Meredithe

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The days blur together, blending into weeks, and months, and years. I do not know how long it has been since the last sacrifice, I do not know how long it will be until it is my turn. They say that it is the highest honour they can bestow upon me, to gift me to the Monster that lives inside the volcano, but something feels wrong. I know it will keep my home safe, its people happy, but sometimes I wonder why this is the only option.

The sacrificial ceremony is the biggest, grandest event of the year. We paint the streets in gold and red, celebrating the Guardian we have vowed to serve, and hoping to ward away the Monster whom we seek protection from. Children run around, screaming with laughter, and I walk amongst them, wondering who it will be next. Which innocent villager will next be plucked from their beds? Given to a Monster no one has ever seen?

Last year it had been my mother. We weren’t related, not by blood, but hers is the purest, warmest love I have ever known, and they took her from me, anyway. They led her out the door, paraded her down the street, and gave her away, as if she’d never mattered. These people, they have never had to lose a daughter, a father, a brother, they don’t know how it feels to watch someone you love walk away, knowing that they will never return.

It will be my turn, soon, I know because it has been my destiny since I was a child, perhaps even before then, I cannot remember. All I know is that they’ve raised me like a lamb to the slaughter, and when the time is right the cleaver will swing, and I will be struck down. It doesn’t matter, anymore, what they say about this being the height of honour. These people know no honour, and I know nothing but regret.

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The Monster is not a Monster. I know this because I am still alive. He calls me kin, and though I know not what he means, I am safer here than I was in the village, and I suppose that is enough.

He tells me things I do not understand, stories from a world I do not remember. I do not know why he keeps me around, but he is nothing but nice, which is more than can be said for the town I’d called my home for so long.

Sometimes his words spark memories, and I think in time I will come to recall what I have lost. Perhaps the sacrifice had been a blessing in disguise, a means to an end, as they say. I will never claim to understand the nuances of the universe, but maybe this was always meant to be.

He has endless stories to tell, and I’ve found that I never tire of listening to them.

The Monster is not a Monster, he is my friend.

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“Welcome back, we’ve been waiting for you.”

This is Sornieth, this is the world from which I came, the world I have now returned to.

Not a moment ago, I had stretched my wings, for the first time in a long time, and the universe had been torn open, though I do not know why. The volcano is gone, but that does not matter, because now we are here.

Ancerran is friendly, and persuasive, and I think this is a good place to be. It is better than the place I’ve left behind.

They call it the Sea of a Thousand Currents, I call it home.

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