“You made quite the mess,” I sigh with a turn of my mount. He snorts, throwing his pale head back and forth to shake out the sand caught in the silvery strands of mane.

War smiles his usual impish grin. How perfect that he, child of us all, should have a youthful face: almond-shaped red eyes glinting like burning rubies, as fiery-bright as the stray, blood-soaked blonde hairs that curtain his sand-covered features. The wickedness and innocence of children suits him. “C’mon, Death,” he says, smile spreading wider. “Live a little.”

I click my tongue. He is not the first War to make that joke; I doubt he will be the last. So many Wars have come and go: terrible, beautiful red sparks that never do last.

Must be something in the title itself that makes Wars come and go with such frequency compared to the rest of us Horsemen. In the humans’ twentieth century alone, I have seen more Wars than I can count upon both hands, and thus far the twenty-first century does not appear to be faring much better than its predecessor. I have long-since ceased becoming attached to the long line of Wars; one can only bear so much disappointment.

“Death doesn’t like to play,” Conquest drawls, pulling up beside War. They brush golden dust from their shoulders and look out across the sands, white hair blazing almost as bright as the sun above. “You’re on your own now, War.” They roll out their neck, asymmetrical earrings jingling in the movement. “I’m going to Moscow for a chess match, since I’m no longer here.”

“I hate sand scuffles,” War groans, sheathing his sword. “So perfunctory, so unsatisfying. You have to hop from skirmish to skirmish and never get to experience the full thing.”

“Go, both of you,” I tell them, tired of their chatter. “Surely there is elsewhere to be.”

Conquest is gone in a moment, crown flashing in the sun. But War remains, watching me. “You staying?”

I nod. “I remain here.”

“Your playground, boss.” War shrugs before he and his mount are gone, speeding across the dunes as no more than a trail of red and gold dust, likely off to find yet more conflict beneath the blazing morning sun.

Now I am alone, with only the dry desert and the sun beating down upon my skin. Though there is death all around, it is not on such a level as demands my immediate presence, and so I know all too well that there is no need to remain. Instead, I should return home to report upon this human event. Yet I linger, relishing this quiet moment.

Closing my eyes to take a breath, a new wind caresses me, carrying the scent of temple incense and the tiger’s breath across a flower-laden pond where birds thrive. It is one I know well, and I see it as if time had not moved its hands forward; as if I was not further from that memory than I actually am. A different time. A different War -- long enough ago that it was even a different Famine, though he had not joined us.

In but the space of a thought, I am there, waiting upon one of the columned pavilions, overlooking the still water of Wolji Pond. Turning to face the land on which Banwolseong once stood, I admire the quiet; its distance from the city centre, surrounded by the lush forests and hills before leading eastward to the sea, creates a stillness that soothes the world-weary soul. Even tourist crowds are not enough to pierce the ancient peacefulness.

Winter takes its first luxurious breath of the day, the sky readying to laden itself with Gyeongju’s first sleet of the season. Save for my presence, it is a peaceful Sunday. There, ahead of my mount and I, a cloud races north across the sky, towards one of the many non-contiguous parts of Gyeongju National Park, with the force of a dark army. The humans have little to fear; perhaps centuries earlier, and such a storm would bring me in an instant. Now, I come not for humans, but for the rest.

Millennia ago, the Half Moon Fortress stood large to flaunt the power of the Silla monarchy; Thought now only vestiges of that once-great kingdom remain, I can see the old city beneath the new one that lies to the north of these ruins, and the even older forest beneath that. My memory washes away time from this museum without walls like blood from a corpse. I can see it all and feel the old wounds of the earth. There are none left to weep for those voiceless hurts, but there will be those who lament what is soon to occur.

I am no oracle, I do not see the future. I am neither cause nor effect. Humanity fears me, and they are right to do so. We are far beyond that which humanity dreams up in their philosophies. Heaven’s thoughts are the stars; ideas the constellations.

And my wrath is the darkness mortals have all come to so deeply and rightfully fear.

“Must be big for you to show up without the rest of us.”

War pulls up beside me, red leather still covered in a layer of sand and blood. Apparently the west was not enough destruction and distraction for him after all, and so he returned to one of his favourite pastimes: following at my heels with more persistence and irritation than a yapping puppy. Irritation because he is sharp – sharper than the War before him – but he is still young. All the other Horsemen are young relative to me, but War is the youngest of our current Horsemen. He is curious and seeking -- always seeking for something he does not have, though he knows not what.

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“That was fast,” I remark. “Why are you here?”

“I’m bored of the sand,” he replies, brushing the offending tawny dust away; each golden speck causes a ripple in the pond’s water. “It’s like you said: not enough for any of us to stay there anymore.”

“One can never know the future,” I sigh, hoping he would take the hint to leave. He does not.

I lead my mount and make my way down the road that weaves through the massive park that once held the old palace complex, past Cheomseongdae, still standing tall towards the stars, and out towards the new city. Were it summer, the park would have been a stunning sight of rich greens, but in winter the grasses are more the colour of soft beige. War continues to follow alongside; he does not bother to admire the beauty around him, and he would be too young to know what this place once held, regardless.

This War did not witness the ascension of Queen Seondeok as the first woman to rule over Silla, and who raised Cheomseongdae from the ground so that humanity could gaze at the stars and use them to guide their agricultural efforts. She had been a bright flame, only able to burn in command for fifteen short human years before I came for her. Now, she rests as but a brief moment in the endless flow of time, sleeping forever now beneath the earth of Nangsan.

War goes on, “But you’ve got a feeling, don’t you? Something’s coming.” He grins a wicked grin, full of gleaming white teeth, his red eyes wide with violent delight.

Such perceptiveness must be a side effect of his youthful curiosity. It will only fade with time, should he be blessed with it. After all, the other two Horsemen ceased observing my movements and wondering at my comings and goings long ago. Where they go, so do I almost always -- but where I go, they need not always be.

And that is best. The Four Horsemen have not ridden together in some time -- it was a different war and a different War. A different War, a different Conquest; both of them riding their final ride before meeting the Messenger.

“I feel it too, you know -- something’s building. Something’s coming.”

That gives me pause, though I do not show it. It has almost always been a War with an intuition that leads to the amorphous ‘something’; the spark, the flare, the inciting incident that brings us to any given place at any given time.

Time. It passes so differently for humans than it does for us.

“Many a War has had a feeling,” I reply. “ But it is nothing but a feeling. Heed it no mind and do nothing.”

War snorts and shakes his head. “Bullshit.”

“Such belligerence is unnecessary.”

“Don’t patronize me.” He clenches his jaw, fingers curling up into fists. Always so quick to violence.

“Return home and write your record, War,” I snap. “You have no business here.”

War glares -- a glare that would reduce a human being to trembling -- and then he is gone. A sigh escapes me only then. Too much in too little time, and with too much yet to come. Though he is not wrong that something, whatever it may be, is coming, I have no desire to deal with a rogue Horseman following too close to such intuition and doing something beyond the tenets of their title. I do not wish to meet yet another new War so soon simply because this one could not control his curiosity; let him vent frustration at me and have that be the end of it.

My mount and I trot leisurely through the streets of the city, listening to the sound of bells from its many Buddhist temples both here and far away in the neighbouring mountains. A sensation pulls at me, tickling the back of my neck in time with the ponderous, musical tones; it takes all my self-control to resist the nagging urge to touch the branded seal there that marks my skin. Were I to give it a name, I would call it a sense of building potential energy.

Was this what War felt? What does it mean that he, too, felt this? And what of Conquest and Famine? They did not follow me to this quiet place, and so perhaps they do not sense anything beyond the ordinary. Or perhaps their relative age made them wise enough to ignore it…

I shake my head. In this current human world, we are everywhere and nowhere with such regularity. It is no greater and no less than before, merely an adjustment of scale. What was once a great tragedy is now nothing of note. What would be seen as horrific here would stagger the minds of humans past. Thus is the neverending march of progress and evolution.

Without destination, I move through this human city, following only where that indescribable feeling leads. I follow it through the streets, bustling with people speaking their distinct dialect. It, like the palace ruins, are the only vestiges of the Silla past that remain. Yet I cannot even pause to enjoy the old sound, for I am always searching for...something. But what? Finally, upon a floor of asphalt, Silver stops. Here and yet not here. Nothing. I frown, waiting before shaking my head. Perhaps I have reigned too long in this title. Perhaps it is time for a new--

The winter wind caresses my back; a gentle push forward that my beautiful mount flicks at with his tail. He is restless, annoyed; his hooves rise and fall in anticipation. Something else is coming, something that has drawn me here. Something that is not the oncoming winter storm.

“Easy.” I bring down a hand to rest against his flank.

That is when I see the feet, only several paces from Silver’s hooves. They are clad in white trainers, a fabric bag dangling near them. The fabric is attached to the clenched hand of a dumbfounded human, who is blinking rapidly as if horse and rider will vanish from his sight at any moment.

I cannot move for surprise, and my stomach spasms a painful confusion that rises up to my chest.

Does this human...see me?