Rise Of Pandora

Rise Of Pandora: XXIV. Little Critters

"Others will judge you, but only you can sentence yourself to a miserable existence."

-Baccus

VI. Poet

They stepped lightly on the snow. Their movements, guided by the soldier, were scrupulous in the way they worked their way so well through the darker parts of the forest, so smooth and it was as if they had become the darkness themselves. They stayed mostly by larger clusters of spruce trees. They had been talking consistently, each individual asking a myriad of questions to the other, but they kept it quiet. They have been doing so for minutes. The forest had been relatively quiet for some time now. All to be heard were distant sounds emitted by the little critters, dwindling raindrops, and the softness of their voices that joined with the cold passing drafts.

"Who is Father," asked Gaijin.

"He is not my actual father by blood, but I cannot say any more beyond that. But you both will understand when we arrive at his home."

"I want to know where we are going," Maddard asked suddenly.

"I've already told you."

"Yes, you said that but I want to know specifically where."

"Patience, brother of my brother," he smiled.

Not speaking a word, Maddard looked at him with an odd expression on his face.

"And you are sure we are traveling in the right direction?" Maddard charged.

The soldier huffed. "Your brother was not exaggerating when he told me to expect many questions from you." He raised his right hand suddenly and put it to his chest. "On my honor as a soldier, I swear we are going in the right direction. Athens, Aeryngrave is north and we are heading there now. No tricks." He removed his hand from his chest and began to turn around and walk faster. 

They persisted across the wintry forest in the direction of Athens which was much northeast from where they were now. They had not seen a single Deathknight on their long trek. An execrable force reworked Maddard's psyche, bending and molding it into tangled interworkings of expanding pustules of shapeless terror left free to fester about uncontrollably throughout his mind. His jittery eyes found the ever-cold eyes of the soldier. With few exceptions of short bursts of frustration, seldom had the soldier given a look resembling any range of human emotion as if he was still wearing a mask.

His eyes were two permanent dull pearls. He looked hardened, his manner was tame and passive.

Maddard tried to push back the bellowing sadness he had been feeling for some time but the grief still showed in his eyes, his movements, and his deep breaths. Thoughts of his wife came calling out to him like specters. Tired bags dragged low beneath his eyes. He spoke seldom but when he did, it was often to Gaijin whom he asked several questions about the threat he warned about. He wanted to learn more, but it terrified him the more he did learn. The spooky beings Gaijin described left an unsettling rattle in his belly. He called them Pandora's monsters. 

They pressed through the dense heaps of snow. The soldier looked on warily about the forest. Somewhere far in the east of the Colossal Snowpeak Woods where some very large ranges of mountains met with and shared in the splendor of the land peacefully with the forest, a lone wolf howled aloud, its call was smooth yet harrowing.

Hearing the wolf's cry, the soldier nearly missed out on a strange sound that followed quickly after. Again he heard the sound. It sounded like sobbing from that of a matured man. After hearing it once more, he could no longer deny what he had been hearing. Certainly, a hapless soul had been wasting away woefully, he convinced himself.