a deeper truth

When I turned around seeking an open pathway, I was surprised to find that the stream surrounded me on all sides. The serpent from across the way beckoned me with his tongue, unfurling it out over the water. The tongue almost touched my shoes "If you need to get across, walk over on this. But please walk gently, for if you don't you may slide and fall off, and no one will ever find you again."

From the corner of my eye, I saw the man from the mountain open his razored jaw and draw a poisoned needle from underneath his tongue. I watched the needle fly from his finger through my father's ear and out the other, turning all his fluids into ones of pure jade and stone. Then the foreigner strapped my jaded father to his back and continued to ride into forbidding wastelands.

I had no choice but to leave. Out, away from home was the only place I could go. The wind rustled the walls of our wooden shack, but neither my father nor my mother stirred from their deep slumbers. I put only a small piece of bread and a snippet of dried meat in my satchel, fastened my shoes, and quietly walked out of my home, our small wooden home, into the wind and fog that enveloped me into the night.

When I placed the needle I had taken on my palm, it moved in the direction where I needed to go. The bones taken from the ground shielded me from any harm.

Mother could not recognize the sound of my footsteps at the door.

A familiar gold and silken robe of dragon scales was placed in my hands on account of me killing the creature. For an odd reason I could not help but feel regret. The girl with the white hair and her foxlike sibling did not mean any real harm but only wanted to protect the mountain as the men of soil bade them do.

created with my complicity by the proppian fairy tale generator.

thanks for the tip, B!