Quoth
A leather bound journal with pages trimmed in goldleaf had recently been left in the capable hands of a young elf. Thick red was wound from cover to cover with a gold sew and a sunken emblem in each face. A reliquary for memories it had been bestowed with the intent that its insides be torn open and dissected. Quill strokes had taken thoughts from a conflicted but honest mind and spilled them onto naked pages for words to fill with their glee, turmoil and everything in between. The smith responsible for these pages had no perfect crucible and did not use a forger's hammer. At times the words slurred, the ideas were not easily conveyed and the result may have been more confusion than when beginning but one thing was for certain; there could be no more accurate account for the actions that took place.
The journal had been left with its front facing down and its back facing up so that one looking down on it might consider flipping it over, but that was not how it had been intended to be opened. Season in reverse the red would give way to a green footnote etched in the center of the first page:
Should this be too sore to read, for that I am sorry, but with time it will ease. You may bend like a willow in the wind and you might feel as though all hope is lost as you lean to the setting sun but remember this: no other eyes will tread these words as yours do now, and no other eyes shall gaze upon my own as yours have.
Upon the turning of the final page in the journal it was evident how much time had gone into perfecting the art. With a quarter inch left to spare in each direction the latter half of the journal had been hallowed out with a lazer-precision. A small lacquer box was perfectly inset within the cavity in the pages and atop it was a folded paper with an eye drawn atop it.
Initially it was a meticulously folded thing, almost rivaling the finest of origami arts. Unfurling the minor puzzle would reveal a sight that only one pair would see:
http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/340/9/e/sketch__undead_raven_by_michifromkmk-d5n804p.jpg
No words will remedy my absence nor will any amount of ether I fear. I have grown terribly fond of the time spent within your company and the fear has sprouted over some time from a black seed in the pit of my stomach that this day might come. Entombed within these pages you will find the answers you seek, that much I can assure you. However first I would have you know those that I could not say.
You find those stories so enjoyable; a land without elves where they may only dream of such a thing to be 'fantasy'. Is it so remarkable that somewhere might exist a state where we are nothing more than a thought? As I write this now within my tent, the sounds of the quill make your voice seem so distant, so far away, and yet it is only a thought that resonates within me. That thought that you will one day be reading these words as I speak them aloud, transcribing them through time. I wish for you to keep reading those tales as you have and I wish that you would enjoy them so with that look in your eye of mystique and awe. In my time in this city I have stumbled across a man who claims to be from such a world. You might be fast to assume that I am lying with what comes next but truthfully, I did not stab him nor did I threaten to.
I inquired with him a few things about the world he came from including many works of art, many written and otherwise produced. What I stumbled upon was remarkable and I must share it with you now. Are you aware in their world your name is written differently? Raven they spell it! With my own very eyes I read their tales and I have copied for you a piece!
" But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered?not a feather then he fluttered?
Till I scarcely more than muttered ?Other friends have flown before?
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.?
Then the bird said `Nevermore`. "
Does the irony strike you as it did me? Raven! In a world where we are thought of as imaginary that would not withhold them from writing of you! Weep not as you read this but rejoice for even in a world without you, as damned as they are, they might still share even an inkling of your being; how fortunate they are to have even captured that. I bartered my rations for the next month so that I might have the means to acquire this for you. It is a relic from that world, the world you sometimes get lost in. It is a Raven. I hope you might think of me when you don it. Do not misunderstand these last words for goodbye, but know that I shall not be slain, nevermore."
Within the box was that which would cost a month's rations in trade.
http://www.nuclearblast.de/static/articles/134/134007.jpg/1000x1000.jpg
A leather bound journal with pages trimmed in goldleaf had recently been left in the capable hands of a young elf. Thick red was wound from cover to cover with a gold sew and a sunken emblem in each face. A reliquary for memories it had been bestowed with the intent that its insides be torn open and dissected. Quill strokes had taken thoughts from a conflicted but honest mind and spilled them onto naked pages for words to fill with their glee, turmoil and everything in between. The smith responsible for these pages had no perfect crucible and did not use a forger's hammer. At times the words slurred, the ideas were not easily conveyed and the result may have been more confusion than when beginning but one thing was for certain; there could be no more accurate account for the actions that took place.
The journal had been left with its front facing down and its back facing up so that one looking down on it might consider flipping it over, but that was not how it had been intended to be opened. Season in reverse the red would give way to a green footnote etched in the center of the first page:
Should this be too sore to read, for that I am sorry, but with time it will ease. You may bend like a willow in the wind and you might feel as though all hope is lost as you lean to the setting sun but remember this: no other eyes will tread these words as yours do now, and no other eyes shall gaze upon my own as yours have.
Upon the turning of the final page in the journal it was evident how much time had gone into perfecting the art. With a quarter inch left to spare in each direction the latter half of the journal had been hallowed out with a lazer-precision. A small lacquer box was perfectly inset within the cavity in the pages and atop it was a folded paper with an eye drawn atop it.
Initially it was a meticulously folded thing, almost rivaling the finest of origami arts. Unfurling the minor puzzle would reveal a sight that only one pair would see:
http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2012/340/9/e/sketch__undead_raven_by_michifromkmk-d5n804p.jpg
No words will remedy my absence nor will any amount of ether I fear. I have grown terribly fond of the time spent within your company and the fear has sprouted over some time from a black seed in the pit of my stomach that this day might come. Entombed within these pages you will find the answers you seek, that much I can assure you. However first I would have you know those that I could not say.
You find those stories so enjoyable; a land without elves where they may only dream of such a thing to be 'fantasy'. Is it so remarkable that somewhere might exist a state where we are nothing more than a thought? As I write this now within my tent, the sounds of the quill make your voice seem so distant, so far away, and yet it is only a thought that resonates within me. That thought that you will one day be reading these words as I speak them aloud, transcribing them through time. I wish for you to keep reading those tales as you have and I wish that you would enjoy them so with that look in your eye of mystique and awe. In my time in this city I have stumbled across a man who claims to be from such a world. You might be fast to assume that I am lying with what comes next but truthfully, I did not stab him nor did I threaten to.
I inquired with him a few things about the world he came from including many works of art, many written and otherwise produced. What I stumbled upon was remarkable and I must share it with you now. Are you aware in their world your name is written differently? Raven they spell it! With my own very eyes I read their tales and I have copied for you a piece!
" But the Raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only
That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
Nothing farther then he uttered?not a feather then he fluttered?
Till I scarcely more than muttered ?Other friends have flown before?
On the morrow he will leave me, as my Hopes have flown before.?
Then the bird said `Nevermore`. "
Does the irony strike you as it did me? Raven! In a world where we are thought of as imaginary that would not withhold them from writing of you! Weep not as you read this but rejoice for even in a world without you, as damned as they are, they might still share even an inkling of your being; how fortunate they are to have even captured that. I bartered my rations for the next month so that I might have the means to acquire this for you. It is a relic from that world, the world you sometimes get lost in. It is a Raven. I hope you might think of me when you don it. Do not misunderstand these last words for goodbye, but know that I shall not be slain, nevermore."
Within the box was that which would cost a month's rations in trade.
http://www.nuclearblast.de/static/articles/134/134007.jpg/1000x1000.jpg