"Once upon a time I was dying..."

"The Corruption"

I sat in the courtyard of the mage's guild watching the browning leaves drift from their branches. My shoulder ached and tingled but I resisted the urge to scratch at it. The healer magi promised me that agitating the wound wouldn't make the corruption spread any faster as so many claimed, but it would likely make the whole process more uncomfortable.

So I tried to take my attention away from my own dying body and put it on the dying leaves. I had once found them so beautiful, the tumbling colors. When I was a child dancing through the fall forests. My father would tell my sister Daiya and I to find the prettiest leaf we could and the one who found the most beautiful would get an extra slice of apple bread for dessert.

Death was not so beautiful for me nowadays. My father had died long ago when the war had began, and my sister had become infected by the corruption that spread after the fighting had ended. Like so many others I had sought a cure to the darkness taking over our world, and like the rest I had failed. By the time I had returned in defeat Daiya had already succumb.

And now it seemed I would follow her.

So here I sat. After spending my life fighting I could do nothing but surrender. Sit and wait for the end. Anger rose within me. The fury my father had taught me to harness, to use for the good of others. But it was hopeless. As I sat among the dying, the trees and the other corrupted that dotted the courtyard, my fury was snuffed out with a flurry of the wind.

The leaves rained from the trees like a shattered mosaic. Yellow and orange flowing around the green and blue bodies of the corrupted. Some paced morbidly among the trees, many sat in silence, a few of the most ill had sagged to the ground resignation.

But when the cascade of colors ended, there was one blue figure that stirred. An elderly man, his body was almost completely blue. He was hairless and crystalline growths protruded from his skin marking a late-term infection. Yet, though he moved with the stiffness of the corrupted, he moved with an unusual cheer. A rhythm even. As he neared I heard a song whispering from his lips.

When he saw me he stopped. His red eyes inspected me for a moment before a smile stretched over his face.

"Thus seat takun?" He gestured to one end of the bench I occupied.

I gave and audible sigh but slid to one end of the bench. "I suppose not."

The old man chuckled as he dropped beside me. "You're new here, stull got some life un ya."

"Yeah, for the moment at least." My jaw tightened and I stared off over the courtyard. I'd never been very social, and especially wasn't feeling it now.

"Wull there are worse places to die, I suppose." He turned to me, looking me over for a moment before slapping a stiff, blue hand onto my shoulder. "But you're still young, not blue at all yet. You should get out there while you still can."

I could feel the fire catching in my chest but tried to tamp it down. "Don't much see the point in that, old man. I'm dying now like all the rest. I lost." I sighed once more. "Perhaps we all have."

The old man blinked at me and let out a snort. "Wull isn't that just a fine attitude."

The flames flared within me> "What would you like old man? Should I dance about here dancing and singing with you and pretend everything's just swell? I'm going to die, we all are. Forgive me if I don't see the silver lining." I collected myself, inhaling and exhaling slowly.

The old man sat in silence beside me for a long while. We watched the leaves drift from the trees and listened to the moans of the dying.

Finally he spoke up once more.

"So long as we're just sitting here dying, mught I tell you a story? You know, just to pass the time."

"Fine." I closed my eyes and slouched back into my seat, resigned. "So be it."

He didn't say anything for another long moment, though I could feel him fidgeting beside me, perhaps gathering his thoughts. Finally he cleared his throat and began.

"Once upon a time I was dying. . ."

"I think I already know this one old man." I opened one eye and caught a look of ire in the old man's red eyes. "Forgive me, continue."

The old man cleared his throat again and continued.

"Once upon a time--a long time ago, before the war and before the corruption, before you, or likely even your parents were born--I was dying. I awoke from the darkness screaming a fit, singing my song--a less refined one, mind you--at the top of my lungs. But someone heard something in that song and my parents sent me off to be in the Celestial Choir."

"The song mages?" I blurted.

"As some would call them. Now with every breath I grew stronger. Not just muscle and bone, but the very air within me rang with power." The old man continued, not a note of his old power left in the raspy words."They said we would hold back the darkness, they said we could sing the evil right out of the land."

I snorted. "They lied."

"Lied is a bit strong. They were a bit overzealous, maybe a bit overconfident. But it was that confidence that made us sing all the stronger."

"Lot of good that did us in the end." I closed my eyes once more.

"Ha, you ain't as smart as you think son. That was still before you were born. That song kept the corruption out right up until the war started and they came and cut out our tongues. Well, most of us anyway."

"But where was I? Right, with each breath I grew stronger, each breath I knew a little more, walked a little further. Yet with each one I died a little more."

 I opened my eyes and sat up a little. "How? Was the corruption already taking hold back then?"

The old man continued. "Not exactly. You see. . .well, the corruption is just the face of something we've always known about."

"Right, the Faceless Legion. The ones that started the war." I nodded.

"Bigger than them too kid."

I squinted at the old man. "What enemy is greater than the Legion?"

He chuckled, sort of. "It's not an enemy, kid, it's just life. Or more precisely: Death. It's always been there son. You probably faced it numerous times, seeing by that sword you're lugging around. Death is always lingering close. The corruption is just one face of it."

He adjusted himself, turning toward me a little more. "You're upset about the corruption because it means death is closing in, but my boy, it's been lingering around us all from the moment we wake from the darkness. It's our destiny. We were pulled out of the Abyss and damned if we won't slip back in one of these days.

"But that never stopped you before did it? All you can do is make what use of the time you have. Has that changed? Are you really just gonna sit here and wait for the end because something reminded you it's coming?"

I stared into the old man's red eyes, the fire once more lit.

"Go on son. This place is for dying and you've got a bit more living to do." I sprand to my feet as the fire rushed through me, a warm current through my veins. "The corruption may have killed Daiya, but that doesn't mean your search is over. You think she'd have wanted you to give up just because she wasn't there to see you succeed?"

I looked out over the brilliance of the cascading leaves. The old man was right, Daiya wouldn't have wanted me to give up. It was for her that I started this quest and I would continue it to my last breath.

Something suddenly caught my attention. "Wait, how did you know about my sis-?"

I spun about to an empty bench. There was no sign of the old man, not even the sound of his rasping song.

Cinching the greatsword once more to my back, I marched out of the mage's guild and back onto the road.