Our Creative Writing tutor arrived for Monday’s class with a bag full of stones, each with a Rune engraved on them. Each student picked one our of the bag, I got Laguz/Water . We then had to use this as a trigger for our writing. Here is my first attempt at writing Fantasy .
Tala’s Story
“Thou shalt not pass” bellowed in their ears as they stood on the banks of the Great Divide. Its dark depths haunted their childhood tales with giant serpents and man eating river monsters and they shook in fear. They would surely die either in the seething mass of its waters or from the raging army of Grekans advancing steadily behind them. Many decided their end was night and fell to their knees weeping and wailing. Others held their children close so their young eyes would not witness the approaching horror as it befell them. But one young woman’s voice shouted back. Initially trembling Tala grew stronger, shouting “We shall. Who are you to deny us passage? Neme is with us and we shall prevail. I carry her stone” For round her neck hung the symbol of Neme, handed down from mother to daughter through the ages, secretly so no one else knew their power. Tala had inherited it when her mother died, as she had from Tala’s grandmother before her. She’d been told all the ways, all the invocations, incantations and recitations, all the books of old. Stories as she had always thought of them as a child and she was little more than that now at 14. But something stirred in her and she knew what she had to do. Her time had come. Only she had the power. One she could save her people and lead them the rest of the journey to freedom and the new land beyond the Great Divide. The River Lord should bend to Neme. If only she could remember the right words. So she started to recall the Words she had sat for hours listening to her mother drill into her.
“By the hand of Neme the Powerful the Magnificent, lord of all nature. I, Tala, only daughter of Topa from her union with Tepe, son of Toma, granddaughter Taima and her union with Tredo ……speak for the people of ……”
At first Tor, the River Lord, would not be subdued and his waters flowed fast and furious, raging and crashing his fists he created huge waves that crashed into t he shore, threatening to engulf all the people standing their and pull them into him. The people were very scared. But as Tala progressed through her heritage and the source of her authority he calmed. A huge white horse head spumed out from the water and came to within inchaes of her face. The River Lord scrutinised her face, pierced through here yes into her very inner soul. Trembling she stood her ground, the neckstone held high and defiant. Tor shook his mane and was appeased and soften into a supplicant tone. “I, Tor, Lord of the waters of the Great Divide, keeper of the Deep, Master of the water beings, recognise the authority granted to Tala, daughter of Topa out of Taima, daughter of Timee and Priestess of Neme. You and your people may pass. But do so quickly because you have evil on your heels.” In one tremendous wave of his hand he parted the Great Divide and the children of Neme passed through the waters of the Great Divide and arrived safely in the land beyond which they called Nemia, which is where we stay to this day.
© Sheila Ash, 2015.
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