07-30-2024, 02:11 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-30-2024, 02:15 AM by Somnic Finch.)
It is night when I am there.
Sprawling around me and coating the earth is a carpet of shelled things that are shaped like men. Spears and pole-axes wave in the air like blades of grass. Their armor shines with steel, yet each man's luster is buried beneath heavily hung furs and textiles; a necessity in the wintry chill of the nights since the marching had begun. They sprawl to the horizon, and I cannot see far enough into the foggy dimness to ascertain how large the swarm is.
Yet I am keenly aware that they are many, and they are mine. I look down and I am atop a pale white mare. Jötunn warleaders lumber past and lean down to hand me papers and whisper in my ear. Each exchange is made in words I do not understand. In my left hand is a scroll and within it I know important things are written. In my right hand is an implement of war whose details I can never recall, but which must be a spear.
Banners of blue-gold splendor wave in the wind, a breeze that whips the biting frost past the exposed, pearlescent bone of my wings.
Some time passes of this before our destination can be seen ahead. The terrain shifts from snow to frost to soil to green. My mare pushes through the swarm as they begin to crawl to a halt- or more accurately, they part to let me pass- and I am saddled at the forefront, the boundary between ant-swarm and no-man's-land, staring upon the city which is our armies' destination.
I know why I am here and I know why the city deserves its fate. My left hand curls tightly around the scroll in my hand and I raise my weapon and draw breath to scream.
Sprawling around me and coating the earth is a carpet of shelled things that are shaped like men. Spears and pole-axes wave in the air like blades of grass. Their armor shines with steel, yet each man's luster is buried beneath heavily hung furs and textiles; a necessity in the wintry chill of the nights since the marching had begun. They sprawl to the horizon, and I cannot see far enough into the foggy dimness to ascertain how large the swarm is.
Yet I am keenly aware that they are many, and they are mine. I look down and I am atop a pale white mare. Jötunn warleaders lumber past and lean down to hand me papers and whisper in my ear. Each exchange is made in words I do not understand. In my left hand is a scroll and within it I know important things are written. In my right hand is an implement of war whose details I can never recall, but which must be a spear.
Banners of blue-gold splendor wave in the wind, a breeze that whips the biting frost past the exposed, pearlescent bone of my wings.
Some time passes of this before our destination can be seen ahead. The terrain shifts from snow to frost to soil to green. My mare pushes through the swarm as they begin to crawl to a halt- or more accurately, they part to let me pass- and I am saddled at the forefront, the boundary between ant-swarm and no-man's-land, staring upon the city which is our armies' destination.
I know why I am here and I know why the city deserves its fate. My left hand curls tightly around the scroll in my hand and I raise my weapon and draw breath to scream.
It is then that, disappointingly, I wake up.