Soldiers of the Sylvan Isles

 The Soldiers of the Sylvan Isles It had been forty days since a regiment of soldiers had come upon Alarastia. They were stout and tall.  At first imposing, their spirit finally revealed itself to be one of revelry; and it seemed to the townsfolk… drawn out from their houses to the cobblestone street beneath the sun that disintegrated into the horizon and began to spill the hidden riches of the firmament… as if all the world were immersed in color.   The troupe swayed and sang insouciantly, and their regalia mirrored the iridescence of the forest that surrounded the town, where the heaving plumage of kehrads and nekphias dotted the emerald trees with bright, blood streaked oranges; and rose like the crushed dyes that ran through the fingers of the seamstresses, or which dotted — hazy and dreamlike to a wandering eye — the unfathomable gardens of Silanam the king. The soldiers’ cloaks rippled in sheer, grand torrents that followed them, glistening the way diaphanous a...