KORBIN
And round about his home the glory
That blushed and bloomed,
That blushed and bloomed,
In another part of time, Korbin would have been delighted to meet a man like Jigano. A real bard, a shape shifter of extraordinary power, well traveled and wise, and interested in getting to know him, of all people! It would have been something plucked from a story, and the mischievous raven boy would have traded anything to exchange a few more words with him.
Now, he stood there in the falling snow and felt the cold slowly eat its way into the marrow, contemplating ways to get out of this conversation before he froze into a statue. When did he stop being curious about the world, about people and the many marvels that waited out there in the wide world beyond the Fangs? Had it died with his brother? Vad it left one day along with his mother, never to returned? Had it rotted and wilted along with his father's body, drowned in blood, pus and vomit, until not even the memory remained of what it had been like?
It seemed fitting, somehow, that he would be cursed. Only a shadow of who he used to be, it made sense that the gods wouldn't want to look at him.
"It's been half a season now," he said in a hollow tone. Like some essential part had been carved out when the curse was laid on him. "No change. I hear nothing. Not even my own heartbeat."
Empty. Lost in a void, a world without sound... A tragedy, when sound had been what made his life tolerable.
The hiccups that quietly wrecked his body was a trifle in comparison.
Now, he stood there in the falling snow and felt the cold slowly eat its way into the marrow, contemplating ways to get out of this conversation before he froze into a statue. When did he stop being curious about the world, about people and the many marvels that waited out there in the wide world beyond the Fangs? Had it died with his brother? Vad it left one day along with his mother, never to returned? Had it rotted and wilted along with his father's body, drowned in blood, pus and vomit, until not even the memory remained of what it had been like?
It seemed fitting, somehow, that he would be cursed. Only a shadow of who he used to be, it made sense that the gods wouldn't want to look at him.
"It's been half a season now," he said in a hollow tone. Like some essential part had been carved out when the curse was laid on him. "No change. I hear nothing. Not even my own heartbeat."
Empty. Lost in a void, a world without sound... A tragedy, when sound had been what made his life tolerable.
The hiccups that quietly wrecked his body was a trifle in comparison.
Is but a dim-remembered story
Of the old time entombed.
Of the old time entombed.
