There was a time forgotten. Lost, to the Gilded Desert of Lacertus, from whence a Demon ascended a throne and overthrew the powers of Filianore present in the lands.

Queen Naberal of the Golden Ocean.

Her ascension to the throne of the continent spanning empire she would create was fraught with difficulties and death. The resistance of the God Empress Filianore’s forces occupying the continent of Irkalla was fierce and far stronger than initially thought at the time.

Irkalla is named for its place at the edge of the world where all who are dead or would be are said to reside far off from the rest of the world inhabited by beasts and monsters.

Eventually the reign of the new Queen came to a sudden end when she was plotted against and assassinated in her own court by at least fifty men who sought to reinstate the powers of Filianore hoping the Empress of the distant lands, who had once sieged the continent and destroyed all cultures assimilating them into her empire that spanned most of the world, would willingly send help for them.

However they were wrong and with the death of the Queen came the fall of all Irkalla as it descended into chaos and a war followed wars, on wars on wars- an almost never ending cycle of fighting for a thousand years.

It was said that on the day the Queen was felled, she wasn’t killed but mortally wounded however she managed to escape and as such her body was never found. Leaving the peoples of Irkalla to wonder as to whether the Queen had survived after all as once a Shaytan, of which she was, reaches their maturity they are effectively immortal capable of living forever though they can die from wounds and such.

As such a tale began out of the mouths of bards who lived under her prosperous reign, a tale of a Heroine rising above the tyranny of foreign invaders and changing the world into a better place as she became a queen of the people beloved by all who was unjustly assaulted in the sanctity of her court when addressing the masses about a subject and murdered before all. Though in the confusion of the ensuing fight between the attackers and her guard she escaped with a consort and fled under the cover of the chaos until she could no more and her dear consort helped the dying Queen find passage to a land far to the west of her where the Fae are free to roam and all are safe so that she might recover as the time in the land called Utopia was distorted and slower than that of the mortal plane.

It became the dream of the ever distant Utopia where the Demon Queen Naberal resides awaiting the day her wounds would heal and the world might be ready for her to take the throne again and save the chaotic lands in need of a ruler.

[Fairy tale]

A sigh escaped me as I stepped off the one of the many cobbled streets of the city I was in, going into a dark alley between two large three story Inns that had a balcony-like walkway between them in the alley connecting them at the second story.

In the shadowy area outside of normal sight I continued walking into the backstreets and lost paths of the city that were mostly used by urchins, others of lower standing and most importantly people like myself who didn’t want to be found. Passing through these backways I found myself at my destination, a small opening maybe twelve metres from side to side with a dilapidated wooden shack that had a large mud coloured tarpaulin draped over the missing roof.

Little light reached this opening leaving muddied ground and dead grasses in the even smaller space before the one room structure.

Lifting a part of the roof tarpaulin that hung over the doorway I stepped into the small room within and found the still sleeping form of my companion under a heap of dark coloured blankets and pillows. I was only able to tell they were within them because of the soft snoring from underneath them.

Kneeling down next to the form in the sheets, the paper bag of baked goods I’d brough rustled as I placed it next to me, the snoring stopped almost instantly and a head popped out from under all the blankets.

“Woah! You have food!” A deep sounding female voice cheered though still somewhat muffled under the sheets.

“Yes, yes.” I responded with my breath coming out visible in the cold winter air. “Here-” pulling out a warm loaf of bread I handed it to the woman within the sheets.

“Thankyou!” She said eating the food without pause.

Sitting down I took out my own loaf from the bag and began eating, watching with a content happiness as the amber eyes of my dear friend glowed brightly in glee as she tore into another loaf. I’d brought extra bread because of her large appetite.

The horns that crowned her skull coming out from just behind her temples had punctured one of the blankets draping it over her head like a shawl. In honesty the way it looked with half of her body snuggled under the sheets it reminded me of a child though I should let her hear that.

Nabe was always self conscious about her short stature, at times she had been mistaken for a Filian child until those same people witnessed her scales, volcanic like skin and wings. Such was the life of a part-Shaytan part-Altiniyn, or more simply to those Filians a demon girl of draconic nature.

Her hair was long enough that it reached her hind in a muddy silver colour, eyes of amber like crystals glowing in light, skin dark like volcanic rock with lines of orange across her body glowing like lava. On her shoulders, partially her neck, entire right left forearm and hand, lastly right lower leg and foot were draconic scales with her hand and leg resembling a dragon claw and foot. On her back were large wings that reached ten foot wide in wingspan.

She was Naberal, or just Nabe to me.

We had been running from place to place for what felt like a milenia, from what I could originally remember what- however I might have forgotten the initial reason we were given more and more as she was cast out and shunned for her Shaytan features and mix of the draconic lineage of her Miqyas parent.

Myself though I was Shaytan as well, skin like an erupting volcano with horns and all- however my natural shapeshifting abilities have allowed me to appear as needed when in whichever place we find ourselves in. For the time I appeared as a Semideus, one of the born and permanently blind Filians supposedly “blessed” by gods to have a great affinity for the divine as compensation for their affliction.

My flesh morphed from the fair tone to that dark charcoal like colour that was natural, eyes shifting from green to red and hair shortening from shoulder length to short and losing the black colour for white like snow from mountain tops. Lastly my crimson horns emerging from my forehead wrapping halfway around my head and pointing upward once it reached my ears similar to a buffalo’s.

“You look far better like that.” The mature voice of my companion said from the sanctity of her bed.

Her face now fully visible with a warm smile on it.

“If only the world thought that way.” I replied as I rolled my shoulders.

Rustling of sheets and a soft ‘oomph!’ followed her sitting up from her position and crawled out from the mass of soft fabric revealing the long maroon coloured tunic that reached her thighs with black hose and bare feet.

A draconic hand landed on my head ruffling my hair. “No worrying about things that will change with time my dear, we are already lost from time. What's a little more to see a world where they accept us?” as she finished her hand left my head.

“I hope that day comes soon, we’ve been hiding for so long…” My voice trailed off.

“We don’t have to hide Sabbah, we have money enough for what we could want and your shape-changing has worked well for us so far, there isn’t anything stopping us from finding a new place to call home.” Nabe replied with a raised brow questioning my thoughts on the idea.

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“You are right.” I said with a grim smile.

She was, but I always felt lost in this world we had only ever really interacted with when we needed to.

Naberal stood up, her wings stretching out as her arms did the same before they returned to her side as she walked past me out into the space before the shack. Standing as well I followed her outside where she stood in the freezing air flapping her wings several times before turning to me and raising her brow expectantly.

Rolling my eyes I changed my appearance and shortened my height to be similar to hers which was two heads shorter than I normally was. Stepping forward she dropped her normal flesh hand on my head and patted it twice-

“I lie, I much prefer this” She laughed and I swatted the hand away.

“Please refrain, Nabe.” I said in a childish tone, part of changing my appearance came at the cost of it not just being the looks but my physiology in every manner but my brain and capacity.

This was good for hiding yes but it made for demeaning moments when I was being treated like this-

“You are so Very cute! When you are like this!” She cooed making faces as I was enveloped into a hug and unceremoniously launched us up into the mid-morning overcast sky.

The beating sound of her wings filled my ears as we flew over the city heading high into the sky allowing a birds eye view of the streets. Below us the people looked as ants would, it was always an interesting sight when I was flown around by Nabe as we moved around from place to place.

It was shortly after taking to the sky that we made it to the port of the city. It sat on the coast between two halves of Kosalla, the second largest continent, we had travelled here in the hot months having arrived from an island off the coast of the country we were in. Ravenna, they called it, I forget the name it held centuries ago but now it was a land in limbo as it transitioned to something new from the ruins left in the wake of the Empress Filianore’s departure when she became a deity.

The supposed God Empress Filianore's territories across the world fell into utter chaos and collapsed without the powerful leader keeping it all in check.

However that might be, the Hera of Argos, the second country and new power of Kosalla that rose from the ashes of the Filian empire. Though this is all a story for another time for now Nabe and I would search for a ship to ferry us across the Hellas straight to the country next to Argos that was an unnamed place. Or at least it was so to me as I'd not had a chance to go there.

"Oi!" A gruff voice yelled, stopping most on the pier we stood on that jutted out from the main boat dock.

A man in a mish-mash of armour cobbled together jogged over. It clicked and clanked, making an awful ruckus before he stopped in front of us. His appearance was dull and easily lost among the fellows of his Filian kind, somewhat brazen skin from extensive sunlight, dark hair, brown eyes and stubble with a height similar to a horse's much the same as most.

"What're you kids doin' out here? You shouldn't be at the port unattended-'' He was cut off when a man behind where we stood hopped off one of the docked ships and interjected.

"Sorry 'bout that! 'Der my kids just looked awaya sec and they disappeared!" The new man said with a laugh.

This new man was tall like all of his kind and especially so when I was appearing as a child. He had a brown mane as wild as a lions, eyes of flaming amber, skin coloured like mountainous rock and dressed as a privateer in a white blouse, brown trousers with knee high black boots and a large cutlass at his side hanging off his hip.

"Right…" the armoured man said not believing a lack of it but choosing not to press the issue and leaving.

After he left I turned to thank the man but was beaten to it by my companion when she from beneath the hood of the burlap cloaks we stole upon arriving to hide our identities, said-

"Thank you for your help, undo attention is rather annoying." Nabe looked up to the man’s face as she spoke.

As she was, she reached his thigh, which was very-very tall considering the woman in question most of the time reached my ribcage when we stood side-by-side. Every so often she would make me measure us to see whether she’d grown in the time since I’d last done it- always siting that she had been feeling taller.

“No worries, I’m Talos. It's good to make the acquaintance of a couple genuine article Shaytan.” The gigantic man said, his voice deep like thunder.

He was a Risastór, they are hardy people from the otherside of the planet where no man purposefully sought to live much like my own home in Irkalla. From what I understood of the Risastór of Astoria, they hadn’t come this far around the world due to lack of seafaring technology due to harsh mountainous ranges and taigas. Though a millennia makes a difference maybe people made it there and managed to help the gigantic people spread out around the world?

“I’m Naberal and this is my partner Sabbah.” My companion answered for me in my distraction.

I had no reason to dispute the claim when she emphasised it by wrapping an arm around my own and pulling me into her, keeping my body in front of hers as a shield. It was a true statement, though we seldom consummated our love due to lack of drive- which was an issue of all Shaytan.

“Humm?! Those names are from Lacertus aren’t they?” Talos asked with a quizzical expression.

No longer in danger, likely in good hands I shifted back to my natural form clothes and all, I answered at the same time not wishing for Nabe to say something that would cause problems for us.

“We are yes, though it has been long since we were home.” Next to me Nabe nodded along.

“Guess we’re both a long way from home. How bout I ferry you to wherever you are going next?” Talos offered with a raised brow.

“We are headed to Karachi port.” I replied after a moment's pause.

“Oh? I’m already headed there before taking my Chimera back home so this just works out well for you.” He responded with a hearty laugh. “How about it? Free pass to Karachi?”

“We are glad to join you!” Nabe said without pause.

Not before long we‘d met the whole thirty-five man crew of the Fluyt ship with a dark oaken hull and deep red sails. We were given a brief tour of the ship before they went back to working and preparing the goods the crew were collecting from the port.

[Across the Straight]

“Wake up Sabbah” A voice whispered into my ear making them twitch.

“What is it?” I asked the voice whom I guessed was Nabe.

“It is morning and you are not awake!” She said getting loud all of a sudden and throwing me out of the cot we’d been shown to as our sleeping arrangement.

It was with the other crew members and the captain, with the Quartermaster having separate space for themselves.

“I am now, so it shouldn’t be of concern” I said as I stood up from laying face down on the wooden floor.

It took a few moments to collect myself but when I finished straightening out my tunic and hose I caught a whiff of sea air as the sounds of voices above deck and waves crashing against the hull.

“We should take to the deck. I wish to watch the crew work.” She declared pointing in the direction of the stairs that went up to the top deck.

Sighing I walked in said direction with the shorter woman trailing behind me as we headed out into the sunlight greeted by a chorus of voices all yelling different things. I stood by as Naberal gazed at them all in awe despite having seen it all before, though maybe the mismatch of races was the interesting part?