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Adventures In Living With The Mythical |
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A military veteran is adopted by a werewolf and brought into his pack. Insanity ensues. About "Life With A Werewolf" Life with a werewolf is a dramatic blog. As such the characters in this blog are not real but maybe loosely based on real people. The situations represented are not real but maybe loosely based on real things that have happened in my life. There are a multitude of ways to view life, this is simply one of the ways I have chosen to view mine. Updated Every Friday unless I can't or don't want to. If this is your first time reading this...start here: https://www.writing.com/main/books/entry_id/1040400-Welcome-To-The-Pack My book, "Dreamers of The Sea" is available now on Amazon: https://a.co/d/0uz7xa3 |
| Falkurk’s footsteps felt lighter than air. He twirled as he came to his resting spot with a giant grin on his face. His father, Graffur, watched Falkurk come to his spot with a characteristic snarl. Graffur was an older gnome, with a beard that reached almost down to his knees. His face was permanently scowled below his red pointed hat. “Who touched you, varmint?” Falkurk blinked and stepped back and turned to his dad. “I was out with,” “I saw who you were out with,” He snarled. “Whole damn community saw who you were out with. Cracked Faenie.” Falkurk sputtered for a moment. “She’s not cracked!” “Hush your shouting! You’ll wake up the meaties.” Falkurk and his father had a spot below the bedroom window of twin ten-year-old boys. The twins had hit that rambunctious age, the one where boys are known to break things like us lawn gnomes for little to no reason at all. Humans of that age, especially boys, are dangerous to us lawn gnomes. Imagine the terror of not being able to move while a human boy is holding a hammer or a club above your head and preparing to smash you in to pieces! “Dad,” Falkurk said in a hushed growl, “She’s right about one thing. We don’t belong out here! Always fighting dragons and dodging children. Waiting for the day when the humans tire of us and sell us off in one great yard sale or just throw us out. Then we have to sneak into another thrift store. Then it’s more turf wars, more struggles. Why can’t we live inside? Be safe for a while?” “Bah,” Graffur rolled his eyes, “be like them? Stressing and worrying all the time over this and that? Fretting until you fret yourself into a grave? We’re lawn gnomes, Falkurk. This is the lot we’ve been given in life. Sure, they maybe little terrors young, but they take care of us, and we take care of them. What you’re talking about is madness.” “If you just listen to her, you’ll see Faenie makes a lot of sense.” “And I know you’re full of more crap than those meaties. You shan’t be seeing that gnome no more. She’s fillin yer noggin with cracked ideas. It’ll get you killed Falkurk. Or worse!” Falkurk clenched his fists, and turned, snarling into the night. It was dark now, and at least no one could see his anger. His snarls. “You’re a good gnome,” Graffur said to him. “But our place is here. We need the outdoors. We don’t need roofs and bills. We need sunshine and wind. We can’t go inside. It just isn’t right.” The warnings of his father rang through Falkurk’s head. But parental warnings can never stand against a young love sprouting through a young heart. It hasn’t had the harsh winds and freezing rain of reality to temper it yet. This is why gnomes wait so long to get hitched, sometimes as long as fifty years or more. We want to ensure a love bleeds true, and not just burn hot for a season. Falkurk felt he didn’t have that long. What he had was the look of a lass named Faenie and a desire to do whatever she wanted to be hers as quick as possible. So, it was no surprise that warnings be damned Falkurk spent the next evening sitting in the back yard of Ms. Smythe’s house, staring through her window, with Faenie leaning against him. “I like coming out here at nights,” she whispered to him. “I like watching her. I enjoy wondering what they’re doing. They got all sorts of things inside. She has this box that talks to her and shows her plays. She’s got a machine to play her music. It would be nice to have those things.” Falkurk gripped the ground, grass beginning to tear in his fist. “If we had that, then we wouldn’t hear the dragons when they attack. We wouldn’t hear the humans before they come home. Imagine us listening to music and the damn kids come by with their hammers and clubs. We’d all be smashed to bits!” “You’re so cute when you’re daft, you know that,” Faenie smirked. “We wouldn’t have to worry about any of that if we were inside. We could play music all night long! All day, too. No need for hidin no more. No need for keeping vigil against the dragons. No need for nothin but sunshine all day, and all night too with their magic light.” “But Faenie, it does us no good.” Falkurk turned to look at her. “We’re out here. They’re in there. Why, it takes great effort and magic to even talk to them! How are we going to convince them to just swap places?” “When the day comes,” Faenie said, “they won’t have a choice.” “What do you mean?” “I can’t tell you yet.” Faenie whispered. “I’ve got a few things to setup first. Do you trust me?” “You know I do Faenie. I just have no idea of what you want.” “What I want,” Faenie said, “Is for you to hold me tonight. And tomorrow night. And perhaps the night after that. And the one after that.” She snuggled in close while he held her. They whispered to each other sweetie things. What it might be like to live in a house instead of on a lawn. What might the humans be doing inside. How many things could they honestly fit inside the house anyway? The strange and cute language of young passion that takes on the in-jokes of in-jokes of all young cuddlers wishing to be lifelong lovers. When he returned to his spot, Graffur snarled at him, “You be forgettin something tonight?” “No,” Falkurk said, then his eyes lit up. “Oh crap! The Vigil!” “Aye, the dragon’s vigil. You forgot it. I covered your watch. Tonight. Do it again, and you’re losing one of your gold rings.” Falkurk touched his beard. His two gold rings that he worked so hard to earn. “Won’t happen again, don’t worry.” “Good! Neither will you be seeing that cracked Faenie anymore.” “That will happen again. You can’t stop me, you have no cause to.” “She ain’t right, son. She’s seeking to upset the natural order. To crack the world like a stone egg! Can’t you see? Be reasonable, Falkurk!” Young passion is not reasonable. It is why us gnomes take so long before declaring our love. Before going further than simple hugging and hand holding and whispering. Cause young passion burns bright like a white hot. It takes time for that love to burn down into love. Time that Falkurk was not sure he had. As he waited there that morning, Faenie’s words rang through his head, much like they did many years after. “You’re cute when you’re daft… Do you trust me?” At that moment, he had no idea why, but he did. That was the most dangerous thing of all. After all it’s blind trust untempered by experience that causes the greatest disasters. |
| This appeared in my inbox some several months ago. It was right about after the Nobility thing and I was trying to wrap my head around all the shenanigans and goings on with that whole mess to get it down. Must have read through this ten times going back and forth on posting this. I finally decided to post it because it does give you a glimpse into the mind of Kheid and his world, the exact way it works. It also tells us something that I’ve kind of wondered about since I’ve known him. Just about every other lawn gnome has a beard but this one. Why? What causes him to be so…him? The letter will be posted in its entirety, though it will take a few updates to get the it all down for you. I do hope you enjoy it, and enjoy Thanksgiving next week. - Jason Forte *** Dear humans, I feel the need to write to you about this subject. You’ve had interactions with us in the past, so you know a small bit about our world and our wars. What you don’t know is why the one who calls himself Kheid is attacking you. Nor do you understand why he’s beardless and must remain so for the rest of his existence. I hope this will explain it. To start with, you must understand a gnome’s beard is more than his pride. It’s his honor, his family. Its much like your last names are for you. If you can read a gnome’s beard, you know where he comes from, what he’s done in life, how he’s done it. Whether that gnome is a warrior, a nobleman, a farmer. What clan his kin come from. To whom he’s married. A beard can tell you all of this and more; and requires many years to learn how to read them. The one you know as Kheid was once young gnome called Falkurk. He had a glorious beard. Many will say his beard was the most glorious of any gnome who ever existed, but they are wrong about that. It still was glorious however, with two rings at the bottom indicating his status as a warrior, a braded mustache indicating his family’s noble lineage with three braids on each side to indicate his exact family. He still had dark streaks of black through it showing his youth, and though he was young, he already had leadership skills. When our village came under attack from a dragon, it was Falkurk who helped organize the resistance and ensure no one was lost to a dragon’s lunch. When the rain came in too heavy from the gutters, it was Falkurk who organized where the vegetables should be moved to, so they could be harvested without the humans knowing we’re moving. Falkurk was a good gnome. He wasn’t the greatest, grandest gnome you’d have ever had the pleasure of seeing in ceramic. But he was a good one. One the elders in our small neighborhood villages said he had the potential to become an elder himself on day. To be one of the few younger gnomes to reach the rank of elder. That’s what made his fall such a tragedy. The assumption is the best of all are the ones who fall the farthest. But no, I tell you meaty ones, it isn’t so. It’s the good ones, not the greatest who fall the farthest. Cause falling is easy and everyone does once in a while. But the good ones find it the hardest to stop. Like the greatest of tragedies, it all started with a girl. I’ve seen human love in it’s wonderful, strange, and sometimes angry and violent manners. I’ve known promiscuous humans who leave each other at a second glance, and nice humans who just wanted to stay together forever. With gnomes, it’s a bit different. Gnome love is nurtured and cultivated over decades. And when two of us lawn gnomes decide to get married, we don’t just sign a paper from the court house. A gnome marriage requires a single strand of beard from yours and a strand from her hair. They are woven in intricate ways into each, in a long ceremony that is witnessed and celebrated by the whole village. They can be gussied up with rings or ribbons, or sometimes even being dipped in golden ceramic. It is a long but beautiful ceremony filled with loving promises, and more than one joke thrown out from the crowd gathered to witness. They last from sunrise to sunset symbolizing their love and desire to stay together for all time. It was at one of these ceremonies that Falkurk’s life began to take a turn. Faenie was pretty. Everyone could see that. The lass that melted his heart had a wink that could make even you humans stop and take a look. But when she was formed there was a hole in her spirit. A place where the ceramic didn’t form just right. A crack that she desired to have filled. A hunger that was deeper than greed, and twice as vicious. The ceremony of Dunkin and Llydsa was carefully planned. You humans would walk by and see nothing but a few lawn gnomes sitting out in your front garden planting crops. But when you weren’t looking, as the daylight burned to twilight, Dunkin and Llydsa would be seated on two great pumpkins entwining and promising their everlasting love to one another. She stood behind Llydsa, in view of Falkurk. He saw her sly grin and the twinkle in her eye. But what drew her to him was the wink. That beloved wink that would make the whole world stop. When Falkurk saw it, he didn’t care about careful planning and placement. He didn’t care about being seen. He walked right over to Faenie and stood beside her. “Hello,” he whispered, as Dunkin and Llydsa continued their twinings. Llydsa’s red hair was over her shoulder, Dunkin’s beard was in her hands and Llydsa’s hair was in his. Their promises and musings drifted into gentle whispers that the crowd began to cheer on in our own gnomish way. “Hello back,” She whispered. “I’m Falkurk.” Faenie gave him another wink and said, “I know.” They stood and watched a while, together. Slowly, she reached over, and began to twiddle his beard with her fingers, running them along the dark streaks. Falkurk blushed, but continued to stare on, his heart racing faster than his mind. “W-who are you?” “I’m Faenie. Daughter of Elder Junith.” “Go on, kiss her you fool!” One gnome shouted from the back. Dunkin looked up from his lovely beauty and smiled upon them. “Go ahead,” he said, “I don’t mind.” Ms. Smythe was the elderly human that lived in the house of Dunkin and Llydsa’s lawn. It was upon that lawn that the ceremony was held. Ms. Smythe came home, pulling up to the house, just as Falkurk bent over to give Faenie a kiss. The gnomes all froze of course, waiting in a single spot for her to pass. Dunkin and Llydsa was bent, tending crops. The crowd around them, was paused in various poses. At least that’s what it appeared to Ms. Smythe, who shook her head in bewilderment as she walked past with a bag of groceries under one arm. “I don’t remember setting them that way,” she muttered. When she was gone, Dunkin and Llydsa went back to whispering gentle love promises to each other as they continued weaving. The whispers, kisses and promises went on as the sun set, until finally, beneath the full moon light, they both stood; him holding her hair, she holding his beard. When they stood up and held each other’s hair, facing the crowd Elder Junith stepped forward. “An old love has been woven together. And so, it has been blessed, perhaps,” she looked back at her daughter with a wink, “with new love to sprout. Let each and every gnome have no doubt about the long life they shall have together.” As the gnomes cheered, Faenie grabbed Falkurk’s arm and whispered in his ear, “let’s get out of here.” And they slipped out between the bushes, around the white house to the fence in the back. Faenie and Falkurk watched the home as the windows winked out one by one, as if the house itself was going to sleep. “I wonder what it’s like in there,” Faenie whispered. Falkurk shrugged. “Not a lot of ceramic. Think it’s all flesh inside?” Faenie chuckled. “What like them?” Falkurk blushed and looked down. “Maybe not exactly like them.” “I want one,” she said in a hushed tone. “A home for my very own.” “Well,” Falkurk said with a thoughtful tone. “I know how to reach Ms. Smythe. We can ask and get her to get something, will take some time to convince her.” Gnomes have their own way of communicating with you meaty ones. It’s a special method handed down from generation to generation. After all, we cannot just talk to you like we talk to each other and writing letters usually does us no good. Falkurk was good at communicating to you in his own way, though for any gnome it took effort. “No,” Faenie said. “I want that,” she waved her arms at the large two-story home in front of her. “I want the whole thing. We should live in there. We do more for them than they for us. We just sit here and wait and stare while they move about in their weird vehicles and carry about in their strange manners, growing feeble and dying off. We deserve to have more.” Falkurk listened to her, his eyes trained on Faenie more than the house. They sat up most of the night, talking and scheming. When he went back to his spot in the front lawn, his heart was large with thoughts of Faenie with no idea of the drama and danger that awaited him when he got to his lawn. |
| AMA number 2: Things had slowed down a bit here finally and I thought I might ask if anyone had any questions out there for us. I did get a few and I’d like to say thank you those individuals for asking and giving us an opportunity to answer. This was a lot of fun to put together, almost as much fun as it was to capture Kheid so he could answer his questions. We didn’t capture him on our own. We attempted at first, and was almost reduced to attempting to interview every lawn gnome in the county. That was why Crash got Larry to scrounge him up for us. Larry is a ceramic dragon, and works with the county part-time. He says it wasn’t easy, and now we owe Larry a basketball. A ceramic basketball. With a ceramic hoop preferably. So, if anyone has a lead on that, please let us know. Anyway, here’s a few questions posed by some of you. If you have more questions, please feel free to ask. I’ll be certain to collect the answers and put them in another update sometime in the future. Crash: - Q: You find out there is a human who writes a blog about your life? How do you react? A: I laughed. Then I reminded him if he reveals too much, I’d have to eat him. Jason: I still have silver bullets, you know. Crash: You’ll go to sleep sometime. Jason: I swear, if you do that thing again where all I see is your eyes and teeth in the darkness, I will shoot you. I about wet myself last time you did that. - Q: Was the job of County Werewolf forced on you or something you chose? If you had the option to pick another career, what might it be? A: Just kinda happened into the job. I was not forced into it, more stumbled into it and took it on. If it was really anything career wise, I'd pick something with space travel. Maybe howl at the full Earth. Jason: - Q: Assuming Crash knows about the wider fantastical/mythical community, has he ever had any such guests over to the house before or said why not? Also, what species would you consider to be the most mundane and most extraordinary member of the mythical that Crash has told you about? A: Crash has had a few members of the fantastical/mythical community before. His parents has visited once, which I promised to keep out of the blog. But yeah, that was fun, and kind of weird. The new minotaur neighbors has been over a couple times. They were the most mundane. Nice couple. Does a lot of yard stuff, and in general, just happy go-lucky people. Keeps their head down and doesn’t really get involved in anything. Why I haven’t written about them, yet. The most extraordinary are that way because they're so mundane. They're someone I’ll call Freddy. He’s a real-life unicorn, a bronie, and in general a fun loving, albeit slightly chatty geek. With no actual unicorn powers. His whole entire thing is complicated, and I might write about him one day, if I get the go ahead. Though, he’s still shy about the blog. Khied: - Q: Klyde the gnome king has been turned into a cactus. The throne is now open? However, per usual every gnome king does not seem to last very long. THERE IS NO GNOME KING BUT ME AND I WILL NEVER BE OVERTHROWN! YOU WILL ALL BOW DOWN AND WORSHIP… Jason: Khied, you promised to be nice or I will be forced to introduce you to Mr. Hammer. Khied: Dirty, human, you will pay when I finally have you in ceramic. No, there is no overthrowing Khied. It is not just my name, but my title. - Q: The end goal is world domination, right? What would lawn gnomes do with the world if they had it? You will learn when I have you in my grasp, filthy human. When you are all bathed in beautiful ceramic and finally rid yourself of your awful flesh and are part of the family! You will understand….ow! Jason: Kheid, either you be nice, or next time I break something. Khied: Filthy human scum doesn’t know his place. Once we conquer the world, we must fix the world. After the world is beautiful and ceramic, we will work on finding other worlds to fix. We will bathe the entire galaxy in ceramic. Fix every other world until there’s nothing but us. |
| Life has a habit of changing and twisting. You plan things to go in one direction, and they take a sudden violent left or right turn when you’re just trying to keep things straight. That’s actually how it happened that I ended up in the military. Couldn’t get a job immediately out of high school, went into college, got part way through and figured before they kicked me out, I should have a fallback plan. My life took a violent turn. That’s honestly, how I ended up here in Crash’s place, as you well know. I planned on just drinking myself to death. Life took a violent turn and changed those plans. Coincidentally, that’s also how the whole “not going to party with the zombies” thing ended. Life took a sudden turn. Halloween came. Ghosts and goblins in all manners of costumes showed up and received candy. It’s cute to see what sort of outfits that the kids end up in. Honestly, I expected more super heroes, but we really got more generic things and video game characters this year than super heroes. Princesses and pirates, a few Barbies of course, and the traditional Dracula or werewolf. More than a couple Marios and Bowsers. Crash always gives out the full-sized candy bars to werewolves. Not that he’s biased or anything. It was strange to see him at the house for Halloween. But he assured me that this year, he’s working “the late shift”, whatever that meant. It was shaping up to be an average, normal and entertaining Halloween. No rotting ones. No “deadites” as Zack called them. The evening ended at a respectable time, with only a few stragglers after nine. There was less kids out and about this year than there was in decades past. I wasn’t surprised that there was less trick or treaters this year. After all, more than a few churches and businesses these days subscribe to the whole “trunk or treat” idea. Which is nice for the kids. They get a ton more candy in one place. But it kind of takes the fun out of it for everyone else; we get far less ghouls and goblins roaming around. After we finally turned our porchlight off, the doorbell rang. When I opened it, there was two zombies whose flesh had rotted to the point of not being able to tell who they were. I walked away and locked the door. Then the doorbell rang again and two more zombies stood there. A few minutes later, we got two more. And finally, there was a veritable zombie squad on the porch with a growing zombie platoon on our front lawn. I sighed, and opened the door. “You guys aren’t leaving until I come with you, are you?” I got a group moan and nods. “Fine,” I grumbled. “I’m only taking two in my car.” Which of course was a lie. Crash patted me on the back when I turned back inside to grab my keys. “I’m heading out soon too,” he said. “Remember, you don’t have to drink.” I nodded, growling and grumbling the whole way, while he laughed and waved at me from the door. “You kids have fun!” It’s kind of suicidal to punch a werewolf. But I did want to hit him then. Instead, I went to my car and picked up the first two zombies. Then two more. And, well, let me put it to you this way, I’m still airing out my car. The trip out to the cemetery was a nice one. In truth, I hardly recognized the place. They had found jack-o-lanterns and lined the highway with them for almost a mile or so in front of the old cemetery. The cemetery itself was much nicer than it had been before, being swept almost clean of leaves and debris. Vines and intruding plants had been cut down. And the zombies, in their own way, was trying to party. It started out with awkward talking. Me telling each of them that I’m sure their souls were in paradise, that they all looked like they had been nice people. I told stories of my own family who had passed on before, and assured them that they were remembered and missed. The Topaz provided some Halloween music from a local radio station. One of the zombies got me a soda, and well, the corpses basically swayed to the traditional Halloween tunes, but you get enough alcohol and drugs into people at a club or a concert and that’s all they do anyway is sway, so it seemed natural. Of course, I could tell which zombie was the party animal in life. He was the younger one, who managed to slip me something a bit stronger than soda. I don’t blame him, or the rest of them. After all, I recognized the flavor of alcohol. You can’t really hide it in anything. It has a heated bite in its poison that any alcoholic knows by heart. But once I had the first one, well, I guess the night had just begun. One became two. Two became four. And before you knew it, I was drunk counseling again on another Halloween with the horde of Zombies listening in rapt attention. I didn’t drive. I just kept drinking, and talking and listening to music while the sun slowly began to break on the horizon. As daylight began to grow, the zombies started wandering away, little by little. I imagine they were going back to their graves and places of rest. There is still shame in what happened, though it wasn’t my fault that I started. You see, it was still my fault that I continued. I accept that. Once you get the first taste slipped to you, it’s like being shoved down a ski slope on a snow board. Doesn’t matter if you fall over or keep your balance, you’re still going down. But still, I did continue drinking. No one asked me to finish the first one. No one asked me to finish the rest. No one asked me to drink the second bottle that was brought to me, whatever it was a bottle of. When Crash found me, I was sitting against a tombstone singing “Someday Never Comes” by Creedence Clearwater Revival as the first rays of the new sunrise hit. Crash walked up in a soft chuckle of his through the woods as the sunlight began to peak over the horizon. “Well, isn’t that ironic.” “What is,” I asked, then looked at the bottle of Jack I was holding. There was one swallow left. I tilted it to my mouth and finished it, then tossed it aside. “That person you’re sitting on died of alcohol poisoning.” “Oh,” I said. I sighed, then looked up at the sky. It spun just slightly in my buzzed state. I didn’t expect tears, but they came anyway. “I guess, I’m a failure. I didn’t intend to drink. I didn’t have to, like you said. But, look at me now. Just look at me.” Crash shook his head, and picked me up. “You’re taking the express way home,” he said, then threw me over his shoulder like I was a sack of potatoes. “I’m sorry,” I said to him. “I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for all…this.” He spun me back to the woods. “I’ll have Zack and Kris come get your car,” he said, as we started walking into the darkness. “You’re not upset,” I asked. “I will be if you puke on my back.” “Why?” “Cause, it will take me four or five showers to get the smell out. You know how sensitive my nose is.” I scratched his ear like he was a dog. He shook his head around a moment and looked at me. “Stop that.” I laughed. “Sorry, I just always wanted to do that.” He chuckled. “Get yourself a werewolf girlfriend then.” “Why aren’t you mad?” The trees began moving past us at a pace that would have been dangerous for me to try. Of course, for Crash it was normal. After a couple minutes, he slowed down a moment then set me against a tree. “Because,” he said, looking me in the face. “Everyone falls down sometime. It’s our job to pick each other up when we do.” Again, I don’t remember tearing up, but somehow, I was wiping tears from my eyes. “You’re always there for me,” I said. He smiled. “You’re always there for me.” We did hug. Then he picked me back up, and got me home faster than I could have driven it. Well, could have driven it if I was sober. When I came through the door over Crash’s shoulder drunk, I expected to have to apologize to everyone. But no one asked for one. Zack and Kris left in Zack’s car to pick up mine, and that was that. Not a word was said about it. It stuck with me afterwards. I think it was because I hadn’t intended to drink. I had made every effort not to drink and it still occurred. I hadn’t been in the alcohol since then, either. My streak is two days now, and counting. Each victory, though minor, is celebrated. Life is about falling down. It’s also about getting up, and who we help up along the way. A group of zombies taught me that. So, I will be at their little celebration next year, doing my duty as Undead Uber and Counselor. But next time, I’m bringing my own drinks. |
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