“Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, Uncle Frost! It’s going to be hours, and hours and hours ‘till we get to Ventil!” Havay twisted her face into the what she imagined was an adorable visage. It was hideous. But the young girl was determined to make the best of this opportunity — a whole day with him and his fantastic stories? She’d almost dropped her breakfast into the sand when Oma had suggested it. “Tell me the one about the hero and the snake singer! Pleeeeeease??” Her uncle looked up from where he was discussing something adult and boring with the pale lady he’s brought with them and frowned “I shouldn’t you be sleeping, Hav? I know the sun’s not down yet, but that’s only because we’re flying so high.” But then his lips then quirked in a grin and with a step and a bound (completely inadvisable on a flying carpet) he was under the hide and blankets with Havay. “Shale, keep an eye out for birds; let me know the instant you spot one” he called to his mysterious companion and then pulled the covers over their heads, sealing the fridged air outside. “Now, little sand bite; what story was it you wanted again?” “The hero and the snake lady!” Havay said immediately, excitement in her voice. “But not the way Opa tells it, with the boring hero being boring and the snake lady dying. Tell me your version, Uncle. I want to hear it your way with the lady, and the singing, and the hero getting bit, and, and, and..!” “Hahahaha, okay, okay. I’ll tell that one, Hav.” Her uncle said with a huge smile. “Shush now. Let me begin.”

Uncle Frost lifted his hands to his mouth and blowing between them began to make a low vibration, a humming that rose and fell like the shimmering of sand sliding over itself in the wind. Havay could feel a rhythm that matched her heart begin to build up amidst the humming; this was followed by a second beating like that of a second heart equally close to her as her own emerged from the vibrations, overlapping and yet distinct from the first beat and the original humming. Hvvvvvvvvvvvv. Mmmmmmmm. Lub dub. Lub dub. Hvvvmmmmm. Lub dub. Lub, lub dub, lub dub lub dub. Havay closed her eyes and felt the beats and rhythms, growing and shifting in increasing complexity, move within her and provoke visceral sensations she’d never felt before except in the wake of some waking dream. The interweaving sounds evoked the rising of wind, and skittering of sand, and the hard light of the sun cutting down through cloudless skies; yet somehow it retained that base beat lub dub lub dub lub dub that grounded her and connected her to the scene that was aurally unfolding around her. As she listened and felt the pulsing movements of the music shifting though her she heard her uncle take a breath and, without ceasing his throbbing notes, began to speak his tale.

“Once upon a season, little one — for like all tales it had a time and a place that were particular to it alone — there was a great hero. This is not his story.

“We know he was a hero because nowadays everyone says he was; but what we do not know though scholars search and sages fathom, is his name. His name — a gift from his mother, of unspeakable worth like all true gifts of mothers — was lost the day he rose to fame and glory. For he took his magic cloak and struck down the asp charmer Asherial, winning a title given him by the people: “the hero of the sands”; and from there he then traveled the sands and seas and winds and hills accruing further renown and securing not only a title but a place in legend for all seasons to come!

“But as his days wound to an end, and he sat at the entrance of the sand temples to receive alms and veneration was appropriate for one such as he, it occurred to him that no one who passed him addressed him by name but instead they all called him by his title. That moment a deep distress arose in his heart and he realised that there now lived no one who knew him by name, and in fact the last person to have called him by his mother’s gift, the last one to have given him anew his most precious and invaluable own true self — for, little one, that is what a name is: others gifting and regifting ourselves to us in ways we cannot — that very last namer had been none other than his mortal enemy Asherial!

“In despair he learned that a title is not a name, and as the horror of slaying the only one to remember his name sunk in he felt a burning pang in his chest and the heartstrings than bound his soul to the mortal kingdom broke under the weight of his newfound knowledge.

“He died there, little one, and the whole world took up a lament for the great hero of the sands and sage of all the hills. But not once was his name spoken, for it had been forgotten and the last creature to have known him, who might have sung of his passing to his mothers’ mothers that they might receive him, could not — for he had slain her. He had already killed Asherial.

“That is why this is not his story, but hers. This is the story of Asherial, the asp charmer, who stood high and proud for her people. This is the story of Asherial, the forsaken-yet-remembered, for though she perished at the hand of the greatest hero the world has ever known it is her name we recall. This is the story of Asherial, the bardist, for in dying she had the last laugh.

“All stories have a time and a place, little one; all tales occur in season. But they also have a name, and it is that name that lives through telling. This is not the story of a nameless hero, who forsook his mother’s priceless gift; it is the tale of Asherial, Whisperer of Asps!”

With a flourish and final thrum, Frost ended his tale and smiled down at his lap. A beat of silence followed, and then a small wheezy snore announced the attentiveness of his audience.

Inspiration: a worldbuilding camp my writing circle held. After making a setting new we each then attempted a quick story using someone else’s world.