Lucieno's Flashback
The Never Ending Quest - Episode 58723
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He found a small animal skull, old, but remarkably well preserved. It was
that of a bat. The sight of it seemed awaken an old memory of his, and he
was sent back in his mind to a time some three hundred years ago. He was
much more inexperienced then, and travelled more often in his human form.
There was a country in the subcontinent of Ryngaerd, called Aenthor.
Believed by many to be the origin of the race known as gypsies, Lucieno
ran afoul of one particularly elderly woman. Aenthor was then pretty well
known for its ancient forests of trees such as oaks and birch. Sadly by
the present day, not many of them existed, mainly cut down to make way for
farming land. Lucieno was fascinated by them as many of the trees were young when the Great Kingdom truly had been great. The trouble was he was constantly looking at the canopy above his head and less when he was treading. He trampled some plants that this old woman, who went by the name of Cyntiuga, held dear. At first he was bemused to be confronted by a frail-looking woman yelling obscenities until she eventually spat out the reason she was mad at him. That was bad enough, but got worse as soon as he opened his mouth. He tried to apologise but got no reprieve. It was offering her recompense that put the tin lid on it. Her words went from reasonably decipherable to downright unintelligible. Not surprising, considering she had reverted to the gypsy's ancient language, all but forgotten by anyone save the gypsies themselves. This eventually died down to angry mutterings. Lucieno saw this as an opportunity to depart hurriedly away. In his haste he managed to run into the only other person in the forest at that time. He help the man up and dusted him down. "Have you seen the mad old woman Cyntiuga?" The man said before Lucieno could apologise for the second time in less than an hour. "Er.. if you mean the old woman back there," he indicated the direction he came from, "then yes. I seem to have destroyed some plants that were dear to her." The man recoiled with fear. "Then you have been cursed!" the man proclaimed. He seemed to flinch as a songthrush landed on a branch nearby. "I must say no more. It is said she uses the birds to spy on the world beyond this wood." It was his turn to run and gave a parting shot. "Mark my words, you'll be dead before the month is out." The day he was due back to return to his home in the Shreken he found a most unwelcome surprise in his inn room. It was a skull, that of a wolf. It brought back what that strange man said, but he gave it no more thought and threw the skull away. Two years later he was in back in his home country of his birth; Gana. His first night there was spoiled by a nightmare. He seemed to be visited by some ghastly wolf-like apparition. It woke him up in a cold sweat and couldn't get back to sleep. His mind whirling, it all clicked into place. Cyntiuga, the elderly women in the wood, the wolf skull, and now the apparition. His mind snapped back to the present. His research after that time indicated the skull and apparition was part of an old gypsy death curse. Also that dragons weren't affected by curses, which explained the delayed amount of time between the appearance of the skull and the apparition. He wasn't truly human, hence his survival. The same couldn't have been said for poor old Cedric. Lucieno wasn't surprised that he hadn't spotted anything out of the ordinary. Gypsy curses were undetectable without some visible effort on his part. Others, like Astra's were similar to the afflicted person having 'CURSED' written on their foreheads in big red letters.
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TCO
6/3/2006 1:26:43 PM
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