03-07-2023, 07:23 PM
Glean
She had trusted them implicitly, the Sprites.
It had never occurred to her that it might have been a trap, some elaborate ruse. There had been Death there on the shore, how is she to know that there will not be Death on the other side, as well?
And yet, she had trusted them.
She is one of them, after all.
Though her magic is limited and theirs seems almost infinite.
(Is it not infinite? They emerge on the other side and there is something in the air, something crushing, that suggests this is not only some different place but some different time. And it is chaos. The kind of chaos that makes her shrink, not in stature but in spirit, for she is not a dark thing but a shining thing.)
A stray warrior rushes toward her and she gasps, tries to scramble out of the way, but it is no use. There is no flicker of recognition as the soldier plunges right through her without so much as a whisper of recognition. Either she is vapor, or he was. She cannot be sure which.
There is a desperation when the Sprites speak and she scrambles closer, leaning into the sounds of their voices. She is not alone here, there are those she knows came through the portal, as well. They must have. Because none of them seem to make an impression on the warring forces either.
She searches the landscape, every bit of it absolutely foreign, and feels utterly helpless. She is a small thing, Glean, what does she know of war? What does she know of what it means to believe in something so strongly that you’d kill for it? She draws in a breath, trying desperately to cobble together a thought while the others begin to speak. They speak of hatred, animosity, rifts. They speak amongst themselves, feeding off of other’s ideas to create their own.
But she has always been a thing of animals.
She swallows, waits for a lull before she speaks.
“I think we should ask the animals,” she says. She draws in another breath, her focus shackled to the Sprites because she does not know what she would do should she turn to find any of them looking at her. “Each side is bound to be biased, right? But the animals are not. There are always three sides to every story, each side and the truth. The animals know the truth. Crows can pass knowledge down for generations.” She has seen it. “Perhaps they can tell us what we need to know. Or at least where we need to look.”
It had never occurred to her that it might have been a trap, some elaborate ruse. There had been Death there on the shore, how is she to know that there will not be Death on the other side, as well?
And yet, she had trusted them.
She is one of them, after all.
Though her magic is limited and theirs seems almost infinite.
(Is it not infinite? They emerge on the other side and there is something in the air, something crushing, that suggests this is not only some different place but some different time. And it is chaos. The kind of chaos that makes her shrink, not in stature but in spirit, for she is not a dark thing but a shining thing.)
A stray warrior rushes toward her and she gasps, tries to scramble out of the way, but it is no use. There is no flicker of recognition as the soldier plunges right through her without so much as a whisper of recognition. Either she is vapor, or he was. She cannot be sure which.
There is a desperation when the Sprites speak and she scrambles closer, leaning into the sounds of their voices. She is not alone here, there are those she knows came through the portal, as well. They must have. Because none of them seem to make an impression on the warring forces either.
She searches the landscape, every bit of it absolutely foreign, and feels utterly helpless. She is a small thing, Glean, what does she know of war? What does she know of what it means to believe in something so strongly that you’d kill for it? She draws in a breath, trying desperately to cobble together a thought while the others begin to speak. They speak of hatred, animosity, rifts. They speak amongst themselves, feeding off of other’s ideas to create their own.
But she has always been a thing of animals.
She swallows, waits for a lull before she speaks.
“I think we should ask the animals,” she says. She draws in another breath, her focus shackled to the Sprites because she does not know what she would do should she turn to find any of them looking at her. “Each side is bound to be biased, right? But the animals are not. There are always three sides to every story, each side and the truth. The animals know the truth. Crows can pass knowledge down for generations.” She has seen it. “Perhaps they can tell us what we need to know. Or at least where we need to look.”