The Tear of the Sun Goddess

Tales of Whispering Oaks

The Misadventures of Leon Black-Hood

The Tear of the Sun Goddess

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By: Chase L. Currie

“She gave a tear, just one, just a drop to warm the world.”

The Blue Poet, Jake Seatail, of Whispering Oaks

In the year of our Lord 1429

The two hooded and cloaked squirrels rode on their deer to the tall snowy walls of Stormy Elder. Legends say the wall was built hundreds of years ago by giants, each stone weighing as much as a squirrel in a full suit of armor and as wide as two squirrels clasping arms together. In the snowy storm the walls looked like the giants who had built them.

Leon stopped at the rusted golden gates waiting to hear someone call down to him, but there was only the wind. He scanned the top of the walls trying to see if there was any one, but there was not a soul. The guards were likely inside their huts waiting out the cold beside a fire. It could also be, Leon believed, the days of traveling in the snow had covered them and only a trained eye would be able to see them in the sea of white. He wondered if from so high the guards would be able to see them.

 “Is there anyone up there?” Kerrigan yelled. She was ready to be out of the cold. She wiggled her nose tasting the aroma of fish on the other side of the wall. Even in the cold, the fish smelled like they been hanging out in the sun for weeks.

“Aye,” a hooded squirrel yelled back. “Who be there?”

“Kerrigan King’s Paw,” she told the guard. He jumped at the name, immediately knowing who she was, knowing she was of noble blood. He turned on his heels in a flash ordering the gates to be opened. The doors were pulled inward as if a hundred squirrels were fighting against the weight of the massive gates. They both entered the tunnel and Leon thought back to the children’s stories he heard about the city. How the walls were made to defend against the slithering dragons, and how the Nameless squirrel from the Black Forest drove them into the Black Dragon Sea. It was said he used a magical item called the Dragon-Heart Gauntlet to control the monsters. In this very spot, where the city lay, was where he had sent the dragons to their death.

They both moved around the gate through the small tunnel lit with oil lamps. As the light danced off the walls Leon remembered what the stone outside looked like, a red gray color worn down by the salt in the air. Every few feet there were craving of dragons rushing up the walls in the tunnel. Every dragon in the city, and there was a lot because the monsters were the city sigils and they were all heading for the sea.  

They walked out of the tunnel onto the wood of the dock built against the wall, which circled halfway around the land. The beach was somewhere lost under the wood. Mounted along the wall were oil lamps to help anyone to see on the dock during the night or the day. The trees above them were thick it made day seem like night. During the spring and summer it was as if they walked into a pitch black cave. The walls along with the dock stopped at the sea. There were no houses or shops or any building on the dock. They were all in the trees. And old legends flooded Leon’s mind, stories about how the giants that built the walls were the trees themselves, though he wasn’t sure about it.

Leon turned Snow, the doe he rode on, to the platform close to the wall. They stepped onto the platform as Leon dismounted. He might be a small squirrel, but days of having him on her back would tired any doe or buck. Kerrigan on the other paw did not dismount as the platform slowly started to raise to the top. They both looked out over the frozen water between the trees watching the light from the lamps twinkle at them like the stars they missed in the heavens. They could see a few ships with skeleton crews on them tending to the fish hung on lines. Most of the captures were back at Well-Stone, with their families. Home safe from the stormy waters of the winter and the ice waters of the north. Home, where neither Leon nor Kerrigan really cared to be.

“What did you ask my sister in return for getting the Tear back?” Kerrigan questioned him with a sly grin cutting through her dirty blonde fur. She was happy to be out of the castle, even if it was in the middle of a blizzard. She might not like the snow or the smell of Stormy Elder, but she loved being out of the castle. 

“Nothing yet,” Leon replied, shaking off the snow on his heavy cloak as he took it off. He told himself, “All this for a simple necklace.” He understood it was a family heirlooms and held some kind of magical powers. What the power was he did not know.

He was drugged and brought to the Queen to find the necklace that was stolen, which seem a little extreme to him but he knew he was the best squirrel to find the thieves. After all the greatest thief in the realm could easily find another thief.

“What are you going to ask from her?” She asked. “A kiss?” She wiggled her eyebrows up and down suggestively. She knew both of them were once was lovers.

He didn’t say anything, but the thought did come to mind when he was standing in front of the Queen. He thought about asking her to give him another chance to do it right, for her to love him again. Had the Queen gotten over what he did, had he? If they tried again would it all come crashing down like before? This was a question he couldn’t answer right now, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answers. As long as he lived with the question he could dream about the outcome. He could make himself believe he and the Queen would end up happy together, but his heart told him different.

He grinned at the thought of another kiss from her, but it would only cause more pain.

“Well?” Kerrigan pressed, but lucky for Leon the platform stopped as a group of eight guards stood around them. One of them, still wearing his hood covered in snow, stepped forward. Leon dropped his paw, hidden under his cloak, to the hilt of his blade. He watched the guards to see if any of them recognized him. It wouldn’t be hard for them. Leon was the greatest thief in all the realm and he wasn’t exactly quiet about it. He normally left a note to the squirrel he stolen from so they would know it was him. After a while his name along with his face got around the realm. He always had to be on guard when he enter a city of any kind.

“My lady, we are so very sorry for making you wait.”

“Nah,” Kerrigan expressed, “it’s no big deal. We are here now.” She reached under her cloak and pulled out a few acorns, giving them to the hooded squirrel. She and Leon moved past the group of knights as Kerrigan said to him, “Can we find an inn, please, can we get some food?”

Leon felt a little better after he walked away from the guards but he always checked over his shoulders to make sure none of them were following him.

“Once we find my friend.”

They both moved along the wooden road tied to the trees high up in the air. As the wind blew between the trees the roads swayed with it. They would find some of the road built on top of the branches of the trees but most of the time the branches were occupied by houses and shops. The higher they went up, the richer the houses became. The lower parts were old wooden hut or small tow story inn nailed together in a hurry for the poor. But the higher houses were built with stronger wood and many of them were built right into the tree trunks. These houses were not painted different colors other than the doors. Each door was a different hue, showing everyone how rich the squirrels who lived in there was. Paint was hard to get so close to the sea. The salty air decayed the bright colors over time and the owners of the house had to repaint them almost yearly. This cost more than most the squirrels in the lower part of the city made in a year.

Leon couldn’t help but think about what he could steal from each of those houses. The little treasures he could find behind those brightly painted doors. He thought about stealing a pen or a fork or a chair, just for fun.

“Where does your friend live?” Kerrigan asked.

“Up ahead.”

They didn’t have a problem traveling from one level to the next or on the road because most of the squirrels were locked away in their homes trying to keep warm. The only squirrels they saw were the guards on patrol and they were trying to get out of the snow as fast as they could.

Leon led them down a small road where at the end sat a blue door with the long body of a wooden dragon covered in the frame. There were a few windows in the tree but other than that it looked like a door built right into the truck. Leon walked right up to it, knock three times and waited.

Kerrigan dropped down from her buck and looked back over her shoulder in the dark alley way. There were no other doors or anyone walking around. There were a few lights coming from the windows above but other than that it was dark. She didn’t like being trap in a place she didn’t know, but she knew she had to trust Leon.

“Leon,” Kerrigan said, “something doesn’t feel rig …”

But the door opened with a light and dark gray squirrel holding a large mug and smiling from ear to ear. Well, one of his ears was missing. She turned in time to see him hug Leon.

“My friend, how is it going?” Logan asked. “Is everyone still picking on you for being so tiny? Do they still think you a chipmunk?”

“We need a place to stay for the night,” Leon said pushing himself away from his old friend, who smelled of smoke and ale.

“Right, of course,” he said stepping out the way of the door. “Come on in.”

Kerrigan quickly stepped to the side of her short friend and whispered down to him, “Can we trust him?”

“I don’t think so,” said Leon with a grin on his face. “But then again can you really every trust a thief.”

They follow the long wooden hallway of the house into a large living room with a couple of chair beside a fire place. The house was perfectly clean, it almost looked like no one lived there at all. Other than the piles of books everywhere and every wall covered in books shelves.  Soon the gray squirrel was behind them trying his best to stay on his feet from the long night of drinking ale.

“Who this lovely lady?” he asked awkwardly smiling at Kerrigan.

“Logan this is Kerrigan King’s Paw of the Lion-Heart Legion,” Leon announced.

“Oh my dear,” Logan mock bows at her, “never had noble blood in this house before.”

“Well,” Kerrigan said, “you can treated me like everyone else, I like it that way.”

“My dear, I was planning on it,” Logan grinned like a devil. “So,” he asked spinning to look at Leon who was debating on which book to steal from his friend, “what brings you to my part of the world?”

“Like I said we need a place to stay for the night,” Leon told him flipping through the pages of a book. “There a snow storm out there, you know?”

“Never been a big fan of snow, myself,” Logan said. “You can take the guest room, sadly there is only one bed.”

 Leon said, “I don’t think it will be much of a problem.” He led Kerrigan up to the guest room and open the door for her. It was a simple room with one bed, a chair by the window and nothing else. Either one of them really mind the simplicity of the room. It was nice to be out of the cold, not sleeping in a tent and not having to huddle together to keep warm. The bed was real, softer than the ground and had nice warm blankets on it.

Kerrigan took of her boots and sat down on the bed, after removing her cloak and weapons. She yawned while rubbing her paws against the warm blankets over the bed. Leon watched her as he sat in the chair, smiling at the way she remind him of her sister.

“Why did you come with me?” he asked. “It is because the Queen doesn’t trust me?”

“I don’t know if she trusts you or not,” Kerrigan told him moving her feet under her body, “but I didn’t come to keep an eye on you.”

“So why then?”

“I hate that necklace,” Kerrigan told him looking down at the dark red blanket. “My mother gave it the Queen on her death bed, to show all of us that my oldest sister was Queen now and I hate it. Well,” she stopped for a second and thought about it, “I didn’t hate the necklace, I hate the fact I didn’t get it. My sister was my mother’s favorite, always being gloomed to be Queen while the rest of us were background noise to her.”

Kerrigan was the middle of seven and Leon knew that. He also knew their mother treated them all like they were her favorite but the Queen and Kerrigan always had a rough relationship. Something Leon truly understood, he didn’t talk to his brother or sister anymore. He knew the rough relationship changed the way Kerrigan saw her mother and the Queen.

“But I thought ---“

Kerrigan cut him off, “That my mother and I had a great loving relationship? We did, until she got sick and then things changed. It was mostly my fault. I left and went to Well-Stone so I didn’t have to watch her die. Something I regret, I should have stay, I should have been there like my sister was.”

“So, why did you help the Dragon Fangs steal it?” Leon asked sitting back in the chair.

Kerrigan shot him a look of shock. How did you know? Was it that easy to finger out?

“Yes,” he nodded, “it was not that hard to tell what you did. Although, I’m sure your sister doesn’t know.”

“No, I hope she doesn’t,” Kerrigan softly said. “My mother and father died years ago but the hurt never did. Every time I saw that necklace around her neck I was reminded of what I did. So when the Dragon Fangs came to me and asked for me help. I jumped at it.”

“And now you regret it?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “My sister cried for days about it. I didn’t think about how much it meant to her. It was the last gift of love my mother gave to her and I took that way.”

“Good thing we plan on getting it back,” Leon told her. “And we both can win your sister love back.” He grinned a little.

“You are mad at me?” Kerrigan asked.

“No need to be,” Leon stood heading for the door, “you are here now fixing your mistake, so there no need to be angry about all of it. Plus, I might get to kiss your sister again because of what you did.” He smiled big. “Get some rest, I’m going to get some tea and bring you some food up.”

“Alright,” Kerrigan said falling back on the bed as Leon left the room. He walked downstairs to meet his friend where they talked for a couple of hours. Logan told him everything he wanted to know as Leon thought about what Kerrigan did. He wonder if he would have done the same thing if there something always reminding of the pain in his past. He was sure he would want to get rid of it too.

He let Kerrigan sleep until dawn, woke her up and told her he knew where the Dragon Fangs were heading. “To the Black Forest,” he said. They packed there things up, Logan gave them some more food and away they went. 

Almost five weeks after the day they left Stormy Elder they arrived outside the Black Forest. The snow on the ground and hanging from the tree was not as heavy here, snowed less being farther south than city. They stood on a hill looking into the forest made of nightmares. The trees twisted like snakes trying to attack the sky. The darkness between everything seem to stop their sight from seeing and trying to hide the monsters in the woods from them. They knew they were in there. They hear the tales like everyone in the realm. The Black Forest is a place of evils, devils and no one should go in there.

“Why in the Allfather would they go in there?” Kerrigan asked the sky above her.

Leon didn’t say anything but he nodded agreement. He jumped from Snow petting her and giving her a treat. He took off the saddle from her back. Kerrigan did the same, knowing the mounts could not follow them into the forest. They had to take the saddles off so no one else would think the deer could be taken and the riders happen to be killed. For now they looked like wild deer but they both knew the mounts would not live this spot. And if they did go off for a bit looking for food they would return. The buck and doe were trained to come back to where their masters left them.

“Logan said,” Leon told her, “they stole the tear for a giant. The giant has one of their brothers. They are taking the tear to the temple of the Sun Goddess.”

“Sure,” Kerrigan joke, “Because giants are real.”

“Well we are about to find out, aren’t we?” Leon said stepping into the dark woods. They traveled in the woods for a couple of hours until the moon hung in the sky. After a couple of hours of walking in circle and seeing things in the night that weren’t there, they decided to camp. They both climbed up into a big tree to get out of the mud and to hide from any foes. They sat up a tree tent, just a cloth over their heads and to the sides to help keep the cold out. They used their heavy clocks as blankets and laid side by side using each other for more warmth.

Kerrigan fell to sleep huddle up in Leon’s arms. He couldn’t sleep with all the noise the forest was making. Plus, he was sure he saw some shooting lights in the dark, he believe them to be fairies but wasn’t sure. He thought about waking Kerrigan up to show her but she needed her sleep.

He wished he could sleep, he wanted to but early he told Kerrigan what happen between him and her sister. The emotional storm that was stirred up from reliving the past hasn’t died yet. The thunder rang in his ears, the voice of the Queen banishing him from her castle, from her heart keep his mind awake. The lightning from this storm strikes his heart every time he thought about her blue eyes full of rage and tears. He still wished he could go back in time and stop himself from telling the Queen it was all his fault.

It was his fault that the Sir Frank Tall-Tale left her side. It was because of him she kicked Sir Frank, the Knight she was supposed to marry, from the kingdom. He wrote the letter that damned the poor loving Knight to heart break. He was the one he gave it to the Queen and he watched Sir Frank Tall-Tale leave a broken squirrel.

He told her all of this after they kissed. After their first kissed. He loved the Queen and told her, which sacred her and enrage her. He didn’t mean the truth to cause so much pain but it did. The words that flow from his lips could never be taken back. They cut deep into the Queen’s heart and they sent fear racing down her back to the very end of her tail.

“I love you,” Leon said to the Queen again as he sat his head back against the tree. His mind relived those moments so long ago in the past. The look in her eyes still haunts him. The looks that he was a mad squirrel, gone crazy and wasn’t the squirrel she thought he was. It was too soon for Leon to tell her how he really felt, but he didn’t want to lie to her. Not like the truth matters anymore.

Then again the past might not matter anymore as well. If he could get the Tear back, he could win the heart of the Queen again. He knew what he was going to ask her, for another chance. Even if something told him, something deep inside of him, told him it was a bad idea. It wasn’t like he every listen to that thing when it told him he shouldn’t do something. He always just did it.             

They made it over a hill and climbed into a tree to see the temple. White pillars shot up into the sky with gold wrapping around them, like rings. The pillars were set around in a circle on top of a marble floor. Everything was perfectly as if someone came by every day to clean the temple. At the center of the temple sat a chair made of gold with rays of light pouring from it, the rays were locked in time, never moving be on the chair. Behind the chair sat a twisted black tree reaching over it. Every inch of the tree was covered in thorns and even the dead leafs of its branches were trying to escape the sharp end of the thorns.

There in the center of the tree, Leon saw a cage with a squirrel huddled on the floor, must be the youngest brother of the Dragon Fangs. “We must have beat the Dragon Fangs here,” Leon quietly spoke to Kerrigan pointing at the cage.

“Not by a lot,” she responded as two hooded and cloaked squirrels came out of the woods on the other side.

“Let’s go get what we came for.” Leon drop from the tree using his black cloak and hood to hide while his way to the temple. Kerrigan take aim with her bow and arrow but she doubt being this far away she would be able to hit her target. Then again, she didn’t want to kill the thieves, she just wanted to scare them.

The arrow hissed between Parker and Halt Blade-Claw as they looked for where the archer was. By the time Parker lifted his musket to find his foe, Leon was already removing the gun from his paws. With a quick hit and a twist of his blades the gun was tossed into the dark. He moved to hit Parker in the side of the head but was stopped by Halt. Halt threw Leon against a pillar but the battle-hardened thief was already back on his feet when Halt pulled his two small throwing axes form his side.

“It has been awhile Leon,” Halt growled. “What are you doing here?”

“You have the Tear,” Leon told them. “I was planning on stealing from you.”

“You can have it after we are done with it,” barked Parker.

“If you give it to me then it defeats the purpose of stealing it,” Leon explained. “This is why you guys were always bad thieves.” Leon jumped at Halt as the storm of steel rang out in the night, while Parker scrambled to find his rifle. He found it in time for Kerrigan to put a boot on it and a short sword to his throat.

“Guns,” she smirked, “are so dishonorable.”

Parker grin at the thought of thieves being honorable. Before the grin fade from his red fur a black powder pistol shot from his side. Kerrigan was quick enough to knock the gun from her chest before the explosion happen. It what as if a blot of lightening had bounced into an echoing cave. Everything everywhere in the dark woods heard the shot.

In the moment before the earth started to move Leon and Halt had stopped fighting. They check to see who got shot, if anyone at all, but the moving earth soon ripped their thoughts from combat. The tree behind the chair stood up, forming a body, four or six legs came out from the bottom of the tree, while four arms came out from the side of it. One of the arms held the cage in it while the giants head screamed from the top of the tree as if he was awoke from a horrible nightmare.

His orange glowing eyes locked on to the four squirrels outside the temple in awe of his sight.

“Children of the All-Father, ones of the great Oak Tree and the Masters of good and evil,” the giant said and they all covered their ears from his thundering voice. “Have you brought to me what I have asked for? Have you brought me the Tear? If so you shall have your younger kin back.” He held the cage out as the squirrel inside smiled at the sight of his brothers.

The Dragon Fangs took the Tear to save their brother. Leon would do the same for a friend, so he stepped to the side as the thieves walked up to the giant.

Halt pulled from his neck a golden glass tear with a burning tornado inside of it. He held up the necklace to the giant and everything became brighter. The air around the temple breathe warmth into the sky while ever lightening bug for miles swarm to the temple. Leon and Kerrigan jump into the circle as the walls of light built.

The giant plucked the necklace from Halt’s paw and lowered the cage for the brothers to be rejoined once more. “Ah,” the giant said, “she shed this tear after she was stabbed by one of my thorns, we kissed and she ran far away from me, but now I can call her back to me. The tear is the only way to summon her to me. Now after ages and eons, I can have another kiss from my love. I can show her I can protect her once more.”

The giant held the necklace up into the sky and pulled the top of it off. The burning tornado shot up into the sky at the moment the sun came rushing to it. The moon along with his children fade from sight as the sun jumped down from the heavens. The tornado slowly receded to the stone chair at the center of the temple. There in the chair sat a women with long flowing hair burning red, orange and yellow. Rays of light and joy poured from her crystalline skin. She looked down over at the squirrels smiling from the warmth she gave off, but that is when she notice the tree moving around her. She looked over at the giant who was over joyed to see her.

“My love, how I have long to see you.”

The sun seem to sigh standing up from the chair. “Why have you called me here?”

“To ask forgiveness, to ask for yet another kiss.”

“No, no,” the sun shook her head, “we are over. The time we have had, has passed, let it go.”

“I cannot,” screamed the giant. “I have long to ask forgiveness. I dreamt of kissing you once more and now you ask me to kill that dream.”

“What you do not understand,” the sun said, her body becoming long so her face was closer to the giant, “is I have forgiven you already and I have let you go. I’m truly sorry the past has caged you so but it is a cage built for yourself, you must be free from it.”

“I can never let you go. I can never forget what my heart longs for. The joy and love you once gave me.” The giant moaned. “Is all desire.”

“How I know this,” said the sun. “I have watched you spend your days wishing to kiss me again.” She put her hands on his face, pulling his lip close to her. For a moment they were locked together. For a moment Leon and the others understood why the giant could never forgot his lover.

The crevices between the scales of the bark of the giant start to breath light into the world and soon fill the air with smoke. His body started to burn like a tree caught in a forest fire but there was no suffering on his face. He lead into the kiss as his lips started to char. The sun pulled away from the giant, shed a tear back into the glass necklace and then touched her old lover once more. Her hand was too much for the charred body of the giant and he crumbed to the ground with the necklace sitting on top. The world stood still with the sun looking down at the pieces of the giant’s body. The lightening bugs fade away and the sun stepped back up into the sky, leaving the squirrels in the aftermath.

Leon watched in awe as the sun faded from sight. All he think about was the kiss he wanted from the Queen, would it burn him alive to? All he had thought about was getting back to the Queen, to relive what they once had. He more like the giant than he wanted to admit to himself. All he been doing these pass years has been locked in a cage of his own making. Leon is not a big fan of cages. 

The three brothers of the Dragon Fangs gathered themselves and headed back into the woods. Halt hissed at Leon as he passed by, “Next time I see you, I’ll kill you.” Leon smiled back at his foe. They disappear into the night of the forest while Kerrigan and Leon garb the necklace and head back to their mounts.

They reached their mounts right at dawn. They both stopped looking at the sun slowly climbing into the sky and they both found the light full of solace as it kissed their faces. Leon grinned as he threw himself on to Snow. He tossed the Tear of the Sun Goddess to Kerrigan, “Make sure you give this back to your sister.”

“What?” Kerrigan asked. “I thought you were … coming home with me?”

“No,” Leon said turning Snow away from her, “What is in the past, is in the past and we can’t relive it. All we can do is move on or wait to be set free by a kiss. I never did like being trap in a cage. I don’t want to wait for that kiss anymore. I’ll see you around.”

Kerrigan watched Leon ride Snow over the hill and disappear.