The winds of change would always come. Seasons passing. Time, in a place where time could be subjective, irrelevant and relevant, would always perpetuate. In the forest, it was the tree; the bough that could bend that lived. That survived the harshest climate. But now the shadows knew no bounds beneath foliage that sprouted when a timid winter became weeks of rain and fervent bloom. His cloak was mottled motley of brush, ash, and oak beneath the canopy.
The forest spread.
At first it was cause to rejoice. But this was not a normal overgrowth. It had begun slowly at first. And when he learned the road less traveled was traveled less" It grew unbound. Insidious. Like a blight.
Rhy'din itself was a planet first and foremost. It was next a country, and a city that was at the epicenter of all things. All realities. But the realms outside had once been populated. There had been entire cities and towns in all directions along the road. In winter, when the cold became too much for his mortal flesh to bear, he would push himself until the next Inn shone like a beacon amongst the snowfall.
Shadows now were all that remained where people once populated. Shadows and ghosts. Underbrush over an Inn he had once known that stood long abandoned. Bushes stood where horses were often tied. Lanterns hung, rusted, barren, and forever darkened on either side of the door. Even the sign that hung to name the place had worn down to anonymity. The name even he could not place with the passage of time. Does and bucks walked by with their fawn; unabashed or abated by walking where they had long avoided the presence of humanity.
The people were all absent. Faces he did not care to know or put a name to when the Wander had taken him. This was all wrong. Not that he had ever made a habit of taking the road, but there was nothing there along it now. At one time, all major roads in Rhy'din led to somewhere out of the city. Their edges dotted by Inns and Taverns for travelers between the various towns.
Now" There was nothing. No one.
They were all gone. All that remained was the road.
The forest spread.
At first it was cause to rejoice. But this was not a normal overgrowth. It had begun slowly at first. And when he learned the road less traveled was traveled less" It grew unbound. Insidious. Like a blight.
Rhy'din itself was a planet first and foremost. It was next a country, and a city that was at the epicenter of all things. All realities. But the realms outside had once been populated. There had been entire cities and towns in all directions along the road. In winter, when the cold became too much for his mortal flesh to bear, he would push himself until the next Inn shone like a beacon amongst the snowfall.
Shadows now were all that remained where people once populated. Shadows and ghosts. Underbrush over an Inn he had once known that stood long abandoned. Bushes stood where horses were often tied. Lanterns hung, rusted, barren, and forever darkened on either side of the door. Even the sign that hung to name the place had worn down to anonymity. The name even he could not place with the passage of time. Does and bucks walked by with their fawn; unabashed or abated by walking where they had long avoided the presence of humanity.
The people were all absent. Faces he did not care to know or put a name to when the Wander had taken him. This was all wrong. Not that he had ever made a habit of taking the road, but there was nothing there along it now. At one time, all major roads in Rhy'din led to somewhere out of the city. Their edges dotted by Inns and Taverns for travelers between the various towns.
Now" There was nothing. No one.
They were all gone. All that remained was the road.