Thunder #7: The Bitterberg

She but falls,
Unstrung in trails,
Like diamond dust,
Off wintery sails,

But vibrant bright,
Her voice is boom,
She is but shock,
Unfurled in gloom,

Sliver is the starry choir,
Rain like sundance,
Flash like fire,

The can that holds,
This precious caught,
The power course,
Of Luminot.

The northern lights dazzle the night sky of the Winterange but focus on that and you’re liable to freeze yourself into an early grave.  The Winterange is cold, colder than Tenebrak Dragons are vicious about having their siren song to the stars interrupted, colder than anywhere in the Thunderlands.  Snowdrifts, hoarfrost, miles of plateaus cut into deep ridges and grooves — white spans across the Winterange like winter off a mountain and for distances unknown,

Her bite is hard, her heart like ice.  The Winterange favors no one, neither man nor beast.  Not even those born to her barreness tread her lightly.  She mocks the timid and the ardent, and those ardent enough to survive her do so because of their wits and little else, for little else does the Winterange offer and the little she does is as much a risk to the hunter as to the hunted.  Venture the Winterange and you venture knowing you may never return to your door.

But people do live in the Winterange, Polars, thick-skinned people, and in movable homes made of animal skin or in caves not already occupied by bears.  Ahhh…  But they’re not the only ones crazy enough to think that they can tame the white.  Star Snatchers dwell here, too.

Unfamiliar with Star Snatchers, are you?

Well, Star Snatchers are the talk of the wintery wild, the sons of the Seventh Thunder.  And it is said they snatch what the stars only meant for gazing.

Bursts and brilliant trails skip across the frigid night of the Winterange like the barrage off of a million catapults set aflame.  Starfire and Meteorshards — falling like the sun rises to its time.  But during Luminot, when it’s said the great season of Festivus reaches its holiest night, these same showers fall like rain if but rain could light up the night.

The sights and sounds and smells of Festivus encircle the world: Lights get strung to the warmth of family;  holly branches bear witness to their first kiss; turkeys and puddings; hearths crackling to the curling of ribbon; tinsel, stockings, and somewhere carolers are forming circles to practice their pitch.  Festivus is as unifying as a first born being born!

But Star Snatchers commemorate Festivus as only Star Snatchers can.  Elsewhere the world celebrates.  Here though, Star Snatchers snatch what no one in their right mind would think about snatching: only the brightest of the brightest before the brightest gives out.  Here, in the deep of the Winterange, where barely anything stirs, behind mountain and ice and where the great Bitterberg lies; here, from the top walls of the Seventh Thunder, Snatchers snatch and Snatchers snatch stars and it’s precisely with stars that our Star Snatchers fight.  And you wonder how?  By blast and by slumber, because death can come to a man just as easily when he sleeps.

Inkling #33:
What is the Seven Thunders?  It is the Bitterberg and their Wielder called Luminot!  The Seventh of Seven and Star Snatchers all!  North! — north, they live — inside the Winterange, where ice meets snow and the power of stardust shatters the night.