The Wilting Ballad

8

Time is different here. What you'll only see will be glimpse of what was and will be in a rainbow of interminable virtue. None will be clear here but you're conscious.

Jlyn awoke to the sounds of ocean thundering, violently swaying those living beneath it, and calm fires crackling before his face. Gariel gave a throaty chuckle as he tries to spring up only to drop on the clammy stale grass on a hill overlooking all that was water. The wave was having a heated argument with the wind, it seems. It howled across the spikes of the billowing ocean.

Jlyn gazes at the absurdly bleak midday sky with an air of long-awaited euphoric. I'm out. I'm finally out of Il-Zektes. The smile he bore was the most real one Gariel has seen in all his seventy-seven years of life on Iruil. He only hoped that it would last.

Jlyn turned his head and eyes towards the far. Beyond the bickering ocean with creatures underneath and storm that was sure to come to the blacken island that was barely visible amidst the misty air. "Is that..."

"It is." Said Gariel, growling as he stretch his legs. "Moss Island. Home to the most brutal assassins in all of Iruil."

"Couldn't they have picked a better name? Also, who wants to live in a moss-covered place in the middle of nowhere?"

"Those with no other option," Gariel replied. Jlyn stares at the rock that was supposedly covered all in moss, where the most destructible weapons are forged and the people think caitiff of all outsiders. He thought of how frightened he is, how he will be and how he must deal with it, it worries him gravely. It seems he's worried all the time these days. The curse of having an adult's mind. He thought, brows furrowed. "Have you heard the final tale of The Dark Queen Kaionira?" Asked Gariel.

Jlyn shakes his head, facing his grandfather. Every tale he has had the privilege of hearing from Gariel has stayed with him, in the deepest parts of his heart. He cherishes them and learns from them. It intrigued him indeed that he have chosen this particular time and place to tell one of his tales, thus, he sits upright by the fire opposite his grandfather and tries his best to be comfortable and wait.

Gariel took a deep long breath and exhaled a long winding sigh, he smiled and begins, "I don't suppose it's a story one would learn during lessons of your teaching. For this is a story that has been overlooked and forgotten over the last few centuries but always.... always remembered by those it fell unto.

"Roughly two thousand years ago when Shan set out on his conquest to become the first Emperor of the world there was much who opposes him. But more were those under his command. You see... in those days there were many small, petty kingdoms, they weren't under one ruler like today's world. They were divided, filled with pride.

"And so, one by one they fought and fall under the wrath of Shan. They raided village after village, town after town, kingdom after kingdom, city after city, capital after capital. From his stronghold of Etharilduk'ail in the far west to the ends of the east where Lyorenbatra now stands.

"They all fall to the greatest army led by the most ruthless and vicious man of that time. Many die defending their honour and refusing to bow before this... pretender who sees himself as some kind of god. But what is honour when one is dead? Many innocents were slaughtered in the comfort of their homes.

"Now... they will sing of how Shan was the.... greatest man that ever lived, how he saved the world with his grand armies, how he ends the hunger, the suffer. But the simple truth is this -- Shan was a man who enjoy murdering, a madman, a rapist, and one of the most powerful Leafsinger that ever existed. Add those four things together and you'll get a very dangerous man.... no.... a monster of the worst kind. Some rulers usually are, they sang songs praising them after their skin withers and old age takes them but while they draw breath, they, oftentimes, bring only pain to those they sought to rule over.