Nine Dragons Poet Narrative

Experience, Sharper Than Ambition's Blade

SCENE:
A dark and dreary grove surrounding a foul smelling, tarn.
Two youths tempt valor with aught but vainglorious ambition,
As fate looks on:

YOUTH FORSAKEN:
I can feel our thrill subside
And the chill of a foul eve
    o'ertake our bones
Tho' clothed in night, we hide
The moonless valley groans

It slithers beyond our sight,
It sits upon a stiller height,
The swirling winds 'neath aster-light,
Boughs leaning left and right,
Dipping downwards, to find
The children of axe and flame
Cruel hunters of the hind
Seekers of hero's fame

The night has eyes
That looks within,
Where shadows rise
And misty vapors thin
Seek reveal our enterprise

Slow thy breath; listen close
Hear it move warily, seeking
Not by sharp eye but keener nose
From the air it unfolds our reeking
Flesh. It smells us—it knows, it knows.

Thine heart pounds within my chest;
Thy fear pierces my discouraged heart.
I would run, but—for fear of all the rest,
It fell upon—
    and tore apart.

Our lives wager'd
In fool-hearted jest
May become prey,
By our folly,
And at fate's behest

Run, run-we fail this test
But mayhap on the morrow
Live to tellest
Nor our kin weep a sorrow
Shared. Two youths bowed
Before tragedy, unspared

SCENE:
The smell of sweet pipe tobacco smoke.
A candle lit study. Shelves stuffed with book, and scroll
A writing nook where an old man sits, pouring over tombs
Filled with legend and lore, witch, golem and troll.
His eyes strain to read, but his mind is elsewhere
And on the boys barreling off.
Too young for the quest betook, 
And without care, nor healing potion to quaff
On these moonless nights it roams,
‘tween trees, near the tarn, and path crook,
Littered, with marrowless bone, 
    splintered skull, and spine broke

A WISER VOICE:
Leave the lure of folklore,
As lessons from those
Who came and died before,
Stay away from the black,
Nettled rose!
Stay away from the soft,
Faerie glows!

Their is an evil lurking in the frigid grove!
That slithers near a fetid tarn
That tho' many a hero strove
Never returned with untangled yarn
Nor soever spake the  horror there
And so were stories told
In hopes both young and old beware

But what might quell the youthful song
What may stay a pull so strong
That drive them along without a care
Blind to worry and the throws of unjust wrong
With only bravery, and but one life spare

For surely only a fool would dare
Even a youngling should know fear
And come accustomed to our despair
Seeing the widows grieving there

Nay, but rather make a sense to bring light
To shadow, a cause to quell wrongful will
Such evil need be undone by might
And of righteous hand and skill

IMPETUOUS YOUTH:
Save thy tears
For when the old must need leave us pall
And winter would gather for spring
Those powers that seep slowly-
From us all

Whence the moonless night comes, we'll see
What dark virtues compose this foul comedy
And lop the thespian head of this evil spawn
That break our hearts and dim the dawn

[EXEUNT]

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