The Sword of Athrar

The Prevaricate

The monster was thrown off of me in a glorious moment of dazzling majesty; an ardent blaze in the saddened grey snow.

Other than that, my memory has stayed still blurry.

I tried to get up, but my vision was still blurred dark red, and my burn wounds pulsated with pain.

The creature was lying face down in the snow, writhing in pain and burns.
I withdrew the sword from its back
And I sliced off its head
Letting it drop to the floor
Before I collapsed into the snow
Once more.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-•-—-—-—-—-—-—-—

I awoke at what I immediately knew was several days later.

I opened my eyes and found them blurry, but now only from the necessity to adjust.

My body ached and felt delicate in the sun: burnt, sensitive underskin covered my body. The sun hadn't been kind, but family often isn't.

And yes, sun.

The glorious, dazzling, majestic sun.

Thank the Gods.

No more fogged out sky.

I looked around, my environment a jade-green blur.
Only then did it properly dawn on me:
The snow
The ice
The blizzard
Green?

Green?

I couldn't believe my eyes. Had I... melted it? Surely my power wasn't that great, was it? To change the entire nature of my environment?

Had someone found me, and moved me? No. A dark heap still lay nearby, and I concluded it must be the monster.

I didn't know where I was, but I was relieved to be alive.
And not only alive, but I'd completed the quest.
I'd found the legendary Sword of Athrar.

It lay a foot or so away on the ground, laying as if discarded by a disinterested child, indifferent of its power.

I approached it cautiously; it'd caused me so much pain and so much suffering.
But my journey was finally at an end.

I'd been through so much to find it.

I picked it up in my hands and turned it over.

I was the new infant, finding the toy, discarded by another.

Seeing it now, in person, I was glad I'd accepted the quest, so many weeks ago.
Because the coward who requested me would pay for what they put me through.
If it wasn't for my secret, I could've died.
But I didn't.
And now, if the legends were true,

They would be the ones at the hands of death.