Who'd ever
want to be
​a hero?

My world's fine
and peaceful
just like this.

I don't need
that pressure
in my life!

It doesn't have to be this way.
Just put down the sword
and we could talk about this like civilized-
Shit!

Well, apparently diplomacy is out the window with you then.
Damn... that was my favorite tunic.
And my favorite torso
that you just sliced in half.
Well, at least I have other options.
​Unlike you.

Oh, don't want to fight now?
I see.
Everyone's a coward after they realize their enemy can't die.

Well, if you're so repentant
after barging in here and demanding my head,
why don't we make a deal?
Hmmm?
If you go to the town of Vlasilhen
and buy me a new golden tunic
with the arcane runes for life embroidered on it,
then I won't hunt you down and harvest your organs for my new body.

How's that sound?
Reasonable? Good.
​Now beat it.

Caught in a new breeze
stronger than old dragon wings,
I soar far away.

It's a tricky thing, walking a world
where it's almost an even split
between those who believe in
your very existence,
and the true skeptics.
They're willing to tear
apart their world
to prove they're
in the
​right.

You brought me here under the false pretense
of finding the truth,
because somehow, you're convinced I know it.
But you have the wrong person.

I cannot tell you why the moon is crimson now
or why dark tendrils writhe beneath our skin.
Nor can I explain the shrieks
that echo outside your windows at night.

Sometime between the yesteryears and this moment
our world became a nightmare.
I am just as perplexed as you
about its cause.

It isn't a fault
that I have simply adapted to it better.
That my steps aren't as halting and fearful as yours.
That I have made friends with the now deeper shadows.
That my terror still lies with the possibilities of fearful humans,
and not with the monsters we now walk beside.

I'm sorry that I have no answers for you.
That I am not the cause of this transformation.
That I cannot soothe your fear.

Peace is a haven you must search for alone.
Maybe it's in those patches of light you people cling so desperately to.
If it is, I hope you find it.
Because I have a feeling
that your haven and mine
are two very different places.

​Good day, sir.

I opened my window this morning
and found something new.

Where just the day before my view was of an old unpaved parking lot
what I found instead was a grand ballroom
​stretching out for miles
filled with a miasma of twisting, dancing, swirling shapes
and tendrils of song that hovered like fog.

I know, it makes no logical sense.
But seeing this on the floor below mine
I leapt from my window and drifted down
on the sound-laden winds.

I've been dancing for hours now,
never in want for a partner
or a steadying breath
or a rest, or a snack.
It's as though the very movement of my feet
and the hum of invisible instruments
could sustain me for eternity.

I'm sure I'll want to leave eventually,
but I certainly don't want to now.
Especially if you jump down and join me!
I promise to you
that nothing you'll ever do
could quite compare
to dancing through the endless
amidst the inconceivable.

When you delve into the human mind
you never know what you might find.

Endless depths of memories to explore
incalculable experiences that somehow always leave you wanting more.
Because even though mortals are quite fallible,
the data they collected over their reigning millennia is quite delectable.

I'm certain that wasn't their goal,
but now that they're gone and the universe bears the toll
it's not like any of them are left to complain
about how we savor and enjoy their pain.

I don't know how long I fell.
For months or miles, it's hard to tell.

But amidst my tumbling I felt the eyes of more celestials
than the simple sun and moon.
Beings everlasting, burning brighter than mortal minds can imagine
immune to the troubles and struggles that subsume us.

I could have fell through entire worlds and not known
for though I felt gazes and my own unyielding, fetid motion
blackness was the only constant
and so in stygian abyss I lost myself, wanting only permanence.

I keep hearing it.
A soft whisper on the cold breeze
delivering news of a horde
of many feet stumbling blindly through white powder
beneath bowed backs and bleeding gums.

But the summers here are endless.
Chills are stunted before they ever reach the surface
let alone storms that bring down snow.
That's why I came here.
To escape that feeling of being frozen into my own bones
trapped below icy atmospheres
separated from warmth and sun.

I must be tired
or stressed.
Imagining things.
Because no such thing would ever exist
on a planet like this.
It couldn't.
There's no way to walk
across a galaxy.
​They could never follow me here.

Sometimes dreams drip down from my ceiling
pooling in rainbow-tinted puddles by the foot of my bed.

They burst with tiny bubbles,
each popping with a hushed whisper
a prayer or a plea.

I often wonder who the dreams belong to.
Whether they're ever missed,
or if they were thrown out willingly
and abandoned by those who used  to cherish them.