A High Penguin's Lament

Well, here I am. Alone again. The last High Penguin.

750 years I've walked through this land of white, serving the confederacy, fighting for it, almost dying for it. And living after the confederacy itself died.

One by one my friends died too. Old age, illnesses brought by newcomers. It became hard to find a mate. We were slowly dying out. Wars brought on by the common penguins diminished our numbers even further. And Tylia. Oh, Tylia.

A tear rolls down my cheek. She never had a chance. We were caught in an ice cave, many years ago. Khanzem soldiers were closing in on both sides. Somebody fired a cannon and it caused a cave in. She never had a chance.

Why do I still live on while others die? The last of my kind, doomed to eternal loneliness. Worse than death, colder and more terrible.

Other penguins stop and stare at me as they pass me in the street. An unnaturally tall, depressed penguin dressed in ragged robes. I look around in wonder. Electricity, motorized vehicles, chemicals and pollution. Busy and industrial. No place for magic. No place for tradition. No place for me.

Sigh. Sometimes I think we live too long, us High Penguins. Trends and styles pass us by in the blink of an eye. Great cities and empires rise and fall in what seems like seconds to us. None but us understand the pain of longevity. Having seen so much, tasted glory and mud a million times over, suffered failure and embraced victory, watched those we held close bloom, whither and die like flowers. That is a lot to bear.

And so I sit, drenched in loneliness as the world moves around me, old fashioned and useless, I wait for that day when my time comes, and I will gaze upon her beautiful face.

Then, I will be lonely no more.