Life With A Werewolf

How Kheid Lost his Beard Part 1: Love in All Its Forms

          This appeared in my inbox some several months ago. It was right about after the Nobility thing and I was trying to wrap my head around all the shenanigans and goings on with that whole mess to get it down. Must have read through this ten times going back and forth on posting this. I finally decided to post it because it does give you a glimpse into the mind of Kheid and his world, the exact way it works.

          It also tells us something that I’ve kind of wondered about since I’ve known him. Just about every other lawn gnome has a beard but this one. Why? What causes him to be so…him?

          The letter will be posted in its entirety, though it will take a few updates to get the it all down for you. I do hope you enjoy it, and enjoy Thanksgiving next week.

- Jason Forte

***

Dear humans,

          I feel the need to write to you about this subject. You’ve had interactions with us in the past, so you know a small bit about our world and our wars. What you don’t know is why the one who calls himself Kheid is attacking you. Nor do you understand why he’s beardless and must remain so for the rest of his existence. I hope this will explain it.

          To start with, you must understand a gnome’s beard is more than his pride. It’s his honor, his family. Its much like your last names are for you. If you can read a gnome’s beard, you know where he comes from, what he’s done in life, how he’s done it. Whether that gnome is a warrior, a nobleman, a farmer. What clan his kin come from. To whom he’s married. A beard can tell you all of this and more; and requires many years to learn how to read them.

          The one you know as Kheid was once young gnome called Falkurk. He had a glorious beard. Many will say his beard was the most glorious of any gnome who ever existed, but they are wrong about that. It still was glorious however, with two rings at the bottom indicating his status as a warrior, a braded mustache indicating his family’s noble lineage with three braids on each side to indicate his exact family. He still had dark streaks of black through it showing his youth, and though he was young, he already had leadership skills.

          When our village came under attack from a dragon, it was Falkurk who helped organize the resistance and ensure no one was lost to a dragon’s lunch. When the rain came in too heavy from the gutters, it was Falkurk who organized where the vegetables should be moved to, so they could be harvested without the humans knowing we’re moving.

          Falkurk was a good gnome. He wasn’t the greatest, grandest gnome you’d have ever had the pleasure of seeing in ceramic. But he was a good one. One the elders in our small neighborhood villages said he had the potential to become an elder himself on day. To be one of the few younger gnomes to reach the rank of elder. That’s what made his fall such a tragedy. The assumption is the best of all are the ones who fall the farthest. But no, I tell you meaty ones, it isn’t so. It’s the good ones, not the greatest who fall the farthest. Cause falling is easy and everyone does once in a while. But the good ones find it the hardest to stop.

          Like the greatest of tragedies, it all started with a girl. I’ve seen human love in it’s wonderful, strange, and sometimes angry and violent manners. I’ve known promiscuous humans who leave each other at a second glance, and nice humans who just wanted to stay together forever. With gnomes, it’s a bit different.

          Gnome love is nurtured and cultivated over decades. And when two of us lawn gnomes decide to get married, we don’t just sign a paper from the court house. A gnome marriage requires a single strand of beard from yours and a strand from her hair. They are woven in intricate ways into each, in a long ceremony that is witnessed and celebrated by the whole village. They can be gussied up with rings or ribbons, or sometimes even being dipped in golden ceramic. It is a long but beautiful ceremony filled with loving promises, and more than one joke thrown out from the crowd gathered to witness. They last from sunrise to sunset symbolizing their love and desire to stay together for all time. It was at one of these ceremonies that Falkurk’s life began to take a turn.

          Faenie was pretty. Everyone could see that. The lass that melted his heart had a wink that could make even you humans stop and take a look. But when she was formed there was a hole in her spirit. A place where the ceramic didn’t form just right. A crack that she desired to have filled. A hunger that was deeper than greed, and twice as vicious.

          The ceremony of Dunkin and Llydsa was carefully planned. You humans would walk by and see nothing but a few lawn gnomes sitting out in your front garden planting crops. But when you weren’t looking, as the daylight burned to twilight, Dunkin and Llydsa would be seated on two great pumpkins entwining and promising their everlasting love to one another.

          She stood behind Llydsa, in view of Falkurk. He saw her sly grin and the twinkle in her eye. But what drew her to him was the wink. That beloved wink that would make the whole world stop. When Falkurk saw it, he didn’t care about careful planning and placement. He didn’t care about being seen. He walked right over to Faenie and stood beside her.

          “Hello,” he whispered, as Dunkin and Llydsa continued their twinings. Llydsa’s red hair was over her shoulder, Dunkin’s beard was in her hands and Llydsa’s hair was in his. Their promises and musings drifted into gentle whispers that the crowd began to cheer on in our own gnomish way.

          “Hello back,” She whispered.

          “I’m Falkurk.”

          Faenie gave him another wink and said, “I know.”

          They stood and watched a while, together. Slowly, she reached over, and began to twiddle his beard with her fingers, running them along the dark streaks. Falkurk blushed, but continued to stare on, his heart racing faster than his mind. “W-who are you?”

          “I’m Faenie. Daughter of Elder Junith.”

          “Go on, kiss her you fool!” One gnome shouted from the back.

          Dunkin looked up from his lovely beauty and smiled upon them. “Go ahead,” he said, “I don’t mind.”

          Ms. Smythe was the elderly human that lived in the house of Dunkin and Llydsa’s lawn. It was upon that lawn that the ceremony was held. Ms. Smythe came home, pulling up to the house, just as Falkurk bent over to give Faenie a kiss. The gnomes all froze of course, waiting in a single spot for her to pass. Dunkin and Llydsa was bent, tending crops. The crowd around them, was paused in various poses. At least that’s what it appeared to Ms. Smythe, who shook her head in bewilderment as she walked past with a bag of groceries under one arm. “I don’t remember setting them that way,” she muttered.

          When she was gone, Dunkin and Llydsa went back to whispering gentle love promises to each other as they continued weaving. The whispers, kisses and promises went on as the sun set, until finally, beneath the full moon light, they both stood; him holding her hair, she holding his beard. When they stood up and held each other’s hair, facing the crowd Elder Junith stepped forward. “An old love has been woven together. And so, it has been blessed, perhaps,” she looked back at her daughter with a wink, “with new love to sprout. Let each and every gnome have no doubt about the long life they shall have together.”

          As the gnomes cheered, Faenie grabbed Falkurk’s arm and whispered in his ear, “let’s get out of here.” And they slipped out between the bushes, around the white house to the fence in the back. Faenie and Falkurk watched the home as the windows winked out one by one, as if the house itself was going to sleep.

          “I wonder what it’s like in there,” Faenie whispered.

          Falkurk shrugged. “Not a lot of ceramic. Think it’s all flesh inside?”

          Faenie chuckled. “What like them?”

          Falkurk blushed and looked down. “Maybe not exactly like them.”

          “I want one,” she said in a hushed tone. “A home for my very own.”

          “Well,” Falkurk said with a thoughtful tone. “I know how to reach Ms. Smythe. We can ask and get her to get something, will take some time to convince her.” Gnomes have their own way of communicating with you meaty ones. It’s a special method handed down from generation to generation. After all, we cannot just talk to you like we talk to each other and writing letters usually does us no good. Falkurk was good at communicating to you in his own way, though for any gnome it took effort.

          “No,” Faenie said. “I want that,” she waved her arms at the large two-story home in front of her. “I want the whole thing. We should live in there. We do more for them than they for us. We just sit here and wait and stare while they move about in their weird vehicles and carry about in their strange manners, growing feeble and dying off. We deserve to have more.”

          Falkurk listened to her, his eyes trained on Faenie more than the house. They sat up most of the night, talking and scheming. When he went back to his spot in the front lawn, his heart was large with thoughts of Faenie with no idea of the drama and danger that awaited him when he got to his lawn.