Nightfall came far too soon for the Captain’s liking. Moving with a less than lucid and more than damaged cohort over bold hills and sunken dales was like bobbing along swollen tides on a great sea of mostly green grass. They were moving, but it just never seemed like progress. So when they made camp down in one particular dale, away from most of the cool breeze, Captain Vaguely could not help but feel adrift.
“These stars are no use,” the Captain said, casting his eyes to the spattering of twinkling light above them as he puffed at their campfire with a small wooden bellows. “They change every five minutes and they don’t make pictograms as much as actual words. Let’s see if I recall my Gaelic runes correctly. Ahem. There once was a man from County Limerick, who spent all day playing with- Hey now! That’s awful crude for a constellation!”
Ghost-Tongue had long since returned to a sober state, and was chewing a bit of root to dull the pain in his leg. So it was with a clear mind and unaltered vision that he too turned his sights to the animated heavens of Arcadia. There he took a good long look. It was quiet for a moment, besides the crackle of the fire between them, before he said, “The night sky was once a story, Cap’n. It was told to us one chapter at a time each and every night. The story took many years to tell and not one generation ever read it all. This was true of all men no matter where they built their camp fire. What’s more, it was a different story for each man. Up there, for all to see, heroes battled terrible beasts. Maidens fell in love and were carried off to their never-ending fate. The judgment of great spirits rested upon cosmic scales. It was enough to terrify and inspire people who saw intent behind lightning and morality in earthquakes. It was wonderment. It was muse. It was religion. But now we look up and we see big balls of fire; flickering torches too far away to touch us any longer. We see no characters. Now they are only planets. We see not omens but comets. We see no heavenly dance and we hear no celestial music.”
A rumble both like and unlike thunder rolled in the distance.
“The rhythm has been quantified,” the starry-eyed Indian sighed. “The scale has been metered and scribbled down on a page. Anyone can read it or perform it whenever they choose. And that is our home. Measured. Calculated. Understood. But here it is different. So I am glad of this crazy sky, Cap’n. At least here it is still telling stories.”
“You win, Jobi,” smiled the mustachioed adventurer as he gave up the bellows, leaned back on the cool grass, and folded his arms beneath his head as he had in more hobbledehoy days. “It’s a damned fine sky.”
Ghost-Tongue looked back to the hilltops and specifically back the way they came and ask, “Do you hear thunder?”
“Probably an all-bear marching band,” said the Captain.