Child of Earth

There should have been soft breezes scented with entrancing perfumes, the soothing warmth of a golden sun, lakes of wine and mountains of grain, trees adorned with fruit and bud and flower, shrubs bearing a profusion of glittering gems. Herbs and spices to provide freedom from pain, a return to youthful zest, an end of aging and decay. Salves and ointments and natural fungi to cure all physical ills. For this was Earth, the planet of legend, the paradise for which all yearned and hungered to find. The world of loy and beauty and riches beyond the wildest dreams.

Instead there was nothing but a warren waste of sterile whiteness formed of ice and snow and stinging motes drifting in the freezing winds. Ghost-shapes that reared to fall, to stream over the endless plain, to rear again, to adopt new configurations of unremitting hostility. A hell that had its full share of anguish, pain, despair and death.