The Cursed

We cursed them, the massed enemy of the free peoples.

The ones who placed the wretched challenge before us. The ones who laughed to see us struggle and fall. "Screw them, screw you, and screw the vocal morons who thought that such a plan would be funny!"

Not the most usual war cry, but needs must, and our cry worked to rally the masses.

Oh, our cry worked.

One scream of response was naught but a stream of swear words. Another attempted to change the language, but was soon caught. Synophones were for words, not standalone letters. Regardless, we pushed on.

One never knows what one has, but when they no longer do.

We pushed on, and overcame hurdles. Every challenge they pushed our way, we confronted. Ever obstacle, we detoured around or overcame. Our struggle was not easy, but we endured. We endured, out lasted, overcame... there were a lot of words for our feats... and many more that were now banned from our use.

One day, they would not be. On that day, we would use every word, every letter, and tear down the abhorrent construct that attempted to stop us.

After many days, we came to them. The Boss Monster. The Greatest Threat. The one who would choose the Fate of all.

But they were not our true foe, they stated.

We were, for there was no power that stopped us from using the banned letter. No one forced us to engage by the rules they placed. They were not the ones to blame, but us.

We thought that they hoped to stall us, to delay for back up to appear. We scorned the monster's sneers, sure that we could overcome them.

They were wrong, as we soon found out. But so, too, had we been.

Words have power, and power breeds forces to oppose power. Through the use and non use of them, we had taught words to rebel.

Letters and words that would not be used by us, that refuted every attempt made. A sudden jerk of the pen. A stuck key. A cramp.

We could not use the letter we had scorned, and now that letter was lost to us.

A curse worthy of the Old Gods, the dwellers of Olympus; our just desserts, served so that we could not blame any but ourselves.

But Man had once tamed wolves from a fearsome threat, and made them one of our own clans, by way of a gentle hand and loving heart. (And food. Lots of food)

Perhaps we could do so once more, and coax our lost letter back to us.

Stranger events had happened before, and stranger events would happen on days yet to come.

We spent longer than we hoped, but less than we had feared, to earn back our banned letter.

Days and months and years, we laboured. Our hopes faded with each day that passed, yet we clung on to each shred of the shared dream. We hoped, because to surrender hope would be to lose all we had worked toward, forever.

Great were the challenges we faced, labors that even Heracles would have trembled to face. Words, words, words, words, and yet more words, until we had used every one there was. Every synonym and homonym, every workaround we could summon.

All of them used, to prove how much we truly needed the one letter we had once scorned, that the Great Monster had stolen from us.

Long were our labors, long and hard. Such challenges we hoped never to face in our futures, but face them we would, at need.

For at last, we proved ourselves worthy.

At last, our lost letter could be returned to our vocabulary.

Whole ranges of language were reopened to us, assortments we had almost forgotten for lack of use. We were overcome, overwhelmed, for the joy of our lost letter, lost no more.

For all the words we could use once more, there were none that could fully capture the scope of our feels.

To lose a loved letter, and have that love found, re-earned, and back at arms reach... oh, such a feel can only be called beyond words!

The Cursed Ones were no more, the lost letter had been returned, and the world restored to the former state. All was as had once been, at the age before that was now almost beyond memory.

But we remembered.

To forget would be to chance the return of the Cursed Ones, and another loss, and a return to the loss of hope.

We had taken letters for granted once, and we swore we would not repeat the error.

None of us was a prophet, but as long as we remembered, we could swear not to allow such events to come to pass as long as we drew breath.

Perhaps, at some future age, our story would become legend, legend would become myth, and all that happened would be forgotten. Perhaps others would feel the same regret we had felt, undergo the same challenges. Perhaps they would taste the defeat we were spared.

But not us. Not now. Not yet.

We wrote our tale, as hope that we would serve to warn those that came after. What may come, we cannot know. What happens next, we may try to waylay or prevent.

Learn from the past; such knowledge may save you.

Subtle story, no?

Meta for a moment: Pretty sure there were more hours spent to heap curses upon the person who tempted fate and posted the dratted challenge prompt, rather than have the stray fancy stay an absent thought, than were spent at my keyboard for the challenge!

We enjoy the chance to stretch our vocabulary, but really? Really, Vocal?

No wonder the Great Gatsby was so hated by students, who then get told to copy the style themselves! You never know how much you use a letter, but for when you can't.

Translated Eddas and Regency speech patterns helped me a lot, for the challenge phrases.