Chapter Text
"Is it light... No, the thing is dim, not as beast but still it lacks the glow. What has arrived to us? The city above, much more presentable, much still static. Here only a whisper of what was."
"Must you speak like that?"
"We speak as truth necessitates, what we lack in clarity, we convert for granularity."
All from beyond knew of the king of the old city, and of the dangers it possesses. I had bypassed them at cost, and before me was the final sands of the beings hourglass of life. They fell away as we spoke, scattering in the wind. The being stood nowhere in this world, but the corpse before me was as close a connection as needed.
"Its only that time is limited, my question should be obvious."
"It presumes much, we posses many things, and each in an audience would request different."
"Then start at the pit."
"We fail, struggle, to express certainty when so much must be condensed into so little. The story of the child, of the demesne, of our bonded, any such answer would fulfill your question. You seek totality, A history, not a myth. Such a thing is beyond us alone, but we can speak of a glimpse into the fractal that is the truth. Once gone, seek the wilds and the peaks, embers sputter in these quiet corners."
"You speak of precision yet you delay, begin your tale."
"There is a madness in our world, one not of burning but still within all. A light we hold but that doesn't glow as the Kin. Except in us, whom displays Beacon, drawing out the shy light in all hearts who may see us. Beacon drew us to sacred land, and with Beacon we reigned. Blazing Kin against Beacon, A story already understood."
"When did your kin come to be?"
"A question not for us, seek it if it is still, we don't know."
"And of this light?"
"In stasis light is nothing, only visible in the shadow it cast. That knowledge we ignored, and such was land laid low."
"Was that just?"
"There is no justice. There is order, or not, yet neither needs or allows justice. Our order lasted, disorder lasted, now order lasts. Never has there been justice."
"Do you speak out of guilt?"
"Guilt of necessity, but our words are honest. It didn't matter, so we gave all in hope that it would. Time has changed our words, perhaps it could differ had you arrived before."
"What would you have told me then?"
"Hollow, such would be our words. You ask for truth, and now request perspective. Old feelings were frank, but stasis has held, the sands have shifted, and what was is no longer. We could also offer the bones of a beast, to sup your hunger."
The last seconds passed in silence. The presence was gone eventually, and I let it go. Off I went once more.