[SWP] ACT I: The Trembling of a Distant Land

[Eik]

He did not want to go toward the darkening sky. Animals-- the smarter ones-- fled from it. The sky was crowded with birds flying north, some of them streaked black with soot. Even the trees, it seemed to him, leaned away from that inky horizon, and as he walked through the plains the grasses brushing against his knees as though begging him to turn back.

But something compels him to go and see how the end of the world might be unfolding. He isn't the only one-- those before him have marked in sand and snow and grass a trail through the desert, over the mountains, across the prairie. Like a pilgrimage.

Still his heart trembles and his legs move slowly. He has passed no one walking the other way.

The southern half of the sky is covered in ash by the time Eik reaches the coast. It colors the sunrise in apocalyptic shades of hazy red and orange. It is cold, especially at the water's edge, and when the ash first begins to fall he mistakes it for snow. He closes his eyes and dips into his magic.

He is standing in a sea of emotion, its warm waves churning with fear (terror), doubt (disbelief), sorrow (misery). Some are angry, even. Some are righteous. He wants to sooth them, to strengthen them. It would be so easy, to reach out with magic and simply... reorganize the thought patterns. He could harness their fear, make an army of them.

He opens his eyes when he realizes it is ash that is falling from the sky, not snow.

***STAFF EDIT
@Eik has rolled a 1! He has been awarded +10 signos