Friends

I have actually made other friends.  I am truly having fun. If ever I thought I was free spirited these traveling gypsies are truly the definition of freedom.  They follow their hearts. They are like the wind.  I have become especially close to Sveta Katarina. She is teaching me the two bladed - "dance of the twin blades" style.  I hold a scimitar in one hand and and a short sword or dagger in the other.  I have come to enjoy both our talks and the training. She is also teaching me to fight with with numerous simple melee weapons .

We have also been playing practical jokes on each other. I do not believe I started these jokes.  Me innocent me? (I am laughing aloud as I write this)  I do remember that I tied Sveta's arm to the bedpost as a joke but I do not think that was the beginning. The next day when I was bathing in the stream Sveta hid and took my clothes. I had to skulk back to camp using tree branches to try to cover myself.  We all had a good laugh.  That was not nearly the end though, I then salted Sveta's mead and she retaliated by skunking my boots and on it went back and forth for nearly a month straight.  By the end I believe I nearly exhausted all my good practical jokes, but in truth we did have the entire camp entertained including ourselves. We were nearly in tears with laughter.

Sveta recounted for me the tale of the Seven Sisters after she caught me whimpering in mys sleep after a nightmare and I had confessed about the recurring dreams of the seven lights.  She did not laugh. She did not laugh.  She did not send me away.  She, like Ellis reacted to comfort.  It is good to have another friend.   

Here is the tale she recounted: 

Many moons ago Seven Sisters were born into the wild. Legend has it they sprang forth from the earth itself. No one can recall them every having been born to a family of any sort other than the company of the land itself. Each of the sisters had the most beautiful voice and each played a different instrument with a preternatural skill. It is said that the woods themselves taught them to play. In any case, the forest was filled with beautiful, wondrous and enchanting music and the creatures lived quite literally in harmon; elves, fey, dwarves, humans, halflings, eladrin, gnomes. It was as if the creatures all communicated through music and rhythm.

But then an evil came over the land. No one knows from where and most tales say little about exactly what happened except that many died much blood was shed and much was lost. It is said that in the end the seven were instrumental (pun intended) to the defeat of the evil.
Some say that they gave up their voices to imprison the evil beneath the ground. Others say they bound themselves to certain places or things in the land and that their sacrifice power the prison. In this story, the forest contains 7 special objects that are marked that indicate gateways to some other world.  Perhaps they are gateways or entry points to the prison. In any case the seven were never seen again after that point. The evil was vanquished. Several version of the poem however note that it was not permanent.

I composed short poem/song after her telling:

Poem of the Seven
Tell me the tale of the sisters of seven
whose voices were golden like light from sky’s heaven

Whose tunes and dance the forest did green
then suddenly no more were ever again seen

They say that pure evil came over the land
And the seven in battle did righteously stand

Though the land lay pocked, ashen and grey
United it stood on that last dour day

Seven voices as chains to bind such foul beast
Such that the evil dominion henceforth had ceased

But if ever their melody should come to an end
The darkness shall strike and the whole land shall it rend.