Prologue

It was a most unusual battlefield. 

Arrows littered the ground, surrounded by every different type of weaponry one could imagine.  This was not unusual persay.

Bodies lay beside the weapons, it was a fantastic display.  Men, women, ogres, elves, trolls.  This too, is not so unusual in some stories.

Despite the carnage, the volume of abandoned weapons, of corpses, of arrows, there was not a single drop of blood to be seen.  Now, now we begin to see the strangeness of this particular battlefield.

A single figure stood at the edge of the field.  Beyond was, well, there was nothing behind him.  One could imagine however, that there was Something beyond. 

But, we are getting ahead of ourselves.  A story should be told in the proper order, there's no use going about it backwords, for then the suspense, the thrill, even the sorrow is all lost into the Confusion.

This figure, oh,suppose it should have a name, otherwise this story may find itself the victim of the Confusion. 

The Keeper stood at the edge of the field, a long black cloak swirled around from his back, twisting and twirling until it was lost in the shadows.  He did not move, he stood still as stone.

On the other side of a field lay a forest that almost seemed alive, as though it could feel, react, even... create.  The trees themselves appeared to shudder and change.  Energy and life pulsed outwards, pushing ever closer the Keeper. 

Anticipation followed the energy as it grew, it seemed inevitable.  Something was about to Happen

RATE THIS BRANCH!

Author guidance for This story

This story is a strange little idea floating around in the back of my head that I thought would be fun to play with. There's a particular twist that I'm rather loathe to explain actually. So I've included the Original Branch where I can flush out the story. BUT I want to see what other people make of it and where they take it. So there are two more branches, and there will be at the end of every chapter I write. Please do go ahead and post. It gets lonely writing by myself all the time.

updated Apr 18 '09 by Asheyna