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For Ghar Dien
Form, according to some, is more than merely shape – it is that which provides the very essence of things. Shapes, such an understanding holds, may change and shift and prove mutable in a variety of ways and yet form is sure and certain and essence is a stable and enduring thing. Stable. Sure. Firm as the very ground over which one moves ......
He stands in his dream and the shape of his standing shifts by turns from beast to man to brute to bird and yet it is he who stands upon the sure and certain earth beneath his feet, an earth as sure and certain as his very self. Laughter rises from this earth, first in whispers and then in a voice as sure and certain as were those stones and that soil upon which he stands. With the rising of the laughter there comes a shifting in the earth which melts away from the dreamer’s feet ......
He falls. And in his falling he shifts by turns from beast to man to brute to bird, and in his shifting and his falling all that is stable and sure recedes save the sure and certain mockery of the laughter. He falls, one whose shifting hands cannot press against his changing ears with sufficient strength to seal them against the laughter. He falls and soon all that is sure is the falling and the laughter, but nothing is certain nor unchanged about that one who falls from shape to shape to shape out of place, out of time and out of all that had once seemed genuine and true.
Suddenly the plummeting stops and he lands without even the painful consolation of a solid contact with the ground. In truth the falling simply stops and the mockery of the laughter changes its tenor to a more genial, even friendly, chuckling. Once more he stands, although there is no comforting firmness under his feet, only the evidence of his eyes that his shifting feet are placed upon what looks to be the hard packed earth of a trail. “No, my friend, nothing is ever so sure as one would like,” the laughter gives way to the speaking of a placid voice. “Already changes both sudden and great arrive upon the world, and those alone who might thrive where nothing is sure might influence the movement of such changes as these.” All things recede from sight and hearing and touch save the semblance of a road beneath his feet.
“Come,” the voice says with a soft and sure insistence, “for we must speak, you and myself and the others.”
Only then is a direction apparent along this road, for it would seem to lead to a port in city on the continent of Birg.
He wakes, then, and to his surprise finds that he is standing upon earth that at least seems to be sure and certain and stable.
ooc: I trust that’s sufficient for you to work with, Bozos. I also hope I got your character right.
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