The Guardian of Black Mountain
Subtitle: A Tale of Fear, Compassion, and the Unseen
In a small area lost on one side of the globe surrounded by thick forests and high rocky cliffs Black Mountain could be seen. It was a looming structure that stood in the background that could easily dwarfs its surroundings as it given a sinister look by its darkness. People used to tell stories about something terrible dwelling at the bottom of it, a giant, brutal beast of an ogre, to be specific, that was considered too dangerous even as a myth.
Centuries came and gone; the legends of the Sogdianon with regard to the mountain’s protector continued to be told. Some said it was a dragon with scale like coal black and breathed out fire that turned the sky to flush red. Some said there lived an enormous snake that was transparent and had its coils around the mountains, its eyes were evil. However, in the midst of all the horror stories, there are the hidden themes of pathos, the grieving for a misunderstood monster of the night that was turned into the monster of fear.
The cases narrated by her were heard by a young woman named Elara. Her village was located at the base of Black Mountain and since her childhood, she yearned to go up the mountain with several questions unanswered. Contrary to the villagers who would have no contact with the mountain and avert their eyes from it, Elara was driven to the mountain on what seemed like a string of curiosity.
One day, in autumn spurred by the curiosity and the lurking fear, Elara sepled herself for a long journey to find the truth about the mountain’s protector. It seems more like Mary had the courage, the determination or rather passion of getting to the root of the mysteries that haunted her dreams and so when she started climbing the winding path to the centre of the mountain that was considered unattainable she had no weapon other than her sheer determination.
Slowly, the atmosphere altered; high up she got higher into the thin air and timber was now only the pines plus junipers. Being afraid she does not feel with every step that she ‘s taking, but she feels an expectation growing inside her, an expectation to see what has been hiding in the back of her mind for now.
At last, she stopped in a place that she could see the ground she was standing on had risen to form a flat circular piece of ground and it was here that this power was well and truly alive, the last ray of sunlight. Stretching before her lay the dark shadow of Black Mountain rising up against a background of blazing red. And there, at the top, she did; a form standing in the last of the light, she did not know whose it was.
It was a very long time since she had thought of anything like this creature she was now slowly becoming aware of. It did not have the look of a dragon, not to mention the impression of a huge serpent, but more closely resembled a massive bear and the bear’s skin was a deep black akin to coal. But in their desolation there seemed to be a conscious glitter, the kind of look which would suggest that the owl knew eons of solitude before the turn of heart it understood from mortals.
Elara approached nearer telling the creature that she would not fight or threaten it at any cost as it was locked in the cage. The next sound came from her throat as a quivering whisper: ‘I don’t wanna fight you. ’And to her amazement the keeper’s massive bear-like form failed to lunge at her as if to brush her aside for correcting toward her with curiosity and hope leavened only by despair.
“I have heard many things about your kind,” Elara whispered some more, and her voice fell to the ears of Kael in the still air. However, there are whispers of hope and loneliness: ‘It doesn’t seem possible that you are all these things people tell.’
The creature passed the message silently in a signal form of huffing and low throated growls. This, she felt, somehow translated into the literal in what she said, even if it did not in the way she said it. This, I suppose, was how the night arrived with its twilight moments; Elara remained at the summit of the mountain nursing the vigilant and listening to the untold tale.
One day, she overheard somewhere that the creature which had been a guardian angel; yes, an honored angel who used to guard the land against evil and anarchy. But once the process of civilization led them into its territory, fear had replaced worship while folklore accounts of how this creature used to assist those, orcling, transformed into horror stories. Unknowingly the protagonists invested into thinking that the guardian is an evil beast they have to defeat in order to gain fame while they were undergoing a tragic fate at Black Mountain.
Seeing such realistic scenarios put Elara in a position of sympathy thus vowed to bring a change to any such families. On getting back home she later shared her experience and told her would-be attacker is just an ordinary man behind the monster they should take a stand and fight their shadows. Everyone dismissed her words, believing in them as the prattle that a girl of her age should not even write about. Yet there were other who could not deny that she worked in good faith and for this reason there was a gradual turn around as.
That translated into ‘DAYS’ to make it weeks and gradually a transformation process seemed to be finding its way into the system. Slowly and steadily the performance that the mountain was of the specter type; the new role that emerged was of strength and perseverance. They laid presents of reconciliation before the fire—a symbol of their aspiration to reach out for a truce to the guards of the spirit in the territories.
Year after year, the importance of black mountain as a place of worship and as well as the one the guardian and commoners of the village cherish were reclaimed. The joining of the two families plus the influence of elara Mustafa ultimately turns into a wise, storytelling woman who continues to take the story of the mountain to travelers in their village.
People remember the history of Black Mountain not as the story of the triumph of the conquerors and people’s fear, but as the story that represented the supremacy of love and tolerance. The once despised monster became a symbol of the newly formed federation- the ambivalent watchman who, finally, was secured a place in the country that always embraced it.
To Elara there was no way that she would fully forget the things that she had been informed during the journey. Another reminder that courage is not the absence of fear, but rather being ready to meet it with the heart fully open I have also come to learn. And in so doing she had not only discovered the reality regarding said guardian of the mountain, but there was also a mission that did not stop where the mountain rose up prominently from the soil.
This is, in its simplest and purest form, the story of Black Mountain – of sin turned to strength, of hate defeated, of the cycle of life with all the imperceptible threads that compose the string of destiny.
Tags:
Monsters