Tourmaline loved the sound of her own voice, and others did too.
She wrote songs about lost love, about pain, about loneliness, about flying the world without being able to see it well.
The songs resonated with her audience. They too had been hurt. They too had been in pain, or lonely. Some of them wished they hadn’t seen what they had seen in the wide world.
In the early morning hours, right as she was about to sleep, she’d play a lullaby to her friends and audience in the autumn woods.
Now sometimes that was a song that was a little too loud and angry for their mornings, but it did bring them to their feet, and they would shout the chorus back at her, whatever it was.
Sometimes, though, it was a perfect little wistful ballad about the night disappearing, and she made some of them weep.
She was powerful, in her own right–maybe as powerful as Xini, or Fenestra.
She wasn’t sure if there was a true comparison, but when emotions were called for, she could bring them out with a song. She could give you courage. She could make you face the sunlight head on, and not be blinded. She could give you solace–wrap your guilt, or shame, or emotional pain in a warm dark fuzzy blanket of peace.
Tonight, she was working on a Battlesong. Something stirring. Something to get everyone ready just in case they failed to get the orcs out of the woods. It was going to have a power key change, which she was figuring out the chords for. Something that would make them fight for everything, and give them strength, and protect them from being disheartened.
Her music was magic—and it worked on the heart.
She sang a few words to herself, hanging upside down as she did in the waning hours of twilight before the sun burned away the misty fogs.
Something about Home, something about branches blocking the sun, about the darkness winning and peace being restored again. She might have to rephrase that a bit—the sun for them was a positive happy symbol, but she knew the nights were in jeopardy as well as the days. And that Orcs were known to burn villages.
Isn’t that what Dame Brigitt had told them—the smoldering villages in their wake?
In Their Wake. Wake. Oh that had to be a key word…and she strummed that power chord hard, Wake, Wake. The Blaze is Almost On Us.
Sure enough, a few people came to their windows and shouted WAKE! WAKE! Oh Tourmaline was good. She was very good.
And the verses and the bridge and the chorus came like a cool breeze all around her, and she drafted that battlesong for another hour, till all she could do was whisper wake, wake, as she fell asleep.
Go to Chapter 16
“Protect the Autumn Woods!” is an illustrated story by Jerome Stueart in 33 short flash fiction chapters. The story features D&D-inspired magic-using forest animals who fight to protect their homes. This story was at first a response to a prompt list created by Jenn Reese and Deva Fagan for an October Art Challenge in 2021. You can now read all 33 parts of the story, “Protect the Autumn Woods” with the search term, #AutumnWoods. “Protect the Autumn Woods!” Art Show at the Dayton Society of Artists (48 High Street, Dayton, OH) from November 1 — December 15 2024.
“Protect the Autumn Woods!” is adjacent to a larger show of amazing Dayton Artists, “Small, but Mighty.” Come see all of the art, any weekend, Friday 12-5, Saturday 12-5 to experience the art yourself.
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