Story entry 12 - Ola's gift

Diad, the giant blue and orange ring-necked snake, laid coiled beneath the sofa in Ola’s Mount Vernon condo in Baltimore, Maryland. It was his second favorite spot at home - the first being just outside the kitchen pantry where snacks were accessible and the temperature toasty. Today was different though, Diad was beneath the sofa because he was given an important task - the large sack on the sofa needed to be guarded. The contents were valuable. It didn’t need to be guarded so much against someone stealing it, but more to prevent what was in it from getting out.
Ola’s was expected to speak at the counsel meeting and discuss the proposed course of action. She would only be gone a few hours and knew the sack and its contents would be fine under Diad’s watch, even though he wasn’t poisonous and tended to be quite docile.
Previous counsel meetings determined that Ola’s decision to meet the demands of the guardians of Inmost despite that it would break their code, should be reconsidered. Although the idea of not bartering with the living made Ola pleased, she also knew that this would not sit well with the subterranean fiends that provided them with their vital trades. She had mediated on this and discovered that the grootslang and the yaoguai would settle for nothing less than their demands. Alti had even warned the counsel that there was great danger on the horizon and to tread lightly. War could be upon them if they did not comply. The counsel had their best intentions in mind, but failed to put the proper emphasis on these cautions. It was too big of a leap for them to accommodate. The relationship the suvians had cultivated with the humans could not be so easily broken in the eyes of the counsel.
A compromise was determined. The counsel decided they would not give over a live human as barter for their goods, but with magic, temporarily animate a recently deceased corpse, giving it the appearance of life. The hope would be this may fool the Inmost lords, but at least appease them even if they were not fooled. Perhaps they would consider it more of a gift than a barter, and be pleased with the effort. After all, it had been ages since they were provided with human cadavers as barter and even longer since living humans were given. Road kill of all sorts was what they had become accustomed too for so long now, that it was hard to believe it had even been anything but.
The meeting concluded and Ola and Alti walked each other home. They spoke of their concerns. Ola told what she had discerned from her meditation and Alti described the dread he experienced when calibrating the totems. The freezing gusts of wind felt like bad omens. A foretelling of days to come.
Back at Ola’s home, Diad heard rustling coming from the bag above him. The burlap stretched within its limits and relaxed momentarily. A moan came from within it and Diad sprung to action. He hissed a lullaby - melodious, serene, and full of magic. The corpse drifted back to stillness until Diad would need to sing his song again. The exchange would happen tomorrow, so he would only need to work his magic another time or two.

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