The Ballads of The Skeleton Crew

The Ballad of Time (6|2)

(№6.2)

King Decebalus reigned fair and square over the Dacians, friendly and peaceful subjects, obeying willfully, but with a rather unpredictable, unreliable nature, which made even the daftest of them dangerous, as you never knew how their furious, reckless anger would display, how short temper were to strike from one heartbeat to another.

His reign went from the far inland, devouring the harsh and dense woods, framing the foot of the carpates, a row of towing frosty mountains, impenetrable not unlike another forest that had flourished and blossomed centuries ago, elongating ever more until the steep shores and cliffs of the Black Sea.

Their golden crops could feed all of the villages and grew, over the span of the summer months to the size of a rider leading on top of his steed, their fish were the size of human infants and they possessed a rather peculiar and curious method to thoroughly cook a sheep by throwing it dead into a hole, skin and all wools intact in order to vest flavour and a thrown torch for topper to have the meat burn for three days. Three days, because their protective god, Zalmolxis was to feast on the meat before they did, a sort of economical pseudo-sacrifice.

Their affiliations with the Turks and Romans who regularly thirsted to annex such rich lands and such fertile waters were, putting it only lightly, quite troublesome, but they always could defend, could guard their precious land, that is until Traian came upon them like plague with his endless regions, a roman emperor who diminished the streak of glory of the Dacians and would enslave them and their venerable lands for centuries, keeping the golden metal imbued in the soil safe as well, safely tended in their pockets intended for heavenly prosperity.

A couple of decades before this other catastrophe would take place, there was a marriage held in one of their coastal villages, resembling many culminated and still unlike a common wedding. It would be the unification of a poor, clever, beautiful peasant daughter with a respectable fisherman.

Superficially spoken only, since respectability in that and many more case didn't stem from the producing of friendships and allies or fraternity, but of fright and terror, as her husband was naturally gifted by a crude, brutal and blood-boiling temperament where his complexed fury would get the best of him and destroy everything faithful, everything good in him and let the confines of a beast enter his skin.

These slivers of untamed brutality and shameful toxicity could occur at any time of the day, anywhere where his comrades would be spared the view of his violent slashing and singular in the private as to not have him lose his sacred reputation.

Her marriage was entirely introduced by their parents, who deemed such merging of families worthy and allowed.

Secretively, her husband at the first glance of her rebellious golden hair and her pale strong limbs in the confined group of her household already possessively claimed her body his property, long before he discovered her genuine laugh resonated like the chiming of a bell and her grey eyes shone of unbound intelligence.

Bride nicking was a common enough practice in the ranks of these rough, uncivilised folk, so as he presented his wants and longing to her father, a peasant with a laming leg and a bad eye, how could he refuse, when that entity of a monster would slash all their throats, unstaggeringly kidnapping his daughter nevertheless and would proceed to burn down all their fields? He was old and weathered, and not strong enough to go up against such unjust tyranny. So, better to sacrifice his prettiest daughter, so they would all live to see to next dawn.

He got what he wanted, and the girl, young and still stunning, would tremble nights before in excitement, for the promise of love and marriage, for starting her new life.