That self-imposed cell not pitch, though,

  as miniscule cracks along the wooden stall

  revealed bright grey sky, and

  through these cracks drifted the flowing stream

  of market conversation that ran long

  the wooden walls of his drunken repose.

  Revealed by light now, his form clearer now:

  tall, long, and built like a wildcat and his

  muscles pulsing in uneasy dream.

  His skin, dark as a nut, though

  darker still still, from filth.

  His hair, dread, once clean, but now

  poorly-cared, o how unlike before his fall!

  His dreadlocks, oiled, and beaded, not

  ratted and muddy, as tainted as he

  deemed his soul be. Yet, his own soul he

  saw wrongly, for only the gods (and poets)

  truly judge the character of men.

  Prostrate, he lay, when the door of the swines’ stall

  then swung open at the will of an inn-keep,

  angry and tired, who doused our hero

  with cold and brackish water.

  “Thou be’est he?” the inkeep said in pity,

  but more disgust than compassion.

  Kalon pulled himself, muddy, wet, and hungover

  upright: “Aye, I be’est he. Fallen,

  a traitor, and weak,” so spoke our hero.

  “Know not of traitors I do, but thou be’est the man

  who owes me money for drink, and now for

  board as you’ve slept among my worst swine.

  I do not doubt you avaricious, but beyond that vice I care not.”

  So spoke the inn-keep. Our hero, in stupor,

  put his palm upon his head which ached

  as if among struck by a hundred-thousand

  blades, and in shame, familiar to him at this

  point, spoke that he had no money. For this,

  he was beaten, and thrown alone to the cobbled

  streets of busy winter, eternal, covered as much

  in ash and soot as ice, for it was not like winter

  known to us, however. An entire year and ten days

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  ash and snow manifested by defeat infested

  the plains, the mountains, and seas. Of food

  the most common: rat, and insect. Those men

  not consumed by the assaults of that wicked

  triumvirate, scarcely could breath without

  cough or wheeze, and those things only dismissed

  by the relief of uncommon victories: water

  untainted, sunlight brief, and days where those

  damnable titans relented their cruelty. Those days,

  however, fewest, in the heart of that long

  and terrible winter; those fiends, regardless time,

  tireless wracked what refuge for man remained.

  Unrested and ill from vice, low our hero

  wandered the brumal streets, each aimless step

  further in grief and woe, and with the wafting smells

  of cooked insect and roasted vermin, his temper

  further roiled in disgust and anger

  at his world, humankind, his grief, and his lowness.

  “Human? Nay, worse than vermin we be,

  lower too, for vermin eat not of vermin,

  and their life more fruitful than the maggots

  of bad bread and rotten stews. Once.

  Aye. Once, man great, we were.

  Our lives happy and healthy and sunny,

  not defunct by bleak hibernal skies

  and the rubble of demon’s wrath.

  What damnable gods left us to this fate?

  Those who trusted man stronger than demons.

  Those who lied, and of human grief they cared not.

  Our faith misplaced, and us overzealous progeny

  of prophecy, if lies and rhymes be prophecies.

  It is them to blame for our fall.”

  So spoke the hero of tales of prowess,

  him of unsurpassed strength and bravery

  and zeal. Even Kalon in those times

  of unending winter and titan’s fury

  was faithless.

  The four divine easy for man to serve in happiness,

  but even man‘s most zealous warriors

  are tested by apocalyptic grief. Kalon,

  although now legend, man then he was, and

  legends do not come from birth, but from

  action and change.

  Pitiable, further to grief he wandered when,

  among corpsen ash and streets of

  hibernal decay, didst hear one small victory

  against our bleak sorrow.