Rot

	Ethra Nar Village,
	Population: 1

	—

	7:30 A.M.

	You emerge, slowly, from your home at the top of the world.

	Well. At the top of your world.

	Your gaze is cast over that hill, tumbling down that sprawl of aged buildings. Webs of kudzu and tangles of flowering vines swallow forgotten homes to the earth, each vine, each leaf, each petal, weighing down. A time ago you could still see much of these buildings, something you learned to cherish before it was too late.

	You retreat into your home, as you hear the whistle of your tea kettle. A quaint little place, positioned at the peak of the village; prime real-estate for people watching, as you once enjoyed. You built it with your own two hands, and to this day it remains the only home in your village mostly free of overgrowth, though you’ve allowed a few flowering vines to colonize it. Inside, lit now by the warm, morning haze filtering in through the window, is just a modest home; a bedroom, a bathroom, and a living room.

	A well-ordered array of flasks, alchemical reagents, wand materials and more dominate the living room… and so many medical supplies. But the centerpiece, one you have positioned so carefully and enchanted so delicately so that it will survive even the eventual overgrowth, is a series of paintings; each one depicts a few of the homes below, and the details of their interiors, little things left behind by their inhabitants. The people of this town worked so hard to decorate their homes, and left behind so many traces of their intricate lives, and you wouldn’t know a lick of it if you looked around now. Among the paintings, you’d left a number of trinkets you managed to recover from the homes as well, your favorite among them a seal ring belonging to a family you’ve yet to identify.

	Amid the eccentric, if organized, mess, is a little cage on a table. A rat you’d witnessed injured among the rubble of one of the homes at the foot of the hill. You’d carried it all the way up the hill, so docile in your hands, and tended so carefully to it. Washed the wound, tied it in little bandages, and even groomed the little fella, making sure he was nice and clean for when you would inevitably release him back to his true home. You sit down across from him, pouring and steeping a steaming cup of tea, a pleasant smile on your face as you share the morning with him.

	8:00 A.M.

	After finishing your breakfast, you step back out onto your porch, to the call of chimes rattling gently in the wind. In the silence of the village, the chimes are a stark contrast; you’d deliberately plucked them from each and every home, and strung them about your home, in the hopes that it would draw the attention of any weary travelers that might be passing by. After all, the rest of the village had no use for their ambiance. In your hands rests the small rat, which you cradle carefully; you figured you would take him on your journey today, and let him get some fresh air.

	Down into the village you go. Your stride is slow, calm, almost stealthy; you walk as if you would rather not disturb this hallowed ground, trying to make sure your hooves don’t click too loudly to the wet stone paths. A chilling, wet breeze rolls down the hill, rattling still-hanging lanterns and dragging along with it a thick layer of fog coursing through a wall of trees, and carrying a particularly strong smell of wet wood and stone. Though you love the smell, the wear that such frequent rains must inflict on these wooden structures is a concern that weighs on your mind, especially as you have begun to see some homes sway in windstorms.

	There's the old town hall, the centerpiece of the town. Abandoned just as the rest of it, the clocktower to which it is attached still ticks on, its glass face framed in, but mostly forgotten among, the layer of greenery.

	“Ahh… town hall. Mayor McCaleigh. You know,” you begin to narrate to a rat, “even when there were people around here, that place was still abandoned. More than once, there was a big stink about the kudzu growing into the interior,” you speak, giggling quietly. It was a nice thing, really. Little conflict needed little addressing, after all.

	You descend into the town center, to the visage of the Shrine. That was all you could call it; the inscription at its base had long been worn flat by the rain. Held aloft by a levitation spell cast long ago, the abstract stone carving of a fire had begun to sag slowly, as the spell decayed, towards a basin into which it would surely one day settle. Even the people of this town did not know what god this shrine belonged to, but still they cast all manner of trinkets and coins into the basin, little offerings in the hopes that whatever forgotten god this shrine once belonged to might still watch over them. You do just the same, tossing a gold coin into it.

	Each day, it dipped just a little lower. You don’t know if you will live to see it land.

	A spark of pain suddenly darts across your head, but you just shut your eyes, center yourself, and move on. Honey River, so named for its strangely sweet waters and plodding current, strikes straight through the heart of the town. The bridge crossing it to the town hall is sturdy but simple, consumed by its own blanketing of overgrowth with long, flowering vines reaching into the river and drinking deeply of it.

	You stop, to speak more. “You know, I had my first kiss on this bridge. I’d always bring my girlfriend here at night to watch the Honeyglow, you know, all that glowy stuff that washes down the river in the summer? In the real early hours of the morning, you can see it start to really light up…”

	With a wistful sigh, you gently caress the rat as you march towards the town hall, shoving open one of its heavy doors with your shoulder and throwing a pall of dust in the air in the process, that swims and swirls in the rays pouring in through the dirt-fogged windows. Along creaking, rotten wood floors you tread, between pews and towards a pulpit enshrined in cobwebs.

	“This is where we’d all come to hold meetings whenever something was wrong in the town. Once, the river mysteriously caught on fire. That was a real… surreal one…” you sigh, looking down at the animal in your hands. It doesn’t look back at you, and is certainly not paying attention to your little history lesson. “Okay… I’ll get you back home and give you a little food. I just have to take care of something, alright?”

	8:30 A.M.

	You arrive, after a short walk past rows of overtaken homes, at the graveyard.

	Hidden among the trees in a small clearing a ways from the town, just by the slow river that cuts through the town, a modest graveyard lies. Little more than plain, rough headstones with simple inscriptions carved into them, the overgrowth has time and time again threatened to spill over and consume this land. It is the only place you have denied nature its ravenous appetite. With the rat tucked safely in your bag for a moment, you kneel, and work.

	You meticulously cut away every vine, you chisel at the headstones to make sure that the inscriptions stay deep, clear and legible, and you leave a single flower on each of 19 graves.

	… Or… 20?

	As you approach the final grave, you realize you are out of flowers… and the inscription on the headstone is empty. As you reach for it, your hand passes through it, and as soon as it vanishes a brutal jolt of pain sends you onto your back, clutching your head. Your antlers howl with white flame, and the sky grows brighter, forcing you to cover your eyes.

	Will you decay here too? Will you decay here too? Will you die, silent, empty, in service to wilderness that doesn’t care one bit about you? Is this what you are? A hermit in the forest, an idiot who can’t let go of something long dead, clinging to an ill-conceived fantasy about nature? There are people out there protecting innocent people, and here you are wasting what remains of your short life on something nobody will ever appreciate, staving off a rightful rot.

	You scream into the burning sky, kicking your hooves in the dirt and writhing in agony as the white fire seems to spill from your antlers and into your head. Four, six, twelve hands clutch your face and head, covering four, six, a thousand eyes. Your body spills over into the dirt, sinks into the graveyard as though it rots living from your bones. A chaos elemental is not like the others. A chaos elemental is a fool. A naive pact made with the world, in the hopes that it would care for you, that an inscrutable and inhuman power might work to your favor.

	Your life will be short, this power will consume you and turn you into something so much worse, a̡nd̀ h͏e҉r̶e͘ ͠you a̴re, W̢͟A͞S̶͞͝T̡͢҉Í̸Ņ̶҉G̷̡͢ ͢͞Į̶͠҉҉Ţ̕͟͠҉ ̴O̸̵̷͜N̸̸̛ ̢̧T̶̴H̢͟҉͘E̶̴̵̶͘ ̴̴̴D͟͜͞E̴͢A͘҉̧D҉̸̢̀.́͘͢͡

	12:00 A.M.

	You awaken, under the shimmering, iridescent light of the ethereal fire crowning your antlers.

	Your body feels as if it is weighed down by a thousand chains, or perhaps by the same overgrowth you’d seen on everything else, but slowly, as you wriggle and move, you start to feel that ethereal weight lift. You begin to sit up, but feel something particularly real on your chest… and look down, to see him there, sitting, staring at you.

	You lift him off of your chest, and sit up in the midst of the graveyard. Why is he still here? He could have run off so long ago. He’s not even injured anymore, really. You see him amble about your lap, his mobility no longer hindered by his injury. As he looks up at you, you brush your hand across his back, a quivering display of some form of gratitude.

	You know why you are here.

	With him cradled against your soft fur, you look up into the starry sky, at Vask’s golden visage. The nights are always particularly quiet, just the rustling of the trees and between them the mournful, distant chimes.

	You will decay here. Just as this town has.

	It’s your home. The animals are your friends.

	It’s where you are meant to be. For better, or worse.

	Because someone has to care for it.