Somewhere lost in the seas of time
There lies a faded Archipelago
Cradled softly by cerulean surfs
A jewel of life, deserted long ago.
The islands here are six of a kind
Bound forever in their slumber
Cracked crucibles of civilization
Now only memories that encumber
The one man left who once walked
Upon such hallowed magical grounds,
And soared above with scorching speed
With wonders everywhere to be found;
That man travels back here, back home
At the turn of every long hundred years.
He soars no more but sails slowly in solitude
And at first sight of land holds back tears.
Crooked hills and ashen beaches stretch out
As he docks his boat by the ruined shore.
The luminous lives that lined these lands
Are long gone, never to be restored.
He breathes and he sighs as the crystal waves
Threaten to wash him back to the days of yore.
But longingly he lets go and lumbers forth
Departing this richly faded shore.
Across the sloping valleys and peaked hills he wanders
Recalling the Unicornes that grazed this land,
Those marauding, mystical masters of magic
With their penchant for the excessively grand.
They had been such a pest to the man once
In his side, a rough and bothersome thorn,
Presently he perceives their particular pleasure
But far too late, for they are gone, and he forlorn.
These Unicorne territories, once watched to the millimeter,
Have now totally faded from the hilly landscape;
No last landmarks of clan lines linger from long ago
No trace of the brutal brawls and daring escapes.
Nearby the worn brick road, once flawless, brilliant crimson,
Is cracked and weathered, color ebbed long away.
For all the faintly flourishing flowers and flickers of life
The Unicorne realm is now one ruled by death and dismay.
The man walks day and night, lamenting this tragedy,
And most tragic of all is that he does so alone.
Of all the allies that attended him around these acres
The most that is left of them are ragged bones.
He crosses to the forested island of the El’ivie
Once home to a graceful, pointy-eared, close-knit race
But the Fall fractured their family in two fragments:
A futile exercise, for both now share the same resting place.
Thriving towns were once planted in these woods
And loving communities sprouted towards the sky
Now rubble and rock are all the residue that remains
And the El’iviea flower has wilted and died.
Though many relics have been consumed by nature
A few tools still shine through the leaves and vines.
Such incredible innovations El’iviea ingenuity inspired,
Yet their fate was not prevented by those keen minds.
When the man looks at these lands, he can still see all that was
All the joy and beauty, the peace and harmony that lied here
And the sorrowful sunset when such satisfaction shattered.
But look away a second, and the bittersweet memory clears.
For better or worse, this island is now the domain of nature
Which, the man thinks, the El’ivie would not mind too much.
But he minds, more than he might admit, mourning these marvels
And when it comes time for him to depart, he lingers just a touch.
He stands at the coast, the distance between islands having grown,
The sea is slowly but surely swallowing the Archipelago’s remains.
A typical traveler would find it a trial to traverse here,
But for the man, there are always ways, no matter the strain.
He arrives in a rough and rocky land with little green,
The treacherous mountain passes once called Gruirere:
The dwelling of a dangerous and deadly Dominion
Ruled by tricksters who induced such frightening scares.
That was what the man once thought of those Gol Butin
The sneaky green gremlins that took to the dark,
But collaborating so closely with creatures so concealed
Revealed instead their gentle, kind-hearted spark.
In truth the Gol Butin were a shy and peaceful people
And silence and solitude served as their simple home
They only seemed so scary, for they suffered for survival
In the harsh landscape they were forced to roam.
But from necessity comes great invention
And few could claim to be resourceful than they,
Spinning abundances from next to nothing
Crude, perhaps, but reliable — that was their way.
The Dominion weathered storms of every kind, and, for a time,
Came to thrive in the heart of their harsh and hungry wild.
But the stillness that stifles their splintered strongholds
Is now eternal, their halls abandoned, decayed, defiled.
The treacherous lands that claimed so many Gol Butin
Now claims the whole race, the victors of this fight.
Gruriere, a rugged realm ruled by rot and reticence
An arduous arena falling quiet for a long, lonely night.
Now the man departs in body, but not, in part, spirit
And makes his way to the long and narrow isle
Where fearsome fighters flew and fond friends frolicked
Merely thinking of the Dragons makes the man smile.
He sees the great arches and peaks, the perilous cliff tops
Where the Dragons nested like gigantic scary birds,
Between its beautiful blue beaches, and blooming buds in bushes,
Kazīes Draghæl is more brilliant than can be said in words.
But the dragons that lived there were even more so,
Perhaps the most respected race among all the Avignis.
Powerful but patient, prepared and philanthropic,
A land unified in purpose and adventure and bliss.
Now their caverns and caves lie vacantly lost
And endless winter falls over this land of former fire.
Tripped up by their tendency to think and trust,
Dragons no longer fill the skies or rocky spires.
There is little trace of this land’s rulers, in fact,
Save their mammoth skeletons and bones.
Vestiges of the virtuous victims now vanishing
Sinking back into the sands and the stones.
Much like the islands of the Archipelago, in fact,
The Avignis follow Kazīes Draghæl in death as in life
All those ardent allies ascended as angels to arbors above
Leaving only the man, trapped by suffering and strife.
He cannot linger longer — he says his quiet goodbyes,
And proceeds to what was once the most dangerous of all
Druveljne, the disorganized den of the disrespectful defiants,
Mighty warriors who stopped for none and always stood tall.
That was the way of the Druvehn, who conquered this land,
Their belligerence could not have been clearer.
Hostilities and hatred were habits and hobbies,
And faced with a challenge, they always ran nearer.
Though short and stout in stature, they had no shortage of power
And destruction dominated here far before the Fall came to pass.
But even experts of engagement could not evade such an end
Not for all their magical weapons or warrior class.
The man turns away from such a thought, and summons instead
The image of the Druvehn in their moments of calm.
Champion combatants, capable of compassion and collaboration,
Craved the community that created such a balm.
Though always fractured into houses and clans,
The Druvehn were so fiercely loyal to their own.
And fleetly found fortitude in far more features
Than simply fighting prowess and skill alone.
There were so many different talents to their rank
And so many kinds of lessons to both teach and learn.
The Druvehn displayed such a diversity of dispositions
Beyond just cunning warriors, if one so chose to discern.
And the man did so choose, in his long-ago youth,
It was a difficulty teaching such a proud people, sure,
But the rewards were richly reached and readily reusable
And he missed those times, for there was no joy more pure.
But now of their camps and carefully built castles,
Only sticks and stones yet remain for him to see.
Now gritty grasses guided by generations of degeneration
Are all left of the Druvehn and their battle sprees.
One final island remains for the man to cross
One last painful remnant of his now distant past:
Ashcelūsi, the armored aviary of the Ascendancy,
Of all he lost, this was the dearest, and the very last.
Gigantic trees sprout on this land, their bark still dark and tough,
But the grand nests his kind built so proudly are long, long gone.
The flora and fauna flourish freely, unfettered by fiery misfortunes,
An unknowing observer might have thought this a rebirth, a new dawn.
But the man knows better than that, for he sees and has seen
Only what is missing from these landscapes, all he once knew.
There were the terrific treetops that thrilled him so totally
Where he and his eternal friends laughed and flourished and flew.
And there were the restful roosts where he rested his wings
And learned all the ways to shape the world with his magic.
His smile shines sadly as he sees such sights, such sorrows,
Missing dearly his friends, who tasted a fate so tragic.
Yes, this was his home once, and his home no longer,
For he failed this Archipelago, which now breathes no more.
He grieves and grieves with a growing guilt and disgrace
And longs for the simple days when his spirit could still soar.
But it is a futile wish, for he lost that magic long ago,
And in any case the age of the Avignis is dead and done.
The time of the Thyrian has taken true root,
That is a right that they have wearily won.
Taking one last look with his grizzled, tired eyes,
The man thinks, perhaps Thyriankind has the key mix,
The attributes and abilities asked to attend to Earth,
In that, they have the blessing of an old Phoenix.
But they will never replace what he had so cherished before,
That is gone forever, he thought, drinking the view in.
A part of him is dead and buried here, never to leave,
He nodded to the man he used to be, as a dark storm blew in.
But it was time to leave the past be, he decided at last,
So he slowly departed the sorrowful shores
Of the Archipelago of Ruins.
[Author’s Note: This poem about the Phoenix, one of the original legends of the Thyriaverse, was originally written August 6, 2022. The Phoenix is one of the most complicated figures in the Thyriaverse – general, ambassador, teacher, survivor, and it’s the latter aspect that I’ve chosen to focus on here. The Avignan civilization is one of beauty and wonder and fantasy, or rather was, and it’s one of my favorite creations, but like all things it has an end, and it’s difficult to be the one that’s left. Though this obviously shows the life that the Phoenix once lived, it’s fascinating as well seeing how much it informs the life he now leads. Even though he is reflecting on times that once were and the person he used to be, that still informs the man he is now, which I’m very much looking forward to developing further. Until we have need of one another again.]
