The Shape of Home
A short story written by Matt Gardner with PlotWeaver: Cards of Creation, a storytelling game made by Mod Hob Cooperative.
This story uses a Monomyth Plot Pattern, written in 15-minute timed acts with all story cards drawn at random. For more information, visit www.plotweavergame.com
Act 1: Ordinary World
(Story Element Cards: The Orphan, Tribal Village, Walking Away, and Fantasy)
Finnigan stood at the edge of his village, peering across the pastures of wild grains and the orchards of fruit trees and berries. His community had lived on for as long as he could remember.
The village was set up for maximum sustainability. Rainwater, sun, waste, everything had its place.
Everything except Finnigan.
He was different. A head taller than most. Big feet that challenged the cobbler. Even the tailor avoided Finn when he peeked into the shop. They meant no offence, but the extra work was inconvenient.
That had been the strange motif of his life thus far. Surrounded by love, balance, and care for the village, yet always slightly off. Not unwelcome, but never fully at ease.
His peers and neighbours tried. They invited him to events. He went. But he never fit. Not in their little homes, nor around their low tables.
His knees always pressed close to his chin as he awkwardly tried to maintain eye level. Where others stained their shirts with food, Finnigan often marked his pants.
Even as a child, he had been different. He was raised by the old Oracle, June, who passed last year. Since then, he had felt deeply alone and unmoored.
June told Finn that his people lived across the Dragon Sea, in a place called Mont Castle. A land where people grew even taller than he, and animals were smaller. Mice the size of thumbs, not feet.
Act 2: Crossing the Threshold
(Story Element Cards: The Guardian, and Epiphany)
Chloe was on her way to the village. She and June went back decades. Together, they travelled the known world and solved countless quests.
Chloe was a skilled tracker, ranger, and hunter.
Three weeks earlier, she received a letter from her advocate. It had been written by June before she passed.
Dearest Chloe,
My time is coming to an end, and before I go, I ask one favour. My adopted son, Finnigan, must visit his homeland of Mont Castle, but he cannot do so alone.
After all, it was with your help that we brought him here in the first place.
Please help him find his way.
Yours faithfully,
June
Finnigan was easy to spot. His tall, lanky frame stood like a lone tree against the prairie.
Chloe greeted him warmly. She was taller than the villagers, too, which surprised him.
She wore a long traveller’s cloak and carried a large staff, a bow over her shoulder and a full sheath of arrows at her side.
She was an elder now, her hair long and gray, yet her skin was smooth, smoother than June’s had been. Time had slowed her, but not diminished her.
Finnigan had heard the stories a thousand times, but pictured her differently. In his imagination, she had been young, raven-haired, fearless.
She was still all of those things, Chloe thought. Time simply left its mark.
Finnigan took one last look at the village that raised him. He didn’t say goodbye. He never wanted to put anyone out.
He took a breath and asked if she was ready.
She shared the plan.
They left.
Act 3: The Road of Trials
(Story Element Cards: The Trickster Mentor)
The first couple of days of the journey were easy enough. The roads were safe and clear. Chloe and Finn talked easily, reminiscing about June. It was healing to hear about their adventures; they both missed her dearly.
Finn was surprised by how some of the stories differed from June’s versions, though they helped him see the events more fully. Chloe also shed new light on June. Finn had known her as a teacher and mentor, but Chloe had known her as a friend and partner.
By the evening of the third day, they arrived at the port town of Cat’s Arse. The name, Chloe informed him, was fitting.
“This place stinks to high heaven, but the people are deeply proud of their little piece of paradise… to each their own,” she said with a wink.
The smell was indeed strong. Tar boiled nearby, kicking up a putrid air that felt hot in the lungs. That same tar, however, was used to seal the hulls of the ships that crossed the Dragon Sea.
They walked into the pub. Like in his village, the majority of people came up to Finn’s chest, and just like his local pub, the chairs were small. But they were there to meet the captain of a ship.
And there he was, Old Pete, sturdy and steady, pipe in hand, eyes as red as poppies and as droopy as one would expect from someone who spent most of his hours puffing on the weeds he had grown accustomed to.
Chloe warned Finn that Old Pete was a tricky one, but that he could be trusted. He simply spoke in a cryptic way, that’s all.
As they got acquainted, Finn could clearly see what Chloe meant. Old Pete was odd indeed, but Finnigan found himself enjoying his company and wordplay. Chloe made sure Finn avoided puffing on Old Pete’s weed; she knew it would be a trip too far.
Act 4: The Abyss
(Story Element Cards: Recurring Nightmare)
Chloe could warn him, but she could not stop him.
After a violently miserable first day at sea, his height was no advantage when the deck pitched and rolled. Old Pete insisted the weed would help. Four sleeps, nearly five days, he reminded them. No sense suffering the whole way.
Finnigan had smoked herbs before, back at his village pub, passing a pipe alongside a stout. But Old Pete’s weed was something else entirely: heavy, coastal, steeped in salt and sun.
When awake, it was tolerable. His thoughts lagged behind themselves, arriving late but laughing when they did. Small things delighted him. Time stretched.
It was in sleep that the trouble came.
The dreams closed in on him, tight, airless things, always the same: buried alive.
The first night, he woke soaked in sweat, heart hammering. Old Pete’s ship was built for islanders, not men of Finnigan’s size. The bunk pressed in on him. The room was thick with tar and damp wood. Even awake, the walls felt nearer than they should.
The second night, he smoked more, hoping to sink past the fear. Instead, the dream deepened. He lay trapped beneath the weight of soil, pinned, crushed. No breath. No movement. Just pressure. His panic flared into frenzy, frenzy into chaos as his mind clawed for understanding. “How am I still alive?” He woke gasping, shaking, undone.
The third night, he smoked less. Sleep came in shards. He woke himself before the earth fully settled, before the suffocation took hold.
By the final night, exhaustion won.
He smoked more. Much more.
He needed rest. Be damned the nightmares.
This time, when the soil closed around him, he did not fight. He did not thrash or bargain or claw upward. He let the weight be what it was. Let the tightness exist. Let his too-long limbs, his ill-fitting body, simply be where they were.
And something shifted.
The dream did not open into light, or revelation, or words. It opened into space. Not a place. Not an idea. No verbs. No nouns.
Just presence.
Not hot or cold. Not afraid or relieved. Not happy or sad.
He simply was.
And for the first time in his life, that was enough.
Act 5: Return & Transformation
(Story Element Cards: Weathervane)
They parted from Old Pete at dawn. Finnigan felt genuine fondness for the old trickster, but also deep relief as his boots touched solid ground.
The port beyond the Dragon Sea dwarfed anything he had known. Forests of masts. Hulls broad as barns. Voices, languages, movement everywhere. This was the mainland. This was where he had come from.
Chloe insisted they stop before Mont Castle.
“You should arrive as yourself,” she said. “Not as whom the road dressed you to be.”
The tailor welcomed Finnigan as if he’d been expected. Measured him without comment or hesitation.
“Average size,” the man said casually.
Finnigan laughed, an unguarded, bubbling sound. He repeated the words again and again as they left the shop, savouring them. Chloe laughed with him. She had grown fond of him, deeply so. June’s humour lived on in him. Her gentleness, too.
At the cobbler, the fit was effortless. Shoes that didn’t pinch. Didn’t gape. Didn’t need an apology.
Outside, Chloe pointed to a weathervane turning atop a roof, catching a steady breeze.
“Come on,” she said. “That wind’s at our backs.”
The road to Mont Castle took an additional two days. As they walked, Finnigan told her about the dreams: the fear, the surrender, the strange stillness that followed. Chloe listened closely. She heard not just nightmares, but a crossing of another kind.
His stride had changed. His shoulders rested differently in his clothes. He moved as though the world had widened, or perhaps as though he no longer needed to shrink for it.
She filled the miles with stories, names, lineages, and small histories. A who’s who, a what’s what. He listened eagerly, grateful, finding her even more remarkable than the stories had promised. Now he understood June’s devotion.
At the gates of Mont Castle, his old unease returned... briefly.
Then an elderly couple approached, smiling, hands outstretched. Others followed. Hands shook. Arms wrapped around him. A line formed. Laughter broke through his nerves.
Even the Mayor stepped forward.
“Welcome home,” he said.
And this time, Finnigan believed it.