The early light of dawn entered first between the imposing gray and white twin peaks of Draemons, a sign of the Amber Lord’s kindness as He smiled first upon the capital of the great empire of Elhyrissian. A gift as the overzealous, the ones brimming to start a days’ work as early as possible liked to believe. While others simply believed it was just the nature of the Caesselis Isles after the Amber Lord bled first and last in his long existence after the trident of Dusk struck into his cyclopean form leading to nature altering, gaining shades of an eternal golden spring unabated by the changing of seasons.
Bar the light of the Illius and Lunarius itself, a creation of all the eldest of Deossos who woven parts of themselves to share their own gifts with the world and its myriad denizens, wild and cultured alike. And in this season of Selvinia – precisely on its closing week starting with the 31st – the corresponding spring shades danced around the amber and golden of the day. Lights and colors which were swallowed and digested into an ethereal, faint glow upon reaching the polished surfaces of the edifices risen and molded in the rigid style of perfectly symmetrical angularity of aevhen geometry. A sight which was both mesmerizing while also carrying menacing traits; stirring feelings of unease and wonder within visitors of these sovereign lands or those of distant colonies of the greater continent.
Amidst one of the recesses, an alley still occupied by the soothing shadows, the air grew heavier, the fabric of reality torn itself as motes of strange colored matter floated before dispersing back into the void they born from. And at once where there was nothing but the polished pavement and marble walls dimmed by the shadows, slowly lit by the little light entering the narrow space between the two establishments where the good folk flocked after a hard day, Aurelithae manifested out from the nothingness. Or precisely from her room.
Wreathed by the same arts that brought her across space without the cruel dilation of time she herself was subjected too to an extent, her tall slender form was altered. Her silken, lustrous long hair knotted into a bun hanging over her fair peach colored nape in a rich oaken shade, her chromatic slit eyes lost their sharpness, angularity and lost all most of their bright shades except for the azure. Her clothes fitted more an elegant vagrant set out from the confines of a vast mansion, still not conspicuous enough to raise eyes as the light brownish tunic with a angularly round collar reached her tapering, faultless jawline with a chiseled, yet soft chin scraping against the tips of the fastened tunic.
As she headed out to meet up with Naghig and Mirayroth, she tucked the few loose locks back in place, smoothening them to the rest with a faint mist of processed mana leaking from her softly padded tips. “Morning Miss Luelia.” At the door, the hired guard, a tall demikin with striking ursine and human like features greeted her in his deep, gravelly voice that felt like a whisper even when he spoke in a normal tone.
“Morning! Are they inside?” The demikin nodded his large, oval head with the outer rims possessing a darker shade than the area occupied by his muzzle leaning a bit outwards, covered in the same needle sharp fur with the durability of medium grade metals. Whilst they were now on good terms, Brutius still bore the scar inflicted upon him when Aurelithae first returned from her self-imposed exile where she immediately headed for the Sleeping Nereid to meet with Naghig and Mirayroth to explain herself as she felt strangely guilty for the death of Ivor – her rational side knowing well he was beyond saving, probably.
With the cult’s continuous attacks’ which grew in density since the death of Hunra, many of the merchants owning these businesses began to hire muscles across the capital, across the isles and even the continent. Although the demikin himself was a member of the New Dawn, from a cell working across on the continent, he was naturally oblivious to the existence of Luelia which led to their short but devastating brawl in the streets upon manifesting in the same valley. A brawl which the two got scolded heavily by Naghig for drawing the attention of the custodiir making their rounds only a few turns away in the lower district.
Naghig still broke their balls over the incident, of course occasionally which helped mending the two’s trifling relation as the orkh often said to Aurelithae sulking about her return resulting in a fight with a member of the movement. “Brother Naghig already on his fourth drinks.”
“Just like he prefers.” The two joked before she bid her farewell upon entering. It was quite well-known the elderly orkh began his day with four different meads served in the Sleeping Nereid only thanks to the patronage of the Middias Family. Each more bitter than the other as he prefers to liken them to the segments of day itself.
And like as always, the pallid white orkh adorned with even more scars sat upon a tall chair, elbows on the polished oaken counter with a lesser dwarven behind the counter, levitating to reach the high top he complained many times before about. The only solution he received from the family were the two enchanted ankle bracelets fitted around his bulky legs creating a childish illusion of small gryphon wings while the actual spell simply lifted him up in the air, a motion which first propelled him into the ceiling of the cellar where they first tested it, a tale which made Aurelithae lightly chuckle each time she envisioned the scenery of balding dwarf’s head breaking through marble and wood.
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“Still ever the punctual are you girl.” Naghig said as he heard the soft chuckle of Aurelithae traversing the short distance between them. Though in the first few years he was always grumpy, this time around she began to notice the faint curving of his lips on the gaunt visage which filled her with fear in those days. Now it was oddly soothing, welcoming. “The result of years.” She said vaguely her eyes faintly pointing at the dwarf busy washing dishes.
Naghig nodded faintly, then gulped down the mead and made a bitter expression paired with a relieved sigh as the cold beverage brushed against his insides on its journey to his stomach. “Come, the sooner we begin, the sooner this day nears its end.”
**
Terrianis’s soft steps echoed past the vast corridors of the Radiant Keep. His gaze focused on the wall carved by careful hands of the greatest masters at bending all aspects of earth. Masters’ who beyond their call of shaping stone, dirt, wood and roots also possessed a peculiar mind, a peculiar imagination where they could easily recreate scenes from the memories passed through word not spell.
At each fresco he halted in his steps alone in the lone hallway per his will forced upon the attendants, his myriad children, his praetoriir guarding the peace and quiet of the Keep. His chromatic eyes glistened with envy and excitement as he stared at the figure of his eldest brother still walking the mortal realm in a tainted vessel. On each piece of brilliant artwork his dashing, stalwart shadow spread on the marble canvas of a unification of colors, gloomy, dull and vibrant all mingling in perfect harmony.
Even though the piece he stopped before was of a memory painful, the Battle of Astaril, the former capital of aevhei, humans and dwarves who first banded together under the guidance of the Iuanorh shimmering over the horizon, blinding the horrors of the Grim Sovereign forming a wide river of rancorous darkness, Maerhia their Magnificent Mother weeping at the heavens at the toiling, suffering of the people who awoke in the middle of twilight to the malodorous scent of risen and raised doom of theirs, Septurrion whose threaded hands soothed her grieving heart whilst the others guided the blade and heart of Augermil, Mineirvia whom fought beside him against the nightmares, manifestations of the Almodo’s own fears, Selvinia who patiently waited for the pyrrhic victory and to seed the remains of the once capital, and let its rotting carcass be taken by her Nature.
A victory and loss that came before his time, before the birth of Elhyrissiar, before his mother was chosen to be carrier of the Empire’s future. “Was I truly intended to be the Elhyrissiar?” He murmured out the question ailing his mind since the departure of Augermil whose form he stared, whose form evoked the image of his father, his grandfather whose marbly form burnt into his mind when he was first informed of his destiny.
“I am. We were!” He said firmly as his gloomy mood swung out from the encroaching darkness. Then he moved whilst his eyes remained on the long fresco shifting from the battle into the grim state of the capital, with Augermil and his grandfather tired, on their knees surrounded by the first deossos and the corpses of their comrades, the citizens and the horrors. A most grim vista, depicting not just the persistence of the Empire even in its earliest days, but even a perfect illustration of the Will of Dusk.
As he continued onwards, the polished, smooth marble turned sore and bristly, wet from the river of blood washing over the once brilliant Astaril’s streets filled with life, yet as it stood before him it was bereft of any except the Nature of Selvinia growing, spreading as it voraciously reclaimed what once was hers, gifted for the first anthropoid races of humans, dwarves and aevhei elevated to their perfected forms by the Deossos before the madness of their eldest.
“Magnificent trick.” He said as his eyes surveyed the ruined edifices on the slanting street, hewn and carved in perfect symmetry, both in allocation and contours just like in the new and present capital. “A trick that may work on any other than us.” His voice echoed, carried by the air that even to him felt more real than any illusion he was thrown in before. It was cold, carried a wicked stench of dusk, the open graves of the dead left to be devoured by the elements and nature’s inhabitants.
Yet he felt not annoyed at the trick of the enemy out from nowhere, but simply felt grateful and eager at seeing what has been taken from him. The opportunity to experience the city in which many of his siblings claimed by time and definiteness in the long centuries since the conclusion of the great war which ravaged the dream of the Almodo.
Terrianis even found himself bereft of the weights of everyday; the news on the cult unabated by the First Legion, the best amongst the twenty-five, and the Draennith Praetoriir whose members began to show up dead in their homes, in their offices, on the streets deceived by the very cult; the silence in the north either from Augermil or from his foolish son who left the Vhoragos for some foolish errand which mattered nothing in the grand scheme of things. And the movement beyond the jagged, gloomy ridges.
Problems he could just snap away at a moments’ notice. Yet if he done so, it would turn him into the figure he hated most, the one who took this beautiful city from him. None of these mattered to him at that moment, as he found himself sauntering and whistling beneath the clear blue skies where clouds danced and a sun spread a warm, soothing light. Whilst in reality a mongrel of a rotting small dragon tiptoed, staying to the shadows as its sunken empty eyes followed the Elhyrissiar in the ever expanding network of corridors.