Chapter Text
Ms Rorforl said she found Zooks in a war-torn human settlement: the rift had opened that day as a worn down, unremarkable shrine in the slums. A gnomish woman -her face shrouded in shadow- delivered him to the door, knocked once, and left silently. She didn’t look back. The guardian of the entrance had taken the form of a stone snake, draped over the doorway, and waited for her to leave before it gently picked Zooks up and took him through.
He grew up on an island. The orphanage -a sturdy building with thick walls and ornate, reticulated windows- stood at the foot of a grassy hill along its north side: to the south, the ground receded until it met the water in the form of a crescent beach. It was a few miles across, either side, and cattle grazed without impediment in the low meadows, which patterned the landscape between patches of woodland. A river ran through the island that emerged near the orphanage, pouring from some subterranean stream with no clear origin.
His formative memories were of staring into the mists that surrounded the island, reducing anything more than fifty feet from the shore to indistinct shapes that fluttered and slithered in the unclear boundaries of water and sky. Strange things crawled upon the slimy sea, and in the worst days of winter the mists pressed closer to the shores, while the children were herded swiftly inside until it passed. They resigned themselves to watching through the windows as the mists swept over the orphanage, or exploring the vast expanse of sub-levels to the house that sprawled under the island in a cobweb of tunnels, each turn bathed in an ethereal and distinct coloured glow. Ms Rorforl always stayed on the surface, staring into the mist intently.
In the autumn, the wind rushed along the island in golden waves of leaves, and the landscape had a sense of presence which dispersed the nearby mists, so that the sea was a clear, still pool of inky black water. It was customary to start the season with lanterns and decorations, harvesting pumpkins to hollow out and scatter along the river. The children carved wooden boats out of tree roots, letting them loose by its origin at the foot of the hill, and could see them drift all the way to the beach. The night sky overfilled with stars, cold and bright against the void, and the river itself was bathed in silver light.
Zooks didn’t know why some of the traditions were held; Ms Rorforl performed them with such an air of importance that he followed them without question. Later, he would piece together symbolism from the stories he heard about Veles: of the god’s yearly attempts to scale a world tree, or the terrible battles he fought with Perun in the strange aeons, as sky and sea and earth rebelled against the thunder god. The ceremony of the boats marked a significant point in the season: by day, flocks of birds began to arrive from unknown lands and stayed until the next coming of winter. By night, ghosts he rarely saw rose from crossroads and gnarled trees throughout the island, or from the paving stones which marked the track next to the river. Ms Rorforl kept much of her work as a necromancer to the inner caves of the hill, or in her dealings with the other world, but for a time there were skeletal cows among the herds, and spirits older than the guardian of the rift roamed the island.
The seasons were inconsistent: many years were spent in perpetual spring, and winter waxed and waned in length as autumn did. Summer was a rarity, and often spring and autumn intermingled, so that snowbells flowered as fallen leaves dried and yellowed beside them.
Once, when he was on the verge of young adulthood, Ms Rorforl let Zooks accompany her to the other world. He’d been asking after it for months, having reached a phase of curiosity about his origins, and eventually Ms Rorforl saw fit to show him what the world he’d left was like. She took time to prepare him first: the children were tutored in many things by Ethel, an elderly figure of indeterminate species, but she bridged the gaps in his knowledge of more recent history. They were to visit a southern kingdom, freshly recovering from conflicts between gnomes and kobolds in its forests, and so he was warned that hostilities would still be fresh in the minds of those he met. He accepted this too hastily, imagining more vivid horrors in each night that approached the day of departure, and when the time came he ascended the hill with Ms Rorforl, uncharacteristically solemn.
The rift had taken the form of an orchard, this time, and the guardian waited silently atop the fence border as they approached. The island seemed small, laid out beneath them, and water marked the edge in all directions. Zooks turned slowly in an attempt to affix it to his memory, but as he focused on the more distant surroundings the nearby land shifted subtly, and Ms Rorforl softly suggested that he enter. When they stepped through the fence-gate, the trees became denser, withered and burnt. He found himself in the remains of a kobold camp.
Those who were left were unconscious, dazed or pinned under the wreckage, and the initial reactions to seeing Zooks were of fear or anger, though their eyes were dull and tired. He’d looked to Ms Rorforl for guidance, and by unspoken agreement they began work against the shadow of death that hung over the camp. The better cases he was able to stabilise with a healing kit, but some resisted feebly and suspicion lingered after he had done. As he saw the looks on their faces, Zooks understood why Ms Rorforl had been reluctant to bring him. He resolved there that he wouldn’t let such atrocities happen if he could prevent them; that he would help victims like this regardless of their race.
The last person they arrived at was a mother, holding her child languidly and with diminishing awareness of its cries. Her breathing was ragged: she seemed near death- but Ms Rorforl reversed it with no more than a wave of a hand and mystic words, stabilising and restoring the kobold. The villagers were unnerved by the display, but as the kobold regained awareness and soothed her child, one summoned the courage to approach them and offer his begrudging thanks, nodding to Zooks only briefly. With that, they returned to the island. As she explained later, the journey hadn’t been to rescue an orphan, but to prevent them from becoming so, and this influenced most of Zook’s later interactions with the world.