Book 1: Gospel: Grown Folks Business

Book 1: Gospel

Dark Hollow, Steelwilds, 4th Age

Chapter 9: Grown folks business

“Blood in soil is the truest prayer. Grief, not gold, calls the divine. Plant love in ruin, and watch Him bloom.”

— Writings of Fernweh, Grove-Bound Psalms, Fragment 33

The stars above glittered with indifference. The ruins of false worship smoked behind me, ashen echoes of Famora’s failure drifting on the wind.

Itza lay gently cradled beneath the oak, a warrior-woman turned sleeper-saint, now tucked into a stolen tapestry that once wrapped lies.

I turned to my pack, pulling what I had carried since my earliest mission: an acorn. Not just any acorn,but one plucked from the Blackwater Oak that was rooted in the Tower of Flame-Tail Grove. The Grove that Fernweh planted. The Tower that my grandparents built.

I dug,cut my palm, and let blood, not ink, write my message into the dirt.

“To the Keeper of the Tower.This is Ezekiel Flame-Tail.False Church found in Dark Hollow. Tree planted at site. Send the Grove Sons…” I covered the seed, knelt, and prayed. I begged the old ones, the hollow and grove spirits, the elementals that my grandfather once called friends to listen and carry my message, and they answered.

Roots pulsed. The soil shimmered red-gold, and before me, the sapling rose.

Five feet tall.

The doorway back home was opened.

My mission was done for now. I turned, lifted my wife her body still tender, still holy, and we returned to the inn.

The door opened and the scent of soap and silence greeted me.

No saints.

No beads.

No battles.

Just a bath.

And a bed.

I laid Itza down the fabric of her prayer garments torn and stained, threads of faith undone by the cost of battle.

I would mend them, or better yet, gift her a new pair from Hollow Port. Something stronger. Something sacred.

The tub filled. Its steam rising like benediction.

I lifted her again,my warrior bride, my broken miracle, and lowered her into the warmth letting it wash her clean of blasphemy, blood, and fear, and then as if the Creator Himself gave us a whisper of communion, she coughed.

Into my hand, landed a pearl grey bead. “I was praying for you…”,then she slipped back into sleep.

I wept quiet and steady tears as I ran water through her hair, braided it the way she liked, dried her softly, and placed her beneath covers that still smelled of mountain air and lavender oil.

Then I cleansed myself and let the blood of duty and the sweat of duty swirl down the drain, dressed in clean clothes, and I looked down at the bead.

It shimmered faintly. A prayer cast mid-battle, caught in her throat, and now resting in my palm.

I kissed it and slipped it into my defense chaplet.

So it would guard me.

So she would guard me.

The inn was quiet.

Itza slept behind the door I closed with gentleness, not finality.

The air still smelled faintly of lavender and grief.

I needed space.

Salt.

Bread.

Time.

The kitchen offered what it could, a block of cheese, dark bread, a half-full tankard of ale.

I made a simple sandwich and left the rest in our room, like a thank-you offering to the sacred. Then I stepped out into the night.

The chapel path waited.

Still scorched.

Still echoing with what we’d seen, and what we’d stopped.

I wasn’t alone.

Not tonight.

Two men approached from the dark edge of memory. Their silver rosaries glinting under starlight.

Uncle Yoru Flame-Tail. Hair like ash. Eyes like the night.

Uncle Tenshi Flame-Tail. Younger, vibrant, bounding like a fox. Blue eyes sharp and searching.

I didn’t speak.

I dodn’t need to.

They embraced me, and in a way that made me feel more like an infant than a man, I let it out.

The pain.

The guilt.

The fear.

The horror of twisted gnomes and broken Wildborn dreams.

I sobbed.

Yoru growled over my head,“Shhhh. It’s ok, boy. Grown folks got this now.”

The next week passed on in stormy and steamy ambience. The spring season had come to the Steelwilds and with it a riot of color not normally seen in the dark gloomy colors that prevailed for the remainder of the season.

Dark Hollow Chapel as we had seen it had been burned to the ground by the group of Flame-Tail and Lighthouse rangers they had led through the Treestride network and down the Great Eastern Road. Work had begun on a newer Chapel, despite the locals greater mistrust of the Church after the incidents with Granny and Famora.

The Rusty Pipe Tavern and Granny’s Inn had come under the jurisdiction of the Missionary Everspring Legion as their base in Dark Hollow. Whether the local Haints liked it or not change had come and would not be denied. Along side the chapel, a prayer school and small time bead shop was also in the early stages of creation.

Automotons called Gloamlings in the shapes of animals, foxes, rabbits, dogs and cats, all skittered around carrying messages throughout the districts asking the local guilds to send supplies and men to bring this backwater town into the light.

One such Gloamling, crafted into the shape of a large hare, had attached itself to me for some odd reason. It bore the mark of one of makers from Gloamveil: House Bergeron, so I had taken to calling it Berg.
It served as a liaison between myself and Itza as she still recovered from the fight with Famora.

Tenshi had sent for his wife Aggie to help tend to her wounds. Several of the trauma and wound beads that had burst against Itza’s skin had cause sores and ulcers and needed the attention of a Matron Wombweaver.

Aggie with her thick crystal glasses and gentle smile was the best in Flame-Tail Grove.
“Nah, lay ye’self back y’hear me, Izzy?” She said as her hands gently unbuttoned the simple tunic Izzy had taken to wearing, “ Let’s see how your are healing.”

As Izzy laid back, a twinge hit her lower abdomen and her hand went to it, “ Oof, I hope the little one is alright.”

”Li’l one?” Asked Aggie gently placing an ear to her lower abdomen and thumping up and down Izzy’s stomach, “ Ezekiel mad ne’er a mention of you makin’ a bairn.”

The blue and green bead from that night glowed on Izzy’s rosary in a gentle heartbeat like pulse. Aggie’s keen eyes spotted it.

“ Is that the bead from the conception?” She asked as she patted Izzy’s stomach, “What did you identify it as?”

Izzy sat up pulling her tunic around her again, “ We couldn’t decide between a love bead or a conception bead, so I said it was both.”

Aggie chuckled, “ Dearie, wot version of yon bead book are ye reading’? Those terms’ve been out of style ‘mongst us Wombweavers for nearly a decade.”

Aggie extended her hand, “ Let me see it, Izzy. We will get to the bottom of this.”

Izzy removed the bead from its cage and gently placed it into her palm. As soon as it did, the color shifted from blue green to red and gold.

“Curious,” Aggie said holding it up to the light, “ Ah’ve ne’er heard of a bead shiftin’ in color so quickly. Over time yes the beads react to the wearers intentions and emotions, but that is over years. Lemme consult the books.”

She handed the bead back to Izzy, and it shifted back to its original blue green color. As Aggie left to go find her books, Izzy motioned for Berg. She leaned over and whispered into its metallic ear, “ Find Ezekiel. Tell him to come to me.”

The Gloamling chittered acknowledgment and booed off on mechanical legs. It’s veinstone and gold body shimmering in the daylight.

Aggie came back with a large tome: Advanced Beadology for Practicing Wombweavers by Arthur Placentus Maximus.
“ Here we be, Izzy,” she said sitting on the bedside, “ Now let’s have a look again.”

She flipped through the pages rifling through the various descriptions , “ Hmmmm…. Blue beads, well not your first time so no Seed bead. You are too young for menopause so no Hollow Moon. It doesn’t look quite teal. It could be a Genesis bead especially since it occurred from conception. That would indicate the green color.”
Aggie sat and pondered pushing her spectacles up to her forehead rubbing her eyes, “ But why the shift in the colors?”

I walked into the bedroom led by Berg to see the two women sitting on the bed, the bead resting on a pillow in between them. I walked over and gave Izzy a kiss on the cheek, “Hello, love. Hello, Aggie. So what are you two women cackling about now?”

Aggie picked up the bead , and it again shifted to red and gold, “ Zeke, hold out your hand.”

I cocked an eyebrow and extended my hand. She placed it in my palm and again the colors shifted to a violet and amber. Aggie gasped, “ It can’t be!”

“Can’t be what, Aggie?” Asked Izzy sitting up straighter. Her unease showing through subtle shifts in her figure, this time claws instead of nails manifested at the tips of her fingers. Unfortunate side effects of her trauma response after the fight.

Aggie flipped to the appendix in her book and pointed to an entry, “ Shifs colors three times. Created either during or post conception. Created near or in a sanctified place.”

She closed the book and kissed her sun emblem on her necklace, “ Ezekiel, Itza, we are in the presence of the Creator! You are looking at the fourth documented Godlight bead ever to be recorded. A bead that is said to be able to deliver the power of our god himself!”

“Only through sanctioned pain may the Creator bestow His seed. Let none plant outside the Circle, for false growth leads to rot.”

— The Canon of Sanctified Flame, 7th Edict of Purity