it had been a gift to him from the world famous mythological and abstract painter and was worth thousands… No, it was only because for ten years, the painting had never failed to whisk him away to that wild ride above the clouds.
The smile became sadder as John blew out the candle and walked down the hallway in the pre-morning darkness and out of his house.
Closing the door behind him, he stretched and yawned loudly in the cold, brisk air and hefting his walking staff, he set out, down the rows of brick houses.
The street was unpaved dirt with pebbles and larger stones, but
John never faltered. He tried to keep his gaze fixed firmly on a point ahead of him, but his eyes kept darting off to the sides to stare at the beautiful, small houses that bordered the road. Their gardens and fountains were cloaked in a low mist that the rising sun would soon dissipate and a few dogs barked softly in the yards.
The slow clip-clop of hooves rang out as the young Thatcher, Valka Gren, came into view, leading her white gelding along by the bridle. The baskets on the animal's side were filled with straw and Valka's round face bloomed into a smile as her eyes fell on John. "Mornin' Master Peter! You're makin' a mockery outta that stick you know. Walking sticks are for the feeble Master, why are ye usin' one?"
John chuckled throatily and reached out to pet the horse's nose. "Now young Valka, remember, never question your elders!"
Valka swept a deep curtsy, grinning. "I beg your pardon Master
Peter. Now I know you're probably off ta the Counsel, so I won't keep
ye."
John's small smile vanished and his white eyebrows drew down over his eyes in a frown. Valka patted his shoulder heartily as she passed and said, 'You give that Giant all that it deserves Master
Peter! All that it deserves!" And the horse plodded on.
John's frown remained as he walked more quickly along the street, his cloak whisking behind him. The first rays of the sun were already beginning to bruise the undersides of the clouds yellow and purple as john crossed over the small arch of the Rainbow Bridge. The gently flowing waters glinted golden.
The house that John stopped at looked identical to the other brick thatched houses that lined the road, if not a little bigger, but what set it apart was the two horses already tied to the porch railings. John set his staff leaning against the steps and vaulted up them nimbly. He knocked on the solid door firmly and swept the hat off his head. The door opened almost the second after he'd knocked, and the graying housewife gestured for him to come in. "Master Peter! Thank heavens that you're here!"
John inclined his head slightly and stepped inside as she opened the door wider for him. Placing his hat on a carved row of pegs by the door, he followed the housewife as she led him into the depths of the small house, chattering all the way. "Master Revil arrived just a couple of minutes ago, but Mistress Devra got here quite a while back! Oh, I'm so glad you're here Master Peter! If anyone can figure out a solution to the Giant, it's you!" Finally, she left him at a closed door towards the back of the house, with a grin and a quick curtsy. Running sun-darkened fingers through age whitened hair; John sighed to himself and knocked on the door with his knuckles.
The buzz of voices from within stopped immediately and the scraping of a chair rasped through the silence. The door slowly swung open. Tarb Harla-Olvirk Revil's face appeared in the doorframe, and seeing John, it broke into a craggy grin. "Morin' John!" he boomed in a voice as deep as thunder. "Glad ye could come!"
John returned the smile wearily. "Wouldn't miss these meetings for anything Tarb." Tarb gestured him in with a thickly muscled arm, the blacksmith's vest of leather creaking slightly. John nodded and slipped past his friend's heavy bulk and settled himself in a ladder-backed chair at the side of the round table. Ayerf Devra nodded curtly to him from the opposite side of the table and Tarb padded back into his seat, moving surprisingly quickly for his wide girth.
"Now," said Ayerf suddenly. "Now that you're here John, we can really begin." She was whip slender and with a face to break stone. The candlelight from the three heavy iron lamps placed at strategic intervals around the room made her eyes glow menacingly, but she by far was the youngest member there.
Tarb rumbled a sigh and ran his scarred hand through his reddish-orange beard, toying with the big blacksmith's hammer he had brought from his forge. "Very well…. To business."
John leaned forwards and drummed his fingers on the pitted wood. "Is there any change in the Giant's demands?"
Ayerf snorted with a sound like ripping cloth. "A Corporation like the Giant? Are you serious? At the rate they're going, they won't be happy until they've drained the whole planet dry of every last resource!"
John shrugged. "I didn't really expect there to be one…Refresh my memory please, what specifically, does the Giant want?"
Tarb barked a forced laugh. "The same thing they wanted two weeks ago. The whole of Æsgard. All our land. Every single last ounce of it. The hills, the forests, the fields. Everything!"
"Why?" asked John, rubbing at his eyes wearily.
Ayerf passed him a beaker of strong tea. "Oil," she snarled grimly. "We're supposedly sitting on a huge oil deposit!"
John took a sip of the scalding beverage and grimaced. "They want to tear up the whole of Æsgard and destroy people's homes and histories for oil?"
Tarb sighed again and his fingers traced the rams carved into the stout handle of the hammer. "Aye. For such a huge industry, oil is essential."
"What can you tell me about the Giant?" asked John wearily.
Tarb shrugged. "What can I say? It specializes in almost all types of manufacturing and resources. The Giant builds cars and weapons, it creates new technology and exports almost any kind of resource, wood, rubber, steel, and now, supposedly oil."
"What about the government?" John refrained from slumping where he sat in his chair, but it was hard. "They gave us the land in the first place. For generations it has been ours, it was set aside for people like us, who actually care for the environment! Who farm off the land and fish in the rivers, for people who use horses instead of cars, candles instead of electricity! Don't tell me they've forgotten that!"
Ayerf interlaced her fingers and leaned back in her chair. "The government's technology and weapons are all supplied by the Giant. All its ships, computers, cameras, everything. The government would sacrifice almost anyone and anything to remain "mates" with the Giant!"
Tarb nodded sadly, staring at the tabletop.
John lifted his beaker to his mouth, gazing fixedly at the flames in the lamps as they flickered and sputtered. "Is there nothing we can do? Nothing at all?"
Tarb sighed dejectedly. He was slumping in his chair, head and shoulders bowed. "Maybe, with money, we could take this to the courts, but odds are, we'd lose hideously. Many conservationists already have against the Giant."
Ayerf's eyes studied John. "Or better yet, but far more impossible, we could buy the whole of Æsgard for ourselves, buy it away
from the government, away from the Giant."
John lowered his beaker and used the back of his hand to wipe his mouth. "And how much money would that take?"
Tarbs' eyes snapped back to them. "You can't be serious!" he bellowed. "It would take a huge sum of money! Tens of thousands, maybe more!"
Ayerf nodded. "Aye," she said quietly.
Tarb scraped back his chair and rose forcefully. "Not much of a hope is it?"
John shook his head. "No, this village is too poor…It's not a hope at all."
Tarb's eyes could have passed for shards of ice. "Very well then, that's all I need to hear. I'm going to go spread the word that soon enough we'll be seeing the Giant's bulldozers tearing up our land and lives." He left, taking his hammer with him. Ayerf looked as if she was going to say something to John, but changed her mind and instead blinked heavily at the table, toying with her small bracelet of leaping cats. John just stared silently at the flickering candles, but his mind was in a whirl.
At night, the silence was utter. No one laughed around a supper table, no one was out unsaddling their horses, no lights shone from any of the houses. Everyone had gone to bed, but John knew that no one had fallen asleep.
He stood, still in the clothes he had worn to talk to the
Counsel, the cloak still fastened about his shoulders, staring at the painting. The painting that was the only worthwhile thing in his house, the painting that still had the ability to transport him far away even after ten years of gazing at it. Even now, when the Giant was going to destroy the beautiful village, tear people's lives to shreds, and break a wonderful place into unfixable shards, he lost himself in the painting.
John stood at the foot of his bed, staring up at it. It seemed enormous to him, towering way above his head, its colors darkened even more by the night. John hadn't bothered to light a candle, and now, he too stood in the shadows. Just him and his painting.
He now rode on the back of that fierce eight-legged stallion as they surged through the sky. John didn't even to close his eyes to feel the taut muscles bunch and uncoil beneath him. He could feel the wind as it lifted his hair and stung his eyes, he could feel his cloak being tugged behind him, buffeted and rippling. The lightning bolts lanced down with a crash, the rain poured on him until he was soaked, but he laughed as his steed began t run even faster. The main whipped into his face, the red eyes gleamed in their sockets, and the iron-shod hooves sparked thunder. John laughed even harder. He was free! He was untouchable! He was unafraid! He was-
Back in his body, staring at the painting. John Odin peter shook his head, smiling slightly. The painting always did that. Always.
Even after his wife had died from sickness, even after his only son had been killed in a farming accident, and even now, when the Giant was going to destroy his only world, it freed his mind and took him to gallop above the clouds, Master of the Storm! Rider of the Thunder!
His eyes slid off the horse and locked suddenly, on the artist's curling signature at the bottom. Tarb's voice filled his head. "You can't be serious! It would take a huge sum of money! Tens of thousands, maybe more!"
John's smile grew a little. "They didn't even ask me to sell you," he whispered to the painting. "They know how much you mean to me…
They know how much one needs a chance to escape what's really there…"
Thunder rumbled in the sky as if in answer to his words, and gently, it began to rain. The drops beat on the windows like the small slaps of child's hands knocking and John and the painting were suddenly illuminated in a flash of lighting.
John slowly walked to the window and stared out at the stormy sky. Lightning flashed, rain sheeted down, and an eight-legged horse galloped proudly above it all. The smile widened, but then John's eyes slid down, following the rain drops, until it settled on the desolated houses, unlit, dead.
John turned from the window and climbed slowly onto his bed in the darkness. Standing on the crumpled sheets, he reached out and even more slowly, he began to unhook the painting from his wall with tender care as the smile on his face broadened and a third lightning flash blossomed majestically, into the room.
Now that you have read my story, here's a little insight on the actual myth.
The Norse myth revolves around the god named Odin, who waged constant warfare against the Giants. As the Chief of the Gods, it was his duty to protect the others such as Thor and Freya. Now as the myth goes, Odin became worried one day...very worried. He knew that the Giants were up to something and he feared that they would launch an all-out attack that would wipe out the Gods. Odin despertaly wanted to know when and where this attack would come from, so he decided to trade onj of his eyes for the knowladge. In doing so, he was able to prevent the attack.
In my revision, John is of course Odin, and the painting he cherishes not only is of Odin's eight-legged horse, but represents the giving of Odin's eye.
Tarb Harla-Olvirk Revil, is the Norse God Thor, as the first letter of each of his names indictates. Thor is the God of Thunder, but also possess a firey temper and a love for rams.
Ayerf represents the Norse goddess named Freya. Freya spelled backwards is Ayerf. Freya is the goddess of love and beauty, but could also be quite fierce when provoked. She rode in a chariot of cats, which explains why Afyerf's bracelet was engraved with felines as well.
I hope you enjoyed the revising of this myth.
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