A Conversation about the Moon
A conversation between Celyn and Izgil about the moon.
Izgil: “Well then I guess you’re a priest now as well… You are quite a mysterious person?”
Celyn’s brow furrows slightly. “Am I?” He does seem genuinely puzzled.
Izgil looks at her like Celyn’s messing with him. “Well you did just channel a divine beings power and run a sacred rite in their Name without blinking an eye. Isn’t that was priests do? Or does everyone where you come from know how to do that?”
Celyn blinks and waves a hand. “Oh, that, the rites. Yes, I can do rites for the Wyrdling. But that’s not mysterious! Why would you think that’s mysterious?”
Izgil: “Well…. Because you seem to do a bit of everything! You are sneaky like a thief and you cast spells like a mage and you do rites and channel the power of divinity! Next thing you know you’ll don plate mail and go into a berserker rage and cleave through your enemies! Is there anything you can’t do?”
Celyn considers for a moment and then says, “That. That thing. The heavy armor thing. I definitely can’t do that.” Very earnest. “I don’t think I cast spells like a mage? I mean, the fairies taught me a couple of tricks but that’s just tricks.”
“I can’t talk to plants or animals. Wouldn’t that be interesting, though?”
“I can’t change shape, but that would be really nice.” That has an actually melancholy edge to it.
“I don’t know very much about the moon at all.” He is continuing to contemplate things here. “I’m not very good at painting.” After some contemplation he brightens and adds, “I know quite a bit about making wine though!”
Izgil sighs heavily and sits down. “I guess it’s just quite puzzling. I’m used to things being quantifiable. Understandable. Books are written on the things so I can read about them. It’s not just you…since we met there have SO MANY things for which that isn’t true anymore.”
Celyn plops down nearby. “… you know what the Wyrdling is, right? I don’t know much about how your people deal with gods, or what you know about ours.”
Izgil ponders for a moment. “I’ve read about … him? her? Them? but what my people have for knowledge of them is … limited. My people have a pantheon - the Bahrazel. Each of the Bahrazel represents a different quality of Dwarven strength or learning. Uzdan is the Bharazel of Leadership, Truth, and Valor. He was the first king of the Dwarves. Karthel is the Bahrazel of Runic Magic, Libraries, and Scholars. Fanrukel is the Bahrazel of lore, priests, and history, and she shares the domain of Life. Azar, the Bharazel of Warriors, defenders, and he shares the domain of Valor with Uzdan. Oshkir is the Bharazel of farming, life, and teaching and healing and shares the domain of Life with Fanrukel. And Lastly is Maganna, she is the Bharazel of travel, wandering, delving and exploration. Every dwarf goes through a rite, a Pilgrimage where the Bharazel choose us to be welcomed into one of the seven Thurhr each of which is dedicated to one of the Bharazel. Your Thuhr is normally for life and being chosen for your Thuhr is part of coming of age. Your Thurh is like another family. It determines your affinities, where you fit. You can choose any profession but you’ll always have a home in your Thuhr with others who are of like mind.
But…I am odd. I was selected to be part of the Traveler Thuhr, and spent nearly 100 years as a merchant. Never being content to sit in one place I traveled the world, I made deals for my family the Barzinduks. We were gemcrafters, textile merchants, crafters you name it. I loved my Thuhr, but something was always…missing… And then one day I walked into another vision, and I was back in the place I hadn’t seen since boyhood where the Bharazel speak. And two Bharazel told me I must change Thuhr. I must join the Runecrafters, and I had a specific mission. To learn about the Moon and it’s power. Understand why it was. Harness it. And so I am caught outside of the categorization system that my entire people live by. I am neither a Traveler nor a Runecrafter, I am both. I defy categorization. And I have a unique mission given to me by the gods which after years of study I feel like I still don’t understand. And now I meet all of you…and nothing makes sense anymore.” He looks downtrodden and confused.
Celyn considers this and then says, softly, “I was someone else once too. That person was … not very happy. Like I said before, I was difficult. The fey brought me to the Wyrdling.” He pauses. “The Wyrdling governs … a lot of things, but among them is that thing that defies categorization. Neither one thing nor another, embracing untidiness. From that particular untidiness comes inspiration, comes dreams, comes luck, comes madness.” He shrugs, clearly comfortable with all of these options. “If everything was tidy, was locked down, fate would be a doom and a denial of hope. So long as there is chaos, there is the chance for change.” He looks up.
“I asked if you knew the Wyrdling at all because … that is the nature of the world, that it cannot be pinned down. There is space for us to breathe, because of the Wyrdling, there is space for poetry and transformation, the things that cannot partake of too much that is set in stone, or they die.”
Izgil seems downcast for a long time. “My entire people are about being set in stone. The permanence of rock. Our ancestry, our Thuhr…everything. Perhaps they…the Bharazel… see this Truth, and my path has led me here for this sort of knowledge?”
Celyn seems genuinely puzzled. “But a life is a flare of change in what is set. Even if it is not a life with as much change to it as yours was, or mine. When a plant grows, does it follow the same pattern always? You can say the leaf of an oak is a particular shape, but each leaf differs when examined, some broader, some narrower, some with the curve a little sharper.” He pauses. “… and that’s before you consider that some are eaten by caterpillars.”
Izgil smiles at the last, hearing Celyn’s telltale tone in the otherwise serious content. “I think …I almost understand....perhaps…maybe in learning of the moon it is within my charter to learn more about the Wyrdling too? I…feel a lesson here I need to learn…”
“The moon changes,” Celyn considers contemplatively. “But it does so more regularly than the Wyrdling changes things. The moon has a balance between that which does not move, like stone, and that which changes at all times, like water.”