Taz wanted a bedtime story tonight. He usually says he’s too old to need one, but sometimes they calm him down when he’s too worried about something to go to sleep. I kind of like what I came up with, so I figured I might as well write it down (partly so I can tell Tellaris I’ve been practicing, at least a little):
A long time ago, in a faraway land, there lived a grey man from a tiny village. Every day, he trained to defend his village in case of an attack, and in time, he became so strong that he could punch through stone. When punching through stone stopped being a challenge, he learned to punch stone into specific shapes. In time, he gained such fine control that he could shape stone into marvelous sculptures using only his bare hands. Eventually, he became not only the strongest man in the area, but the finest sculptor in all the land.
As time went on, he focused more and more on sculpting, and less and less on the other parts of his training. The other villagers grew worried about how he was spending his time. One day, they got together and went to the sculptor’s house. “Listen,” said his neighbors, “Some of us grow crops, some of us make tools, some of us study, some of us take care of the sick and injured, some of us make wise rules, and some of us even haul away garbage. We don’t always enjoy our places in society, but we understand how important they are. Your place is to protect us, not to make statues. If we are attacked, we will need a warrior, not a sculptor. If you don’t stop spending so much time on your sculptures, and so little on training to defend us, then we will have to stop offering you our food.”
The sculptor considered this for a while, examining the marvelous sculptures of warriors and monsters and castles that he had created. At last, he shook his head. “I am already the strongest person in this area, and I think my sculptures have value. If you don’t give me your food, I may have to catch fish or kill bears for food, but I will not give up my sculpting.” So the rest of the villagers left, agreeing not to give him any food. So every morning, the sculptor killed an animal with his bare hands and ate it, and every afternoon, he made a new sculpture. And eventually, his sculptures became so lifelike that they seemed to be real people, devoid only of the power of movement.
One year, there was a war. The other gray warriors prepared for battle, but no one came to get the sculptor. As the invading army grew closer and closer to the village, however, the villagers eventually ran to get him. “Listen,” they said, “We know we have not been feeding you, but you are still a grey man, and you still have a duty to defend us. Please go do your duty, like the rest of us.”
The sculptor considered this. Instead of answering, he went to the edge of the village and punched the ground, making huge pieces of rock fly up. In moments, he had erected a stone wall around the village. He turned back to the villagers, who stood behind him in shock. Instead of speaking to them, however, he began to carry the most lifelike of his sculptures up to the tops of the walls, where he dressed them in warrior’s dress and made them hold real weapons. And when the advancing army came upon the village, their commander thought that there was an entire army guarding it. She ordered her soldiers to pass by the village and leave it alone, lest they sustain heavy losses.
When the danger had passed, the sculptor went back to his home and continued making sculptures. As the years went by, he settled into a routine. Every dawn, he would kill an animal with his bare hands, and share it with the rest of the village. Every morning, he would teach hand-to-hand combat and military strategy to his students, who came from all over to learn from the famous defender. Every afternoon, he would sculpt alongside different students, who came from all over to learn from the greatest sculptor in the world. And every evening, he would join the rest of the village for a feast, where the other villagers shared their food with him and his students. And that is how he lived out the rest of his life, and both he and the rest of the village were very happy about how things had turned out.
(I asked Taz what he thought the moral of the story was, and he said we should make a lot of statues so that Tapa would be scared of us. Except the statues should be dragons, because everyone knows dragons are scarier than people. Sigh. At least he went to sleep.)
