Polly and the Millipede

Once she had been soothsayer to the court, the last of a long line that had held that position from her family. She had spent her days examining the omens for the Great Pretender, but at night she had dreamed of a one eyed Viking warrior.

The man that would stride across the world like Odin, and shower gold on the worthy from his mighty staff. Only when her Viking finally came she found his exchequer was barren, and his coffers were empty. Night after night she had penned her appeals to the warrior begging him to shower her in gold. He never did, but she refused to give up hope.

Then the blue painted warriors who had formed an alliance with the bird people to sweep away the old order. They banished her Viking warrior to the icy wastes north of the river and threw her in a tower. These newcomers had no use for her visions of a world where gold fell from the skies.

At first she had prophesized that the walls of their city would come crashing down allowing her warrior to return and free her from her tower. But days stretched into weeks, and weeks into months, with no sign of her warrior's return. She longed for her warrior to return. He might not have been able to give her what she needed, but he would at least pretend to listen to her visions. It had been a long time since anybody had. In the end just wanted to find anybody that was willing to listen.

Then one day she saw movement in her cell. A millipede was scuttling across the dirt floor. She reached out with one of her gnarled old hands to pluck up the creature and clutch it to her breast.

"Oh, Mr Millipede how smooth and shiny your carapace is. Will you be my friend? Yes, you shall be my friend. You might be small now, but you will grow. You will become as big like a man, and then you will be able to shower me in gold in the way that my Viking warrior never could."

The millipede chirped and she turned its sounds into words.

"Yes, yes I understand. We shall smite the brutes that claim to rule. The clothiers and heralds will hand over the gold that they have hidden beyond the sea. We shall cleanse our temples of the cheats, asset-strippers and vultures who now live there. The people will rejoice. The blue painted panjandrums of greed will be driven before us. The world is in ruins and we shall make it anew, together!"

Driven by its unthinking instincts the creature thrashed around to escape her grasp. She interpreted this as nods of agreement and laughed with delight. At last here was somebody that would come and listen to her visions, she thought. But she could hold the creature no longer, her fingers had become feeble with age. It slipped from her grasp and disappeared into a hole in the floor.

With her only friend now gone Polly tipped her head back and howled at the moon.