Entry 1:
Nineveh was suppose to be the one to write this. It was her idea after all! I'm not a writer. I'm not a storyteller. But no amount of protesting will save me from this fate, it would seem. She says we must both take part - she will chronicle our journey with sketches and I must put it into words.
But where to start? The beginning or this beginning or one of the many many other beginnings? It seems to me stories all have certain ends - definite, unarguable conclusions, but the beginning - that seems a little more fluid - and most subjective.
But I'm the one starting this tale and this journey after all - so let us begin here:
We are almost packed. Aune sits watching me from the table. I'm not even sure if we need so much. How long will we be gone? I'm still not sure I want to go. And I know I just said stories have far more substantial endings - but this task - I'm not sure where it will end, let alone where it will take us.
Nineveh wants to 'explore our world' and make this book - she says it has never been done. Something I can not refute, but have trouble believing. More is lost than is ever found - let alone set to paper.
Entry 2:
We have been walking now for almost two days together and even my legs have begun to ache. Nineveh has begun putting every little thing in her sketch book. From twigs to trees - of which there are more than could be believed. They seem endless. And it is beautiful - green and growing and buzzing. I can taste the growing things in the very air - life is so dense here.
Nineveh tells me I am going about this journal/story thing all wrong - I have to put down what is happening… but I simply can not imagine you, who ever you are, being interested in every detail. Are you?
We will run out of paper before we run out of forest.
Entry 3:
We've come across something worth putting to words, in my opinion - Walking Trees. We'd seen their brothers here and there, but these were the first to uproot themselves and travel about. Why they do this? As far as I can tell - they love to balance rocks. Great cairns fill the woods here, some dwarf the very Trees that made them… I am unsure as to how this was accomplished. If they can speak, we can not hear them and they don't have mouths - though they've a great number of eyes which all turn to watch us go by. Nineveh and Aune made a little pile of stones too, which seemed to please them.
Entry 4:
We've come across what I first took to be more of the Tree cairns - but I think they were shaped for a purpose - I think there were dwellings here once. Though there is little left to tell you what the structures might have looked like - let alone who the people were that lived within those walls. It is quiet here.
We passed by a lone Tree - it was covered with more moss than the others and it wasn't stacking rocks as its brethren had - this one was placing the stones of the ruined city back in their places. It had only managed to move a few dozen of the great carved blocks back into order.
It made us rather sad.
Entry 5:
The trees are growing younger. I think we have left the heart of the forest. The undergrowth has begun to sprout thick and weedy as the slender branches let in more light. There are many young trees - able, as they are, to snatch up energy from the distant sun. There is more freedom of form here. There are no Trees, but we begin to hear songs in the distance. Nineveh is happy that flowers are blooming in enough colors and forms to keep her busy with her sketch book all of the days bright hours.
They are lovely - but I want to find what is making the songs that fill my ears.
Entry 6:
We met a being called: Caliuos Donn. He is at least as tall as a Tree - so he's many Ninevehs stacked high. He is ancient and says he walked the streets of the ruined city that is now but dust under the roots of Tree and trees alike. He called it: Zeloni and chuckled when we tried to pronounce it. He says we have strange accents and threw up a set of his many arms as he bellowed a laugh.
Nineveh likes him - I shall worry the day she doesn't like something.
He told us the singing comes from his friends in the middle of a festival. He invited us to join him - despite our unfortunate accents and persistent badgering - as he was going to visit them that very day.
He carried us on his back through a marshy place, it smelled both sweet and foul - and we were glad to be so far above the muck.
Caliuos Donn, whose strides have taken us farther in a few minutes than we could travel in an hour of hard walking, set us down in the shadow of another ruined city. This one busy with bustling life. His friends, we discovered, are a race of creatures even smaller than we. They had decorated the great fallen statues with flags and banners. The songs we had been hearing were sung as waves of the little beings danced beneath the fluttering silks.
What they look like? Well, I'm sure Nineveh has sketched pages of them. They were the tiniest speaking creatures I've ever encountered. They looked like us - more or less - one head, two legs, two arms, bilateral symmetry -in other words - but unlike Nineveh and I - they have long prehensile tails as Aune does.
We weren't able to speak to any of them for too long. Every one was in such a hurry to finish putting up the decorations.
Callious sat down just where he'd stopped and the little beings began decorating him as well, climbing up and down grasping handfuls of fur and bits of frayed clothing. From this point onward he said even less - the last thing that he did rumble out was this:
"Seedlings," (he'd continued to call us this despite having given him our names), "Even if I had all the time in world - I could not answer all the questions in your little heads. Just be quiet and watch the coming lights - it shall be a sight worth putting in your book."
As day faded, the little tailed creatures, their voices a chorus of song, flowed out over the carved rocks. Each carried a brightly colored lantern - as varied as the flowers that now filled Nineveh's book. It fast became a sea of little lights. Each swaying back and forth as its guide carried it through the night.
As the moving lanterns gathered up into streams of light, they spiraled in around Callious until it become a circle. The song became a chant: to which he raised his many arms and laughed a laugh that shook the earth. The song devolved into laughter and the revelers set their lights free to float off into the clear night sky. As they rose we could see Callious' great grinning face illuminating by the glow of the countless tiny lanterns.
Entry 7:
We were escorted by Callious and a few dozen of the little sweet voiced friends to a path that will lead us to the city of: Irfen. Callious said it is a forgotten place that we 'must see before it is nothing more than dust'. He also told us we would find our guide. A prospect I am both hopeful and wary of - Callious has already been such a daunting figure - what more can he have planned for us?
We were then presented with little lanterns all our own and a small green haired creature called Echo told us we must carry them for luck on our journey. I have tied mine to my backpack - Aune tied his to his tail.
Entry 8:
The path to Irfen is longer than I expected. Suppose I shouldn't expect anything - just travel forward and see where the road takes us - it has been the sprite that started this journey - I shall stick to it. I think it was simply the prospect of now having a specific destination that has me overly eager to be there - to see it. And who will this guide be? Callious would give me no more answers - saying only that we would find him in Irfen.
Aune is amused by the stone road - he and Nineveh are dancing.
Entry 9:
The forest has thinned to a point where - I'm not sure what to call it! I've never seen so few trees. Around our home with Harbor and the others we have nothing but forest - I just never really thought what a place without trees would look like. There is so much sunlight! And the plants here are totally new to me. Even the moss the grows on the rocks has changed. Flying things fill the clear blue skies and Nineveh's book - she calls them wisps and xanaleans.
Entry 10:
We have reached Irfen and it is wondrous - Nineveh couldn't sketch fast enough- she couldn't be happier. She says this is what we should be looking for. Places where present and past overlap. I told her I thought this was only the beginning and to conserve paper.
Reader - as an aside: Nineveh has a wicked scowl - I doubt she's adding that to her sketchbook.
I only mean to tease her - I agree - this place is beautiful. It must have been breathtaking when it was alive. And we can see so much of it all at once - there are no trees here. The word: vista - I have never used accurately until now.
There is an ocean not far from our home where you can see the endless sky and hear the song of the grasses. This place makes me wish Harbor was here with us. He would love it - I know it.
The long narrow leafed grasses sprout between the grey boulders in great perfusion - I've never seen such variety… listen to me - Nineveh must finally be rubbing off - writing to you about grass when there is a world of history carved right into the rock face.
I wish I could speak with these carvings - I want to know what they know - then I could tell you how they came to be as they are. What artist carved them - were they here before or did they come from some distant place? Would they know? I couldn't answer those questions if someone turned them to me.
As for Aune - he has met with a small clan of his own and they've gone off playing in the stones of Irfen. That would explain the little cairns scattered here and there. What is it that fascinates both the imp and the Tree with balancing stones?
Maybe our guide could tell us something - isn't that what a guide is for? I hope he isn't one of those imps - one is enough.
Aune has an excellent scowl as well - let me assure you, reader - he teases me just as much.
Entry 11:
Where to begin? I have this problem often, don't I? Well reader - we met our guide - well.. we met two creatures and one must be the aforementioned 'guide' - right? If it hadn't taken us as long as it has - I would go back and ask Callious - but I know we'll never see him again. Just like I know a storm is coming. Just like I know when I am hungry.
But back to the problem at hand. Nineveh is sitting with them both at this very moment. And who are they? One has the blessedly short name of Kura and the other is called… let me check with him to be sure I put it down accurately, Cornelius Bee Bromin Ise the Eighth.
He can't read my writing to check, which is strange because he is speaking our language - but he tells me he can speak many and read less and that it doesn't really matter what we call him. Which is something you should never tell Nineveh - she loves making up names for things.
Aune was - for awhile - called Snuzzle, but not by me.
I'm all flustered… where was I? The trouble with having two guides is - well - they surely can't both want to go the same way!
Neither one claims to be a guide, which is hardly a sign of being one. I think the best guides are those who don't know they are - at least - in matters such as this. But in this we have a slight hiccup - two new clueless companions?
Well, Kura isn't clueless - but he desires only to travel with us. Cornelius Bee Bro… Cornelius knows where he wants to go but not how. Shall we combine them both?
Cornelius wants to find where something called: 'The Breath' grows and Kura knows where these strange seeds have sprouted.
I suppose guides can come in pairs too.
Entry 12:
We are traveling now over great spans of grassland. The wind roars here. Kura roars back. He tells me this is where he was born - in the place between the earth and the sky. On the day of his birth a wandering man looked up and spotted him - 'an unfortunate event,' he said with a chuckle, 'for the rest of my family is ever unseen and from that day forward - I was forever as you behold me now.'
Entry 13:
I'd no idea the world could come in so many textures. What did I think the world was? Before. Did I even think of it? I feel like one of Nineveh's sketchbooks - full of wonderful things.
Two days with our two new friends - riding on Kura's feathered back - and we've seen landscapes so vast as to redefine my understanding of the word: endless. I think I never knew the word until now.
I've always felt small - I am small! - but now I feel like a mote of dust - it is… overwhelming - I'm part of this boundless wonder and I hadn't really known.
Entry 14:
I had to ask Cornelius what The Breath is - I mean - the name is hardly helpful. He told me it is something like a plant and something like a creature, but he isn't really sure himself. When I suggested he meant it was something like Aune - he seemed more confused. Cornelius is a rather befuddled and befuddling creature.
He then tells me a woman named Ceae brought the last of this thing - The Breath here long ago. His many greats great-grandfather helped her to 'pull the earth from the sky' - he isn't sure what that means either, but it has something to do with bringing the peace to the land.
His people, he says, have a great many sayings that no longer make any sense. I told him not everything of value has to be understood. To this he responded, "Ah, your people too."
I didn't correct him on either score.
Entry 15:
Kura noticed my ears today - or rather - he noticed that I change them. I wanted to reply with something like 'all things change' but instead I spouted: 'So? Nineveh changes her horns all the time!' - but I know what Kura meant… or I think I do. Things do change, but not like Nineveh and I - we could be anything - but choose to be what we are… even if that is little and silly.
Entry 16:
I haven't written much about the food that Aune brought on this journey - but I really should have been. It's the main reason one brings an imp anywhere - they know what will taste good AND not poison you.
Luckily Kura and Cornelius seem to have the same palette as Nineveh and I - well, maybe not luckily - as now we shall have to share this delicacy with two more -and Kura eats more than all of combined!
But… yesterday Aune brought us the most wonderfully flavor-filled fruit! Nineveh has dubbed it, Mune Fruit. Something about combining the sound of enjoyment and Aune's name…
I think I shall have another 'Mune' fruit right now.
Entry 17:
We've come across a set of standing stones. Eight in all. We've seen many megaliths on this journey, but these are particular in that once these were figures. You can almost make out their faces. Nineveh says she thinks we saw these silhouettes in Irfen and I think she is right. The stone there was far less weathered - these look as though they were lost in a river and not in a sea of green grasses.
Kura says these are called 'Imjaza's House' and Cornelius says he knows he's heard the name, but can't remember much more than, "I think she's suppose to be dreaming… my grandfather used to say 'Imjaza is dreaming, my boy - and be thankful for it!' But I have trouble keeping all the things I am suppose to be thankful for straight."
I should like to meet this grandfather.
Entry 18:
Today the sky was covered in a thick flock of dark wisps (or were they xanaleans?), it passed us over - almost blocking out the sun. This troubled Nineveh a great deal and Aune won't leave her side.
Entry 19:
Nineveh can add the creature Zeloni to her sketch books, if she hasn't already - and I shall add him here. This strange grey man sat on a stone by the side of the river - so long had he lingered thus, he too had grown moss. As we passed by he asked Kura how he had come by such 'lovely little goddesses' - by which he seemed to mean us.
He said he would take just one - for he had none and Zeloni had many and it would only be fair.
Kura told him we were not his to give and tried to cross the river - but the massive grey man rose up to bar our way- moss sliding from his shoulders. Kura told us to hold on with all our strength and folding all his wings tight to his body, he twisted out of the reach of Zeloni.
Nineveh hurled curses I didn't know she knew and I had to keep one hand on Aune as he seemed ready to try and take on the great grey man - I have never seen my friends so angry. Zeloni blotted out the sky and the river and all else - as he reached out once more for us.
Cornelius' pack was lost as Kura leapt away- moving so fast the world became a blur - leaving the creature Zeloni behind - bellowing.
Entry 20:
I think my heart is still racing.
Entry 21:
The hills have eyes here. I've seen many plants watching us on this trip but I have never seen a mound of sentient life. Nineveh noticed this first and Kura, who thought he knew the landscape, was rather shocked. He has been a little frazzled since Zeloni - he says this area wasn't like this in his mother's stories. I tried to reassure him, but he is beginning to sound like Harbor - such worry in his voice. He would't have liked these blinking hills either. Maybe that is what we should call them - The Blinking Hills.
Oh dear - me too, now? Too much Nineveh is bad for the mind - what shall I name next?
Entry 22:
Imps greeted us this morning, a small army of the little creatures. I've never seen so many and Cornelius has only ever seen Aune - our faces were quite the sight, says Nineveh.The mass of little beings flowed from the surrounding rocks and grasses. They danced and reveled and seemed completely taken with Kura, who seemed equally as intrigued by them. They all rode on his back, directing the whole procession with rather a great deal of pomp. Aune is beside himself with excitement… I wonder where we are being taken.
Kura says this is the direction where his mother told him The Breath grows.
Entry 23:
Reader - I feel I must rely on Nineveh to try and bring you to this place we have found ourselves. I fear my words will fall short - as they always seem to. The sky is a woven field of growth so weighty that I can not believe it can hold its own mass- yet The Breath stretches on into the clouds and into the distance, its body lost in the air and buried in its scale. Its surface is embedded with soft shiny gem structures that are wholly new to me. 
They look almost wet - like the eye of some deep sea fish washed up to the shore - only they are fixed in bark.
Cornelius was speechless - which is saying something - now I wonder what he thought this thing was - as this was clearly not what he was expecting. "They always told me that Ceae was only able to save a single seed… but - how…?"
And - as I like it - we had our answer within moments of a question being asked - the imps have done it. The imps have been busily planting the seeds of this mind boggling plant - maybe even in Ceae's time. Imps love to be busy and this task has probably taken many many generations. Aune was presented with a small sprout - indigo leaves tipped with green and it was made clear to everyone that this was a piece of The Breath.
They showed us the fields where they grow these little seedlings - they care for them as if it were sprouts of their own kind - in fields side by side.
Nineveh is utterly in love with this place.
Entry 24:
I feel foolish - I let it happen after all - Nineveh, who has her nose in her book, or pointed straight up or down can't have been expected to have noticed the change in our little friends.
Not to imply I think the imps have led us to danger - but they have certainly made sure that Cornelius and Kura weren't invited on this excursion. Aune seems to be helping them in this venture - little traitor. He is motioning to me that it will be alright - I trust him - but I still don't know what awaits us on this mountain they have brought us to - and why it was so important that we be alone? Even now they have fallen back - guarding us from returning, but venturing no farther.
Mounted flags dot the landscape - which isn't imp work. Nineveh has actually put away the sketchbook and is giving me a worried look, "I think I've seen this place before…" she says, and thumbing though her picture notes - points out the similarities between this mountain and the one carved on the side of a rock.
Not surprising, Harbor told us stories of sacred mountains - of forgotten cities and worlds far beyond our walls - He loved his tales. Those tales brought us here - did they not? Forward then.
Entry 25:
Even Nineveh is tired of drawing rocks - but the views - breath taking. We can see The (I use the word too much I know… but nonetheless) endless Breath - it grows like whiskers from the side of a great gulf into the earth - I had felt the strange flow of the air, but hadn't really realized where we had been. And what has become clear only at this distance - a city lies under the roots of this great creature. We were within its walls and hadn't even known - the plant is so omnipresent.
Was the city alive when Ceae brought the last seed here? I think I shall have to put a few more questions to Cornelius about this woman when we return.
Entry 26:
I feel as though I owe you, Reader, an apology - but how does one tell a goddess - 'would you mind holding that thought for a moment? I want to just write a few things down…'
Yes - at the top of the mountain - we found ourselves at the feet of a goddess - who wore the earth as a dress - so maybe we had only been climbing her coat tales and now stand once more at her feet… but I digress.
She called herself The Cloud Weaver - and said other names have been hers - but that was the only one that ever mattered. She was huge as we approached her, but shrunk with every step until, when we came face to face, she was our size. She even looked rather like us. Nineveh even has the horns that crested the lovely head of the goddess - from time to time.
She told us she had asked the little ones - meaning the imps, to bring us to her, "It has been so long since I saw Seedlings. Not since Ceae came to me - and that was long long ago."
I can't say how this made Nineveh feel - but my stomach felt as though it had been tossed back down the mountain.
"Had we come to see our kin? Had we come to see Ceae?" She asked and with a gesture the clouds parted and the world on the other side of the mountain was opened to us.
The sky was dotted with floating shapes, like sea slugs in the air. They must rival the breath of size, for even at a distance they seemed giant.
I asked her what they were. The goddess said, "They are The Fate of The Von, Seedling. Once they ruled as gods - they are still swollen with their own delusions. Ceae brought them here to the foot of my mountain - to linger - to languish and finally to fall to the earth."
The land below these great floating creatures was a immense grassland, sheltered - or contained by mountains and a wall of Breath. Broad cloud shadows crossed over the unnaturally level green field - spotted here and there with the enormous rounded rocks that were, as goddess said, "once the mighty mirthless Von".
"And Ceae?"
"Go down the mountain. You shall know her."
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