planeswalking
"So you came back".
I turned to the voice behind me, knowing all too well who had spoken. Years had passed and yet that voice was still clear in my mind, haunting the dreams of my restless nights. I could live forever, watch entire milennia passing by, and I would never forget it.
"Came to see what was left of this world after you left?", he asked.
"Yes."
I turned my eyes from her, to the landscape around us. My mind's eye could still see how it once was: a living world, radiant with sunlight, with trees climbing towards the blue sky and green canopies full of life. Brooks crossing the prairies with the sound of water jumping through gray and mossy-green rock. Verdant grass could be seen until the horizon, where its violent green merged naturally with the sky's deep blue. Bird songs could be heard all around, praising the sun and the life. The wind blew softly through the trees.
My eyes, however, saw a different thing. A barren wasteland, gray and black, lifeless, cut by a violent wind that scattered ash and dust all over. The brooks turned into pools of stagnant water, rotten and dead. The bird's humming was replaced by the buzzing of carrion birds, feeding on the last remnants of life that insisted in making their own way in that desolate land. From the trees, what remained was burned wood. And the sky, once so blue, was gray and black, covered until the horizon by smoke and lightning clouds.
"That's what is left of your actions", he said, behind me. "I hope you haven't returned to make things right."
I turned to him, to see his pitch-black eyes staring at me. Accusing me. Blaming me for that destruction. "No. I couldn't make it right, if I wanted to. That is beyond my power."
I took a deep breath, feeling the sulfuric air of that world burning my throat and my lungs.
"I returned to see what I had done. To understand. To understand the why, since the how is sadly obvious."
"Have you got your answers then?"
"Yes".
He sighed. "It was a pointless struggle. Like most struggles, I might add. Waging war for peace, your kind says, when what you do is to fight merely for the sake of it. You created this world. You destroyed it. And then you carelessly left it, jumping into another one as if nothing had ever happened."
"Not as if anything had ever happened. It did."
I took another deep breath. Was getting used to it.
"You haven't left this world, though. You could have".
"I was the guardian of this world. I was - I am bound to it."
"So am I. And that's why I returned. There is no place like home, they say. Well, this is my home. It has always been."
I turned to the voice behind me, knowing all too well who had spoken. Years had passed and yet that voice was still clear in my mind, haunting the dreams of my restless nights. I could live forever, watch entire milennia passing by, and I would never forget it.
"Came to see what was left of this world after you left?", he asked.
"Yes."
I turned my eyes from her, to the landscape around us. My mind's eye could still see how it once was: a living world, radiant with sunlight, with trees climbing towards the blue sky and green canopies full of life. Brooks crossing the prairies with the sound of water jumping through gray and mossy-green rock. Verdant grass could be seen until the horizon, where its violent green merged naturally with the sky's deep blue. Bird songs could be heard all around, praising the sun and the life. The wind blew softly through the trees.
My eyes, however, saw a different thing. A barren wasteland, gray and black, lifeless, cut by a violent wind that scattered ash and dust all over. The brooks turned into pools of stagnant water, rotten and dead. The bird's humming was replaced by the buzzing of carrion birds, feeding on the last remnants of life that insisted in making their own way in that desolate land. From the trees, what remained was burned wood. And the sky, once so blue, was gray and black, covered until the horizon by smoke and lightning clouds.
"That's what is left of your actions", he said, behind me. "I hope you haven't returned to make things right."
I turned to him, to see his pitch-black eyes staring at me. Accusing me. Blaming me for that destruction. "No. I couldn't make it right, if I wanted to. That is beyond my power."
I took a deep breath, feeling the sulfuric air of that world burning my throat and my lungs.
"I returned to see what I had done. To understand. To understand the why, since the how is sadly obvious."
"Have you got your answers then?"
"Yes".
He sighed. "It was a pointless struggle. Like most struggles, I might add. Waging war for peace, your kind says, when what you do is to fight merely for the sake of it. You created this world. You destroyed it. And then you carelessly left it, jumping into another one as if nothing had ever happened."
"Not as if anything had ever happened. It did."
I took another deep breath. Was getting used to it.
"You haven't left this world, though. You could have".
"I was the guardian of this world. I was - I am bound to it."
"So am I. And that's why I returned. There is no place like home, they say. Well, this is my home. It has always been."
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