Last week I met with Bartholomew, unlike my usual interviews this one was 10,000 years in the making. Bartholomew was already at the restaurant when I had met with him, he was unassuming from my first entrance, of average height, skin of a fair grey, short dark brown curled hair, as I drew closer his body and face could have been sculpted by the gods, his eyes shone a brilliant blue, locking eyes with him you could see the depths of the ocean even from a distance. He stood to greet me and upon getting closer within those depths I could see sorrow, longing and something ancient. As he introduced himself he placed his hand on his chest “Evening, I'm Bartholomew, Diani I hope?”, I confirmed and we sat down at the table. We got the formalities out of the way and we placed our orders for dinner as I set up my quill.

Diani: I hope you're well and you weren't waiting long?

Bartholomew: As I was taught me, on time is late, late is dead. Hard habit to break.

Diani: I heard that some kids found your petrified form washed up on the shore near Narod, did the historians and researchers find out why it took so long for someone to find you?

Bartholomew: None of your nations and borders were familiar to me, nothing was other than the land and sea itself, even then some things have changed. When I was turned to stone I was in the middle of a war in the mountains of my home land, the nation you call Meshela but your maps show it shredded and scarred, from there over time my statue would have fallen from those mountains from quakes and rains sending me to sea and the currents sending me across the sea to the shores of Narod. Where the children found me and sought out a mage, a year later here I am.

Diani: Wow that's quite the journey, how was the experience waking up again and learning how much time has passed?

Bartholomew: No time at all had passed in my mind, one moment I was fighting to push back the enemy invading my home city high in the mountains, a sudden white flash and I was fighting a mage in his study in a desert town. I thought I was still at war, a trick of the mind or a trap laid by the invaders. If the disorientation of not being able to call on Anera and confusion of a strange land and speech didn't cause me to slow and assess, the mage would have been slain, he was lucky to only receive a slash to his thigh. It took a while for him to calm me and cast spells for us to understand each other.

He then showed me a necklace with a small pendant.

Bartholomew: This allows me to understand you and talk to you. It took historians just over a season to figure out that I must be from the end of what you call the Age of Darkness, approximately 10,000 years ago, even then that's their best guess from what I could describe of my time and the scarce history that remains from the time.

Diani: Let's touch on that, what was your time like? Is the Age of Darkness a fitting title?

Bartholomew: Very. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. An Empire aflame on the Skoesia coast. The last Thalan dying in my arms. I saw a god shatter among the stars above Shiyl Gron's Throne. From birth to the flash all I knew was pain, suffering, war, and of plagues not just of body but of mind and magic as well, something your greatest minds struggle to comprehend outside of the theoretical.

Diani: That's a lot to unpack there, let's take a step back, you said you tried calling on Anera, who is Anera?

Bartholomew remained silent for a full minute before answering

Bartholomew: There is no title or classification that fits her in your language. Anera is more to me than you can dream. She is the light when I am lost in the dark and warmth when I am cold. The love she has, your world is not worthy of. Some of you people call her my god, or my queen, or my lover. Anera is beyond such measures, she is all and she is more.

Diani: Anera sounds lovely, so who is she to you and how did you feel discovering that there is no record of her now?

Bartholomew: Again, it is not possible to describe her to you, I've tried. When I couldn't channel her strength I felt confusion like no one could understand, upon learning she is not of your time and world, it felt as though I was going to die, I still do.

Diani: I'm sorry to hear that, I won't press the matter.

Bartholomew looked away, and for moment all sound faded away leaving only a silence screaming for peace.

Diani: Skoesia, where was that and what was the Empire there?

This appeared to snap Bartholomew out of his trance as his eyes with a lingering shimmer met mine once again, but the longing was replaced with horror

Bartholomew: I cannot tell you the Empire's name, as I no longer remember it. Skoesia was a shoreline on the southern end of what you call Griaca, a beautiful land. I had the honour of calling their land home for a time but I can't describe any of it to you even if I wished. My memory of it devoured by the Ashveil plague, a plague that eats the very memory of what it has burned. So if it burns a book, no one remembers reading it. When it razed an entire Empire no one was able recall the details of the Empire, the only evidence that there was one is the ashes spread across the land and little history that escaped the razing, it wasn't perfect but it didn't need to be.

Diani: That is horrifying, how do you stop something so destructive?

Bartholomew: It was and you can't. You try to stop it and you find yourself unable to remember what you're fighting to save. You can only watch as the Ashveil fire destroys a city in front of you and you can't recall they city's name and people you once drank and danced with fade from your mind one by one.

Diani: How about the Thalan? You said the last one was dying in your arms?

Bartholomew: The Thalan were where north Griaca is today. They looked similar to what you call Tieflings had scales that covered their backs, fore arms and shins. Our enemy gained their trust and slaughtered them, every last one of them. My army arrived too late, we rode into their last bastion and found the remains of their final stand, their King hung and gutted like an animal, his family desecrated below. I found a young babe, still cradled in his lifeless mother's arms among the pits of their common folk but the smell of death and torment was too much for even for us let alone such a little Thalan, I tried. I tried to get out of the city away from it all but it was not enough, the last Thalan died in my arms.

The haunting silence grew between us again, a tear growing in his eye, he hide his face in shame. The minutes passed eventually being interrupted by our dinner being served. A much needed break. As he finished the first sip of his soup he looked to my stir fry dish and then to me. Bartholomew broke the silence.

Bartholomew: Your time is strange to me, you worry about such small things while you drink and eat anything richer in flavour than I could have imagined. My first meal I could barely touch, the goat meat and roast vegetables were so intense I could only take a few bites, even your soups which I am able to digest are still on the border of too much for me.

Diani: What do you mean by we worry about small things? Is that because all you knew was war and death so our worries seem trivial?

Bartholomew: Yes in a way, we had no leadership, closest would have been Anera herself. My people were autonomous, no leaders, no commoners, other nations had such titles and while I respected their structure I rarely understood it. We didn't worry about who lead the defence of our home or allies, we went as a group, communicated what was needed and got it done, no chains of command, an occasional vote if there were differing opinions but we never complained when our vote lost, we just got to work. If you were the best person to get something done you stepped forward got it done and stepped back. Here and now I feel lost, everyone I meet is so specialised in what they do and rare to come by a generalist, yes we had things we were good at but everyone did a bit of everything. For example in my year here I have yet to see someone from your smith bake a loaf of bread or one from your bakery forge steel. While I went from leading an army to sowing a field to making art and then back to war again as a soldier, I was good at all of it.

Diani: Quite the skill set you must have then.

Bartholomew: Or everyone here lacks skills. I get strange looks and endless questions when I try to do what I did in my time. People ask what I'm running from or trying to hide. I am searching and yearning, not running or hiding but without Anera I am lost in my search for meaning and purpose.

Diani: Right. My contact who told me about you called you a Knight of Anera, doesn't sound like that is an accurate title for you?

Bartholomew: It is the best description of what I am to Anera in your language.

Diani: I think I'm getting an idea of what you mean. You said you saw a god shatter among the stars above Shiyl Gron's Throne?

Bartholomew: To see a god die is a gift and a curse to see ones very being shatter changes you in ways that can't be shared, I talked with countless historians, there hasn't been a recorded birth or death of a god in thousands of years, and I hope you never do see it happen let alone for one to shatter. Shiyl Gron was our enemy, his throne was grander than the entirety of your greatest cities, it moved across the sky wrecking destruction where ever it went. At the snap of his fingers his throne could unleash unthinkable horrors, I don't know how he was defeated but with the absences of both him, Anera, and the scars seen on my home land I can only imagine what it must have been like to see the end, what destruction was released upon my people and land.

Diani: Do you ever think of going back? To visit the land you called home?

Bartholomew: My home is gone, my land transformed into something else, I have no reason to visit it.

Diani: If you can't return and struggle to find a place in this time, what does the future of Bartholomew look like?

Bartholomew: I've lost all meaning and purpose, my mind still in a war that ended with the Age of Darkness, every day I feel like I'm going to perish, I do not wish to die but I do not wish to continue living. As you know and have set me up with such a question, I will be returning to stone in the coming days, from there I know not what will happen to me.

Diani: Thank you for your time Bartholomew and letting me into your world.

As of publication Bartholomew has been re-petrified and is on display at the Covanian history museum where he is on display in his armour with unique design and sigils upon it. I'll leave you with a quote he left me with as we parted the restaurant. “Use the time that you have, as you will eventually be lost to time, like tears in rain.”