The Narravore
Two huntswomen rode a well-worn, well-known trail through the woods, enjoying the day’s last sunshine and an old, familiar argument.
“Forests have natures, like people do,” said Kyndri.
“They have climates and variant species,” said Alysin. “But it’s you projecting a personality onto them.”
They rode nearly knee to knee, their bows tucked away and their catch dancing a macabre jig in time with the steps of their horses.
“It’s more than that! You can have two forests of the same age, the same climate and the same proximity to man, with all the same plants and animals, and yet-”
“What was that?” asked Alysin. They did not stop, but both looked warily around.
“I did not —“ began Kyndri and then stopped because she had heard something. A low grumbling unhappy something. In one motion, the huntswomen drew up their horses. They heard the sound a third time.
“Out of it’s misery?” asked Kyndri.
“Maybe,” said Alysin. She dismounted and strung her bow. They looped the horses’ leads over a tree branch and then inched forward. Kyndri crept slightly ahead and Alysin hung back with an arrow nocked.
A few yards into the undergrowth, Kyndri pulled aside a branch and stopped: frozen like prey.
In the clearing before them lay a beast neither had seen before. Its coat was brindled red and midnight purple over a narrow ribcage. Its tail was stubby and tufty. A long and rectangular head — like a wolfhound’s, but bigger — reminded Alysin somehow of an illustration she’d seen of a crocodile. Its paws were the size of dinner plates and overlarge for its body.
The monster breathed in bellows, making little whimpering noises. As they watched, it curled away from them.
“What is that?” asked Alysin in a whisper.
“I … I think it’s a narravore,” said Kyndri.
“A what?”
“They eat stories.”
“It’s quite big to survive on stories.”
“And dragons really oughtn’t be able to fly, but here we are.”
They watched it groan for another moment before Kyndri began to stand up and Alysin stopped her nearly before she’d started.
“What are you doing?”
“It’s hurt.”
“We aren’t taking that thing home.”
“I know,” said Kyndri. “They’re not… well. They are dangerous. But this one’s clearly a juvenile. And we neither of us are old ladies. Their favorite lunches are the old — who are full of stories — and children — who make them up. We’d be a dull meal for a Narravore. Far too sensible, us.” She smiled at Alysin’s dismay and said: “Besides they rarely eat people. They prefer to keep people alive and just eat their stories.”
“And when did you become an expert?”
“That old fellow last summer who was mending pots, the tinsmith-”
“Of course,” said Alysin, rolling her eyes.
They stood together.
“Hello?” asked Kyndri.
The narravore twisted its head and settled one round green eye on them. Kyndri caught her breath.
“Go away,” it said.
Alysin shrugged, but Kyndri replied: “May I ask what’s wrong? Perhaps we can be of assistance.”
“I doubt it,” said the narravore.
Kyndri took a step nearer, looking for a wound or blood. “You aren’t hurt?”
“Stomach cramps,” it groaned, gritting sharp and numerous teeth.
“What did you eat?” asked Kyndri - hoping it wasn’t a person.
“Ugh…” said the narravore, closing its eyes in nausea and speaking pitiably. “It was a love triangle! It just went on and on and the storyteller couldn’t make up their mind. It ended up all bloated and tasteless and unresolved.”
“I see,” said Kyndri. She thought for a moment. “Once,” she said, in a casual voice, “The Moon fell in love with a Waterlily.” The narravore glared at Kyndri, but when she paused it flicked an ear in an interested way. So she continued and the narravore’s feigned apathy dropped away.
“Everyone knows that the Moon is the most beautiful goddess. We call her a fickle lover and - for an immortal - she is. But while a Lake or an Ocean might wish for constancy beyond a hundred years, what use have you or I for such? Having recently abandoned the North Sea - grown bored of a cold embrace - the Moon caught sight of the Lily by accident - starlit and young in a way that goddesses have forgotten. ‘You are almost as beautiful I,’ said the Moon. What better compliment could she give? The Lily was helpless in the hands of the Moon, and the goddess delighted in the Lily’s naivety and wonder. But a Waterlily is short lived, and after three nights, the Moon came to find her Lily love gone and only a jealous Pond for comfort. Such was the heartbreak of the Moon, that now Waterlilies close up at night, hiding from her while she walks the night sky: eternal and beautiful and seeking love.”
A pleasing silence filled the woods when Kyndri finished speaking.
“That’s a story to make you feel better?” asked Alysin.
“Sad and happy don’t matter to a narravore,” said Kyndri. “It just needed something simple. Look.”
The great jaws worked, chewing, and a tongue the color of honey slipped between black and pink lips. The narravore rolled its head to the side, body following until it sat like a cat in an invisible box that was a little too small for it. It turned plaintive eyes to Kyndri.
“Will you tell me another? My stomach is still grumbly.”
Kyndri smiled.
“I suppose I can.”
She thought for a moment.
“Tell the one about Princess Micaela,” said Alysin and so Kyndri did:
“Princess Micaela lived in a wealthy kingdom, and was born late to her mother and father — their only child. She grew up sturdy and uncommonly clever and with a dozen suitors a day arriving to try to claim her hand. Her parents were most concerned that she wed the proper person, and on her eighteenth birthday they devised three tests for the suitors. First was a written test and second was a test of arms. Third was professing their love for Micaela to a dragon. You cannot lie to a dragon — unless you are flattering them.”
The narravore snorted: “Even then, they know when you lie, they just enjoy it anyway.”
“Just so,” said Kyndri. “Now, as no suitors were able to satisfactorily proclaim their love before the dragon, Micaela was left to study and turn her hand to the public good of her kingdom. She became very popular. This continued for a hundred days and a thousand suitors before Micaela met the dragon. It wore a small shape, the size of a wild dog, with golden scales and wings, and eyes like fresh drawn blood. Dragons rarely fall in love with humans. But when they do, it is instantaneous and it is forever. Micaela felt the dragon fall in love with her, like the sudden and absolute attention of a crowd. When it appeared to her in the guise of a lovely young man, she recognized the dragon immediately. It pleased the dragon that she was not fooled. ‘I promise you,’ the dragon said, ‘that you shall never find a suitor to love both you and your wealth as ardently as I will.’ ‘I am not sure,’ she responded. The dragon said: ‘I have time,’ and waited. Dragons are good at waiting.
“They were married after three years of failed suitors. The dragon stayed with her until - old and well loved - Queen Micaela died. Their children rule the kingdom still. And in the royal bedchamber, next to the canopied bed, lies a nest of treasure that no one will touch and no one will steal, least the dragon who loved Micaela returns to claim it.”
Alysin was smiling by the end and the narravore smacked drool coated lips in satisfaction.
“I liked that one,” said the narravore, sauntering a step nearer the huntswomen. It looked healthier and more dangerous by the minute.
Alysin’s smile vanished and she tapped her arrow against her bow.
The narravore noticed and sat coyly down. “You have a pretty voice,” it purred. “Tell me one more? Please?”
“I will,” said Kyndri. “But only if you promise to let Alysin and I go home in peace. It would be rude of you to trick or threaten us after I helped you.”
“I suppose it would be,” sighed the narravore. “I shall not distress you. If I get one more story.”
“Agreed,” said Kyndri, settling down on her heels. The narravore stretched, fur shivering, and crossed its oversized paws primly. It looked at Kyndri with the expectant air all storytellers crave in an audience. Kyndri took a breath and almost started an epic poem - abruptly and inexplicably certain she could remember every word of a days long saga. She looked at the darkening sky and the monster before her, and caught herself in time. Barely.
She cleared her throat. No short stories came. No fables or parables or pithy remembrances. Her mind was full of long lays and histories. The narravore’s eyes brimmed with attentive, earnest longing.
“Kyn?”
Kyndri swung her head slowly away from the hopeful evergreen eyes of the narravore. Alysin was worried, looking past Kyndri to the beast. Kyndri smiled and spoke:
“Once there was a girl, who liked to dance too wildly at the village circle. She exaggerated all her movements: stomped too hard, and often too fast. Her steps were always the biggest. Her spins: the fiercest. She would not dance at all except that she was leading. She was in love with another girl. A pretty girl who followed all the rules, and knew more dances than anyone in the village - because her father came from a proper town. The wild girl was afraid to tell her that she was in love and afraid to ask her to dance. One day, one dance - they weren’t dancing together, only close by - the wild girl stepped on her love’s toes and broke two of them. Mortified, she went to apologize the next day and her love said, ‘You are a terrible dancer. You need to practice. As soon as my toes are mended, I’m going to teach you and that’s that.’ There are no better dancers, from that day to this, in a hundred miles of that village.”
Alysin blushed as Kyndri finished. The narravore worked its jaws, something crunching in its enormous mouth. Kyndri stood up and brushed forest debris from her leggings. Alysin looked from the narravore to the horses to the creeping dark in the sky and back again.
“That one was different,” said the narravore.
“That one was true,” said Kyndri.
“Ah.” It smacked its lips, vaguely disappointed.
Then the narravore huffed and got to its paws, lanky and youthful. It set the brindled fur along its back into a proud ridge with a quick shake.
“I feel much better,” it said with sudden dignity. “Thank you. I think perhaps we shall meet again and be glad of it. I wish you both a happy ending.”
Kyndri gave a little bow. “May you find many stories to fill your belly.”
Alysin said nothing, but raised a hand in farewell and the narravore nodded to her before springing away into the forest, vanishing with a crash of snapping twigs and rattled undergrowth.
They watched its progress through the forest and listened to it when they could no longer see the shaking leaves.
“It’s getting dark.” said Alysin, and then, “Are you well?”
Kyndri shook her head and chuckled. “It’s — It’s funny. I should know better than to think that recognizing a danger and avoiding it are the same thing.”
Alysin put an arm around Kyndri’s waist and pulled her towards the waiting horses. “Did you want to follow the Narravore? Tell it stories until you were old and grey and a good age for it to eat?”
“Something like that,” said Kyndri, as they walked away. “They’ve an odd sort of magic. I think it will be able to find us again, because I told it something true.”
Alysin kissed her forehead before they mounted up and turned for home.
“It’ll make a good story, anyway.”