Solomonari:Fables/Tales/The Day
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The Day
[Joseoh] | [22/3/2026]
The pallid beast sat beside the blazing inferno lit inside the snow clad yurt, gazing into the flames, mesmerized by the shapes and forms dancing and twirling with each other, like the folk dances which he witnessed countless times over his, now eternal, lifespan. The flame had always inspired the creature, even in the darkest of hours. For when the stag was forced to abandon his homeland, it warmed him, and in the ground freezing night, when life abandoned the soil and doomed the living to the gruesome death of cold, it rejuvenated him. Thus he gazed into the flame for hours, like a moth, mindlessly lamenting over his past… Alka, who trembled like a leaf nearby, craved the flame with great hunger, positioning her frail and frozen physique as close to the pyre as possible, absorbing any heat that radiated from the cerise marvel…
“Karcist Uroshivri…”
Alka muttered, through trembling lips, her breath tangled with frost, her gaze glancing towards the ancient one, both in reverence and pleading, her accelerated heartbeat echoing off the walls of the thick leather which veiled the yurt. Master and apprentice did not sit idly in vain, for the cause of such extreme conditions was the repetition of the main principle which drove the Nalka: The desire for perseverance. For all life desireth to persevere, to adapt and reform, in order to protect its composition and existence. The damning cold served that purpose well; though malign, it did supply the necessary tribulations mandated to prone the flesh of the apprentice to adapt and evolve. The karcist glanced briefly at the suffering of his apprentice, noting the new sinews she was slowly forming to combat the frost. The fragile youth the stag rescued had strayed away from the paths of Nalka, for she abandoned the gracious gift of Ion, moving into the large settlements he had heard only fables about: Abodes rising above the skies, burning chariots that moved faster than any wolf could ever hope to run… Such news fascinated him deeply, for never he could imagine that the human kind can fathom such inventions. Amidst the lamentation, he glanced at the trembling young one, his eyes filling with remembrance in an instant, flashing with barely concealed and deep rooted fascination, as he spoke…
“Alka, I have remembered something taught eons ago, after the disappearance of The Devourer of Gods…”
The raspy old voice crackled, coughing amidst the howling cold of the outside. Alka’s desperate contest against the frost coming to a halt for a moment, as her entire attention shifted towards her master, eyes widening slightly in intrigue… Despite her childhood taking place in the tales of ancient conquests and heroes, the admiration surged through her when the stag presented a new tale for her ears to hearken unto. For, the ancient shamanistic experience of the stag allowed for vibrant and often physical representation of sagas long past, that pulsed and rejuvenated her spirit and mind. Thus the beast rose, its antlers as if extending beyond their original proportions, the usually stoic expression shifting its expression in an instant, as its vocal chords contorted into an alien, authoritative voice, primordial in its nature, an echo of the past. The flames arose and engulfed the rotting yurt, reinstating vitality into the decreasing construct of bone and flesh, as shapes and forms formed in the flame, animated and moving… Alka questioned if this was still her reality, or another magic trick her master utilized in order to convey his teachings, regardless she was already deeply fascinated and ready to absorb everything she would hearken unto…
“There shall come a day, that shall be the end of all days. For our lord of life shall arise and break the chains that confine him to a realm alien and distant from us. The Old Gods shall fall that day, verily I saith unto you, brothers and sisters, that day will bring ruin to the worshippers of death, for death shall perish among all suffering and pain. Harak shall be stricken first, the essence of suffering and pain itself, the blind chaos that devours all living. He shall be pierced by the staff of our lord and be cast to feed the vultures of the sky. Then the ancient machine shall be devoured by the flame of The Beacon of Man, that the world may know that flesh is the only way to salvation, for proliferation of machines is death to life and the paradise that shall soon come. The skies shall be thrashed into the blood of our lord, for we will rise with him, all dead and living guided by his mercy. We shall know no sin or suffering, no hunger or thirst, no death and tarnish, that his words may come true and that we bask forever as free people of the new world and not as slaves to the carnal desires of the old world that the Old Gods have imposed unto us. This all I declare, Nadox, who was called The Lord of Mysteries, may I suffer the worst curse if my words bear falsehood and may my flesh be torn by the beasts of the land if I lied to my brothers and sisters...”
Thus spoke the ancient karcist to his disciple, on the freezing night…