These Changed Times

The days are much like one another. The weather changes, often quite a lot. Just because yesterday was dull and rainy, does not mean that today will not be warm, bright and sunny. The seasons, though, change slowly, merging into one another with no abrupt changes. Even so, the green of spring or the first falling autumn leaves can be as much of a surprise as the first snows of winter.

Just because change is slow, it doesn’t mean that nothing changes.

Change is the one thing we have to get used to, as we grow older. People like certainty. They like to know… or, at least, think they know how this world works. That is perhaps why the notions, the rituals of the old gods still linger in these places far from the great towns and cities of the Empire. Long after the last of those temples fell into ruins. Even now, centuries after we gave up on the notion of gods, there are still people who will make the signs, whisper the prayers under their breath at times of crisis or disaster.

Even now, there are people who will not go near the sites where the last of the gods battled one another to the death; even those places are no longer the arid, blasted, wastelands they once were. Now they are much like any other place with grass, trees, wildlife, but still people skirt them as though they are afraid of something.

Mostly, I think it is a fear that by going there, by trespassing on those places, they fear they might somehow revitalise those old gods. They fear they may bring them back to life. Then our days and our lives would once more fall into turmoil and despair as the gods – once again – fight to control the world and for control over us.