Mastodawn

#wss366 6/23 #TimeTravelAuthors Alternate History aspects [Note 1]
#FanFiction #TearmoonEmpire

**** The Norns ****
*** Chapter 4: The Book of Fate ***

“Mmm...” Mai murmured, savoring the rabbit stew the Norns had offered. “So warm, so rich. The wild sage is a pleasant touch,” she enthused over the stew, not noticing the three women hadn’t gotten a bowl for themselves.

The mushrooms were bitter, but they had soaked up the broth and were palatable. Spoonful after spoonful of stew daintily entered Mai’s mouth. “Mum, so yummy,” Mai said around one of those spoonfuls.

Pieces of rabbit and mushroom swam around the bowl, inviting her to dig in. Her spoon took a longggg dive toward the food. It was such an odd spoon. The handle must have been a foot longggg with a ssmiling face.

“Better to reach the fooood,” Mai thought. “Why are you dddoddggging,” Mai thought as the pieces swam away from her sssspoooon. “At last,” she thought, only to have a piece of rabbitttt jjjjump offff her spppooooon.

She looked up at the women to see if they had noticed. Their faces shifted in the firelight. Wwwaving like llllillies in a field. Swwweeeet lllilliees, blessessed by the sunnn.

“Ddddoes itttt ttttast gooood,” Ver… The mature one said? The voice came from very far away.

“I woveeee the Mushhhhrrrrrooom threaaad innto your weeeave… your weeeave… weeeave… eve.”

Like the #pound of surf in a tide worn cave.

Mai didn’t feel good. Her stomach twisted into a knot. Rabbits danced in big, heaping jumps. Mushrooms danced in her head.

The three mushrooooommmm ladies in gray hoooooddddds, smiled. Their lips twisted like the knots in her stomachhhhh…

“Lady Mai. My lady,” it was Anne’s voice issuing from the forest.

“Anneeeee, Anne,” she cried back. “Come, try the steeewww.”

“My lady, Belle is here to see you.” Anne’s voice held a touch of command and cut through Mai’s visions.

Mai opened her eyes. In her lap was the book of fate. She had been reading it because she couldn’t go out for a ride today. The page was open to show a picture of mushrooms with white freckles on their red caps dancing in a circle.

Mai was glad she had read the book. She had learned one important lesson. Never trust women in gray hoods, even if they make the tastiest rabbit stew.

She closed the book and moved on to plan her day. One of her first tasks would be asking the cook if they had any of those red mushrooms.

[Note 1] For this one, yes. As a result of reading the book, Mai will avoid eating that batch of poisonous mushrooms. The Norns also referred to several other time-altering events, not that I wrote those.–For my silly ones, not so far.

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NaraMoore ⛩️👻八尺様👻⛩️ at Fedi Jun 22

#wss366 6/22 #TimeTravelAuthors
#FanFiction #TearmoonEmpire

**** The Norns ****
*** Chapter 3: The Norns ***

“Urðr, the grumpy, old one,” Mai repeated, then gave up. “Too hard. ‘Uror’ will have to do. Verðandi, the overworked, mature one, I’ll call her Ver. And Skuld, my young guide.”

“I am Mai Tearmoon.” Mai did her best to curtsy in her bulky, wet riding outfit. It steamed in the fire’s warmth. Mai worried it might burst into flames if the fuzzy wool got too hot. She pictured herself bursting like a dandelion head into a puff of fire.

“I am pleased to meet you,” she said, backing away from the fire.

“Worry not,” Ver said.

“Ver, the mature one,” Mai repeated.

“I hold no thread of flame.” Ver #produce(d) a red thread lightly mottled with white, as if to prove her point.

Her words made no sense. “Maybe she’s touched. Weird.”

“Is the stew ready?” Skuld, the youngest, said. “Our guest is hungry, and I see it is the thread you currently hold, sister.”

“Weirdness isn’t exclusive to Ver. The three wyrd sisters, but she’s right. I’m hungry.”

Mai might’ve figured out who her hosts were, if her sugar-starved brain hadn’t gone to sleep hours ago, dreaming of tea cakes and Equestria milk.—Forget that. Mai would never have guessed she was among the three Norns.

“Almost,” Ver said. “The mushrooms are bitter if they don’t cook enough. You must carefully weave fate’s garments.”

“My sister is meticulous. She likes things just one way. While I like wide-open opportunity,” Skuld said.

“I like things that do not change,” Uror said.

Mai whispered to herself, “Uror, the old crabby one.”

“It’s ready,” Ver said, reaching for a bowl.

“At last,” Mai thought while her stomach loudly proclaimed its agreement.

(Part 3 of a #Serial in 4 parts. To be continued.)

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NaraMoore ⛩️👻八尺様👻⛩️ at Fedi Jun 21

#wss366 #TimeTravelAuthors 06/21
#FanFiction #TearmoonEmpire

**** The Norns ****
*** Chapter 2: Rabbit Stew ***

“I wouldn’t.”

Mai jumped at the voice, and her hand halted as she reached for an inviting spray of crimson berries.

“Those are baneberries. It is not your fate to die by those.” The voice was that of a woman. A moth-gray hood shrouded her face, so one had to guess her age. Mai thought she sounded young, a foreigner.

“Yes, I knew that. I was just going to study them,” Mai said, dropping the berries she had picked.

“Come, you may eat with us,” the woman said, leaving.

“It isn’t wise or #safe to go with people you don’t know.” Mai could almost hear Four-eye’s voice. “But she did stop me from eating something that would disagree with me,” she reasoned silently. “She has to be a good person. Besides, I’m hungry,” she muttered the last part so the illusionary Ludwig, AKA Four-eyes, couldn’t hear.

The woman led them through the woods to a clearing under an enormous tree. Two more women, hidden under gray hoods and cloaks, sat before a blazing fire. The warm scent of…

“Rabbit stew!” Mai exclaimed. “My favorite!”

“Who have you brought?” the woman stirring a pot asked. Her voice gave no hint of her age.

“The future of Tearmoon,” Mai’s guide said.

“Perhaps,” the third complained, in a voice that creaked with age. “She, by all rights, should be the past of Tearmoon. If you had not removed the thread of rebellion or the Serpent’s thread in the village.”

“You make much work for us,” the middle woman said, looking at Mai. Under the shadowy hood, Mai saw a mature woman’s face. “Weaving, unweaving, and weaving again. Even now, I foresee we shall have to redo the warp and weave yet again.”

Mai couldn’t tell if the woman was complaining or commenting, but she didn’t worry over it long as she watched the woman add savory herbs and bright red mushrooms with white freckles on their caps to the stew. Her mouth watered. “Rabbit stew with mushrooms!”

“You must pardon my sisters,” her guide said, dishing herself a bowl of stew from the pot’s side without mushrooms. “This is my sister, Urðr.” She gestured toward the older woman. “And this is Verðandi,” she pointed to the middle woman. “I am Skuld.”

(Part 2 of a #Serial in four parts. To be continued.)

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