OoC: Using Mencha, btw.

BiC: I have no motive, and shall never have one, though I live to see a thousand years and pass a thousand days beyond that point when—if humanity still thrives—my time shall be called antiquity, when those who remain to whispers life’s dirges shall look back upon my time and see only the ills, the clotted terrors, the shadows of hidden places built within the creases of the earth’s sulking brow, the shrines marauders have desecrated with wanton foray, battering their marble limbs and fragile breasts, razing these sacred points as though in challenge, defying gods that will do naught to revenge themselves. The ancient texts—ah, yes, they speak of vengeful gods, but though this time in which I dwell verges upon the primordial, still those great, celestial powers of myth and sacristy have vanished from the earth, and hidden their faces among the clouds—ever do their mortal creations fall, and ever does mortal blood steep the earth—and still, the gods do nothing. I am losing my belief in deities, just as I have lost my faith in the solidity of Man—Man is no more solid than the vapours of sultry dawn. I stand, now, without faith, without motive, guided by nothing but my aimless tread, scoring a path through the very flesh of my world. My universe had shrunk, and with it has gone all quixotic vision. Everything about me has become unaffected—I have lost all sweet, child’s illusion—I have passed centuries, in the realm of thought, upon this gloomy planet, and so has the gloom become instilled within myself. Surprise holds nothing for me, and I have forgotten the jolts of shock—perhaps I am dead, and Death has forgotten to take my body when it has already snared my soul.

Or perhaps I have merely accustomed myself to a shaded heaven and clouds of black birds, wheeling where the spires of ancient buildings once wallowed in their pride, and still exulted even when the iron fist of merciless men beat them to dust. Their spirits are frozen; they exalt still, and there is something consequential in these black ruins, though life has been ravished, expunged. There is eloquence in these broken stones, where there once were walls, something expressive in the shattered vestiges of dreary life. This town, crushed beyond all recognition, still throbs with some uncanny life, as though that life were only just torn from the cocoon of existence, and flung into the wide, frosted plain of death. Pure, unsullied death. Yes, death has been here: it has been in the houses, and blown them apart; it has been in the wells and poisoned the waters; it has sprinkled ashes, like rice and flowers sprinkled at a wedding feast upon the bride and groom, for death has taken life into its embrace—Hades had spent Persephone’s breath, her vernal will, again, here, in this broken, battered town.

I am the forced companion of a mule, who follows me with hooded eyes, whose rusted coat is like a dying lamp against this lifeless setting.

She has borne my armour, some sacks of food, and a change of clothes over many furrowed roads. I purchased her for ten doubloons, half a day out of the Dome—I quit that place for a month’s time without real motive, for despair—so settled upon my shoulders that it no longer reeks—has stripped even that kindness, that purpose, from me. I purported to wander; I required a beast of burden—her owner was happy to sell her to me. She was intractable, he said, would do nothing that she did not wish to do, even when whipped. Unlucky animal. She will go for ten doubloons.

The mule proved opposite of her master’s accusations. I took her, having paid, and laid my things upon her back. She took the bits of food I offered her, followed, not with obedience, but with a glint of something else—perhaps preference—in her dew-beaded eyes. It was then that I realized she would not leave me even if I had wished it; I tested my hypothesis at the first town we came upon, and lo, she came tramping after me as though everything had been planned—I had not truly wished to abandon her, only to see.

For when one has lost utter faith, one still wishes to see—even if we are convinced that life is false, we cannot turn aside.

It was with this mule that I came upon this dead town, and perceived the specters that caused its withered heart to continually beat.

It had not been the most expedient of days, for there had been rain, rain which left my path sodden. I passed into lands over which the shower had expired before it could drench; still, the sun remained hidden, the way clouded. This was the first ominous proof that I drifted into something rather amiss. I did not attend to these indications, however.

It was as the sun had relinquished all pretense, and left the veil of clouds deep and boiling for its slumber, that we came upon the town.

I descried it at a distance: the befouled stumps of buildings, the shriek of crows, the hoary walls. We were upon it ere I could consciously make a decision to enter or avoid—but when one has lost one’s faith, there is something deliciously morbid in encountering these ghastly scenes. Ah! to think I had lost faith—my viscera roiled. It was at this backward notion—this danger of reverting, of realization, of all the horror and anguish and pain that is bound up in questioning—that I plunged forward, the mule at my heels, into the town.

I must not think, when all about me is still liquid, still fragile—a drop of colouring, dispersing in a pond of water, pervasion—encompassing.

Instinct warned me forward—into the shade of a wall—reach for my pistol.

All these things I did.

My relapse into righteous horror had only been a brief flash, and I threw my concentration, my energies, into the scene before me. From around the corner of the wall, with my face pressed to the warm cobble, I saw two figures, both tall and plumb and motionless—one dressed in black, sweeping about him on death’s lingering, eddied breaths, the other in a novel array I had only glimpsed here and there in the timeless halls of the Dome. They stood among the smoke and ashes, the choking currents, in breathless silence—or perhaps it was I who was silent, breathless, attributing my actions to them. My finger curled behind the trigger—pebbles bit into the hand I had set upon the ground, on which I balanced my crouching form—there was smoke in my nostrils, haze in my eyes—I blinked, wrinkled my nose—my heart was pulsing with violence, and still I crouched, without consuming fear. I could feel the smoke creeping up through my nasal organs, into the cavities of my skull—too deep a breath would fill my lungs with pollution; I dared not attempt it—

And then the mule moved, first with lethargy, then with haste: I cannot say what called her from the dead town, what jerked her lead rope from beneath my feet and sent me toppling from my perch. I had leant too heavily upon the lead; I came crashing down, feet scrambling in the powdered rubble. My finger was behind the trigger, and for a moment, as I realized this good fortune, I concurrently cursed my stupidity—had my hand been anywhere but, I might have wasted a perfectly good shot.

I did not stop to wonder why I concerned myself with shots.

I was a confusion of motion, staggering upright with a hand upon my sword, my flintlock dangling from between my fingers. I had broken the silence and awoken the two figures from the trance of my own creation. It was likely they had never been unmoving, but I had made them thus. The mind is a powerful thing, whether it is used wisely or not. It had blinded me, and given me something else to see—

And then I was standing, not unobserved. My ignominy had been witnessed, and it would be stupid to anticipate departure. As always, be I with faith or without, I would always seal my own doom.

I drew my sword.