aerasio

Random Writing

The rain beat down, running over his dark crimson cloak. With a tired shrug he tried unsuccessfully to shake off the weariness that clouded his mind and addled his senses. He walked slowly across the dead bodies of his comrades, crossing the blood-soaked field and sat at the foot of a tall black oak. He had been waiting for the second legion, but it had never come. How long he had walked that field he did not know. On the horizon the battered ruins of a long forgotten castle stood, its charred walls lifeless and empty. The stone was thick with ivy and its proud walls had crumbled, what were once tall spires lay in piles of rubble and the gatehouse was kept standing only by the grace of the elements.

As he sat at the tree, he looked at his hand and noticed belatedly that it wasn't there. His arm was covered in cuts and burned that criss-crossed the well-worn chainmail covering it. The arm ended in his charred stump of a hand which was well severed at the point slightly below the wrist. It had been burned to cleanse the wound of illness and had been crudely covered in a torn shred of his cloak. Out of the stump, greenish yellow puss had oozed out onto the cloth, staining it and making the entire mess look like a balloon puffed up with vommit. His other hand appeared fine except that it lacked perhaps a finger or two and with this hand he undid the clasp that held his cloak around his neck and let it drop to the bloody mud. There lodged in the right side of his chest was a long and slender arrow. Its feathers were grey tipped with black and its slender shaft was yew wood. The arrow was familiar, he remembered the tree from which it had came. It had been a slender one, not too far from the quiet village where he lived. He sat there in the mud and rain and looked out at the crude wooden cross that stood at the edge of the field. It stood, gaunt and defiant against the rain, on a small hill next to the ruined castle. Beneath it lay his comrade in arms who fought beside him at more battles than he could count. His friend who stood by him when all else had failed. But more than any of those the buried man was his brother, who he would have lived for, fought for and died for.

He sat there, bone-stiff and sore, he was weary, too weary. Waiting for his first battle when he could prove himself. Waiting for his comrades to get their act together and take the fight to the enemy. Waiting for the weather to improve so their wuss of a commander would stop hiding in a ruined castle. Waiting for his own death, he wished it would come faster, then he wouldn't have to think about the shocked look on his brother's face when he had put his sword through him. That look tore at him, ripping the already flayed remnants of his consciousness. It stained him with guilt as his brother's blood had stained his cloak crimson. He lay at the tree as the last threads of life slipped away from him, thinking his last thoughts, of regret and sadness. Then he was gone, and all that remained was his corpse with his brother's arrow in his chest and a tear that rolled silently from his eye.


-note to self: maybe i should spend less time writing nonsense and more time studying for A maths tests that i have to take tomorrow-

So said Aerasio at 09:45