/lit/ - Literature

Saw this image a while back and it inspired me to do some writing practice.

"Go away, apparition," said the westbound paladin without raising his eyes from the fire, "I've my eye on you. This band of knaves has had you in tow for three days and three nights. Yet you only approach me, ever closer, under the guise of night. Whatever quarrel or warning you have in store for me, I care not for it."
"I fear you have no choice, vagabond," said the sonoran sphinx. Her tone was calm, but her layered voice snuck underneath his skin like a thorn, reverberating deep within the paladin's bones. "It is my duty to warn the westward wanderers of the trials that lie ahead."
"Death and oblivion," quoted the paladin, "bramble and torture, a torrent of blood, the old west is no longer what lies beyond the horizon. I know the psalms of the sunset, demon."
"Then why continue?"
"Because the border draws ever closer to the east. Travelers gone missing, towns swallowed whole. There must be something more to this, something we can do besides waiting for death."
"And if you are mistaken?"
"Then, when the west has finally reached the sea, our death will have been a choice."