- I did sooooooo much research for this story. Can you guess what Plague she is. I will tell you at the bottom of the page.
Mara stood in her wasteland alone. She could see the next town a little ways away. With her a ghost hovered, it watched her intently. It was listening to her, it was giving her something to talk to, even if it never replied.
"I like to read," said Mara, "Even if there isn't any pictures." She ruffled her dark, tattered wings. Mara turned to the town, and smiled at the bustling market that peeked through the buildings. Even here in this untouched city, fear gripped the people as if at any moment, they might catch the deadly blight that had spread across their country.
The ghost remembered the last town, a young woman in pink had been the last there, her little baby had dead in her arms. Macabre, it thought bitterly, if only Mara knew why. It remained silent. Her friend in the dark. The ghost was secretive to its friend. it did not speak of the tall gaping snake faced Tod that followed from town to town, claiming the people that Mara tried so hard to play with for longer than a few days.
"Look!" The winged girl exclaimed, "Posies!"
"You want some flowers, Girl?" The stall worker was tired faced and kind. As she transferred a small basket of flowers to the girl's arms a deathly flea jumped, bit, and began the destruction of another small town. Tod watched from the shadows, the blood Red Cross on his robe almost glowing with anticipation. As death follows plague.
"Thank you ma'am," Mara thanked the woman and took the flowers down the street with her as she experienced the town for the last time it would be safe. The ghost knew that the roses would appear tomorrow morning, the red monks would come with their paint to help Mara to count the dead.
It was only a few days later. The ghost watched Tod step through a door without opening it. He simply slipped through the cracks in the wood. Tod held a little girl's hand as he lead her to where her soul would be forgotten. His long, reaper beak hung open, revealing long ivory fangs. His huge, blind eyes bulged from the top of the beak, pointing forward, and seeing all. The little girl's aura was a light violet, and she walked as if she were completely sure of where she was going. Home. The ghost had felt that before. Unfortunately, they hadn't been ready to go, not yet.
Mara was curled up on the edge of the town crying. Her tears stained the grey earth and her ashy features scrunched with fear and depression. She didn't want to. The ghost sat on its knees and put its hand near her shoulder. She looked into its face, and smiled weakly.
"We should go visit my home town..." she mumbled standing. The ghost floated up and followed her into the wasteland. They had been traveling for two and a half years now, without purpose except to find Mara an answer. It snowed in the mountains of Germany.
Standing in the wastes, the snow drifting listlessly about her wings Mara spotted Tod in the shadow of the mountain. The tall snake faced priest had taken her friends again and again. Used her to collect the souls of thousands. Villages that disappeared without so much as a reminder that they were ever inhabited at all. Ghosts gathered and wandered. The rage of being taken for a toy was overwhelming. Three years into her path of destruction and she had finally found the cause.
She watched Tod, fuming, her body tense. His long hungry mouth, that had always hung open, snapped shut. He turned slowly and walked away. She watched him, unsure of whether he was really gone. The ghost that had followed her everywhere drifted off, now that the story was finished, Mara really was Alone.
- Mara is the Black Death. Tod is Just death.
Fun Fact: Tod is german for death (at least according to google).
