Overview
The Brook-Salmon is the long, silver beast the deep brook keeps for the run. It runs 1.4 m long, it moves through the cold water with a slow, deliberate way, and it considers the long run a promise rather than a flight. Where the brook-salmon runs, the brook knows it is kept, and the keeping is the whole of the salmon's own, because the salmon that keeps the run keeps the brook, and the brook is the salmon's own.
Habitat
The Brook-Salmon keeps the cold water of The Brook Holds — the black stone and the brook and the long, unbroken line of the hold. It is the brook's own, and the brook is the salmon's, and the salmon keeps the brook the way the brook keeps its run. It needs three things: water that will hold the long run, a brook deep enough to keep the run, and a ground of the small cold prey that will not fail. It is settled in the brook with the Trolls who keep the hold — the salmon is the hold's own meat, and the troll that has not run with the salmon in a season is called the one who forgot the brook. The run moves with the season the way the brook does, deeper in the cold months, to the upper brook in the green, because the run that has not moved with the water has moved without the water, and the moving without the water is the whole of the hunger.
Appearance
The brook-salmon is the long, strong shape — long in the body, strong through the rib, with the head set forward and the whole of it reading as one long line from nose to tail. The male runs 1.4 m long and carries 30 kg, long through the body and heavy with the run; the female runs 1.2 m, 22 kg, finer through the neck, with the longer nose and the better run, because the run is the whole of the salmon's own. The flank is a bright silver-blue where the brook sun has kept it light, darkening to a soot-black at the dorsal fin and the back of the body; the belly carries a clean bone-white that reads as a flash in the water, and the tail fin is a faded, honest straw. The eye is small, deep-set, a pale silver set wide in the long face to see the dark between the stone, and it does not glow. The nose is long and set forward, turned the way a dish is turned, because the run that is heard is the whole of the call. The run carries the line in the nose and the body; the salmon that has lost its run to the cold is called the quiet one, and the quiet one is not counted. Elders are marked by a flank gone pale silver and a nose that finds the brook a full day before the run does — an old brook-salmon runs no new brook, and the brook that loses the old salmon is called the quiet brook.
Behaviour
The brook-salmon does not flee the way the small cold prey flees — it stands its ground in the water, and the standing is the whole of the beast's own. The run is not a flight and not a flight to be fixed; it is the promise, and the salmon that has not kept its run has not kept the brook. It runs the troll the way the troll runs it — at volume, without the word, and the running is the whole of the hold's own, because the troll that has run the salmon is the troll who has kept the word. When the run ends, the salmon takes the cold prey from the troll's own hand, because the hand that has run the salmon is the hand that feeds it, and the feeding is the honour. It is patient with the run, worse than the run, and it will hold a brook through the whole of a frost because the brook that leaves the frost has left the water. The young are raised in the run with the trolls' own loud ones, and the young that keep their run through the first frost are called the brook-kept.
Natural Weapons & Defenses
The weapon is the run — the long, strong body that runs the troll before the blow, and the cold, deep nose that finds the brook before the troll does. The defense is the water: the salmon is never where the troll is, it is where the brook runs, and the water that holds the run holds the salmon. It has no other defense and does not need one, because the beast that owns the run owns the brook, and the brook is the whole of the hold's own.
Magic Alignment
The brook-salmon carries the brook's own quiet magic — the run-sense that reads the cold water a step before the foot lands, the brook-keep that sets the run before the blow, and the long-run that the brook keeps the way it keeps its drip. It is not spell-work and it is not the gods' work; it is the brook's own, and it is kept the way the brook keeps its water.
Society
The brook-salmon keeps a run of eight to twenty at the brook, and the longest nose leads — not the biggest body, because the body is the body and the run is the promise. The run that has not kept the same brook for a season is called the loose line, and the hold does not count it. The young are raised in the run with the trolls, and the salmon that has raised a brook-kept is honoured the way the hold honours its best troll: the brook is left open for a day, and the open brook is the honour. The run that has lost its lead nose is called the counted run, and the counted run is kept in the hold's own scrap-stone until it finds a new nose.
Culture & Lore
The Trolls of The Brook Holds keep the brook-salmon the way they keep the meat — as the hold's own run, not as a beast. The old trolls say the first brook-salmon ran the brook and the hold heard the run before it saw the salmon, and the hearing was the whole of the first keeping. The salmon is never killed for the meat, because the meat is the meat and the run is the run, and the troll that kills the run kills the brook's own. The brook that a run has kept for three seasons is left open for a day when the last salmon of the run dies, and the open brook is the whole of the honour the hold gives.
Home
The brook-salmon is the own of The Brook Holds — the cold water, the black stone, the long brook. It is settled in the brook with the trolls who keep the hold, and the hold that loses its brook-salmon loses the run before it loses the word, because the word will come back when the water warms and the run will not.
Relations
The Trolls run the salmon as the honour and feed by its run. The Goblins of Goblin Warrens know the brook and do not enter it, because the water that is honest will take the goblin as well as the salmon, and the goblin that has been taken does not come back to the warren. The Orc of The Fanghold respects the run the way it respects the hold — it does not cross it, and the holding of the run is the whole of the respect. The small cold prey of the brook does not know the beast at all, and the not-knowing is the whole of the run's own.
In the Story
The brook-salmon has not yet come to the six, but the brook it runs in will — the hold is the first strong ground the Legacy of Steel ever met, and the meeting was the whole of the first word. The run that keeps the brook under the hold's own stone is the run the six will stand beside when they stand beside it, and the standing is the whole of the story's own, because the story that stands beside the run stands beside the brook, and the brook is the brook-salmon's own.