Shadowlands Shadowland I hated this time. Everything was dead and empty. The ground was dry and cracked; an attempt to starve us into submission. The waters all ran dry too, and the crops were plagued with death and we with infection. My half deformed, poisoned hound almost fit in here. I don't remember much - only hopelessness, and longing and sadness. Deprivation, and failure. I would look up and see blue ribbons streaking across the sky and i would hear thunder calling out as ice and hail broke the fortress's walls down, smashing it apart with such force. Ballistic screams would screech overhead, passing through the moonless sky, ripping apart the foundations of our home. Earthquakes rumbled by and water flooded the rooms. Shadow bathed the area for miles around. The only light came from the weapons of destruction tearing apart our sanctuary. The corpses of the servants and civilians that once served here lay scattered about half-soaked in mud. Some of my friends bodies lay among them. I witnessed it all, yet I never understood why. I still don't see why. What motive could have justified this? What belief? ... But somehow i think I'm beginning to understand. I would walk slowly down the halls left still standing, or stand leaning against a wall or pillar, eyes closed, just listening to the prayers of the people, and fall deep into their hopeful songs of pleading. A blossoming light rippling outwards in a pool of darkness, almost. Hundreds of them, coming together for one final time. It warmed me in the frozen, siege-full nights to know we weren't alone, and that at least some one would hear their final words. I listened, I heard their prayers, their thoughts, their hopes, though I never really understood. But I think I'm beginning to. I remember one night, in the very climax of the fight, I walked straight out and stood upon one of the balconies still hanging precariously onto the walls and sat watching the the bountiful conflicts, whilst hidden in a small hole made by a large marble slab that had been broken from the heights of the fortress. Not caring wether a flaming canon ball crushed my bones or if a bolt of lightning would come flying in and fry my body and break away farther at my home. There are few feelings like it - watching your home destroyed and friends killed, and knowing this is the end, and yet being totally at peace. Complete acceptance. It had an eerie beauty to it. You think so differently during times like these. Watching the dry grounds and dead atmosphere be lit up by the deadly weapons that were flying towards us in crescendos of light was calming to witness. Though, I was interrupted after awhile. A figure to my left stepped lightly, and lowly, into view, and made its way to the balcony edge. She, like me, had accepted everything. I could tell. Or maybe... Most things.