The Girl Who Loved Fairies, Part 5

(The poem at the end is a slightly altered version of 'Moribond', from the Wordspring blog "Manny's Book Of Shadows")

Who would have thought it would come to this?
Oh, the opposition was expected. More than expected. It was the tone of it, even as the weight began to be pressed down.
They couldn't kill her.
All the hatred and rage in the world and they couldn't kill her. They'd been reduced to this. It would make her laugh, if she could do it properly. But all her feelings were poor simulations, her attempting to puzzle out how a person would properly react in this situation.
What to do? One last blast of resistence, put a scare into them? What was the point? They'd caught her off guard and they had the hooks in deep, a depth that shadowed the pit they were to bury her in. But she would not die.
They so wanted her to die, but they could not kill her. Rera had wanted to craft a better spell; she had succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations.
It would not last.
She would not fade away.
It was a funny thing. The air people breathed, they needed it to live. But there was a corrosive effect in air. It worked very slowly, and showed its efforts on other things moreso than flesh, but it was a destroyer all the same. Same with water, its brother. But anyone who called air and water deadly in and of themselves would be considered mad. It was not madness though. Just perspective. And understanding.
She would not fade away. Would not rot. Would not cease. She was the corrosive.
She could tell how strong these bindings were, but in time, they would wear away. She would be free. She could wait. The end result would be the same, whether in seconds or eons.
She was what she was, a product of the world around her, and she knew what was needed, something only her eyes could see.
It was amusing. Haruspices saw powers in threes, and many of their rituals were based around it. Yet they did not see it.
...she supposed it didn't matter.

The house was gone now. The people who had lived here had long moved on, repeatedly. The bridge had fallen into disrepair, not that it was needed. Strangely, the sign marking the river still existed, barely. Perhaps it was the river's short name length that allowed the sign to persist: it was mere "On", though it was pronounced with a long O sound, so it came out "Oooooooh-own." in proper speaking.

The last time she had done this, she had waited three days. This time, she waited one, the sun rising and falling. The lone person who saw her made it their business to get away and forget they had. No one else bothered her, and so she moved on.

The second house she found, at the edge of the small town named Astbow, wasn't in much better shape than the first, and considering the first was no longer there, it wasn't saying much for the state of it. The path to the house had long been consumed by grass, and the insects singing within in grew quiet as she approached. The door was not locked, not like that would have mattered.

The notable thing, to those who understood such things, was the smell. There was none. Such a place always had a foul odor of some sort. A modern person who understood such things might have noted the atmosphere almost seemed sterile.

Hrodohaidis's eyes were almost wholly covered in milk, the cataracts having slowly grown over the last six months, even as her strength ebbed. She had by now resigned herself to death, alone out here. But despite all much her vision had faded, the cold red of the eyes that swam into the remains of it was as visible as if the bearer seared its presence on the very light that passed around her.

Familar eyes. If they had not bourne memories, the voice would have.

"It was Hodie, wasn't it?" Canught said. "I forget these things..."

"...Royse?"

"No...I'm afraid not. You wanted to drown her in that river...you succeeded. Royse is dead." Canught said. "...I thought that when I finally did this, I would ask you why. I realized on my way even that doesn't make me care. In fact...all of this has been a waste of time. The idea was based on revenge, my teacher told me I should take revenge...but it was always a motions thing. I never felt...anything. I just did it because it seemed like something that might stir a spark in me...no such luck. Maybe some would say that's exactly what you earned. Such a hard life, done by by someone who doesn't even care it's being done."

"...what...are you?"

"A corpse, I guess. You could also call me a Haruspex...but if I was really one of those, I think I would have killed you decades ago. Instead, I let you live. Made sure the paths of your life always ended in misery, but you lived. It does not strike me as something they'd have the patience to do...considering how old you are now, maybe I failed. Most would have given up long ago. I wonder what our lives would have been like had you not chosen to drown me in the river. Do you know why you did that?"

There was no answer.

"Not surprised."

Canught raised a hand, contemplating.

"Do you want to die now? It means little to me otherwise. If you chose to die now, you'll only be preceeding the world by a short time."

"...What?"

"...My brethren talk of sins, and curses, and the need to punish the peoples...but I see all they see and I simply do not see the purpose. It does not inspire, it is...tedious. A circular motion that goes nowhere. I tire of the circles, here, there, everywhere. It ensures I never find it...whatever it is. You and I are the same, that way. Neither of us achieve anything in this life, on this world. So...why not destroy it? Just to see if I can. If that works, if I exist...maybe I'll have an answer for what my purpose is. If not...perhaps I will speak my Word backwards, and see if I can put the world back together. Perhaps that is why I exist. I am the fire to clear away old growth. Or simply the end of all growth. Whatever it is...it means more than just going in circles."

"...Royse?"

"That's not my name." The woman said, as she cast another off. "It was lost in the river. I accepted a new name, but only because it seemed like I should, just like it seemed like I should take revenge. If I am to create after I destroy...perhaps I should begin. Starting with a name I actually made and choose myself. So what I am then? I am a hateful shade made by your river.

"...Hadeon. I am Hadeon, The Destroyer. Hadeon of the All-Consuming Word. That is the fanciful term. I think I prefer the simple word, the truth of it.

"Annihilation. Hadeon, of the Annihilation."

"...I'm sorry."

"...I don't know if that matters." Hadeon said. She said nothing more. Hrodohaidis spoke a few more times, but Hadeon no longer cared to listen. When the last breath left her, she sat there for some more time.

She'd never seen her fairies.

The world was empty of them.

The world was empty.

Let it be so.

---

It was one of the great secrets of the world, that the foul witches of blood and death actually allowed the world to continue on. They struck not to save it, but in the ways of strange things, it seemed fitting. They struck, they sealed, they buried, and they scoured. And in time...all that was left was story and possibility.

Until the people from the stars came. Until others were inspired to seek the truth in the story, so many risings and fallings gone by.

The truth in the words written by a Haruspex named Erikodi.

"All hail Hadeon, killer of kings
The ultimate leveling ender of things
None can escape her fast-felling grasp
Once one’s heartbeat she’s sought out to clasp
Much less avoid the nigrescent haze
Which swirls within her soul-quashing gaze
Wanting of ears she hears not the pleas
As fey humanity beg on their knees
Their solicitations and piteous cries
Rebound off her countenance, haloed with flies
Her scythe sounds a ring like the toll of a knell
As it soars through the fated with impetus fell."

----

"THAT'S your solution?! You want to wake up Hadeon?!"

"Even if she exists, Mireya, and that is a considerable question, even IF we could awaken her, no being on this world can control her. Not even us, no matter how much we'd want to."

"And...and what if...what if the beings from the stars...are even stronger?"

"...what, indeed."

The Girl Who Loved Fairies, Part 4

Sometimes she remembered. Flashes of faces. Words that no longer had any meaning. Some of those old words had come to her, being told to eat everything on her plate so she could grow up healthy.

Growth.

Men were rarely on the level of beasts, but men could be surprisingly innovative when it came to their survival against beasts. Men could use tools, and numbers, and tactics. A Therian was made so that none of that mattered. Cut, bash, burn, impale, a Therian would never stop. It would rip and tear until there was nothing left, or until even it had acquired so many wounds it could kill no more. She understood, more or less, why such beasts were the primary way of her kind in collecting souls.

But Canught had no interest in collecting souls. All the things that did interest her faded swiftly, like fireflies. And this...

Growth.

Therians had to grow back from their wounds. What most living things could do, but swifter, without the consequences of loss of blood or flesh, or pain growing too great. Canught suspected that was why she was seeing what she was seeing. Most Haruspex followed the old ways, never deviating, but there were always those who were curious, who sought to improve. Unbeknowst to Canught, that was why she was the way she was. Rera's process had been imperfect, not fully able to repair the damage the drowning had inflicted on her brain, but the new connections the attempted...growth had formed had resulted in something wholly new. A knowledge later heroes and societies would access in their own ways. Her All-Consuming Word.

Growth.

Rinekuyd's experiments had been all about that. To take the ability of a Therian to knit wounds and improve on it. While a Haruspex could only consume the souls of people who had damned themselves, experiments held no such prerequisites. So Rinekuyd had come, and this was the mess she'd made.

Growth.

That was what had happened to these people. Rinekuyd had experimented, and they had grown. She'd wanted Therians to be able to call upon more flesh, a process that would require refinement. And so these dozen or so survivors of a town once called Bool now envied the dead beyond most normal human comprehension. Their bodies had been changed, and started growing. They couldn't die...and they couldn't stop. Their forms had twisted into hideous, barely functioning masses; cancer golems was the best description, and even that wasn't wholly right. The mortals not caught up in Rinekuyd's work had long cleared away from this town, screaming of its cursed, doomed nature. Even under current stars, no one had ever returned to Bool. It had eventually fallen into ruin, and returned to the forests.

Strangely, they were in no pain. Their bodies were warped beyond belief...but the changes had altered their nervous systems as well. It was no comfort to these once-men and women. As they shuffled towards Canught, all they could whisper was one thing.

Death. Oh how they wanted to die.

But they could not die.

Growth.

That was their curse. Endless growth. Cut them down, they'd rise again. Cut them apart...such a thing was beyond the crude tools of these lands.

Canught didn't like them. They were ugly.

"Do be quiet." Canught said. "Your pain is meaningless. The world doesn't hear it. It doesn't care. It gives no purpose or sympathy. It simply does."

The cursed of Rinekuyd did not listen. They kept moaning, begging, pleading. Why not? What else could they do?

"Oh, you irritate me." Canught said, raising a hand. "Blind eyes and bleating mouths. I see so much finer. I see every single spark and ever single wire in your flesh, no matter how changed..."

"Plzzzzzssss..."

"So I sever them."

Canught's tools were so much more refined, so much greater. She took the ugly things apart on a molecular level. She did not understand why it seemed so saitisfying.

Not like it mattered. The feeling was as fleeting as all the others. She couldn't even muster anything when Rinekuyd came to her in a rage of her experiments being ruined, turned to dust and freed of their bondage. Canught almost didn't strike back when Rinekuyd struck at her. Almost. She suspected Rinekuyd felt her demise moreso than her experiments.

That was two of her sisterhood she'd killed. One could be seen as an anomaly, but two? An unforgivable sin. They'd come for her.

...and she still didn't care.

...In fact...the only thing she could say she did care about was due to end soon.

...maybe it was an omen.

The Girl Who Loved Fairies, Part 3

It was never quite established how the ruinous force that was known to most as the Gash Ken'Nigh Legions began. The most popular story was that two kingdoms had heirs of an unfortunate mental bent come to power and originally were going to make war on each other. Somehow, the two had discovered that the other was delightfully mad as the other, and had decided to merge forces and go after the world instead. There were other stories, but considering they consisted of such tales as 'a demon bled into a river and every drop became a Gash Kne'Nigh soldier' and 'a witch stole all the hairs from every bear in a forest and due to the curse of the bears, the bare bears (heh), they all became soldiers and decided to go cause trouble', most gave credit to the two kingdoms theory.

In truth, the Gash Ken'Nigh has begun through the efforts of three brothers, Naaran, Batar, and Setseg, uniting their horse-based warrior tribes and overthrowing the kingdom of Colao, later known as Sylphlaw (perhaps the grounds were cursed). The king of Colao had dabbled in the arcane, but the three brothers, in looking the kingdom, discovered they were far better hands at it, using the spells to twist men's wills to theirs and turn their already fearsome army into a semi-assimilating mass. Despite this boon, it would not keep Naaran and Setseg from falling prey to assassination attempts, leaving just Batar, and shortly thereafter, his son Gerel, as the sole leaders of their legions. From his loss, Batar learned the importance of appearing unimportant, and he and his son changed their commanding strategies to blend in among their troops, issuing them orders on the sly. If they hadn't had dark magic at their side, such a tactic may not have worked...but they did. And it did.

The end result was by the time the Gash Kne'Nigh came to the empire of Ilachi, no one knew who directed him, and that only added to the terror they brought, an overwhelming crushing mass of men and weapons and death that turned loyal soldiers into slaves and who had been said to best sieges by pulling down castles brick by brick with the bare hands of their men. By that time, Batar had died of illness, and only Gerel led, one face among many, his lone goal conquest and destruction until he no longer had the taste for it. What was truth and what was myth was sometimes hard to tell, but it was clear that whatever stood against the legions, the empire of Ilachi would not be what broke them. It had armies too...half the size of the Gash Kne'Nigh.

If King Eliseo had any regrets, it was that he'd had to execute a few of his closest advisers over what he had chosen to do. He hadn't wanted to, but he could brook no opposition to what he had chosen to do, and they had made it clear they wouldn't come around to his viewpoint. Such a choice he had made required a united front, and there could be no dissent. None. Not with what was bearing down on them. Not what was firing rocks and giant flaming spears at his kingdom, as he, a few guards, and who he had come to to save his people stood on top of the highest tower in his kingdom.

"Tell me again what you want." The woman said.

Eliseo had expected many things when he had finally found this woman. Her stories were even more distorted, and twisted, than the stories of the Gash Kne'Nigh, and he had expected a certain presentation, a certain visage. For the most part, she had not 'disappointed'. Her skin, her eyes, her way of dress, all of it spoke of what she was...

Save the wings. The wings had been what had thrown him (not that he had shown it). Well, that, and she had accepted his offer. Haruspex were supposed to be butchers in the shadows; this one was...more open, to say the least. Eliseo had wanted to bring her in as a assassin, but she had insisted on seeing the whole battlefield, as thousand upon thousands of men fought and died.

"...Stop them!" Eliseo said.

"What price will you pay?"

"...anything you want. Just...stop them!" Eliseo said. The advisers he had executed had told him that trusting a woman, a creature like this, was a fool's errand. They just did not grasp what Eliseo had been forced to. There was no way his people could oppose the Gash Kne'Nigh. They would cut down his troops (if they didn't convert them), and then sack his empire, kill every last man woman and child, and leave nothing behind but ruin and violation. The advisers had wanted to stand; there WAS no standing. There was only horrible death, and worse...and then there were deals like this.

Eliseo hoped history would understand. It would not, as his name would not be marked upon its pages.

"...why do you want me to stop them?"

"...to protect my family. And my people." Eliseo said. It was the truth, as far as he was concerned.

"...So be it then."

The woman raised her hand...and his city SCREAMED.

Eliseo had neither the training nor the mindset to grasp what Canaught had done, what she had pulled from who-knew how many people below as she broke it down for fuel. The sheer horror of it, despite this lack of understanding, washed over him and drove him to his knees, even as a thousand dark glimmers began swirling around the tall tower...

Canaught turned. She made a fist, and the darkness spawned above the clashing armies, clouds as black as pitch...clouds that surged out, forming taloned hands that also formed a fist...

Gerel never knew what hit him. He was one of the many, many first dead as the mountain-sized fist smashed down into the ranks of the clashing arms, smashing and tearing and rending them apart like they were insects caught in a hurricane, a tide of force and bodies and much worse erupting outwards from the impact, men dying in droves at a speed beyond comprehension. Gerel had his own magicians, but none of them even had a chance to raise a counter-spell before Canaught's doom came down upon them.

Them and Eliseo's own men. She had smashed her mighty hand directly into the middle of the battlefield, and he screamed at this realization, even as the darkness swirled around the tower...

He'd been wrong. There was no good choice here. Only a choice of horrors...but one Eliseo had been ready for. You do not put your fate in someone else's hands and not prepare other hands to snatch it away. As strong as this freakish, monstrous Haruspex was, her spells all came from a certain bent. Eliseo had his own resources, and he'd had his two guards prepared by them. Covered with protective runes, they would stave off her power long enough for them to cut her down, for behind all that terrible strength was just a normal woman...

...But he was wrong there too. Canaught turned around, and for the first time, there was something in her eyes. Even as they glowed crimson.

Image/Avatars courtesy of Vertigo Comics.

The soldiers turned to ash even before they finished falling. Eliseo could only watch in helpless, mortal fear as his ace in the hole crapped out.

Then all he could watch was the Haruspex.

Ditto.

The darkness she commanded lifted him up. Brought him close.

"They felt nothing, those I just slew. But those you just turned on me? They felt that. And so will every other soul I cut down today. As per your command. Your family. Your people. The latter is far more numerous, and hence they can afford to die. As per your command."

"...But..."

"It's true I could not touch them with what I learned. But I am more than that. More than a Word. That, they had no defense against."

"...Monster."

"I did as you said. It is your folly that you had to turn to me to do it." Canaught said. "Had you given me more specific commands, I would have obeyed. But you did not. Now you will reap the consequences."

King Eliseo was released, all strength leaving him.

"I am coming to a conclusion..." Canught said. "When the world was made, my material was set aside first. And the world was made with what was left."

"...hateful...SHADE."

"Call me what you will. I am what I am. You will never forget this day."

Canught turned and flew off the tower, the consuming darkness engulfing her, turning her into another gigantic clawing hand. When it was all said and done, there were few survivors on either side, as the cloud of darkness and death she had become swept across the battlefield until there was no more war.

The darkness never left Colao. In time, it crumbled to dust.

Canught walked on when it was done. To her...a brief respite had been achieved.

She suspected there would not be much left in this world to wring the ennui that had gripped her ever since she had been pulled from the river.

On that day, maybe...she'd have something worthwhile to do.

The Girl Who Loved Fairies, Part 2

"This has no point, Rera."

"The great discoveries, Erikodi, are granted to those who look beyond the obvious at the right time." Rera said. She was in one of her 'bad light' days: to intimidate, she smeared her black skin with white makeup around her eyes and mouth. In the correct lighting, it looked terrifying, like a skull. In the wrong light, it made her look like a raccoon that had gotten into the wrong compost pile. Today was one of the latter days.

"She still breathes, but there's nothing in her eyes. She was in the water too long. You may as well try and re-animate a corpse. Her only real worth is parts."

"You have spent too long in the reaping, Erikodi. All of you do. Indulging in death like it's a new plant to smoke instead of a sacred art." Rera said, walking around the alter where the fallen body of Royse lay, wrapped in dark red and green clothes, her head shorn of hair. If it wasn't for how pale she was, she'd seem just like another girl sleeping. "We craft the Therians to shake off wounds. The same matter can be applied here!"

"The beasts are crafted by us more or less from birth. You cannot pluck a corpse-"

"It is not a corpse!"

"...A near corpse from the river and do the same thing."

"So you say. Had you come to me two hundred years ago, I would have told you there was no way I would be alive now." Rera said, as she began lighting foul smelling candles.

"I will assist as you asked, but do not expect me to linger once this has the expected results and you beat yourself on a stone wall in denial."

"Yes yes...use the mixture, close the circle around me."

She didn't want to admit it, but Erikodi, once known as Aldreda before her mother had succumbed to madness and the town she (and Erikodi) had been in had thrown her out (after said madness had claimed her mother's life as well) in their fear it was in the blood, before she'd been taken in, and trained, and given a new name, was somewhat impressed by the work Rera had done. Her kind did not work together, or even meet much, save to welcome each other into the fold and direct them to the sheep, and hence Erikodi would likely sooner walk on hot coals then admit it. But Rera did have some interesting ideas, even if Erikodi thought they were futile.

At least, that was how Erikodi thought when the ritual began.

By the time the air caught on fire, she had re-assessed it to madness. Rera was decaying, like some Haruspex did, and she had dragged Erikodi into it.

When the holes in the air had opened, Erokodi, refusing to leave her circle lest worse happen, had crossed to terror.

When it was all over, and the girl opened her eyes...it had become something else entirely.

Awe.

The flatness of the girl's gaze, a lack of confusion or fear, the calmness in her voice, should have been warning signs, but none of them registered to Erikodi. This hadn't been dragging a corpse back from the brink. This had been something MORE...she could feel it in her bones...

---
Ten years later.

Said feelings never changed.

Erikodi would watch as the girl, brought back through strange things that flowed through her, was invited into the order of blood and death. She watched as she took her name: Canaught. She watched as the sacrifice was brought out.

It only wavered when the woman began to weep, and Canaught did not bring the knife down. Instead, she stood and listened. Listened even as the whispers began to spread. As the sacrifice sobbed and begged and pleaded. Until the sacrifice had no more words.

She did not bring the knife down until twenty seconds after the sacrifice had no more words. Her sisters would later laud it as exquisite, drawing it out, feigning mercy. But Erikodi knew better.

Many years later, her writings would be read by other beings of power. But despite her efforts, that understanding had been lost.

---

She could feel it. Inside her. Burning away. Wasting away. It had cut through all her defenses like a knife through curds.

What struck Rera as she collapsed, looking at her student, the girl she had pulled back, the girl she had NAMED (Canaught, as the girl never cared for a name, even when she was supposed to pick one, she had never cared about anything, she learned and she listened but she never cared), was that there was no indication it had been coming. Rera had been ready for possible hidden ambition, or hatred, but the idea that her student would reach out and kill her so passively and so...pointlessly had never occurred to her. Done this way, it accomplished nothing.

It was the only reason she spoke.

"...Why?"

Canaught's lone answer was her ever-steady, ever flat, ever empty gaze. The last thought Rera had before she burned up from within was the artistry of the power. Like nothing any Haruspex had ever shown before. The gift she had accidentally given the girl who once loved fairies.

Canught took nothing as she left. She didn't destroy anything either. A younger Haruspex named Harit would later discover what Rera and Canught had left behind and work her own great evils with it, but that is another tale.

The first thing Canaught did as a free woman was walk to the nearest field and sit there for three days.

When she was done, she left the same way she'd come.

The Girl Who Loved Fairies, Part 1

They told Royse that yellowmane stems were full of milk, but to Royse, they were full of yuckiness.

Adults didn't understand anything, especially not mother. How strange to call her mother; Royse was certain she would never use the word again after her mother died. But father had met Eda, and despite Royse not liking Eda and Hrodohaidis (who Royse would always call 'Hodie' because her actual name was impossible to say, what WAS mother thinking?), father believed Royse needed a new mother and so they had wed. Royse had resisted mightily, as much as a seven year old could, but Eda was nice and eventually Royse had realized she did like having a new mother. She didn't really like Hodie, but maybe that would change too.

At least Hodie believed in fairies. Mother and father kept telling her they weren't real, that they were just in her storybooks, but Royse knew she was wrong. Fairies just didn't show themselves to those who didn't believe, so mother and father couldn't see them even if they were flapping in front of their noses. But Royse believed, and one day, she'd find one. She would open her hands, and the fairy would dance on them, and they would fly into the sky, to dance among the stars.

Which is why she was out, even though it threatened rain. Hodie might be cross, but Royse could tell she wanted to be inside with her nose stuck in a dumb book that didn't have stories about fairies and other special things Royse wanted to find one day. She could outrun Hodie anyway, and Hodie always got so weird when she tried to scold, not like Eda. So Royse, in her battered dress and shoes, dirty black hair tied loosely behind her, crept through the tall grass. Sometimes she found bugs, what humans called dragonflies, but she knew they were not fairies. But sometimes she heard things, things she knew were just not the wind...and one day she'd find them, dancing and laughing, and they'd fly together...

The blast of thunder startled Royse so much that she fell down, mud squelching beneath her hands and her rear. Her mother would complain again...but she'd complain more if Royse came back soaked to the skin. She'd fall ill, like Hodie had years ago, mother had mentioned it more than once, how close it seemed that Hodie had come to dying. She could ignore when Hodie was mad, but not mother. She had to get home.

The grass parted around her as she ran, heading for their house. She was some distance away from the bridge over the river, but that was okay. The river was shallow, even Royse could easily pass it, the bridge was for ease in getting the wagon over...

But the rainfall had fallen in great amounts in the distance, and its legacy had even touched the river. Royse had not noticed it when she'd gone into the fields over the bridge, but coming back in a more direct way, she could see how swollen it had gotten, how much fiercer it flowed. Rocks she easily jumped across were barely visible...

The rain was starting to fall. If she went for the bridge, she'd be soaked to the skin by the time she got home...to a young child, the choice was obvious.

The river raged around her as she began to hop across the rocks. Slick with water, she did not feel as balanced as she normally would, but she'd always been good at climbing things (the closest thing to flying), she had a strong sense of how to stay on her feet. She just had to focus on the rocks and make a few more hops. One, two. One. One, two, one...

The tree standing by the bridge had been there since her father was her age, or so he said. One can hardly blame Royse for its time of death, as lightning struck it in mid leap, a blast of fire and brilliance that seemed to slap the girl, cost her her vision, her surity of foot.

Royse was pretty sure she heard someone calling for her, but that fact was swiftly consumed by the cold water. All sense of the world was rapidly torn away. She couldn't breath. She didn't know which way was up. She couldn't find the surface, the water running into her mouth, and it wasn't like drinking, it hurt...

The hands seized her, Royse spitting water and gasping for air as she was finally freed from the river's cruel grip, her gulps mixed with sobs as she was pulled away from the rushing, crushing rapids. She was vaguely aware of solid land under her feet, and she turned around to see her rescuer.

"Hodie..." She whimpered. "I'm sorry...the tree exploded..."

In a better mood, Royse would have said Hrodohaidis would have belonged in the water, as she more looked like a fish. But now she was too scared, and glad...

But that wasn't enough for even her child brain to pick it up, in its depths. Hodie's silence. That look in her eyes.

Royse would have spoken of it, but she never got the chance, as Hrodohaidis shoved her back under the water.

It would be many, many years before the Star Festival came to Ardea. The knowledge of the many ways a mind could be hurt, curdled, made bad, was countless generations away. Eda had always had a small feeling, deep below, that something was not quite right with her daughter, but no one in a thousand leagues had the understanding of what drove Hrodohaidis and how the severe illness had broken something inside her. Perhaps if Royse had just taken the bridge, nothing would have ever happened. Maybe not. But the chance had come, and no sooner had Hrodohaidis had the realization then she'd acted.

Poor impulse control. Another sign Ardea was not ready to understand. And it didn't help Royse as she struggled under the water, the water flowing back in, it hurt, what was she doing, I'm sorry I made you mad, I won't do it again...I just wanted...fairies...

The darkness was cool and quiet, in a way the water wasn't. A darkness mirrored in Hrodohaidis' mind, and heart.

Mother belongs to me.

When she let go, the water picked up Royse again, slowly carrying her away. Hrodohaidis watched, water dabbling on her face, at the cold eyes watching her drowned stepsister being taken away, out of her life, no longer a bother.

Then she turned, fell into the water, dragged herself through the mud, and screamed.

By the time anyone else joined her, Royse's body had long vanished away from the home she'd been cast out of.

The Fault In Our Stars

We told our children that the stars were the eyes of our gods, ever watching them sleep to ensure their peace. 

We grown Ulra'hno knew different, of course. We knew the stars were balls of gas, ever burning, many millions of leagues distant. But the way they hang in the dark outside, how they relate to our world as it move in perfect balance with Cir and Kir, how we have grown without our home shattering to pieces...what else but gods could place things so perfectly? Perhaps one day, we would reach out to the stars themselves, and see if they held gods.

But it did not happen that way. It came to pass that one of the stars came to us. Nothing like us. Angry. Cruel. Violent. It demanded our worship, and we could not stand. We called out for the gods to help us...

A god has come. Nothing like our beliefs. The stories, the ways...they have never spoken of a being like it. But...it has opposed the star. It fights for us.

The stars help us all. For the broken star will not.

----

Utsuho Reiuji was not the only one that could wield a sun.

Though in truth, Bracha John could not create a TRUE star, like the hell raven could. But with the power of light and the destructive energy she focused into it, she could do a half decent impression, especially when she made it bloom with fiery red color, a bleeding sunset the size of a suburban neighborhood that she hurled in front of her with a laugh.

The hammer met the light sphere like it was an anvil. The light sphere gave first, its energies disrupted and erupting outward from the point of strike, Bracha recoiling backwards as her attack shattered like it was a mere platoon of men. Snorting air through her nose, she began recalling the unfaded energies to her, refusing to let it go to waste.

"Well well, horseface. You might actually have some storm in you after all."

"You will do this world no more harm, creature." Beta Ray Bill said. He should not have been here. He had been forced to make a last moment detour on the way to his planned destination, which had taken him by this world. He'd stopped to look at how perfectly the three planets were aligned next to each other, somehow not tearing each other apart via their own gravity, and then he'd heard it. You couldn't hear sound in space, but Stormbreaker knew what needed to reach Bill's ears. The cries for help. The sound of tyranny, of power abused.

It would not stand.

"You really think blunting one attack means it's over."

"It will be over once I have REDUCED YOU TO DUST!" Bill said, and surged forward, his hammer swinging around on his wrist strap before it found his hand and Bill swung it down, with the force to crack mountains in twain and reduced the finest warships a half dozen alien empires could produce to pieces.

Bill was not a slow being, despite his size. The fact that he missed wasn't much of a surprise. The fact that Bracha blurred away from his three follow up blows, a four strike combo meant to disorient and catch one's foe off guard, was somewhat more of a concern.

"You think you can just smack me with a hammer, horseface? You think I'm a nail?" Bracha said. "I'm light itself. I'm speed incarnate."

Bracha dodged away from the next strike and buried her fist into Beta Ray Bill's gut.

"Speed is WEIGHT, as another enlightened man once said." Bracha said. "You should have left the pumpkin-faces to their new god, wingding.”

“You are no GOD.” Bill said, his voice rift with contempt. “I know what YOU are. You will suffer the same fate as-”

Bracha’s body flashed forward. Bill barely registered the blow before Bracha hit him a score more time, his body racked under the strikes. Bracha reformed a mere ten feet away, immediately having to dodge a thrown hammer, and then a dashing forward punch, Bill reaching out and recalling his hammer before the flying magics stopped affecting him.

“You can’t hit me.” Bracha said, sounding like she was six years old. Then she began splitting apart, clones of light appearing all around her, perfect illusions by the dozens that began to fly around the alien. “You can’t hit me you can’t hit me you can-”

The hammer dropped from Bill’s hand again, and with a spinning whirl wind exploded from the weapon, engulfing Bill and then expanding outward to engulf all the Bracha clones. Caught off guard, the fact that the real deal actually had mass gave her away, the wind sending her tumbling back, the light-controlling woman regaining her vertical bearing just in time for Bill to swing in.

His hammer met her fist, and the sky shook from the impact.

“I told you, horseface. Speed is WEIGHT.” Bracha said, and lashed upward, kicking Bill across the face and sending him flying upward, out of the planet’s stratosphere and actually breaking orbit. “Now move along. I have things to do, places to be, and Kobbers to burn to ash for murdering my brother…what am I saying, you can’t hear me up there.” Bracha said, her body shimmering from flesh to blazing light as she flew up in turn, freeing herself from the dangers of hard vacuum. She also gave herself some other advantages, as Bill met her coming up and his hammer went right through her.

“HA HA!” Bracha said, pointing and laughing like a classic Simpsons bully. Bill could not actually hear her, but the body language was clear enough.

So he thrust out his hammer, and light exploded from it. Her light, smashing into her form and sending her tumbling backwards. Bracha opened her mouth to complain, only for Bill to close it with a swing of his hammer, sending her slashing back down through the atmosphere.

Bracha shifted back to flesh in an explosion of energy, vaporizing the clouds around her. Blood. She was bleeding. Bastard’d made her bleed even in light form.

“I have learned not to give warnings to your ilk. It never works.” Bill said, lowering himself down into the atmosphere again.

“YOU HAVE MADE A VERY BIG-”

Bill lifted his hammer, and the blast of lighting flew from the clouds several miles distant and slammed into Bracha, sending her flying across the sky. Bracha spun across the horizon in a spastic dance, and then flew back towards Bill, unleashing her own storm of exploding light blasts, Bill’s hammer cleaving through them for a time before he was overwhelmed, falling from the sky. His fall turned into a meteor plunge as Bracha slammed into him, the two hitting the ground like a bomb and carving their way through a whole mountain range before Bracha finally stopped her charge slash drag slash push.

“Mistake.” Bracha said, her body a shimmering mass of gold and white.

The hammer hit it anyway, smashing into Bracha and throwing her backwards again. Bracha just managed to phase out of the way of Bill’s follow-up grab, but before she could counter-attack Bill smashed his hammer on the ground, throwing up a massive dust cloud that consumed both of them. Bracha, for all her talent with light, was still blinded.

The tornado consumed her, carrying her away and slamming her into the ground again. Bracha went pure transformation, fully turning her body to light and flying upwards into the sky. This time, she didn’t waste any time with theatrics. She made a mini sun, and she dropped it on Bill’s head.

The explosion was felt across the whole continent. In a million homes, Ulra’hno cowered under tables and stairs. Many more prayed.

Bill did not believe in gods. He knew there were beings of immense power, and that many demanded worship. In the past, his own species had worshipped him. But he never believed in the concept of ‘higher’ beings, that somehow stood above the universe and its ways. He looked to the heavens, and found them empty. He did not care for how these people perceived him…

But none of that mattered. This creature would do them harm if he didn’t stop her. So he took the star that fell on him, and he punched through it, slamming into Bracha, their blows raining across the sky and finally propelling them out of the planet’s atmosphere again before Bracha went to subliminal speeds to get away.

The two stared at each other, in the airless void. Bill didn’t need any words to know what was coming next. The woman had become impatient…and scared. If she kept brawling with Bill, who knew how it was going to end in a drawn out fight.

She was going to go for an all or nothing shot. Bill knew this the second she disappeared. She was not running. She would not run. She was backing up.

A million miles away, Bracha stopped.

The North Arm of Compass didn’t know that Bill had sussed out what she was doing. She didn’t care. The fastest reflexes in the universe couldn’t stop something going at the speed of light. She was going to hit this interloper, this horse-faced wannabe hero so hard everyone on the planet below felt it.

Blood called to blood. Her brother had been murdered. Everyone responsible for answer for it. The judgment of a god…

…she was a god. She had to be. She couldn’t be human. That way just lay pain.

She would no longer be among those hurt.

The trail she left as she blazed towards Bill was brighter than any comet, any natural body in space. The few who dared look at the sky would speak of its unique beauty to their dying day.

Bill did not yield. Bill did not move.

Save for his hammer.

----

They found him laying in the crater, several miles outside of a town they called Ki’laroh. His armor scorched and battered, his body motionless, his helmet having lost a wing. There he lay, unmoving.

Until they approached. Then his eyes popped open.

The beings known as the Ulra’hno could only stare in amazement as Bill stood up, only the faint hint of ginger movement betraying any pain. His shoulders and neck cracked like breaking tree trunks as he stretched, blinking a few times.

“…It is gone.” Bill said. “I know you may not be able to understand me…but you no longer have anything to fear. So swears Beta Ray Bill.”

---

“The heck was that?” Sine said, looking at the readouts on her spaceship. Had a nearby star gone supernova?

…Something to investigate later.

---

And above Porphyrion, some time still later…other fortunate witnesses, including a young explorer, were blessed to see the brightest of shooting stars.

The Tempest

"Beauteous Ardea, from sea to sea

From every rock and every tree

Did once, as one, a terror flee..."

-The Town: Poncoe. On the East End of Ardea. Population: 2000-

Not every town on Poryphyrion welcomed the Star Festival. The chaos of the previous year, with the Star People bringing all sorts of demons with them, had only increased Poncoe's rancor and xenophobia. Between a poor crop yield and many animals falling ill, the hooded stranger basically only had to show up to get attention and do nothing before the village, carefully stoked to madness, came after him en masse, some even wielding pitchforks and torches...

"His shadow fell across its breadth

Powers dark and cursed, eldreth

His name: Anubis, the god of death!"

-The City: Sylphlaw. The Southwest of Bardon. Population: 24,000. Established nearly 700 years ago. Ruling Family: The Krovii, current ruler King Kroelus the IX-

Some cities were neutral over the Star Festival. It was fascinating, but it came and went, like a beautiful sunrise, or a bountiful fishing year. Kingdoms still needed to survive in the normal days, against the normal problems. Against the likes of Pozzo.

That had been what had caught King Kroelus' attention. What had happened to Orvance, how a strange man named Pozzo had taken advantage of the destruction the wicked star people had wrought to worm his way in, to whisper in the rulers' ear. Kroelus knew what that could mean, and he would make damn sure the bad options would not come to pass for his people. His soldiers were traditional, but they were fierce, and no blacksmith on this world could work armor better than his. And so Kroelus stood, watching his cavalry and infantry be trained, hundreds of them, the finest, bravest sous of his kingdom...

And one stranger. In a cloak.

"His armies razed across the land

Against such wrath, no mortal band

Could stay the fearsome jackal's hand..."

-The Town: Ariass. Thirty Miles North of the Drunken Gryphon. Population: 7,000-

Some towns, of course, celebrated the Star Festival with all they had. It was a chance to acquire wonders, to see things unlike anything on the land, to hear tales, taste food, sample things that would never come around in life again. And of course, for the Star People, it was one heck of a vacation. One they'd been assured they would be safe during.

The third man in the cloak drew no attention, as he walked through the fair, heading for its center... 

"A tide of power, a consuming wave

Ardea could never hope to stave

To claim our land, leave it, a grave..."

One of the villagers of Poncoe was lucky: his torch came down on the man they were chasing at exactly the right angle, catching his cloak on fire.

All it did was make him stop running.

"I tire of this mockery!"

The cloak hit the ground.

And the screaming began.

"But aid did come, from other halls

This will not be! Their hands, did scawl

From star, they fell. The god, did fall."

"Who are you?" The knight said. Guard duty was a bum one, but considering all the training his liege lord had been putting them through, one he'd well take. He barely registered the cloaked man's size; he was surrounded by dozens of his fellows.

Then the man looked up, and the knight saw what lay beyond.

"...by the GODS-!"

"...By Kobber hands, his life was taken..."

"Do I have to?"

Only the cloaked figure heard the voice that commanded him.

"If such waste is what you wish..."

And suddenly, the cloaked form went from nigh invisible to anything but, like he'd somehow turned off his presence before then. As he raised his arms, one Fabien Reyer, hailing from France and on vacation with his brother, happened to look up from his leg of mutton.

"...Que diable est-ce, une partie du spectacle ...?"

"By Haruspex, his might...awakens!"

From hell. He was from hell, wielding blades of fire, and he was everywhere, laughing, and no matter where they fled he was there, his blades claiming them, their bodies coming apart like dolls, smoking bloodless wounds in his wake...

----

So much metal. Armor. Weapons. Tools.

All turned against them, rendering them weaker than children, like wheat before a scythe, a bellowing beast tearing into them where the storm of steel did not, and in his last moments, Kroelus knew despair few men would ever be cursed to know...

----

The light came, and they fell. They ran, and it found them, and they fell. They screamed, and it fell on deaf ears. Sometimes a memory entered him, even as the power arched and crashed down through the festival, yet he remained where he was, the electrical storm expanding ever outward, claiming everything in its path.

----

From their cauldron, the three watched.

"Such a waste of good souls."

"Waste is what we need now. Sacrifice pawns to claim a king." Mireya said. It had begun.

"Gather, heroes...sound the drums.

The Thunder Kings come

The Thunder Kings come..."