Savelius
New Member
Walking through the trail that led through the verdant green valley, Sekhar picked his way through the thick foliage that intruded onto the worn, dust-strewn trail. Overhead the sun was beginning to set, and the fading sun cast its cornucopia of red, orange and purple hues over the world below. It would be night soon, and they would have to stop and camp, although Sekhar contemplated just pushing onwards. They were not far away from the shrine that his companion wished to visit. Sekhar glanced back at her for a moment. Anit, she had called herself, although she had been fairly reticent in terms of speaking about herself, or indeed, speaking about anything at all.
The young guide shrugged his shoulders almost instinctively as he reached out with his left hand, grasping at the tendrils of brush as they spilled out onto the path, holding it to one side so his erstwhile companion could pass through unscathed and unscratched. Truthfully, Sekhar had guided many different types of people throughout the years he had been doing this, and the manner of their temperament and being mattered little to him. Only the colour of their coin mattered, and as long as the girl paid him the remaining gold for his time and effort that he was owed then she could be as forthcoming and reticent as she wished herself to be.
"It will be night soon, however we are not far from our destination."
Sekhar's voice echoed somewhat in the depths of the valley that the two of them stood in, something that caused him to furrow his brow in annoyance. As she passed through, Sekhar gently laid the thick branches back on the ground where they had lain, trying his best to place them back the way that he had found them to begin with. It was a simple thing, certainly, but Sekhar had always trusted in the little things.
Do the little things and the big things will look after themselves.
He remembered the voice almost as if it were yesterday when he had last heard the words. Spoken by his father, so many many years ago. This simple remembrance caused a small pang of sorrow to resonate inside of him. It had been such a long time since he had been home, almost to the point that he had forgotten what home was. Home was the road, as it always had been. As it always would be. Sekhar's attention to detail was something that had been ingrained in him by his father from an early age.
Don't make assumptions.
Don't leave a trail for someone else to follow.
Kneeling, Sekhar smoothed over the trail and signs of passage before he stood. Reaching up, he touched the dark hood that obscured his features almost instinctively as he cast his blue eyes around the nearby environs. A narrow trail that wound ever downwards deeper into the valley, an on either side of them an almost impossibly steep hill that was overgrown with bushes and trees. Overhead the trees grew, casting their ever deepening shadows further as time gradually ticked onwards, daylight turning into evening and finally dusk. And the trees themselves looked sinister with their bent and gnarled forms, bark peeling off the trunks of the trees as their branches moved in the slight wind that circulated around the two of them. The movement made the spindly branches look like twisted grasping hands coming towards them. Sighing, Sekhar cast off such fanciful notions as he moved past his companion, taking the lead once more.
"Be careful," the young guide intoned, perhaps unnecessarily. "The route is treacherous here and the slope steepens here on in. Normally I'd advise taking camp for the night, but in this case we will be at our destination inside the hour."
And I don't really trust it here. This place gives out an unnatural feeling. Sekhar did not voice the concerns he felt.
Somewhere in the distance a cawing sound could be heard. Sekhar looked up, seeing the dark form of a raven as it took perch on one of the gnarled and spindly branches, looking down at the two of them as it fixed them with its beady yellow eyes. In another direction more cawing could be heard, a response from another raven perhaps? Sekhar could not see this second raven, but it did nothing to halt the ever growing unease that he felt. The shadows grew darker, and as Sekhar stepped cautiously forwards, placing one booted foot slowly in front of the other, he could almost imagine the dancing shadows, drawing him into its all-encompassing embrace. And there, as he could almost imagine the ethereal tendrils of nothingness swirling around him, reaching towards him to wrap his body inside their embrace, not for the first time did Sekhar Darkbow consider anew the foolhardy nature of his actions. Yes, in some ways, it was fair to say that this pathetic creature, this outcast, this exile, stood on the edge of a gaping precipice. Dull, lifeless eyes stared unmoving into the translucent depths of swirling blue, almost as if by doing so he would be granted a revelation that was both life and world changing.
Sadly, no such revelation made its way out of the murky, heady depths of the darkening gloom around him, nor would it.
He was on his own, as he always was. He could never go back.
Step backwards, back to the life you once knew. Back to the people he once knew where one was forced always to wear a mask of some sort.
A mask to hide your true self.
A mask to hide your true motives.
A mask to hide the beast that lies inside your soul.
His hand slid almost subconsciously inside the folds of the travelling cloak he wore cast around his shoulders. His fingers brushed something inside there, something metallic. Closing his eyes, he squeezed it tightly, almost as if by doing so he could turn back time, undo what had been done, make things right again. Like he had promised.
But he couldn’t. He never could.
No, there was nothing back there for him now, and if fate decreed that he did die here, in this wandering nothingness, at least if nothing else he could die on his own terms. Nobody could take that from him.
Could they?
Sekhar's smile was grim as those blue, dull lifeless eyes looked back to his companion. It was a smile that didn't touch those twin orbs of nothingness. It never could.
"We press on. The shrine is ahead."
The sun was setting. Somewhere, out there, she waited for him. His sister, waiting in the darkness with a glittering knife.
Goodnight, angel of death.
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