A Song of The Abyss - The Prelude

Chapter I - A World Born From Guilt

     The Danube river in the middle of the winter was a sight. The water lost the dirty green hue it has during the warmer months, carefully masking all dirt and blood flowing in it with a thick layer of the arctic blue ice.

The Petrovaradin Fortress gave me a beautiful view of the New Garden, a Habsburg – Serbian military post. I wonder what will be the future result of the clashing of these two essentially different cultures...

Despite my wish to help the Serbians fend off the Ottomans, my mind replayed the threat I received before coming to the Human realm.

"Don't get too mixed up in human affairs. It's honest advice. You wouldn't want me to accidentally set fire to those breathtaking drawings, right?" she said... Although I got the memo, I really wish that my sister would be more gentle with her words.

With a sigh that came out as a puff of smoke, I turned around and made my way down the muddy path, following the traces of horses and men all along with it. The early December did not allow the fallen leaves to decompose, and instead made an awful looking, and even worse smelling mixture of mud and folioles on the ground. I miss Belgard. Our roads are paved. And they do not have excrement on them. That thought alone made me scrunch up my nose as I passed by what was obviously an improvised toilet. I do not even want to know...

Although, if my disgust is disregarded, the only thing that remains in my eyes is the persistence of these beings. Their homes were burned, their friends and family were killed in front of them. They witnessed the homeland they were born and grew up in being stolen. Yet, they sing, laugh, and love, even as they are heading to their own deaths. Perhaps, and I hope so, I will never truly understand what that means. The cruel nature of war is, however, not unknown to me.

My mood fell when reality hit me in the face with all of the force of a raging storm. A decade has passed and all I have done is laze around on the Earth. A decade of not being there for my own family and friends. A decade, one of many that we have been in this bloody never-ending war. I wonder how Ezekia and Ruyk are doing? My siblings are capable, I have no doubt they are unharmed, it is just... I miss them. Perhaps I will bring my time here to a conclusion soon.

"Pay up has been long overdue, do you intend on making me wait for another month?" an obviously irritated voice was ringing out from the shack by the riverbed, "No more chances this time. You have two more days."

The speaking came to a halt, and its place took the screeching noise followed by a sickly figure forcibly being dragged to the tree stump by a large man in a brown suit. I did not dare move, a fight going on in my head, about whether to intervene. The moment that an arm was positioned on a stump and the oppressor took hold of an ax lying beside it, my body moved on its own. Tripping over the branches, I half stumbled – half slid down the edge of the fortress to the riverbed. Luckily, my not–so–discrete entrance got the attention of the suited mister, allowing the poor lad to escape from the unfavorable position he was in. Well, I do not think that I would like it if my hand was seconds away from being cut off either.

"Misses, this is a dangerous place to wander alone. As soon as the business I have here is finished, I'll escort you to your father." That was said way too gallantly for someone who was just about to commit a monstrosity... My veins burned from the blood boiling in them. There is nothing I desire more than to punch this incomplete one! However, that would not be a wise plan of action.

"If I may ask, Sir, what exactly did this poor creature do to bring upon such wrath on himself?" I tried to sound civilized, "After all, are we not humans because we have the ability to talk our problems out?"