Tarnished

Once upon a time, in a time long before there was any time at all, in a land full of mead and butterflies, there was a young lady named Misha. - SAThough Misha was young, what she lacked in age she made up for in raw strength. She could lift a bloated hippo well above her head, she could pull 2 wagons of mead, she could shift mountains with her left pinky finger (if she were so inclined, though she tended not to be). She could even lift herself with her mind. She could levitate (although only slightly) above the ground, which she sometimes did if there was a good reason not to touch the ground, such as a hairy brown spider, a hissing cockroach or random passing rabid hippo (they are much harder to lift when angered). Misha longed to do something with her power, something useful. Like build a temple to herself, or arm wrestle with one of the puny God's of the neanderthal's down the lane. She knew she could use it for good, or evil. Or in-between. But all that seemed rather bland. Instead, what she really wanted to do was something useful, and yet memorable. Something children would talk about for weeks.

[--]

In a small village about 19 and 1/4 miles south, Greg gazed at his stump album. The whole of world history was in there, if you knew where to look. There were stories of power and the battles fought over it. There were stories of love and the challenges men went through to attain it. There were stories of ordinary people who had done something amazing just because no one told them they couldn't, and stories of famous people who seemed to have done nothing special at all. Of course, it was hard to see all that in the rings of his many stumps, but it was all there.

Greg knew he was not particularly special. He knew he was not powerful. But he wanted to do something no one had ever done before. It didn't occur to him, partly due to the fact his grandmother on his father's side was pure-blooded neanderthal, that nobody had done it because it couldn't be done so he thought endlessly about it. If he could do it he would get his face on a stump. If he did it the children at school would be so amazed that they would stop bullying him. If he did it, why even the teacher might talk to him and let him answer questions; he might even get a gold star!

The problem was, to achieve his dream Greg needed an accomplice. Not just any accomplice, but one with special skills; one who could balance a fat domesticated hog on their little finger and levitate at will.

No one had told him that this sort of person only exists in stories so one fine morning, just after a breakfast of boiled robin's eggs and coarse grainy unleavened toast, he set off to look for the accomplice of his dreams.

Misha walked a mile and three eigths in her worn leather shoes and soot-stained red gingham dress down to the well to fetch a hundred gallons of water or two for cleaning and drinking.