#emberash

[Chapter 1; Excerpt 3] The world was once very dark, he couldn’t see anything but a foot or two in front of him, He grew close to his companion in these times, Though Aksis wouldn’t call it anything but means of help; Vosik loved the man with all his cold, tiny heart could fathom. When he was sick with something otherworldly that made vision, among many other things feel impossible; Aksis was there.  This was; of course before the Wyrms became their true means of power and significance. This was back in fire territory, where it was hot and it never rained. And the heat made his scales feel like utter fire and magma themselves, like molten steel plates that lined his back and kept his sultry flesh as cool and protected as possible.  Vosik took doses of therapy from shadefighters all across the world, each one breaking his mind... and its... a little more each time. Before he knew it he was bedridden with nothing but shadows to calm him-- and Aksis. They stayed curled together through several nights until the last came. An imperial that came from a place in light, speaking in a booming voice that chilled Vosik considerably to the bone each time a word was spoken.  He was the first to make a difference. He was the first to drain the darkness that blinded, choked, and strangled Vosik from his utter soul.  He was; however, verymuch so unprepared for what plagued the skydancer, and how it would respond with lashing out. The man fell to the very plague that he’d removed from Vosik; and it devoured him from the inside out until he was but an ash-covered corpse that scattered in the winds.  Vosik stayed in bed for many months, curled together with Aksis swearing that somehow, beyond all reason, echoes still remained. 

It was nearly midnight on the night that a thunderous cracking enveloped the southern wall. It was torn asunder in a matter of mere seconds by a force otherworldly and made of rage. It struck the city with words and motions before The Machine was able to enforce the sanity of the city and summon the Wyrm to straighten out the war, if one could call the devastation a war.  Vita; or the wyrm without a name, spoke through a great booming static that filled the air t the rim with a fleeting feeling that something was indeed, very wrong. The outsider was full of rage and shade, spewing madness about a world beyond their own, inviting them if only there were strong enough to muster attempts at treading into sanctioned territory.  Shaden territory. It threatened and lashed about before giving in to the fleeting feeling their god gave off, and responded with; “But until you surrender to the shade you will forever be cast aside. Under your flesh is bone, and bone is soul. Allow your soul a more powerful vessel and join us in the dark.” It howled, Vita arching it’s massive head up and snarling; “But it is from I that these creatures thrive.” It paused, “It is with my hand that they live and breath and with my soul that they will not see death. What has this ‘shade’ that they do not already have?” It was silent for a long while, but spoke gently after, “Life beyond the life you promise them. Even in death you may rise again, can you best my actions now, oh great wyrm?”  Vita was silent. Vosik spoke boldly, “and what is it that you ask in return?”  “Loyalty.”