We knew. We knew it would happen. From the wilderness, for years, wildmen had come and warned us - but we ignored them. We ridiculed them and their prophecies of doom. We knew though, somewhere deep in our cores we felt The Anima roaring in pain, groaning under the strain of Imperium artifice. We always knew, of course, the glory of the Imperium and the immortality of the senate would never be ours; we would not be one of the lucky few. We knew, but again, we ignored it. People are strange that way, easily falling victim of their own hopes and dreams.
She had been picking gypsylion greens in the fields beyond the village. The crops had been withering more and more, year by year, and the last harvest had been so meager most of the children had died in the winter. She had been one of the few to survive, her brother had been lost to fever. In the years before the Imprium had shipped them grain to see through the hard season, but that year none has come. Even the Imperium's breadbasket lands had begun to go fallow. The livestock had gone mad, sows turning on farmhands, bulls refusing to rut, plow-beasts goring their masters. Some had been butchered as they went mad. It was their meat that allowed the hardy to survive the winter. Many more, however, broke free only to return and terrorize the village. No one spoke of it, but there would be no next spring. Those who could engage in artifice hurriedly sent their crafts to the seat of the Imperium, hoping to curry favor and the immortal blessings of their patrons while they still could. Those who could not sold larger and larger portions of their verve, their spirit, to Imperial Currency brokers and artificers desperate to stock up food and see one more spring. Death was a vise, closing in from all sides, just slow enough to ignore with enough effort.
She knew the moment it had happened, but could not know what - that The Anima had finally broken. That the spirit world through which all life and magic flowed had finally been destroyed by their carelessness. In the fields she'd heard the gypsylions scream, the grass, the streams and the sky; a primal scream of death and terror. She fled back to the village, a plume of yellow petals steaming out behind her as she ran, basket bouncing in her wake. Behind her the earth split open, a yawning chasm seemingly chasing her. It swallowed up the fields and even the edges of the forest around as it split the turf asunder - like a lightning bolt rushing through the ground. It followed her, unrelenting. The west side of the village shuddered, groaned and tipped as entire houses and flagstone towers toppled into the chasm, the screams of their inhabitants unheard over the tumult of angry terra firma.
The villagers poured out of homes, screaming in terror or stunned and silent. Brave men and women yelled above the chaos, trying to organize futile attempts to rescue survivors. As they stood on the edge of the yawning mouth barking orders and searching for survivors the explosions began. First from the chasm, then from the unscarred ground sudden bursts of molten earth erupted with quaking force. The would-be heroes were blown into the chasm or away, shredded by volcanic sprays of razor sharp stones. The villagers began to run into the woodlands, but the beasts were waiting. With claw and fang, those who fled the holocaust of molten stone were felled by animals both wild and once lovingly tended to.
Then the elves came. They cut their way through the beasts. They lept and dodged through the exploding chaos of flame and stone, grabbing children up and ushering fallen men to their feet. At their head a giant of a man, hair and eyes untamed, clad in the furs and homespun of a wildman. He barked orders to the elves as a massive axe chopped and slashed any beast that sought to interfere with the efficiency of a long practiced forester splitting cordwood. When the beasts had finally retreated and what survivors remained had gathered under the shelter of the elves he turned the crowd and yelled out, "Today the world has died! Nowhere is safe but behind me! Follow me, keep pace, or perish with your world!".
So she ran, again, this time on the heels of their savior. She looked for her father and mother, but she could not find them in the crowd and did not dare to slow her pace long enough. She prayed to the Great Spirits, but knew in her heart they were dead, or dying, by their own hands as the wilderness prophets and doomsayers had preached would happen. The ground continued to crack and split, spitting up fire and showers of razor sharp rocks. Many fell, the elves swept up who they could, when she fell the great man swept her up into his arms. She clung to him tight, each loping stride shaking her bones. He smelled of lavender and leather. She felt rain on her forehead, but when she looked up the sky was still bright and sunny, belying the terrors of the terra firma. They were the large man's tears.
The terrain changed from gentle fields to marshes and swamps that hissed as their shallow waters met fiery chasms. The earth split and howled behind them louder than ever, and the great man spun about. The refugees had been split nearly in half by a sudden tear in the ground. Fire spit up from the gash, spilling acrid smoke into the air. Hundreds of villagers and elves stood on the other side of the rift, cracks running to their sides and behind. In moments the solid ground had become an island in a ring of smoke and flame. Sensing their doom many ran forward, attempting to leap across the chasm, all fell into the death pit but one especially nimble elf. She saw her parents, then, edging their way forward as the island slowly crumbled. She screamed out, twisted and writhed for her father and mother in the man's iron grip, but he would not let her run to join her parents in death.
"They are lost! Keep on!" he bellowed to the survivors who had made it past the rift. Reluctantly they turned and ran, mud sucking at their feet as the swamp sought to draw them down. She hit and screamed, howled at the man and cursed him. He ran on silently, his face raining all the harder for the doomed souls. As they fled the earth continued to rupture and split, spewing out smoke, ash and stone. They dogged and weaved, the desperate through following them. Yard by yard more perished to the sudden chasms, explosions and razor fragments of doomed earth that shot like arrows from the eruptions. Many fell to simple exhaustion, unwilling or unable to fight the sucking marshes. The great wild man's breathing grew heavy and labored, but he remained silent, only a startled grunt at a close explosion betraying what might be fear or pain.
They had run for miles and suddenly the broke from the swampy meadows and marshes into a large grove. Within the center a great circle of stone stood. Her father had spoke to her about this place, huntsmen came here to leave offerings, believing it to be a shrine to some long silent Great Spirit of the wood and marsh. Eldritch blue whorls of light wrapped the circle, and the air in its center shimmered. It was as if the ring had come to life.
The great man breathed a sigh of relief then suddenly fell to his knees, spilling her out onto the ground as he toppled. The refugees gathered, flanked by their elven guardians, and stared in awe at the ring. The ground seemed stable there, but she could hear the rumbles and hisses not far behind them. The elves began herding the villagers through the ring, and with azure flashes they suddenly disappeared. She knelt by the huge man, pushing the wild mane of hair and beard away from his face.
"Get up!", she screamed, but he would not. His breathing was shallow and ragged and try as she might she could not even roll him over. She noticed, then, the blood. Several shards of stone were lodged deep within his back, and behind them through the grove ran a thick trail of glistening red. How long had he ran like that? All the while carrying her, refusing to set her down to fend for herself.
"Get up!" she screamed again, and his eyes flashed open. They were green, shot through with flecks of blue and silver, somehow inhuman. Deep wells filled with grief.
"I can't.", he said, words weak and ragged, "You have to go. It's not safe". She grabbed him, desperately trying to drag him towards the gate, but his great bulk would not budge an inch.
She lost her balance tugging at him and fell to the mossy ground, "You have to.", she begged. "I'm alone," tears began to spill from her gentle eyes, "I'm an orphan now. You're all I have! Don't leave me too!", she stammered, quietly, "Who. . .who will take care of me?".
He reached up, a shaking thumb as thick as her wrist brushed away the tears, "We're all orphans now. You have each other.", he said. He gave her a as much of a smile as he could and nodded her towards the portal before collapsing fully into the dirt. An elf came to her and lifted her up, carrying her towards the portal in a tight hug. The entire way she stared at the giant of a man dying behind them. Dying alone, for them. For her.
The world fell away in a lurching flash and came back in a lurching flash as they crossed the portal. The elf sat her down on the ground, soft grass, and knelt down in front of her. His eyes were thin but large, his features sharp and chiseled, yet his face had a softness about it. "You felt a connection with him"?
She nodded, "he saved me".
"He saved us all", the elf said."I don't know who he was, but he warned us just in time to save your people.", He looked away for a moment, shame creasing his smooth features, "some of them."
After the moment had passed they looked around them, together. Hundreds of human refugees and elves lay strewn out in the soft green grass. Behind them the portal flickered, where they had come from obscured by the blue glow that seemed to be slowly dying out. They stood in a large clearing, around them several hundred meters out in all directions was a great, vast woodland with trees far taller than any she had ever seen before.
She looked up to the elf, "Do you know where we are? Is there a village nearby where we can get help? We could go back. . ."
The elf gave her a thin smile, his eyes sad and dark, "No. I'm sorry, there's not. We're on our own, on a new world. There is no one but us left."
She sobbed mumbling out between the tears, "We're all orphans now". She explained to the elf, "He said that to me, before he. . . before he died".
The elf nodded, looking stricken, "We are". Tears began to gather in his eyes too.
She grabbed his hand and looked up, "But we have each other. That was . . . it was the last thing he said. I think it made him feel better."
He reached down and wrapped his arms around the young human girl, together they wept. They wept for their families, for the mysterious man who died saving them, for those left behind. They wept for their world. They wept for each other, and finally they wept for themselves. When eventually, there were no more tears to weep, they went and joined the others. No one spoke, the only stared. They started at the strange new world, the old one hovering in the sky above them, and at each other.
She spoke first, eyes on the ground and out of tears, "My parents are not here. They. . . didn't make it. I am an orphan."
The elf spoke next, "Some of you may know me. I am Gerius, Guardian of the Rushwood, King of the Elves". At this the other elves saluted. "No", he said to them, "No. I was. I am no longer. We are all that remains. Our kingdom is gone". He looked down at the girl, "I too am an orphan".
After Gerius fell silent, another spoke, and then another, and then another. Throughout the remains of the day and into the night each spoke of their loss, concluding that they too were an orphan. All listened, and all felt sorrow for each's loss. In their common grief, they found unity, and in unity they found strength. The next day they rose to their first sunrise on that new world, and began rebuilding. Boundaries between human and elf fell away, king and farm girl, man and woman. All were left behind in the ashes of the old world. They had become a new people, and they named their new world in honor of it, and remembrance of their loss. They named the world Orphan.
Generations from then, it would simply be refereed to as Orpha and many would not remember the origins of the name, or the man who led them to safety, as the veil of time shrouded the past in myth. Some, however, would and never forget the world they had lost and one day, return to. Orphans no more.
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