By As a tool to help with world building for our joint novel, we are beginning to get some concepts down in print. The goal is not to create part of the final product, but rather to create a mental picture of what the world we envision may be like through the eyes of the denizens who inhabit it.
This is an example. Do let us know your thoughts in the comments below!
Krrank was bored.
“Patrr-ol and watch for dangerrr.” Krrank spoke aloud though there was no one to hear. His voice rumbled low and slow like a boulder being pushed across a rocky surface, grinding and scraping.
If any being had been close enough to hear the gargoyle, for that is what Krrank was, a listener would have heard every word entombed in a casing of disgust. Krrank thought of himself as ‘Krrank’, never me or I. To Krrank, a gargoyle was nothing more than an animated and sentient outgrowth of the bones of the earth.
As was common for his kind, Krrank was sitting motionless and quiet on a crag of limestone that thrust above the surrounding forest. Wings folded close to his body, hard black eyes swept the woodland below the crag.
At the foot of the rock outcrop a brook found its way downhill, cutting a stream bed with infinite patience into the floor of the forest. Most of the trees growing on the banks of the brook were Twilight Trilock. The gnarled ancient growths grew close together, blocking the sun from reaching the forest floor beneath their thick branches. No matter how bright the sun shone, the thick foliage created the twilight beneath their limbs which gave the trees their name. The forest brook carved a space between the squat and knobby trunks, allowing light to penetrate to the rippling water.
Krrank repeated his orders like a condemned prisoner reflecting on their sentence. “Patrr-ol and watch for dangerrr. No dangerrr herrr-e. The masterrrs do not care if Krrank sits here and crr-umbles to dust.” The Gargoyle would have spit if a creature born of rock had moisture to expel, but there was none.
The gargoyle’s self-pity was interrupted by movement below. A young pygmy deer cautiously broke cover, timidly approaching the brook to drink.
Krrank’s hard face lifted in a grotesque parody of a smile. “Now Krrank is dangerrr,” he rumbled softly.
Silently, the gargoyle sprang from the crag and with wings folded behind, dropped like the stone that he was toward the unsuspecting victim. Moments before impact, soft brown eyes lifted skyward in startled response, but it was too late.
“KRRRANK!!!” The stone creature struck like a bolder and the pygmy deer was crushed between the gargoyle and the unyielding earth.
The killer stood and stretched stone wings wide. Krrank pushed at the crushed corpse with a taloned foot. “Krrank splat, Krrank dangerrr-ous”.
Snapping hard wings together and down, the gargoyle leapt skyward. In defiance of gravity and logic, the heavy beast’s lumbering flight lifted it above the tree-tops and back to the limestone crag.
The crushed corpse was left by the side of the stream below the rocky outcrop. Krrank had no need of food. Stone does not need to eat.
“Patrr-ol and watch for dangerrr.” Krrank resumed his watch in silent satisfaction.
