In lands above, we Dwarves do well
With sweat and labor of our hands
Our need for gold we often quell
With restless travel thorough the lands.
Yet in this we troubled
And for this, some sometimes mock
We’ll travel distances twice doubled
To avoid the merest loch
Say uplandlings, “What’s the matter?
Are you all afraid to bathe?
Or worried your clothes would scatter
From the ill weave of their lathe?”
And laugh, we laugh it off, sure.
What sane thing other to do?
Better, better keep their minds pure
Of the Sea of Durrinù.
The Sea, the Sea the Sea the Sea,
The Sea, color of fear
The water is pure,
But all is shadow as you draw near
A sea of ink, a sea of ink
A sea of ink, you’re sure
As if the spasmic splash and dying sink
Of some Kraken impure.
Yet:
Dip your hand inside the water,
(If your hand you somewise hate
In the poisedly clear water
Born of dark tectonic plate
It’s cold. Bring up a handful
Of water; so clear, so dip
And understand, full
(If no fish your hand doth clip)
The water’s pure, so the dark
The dark you sea
Is the darkness the darkness
Of the deep underground Sea.
For ’twas the Dwarves who found it,
Who found the sea of Durrinù.
(And may the Dark confound it,
For that’s all we can do:)
(A dark as Dark, a Darkling Dark,
An ebon alter slab
Pure shadow is simple and stark,
Blackness as sharp as a stab.
The Sea is endlessly strange,
And what dwells far within
Out of mind’s farthest range,
In the vortex’s howling din
What lives in the waters far below,
What in the waters dies,
Is something Dwarves almost know
And their Shamans fear and despise.
And this is why, when surface-drawn
Dwarves will be near no lake or stream,
When surface light becomes dawn,
No matter how safe the water might seem,
All Dwarven kin these waters shun
And from bottles bathe or drink
Though surface waters won’t hurt them
Their thoughts might slowly sink…
__
“It’s a little-known fact, but Unicorns are something like 20% paint, and their horns are stolen exclusively from endangered species.”
― There and Never, Ever Back Again
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