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Quip’s Tale Part 2: Rough in the Diamonds

-Hapsan 88, Old Calendar-

The snows fell.

Recall our conversation, then, of a gossamer city in the northlands called Barzan, with walls of ice that were an irony against the cold. It was a place of sensuous indulgence, where the displaced bearded folk lived comfortably upon the backs of their denied blood-kin, the amber-haired goblinkind. Beneath them were their ancient cities where they lived together in peace; memories crystallized forever below the permafrost.

Born in this place to the Bearded King and Queen was their only son, who suckled at a teat of plenty, yet shall be forever known among the goblins of today as a patch of gentle roughage among cold, hard diamonds. He who saw in his porcine cousins as much as himself, and as a youth spirited his extra ration out among their children. When his bearded kin scolded him for it he did so in secret, and soon thereafter turned his beloved companion of whom we have also spoken, Barzan Quip, to the task.

Barzan Quip—or Quip the Borzoi—trod her third year upon the land during the most vicious cold in any recorded summer, if summer could mean anything but winter so far north. Her coat was sunset red, with a black-patched face broken by a broad white blaze along her muzzle. Her brown eyes bespoke of a keen intelligence, and her long legs carried her across the steppes at a peerless pace. Known for her tendency to talk and yip, she learned the value of silence from the time she spent slipping gracefully across the shadows on errands of mercy for her master, while shrouded in a mantle of deep vermillion.

The prince grew into a well-read man who thought for himself, and forever by his side, so did Quip the Borzoi. Through their understanding of the ancient grimoires they learned that the bearded folk and goblinkind were one and the same, separated only by the superficialities of appearance. Knowledge is as free as a dove, pure as a virgin snow, and more delicate than a bubble of soap, but it strikes with the intensity of a thousand flaring suns. One must hold it gently in the palm of their hand, refrain from adding impurities, and above all, respect the cost that comes with its pursuit.

The prince grew sympathetic, and so did Quip. The prince grew bold, and so did Quip.

The prince grew rebellious. And so did Quip.

As the new age of ice turned its yearling gaze upon the northlands and goblinkind fell starving in the streets, the prince spoke out against his parents. He condemned the lofty lords in epaulets and their fractured promise to the people, calling upon the citizens to unite as the one blood they had always been. He promised reform, and his voice rose high.

But the powder keg was dry, and the fever already lit.

On a pale green evening in the bleakest days of a frozen hapsan, when the aurora cast a murky glow and the drifts gathered higher than their folded ears, goblinkind watched their last daughter fall to the effects of exposure and an empty stomach. Outnumbering the bearded folk three souls to one, they could wait no longer for words, and cast aside their tools to take up the sword. We will speak not in detail of the calamity that came, for it is the stuff of nightmares that are sure to interrupt one’s sleep for the rest of their lives. It is safe to say instead that while knives have many purposes, a sword has only one, and the snow ran red with it.

Barzan Quip pulled her master’s sleeve in desperation, but the goodly prince would not quit the palace gates as they melted under a tide of flaming pitch and boiled-over rage. The king and queen and all their court ran for their very lives, but Quip lay down at her master’s side, loyal to the end. She closed her eyes, wondering what it would be like not to be, but the prince spoke, and gave these words to her:

“I have moved too slowly and am a failure to my people, but you needn’t be. Run swiftly from this place, my rough in the diamonds, and never forget what you have learned when we were a family. Your people, like mine, are all the creatures that live and breathe—you are they, and they are you. Your kindness is the warmest breeze and whenever you share it, know that therein is the embrace of the master who once loved you.”

Quip whimpered and would not go, so with conjured fury in his regretful eyes, the prince himself chased her out. She fled in confusion, knowing not what she had done to earn his wrath. In the prince’s final moments he turned heavenward to Rula, the darkened moon, and made a plea that would one day be echoed by another:

“My light and my life for you, o darkened moon, if my own but shines for me.”

Quip fled into the shattered night. Canines barked loudly in the distance and she ran to her kin, but the kennels had been set ablaze, and they could not get out. Quip barked and yipped and gnashed her jaws in a panic, until the mob found her and surrounded her in rings of fire. She bowed her head and begged clemency with her eyes, but Barzan hounds, being symbols of the kingdom for which they were named, were guilty by association. The mob closed ranks and Quip braced herself against her fate, but all at once the world cracked and crumbled around her, until her feet had nowhere left to stand.

Barzan Quip’s last thought, as her body sped towards an icy grave, was of the master she had failed who chased her away. She kicked her legs in empty air, hoping to get a headstart on her run to him in the meadows of the next life.

The great city of Barzan was stripped to a memory that day as it collapsed into the dark. Some say the ancient halls of friendship, roused by their ancestors in a fit of betrayal, devoured it alive from below. Of the bearded folk no record persists. If any exist today they surely haunt the most secluded halls, and live in stories told to induce good behavior in the children of goblinkind.

Cherish your somethings no matter how few, for in an instant they can all be gone.