Kapitel 195: Arthur 2 ???-295AC
"What is this place?"
"You have been here so many times, and yet you do not know where you are?" The Fishman's movements seemed unnaturally easy in the water, the golden bangles that survey as his only clothing clattering supernaturally as he adjusted his posture to address me.
"I have my guesses, but you would clearly know better."
The Fishman's right clawed hand left his harp, reaching to his chin. "Hmmm. Tell me then, where do you think you are, spirit."
"I'm quite alive, thank you, just, well, not here."
"Then you are still spirit to me."
"... I suppose that's fair then."
"Yes, I am known for being fair."
I could not read the creatures face, it's scales and fins too inhuman to find emotion through, but I suspected it was rather pleased with its jab.
"Uh, sure."
"So, tell me where you think you are."
"I would guess a temple dedicated to the Sea god."
The creature let out a gulping, hideous laugh. "The Sea God? Who are you to claim anyone being can claim dominance over the seas?"
"That is what he is called in the story of my ancestors. I have little more to tell."
"So you are a Landwalker spirit then. From above the wave crests." The fishman's posture changed, and I thought it might well indicate an increase in interest.
"Yes, I should have thought that obvious."
"I have seen few Landwalkers in my time, only their vessels pass above, and even then only rarely."
"Ah."
"This story of your ancestor, what happened in it." The Fishman tapped his claws on the tiled floor, though it was overgrown with coral. "I am a… storyteller, of sorts, and I know no stories of the surface."
"My ancestor, Duran, charmed the daughter of the God of the Sea and the Goddess of Winds and wed her. Her parents spent mighty storms to batter down his castle in revenge, but she shielded him even as his castles broke around him. Their Children became the line of the Durrandons, who in turn became the line of the Baratheons later on, the current rulers of Westeros, the lands where I live."
He looked at me again, his yellow eyes blinking sideways, before he stood up from his chair, approaching me.
"I can make out precious little of your form, spirit, but if what you say is true then I will tell you that this is indeed the place of your ancestor. It was his city, long ago, before he fell to ruin, and his city with him. Now he sleeps in stone."
"I have seen him, he spoke to me."
"Indeed? Well, I suppose you are of his blood." The Fishman ceased his pacing. "And yet you have no idea why you have come here? Interesting, most interesting."
The Fishman stopped, glancing around at the coral-encrusted ceiling and pillars.
"Ah, but this place is long overgrown, his story yet denied to you by the passing of time. I could help you, for a favor."
"What favor is that?"
"Bring me stories, tales of the Landwalkers. Stories mean a great deal to our people, and stories of the landwalker would have value in all the courts beneath the seas. We cannot breathe the sky as you do, so it is precious rare that any can speak to us."
"I will agree to that then. I would dearly like to hear the story of my ancestors from the perspective of those beneath the sea."
"Very well." The Fishman nodded, adopting a wide stance, and placing his harp to the side he raised his hands above his head.
When he brought them down a crackle of pale lightning road atop a pulse of water that spread out from him, surging across the underside of the dome. Where it touched, the coral fell away in great sheets, dissolving into nothing as the fish that frequented the place fled away from his magic.
What was revealed was astounding, every surface of every pillar was painted, stories unfolding in grand panoply as they worked their way up to the base of the dome, on which with every careful detail that Michaelangelo might have given, was painted a city suspended in the clouds, where great towering pillars of some unknowable white stone intersected, and winged beings met and danced in the air beneath the shining light of the sun.
"It's Beautiful," I mumbled, and indeed it was. There was no nook or cranny less than a work of art, and the entire structure seemed to glow with a dim light that made every careful detail visible.
"Indeed, your ancestor, who held the title of Stormclaw, built if for his wife, of the memories of the home she left. I will tell you of their tale." The lizard man began walking towards one of the pillars. "Follow. It begins with the Stormclaw's birth."
The creature pressed his claw against the column, towards its base, where a small Fishman could be seen, battered and scarred, dragging himself from some sort of Crevasse.
"In those days, in the tribe of the shallow sea, the hatchlings were separated from the others and made to fight, to prove their worthiness, their will to survive. Of a normal brood, six or seven would survive, but the Stormclaw was even then, larger than any ordinary child, and slew his foes, consuming their meat and drinking their blood. When all was done, he walked from the cave alone and covered in scars, and in those days he was given the name marrow-eater, for all of their bones were found shattered and broken." The Fishman drew his claw around the column and upward slightly. "For this, he was exiled from his clan, and made to wander the shallow sea alone, they cast him out into the wilderness, for even then they knew that he would someday become too powerful, that he would seize the reigns of the elders. They hoped that he would die, but even they knew that it was unlikely. He thrived in the wilderness, thrived and grew stronger until he was thrice the size of an ordinary male. He ventured farther than any other, and sought the greatest of prey." On the column, the Fishman was shown battling what must be a leviathan, for its albino bulk wrapped near full around the column, covered in lacerations and spear wounds that bled into the paint around it.
"For his deeds, the tribes hailed him as a great wandering warrior and gave him a new name, Spear-tooth. But the elders only feared him more, and in those days they plotted against him, though he knew it not, and instead continued to venture, farther and wider than any of our kind. It was then that he first breached the surface of the waves, and saw the sky without the water's sheen." The Fishman swam upwards, to a scene where the ancient warrior stood transfixed upon a rock at sea, gazing up towards the heavens, where a winged woman with feathers across her skin danced with a harp in her hands, the clouds parting around her. "It was then that he first saw Onelei, the one in your story called the Goddess of the Wind, and he heard her play the song of the winds in tunes that drifted between the clouds. He was smitten by her beauty, but she would not look down upon the water, no matter how he cried out, she heard nothing of him and saw less. Distraught, he returned to the waters, filled with longing."
The Fishman shuddered, before continuing, probably for dramatic effect. I wondered if the Merfolk used their bodies to convey their meanings since their faces were so inexpressive.
"It was when he went to the elders for help that they played their cruelest trick upon him, for they told him that to speak to her, he would have to craft a harp from the shell of the Eater of Cities."
The Fishman dove down, finding the base of another pillar, where a massive snapping turtle was shown, rampaging through a merfolk village. It towered over even the hero, bigger even then the scale of the Leviathan.
"Far, he traveled, searching for news of the eater while the elders sought to turn his people against him, until finally, he found it, nestled in the mouth of a great river, where it met the sea. Its teeth were like mountains and its claws like hills. Its shell was hard as stone, and its jaw could crush through even the mightiest barriers with ease. For seven long and weary weeks, he battled it, cutting at its legs, it's belly, it's eyes and its neck, until finally, it collapsed, drained of blood, and he was able to claim its shell, but this was only the beginning of the elder's schemes." The Fishman gestured to a great image of an old woman made of water, standing above my ancestor and cursing him. "For the Eater of Cities was the husband of the great river at the flood of which he sat, and the river rose, and cursed Spear-Tooth with stone that grew on his body. It was only by great strength of will that he made it back to his land, and found himself an outcast, exiled by the very people he had in years past saved."
"Despondent, he climbed out of the waves, a harp made of the shell of the beast clutched in his arms. He saw his love dance and play the song of the winds in the sky, and with his own dying breaths, played a song of the waters to match her own." The Fishman smiled, moving to another column yet again. "She heard his song, descending to find him nearly a statue, and in mercy for the one who matched her song, she broke the stone that bound him with her magic, shattered that which kept him captive and sought to kill him. She drove the curse back, and as their songs met they gave birth to a storm, a billowing and raging thing that crackled with lightning, the child of water and wind."
The Fishman kept moving, frantic at the point, in his excitement. "They saw each other many times in the following days, as even while he fought the armies of the elders and won the very kingdom in which you stand, he still made time for his love, until at last, they coupled, and she gave her maidenhead to him, losing her wings, and her immortality, though she was still of long life, akin to our people." The scaled storyteller paused, gesturing to the floor rather than a pillar. "She came to live with him below the waves, and here he built for her this temple, that she might not miss the sky. In thanks, She taught our people the songs of the wind, and in turn, was taught the song of the waters. When the two became one the song of storms was born, and it is that song which I still play even in these grim days, as other tribes move through our lands, and the last of my lord's strength fades. It is that which gave him the power to hold these lands against all those who sought to claim them in days long past."
The Fishman let himself drift down, staring up at the pillars. "They were joyous days then, and he took the name Stormclaw, and with Onelei produced a child, a girl born of two worlds, and she was named Elenei in her mother's people's language, which meant Sea Dancer, for even at a young age she would swim in the shape of dance, a gift inherited from he mother. She was the joy of the kingdom, but as she grew, her father's gifts also emerged, for she was strong-armed and strong-headed, and she had been gifted his wanderlust."
The lizard man sighed. "That, is where your story enters, and though her parents were not gods as your people had thought, it largely holds true, though we knew the one you call Duran as Daughter-taker, and we had little love for him, as Elenei was the light of our kingdom, the greatest work of our lord. When she coupled with a landwalker a shadow fell over Stormclaw, for she was reduced to the lifespan of a landwalker, and her mother was despondent to see her daughter die so soon. Indeed, when the news was brought that she had passed of age, Onelei drove herself onto a spear, so as to not outlive her by more than a day, and with her death, the curse returned to our lord."
The Fishman exhaled heavily through his gills, turning towards me. "If that wasn't enough, the great darkening came in the wake of her death, and the world shriveled at its touch. The waves grew chill and many creatures died, and as our Lord sat alone and became a statue, our kingdom fell. Now, only I and my lord are left, and I am just the last storyteller and the son of the last storyteller before me. When my lord dies, I will depart, and spread our story to other lands." The Fishman blinked slowly. "I am glad to have met you, son of Elenei, to know that at least my Lord's line lives on by his daughter, even if their form is strange and small."
"And I you, though you have not told me your name."
"My name?" The Fishman asked, shaking oddly. "You have already heard it. It is Last Storyteller. I shall be waiting here for yours."
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I stared up at the roof of my cabin, seeing that it was obviously still night by the light of the ship's lantern outside my door.
I had heard that tale two years ago, just after the war ended when I had first sought to experiment heavily with my powers.
Was it my own wedding that brought it back to me in my dreams now?
A warning not to have a daughter?
I was hardly going to take Arianne's maidenhead.
There was something there that I wasn't getting, but a vision addled brain in the middle of the night was hardly sure to find the correct reason.
Banishing the thoughts from my mind, I stood up from my bed, charging my body with power as I let the lightning crackle over my skin, stripping down as it went, for it took little focus after years of use.
The memory made me want to see Arianne, to make sure she was well before we reached King's landing on the morrow.
And if I wanted to see my love, there was no one in this fleet who could stop me.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein