The particular circumstances that lead up to that fateful night are of no relevance. No wait. perhaps they are, But they'll be revealed later. wait, how do I tell this tale?

"What do you mean?"

"Should I be full of all lightning and fury? should a smite the world with words that make mothers quake with their just born children still in their arms, words so sinister it feels like the chill frost of an early winter seeping in the early morning, to steal the very breathe and life of hope away from them, the type of hope you can feel like warmth in your arms?

"Or am I a visionary? a rogue, a wild card, that portrays a horrific sort of dance between the trees in the dark. Where every sort of step risks a mistep, and our man is a clumsy dancer, he trips and falls and causes the whole forest to come crashing down? But perhaps it was always meant to fall, because the forest was already broken, and the ground needed space and light to grow what was meant to be?"

"That doesn't sound like a visionary, that sound's more like a man that accidentally stumbled into some sort of play" 

"Well that's true of him enough, this was no thing that was entirely his own doing, or was it? I think for the most part, maybe the entire, it appears not from the outside, at least. Though maybe that's the true question of this man's tale. How much was of his own making? How many imagining's did this man feel in his heart and stir the rumbles of the earth to tremble that the canopies might quake open so the sunlight might bow and remember his name? Or was it all accidental? Did he simply fall upon a blade of grass, that called a rumbling deep in the meadow, so that as the roots felt it deep underground, so did the sun, distorted at such peril, demand to Catch the worlds chaos in a different type of hue? a reddish dawn, that seemed entirely blue." 

"Ah, you're overthinking it. Just state the story, keep to the truth, and keep your prose simple and short. stay to the point, you don't want your audience to loose the tale in to much noise" 

"Well that's the problem isn't it. I'm not much of a story teller, never confessed to being one. whoever comes across this tale in their right mind should most likely put it down. I have no way with words, no ability to turn a string of thoughts into a symphony, that might make the masses turn and forget their woes a while, the trees and flowers stand still and the grass stand on edge, the horses lower the whimpers and the crowd hold their breathe, no words to make the world Stand still, no silent magic power to make tremendous noise out of naught but paper, I have no elegance in my way. I am as course as the crumpled and disused paper that was thrown away, trampled upon and thrown in the gutter, left to drain and stain beneath the rain and stars then picked up and thrown beneath the traffic of oncoming cars, so that tire marks would stir it up and leave it caught up in some kind of tree and there it would remain looking more like a piece of charcoal and smelling as such, than any kind of remark worth leaving a mark on something with such wonder as ink on paper..."

The second slapped the first. 

"Your right. I'm getting carried away again"

"You do have a tendency to do that, remember what I said? just stick to the story and the truth, keep your telling simple and your prose short, and so long as you have something meaningful to say, you'll have nothing to worry about at all, right? so relax" 

"I can't tell a story like that"

"well, why not?"

"Because I get lost. I forget things. I feel like a broken man forever resting in the shade waiting for his respite to give him the strength of youth of yonder days. And this story is no small thing. This is not some simple tale. I will not waste this story with meek words, I will not shy away from glorious noise, because even if I found the songs of the muse herself to tell it I would still find myself lacking, in my ability to sing the song of the story of the man who was broken, who found himself King of all the worlds, without a penny in his pocket, and no crown besides him" 

"Yes that was an interesting tale, I'll give you that" 

"And all I have as my credentials to tell it is that I was there to witness it happen, I'm the only witness that can recount the telling. I'm just a passer by really. my words cannot do the story justice" 

"The story is true yes?" 

"As true as you or I breathe yes, for that is certain no?"

"And is has merit" 

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

"more than any I've heard or will ever hear" 

"Then forget the words, stop over thinking it, you have a duty to tell this story to the world, for stories..."

"Stories hold the world together do they knot. Like roots of trees they keep the canopy whilst weak branches rot, and even if the trees must fall, they lie in the soil, they nourish they men's sweat and toil. stories are the dreams of the whole world, they belong not just to the men who unfurl them. They belong to the sky, the sea, and the forest, the great green meadows and the wild worlds forests. This world does not belong to us, we but men who're lost in dust. And once in a while a dream occurs, not in the silence of our beds, but outloud yet quiet, on paper, for all the world to see. This story does not belong..."

"...To just you or me. exactly as our teacher taught us so. This story does not belong to you you know. So just tell it, don't worry about the words, let them run. Least your story is not told and all our King's work is undone"

"King is still not the right word, I've just yet to find a better one" 

"it will do for now. so just tell your tale, and let the words out, however they come they come, just make sure your story is clear, the truth of its telling will surely resonate. even the worst story teller would fail to come short, with a story such as that" 

"I don't fear my own shortcoming, just not being able to live up to the tale, my words will forever fall short" 

The second shrugged " Just do your best. Ask the muse for her blessing, just let the words run. Whatever you witnessed, whatever you felt in that deepest part of your soul, is not for your keeping alone. let the words run" 

The first sighted. "Alright. Your right. And when I tell this tale, am I myself?" 

"Oh god no! lord no! sorry I mean. Perhaps a little imagination no?" The second ruminated for a moment. "You need to be older, wiser, more experienced, nose abit less crooked. A wise old man perhaps, telling a story from an age passed that none else sitting around the fire, the audience, were alive to witness..."

"Sitting in the dark, with the firelight twitching and revealing his face beneath a dark damp hood of a cloak of indescribable colour, smoking a pipe with a mysterious air, and you can't actually make out my eyes because of the hood and the dark and the firelight only gives away enough to know I'm ancient and most likely from a far away place?" 

"Yes! Perfect! nothing like you are now."

"Of course not, that would be revolting, perverse" 

"Agreed" 

"Do I carry a sword?"

"Well you'd keep It hidden wouldn't you because your..."

"Mysterious yes, and dangerous. full of knowledge, with eyes a dark blue like a deep well. But at times when you look at him you see a strange innocence in those deep dark blue eyes and they turn suddenly light, like shallow gorgeous water somewhere beautiful and I look suddenly young. As If the soul is young compared to the life I've seen, and the deep waters of those thing's I've seen are far more profound that anything you might see by looking into the depth of my soul, they've effected me the way thunder effects a child, and you can see the occasional echo of thunder in my eyes" 

"You've got it" 

"Right okay we should probably begin we've kept them waiting long enough no?"

"Agreed, and you should have a rough voice. one that speaks like its earned its wisdom over the years, one that's gravely" 

"Like a piece of cloth drenched in wine and left out in a rain storm for days then taken in the dry so that its colours changed and its forever coursoned, yet still holds a slight purplish hue to it?" 

"....something like that" 

"Right, I'll get that. So the audience are around the fire. I'm sitting beneath my cloak smoking my pipe. I speak with a voice that gravels with the groans of ancient dreams long forgotten by all but the oldest trees, that moan back to me as if recognising the echo of a familiar friend singing back to them" 

"And don't forget to ask the muse for the appropriate gravitas" 

"Right. So, with all of that in mind let's begin. If you would be polite enough to imagine the appropriate gravitas just so, as we begin"

"Of course"

The man beneath his cloak took a great deep drag of his pipe, and released the smoke into the air. As he sat their in the darkness, half lit by the roaring fire that seemed to shun abit in his presence, as if afraid of his might. As if this wandering storyteller from some bygone age carried more might within him that the depths of the fire itself around which his audience and he himself sat. As the fire coward away from him, so that most of his face was hidden in shadow, he looked like something straight from a bygone age, the last of the ancients still standing. left to walk the world, bereft, and alone, to tell the tale of the great happening that had come before and set the world aright, and so. it was his burden to tell as many souls as he could, until the story had finally found that it had stuck, deep within the soul and heart of man, and only when it was irremovable with a life of its own, would he finally be allowed to leave this world of men and join his kin, who had left the world far faster, a long time ago now. Such was the way of brave young man. But he wasn't such a thing, and so he had survived, to tell you what I share now. He took another puff of his pipe, allowing the smoke to join the air with the smoke of the fire in front of him, if you paid close enough attention you could see with quiet awe which type of smoke bowed to the other, and in a voice with the gravitas of an earthquake, of something deep and ancient that rumbles underground, something crooked and broken that has been estranged from its kin, and long's to be found, a man that spoke with earth on his tongue. 

"Sing in me muse. Tell me the story of how our world was set aright long ago, amidst the fury and the chaos. Tell me the story of the man who saved our kin. And let my words not fail the telling of the tale. Though my words will always fail to its justice, I hope my tongue can sing in such a fashion as to give it a little light. I ask you to move through me, let me tell naught but truth, and let the ancient knowledge of the old world speak through me, though I remember none of it, let me be your aide. And so it began first, with a great bang, like a falling tree, followed by a whimper, and a blinding light, like a scorch of lightning, and then..."