The Saga of Six Days: Prologue

= The Saga of Six Days = Written by Vilnius as a series of doggerel couplets on the way back from the Corroborary

Prologue
I return now to my friends, my kin, my people

And though much good was gained I feel most keenly now that which was loss

I am well Ill and feel aged. I have not eaten nor slept, truly slept in nigh a week now

The food which affirms the body and the sleep that restores the mind have been foresworn in pursuit of other goals. The Spirit quests even as the body dies.

My skin seems unfamiliar now and the man who looks back at me in the stream is almost a stranger, so wan and pale.

Much have I grown over these past days, yet even growth must be tempered with  Wisdom.

When I am old. When my beard is gray. When the greater mass of humanity shuns me and my apparent madness; Then I shall sing the saga of Mankar and Aud to illustrate this.

But I am young yet

Nor lack companionship

My beard is yet lustily dark

And the end of Their Saga is not yet writ.

Is that the lesson, then?

That the only inevitable thing is the past?

How does one learn time?

How does one teach it?

For I must learn how to learn

And teach how to teach

It is thus that teaching and wisdom are my wyrd.

Even moreso than for a scholar

Even as my fellows berate my foolishness

For even foolishness carries the lessons

And thus if foolishness be not wisdom

It may yet lead others to it.

I have walked with Dragons and Gods and Spirits these last six days. I have seen creatures and lands which I could never walk to in a mortal lifetime. I have been in the presence of Primordial Death and returned yet to tell the story. The caves of our forefathers have spoken to me and I have hunted in the plains and lands of other worlds for creatures so fantastic as to beggar the imagination. Such is my tale.