The Third Night of Yuletide 2018 CE

Yuletide: Night Three

A kitsune scampered across the back of the couch proudly wavy his tails, yes tails, count them one, two!  The second tail was a recent addition of which he was most excited but not accustomed and the extra bushiness knocked over a glass of water.  Water pooled on the stone floor in front of the old dragon and the kitsune ceased frolicking and approached the puddle as if to lap it up and erase his clumsiness.  Before his tongue could dart out the water rose before his eyes.  Drop by drop the water rose to be suspended in the air as if the dragon was surrounded by glittering gems.  Affixed in space the water drops sparkled.  “Even so.”  The great black dragon spoke.  “Was the nature of the first Plane our young lizard saw when he left the Ice Plane of his birth.  Having grown up surrounded by frozen water with its liquid state mysterious and fleeting, or else hidden down, down, below the ice, he was fascinated by the concept of world where water was predominately liquid rather than frozen.  So it passed that one day the young lizard bid farewell to his parents thanking them for their love and knowledge and he reached for the sky.  To his parents’ it seemed that the sky reached down and enveloped their son in soul piercing blue that blinded them leaving only the blazing impression of shimmering wings seared across their vision.  When they could see again he was gone and where he stood was a puddle of liquid water rapidly freezing over.  He had gone, to the Water Plane.”

The Water Plane

Where every stone is rounded

Where the air is heavy with storms

Where the ocean’s vastness gives way only

To the stone of islands and the barriers between fresh and salt

Is the Water Plane.

Mighty currents fling the oceans

Round and around

Or over edges

Whales and dragons cavort

In the joyous rush of the seas.

Sweet, fresh, waters

Lakes vaster than any throughout the known universe

Have currents of their own

Have names for the tides.

Twin moons dance across the skies

As they summon the tides

Across the Plane.

On the islands and the bands of land

That keep lake from sea and sea from lake

Mountains rise in high divides

To keep back the influence of tides,

Here where land and air may meet

Water plays in gentler forms,

Springs bubble up

Spilling over stone and moss

Feeding life that bedecks the land

Lush and rich and green,

Waterfalls tumble

With gay abandon

Over stone and through air

Flinging themselves joyously

Their journey ending only in lake or sea,

Fountains carve the stone

Forming basins and spouts

In which to frolic.

Overall the lands and seas and lakes falls rain,

Gentle drops that nourish the land

Plinking softly among their brethren,

Fierce thunderstorms that scour the Plane

Raindrops gleaming fiercely with lightning

As they hurtle through the air,

Mists that pervade the atmosphere

That no breath is undrunk

That no ray of light shines

Without casting a rainbow.

The lizard’s scales gleam white

Coated in shining drops of liquid

As he gazes about the Plane in awe

Unheeding the heat in his delight,

He swims with the cetaceans in the ocean

Learning their songs and speaking of ice,

He debates with the dragons

Of the merits and mysteries of water

In its many forms,

He is marveled over by merfolk

Scorned by squid

Welcomed by whales

Bemused by beavers

Delighted by dippers

Alarmed by alligators

Puzzled by plankton

Sighed over by sand lizards

Tarrying in time.

The dragon took the drops of water and formed them into the shape of a lizard before him.  The lizard gleamed and flickered in the fire light.  “Thus it was that the lizard discovered a kinship with the Water Plane rife as it was with ice in its liquid form, or so he saw it.  Even after he had ventured into other Planes and even the Realms he returned from time to time not only home to the Ice Plane to expound upon the world in the company of his parents, but also to the Water Plane.  It was there, on an island at the edge of the smallest of the lakes, that he was cursed.”  There was a collective pause as the audience sat motionless waiting for the dragon to continue.

The Curse of the Ice Basilisk

Bronze scales shimmered oddly

Under the light of the twin moons

A sand lizard scorned

Gazed down upon the ice lizard

On the shores of obsidian

Relentlessly shifting under his feet,

“For your wandering feet hast cost you my love

Wander you shall through Planes and Realms

Never more to rest, or know the touch of friends

As your heart is frozen so you shall freeze

The bodies of others who dare meet your gaze

And nevermore shall you sleep

In the same world beneath the same moon!”

With a crack of thunder their gazes met

Two lizards on a shore no more

An ice stature stood atop the cliff

And on the beach an ice basilisk wept.

The water figure of the lizard froze and shattered.  Ice dust disappeared in nothingness and the dragon’s audience jumped.  “It began that night for though he wept the ice basilisk could not sleep.  Nor did he again until he left the Water Plane.  The universe is filled with Planes and Realms, more than any one creature has seen or documented.  Their multitude is the only reason the Ice Basilisk did not die for want of sleep, for in each realm he could only sleep for one month.  When the moon looked down upon him with the same face from the same sky he could sleep no more in that world.  The curse did not stop him from returning to such worlds but though he could he dared not go home.  The sand lizard who had tried to give him her heart was the first to freeze under his gaze, but not, alas, the last.”  Disturbed the black dragon’s audience looked at each other as if to reassure themselves that no one had morphed into a basilisk.  The dragon stood up as if to leave and the kitsune unabashedly pounced on one of his great black paws and looked up at him imploringly.  “But what happened?  His curse was broken wasn’t it?  Was it the phoenix? Was it?”  But the dragon only smiled toothily.  “That my child is for the rest of the tale to tell.  Rest assured your questions will be answered before the sun rises ten days from now.”  The kitsune thought that it might be a very long ten days even if it was filled with winter festivities.  The dragon didn’t have to draw the story out quite this much, did he?  Disgruntled and intrigued the kitsune padded off towards home in the winter night.