{"sf1_id":1722657,"sf2_id":"P1Evb3eY","title":"Ragnarok - Epilogue","author":"Rob MacWolf","words":282,"posted_at":"2021-05-27T18:16:00.000Z","tags":["Epic","Iambic pentameter","Poetry","blank verse"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1722657-ragnarok-epilogue","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/P1Evb3eY","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/3a/3e/3a3e5f82-73f4-4e7e-82b5-a54b60523e67","description":"#29 of Ragnarok\n\nRagnarok took over a decade of work, and when it was finished nobody read it.\nIf you're reading this now, that's no longer true. So thank you.\nI want to thank, also, Mike Luce, for Fite!, the initial inspiration. And Khaki, and the The Voice of Dog, without whom I would never have bothered re-uploading any of this.","content":"So ends the tale of Shane the Champion.\n\nOf his blood-brother, Varr the Last-to-Flee.\n\nOf Klau the Berserker, called the Blacksword.\n\nOf the Old Man, who some hold was a god.\n\nOf the lost Witchfolk, and their young Lady\n\nWho solely of her people is not lost.\n\nOf Sulfur Carrier, curse its hidden name.\n\nAnd of the hallowed dead. And I am tired.\n\nAs does a man in victory still slump\n\nWithin his armor, and still pant for breath,\n\nFor victory or not, the fight was hard,\n\nThe wounds real wounds, the pain real suffering,\n\nFor how else could the story of it be\n\nWorth half the telling? So alike I ache\n\nFrom long and fevered speech. The muses have,\n\nIf muses it has been that brought me here,\n\nMore than fulfilled their ancient fame. I can\n\nAsk nothing further of them, but farewell.\n\nLook not for me again. I am consumed.\n\nNo further verses can my soul produce.\n\nIn that I am content. Only a fool\n\nExpects all victory without a cost.\n\nThe wise man does what task he came to do\n\nAnd waits for death, the gentle sister, to\n\nTake him from here to where his next awaits.\n\nThis song has been unspoken for too long.\n\nToo long the place it should have been was bare.\n\nToo long thin silence sole possessed the air.\n\nToo long we felt the lack of it, in this\n\nThe world of petty things. At least we know,\n\nNow that Shane's tale has reached our ears at last,\n\nThat one of us at least has broken through\n\nTo be as we in secret hope to be,\n\nTo do what we in secret yearn to do.\n\n  \n  \n\n","series":{"name":"Ragnarok","previous":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1722655-ragnarok-xxvii.json","next":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/1722725-a-far-green-country.json"}}