I thought I’d try my hand at a short story, seeing as I was both insaaanely bored yesterday and sickish feeling today.

So yarr. ;D

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Twilight was near.

The barren desert of Perion stretched as far as the eye could see – hot, solitary, and wild.

A grizzled man stood quietly by one of the dunes.
An assassin by trade, his features had been rendered calm and craggy by many years.
He stood with legs planted, seeming almost a force of nature rather than the tired old human he truly was.

An arid wind swept up the ridge and stirred his clothes..
Ragged and thin, much wear had faded them over time to an almost uniform gray color – though here and there remained hints of the original black.
They had been his garb through raging storms, sand, freezing rain and snow – both good times and bad.
Many a vicious thorn-bush too, he recalled with a wry tilt to his mouth.
They embraced his form like an old friend, well known and comforting.

A set of steelies rested with a tarnished silver gleam in the leather pouch at his belt.

He blinked, and stirred as if from a reverie.

Peaceful and wise eyes glanced.
They were bright and undimmed by age – shaded with a sort of unshakable regret.

Oh the innumerable hoards which had fallen by his hand. Oh the life he had watched fade from their eyes, never to return.

This was his final job.
His final battle, his final killing.

There before him she stood.
A young girl, blooming in the innocence and newness of youth.
A cowboy hat covered her flaxen hair, shaded her eyes from the red-gold sunset rays.
Small boot clad feet rested poised on the sandy earth as if in an unspoken query.

She walked up to him – unafraid.

“Will you come in for dinner?” She piped in her high voice, indicating with a hand the quaint cottage which seemed to have materialized out of the blowing wilderness dust.

Odd, the sin thought, Maybe I haven’t been drinking enough pots.
He could’ve sworn the house hadn’t been there a second before, and everyone knows houses don’t just appear out of thin air.
Huh, must not have noticed it before.

He shook his head as if to clear it.

And. . .was that a garden around the house? With rose trellises and heavy laden fruit trees?
A slight breeze stirred his white hair, cooled his sweat and dust smeared forehead momentarily, and brought to his ears the melodic lilt of crickets.

The girl shifted anxiously in front of him, as if disturbed by his lack of answer.
“I’m not s’posed to talk to strangers, y’know, but Papa said it’d be okay to ask you. He knows a bunch of stuff.”
She looked up at him with limpid eyes.

Something inside of him stirred. A deep longing seized his heart, stealing his breath for an instant.
Memories of a long gone age suddenly surfaced.
Memories of winsome summer days spent playing in his mother’s garden, and cool crisp sheets smelling of linen at night.
Memories of his own little daughter who had died countless years ago in the beginning of the war which now plagued the land.
Memories of back then. When everything was good.

He brushed a hand across his face as if to clear his eyes.

“Well,” he said gruffly, “I suppose I would like supper. It has been a long journey.”

A smile lit her face. “There’s a lot of food. There’s EVER so many people dining with us tonight. There always is.”

Stepping forward she placed her tiny hand in the sin’s giant gnarled one.

That startled him for a moment, and her hand was cradled in his almost before he knew what had happened.
His hand dwarfed hers.
He felt grossly crude and coarse in the light of her innocence, then remembered with all but a blush of shame what he had been paid to do.
He was nothing more than a common murderer.

Oh well – he thought, pushing the nagging voice of conscience aside – it wouldn’t hurt to sit down and get a bite to eat before. . .
He let the thought drift away into nothingness.

“And,” she grinned up at him crookedly, “I’ll let you play with my mushmom figurines afterwards, if you’d like.
I have four, and Mama gave them to me for Christmas.”

He noticed that her nose wrinkled up with her eyes whenever she smiled.

They walked the short distance to the house.

It was odd how everything around him seemed so dreamlike.
Vaguely he wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him. He hadn’t eaten for a long while.

The little girl unlatched the red-wood gate which led into the garden.

Funny how it didn’t seem to matter much anymore.
Where he had come from and what his business had been seemed further away with each passing heartbeat. Part of a different life which faded far off into the past.
The cottage with the thatched roof and the laughing eyed angel by his side were the most real things he had ever encountered.

They strolled up the path to the house.
Night had fallen by now – cool, serene, pleasant.
The house was awash with lights.
Tempting scents wafted out of the latticed windows and mixed with the sweet aroma of garden flowers.
Evening air was heavy with the fragrance of recently mown grass.

He noticed the stars had come out, clear and bright in their infinite hauteur.

Momentarily they reached the door.

The girl paused with her hand on the knob.
“Please, won’t you come in?” She asked this with the air of a well brought up child endeavoring to make a good impression.

“Yes.” He replied.

And even as the words slipped from his lips he noticed the joyful welcome cries of comrades long past advancing through the open doorway.
In swift recognition his spirit leapt elated to greet them.

He felt his exhausted and aged body body slip off like filthy clothes to lie abandoned on the turf.
In less than a second he had forgotten his life before and that he had once been called assassin.
Hired murderer.
Or that such a thing had ever existed.

“Thank you.” He smiled down at the child, feeling clean and pristine – refreshed for the first time in eons.

And then he who had been the ancient killer and she who was the wide-eyed child named Death walked into the cottage – to a blazing fire on cobblestone hearth and a sumptuous dinner on well spread table.

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Oh yeah. MS is being rather fun.
Not much training going on, but oh wells.
I don’t really have anything specific to blog about, so the generalizing shall now proceed:

I was really happy with how KFT turned out. I got like 20% there alone, which is a big deal for me. =)
And it’s so pretty!

Lots of hanging out has been occurring. Lots of scaring small children and freaking them out in the FM.
Or other places. Also many quests involving prizes of melted cheese. ;D

And ohgoodness, my guild has awesome marketing techniques.
Sitting around in each other’s stores and spamming stuff whenever someone enters about how many chops it takes to decapitate one’s head from the body = HILARITY GALORE.
Or if that fails, we ask them to TAKE OFFA CLOTHES.
It really works! Oh yush it does.

And hum.
Broa is the win.
Stalking is good.
And. . .uh. . . bye!