Thunder In The Distance

Thunder in the distance

Rain falls down from leaded skies between colossal trees, thick entangled branches. Wet moss and dripping, vibrantly green clover sways in slight breezes that whisper here, here, here. Slick muddy earth richly black against red-brown bark and vivid greenery. My three-toed talons sink into the softly sucking, cool mud with infinite balance. My steps are swift and elegant, naturally quick in organic movement.

Disembodied symphonies fill my sensitive hearing. Footsteps miles away from a Leviathan, ten thousand years old and nearly a thousand feet long, moving like a living mountain. I can hear the breeze moving through the rooted trees upon its ancient back. I can hear migratory herds hooting and calling, singing with millennia aged durges about the sky, about important rivers, about familiar nesting sites.

I am quiet. My vocalizations resound like thunder. Felt in the chest and in the bones of friend or foe alike. But for now, I am quiet. My jaws open and close, sampling the air, obsidian railroad-spike-teeth glistening with condensation wetness.

Somewhere far away, thunder rumbles.

Night of the Metal Trees

I am lost.

I stand, unsure, afraid. Unfamiliar light and painful sounds and rushing motion blare at me with an unnatural malice.

I turn and turn and turn, slashing with claws and snapping jaws, quills raised, iron feathers shivering.

Where am I?

My vastness dwarfs such tiny glassy-metal trees, but I am fearful, and step uncomfortably, slipping, careening into painful metallic thorns. My calls do not bring familiarity, my connection to the Earth severed and dull.

Is this Uhan, the Bleak Underworld? Or something else..?

I scramble, limping, howling.

Running.

Far and Away, Silence Stretches Forever

The forest is empty, and quiet. Sketched black tree trunks are empty, hollow. Their scorched carcasses painfully thin in the half light. Pale white ash swirls gently in the whispering wind. Silence reverberates in hallowed tones.

The rivers run clear and still as glass. Empty of life. Dark rocks, smoothed pebbles without purpose or design.

Quiet bones litter the forest floor. Shimmering antlers that once glowed like gold. Obsidian dark feathers without color that once shined like flaring midnight. Discarded pelts once as smooth as silk, rich as regal banners.

Nothing remains. Far and away, yawning silence stretches forever.

Hate of the Fossil God

I am furious.

My hide is black as night, carved with scales like iron and feathers like blades, glowing in negative illumination from ten thousand fires.

My talons are scythes, clawing at the angry metallic insects that dare oppose my movement; petulant fireflies that barely sting. Petty creatures I swat into oblivion or swallow by my cavernous lungs.

My tail crumbles metropolises like an earthquake topples termite mounds: shimmering glassy cascades that shatter into dust and cataclysm. Such childish things, so fucking minuscule!

My jaws scream in hatred, yawn open forever, fangs that could puncture the greatest of steels brought to bear. My scream is supersonic, hateful down to its core, so strong as to make a million tiny naked apes deaf in seconds. Crimson lightning howls from my fossilized throat.

Ships dangle upon my thorny quills, skyscrapers crushed within my clawing fingers, armies pulverized beneath my steps.

This was my world once. Primordial and free of a crawling infestation. Trees that towered a mile into endlessly cloudy, storming thunderheads. Lifeforms ancient and graceful that dwarfed even me..

Gone.

I have slept too long.

Did these infernal meddlers destroy my precious Garden? Did they ruin all I held dear..?

I am furious.

I will make them pay.

M Y T H I C

It rains today.

Bruised purplish clouds hang low in the surreal, majestic sky of Halo. Between marble-carved tufts and crags looms the distant Ring curve; distant etched surfaces gorgeously tiny from vastness.

Familiar trees, so painfully familiar and alien all at once, shift gently in a soft breeze. Tall grasses seem to waver like an illusion.

The Master Chief—John—walks quietly in the wilderness. There are no birds that sing, no creatures with their cacophony of noises. Nothing but breeze, but the distant thunder rumbling, but his own heavy steps, but pattering rain drops.

Is this a dream?

His armor feels.. different. Foreign. The weight is so pristinely light yet comfortable and inviting in a way that is almost unreal. Pieces seem to readjust or move. Hardlight shimmers on encased joints, along geometric patterns. His rifle is alive with a mind between each sizable bullet. Intelligent currents seem to trace glowing pathways across the midnight dark alloy.

John, walks quietly across the rolling hills, changed. Cortana, the Flood, the Librarian. An ocean of thoughts deep and dark as the abyss flow through his mind, quietly tsunami swells crashing.

Pieces of memories blossom in the half light of consciousness.

Lives he can’t remember, voices and faces and sensations ethereal as the dreams that wake him in the night.

A cackling Machine that once threatened him and laughed and laughed and laughed in hazy starlight..

A vast and alabaster sphere crackling with purpose, roaring with intent, resurrection amongst rusting tombs and trees that bled wine..

A monster that rose in the bodies of heroes, endless cycles, Atlantis reborn over and over in warring kingdoms hearts..

Thunder rumbles, far away.

A voice speaks in the thunder..

[sorry for going anon, @sledposting, but thank you sincerely for your kindness and openness. I’m sorry this might read a bit strange and off, I originally was going to go with a much shorter paragraph or two about the Arbiter and John around the campfire on Sanghelios prior to the Infinity’s departure, but figured I’d go with an old theory I liked about all Bungie related material.

Lights, Action, and Relaxation

Late night tonight. I watched a lot of movies today, and relaxed, did my usual walk, picked up the house. Still feeling kind of sick, on and off. Tired. But relaxed. Happy. Excited for Mother’s Day, it’ll be really nice to hangout with my mom and my sister, do something enjoyable for my mom. She’s a really great woman. She works very hard for all that she has. I hope everybody had a good day today, whoever reads these, you crazy bastards. I can’t imagine I say anything very interesting, and I’m sorry I kind of ramble.

- your friend, Zachariah