The Necromancer’s Shadow

The dark hooded stranger

Carries intricately carved knives at his belt,

And gold and blue liquids

Strung about his neck on a chain,

Glowing in the twilight

Through translucent corked bottles.

He walks through the darkness

In boots worn with adventure and travel

That leave footprints in the mud

In which a bright young shadow

Silently makes his imprints seconds after;

Not quite as large, but just as curious,

Though the the boy's curiosity

Still filters through the veil of innocence

As he stalks the unfamiliar entity

Through the trees that are haunted

With the wails of the cicadas.

The stranger halts

So the child halts

And watches as his mother stands and blinks again,

Still bleeding ancient blood from ancient burns

That never got enough time to heal;

Still covered in the grime

That collected on her person

In its years under the dirt.

But her eyes

Are not still the same loving green

That the child looked into

As she told him stories of her journeys

As a wandering adventurer.

No,

These eyes are empty

And as grey

As their son's broken tears

As he runs through the woods

Back to the orphanage;

Followed, but not seen,

By a startled young magician

Who thought he heard wolves

Stalking him in the dead of night,

Leaving only a whispering mother

Grieving for her grieving child

in their wake.