As if adding an (r) to the end of a title makes it somehow different. What does make this write different is the prompt! This one is courtesy of Self-Publishing School from their list of fantasy prompts. Here we go… Write about a character whose world is dying. The actual earth is sick and killing all the plants and probably life as they know it.
The soil of the Rhivan is not fertile. Once, long ago, that soil could be tilled. It could bring life. There were bugs that turned in the dirt and seeds that would take root. This was long ago, perhaps two-hundred years according to the old-ones. Now the Rhivan brings only blight. Worse still, it was only the beginning. It took a long time for us to discover that it was our own world that was killing us. She’d good enough reason for the act. We’ve beaten down her forests, turned grass fields into farms, made roads carved from stones and set them upon once fertile ground. We built houses from timbers. We killed the animals of the forests and pushed the insects so far from our cities that even the pleasant ones did not dare venture too close.
We did not deserve this world, and the world knew it. So she revolted. A rot began from deep within her veins and we were powerless against it. The cats were the first to die; they were so plentiful and fat upon the discards of our city. Our world killed poisoned what they ate and it poisoned them. By the time we realized it we were too far gone to try our magics to slow it. What would we have done anyway? When that which houses all you know and love turns against you, where can you turn?