"Whispered words, pickled and preserved!"

One more bit of flavor text from my old Changeling game, and then I'll revert to something more topical, I promise.

The path you take is a narrow, cavernous affair, crowded with trees and brush that seem to grip at your clothing and hair. When the wind blows, you’d swear you can hear muttering and whispering in the blackness. Off in the distance, a twig snaps loudly. As you shuffle uncertainly down the path, the eerie sounds seem to increase in volume and frequency. Strange music, equally earthy and ethereal, drifts between the dark treetrunks, and soon you can see silver-blue light. As you get closer, the light makes your path clearer, until you find yourself stepping into the surreal madness of the Nightmarket.

This is no gathering of changelings, and the colloquial term “goblin market” is no exaggeration. Most of the creatures here were never human, and the wares they hawk and vend defy mortal understanding. The forest canopy crowds down on you, and is lit by the same diffuse blue glow that illumines the Nightmarket. Vines and wispy scraggles of moss hang down among the booths, carts, and heads of the creatures here. The whole place is less a forest clearing and more a cavernous grotto of branch, root, and trunk.

The variety of goods is staggering. Jars and bottles of eyes that twitch to watch passersby. Strange gourds and fruits from the Hedge. Ancient books of faerie lore. The foreskins of heretical men. Feathers and skins from exotic beasts. Hedgespun garments. Contracts. Dried herbs. Fresh herbs. Broken toys. Stolen songs. Lost dogs. Forgotten dreams. Potions, distilled from the saliva of apes and the menstrual blood of horses. The hands of hanged men. Jars of fat, rendered from the bellies of the unrepentant. Bird bones and boneless birds. Preserved fish, dead in their jars. Graveyard earth.

“Toes… toes for sale… two times two, three times three, toes for sale….”
“Gemstones, fine jewelry! Opals, tourmaline, diamonds, petrified heart! Strung with pearls, set in rings!”
“Contracts… oaths of power and mystery…”
“Lies… lies for sale… two times two, four times four…”
“Suicide letters, freely exchanged for reagents of twisted earth…”
“Hopes and Fears, we buy and sell.”

Goblin-creatures of varied and outrageous appearance populate the market. Here a tiny crone pushes a cart of doll’s eyes. There a vine-entwined nymph, bare-breasted and with leaves in her hair, laughs at the flirtation of a grotesque dwarf. He pulls open the front of his pants, giving her a glimpse inside, and the two laugh uproariously. At the base of a dying oak, a team of huge-eyed gnomes, made of earth and dressed in leaves, unloads a cart of tools. Across from them, an ancient man of polished wood squats naked on a mossy carpet. Everywhere you look it is busy, as goods change hands at a madman’s pace.

“Whispered words, pickled and preserved!”
“Charms, tokens, and treasures, all stolen…”
“Burned candles, broken promises!”
“Shrouds, all for a pittance… corpse-clothes, burial shrouds…”
“Greed, Bitterness, Loss, and Sorrow, Pain and Suffering by the ounce.”
“Oracles! Divination! I see all!”

Changeling-inspired fictionette

Just a little piece I felt like writing when I first started reading Changeling: The Lost.  I feel like this gives a sense of some of what this game can be.

I only have room enough in here to open one eye. There's not much to see, because there's really no light anyway. It's dusty and cramped, full of hard splintery wood and crumbly plaster. You wouldn't like it, but it's about the only place I can sleep anymore. I found a mouse skeleton over there yesterday.

My name is Hester and I sleep inside walls. I like the older walls in the B-Wing best, the stuff that was put up forty years ago. They still have the old cellulose insulation in some places, and they're sturdier than the synthetic ones in the Goldsmith Wing. I started sleeping inside the walls here about a month ago; before that I curled up wherever I didn't think any of the staff would find me. Sometimes in supply closets, sometimes in the archive, and sometimes right there in the stacks. The staff never saw me.

Still, I crawled inside the wall after the fifth morning that I woke up crying again. I couldn't stop. I don't know why I was crying, I can't remember any dreams. But I felt so awful and sad, so I just went over to a crack by the baseboard and just sort of wiggled my way in.

It's not so bad. I feel safe in here, and I haven't woken up crying in a while. I've started bringing in some of the old books too. I have a pile of some of my favorites (The Well-Tempered Clavichord, books two, three, five, and seven of The Waverly Novels, and a 1914 Sears-Roebuck catalog) keeping my mouse company now. I can't really read my books in here because it's dark, but it's easier to keep them safe.

I think Bastion would be disappointed if he saw me like this, but he wouldn't really get it either. Ever since he returned from Foolspoint, it's like he's a different person. Not that I think he was Taken and replaced (again), but... I don't know, when he listens to me, he doesn't really hear me anymore. I haven't seen that much of him in the past couple of weeks. Terrible Claire told me that Bastion has been very busy with his duties to the Scarecrow Ministry. I guess they're in negotiation with some goblin out in the Hedge who claims he's got a bottle of Bastion's memories for sale.

A better friend would be happy, I guess, but if those really are Bastion's memories and he really manages to get them back, all it's going to do is put more distance between me and him. I miss him.

I think I'm going to go out tonight. Terrible Claire said that there's going to be some kind of gathering down at the Bend tonight, for the equinox. I don't really like the Bend most of the time, but Bastion will probably be there and I should talk to him before he forgets me entirely. There's going to be a really lovely moon out tonight, and Terrible Claire thinks that Sister might show up to tell us a story. If she does, I'm going to write it down, because it'd be a shame to lose Sister's stories. I wonder if she'd meet me to start recording them?

Nobody's seen Tim for a while. Mr. Abraham says he heard Tim found his family. I hope that's true.

I should go get cleaned up if I'm going out tonight.