miamaroo:

Inspiration tells the listener what they need to hear exactly when they need to hear it. The voidfish’s song is, in part, bardic magic. Therefore, I propose this:

Not everyone got the full story on the day of story and song. Maybe someone relates more strongly to other dwarves, or maybe the mothers of the world needed to hear about other motherly figures

But depending on who you are, you got a different version of the stolen century. Everything from the perspective of Magnus, the story portrayed as an epic romance, emphasis being placed on the scientific perspective

Bards start popping up, making it their mission to get as complete of a version of the story as they can. Scholarly circles debate the validity of each one since, well, everyone remembers it differently. The song becomes a subject to study all on its own

People start jokingly saying that the bird whose perspective you saw the most of is a personality type. Magazines give you desserts you might like based on what bird you are. If you’re a Lup, you’re known for your tenaciousness and caring nature. Future generations who didn’t see the song can take quizzes to determine which bird they are, or even base it on their star signs. If you’re edgy, you say you’re John. Nobody is named John anymore. Comedians make John jokes and pretend to not understand why everyone is offended.

The birds become folkloric figures. The birds themselves become folkloric types. Purchase a book of fairytales, and the human heroes are all named Lucretia and Magnus. All the clerics are Merle’s, the leader-types Davenport. Lup and Taako went up the hill to get a pail of water.

In some places more remote than others, it’s spiritual. You invoke the name of the Lover to guide you in your love, the Peacemaker when you stand on the break of war. Widows place lavenders on the graves of their lost loves and ask Magnus how he coped when he lost it all

(If you look on TV, there’s a three stooges comedy of an elf, a human, and a dwarf bumbling their way to saving the world. It’s a phenomenon. Goofy lines they never said in real life get attributed to them. In a few years, someone makes a dark, serious version of their story and calls it subversive)

In many years, you can read feminist, Freudian, or even post-modern interpretations of the song like it is any other story studied in schools. Every eight grade class has to read an anthology of various tales from the song. It becomes a chore the way reading the Odyssey is today, but there’s always those moments when you hear a certain tale and you think, yeah, this one’s mine.

No one gets the same version of the story. They hear what inspires them at that moment to pick up their weapons and fight back the encroaching darkness. From its conception, the titular song is like all other epics, all other legends that influence our culture to this day— ambiguous, malleable, and adaptable