A wind story -- Elazrath

“Do you know why you’re here?” A young female’s voice broke the silence of the still air.
       “No.” The defiant voice of a man replied. He knelt clutching an injury on his chest tightly with an arm bound in ragged, bloody bandages. “Tell me what I am doing here.”
       “It seems I gave you too much credit assuming you would know why you are so important.” The female replied harshly. She let down a slender hand and caressed the mans rough face. “It is because this world is on the brink of destruction that you are here. This land you call home is torn to pieces.” A feint glimmer of a smile reached across her lips. “Your family –“
       “You leave my family out of this!” The man shouted, startling the woman. “You don’t think I know this land is in peril? This war has torn my family in two, and taken my wife from me! I know very well the state we are in here!”
       The smile on the woman’s face faded. “Yes your family…” She trailed off under her breath so that the man could barely hear her. “Your family is very involved with this war.” Her voice picked up again. “That is what makes you so special. Everything your family lives for, even dies for is intertwined with this war that has raged for so long.” She paused for a moment and stared down into the hardened eyes of the man before her. “You see, I need you to do something for me. Only you –“
       “You drag me out here to the middle of nowhere after my wife has died in my arms. You bring me here away from the battle so I cannot exact my revenge, to ask me a favor?” The man spat.
       “Only you,” the woman continued, “can bring an end to this war.”
       “M-Me?” The man stuttered, taken aback. “Why me? How do you even know this? Who are you anyway?” He was beginning to sound frantic now, his grip tightening around his chest.
       The woman smiled again, in a deep almost sinister grin. “This land you fight for, has lost its luster over these long years. This land is where my creator once lived, and where he appointed me certain roles in this world. And for five hundred years, this land has been a battleground, where multitudes of forces marched against each other in order to occupy this holiest of lands. Five-hundred years!” Her voice rose to almost a shout. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch people die for five hundred years?” The man stayed silent now. “To see the land that once belonged to the man who created me stained with blood? This earth, it can taste it. I can taste it: the taste of human blood.” The woman sighed, closing her eyes in relief as if a great weight was lifted off her shoulders. “That is why I need you. You understand what I feel. What your people feel because your family is so involved.”
       “But there would be countless families like mine.”
       “Yes, but I chose you to do this for me. It is within your power, with the position you hold.”
       “How is it possible? How can I stop five hundred years of hatred on my own?”
       The woman looked down on the man with caring eyes deep with sorrow and longing. “By giving it all up, and shedding your tears for your loss. They will all realize their undoing.”
       “That’s ridiculous!” The man bellowed. “No one will listen to that! People die everyday in battle, how are my losses going to be important.”
       “Because you will all help them realize what they have lost and what they will continue to lose if they continue.”
       The man shot an angered look at the woman. “No.” He sneered.
       “What?”
       “I won’t do it. The death of my wife was my fault, and I will bear it alone. I will not share it with the world, much less my children!”
       “Then your children will be forced to suffer the fate of a warrior, like you.” The woman sighed.
       “I don’t care. I just wish to die in peace. I just want to see Ellen again.” A tear rolled down the man’s rigid cheek.
       The woman stood silent for a long time, watching the man kneel lower and lower, clutching his wound with one hand and his face with the other. Shallow sobs erupted from his figure as he wallowed in his grief.
       “I—But—“ The woman stammered.
       “No…” The man replied as if what the woman had said meant anything. “I know what I must do now. I will go south. As far south as I can go until I reach the barren lands. I will stay there until I die.” He began to move to his feet.
       The woman stood silent watching the man, rise and begin to walk away, but before he could get far she broke in. “Then I will give you a gift.” She said. The man paused.
       “I don’t want anything from you.”
       “But you will take it whether you want it or not. You will take with you a piece of me. A power I have faced since the birth of this world. You will see what it is when the time comes.”
       “I don’t need power.” The man replied, as he began to walk away again.
       “You do not need it, but let it curse you for the rest of your life.”