User:JohnB/Fanfiction/Hoichi the Earless

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(Note: Tonight [9/24/2018] is the full harvest moon. To hear an actual biwa, go to https{colon}{double-slash}www{dot}youtube{dot}com{slash}watch?v=IR74wXUvNEM.

The original story revolves around the Battle of Dan-no-ura in the "Lay of Heike", a famous epic poem, in which two rival branches to the imperial family, the Taira and the Minamoto, duke it out in a sea battle. A blind minstrel is shanghaied into performing the poem for the spirits of the dead Taira army, who'd lost the battle after the dowager empress grabbed the boy emperor and jumped into the sea to avoid capture. Being in the thrall of the spirits puts the minstrel in grave danger as they may not let him return to the world of the living.)


Blind Hoichi was a troubadour who wandered over Vvardenfell playing his biwa lute and chanting the thousand-stanza The Lay of Indoril that told of the battle of Red Mountain in verse. He knew all of it, and while many people in Vvardenfell had heard snatches of it sung here and there, nobody bothered to listen to the epic in full. After all, the legend of Nerevar was never fully accepted on the administrative level in either the government or the temple, so people rejected it as well, though they hedged their rejection by saying, if Nerevar really ever was reincarnated, they would accept him fully. That's like saying, "I won't believe in hell until I get there."

Well, Blind Hoichi was getting along in years, and the Holamayan Monastery decided it was high time they made a written version of the epic poem to save it for posterity. Blind Hoichi was welcomed at the monastery and provided with room and board. Every day each monk in turn would sit with him and write what was dictated to them. It was a monumental effort that even a third of the way through the epic produced thousands of pages of hand-written text. It had to be done in fits and starts because Blind Hoichi was very old, and he would often nod off in mid-verse, so it was uncertain if the entire text would ever be brought to completion.

Then something happened that threw a monkey-wrench into the works. It was getting late, but Hoichi was still going over the stanzas alone when he felt a presence. Somebody in full armor had come into the monastery to visit him. A warrior in full armor in a monastery! Who would have thought it? Blind Hoichi stopped chanting and asked who it was.

"I come on behalf of my Lord Nerevar," came the response.

"Who?"

"Come!" the warrior barked and grabbed him by the hand.

Upon being grasped by the hand, Hoichi's mind's eye was immediately opened and he could see as they levitated far above the mainland of Vvardenfell, the wind whistling in his ears. He was transported to a misty bog where the yet unreborn shade of Lord Nerevar sat upon a dais surrounded by his retainers.

Hoichi was made to sit on a soft patch of mossy ground in the center surrounded on all sides by the company of warriors and their consorts.

"Let the entertainment begin," said the shade of Nerevar.

"Your excellency," Hoichi sputtered, "The Lay of Indoril is extremely long!"

"Then sing of the clash between the Chimer army and the Dwemer army of Dumac Dwarfking."

Hoichi searched his memory for where to begin and launched into the performance with a stroke of the plectrum over the lute strings. However, as he sang of the fight in the Heart Chamber of Dumac's citadel in the crater of Red Mountain, the mood of the audience turned.


"What treachery, what deceit

our Lord Nerevar should meet

from the Tribunal. And it was they

who did him in that very day

for the sake of a wretched heart

that tore their unity apart."


More tears were shed and then wailing broke out and echoed among the misty trees.

"It is enough--until tomorrow when the harvest moons drive this mist away!" Lord Nerevar cried with a groan. "Bring the minstrel his refreshment."

Dishes of choice foods were brought on a portable table and set before him, and Hoichi ate until he could eat no more.

Suddenly the world went black again.

Hoichi felt around him until he touched the lute placed on the monastery cell floor to his right. Good, he still had it.

He rose from his seated position on the floor but knocked over something that straddled his knees. There was a clash of porcelain dishes on the floor from the portable table he'd knocked over.

"What are these doing here?" he wondered out loud. Wasn't that banquet he experienced last night in a boggy area far to the west as the bard flies?

A monk peeked through the half-open cell door and saw Hoichi standing somewhat disoriented. He entered and picked up one of the dishes. It was exquisite, like a palace utensil, not like the rough crockery used in a monastery.

"Odds fish! Where did these come from?" he asked Hoichi as he picked up another dish and examined it.

"They were given to me."

"By whom?"

Hoichi hesitated.

"I don't know."

The warrior last night could have been sent by M'aiq the Liar for all he knew.

After the dish was shown to Gilvas Barelo, the abbot of Holamayan, Hoichi was summoned to give an account of what happened the night before. He told of the midnight flight overland that he was able to see with his mind's eye, and of the banquet where someone claiming to be Lord Nerevar ordered him to perform. As to why the dishes had returned with him to Holamayan was a mystery. The abbot appeared very disturbed by this. He called a meeting of the brotherhood to discuss what should be done.

The enchanter, Felayn Andral, suggested that Hoichi had been jinxed, and the only remedy was to use The Manual of Exorcism to prevent a recurrence. He ordered a proselyte to fetch it from library. He then took Hoichi into another room and, using a fine writing brush and ink, transcribed magical incantations all over Hoichi's body from head to toe. Then he instructed Hoichi that when he felt a presence he should remain very quiet and make no bodily movements whatsoever.

At the appointed time, Hoichi sat motionless just as the same warrior entered the room. He listened as the warrior wandered around the room as if in search of something. The warrior then stopped and looked very intently toward the center of the room.

Two disembodied ears were hovering about three feet above the floor, actually above the very spot where Hoichi was sitting on the floor. Unknown to either of them, the incantations had rendered Hoichi totally invisible--except that the enchanter had neglected to write anything on his ears.

"Master will be displeased if I return empty-handed," the warrior said to himself, "so I'd better take these."

He grabbed the ears and pulled them away with a violent twisting motion that left Hoichi in intense pain. Still he remained motionless, and the warrior departed never to return again.

Fortunately for Hoichi, the injury to his head was limited to the outer ear, and he was able to continue performing on the biwa. However, from that time on, he came to be known as Hoichi the Earless. Better that than Blind Hoichi the Earless anyway.