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LJIdol S11 - Week 18 - Blood Harmony
What the -? What are you children doing here? I thought you only came to visit me when you were bored and desperate, or just didn't want to do your chores, but there's a festival in town right now. Surely that should be a suitable distraction for all of you. No, I don't go to such things. All that awful dancing and loud music. That reminds me of a story, actually.
Once upon a time there was a faerie named Paraselene Whisperkith who loved music. Or, more accurately, he loved crafting musical instruments. Or, even more accurately, he loved crafting enchanted musical instruments that did terrible things. Many of them could even kill people, and I don't mean in the conventional way that you can simply bludgeon someone to death with a tuba.
Among the most awful and famous of his creations were a special set of instruments that were each a different color of the rainbow. The Ochre Barrage was a drum made from the heart of a thundercloud that could shake your bones into dust. The Verdigris Cacophony was a bell made from the copper heart of a fallen star that could melt your...you know, I don't like to coddle you children, but it really was quite dreadful, and I don't think you need that image running around in your fragile young minds. Let us just skip to the Ultraviolet Xylophone, which...actually, upon further consideration, let us not dwell on any of these any longer. Except for the Vermilion Cascade, since that's integral to our story.
The Vermilion Cascade was a harp made out of blood, and it could stop your heart.
Now, when you have a passion for making things, you can sometimes end up making more of those things than you have space in which to keep them, and then you need to come up with a way to get rid of them. Paraselene was not the sort of faerie who would sully himself with something so beneath his station as an occupation, and so he did not wish to do something so crass as to sell his creations. This was fortunate, as there was not a large customer base for evil musical instruments in the first place. Now and then he did manage to trade one to another faerie, often for something equally terrible, and a few he managed to give away, in spite of the fact that everyone with any sense knows that one should never, ever accept a gift from a faerie. In this way, Paraselene's creations slowly trickled out into the world, sometimes changing hands many times. Due to the nature of his creations, they most frequently changed hands via inheritance laws or the collection of evidence at a crime scene. The suffering that resulted from all of this delighted Paraselene, but it also vexed him when one of his creations would end up in the possession of someone who he felt was not worthy to possess it.
The Vermilion Cascade had blazed a trail of suffering and misfortune through several powerful faeries, then through several less significant persons, all the way down to a drunken pixie who lost it in a card game to an ordinary human woodcutter named Hoskuld. Hoskuld, for his part, was not terribly pleased to have won such an obviously evil thing. It as clearly too valuable to throw away, but he found himself unable to find anyone interested in purchasing it, as the market for such things was, as we have already established, very small. And so Hoskuld kept the Vermilion Cascade locked in a box in a shed several feet away from his cottage.
For Paraselene, this was intolerable, and when he learned of the situation he used a tuba made from a piece of the sky to bludgeon to death the bearer of such foul news, then immediately set forth to retrieve his harp.
At about the same time, the whereabouts of the Vermilion Cascade became known to another interested party. I've told you plenty of stories about wicked, evil, loathsome faeries, but I don't want you to get the wrong impression - there are plenty of horrible people in the world who are not faeries. Among those horrible people was a king by the name of Ulfufroth. Many kings are horrible. I think there's just something about having the authority to cut off someone's head if they displease you that turns people a bit funny. Ulfrufroth thought that the best thing about being a king was being able to kill people when they displeased him. He was not a nice man.
Ulfufroth also loved music. Or, more accurately, he loved collecting rare and valuable musical instruments. Or, even more accurately, he loved collecting rare and valuable evil musical instruments so he could have people killed with them when they displeased him, because turning someone inside out by playing a banjo at them was so much flashier and more impressive than just hacking off their head. At this point in our story, Ulfufroth already possessed the Banjo of Inversion, the Devouring Harmonium, the Dire Accordion, the Infernal Glockenspiel, and the Hyperdimensional Theramin, which was not actually evil, but when it was about to be played improperly the people who were about to hear it would often go insane, so it was in his collection as a sort of honorable mention.
When Ulfufroth learned that there was some lowly woodcutter living in his kingdom who possessed a magical faerie harp made out of blood he immediately sent for his carriage. Ordinarily, a king would send minions out on this sort of errand, but recently a large number of Ulfufroth's minions had displeased him, and as a result his Infernal Glockenspiel had been played so much that he found himself a bit low on minions. Also, the entire castle now stank of brimstone, and he could do with the fresh air.
As you've probably guessed, Paraselene and King Ulfufroth both arrived at Hoskuld's cottage at the same time.
To a faerie like Paraselene, all humans looked pretty much alike, and even the most splendidly accoutered human was still a shabby, grubby thing compared to his own magnificence. Similarly, to King Ulfufroth, pretty much everyone who wasn't wearing a crown tended to get lumped together in a category of "lesser people." Paraselene didn't know that woodcutters seldom ride about in carriages attended by footmen and armed guards. You might think that Ulfufroth would realize that woodcutters seldom ride perfectly white deer with antlers made of glass, but the truth was that this was his first time out of the castle in several years, and he had very little idea what ordinary people did other than turn inside when you played your special banjo at them.
All of which is to say that both of them assumed that the other was the woodcutter. They immediately started making demands of each other and getting outraged at the temerity of the other, and things escalated quickly, and by the time Hoskuld got back to his cottage carrying an armload of firewood several people had been turned into toads and pigs and there was substantial and widespread evidence that a certain banjo had been played. There was a notable absence of survivors who could explain what had happened.
Hoskuld was so badly unhinged by the grotesque sight that confronted him that he immediately abandoned his job as a woodcutter and taught himself to play the harp. The Vermilion Cascade stopped his heart and left him a cold, unfeeling man who played music not for the joy of music, but simply as a way to earn a meal. He rode away on the fey deer and for the rest of his days roamed the land as a rather ghoulish and otherworldly wandering minstrel.
The lesson to be learned here is that for faeries the rainbow extends all the way into ultraviolet. That, and many musicians have dark and troubling pasts, and a career in the music industry can wither your heart and drain you of your humanity if you aren't careful.
Now, I really think you children should be going. It sounds like there's still time for you to catch some of the festival. I can hear a drum that sounds like thunder and...I can't quite place that one. Something with strings, I think.
Once upon a time there was a faerie named Paraselene Whisperkith who loved music. Or, more accurately, he loved crafting musical instruments. Or, even more accurately, he loved crafting enchanted musical instruments that did terrible things. Many of them could even kill people, and I don't mean in the conventional way that you can simply bludgeon someone to death with a tuba.
Among the most awful and famous of his creations were a special set of instruments that were each a different color of the rainbow. The Ochre Barrage was a drum made from the heart of a thundercloud that could shake your bones into dust. The Verdigris Cacophony was a bell made from the copper heart of a fallen star that could melt your...you know, I don't like to coddle you children, but it really was quite dreadful, and I don't think you need that image running around in your fragile young minds. Let us just skip to the Ultraviolet Xylophone, which...actually, upon further consideration, let us not dwell on any of these any longer. Except for the Vermilion Cascade, since that's integral to our story.
The Vermilion Cascade was a harp made out of blood, and it could stop your heart.
Now, when you have a passion for making things, you can sometimes end up making more of those things than you have space in which to keep them, and then you need to come up with a way to get rid of them. Paraselene was not the sort of faerie who would sully himself with something so beneath his station as an occupation, and so he did not wish to do something so crass as to sell his creations. This was fortunate, as there was not a large customer base for evil musical instruments in the first place. Now and then he did manage to trade one to another faerie, often for something equally terrible, and a few he managed to give away, in spite of the fact that everyone with any sense knows that one should never, ever accept a gift from a faerie. In this way, Paraselene's creations slowly trickled out into the world, sometimes changing hands many times. Due to the nature of his creations, they most frequently changed hands via inheritance laws or the collection of evidence at a crime scene. The suffering that resulted from all of this delighted Paraselene, but it also vexed him when one of his creations would end up in the possession of someone who he felt was not worthy to possess it.
The Vermilion Cascade had blazed a trail of suffering and misfortune through several powerful faeries, then through several less significant persons, all the way down to a drunken pixie who lost it in a card game to an ordinary human woodcutter named Hoskuld. Hoskuld, for his part, was not terribly pleased to have won such an obviously evil thing. It as clearly too valuable to throw away, but he found himself unable to find anyone interested in purchasing it, as the market for such things was, as we have already established, very small. And so Hoskuld kept the Vermilion Cascade locked in a box in a shed several feet away from his cottage.
For Paraselene, this was intolerable, and when he learned of the situation he used a tuba made from a piece of the sky to bludgeon to death the bearer of such foul news, then immediately set forth to retrieve his harp.
At about the same time, the whereabouts of the Vermilion Cascade became known to another interested party. I've told you plenty of stories about wicked, evil, loathsome faeries, but I don't want you to get the wrong impression - there are plenty of horrible people in the world who are not faeries. Among those horrible people was a king by the name of Ulfufroth. Many kings are horrible. I think there's just something about having the authority to cut off someone's head if they displease you that turns people a bit funny. Ulfrufroth thought that the best thing about being a king was being able to kill people when they displeased him. He was not a nice man.
Ulfufroth also loved music. Or, more accurately, he loved collecting rare and valuable musical instruments. Or, even more accurately, he loved collecting rare and valuable evil musical instruments so he could have people killed with them when they displeased him, because turning someone inside out by playing a banjo at them was so much flashier and more impressive than just hacking off their head. At this point in our story, Ulfufroth already possessed the Banjo of Inversion, the Devouring Harmonium, the Dire Accordion, the Infernal Glockenspiel, and the Hyperdimensional Theramin, which was not actually evil, but when it was about to be played improperly the people who were about to hear it would often go insane, so it was in his collection as a sort of honorable mention.
When Ulfufroth learned that there was some lowly woodcutter living in his kingdom who possessed a magical faerie harp made out of blood he immediately sent for his carriage. Ordinarily, a king would send minions out on this sort of errand, but recently a large number of Ulfufroth's minions had displeased him, and as a result his Infernal Glockenspiel had been played so much that he found himself a bit low on minions. Also, the entire castle now stank of brimstone, and he could do with the fresh air.
As you've probably guessed, Paraselene and King Ulfufroth both arrived at Hoskuld's cottage at the same time.
To a faerie like Paraselene, all humans looked pretty much alike, and even the most splendidly accoutered human was still a shabby, grubby thing compared to his own magnificence. Similarly, to King Ulfufroth, pretty much everyone who wasn't wearing a crown tended to get lumped together in a category of "lesser people." Paraselene didn't know that woodcutters seldom ride about in carriages attended by footmen and armed guards. You might think that Ulfufroth would realize that woodcutters seldom ride perfectly white deer with antlers made of glass, but the truth was that this was his first time out of the castle in several years, and he had very little idea what ordinary people did other than turn inside when you played your special banjo at them.
All of which is to say that both of them assumed that the other was the woodcutter. They immediately started making demands of each other and getting outraged at the temerity of the other, and things escalated quickly, and by the time Hoskuld got back to his cottage carrying an armload of firewood several people had been turned into toads and pigs and there was substantial and widespread evidence that a certain banjo had been played. There was a notable absence of survivors who could explain what had happened.
Hoskuld was so badly unhinged by the grotesque sight that confronted him that he immediately abandoned his job as a woodcutter and taught himself to play the harp. The Vermilion Cascade stopped his heart and left him a cold, unfeeling man who played music not for the joy of music, but simply as a way to earn a meal. He rode away on the fey deer and for the rest of his days roamed the land as a rather ghoulish and otherworldly wandering minstrel.
The lesson to be learned here is that for faeries the rainbow extends all the way into ultraviolet. That, and many musicians have dark and troubling pasts, and a career in the music industry can wither your heart and drain you of your humanity if you aren't careful.
Now, I really think you children should be going. It sounds like there's still time for you to catch some of the festival. I can hear a drum that sounds like thunder and...I can't quite place that one. Something with strings, I think.