Private - Hope is the Thing with Feathers

Hope is the Thing with Feathers

Metallic clinks, jangles and clanks joined voices, calling out in unison with every strike of the man’s heavy leather boots against the gravel-strewn trail.

The extent of the damage brought on by the recent conflict with Falderen had been unclear in the initial post-war phases, but as the preliminary reports trickled in, Clark had dropped everything. With only the testament of a handful of scouts thus far, the details had still been murky at best; that said, the prevailing sentiment was that any settlement that’d found itself caught between Castle Dormunt and the mad King’s army had been most unfortunate. With a sinking feeling in his chest, the young man had hurriedly flung the various mechanisms, scraps and other assorted oddities he’d uncovered into his bag before hitting the road.

For the most part, the run from Dormunt had been a blur. To say the least, thoughts of work, or even of old Ms. Morrison’s home-cooked meals seemed about a world apart. Between the dull percussion of his boots, the raggedness of his breath and the constant jangling of his shoulder-slung bag, there’d been little room in his head for any serious contemplation. Mostly, the sights and sounds of his surroundings had come as little more than flashes. Trees—lots of them. Stiff bodies lying quietly atop red-speckled grass—in his mind, they’d been about as numerous as the trees. The bittersweet chirp of a lone Astorean songbird—it’d broken an otherwise desolate silence, if only for a moment.

And towards the end, he’d caught a glimpse of something else overhead—it’d moved too quickly for him to identify it in any meaningful way, but he recalled that the figure had blended in almost seamlessly as it’d drifted in and out of the puffy white cover of clouds. It was a curious sight for the young man, and on most days, he might’ve stopped to gawk. But today, his legs hardly skipped so much as a beat, and he’d continued onward.

~

Clark’s eyes widened as he drew nearer towards the epicenter of his worries. His pace having slowed considerably upon entering the village, the air of devastation around him made his breath catch in his throat. The once lively crops now laid trodden and limp in their fields, a reminder of the legion which had seen fit to march through them without a care in the world. Just about every freestanding structure—nearly every fence, shop, barn, mill and modest home—looked to be thoroughly levelled, while the few that remained standing had clearly seen better days. Game or not, not once had an interaction with a so-called NPC left him with the impression that they were anything other than human. As far as he was concerned, their pain was real. Fighting the heaviness that threatened to creep from the base of his heart to the ends of his limbs, Clark compelled himself forward.

Alongside a handful of fellow players—they tended to easier to pick out, owing to their more flamboyant fashion and less bothered attitudes—the surviving villagers paid him little attention as he made his way through their village. Some wrangled together their scattered livestock while others worked to reinforce the buildings that’d managed to weather the storm. Naturally, more than a couple were tending to the sick and wounded. Up in the distance, he spotted a familiar face: it was the man who’d pointed him to several different ancient ruins on several different occasions. Only now, the man didn’t look nearly as chipper. Knelt down on the ground with a downcast gaze, the man’s entire world seemed to have shrunk to the small space before him. With the sudden realization that the man's unblinking stare was directed at none other than a young, seemingly unconscious child, Clark's pace picked up speed.

@Balmung​

 

The man dressed in white had come through several decimated villages after the battle's end, but he had seen few as utterly devastated as the one through which he walked now. The foundations of buildings which were once homes combined with the debris to create labyrinths in the paths that once gave way to foot traffic. Truly, this village was in a state of ruin that would take time and a lot of work to repair.

Soldiers, villagers, and volunteers had already began to fervently busy themselves with search and rescue missions. They hastily hurried about the remnants of the village, digging through the rubble and detritus in search of survivors. The injured that they found were rushed to medics on makeshift stretchers or on backs, the dead were piled together to be accounted for later.

As he continued to move closer towards the heart of the ravaged village, the sounds of heavy footfalls, clinking armor, barked orders, and sobbing mothers filled the air around him. One particular woman was screeching in horror at the sight of her dead husband, his body trapped under the better part of what had been narrow stone watchtower. It was the sort of sound that could penetrate one's mind and engrave itself there for all time. Balmung did his best to block out the shrill wails, but knew full well that his attempts to do so would end in failure.

When came across a group of villagers trying desperately to move the unintentional stack of stones that trapped a crying young boy beneath them, Balmung quickly took action to lend a hand. He grabbed a broken plank which he passed as he sprinted towards the pile of rubble, immediately jamming it between two large stones on top that threatened to collapse downward onto the boy. The length of the plank provided the leverage needed to move the smaller of the two aside, creating a narrow gap between the two pieces of debris.

It proved a large enough space, however, as when Balmung thrust his hand down into the pocket under the rubble, he managed to grab the child by the collar and yank him free. Soon after, the pile fell in on itself, but it had held out just long enough to see the child snatched right out of the jaws of death. He made it a point not to stick around for celebrations or praise, continuing his prowl through the village in search of more dire situations that required a certain sort of quick thinking and expertise.