Curse of Atlas

	“West. I came from the west.” Atlas lowered his head as he spoke, taking on a solemn intonation. Longinus’ expression grew to a dark realization and, perhaps to spare Atlas the pain of speaking, continued in his place.

	“…Othrys.” Longinus had been suspicious, but had trouble accepting the idea- until […]. “Legendary hold of the first Risen Warlords. Struck down by cruel fate, at the hands of their own kind. Our own kind.” He spoke quietly, staring out at the darkening night sky. “How did you get out, then? Othryian refugees called it a slaughter. Said their lieges were cornered and sieged at their keep, some sick retribution for executing a rival Warlord with a cruel, darkened heart.” Longinus crouched down to the ground and draped his arms over his knees, giving Atlas time to find the right words. When he finally spoke, his voice had returned to his normal, hardened cadence.

	“Have you ever tended a field, Longinus?” he asked rhetorically, standing still and staring into the cold dirt. “Every now and again as you grow a crop, no matter how careful and attentive you are, the plants will take a blight. A sickness at the stem, something you can’t prune or heal. It starts with one plant, overtakes the thing from the roots up- innocuous enough that you might not see it at first, hidden behind healthy leaves; until it’s too late to stop it from spreading. By then, even if you uproot that first plant, it’s too late. Soon you’ll see the blight coloring the plants nearby, and then- no matter how feverishly you work to solve the sickness- you’ve lost the entire field.” He ground his heel into the dirt. “There’s only one way to stop the spread. You get lucky, catch it early. Then you take it up by the roots, along with every single plant around it,” Atlas shook his head and looked up at the sky, “Thing is, Longinus… There are blights that take to any living thing. And the hardest to catch… the hardest to treat… They poison the minds of men. Human, Risen, lightbearer or no- doesn’t fucking matter who you are. Burrows into your head, twisting your mind into something dark and cruel.” He changed his stance again, letting his gaze settle on Longinus as the spearsaint stood and looked back at him. “Blight came to Othrys like a silent, poisoned breeze. The [Godhand] was just, in their time, but this… blight- it screwed with their heads. With… our heads. Grew our hubris in the face of the Light, until the only ‘gods’ we recognized were ourselves.” Atlas spat at his own feet, then looked Longinus in the eye. “It took the fleeting life of a child for me to see the sickness for what it was. Farmer’s kid… stole a knife from one of us while we were out patrolling the hold. Just wanted something sharp, for harvest- or hunting, maybe.” He averted his gaze from Longinus’ face again before continuing, “I was angry too, at first. Mad, even vengeful. When we found it missing we ran back to that sad little village and ransacked the place to teach them a lesson about respect. Found it under his bedmat, dragged him out with it to answer for his ‘crime’. I’m not innocent, Longinus. Then, I would have been happy to take his hands for that. But for them, that wasn’t enough. His head rolled in the mud, and the look on his dead face woke me up. Of the three in our patrol, I was only one to reach the keep on the way back. I didn’t even feel anything when I did it. Whatever brotherhood we had, whatever camaraderie existed- it was dead from that hour on. Turned on them as we walked. Fell back behind and reached for my weapon. I stabbed and slashed until the blade went dull, and then I broke them with my hands. Ghosts first, then the men themselves. It was the first time I killed Risen. I was sloppy, took hits and fell a few times. But in the end, I stood back up. They never did.” His face was empty. No remorse, but sorrow and pain mixed thicker than mud was clearly painted on his face. “Like a blighted field… I culled the poisoned stems. More than a dozen. I never stopped to think about the consequences, and when I finished there was no crop left to harvest.” Atlas shrugged.

	“The refugees, then… that’s why they’ve come so far.” Longinus answered one of his own questions. Atlas nodded and spoke again.

	“Without anyone to enforce the ‘peace’, human bandits and vagrants of our kind moved in. Started subjugating whoever they could, chasing out whoever they couldn’t. Thought I could handle it for awhile. Pointless arrogance, even then.”  He grimaced, turning his back on Longinus, for shame or something greater. The spearsaint stepped forward silently, rejecting the regret and self-imposed hate with a hand laid on Atlas’ shoulder.

	“Let go. Forgiveness will never come, and your own burden of acceptance will not ease with time. You’re here now- changed,  forged into a vengeful blade of the Light. The Bonded are an evil even greater than that which you destroyed those years ago. They call for justice, and few can answer their strength. You can walk away now, and run for a lifetime from your regrets- or you can stand against new evils. You’ll never erase your deeds, good or bad. But you can work to set the scales back.” Atlas paused as the spearsaint’s words settled; and then he nodded. Time will pass regardless of how it is spent. To honor the memory of his brothers-in-arms, corrupted they may have been… he had only one choice.