Music for today: Philipp Beesen - Shadow Warrior | Epic Uplifting Orchestral Music
https://youtu.be/_2FlmNEIhp4
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Early Evening - Late Winter - Year 24 : Ampelos | Bahamut
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*Tick... Crackle...* The gentle shifting of firewood filled the inn that night, each curl in the fire echoing the march of time.
But in that moment, time had lost its uniformity... Staring into the fire, my mind raced—my eyes, watching the careful dance of threads, were still and cold.
No matter how close I sat to the fire, the warmth could never pierce my fur.. though.. that was only true for the fire...
Feeling Hera's gaze on me, my racing mind slowed, the world of threads around me returning to one mapped by mortal senses once more.
By then, it had been a moment since I returned at the call of Krystallo's tablet, but my nerves were still frayed.. so much so I hadn't spoken even as we made our way inside the inn.
I.. didn't need to though...
"In almost thirty thousand years.. I have never felt a presence that chilling..." Speaking gently, yet firmly, Hera's voice carried a sense of worry and caution I had never heard. But in that moment, it echoed louder than the tearing of space. "What.. happened..?"
Finding my gaze settled on the coals beneath the fire, I lowered my snout, double checking that Krystallo was out of earshot in the other room before opening with a rasp. "I found a cultist who was affected by the vision... He wasn't in any state to talk after I set things up, so I figured I'd look at his memories myself... Such a defining vision would most certainly be carved into his soul, after all..."
Her eyes widened with a sudden worry. "Did.. your personalities clash..?"
But as I went to decline... *Vwoop* The hazy, but welcomed figure of Skuld appeared between us. "~That's not possible.~" She shot down Hera without so much as a greeting. "~His soul is so gargantuan he could consume half this world without even noticing... Divinity, however.. is a different beast...~" Turning back to me, her tone fell, "~You absorbed it.. didn't you...~"
I didn't speak. She already knew the answer.
But.. she rather than worry, she was.. curious... "~What.. did you see..?~"
Silence immediately settled over us as I struggled to find the words, Hera lightly digging into what she was getting at while I fell into thought.
"~Divinity is beyond the comprehension of even a god specialized in it like me, however, one of the uses I'm more than familiar with is something called 'Oraclized Divinity'. It's divinity with something akin to coordinates in time carved into it... It lets souls—even those without divinity—peer into their own future to look at a certain predetermined time period... In the past I used it to warn my apostles of disasters and the like...~" Turning back to me, her tone was bitingly curious. "~If I'm right.. the divinity he tried to absorb was exactly such divinity...~"
"Meaning..."
"~He saw his own future... Not the cultist's.~" The weight of her words were immense, but it didn't crash all at once.. it settled.. grain by grain...
"Does that mean.. what I saw is where I'll be at the same time as the disaster the cultists saw?"
"~That is likely.. yes. What did you see..?~"
Staring into the fire, the glow of the coals seemed to fluctuate before finally.. in the glowing white of their core, the words reached me. "Infinity... I saw a glimpse of infinity..."
Silence immediately tried to lay over the room.
But I didn't let it. "It was a crushing pressure.. like I was sat at the center of a black hole... No light.. no thought.. no sensation.. just a crushing.. infinite darkness..."
"~Death...~" She muttered beneath her breath.
"No.. I'd recognize that in a heartbeat... This was.. more physical..."
Stiffening at my implication, Skuld fell silent, giving Hera a chance to speak. "And that feeling is what pushed you over the edge..?"
"No, no..." I immediately waved her off with a shift of my tail. "Death is a far darker place..." Feeling a chill pass down my spine, I closed my eyes, doing my best to keep myself in check. "What pushed me over was.. a sensation... A.. gaze..."
The air instantly tightened.
"Something stared at me.. not the in the vision, but through it... Something far, far stronger than anything from this world..."
Skuld's eyes widened as the air thickened. "~Are you.. sure it wasn't contained in the vision..?~"
I nodded...
And she paused...
"That.. shouldn't be possible," Hera muttered with a troubled inflection. "You can look into the future but its nothing more than observing... Something from the future can't look back."
"~That actually isn't entirely true...~" Skuld cut her off immediately. "~Its only been theorized, but with enough divinity, its thought to be possible to feel people viewing oracles of a time period, granted you are the one setting its pace...~"
-Setting its pace...- "But time can't be viewed backward, right?"
"~It can't be pulled backward... Theoretically, there's no reason the past can't be looked upon, even if I'm not sure how... Though.. I don't believe there would be any need to...~"
"What do you mean..." Feeling her wavering uncertainty, thoughts draped over my mind like a heavy, suffocating quilt.
"~If it's a being strong enough to feel the gaze of an oracle.. they'd be able to 'stare' through it just the same... The issue is.. they'd have no reason to unless they're already looking at you at that point in the future...~"
Skuld's words faded like embers into ash—silence settling again as our minds all raced.
If she was right... If what I saw was indeed an exact vision of where I was in the future, that would mean I not only caught the attention of a being capable of dictating the pace of time for at least an entire planet, but pissed it off.
The gaze I felt wasn't curious, or fascinated.. it was mad and bloodthirsty... Like bear staring down a hunter who killed its cub.
But unfortunately, that clarity only brought discomfort...
"...If that.. thing.. was able to stare back like it did.. does that mean I was really looking at a single future of many.. or was I just staring down a tunnel..?"
Silence followed my words with a suffocating stiffness. No one could answer my question. Fate wasn't something beings like us could comprehend.
However, that didn't mean it was outside the realm of a being that dictated time on such a scale.
Perhaps, the idea of time being an infinitely sprawling tree canopy.. was just an illusion from the start...
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??? - Late Summer : ??? | ???
- Chrysí Flóga ~
*Crack... Ssshhhh...* A low hiss tickled my ear as breath returned to my lungs.
Not cold or hot, strained or eased...
Just.. breath...
And with it, came thought. -It.. stopped..?- My lashes twitched. Limbs I had forgotten how to move jolted with fractured spasms as sensation returned in waves—hot needles dancing across my nerves like the sensation of getting shredded by a blast of mana.
However.. I wasn't getting atomized... I had just been made aware of the particles ripping through me.
*Thump... Thump... Thump...* My heart beat, jolting without rhythm at first, faltered like an ancient engine forcing itself back to life.
But nonetheless.. it meant I was alive...
Though, not as I remembered.
The air that slipped into my lungs wasn't light, it was thick and viscous, a warm, heavy liquid with the scent of fire-scorched earth and raw mana.
But.. it was oddly.. comforting...
-Where.. am I..?- Peeling my eyes open slowly, I found myself squinting against a soft but blinding golden glow that encapsulated everything.. pulsing with the steadying rhythm of my heartbeat.
My memories were blurry. Trying to dig back, it felt like I was trying to dig through a rotting ship wreckage at the bottom of the ocean.. the last thing I could recall being standing before a god I claimed to be my lord, pointing me into a cave.
His name.. I struggled to recall...
*WOOM* Almost instantly, my senses sharpened with the sensation of falling before a suffocating shell fell like it let me go...
The liquid I was submerged in shifted. I wasn't alone.
But as I started to panic and went to move, I was stopped.
"~You're awake...~" The voice was heavy, and echoing, like the orchestrated command of a god.
But.. instead of it making me panic, it made my mind calm.. as if comforted by the grasp of a father I never had...
"~Perhaps it was because of your affinity.. but you held together better than expected...~" Feeling the liquid shift as the owner of the voice swam around me, I laid still—frozen. "~Though it seems there is still one loose connection... Allow me...~"
Feeling the heavy but comforting suddenly move closer, I closed my eyes and braced.
But that was when the tip of a talon dug into my chest, and with the spark of pain, memories rushed back like water flowing through a broken dam.
The memories of Chrysí Flóga.
...Me.
In an instant, the corroded wreckage of memories was restored, the sunken ship bursting through the surface with the stunning beauty and clarity of its prime.
I remembered everything...
The faces of family.. both beyond and beneath their masks...
The smile of a friend.. a thunderbird...
And the extended hand of my lord...
-Vasilias.-
In that fleeting moment, it all came back...
But while it was welcoming.. like the fog filling my mind had suddenly been lifted...
...None of my current outer senses held a glimmer of familiarity...
It was almost as if.. I was in a different body...
"~Hoho, you're even sharper than I thought.~" The voice let out a pleased chuckle—its smile visible through tone alone—before I felt gravity compound. *WOOM*
But before I could even react to it, the blinding orange glow consuming my vision peeled away, and I found myself staring upon the ceiling of a cave where magma dripped from stalactites with an unfounded clarity.. laying in the molten remains of a liquified mountain. -The phoenix's lair...-
The final, distant memories just prior to my death finally returned to clarity as I looked upon the dripping rock.
-That's right... I came here to find the feather.. and I died for it...-
But somehow, I was still here.
Still breathing. Still thinking. Still—alive.
Yet the body that moved beneath me, that pulsed with warmth and responded to the flow of molten mana like a seabird to wind, wasn't mine.
...At least not as I remembered it...
Looking down, I found a belly of not scales, but feathers.. my thick hide replaced by thinner skin.. my wings no longer bridged with membrane, but rather a magma-filled mass of feathers.
"~How does it feel.. to be reborn..?~" Feeling the magma pool shift once more, it noticeably rose before two unbelievably huge wings broke the surface around me, and clapped. *WOOOSH*
Getting thrown into the air, my mind snapped to attention with a slight panic—stabilizing myself in the air with panicked flaps before finding it almost effortless. -W..woah...- I felt lighter.. far lighter...
But heavier than anything I could fathom, I could feel the encapsulating presence of the being submerged in the magma beneath me—the god of flame.. the god of rebirth.. Konrul the Phoenix.
"~How does it feel to be reborn.. to be detached from your past, your grudges, failures, and regrets?~" He spoke with a deep-seated pride, completely unwavering. "~If you'd like, you can return to them—to repay and redeem—or.. you could leave them to the past.. to start anew as my apostle.. my gift to the surface; a lingering ember left to bring light to the darkness."
Looking down over the pool of fire as my body moved with a grace it had never known, the pain and weakness I used to find familiar was gone.. the trembling I used to feel in my limbs when facing an unapposable being settled by a guttural heat—a steady.. calm.. radiant warmth...
But I couldn't let go.
Looking over my body, the blend of draconic and avian features that made my new body, I couldn't pull my mind away from the memories that carved my soul.
The being beneath me had given me more than I deserved.. more than I could ever dare to ask for...
But I also couldn't ignore the chiseling that shaped my soul before my body was given a second chance. *cough* "I'm.. sorry..." Lowering my head after coughing the magma out of my lungs, I spoke with a blend of uncertainty and guilt. "I can't just start over like that... I have too many debts to repay..."
"~I see...~" His excitement rapidly settled, but somehow, his smile never seemed to fade. "~Well, in that case, I have no reason to stop you.~" His voice echoed warmth through the chamber, not with disappointment, but with a calm, reverent fascination. "~Repay your debts—whichever you wish. If you wish for guidance, I will motion, and if you wish for detachment, you can be reborn once again... I am a being of eternity. I have no reason to force upon you discomfort because of impatience. So, go. Do what you must... I will be here whenever you have decided you are ready...~"
In an instant, it felt as if the last shackle around my heart was sheared. Although I wasn't sure how.. I understood what he meant.. and deep down, vowed to make sure he knew. "T-Thank you,, Lord Konrul." My voice trembled slightly—whether from excitement or anxiety, I wasn't sure—but it was sincere. "I swear upon the undying flame you've ignited in my heart, I will not let this gift be wasted." The magma immediately pulsed with light, as if to acknowledge my vow. "I promise, if there is something you wish of me, I will fulfill it.. though I hope you understand I will not accept it brings harm to the few I cherish..."
*Woom* The magma pulsed once more, then, with a sweeping gust of rising heat, I was lifted further above the warm surface, and motioned to the distant entrance I came through what felt like an eternity ago.
"Go on, boy. I will not distract you with my selfish requests before you can see the light you yourself now shed." *Woosh* Giving me a stronger nudge, I was sent gliding toward the entrance, each wingbeat splashing out magma before entering the tunnel, watching as the glow of my own body lit the path ahead.
For the first time since as far back as I could remember, I wasn't getting swallowed by the darkness.. not in the cave or in my heart...
After all, now, it couldn't...
...Now, I carried fire.
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Special thank you to Wings of Gold and Goldblaze in the discord for this incredible art of Chrysi Floga's new form!
(View in discord)
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