I could remember the rain. My father was a well respected man in the community once, but as with all things – good doesn't stay good forever. Power changes and corrupts, the old adage of living long enough to become a villain.

I know he tried to fight it, but he lost, and ultimately that's all that really matters.

'I tried' was not an excuse, we are all damned by our actions over all things.

Father was my villain, and exists even in my deepest thoughts as the demon that keeps me awake at night.

If he'd not been that way... None of this would've happened.

Or perhaps that's simply my way to cope with what I'd done.

He was the equivalent of a law man, a constable. I think they called them grayshields back then, but I can't remember. Amateus took a lot from the northern empire, as did so many nations. Standards developed, you know? Cultures blend and bleed until the distinction becomes muddied, the curse of globalism I guess, how the smaller the world becomes the less we see.

It's all so boring now, I read the histories and think I was born in the wrong era. Too late to explore the world, too shackled to explore others beyond. Once there was a time when my magic wasn't so heavily regulated, but after the rain, I understood why it was necessary to restrict it.

I've always been afraid of the drink.

Sometimes I partake but only until the lids of my eyes get heavy, and then that's it for me. I don't want to be like him. Losing control again is impossible now but... It's hard, it really is. That burden. My burden. And I can't even confess to anyone, but I think he knows. He knows. Definitely, I have no doubt that he does. He sees everything and measures it. Watching even when you think he isn't. If the others knew, they would not be so kind to me, I am sure of that as well. If they knew who, or what I was...

That kind of blood doesn't just wash off.

But he never says anything, only ever treating me as a companion, nor has he told the others. I respect him a great deal for that, and while he is a conflicted individual with many burdens of his own, I will always be loyal to him. People are afraid of him but he seems to do the right thing when all is said and done, even if the way to it is painted in blood.

At first I wasn't so sure about Tyr, I could feel it inside of him. Squirming, eyes in the back of his skull. Something magnetic and so attractive, yet so horrifying at the same time. Eldritch.

When I commune with the 3rd sphere I sometimes reach out to him and he stares at me. He can always see, nobody has ever seen me, not even the Inquisitors, but he can. Like a sleeping tiger. Perhaps a wolf would be more appropriate, allegory and all of that, but it has no shape beyond the teeth. A pit with no bottom, buzzing with a legion of metallic locusts. It watches me always, but it never bites, even when I come close.

I seat myself near this pit and it sings to me, I like the song, for what it is. Bittersweet, and I know that he appreciates the time I spend with him, when I am sleeping, he never seems to sleep. That thing inside of him, if it is him at all, I believe it is.

The others can't know that I've been delving into the forbidden but... The shackles on me are more than enough to keep it contained. I am permitted to watch, no harm can come of it.

No talent, either, I've only ever succeeded one time out of a thousand failures.

There's a sort of vibration in the world. I feel it, deep below the earth. I cannot hear what it's trying to say, but I wish I could, another song, and what a song it must be. There are things down there though, things that make my skin crawl. I don't want to see them, they remain chained in that pit, and I hear that same song in Tyr's breathing.

Every breath he takes radiates through all things around him.

I wonder how hard he's been working to become so strong? Unlike Iscari, Tyr's strength seems... Earned? Heritage or not, he took it for himself and sacrificed much for it. I met him, and all of his gates were empty, and now he's got so many, and a great number of them are full. I see... Shadows, or lights rather.

Both?

There's no light in that place, only vague ideas and concepts. Beyond the wall. I see a woman who weeps for him, begging for forgiveness but he spurns her, glaring from behind bloody glass. I see a silver sword taken from the hand of a dead brother, a sword he loves like nothing else. I see a horn with gold rings and runic patterns and I can feel the vibrations in it. He lets me touch it, the clarion call and the sound of millions of beating wings.

What does it mean?

What would happen if he truly blew it?

He is a tree of eyes, millions living in his shade and protected from the madness of the Great Dream.

Children dance around the sleeping wolf and grab at my hand. Cherubic. Pristine. That's how I would describe them. He likes it that way, he doesn't like the stink. But if that's the case, why am I allowed so near?

I am not pure. I am sinful and I am damned.

All of his gates are twisted and warped. A person like me has four gates. I drank the blood and four became six. I drank again and six became eight, lying to the others – I regret that and yet I don't. I feel a compulsion to reach twelve, but I am nervous at what might happen. If I, a sorcerer, albeit a weak one, has four – and an average mage has two, what would twelve mean? Why does he have so many gates, does it hurt?

Mine itch when I focus on them. I wonder what his feel like, he must be in terrible discomfort. I imagine living in terrible pain. Alex had six at first. Now she has ten. I'm worried what will happen to her if she reaches twelve as well, it seems significant. She had a figure inside of her too but it's weak and afraid, burdened by another for too long. Two shadows. Serpents black and red, one kind and one... Something else, not the antonym. Not evil, ancient – though. These things in us are old. His blood carries the song and he's giving it to us, but for what? Is this power... Pure? I can't tell, I'm not sure if I want to know – it's already too late for me if it's not.

Iscari has one, just one. All the primus' only have one, that's all they're ever supposed to have.

I felt it, and he let me. I asked to see it, and he revealed the gate inside of him. I felt a cool, pleasant light from him. From Tyr I feel... I'm afraid I couldn't pen such a sensation. It's like looking at a world turned inside out. Standing on clouds with the mountains overhead. Everything is twisted and nauseating. Vertigo so constant, you're born with it and it becomes your reality after a while, the pit churns and his spirit along with it and yet he moves on.

How?

It was as if he were living skinless, nerves revealed to every little thing, pain had become his constant companion and yet he never complains.

Thoughts and voices all covered up by the masks we wear. My eyes are heavy and so is my mind, I wonder if anyone will read this? No. Like the others, I'll burn it in etheric flame long before the eyes of another comes close to gazing on this page. With what I've seen, I've no doubt it'd be classified as a black book – people weren't meant to know things like this.

One day, I'll come clean. I'm a good person. I know I am, I have to be. One day. I just don't know when that'll be. It's not like I feel guilt about it anymore, just... Revulsion. Visceral sickness at what I'd done, even if they all told me that it wasn't my fault. It was an accident, but I'd still done it.

My father, the lawman. His name was Douglas, and I don't have any fond memories of him, I was so young back then. Three or four years old. Imagine. My parents were both petty mages, we lived in a small but comfortable home. I was not an only child, I had sisters. I loved my mother and still do, I remember her for who she was and not for the look she'd given me at the end.

Monster.

He beat me. Of course, what father doesn't? This is normal, right? Children must learn, the expeditious route of showing them their failures, even when I hadn't know what I'd done wrong he'd beat me.

But some nights it was worse than the others. I didn't mind that. As long as it was me and not my mother or sisters. Too much drink in him and he'd jump at the slightest sound. I was burdened with this but I was happy. I had friends. I guess I still do, but those friends of old are long gone.

I buried them as best as I could, an entire village turned to dust.

Not much left to bury, but I tried my best.

All that was left was the dust. Spatial magic is dangerous. I remember the inquisitors telling me that before they declared me a 'genius'. A dimensional mage with no mana backwash, someone who would eventually be able to gate with no pollution coming of it. Some genius I turned out to be, I nearly failed my first year at the academy. If not for the others, I certainly would have, I'm not very talented. I was just born 'lucky', special, and I've squandered it.

Cursed.

I hate myself.

I know I shouldn't, but I do.

It disgusts me as much as anything else, as I pen these thoughts I hate the idea of it even more than my consideration of who or what I am. I think, deep down, everyone hates themselves, they just don't want to admit it. There's always a reason.

“Come, boy. We have ground to cover.”

I remember a lot, perhaps the first time I'd ever gotten angry and tried to stop him in his rage. I wanted him gone, that was what I'd asked for – and I'd gotten it. Spatial magic is more than just gates and dimensional stasis, it is the pure manipulation of the veil – the barrier that separates our world from the astral and the great dream beyond. Gravity is well within my wheelhouse, I can bend the forces holding us to the earth either way, to push them down or pull them apart.

He went for the girls, I'm not sure what came over me but in doing so – I came for him. It was supposed to be me, not them, all I ever wanted to do was protect them. I still remember their faces.

When I touched him and he crumbled away, screaming... Skin flaking away into black mist, cracked and shattered like a clay pot struck with a hammer.

That was the first sign of it.

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I do not regret it, and I'd do it a million times if it had stopped there.

It hadn't.

My sisters, lost in their fear to him, saw me as their hero. They were older than me. Their 'big brother', just not in years, it was my job to misbehave so that his eyes were always on me and never them, painting them to be the better children. Their first thought was to ask me if I was okay, as my mother stared on in horror at the coarse sand I'd made of her husband. I begged them not to, but they touched me too.

Like so many petals.

I plucked them.

They clutched me tight and told me they loved me, and I erased them, even when they turned to dust they were embracing me. Calling me brother, telling me it was okay. I couldn't stop it. All that was left was her, I remember weeping – the last time I'd ever felt true panic and sorrow, now I am an empty vessel.

And mom... My own mother who plucked my father's warhammer from its place on the wall above our hearth and beat my back with it, calling me all sorts of names. I begged, she wouldn't stop, and so I did her too – I didn't know any better.

I was too young.

All I felt in that moment was how much I hated them. And why? I'd lived a good life, had a full belly, always privileged. I couldn't stand it in that moment. I hated it. Sometimes I still do, it all felt so wrong and a part of me believes I did something truly necessary, disgusting me yet further.

Born too late to explore the world, born in an era where they'd never let me explore the universe beyond.

Now they're all dust. Her, the headman, all of the villagers. Hastur came to me then, with the inquisitors, declared me a future saint. Praised me intensely, healed my back and made me whole again – just for a little while.

That was before they took it away from me for good.

I tried to kill him but I couldn't, his body was weak but his soul was not bound to it. I'm not sure how many of them I erased with this power I was born with in my despair. The others don't know this. I can't ever tell them. I just want a normal, happy life.

I want her to be happy.

I think I love her. Funny, isn't it? A centuries old chimera as my 'girlfriend', and I couldn't be happier, I've never met anyone that made me feel so comfortable. Even though I know I'm a small thing to her, a novelty as best, but that's okay. All things are temporary, I am committed to enjoying it for what it is.

I pray I won't erase her, too.

I'm not sure why she's with me, was it because he told her to be? I have some anxiety about that, she's never very direct with her feelings towards me, but I don't want to be a pity case. It's not that I don't appreciate it, she is a comfort, although she is incredibly hurtful at times with her words. Good thing I have thick skin, I suppose. The years of lashings at the hands of the inquisitors taught me that.

I hate them. And now... Now the task they've given me is to erase the only person who ever knew and accepted what I was regardless. I can't do it. I'd rather die, my whole purpose for coming here was to assassinate Tyr Faeron once certain conditions were met.

And if Tyr knew who'd authorized it... Perhaps he wouldn't be surprised.

I won't do it, and they will kill me instead.

I will protect him, the others can have their doubts but I will never betray him.

He knows, he has to know. And he doesn't even blame me for it. That has to be a mark of a good man, because he knows and yet he forgives. We are the same, both monsters out of necessity and forced to be looked at in that way for the rest of our lives. We are tools, but I will not obey my purpose – they will come and I will kill them all, my doors are locked but I will find the key.

No matter how many they send, even if I have to climb up and stare down those of the Outside, I will do so for him. He knows, he will come with me.

I am not a man, I have no title nor crown in waiting to be passed to me, but I know that I am something more. This is not arrogance, to know this, or at least I hope not.

I think... I am like him.

“A little mouse who does not put a pep in its step when the lioness comes calling finds a nice pair of jaws to call home.” Nala didn't 'warn', she just said things. Threatened to kill him all the time. And yet she'd be there to rouse him in the morning in more ways that one, said she liked it. She'd brush his hair and ensure his... Well, suffice it to say that being paralyzed below the waist would result in complications with normal women. It worked, but not always as well as he'd like, always worked with her, though. Something to be thankful for, he was the recipient of many gifts. “You're always scribbling in that book.”

“I know.” Micah snorted, staring off into the distance. One moment, he'd been at the orphanage. He hadn't seen 'Maria' in weeks, and wasn't sure what to call her now. Nala, but maybe that was another alias, too? After all, none of her bipedal forms were real, she could change every part of her body to suit her needs. Solomon had made the chimera from many races, choosing them carefully for their benefits, but nobody knew their purpose in the world – or at least they wouldn't voice it aloud. “I love you.”

“And you...” Nala pursed her lips, slowly shaking her head at the romantic predilections of humanity – how fast they developed bonds. She knew of love, had all the faculties of a sentient being, but in her opinion these things came later, often after a loss. But Micah wasn't exactly 'human' anymore – perhaps he'd grow out of it. When time stretched on and one realized how rare a true partner was, she was only doing so much for him because Tyr wished her to – and she greatly appreciated his promise to never force her to action. He had the chains, could pull them if he'd wanted to, solving many of his problems – and yet he hadn't. “Are a passable breeding slave, I think I'll keep you around.”

Micah laughed, one of the good things about him was that unlike Tyr Faeron, he seemed impossible to irk or offend. Very easy going, never pretending when he shrugged her threats and insults off.

“Judging from the topography, we should be somewhere in Varia?” He asked. She'd used him to slip through space, like a conduit, utilizing his natural talent for the spatial as if he were a focus. Something he couldn't do himself quite yet because of the fear in him, and seals that were starting to come undone but not quite yet. Nearly finding an early grave in the dark sea before being pulled here. It wasn't snowing, that was his proof they were on the southern end of the continent. Lush fields that remained green year round.

“Saorsa.” Nala replied with a soft smile. “But close to the border, so you're not too far off.”

To the north were pleasantly rolling fields, not many trees, with the signs of idyllic human villages and farms abundant in the region. From his place on the mountain she'd alighted on he could see a great deal further with his eyes. To the south was a nearly perfect line of towering trees stretching off into the distance, a forest greater than any he'd ever seen. Not only in scope, but the trees had to be... seventy meters tall?

“They call them sequoia.” Nala said, still in her chimeric form. Even that was beautiful, in Micah's eyes, not in the romantic way though... He'd insist that no winged lion was on his list, despite her many offers... Nala's lush golden fur and bright eyes evoked a kind of majesty he'd never felt from anything. Like Okami, but exacerbated many times, the raw violence he knew she was capable of and the fact that she didn't. “Beautiful, are they not? Deeper within are the redwoods, which I favor more – if you think these are mighty, just wait.”

“Aye.” Micah nodded, awestruck by the sights before him.

One could guide a horse through the bole of these wooden titans, and a laden carriage through the buttress of their roots. Some of which stood off the ground enough to make a home beneath them. Other than the woodland creatures though, there wasn't much to be seen in terms of life. It was quiet, except for the birds. No surprise, the line of jagged runestones separating the border between human and beastkin lands was long and threatening. Rough hewn pillars that stood twice the height of a tall man, looking like so many gravestones. Varia and Saorsa had been at war for centuries, it was a wonder one or the other hadn't pushed forward to finish things.

“But why are we in Saorsa?” He asked. “Is it dangerous? You know, for me? I'd rather not have to fight anyone.”

“And you won't.” She replied, brushing his face affectionately and tutting over his hair with the wicked sharp tip of a claw. “Many humans live in Saorsa. You must see it as a place for beastkin, but all are welcome in the most free of all nations. You'll find all sorts here, my mouse.”

She was right, always was. The first settlement they came across was a series of platforms held aloft on the thick trunks of trees that grew ever larger the deeper they went into the forest. An interconnected circuit of ropes and pulleys, basket lifts and eagle eyed rangers with crossbows watching warily from boughs overhead.

Dwarves, surprisingly.

Micah had always thought they were mountain kin, smiths and builders of stone, but Nala claimed this was incorrect. If there was a challenge in all things vocational, dwarves would be there – they were a race of passion. No matter the material. They'd carve wood, stone, or metal – shaping anything of the earth to their whimsy. Adapting to the terrain, one of the largest dwarven nations in the world was in central Agoron and they lived on massive walking constructs that plied the sands between sparse oases.

Next was a village of sweeping roofs built around a small lake. More of a pond, really, with soft winding paths of intricately carved stone pillars poking above the waters surface. An indescribably tranquil atmosphere. But the beings who lived there were again the opposite of expectation.

Extremely friendly.

All he'd heard about kijin were that they were bloodthirsty monsters, calling themselves the warborn, but the largely female village was quaint and quiet. Even going so far as to insist they board the two for the night, amicable hosts and feeding them for free. Micah didn't deserve it, and knew he didn't, but enjoyed it for what it was. Paths of neatly organized stones, all meals taken while kneeling rather than in a chair, on mats of bamboo or... Rushes? He couldn't tell. But everywhere was so clean and orderly, they lived simple, moderate lives. Dedicating themselves to perfection in all things. Everything was an art to them, from the smallest to the largest thing.

He'd never have expected a kijin artist.

Few would, after all, considering the fact that the southern half of Varia used to be home to a great many more villages. All of which had been wiped clean off the map by the wars fought with the kijin nomads.

Dancers who gathered at dawn, their silhouettes in the sunrise gracefully twirling. The martial was common, speaking of arts, but there wasn't an ounce of intent – just beauty in every movement. As still and calm as the surface of the water full of koi and freshwater stingray.

There were many villages like this in the hilly forests near the border. Nala said that the kijin built here in hopes that the Varian's would invade and they could fight. Perhaps that's why the empire hadn't come. His knowledge regarding their strange and insular race was little, but there were a lot of them here. They bred fast, or so it seemed, and as it also seemed – a rather unfair picture had been painted of their culture. Being ready for war and proactively seeking it out were very different things – and perfection in the martial was not the equivalent of barbarism. They'd made it, as all other things, their own. A part of their identity and way of life, a visceral similarity to the culture of 'western' humans in how they behaved.

He was so lost in all the experiences that it was hard to keep track of time. Sigi called, and he let her know that he'd gone on a trip. She hadn't questioned him. They were all adults, after all. And finally, he found something he'd never had expected. Something that everyone said didn't exist. But again, Micah realized he'd been lied to his whole life, as had everyone else.

Humans feared, so humans erased. Whether from the history books or from reality, killing everything around them because that was how they could thrive. Humans were weak, alone, but they excelled in their tight knit societies, their work ethic and dedication to professions, coming to excel as a collective.

That was the way of things.

It was too bad, the world had such beauty within it and yet they were blinded to the sights and sounds of it all.

Micah stood before what could only be a dragon, silenced by its majesty.

–

Jura would've asked 'what are you doing' – as she often did – but she contented herself with simply watching. Ayla was a strange creature. An arachne, one of those who did not, apparently, hunger for human flesh. But according to Ayla, none of her kind did. Humans were just edible, and few really cared to kill a human attempting to burn their nest and leaving them to rot.

Like the boar versus the deer, another source of sustenance if there was a plethora of options. And Jura was orc, in the same regard, another option, but evidently the flesh of sapient creatures was foul and overly sweet due to their grain rich diets. Jura liked Ayla quite a bit, she was a fair companion and spoke little, more mature and wise than her youthful features would suggest. She'd never heard of arachne eating an orc... Then again, in this moment – perhaps that was for the best.

“What are you doing?” Jura asked, lounging in the soft grass, her fingers extended, two ladybugs on the tips of her middle and index engaged in a conversation she wished she could hear.

Ayla, in the midst of some sort of dance, replied quite simply. “Just looking, preparing myself. Weaving my web, so to speak, this is the magic of my people.”

“Preparing yourself for what?” Jura asked, eyebrow raised in interest. This world was, for lack of a better way to say it, a shit place to be at times. It was boring, and when it wasn't, it was cruel and dark. The primus' saw to that, enforcing their order either directly or via proxy all over the continent. Very few things happened that she'd consider exciting in the grander scheme of things. Great threats were snuffed out before they could become 'great threats' from the perspective of the common people. All there was left to do was laboring away at one thing or another.

With them, it was monster bounties on the Varian fringe, small jobs and contracts. Very easy ones, considering Ayla had just a few hours ago torn the head off an ogre with a lazy slap... What would she find interesting enough to prepare for?

“The war.” Ayla replied, not bothering to elaborate any further. “I see your people there, too. And I suggest you do the same.”