Saxon
10-04-09, 02:17 PM
(Closed to Yamihara. All bunnying approved.)
A chill ran down Saxon's spine as he pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck. Sitting upon his black colt, Ambrose, the young hunter slowly made his way down the winding road that made its way across the countryside. The only sounds to accompany the pair were the occasional song of a lark and the plodding of his colt's hooves against the road.
It was October in Corone and already signs of an early winter were becoming more apparent. The boughs of oak trees that cracked and groaned into stalwart giants grew bare while the cool, autumn winds nicked pervasively at the bark. Soft, green grass that often dripped with morning dew grew soggy as crumpled golden-brown leaves fell from the heavens in sheets. While Nature began to wither and die like it did every year, man was busy preparing for the harsh and bitter season ahead.
Across the fields of wheat and corn that littered the roadside Saxon journeyed upon, farmhands were busy harvesting the fruits of their labor. Baskets lay upon the side of the dirt road filled to the brim with piles of fresh golden corn waiting to be husked as their owners prowled the fields for the last of their harvest. Looking to his right, the hunter watched as farmers armed with sickles and scythes attacked the wheat with both ferocity and careful precision. In little more than a week these fields would grow barren as if nothing had ever grown in the first place. Left to die, the fields that fed hundreds of thousands of Coronians throughout the year would only be of interest to the farmers once winter's end was met by the spring thaw.
This cycle of death and rebirth was usually of little interest to Saxon. It never concerned him of the philosophical under-pinnings of what it is for Man's dependence on Nature and how all of civilization's survival could be boiled down to how well it stuck to a routine that followed the world's annual decay and bloom. Instead, the hunter was often concerned with more earthly desires like the love of a good woman or the filling of his stomach with a hearty meal. And of course, his primary focus of investigating the unnatural.
"Someone has to keep it in check." His late mentor, Uncle Pete, would've reminded him if he were still around.
If he were still around.
Saxon's mind concentrated on those words and threatened to lead him back to thoughts of his uncle's suicide. The feeling of loss and sadness that quickly gripped the hunter's heart was pushed downward into the deep pit of his stomach. Bottling his feelings up could do nothing but hurt him, it was the stuff of ulcers and terminal cancer, but the wound of his uncle's untimely demise was still weeping and it pained him to think about it. It wasn't the time nor the place.
Turning his thoughts back to the matter at hand, Saxon stared down the road with the weight of his next case bearing upon his shoulders. He was about two days out from Edensburg, a town that had become very popular with the press. A quiet town that had always been on the verge of becoming a boomtown, Edensburg was out in the middle of nowhere and seemed to be a pit stop for merchants and travelers. Otherwise, it existed as it always did.
On its own.
It had been in the papers that strange things had been going on in the town recently. A local diner had been destroyed with chairs and anything not nailed down to the floor flying every where. Inanimate objects being thrown and destroyed by nothing then what the reporter describes as 'invisible apparitions'. The townsfolk have reported to have seen ghosts of dead relatives in their day-to-day life.
Normally, this wouldn't have attracted the interest of reporters since it seemed like the people of Edensburg wanted to keep it quiet. But their lawman was trampled to death during the diner incident and after that it was pretty tough to keep the word from getting out. Having conducted a bit of research and investigation into the matter himself, Saxon had already learned that incidents bordering upon spiritual phenomena had occurred for far longer then these isolated occurences.
Something had caused these things to occur, and it had been going on for years. Now that the cat was out of the bag, there wasn't really anything keeping people from visiting the town to check it out for themselves. But, in Saxon's mind, he knew this would only lead to more trouble. Whatever was haunting the town of Edensburg needed to be stopped, and if it didn't these little strange incidents could cost more then one man his life.
Riding west towards the town, Saxon was left to his thoughts and it wouldn't be long now before he could get to work. It was his first case he had had in weeks, and even if it led to be something that was easily solved he knew he needed the distraction.
A chill ran down Saxon's spine as he pulled the collar of his jacket up around his neck. Sitting upon his black colt, Ambrose, the young hunter slowly made his way down the winding road that made its way across the countryside. The only sounds to accompany the pair were the occasional song of a lark and the plodding of his colt's hooves against the road.
It was October in Corone and already signs of an early winter were becoming more apparent. The boughs of oak trees that cracked and groaned into stalwart giants grew bare while the cool, autumn winds nicked pervasively at the bark. Soft, green grass that often dripped with morning dew grew soggy as crumpled golden-brown leaves fell from the heavens in sheets. While Nature began to wither and die like it did every year, man was busy preparing for the harsh and bitter season ahead.
Across the fields of wheat and corn that littered the roadside Saxon journeyed upon, farmhands were busy harvesting the fruits of their labor. Baskets lay upon the side of the dirt road filled to the brim with piles of fresh golden corn waiting to be husked as their owners prowled the fields for the last of their harvest. Looking to his right, the hunter watched as farmers armed with sickles and scythes attacked the wheat with both ferocity and careful precision. In little more than a week these fields would grow barren as if nothing had ever grown in the first place. Left to die, the fields that fed hundreds of thousands of Coronians throughout the year would only be of interest to the farmers once winter's end was met by the spring thaw.
This cycle of death and rebirth was usually of little interest to Saxon. It never concerned him of the philosophical under-pinnings of what it is for Man's dependence on Nature and how all of civilization's survival could be boiled down to how well it stuck to a routine that followed the world's annual decay and bloom. Instead, the hunter was often concerned with more earthly desires like the love of a good woman or the filling of his stomach with a hearty meal. And of course, his primary focus of investigating the unnatural.
"Someone has to keep it in check." His late mentor, Uncle Pete, would've reminded him if he were still around.
If he were still around.
Saxon's mind concentrated on those words and threatened to lead him back to thoughts of his uncle's suicide. The feeling of loss and sadness that quickly gripped the hunter's heart was pushed downward into the deep pit of his stomach. Bottling his feelings up could do nothing but hurt him, it was the stuff of ulcers and terminal cancer, but the wound of his uncle's untimely demise was still weeping and it pained him to think about it. It wasn't the time nor the place.
Turning his thoughts back to the matter at hand, Saxon stared down the road with the weight of his next case bearing upon his shoulders. He was about two days out from Edensburg, a town that had become very popular with the press. A quiet town that had always been on the verge of becoming a boomtown, Edensburg was out in the middle of nowhere and seemed to be a pit stop for merchants and travelers. Otherwise, it existed as it always did.
On its own.
It had been in the papers that strange things had been going on in the town recently. A local diner had been destroyed with chairs and anything not nailed down to the floor flying every where. Inanimate objects being thrown and destroyed by nothing then what the reporter describes as 'invisible apparitions'. The townsfolk have reported to have seen ghosts of dead relatives in their day-to-day life.
Normally, this wouldn't have attracted the interest of reporters since it seemed like the people of Edensburg wanted to keep it quiet. But their lawman was trampled to death during the diner incident and after that it was pretty tough to keep the word from getting out. Having conducted a bit of research and investigation into the matter himself, Saxon had already learned that incidents bordering upon spiritual phenomena had occurred for far longer then these isolated occurences.
Something had caused these things to occur, and it had been going on for years. Now that the cat was out of the bag, there wasn't really anything keeping people from visiting the town to check it out for themselves. But, in Saxon's mind, he knew this would only lead to more trouble. Whatever was haunting the town of Edensburg needed to be stopped, and if it didn't these little strange incidents could cost more then one man his life.
Riding west towards the town, Saxon was left to his thoughts and it wouldn't be long now before he could get to work. It was his first case he had had in weeks, and even if it led to be something that was easily solved he knew he needed the distraction.