The stories so far, Edited and ready to roll. Options

[Troika]

OK, this thread will contain any and all stories that are posted on the geocities site and labelled as edited. These babies we don't have to worry about until it actually comes time to stick em in the game.

I will sort out this thread... in other words, please do NOT post up stories yourself... it could lead to multiple copies which could prove problematic later.

Also, please keep posts in this thread to a minimum. This is mainly just a place where people have quick and easy (although not necessarily organised) access to the stories already finished with.

[Troika]

Section: Stories

Written by Unknown (Franc Kaos)

The Dream of Tanyaria.

“She lives in our dreams now, our queen who saw beyond the veil.”

Even the heavens, it seemed, were in mourning, dark clouds scudding across the skies, a false night for her funeral rites, tears from the Gods themselves. Her name was… had been, Tanyaria, a young High Elf, well versed in the ways of Mysticism, partner to Franteira Taosene, who now stood in grim silence, rain washing down his cheek.

It was his first funeral, and he was unsure of how to comport himself. Even the Arch Magister, Galerian, was there, holding the ceremony in his musical voice. Franteira wiped at his eyes. He loved her, and had expected to spend many centuries with her, yet now she was gone.

Tanyaria had been elemental, measured even by High Elven standards, she danced on the periphery of peoples lives like a barely recalled song of childhood or a burst of nostalgic sunlight, barely intruding but enriching all the same.

Franteira had met her when his parents and those others had been exiled from Alinor. The second time in his young life he’d lost a home. They’d met when he’d been exploring the old ruins of the Ceporah Tower, around which the High Elves had made their new home. Tanyaria had been sitting on the highest floor, looking out to the horizon, a distant look in her eye, a half smile on her lips. He fell in love with her instantly.

She glanced at him then, “You’re not High Elf born, what are you.”

He grinned self consciously, “Um, I’m Ayleid, a wild elf, my, er, parents found me in the wilderness, and… adopted me.” He shrugged.

She patted the floor beside her, “Come sit with me awhile, I’m trying to see where I came from.”

He sat, and learned a valuable lesson about touch, surely she could hear the blood roaring through his veins, feel it pumping through his body… but below that he could still feel the old tug of the wilderness, he pointed in a direction to her right.

“That’s home.”

She looked to where he was pointing, and her chin brushed his arm, closely followed by a rush of electricity and a growing arousal. Their eyes locked. She smiled, and the rest was beautiful history.

The rain was being kept off her body by an invisible force, held together by the communities will, her ending would be discorporation, base elements flung out to the four corners of Nirn as was befitting one that had died so young.

They had both been on the verge of leaving the Isle of Artaeum, ready to begin new lives as councilors in the kingdom of Sunhold… Far from being exiles, the Order of the Psijics had now become advisors to kings, and Artaeum had become a paradise. It was also rumored that Vanus Galerion, the head of their order was moving to Firsthold, that Sotha Sil was gone… Though he would miss his home and teachers and friends, a great adventure lay before him, with the girl he loved.

Another memory…

They’d escaped from a meditation class from old Iachesis and had wandered back to their old haunt atop the tower. It was a safe place for all the students had been forbidden access to it. He sat with his back to a wall with Tanyaria laying perpendicular to him, her head resting on his stomach, facing the same way they’d been on that first day so many years ago., enjoying the solitude, the quiet. He must have dozed, for suddenly he stood on the top of the world, all of Tamriel spread out before him. From his vantage point he saw the crystal tower on Summerset Isle, the spires and battlement in Cyrodiil, the belching mouth of Dagoth Ur. From North Point in High Rock down to Lilmoth in Black Marsh he could see everything with pinpoint clarity…

A dreamy voice said, “I wonder how those Tzerapods see us, it must be wonderful to wander so high above the world.”

He snapped back to follow her finger high in the sky. A herd of Tzerapods was floating idly past, creatures peculiar only to Summerset Isle, inordinately shy, and poisonous to the taste they were left alone, moving unhurriedly through the gardens of Nirns sky, beautiful and enigmatic.

Tanyaria continued, “It’s so strange, we know so little about them. I secretly call them ‘dreamers’ and sometimes I like to pretend I dream what they do. I’ve finally decided… I will make it my life’s work to unravel their secrets, for too long have we ignored each other.”

“Perhaps,” Franteira said, “They are not even aware of us…”

She inclined her head up to look at him, and her eyes were wistful, “I also have had this thought, that we High Elves, in our vainglory, believe all things bend to our will. How wonderful it would be, if one part of nature was not even conscious of our existence.”

Franteira laughed, “Even for a mystic you ponder far further than any I know, you would give the Arch Magister a run for his gold.” Yet his heart raced as her lips reached up to brush his.

Basking in the heat of her body she leaned in close, “My dearest Franteira, I think, because you are an orphan, because you are Ayleid bonding and High Elf rearing, you too possess the alien qualities of the Dreamers. Sometimes I think it’s why I fell in love with you.”

It was true, growing up he’d had to work twice as hard as the others to reach the same place. His birthright gave him the advantage of slipping unseen away when needed, and he’d been gifted with an unusual skill in the mundane arts of sword and staff play, but the arts of Magika had been hard won. No one had been prouder than himself when Galerion approved his magical training, though his parents had been beaming from ear to ear.

As the rain washed freely down his cheeks, he vowed there and then to dedicate his life to her dream of uncovering the Tzerapods mysteries. He went to see his old teacher Iachesis and asked that his post to Firsthold be postponed and was granted leave to go to the caverns of the dreaming…

Some five centuries later he finally realized his goal. The details are unclear but he found a way to merge his consciousness with theirs wherein a symbiotic relationship would occur. He left only instructions on how this fusing could take place. Only a few thousand followed his path before the knowledge was withdrawn, and of those two thousand three hundred, none has spoken, to this day, about their experiences, but, from that day forth, the Tzerapods began to die out, all except those that had merged. There are rumors that to this day, if you see one of these creatures, it is an omen of good luck. For whatever else their secrets were, unnatural long life is one of them, and in the skies of Nirn there are twenty three hundred Tzerapods with their… owners, pets, charges, and friends? For their does appear to be an intimate relationship between ride and rider. What have they become? for when separated (apparently they still wander at will amongst us), they move as sleepwalkers, and their talk is dreamlike and nonsensical, until they return to their home in the sky.

A new consciousness, observers of the human condition, able to see beyond the limits of the mundane world…

Only the twenty-three hundred know, and they’re not talking.

Franc Kaos.