15
Nov
Had a sudden burst of flash fiction inspiration. Yes, I should have been writing NaNo (I didn’t today), but I’ll cope. Hope you like it.
The earth split apart, and the seas rushed in, and where once there had stood fertile land, now no sounds could be heard but the crashing of waves against rock, and the cry of the gulls as they flew overhead. Water danced above the grave of civilization, for down in those murky depths dwelt cities and villages full of corpses, the remnants of a bygone age.
They had sought to rule, to corral the powers of this world before their thrones, and in return the world had cracked asunder, wrenched apart by their overbearing might. And as they had torn the world, so their kingdoms were rent apart by the peasants, for those of lowly stature had never enjoyed the great benefits of magic, and had been forced to bow and scrape to the will of those who possessed such power.
No more would they do so, for in a rage they had stormed the walled cities and razed the houses of the gentry, and burnt the books of magic. Over their thighs they had broken the magicians’ staves, and in so doing doomed the earth to its fate, for no longer was there a force powerful enough to turn back nature.
And so now the waters lap above the graves of mortal men, and magic is outlawed, while those few who possess it are hunted down and lynched. It is a hard land, a harsh land, for chivalry is unknown and starvation is rampant. Even now, many decades after the collapse, the population still must fight tooth and nail for their very survival.
Amidst the ruins of the old there comes the first buds of a new country, a new society, as irrigation spreads water across dry fields, and men of great ingenuity ply their trade in secret workshops. But all about does danger stalk, for those with little love for the new order seek to take what they can, and these bands of marauders have grown great and terrible in the time following the cataclysm.
And in the west, there is a new stirring of magic, a bitter magic, a cold magic, feeding its hunger for revenge, for retribution against the peasants who wounded it so. Not yet recovered, the world stands atop the precipice of a great chasm, and a single push will send it teetering over the edge. They intend to give it that push.
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anakronistical on 11.15.2010
An excellent start! Seriously firing my imagination, sir 🙂