Amongst the cosmic dark and stellar sparks, within a time and space between planes and dimensions, a battle for a soul rages on. A towering, overwhelming, formless, ageless, genderless being which bares all colors beyond nature, shoots its lightless lightning against a Wylfen whose golden armor no longer glitters, whose white wardress is tattered and soiled. She raises her photonic shield of heart energy, taking the force by the shield, struggling not to succumb to Evil.
To the left of them, separated by a moat of molten ooze beyond expressions and paintings of hell worlds, hangs a bird cage. Kurai, clothed in a black gown of lotus flowers and feathers cries into herself. Holding herself in the fetal position.
“Evil, you will let the girl go!” Hokulani raises her right paw and with the holy fury of ten thousand stars, then blasts the entity.
It snickers as It increases the magnitude of tumultuous bolts barreling at Hokulani.
The croaking of divine sorrowful wailing in the night resounds like thunder as Koriath flies into the hell plane. Kurai looks up to see the sky bleeding from being torn apart by darkness.
Kurai scrambles to her toelans, running to the bars as she sticks one talon out. “Aw’ddy!”
Koriath, about to slam himself into Evil, changes course, diving toward Kurai. He smashes himself against the cage. It rattles and swings, yet his force is not enough to break it open, his body falls. Hokulani continues to fight, forcing Evil to keep Its attention on her.
“Aw’ddy?” Kurai cries as she watches her father hit the molten rock below.
Snuffing out the hell flames from his wings, he forces what is left of his beaten, weary soul to fly upwards. Grasping the cage tight with his talons to catch himself. Tears streaming down his face as he frantically searches the bars desperately for an opening.
“Aw’ddy there is no gate.” Kurai cries as she takes a step back from the bars.
Silently, with a shattering, bursting heart, he tries to break the bars by magical force. His talons are met by the same Evil bolts that Hokulani faces, as if electrifying the bars. Talons wrap tight against the voltage beyond nature, gritting his teeth as he tries to break through.
Hokulani runs with her shield behind her, then takes one mighty leap into the air. As Evil strikes her mid-shielded blow back to the ground, Koriath pushes himself past the bars and into the cage with Kurai.
“Aw’ddy no! You will be trapped like me.” Kurai cries despite reaching out her tiny arms to her father.
Koriath lifts her, then holds her tight in his arms. Crying as he sits down, supporting her as her head rests on his shoulder. He kisses her teary cheek. “Then you will not be trapped alone my princess.”
“What about Phasi?” Kurai looks into Koriath’s eyes, their tears reflecting each other.
“Your Aw’is is safe. You are safe. You are both safe. Aw’ddy is here.”
All fades to shades of black. Hokulani’s light, not any shade of color, but the shade of white of a Loving servant of Death. The illumination of an angelic protectress of the dead, pours blood red onto the bleakness of the space.
“You will not have them!” Hokulani howls in tears and rage.
Another force storms in from the sky, the source of the darkening colors, as all fades to grayscale. The very state of being shifts, as if the space itself screams in the demonically induced, unnaturally produced, pleasure of the agony of others.
Hokulani pauses to recover as Evil becomes distracted by the intruder.
“You said those gods were after us! Do you dare lie to me?” Her voice cracks the sky in an apocalyptic symphony of her voice. The space itself warps as a cosmically, impossibly large, bone white, Corvapian talon with long black diamond claws descending upon them.
Koriath covers Kurai with his wings, cradling her while singing to her a lullaby as she cries into him. Hokulani dashes through the sulfurous fuming molten stone in a photonic form and guards her friend and his child.
Evil shapes itself into another human shape, the shape of a thirty-third century priest of digitalization. Robbed in frayed and recycled parts of technologies and ritual hand-me-downs.
“I am not lying this time! Look yourself to see who Rajnish and Poa are gathering to their aid. Open your eyes and see the hunters that seek us.” It says through a voice changing mask.
“Then show them your might!” As Malencia says this, all colors in the hellscape wash into pitch black. “You made me look like a fool. I will not be made so by weaker beings.”
“I almost had-” Evil does not finish It’s sentence as Malencia’s voice interrupts It.
“If I cannot have my ex-husband as a plaything, you cannot have my daughter as a pet!”
Malencia manifests herself into a material, bodily form. With her ravenous wings spread wide, and croaking, furious laughter, she charges into Evil Itself. Knocking It into another plane with uncontested might and malice. The strength of her destruction, the violence of her heart causes her rival’s hellscape to collapse in on itself. Colors and vision return to normal, yet the ground quakes as if the space is being torn apart from the inside.
Hokulani dispels her shield, then turns her attention back to Koriath and Kurai. “How do I get you two out?”
Koriath bites his lower lip, then releases himself as his pupils constrict. “Lani! Do you remember the time you helped me take out that trafficking ring?”
“The one where your people were being held in energy harvesting capsules?”
“No, the one my mother was working on solving before she abdicated, Custodio and Devadas found her notes-” Koriath puts Kurai down, then rises.
“You flew to me because your people were aboard a golden elf’s slaver ship… You needed Light.” Hokulani gently places her paw on the cage bar.
“Your light was the only holy light I knew. It still is.” He places his talon on the same bar, directly below her paw.
Koriath and Hokulani in silence and deep focus, equally pour their power into it as they have many times before, but the cage does not budge.
“Lady Lani.” Kurai starts to cry as she holds tight to Koriath’s robe. “Maybe you should save yourself.”
Koriath stops from trying to break the cage to hold Kurai. Humming to her softly through the despair of lava rising, rocks crumbling, the plane collapsing. He brings her to lay her on his left shoulder, his right talon on the cage as he looks to Hokulani. “I understand-”
“Don’t you two dare give up.”
“I was not going to give up, I was going to die trying to break us out alone.”
“Malencia is not around anymore. Let your friends help you!” Hokulani growls as her paws flood with light and hope.
Koriath cries as he feels both the heart energies of Kurai and Hokulani. His love storms out with his sorrow like a broken dam. The elements of Darkness and Light unite in Natural Chaos against the binds of Evil Beyond Nature. A little blast from Kurai shoots out of her tiny talon to the cage as Koriath and Hokulani continue to pour their heart strengths into it.
As they press on through their waning strength, together envisioning the freedom of Kurai’s soul, a white flame bursting down from the sky, shrouded in black lightning engulfs and burns the cage. It trembles then shatters, the remains of the cage, of the ritual, cleansed in holy balance.
Koriath grabs Hokulani from under her arm, holding her shoulder at his right. Kurai clings tight at his left, he flies them both up to the escape hole in the sky caused by the flaming electric force. Hokulani raises her shield and protects them from hellish molten debris as he carries them.
Together, Koriath and Hokulani shield Kurai between them as they break out of the hell world. Escaping into the natural space just above the shamanistic ship. Koriath and Hokulani let go of each other as they descend like spirits back into the room that their bodies are in.
“See, Aw’ddy and Lani are here for you Kurai. Everything is going to be ok.” Koriath lays Kurai back into her body and energetically kisses her forehead.
Hokulani’s spirit exhaustedly falls into her body as if she throws herself on a bed.
Koriath’s spirit paces around the room. Kurai and Hokulani start to stir, Koriath’s body is still cold and unanimated amidst the ritual medicine.
Kurai starts to cry, noticing the grey in his talon that holds her. She squeezes his cold talon hard. “Aw’ddy. You were right here. Wake up.”
Hokulani starts to awaken with Kurai’s crying, at the same time the rhythm of the drumming and chanting changes. Hokulani’s golden eyes meet Koriath’s spirit gaze as he cowers from his body.
He swallows nothingness as he walks toward his body again. Koriath’s spirit holds his body’s talon. “Our family and friends were saved. I am sorry I- I was too weak to save you. And now- look at you. This is my fault. Yet, I do not want to return to your broken form. I do not want to be broken anymore.” His spirit parts from his body’s talon.
Hokulani’s eyes follow him. Kurai cuddles up to him, putting his stiff arm around her and cries harder. Koriath’s spirit pauses, then begins to dance with the beat of the drums.
“The Dark Shepherd isn’t returning.” One of the apprentices whispers to the shaman.
“Tell me, could you so easily return if you went through what he did?” The shaman asks with patience in his whisper. “So many fledglings with no experience caw and spread their wings, thinking they can soar through a hurricane.”
He is trying to feel out a decision. Hokulani thinks to herself as she watches him become one with the shadows, flickering in the smoke of burning herbs and between the crevices of crystals.
“I have to unite Phantisma and Kurai, leave them both with Devadas, then check on Adumbra. Yet-” He looks at Hokulani, as he speaks shakily in Elysian, without the language’s required embrace.
Hokulani’s ears pin back, her tail still and down as she listens. Kurai continues crying and screaming for her father to awaken.
“I cannot stand. She broke my hips beyond repair. I cannot heal myself. Do not ask me to go back to that… to that… I hate that body.”
“You are a Corvapian. Your soul is your body. You cannot separate yourself Koriath-”
“I am not worthy to be their father!” His spirit apparition ceases the dance and buries his head into his talons as he weeps. “I am not worthy to be a father… a son, an emperor, a guardian, a shepherd, nor a priest.”
Hokulani responds the best she can in Elysian. “You are worthy of being you. You are worthy of life and love.”
“Worthy of love, this is where love has led me Lani.” He fights himself from raising his voice as he points to Kurai, his body, then the ward the three of them lay in.
“Kori, I speak of a different love, of your childhood dream. Not of whatever lies that demon fed you.” Hokulani says with low pitched breaths.
“That demon is the mother of my childlings, Lani.” He places his talons above his heart space. “That demon is not done with me. We lost and it was her jealousy that drove out Evil Incarnate. I am scared, Lani.”
His energy bleeding out from him completely darkens the space as he hides the soul chains within himself again.
“You said you loved me.” Kurai’s rasp commands the room’s attention. She throws his arm off of her, then raises her talon in tears, as if slapping him will bring her father back to her.
Hokulani’s paw reaches out to stop Kurai.
Kurai- baby- I- …
“Come back right now or you’re a liar!” Her tiny talon whips through the air.
Come on Koriath. All is for them. You are nothing. I am nothing. I am tired of being nothing. I am tired of everyone needing what I can do for them. Koriath ignores his inner battles and dives into himself.
Before Kurai’s talon lands on him, Hokulani gently grabs her wrist.
The eggshell blue color returns to his skin. Ignoring the anguish of the unification of his body and soul as he reaches both his arms out for Kurai, holding her close and bringing her head beneath his. Parent and child crying together, Koriath releases the black mist on the space by shedding physical tears.
“You always have my love Kurai.” Koriath whispers to her.
The shaman places his talon above Kurai’s energy field.
“Don’t touch me. I’m a princess.” Kurai lashes out at the shaman with one talon as she holds Koriath with the other.
Koriath softly holds her talon. “The stars said you were safe, and Aw’ddy is here too.”
The shaman immediately withdraws his talon, then waves the others to slow their drumming. “The Divine Chaos of Light and Darkness in unison has set free this childling’s soul. Whatever binds she bore are not only broken, they are gone completely, as if they were never there in the first place.”
See Koriath, it is ok. All is for them. No, I could not do it myself.
Hokulani concentrates on protecting the Corvapians from her eyes lighting up.
“Thank you Lani. Thank you doctor. I can never repay either of you for saving Kurai… I’d pledge my soul in thanks… but…”
Koriath places his talons over his heart and reveals the crimson chains on his soul to Hokulani and the shaman, keeping it hidden from Kurai and the others in shadows of shame.
“I cannot undo those bonds either, however I can fix your body, what prevents you from using your healing and magic. Please come with me Dark Shepherd, it is your turn for treatment.”
The shaman turns to Hokulani and Kurai, the green jay girl comes into the room with two warm cups of broth. “You two have fought hard, your battles tonight are over. Rest.”
Koriath recognises the glyph on the little girl’s heart that says “Promise. Love. Night.”
The shaman then turns to Koriath as he unfastens the silver table that Koriath’s body lays on, out from the table Hokulani and Kurai are on. Kurai tries to fight the shaman, Koriath stops her with a soft kiss to her forehead.
“Kurai, stay with Lani. Aw’ddy will be back.”
Hokulani nods to Koriath, holding Kurai with no light in her paws.
The little green-jay girl offers Kurai a mug. “Teacher is going to heal your dad so you two can go home.” As the little girl speaks, her tone is almost boyishly warm and vibrant.
Kurai becomes briefly distracted by the other childling and the savory comfort of the broth, though her eyes follow as the shaman and two others start to wheel Koriath away.
Down the hall is a doorway which is parted open by a science that does not translate into human languages or experiences very well. The room it leads to is like an alchemical operation room. Strikingly sterile with all manner of neat brews and ingredients labeled and shelved. Tools assorted in baskets by sanitized, cleansed, used, and to be discarded.
The shaman sets the dark guardian on a metallic table, then grabs a rattle type of instrument. He bathes his patient in sound, the sound itself is like bones and stones dancing together in a wooden ship. Something inches and squirms beneath Koriath’s skin. Several things, searching desperately to escape the vibration of sound the rattle emits.
"Energetic parasites. This will not be easy to hear, I have removed them from patients who have survived encounters with her before. Though the process may be painful and or discomforting."
“Please, just get them out. She has preyed on me enough.” Koriath bows his head.
The shaman steps out briefly to call an assistant in. A magpie boy, no older than when Koriath was forced to take the throne. He is calm, clean, and silent. The exact opposite of the little girl that greeted them. Taking the rattle as the shaman bows his head while handing it to him.
“Thank you, Domune.”
The juvenile assistant bows his head in return, and then walks to the shelving to begin preparations, leading the other two that followed the shaman and Koriath in.
“I am sorry to ask you this Night Shepherd, do you mind removing your shirt? I need to draw them out to exposed skin in order to remove them. If you are not comfortable with that, we will draw them out to where your skin is already exposed then. However, that process will be more painful, and take longer to perform safely.”
“Thank you for asking, I really appreciate that.” Koriath smiles weakly as he sits up wearily, untying his shirt from his neck, then from under his wings. Folding it as he looks toward the shaman “So the more skin shown, the easier it is for you to remove them?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Well then Doctor, I do not mind removing my waist robes either if that makes this operation easier for you.”
The shaman stares blankly at the space between him and Koriath, who is trying to hold back his tears. “You can just fold them to your knees.”
Koriath breathes a sigh of relief as he rolls up his robes, laying back down again. The shaman then turns, humming a deep and slow chanting song. Domune hands him a sanitized tool, similar to a scalpel, that the Shaman then enchants.
“The multiverses need more than a Sentry Shepherd, they need a Cosmic Dancer. You will be free again.”
The blade glides effortlessly, painlessly sharp. Koriath starts digging his talons into the metal, gritting his teeth, not from the tool, but of experiencing excruciating sensations from the wriggling and writhing of the invaders.
“She tends to implant these when-”
“Please doctor, I do not need to know.”
Squelching from dark ether, squirming to escape the assistant’s rhythmic rattling. Some are young and fresh from this night; others have gorged on his suffering for at least seventeen ages.
The shaman speaks softly as he continues the surgery. “With your magic, you will be able to do this for others who come into Malevolence’s hold after you heal.”
Much time is consumed before the last of the parasites shaped as unspeakable limbless, malicious, feathery maggots beneath his flesh is killed and cut out.
I can feel the immense guilt and shame the parasites feed on. Following along with these two emotional wounds …there is something deeper… Oh no, I cannot remove this blockage either. Not without tapping into her power. The Dark Guardian will have to heal this himself, or find someone with a stronger will than mine. The shaman thinks to himself.
“Medicine, meditation, treatment, support, and patience are important, but they will do nothing if you do not put in the work that it is going to take.”
Koriath only nods to the words.
The Shaman uses an herb bathed needle and thread to sew him back up. The stitches mend quickly; no bodily scars or wounds left. "There, with those removed, you should be able to heal yourself correctly now. Try it." The shaman speaks with reassurance like a teacher.
Koriath sits up and tries as instructed, moving his talon-tips as if in a dance. Sure as said, he weaves a gorgeous starless, moonless night around himself. This magnanimous night energy he has not been able to weave with such splendor for ages. Crying softly as his energy finishes repairing his body.
“Even someone as strong as you has to let the emotions out. Tears release shame, not bring it.” The shaman walked to a shelf, grabbing a clean handkerchief, then handing it to Koriath.
He wipes his sore eyes, eye paint bleeds onto the cloth as he whispers back. "...Thank you..." Then softly reaches to his own folded shirt.
"You are welcome Guardian. By the way though, I do not charge payment, but I do appreciate gifts, as well as trade in favors. Take your time getting back in touch with me, your first payment is getting back in touch with yourself. Well, whenever you are ready, you can take your daughter home. It should be safe enough to travel back to your palace, if the other guardians escort you two."
"We still have to pick up her twin sister from a monastery. They should both go home together after everything they went through." Koriath smiles softly as he finishes tying his shirt. Phantisma and Devadas would not have remained at the monastery, there was time before the communicators were destroyed. They would be moving to a secure location beneath the temples and burial halls, beneath the old catacombs.
"You have been through so much yourself. You need rest and recovery just as much as your little ones do. The three of you should work on your healing together."
"That sounds easy to say, but not to do. To heal is to be open."
"It is what needs to be done. Do not isolate yourselves. Support each other."
Koriath nods softly to the shaman's words. Rising slowly, testing the waters of pain; none to wade in. His stature, fighting to reclaim confidence. His mind still haunted, heart still shattered, yet his body rises through these mucks. Physical injuries, no longer visible.
Another apprentice then brings Kurai and Hokulani into the room.
"Aw'ddy!" Kurai uses all her strength to run to him.
Koriath takes Kurai into his arms, crying silently as he wraps her in his healing magic. The same flowing energetic night blanket he had around himself. Cradling her in his arms.
"Aw'ddy." She rests her head on his shoulder as he holds her.
The two of them softly cry together, as he sways himself to rock her and kisses her cheek.
"I am so sorry, Nightshade." Trying to keep his own tears off of her. "Let us go pick up Moonstone so the three of us can go home."
He kisses the top of her head, she has already cried herself to sleep in his arms.
“Thank you both again. You do not know what it means to me to know she is safe.”
“Koriath, you would do the same for me if I were in your sandals.” Hokulani’s tail wags softly.
Koriath bows his head to her. “Never bear this pain my friend.”
Hokulani’s tail stops wagging, her ears at attention, Koriath looks up toward the room’s entrance as Baltin and Atesh enter the room in a rush.