Kleptico reached out with a gentle hand, feeling the scorching ridges of the shaven branch. The elder’s life was a small growth, originally part of an ancient tree. Now, this broken stem was the only remnant beside the smoldering, towering trunk, with everything else reduced to solemn ash.
The green leaves, yearning for the next year’s layer of wood, began to bend under the crushing, blackened hand of Krieg. This propagation in the cloven stock shimmered and folded as the charred limb pressed inward, connecting with the elf's grasp. Two mahogany hands worked to find a connective flow. “Where is it?” whispered Kleptico, unable to reach the dwindling giant’s life.
Countless lines swirled about its infinite center, marking summers and winters, years of life through a world constantly dying. This ancient tree, now a massive stump, reminded the dark elves of death. The Krieg, enduring the stains of time, ceaselessly burned the trees. An immortal flower shone grimly. Blood-red sap dripped from many wounds of war. A burn without hope, unable to revive life or the lost ones. These reflections colored the elder tree’s remains. The black elf’s mind twitched silently, accepting what was and what was to come.
Felled trees, once providing shelter to elven children from unending storms, now stood as a house-sized stump. No longer did it breach the sky.
The priest’s blade, sharp and rusting, turned round and sank into the green-hazed wood, symbolizing Kleptico’s loss. He had lost his way under the great siscant tree, unable to navigate without its abundance. This mirrored his foretold life and death. The shaman lacked the purpose or will to move his kin’s mountains. Fields of drying bodies and rotting wooden corpses flowed into these grooves, a cork of shredding wood.
The old priest’s view of the future no longer progressed; he could only stop and begin anew. His fear of incomplete visions left him aimless. Dissemination spread to his people’s knowledge.
Kleptico pushed away from the whispered wood, standing in fading views. His vision released as his hand let go of the crude blade, the only sound as it struck the wood. It flickered and bent like a flame from a heartless moan.
Lost in thought, the priest swallowed as his feet fell like a sword into the awaiting ground below. They bent, bubbled, and shook like a wet dog, extracting the future’s sense. The priest stood and turned back, seeing the tree snake upwards, safe from its fated tomorrow.
The sheer shock of the clean, green, ever-flowing landscape sank into Kleptico like a sunken terror. A shipless sea where he stood on drying sands, no shores to trace possibilities for his race.
Blinded yet with sight, Kleptico saw one clear image: a more alive than dead face of a child before the old black elf. Stolen, he felt, as this human girl’s tiny white hand reached out to him. He couldn’t tell if this was the present or the past. The priest knew it was neither, the image of the child glistening with what were few years to him and many to her. She crouched, nearly twenty years old, with a confusing smile.
The twin turning sight was hard to handle. The child stood alone, waiting for the old elf to speak. Kleptico was silenced, gazing at her golden locks, caked with mud. She bled from a battle she would see as a woman. Her naturally stained red hair followed inward, and she stood tall only to sink back down, covering her blessings. The Krieg mused, watching her huddle once again.
“I cannot begin to unravel such things,” Kleptico spoke, his words spreading like rippling water upon solidifying scenery, “Why should I understand who or what you are or mean?”
Kleptico felt her growing aura, green moss pouring from her scratched, bare feet, covering future mounds of dead in the heightening hills. Taller than the massive tree whose returned trunk turned gray and rotted to mulch. A small moth fluttered over his sullen head, its wings trailing beauty.
“You are sent such signs only after the drowning thoughts and sorrows hidden,” the young, red-haired woman spoke as Kleptico watched the trees wither under a moonlit sky.
Green hills, auburn with yellow blooms, replaced mountains like circles of moving life.
“We all lose in the end; you cannot fight what truth gives you,” Lotus said, smiling through her pain, “but what gain did you find before it found you above the lives you lead to the light and the ones you drop?”
Kleptico softly let go of the child’s hand, her form fading into the gray scenery. Bodies to bone and dirt covered everything beneath the felled tree of an elder race. Now, an endless hue of smog filled the air, the sky darkening, the sun crying out in the heat of a crackling storm.
A male firefly, roaring in flame trails of red and blue, flew out under the storm. Kleptico watched it soar southward through the expanding lands. Further still, the forest of black and green-bodied wood stood for years as the bug wafted in the dying wind. His pulse gleamed through tiny sparks, fading in the night.
Survival's dull voice echoed in the southern trees. The beetle finally landed, climbing towering ferns. His wingless mate hung in the breeze like an unheard scream. Her signals spanned an array, appendages and eyes rolled heavenward. The male growled, wings fluttering. Lightning boomed as rain fell on a myriad of lights.
Blurs between races and species, winged beetles danced below the fading star. A wooden hiss, wings folding, summer’s grass and autumn’s tinge compared, creased away like metallic shards burning in the ground’s cold glare. Beneath, milky iron legs leapt from the storm. Wings flapped, leaving the coming darkness.
Far away, the blue moon sighed, an explosion of cloud flooding swarms. Eggs and rain dropped, melting into days, pupa forming adult dragonflies. One mind, this black God, stood in each forming hue. Mountains stood like white butterflies, mocking natural obsessions from blue linings. Winter’s peering snows perfused a lessening flame. The cloud's body tore away, smothering the shores.
The swarm turned hard, sleep held face, the living, looming souls sailed in a star-dialed flash. Kleptico stumbled, swooning to the rhythm. Thoughts of giant beetles barreling forward, antennae flung, pressed a lightless orb. Warm red liquid poured out fire over twin stags' backs. The horizon bled and peaked upon daybreak.
His hand wrenched the air’s frozen touch, Kleptico inhaled his wooden pipe, burning blue-brown weed. Dried herbs from the southern Butterdown Mountains. The elven shaman sank inward, blowing burning odors. This new day tore Kleptico’s visions.
Ecstasy of black holes blinked the sun, yellow pitch rolled away. Scarab’s legs peddling back, reality firmed, the birthing sky strut. The beetle’s sharp call held the elf as images passed. The past pulled up, a child and young woman pressed beauty. Warm, cold sand ripped, moaning sky breached blue dome. Beautiful, burning canyons sank into sight. A scream matched fury, sinking horror and hands.
A tear fell on Kleptico’s cheek, thoughts passing, acceptance pulling him free. The draining girl freed them from bloodied clothing, sun of tomorrow.
This son, distant kings, time's politic, broken lands. Kleptico looked down. The infant cried, unaware of the world, lost souls wanting to stay. The priest held him high, away from dying mother, preserving purity.
The old elf’s wandering thoughts faltered. Frozen northern desert, refused blazing sun’s aid, morning’s sands fading. The scarab beetle took the elf to the present. Kleptico’s black feet matched his aging body. No child, no mother, no one but the elf and empty desert. Warmth from holding the newborn remained, bloodied babe burned inside empty shaking palms. He couldn’t reason the given sight, touch, or troubling things.
The sky echoed, blood-rimmed horizon tore wide, mocking sun. A flare breeched the newborn’s hairless head. Only this would survive cruelty.
What war came to Halflings’ largest settlement, far from Talimast? Dry winds became nothing, tiny creatures disappeared. Who lived between uniting straits? Unaffordable land, clean grass, horror stuck this night.
Greater reaches lost, south reached high western slopes, cobbled hills, eastern rims folded to higher land. Snowy Butterdowns rolled, leaving the city and Halflings. Arms out, withstanding, or not, grinding bone to dirt like ants. Bao’d Kai no more, waters ran red.
Krieg’s brutal force capable of claiming hill city. Nomadic elven tribe from northern Boneshards desert. Burning loss echoed from fallen walls, dead Halflings, black army, defeat ringing through Khendreen.
Frozen stretches, cold sands fell, uncaring. Boneshards’ ancient battles, lost hope, borderless home for dark elves. Krieg or darkness comforted where sun’s rays couldn’t dent desert’s breath.
Sands like a golden crescent, resembling Kraigon, the great yellow dragon. Sands, beast’s size little below moaning mounds. Kraigon and Sleptic, blue dragon, largest creatures touching Khendreen.
Twin loss echoed in dead pools, preserving purity south into Galpin River.
Long ago, sacrifice, perished good and evil. Khendreen, broken soul, cradle of bones. Climbing insects over fallen, myth and stories became truth. Elves, Krieg, killing urges, war, ancient hatred, staining sands.
Elves and Krieg loved war, wellbeing of fair lands. Southern seas, fair wood, trees echoing waves, life enriched. Tombs of hate, ancient poison, joyful elves born free from darkness.
Halflings had no chance against poisoned Krieg, death wind.