Solrael

I found my host in a room I'd never been before. It'd been quite sometime since last we'd chatted, and something had changed, though I couldn't recall the specifics. There was a heavy smell of dust in the air before I'd arrived her, as though something had collapsed and kicked up every free particle it could. The usual sounds of the castle above us were no longer present, and while I couldn't remember anything having changed, trepidation nonetheless grew withing me. When I entered the room he now hid it, I was assaulted by the thick scent of blood. So powerful and pungent was it that I couldn't help but cough and gag. Doing so was what drew

Entry #140 While I had heard of the Grim Knight of Phelandra prior to my journey’s beginning, I had never actually expected to encounter the creature. I suppose, on some level, I had perhaps hoped I wouldn’t encounter it, as the tales surrounding it paint a less than positive image. Admittedly, the experience was one I would not quickly repeat, but in some regards I am glad to have met it. There is level consistency to the tales of the Grim Knight. Some say it is a crown prince, others a common soldier or lost vanguard. Some say it is a dead thing, soul trapped inside the armor which failed to save it. Others say it is a long f

A pane of opaque glass stands before me. Its thickness I cannot determine, its purpose I can only guess at. It seems to function as a door, but to what or where I cannot say. The earth behind and beneath me is dry, dusty, and hard. It crumbles away into powder, lifted on ever-present winds, disappearing into the storm clouds above and the deep shadows below. I have move ever forward to this point, struggled through the wastes to bring myself here with an objective loosely in mind; an ill-defined goal of at least pushing toward something other than the desert about me. Now though, with the rumble of distant thunder and crackle like lightning j

She kneels naked upon lavender sands, beneath a lightless sky. Her arms are stretched out upon the ground before her, her head down as though in worship. Long black hair partially cover her limbs and completely her face; a crown of the empty sky bound to her quite form. Slowly, the moon peaks out from behind a cloud and spies her down below, flesh as pale as the distant body, seemingly to glimmer in the moonlight. With the audience starting to assemble a slight smile crawls along her face, just for a moment, and completely unseen beneath her tenebrous locks. As she begins to move, the moon, the stars, and many other eyes, begin to make the pr

     The room is alive with the sounds of revelry.     Conversations keep time with the whistle of wind instruments. Steps are taken, consciously and otherwise, in match to the beat of a drum they may not hear, but certainly feel. Actions, gestures, match the strings that play them. Passions are given expression through lyrics of a myriad of chorusers.     Conquest, victory, success of any caliber, all these and more are reason enough to celebrate, and all these and more are exalted this night. Glasses are lifted high in celebration. Tankards, mugs, and simple cups, all find their way through a sea of hands, often times crashing into one an

It's all in your blood. Everything you do in life won't mean a drop, not compared to the meat-slop flowing through you. Your blood is your life, your blood defines you. Without it you are nothing, and with it? You're heritage. You're composition. You're parts glued into a whole? Is that it? Is that all there is? Your actions won't matter, not when someone can just define you by principle only made visible because a couple people made your blood in the first place. Is that it? Hold the stars in your hands. Kiss the moon good night and sew together galaxies with gossamer dreams, it won't matter. You'll be: man. Woman. Gay. Straight. Black. Whit

The winds play across the rooftops, a thousand tiny screams of anguish echoing up from the streets below. "Life is a guaranteed mortality rate." A bitter observation from an equally bitter corpse, spoken from a poorly closed doorway. There could be a thousand justifications for its actions, a million perfectly acceptable points to explain what prompted his presence. In this case though? It's just one of the many echoes and aches of the city that surrounds him. Its target, its prey, the soon to be victim of his oh-so-righteous ferocity, looks upon him with touches of fear and a heavy volume of confusion. The corpse is unremarkable, unassuming,

 The grinding of stone and metal, the howl of storm winds, the tortured screams of a thousand unknown souls; these sounds fill my ears and batter my form. I stand upon a precipice that once seems so much longer. It seemed like there was more room to move, to maneuver, to build and work and plan with. Now, now I have only a scant few steps and those are slowly being churned away by the constant consumption of time. Behind me is a torrent of dust, of sand, of fragmented history and shattered decisions. Scattered outcomes whirl about me, to and fro, as I die a thousand times, every decision I didn't make leaving me with this one and being cast

By all rational thought, the heart is an organ of folly. The brain does not see fit to resurrect habits established in the short and ended so very long ago. The stomach does not bother to awaken the desire for a meal that was never consumed, and likely will not be. But the heart? With its penchant for amorous intentions and foolhardy attachments? The heart sees no reason not to pull one from the burrows of rest to sing songs of a figure long removed from the stage. Asleep or awake, the heart will plague and vex the brain, harassing the more useful mass with thoughts of those who have passed. It knows no time, no cessation, until it is shatter