[h3]Calitan[/h3][b]Tall Trees, Long Shadows I[/b]
[sub]Loriindton Forest - Night's Camp[/sub][hr]
There are tales that are told many times.

Tales of which mushrooms are safe to eat, which frog will stop a heart if you touch its poison skin. Cautionary tales for the the children, the tribe. 

There are those raucous tales that braggarts so enjoy, about such manly things as muscles and where the prize always seemed to be some poor soul’s maidenhood. There were the subtle stories mothers told.

And there were the tales everyone knew, about the rock that jumped, or the first fire, or how six gods became five.

All these would be told at the mette-stiroi. As they had been told many times before.

Calitan had now killed for stories, caught up in one, a side apparently chosen for him by circumstance. The Yanni had been novel, gone now, as had Lyen, when she had spoken at all. He knew what stories would be told, yet Calitan went for that special chance of a new story, one told only once.

Thus he sat there in the hollow bough of a tree, silent as the game was played around him. He would only lisp with his scarred lips, so saved himself the mockery as the drink soured in his stomach.

Then there was the lady, Talit. Yes, there had been tales of her. Calitan nodded his greetings, let the drink wag the other’s tongues because it had taken his legs. Perhaps he mumbled his name.