Monday, September 24, 2012

The cycle of life

My day seems endless. My fields await the work I must do within their borders. My afternoon has swept away the seemingly boundless morning. It has come crashing down around me in a flood of whispers. My time is my own as the sun continues its unending cycle across the sky. Another day, the same as the last, the same as the next in my own unending cycle.

The sun gives its failing light to the end of the world and slips below the sentinels that shelter my world. Even their mighty spires can not hold its light above the rim and it signals the end of my day in the outer havens, yet the beginning of other tasks that now await. The fires held within the hearth give their magic glow to my peaceful existence. Its warmth soothes the bones made weary by work. My chair beckons to me, its call nearly more than I am able to withstand. My back longs for its touch, the knowing embrace of its curve. It will have to wait.

As the flames touch the final hours of this day I lay my head upon my feathery crown and await the coming of sleep. The sun shall break the hills again tomorrow and the endless cycle begins anew. My sigh ends my presence in this day as night slips in to take hold of my world.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Another day awaits

I see the window wet with morning dew. Had autumn come upon us and the sun risen late, surely they would form the crystals of winter's foreboding call. But spring has called its vision to us and left a perfect palette of artistic color beneath my window. My day calls to me from the outside, beckoning me to discover its secrets. My day awaits in mundane fashion, a life of leisure combed with chores that must be done, done to perfection each day.

I have lived this life of leisure for ten years now, ten years from the time I struck out on my own. My holdings have grown but not beyond my measure to deal with them, but they leave me wanting. What is the desire that calls to me beyond the rise? Beyond the rise lies the next field, and the next field after that, and the next after that. The valley is ringed with the sentinels of life, those towering giants that contain the Chrystum and protect it from what lies beyond.

That is the question I put to myself with each day. What lies beyond those sentinels? Do they guard the inside from the outside? Do they live solely for the shade that covers them from the mighty mountains beyond their boundary? What do the mists that intrude upon their canopy speak to them? The silken fingers reaching from the fog of the shrouded hills permeates their branches. Only the rising sun has the power to force their retreat. The call from the other side of the sentinels is my want, my need.

Yet I have work to do.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

A Look Back

I imagine it would be quite unnerving to look down upon one's self from a height above. That is quite simply what is happening to me. I'm not sure what is happening below, however I am able to see those gathered in this great hall. I see my friends and those who fought along side me in battle. Yet, they are all alive.  

It would seem that I have suffered a different fate. There is another below who appears to be an apparition. His body is ethereal, a soft glowing, illuminating blue. I recognize him but his name escapes me at the moment. He is quite the fine fellow, if I remember correctly. He is in a state not like the others. His form touches not the bounds of this earth.


As well there are two black boxes set beside each other in the great center aisle. My friends are hovering about it. One appears to be draped upon its top. He is crying. Crying. For me? I feel an attraction to this particular box, yet my instincts impart me to stay away. Is that my coffin? Could this be the fate that has come to me? Do I now see my death?

My mind races back to the towers upon the battlements. The savagery was unimaginable, the carnage deplorable. I remember my arms weary from battle, the sword of the Rim faltering in my grasp. My head is suddenly warm as if bathed by the heat of the noon sun, but I see no sun to warm my body. I am racked with pain and weary with despair. I felt my eyes close.

How did I get to this point? What has happened to my life that would bring forth such a tragic end? Perhaps I will tell you this tale, a tale that started long ago in the days of my youth, a life that was sheltered in a place as beautiful as any that one could imagine, a place of dreams.

My name is Clancy, and this is my tale.