Feedback on this is appreciated - from typo hunting to stylish nitpicks. There are a number of things I'm trying to accomplish with this, I'm not sure how I'm succeeding, but I'll get back to that at some point.
|This text| is meant to be displayed in small-caps. Discus doesn't like HTML/CSS, though, so I couldn't put the formatting in here. Eventually, it will be there, though - in Elfwood, most likely.
Prologue
It was a fine, fine day to be out on the field, the young man reflected. One of the few joys of the poor, dull life of peasantry. The rainy summer was turning towards its end and had brought a few rare days of warmth and parching sunshine to the country. The young man, not yet ready to completely yield to the responsibilities of adulthood and, amazingly, still safe from the cynicism that took over the mind as years came and went, had promptly left his home at the break of dawn with nothing better in mind than simply enjoying a day of lazing around.
"...and the ploughboy is as happy as a prince ooor a kiiing..." he sung happily off-key as he walked along the roadside with long strides. He had in mind to sing the ballad by the name of the prettiest girl in town: fair Annie, ribbons in her hair, and the sweetest deepest dimples he ever saw. She must have been born from the pure soul and spirit of the song! he thought, so pretty was his Annie.
Well, not his Annie, as much as he wished it was so. Not yet, at least, but this was a matter he intended to put right. Eventually, when Annie would take any notice of his existence.
"...her voice is low and sweet, her voice is low and sweet; an' she's all the world to my; an' for bonnie Annie Laurie, I'd lay me down and die...!" Oh, yes: he'd practice and he'd practice till his singing would match the birds', and then he'd sing to his fair Annie and win her heart. And she'd be all the world to him.
"...and for bonnie Annie Laurie I'd lay me d--"
A sudden sting of pain cut off the verse. The young man clutched his chest with his hands, drawing breath sharply. His heart was bursting, but not for the love of fair Annie, he was afraid. He fell to his knees on the muddy road and collapsed, slowly, rolling on his side before the pain suddenly stopped.
|You can stand up now.|
The young boy opened his eyes to see a pair of feet in front of him. Looking up, he saw a vaguely human figure clad in long white robes. It was impossible to tell its sex by its voice, which had a certain hollow, cold ring to it, brought upon by the featureless silver mask that covered its face. It had no holes for the eyes or the mouth. Only from the figure's build he could guess it was female - or as close to female as was possible for it.
|Stand up. Now is no time for lingering.| He thought, for a while, that the voice sounded impatient.
The boy staggered to his feet, feeling awkwardly light and clumsy as he did so. "Huh? Wait, who are you? Are you a--" A possibility dawned on him. "You're a priest?"
The silver-faced woman shook her head. |I'm no priest, but some wish to pray to me.| She silenced him with a simple gesture of her hand as he was about to burst into an annoyed bout of speech. |I know what I am. I also know what you are. Dead.|
Somehow, it was not a surprise. He had not even considered such an absurd notion, but hearing it was like hearing a simple fact such as "water is wet." Taking a step backwards, he nearly tripped over his own body lying on the ground, mouth half-open and shoddily cut hair covering his still open eyes.
"But... h-how did that happen?" Astounded, confused, he looked at the body and her, back and forth, with the helpless face of a child.
|That, you will never know.| With a simple flick of her wrist, it seemed, she picked a gleaming sword out of thin air. The blade was thin and slightly curved, made of what could not have been metal and sharp enough to cut time itself. In one swift movement, the Faceless Death severed the dead peasant's soul from this world and watched it first be reduced to white mist, then fade away into the wind.
|That is why I was here for you. Because you will never know why.|
In a shimmer, the silver-masked woman disappeared, leaving only the cooling body to rest by the side of the road.
-----
The world was in shambles.
That's what people said about it. The world is in ruin, it's broken, our history destroyed and the great nations brough down, they said. We're living the dawn of a dark age, they cried.
Seers knew better, but would not speak of what they had seen in their portents and visions.
Historians knew better, for they had read and recorded it a hundred times over - but who would listen to musty old men?
Mother Life knew no better than her children, for she was content on always hoping and striving to make it all new again.
And death, death cared not to know any better. Death was always there. All of them.
-----
There were no great halls for the dead. No gateway to the dark after life, no throne for the king of that great unknown. Countless books and poems had been written about the gardens of death, black waters in its marble fountains and wilting flowers lining the winding pathways. But there was no castle, and there was no garden, and there wasn't even a great blackness where death dwelled.
There was, however, a cottage. It wasn't a shoddy cottage built of rotting wood, holes in the shingled roof and an ominous creak to the front door. It was, all in all, a nice cottage with a thatched roof and only slightly peeling paint on the walls. There was no garden, but from the door a path led down the hill to the shore of a small lake.
On a large stone at the water's edge sat a solitary figure, the ragged hems of its white robe hanging carelessly in the water, billowing like a great cloud. It was an old woman, older by far than any human, but not just old. She had the ageless quality that only ageless ideas have: she was not merely old, but the old that the word represented. Gracefully aged, her face was wrinkled but not ugly, her hair was a smooth mix of whites and greys. And she smiled the smile that only a great-grandmother can smile, ancient and wise but not lost to the senility brought upon by her many years.
"Your flowers all seem to have died, sister", came a bright voice from behind him. The Death of Old Age turned slowly, settling her eyes upon the figure of a small boy. He was young in the same way that she was old: not in the meaning of the word, but the meaning of the word. Reddish-brown hair drifted in front of his serious face obstructing his vision, but he didn't seem to be paying attention. Clad in knee-length trousers and a short-sleeved tunic, he was holding a dead daisy in his small hand.
"I know", she replied slowly, deliberately. "They have... a habit... of doing that. When I'm... away." She flashed him a shallow grin. "Maybe... you could stop by... to water them, young brother."
The Death of the Young seemed contemplative for a short while. Then he shook his head and dropped the daisy at his feet. "I don't know, sister. It's your cottage."
"It won't... be for... long."
The boy seemed hardly taken aback by this. "You're moving?"
"Moving... on, if that's... what you mean", the old woman replied with a nod. "These robes... have too long been... mine."
"I'll... tell the others." He paused, glancing up the hill at the cottage. "The next one, will she take up the cottage, sister?"
"He will. Just... wait. It won't be... long, little brother. He will... like it here."
"Of course he will, the boy replied with a sad smile. In a shimmer, he was gone.
----