The grass always seems greener...

[The King Of The Moon 7016]

 

 

..

 

Remedium stared out at the ruin. It was getting dark, the wind tugged at the old alchemist’s robes and threatened to yank the mask out of his hand. ‘A silly thing’, thought the machine as he lifted such to examine it. ‘What does a man without a face have need of a mask for, anyway?’ he’d pondered before stuffing it into the confines of his gambeson. Then his attention returned to the derelict manor. Even in this light he could picture what once was; the charred and now rotting beams that once held up the second and third floors, the dead trees he and his sister had once climbed as children, the pathway now buried beneath at least a foot of moss that his mother had first led them down following the fall of Axios… The doorway he’d slit his mother’s throat in.

 

When last he’d visited the ruin he’d found a demonologist squatting there. Before that there were spider-folk and before that there were shades. Now, however, it was empty. ‘As too will be the rest of Atlas, soon.’ he decided, having already passed three caravans of elves headed for cloud temple, each more confused than the last as to why he was heading in the opposite direction, and what the hell he was dragging a coffin for.

 

He trudged on through the dead woods, paying no mind to the mist that had started eating the shores on the other side of the bay and far too much to the coffin he’d been hauling - cursing as it skipped over each rotten root and jagged pebble - before making his way to the felled Sintel estate. His home, coming to kneel beside the shore.

 

“**** you!” came a guttural chirp from within the coffin, countered simply with a kick from the machine before he spoke, unlooping the reigns he’d had on such from his belt. “Fear not, demon. This is where we part ways.” He shoved the box out onto the waves and then a few feet into the water, chuckling despite himself as the graven he’d earlier captured was pulled off by the tide, doomed to a claustrophobic voyage to nowhere in particular. And then he rose, and made his way into the house… Or what was left of it.

The fickle middle-finger of fate seemed to stand proudly affront as he looked about the ruin. The stairs, the living room, the kitchens, the drawing room, all decimated by wildlife or burned down long ago, yet the doorway was intact. He scraped his long, mechanical digits along the wall until he found them caught on an all too familiar carving ‘I’m sorry.’ as he’d put simply, all those years ago.

 

Something arose in him; perhaps if he still had the eyes for it he’d cry, or perhaps if he still had a stomach he’d vomit. ‘Perhaps both.’ his mind teased. He scanned the floor then fell to his knees abruptly with a clatter of plates and gears, remembering all too well that this is where it happened. “You made me do it.” he argued to the absent. “You were out of control. You ruined me. Ruined her…” he had no answer bar the distant screeches of his castaway graven and the tide’s faint churn. A few moments went by as he waited, as every fiber of his metal being yearned for the sun to rise and for his mother to peak around the corner followed by his sister yelling ‘tag’, but of course no such thing came.

“Kypris’dionne Sintel, dead.” He declared, finally coming to a stand with the knowledge that time was short. ‘The end of the world’ people were calling it… Again. “Adorellan Sintel, missing.” The machine began marching from the ruin, listing on “Thalon Sintel, missing.” returning up the banks now relieved of his captive burden. “Aerenna Sintel, missing.” back at the line of leafless oaks he turned, looking upon the house a final time to scream:

“Alwin Sintel, dead.”

 

And Remedium put his mask back on, leaving Atlas, Alwin Sintel and everyone he’d once known behind.

 

[luv 3469]

Kypris’dionne is still screaming in the depths of hell.

[Zacho 2177]

Moved to The Great Library. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.

 

If you feel this is a mistake, please contact myself or any FM and we'll restore it.