April 6th, 1800
…
Lightning strikes a tree.
The impact breaks the trunk in half and fire grows from it. It burns, even under heavy rain, and it won't stop burning. I was in shock. It could have been me who was struck by the lightning, and that scene I witnessed a few hours ago... It reminded me of Cleyra. No, I have never been there before, but I heard about Odin riding his horse towards the village and its eventual destruction.
Not a drop of sweat or a single tear fell out of his eyes as thousands of innocent people died, or so I heard. It happened soon after Cleyra was exposed to the outside world, it used to be sustained by a magic barrier that ceased to exist, and once the sandstorm was gone, the first thing we brought them was violence, the same violence they rejected and turned away from for centuries. They thought they would be safe inside the cathedral, but no matter the place where they hid, sacred or not, bodies were found everywhere.
The survivors are spread across the world. I even met some of them and offered them shelter from the rain during their stay in Burmecia. They seem to desire to return home, even knowing a scorched stump in the middle of a desert of lost souls is the only thing that remains of the colossal trunk where it used to be Cleyra. It feels hopeless, but they do not seem to hold any grudge against the enemy, no matter how cruel they were, and that's something I wish others could learn from them.
To wage war against Alexandria in retaliation to what they did to us, as many speak about... It won't solve anything, instead it'll bring more needless pain and suffering, but will they listen? Some of them will never, unfortunately. They shared these thoughts of violence even before the recent conflicts began, and what just happened with Burmecia and Cleyra reinforces their destructive ways.
Still, I do believe the majority disagrees with them, the good people I knew before are lost in their anger and you can't live a life based on the intensity and unpredictability of feelings. A few may be lost forever, no chance of ever being brought back, but that does not mean I'll stand still and do nothing about it.
I have lost so much, why give up now? The rotten apples are the ones who smell bad, so much you don't even notice the amount of good there is around you.