The Lincean Lexicon
by Wm Jay Carter III, 6/12/15
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| a zephyr |
Nation: Leonian
Condition: Simple, Charred
Weather: Nor’wester
Color: Salmon
Keyword: Lexicon
Rubbing your head, you awaken to the howling of the wind as it blasts across the treetops, shaking the leaves in a raucous rustle much like the roar of the ocean. You discover that your bed is actually a large wooden platform swaying high above the forest canopy on a pole thicker than the trunks of the surrounding trees. There are no bars, no walls to hold you prisoner; only the staggering height and the blasting wind.
As you look around you see there are other platforms, other prisoners. One is a desperate siren with salmon-colored scales, busy pleading with her platform in a language you don’t understand. As she turns, however, you realize that she is not a siren but a zephyr whose wings have been clipped, explaining why she had not flown away already. Likely the blasting wind is her vain attempt to topple her pole and secure a gentler descent.
Another platform bears an actual córean, asleep, wings also clipped. A third is empty, but the charred black patch on it makes you think a phoenix might have been there once, its wings also clipped no doubt...before it burned itself alive and its ashes were scattered. Well, you reason despondently, at least it escaped.
