What do I seek, why do I linger
in the shadow of that crooked mountain peak?
With cracked earth, and broken bones,
where nothing but trudgebacks make their home.
And in that one, twisted tree,
the grickan with his sunken eyes, watching me.
Here, for now, I'll make my camp
and wait for the stars to pass.
Here I'll place my solitary lamp,
a little flame, shielded in glass.
For when it dies, I'll die too,
set upon by the grickan in moments few.
If there is anything left that I fear
it is his talons that gash and shear.
But tonight he will have to accept
to hunt only small scrits in the hills.
On their fictile flesh, his teeth leapt,
then ground the tissue in his gullet's mills.
Leeching black blood that makes it plain,
my vigilance is not in vain.
I have oil enough for the length of the dark.
I've kept a careful mark.
But tomorrow I must make quick time.
Yet I've had trouble with that conversion,
time always seems as quick as it comes.
For now, I'll do with what I find,
put aside my diversion,
as I walk below those withering suns,
away from where I've come from.
Mar 7, 2026