Page 51 - North Star Magazine 2022

takes is one fool to destroy a thousand year old legacy.” He spoke with the bitter taste of defeat lingering with his words. Blink looked at with a distasteful gaze.
He became lost in thought. He had no legacy. His life work was stolen and accredited to those who were faithful to traitors. After the loss of the love of his life, Blink would be the only family he would come to know. They had stolen his life. No. She had stolen his life, Rilos thought to himself.
The only items he possessed were moldy books he kept in this shack, a sturdy black-wood walking stick with the head of a wolf carved into its end, and a small asymmetrical black crystal.
“What colorful vocabulary we are choosing to begin our day with,” Blink emphasized every word in a meticulous, musical fashion. Rilos ignored his feathered friend and continued scouring the quote. He was reading, ‘The Ruler, The Killer’, a timeline of a single man’s legacy, which began with the decimation of a culture and ended with his ancestors meeting the same fate.
Reading was one of four things that helped him get out of bed in the morning. It was rare to find any new, intriguing texts, thus he settled for studying anything from botanical guides handwritten by the village herbalist, to reading tattered remnants of literature which passed through the small village; which he often won through gambling.
Rilos rubbed his eyes. His hand traveled down from the crusted corners of his eyes to his mouth. His lips had long lost their vibrancy and now resembled the hue of a dying peony, their crusting petals plucked from the edges of his mouth as he aggressively picked at the flakes. Echoes of defeat bounced between the crumbling infrastructure of his mind and the moldy stone walls which physically enclosed him. There were no bars or shackles in this prison, just the confinement of heartbreak, loss, and shame.
“Legacy...legacy...legacy,” Blink said in a mocking tone. “I’m a grumpy
old farmer and all I care about is my dead legacy.” He was not amused by the bird’s antics, while Blink thought of himself as the funniest being alive. He continued chirping in uncontrollable bits of laughter when he started to experience an odd sensation. A sudden sense of nausea and sweeping chills crept upon him like a predator stalking its prey, waiting for the moment when its jaws would crush the blissful negligence of a distracted mind. He would not be consumed today, these were warning signs of an unknown presence; someone was approaching his door.
“Blink, shut up,” He whispered in a hushed tone.
“I have every right to sing. You humans always try to control one another, but I am not your-”