The air was rank with it……..filled with a scent defecating the sobering view. But Arrailen didn’t bother to do it justice by turning his nose, he just stared out along the field with a look that contained traces of both the bleak and the blank. Bleak found foundation in the sight, and site, that this plain had made the swift transition to. Blank was present only for what Arrailen’s heart had made the transition to……he was alone now.

The field had been the host of a cataclysmic battle, of a distinctive blow dealt to both halves of the blind killing. It was, in fact, true that his nation had found victory now that nary an enemy was sputtering breath upon this field, but what good was victory when you were so very alone? When you were left to watch them decay, and hope that someone, somewhere, is pinching you and you will awaken. Hope.

Arrailen didn’t even have that anymore. Arrailen wouldn’t dare to hope, not with the evidence of it’s futility so necridly splayed before him. Not when the evidence against it was a field soaking up the cooling blood of your Kin. No room to hope when you were all that was left of a dying breed. No hope at all.

He was stark and still. This, however, was not a curious development though: Arrailen could feel his nerves spasming with his thoughts, could sense that if he ventured to lift a finger his body would be as ill as his mind was. He had no hope, but he could hold some Pride.

And he did, indeed, hold true to both pride and tradition as he looked out over the plain from his hillock perch, and counted, with his adroit mind, the 249 bodies of his Elven Brothers. And at the end of that morbid deed, the 250th Elf sang for his Kin, sang with astute regimentation of words to, this, the Failing Moons Serenade, and a passion that I cannot even, and will not even, attempt to mar with my meager words.
It was The Elven Song for the fast faded, and the fading fast. The song his nation sang for those gone and going from this mortal plane. The Song of Death and Dying.

I, having only limited knowledge of the Elven language, could not wholly tell you of this noble tune, and I think you would find the nature of it far more alluring were you to of heard it yourself one day. But, then again…you probably won’t. For here I crouch, staring at the last Elf alive. Staring at a creature normally to aloof for pallid stares and emotional cries, but nonetheless this one welled and spilled with the nepenthe of tears as he sung his sterling eulogy for the entirety of his race.

And then, like any honor-bound soldier would, I drew my bow. I, ever so carefully, knocked an arrow, and slowly eased my sore muscles to a stand, being cautious so as not to gain his surely fatal attention. Here was I, the last human of 1 army, and he the last of 1 race. A race so perfect that numbers alone could bring about their ruin, and I, not having the advantage of those numbers now, had to stringently play every strength and advantage to the utmost of it’s capacity.

However, Elven armor was of the finest make, and, as I had seen it repel many a speeding arrow, I pulled the bow to breaking. I could hear the sinewy snaps and cracks of yew, but I knew when to halt and, as soon as I found the strain on my arms unbearable, I let fly my heart-bound killer at the back of the last Elf.

Adrenaline, then, pumped through my veins as I witnessed the ease with which my new-found foe side-stepped the true arrow. Fear locked my legs as I was forced to suffer his stare when he turned to face me. A stare riddled with nothing palpable to my mind, just an empty glance to a man who would soon join the rest of his comrades. Join them in the river Styx and feel its cool licks at softened flesh, and tears at the soul’s mesh. Soon I’d feel the river’s perpetual caress.

The Elf was a wonder to such a mortal as I, locking his (never more than) curious eyes with mine, drawing forth his blood-stained blade with a flick that almost eluded my gaze, and all the while singing his song. His voice was clear, and yet, somehow, ethereal. It was such an entrancing song, that it took the padded footfalls of the elf to snap my mind aware and ready.

I had forced some fear out of my shaking limbs, and began to circle with side-steps while I too drew my blade, forcing him to move to match my movements. Making the fight on my terms, but he matched perfectly, all the while singing his song with awe inducing, resonating notes. His eyes didn’t look to my legs when I switched directions, and yet somehow he could glean I was going to and step ahead of me, getting closer and closer with that unnaturally red blade……a blade red with countless humans….a blade, I now realized, I was soon to stain.

I almost raised a vaunting cry to plea for my life, but I saw then in his burning eyes (the only part of him belying emotion) my fate. I was to be immolated, and if there were any way past this imminent threat, I was to keep my blade steady and my mind sharp, and hopefully vice-versa as well. For if I should fail, then so should my pulse. I was faced with the primal options of fight or flight, and as I could not flee (to any real gain that is), I was going to stand before the last Pure Being. Hoping I could slay the last Pure Being.

I stepped forward, baiting him to swing his sword, but to no avail as he just kept keenly towards me in turn. Fixing me with an empty stare and fiery eyes, the kind that cannot help but spew despise. I could see now that he wasn’t playing at tactics, he was simply going to kill me. Not defend himself (what would he have need to defend against?), he was going to smite me.

I Charged. It was fervor and horror that made my feet slam against the ground in as fast a manner as was physically possible, and yell in inherent barbaric furor-regressing to the mentality of a beast in a cage.

I swung a mighty blow at the shoulder of his left arm. Since this was his sword-arm I had sought to make him bend and bow awkwardly to allow for my attack, but he merely raised his thin blade, with a crook in his slender wrist, and blocked my fearsome blow. He held strong, sure, and still as I drove the blade towards him. Never ceding an inch, never releasing any ground. I was forced to relent though…and I nimbly ducked his swift cut through the air that was a retort to my pointless slam. I released control to a being somewhere deep within me, just let the waves of power exude from my blade and battle driven screams.

It was this eidolon rising from within to posses me that made me aware of the blades when I was too blinded by fear and fury to see them. It was through this that I parried and held control on my life, kept a pulse distinctly blaring (not matter whether or not it was succinct enough to have been in my throat).
And All The While, The Elf Sang His Beautiful Song

“Alanier, revelier confreer azure…
Revalidy-CRASO, MINDRUTHURA….
Lucred, lucaid promelian cain….â€

whoa.

*pins ribbon*