The Legend of Lefty

It was a bright and sunny afternoon in the town of Opprobrium. Light sparkled on the clear blue waters of Lake Yielding, its surface reflecting an image of the quaint buildings that surrounded it. A gentle breeze wafted through the trees that surrounded the town, rattling their branches and carrying the chirps of countless tiny forest birds. In between the buildings, the sand coated streets glowed like gold, looking as warm and inviting as the camelians who walked them.

I don’t blame you if you’ve never seen a camelian before. They aren’t exactly common. And their numbers have only dwindled in recent times. There's probably fewer than a thousand camelians in the entire kingdom of Att, and almost all of them live in Opprobrium.

To be honest though… they’re nothing special. Two arms. Two legs. Covered head to toe in fur. Usually some shade of brown or yellow. Kind of like a fuzzy deepun but much taller and more fair. Oh their faces may be a bit long and their backs may have a bit of a hump to them, but really they’re not much different from a human or a thulhan. People are people at the end of the day, regardless of how they look.

Besides, the most notable thing about camelians is not their appearance, but their extreme and universal love... of sand.

They love to feel the sensation of warm sand crunching under their bare, two toed feet. They love the way it reflects the sun's heat, preferring temperatures that most races would consider unbearably hot. They even love its dull golden color, tones of which are used liberally in their clothing, art, and architecture. Some say… that camelians even love to EAT sand… though that's a widely exaggerated rumor. Very few camelians outright eat sand… most simply sprinkle it on their food as a light seasoning.

There was no better indicator of just how much the camelians adored sand, than the town of Opprobrium itself. While it was situated on a lake, in the middle of a lush green forest, it looked more like a desert town than a verdant village. A thick carpet of sand covered every street, every yard, and the floor of every house. Even the buildings themselves were mostly built of large yellowish bricks crafted from the stuff.

Looking upon the town, it was clear where all the sand from Ash Tab went, and how the strange isolated town was able to keep itself solvent through that singular trade. As to why the camelians didn't simply cut out the middle-man and live in the desert themselves though, well, that's a bit of a mystery. The topic is somewhat taboo around Opprobrium. Village elders will simply state that “it isn't our place” or “it can't be done” with a hard tone that denies any further questions. The younger generation, meanwhile, will simply shrug their shoulders, and either repeat their elders' sayings with less conviction, or occasionally, provide theories of their own in hushed whispers.

Regardless, on this particular day the town was going about its business as usual. Out in the fields, fit farmers were hard at work tending to their crops, their bodies covered in thick full-length clothing despite the temperate weather. To the north, a group of hunters were returning from a successful early morning expedition, emerging from the woods with bows slung over their humped shoulders, hauling the body of a slain rabbit on a large sled behind them.

In the sand coated streets, camelians of all ages were going hither and thither. Children ran about with glee playing little games, while elderly men and women walked unhurried on casual errands. Out on the sandy shores of Lake Yielding, a group of aqua miners were hard at work, gathering up fresh water in large barrels to be shipped across the mountains in exchange for precious precious sand.

It was a normal day, just like any other... until a strange sound started to fill the air.

It started out faint. A vaguely vocal sound emanating from somewhere far away. At first only a few noticed it. They lifted their heads, taking their eyes away from their work to look curiously for the source of the noise. As seconds passed the barely audible sound began to grow louder and louder, catching the attention of more and more camelians. All over town their long faces turned up, staring towards the treeline as they realized that the unusual noise was coming from out of the sky. Soon the indeterminate sound became recognizable. It was a voice, shouting frantically and frightened; the borderline scream of someone in terrible peril.

By the time Lefty emerged over Opprobrium, the entire town had come to a halt, staring with rapt fascination as a bizarre screaming creature flew over their heads.

Actually, to say he “flew” is probably far too strong a word. Calling Lefty's descent from the top of the Food Tabernacle a “flight”, would not only be insulting to flying creatures everywhere, but to the very idea of flight itself.

To say that Lefty was “gliding” would probably be more accurate, though that isn't quite correct either. Usually the word gliding invokes the idea of a graceful descent; a slow and steady fall, like a leaf being carried through the air by a gentle breeze.

What it doesn't invoke is rapid and uncontrollable spinning. When you think “gliding” you probably don't imagine someone wobbling back and forth, descending at far-too-steep an angle relative to the ground. Still, he wasn't quite falling. He was moving faster than any living thing would want to, but there was SOME air resistance. I'm not sure if there's a proper word for what he did, but it was less like a leaf on the wind, and more like a tree being thrown around by a hurricane.

Whatever you call it, the camelians on the ground watched it in silent awe, amazed to see what appeared to be a human soaring through the air above them. The young man's shouts of terror echoed throughout the village as he... “glided” I guess, out over it, making his way past the simple buildings and the sand covered streets, and towards the wide watery expanse of Lake Yielding. As he sailed overhead, some of the townspeople began to follow him, running towards the water's edge, assuming he planned to make a water landing.

Truth be told, Lefty hadn't planned anything. It was only by the most supreme stroke of good fortune that Lefty ended up anywhere near the town of Opprobrium, much less the lake. The daring young man had zero control over his trajectory. And even if he did, his rapid spinning made it so that he couldn't even see where he was going. His arms, strong from years of digging, were doing all they could just to keep a grip on the feathers. The strain was enormous, but he held on despite the pain, knowing full well that if he lost his grip it would mean certain death… or at the very least, several severely broken bones, neither of which was an appealing prospect.

Fortunately for Lefty, he managed to hold on long enough to land in the lake. Even more fortunately, his rotation actually helped to break his fall somewhat. The circular motion of his body caused his legs to skip across the surface of the water in a wide circle as he landed, distributing his weight and slowing him down at the last second. It still hurt immensely as he landed, like he was being punched all over his body at once by someone much stronger than him, but none of his bones broke.

Unfortunately for Lefty… he had no idea how to swim.

Having grown up in a desert Lefty had never seen so much water in his entire life. The closest thing he had to a bath had been rubbing himself down with a damp cloth. As such, the idea of falling into a huge quantity of water was a frightening and alien concept to him, almost as frightening as falling through the open air. As he dipped under surface and beheld the distorted blue bubbling world around him, he thought for a brief second that he would have been better off landing on the hard ground

His only saving grace in that terrifying moment was his iron grip on the feathers. The metal things were hollow on the inside, and possessed a rather wide surface area. They didn't float, per say, but they were just buoyant enough to keep Lefty from descending immediately to the muddy floor of the lake. After traveling down for a few seconds, he stopped sinking and surged back up, where brown hairy hands grabbed his arms and hauled him to the surface.

In one last stroke of extremely good fortune, several of the stronger and braver aqua miners had dived in after him, heading out into the lake before he even landed to where they thought he would fall. Two of these heroic camelians managed to reach Lefty at the same time and haul him up before he could lose his grip and sink into the murky abyss. The pair of experienced swimmers hoisted the dazed young man onto their humped shoulders, and carried him together back to shore.

As they swam, the frightened young man never let go of the feathers, his fingers unable to break the grip that had saved his life. It wasn't until they reached the shallows and he felt land under his feet again that Lefty finally dropped the things, letting them sink into the knee high water as he took a few wobbly steps towards the shore. His legs pumped so furiously that his camelian saviors let him go, thinking he was fine. They watched as he stumbled the last few steps to shore, and then fell to his hands and knees. Finally safe on solid ground again, all the spinning of the past few moments caught up with him, causing Lefty to heave, and cough, and throw up his breakfast all over the ground in front of him.

As he knelt there on the sandy shores of Lake Yielding, retching miserably, trying to recover from the extreme dizziness, Ol Blu fell out his backpack with a small wet plop. The kicken had tumbled backwards off his companion's head when the foolish lad jumped, landing in his open backpack, where he rode out the terrifying descent in complete darkness among among the young man's scant possessions. Soaked and sputtering, his fur and feathers in complete disarray, the kicken stumbled around in a daze, cursing loudly in between pained groans and wet choking coughs.

The confused Camelians looked on in stunned silence, unsure of how to react to such an utterly bizarre sight. Nearly half the town was there, gathered in a semi circle around their two new visitors, everyone muttering among themselves, the people in back clamoring for a look. This was the strangest thing to happen in a long time, and they were eager to hear what the pair of soaked adventurers said... once they stopped throwing up that is.