I am of the mind
That the happy do not know
Quite how to love Her.

It is not a fault
But how can they truly feel
Her icy embrace?

Any who has loved
Honestly or sincerely
Knows the ugliness

Is Nature not cruel?
Is vengeance unlike the Queen?
Is She not bitter?

I have known Her touch
It is cold beyond measure
Freezing to the core

It's a reminder
A threat, a kiss, a promise
Of the world to come

The cataclysms
Nature's harsh deprivations
The rot and decay

Beauty incarnate!
From many to one and back
again to the earth

With all living, yes
And all those in the cycles
That which lives must die

That which dies must rot
That which rots must feed new life
On, the cycles turn

The weak fear decay.
They lens through which they view Her
is focused on men

They remember rot
For the food it has spoiled,
Not the fruit it fed

They see decay
That eats the beloved dead
Not that frees the land

Death's touch graces them
But they weep for what is lost
Not cheer what will be

Harsh winds, searing sands
Hostile and unforgiving
Icemother, indeed

But in all these things,
The beauty resounds in me
for Nature's cycles

Her brutality
Is matched, perhaps outpaced, by
Her relentlessness

There is no halting
The cycles, Nature, move on
With or without us

What life may delay
She will take when time comes
Decay comes for all

We are not Nature
Hers are barely adjacent
Until we perish

And then, only then
We are guaranteed to be
part of the Queen's realm

Mortal man's lifetimes
Are a cruel facsimile
Of Her connection

And so, I am bound
In this life, and in the next
To make it exist

The sole survivor
Of generations long gone
In forestal lore

The rot promises
To reunite me with my
Long-fallen daughter

Decay assures my
Return to the ones I miss
Who will never wake

Fear can rest, fully
For in death, I will never
Be alone again

Horrors are to come
I will aid them how I may
With love in my heart

For all of the things
That make civilization
Feel the touch of fear

For this is Her gift
The reminder of your place
In Her brutal world.

And so, I leave you
To see destruction's beauty
For your own damn self.

Regards,

Herald of the Rot
Knight of the cruelest Goddess
Reluctant poet

Sir Aodfionn Wintermourne



Penned by my hand on the 1st of Chronos, in the year 979 AF.