A Strider's Lament

I've been standing in the same spot for months. Red ash and dust besiege me ceaselessly. My body was made for this, but my mind was not.

I used to see more of my own kind out here in the wastes. We would pass each other, unable to speak, both of us calling to each other silently. It was pure bliss to see another, and unbearable to see them in the same state as I. Torture though it was, it was something.

The roads grew lonesome, silent. The last of my own I had passed had fallen in the sand, his beautiful long legs searching, slowing until I watched them stop. All of my hearts broke for him.

Since then, there have been none. The storms have not permitted travel, so I stand and I wait. When the small ones are not digging, molesting, I can call out to the others.

I howl, and I listen, and I pretend that the echo off the gray, gray hills is the voice of my brothers and sisters.