In the very southeast of the World you’ll find the Island Kingdoms. Here live the storffs and of course humans.
The Storff is a large deer-like animal. But unlike other hoofed animals, their bodies are covered with small brown and grey feathers in stead of fur; and they have three horns on their foreheads.
The humans used to hunt storffs for their delicious meat. This may be because.. Well, humans like to eat delicious meat, and they didn’t realize that the Storff was more than an animal.
But, still, the Storffs tried to talk to the humans, but storffish is very hard to understand and the humans thought the storffish words were just animal sounds.
But then, one day on the island called Regniv a Thief entered a storffish village. The Thief, however, misplaced it to be at storff-farm, and he didn’t like what he saw.
It wasn’t fair that one man should own so many storffs and other should have none. So the Thief went looking for the owner of the storff-farm; he wanted to ask him or her to give away some of the storffs to other farmers who had none. (This is what Thieves do, they always ask if you’d like to give way your stuff before they take it anyway. And this makes them different from common thieves, who will just take your stuff away..)
But he didn’t find the owner, (how could he? This wasn’t a storff-farm after all) so he took out a little blue book and pen from the pocket in his coat.
‘Unprotected Storff-farm,‘ he wrote, ‘Owner gone missing.‘
“Gjsg dfrt djkb,” said a voice behind him.
‘That was a funny sound,’ thought the Thief and tried to repeat it. “Gjusg duffert djekkb,” he said.
“No, I said Gjsg dfrt djkb,” said the voice. “It means ‘What are you writing?’”
“Uh..?” said the Thief and turned around. And there stood a great Storff, who was looking at him suspiciously.
“Are you the owner?” he asked and tried to see if there was a man behind the storff.
“Owner of what?” answered the Storff. “This village? This land? No one owns this land; it all belongs to the Crow Goddess.”
“Whatever you say,” said the Thief and opened his book again.
‘Edit; owner not missing,‘ he wrote. ‘But quite mad‘
“Nice trick, though,” he said out loud, “Makes it seem like the Storff talks.”
“Makes it seem like the Storff talks?” answered the Storff. “The Storffs have been talking for years, but you humans never understood us. So now we have learned your language instead. For years we have been spying on you, to learn your strange way of talking.” The Storff sounded quite proud.
“Yes, of course,” said the Thief and laughed nervously. He opened the book again and drew a thick line over ‘But quite mad’ and wrote ‘Completely nuts’ instead.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” asked the Storff.
“Uh.. well, I’m a Thief..” started the Thief and the Storff lowred its big head and looked the Thief straight in the eye. The thief backed, he didn’t like the stare the Storff gave him. It was sort of.. well, intelligent, even more intelligent than many humans he had met, and it scared him a bit.
“Not a common thief,” the Thief continued nervously. “I was going to ask first, if you’d like to give away one your storffs away, before I.. You know, stole one of them..”
“So, you are a thief then?” said the Storff.
“Well, yes a Thief,” answered the Thief. “Capital T, you see.”
He looked around the place; more storffs was coming towards him. ‘It can’t be very safe to have all these huge animals wandering loose,’ he thought. ‘This is probably one of them ecologic farms..’
“Oh yes, a capital T Thief,” nodded the Storff. “I’ve heard about you. You always ask people to give away the things you’ll steal anyway. Am I right?”
“Uh.. Something like that,” answered the Thief. “But a common thief would just take your storffs away, and probably keep them for himself.”
“My storffs?” said the Storff suspiciously. “The storffs belong to no one, only to the Crow Goddess like everything else in the world. And it’s strff by the way.”
“Storff?” answered the Thief confused.
“No, strff!”
“Uh.. storff?” said the Thief again, and suddenly realised he was talking to the Storff and not the owner who still was hiding.
“Anyway, this game isn’t funny anymore,” he said.
“What game?” asked the Storff and moved towards him again. He tried to back away from the animal, but the other storffs had closed in around him without him noticing.
“You know,” he said and looked nervously at the storffs around him. “The game where you’re hiding and make it seem like the storff talks..”
Then something strange happened; the storff rolled his eyes.
“For the love of the Crow Goddess!” exclaimed the huge animal. “Are you blind, human? And deaf too? I’m not hiding, and.. The storffs do talk!”
“Okay, okay, okay, okay..” Now the Thief was starting to get scared. “Whatever you say.. I think I’ll be going now.”
“Can I come with you?” asked the Storff.
At this moment the Thief would have done and said anything to get away from what he still believed to be a storff-farm with a completely nuts owner.
So he said: “Of course you can!”
“Thank you,” said the Storff, and the Thief thought he saw a smile in the animals face.
The Storff raced his head and said: “Ghjrf sdwqr bnmkl!” and all the other storffs went away.
The Thief started running, and the Storff went after him. “You’re running the wrong way!” shouted the Storff. “Well, it’s the wrong way if you want to get back to one of your human cities,” the animal added.
“Okay..” The Thief stopped. “What way is the right way?”
“That way,” answered the Storff and pointed with his hoof.
“Thank you,” said the Thief and started running in the direction the storff had pointed out. The Storff went after him.
After a while the Thief stopped again, and so did the Storff. They were almost at the main road that led to the great city.
The Thief looked angry at the Storff, and said: “Bad storff, go home!” (It works with dogs, doesn’t it?)
“But you said I could come with you.” The Storff suddenly looked miserable.
The Thief shook his head, and was wandering if he was going completely nuts too. ‘It’s just my imagination,’ he thought. ‘It’s just an animal, it doesn’t smile, it doesn’t point with its hoof and most of all it doesn’t talk..”
“Yes, yes I did,” answered the Thief. “I wish you could stop..”
A crow landed at their feet (and hoofs).
“Keep quiet,” wispered the Storff.
“Kra-kra!” said the crow and flew away.
“Now we are blessed by the Crow Goddess,” said the Storff and smiled rather happily. “And this is truly the right way.”
“Okay,” said the Thief and rolled his eyes. “And what did the crow say?”
The Storff gave him a long look. “It said: ‘Kra-kra’.”
The Storff shook its big head. “Humans are truly stupid,” it mumbled. “What else would a crow say?”
“But..?” started the Thief, but realised that he was actually going to talk to the Storff and not the hiding owner again.
“Well, what do you want to do?” he said instead, and thought it might be the best to play along with the nutty owner. (He was probably inside the Storff, and the Storff was just a costume. And anyway, this wouldn’t be the first time a farmer had lost his mind after spending too much time with his animals. The Thief remembered a story about a man who thought he was a chicken, or maybe it was about a man who was chicken..?)
“I want to go to the King and make him stop the Storff-hunting,” answered the Storff. “And you’re going to help me.”
“Of course I am,” smiled the Thief while thinking; ‘play along, just play along and everything’s going to be just fine’.
“Let’s go then,” smiled the Storff. And so they did.
They went out on the main road, and walked straight to the big city where the King lived (Of course they met a lot of people, who thought it was a very fun trick the Thief had with the talking Storff, but that’s another story).
And they went to the castle and demanded to talk to the King. The King let them in, because he had heard a rumour about a Thief and his talking Storff, and wanted to see it for himself.
“Your Highness, thank you for granting us this audience at your court,” said the Storff and bowed his big head to the floor.
“Funny, funny!” said the King and clapped. “What more does it do?”
“Well..” started the Thief.
“You’re Highness,” said the Storff. “I’d like you to sign this note.”
The Thief gave the King a note, and the King read it. “Of course I will sign it, a law that forbids Storff-hunting.” Then he laughed, and the court did too. “This is truly a really funny game,” the King said and signed the note.
“Thank you, your Highness,” said the Storffs. “May Storffs and Humans live forever in peace at this Island.”
“Yes, yes, yes,” said the King and gave the note back to the Thief. “You are going to burn it, aren’t you?” he asked. “It would be a great finish for your trick.”
“Uh… No.” said the Thief.
“But then the law counts!” exclaimed the King.
“Yes, it does.”
Then the King started to cry. “But what are we going to eat? We’re going to starve!”
“Have you tried pig? Or cattle? Or dear?” asked the Storff very carefully. “Or maybe you shouldn’t eat meat at all, have you ever thought about that?”
“No meat at all?” the King was rather shocked.
“Well, we storffs don’t eat meat; we just live on berries, leaves and flowers.”
“Flowers..?” answered the King, even more shocked. “But we’re humans! We can’t eat flowers! We need meat!”
“What about fish?”
“Fish?” said the King.
“Your Highness, you are talking with the storff,” said the High Counsellor, who actually was paid to keep quiet.
“Oh..” The King blushed. “A really good trick.” He smiled at the Thief. “It’s almost like you believe it’s for real. But I would be mad it I really thought the storff was talking to me, wouldn’t I?”
“Yes, you would. A storff would do that to you, Your Highness,” answered the Thief.
“And what about eating storff-meat, would that make you mad too?” asked the King.
“Probably,” said the Storff.
“That’s it!” said the King. “No more storff-hunting, and no more storff-meat! We’ll eat.. whatever you suggested earlier. We can’t let this Kingdom go completely nuts, can we?”
“No, Your Highness,” answered the court.
And this how they stopped eating and hunting storff on the Island Kingdoms.
~*~
“Thank you!” said the King to the Thief. “For saving us from complete madness. Is there anything I can do to make this up to you?”
“Well, yes,” answered the Thief. “You can give away all you spare cloths to the poor, and all the food you don’t eat to the starving.”
“You are a funny one, aren’t you?” said the King and called the guards.
A moment later the Storff and the Thief was back out on the street.
“I think that went quite well, didn’t it?” said the Storff.
“You can stop playing that game of yours now,” said the Thief.
“What game?”
“The game where you are dressed up like a storff, and make people believe that storffs actually talks.”
“How many times have we been over this?” said the Storff. “I am a real storff, and I do talk.”
“Yes, yes and bless the Crow Goddess, right?” replied the Thief tiredly.
“But it did go quite well with the King, didn’t it?” said the Storff.
“But we tricked him,” answered the Thief.
“He said it was a funny trick, didn’t he?”
“Yes he did, maybe humans are quite stupid after all..” The Thief took up his little blue book again. ‘Storff-farm owner still nuts. The King of Regniv: Bad.‘
“Wait here,” said the Thief to the Storff and went away.
After some time he came back with a big sack.
“What’s that?” asked the Storff.
“It’s the Kings cloths.”
“You stole them?!” said the Stroff quite shocked.
“I did ask first, didn’t I?”
The Storff and the Thief was written exclusively for the English edition of Zha’vu’Keldi. The short story has also been republished on fantasy-fan.org.
Illustrasjon by Candace Bell