The Torbjaer Mountains
61st Day of Winter, Year 217
Ringo paces back and forth, hands clasped behind his back high in the canopy of the northern forest. It’s a frosty winter evening, and his breath billows out in puffs of fog before dispersing into the night sky. His brow is furrowed contemplatively and his back is hunched as he limps through the branches favoring his one good leg. He wipes cold sweat from his nervous brow as he considers his next step on the disastrous path he’s been treading for …
How long now? Three years … five? Who knows, it doesn’t matter, focus on the path, The path that carried you through wild places, chasing swans, so far away from home, but now it’s led you to this point. A crossing with the kinds of monsters that only appeared in Old Marmi’s stories … witches … Am I making a terrible mistake? Ringo thinks.
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend …” he mumbles “Surely not all witches eat children …”
“Com, compared to most of them I am close to child sized …” he says as his voice cracks and he clears his throat.
Warbler straightens his posture, and fixes his face into his best serious expression, wagging his finger as he states, “You DID help save one of them even if they couldn’t see you … the path pulled you here … it’ll be fine … just walk up and say, um, Hello! No, not that, something better than that. Maybe they won’t eat you if you offer them snacks?”
His train of thought is broken as a moth flutters by, and rests squarely on Ringo’s nose. He chuckles, crosses his eyes to focus on his new passenger, and grins. “ … they’ll kill you … they’ll definitely kill you, and possibly eat you … but they don’t really look like monsters.” he mutters to himself, and lets out a long sigh.
There’s a snap below, and a rustling of leaves on the forest floor. A few of the shadows that were gathered around the nearby campfire just moments ago are now absent. “Welp, what’s the worst that could happen. Maybe I should just fly away …” Warbler says with a wry smile as the moth takes flight from his nose.
He collects his gnarled staff, brushes pine needles from his hair, pulls on his old boots, and then hops nimbly down, branch by branch, until he finds a comfortable spot to wait for a proper introduction and certain doom.
Somewhere in the distance roots pull up from the ground, twisting, intertwining, and taking shape. Wood becomes bone, flesh, fur, and teeth, and Warbler imagines wolves …
The next exchange is a blur, either due to fear, or the fact that Ringo has completely forgotten how to start and properly carry on a conversation with other humanoids. Faces spin and twist around him on all sides. The witches each threaten and/or greet him in turn. The wolves emerge from the shadows to protect him, and he somehow remembers to say “Hello!” Warbler offers them snacks even as they ask him how many people he’s killed and casually clean their weapons around the fire. They do look a little more like monsters up close, with their faces wreathed in flickering firelight. Especially the half elf with the impossibly green eyes and the woman with the hair like the night sky.
“hose two definitely might kill me, Warbler ponders.
“I, I can be useful,” Ringo stammers. “Swans, are assholes. I saw you fight them. I can help you fight them!” Stupid, you sound stupid, he thinks to himself.
The conversation continues faster than Warbler can process, but he picks up a few key words between the questions and accusations.
“Your friend, I can become small, unnoticeable, and find out where they took your friend. Let me help.” They begrudgingly agree, and the next thing he knows he’s at the forest’s edge looking at a caravan with a Swan patrol on its flanks.
Then he’s thinking small, hidden, quiet. He hears his bones pop, and feels his muscles and tendons contract. He breaks, twists, and falls to the ground as a familiar pain rings through every part of him. Warbler is surrounded by a pile of worn old clothes, and the face of a star-nosed mole peeks up through Ringo’s boot. He looks up at the witches one more time, provides a confident nod, and a wave of his clawed hand before diving into the grass burrowing towards his objective.
You can do this, you’re good at this, he thinks as he digs ever closer to the caravan. All you need to do is listen, and report back. It’ll be easy! And then he feels the sting … The scorpion tears into him. Its pincers rip through flesh as Warbler’s tiny mole body is paralyzed by the poison. The feeling is excruciating, horrifying, and incredibly embarrassing. He dies …
Then with a start he shoots into consciousness. “Woahoowoo!” he shouts, and he’s lying bare-assed in the grass as the soldiers’ boots stomp towards him. Brilliant first impression Warbler. This was definitely a terrible mistake.
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