Eternity Of Sand
by Gornah

He is gone. His body is cradled in my weary arms, but it is no more than an empty shell. His face is untouched by physical wounds, but it has changed more than could be thought possible. His eyes have been robbed of the flame of life that danced within.

Only the sand awaits him now. The burial pit is an endless hole, one that leads directly to the gaping maw of Satakal. The devourer opens his jaws to greet Tralen. The sands of eternity await us all.

Yet, we stand tall, a contradiction in every breath, and a brief note of resistance against the beat of the endless song of time.

As we watch his body being folded into the sand's embrace, we do not weep.
We will not allow tears to betray his memory.
Our grief shall not scorn his life.
His death is not an ending; it is merely another cycle in the endless spinning of time. Mundus moves one step closer to its destruction and to its rebirth. Satakal continues his endless twisting of our world through time. With each movement are two changes in our world. He deals death and life in equal measure, and to mourn death is to reject the gift of life.

His death is not a departure, it is a homecoming. As the land nurtured him, he goes now to nurture it. His two and twenty years have prepared him for the payment of his debt. His life was not stolen from him. The sand was but taking that which was borrowed from it.

We do not leave marks upon the sand where he lies. His passing is no disturbance to the sands of time, so we do not disrespect this by altering the face of the dunes.

We walk from the site where we left him. The shifting of the sands beneath our feet reminds us of the cycles that rule us all. As death triumphs over life, the rocks are ground into sand. As sand is reformed into rock, new life rises from old.