Perspectivesby zathras I look over the land and I see far away the Great Redoubt...and I scowl. No one within there knows my name. Why should they? And even were some to know of it, none would care. For to those in that place I am beneath notice and to be shunned. That is because to them I am Ab-human, a creature barely more than a beast in their eyes. A creature to be feared and struck down upon meeting. An Enemy. I do not share their view in kind, it should be noted here. When I look upon that bastion of Humanity in the dark night I only see....fools. Fools who compound their foolishness by hiding away in that monument to their foolishness where they can convince themselves they are all that's right and proper in the world, with everything else a twisted vile abomination. It is beyound their ken to know the Great Truth. We ab-humans know that Truth, we are it's proof. Long ago our two kindreds were the same. The ancestors, who some would call the Road Builders, began their long ardous climb down from the Upper World that would no longer sustain them into this great cleft where Life yet persisted. They had wisdom and understood that it would take much time, generations, for the Kindred to adapt to the conditions they would find at the bottom. Thus they began their long decent. As expected, the Road Builders did change as they went down the long cliffs. Some changed very little, outwardly. Others had greater marks wrought upon their aspect. At first they were few, and during that time treated with deference and pity by the others. But as time passed and their numbers grew uneasiness replaced the kindness of the past, growing into fear and apprehension. At the best these Changed Ones were tolerated. More often they met with hatred, as can be the way when something different must be dealt with by those who do not care for such things. By the time the Road Builders reached the floor of this Great Rift they had become Two Kindreds. The Unchanged, and the Changed. The Unchanged set to the tasks of building cities in the manner of their ancesters upon the now dead surface of this world. In doing so they created the first bulwark against the lands beyound, to shield them from it's harshness and the changes it had already wrought upon their cousins. The Changed, knowing they had no welcome in such places, moved into the lands beyound to seek their destinies there. Many foundered, others were changed more by the lands they inhabited. But the lands were changed by them as well. Barren lands gave birth. Blighted lands gave succor. The Changed didn't adapt to the Land to live, they became the Land and it's Life. For the Changed had learned the Great Truth, that to survive one need only do that which allows survival. To fight against those Forces was to eventually lose to them. During this time the Unchanged built their cities and made their lands wholesome by their own standards, forcing it away from it's natural form. They viewed the Changed as defomed, twisted, aberrations....ab-human. The Changed viewed their cousins with distain for the shunning of them, as well as for being fools hiding in the past. At first the Two Kindreds maintained a tolerance of each other. But as they grew further apart the animosity also grew. Finally the hatreds boiled over into war and the Two Kindreds have been sundered from each other ever since. So it has been since those long past days. The Unchanged have built their cities and held back the forces of Change. For a time. We have strove to bring down each and every one of these relics of a dead past. Many times we've been thrown back, as a wave that breaks against the rocks on a shore. But, eventually the waves break the rock and it is washed away. Every one of those bastions of the Unchanged has been washed away. Every time the Unchanged have been confronted with the Great Truths, only to deny them and build a new momument to their blindness in another city. All of these too have been washed away. All save one, the last. The Great Reboubt. The Unchanged within the Redoubt would be amazed to learn we know of such things, thinking us mere brutes. We are amazed they remember so little. But they keep their knowledge in dusty libraries of crumbling books no one cares to read. Museums that tell nothing in the great hulks they store, for others to wander past, at best passing curiosities. We keep ours in the Living Word that is spoken from one generation to the next. How do we know this of the Unchanged within the Redoubt? How do we know anything of those who rarely venture outside their home? We are of the Night Land and a part of it's ebb and flow. The Great Watchers see far more than the Unchanged dare consider. The Silent Ones are not silent to us, if one but listens. And we know the Great Truth that encompasses all. Thus I stand here and scowl as I view the Great Redoubt and the Unchanged within it's confines. For a time they are secure in their folly as the waves of Change break on the rocks of their home. But the day approaches when even this last great rock will be washed into the tides. On that day the Unchanged will learn of their follies one final time. They will be faced with the Great Truth. I have small doubt many will be found wanting. Although there can be a viscious pleasure to be extracted from seeing the shock of realization on another's face, when they now know they've lived a life of lies and thus know nothing, I bear the Unchanged no true hatred. But I offer them no sympathy either. They have made their choices and will stand or fall by them. That is the Great Truth. It is a lesson they have shunned from their beginnings. But it is a lesson they must heed, eventually, when the Great Redoubt can no longer hide them from such.
I await the Time of the Great Truth......... ----------------------------------------------------- "....But however this may be, as I stood there in the embrasure, and looked at the thing through the spy-glass, it seemed to my soul that the Brute looked straightly at me, unwinking and steadfast, and fully of a knowledge that I spied upon it. And this is how I felt..." Excerpt from "The Night Land" ----------------------------------------------------- How little these small creatures ken! This one faltering one has grasped the least of what we are. They look out from the place they call "safe" and ken not that they willingly grant to us that which we were set to seek from them. They know not that we are blind without their concession to us. Mere eyes, no matter how keen; no intellect, however astute; can hope to penetrate the vague images seen from afar where we are arrayed about this "Great Redoubt". No, there is more than the physical involved here. We wait, patiently, for one who is curious. Those within the Redoubt have ever looked Out without tiring, for they know that therein is their eventual doom that they would remind themselves of that and guard ever against it while they can. Little do they ken that in doing so they grant us access to their home and all within, to be recorded and saved towards the day it might prove useful. These folk do not ken that when they look Outward and espy us that they open a Link with us. They espy us, vaguely, but we too espy them, acutely. We see them. Their intellects. Their strength of will. Their pnuma. Their hopes. Their day to day lives. Their dreams. And...perhaps most importantly...their fears and nightmares. Is any of it "good" or "bad"? Yes, no, maybe. We care nothing for such judgements. We are the Watchers. We Watch. We see. We record. We await the final play of that which we have seen and those final decisions will be based upon. We will watch that too. Until there is nothing left to Watch.... ----------------------------------------------------- The Earth gives all we need. The Earth is bountiful. It gives us Light and Heat from the Fire Hills. The Earth also gives us Rocks. The Earth is bountiful with Rocks. Rocks are useful, they are gifts of the Earth. Rocks are tools, weapons, and defense. With Rocks as tools we get food to live. Food that comes from the Earth. But Earth is hard. Rocks are hard. Life is hard. We Humpt Men are hard. But Earth is harder. When we are not hard enough, Earth takes us back. Earth takes all back. We throw rocks into the air and Earth takes it back to prove it is hardest. Earth is hardest. We learn from the Earth. We follow the Earth. We are hard like the Earth. We are the Earth. We understand the Earth. We do not understand Water. Water is strange. It moves over the Earth. Water moves Earth and Rocks. Water is not hard, but it breaks Rock. Water is not hard, but it carves the Earth. Water takes us back like the Earth does. It moves us like the Earth when it takes us back. It takes us into the Big Water, not the Earth. We need Water. We drink it and it seeps into us like it does the Earth. We are Earth, but we make Water. We do not understand Water. We do not understand Others. Others are not hard like Earth, like Rocks, like Humpt Men, but can take us back. One Other did that. He took many of us back to the Earth. The other Other with him then took him back over Water. They were on Water like we are on Earth. Water did not take them back when they did this. We do not understand this. We do not undestand Others who can go on Water like Earth. Are they Water, as we are Earth? If so, why can they go on Earth if they are Water and we who are Earth cannot go on Water? We do not understand. But we watch the Water for these Others. If they return from Water and go on Earth again, we will be waiting. We will see which is harder. Earth, or Water................
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