Esk Tales {TWWM-ARPG Writings Collection}

War {Majanthi #2- Elemental Power}

War

Prompt 2- Elemental Power
{Majanthi}

.:+:.

Once, long ago in ancient times before the inhabitants of the world had come to know each other in all corners of the map- this land which belongs to she whom they call Dunemother, was trapped in war.

Humans had begun to travel farther, encroaching on every inch of land, changing, breaking, and tearing as they went. The scattered fragments of humanity barely clinging to life in tiny patches of the globe had grown to villages, towns, cities and more- always growing, always stretching further, and always constantly erasing more and more of what had once been.

Where forests had once stood, stone and mortar had taken root. Where seas had remained untamed for millennia, they were now being traveled by ships that braved the waves, and then littered the deepest depths of the ocean's floors with their wooden bones and frames.

Where once there had been nothing but endless sands and rolling dunes stretching out on either horizon, now the deserts became dotted in patches of mankind burrowing their way into the earth. Hives where humans and all they brought laid their claim, defying the sun and the harsh climate at every turn, surviving and thriving where so few outsiders had managed before.... And as humans continued to master the arid lands, the more clear man's potential for destruction, greed, and violence became.

It did not take long before what inconveniences and changes the humans wrought unto the land had escalated into things far worse. What had started as carelessness, and ignorant actions that at times brought harm to living creatures of all kinds- soon those actions became born and driven by sheer cruelty, and unchecked destruction. What pain man had inflicted on the earth was now suddenly being turned on his fellow man... And for it, the sands began to be soaked in scarlet red.

The deserts became battlegrounds, humans inflicting horrors upon one another, hunting each other across dunes and miles of baked sand, cutting each other down, leaving others to starve and die of exposure. Over and over.

Blood was being shed within her home by those who tramped across the arid lands, tearing up the once beautiful and desolate wastes- the destruction and strife carving through the land she called her own, and to a point that the Dunemother was unable to stand idly by. She could not remain passive while these wretched, violent beings wrought havoc on the peace and calm she tried so hard to impart upon her home. Nor could she turn a blind eye while they brought pain and heartache not only to each other, but all those living and unseen things tucked away in the endless sands.... Once the Wanderer allowed herself the anger she usually kept buried, simmering deep deep down, untouched.

Once the Wanderer let her rage boil up and spill out- and what came with her ire was something the humans were never quick to forget.

Our Dunemother took her stand, the desert in its entirety roiling not in throes of some sandstorm as it had so many times before- but covered in miles and miles of righteous fire, smoke and ash.

The sky and the sun became choked, sunrays trying to break desperately through a wall of smog and bleeding terrible crimson down on the land, bathing everything in an awful eerie blood-red. The air was heavy, hard to breathe- the fire dancing across the dunes and the smoke so thick one could scarcely see two feet in front of them. It was hot, and burning with an even more stifling heat than that of the sun baking everything down below.

The humans found themselves trapped, their intended path across the dunes and away from their little hamlets of civilization blocked by the blaze and haze acting as a wall. Their sights set on 'enemies' and intent to destroy halted in place, a wasteland they had been encroaching upon and tearing up at their leisure suddenly cut off by an immovable barrier of smoke and burning ash. Stifling waves of it washed into them, singing and burning as they battered those humans backward on each attempt forward..... As if the smoke born from fires unseen were telling them no.

You shall not tread here, stay out.

It would not relent, it kept swirling, choking, burning, guarding- and they could see no end to it, nor any falter in it's ferocity.... nor did they see it's source, besides some fleeting, ghostly images of some strange beast on the far horizon, stark black and white in the eerie crimson glow and the smoke billowing out of it's back as it stood, resolute, immovable, and almost daunting.

And the warning could not have been clearer with those tiny glimpses of such a shadowy figure- nearly so clear it was as if the words crept over their minds, faroff and hissing like sand in the wind.

Stay out, or face a wrath beyond what you've brought to this land

What had been a war between humankind and itself had suddenly turned to a battle between man and that righteous fire that had no end, and no mercy.... a battle that the humans lost.

Days of fire and smog left the humans coughing and hardly able to breathe, what spare few crops they had wilted and burned- the water turned acid and dense as ash cached in the precious liquid, and turned it rancid. Any energy or strength left on their war and reign of terror was swept up in hunger, pain and thirst for the actions of she who others have only ever seen as nurturing, caring, and passive. Days of fire and smoke that brought nothing but harm and ache, where usually it healed.

Days where the Wanderer proved one thing so many here in the desert wastes seem to forget;

.:+:.

"Our Dunemother is not always kind."

Inky black paws hit the dirt, stark against the tan and yellow hues- the stranger's fur a wash of the same colors, but streaked in fiery red and orange that matched the stones poking from their body. Colors of which seemed almost fitting for the subject of such fierce flames raging so very long ago.

The stranger stood, looming almost as they remained perched on a small shelf in the landscape, the desert around them flourishing and alive... much unlike things had been centuries passed, when Majanthi had let her ire loose and to which the sudden and unexpected tale had been about- interjecting what quiet murmurs had passed among the visitor's here, humming to themselves about the Wanderer and her teachings, skill, healing smoke, kindness.

Maestro had not intended to interject, but lingering heartbreak and resentment for her creation made it impossible to hold her tongue. These youngsters knew so little, they'd not been around long enough to know the full of things- especially this.

Speaking up at first was a snap decision, recanting the whole tale born of a desire to make it clear that care was not all the Wanderer knew.... but as the last bit of the story left Maestro, she saw the wide eyes and enraptured (and perhaps even unsettled) moods of those before her, and she paused.

She shouldn't let the tale and lesson be made from spite, or muted anger- it was a lesson, and a tiny nudge toward a better understanding for those who had wandered here to her Boundary. A tale to help guide, and prepare them better for what they would inevitably learn themselves, as time drudged on by.

Maestro shook herself out a bit, stepping lightly off the shelf and down to the visitors level, her head bending slightly to their height and her voice losing the grim and dire tone it had earned with the story.

"No, Majanthi is not always kind... but no one ever is at all times." Maestro told the visitors quietly, softly.

"War has a way of bringing the worst of all beings to the surface, even those as timeless as the Wanderers.... Just remember young ones- even a flame that is meant to heal can still burn."