I fell asleep, finally, after thinking about another rough day at work. The mistakes I made today circled my mind like vultures, while the mistakes I made weeks ago were picking at the wounds they caused when they came back to haunt me today.

My mind circled through the ol’ “why do I always do this to myself?” and “why can’t I just do better. I know I can.”

That night I had a strange dream. I wanted to chalk it up to my stress and anxiety. It was a chaos of flashing images from some strange but somehow homey world, and a shadowy but familiar figure standing over me.

Needless to say, I did not sleep well. When the alarm went off I could barely tell dream from reality. I somehow managed to turn it off without opening my eyes, and stumbled into the washroom.

I ignored the scale as I passed it, I couldn’t take its judgement today. It had been harsh after Christmas, and I was fragile from work stress and lack of sleep. I avoided the mirror as well, as it routinely shocked me with “do I really look like that?”

I stumbled into the shower. The initial blast of cold water woke me slightly as I tried to avoid the frigid winter stream until it warmed up. Eventually the luxurious feeling of hot water began to warm me, as I moved under the jet. If I could never leave the comfort of the shower, I would live a happy life. Unfortunately I had to leave.

I don’t know when I happened, but sometime while towel drying my sleepy eyes had fully opened. And I saw myself in the mirror. Suddenly something inside my mind snapped. It was so powerful I would have sworn it was more a physical sensation than a mental one.

I became fixated on my reflection. You would say I was crazy, but I realized it was not a reflection, but another version of me. It looked just like me, but didn’t move as I did.

Stunned by this, I slowly came out of the shower and walked towards my doppelgänger.

“You look great today,” it complimented me.

“That seems a little self-serving” I retorted, having never learned to politely take a compliment. “Damnit,” I thought being angry with my stupid response.

“Hey,” came a calming reply, “don’t get angry with yourself, that was a reflex. You have learned that through decades of life. You can’t expect yourself to change in a few seconds.”

“Still, it was rude… I’m sorry,” I replied as conversation seemed to be being pulled out of me despite the strange circumstances.

“It was, but you hold yourself to too high a standard sometimes. You know you do that at work too.”

“That’s a lie, I know I can do better, I just … don’t”.

“I am not going to say you can’t, but you can’t expect yourself to be perfect at all times. Different constraints come up, and when you look back you forget that you procrastinated ordering that report because the request came in late in the day when you were already behind on so much and tired from a long day.” Wisdom began rolling out of the mirror.

As we continued to talk, I found myself slowly falling in love. Not with the reflection, but with who I could be. No, who I am.

Judging myself for minor errors, never forging my mistakes, seeing my body as the enemy. These are all things I could change. All it takes is some work. And God dammit, I am worth it. Loving yourself isn’t easy, but it is essential, and somehow I had it happen so suddenly.

And so the creature, still disguised as an alluring mortal woman, spoke her words and spat her ire at me — her forked tongue flitted and stabbed the air between us. As you well know, friend, I started this journey as a scholar and knew to some degree a great many of those dead languages of Magic. One such she spoke to me now: Jasbari. Known to some as the Sinister Sound or the Dark Hand at the Clay, a language used to tamp and twist and knot the world into painful clumps...

The language of Curses.

The beast revealed herself as she recited her hatred into my bodily form. Thrice a man’s height her head neared the lowest of the silver-grey branches — for the woods too revealed themselves to be the fog-filled and otherworldly Whisper Woods, with it’s silver trees that extended upwards forever into the low dark clouds and whose roots sought to drag any and all into the damp depths of the black soil.

But my focus was on the beast: a Chasati. Her lower half was that of a giant armoured millipede, dark brown chitin and orange legs that writhed and gesticulated; her top half was that of a woman, though made of damp leafmould; her head was wreathed in a main of insectoid braids, a mess of many long bodies and countless legs, all of which slid and scuttled and scattered about.

The Chasati’s faux face rested atop this dark and crawling mass. A mask made of smooth pale-grey wood. A glorious, perfect, bewitching face that could only have been made more beautiful if it had held a living breath or a modicum of the divine gift of life.

From behind the wooded-veil her words fell as whispers but hit as fists, the forked tongue still stabbed at me, escaping and retreating from a small slit betwixt those perfect and forever still lips.

It is that image that has stayed with me. Beauty and fear. Lust and damnation.

I apologise. Back to my tale. I had avoided the Chasati’s initial enchantments and had thus earned her ire and through will and waning warding words once more managed to slip from the spell that had stilled me.

Jasbari — her language — was, at that time, not my strongest of learn-ed words. I had gathered enough, though, that I knew to tear a strip from my tunic and bind my vision — at this she grew louder but did not cease her unfinished curse. I felt the beast move, and then! One human hand was at my throat, a million little arms grabbed and tapped and pinched and stabbed and wrapped about my body — her other hand was at my blindfold scratching and tearing...or trying to. It, being part of my tunic, was made of enchanted fawnish wool and could only tear by my will or at the hands of beings far more powerful than a mere beast in the woods.

And this property, as you know, had kept me anchored in mortal form by staying many a blade and pike.

Knowing that I must act I forced my hands among the gripping pins of the insect legs and found, first, the Orb of Antarus on the left of my rope belt and, second, the hilt of Fjorn my blade that was at rest on my right. Fjorn lit and the flame sword tore through insect legs, thick chitin, warm innards, up and out of her belly and took one of her human hands off at the wrist — the grip held tight to my throat despite the severance and I heard the devil scream in agony and anger...this worried me as it suggested that the spell had finished.

I crushed the orb in my left hand and was gone from that realm and dropped into a plane of mortal beings - which I knew by all senses save that of sight. The blindfold held. In darkness I found the smell and sound and sway of the Sea. Felt wooded planks at my bank.

The familiar creak of wood and flap of sail. I was on my boat and far from the Island of Wonders, the Whisper Woods, and the accursed Chasati.

Her severed hand lay limp on my chest. That would serve as proof of my work and earn me my bounty.

And the curse woven into the fabric of my being would be the cost.

I remember I touched my eyes and found my face scratched and clawed, but not badly. Her words echoed in my ears, whispers on the cusp of hearing.

I hear them now and think I always shall.

* * *

Thankfully my crew found me shortly thereafter and I explained that my blindness must needs remain until such time that I could break the curse or, at the very least, until I could study and be assured of the spells effects. I knew only that if my eyes were to fall upon a person...I would love them.

Wholly.

She had wanted me for herself — such is the Chasati way. They live to lure and entrap mortal men that wander into the forest such that they may play. Once bored the Chasati lay their eggs within the sorry fellow and he is eaten by her children when they hatch. To make me fall for her, that was her goal...

Surely.

I could not risk taking off my blindfold until I was certain, and as the lone scholar among my crew, I was forced by necessity to wait until we made the many week journey out of the Wild Seas and back to civilisation. My adventure had taken its toll and I welcomed the rest.

At first. I grew listless and took to learning any and all songs and instruments that we had aboard.

Another story for another time.

Lutes and near mutiny.

* * *

Celebrations and libation filled our arrival! So furious was the fervour and riotous the reverence of that gathered crowd, that they nearly lifted the boat wholly from the dock to take us up the steps and through the streets, atop a sea of shoulders. King Havar, here are your heroes!

I convinced them to take the men, save those that wanted to stay aboard and guard our bounties.

AUTHOR NOTE: I have to run! More later if I remember.

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“Look at you!” I know the voice. “Can you not even function without me?”

“Hallo, wife.” I slowly rise to my feet. “That old witch cursed me with his ‘world famous curse’.”

“I let you get a two day head start and you end up looking like this?” I finally pry my eyes open while she’s speaking. “It’s a good thing I brought the kids.”

“Yes it is good. I wouldn’t want to leave Marcus without supervision for more than an hour at a time. What with him using fireballs to cook his breakfast.” My wife is as beautiful today as the day I married her, even after having five kids. “And our little fury, Madartha, I bet she would shatter the mountain if we left her alone. Why did we ever put an axe in her hand?”

“The rain will start in twelve and a half minutes.” Hulda said, her voice always comforts me. “We need to find shelter before it hits, daddy. It will be a gully washer.”

“I guess I’ll take care of your wounds after we get a roof over our heads.” My wife glares at me. She must have been in the middle of something when my little prophetess told her I would be on death’s door. “Can you handle yourself while I round up the others?”

“Sure… I’ll see if I can locate some shelter. With Hulda’s help of course.” I know, even though she doesn’t talk like it, that deep down my wife loves me.

I watch as my wife walks away into the forest. Ooo, I should watch more often. Has she always been this good looking? “Well Hulda, do we make it to shelter in time?”

“I don’t know; it’s not coming to me. But I see a cave and a deer roasting on the fire.”

“Well I guess we don’t get a soft mat to sleep on tonight.” This pain in my shoulder would really like a soft place to sleep. “Well I guess we should go with mama.” She may have gone deeper into the woods than I expect. “HONEY, WE FIND A CAVE TONIGHT!”

“Okay, I’m not in to deep. I saw a ferumilia I wanted to grab.”

“Okay we’re coming.” I say before adding “Arahite gets a deer, you’ll probably have to leave it.”

“It’s pretty small, it won’t be too much for Madartha to carry.”

“I don’t think we make it before it rains.” I mutter to Hulda. She looks a little disturbed. “What is it?”

“We’re in the cave for a month.”

“Well the future will come sooner or later. But the rain is coming sooner.” I take her hand in my good hand. “Let’s see how big this ferumilia is.”

“You make a knife from it.”

“That’s pretty big!”

“No it’s a grade seven.”

“Woah, that’s pretty rare!”

“No, we grow a whole patch of them.”

“How? I thought they were wild bound.”

“Well they are growing—“

“There you are!” My wife says. Is it just me or is she getting more beautiful by the minute?

The unmistakable sound of Arahite’s horn comes flowing through the forest. It’s always had a peculiar divided sound.

“Well I guess we’ll go to him.” I said. “Do you see him and the others, Hulda?”

“Yeah they’re all together.” She says, then snickers.