#tsv 12

They were dragged there, they were sentenced, and they were tossed off the side into the churning waters, and the last words they ever heard were that they were to be devoured by something they did not understand.

Because the dam was new and unconsecrated, and a god must feed, and these false-faith renegades from deep in the fens made for the easiest sacrifices.

I will not hear that the world is a better place than it was, because now there’s process.

I won’t, and I can’t.

This was pre-regulation, of course, when they were rolling out the new gods, the chemical gods and the heaving iron Cormorants and the propaganda gods that were dropped onto cities from above, and the entire landscape was choking in faith, and nothing could be trusted not to shift.

And when the soldiers met each other in the desperate and violated places, and did not want to fight, they wouldn’t dare speak the name of any god in their greetings or their goodbyes, in case they called something down upon themselves.

So instead, one of them would say,

‘May your peace find you on a lonely road.’

And the other one would say,

‘May your peace walk on with you for a while.’