The language of the birds is older than time. Why this is so is unclear; certainly birds themselves only appeared at some point between the Late
Triassic and the Fifth Day of Creation. Nonetheless, they speak a language far older than they are. Perhaps the world itself is written in their odd, scratchy
letterings, or perhaps the deep angels that lurked before the dawn of time found some kinship amongst the feathered things, or perhaps some brave legion of
robins and crows flew beyond the boundaries of the world in times long past and taught themselves to speak.
It is not a pretty language, though the more ostentatious of the singing-birds try their best to make it so; in its pure form, it is high and harsh and cackling, a language of vultures and gulls and carrion-crows. There isn't much to speak about: the finches and the cock-robins and the orioles chirp lewd comments to pretty, dull-feathered girls; birds of prey scream senseless war-chants at their victims; and the carrion-birds, more philosophical, discuss reality over the carcasses of antelopes and cattle. They generally espouse one of the blander forms of existentialism.
Today, in the Dark Wood, they had something else to talk about- a visitor.
It was morning; the dew still clung like starlight to every piece of greenery and caught the sunlight in the pregnant shadows of the trees. There was no sound to herald his arrival; a bit of whitish smoke poured forth from an ancient burrow beneath an oak that led to the Woodland of Weir; it billowed into a small clearing and herded the night's insects into the leaves and the small caverns where they sleep. For an instant the smoke took the form of a gigantic, ragged bird; its wings folded around itself and became a cloak, and the visitor revealed himself at last as something solid.
He was an odd sort, the figure that emerged; long-legged, clad in a tattered suit and long jacket, his face hidden behind a broad hat and a wooden mask, smooth save for a complex pair of spectacles. He held a sack on the end of a stick, and there was a sword at his waist. Save for his mask and his pointy-toed boots, all his clothes glowed from within like the clouds around the moon. His sack was luminous, as though he kept the moon inside of it.
He called out in the language of the birds, a high, warbling, mechanical sound that lacked the art of the singing-birds or the menacing screech of the birds of prey. In a few moments a small, mixed flock had gathered in the trees around him, peering at him through curious and bead-like eyes.
"I seek the Lord of this Place," the stranger sang to the assembly "I seek the King of the Woods, the Green Man, Jack-in-the-Holly, if you please! I've come all the way from Cozabel, and I've got a very important message for him!"
The birds were silent for a second, and then a finch spoke up and said something extremely rude, and the whole thing was all of a sudden a cacophony of screeching and chirping and brushing wings and feathers as the birds departed.
Beneath his mask, the stranger twisted something that could be called a mouth into a smile, and he was off.
He didn't seem entirely solid as he loped through the woods; at one moment he would be dancing or jumping; the next, he would be a great, tattery-winged shadow made of cloudy light and white smoke, the mask set in a vague head like some half-material owl's beak.
He was almost the fastest thing in the woods.
Almost. The rumor of his arrival amongst the birds was faster, and spread in all directions. He was a visitor. He had come down to the Wild Woods from the distant land of Weir, an emissary of some king or another. He walked like a man, but he was not a fairy-lad, nor a woodwose, nor one of the half-wild hunters that occasionally found their way into the Wild Woods. He flew, but it was a half-flight, a mere walking-on-air, like smoke and sparks fleeing a fire and not like any wholesome winged thing at all.
Worst of all, he spoke in their language. The doves and the hen-finches bunched up their feathers in consternation as this bit of news was passed on; the sheer scandal of it was unthinkable.
For his part, the stranger cared little for the gossip of the birds. If anything, he encouraged it, laughing behind his mask and trading creaking insults with flashy young bullfinch bravados.
The beasts avoided him, generally. There was a faint, electric scent to him that made them turn away and did strange things to the fires of their brains.
At one point, though, his path was blocked by a leopard; he slid past her like smoke. At another, there was a lion; this time he vaulted over the great cat. And then had come a starved she-wolf. This time, he took to the limb of a tree and, hunched there like a gargoyle, he produced a hock of bacon from his sack and tossed it off to the side of the path, luring the wolf out of his way with a series of excited yelps.
At midmorning, the stranger stopped and fingered a note in some pocket or another, thinking strange and stilted thoughts:
I wonder what role Green Jack is to play in the coming Work? And the painter, and the others? And of course meself? The magician or the fool, or perhaps the eight-spoked wheel…
And then he called out, in an ancient language that was nonetheless younger and more comfortable than the speech of birds, "John Barleycorn, I've come for you! Jack Barleycorn, come out! The Ashman wants to see you!"
(OOC EDIT: This the sort of sphere you imagined for the Green Man, Boss?)
It is not a pretty language, though the more ostentatious of the singing-birds try their best to make it so; in its pure form, it is high and harsh and cackling, a language of vultures and gulls and carrion-crows. There isn't much to speak about: the finches and the cock-robins and the orioles chirp lewd comments to pretty, dull-feathered girls; birds of prey scream senseless war-chants at their victims; and the carrion-birds, more philosophical, discuss reality over the carcasses of antelopes and cattle. They generally espouse one of the blander forms of existentialism.
Today, in the Dark Wood, they had something else to talk about- a visitor.
It was morning; the dew still clung like starlight to every piece of greenery and caught the sunlight in the pregnant shadows of the trees. There was no sound to herald his arrival; a bit of whitish smoke poured forth from an ancient burrow beneath an oak that led to the Woodland of Weir; it billowed into a small clearing and herded the night's insects into the leaves and the small caverns where they sleep. For an instant the smoke took the form of a gigantic, ragged bird; its wings folded around itself and became a cloak, and the visitor revealed himself at last as something solid.
He was an odd sort, the figure that emerged; long-legged, clad in a tattered suit and long jacket, his face hidden behind a broad hat and a wooden mask, smooth save for a complex pair of spectacles. He held a sack on the end of a stick, and there was a sword at his waist. Save for his mask and his pointy-toed boots, all his clothes glowed from within like the clouds around the moon. His sack was luminous, as though he kept the moon inside of it.
He called out in the language of the birds, a high, warbling, mechanical sound that lacked the art of the singing-birds or the menacing screech of the birds of prey. In a few moments a small, mixed flock had gathered in the trees around him, peering at him through curious and bead-like eyes.
"I seek the Lord of this Place," the stranger sang to the assembly "I seek the King of the Woods, the Green Man, Jack-in-the-Holly, if you please! I've come all the way from Cozabel, and I've got a very important message for him!"
The birds were silent for a second, and then a finch spoke up and said something extremely rude, and the whole thing was all of a sudden a cacophony of screeching and chirping and brushing wings and feathers as the birds departed.
Beneath his mask, the stranger twisted something that could be called a mouth into a smile, and he was off.
He didn't seem entirely solid as he loped through the woods; at one moment he would be dancing or jumping; the next, he would be a great, tattery-winged shadow made of cloudy light and white smoke, the mask set in a vague head like some half-material owl's beak.
He was almost the fastest thing in the woods.
Almost. The rumor of his arrival amongst the birds was faster, and spread in all directions. He was a visitor. He had come down to the Wild Woods from the distant land of Weir, an emissary of some king or another. He walked like a man, but he was not a fairy-lad, nor a woodwose, nor one of the half-wild hunters that occasionally found their way into the Wild Woods. He flew, but it was a half-flight, a mere walking-on-air, like smoke and sparks fleeing a fire and not like any wholesome winged thing at all.
Worst of all, he spoke in their language. The doves and the hen-finches bunched up their feathers in consternation as this bit of news was passed on; the sheer scandal of it was unthinkable.
For his part, the stranger cared little for the gossip of the birds. If anything, he encouraged it, laughing behind his mask and trading creaking insults with flashy young bullfinch bravados.
The beasts avoided him, generally. There was a faint, electric scent to him that made them turn away and did strange things to the fires of their brains.
At one point, though, his path was blocked by a leopard; he slid past her like smoke. At another, there was a lion; this time he vaulted over the great cat. And then had come a starved she-wolf. This time, he took to the limb of a tree and, hunched there like a gargoyle, he produced a hock of bacon from his sack and tossed it off to the side of the path, luring the wolf out of his way with a series of excited yelps.
At midmorning, the stranger stopped and fingered a note in some pocket or another, thinking strange and stilted thoughts:
I wonder what role Green Jack is to play in the coming Work? And the painter, and the others? And of course meself? The magician or the fool, or perhaps the eight-spoked wheel…
And then he called out, in an ancient language that was nonetheless younger and more comfortable than the speech of birds, "John Barleycorn, I've come for you! Jack Barleycorn, come out! The Ashman wants to see you!"
(OOC EDIT: This the sort of sphere you imagined for the Green Man, Boss?)
, 
))
