> “I want to be out there, with my own kind.”
> -Flex Karton, a four-year-old sentenced to exile.
In-between madness and enlightenment was normalcy, if one were to believe such a thing could exist in the Retribution Fields. But yes, there does exist places akin to sleepy towns and idyllic farmsteads and even suburbia with all its trappings. In these places, order was maintained either openly by its occupants or discreetly by other means. They were breeding places for a different kind of delusion, that shunned unrestrained freedom and worshiped total control.
As expected, the children born there longed to escape.
Greec, after his last delivery, was closing up shop and was on his way back home, only a massive accident took place which took up the whole block. He wasn’t too keen in trying to sneak through police or had the patience to wait for everything to be done, so he opted for a shortcut. Only, said way was dark as hell, had a nasty reputation, and Greec, even with all his posturing and grandstanding to his friends, was only five years old. A Tirexian, sure, but still only barely a child and standing at seven foot tall with three feet of clearance between his legs.
He’d heard the stories a million times now, but he still watched nervously at every street light he passed, wondering when the scary part would start. The stories were familiar enough to be scary, and vague enough that one couldn’t just go out to the place in question and see if it was true or not. Plausible deniability at its best. In any case, the boy was looking out for anything that moved unnaturally. Like, innumerable spider legs peeking out of a white sheet that was slowly skittering his way.
Greec didn’t think he was looking at the danger correctly, at first. Arachnids were not that dangerous, provided one wasn’t in their list of acceptable prey items, but that list grows bigger the larger said animal gets. And this one looked like it was already Greec’s size and still a good ways off, which spoke volumes to its true size. And more importantly, the boy had no fear of such things.
But with more time and detail, and the chance wind that plucked the sheet away from its wearer, Greec saw the true horror of what was coming. Victims impaled on spikes upon its back, fresh and long-dead swaying with the movement of its limbs. Its eyes that of a lizard, red and hateful while barbed tongues licked mandibles sprouting from the sides of its vertical slit mouth. Poison trails were left with each step and its tail was thick, segmented, and ended in a bulbous, pulsating mass stabbed throughout with crystals and words of magic.
The Tirexian fell on his butt and scrambled to try and reverse his course, but it was too late. The monster was close enough and their face saw his own and-
“Greec, hello there! What are you doing out here this late at night?” A cheerful girl’s voice came from the inhuman monstrosity’s jaws.
“Altea? What happened to you? You look like hell!” Greec said without thinking, which earned him an annoyed swipe from one of the monster’s forelimbs.
“You can’t say that to a girl, dummy! I’m a Spinoan, remember? It just means the Mind-Changers changed their mind again about what my people are supposed to look like. It’s a real hassle, you know! I even had to eat gross food like s0y people and drink my mom’s homemade syrup!” Altea said while skittering from one leg to another.
“But why did you wear that white sheet? It really freaked me out!” Greec wished later that he hadn’t asked that question after hearing what Altea said next.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“A white sheet? What white sheet?”
“Have you heard the legend of the Silver Sword?”
“Yeah, what about it? It’s a sword, there’s plenty of those. Silver is not a really good material for a sword though.”
“Yes, but you’re missing the point. Legend has it the wielder of the Silver Sword can best one hundred and eleven knights all by themselves. And without those knight even realizing what had happened too.”
“That’s a pretty sharp sword and a fast fella.”
“Mhmm, and they say that it can make quick work of beasts and spells as well.”
“Why hasn’t anyone tried replicating it then? It would make an unstoppable army.”
“It’s a legend, of course no one hasn’t succeeded in replicating the thing. It would’ve been sold by bulk if that’s the case.
“Anyway, the Silver Sword also has a curse put in place that makes its wielder immune to persuasion.”
“That’s a curse? It sounds like a good thing to have.”
“No it’s not. Read the fine print fool. ‘Immune to persuasion’ means whoever uses the Silver Sword become impossible to sway from whatever they believe in. An unstoppable fool.”
“I see. So, the reason you’re bringing this up now is because?”
“Because I’m pretty sure I just saw the Silver Sword, but I think they used the wrong word for it.”
“It’s not silver?”
“It’s not a sword, it’s a kitchen knife!”
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Where ants lived, so too elephants and in the scale of things, most inhabitants of Blood Falls were in the former category. The rest rests upon the shore of the Infinite Lake for times that to them are mere minutes, but for the tinier inhabitants are millenniums upon which empires rise and fall alongside every other conceivable type of government out there. The largest already could’ve swallowed Blood Falls and reached even the fabled Godhome above were they inclined to do so, but in the bowels of the lake which no mortal had ever laid eyes on, they were content to exist and feed from one another.
And it was this order that pleased Anagas Song as he scrutinized the place that would be his brief dwelling. He was seated upon the top of a spire, his tail securing his spot against the winds and the capricious grasp of gravity. A lot has changed since his visit to his father, and the revelation that came soon upon a fight he had with his own sister.
She remains still in him, but she has adopted an attitude of cool cordiality which was at odds with what Anagas expected of his sister. It irked him to no end, but he was also to stubborn to admit defeat even in the pettiest of matters. And the matter that divided them was the simple calculus of power.
First came the matter of Anagas Song’s birth, or rather, how everyone didn’t expect him to be born at all. The power that his father governed and his mother embodied were titans that had no equal except for each other, and even with the surprising matter of their marriage, no one imagined that the two opposite energies would remain stable long enough for a child to coalesce. It was pure luck, and Anagas embodied it utterly. Far and wide could one search and still fail in finding something that was equal to the Dragon-God’s body. And that proved to be the limit for existence, as it refused to even entertain the idea of more than one absolute paragon of power to exist. It was a tragedy that could’ve only happened the way that it did with Anagas Song’ parents and no one else’. Success was his curse.
When he presented this revelation to his sister, she seemed was not surprised and congratulated him on coming up with a hypothesis that at least seemed somewhat plausible. But then her composure became undone when Anagas brought up the idea of creating his sister her own body, as perfect and as powerful as his own.
“You’re insane! Just let me be, please, I’m okay where I am, really. Don’t break the world for my sake.” Her earnest plea bought him momentary pause as he considered whether what she said was her true feelings, or whether it was something she said as the oldest daughter. The sense of duty in her had always been much stronger than Anagas’ own, and with a shake of his head he concluded that if their places had been reversed, she too would’ve done everything in her power to give him a body rightful of their place and stature in the world.