Quakes
Sunday, September 11, 2005
On a planet called Earth, the shifting of the tectonic plates often causes catastrophic upheavals of terrain, gouging valleys into once-flat lands and forcing steep mountain peeks up out of others. Though the changes be stark, most life on the land adapts and goes on living without so much as a breath of complaint. Of the life that cannot adapt and dares to raise protest to the land, it is often devoured and obliterated. For nature, in all its strength and glory, is most often unkind and inforgiving.
On a remote planet circling the sun's eliptical exactly 180° opposite, there lived a metal worker whose life's upheavals may have rivaled the often catastrophic results of plate tectonics. For in the space of two weeks, he saw his son born, saw his companion of over twenty years killed, and saw a slave he never imagined he'd see again in his lifetime. It was this small chain of events that would forever alter the course of his life and send him down a road few would dare to tread.
His son had been named Athos, and had been touted as the only child of Neva, whom it was told died in childbirth. Extended family life went on as expected. Mourning turned to joy. Death and life and all the inbetween. Yet after half the year had passed, there'd been an accident in the forge late one night when Vedric had been at work alone, and the fellow had suffered a bout of amnesia following a concussion. Having not regained a shred of memory for well over two months, it plunged him into a black abyss, darker than anyone could have ever imagined. Too, the sense of foreboding dread and loss re-invited the possession of a narcotic demon... one that almost took his life on the sacrificial altar called Kanda.
On a remote planet circling the sun's eliptical exactly 180° opposite, there lived a metal worker whose life's upheavals may have rivaled the often catastrophic results of plate tectonics. For in the space of two weeks, he saw his son born, saw his companion of over twenty years killed, and saw a slave he never imagined he'd see again in his lifetime. It was this small chain of events that would forever alter the course of his life and send him down a road few would dare to tread.
His son had been named Athos, and had been touted as the only child of Neva, whom it was told died in childbirth. Extended family life went on as expected. Mourning turned to joy. Death and life and all the inbetween. Yet after half the year had passed, there'd been an accident in the forge late one night when Vedric had been at work alone, and the fellow had suffered a bout of amnesia following a concussion. Having not regained a shred of memory for well over two months, it plunged him into a black abyss, darker than anyone could have ever imagined. Too, the sense of foreboding dread and loss re-invited the possession of a narcotic demon... one that almost took his life on the sacrificial altar called Kanda.
