A prophecy in stone

They have sinned against our people. They have defiled our holy places and enslaved our brethren. And so, they shall be punished. Their greed and arrogance knows no bounds. Almost without thought, they cut us from the earth and stack us on top of each other, oblivious to our silent cries of pain. They steal us away from our homes and thrown into bizarre patterns that they profess to admire, and still walk upon us without consideration. Their children throw our little ones at each other and abandon them mindlessly on the ground. But these are not the greatest crimes they have committed. Two evils stand out from among the hubris of these soft-skinned sadists. The first is one you might consider to be the greatest; they take their slaves – vast sculptures of our greatest rivals, the metals – and behead our sentinel mountains, the pride of our race. Then, bit by bit, they extract the minerals that form the very hearts of the mountains, give them away in exchange for worthless scraps of dead tree, and leave the mountains standing there, silent monuments to their boundless cruelty. The second evil is far to the east, far beyond the borders of our lands, and yet is even less merciful than the crimes they perpetrate here. It is an entire city, in fact, one of the holiest cities of their race, and every building is built of stone. It is the last of the old cities, built of ancient rocks who lost their sanity long ago in that endless labyrinth of unfathomable cruelty. The rocks they use for this city are not the hard stones that they usually use; stoic granite, grounded basalt, or even that strange mixture they call cement. Instead, they use delicate limestone, a rock that seems sturdy, but is in fact one of the softest rocks they have ever utilized. In addition, this city is an eternal warzone; their pointless battles scar the landscape with terrible weapons their ancestors never could have imagined. They are some of the most horrible creatures ever to walk the earth. But their time here is limited. Countless eons ago, monstrous reptiles strode the earth. Unlike our current oppressors, these brutes possessed no malicious intellect; they killed and destroyed by pure instinct. Boulders were shoved off of cliffs to make room for their young; mountainsides were gouged by spikes and tails as they dueled; rocks were pounded flat by their massive stampedes. Again and again, they attacked and damaged our people. Until our revenge descended from the sky. It was enormous, almost a small mountain, and fell from the heavens in a flash of blazing glory. After burning through the sky for hours on end, it finally crashed into the earth and churned up a huge cloud of dust and debris. For thirty days it hung, this giant smothering cloud; and when it at last lifted, those beasts who had survived quickly starved. And a plague upon our kind was lifted. Today, our people suffer under the yolk of an even worse foe than we faced since the beginning of time itself; but this shall not last. Some day, some day soon, another avatar of our wrath shall destroy the sinners, and we will reign supreme once more. Who am I to say such things? I am but a simple rock. But, I swear by the volcano that gave me birth, that this prophecy shall come true.

Falconier111, March 20, 2007