This is just something random I wrote out. It was just something that I wrote down for the sake of writing, so I didn't try to make it good, or make it have a plot or even make sense. But I enjoyed writing it just for the sake of doing something stupid
In the depths of the mountain there was a pool.
Deep, wide and glazed with a film of filth, there lay this pool while all the centuries ground at the mountain above. But it was safe, surrounded by folds of rock, and no living thing could get in. None, that is, except that which was already born there, in the dark, far from the piercing glare of the sun.
This creature fed off others of its kind, the first beings born beneath the mountain. It throve, for it was cunning, and its hands nimble.
And so passed its weary existence, until the mountain in which it sheltered was shaken as by a giant fist. Rocks fell, water heaved, and the tranquility of the years was broken with a crash of sound. The scum on the water was churned until it was no more. The creatures of the pool were tossed this way and that, until with a final turbulent heave the mountain sank once more into its slumber.
But the creature could not. Something was there. Something in the darkness. Something not darkness. Ensnared, trapped….fascinated, the creature made its way towards this new thing in the depths it new so well. Slouching, sliding, slipping, its foul scaly skin was revealed for the first time to the light of the sun, and its eyes both burned and reveled, for now it could see the gladness and pleasure of the outside world, a world neither it nor its kind had ever known.
The creature now determined to find the source of this light, which it called “watergleam.” Through cracks and crevices it slipped, past jagged rocks it climbed, and in sheltered alcoves it rested. With it, it brought such food as it had stored…old bones, the flesh of its kin, and the water of the lake. Up, up, up it went, this creature that had never gone beyond its watery home. And now behind it heard other sounds, inquisitive fin-steps, its brethren coming behind….but slowly. And with them they brought fish and scales, fungi and water. For they did not eat their own kind, and were altogether noble creatures.
The creature was glad, for its food was following it, and also sad…for with them came memories of its existence in the dark, and it was coming to love the light. These feelings of sadness were soon subdued, but the creature was in a foul mood for the rest of the day, and those below heard him cursing as he climbed, and they were afraid. But still they went on, for the watergleam compelled them onwards.
Rock gave way to soil. Wriggling like a worm, the beast struggled out of the earth like a child from a womb, and it did indeed feel it was reborn. For below its nose there was a long, green thing, and it marvelled at it. The colour green it prized in particular, for it had spent its eternity in the hues of black and grey. Soon, it looked upwards to the sky, and there it found something to fear. The watergleam had a yet higher source, and it hurt his eyes. Blue. Blue.
Another colour it had never known.
Scurrying into the shade, the creature waited. The watergleam came closer, then gradually fell away, and it was comforted. This, the creature knew of. The watergleam was a lake that moved with the shiftings of its environment. Content, it slipped into a doze, and dreamt of dark, tinkling lakes far beneath the ground with trees and grasses blooming in rocky outcrops.
The fish-eaters, as they were known by the creature, had followed the kin-betrayer (as it was known to them) on to the surface. There, they were in awe, and in pain. Soon, they found wide, calm pools in the shade that they could live in, and so they did, eating the fish of the earth’s surface, and swimming in the sun when they could.
Kin-betrayer visited them in later years. At first, they hid in the dark hollows of their pools and refused to meet his gaze. Then, as he sat and did not stir each time he came, they began to creep out, and rejoiced. Their kin would not harm them, but looked at the watergleam gleaming on the water, and ate the fish they offered it.
It seems the wretched beast had found a heart, when it saw the Green and the Blue under the Watergleam. For many days it had roamed, eating fruit from trees, until it came to a village of men. There, though it was shunned as a freak animal, something to stare at and cringe away from, it learned some few words of their speech, and found its mouth could produce them. As the years passed, it found speech came to it easier. The curses it had uttered faded into bad memory. Its body wasted away, for it got little food from the folk of this upper world, and did not wish to eat their flesh. But bread it had, for its begging, and eventually it went to look for its kin.
For it was lonely, and the world was bright and wide, and it was filled with grief as it remembered its dark days in the bowels of the earth.
And so it came to pass that the creature sought and found them, and gained their trust. Kin betrayer became kin finder, and he passed many years there, and many happy times he gleaned from that lake, the Blue of it mingling with the Green of the Trees, and the Blue of the sky. On the day of its death, as an old creature indeed with many children to carry its genes on, it spoke these words that it had pieced together over a life filled with debasement and plenty, and repentance and famine.
Watergleam that came to me
Beneath the mountain steep.
Watergleam that came to me
And woke my troubled sleep.
Climbing cut my arms, to Watergleam.
Travelling saw me find the Watergleam,
And Men both fed and clothed my frame,
Though they gave little of both to me.
Watergleam that showed me a scene
Of Blue and dazzling green.
Watergleam that I now know
Is better than dark has ever been.
Forgive me, brethren, when I took your lives
For I had yet to see the Watergleam.
Forgive me, myself, for I have let you down
And now must sleep the final dream.
I am a creature, and always will be one,
But now I’m glad and have much joy
Beneath the sky and under Sun.
These words uttered, it sank into its last sleep, and dreamt its last dream. And it was filled with the Watergleaming and the grass growing.
Author
Topic: ___/The Writer's Apprenticeship\___ (Read 314038 times)