Nomad of the Vigil
He did not understand their "civilization". Making war for all he could assume were trading rights, wearing clothes for spun cotton, or some other soft plant. Living in cities, choked with one another, giving away freedom and hope for the lying promise of security. No he did not understand them at all.
What he understood less was their obsession with the beings he called the Faces. Humanoid at a distance, but strange and off-putting close up. They seemed to be people, only they did not touch the ground, they seem to float about an inch above it, they never moved anything but their arms, and their expressions were unmoving countenances, some showing unchanging anger, others joy, or fear, more a mask than a proper face. They were either immaculately clean, as all of the first ones he saw were, or ,later, filthy to the point of being more unclean than refuse. These Faces spoke through still lips, speaking the words that would move these "civilized" people, words that to him meant nothing, but would send all other listeners into frenzy, panic, or ,even more frightening, riots of unbridled adoration.
The Nomad stayed at the fringes of their cities, never traveling far from the cover of tree or underbrush, he kept watch over the people, seeing their degradation over time but having no way to stop it, they were of the world they had chosen, he was of the one he was born into, one they could never understand even if they cared to, which they would not.
He had seen many generations of the city folk grow and die, always keeping to the outskirts, lest whatever poison that had infected them might get him as well. He was ever observant, senses as sharp as any beast, watching them, and their vaunted Faces, writing in the book, the one he knew as Vigil. He was told by the one who had raised him that what he wrote might well save or damn all those who had given up themselves for a part of civilization, and that he should never let it out of his sight, or let any other person know of it.
For his part the Nomad was an impartial observer, writing only what he saw, never guessing at the whys or hows, and having no context for their activities it was not hard. He watched them come and go, meet and spend time together, fight and leave one another. He saw them look strange after those events, looking almost empty, he saw them turn to icons of the Faces, he watched as these people would try to turn themselves into the Faces, not slipping or showing humanity, he wrote about how they tried to make themselves unchanging, tried to make themselves something that they were not.
The Nomad had assumed that the Faces were made from some disease, because they were almost human, in appearance, but completely inhuman otherwise, maybe they were once human and had lost that vital spark, the ability to change and to interact with one another, these were thoughts that he kept strictly out of his writings in Vigil, but he often mused on those ideas in the slow times, in the predawn hours when most of the city folk lay still and only the animals were active.
The world slowly turned and changed under the Nomad's watchful eye, and ever patiently he waited for the appointed one to show up and take Vigil and read the worthiness and victory of man, or to search the book and find only villainy and condemnation.
What he understood less was their obsession with the beings he called the Faces. Humanoid at a distance, but strange and off-putting close up. They seemed to be people, only they did not touch the ground, they seem to float about an inch above it, they never moved anything but their arms, and their expressions were unmoving countenances, some showing unchanging anger, others joy, or fear, more a mask than a proper face. They were either immaculately clean, as all of the first ones he saw were, or ,later, filthy to the point of being more unclean than refuse. These Faces spoke through still lips, speaking the words that would move these "civilized" people, words that to him meant nothing, but would send all other listeners into frenzy, panic, or ,even more frightening, riots of unbridled adoration.
The Nomad stayed at the fringes of their cities, never traveling far from the cover of tree or underbrush, he kept watch over the people, seeing their degradation over time but having no way to stop it, they were of the world they had chosen, he was of the one he was born into, one they could never understand even if they cared to, which they would not.
He had seen many generations of the city folk grow and die, always keeping to the outskirts, lest whatever poison that had infected them might get him as well. He was ever observant, senses as sharp as any beast, watching them, and their vaunted Faces, writing in the book, the one he knew as Vigil. He was told by the one who had raised him that what he wrote might well save or damn all those who had given up themselves for a part of civilization, and that he should never let it out of his sight, or let any other person know of it.
For his part the Nomad was an impartial observer, writing only what he saw, never guessing at the whys or hows, and having no context for their activities it was not hard. He watched them come and go, meet and spend time together, fight and leave one another. He saw them look strange after those events, looking almost empty, he saw them turn to icons of the Faces, he watched as these people would try to turn themselves into the Faces, not slipping or showing humanity, he wrote about how they tried to make themselves unchanging, tried to make themselves something that they were not.
The Nomad had assumed that the Faces were made from some disease, because they were almost human, in appearance, but completely inhuman otherwise, maybe they were once human and had lost that vital spark, the ability to change and to interact with one another, these were thoughts that he kept strictly out of his writings in Vigil, but he often mused on those ideas in the slow times, in the predawn hours when most of the city folk lay still and only the animals were active.
The world slowly turned and changed under the Nomad's watchful eye, and ever patiently he waited for the appointed one to show up and take Vigil and read the worthiness and victory of man, or to search the book and find only villainy and condemnation.