Monday, September 12, 2005

part one of the second part of Blanco!!
The Life of the White Wolf

Stone crosses are heavy. Especially when you’re carrying it all by yourself. Then again when is it ever easy to carry your own gravestone?
Hey guys. I’m coming. I’m finally coming home. You thought I’d be here forever. Yeah. I know you all were in such a rush to see the faces of your ancestors. But, I just had to stay a little longer. Heh. A little? My fur hasn’t been a shining white in years.
He shunted the weight of the tombstone further up onto his shoulders. The weight of the ornate cross and the ludicrous slope of the hill had him hunched at an almost right angle. Even worse was the fact that all of the dirt was loose and dusty from having had the plants ripped out of the topsoil. On both sides of him green stretched off for a short distance only to give way to waste land. Panting from his nostrils was the only noise, that is to say that most people would have heard in his situation. Growing makes noise, too. But he’d lost the ability to hear that well before he’d been teaching the young to fight.
To be honest I never really believed I’d be the last one of us to be buried here. Even Dralock had someone to say a prayer over his grave when he died. I won’t even have that much. But, it’s alright. I expected as much when the only person there to bury the sixth of us was me. The seventh and last.
He sagged under the weight of his own tombstone. His body turning half way back to a man and losing most of the strength brought to him by being a werewolf. Slowly the patches of old, cracked skin turned back to dull gray fur. And slowly the weight that was soon to be a grave was lifted back up.
That’s it. Keep going. Just put one paw in front of the other......I know I’ve said that one before. One thousand, three hundred, seventy six years is a long time to keep saying the same line over and over again!
Simple brick with decorations on each corner was the design of the keep for their graves. After all of these years none of the sigils or bricks had worn down. Sunlight streamed in through the one open archway as Blanco slowly walked in.
What did that mason do to these walls to make them last so long? Now that I think about, I never got a chance to ask him because he...no.... he couldn’t have. “Tarnish? Are you there?”
A wave of color passed across the walls. For a moment they were all slightly darker.
“I see. So not all of you. Just enough of your essence to sustain these walls for longer than any of us would live.” He dropped his marker and propped it against the wall. Looking around the room, he gave an approving nod to the work of the mason whose life he once saved. And now the mason whose life itself would watch him lose his.
“Time to dig my own grave,” he stopped and put his head back. “HEHEEHEHAHAHAHAH!!!! I can’t believe this is the second time I’ve done this. At least literally. Figuratively. Who knows?” He leaned down and started clawing at the dirt. A foot down his body began shifting back again. Much more violently.
I can’t control it this time. This is really it. This is the moment when I finally have to admit that’s its all over. The moment when I can finally stop having to carry the weight of the world and rest. But is it really.....I’m finally going to see the other side of it all.
A cracking sound filled the tiered room as his head snapped backwards and hit the stone that it would now lay in front of and not under. It didn’t matter though. He had stopped seeing the room around him for what felt like years.
Don’t let yourself die thinking of all of the things that make you angry. Move on with the thoughts of those you love, and all the time you spent together.
Images like pictures in an album passed his eyes.. Most were just incomprehensible blurs. But a few...a few were like the day he lived them.

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