Editing Outside the Bear's Cave (section)

==Part 2: Varsi==

There are deep places in the forests of the East, hidden in verdant groves of carnivorous trees, accessed by warded paths, patrolled by the ghosts of those that came before.  Woodland streams are as likely to be water as they are bubbling pitch or molten sulfur in her forest, homely comforts for those denizens of malpheas charged to guard there until Gaia herself slouches down to the void and all the stars burn out.  In the center of that dark place, surrounded by a fetid moat where crododiles grow man-high at the shoulder, there is a mound of rough stones.  If such could be called a house, it is her home, and if a creature were mad enough to approach, they would hear her voice whispering through the cracked basalt, pumice, and obsidian.

"Skin of grass, for the land that spawned him, bones of the plum tree where he made his first fortress.   Flesh of ash for the sunfire that fills him, and hair of the horse for his prideful mane.  Teeth of stone for the earth he has split..."

She pauses, her gnarled hands suspended over the labor of her hands.  It gleams wetly with tallow, blood, and spit.

"...and eyes, eyes of the gorge-leaping tiger, for the worthy foe."

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''to be continued''

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[[Heaven's Mandate]]