The Entangled Kingdom | Medieval Fantasy Sleep Story

In tonight’s fantasy sleep story, you are the last true elf in the fantasy realm of Brenindor. The kingdom is on the precipice of seismic change, and you alone have a long enough memory to understand the implications of what happens next. You muse on the history of the realm and your role in its future, until some unexpected guests stumble into your domain: the sworn rivals for Brenindor’s throne. Ends with a meditation for grounding and deep sleep.

Music & Sound: A Glimpse of Avalon by Flouw, The Wind Forgot My Name by Rand Aldo, Sensors Surrender by Ave Air, Via Epidemic Sound

Transcript

Explore the interconnectedness of the realm in tonight's medieval fantasy bedtime story.

Sleep and Sorcery is a folklore and fantasy inspired sleep series.

My name is Laurel,

And I'll be your guide on tonight's fantastical journey.

Sleep and Sorcery is one part bedtime story,

One part guided meditation,

And one part dreamy adventure.

Follow along with my voice for as long as it serves you,

And whenever you're ready,

Feel free to let go of the story and relax into sleep.

If you're still awake as the story concludes,

I'll guide you through a meditation for grounding and deep sleep.

In tonight's story,

You are the last true elf in the fantasy realm of Brennendorf.

The kingdom is on the precipice of seismic change,

And you alone have a long enough memory to understand the implications of what happens next.

You muse on the history of the realm and your role in its future,

Until some unexpected guests stumble into your domain.

The sworn rivals for Brennendorf's throne.

This story is connected to the ongoing tales of Brennendorf found in other installments of Sleep and Sorcery,

Such as The Dragon Rider,

The Heir Apparent,

And The Sleeping Hero.

You don't need to have heard the other stories to understand this one,

But you'll recognize some of the characters and plot threads throughout.

I hope you enjoy.

As soon as we take one thing by itself,

We find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

John Muir,

My first summer in the Sierra.

After the rain,

When the charcoal skies have a glow to them and birds begin to sing again,

Shaking the drops from their feathers.

When the soil is damp and the roots are restless.

When clouds come down to earth in the form of migrating mists.

In that ripe and tranquil transit,

An observer with eyes to the ground might meet the most alien visitors.

Full-fruited,

Where there was only soil and not weed once,

Mushrooms suddenly sprinkle the landscape.

Striking like skyfire in unintelligible patterns,

Yet brought on by moisture.

These emergent bodies become footprints,

Breadcrumbs,

Enchanting the observer to your door.

But where lies that door today?

This age,

In the aftermath of rain,

Both literal and symbolic.

In many ways,

You and your wandering house and garden are the fruiting mushrooms of that obscure,

Subterranean network that underpins the observable world.

Summoned up,

Full-flowering,

In a new time and place,

Arising anew,

Whenever and wherever you're needed.

You belong to the land.

That was the choice you made,

An age or so ago,

When all the others of your kind departed to a new kingdom of their own making,

Beyond a veil of twilight.

You played a part in the making of that world,

Too.

You spun its glass citadel into being.

It was the last time you channeled the deep elven magic that was your birthright.

On this side of the mist,

Your power is diminished,

But you have no regrets.

When the elves left this world behind,

Taking their magic with them,

They also abandoned the extraordinary beings,

Relationships,

And happenings of this realm.

They chose a world of perfection,

Stagnation,

Of power frozen in time.

A world unchanging,

A world without progress,

And also without decay.

You could never choose such a world.

Elves are immortal.

At least,

That's the popular theory.

You've never known an elf to die of old age,

Anyway.

But you are not immune to the peculiar transformations brought by the arrow of time.

You simply change on a different scale than most life,

On a timeline stretched and spread wide.

Gray hairs,

Wrinkled skin,

And creaking bones come for you,

Just as they do for humans and halflings,

If beholden to a much slower clock.

But that is the thing your elven kin could never understand.

When they withdrew from this realm,

This energetic,

Thronging world,

Taking the last dregs of elven magic with them,

They willfully embraced artifice.

They chose stillness and deceit,

A fabricated world of cruel perfection.

They abandoned that deeper magic,

Which roots into hearts and minds,

Moves through networks of language,

Tradition,

And nature,

Dies and is reborn again and again in the bodies of myths and mushrooms,

The alchemy of cycles,

Relationships,

Entanglements.

In remaining behind,

You've known deep love and deeper grief.

You've dug your fingers into soil and felt how it changes with the seasons.

You have grown,

Which you cannot say for your kin.

As the ages wore on,

The people of this left-behind land decried the loss of ancient wisdom,

The inability to channel the same power they once had.

The dying out of dragons was a symbol of magic's ultimate retreat.

But you suspect,

And always have,

That they had got it wrong.

The magic never left,

Because the elves never owned it.

Magic belongs to itself,

Belongs to the land,

Just like you,

Like all of you.

The loss of magic,

Felt like a grievous wound across the realm,

Is more like a collective forgetting.

Today,

That loss is barely felt by most who walk the roads.

They've even forgotten the forgetting.

Wisdom,

Once cherished,

Has dissolved into myth.

Fortunately,

Your memory is long.

Though you may not retain every name,

Every battle won or lost,

Every detail of the lengthy past,

You hold the greater story in your body,

In the threads that reach outward from you,

Threading in with history's tapestry.

You remain entwined.

Life is long enough that you can sink down into the soil,

Lying to the eye of the observer,

Dormant for a century or so,

Waiting to be summoned like the ripe scent of petrichor.

You relish the dissolution of you into a disembodied system,

A collection of fungal hyphae and mycorrhizal relationships.

You soften into a whole mythology of entanglements,

Rather than a single myth of embodiment,

A whole language,

Or suite of languages,

Rather than a single word.

There was a time,

Long ago,

When you were called up to serve at the right hand of a magnificent war leader.

To him,

You were a battle bard,

A warrior,

Servant,

An advisor and a praise singer.

And for all your ardent admiration of the man,

All the words and songs you spilled for him,

You can scarcely recall his name.

He lives in you,

And in the earth you till.

But it seems you've been summoned more frequently of late.

The gaps grow shorter,

Maybe.

Your house flowers and fruits into being again and again,

Popping up in the aftermath of change,

Or thunderstorm,

Or initiation.

You are needed here and now,

It appears,

Not as a direct participant in the great events of the age.

The cottage never emerges in the midst of a consequential battle,

But as a subtler force.

Not long ago,

In the timescale of trees and root systems at least,

You awakened somewhere deep in the woods,

A familiar place to be sure.

And there came to the door of your wandering shelter a band of travelers with good hearts and hopeful eyes.

Though they seemed ordinary folk,

You sensed in them a kind of blazing ambition and feeling as your fallen captain.

And yet,

To that happy company,

You only needed to give a nudge,

To alter their quest just so.

Like a gentle bend in a river,

Who can imagine what that nudge set in motion?

And after their visit,

You and your house and garden once more seeped into the soil.

Since then,

You've asked your reconnected roots for insight into their adventure.

The trees and plants send signals down your spine.

You sense their trajectory,

Their story unfolding,

Chapter by chapter.

And now,

You rise again.

So soon after the visit of that lovely crew,

Your garden is once again in bloom.

You are awake,

Embodied,

And curious.

What or who has called you up again?

What role will you play in the ever-unfolding tale of this land?

The sky is silver.

The air hums with that elegant post-rainfall peace.

A tiny bird is hopping between the toadstools in front of your garden gate.

You look to the horizon,

Taking in the unfamiliar surroundings.

You engage all your senses,

Probing your lengthy memory to determine if you've ever encountered the sights,

Sense,

Sounds,

Or sensations of this place before.

You're surrounded by hills,

A mountain range in the distance.

That range rings a bell,

In fact.

The teeth of its silhouette trace themselves once more upon your mind.

Much of what surrounds you is uncultivated,

Though you behold distant farmland,

Forest.

And somewhere below,

If you listen closely,

There is the whisper of a river.

You'd be surprised if there wasn't a village on the other side of that forest belt in the valley.

A settlement nestled in the curve of that river.

There's a feeling you have.

A kind of restlessness.

A sense that whatever is coming,

Whatever called you forth,

Is bigger this time.

That you are on the precipice of a seismic shift.

But there is a warmth to this feeling,

Too.

A comfort.

A sense of emerging from shelter in the aftermath of a storm and anticipating the return of the blazing sun.

No sooner than you have thought such a thing than do the fine,

Golden threads of sunlight break the film of mist and dew that hangs so persistently in the air all around.

The sunshine dusts your face and shoulders.

You feel your lips curl,

Almost involuntarily,

Into a smile.

The world around becomes a festival of green and gold.

Birdsong rises with the light,

And little rainbows dance across the delicate drops of mist as they evaporate before your eyes.

The remaining clouds pass,

Languid,

Overhead,

Casting wisps of shadows on the landscape.

And then,

Another shadow.

It is vast and decidedly uncloud-like.

There are no soft edges to this silhouette,

But a svelte and serpentine shape.

Rippling over the land,

A great shadow with wings.

A shiver passes over you as the shape momentarily blocks the sun.

It cannot be.

The last of them died out only a generation ago.

The roots and the soil broke down their bones.

You felt it.

But now,

With courage and a pounding heart,

You lift your gaze to the sky.

To behold the dragon.

The creature flies low.

You can see her crimson scales glint in the sun.

She's clutching something in her claws.

Returning from the hunt,

You suppose.

But to where?

Where is this world's last dragon to call home?

As if in answer,

The dragon lowers,

Ducks under the cover of the forest canopy.

If you're right about there being a village on the other side,

Then why is she hiding in such close proximity to the public?

You'd have thought she would choose the most remote,

Inhospitable mountain stronghold.

And why is she hunting so far away when there's farmland within sight?

The curiosity mounts within you.

You must ask the trees what they've seen.

When you are at rest and at one with the land,

Such answers are at your fingertips.

The way forests convey messages through their tangled root systems,

Delivering nutrients and aid along elegant pathways.

You can simply plug in to the knowledge you desire.

You are part of the network.

The whole world is your body.

But in this embodied form,

With fingers and toes,

You can't converse with the plant kingdom as effortlessly.

You've had to call on old magics,

Develop new ways to communicate.

Your garden swells in the sweet embrace of sunshine,

Petals fluttering under a breeze.

These are the plants that flower with you,

Folding in on themselves when you fold into the earth.

You like to think of them as your court,

Though you carry no illusion of authority over them.

At times,

You can employ them as emissaries or messengers to the surrounding environment.

What they bring back is often garbled,

Unintelligible to you in this form.

But with careful attention,

You can always discern some meaning.

So,

You whisper your curiosities into the bells of Hollyhock.

You tug gently on the twisting vines about the garden gate,

On the exposed roots,

With the delicacy of a bard plucking harp strings.

You imagine yourself becoming very small,

Climbing down the stems of plants and pulsing,

Jumping from root to root,

Exchanging messages,

Asking for news from the nearby forest of unusual visitors of the reptilian variety or otherwise.

You close your eyes and you wait patiently for a response.

It is clear that you have re-emerged here and now for reasons that have something to do with the appearance of the dragon.

All the stirrings of the land,

All that restlessness,

You are being called in such rapid succession.

Something is awakening,

Something larger than you,

Larger even than what the elves took with them when they left.

When the plants respond,

It's never with words,

Nor clear answers in any form.

It's with subtle cues,

Tiny suggestions for you to interpret.

The language of the land sends tiny jolts through your fingertips,

Encoding stories in the pathways through your body.

But this time,

Somehow,

The messages you receive are brighter,

More vivid than you've ever experienced.

The forest sings back to you,

Of a dragon,

Yes,

But also its rider.

You hear the echoes of a distant mountain range,

Unheard cries bouncing off the walls of a cavernous chamber.

You sense the ripples of a great body of water,

On which floats a small boat.

A whole drama plays out in the pulses you receive from the underground,

Entangled kingdom.

Generations long,

A tale of noble houses,

Deceit,

And hunger for power.

You watch a dynasty rise,

Conquering and unifying desperate tribes into a singular kingdom,

Something your erstwhile captain aspired to,

But never achieved.

You observe the plotting of a rebel faction,

Bent on deposing a tyrannical king.

You witness the parallel paths of two children,

One born to the house of the dragon,

Spirited away amid the rebellion and raised in obscurity.

The other,

Born to the lion's house,

The child of the new ruler,

Groomed for the throne.

They are like mirrors of each other,

These youths.

Each of them claims an inheritance of power and conquest,

Yet you sense in both a fear of that power,

A resistance to it.

And then,

Your inner vision begins to zoom outward.

You see something like a vast spider web,

Tiny shimmering threads woven across a great expanse,

To which cling iridescent beads of dew.

They slide along the strings like little gemstones in a kind of dance,

Sometimes colliding and joining together,

Or sliding past each other on different beams.

For the first time,

You realize,

You perceive something even greater than the story.

You can see all the stories,

Not the single filament,

But the whole network,

Not the single myth,

But the mythology.

It is all so beautifully entangled,

Chaotic,

And emergent.

Each strand intersects with countless others,

Opening endless pathways and possibilities,

Alternate routes,

Roads untaken,

Lives yet unlived and unexplored,

Stories yet untold.

From here,

You are witness to it all,

That which has happened,

That which is happening,

And that which may yet happen,

Or not.

All because of your tender relationship to the land,

You have been welcomed into mystery,

Into deep entanglement,

Into the source of all magic.

You wonder if any of your elven kin have ever claimed such privilege and power.

And oh,

There comes an overwhelming urge to reach out into the vision and pluck the strings like those of a harp,

To send ripples through the entire web,

To play the interconnected mythology at your own will.

You might set events in motion that reverberate down the centuries,

Influencing kings and queens and heroes,

Changing the course of events and timelines to bend in favorable ways.

Certainly you could,

If you wish.

You feel the desire like a hundred tiny pulses from a system of roots,

Reaching out,

Wanting agency,

Wanting power,

Wanting to move on a more active timescale.

You can feel it rush through you,

Through the soil,

Through the forest.

And as it surges,

You allow the wanting to pass over you,

To move on.

This is why you are not like other elves,

Why you never have been.

Even with the temptation and the power buzzing through you,

You cannot bring yourself to reshape worlds.

Where is the beauty,

The meaning in the pluck of a string,

My unseen hands,

The magic lies you've always felt,

In the spontaneous,

In the relationship,

In the way souls spark against one another,

Drawn together or flung apart by circumstance and innate agency.

You're not sure how long you sit in observation of the glistening web.

Like in your periods of dormancy,

You are,

It seems,

Outside time and beyond embodiment.

You watch the beads of dew,

Events or souls perhaps,

Sliding along the strands of possibility.

You witness small stories unfolding in the corners of the web,

Meetings and partings,

Memories and prophecies.

It is profoundly beautiful and an impossible privilege to behold it from this perspective,

An entangled kingdom,

A tapestry of innumerable stories.

No,

You won't pluck the strings,

But you can slide along them too.

You can be like a dew drop or a gemstone,

Changing the course of another's fate by your mere presence or guidance,

By your participation.

You've done it before.

Everyone has.

And so,

You ask your plant and mycelial friends for another favor.

You ask them to send a signal to the forest,

An invitation.

You leave the garden.

You brew some tea.

You wait.

You fall asleep in your chair.

You dream of the stillness of a land made by elves,

A land of glass and twilight.

And when the sun breaks through the windows of the cottage,

You awake.

You step outside the door,

Inhaling the scent of a soft,

Overnight rain or gentle showers of rustled laughter from the soil.

Now full-fruited mushrooms spring up in a dappled line down the hillside.

Striking like skyfire,

These emergent bodies become footprints,

Breadcrumbs to the mouth of the woods and beyond.

Will they enchant the traveler to your door?

When a figure at last emerges from the forest,

It's not alone.

At first,

You think it's just a youth and their shadow.

But no,

There are two.

Following the trail,

The message,

The invitation.

As they draw nearer,

Their features become clear.

A young man and woman,

Scarcely more than children.

But you recognize them.

Here are two people,

Both heirs to a great destiny.

Each promised a throne.

Each promised a glorious future,

A glistening thread.

They shine like dew in the morning sun.

They are so young,

You think,

To carry so much responsibility.

And yet,

To any outside observer,

They would seem in opposition.

Sworn enemies,

Scions of noble houses that have spent a generation at war.

So why,

You wonder,

With no small amount of intrigue,

Do they walk together?

The dragon rider and the heir apparent descend to the throne of Brennendor.

There's a funny thing that happens when you've lived long enough to see empires rise and fall,

Wars fought and won and lost,

Landscapes reshaped.

Having seen enough of the past,

You begin to believe that you can see the future.

Sometimes,

Yes,

You can imagine outcomes and possibilities and entanglements with more clarity than others.

You can make reasonable predictions with a degree of objectivity untouched by most.

You can step outside the web and observe it.

And yet,

Such foreign and unknowable things pervade the human heart.

With all that knowledge,

All that experience,

All that connection to history and land,

And still,

You are surprised by them.

Now the two great rivals for an unclaimed throne approach your door,

Your garden.

This is why,

You think,

Why you made your choice an age or so ago to leave behind the promise of perfection,

Stillness,

And control,

To forsake the elven right to a glass palace,

A magical construct that never changes,

Never diverges,

Never ages.

Because what good is perfection if you are never surprised,

If you never get to see the glimmer in a young person's eye when they've realized there is another way,

If you can't be there to guide the next generation toward compassionate,

Regenerative,

Reciprocal leadership,

If they'll have you,

Of course.

As the youths approach,

Their scabbards empty of swords,

Their eyes bright with curiosity,

You wonder if they know how much a single meeting can alter the entire web of life,

How many strands of possibility they have braided simply by standing together.

The wind whispers in the trees and grasses,

And the flowers of your garden turn their heads with imperceptible slowness,

Angling to listen,

To behold.

And when the two travelers,

Enchanted to your door by a trail of mushrooms,

At last stand before the garden gate,

You speak,

I was hoping you'd come.

And in those words,

You hope they can hear more than the immediate meaning,

Because the whole world,

The whole entangled kingdom has been waiting,

Hoping for them.

The future is uncertain,

But hope,

Kindled like dragon fire,

Springs up in the space between these two.

You can feel the land and all its soil and roots and rocks and networks trembling,

Breathing,

Hoping collectively,

Please come in,

You say,

I'll make some tea,

We have work to do.

Find stillness,

Let your body grow heavy,

Your breath easy and natural,

Inhale,

Take a slow,

Deep inhale through your nose,

And exhale through your mouth,

Inhale,

Filling your lungs and the belly,

And exhale,

Releasing any tension in the body,

With each breath you take,

Let the day dissolve,

Let your thoughts fall like leaves to the forest floor,

Bring a soft awareness to your body,

Especially to the points of contact between your body and the surface you are resting on,

Feel the weight of the head,

Your shoulders,

Your arms,

Your spine,

Your feet,

Everything growing heavier and warmer,

Sense the earth beneath you,

Quiet,

Dark,

And alive,

You are resting on its surface,

But you are also part of it,

Visualize the network beneath the soil,

A vast web connecting root to root,

Tree to tree,

Tree to tree,

Being to being,

See how the threads of this web shimmer in pale golds,

Soft whites,

Silvery veins of light,

They pulse and breathe,

Messages of nourishment and calm,

Now imagine roots extending gently from your body,

From the soles of your feet,

From the base of your spine,

From your palms,

From your toes,

Imagine your roots are reaching down into that web,

Entangling,

Feel the slow steady heartbeat of the earth,

Pulsing in rhythm with your own heartbeat,

Breathe deeply,

Imagine breathing through your roots,

As if the whole earth is your body,

As you drift deeper towards sleep,

Feel your body wrapped in earth's quiet hum,

With every exhale drop down a level,

Deeper into relaxation,

Deeper into entanglement with the earth,

And its sweet supportive embrace,

As the world above grows dim,

The forest sleeps,

The web of life continues to breathe,

Let it breathe through you now,

Releasing all effort,

Feeling yourself completely supported,

Cradled,

Held and beheld,

So that you can simply be,

Let yourself sink now,

Into the deep soil of sleep,

Into the breathing,

Dreaming roots,

Where everything is connected,

And connected to you,

To you.

Reviews

Ahhh, falling asleep over and over again, threads of recognition, never making it to the end…all good. Thank you Lauren for bringing magic and wonder to my nights🙏🏻🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🙏🏻

Missing your stories of late, Laurel. This one was lovely once again. Thankyou, so much.🪷😘🐈‍⬛🐆

Laurel has such a soothing hypnotic voice! I have to listen to the story, three or four times before I get to the end.

I am so happy that you have written another wonderful addition to your ongoing storyline. An interesting concept and character. Read with your melodic voice.

Dreamy and awesome…the young people were a boy and a girl? Thought it was two boys… but mycelia and dreams 😍✌️ thank you!

CUTE! 🤗

Fabulous story, perfectly narrated.

Sometimes your tracks are the only thing that get me to sleep. I don’t think I’ve ever made it through one, I have no idea how any of them end, and that’s what I’m grateful for!!

Totally epic. I love how you weave the stories together 😻

Thank you 💚🙏

Sleep & Sorcery’s always creating the most wonderful stories to dissolve and disappear into at the end of the day. A welcome respite from a crazy world. Thank you for your writing and soothing voice.

Lovely

Very relaxing and sleeping inviting I soon fell asleep so quick in fact I didn’t hear 3/4 of the tale. Thank you xx